30th March 2003, 12:59 AM
ABF, you are being silly for saying it's stupid to think it's free will. Proove to us via a scientific article link that it is a prooven fact that it's genetic and then it'll be silly. To argue that there is any other reason thinking it's possibly a free will choice is lacking in logic, unless your point is to say there is no such thing as free will. I say this because you can't just argue "well it could only be genetics because nothing else makes sense" when in fact choice makes plenty of sense. Scientifically, just because one excludes all on a list of possibilities except one for some situation doesn't mean the last one MUST be the explanation. All it means is that it's either that last one OR an option not listed (due to lack of imagination). Really, I would think a scientifically minded fellow such as yourself would see that it's perfectly fine to say it's free will, seeing as how there really is no proof that it's genetic. There have been certain reports on the news of one test for this, but since then it's been revealed that that, as well as tests for certain other things, like a gene that produces murderers (not that I'm comairing them on a moral level, just that they are scientifically linked in this case), was in fact not exactly done properly, there really is no proof. There's also the fact that genetic analysis is pretty primitive as of yet. The idea of mapping the genetic structure is very limited. The idea is discovering what genes account for what, and so far there is supposedly a large amount of "junk data". However, one important thing to realize about programs is that it's not ALL parameters (like much of past gene study has seemed to assume is all genes do, define parameters). There's also actual commands, loops, selection structures, functions, calls to them, and many other things. While the stuff I listed is essentially created by humans for human programming languages, the point is that genetic data isn't, and can't, just be lists of "eye = blue" and so on. There HAS to be orders on how to build everything. There has to be a starting point, and stuff in the code saying "check to see if stage blah blah, and if so then do this that and the other". Many of the so called "junk genes" are likely parts of the code that actually give commands. There's also the mystery of all those genes that when removed seem to prevent life, yet it's unknown WHY. They likely have nothing to do with parameters like shape but everything to do with ordering the body to actually use the paramter data to do something. Really, geneticists need to get programmers on their analysis teams and fast.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)