X-Message-Number: 22243
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 07:19:26 -0400
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: CryoNet #22237 - #22241

Some comments:

For Francois: There is a very simple explanation: people don't always
cook things before they eat them. I once read a study of a New Guinea
tribe that ate defeated enemies. It was noteworthy that they just cut
up the bodies on the spot and ate them raw.

Again, cooking does not denature all proteins equally. Smaller proteins
may be denatured less than larger ones. Prions are not large proteins,
even though they can have different structures. And just one surviving
prion will infect you. This is just theory, for which I cite no sources;
however one thing we could do is to go to a major proponent of prions
and ask about this question.

To the endless argument between Henson and Stodolsky: The idea of memes
developed by analogy with genes. It suffers badly from the simple
fact that ideas do not work like genes. They are not, unlike genes,
individual traits which together combine into a complex thing, but
meld and twist into one another at all levels and combinations.
Second, so far as I can see, biological psychology is merely another
set of words to describe sociobiology. To draw connections between
our behavior and our biological history is HARD, and hardly a job
which can be done as lightly as Henson and Stodolsky seem to assume.
Although they're hardly identical subjects, a bit of consideration
of how our brains would also needs to be used, simply because it
will test out whether some way of thinking or algorithm is really
the one we actually use. (Minsky fails badly on this issue).

Not only are such connections hard to make, but our behavior 
including our social behavior depends on other factors than just
our genes, as it should. It seems to be among the most labile
traits of animals: monkeys which in one setting develop a hierarchical
society will in another live much more independently. What this
does to the notion that our biological history will explain our
present behavior I will leave unexplained, except that such an
idea becomes far less plausible.

I do find references to various ideas generally interesting, and 
will try to find Sheets-Johnstone. I don't like any discussion 
containing ideas with no attribution (when there is one), mainly
because "he said that he said that he said that he said" often
destroys the original message in the original source.

            Best wishes and long long life for all,

                Thomas Donaldson

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=22243