mistermack

Nothing specific to answer with then. I thought as much. Basically, you're just blustering and googling. I'm not wasting my time any further.

I note that you haven't made one specific argument against the notion you've taken exception to. Just linking other speculation doesn't cut it. This is a forum for discussion, and your best argument is to post a few speculative links to other peoples' hypotheses. Which you incorrectly labelled "existing knowledge". Why haven't you demolished what I wrote, with your own rebuttal in your own words? I would appreciate that rather more than your failed attempt to talk down to me.

You're using a lot of words to state the obvious. You'd have to be an idiot to imagine that canines were not used for eating. The fact remains that it's incredibly obvious that if females have regular canines, and males have extremely enlarged canines, then the difference is nothing to do with food. And the papers that you linked are of course based on the authors' speculation, which you so vehemently disapprove of. Speculation and argument put in a paper, with supporting material, is still speculation. You need to be a bit more consistent. My own speculation matches the facts rather well. Upright apes freed their hands which allowed them to wield a weapon, to greater effect than a Chimp could. Chimps have been recorded using weapons, but they don't have the two-footed agility that a bipedal ape would. The earliest stone choppers have been found, when viewed under strong microscopes, to have fragments of fossil wood embedded in the edge. Pretty good evidence of woodworking, and cutting and sharpening wooden weapons is among the likeliest explanations. Of course that's speculation. So is every other proposal. And I note that you haven't linked anything better. The one about mechanical efficiency of jaws is laughable. Has nobody told the Gorillas ?

You're not averse to a bit of speculation. You made the claim that diet is known to shape the need to maintain the canines. That's a silly claim, considering that males and females would be eating the same stuff, but males had big canines, and females didn't. Unless you are claiming otherwise, and I'd like to see your evidence for that.

If dogs go feral, and have no breeding influence from humans, they revert to a wolf-like phenotype fairly quickly. This is the Australian dingo. It's very like the Asiatic Wolf :

Their dead victims don't need any shoes, and a lot of the surviving victims can't afford them. And they won't be walking many miles. At it's narrow point, the Gaza strip is only 3.5 miles wide, and it's only 25 miles long.

The big canines on most apes and monkeys are for male-male intimidation and fighting, not eating. This is obvious in Gorillas, Chimps and Baboons etc, as well as the pre-human fossils, because males have much bigger canines than females. It really isn't much of a surprise, that at the time that tool use, and presumably weapons too, was increasing, the canines started shrinking.

I don't expect better from Israel. You need to be blind, deaf and illiterate to expect better, with their record. I expect them to lie and lie, while continuing their program of theft and ethnic cleansing. And yes, the US does some good round the world. However, it also does incredible harm round the world. The balance is hugely negative. Whereas I'm not aware of harm done by Mexico to others.

Jonathan Sacks ( former top Rabbi ) has just accused Corbyn of making the most offensive remarks since Enoch Powell. Since reality has gone right out of the window, I'm naming Donald Trump as the new Messiah.

So wtf is he doing here ?

To be honest, you are picking nits like a pro. I'm confident most people get what I'm saying. As I mentioned earlier, if you want to pick the nits out of every word, you've got a life's work ahead of you, on a chat forum. When I write no carbon fixation, I'm not claiming absolute zero, I'm opining no significant carbon fixation. I operate on a "think post - write post" system, and don't really give a toss if the wording is less than 100 percent. If the average man should get it, that's fine by me. As for the other potential problems you pointed out, it would be pointless going into them. In that kind of industry, the only way to find out what works and what doesn't is to try it. Over the years, systems get improved and fine tuned. Farming the land has all sorts of problems. We still do it. The world population the day I was born was 2.5 billion. Today it's 7 billion. So the food requirement has tripled in my lifetime. More so, because people eat more now than they did then. So I think farming the ocean is necessary and inevitable. It's just a question of economics and prices, and supply and demand, that will decide when it happens on a big scale.

But I didn't say sterile, and I didn't say dead zones. What I said was that most of the oceans is desert. Which matches pretty well with "(The vast middle portions of the oceans, which naturally have little life, I'm sure most people will get the general idea of what I'm saying. You have vast areas that do not produce much life at all, that could be very productive, with a little prodding. Since the oceans account for about 2/3 of the Earth's surface, there is probably about 1/2 of the planet that's just absorbing solar energy, and fixing no carbon, and producing no food. You could be doing both, with this type of system. If this type of fish farming could be made to pay, it would reduce the pressure on wild stocks and make cheaper food available to the world.

I have to agree. There's nothing in it for Dawkins, to argue a case that can't be proved either way, in a discipline in which he has no expertise. He argues against the existence of Gods. It really doesn't matter to that argument whether there was a man at the root of Christianity or not. His position would be, if there was, he wasn't divine, he was just a man. If there wasn't, there are no other gods.

Don't take my word for it : First paragraph, Wikipedia "Dead Zone" page : Dead zones are hypoxic (low-oxygen) areas in the world's oceans and large lakes, caused by "excessive nutrient pollution from human activities coupled with other factors that deplete the oxygen required to support most marine life in bottom and near-bottom water. (NOAA)".[2] In the 1970s oceanographers began noting increased instances of dead zones. These occur near inhabited coastlines, where aquatic life is most concentrated. (The vast middle portions of the oceans, which naturally have little life, are not considered "dead zones".

You've got to admire Jews who can see past the smokescreen. This is from Wikipedia on "antisemitism in the Labour Party" : " In addition, a number of Jewish groups in the Labour Party have disputed the antisemitism claims. These include Jewish Voice for Labour, Jews for Justice for Palestinians and the Jewish Socialists' Group; all of whom have said that accusations of antisemitism against the Labour Party have a twofold purpose. Firstly to conflate antisemitism with criticism of Israel in order to deter such criticism and secondly to undermine the Labour leadership since Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader in 2015 ". Presumably, these Jews are antisemitic, they make the same argument as me !

Dead zones are totally different. They occur is deep water, at and near the bottom, and are not a feature of surface water, or of the vast areas of open ocean. It's usually run-off from agricultural land and sewage that causes it. The ocean desert areas are vast, and not generally oxygen depleted. In any case, it's the surface layer that would be in use, not the deepest layer at the bottom. The seeding experiments proved that it works. But without that, natural upwellings from the deep also show that it works, as you get extremely productive fisheries where that happens. In the system I'm proposing, it would be very easy to regulate the level of deep-water nutrient that you add to the surface layer, and avoid blooms that could be harmful.

Well, I think you've forgotten where these posts are. This is a thread on a forum, not a textbook. And the subject is "why only out of Africa?" and I'm simply pointing out that Africa itself is probably not the significant factor, but our interaction with our peers probably was. I'm simply sticking to the point of the thread. In the case of Australopithecus, it could be that the canines became redundant, once males began using weapons, but body size was still an advantage. Or even that females preferred males with smaller canines, and that took effect once the fighting advantage of big canines was nullified by using weapons. Once we became bipedal, the nature of fights would be likely to change, and it's unlikely that Australopithecus could have survived without skills with weapons. A newly bipedal ape would have been very slow off the mark, and a lesser climber. They would need males with weapons to survive life out of the trees.

I think it's nit picking a bit. What I said was accurate. We all need others of our species to pass on our genes. I was simply pointing out that the external environment is necessarily number two in importance, something that a lot of people don't seem to get. It's the stress on the external environment for influences that I was pointing at. It's not the be-all and end-all of evolution. And it's not just your own species. Very often, things evolve in response to other species. Like the pronghorn antelope was a bit of a mystery, till they discovered the fossils of the American Cheetah, explaining what was forcing the pronghorn to evolve such speed. I'm just saying that the word environment really includes everything, and your own species is usually at the fore.

It could be useful, in the sense that if you want to explain some feature of an animal, it pays not just look at the environment, without including others of the same species. If you take humans as an example, and look at our ancestors 7 million years ago, the fossils show very long canines in males, and a male body size of twice that of females. That all makes sense, if our ancestors lived in family groups like those of gorillas, where one dominant male monopolises a harem of females. So you can tell something about how they interacted by looking at the bones. Sexual dimorphism on that scale is always an indicator of a harem type grouping, as in Gorillas, Lions, Baboons, Sea Lions etc. Our canines shrank, and male/female size ratio also shrank, and that indicated a shift in the male/female relationship, from harems to bonded pairings. On the subject of this thread, I think it's most likely that we evolved the big brain to successfully negotiate relationships and alliances in a dangerous and violent system of communal living. Rather than in response to any more conventional environmental stimulus.

Well, you can probably quote exceptions, but in general, your own species is the most important part of your life. Especially for mammals, which are cared for from birth by a mother. Even mammals that are often thought of as solitary, have a lot of interaction with others beneath the surface. Male Tigers might be thought of as solitary, but they needed their mother for a couple of years, and learn to fight and hunt in play with their siblings. Also, when adult, they try to maintain a territory overlapping with several females, and often get killed defending it. Lots of mammals are territorial, such as Humans, Lions, Tigers, Gorillas, Wolves, Hyenas etc. And of course, what is a territory, but some area that you defend from others of your own kind. Going through random animals in my head, very few could be considered truly solitary. Snakes maybe, once reproduction is over. But not all snakes. Maybe some birds. But other birds are territorial, and sing and fight to keep what they have. Others live in flocks, and reproduce in colonies. Others mate for life with the one partner. Which is the most important part of life.

Neanderthals and Denisovans died out as a separate species because of the last major glaciation making their homes unlivable. They were so reduced in numbers that they just got outbred and interbred by the incoming modern humans, who came up in bigger numbers from the south. Maybe modern humans wiped out the competition, but I doubt it myself, as we have that dna from them showing that we interbred. We do have a record of wiping out some of our own species in war, so I suppose it happened with Neanderthals and Denisovans in small scale conflicts, in similar ways. Dolphins are not really ahead of Chimpanzees in the mental stakes, and even if they evolved language skills to match ours, they haven't got the manual dexterity to get into advanced tool use. So why didn't other species evolve mental abilities to our level? I think it's because we are freaks, and it's a mystery why WE did. I think there's probably an upper level that species reach, and generally there's no advantage in going any higher. (mentally). Gorillas, Orangutans, Chimps and Bonobos have stayed static for the last 7 million years. We didn't. I think they are the norm, and we are the freaks.

I would say a freakish species, certainly not miracle. Would you call Chimpanzees a miracle species? We have greater mental gifts than Chimps, maybe freakishly so, but not miraculously so. On the face of it, the difference is enormous. But that's mostly down to the evolution of language. If we didn't have language, we would probably be living in much the same way as Chimps are, even with our bigger brains. If you can't learn through language, you are restricted to copying what you see. It wouldn't have got us very far. There have been other species of humans, alongside our own ancestors. We weren't alone. It's just that all the others have died out, such as Neanderthals, Denisovans, Hobbits etc. Although modern humans have dna from the first two, indicating we interbred before they died out.

I've read corinthians 1 once now, and it's not very impressive. The overwhelming general feeling of it, as in the rest of the epistles that I've read, is that it's all coming out of his own head. It's just his own views on what's "holy" and good. Maybe that's the reason he says nothing about a real Jesus, he's too self-obsessed. What of interest comes out of Corinthians 1? From memory, firstly the Shroud of Turin has to be a forgery. Paul is so adamant that women must grow their hair long, and men must keep it short, that there's not a chance in hell that a real Jesus would have had long hair. (Althought that was yet another chance for him to mention the real Jesus which he passed on). It would have been so much easier for him to say, "Men should have short hair, like Jesus" but he didn't. Corinthians 1: 11 : 11 "Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?" Then of course, Paul doesn't preach forgiveness of sinners, like Jesus, but shunning of sinners. "Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person" The message of forgiveness had obviously not reached him. And "sinners" included both effeminate men and gay men. Which is another indication of what he would have thought of a long-haired Jesus. Drunkards too should be shunned. When it comes to any actual detail, Paul is very guarded. In Corinthians 15:3 he says : "For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;" In other words, he's saying, "this is how it was told to me". He's hedging his bets. He's really saying, "don't blame me if it turns out to be crap, I'm just telling you what they told me! " And then he carries on : " And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: 5 And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: 6 After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. 7 After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles. 8 And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time." So he preceded it with a health warning, and then it was just a list of dubious claims. No detail, no empty tomb, no reference to the supposed gospel that was in circulation. Then in Corinthians 15:12 Paul says this : "Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?" And then he bangs on about how you are wasting your time if Jesus didn't rise from the dead. Surely the perfect moment to list the WEALTH of evidence and testimonials he would have extracted from Peter and James and the hundreds of eye-witnesses he would have met in Jerusalem. But no. He does say in line 14 "And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain." Surely that's the time for pointing out the evidence from the resurrection of the "real" Jesus? I still have some epistles left to read, but they are bloody hard work, and they just come across as a self-important preacher giving his own opinions on what's good and bad. Without even the most cursory reference at all to Jesus's own teaching. Something's definitely not right. Either he didn't meet Peter and James, as he claimed. OR, he did, but he really didn't rate them as credible. Or the whole thing was in flux, gradually moving from a heavenly Jesus to stories of a real Jesus, and Paul didn't trust what he was hearing, so he basically just decided not to mention any details of it, and just to bang on with his own preaching instead.

I don't think there would be the slightest prospect of wind farms affecting hurricanes in any meaningful way. Hurricanes form in deep oceans, whereas you need shallow seas for offshore wind turbines. New types of floating wind turbines are just beginning to be deployed, but you would still have the problem of getting the power to the shore, so it's not likely that they would be stationed very far from land.

I can think of problems with the idea, but every industry has problems, and they usually get overcome. One problem is how whales and sharks would interact with the system. If you had a big unbroken area, whales could drown if they couldn't surface. Or they could just drive straight through the plastic to get at the fish. But you could leave gaps, if it was a problem, and choose a thickness that didn't get damaged. Also, ocean drift would be a problem, and you would have to either anchor in some way, or use up fuel by towing to keep station. Maybe solar and wind could make a contribution to the power requirements. No reason why not, although it would have to be custom made stuff. But if the system worked, it could carry on working for decades just with maintenance, and could easily be expanded. After all, you might need special equipment, but you would be paying nothing for the real estate. With the potential for carbon fixing, it might even be possible for governments to contribute to costs, as part of the carbon trading schemes.