Is it possible to just wipe all known virus remains from our DNA and if yes, what would happen? Would the resulting organism even be able to live?
Evidence that addictive behaviors have links with ancient retroviral infection
171–180 of 229 posts
Re: Evidence that addictive behaviors have links with ancient retroviral infection
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
Given your beliefs. Why bother writing this? What possible point could you have?
I had no choice :-)
You have a choice, but that choice is nothing more than the combination of your DNA and your combined experiences. I mean were all in our own space time and we have no "free will" over the past, but the past affects our "free will" so it acts using something slower than light. Our brain is worse than computers unless we have no free will?
Re: Evidence that addictive behaviors have links with ancient retroviral infection
#173Link to PNAS research paper: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/09/19/1811940115 Human Endogenous Retrovirus-K HML-2 integration within RASGRF2 is associated with intravenous drug abuse and modulates transcription in a cell-line model Not all humans have the same HK2 viruses in their genomes. Here we show that one specific uncommon HK2, which lies close to a gene involved in dopaminergic activity in the brain, is…
Very sensible that the mutation relates to the dopaminergic activity, just based on our knowledge of the reward pathway and the effect of addictive drugs on dopamine. There may even been a positive feedback loop here, as any viral gene inserted that increases risky, impulsive behavior may also encourage procreation.
There is a distinct difference between compulsive behaviour and risk-taking.
Re: Evidence that addictive behaviors have links with ancient retroviral infection
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
You cannot choose to breed with someone who is already dead. Even if you succeed in breeding with someone (alive), if their genes are not very good your children won't live to breed. Thus if intelligence is a factor at all in survival (and it seems like it should be) your ancestors may not have had a choice but to select for intelligent.
> Thus if intelligence is a factor at all in survival (and it seems like it should be) your ancestors may not have had a choice but to select for intelligent. And this explains the large collection of (in our understanding) not-terribly-intelligent creatures on the planet how? Not trying to be snarky, just pointing out that intelligence is just one of many paths, and it's very hard to have strong conclusion about how…
There's also the possibility that our concept of intelligence is totally wrapped up in our very anthropomorphic worldview. And we're simply incapable of understanding forms of intelligence that aren't distinctly our own.
Re: Evidence that addictive behaviors have links with ancient retroviral infection
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Addicts and alcoholics can turn their lives around, even though they remain addicts for life. The "addicts for life" is an American puritan view (by AA and other such groups) -- not some scientific fact. Certainly not the view everywhere in the world. You can have an alcoholic of 5-10 years that recovered and can still enjoy the occasional drink just fine without getting back to regular drinking.
Neal Stephenson does a good job of presenting that sort of attitude in Cryptonomicon : "I don't like the word 'addict' because it has terrible connotations," Root says one day, as they are sunning themselves on the afterdeck. "Instead of slapping a label on you, the Germans would describe you as 'Morphiumsüchtig.' The verb suchen means to seek. So that might be translated, loosely, as 'morphine seeky' or even more lo…
Stephenson is great, but just for the record, the claim that Germans understand "süchtig" as "seeking" goes too far.
Süchtig is the adjective to Sucht (addiction), not to Suche (search), and although the etymological link is clear, there's nothing romantic or compassionate about the word.
Re: Evidence that addictive behaviors have links with ancient retroviral infection
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
Genetic inheritance via epigenetic pathways is extremely rare and basically irrelevant. It explains essentially 0% of the evolved traits that you see in humans and other complex organisms. And none of our important traits were acquired by conscious processes on the parts of our ancestors, unless you mean by that statement that our ancestors consciously endeavored to further their own interests and as a side effect of…
>Genetic inheritance via epigenetic pathways is extremely rare and basically irrelevant. It explains essentially 0% of the evolved traits that you see in humans and other complex organisms. I would like a source to read more about this. I don't distrust you. I'm genuinely interested in reading more about this. >And none of our important traits were acquired by conscious processes on the parts of our ancestors I think…
> I would like a source to read more about this. I don't distrust you. I'm genuinely interested in reading more about this.
Sorry, I don't have a source. Epigenetic changes in somatic cells (all the cells in your body except for your sperm or egg cells) are common and necessary for the differentiation that takes place as cells divide and multiply to create a growing organism. But epigenetic inheritance is rare, because epigenetic changes can only be inherited if they somehow change the DNA in germ line cells (sperm or eggs). There just aren't many plausible ways for stuff that happens in the environment to modify the DNA in sperm or eggs. The most plausible way would be for some sort of systemic stress. And, IIRC, one of the only known instances of epigenetic inheritance was a result of starvation.
But, more generally, epigenetic inheritance has to be rare. Evolution is a balancing act. On the one hand you need some mutation, because otherwise there is no variation against which natural selection can act. But on the other hand, you need to limit the amount of mutation so that beneficial genes can persist through time (otherwise they cease to be beneficial), and so that the crazy house of cards that is a developing organism doesn't collapse.
If you know anything about how complex organisms work, it's absolutely insane. There is almost none of the abstraction and encapsulation that we use in engineering to manage complexity. Instead, everything effects everything else. Evolution is like building a computer program by mutating individual bits in a binary program. If you play that out in a massively parallel fashion over billions of iterations, you can get some programs that do really cool stuff.
But they would be incredibly brittle. It would be incredibly easy to crash the whole thing by mutating the wrong bit. And these types of catastrophic mutations seem pretty common in complex organisms. Among humans, the miscarriage rate is 30%-50% (according to Wikipedia; look up the Miscarriage article). A significant number of those are believed to be caused by the female rejecting the fetus because of defects of some kind.
All of this is a long way of saying that it's simply not believable that there is some process which is introducing significant mutation into the reproductive process.
Re: Evidence that addictive behaviors have links with ancient retroviral infection
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
How so? You don't need free will to adapt to feedback.
So if you believed I punched you deliberately, but also believed no action of yours would keep me from punching you again, does that mean you would do nothing? Even if I called you a coward?
If you look at people who are actually in that unlikely position (e.g. prisoners, slaves) then typically they do in fact do nothing.
Re: Evidence that addictive behaviors have links with ancient retroviral infection
#178Link to PNAS research paper: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/09/19/1811940115 Human Endogenous Retrovirus-K HML-2 integration within RASGRF2 is associated with intravenous drug abuse and modulates transcription in a cell-line model Not all humans have the same HK2 viruses in their genomes. Here we show that one specific uncommon HK2, which lies close to a gene involved in dopaminergic activity in the brain, is…
Does this mean you could be tested for the specific gene?
Yes. Make a primer that matches the inside of the retrovirus, and another that matches the genome outside it in this particular location. Use them to do PCR on a sample of DNA. If you get a band, you have the retrovirus in that location.
Re: Evidence that addictive behaviors have links with ancient retroviral infection
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let’s say you havd someone in the Army of some country, any country, and that soldier does heinous things contrary than that allowed by internstional convention on clearly a civilian population, let’s say, do we still say, “oh, hey, they were high, it’s an illness, let’s treat them and after done, let’s get them back in the army”.
Yes, obviously, if that can be proven to be the cause? Proper criminal rehabilitation and reintegration is very important.
It is.
But there are psychopaths out there who simply don't do violence out of fear from counterviolence.
Remove the threat with social works and they laugh about it.
So in general I agree, that there are better methods than punishment, but for some it works.
Re: Evidence that addictive behaviors have links with ancient retroviral infection
#180Does this remind anyone of season one of Fortitude on Prime?