Hellbender

we are still discussing dragons from a mythological standpoint, right? Good. In most pictures of dragons I have seen there is a glaring problem, besides that they have 3 sets of flimbs, is that where are the flight muscles supposedly attached? All I see is batlike wings thrown on a bulky dragon body. It would take some big muscles and bones for their attachment for the things to even try and fly.

I am agreed that we need to know what we are studying before anyone even tries to. I am a hard skeptic about this kind of stuff, so i doubt there is anything there.

Thats good to hear. Its good to see something like an alligator, which many people don't seem to like particularly get the same treatment of a "cute" animal like a giant panda.

yeah, but the gombessa is not the only extant sarcopterygian, 2 families of lungfish are still alive too.

One thing I would like to quickly point out is that the bible (before any creationists decide to start a flame war with this) has been used to support racism in the past, as it probably still is by the KKK. Racists will usually find any reason they can to justify their belief. I could see how the misunderstanding of evolution theory could be used to support racism, becasue people tended to have a misconception about evolution being a "ladder" of "inferior" species under "superior" ones, and arbiratrarily assumed that whites were superior and say, native americans, were inferior.

first you have to accept that dragons have the possibility of having been real. All tetrapods have 4 limbs, and evolution has resulted in some flying animals (bats, pterosaurs, birds, to be exact) with the gradual modification of the forelimbs into usable wings, and other adaptations that enable them to fly, such as hollow bones and the like. So even if dragons were real, they would not have forelimbs, but instead have wings and hind legs. Another thing to consider is that all the idead of mythical dragons I have seen don't seem to have the ideal bodies for flight. Simply having wings doesn't guarantee it will be able to fly well, numerous adaptations must exist as well.

Really? I knew their status was critical, but this is really bad. What efforts are currently being made to help these alligators?

they were quite similar. And I don't have any doubts that the same issues will undoubtedly arise, you hit it there.

I know this is a bit delayed, but do you know if there are any pictures online of this? I will try to google it too, if I can figure out what to search for. Thanks.

Actually, both. Naturl selection is the environment acting on random mutations.

Didn't quite think so

Very true, especially when speaking of science.

blike, are you saying that this may be YEC propaganda? That article was quite to the first one about Tyrannosaurus blood.

@#%@$ semantics!

that must be it. Good catch if you are right, Phi.

at any rate, does this topic truly belong in the evolution forum?

I know this is a little late (don't be mad ) but here is that neandertal article http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7153332/

I would think that for guys like this, they would be afraid of glasses being interpreted as a sign of weakness.

there is an enviro-sci forum already. If you really want a atmospheric forum, you should probably try a poll to see how many other users would like one too, then maybe an admin will make one.

My brain hurts....

yup. Some people tend to even have a hostile view of science.

gotcha.

Since all vertebrate embryos start out as female, and female mammals of course have nipples, it makes sense that male mammals will retain vestigial nipples becasue they are pretty much neutral. I can't imagine in how they could relate to human copulation....

true and true. my point is that although the spurs on boids didn't evolve for the purpose of copulation, they still find use for them.

No glasses for me, but my vision seems to get worse and worse every year. I guess I would look quite sophisticated with them though. Plus my girlfriend can't wait for me to get them.....