The Official Funny Picture Thread

[anticipation]

i'd love for you to tell me why the "discovery" of planets or phenomena that have existed for eons before us and will continue existing for eons after us has any practical use, or how the human genome project was anything but a colossal waste of time and resources when you consider the fact that genetics play a very minor role in the development of cancers, disease, or mental illnesses. if anything, it proves that science more than likely cannot find a cure-all or viable method of preventing disease, or illness, aside from knocking out genes that predispose, but do not cause these afflictions, in every newborn child.

[midnight rain]

Originally Posted by anticipation

i'd love for you to tell me why the "discovery" of planets or phenomena that have existed for eons before us and will continue existing for eons after us has any practical use, or how the human genome project was anything but a colossal waste of time and resources when you consider the fact that genetics play a very minor role in the development of cancers, disease, or mental illnesses. if anything, it proves that science more than likely cannot find a cure-all or viable method of preventing disease, or illness, aside from knocking out genes that predispose, but do not cause these afflictions, in every newborn child.

You keep going off about how genetics play a minor role in different things, without any sort of source material whatsoever to back you up. So are you going to go ahead and admit these are only your theories or not?

[Guybrush]

Originally Posted by anticipation

i'd love for you to tell me why the "discovery" of planets or phenomena that have existed for eons before us and will continue existing for eons after us has any practical use, or how the human genome project was anything but a colossal waste of time and resources when you consider the fact that genetics play a very minor role in the development of cancers, disease, or mental illnesses. if anything, it proves that science more than likely cannot find a cure-all or viable method of preventing disease, or illness, aside from knocking out genes that predispose, but do not cause these afflictions, in every newborn child.

You're asking me to educate you on the value of knowledge?

Whatever you think you know about the human genome project, knowing the sequence of our genes makes it simple for us to make primers and isolate genes so that they can be studied or the proteins they code for can be artificially produced, like how human insulin is made by bacterias. This knowledge just has a very direct benefit in practical applications. Knowing the sequence of the human genome revolutionizes molecular medicine and as long as modern society exists, we will continue to reap those benefits in the future. It's useful not just for medicine, but potentially in a number of other fields. It sounds to me like you have some pre-concieved misguided opinions about this. Perhaps you should take a look at the human genome poster?



As for the value of knowledge in itself, it pleases me to know that humans developed from a shared ancestor with chimpanzees for example. I feel like I know a little more about where we come from. If it's true, then humanity is a little less stupid than before. If others feel like me, that knowing something pleases or benefits them somehow, then that in itself is enough to benefit mankind in some way. Perhaps facts can help replace misconceptions that cause suffering in the world. Then you've found another way such discoveries can help.

The discovery of cosmic background radiation helps support the big bang theory and helps us date the age of the universe. You can really think of no way that knowledge is beneficial to humankind?

[Howard the Duck]

i'm sort of halfway between anticipation and tore

while a little more knowledge is no harm, i do admit the information at the moment now is not very applicable, maybe they might be of use in the future

we *might* develop a warp-drive to take us to these "extra-solar" planets

there's still a lot we haven't uncovered in genetics or DNA-unravelling

[anticipation]

Originally Posted by Tuna

You keep going off about how genetics play a minor role in different things, without any sort of source material whatsoever to back you up. So are you going to go ahead and admit these are only your theories or not?

How about you do some rudimentary research of contemporary biology and try and tell me that most if not all support for the notion of disease, mental illness, or serious medical conditions as being purely "genetic" has disappeared primarily because the human genome project has yielded little to no practical results. It tells us that while there are genes that predispose people to certain problems, it does not in anyway affect a person outside of the context of environment. Mutations of genes and epigenetic factors work in conjunction with environment to form the outcomes of disease, mental illness, and most health disorders. This is becoming increasingly common knowledge in molecular biology. I'm sorry you just don't get it, or agree, but I have not read a single source or article that states definitively that we are purely victims of our genes.

[anticipation]

Originally Posted by tore

You're asking me to educate you on the value of knowledge?

Whatever you think you know about the human genome project, knowing the sequence of our genes makes it simple for us to make primers and isolate genes so that they can be studied or the proteins they code for can be artificially produced, like how human insulin is made by bacterias. This knowledge just has a very direct benefit in practical applications. Knowing the sequence of the human genome revolutionizes molecular medicine and as long as modern society exists, we will continue to reap those benefits in the future. It's useful not just for medicine, but potentially in a number of other fields. It sounds to me like you have some pre-concieved misguided opinions about this. Perhaps you should take a look at the human genome poster?



As for the value of knowledge in itself, it pleases me to know that humans developed from a shared ancestor with chimpanzees for example. I feel like I know a little more about where we come from. If it's true, then humanity is a little less stupid than before. If others feel like me, that knowing something pleases or benefits them somehow, then that in itself is enough to benefit mankind in some way. Perhaps facts can help replace misconceptions that cause suffering in the world. Then you've found another way such discoveries can help.

The discovery of cosmic background radiation helps support the big bang theory and helps us date the age of the universe. You can really think of no way that knowledge is beneficial to humankind?

I tend to value actual practical knowledge as opposed to patting myself on the back for discovering a dot that we have no communication, contact, or ability to interpret aside from the use of high powered telescopes. I live on this planet, and for the time being so do the rest of the 7 billion humans currently known to exist in this universe. These are not facts, they are merely support for theories that remain unproven and will remain so because there is no way of truly knowing the origin of life or the universe. The Human Genome Project has been deemed a failure not just by me and my "misguided preconceived notions", but by intellectuals and scientists across the world. We have had the ability to synthesize nearly every enzyme or compound in the body since the fifties and sixties, when molecular biology actually produced viable and beneficial results. You seem to think that being able to forward research yet produce no results as of yet aside from lateral information and processes is somehow beneficial to science as a whole. The project was billed as giving mankind an opportunity to not only develop personalized medicine, a proposition which is now seen as folly and a pipe dream, but to revolutionize the treatment and diagnosis of disease and illness, something it has failed miserably to live up to at this point. We are no closer to finding the genetic proof that disease and our DNA are linked in a definitive way as to support the idea of causative genes. There are numerous articles being published every year, in the NY Times, Scientific American, and the Guardian just for example, that outline the belief that what we believed would arise from the project did not, and will not aid in medical study as significantly as some would think.

I think this should sum up my "sources" pretty well:

A Spiegel interview with Craig Venter: http://www.spiegel.de/international/...709174,00.html

[Guybrush]

Originally Posted by anticipation

How about you do some rudimentary research of contemporary biology and try and tell me that most if not all support for the notion of disease, mental illness, or serious medical conditions as being purely "genetic" has disappeared primarily because the human genome project has yielded little to no practical results. It tells us that while there are genes that predispose people to certain problems, it does not in anyway affect a person outside of the context of environment. Mutations of genes and epigenetic factors work in conjunction with environment to form the outcomes of disease, mental illness, and most health disorders. This is becoming increasingly common knowledge in molecular biology. I'm sorry you just don't get it, or agree, but I have not read a single source or article that states definitively that we are purely victims of our genes.

Anticipation .. Most diseases are not "purely" genetic because they are caused by bacteria, viruses or parasites or other environmental factors like toxins. Purely genetic disorders are rare and that's because natural selection removes them from the human gene pool. Still, many exist such as mental retardation, huntington's disease, sickle cell disease - the list is long, although yes of course it is small compared to the list of diseases caused by other things. Genetic factors still play a huge role in many common diseases or even in how likely you are to catch a disease in the first place.

I also think you need to broaden the scope of your thinking a bit. The goal of the human genome project was to sequence the human genome. They did that and so it was a success. That knowledge is being used in labs developing treatments all around the world every single day so trust me, that knowledge does benefit mankind.

Whatever misguided train of thought your mind has boarded, you should try and get off it.

edit :

Originally Posted by anticipation

We are no closer to finding the genetic proof that disease and our DNA are linked in a definitive way as to support the idea of causative genes.

I just don't understand why you go on about this. Do you really believe what you're writing?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_disease

Without your genes, there would be no you to interact with any environment. No immune system, no body, no mind. We are expressions of our genes so how can knowledge of our genes not be beneficial to us?

[anticipation]

Originally Posted by tore

I just don't understand why you go on about this. Do you really believe what you're writing?

Genetic disorder - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Without your genes, there would be no you to interact with any environment. No immune system, no body, no mind. We are expressions of our genes so how can knowledge of our genes not be beneficial to us?

Sorry if I believe the word of the first person to sequence a human genome as opposed to a pseudo-intellectual who has a vested interest in defending his very expensive and dogmatic education with a wikipedia article.

[Guybrush]

Originally Posted by anticipation

Sorry if I believe the word of the first person to sequence a human genome as opposed to a pseudo-intellectual who has a vested interest in defending his very expensive and dogmatic education with a wikipedia article.

The wikipedia article was meant to show you that genes that cause diseases do exist. The information there has the benefit of not coming from the minds and opinion of one person, but of many people who have studied and observed. In case you didn't know, real science is not the claims and opinions of any one person.

I also guess from your reply that you don't really have much to offer as a retort other than sarcasm.

[Howard the Duck]

look, my final 2 cents - we really dunno that much about anything, there's no dead end to this, there's still a wealth of unknowns that we dunno and have yet to discover

so casting any judgments on whatever data we have know is still pretty much pre-mature