Theorists can’t understand biology

By: James V. Kohl | Published on: November 19, 2015

(click to enlarge)

See also: Neuroplasticity
Thanks to Teresa Binstock for calling my attention to this:

Optimizing neuroplasticity by linking atoms to ecosystems

Thanks to Anna Di Cosmo for calling the attention of others to this:

My comment: Attempts to explain the “binding problem” of integration in the context of ecoimmunology and disease ecology compared to emergence and evolution are examples of how much pseudoscientific nonsense has been accepted and touted in the context of the neo-Darwinian “Modern Synthesis.” For comparison, serious scientists have detailed a model of top-down causation that links the design of the brain from the bottom up in an atoms to ecosystems model of cell type differentiation. The model links our experiences from our first breath to our behavior during life history transitions via biophysically constrained protein folding.
Re: “Man is the measure of all things.” Intelligent scientists understand that their measurements from physics, chemistry, and the molecular mechanisms of biologically-based cause and effect must link all other scientific disciplines to biology.
See for example: Oxygen regulation of breathing through an olfactory receptor activated by lactate
Conclusion:

Although ORs [olfactory receptors] were first identified for their role in smell, they may be involved in myriad chemosensory pathways detecting endogenous and exogenous ligands throughout the body.

For comparison to what is known to serious scientists about receptor-mediated cause and effect in the context of chemosensory pathways, evolutionary theorists and theoretical physicists continue to misrepresent all measures of all things. For example, they refuse to explain how “re-evolution” of the bacterial flagellum occurred in four days but claim that an example of no evolution in ~2 billion years supports the claims included in the “Modern Synthesis.”
See: Scientists discover organism that hasn’t evolved in more than 2 billion years
See: Evolutionary resurrection of flagellar motility via rewiring of the nitrogen regulation system
My comment: Try to place the evolutionary resurrection of flagellar motility into the context of the binding problem that must link receptor-mediated events to chemosensory pathways after watching this video.

The bacteria that “re-evolved” their flagella over a weekend exemplify how the nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled physiology of reproduction links ecological variation to ecological adaptation in all living genera via receptor-mediated events that link food odors and pheromones to the physiology of reproduction in all living genera.
For comparison, Simon LeVay challenged my model of ecological adaptation, which resolved issues of the “binding problem” that links receptor-mediated behaviors in the context of sex differences in cell types and differences in sexual orientation.
See: Gay, Straight, and the Reason Why: The Science of Sexual Orientation
Excerpts:

That the odor of gay men is recognizably different from the odor of other people is believable, although the claim hasn’t been independently verified and its chemical basis hasn’t been studied. (p. 209)
It seems unlikely to me, though, that gay men have an innate preference for the odor of gay men over that of straight men because many gay men are attracted to straight men and, given the opportunity, will have sex with them even in preference to gay partners. Thus this finding, if replicable, is more likely to represent a learned association resulting from gay men’s prior history of intimacy with other gay men. (p. 210)
James Kohl, an independent researcher who also markets “human pheromones” to the general public, believes that pheromones may have a primary influence in setting up a person’s basic sexual orientation. Other, more consciously perceived aspects of attractiveness, such as facial appearance, are attached to a person’s basic orientation through a process of association during early postnatal life, according to Kohl. 35 (p. 210)
This model is attractive in that it solves the “binding problem” of sexual attraction. By that I mean the problem of why all the different features of men or women (visual appearance and feel of face, body, and genitals; voice quality, smell; personality and behavior, etc.) attract people as a more or less coherent package representing one sex, rather than as an arbitrary collage of male and female characteristics. If all these characteristics come to be attractive because they were experienced in association with a male- or female-specific pheromone, then they will naturally go together even in the absence of complex genetically coded instructions. (p. 210)
Still, even in fruit flies, other sensory input besides pheromones — acoustic, tactile, and visual stimuli — play a role in sexual attraction, and sex specific responses to these stimuli appear to be innate rather than learned by association [36.]. We simply don’t know where the boundary between prespecified attraction and learned association lie in our own species, nor do we have compelling evidence for the primacy of one sense over another. (p. 210 – 211)

The chapter 8 notes entry number 36 attempts to show there is “…no compelling evidence for the primacy of one sense over another.” LeVay tries to support that ridiculous claim by citing Spieth (1974) “Courtship behavior in Drosophilia” and Stockinger et al (2005) “Neural circuitry that governs Drosophilia male courtship”
Excerpt:

Anatomical differences in this circuit that might account for the dramatic differences in male and female sexual behavior are not apparent.

My comment: In our 1996 Hormones and Beahavior review, From Fertilization to Adult Sexual Behavior, we placed anatomical differences and sex differences in behavior into the context of RNA-mediated cell type differention. The conserved molecular mechanisms we detailed in our section on molecular epigenetics extend across species, regardless of whether LeVay or anyone else can find sex differences in neuroanatomy that correlate with differences in the behaviors of flies and humans.
See for comparison: Courtship behavior in Drosophila melanogaster: towards a ‘courtship connectome’

Excerpt:

The construction of a comprehensive structural, and importantly functional map of the network of elements and connections forming the brain represents the Holy Grail for research groups working in disparate disciplines.

My comment: None of my former colleagues from the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality has since made any attempt to challenge LeVay’s claims about my model. However, LeVay’s claims can be compared in the context of two recent reports from serious scientists:
1) Feedback loops link odor and pheromone signaling with reproduction
Excerpt:

Compelling evidence that links the feedback loops from microbes to humans

2) MicroRNA-encoded behavior in Drosophila
Conclusion:

The results of this study contribute to the understanding of how complex innate behaviors are represented in the genetic program. Our data lead us to propose that other miRNAs might also be involved in the control of behavior in Drosophila and other species.

Likhite et al. found putative arginine methylation motifs in some human G protein–coupled receptors (GPCRs), including the D2 dopamine receptor, and in homologs in the worm Caenorhabditis elegans.

My comment: Nutrient-dependent RNA-directed DNA methylation of GPCRs in nematodes and humans, links the pheromone-controlled physiology of reproduction to the nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled physiology of reproduction in yeasts and other microbes via the conserved molecular mechanisms of cell type differentiation we detailed in our 1996 review. Serious scientists have linked the facts from our review from the epigenetic landscape to the physical landscape of DNA in the organized genomes of all living genera.
See: DNA twist as a transcriptional sensor for environmental changes (1992) and DNA supercoiling and bacterial gene expression (2006) and Flagellar and global gene regulation in Helicobacter pylori modulated by changes in DNA supercoiling (2007).
Addendum: Only pseudoscientists and other who are among the biologically uninformed have failed to accept the scientific progress that led to publication of Structural diversity of supercoiled DNA (2015).
This parody links what is known to serious scientists about biologically-based cause and effect to the ridiculous claims of theorists in an amusing musical rendition of insults to the theorists that is unlike any other collection of polite insults that you may ever see.

See also: Combating Evolution to Fight Disease
My comment: Help serious scientists to force pseudoscientists to learn about biologically-based cause and effect. Join the fight to stop the pseudoscience and preventable diseases!

Compare what is known to serious scientist to the claims of these pseudoscientists in the context of the most recent attempt to convince others that evolution is true.

Evolution website sets out to tackle great scientific unknowns

Excerpt:

The site was created by a team led by Simon Conway Morris, Professor of Evolutionary Palaeobiology and a Fellow of St John’s College at the University of Cambridge. “Evolution is true, and if it didn’t happen, we wouldn’t be here,” he said.

My comment: Are you willing to accept that circular logic rather than examine life in the context of Schrodinger’s claims from “What is Life?”
Excerpt:

Indeed, in the case of higher animals we know the kind of orderliness they feed upon well enough, viz. the extremely well-ordered state of matter in more or less complicated organic compounds, which serve them as foodstuffs. After utilizing it they return it in a very much degraded form -not entirely degraded, however, for plants can still make use of it. (These, of course, have their most power supply of ‘negative entropy’ the sunlight)

My comment: The anti-entropic epigenetic effect of the sun’s virucidal energy on DNA repair links ecological variation to nutrient-dependent ecological adaptation via the physiology of reproduction or to virus-driven pathology in all living genera. That is not circular logic, and molecular mechanisms linked to the physiology of nutrient-dependent reproduction exemplify how the differences between life and death arose.
See also: Consciousness Mechanics: The Movie for more philosophical nonsense than most people have seen integrated into something to entertain the masses.