Awesome Science Rant

[ghost]

That's an interesting concept.  It could very well be true. 

It seems to me that DNA is simply a library that holds a set of tools that the body uses to do certain tasks.  Maybe we really haven't found the "brain" yet. 

[Jeff Kelly]

Im no expert in bioinformatics (just regular informatics) but the whole sequencing craze always struck me as an attempt to brute force a more or less completely unknown code.

I've always found the functional analysis approach more logical because it more closely resembles the concepts of black box analysis, cryptoanalysis or linguistics. Which would be in my opinion better approaches for a problem where syntax, semantics and pragmatics are still largely unknown and where even the question if it's a building block language at all is still somewhat open to discussion.

It sounded like people hoped that they could decipher the principles behind DNA by feeding untold amounts of data into sequencers that would then spit out the basic character set, syntax, semantics, pragmatics and building blocks for stuff (this is the "a" of DNA, this is the "X" of DNA, if you put those things together you get a human etc.). It always sounded to me like all of those cargo cult coders that just know that certain things haoppen if they cut and paste a piece of code somewhere but really have no clue why it does that, what they'd need to make it do something slightly different or what they could leave behind so that it still works.

I might be wrong, though (then I'd be glad for an overview) but as the writer said "feeding insane amounts of data into NP complete algorithms" surely sounds like it.

This approach doesn't even work fo natural language though.

[Yegolev]

Would have had more impact if he hadn't made up the word "ept" in his first sentence.

Is there something wrong with making up words?  He's following the pattern:
Inept
Ept
Incompetent
Competent
Inconclusive
Conclusive
Inorganic
Organic
Indianapolis
Anapolis

[DraconianOne]

Pattern matching not your strong point is it? 

[Yegolev]

No insolence!  Only solence is tolerated.

[apocrypha]

Flammable.
Inflammable.

 

[DraconianOne]

No insolence!  Only solence is tolerated.

Totally spired, sir, and I might be fatuated with you.

[IainC]

I am too couth to engage in any argument that isn't becilic.

[Jherad]

I'm anispeptic, frasmotic, even compunctuous to have caused you such pericombobulation.

[proudft]

He is probably not gruntled enough.

[Cadaverine]

Oh freddled gruntbuggly
Thy micturations are to me
As plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee.
Groop I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes
And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles,
Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon,
See if I don't!

 

[DraconianOne]

    The dead swans lay in the stagnant pool.
    They lay. They rotted. They turned
    Around occasionally.
    Bits of flesh dropped off them from
    Time to time.
    And sank into the pool's mire.
    They also smelt a great deal.

[Yegolev]

I'm incredibly pleased with how this thread turned out.