spuriousmonkey

In human teeth the crown is formed first and then the root during development. Once your done with your crown you can't make it any longer (unless under special circumstances) If you want a long canine there are basically two solutions. 1. You grow a long crown early during development and a normal root. 2. You grow a short crown early during development and make a long root. Option number 2 you can see in for instance the tusks of the elephant. Only the tip is covered with enamel (=crown). The rest is dentin and cementum, which translates into root. Moreover the tusk is a special tooth since it actually grows forever. What happens in gorillas? I'm not sure, but I am guessing no.1. (educated guess). I've never heard reports that the visible part of the canines of gorillas are subdivided in a crown and root domain. It would be easy to see.

It was probably more than 5 times. I haven't read it lately because someone borrowed my copy and never returned it. Why do you read a book more than once? The above statement is very correct and it is quite an enjoyable book. At least that is my opinion.

I have read it about 5 times. I found it easy to read. And it probably gives a better insight in the nature of evolution than a modern textbook, since these are poluted with compromises.

if we wouldn't have useless science we would have to find other jobs for all these highly trained scientists who are incapable of doing real work. Imagine thousands of unemployed nerds with nothing on their hands. Let's say that half has access to a computer...hell will brake lose. The other half will probably be a nuisance to society in another destructive way, hindering all the nice normal people to do their normal business. Without useless science there would be anarchy.

you could also answer the question 'why do men have nipples' with 'why wouldn't men have nipples.'

i guess the timeframe can be an issue if you would ask the question. Was the creation of life a straightforward inevitable event or not? The longer it takes for the first life to appear the more likely the possibility is that the chances for life to occur are lower than we previously thought. It is more like a small shift of perspective than a new idea blossoming.

i'm not in this field of research, therefore I relied upon a popular science journal for this information: New scientist 27 february 2003 page 28-31 'proof of life' but apparently there is some dissent about the nature of these first microfossils.

it seems to me that some general knowledge is lacking the present generation. I don't know whoto blame though.

ok..i will digress a bit into politics to make you all feel better. isn't it strange that we have now the model in which they show that the democratic model works best for making decisions in animals groups, but still people would like to reduce the amount of voters for several reasons. One of which is that most voters in their opinion are stupid. But it seems that to have a succesful society you should maybe not only include even more voters (children for instance), but maybe we should also let everybody vote on everything. The effect is that all the radical decisions are buried, or as one might see it, that no real decisions are made ever. And not making decisions might be best for everybody (scientifically speaking)

people are starting to doubt this notion, because there is uncertainty now that the earliest microfossils are really microfossils. Instead they are just remnants of the primoridial soup. The first real genuine known microfossils are therefore not from around 3.8 billion years ago, but something like 2.7 billion years. If this is true than life didn't just appear. It took actually quite some time. About 1.5 billion years since permissive conditions for life arose.

did we confuse politics with science suddenly?

the research seems to not favor your opinion though.

if you pay me I will post more....

do animals have governments?

interesting... but what if it was not the brain size threshhold that mattered, but what if you need a certain sized group of ants before you can subdivide the workload meaningfully and therefore creat some order... Before the group reaches a certain size there is no point to organize the group...when you reach a certain size an equilibrium is created (maybe based on chemical/pheromone equilibria) in which functions become clear to an ant. i probably made myself totally unclear now... anyhoo...just a thought...

Homosexuality can also be induced by environment. As we all might know the rate homosexual contact increases in an all-male environment. For some reason some people do not want to classify this as homosexual, because the 'perpetrators' might revert back to good old-fashioned heterosexuality once returned to a mixed society. If we would, however, use similar standards for scientific research (exclude situations we don't like to include) we would be really bad researchers. Hence my position is that homosexuality is to a large degree also dictated by environment and is not by any means fixed in the sexual nature of a person, although there is a large class of people who's homosexuality does seems to be 'fixed'.

it is just my opinion of course, but I seriously doubt that immortality is around the corner...so therefore I cannot answer the poll seriously, but I would probably like to live longer if the quality of life was garanteed

the main reason not to accept evolution is probably because people are too afraid to accept that we are an integral part of nature and therefore not special or exceptional. we are a strange sort of animal though, because we have reached some kind of intelligence that hovers between stupidity and insightful. Unfortunately with this level of intelligence we have managed to invent the microwave and sliced bread and therefore do not have to elvolve our intelligence any further. If we had we might have accepted our natural position in the grand scheme of things.

just curious: how is this forum financed...in the other forum they were always bitching about not paying the monthly fee for an avatar and signature of 2.99 a month. It seems like you don't have any problem with providing a 'free' avatar.

i'm confused and maybe i misunderstood you, but... who says that we have more voluntary control over micturation and defecation than other animals??? a dog sniffs a tree....finds the scent suitable and pees...a dog is being locked up in a room and only relieves himself after hours and hours of waiting for its master to take him out. Years ago I walk past a leopard in a cage in a zoo and he sprays me with urine at the exact moment I was in reach (yes...funny). it seems like some animals have quite a lot of control on this wonderful bodily functions that are the cornerstone of life. genotypes do not always have phenotypes and therefore you might not see any phenotype of useless genes. If a gene is useless it can still be harmless and that would exclude any active selection against it. And we may not know the function of certain phenotypes, but this doesn't mean they have no function. as for the voluntary control on defecation and micturation it is clear that these functions are quite important. Especially in a social group it might be important to have control over these functions and also for the hygiene of yourself and the group.

and the jury is still out on if there is actually intelligent life on this planet...

but mine is 100*100 an still works...? automatic scaling? or did i brake a law? i could still make it 80*80 if required

i started coming here because I am a bit disappointed with sciforums... they somehow don't seem to appreciate actual researchers or intellectual debate...especially if they use up precious bandwith for mindless chatter.

here you are: Group decision-making in animals L. Conradt, T. J. Roper SUMMARY: Groups of animals often need to make communal decisions, for example about which activities to perform, when to perform them and which direction to... CONTEXT: ...extensive literature on decision-making by animals acting alone, group decision-making processes have been largely neglected from a theoretical point of view. Two extreme mechanisms whereby a group could in principle reach communal...... Nature421, 155 - 158 (09 Jan 2003) Letters to Nature

i was browsing an old 'Nature' a bit and my eye fell on an interesting paper entitled 'Group decision-making in animals.' They modelled the 'fitness-consequences' for 2 basic decision making principles. Despotism and democracy. As you can see this sort of information could also be useful for us to know. Which social model would actually result in the most favourable decisions for everybody. guess what? The costs were considerably higher for the groupmembers under the despotism model. The democratic decision model was more favourable not because every individual has influence on the decision, but because they tend to produce less extreme decisions.