Between this article and the one below it, I have exceeded my daily quota of crazy.

Kasreyn approves.

/I don't. WTF is this doing on any website about science?

vpb: Wasn't this "new theory" called the "Gaia hypothesis" about 25 years ago?

Came for that.

/oh god

From TFA:

One debate swirls around the scientific merit of James Lovelock's popular Gaia hypothesis. By showing that Earth is theoretically synonymous with life, Dr. Andrulis' paradigm substantiates the Gaian premise that all organisms and their surroundings on earth are closely integrated to form a single self-regulating complex system.

So, basically yes, but it's just a portion of this new theory.

Is it just me, or did i catch a whiff of circular logic in the article?

The universe is the way it is because that's the way the universe is, and it can't be any other way?

It's Gaia theory with a touch of Leibniz's "monad" theory and a dollop of Timecube thrown in for good measure. Which makes it 100% irrefutable.

Donnchadha: Makh: I thought it had to do with the multiplication of 6 and 7.

Okay, so you make the Hitchhiker's reference while missing the Hitchhiker's reference? Have you actually read the books? All of them?

Oh, farkin' lay off, fer chrissakes. That's not necessary - there were two radio series, and that's all you really need to listen to. NOTHING ELSE, JUST THAT. SHUT UP.

"I always said there was something fundamentally wrong with the universe."

One debate swirls around the scientific merit of James Lovelock's popular Gaia hypothesis. By showing that Earth is theoretically synonymous with life, Dr. Andrulis' paradigm substantiates the Gaian premise that all organisms and their surroundings on earth are closely integrated to form a single self-regulating complex system.

Isn't the same true for the Solar system, and then the Milky Way, and so for the Universe? So the Universe is a single self-regulating complex system. Huh. Who would have thought it.

And our meaning of life becomes more or less meaningless. Which means we can all stop science crap and buy quartz crystals to turn cancer from negative life engery into a postive one.

FTA: Another natural law dictates that the atomic and cosmic realms abide by identical organizational constraints. Simply put, atoms in the human body and solar systems in the universe move and behave in the exact same manner.

no, they don't. at all. electrons are not like planets orbiting a star, it's just a handy layman's metaphor.

/i wonder if he thinks there are bi-nuclear atoms

Makh: Donnchadha: Okay, so you make the Hitchhiker's reference while missing the Hitchhiker's reference? Have you actually read the books? All of them?

Yeah, I read the 6 book trilogy, they got kinda dumb at the end. I guess they were easy to forget. No one ever makes a bistromath reference.

Worse, someone recently made one and I couldn't place it...

It's all just an experiment; that's what the aliens told me

FTFA: Another natural law dictates that the atomic and cosmic realms abide by identical organizational constraints. Simply put, atoms in the human body and solar systems in the universe move and behave in the exact same manner.

If that were true, all planets would have the same spin and size (like electrons), and there'd be smushed electron bits between the Mars and Jupiter electrons in 8-electron atoms so the Octet Rule would be out . And planets would be able to jump from one orbit to the other and be locked there.

What's the opposite of "the exact same manner"? Because that's what we have here.

Chthonic Echoes
Between this article and the one below it, I have exceeded my daily quota of crazy.

I'm not even sure what the article press release was talking about. It was like reading Time Cube. The closest they came to indicating any explanatory power is a single sentence that hints at some RNA discovery. Even if it was true (that the theory was necessary to understand or predict that element of RNA), you'd need significantly more to jump from "Relevant to a piece of RNA" to "Relevant to EVERYTHING".

It does sound like the Gaia hypothesis, in the sense that it seems to mostly be a semantic problem. The fact that we are tightly integrated with our environment (as are all other terrestrial organisms) is obvious and not reasonably debatable. The controversy, then, tends to be over whether we want to define "life" in such a way that the earth is included. And, as usual, people confuse a convenient model with actual reality and turn into retards about it. You know, like theology and most of philosophy.

Oh, and skepticism is justified because useless unified models are released every year by professors and such. This doesn't sound much different from any of the others.

Jackpot777: FTFA: Another natural law dictates that the atomic and cosmic realms abide by identical organizational constraints. Simply put, atoms in the human body and solar systems in the universe move and behave in the exact same manner.

If that were true, all planets would have the same spin and size (like electrons), and there'd be smushed electron bits between the Mars and Jupiter electrons in 8-electron atoms so the Octet Rule would be out . And planets would be able to jump from one orbit to the other and be locked there.

What's the opposite of "the exact same manner"? Because that's what we have here.

You forget about solar systems joining into larger complex system by sharing their planets.

Don't know if its the SciDaily writer or the author of the original material but someone thinks that atoms and solar systems are fundamentally identical, proteins are alive, and that a "bidirectional flow diagram" is proof of anything. All I know is its proof that someone somewhere needs to put down the damn bong.

the link in the SciDaily article was dead so if anyone cares to read the original source, here it is (clickitypop). I'm on vacation so eff that ess.

Apparently devolved through repeated multiplication of six times nine six times seven (FIFY)

Yea, I don't know about all that, but I generally think people put too much emphasis on the difference between life and non-life. There really isn't a hard line between the two -- you're just looking at varying degrees of molecular organization.

Ugh. Saw this earlier in my blog reading. The blog article was pointing it out as a perfect example of pure crankdom bullshiat with Science Daily just running the press release with zero critical though involved.

Makh: Donnchadha: Okay, so you make the Hitchhiker's reference while missing the Hitchhiker's reference? Have you actually read the books? All of them?

Yeah, I read the 6 book trilogy, they got kinda dumb at the end. I guess they were easy to forget. No one ever makes a bistromath reference.

The books stopped making any sense long before bistromath is introduced. It's one thing to be silly or quirky and fun, but by that point it just devolved in to mindless drivel.

DarnoKonrad: Yea, I don't know about all that, but I generally think people put too much emphasis on the difference between life and non-life. There really isn't a hard line between the two -- you're just looking at varying degrees of molecular organization.

I thought it was all about the, ATP?

What the fark am I reading?

Wow! I checked three different times to see if I was really reading that on a reputable science site and I still refuse to believe I was. Did annon get all subtle with a troll?

wingnut396: You forget about solar systems joining into larger complex system by sharing their planets.

That would just be... cool. I wonder if there is any physical arrangement of a binary star system in which a planet would have roughly even solar insolation throughout a figure-eight orbit...

StoPPeRmobile: DarnoKonrad: Yea, I don't know about all that, but I generally think people put too much emphasis on the difference between life and non-life. There really isn't a hard line between the two -- you're just looking at varying degrees of molecular organization.

I thought it was all about the, ATP?

This guy touches on metabolism in looking for what's alive, but he doesn't really find it in what we'd normally call life.

abb3w: Mirror of the open-access paper that insists on handing the PDF off for download rather than in-line reading; my fast impression is that it's a monstrous bolus of gobbledygook.


Yea, definitely reserve a high degree of skepticism for anything that claims to place both quantum gravity and DNA mutation under one "non-mathematical" theory.

bemis23: Makh: Donnchadha: Okay, so you make the Hitchhiker's reference while missing the Hitchhiker's reference? Have you actually read the books? All of them?

Yeah, I read the 6 book trilogy, they got kinda dumb at the end. I guess they were easy to forget. No one ever makes a bistromath reference.

The books stopped making any sense long before bistromath is introduced. It's one thing to be silly or quirky and fun, but by that point it just devolved in to mindless drivel.

The books de-evolved slowly by a ratio of negative X2, for each successive title

somebody should check my math//

abb3w: entropic_existence: The blog article was pointing it out as a perfect example of pure crankdom bullshiat with Science Daily just running the press release with zero critical though involved.

From the same issue, there's another piece by a different author that looks at least a little better. Still, my impression is that this must be a seriously lightweight "peer reviewed" journal.

Its one of these new journals that pop up every once in awhile, especially since the open access craze has hit. It's first issue was just published back in December. At this point they are probably taking everything someone sends them who can pay for the it to get published.

Sounds kinda like he made such a complex theory that he deluded himself into believing that he's proved something, when actually he just redefined his theory into different words.

Even if it's silly, it's kinda neat. Here's the full thing http://www.mdpi.com/2075-1729/2/1/1/pdf

Uhm.... yeah. Sorry, that looks like a bunch of utter and complete random bullshiat. It's one step above Timecube. (Cue the people whining: "Well, that just shows you're ignorant and narrow minded, what with your foolish insistence on 'facts' and 'logic' and 'testability' They laughed at Reich and Lamarck, too!")

Just last night I was reading Tom Gold's book, The Deep Hot Biosphere (new window), so I'm getting a kick, etc.

/Maybe oil is Earth blood.

torusXL: Even if it's silly, it's kinda neat. Here's the full thing http://www.mdpi.com/2075-1729/2/1/1/pdf

Here's my summary of said article: "Things Spin"

Cue the fark Scientists (TM) to crank up the derision machine in 3, 2, 1 ...

entropic_existence: abb3w: entropic_existence: The blog article was pointing it out as a perfect example of pure crankdom bullshiat with Science Daily just running the press release with zero critical though involved.

From the same issue, there's another piece by a different author that looks at least a little better. Still, my impression is that this must be a seriously lightweight "peer reviewed" journal.

Its one of these new journals that pop up every once in awhile, especially since the open access craze has hit. It's first issue was just published back in December. At this point they are probably taking everything someone sends them who can pay for the it to get published.

The article says that the theory was published in the scientific journal Life.

burndtdan: FTA: Another natural law dictates that the atomic and cosmic realms abide by identical organizational constraints. Simply put, atoms in the human body and solar systems in the universe move and behave in the exact same manner.

no, they don't. at all. electrons are not like planets orbiting a star, it's just a handy layman's metaphor.

/i wonder if he thinks there are bi-nuclear atoms

that is what happens when biologists try to come up with physics theories.

FTFA:
His unorthodox solution to this quintessential problem in physics differs from mainstream approaches, like string theory, as it is simple, non-mathematical, and experimentally and experientially verifiable.

Verifiable according to who?

Feepit: The article says that the theory was published in the scientific journal Life.

Yes, and if you go to the website for the journal Life you see that Volume 1, comprised of one issue, launched in December 2011. They are currently on Volume 2 (2012), issue 1 (March 2012). There a ton of these journals that pop up all of the time. I get spam emails from brand spanking new journals all of the time just begging for subscriptions. Not all journals are given equal respect in the eyes of the community. There are your top tier journals, lots of solid respectable journals, lots of small big highly field-specialized journals, and like everything else there are the bottom feeders. The bottom feeders don't give a shiat about rigorous review and often don't have a good team of assistant editors in place with the necessary knowledge to identify and select qualified and quality reviewers for submissions.

No one ever claimed peer-review was perfect, or that simply by validity of being peer-reviewed a piece of scientific work was therefore totally acceptable and valid. There are several "peer-reviewed" creationist journals too, most people don't think very highly of them either.

rwfan: that is what happens when biologists try to come up with physics theories.

Its not necessarily any worse than some of the bullshiat I've seen when a physicist comes in with a grand unifying theory of biology. Physicists have made some important contributions to biology, as have a whole slew of mathematicians and statisticians just like I am sure there have been contributions to physics by biologists. The difference being that the good guys know what they don't know (a hell of a lot of deep background of the other field) and work with specialists who do so they don't make an ass out of themselves.

/First assume a spherical cow...