zeroth

well it is independant but you're statistics are a bit rusty, its much less likely to have multiple children with blue eyes chances of one blue eyed child: 1:2 chances of two blue eyed childs: 1:4 chances of three blue eyed childs: 1:8 chances of four blue eyed childs: 1:16 chances of five blue eyed childs: 1:32

-I love the idea of rapidly changing enviroment, Martin. Also I had been wondering about the cause for dolphin intelligence for a while now, and that explaination seems plausible. -Advanced communication is another good point I never considered. -I don't think i've ever hear anyone defend that point of veiw before, 5614. But it does make sense. -Let me define intelligence here to prevent further debate. The type of intelligence I care about is the kind that developes technology similar to our own. I'm interested if anyone who knows more about how our brains work than I do can point to any other requirements for brains to function like ours. For instance I heard someone say reptiles could of never gotten this smart because their cold-blooded nature required a different type of brain functioning. And I would assume if ants had been larger they would have been more likely to develop an intelligent brain instead of communicating on instincts, the same may be true for birds.

I have very brown hair and very blue eyes. I get alot of comments on how rare it is, but I also have a non-blood related aunt with the same thing.

This is discussed in other threads, but never as the topic. Assumming there is a planet with near-Earth properties and carbon/DNA/photo- or chemo-synthesis based happened the same way as it did here. What possible evolutionary tracts could ultimately end in intelligient life? And how might slightly increased or decreased gravity or temperture affect the possible tracts? What conditions encourage intelligence as an advantage? Does an animal need to benefit from the use of tools, so that it will evolve a brain capable of using tools? And if that is the case than does it need a previous evolutionary force to give hands capable of grasping (like the combination of safety in trees and dangerous ground creatures gave us our hands)? I know some ren's use sticks to get ants like apes do. Does this mean there is a chance for birds to gain intelligence someday too? Will we see birds dropping rocks on prey in the next million years? Would we have stopped getting smarter if we were cold blooded, because there was no evolutionary advantage to a brain that could discover fire? What evolutionary force could drive a water creature to intelligence, even just to the level that dolphins have now? What benefit would thought have to survival in the sea? Looking at every type of creature known from insects to shell-fish what advantagous could intelligence give them? Are insects like ants already on their way to intelligence to excel in ant colony battles. Will ants with bigger brains begin to gain military command skills and kill the dumber ants? What other causes are there both for our own intelligence and that might lead to intelligence for other species in a different enviroment?

No, even assuming things worked out miraculously close to humans on the other planet, I think jordan point is valid. We didn't discover E=mc2 because it was the next logical thing for us to realize. We did it because that's when we happened to be blessed with the talents of Einstein. When you throw in that an alien's perception will lend itself to different research motivations and "obvious" discoveries to us may very well be beyond their conception while other things seem natural to them but noncommonsencical to us. There is virtually no chance history will match up even close.

What if a plant life form was edible to the animals at the time. And the plant used a form of evolutionary adaption we haven't seen on earth. Floating. Plants already have a rigid cell structure with cell walls. If the plant ballooned out it could keep a near vaccum of air inside of it. The cell walls would keep it from getting smashed flat. It would be like a steel zepplin. This would be a vary advantagous adaption if this was a pre-flight evolution. The balloon plant would be free of prey and could slowly obtain minerals from dust and particles in the sky. Some of the dust would inevitably be dead cells from other life and decomposed plant life in the form of top soil eroding. Rich in minerals. Also water can be absorbed during rain storms. Now the balloon plant dominates the skies for a few million years until flying creatures begin evolving. Now there is a need to get above the hieght primitive birds can go. The balloon-plants with the biggest balloon thrive. But in the higher altitude means reduced access to air for respiration. So the balloon-plants adapt an new unseen (to my knowledge) metabolism. They keep a balance of CO2 and Oxygen in their system at all times. Never breathing. It's like those biodomes only its contained within one plant. Now we have a non-breathing plant living off sunlight in the upper atomsphere (or maybe spending only part of their life in the upper atomsphere). Now I think its stretching things to think that any natural life can on it's own can escape gravitational pull, but what if this planet had some strange situtation. Like a moon on an elliptic path gets close enough to this planet to pull some of the air away from the planet on every rotation. Say this only happens on the night side of the planet. The air gets very cold as it is pulled out and mostly falls back to earth but when the balloon plant is gets cold it's density doesn't change (rememeber this balloon is a near vaccuum with a solid container) and it doesn't fall back as fast as the air. Maybe every lunar cycle a 1000 balloon plants are pulled out into space into a stable orbit. Until one evolves that doesn't die from the cold or the heat. Maybe it has grows an insulating membrane of dead matter like we grow hair and it can also shield it from the radiation if nessecary. While enough light still filters through for photosynthesis. It even has billions and billions of dead balloon-plants to feed on for nutrients to create offspring. About the problem of water crystals puncturing things that is a problem for humans, but some life can be safely frozen and thawed. Some frogs for example. I don't remember why, maybe something like higher glucose levels in blood made the crystals rounded. Another adaption might be that the balloon-plant could hibernate on the dark side and awake on the day side like trees do with the seasons now. I'm not an expert. In fact I'm not even good at biology, but it seems like this could possibly happen. I eagerly anticipate your comments.