NavajoEverclear

god i still haven't finished that book, what i've read was interesting. someone told me it was outdated. This is pertaining to a subject which Martin started. beyond the afformented (mentioned?) fragmented thoughts, here is my issue : if the universes evolved it wouldn't really be natural selection would it? whethere a universe were reproductive or not would be irrelelavant to its 'survival', there would be not competition and what else that contitute selection from among others. I suppose inevitably reproductively successful universe would arise, but they really would be no more succesful than their 'primitive ancestors'. I see no reason why any of the universes would get selected in any way. Therefore it really is just sheer luck that we live in the universe we do. What difference is it than random specification of numbers? Then again, as i said i haven't finished the book yet.

this song makes me feel like i'm on cocaine

God martin, way to take the elegance out of anatomy in your first post, but thanks for the info and the compliment. Thanks ye all others too. and JP i wusn trying to be sexist, its just i dont have any particular attractions to masculine features so i wouldn't know which ones to ponder upon. Also the mammaries obviously came first, i dont know what the crap you're trying to say . . . .

In a Devils Chaplain (a collection of Dawkins essays, but i dont recal if this proposition was his own our just something he was discussing) there was an idea put forth that differing physical features of races is due to sexual selection. This evidenced by the fact that two tall people of different races are found to have more genetic common compared to a tall and short person among the same race. I personally think its a case of sexual selection at the aid of natural selection. Those whose skin was best suited to an environment were healthier, more attractive, so sexually selected, thus accelerating natural selection. Only mention this case for the purpose of realizing that sexual selection has had an actual and significant effect on the human species. My observation~~~ it appears that the mammary glands of human females are much larger, and more aesthetically pleasing than the same glands manifested in other apes. They develop beyond what is neccisary for the function of producing milk. My question~~~~~ Is the degree of development of female mammary glands a case of sexual/artistic selection, above and beyond what would have been selected by forces of nature, and practical needs?

wikipedia is the answer to everything

thanks matt (and others), i suspected it was something more along those lines, (simply filtering the harsher noise, rather than really enhancing anything), but i was hoping. Still i think my idea sounds reasonable enough that i could market a product with no scientific proof whatsoever (or with a few shabby tests, and some testimonials). Thats what most of those info-mercial diet pills are, so why cant I?

i was at a loud concert of some sort. The music is so loud it temproraily damages your ears (obviously in the long run more permenantly if exposed too much, but thats not really relevant to the concerning issue). This of coarse makes it harder to hear the music. I realized if i lightly plugged my ears, i was shielded from the full volume, and yet what i did hear seemed to be much clearer music. I wondered if this had to do with the soundwaves using my fingers as antenaes, and since sound travels faster (and more efficiently?) through a solid (my fingers being more solid than air). If that is not in any degree really correct, tell me, but if my deduction is right . . . What if everyone at a concert everyone wore a type of headset, with a plugish type thing placed lightly in the ear, and an antenae of some sort angled toward the musicians (the best length for the antenae would definately have some science involved, cuz if its too large i'm sure that would cause distortion). Would this in effect, give the sound a better medium to travel through, thus enhancing the experience? Well tell me what you think---- is there any potential in the idea, or do i deserve to be eliminated from the gene pool?

aha, thank you. i dont think i can say i know of that movie. i'll have to check it out

eh?

reminds me of upanishads

i know

Did plants which produce chemicals with medical uses to animals, including to humans, evolve toward having such uses, because that would increase their chance of being preserved? it seems too convenient that a plant would make things that have any use to animals, (except food because in that case i think it was the animals that had to adapt to make use of what is available to eat), such as being pollenated, and in the case of humans, cultivated (far as i know there arent other animals that deliberately plant things). Well please enlighten me cause i am very interested if the answer is known

i think it is ok to put this here instead of relgion, because my question is strictly physical. In fact i wont even mention the Nazarene. . . . well at least its out of my system now. Would the body of a victim of crucifixion cross the theshold of pain and go into shock?

oh god yes is oversimplifications drive me insane. He makes so many statements without backing them up, and then referrs to mountains of evidence, that he implies he'll address and show us later . . . . but he doesn't. I do think his idea of space viruses is neat, but it'd be better if he stuck to science fiction. He's too sure of himself to be a scientist

I sorta have another thread on this subject, but i probably babbled so much that people lost interest and thus i got no replies, so here i will be more brief. Fred Hoyle said that on the rare occasion that an individual in a species has an advantageous mutation, that it has no effect on evolution because the rest of the population cancels it out. Its just too rare and thus there is nothing for natural selection to build on. I know i've heard this creationist idea before, and am quite sure there is a logical way to dispell it (else would not the theory of evolution been thrown out long ago?). I however do not recall what the counterpoint is. could someone kindly help me with this one?

baby. his genes dont change as he grows, so he must be who he is at birth.

lord i wish Sir Hoyle were still around so i could ask him some questions. I'm getting farther through his book, (which is in large print, with pictures, so its not a great feat). His theory that virus come from space (far as i can tell he has no explanation of where THEY evolved, or whatever) to implant earth with new genes, while interesting, i'm having trouble accepting as entirely plausible. I mean he claims natural selection is so improbable, and yet he excpects this short of a book about this crackpot theory to be MORE probable? He deserves to be wrong just for being such a lazy ass. Fine if he wants to challenge a couple hundred years of evolutionary theory, but he at least aught to do some goddamn work to proove how stable his idea supposedly is. a hell a lot of work. The thing i hate most about him though is that he makes a million statements to confirm his theory, and immediatly say this MUST be the way it is, without really backing it up. Isn't there a name for this type of idiotic fallacy? nevertheless he does have few points: * bacteria has been known to survive frozen in space for two years on a probe, then reanimate upon return to earth. *bacteria can suvive insane doses of nuclear radiation, but enzymes will repair itself perfectly * the fog of insterstellar dust has about the same refractive index as bacteria *if bacteria enters the atmosphere at the right angle, it is highly possible for it to reach ground level without damage While i'd like to know more about those points (Jackass Hoyle certainly didn't offer more than a few paragraphs before considering it infallible knowledge), i'm just going to refresh on the main question i have about Hoyle's writing : Hoyle basically claims that the occurance of an adventageous mutation is so rare that it would have no effect on evolution. The little steps that supposedly compose natural selection are so sparse that there is no way for them to build together and make any constructive changes to a species. I figure that if that with all the work done on the theory of evolution, for us to still accept it, there must be a flaw in this claim, if so can someone point it out to me?

I am reading some Fred Hoyle (i'm sorry i thought it was a book on evolution) and am realizing that he is the source of most of creationist defenses, lets call them 'power chords' since theres only a few of them and they play them over and over and still think they sound cool. While being the inventor of these power chords, it is unclear to me whether he is a creationist himself. I have three questions: 1. How can he have been such an influential astronomer, and yet have been such a an apparent spring of bullshit? 2. Fred says : the chance of obtaining the required set of enzymes for even the simplest living cell was one in 10^40,000. Since the number of atoms in the known universe is infinitesimally tiny by comparison (10^80), he argued that even a whole universe full of primordial soup wouldn’t have a chance. Is that true? how did he come to those numbers? 3. And the final point which i am most concerned about, is that he says that random advantageous mutations are so rare, that it is impossible for them to have any effect on evolution. This seems to make sense. I mean i do understand natural selection, but if changes are so small that their minute effect is cancelled out by the sheer numbers of the rest of the population, how do things evolve? even over millions and billions of years.

nope. it happens because it can. but at the same time, it is not pointLESS. it is neither with nor without a purpose, it is what it is.

when did evidence for weilding of fire start showing up? or i guess rather, by interpreting the evidence, around what time do they think humans were successfully using fire

12 Girls Band Malice Mizer Nine Inch Nails AFI Smashing Pumpkins Red Hot Chilli Peppers many more, but if i had to pick a top few, i think that'd be it

when was fire discovered? is the impulse/ability to start fires to some degree evolutionarily ingrained, or was it learned after a certain amount of social order was achieved, and then passed on by teaching? just wondering.

damnit why cant science let me believe in anything exciting. what about captain cooke? everyone knows Captain Cooke cant tell a lie