Some people are bald, you insensitive clod.

And very bad if somebody nearby asks what rm -r / does.

Or just file a bug report online.

Get a bigger 'get off my lawn' sign?

It's also against our state law that twin primes cannot cohabitate unless they're the same sex.

First off, I am a math guy, not a science guy. I have never pursued a grant for anything evolution related, so don't complain at me about it. Don't whine at a fireman for making a mediocre cop. And pay bloody attention to what you reply to, my post was about the issue (whether or not junk DNA being useless) also appearing in computer science.

Second, major logic fallacy and incorrect use of basic terms right off the bat

What's with the "junk" theorizing about "junk" being "not necessarily junk" for evolution

That is not a theory, not even close. Burden of proof by default lies on a positive claim (the post I replied to), and what I wrote is a negation of that, and an acceptable statement.

And the "junk" assumption that the "junk" need be explained in terms of evolutionary dependence on "junk"

Again, why complain at me about this? I neither wrote nor implied any such thing.

Technically speaking, my line of work was with linear genetic programming as opposed to vanilla GAs, but disallowing or penalizing fitness scores based on having non-functional code can easily slow convergence. I'm focused more on the math/statistics side than coding side, but for our cases our calculated expected value of beneficial point mutations was higher when non-functional operands were permitted. Negative, but still better than for equivalent individuals with removed junk.

Junk for an individual. Not necessarily junk for the evolution of a species. This issue comes up in computer science too with genetic algorithms, pushing pressure to keep the encoding as compact as possible 'may' lead to the side effect of increasing the probability of being stuck on a local optima. There's a lot of math 'n stuff involved that can better be explained by experts, but here's the short version: let's say that a genetic algorithm engine has an individual settled for a local optimum with all the bits just right. But there's a possible mutation that could lead to finding a slope leading to a better optimum. Obviously there's the issue that the mutation is going to compromise something important, and you end up with a mutant with good potential but a weaker fitness score, so the mutation is more likely to be discarded. However, if there's non-functional bits in the individual, there's a higher chance that the mutant can score better by compromising something that wasn't in use to being with, hence non-functional coding genes having some use in the long run. Now this is a huge simplification on a complex matter, but this does come up.

And goes faster if painted red.

The earth and moon orbit around the combined center of mass (barycenter: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barycenter#Astronomy). Moving the moon moves that center of mass. Though it's not a necessarily efficient method to move the earth; the assumption is that the earth-moon system is in a stable orbit. Move one hard enough in the wrong way, and it may destabilize to where the model doesn't work. Also, destabilizing the moon's orbit could be a potential hazard.

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1) Because a virus put it there. I'm no expert on the matter, but from my knowledge genetic engineering is usually done by isolating a desirable gene, replicating it in bacteria (or virus), then having a virus with the gene insert it into the target cell. Which then develops to a full blown organism with the new gene, hopefully. Of course, it's possible that the virus could have put other junk in there. I would like to point out that detecting viral DNA in any organism is by itself no cause for alarm. Hell, our own genomes are chalked full of garbage that viruses put there. Since that garbage doesn't really affect our survival or ability to reproduce, it hasn't been 'weeded' out. Same with plants.

2)That is unknown, though unlikely on purpose. For one thing, genetic modification isn't an exact science. It is possible that the gene in question had nothing to do with a lab; Monsanto's crops come from controlled strains. As we know quite well, if there's a big genetic change in a population when it's bottlenecking, it could easily spread throughout the entire population, and retroviruses are capable of (and often do) inserting extra sequences in the genome. It probably was accidental lab contamination, or a bad reverse transcription that added more than the scientists expected.

3) Now this is getting closer to the disciple I study and work for. First off, there is no table of contents in a cell that tells you what genes are present. And there is no label on a gene that says what it is, what it does, or even if it does something useful. Now, to put it into perspective, maize (corn) has about ~32,000 genes. All full of nothing but A's, C's, T's, and G's. So it's not something you can tell a couple interns to read through and report back if something doesn't look right. So this is a job for computer programs. That can run for up to days to finish. And require trained workers to both know to look for it, as well as actually look for it. Hence stuff like this is *very* *very* *VERY* easy to slip under the radar.

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Not that I'm saying Monsanto is a nice hippy company with the well-being of society as its bottom line.

lol, really the only reason I still have java enabled. Though it's disabled by default in my browser; except for when I need to run an app. For working with one of minecraft's nuclear mods. I'm starting to think Mojang is getting paid by Oracle . . . :P

There are people who's job is to think and work with these kind of problems. And some of them get paid nauseatingly large amounts of money. And anyways, since when is being inquisitive and analytical a bad thing?

Surely they can't be talking about our gen-gen-generation?