The march of adult stem cells is accelerating, while embryonic stem cell progress has apparently stalled.
This particular advance is actually spectacular and visual: if you are interested in stem cells at all, you will like this video. What you will see is a group of heart cells formed into tissue which is beating, just like the heart itself.
The knowledge gained under the iPS ("induced Pluripotent Stemcell") medical research march includes the fact that the beating of the heart is not controlled by the brain, it is controlled from within the tissue itself. The implication of this is boggling, and sure to present further obstacles to the arguments against self-contained agency and the absence of anything called "life".
And as an aside, none of this actual science is either predicated upon or requires that mutation/selection be a precipitating hypothesis, or even be true at all. In fact, the odds against mutating into, and selecting for a self-throbbing organ providing blood supply via an entire self-enclosed (tubular), closed-system (recirculating) vascular array throughout the body, which the body can't live without, is indiscernible from p = 1. And that's not even accounting for the lungs and the oxygenation, or the nutritional transport and RNA repair functions which are enabled by the flow of blood to all areas of the body.
And another aside: dinosaurs had ribs, ribs imply lungs, lungs imply bloodflow, bloodflow implies a vascular system. And this existed in a very short time, geologically speaking, after the existence of only sponges and unicellular animals.
The advent of iPS just might be the beginning of the largest jump in knowledge, actual knowledge, produced via biology. It will probably completely change the medical profession by jumping it to a new plateau of almost non-invasive solutions to currently intractable health problems.
Correction: Link fixed
16 comments:
Link does not work me...
actually, it's not that new, i remembered seeing on TV a small heart tissue that was beating by itself. I found this older article that seems to confirm my thoughts:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090212161808.htm
perhaps what's new is that it is from adult stem cells? In any case that's great news!! can't wait for the day when we'll have better organ transplants thanks to stem cells...
your observations regarding evolution are interesting. i did not know you were that much unaware of the facts... you didn't know that dinosaurs and modern birds share common ancestors? it's not surprising then that dinosaurs had blood systems, since birds do have one. If you were to find a bird without a blood system, now THAT would be special!!
also, your comment regarding speed is not a good example of why evolution cannot have happened. the timing of species appearing fits perfectly with evolutionary theory. well in fact, it's the other way around anyway... the facts of evolutionary theory include what you mentionned regarding fast evolution. the thory was built WITH these facts...
so what part do you struggle with exactly? i mean, who shares a common ancestor with who? who doesn't? where do you have problems seeing the links between species? you need example of evolutionary trees?
you should watch the serious on phylogeny i posted...
"your observations regarding evolution are interesting. i did not know you were that much unaware of the facts... you didn't know that dinosaurs and modern birds share common ancestors? it's not surprising then that dinosaurs had blood systems, since birds do have one.
Presumably you think that because birds have one, amoebas should have one too? According to theory, not fact, every creature shares a common ancestor. But working backwards, as you have done, goes against evolution, which creates as it goes. Your immediate presumption that I know nothing about evolution is incorrect. It has not been and cannot be laboratory experimentally proven, replicated etc that dinosaurs came from sponges in the space of a hundred million years or so during the transition from pre-Cambrian to Cambrian. The rate of mutation into highly complex, and interdependent systems would have to have been absurd.
However, I choose not to pursue this with you, because at the moment I question your intellectual integrity at the core level of your worldview, as is being pursued in other comments.
"absurd."
Not very objective of you. If you don't believe it then you need to provide evidence that it isn't true or you are irrational. Something isn't true or not just because you feel it's absurd.
That's correct, my judgment is an opinion.
On the other hand, the declaration that it happened is without any support, specifically empirical documentation that it actually happened, rather it is the extrapolated opinion that it "must have happened".
Evolution is a series of extrapolations from fixed data points, in the firm belief that the extrapolation is truth. So the question reduces to a set of beliefs without the ability to falsify any of them. That makes them metaphysical in the non-empirical sense.
Evolutionistas think it is absurd to believe that all the necessary systems for higher life did not evolve, because evolution is the dogma. It is a dogma which cannot be disproved and cannot be proved. So it is "felt" to be truth. And to question it is illegitimate, as is any questioning of any dogma.
I cannot prove or disprove it either. But I can apply questions to it, which no true believer ever does.
For example, why would all of the hundreds of complex and interdependent organic systems suddenly arise, when random mutation is the driving agent? After eons of being just sponges, suddenly they mutate randomly, and yet manage to do it into far more complexity than before they mutated.
This is a perfect opportunity for justifiable skepticism, but the true believers can't muster any skepticism for that which fits into their dogma.
For more information on the controversy concerning whether birds came from dinosaurs, this might be of interest:
Nova: the episode is "Four Winged (micro-raptor) Dinosaur.
Unlike most, I don't feel it necessary to take a position which is of no consequence to the question of the existence of a non-physical agent, an agent with the ability to connect with its creations.
"the declaration that it happened is without any support,"
Any? Then what are these "data points" you mentioned?
"I cannot prove or disprove it either."
I wonder what you would say if people said they couldn't prove or disprove the Ghost of Mary telling a 14 year old girl to dig a hole hundreds of years ago? Oh yeah, I don't have to wonder. And the evidences for evolution is so abundant. How do you deal with the cognitive dissonance?
"For example, why would all of the hundreds of complex and interdependent organic systems suddenly arise, when random mutation is the driving agent? After eons of being just sponges, suddenly they mutate randomly, and yet manage to do it into far more complexity than before they mutated."
Gee, doesn't that sound like an argument from personal incredulity?
"Any? Then what are these "data points" you mentioned?"
Well, let's take the major points; when you can prove conclusively and without contingency that dinosaurs descended from sponges, you will have something to discuss.
"I wonder what you would say if people said they couldn't prove or disprove the Ghost of Mary telling a 14 year old girl to dig a hole hundreds of years ago? Oh yeah, I don't have to wonder. And the evidences for evolution is so abundant. How do you deal with the cognitive dissonance?"
I have never betrayed my belief or disbelief; you assume it. I use Lourdes as an example of Atheists not being evidence-based, rather being based on what they desire the outcome to be. They desire it to be false and therefore it is false... for them.
The exact same thing is true of evolution: they desire its truth, so it is true... for them.
Neither of them are addressable by empirical science, yet Atheists assign truth values to them regardless of knowing the actual facts.
Skepticism as used daily by Atheists is the argument from personal incredulity. The difference is that I do not claim my opinion to be truth, as do Atheists. I argue probabilities as I think they exist in the actual world. My issue is actually posed as a question, which you criticised and did not answer.
So in terms of credulity, do you believe that it happened? And if so, why?
"I have never betrayed my belief or disbelief"
It's interesting that you use the word "betray". It's like you know that if you admit to believing or disbelieving something your worldview will get ripped apart. You must know that your beliefs can not stand the scrutiny. One thing can be learnt from this. Your beliefs are not based on evidence or logic. If they were, you'd show it.
Actually, the area of discussion is Atheism. Atheists are the ones who claim to be logic and evidence based. So whatever I believe is not the subject. The attempt to deflect the conversation from the abject failures of Atheism to criticism of my beliefs is a common tactic, but it is just another fallacy of deflection, an attempt to avoid the actual subject: when will Atheists provide either logic or evidence to back up their claim of being logic and evidence based?
Whenever you are ready to defend Atheism, just jump in with your case. Your complaint, above is without merit; it has no logic or evidence to support it. So it is doubtful that your own worldview has logic or evidence to support it, either.
Watcher:
Actually I should have addressed this from the new reader standpoint. You apparently have not "watched" very long.
” It's interesting that you use the word "betray". It's like you know that if you admit to believing or disbelieving something your worldview will get ripped apart. You must know that your beliefs can not stand the scrutiny. One thing can be learnt from this. Your beliefs are not based on evidence or logic. If they were, you'd show it.”
There is a simple logical hypothesis-deduction which was presented earlier, which you are invited to refute using your own Atheist powers of logic and evidence. And there was the Thomasian argument also, which you may refute.
So the rational arguments exist in just the past few posts/comments, and of course the evidentiary requirements of Atheism/Materialism are Category Errors requiring no evidence, so you have everything you need. If you wish to refute actual physical claims using empirical experimental techniques, there is the Lourdes Miracle claim which has yet to be refuted under Atheist evidentiary theory.
So you have plenty to work against; go ahead and do it.
Since you already had everything you need to perform your “ripping” apart, then there is no reason for you to make empty claims as you did above. Instead you should provide your ripping, using disciplined logic and empirical experimental evidence.
We’ll wait. But not too long.
Add to that the appearances of Lord Ganesh that atheists can not prove and Lord Ganesh drinking milk in front of their very eyes. Physical evidence.
Some people do not think it is rational to believe something is true just because they can not prove it false.
No one here proposes that something is true just because it cannot be proved false. No one ever has, except Atheists who wish to cast aspersions - and falseness - regarding their opposition.
So the implication is false.
What Atheists do is to call something false without any logic, or evidence to support their claim.
You, Watcher, seem to be in the business of pumping out bumper sticker quotations which you picked up somewhere. What you were challenged to do, above, you ignored and instead you produced an Atheist sound bite which has no bearing on the conversation.
what about this one stan:
Add to that the appearances of Lord Ganesh that atheists can not prove and Lord Ganesh drinking milk in front of their very eyes. Physical evidence.
can you prove it never happened?
why are you justified to dismiss it?
millions of people in india would tell you that they have good reasons to believe it i suppose...................
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