Ringer

Then he would be moving the goal posts if he just wanted examples of genetic information being added. You could use polyploidy in plants as an example as well.

You can pontificate all you want about true religions and religious traditions, but do you really want to get into a discussion where your first sentence into it is unbelievably incorrect?

It's still fallacious, it's just a separate fallacy. Like I said, that's just being overly technical because his statement reminded me of that. I still call appeals to accepted authority figures as argument from authority although it's technically a non-sequitur. Also, who doesn't like being a pedantic a** every once and a while.

To be technical, an appeal to authority is only fallacious if the authority is not actually an authority. Otherwise it's a non-sequitur because the conclusion doesn't follow premise of the person being an authority. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority#Fallacious_appeal_to_authority

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-intro-to-biology.html http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-misconceptions.html#proof http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-fact.html http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section1.html#pred4 http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-misconceptions.html#observe http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html Read up on evolution and what it is and you may be able to have valid criticisms. [edit] spelling [/edit]

I must ask, what are the IQ tests that these people with abnormally high IQs took?

No you wouldn't. Top speed at 15 sec with oxygen depletion with cause them to skyrocket just fine. When I did a lactic acid test my baseline was 7 (mM/L I think, I don't remember the units) after running top speed for 15 sec, while letting my heartrate and breathing increase, I went up to 17.

I think part of our problem is misunderstandings on both sides. Now I know that electric and magnetic fields can cause reactions in the brain, in fact we have used this fact for quite a while by stimulating areas of the brain with concentrated magnetic fields. But at the same time they are not at all wavelength specific. If it is strong enough to stimulate a single neuron it will stimulate neighboring neurons as well. The central premise of specificity in reception is incorrect. To call this an antenna, I feel, is incorrect because the effects of electromagnetic fields is a byproduct of the electrochemical gradient and not part of the neurons function. Also, if you are using switch in the networking sense, I don't think a neuron could be considered a switch. Switches function as an intermediary between the router and computers to send data to its correct location, more or less. Neurons don't really do that. They take in signals and, if excited enough, send the signal to all connections. They are repeaters more than switches. The voltage travels through the body because the skin conducts fairly well and are used on the upper body (for hyperdermic tasers). It allows the current to move through the surface of the body and interact with skeletal muscle. Due to bets when I was younger I can (anecdotal as it is) confidently say that if you are shocked in the calf you will not feel it in your upper body, but the higher up you go the more muscles are involved. I don't think that this would happen if it wasn't an electric current going to a ground state. If it was full body you would see tetany of smooth muscle as well, and would see peoples eyes go crazy, defecation, inability to breath at all, blood vessels contracting to a point of dangerousness, etc. I don't know that axons hillocks are tuned to specific frequencies, nor have you shown this to be the case. Axon hillocks have the same resting potential and ion concentration as the rest of the cell, as well as other neurons. So how do other neurons have different frequencies and why would the axon hillock be the only part that is involved in radio frequency interaction?

Lactic acid is the byproduct of anaerobic energy use in animals. Since you would deprive muscles of oxygen during exercise if your heart rate and breathing did not increase your lactic acid levels would sky-rocket. Really you should be cramping like crazy.

I never said it would be physically impossible, I only gave examples of problems one would have to overcome.

You can buy a device that will take your lactic acid level just by pricking your finger. I'm not sure how expensive they are, though

So I take this to mean you don't know the definition of the words concise or matter. Nor did you seem to define anything at all, so the definition of matter is something with mass. Gravity is a force that is directly related to mass. So what name should something have if it has gravitational interaction but can't be seen?

I would like to see your lactic acid concentration before and after the run when you don't let your heart rate increase.

All you are describing is dead skin. If they don't have nerves or bones they cannot move. So if this scenario accepts flying like a flying squirrel does, maybe. But that is not what the OP was describing at all. Why grow them instead of just having a backpack that does the same thing? Not at all, it's a description of problems to be overcome. I would love to see how someone gets around the problems, it would be amazing. But you do not solve a problem by ignoring problems it could cause, you find a way to solve or work around those problems. Would it not be ignorant if someone said they are going to build an internal combustion engine out of plastic, and no one told them that the plastic they wanted to use would melt under the heat? One could probably find a way to work around that, but without knowing they needed to they would only run into unending problems.

If you hold your breath and exercise your heart rate will speed up. How did you measure oxygen depletion? As a test to see if you have control over your heart rate, take your resting heart rate (count for at least 30 sec). Now run as fast as you can for 15 sec and don't let your heart rate increase. Measure your heart rate as soon as you stop running to make sure it doesn't have a chance to go back to its resting rate.

So you counted four heartbeats and said it was a success?

The mechanism may be valid in theory, but it is not used in practice. Axon hillocks do not have plasma antennas, unless you can show the protein that could have the ability to act as an antenna and then show how they function with plasma not dissolving into the fluid that is everywhere. Then figure out how the strongly ionized gases don't have a strong impact on local membrane potential. I didn't ignore how membrane potential is changed, and it's not radio signal. If it was I could tase people with a radio by varying the frequency. We know how membrane potential is changed, how releases Ca++ and how that causes contraction. If it were a radio signal there would be no reason for localization of skeletal muscle tetany, so why are the only things strongly affected those areas that carry charges most easily instead of seeing instantaneous depolarization of virtually every cell with a threshold?

Let me ask you this, and please answer concisely, what do you believe the definition of matter is?

If we grew wings we would need a new spinal column to deal with the extra input of nerves, then we would need extra ribs for structural support of the ribcage, we would also need new layers of muscles to be able to move those wings. If the body stretched for all that our lungs would then have to extend because the tissue connecting the lungs to the body cavity have a habit of ripping in long torsos, this would cause problems for our diaphram being able to sufficiently pressure our lungs. And those are just the beginning of all the problems one would encounter to have even mildly functional wings, let alone ones that would allow flight.

I got through part of the first article and got to a few things that were blatantly wrong and logic dictates that starting from a false premise usually results in a false conclusion. It states that the axon hillock is an interface point for radiowaves and each hillock selectively receives certain frequencies and each has its own frequency. This is totally and completely incorrect. First, the axon hillock is and interface point but only for ionic concentrations that alter membrane potential. This is a chemical interaction between potentials and is completely non-specific. Second the only specificity can be found on membrane proteins that are selectively permeable to chemicals, but there are not anywhere close to as many types of protein gates as there are neurons. There are only 3 major ions that play roles in these potentials. I can trivially show it to be incorrect by showing that a single axon can branch to multiple dendrites or cell bodies releasing only one type of neurotransmitter. This shows that each neuron does not have a novel anything it reacts to. I also read part of the taser one, it's been known for a long time how they work. Muscle contraction is similar to action potentials in that it works by membrane potential. The difference is muscles don't have a true refractory period (period they cannot be stimulated) so repeated change in membrane potential to threshold will cause repeated contractions. If the threshold is reached fast enough by repeatedly shocking someone (which tasers do) the muscles will go into a state called tetany and no longer be able to relax until Ca++ is no longer available (Ca++ causes the contractions). So all they do is contract muscle so fast they get no time to relax.

No worries. My wife tells me I never charge enough as well, you would think she'd be happy I come cheap.

Yeah, but it's still twice what they pay for being a tutor at my school. Since I tend to be broke I usually do things cheap to make sure at least someone can pay me Well, the term 'charge' here is meant as an emotional buildup from what I can tell. The hormone response is activated after the initial anger response when the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system comes into play. Epinephrine and other chemicals are released to initiate fight or flight responses in all areas of the body through the bloodstream while neighboring neurons in charge of fight or flight responses are activated through various neurotransmitters. Parasympathetic divisions of neurons tend to simultaneously inhibited during the initial period of the fight or flight response. These neuronal actions result in the local graded potentials of neighboring neurons causing the resting potential of the cell body to rise to or drop further below threshold at the axon hillock. If threshold is reached an action potential will cause an influx of Na+ and outflow of K+ at the nodes of Ranvier resulting in a membrane potential to rise dramatically down the axon releasing neurotransmitters into the synapse. These will then attach to receptors at the cell body or dendrites of other neurons causing a cascade effect until inhibitory signals cause the membrane potentials of the sympathetic division of the nervous system to slow down and be at a kind of equilibrium state. Hormones are released into the blood, neurotransmitters are released into synapses (or junctions in tissues such as muscles). Yes they can, but not to the extent where you really understand what's going on. Do you know what in that article can be considered correct or an analogy or badly worded or anything? Those types of explanations do nothing if you really want to learn something,, they're for people who just want something said to them and then forget it tomorrow. As a side note, you have seen the pinned thread that has neuroscience teaching sites linked in this part of the forum haven't you?

They spent years of study learning what they know. They researched and worked to learn and understand. It didn't take a few lines of communication on a forum. Really? You expect to understand what constitutes in depth physiology and neuroscience and you still only say chemicals released in the blood. I explicitly stated that restricts you to hormones, so synaptic communication is out and with it most intra-neural communication. That is why we ask you to be more specific in your question and show some effort, not expect us to be your personal tutors. We help, if you want a tutor I expect at least 15 U.S.D/hour.

The reason I, and perhaps others, are having such a hard time knowing what you want is that asking how one perceives something could be taken in a number of different ways. It could mean what is subjective experience, how sensory information is encoded, how sensory information is stored, how is sensory information is complimentary to each other, what kinds of sensory information is there, what kinds of stimulus excite/inhibit which kinds of sensory neurons, how do sensory neurons interact with interneurons, etc. etc. etc. etc. That's why we want you to be more specific, not only because the question as posed can only be answered well in multiple book sized texts, but also because none of us have any idea what knowledge you bring to the table.

I believe these are the ones (If my count is the same as Sam): http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/72338-irrational-numbers/#entry725239 http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/57883-who-here-is-a-global-warming-skeptic/page-7#entry722856