half of the human genome consists of dead transposons
The “dead” part is a value judgement, right? Parts of DNA are not objectively more or less alive.
It can be a claim that some parts of DNA are “not good for you, the mind” … well, I rather enjoy my color vision and RNA regulation, and I’m sure bacteria enjoy their antibiotic resistance.
Or maybe it’s a claim that we already know everything there is to know about the phenomena called “dead transposons”, there is nothing more to find out by studying the topic, so we shouldn’t finance that area of research.
Is there such a thing as a claim that is not a value claim?
Is “value claims are usually bullshit” a value claim? Does the mental model pick out bullshit more reliably than to label as value claim from what you want to be bullshit? Is there a mental model behind both, thus explaining the correlation? Do I have model close enough to John’s so it can be useful to me too? How do I find out?
No, “dead transposons” meaning that they’ve mutated in some way which makes them no longer functional transposons, i.e. they can no longer copy themselves back into the genome (often due to e.g. another transposon copying into the middle of the first transposon sequence).
The “dead” part is a value judgement, right? Parts of DNA are not objectively more or less alive.
It can be a claim that some parts of DNA are “not good for you, the mind” … well, I rather enjoy my color vision and RNA regulation, and I’m sure bacteria enjoy their antibiotic resistance.
Or maybe it’s a claim that we already know everything there is to know about the phenomena called “dead transposons”, there is nothing more to find out by studying the topic, so we shouldn’t finance that area of research.
Is there such a thing as a claim that is not a value claim?
Is “value claims are usually bullshit” a value claim? Does the mental model pick out bullshit more reliably than to label as value claim from what you want to be bullshit? Is there a mental model behind both, thus explaining the correlation? Do I have model close enough to John’s so it can be useful to me too? How do I find out?
No, “dead transposons” meaning that they’ve mutated in some way which makes them no longer functional transposons, i.e. they can no longer copy themselves back into the genome (often due to e.g. another transposon copying into the middle of the first transposon sequence).