Ringer

That's assuming we actually can build spaceships, colonize other planets, and have a survivable population which doesn't seem to be any better than science fiction either. You're messing with time frames though. 1 generation for one species isn't 1 generation for another. Short generation time is something that allows quick adaptations to environmental changes for the long term. Long generation times means one has to acclimate and tends to allow harsher effects on a population when the environment changes. Even with all our antibiotics, those bacteria are still around.

I should probably mention that my numbers are per 1000 residents, not the absolute number.

Well, it depends on what you mean by a lot. I can't find the numbers for guns specifically but the number of assaults, rapes, robberies, and murders in Ferguson is 80 in 2012 (only 2 murders, 3 rapes, 38 robberies, and 37 assaults). To put that in perspective, where I live (which is usually considered a pretty safe place to live) had more than 3 times that in assaults alone (8 murders. . . 56 rapes [REALLY?!?!?], 199 robberies, and 297 assaults). We have a poor population that have been feeling more free to shoot at each other (they tend to have horrible aim) but there are very few known instances of police using highly excessive or deadly force when it is seemingly necessary. Then again, the police seem to be rather 'hands off' around here, but that seems to be fairly consistent in any area that doesn't have a population with a lot of money.

So you're saying if there is a high probability that people will do something that is the way people should act, therefore it is good? Does that hold true in small population samples? Meaning, would a behavior that would be maladaptive in, say, very hot climates such as wearing a lot of warm and insulated clothing be 'bad' there, but be 'good' in places that are very cold? If we can distribute 'good' and 'bad' in those ways (by small populations) that means places with a very high murder rate (meaning the probability of murdering or being murdered is very high)have a 'good' that is murdering or being murdered.

It depends on what sort of organism and what kind of engineering you plan to do.

You can probably feel free to have her day dreaming. It's difficult to say whether living species can form complex and abstract ideas, let alone species that have been extinct for any period of time

Where would they fit it to the circulatory/nervous system? The support system necessary for gills wouldn't be worth the cost unless you planned on living underwater constantly. Then you would have a host of other problems such as buoyancy control, osmotic regulation, etc.

The voltage or ligand gated channels open due to their respective stimuli to let in (or out) ions. The ions change the potential to threshold, that's when the voltage gated channels open. So the ligand and mechanical are the cause of the ion concentration change that lead to the voltage gates to open. [edit] To be a bit clearer, the voltage doesn't effect the mechanical or ligand channels, they effect the potential of the cell and lead to the threshold. But any channel can have multiple types of gated types. [/edit]

I'm not sure what you mean.

Because our circulatory system isn't a part of our ventricular system, so the system and their products evolved to do what they do. Nothing 'tells' evolution to do anything. Some things happen, some of those things stick around, others don't. Asking a why question in evolution isn't productive because the only answer is, 'because that's how it happened'.

You could also think of the rep system as a way of paying someone for the time they put into the discussion. We're all here on our own time and put however much thought and effort into our posts as we want to. Most of the time I give rep is because someone put in the work of researching the topic, understanding the discussion, posting links, helping others, making a point better than I could, etc and they deserve a sign that their work is appreciated. The system in itself is meaningless, but it helps us know if our contributions show the amount of work or thought is above (or below for neg rep) the expectation of normal contributions. Every community has ways of enforcing norms and expectations, the reputation system is just a shorthand extension of that.

It seems you're assuming a handgun or assault rifle here. When I was young we used our rifles to make sure coyotes didn't get to any of the animals on the farm. We also used them to hunt during hunting season. Fundamentally they served a useful purpose and they were used to kill things that were killed for a purpose. Much like trees that are being killed for a purpose. But so many people are extremely dumb in the way they use their weapons.

You just blew my mind. I have never seen nor heard of these.

Tapirs, or any perissodactyl, wouldn't have sharp canines. Virtually all of them that I know of have molariform canines or no canines at all. Honestly it looks more like a piece of an antler to me. The shape of it seems a bit too long and thin. Look at pictures of canine teeth and you should see they are much thicker at that length. Also, being so straight with that much of a curve at the end looks more like antler growth that tooth growth.

I'm guessing Delta is making the point that you are just describing CSF now.

Also, if you used blood to replace CSF you would need to produce a lot more blood. Producing a lot more blood would cause a huge dilution in the amount of proteins and such the must be produced. Then you would need a dedicated system to remove the proteins and such that would likely aggregate in such a large pool. Then there are the protections against. There are a large amount of other problems with just using blood as CSF because evolution has worked for generations to make them dedicated fluids. Think of it this way, why do you have both a sink and a toilet if they both just drain water into pipes.

You can pick virtually any human trait and find it (or a variation of the theme) in another organism. You can find crows sledding, sloths swimming, dolphins raping, sharks using team-work, etc, etc, etc.

You're wrong. Men are attracted to dolphins and females are attracted to asteroids. What I said is right and there's nothing you can do to show it's wrong. This argument is as strong as the argument you are making. Do you see how this makes your statement less than reliable?

Intelligence in other species is a difficult thing to really discuss. We can't even reliably measure our own intelligence, let alone any other species. Language is similar because it's so badly defined, and the definition changes all the time. But, some decent information can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_language

I am not making any statement about morality, ethics, or anything philosophical. Would you feel better if I would have said, "unless you gaining a satisfaction from the loss of life and the loss of the ability of many to survive is objectively a greater gain to the whole of humanity than being able to survive and survive happily as a whole species the loss of life, resources, and available living area is a net negative effect on people so long as we exclude very specific arguments such as overpopulation, suicide to ease death, etc."?

I don't think you're going to get an answer since that account hasn't been active since 2012.

Like others have said, virtually every level of classification is arbitrary. An analogy one professor I had gave was, "Classification is kind of like incest. Everyone is related, but where's the line where it's weird when you have sex."

Well, not all synapsids are in the mammalian line (pelycosaurs). The line therapsids are thought to be mammalian ancestors though. As Moontanman said, reptile isn't a good category depending on if you include crocs, turtles, birds, sauropods, etc. A way to (somewhat) easily define if you are looking at a mammalian ancestor is the articulation of the jaw. Mammals articulate at the dentary and squamosal bones while other vertebrates articulate at the quadrate and articular.

I said, "negative effects on people". Death is a negative effect on a person. Droughts, flooding, not making enough resources, etc. are negative effects on people. What is subjective about that?

What's subjective about it? It's a collection of things that happen, reality isn't subjective.