Find content
Male
Well if God made Adam and Eve from clay I would try to found out where he get the nucleotides first, not talking about any rRNA...
In my oppinion it's not possible to take the Bible literaly. From that comes the simple implication, that people who take Bible literaly are wrong. Be it for any reason, that it was writen by God (he has strange sense of humor then, since there are contradictions and mistakes) was written by someone by direct inspiration from God (well he should have taken someone more copetent then).. anyway it means that Bible is not a perfect ideal absolutelly correct holly-spirited amazing wonder, but just a book.
I take it that christians finds the book quite interesting, inspiring and wise, the parables or so, why not, that is only the way to percieve it, I found wery amazing insipiring and wise the american remake of The Ring (I mean it, I made me thing really deeply about human nature and I came with a theory obout fluctuation of evil.. but about that maybe some other day..), thing it these thing we see between the lines are in part individuall, so for someone it's Bible, for someone Qur'an for someone esoteric literature and for someone it's the book About the mole who wanted to know who pooped on his head.
So if someone tries to persuade me that only Bible is right or is the only source of morality and wisdom, I just woudn't agree. The christianity and religion in general doesn't have a monopoly for moral. Besides, I personaly tried to read the real Bible (I read the childrens version when I was young, with lot's of images and I thougt that Bible was sort of book with ancient stories) and I was repulsed, really, what they call a Gods superiority I just see arogance. In the Second part I just see the arogance multiplied, I've seen those missionaries telling people on the streets to read Bible. I did, and God... Jesus is a huge jerk! So what does it tell? Wrong translations from hebrew (or what language) they say.. well, lot's of people swear on their translations od Bible as it was a law.
So what does all this say? Nothing, that just I have to find interesting and moving things for me somewhere else than in the Bible, that's all. Bible is just not as unique. It's been massively advertized through centuries.
So basically I have no problem with any religious (or atheist for that matter) person who is not close minded or dogmatic or fanatic of any kind. Apart from that it is a personal thing. Most people who I know and have no problem with don't have those absurd christian (or other religion) oppinions about public matters, and don't take the holly textbooks literally, just as an inspiration (hopefull not of being a jerk). One friend told me about the christian unitarians groups he comes to meet (funny on the fact is, that he's actually jewish), and that he likes it there, because their motto is always doubt, always ask questions. I think that's not a bad move, if they take it seriously. People of this kind can be actually scientists without any problem, because they don't close they eyes from facts. I had one colleague and he once said, partly in joke, that there must be a God, because enzymes are such a wonder. Also the best-known astronomist of my country (you can say such local Carl Sagan) and member of a important skeptic group actually in private believes in God, and was repeatadly explaining that these doesn't exclude. None of those have any problem with evolution or the Big Bang, naturally.
Another question is a personal believe, where I came to conclusion that for me is any religion a merely unnecessary extension above things that are really important. It's like you need a driver to a very required part of hardware, and you can choose either to compile your own (linux style), or choose from existing driver by various companies, some open-source, some freeware, some paid.. and that religion or specifically christianity is like a 250MB HP driver, that installs many things you don't actually need in addition. So I go for the own-compiled driver, it may take longer, but it would fit perfectly, work perfectly and don't bloat on resources. Finally. It would require a life-long version updates anyway.
I share oppinion with several atheist thinkers, that life itself is such a wonder, that is no need to create additional wonder-things above that. Atheism doesn't steal wonder from things, it learns you to look for them in the very ordinary places, through knowledge. There are several laws in the universe (like the law of thermodynamics for example), that simply makes the world the way it is. You don't need testaments to obey them, you can't dissobey them. I mean can you dissobey gravity? (I mean make it non-existent, not for example compansate its effect) You can't. So if there is a question in believing that there is something bigger that us, I don't need to create gods, there is something bigger than us and we're supposed to be humble, not because of gods wrath, but because every action causes reaction and you will eventually pay for it. Now, not in afterlife. And the other thing is, gravity and other "laws" don't needs prayers, churches or groups of people who will tell other people that gravity is great. Gravity doesn't care, you just fall when stumble on Earth, that's gravity and it just works. The obvious limitation is our incomplete understanding if these phenomenons, but they work non the less. But for that reason we should be open minded as Einstein was even ybout these so called laws.
I've seen some document about various "famous" people in a past, who all over the globe shered this one thing, the feeling that there is something bigger than us and that we shall be accountable for our actions, moral etc. Curiously there were atheists, christians, buddhists, muslims, esoterically-centered etc. all kinds of people. This made me finally realise, that what is important is not a religion/or absence of religion, these are but different ways to achieve this. The document also showed many examples of people who shared same "version" of religion, but lack this.. thing..(there was a word for that but I don't know how to translate it to english).. these were the fundamentalist, extremist, blind wrong people, people hurting other people because of different beliefs, people who took the same information from each religion and took it wrong.
So, maybe we should not focus on religion at all, but on other things, is the person open-minded? Can he take facts? Can he admit he was wrong? Can he act responsibly and not arrogantly and selfish?
It's not important that he goes to the church each Sunday if he does, and it's not important that he is atheist if he's a selfish jerk who took literally "the stronger always wins" twistedly from Darwin for a change.
#140384 Does 16s rRNA gene prove all Abrahamic religions wrong?
Posted
on 31 August 2012 - 03:44 AM
#133149 White big cloud in agar gel electrophoresis
Posted
on 19 April 2012 - 10:43 AM
hobglobin, on 19 April 2012 - 09:06 AM, said:
Well my idea on this is: It's a lab and I work carefully with chemicals...
EtBr diffuses through usual Latex gloves in a few seconds, and can be absorbed through the skin and aerosols don't need 200°C, but these tiny droplets are in steam of boiling water (to avoid this you boil the agarose without EtBr, because you're careful)...if a hood is really necessary then is surely arguable, but often prescribed.
EtBr has effects on animals (LD50 mice: 110 mg/kg with hypodermic injection; rats: 1503 mg/kg oral), the liver processes it and the metabolites are mutagen (too or alone). Here's a extensive webpage on studies about EtBr.
And I wonder if anybody ever checked all the treated cattle for tumours, I don't think so...anyway the effects on other species are a hint only and no proof that it's more or less toxic, teratogen or mutagen to humans. So I'm careful and avoid unnecessary contact.
According to a paper quoted in wikipedia it also acts as topoisomerase I poison similar to some anticancer drugs. Anyway do I want to take an anticancer drug? No.
I'm not hysteric about it (I work with EtBr almost every day), but careful and sceptic in both directions.
EtBr diffuses through usual Latex gloves in a few seconds, and can be absorbed through the skin and aerosols don't need 200°C, but these tiny droplets are in steam of boiling water (to avoid this you boil the agarose without EtBr, because you're careful)...if a hood is really necessary then is surely arguable, but often prescribed.
EtBr has effects on animals (LD50 mice: 110 mg/kg with hypodermic injection; rats: 1503 mg/kg oral), the liver processes it and the metabolites are mutagen (too or alone). Here's a extensive webpage on studies about EtBr.
And I wonder if anybody ever checked all the treated cattle for tumours, I don't think so...anyway the effects on other species are a hint only and no proof that it's more or less toxic, teratogen or mutagen to humans. So I'm careful and avoid unnecessary contact.
According to a paper quoted in wikipedia it also acts as topoisomerase I poison similar to some anticancer drugs. Anyway do I want to take an anticancer drug? No.
I'm not hysteric about it (I work with EtBr almost every day), but careful and sceptic in both directions.
You are right.
But what I "dislike" is that EthBr. "gets a lot of attention" and people freak out whenever something goes "wrong" with EthBr and at the same time they use other chemicals (often more dangerous or as dangerous as EthBr.) without any precautions. Or often they think that EthBr is soo bad that the alternatives must be 100% safe and (figure of speach), they could drink it and they drop their gaurd and start contamination the entire lab with this alternative.
The reaction of that supervisor is classical and shows how people dont think enough.. The gels themself contain EthBr etc.. as mentioned before.
#131343 Need help in editor's comments
Posted
on 20 March 2012 - 04:57 AM
Hi Adrian,
what would worry me most in your situation is that one/some of your co-authors removed parts of the paper without discussing it with you (as mentioned already in earlier posts). If you have written the paper, and if you have done all the work you should be asked to approve the final version if the ms is correct - omitting information can change the results - but also from the viewpoint of your scientific education, your PIs should tell you how to improve your manuscripts and what was good in your original ms. This will be the first thing to clarify - why did your co-authors remove this part, and why were you not informed about this before submission. You must sort this out before thinking of steps to be taken with the manuscript.
Second thing I would do is to meet up with as many of the people on the paper as possible on one table, and tell them that you need this paper being accepted as full paper and how to get there. Probably the discussion part of the paper can be extended, the reviewers comments can be addressed (and clarified for you by your co-authors) and the paper re-submitted, or you decide to go with one of the OA journals like phage suggested or you change journal - probably one with a slightly different focus.
Once you have decision here, you can try to talk to the editor. Try to write a short and concise email asking him about the points which are not clear to you and avoid any form of criticism on the reviewers (this can be done by your PI if necessary). Just make clear that you are a grad student and do not feel confident with the comments by the reviewers, ask him to clarify these points. I prefer email to calling, although swanny has a good point here, but this probably depends on your personality - I like to sort these things in written form.
No matter on which option you decide, you should try to address the reviewers comments before re-submission (wherever).
@rebuttal: What I usually do is copying the reviewers comments and convert their arguments as bullet point list. Then work through this list, ticking each point when you have done it - so you do not forget minor issues (spelling etc.) which will annoy the reviewers when they spot it again in a resubmission. Start with small things like spelling, grammer etc (if they commented on these things) as you will end up with a different line numbering in the end which makes it a lot more difficult to correct these things. Then move on to the more laborious parts of the revision.
This is also the way I write my letters accompanying the modified ms, but here sorting the arguments by "do not agree with rev because", "major revisions made in accordance to rev", followed by a statement that all minor things were addressed as well (not listing every spelling, comma, word order etc issue separately).
good luck with your ms!
what would worry me most in your situation is that one/some of your co-authors removed parts of the paper without discussing it with you (as mentioned already in earlier posts). If you have written the paper, and if you have done all the work you should be asked to approve the final version if the ms is correct - omitting information can change the results - but also from the viewpoint of your scientific education, your PIs should tell you how to improve your manuscripts and what was good in your original ms. This will be the first thing to clarify - why did your co-authors remove this part, and why were you not informed about this before submission. You must sort this out before thinking of steps to be taken with the manuscript.
Second thing I would do is to meet up with as many of the people on the paper as possible on one table, and tell them that you need this paper being accepted as full paper and how to get there. Probably the discussion part of the paper can be extended, the reviewers comments can be addressed (and clarified for you by your co-authors) and the paper re-submitted, or you decide to go with one of the OA journals like phage suggested or you change journal - probably one with a slightly different focus.
Once you have decision here, you can try to talk to the editor. Try to write a short and concise email asking him about the points which are not clear to you and avoid any form of criticism on the reviewers (this can be done by your PI if necessary). Just make clear that you are a grad student and do not feel confident with the comments by the reviewers, ask him to clarify these points. I prefer email to calling, although swanny has a good point here, but this probably depends on your personality - I like to sort these things in written form.
No matter on which option you decide, you should try to address the reviewers comments before re-submission (wherever).
@rebuttal: What I usually do is copying the reviewers comments and convert their arguments as bullet point list. Then work through this list, ticking each point when you have done it - so you do not forget minor issues (spelling etc.) which will annoy the reviewers when they spot it again in a resubmission. Start with small things like spelling, grammer etc (if they commented on these things) as you will end up with a different line numbering in the end which makes it a lot more difficult to correct these things. Then move on to the more laborious parts of the revision.
This is also the way I write my letters accompanying the modified ms, but here sorting the arguments by "do not agree with rev because", "major revisions made in accordance to rev", followed by a statement that all minor things were addressed as well (not listing every spelling, comma, word order etc issue separately).
good luck with your ms!
