iglak

you mean the candle light flashlight stuff? ahh... i see... then all i don't get is special relativity (darn, and i thought i understood it!), i need to look it up.

wow! i did not know that. that's interesting.

but the question is why did they get the long necks and tall bodies in the first place, not why it's good now.

i just read it as an "outside reading book" in highschool. one of the few books that i actually wanted to spend the time reading (others are "Harry Potter" and "Ringworld"). btw, is that why you're screen name is demonsthenes?

but that would create a very wide range of hights in giraffes, to the point that it would be physically impossible to mate with the shorter ones simply because they cannot reach. they could gradually evolve taller, but there couldn't be such a huge range within one species. the only reason we have tall people and short people is because at one point in time it WAS an advantage to be taller... or shorter. those mutations did not gradually happen without being selected becaus ethey would have interbred and stayed relatively the same hight. we are interbreeding now and staying relatively the same hight, but we only started interbreeding after the hight variations were selected, which caused there to be such a big gap.

why? i must be misunderstanding something if this is true.

i think it also allows the government to capture and detain anyone suspect of terrorist acts, and keep all information of the capture secret. in effect, erase them from existance for a while (kinda like 1984, but without the brainwash... i hope)

i suppose there would be a way to tell by looking at the star charts and stuff... and understanding and memorzing stonehenge or something...

about the speed of light: we can explain how it works, but we can't explain why. for how it works, look at relativity, and find other posts/threads about it. for how we know... well, that's just what we observed. why?... that can be explained through circular reasoning using relativity. (keyword: "circular reasoining")

of course, it's also always possible that there was a mutation that mass produced growth protiens and horomones, so that it was a giant leap (that could not be very giant in genetic terms) from short to tall. <edit> scratch that, it would be physically impossible for them to mate with the shorter ones.

that could work, but why would longer necks evole away from short necks? if there was no evolutionery advantage, then they would interbreed and likely not change neck lengths by much.

actually, what would the speed of light be relative to you if you were going the speed of light relative to a stationery observer? the speed of light is only able too look like the speed of light to all observers because all observers are going slower than the speed of light, so the light can look that speed if certain visual spacial and temporal (i think that's the word for time-ial) restrictions are put in place. but if you are going the speed of light, the exact speed of light relative to a stationery observer, the light could not look like it was going the speed of light, because it isn't going faster than you. i think you wouldn't be able to move. i think that as one gets infinitely close to the speed of light that length contraction has such a big effect that it would look to you as if you crossed the galaxy in an instant (it would just look like a very short galaxy). so, if you were going the exact speed of light, then it would appear to you as if the universe was nothing. you wouldn't be able to percieve it since it would be going by you all at once (i thought of a mathematical term for this before: "everything"). thus, you would never be able to stop. since you can't even move... in graphical terms, easier to understand: think of a line that stretches to infinity, and put markers on it at specific intervals. the faster you go, the closer the markers get together, but since the line is infinitely long, you just keep seeing it forever. as you approach the speed of light, the markers get infinitely closer, so that the line looks like 2d versions of the markers stacked on top of eachother with absolutely no space inbetween, but the line is still infinitely long. at the point you reach the speed of light, the infinite line becomes nothing. this is because you are passing by all points on the infinite line at the same time. you are passing by "everything" ("everything" can also be used to identify things divided by zero ). it is not infinitely close to zero distance, for it is infinite distance, and can never look finite. thus, it is zero, or "everything". thus, you can never stop going that speed once you start since time no longer applies to you, you pass everything all at once in zero time. <edit> P.S. i just thought of an addition to this. also, relative to a stationery observer, it would appear that you are infinitly thin as you approach the speed of light, and at the speed of light you would appear to be gone, because others would see your "everything" pass in zero time too, because of relativity. so then the question is now... do you simply cease to exist? or does each atom/sub atomic particle become a photon? P.P.S. in case you haven't noticed, "everything" only gives meaning to "undefined". without my "everything", "undefined" is misenterpereted as "impossible", and only remains undefined.

perhaps the trees were not the same hight when that portion of evolution was taking place. if trees were lower, or if trees had leaves spread over the whole hight of the tree, then competiotion would be fierce for low leaves, especially when other animals are included. the likely situation is that while giraffes evolved to eat high leaves, other animals evolved to grase and eat bushes. also, probably at the same time, the low trees were dying out because they were the easiest food, so evolution would make them taller where only the giraffes could reach.

:haha: :haha: :haha: :haha: :haha: :haha: sorry... continue

wow, that's amazing though

it does not depend on education. intelligence is more the capacity to learn and make the "correct" choices, and should not depend on education. i would say it depends on the culture. if women believe they are less intelligent than men, then that would be the case for that culture, simply because they don't have the motivation to be intelligent. possibly some brain developement horomones were not sent (that's sort of a theory of mine that i've posted a couple of times but no body responded to...).

yeah, what we have right now is more of a blend between democracy and republic. the government is becoming less involved in helping us and more involved in controling us.

that argument means absolutely nothing.

but my question is: do they actually shoot it? do they apply force to it and actually inject it? or is it just a result of the kinetic energy it has when it hits a cell? if the latter then i say it's not alive if the former then i say it is alive reason: directly uses energy vs. indirectly uses energy

nope, they are considered racist by the people that actually take the time to get noticed about such things. the problem, again, relates back to fear. there are many people out there who aare afraid that people will become racist and harm them in one way or another. these people end up searching around for possible racist statements and harm the people that say them. in effect, these people are -ist against any indication of racism. in effect, these people are the ones that are racist, not the people that say semi-racist things unknowingly. again, if racism and evolution was actually UNDERSTOOD rather than feared, the world would be a much better place, and people would accept differences rather than ignore them. at this time (about the time that pigs will evolve wings), using derogatory words for races will be okay, and classifying races as superior or inferior, on average, at specific things will be okay because everyone (the teller and reciever included) would understand that they are not being racist, merly scientific or joking. P.S. my answer to anything like this is one word: FEAR!! here is a list of such things (there are many more): racism, races, ageism, ages, drugs, curse words, prostitution, weapons, breaking driving laws, depression, disabled, antidisabled, homosexuals, homophobes.

by my understanding, viruses inject DNA or RNA into a host cell, and that host cell uses the new DNA or RNA to make the protiens that are the virus. the question is, do viruses use energy to inject their DNA/RNA, or are they 100% freefloating and only inject it by chance (i suppose that would technically be using kinetic energy... but it's indirect so it doesn't count)

there was something on a discovery show once similar to this. a guy was a "master" hypnotist-ish-type-thing. he brought like 6 random people into a room one at a time. he talked to them for a while about what he was going to ask them to do and why. then he asked them to pick a card out of 5 (the 5 mind reading cards... the square, triangle, star, wave, and plus sign). each person chose the star. he said it was because he made a little triangle with his hands many times while he was talking to them as a subliminal message. he made it look like it was just his way of talking, he lightly tapped his fingers on the table every once in a while, at the "correct" times with the pointer fingers touching and the thumbs touching, making a triangle/diamond with his hands. just as any person might subconsciously do themselves as they are talking to someone.

by my definition, viruses are alive (assuming they use some sort of energy) and fire isn't (because it has no stored data)

my answer, plain and simple: contains some form of memory for possible reproduction (a.k.a. RNA, or DNA, or BINARY CODE) and is able to use energy (any form) most likely, all individual parts of the most basic possible cell were made individually, a lot, along with many other random molecules, and over time happened to come across one another and absorb eachother, or something. the memory part probably came first, then, after much floating around doing absolutely nothing, it came apon the using energy part (this is when i would call it "life"). then, as random energy became less abundant, they needed something to collect and contain energy. they couldn't "die," unless they were denatured, but likely just floated around and used energy as it came by to make copies of it's memory. then they eventually found some other sets of molecules that could collect and store energy... etc. this is not what happened, just one possible way it happened... one that i made up a few minutes ago, but has probably been said before.

i agree, and would say the same thing for cars... the problem is't that guns are legal or illegal. the problem is that there are too many stupid people out there. you'd think that eventually the darwin awards would get rid of them, but they just keep sprouting back up. if we could erase all data and momory of guns, that'd be best, but for the time being, we can only hope that the idiot next door doesn't own a gun... or us intelligent people could all learn to be darn good sharpshooters and snipers. or perhaps we could actually TEACH people about guns instead of saying, "umm, guns are byad, m'kay?" (just like drugs... and swearwords... and prostitution... and breaking driving laws... and nuclear weapons... and war... and natural disasters... and............:zzz:)