this post was submitted on 16 May 2024
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[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (23 children)

I don't know for sure, but there are some debates that simply don't make sense to me. For example, whether or not dark matter/energy exists is something many just absolutely insist upon. To me, I would imagine, if something exists, being "measurable" is a badge or prerequisite of its existence, but here we have a name for the black omnipresence essence everywhere, the substance of nothing, so to speak, to the point where one of the theories put forward about the gravitational anomalies in the outer solar system is that it's simply dark matter. I'm not buying it. I'm of the school of thought that what we see really is just plain nothingness. For those who constantly accuse the "it could be aliens" theory, it ranks up there to float around a go-to for everything.

Another one are the constant asteroid theories. What made the moon? An asteroid. What tipped Uranus? An asteroid. What killed the dinosaurs? ~~The ice age~~ An asteroid. It doesn't come off as very critical, especially when imprecisions are growing out of them all, for example people went from saying dinosaurs were all genocided specifically by the asteroid to some people saying there were some who became birds to some saying all of them became birds and animals to saying the asteroid did almost nothing to any whole species.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I once heard that dark matter is just the consequence of using approximations and then having equations not balance out further down the line. So we inject dark matter in there so that the math maths all right.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (2 children)

That evolution is purely randomness + fitness landscape rather than that DNA guides the process at least somewhat. Don’t burn me alive guys

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I don’t understand your point but it seems interesting. Could you rephrase?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The current paradigm assumes a uniform probability of mutation across all genes. But maybe there are mechanisms that say β€œkeep this part of the genome under tighter control” and β€œmake this other part of the genome more susceptible to mutation.”

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I would expect randomness to play a larger roll than fitness.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (2 children)

In the short term (single digit generations) that's probably true, but I don't see how it could be on longer scales. If the random mutations decrease fitness, they won't be passed on at some point, since there is less reproduction. If they increase fitness, they will be passed on to more individuals.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

Particle Physics

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Time (capital T) is vastly different than time (lowercase t).

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