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The Origin Of (Our) Species


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I think the opposite is true. So what do you mean?

I guess the difference is that I can show over and over how intelligence only arises out of intelligence preceding it. All you have is conjecture inferred from more conjecture. You dont have any evidence, repeatable in a lab, showing intelligence arising from non intelligent matter.

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Hi Rob :)

Intelligence? (That's step 754 - we can't even get past step 1)

Life arising from non-living matter.

An amoeba can learn in a very limited sense of the word. Are they intelligent? A single Sodium atom naturally combines with single atom of Chlorine forming ordinary table salt due to electron attraction. Are those atoms intelligent?

 

Abiogenesis in lab.

SEE http://www.udonmap.com/udonthaniforum/abiogenesis-life-from-non-life-duplicated-in-lab-t13609.html

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I guess the difference is that I can show over and over how intelligence only arises out of intelligence preceding it. All you have is conjecture inferred from more conjecture. You dont have any evidence, repeatable in a lab, showing intelligence arising from non intelligent matter.

 

Rob, maybe we had better be clear about what we think intelligence is.

 

For me the difference between the intelligence of a thermostat or a virus and the intelligence of a human being is one of degree of complexity and subtlety. It is a vast vast difference of degree (and degrees of freedom in the sense of articulation). 

 

 

I have never seen intelligence spring into existence where there was none before either. But I have seen a tiny bit of intelligence added naturally by selection where there was already slightly less intelligence. 

 

But, then there is nothing purely deductive about that fact that means there is a fundamental ontological obstacle to the natural emergence of intelligence.

 

I have also never sense an immense tangle of wire or yarn emerge at once from something that  wasn't just a slightly less immense tangle. But then, somehow it seems less mysterious. Yet if we were to trace the history of a truly immense tangle backward, I am sure there would be a point were someone would say, well yes but that isn't an immense tangle. But there would be a lot of disagreement about exactly what it takes to be an immense tangle and confusion about precisely when the "immense tangleness" came into being. It's less mysterious because we aren't so confused about what a tangle is. But sometimes we just can't imagine that something is really just explainable in other  radically different terms.

These days we know that heat is mean molecular motion but there was time when people thought that impossible or silly simply because heat was clearly a totally different thing than motion and people thought that the explanation left something out or sidestepped the real needed explanation. You can almost hear people laughing with score and saying something like "saying that heat is nothing but kinetic molecular motion is like saying that time is made of  poppy seeds". It must have seemed like a category mistake at best.

 

The real question is whether intelligence is the kind of thing that can be accounted for as the recursive or cooperative application of entities or states of a fairs that on their own seem utterly unintelligent. And, can it pile up or not? I think it can and I think it can do so for so long that the end result seems fundamentally different than anything we can imagine being the original state of affairs. 

 

But, if you think intelligence is not a kind of complexity but is rather more like a ghostly immaterial substance or an irreducible subjectivity then we will be talking past each other.

Edited by Tarski
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As is Scientology I believe. That is, unless one takes a central value of naturalism to be dependence on ordinary notions of publicly available evidence and the need for that evidence to be situated within a theoretical framework with explanatory power beyond the ad hoc and a framework unmuddled by endless exceptions and unconvincing rationalizations (as we see with attempts to harmonize evolution with scriptural  theology). 

 

Notice that Scientologists and Mormons alike accept most science and yet neither accept the others theology which only shows that such "naturalistic theologies" are  nothing like science since they lack the power to convince in the same way.

Publicly available knowledge and technical capacity will vary with time and place, as well as with the sentient beings who possess it. The point Richard Dawkins makes is that some very advanced beings in the universe (which he considers quite likely, as do most astrophysicists) would possess what we in our time and place would consider "godlike powers."

 

Since the Mormon concept of God is both finite and progressive, and since they place such a god or gods inside the universe and subject to natural law (though he has mastered it), and even though we now possess only a limited degree of knowledge and technical capacity (after all, we know nothing of dark energy and dark matter, which is what most of the universe is composed of), we are naturally going to seem quite heretical to the normative Muslims, Jews, and Christians, who maintain a dogma placing a necessary God outside of time and space, and all the universe and the creatures in it as contingent and alien to that one God (the only uncaused Cause).  Thus far, the monistic and naturalistic Mormon theology.  This is all something which Rob Osborn cannot understand or accept, which is the ultimate source of his difficulty.

 

In addition, Mormon theology makes all humans of the same genus & species as God, from their eternal existence as raw intelligences, through their spiritual and physical embodiments, to their eventual glorification.  As a practical matter, Mormonism takes a universalist approach to that eventual purpose of human existence.  Most of humanity makes it, and there is nothing supernatural or miraculous about it, except as a reflection of our relative ignorance.  Our Father's selfless plan is to bring most of us home.  That is what he really cares about.  We are coeternal with him, and responsible for our own decisions.

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Science does not say any such thing. Science say he is not testable using the tools available to science. Scientists can believe or not believe in God(s) as they choose. 

SEE

Your idea of science may tell you that but science does include all that truly does exist even if we havent found everything and everyone involved yet including God himself.

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An amoeba can learn in a very limited sense of the word. Are they intelligent? A single Sodium atom naturally combines with single atom of Chlorine forming ordinary table salt due to electron attraction. Are those atoms intelligent?

 

Abiogenesis in lab.

SEE http://www.udonmap.com/udonthaniforum/abiogenesis-life-from-non-life-duplicated-in-lab-t13609.html

Thats not abiogenesis. All they did was synthesize some of the ingredients that they think made life. No actual life was created in the lab.

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Publicly available knowledge and technical capacity will vary with time and place, as well as with the sentient beings who possess it. The point Richard Dawkins makes is that some very advanced beings in the universe (which he considers quite likely, as do most astrophysicists) would possess what we in our time and place would consider "godlike powers."

 

Since the Mormon concept of God is both finite and progressive, and since they place such a god or gods inside the universe and subject to natural law (though he has mastered it), and even though we now possess only a limited degree of knowledge and technical capacity (after all, we know nothing of dark energy and dark matter, which is what most of the universe is composed of), we are naturally going to seem quite heretical to the normative Muslims, Jews, and Christians, who maintain a dogma placing a necessary God outside of time and space, and all the universe and the creatures in it as contingent and alien to that one God (the only uncaused Cause).  Thus far, the monistic and naturalistic Mormon theology.  This is all something which Rob Osborn cannot understand or accept, which is the ultimate source of his difficulty.

 

In addition, Mormon theology makes all humans of the same genus & species as God, from their eternal existence as raw intelligences, through their spiritual and physical embodiments, to their eventual glorification.  As a practical matter, Mormonism takes a universalist approach to that eventual purpose of human existence.  Most of humanity makes it, and there is nothing supernatural or miraculous about it, except as a reflection of our relative ignorance.  Our Father's selfless plan is to bring most of us home.  That is what he really cares about.  We are coeternal with him, and responsible for our own decisions.

 

Yes I know this is the narrative and it is quite different than protestant theology. My only point was that it is pretty easy to develop an elaborate "sci fi" style theology that might appeal to certain people who can't deal with good old fashioned miracles and such ( as in Catholicism). The obvious problem  from my perspective is the deadly coincidence of implausibility and lack of evidence suffered by both Mormonism and Scientology.  

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.......................................................................   

 

But, if you think intelligence is not a kind of complexity but is rather more like a ghostly immaterial substance or an irreducible subjectivity then we will be talking past each other.

I suppose we might measure the IQ or intelligence of a paramecium, or of a Dodo bird, just as we do with humans, but such concepts have nothing to do with the Mormon theological concept of an eternal entity which exists in an unknown state before being embodied in a spirit body, and thus enabled to exercise its basic nature with elan.  Further embodiment in a human body is only one more step in the developmental sequence to apotheosis (godhood).

 

In that sense, the Mormon concept of irreduclble and indestructible "intelligence" as an entity seems to exist quite apart from physical material in the universe, since that material universe can be altered in molecular form, or changed from energy to matter and back again.  Not so with the Mormon "intelligence" entity or entelechy.  God can imprison it, but he cannot destroy it.

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Rob, maybe we had better be clear about what we think intelligence is.

 

For me the difference between the intelligence of a thermostat or a virus and the intelligence of a human being is one of degree of complexity and subtlety. It is a vast vast difference of degree (and degrees of freedom in the sense of articulation). 

 

 

I have never seen intelligence spring into existence where there was none before either. But I have seen a tiny bit of intelligence added naturally by selection where there was already slightly less intelligence. 

 

But, then there is nothing purely deductive about that fact that means there is a fundamental ontological obstacle to the natural emergence of intelligence.

 

I have also never sense an immense tangle of wire or yarn emerge at once from something that  wasn't just a slightly less immense tangle. But then, somehow it seems less mysterious. Yet if we were to trace the history of a truly immense tangle backward, I am sure there would be a point were someone would say, well yes but that isn't an immense tangle. But there would be a lot of disagreement about exactly what it takes to be an immense tangle and confusion about precisely when the "immense tangleness" came into being. It's less mysterious because we aren't so confused about what a tangle is. But sometimes we just can't imagine that something is really just explainable in other  radically different terms.

These days we know that heat is mean molecular motion but there was time when people thought that impossible or silly simply because heat was clearly a totally different thing than motion and people thought that the explanation left something out or sidestepped the real needed explanation. You can almost hear people laughing with score and saying something like "saying that heat is nothing but kinetic molecular motion is like saying that time is made of  poppy seeds". It must have seemed like a category mistake at best.

 

The real question is whether intelligence is the kind of thing that can be accounted for as the recursive or cooperative application of entities or states of a fairs that on their own seem utterly unintelligent. And, can it pile up or not? I think it can and I think it can do so for so long that the end result seems fundamentally different than anything we can imagine being the original state of affairs. 

 

But, if you think intelligence is not a kind of complexity but is rather more like a ghostly immaterial substance or an irreducible subjectivity then we will be talking past each other.

Intelligence is the ability to acquire and use skills. A characteristic of intelligence is thus the capacity to learn, reason, think, and make and apply decisions. Scientific evidence to this point shows that only living things have intelligence. Science investigation shows that only from living intelligent things do we find any evidence of intelligence in nature. In fact, no law in nature itself can produce intelligence from a non life source. This is a basic constant in nature- one of its many laws. Intelligence doesnt nor cannot just arise from any sequence of non intelligent events, even if on the surface they may appear intelligent.

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Yes I know this is the narrative and it is quite different than protestant theology. My only point was that it is pretty easy to develop an elaborate "sci fi" style theology that might appeal to certain people who can't deal with good old fashioned miracles and such ( as in Catholicism). The obvious problem  from my perspective is the deadly coincidence of implausibility and lack of evidence suffered by both Mormonism and Scientology.  

Well, of course, the basic sticking point might be epistemological in either case (and one can extend that to Buddhism as well).  So I don't disagree that one might come up with any scenario.  And, since I cut my teeth on scifi as a kid, I know exactly what you mean.

 

Where we part company is in judging the "implausibility and lack of evidence" for Mormonism.  Surely you do not consider mainstream science and technology implausible, so that you must have something else in mind.  Anti-supernarturalist humanists would supposedly be quite at home with a religion which eschews the division between religion and science, not as a strategy devised by an L. Ron Hubbard, but as a direct reflection of ancient Israelite religion.  Perhaps you are unaware of the stark dichotomy between normative Jewish-Christian-Muslim dogma (and their supernatural accretions) and ancient biblical dogma.  Do you realize that they jettisoned their base?  As non-Mormon Ernst Benz said:

 

Regardless of how one feels about the doctrine of progressive deification, one thing is certain: Joseph Smith=s anthropology of man is closer to the concept of man in the primitive church than that of the proponents of the Augustinian doctrine of original sin, who considered the idea of such a fundamental and corporeal relationship between God and man as the quintessential heresy.[1]

[1] ADer Mensch als Imago Dei,@ in Eranos Jahrbuch 40 (1971), and also published in Urbild und Abbild: Der Mensch und die mythische Welt: gesammelte Eranos-Beitrage (Leiden: Brill, 1974), 326,

 

Man mag zu dieser Lehre von der progressiven Vergottung stehen wie man will, eines ist sicher, Joseph Smith steht mit dieser seiner Anthropologie der altkirchlichen Anschauung vom Menschen näher als die Vorkämpfer der augustinischen Erbsündenlehre, die den Gedanken an einen so wesenhaften Zusammenhang zwischen Gott und Mensch als die eigentliche Haeresie betrachtet haben.

 

English version in Benz, AImagio Dei: Man in the Image of God,@ in T. Madsen, ed., Reflections on Mormonism (Provo, 1978), 201-219.

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Intelligence is the ability to acquire and use skills. A characteristic of intelligence is thus the capacity to learn, reason, think, and make and apply decisions. Scientific evidence to this point shows that only living things have intelligence. Science investigation shows that only from living intelligent things do we find any evidence of intelligence in nature. In fact, no law in nature itself can produce intelligence from a non life source. This is a basic constant in nature- one of its many laws. Intelligence doesnt nor cannot just arise from any sequence of non intelligent events, even if on the surface they may appear intelligent.

 

I don't think you can say this is a basic scientific fact since it would not be hard list hundreds scientists who think the oppostie. In fact, the branch of science the explicitly deals with intelligence as such is cognitive science. I think that most if not all cognitive scientists accept both the evolutionary take on the origins of intelligence (there is even a very active and fruitful area known as evolutionary cognitive science (google the phrase). It is also a basic working assumption in the field that artificial intelligence is possible.  A popular expositor of this scientific way of thinking is Douglas Hofstader.

 

You assert that "no law in nature itself can produce intelligence from a non life source" is a basic law of nature and yet I have never ever seen it asserted as such in any field. Indeed, I don't know of a single prominent cognitive scientist, biologist, or neurologist who has made such an assertion even as an opinion let alone as a basic "law".

 

No, I am sure you just pulled that one out of thin air or are repeating it from some religiously oriented source.

 

It isn't a law at all and I am quite sure it isn't true.   We did evolve after all.

 

By the way, the ability to acquire and use skills is an entriely external objective criterion. Either an entity (bird, man, or robot) can do it or not. It is odd that you give that definition and then hedge your bets by saying that something might just appear to do it (true Scottsman fallacy?). Either the entity sucessfully navigates the environment or it doesn't.

 

Well at least you aren't going with the eternal prexistent substance version of intelligence. That one just never gets off the ground due to a fatal lack of clarity. I have no idea what they are talking about.

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I don't think you can say this is a basic scientific fact since it would not be hard list hundreds scientists who think the oppostie. In fact, the branch of science the explicitly deals with intelligence as such is cognitive science. I think that most if not all cognitive scientists accept both the evolutionary take on the origins of intelligence (there is even a very active and fruitful area known as evolutionary cognitive science (google the phrase). It is also a basic working assumption in the field that artificial intelligence is possible.  A popular expositor of this scientific way of thinking is Douglas Hofstader.

 

You assert that "no law in nature itself can produce intelligence from a non life source" is a basic law of nature and yet I have never ever seen it asserted as such in any field. Indeed, I don't know of a single prominent cognitive scientist, biologist, or neurologist who has made such an assertion even as an opinion let alone as a basic "law".

 

No, I am sure you just pulled that one out of thin air or are repeating it from some religiously oriented source.

 

It isn't a law at all and I am quite sure it isn't true.   We did evolve after all.

 

By the way, the ability to acquire and use skills is an entriely external objective criterion. Either an entity (bird, man, or robot) can do it or not. It is odd that you give that definition and then hedge your bets by saying that something might just appear to do it (true Scottsman fallacy?). Either the entity sucessfully navigates the environment or it doesn't.

 

Well at least you aren't going with the eternal prexistent substance version of intelligence. That one just never gets off the ground due to a fatal lack of clarity. I have no idea what they are talking about.

One can think and believe that intelligence arose on its own from nature in a series of small sequential events from non intelligent processes and chemical interactions. Problem is however- at this point its merely a fable, a fairytale with no scientific backing.

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One can think and believe that intelligence arose on its own from nature in a series of small sequential events from non intelligent processes and chemical interactions. Problem is however- at this point its merely a fable, a fairytale with no scientific backing.

You're talking about abiogenesis.  That's a whole different topic. 

Edited by Rivers
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I'm not sure why you cite such irrelevant arguments.  They have nothing to do with my contention, which you really ought to reread, before jumping to your mainstream attack on mainstream, supernatural religious ideology.  Normative Muslims, Christians, and Jews do have very vulnerable dogmas, which is probably why you trot out this nonsense, thinking wrongly perhaps that Mormonism has the same theological and theoretical base.

 

You need to more carefully study the positions of anti-religious scientists like Richard Dawkins on the existence of advanced, "godlike" entities in our universe, before spouting off.  Haven't we discussed this before?  You learned nothing previously?

 

Mormonism is an entirely naturalistic and humanistic religion, even though few Mormons have any idea what that might mean.  You seem altogether unfamiliar with that fact.

 

That is not my contention at all. My contention is that ALL religions deal with the Supernatural. What happens after we die. Science has no way to test ANY such ideas. Other than our bodies rot away to dust. Mormon's are not Christians? Here I thought that for the last 185 years we've been trying to convince the world that we are that.

 

I'm no fan of Mr. Dawkins' atheism. But his science is right on. Science can not use some Godlike creature or force and still be science. Sure there MAYBE such in a universe of hundreds of billions of stars in hundreds of billions of galaxies that have existed for about the last 14 billion years.. Obviously it is you that have learned nothing. Such arrogant ignorance can be amusing in young children, but I really don't appreciate it in an adult.

 

Mormonism for all its strengths is NOT naturalistic in the way that science uses the term.

Science is Agnostic

SEE

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That is not my contention at all. My contention is that ALL religions deal with the Supernatural. What happens after we die. Science has no way to test ANY such ideas. Other than our bodies rot away to dust. Mormon's are not Christians? Here I thought that for the last 185 years we've been trying to convince the world that we are that.

 

I'm no fan of Mr. Dawkins' atheism. But his science is right on. Science can not use some Godlike creature or force and still be science. Sure there MAYBE such in a universe of hundreds of billions of stars in hundreds of billions of galaxies that have existed for about the last 14 billion years.. Obviously it is you that have learned nothing. Such arrogant ignorance can be amusing in young children, but I really don't appreciate it in an adult.

 

Mormonism for all its strengths is NOT naturalistic in the way that science uses the term.

Science is Agnostic

SEE

Eugenie Scott is an atheist and that clouds her judgment.

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Eugenie Scott is an atheist and that clouds her judgment.

 

So what?

 

Dr. Kenneth Miller is a Theist.

Dr. Francis Collins is a Theist.

Charles Darwin was a Theist.

 

ALL these Mormon scientists accept evolution, and are still Theists.

Jonathan Adjimani – Biochemistry, University of Ghana

Alan C. Ashton – Computer Science, Private Industry

David H. Bailey – Mathematics, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory

Emily Bates – Genetics, Brigham Young University

Jeffrey M. Bradshaw – Cognitive Science, Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, Florida

Laura Clarke Bridgewater – Molecular Biology, Brigham Young University

Barry Brocas – Mathematics Education, Massey University, New Zealand

John M. Butler – Forensic DNA, U.S. National Institute for Standards and Technology

James W. Cannon – Mathematics, Brigham Young University

Douglas M. Chabries – Electrical Engineering, Brigham Young University

David L. Clark – Geology, University of Wisconsin, Madison

James Joshua Claus – Applied Research, Park City, Utah

Carol Anne Clayson – Meteorology, Florida State University

Mark Clayson – Astronomy and Engineering, Private Industry

Paul Alan Cox – Ethnobotany, Institute for Ethnomedicine

R. Kent Crookston – Plant Physiology and Agronomy, Brigham Young University

Banyan Acquaye Dadson – Organic Chemistry, University of Cape Coast, Ghana

James Dunlop – Plant Physiology, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, New Zealand

Henry Eyring – Chemistry, University of Utah

Bruce K. Gale – Bioengineering, University of Utah

Bruce K. Gale (Japanese) – Bioengineering, University of Utah

Richard D. Gardner – Molecular and Cellular Biology, Southern Virginia University

B. Kent Harrison – Mathematical Physics, Brigham Young University

Michael “Larkin” Hastriter – Electrical and Computer Engineering, United States Air Force

Ron Hellings – Theoretical Physics, Montana State University

Douglas J. Henderson – Chemistry and Physics, Academia and Private Industry

A. Scott Howe – Systems Engineering, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (California Institute of Technology and NASA)

John Howell – Physics, University of Rochester

Todd E. Humphreys – Aerospace Engineering, University of Texas at Austin

M. Lynn James – Chemistry, University of Northern Colorado

Hollis R. Johnson – Astronomy, Indiana University

Benjamin R. Jordan – Geology, Brigham Young University-Idaho

Bart J. Kowallis – Geology, Brigham Young University

Philip D. LaFleur – Chemistry, Government and Industry and Academia

Milton L. Lee – Chemistry, Brigham Young University

John S. Lewis – Planetary Sciences, University of Arizona and Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Don L. Lind – Nuclear Physics and Astronautics, NASA and Utah State University

Jeff Lindsay – Chemical Engineering, Private Industry

Philip S. Low – Chemistry, Purdue University

Joseph Lynn Lyon – Epidemiology, University of Utah

Tony Martinez – Computer Science, Brigham Young University

James Matis – Statistics, Texas A&M University

Michael Matthews – Mathematics Education, University of Nebraska at Omaha

Matthew Memmott – Nuclear Science and Engineering, Private Industry

Wade E. Miller – Geology and Paleontology, Brigham Young University

J. Ward Moody – Astronomy and Astrophysics, Brigham Young University

J. Ward Moody (Japanese) – Astronomy and Astrophysics, Brigham Young University

Todd K. Moon – Electrical and Computer Engineering, Utah State University

Alexander B. Morrison – Nutrition and Pharmacology, University of Guelph (Ontario) and Public Service

C. Riley Nelson – Biology, Brigham Young University

T. Heath Ogden – Biology, Utah Valley University

Noel L. Owen – Chemistry, Brigham Young University

Dula Parkinson – Chemistry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Ryan L. Parr – Human Genetics, Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada

Ugo A. Perego – Population Genetics, Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation

Lawrence L. Poulsen – Biochemistry, University of Texas at Austin

Darin Ragozzine – Astrophysics, University of Florida

Thorsten Ritz – Biophysics, University of California, Irvine

Thorsten Ritz (Japanese) – Biophysics, University of California, Irvine

Angela M. Berg Robertson – Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, University of Houston Center for Neuromotor and Biomechanics Research

Charles W. Rogers – Physics, Southwestern Oklahoma State University

Frank B. Salisbury – Plant Physiology, Utah State University

Lynn H. Slaugh – Chemistry, Private Industry

L. Douglas Smoot – Chemical Engineering, Brigham Young University

Larry St. Clair – Biology, Brigham Young University

Trent D. Stephens – Anatomy and Embryology, Idaho State University

Peter Stopher – Transport Planning and Engineering, University of Sydney, Australia

Joseph William Stucki – Soil and Clay Chemistry, University of Illinois

Douglass F. Taber – Organic Chemistry, University of Delaware

James E. Talmage – Geology, University of Utah

Jason A. Tullis – Geosciences, University of Arkansas

Jamie Turner – Metallurgical and Materials Engineering / Engineering Systems, Houston, Texas

Dan Vassilaros – Chemistry, Private Industry

Matt Walters – Structural Engineering, Private Industry

Barry M. Willardson – Biochemistry, Brigham Young University

Amy Williams – Harvard University, Computer Science and Genetics

Peter Wöllauer – Chemistry, Bavaria, Germany

Jeffrey C. (“Jeff”) Wynn – Geophysics, U.S. Geological Survey

Lei Yang – Environmental Engineering, National Sun Yat-sen University, Taiwan

Craig M. Young – Marine Biology, University of Oregon and Oregon Institute of Marine Biology

Tom Yuill – Biology, University of Wisconsin

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