Dr. Dalek

Good question. If not it should be. Since I have never heard of it in any of the Global Warming literature I have ever read I can only assume that either it is not important, or it has been carelessly overlooked.

Anyone who doubts God, what makes you think that you know better than the entire Catholic Church? Anyone who doubts Alien Abduction, what makes you think that you know better than the entire UFO Community? Anyone who doubts Psychic Sylvia Brown, what makes you think that you know better than the entire Viewing audience of The Montel Williams show? Groups of people tend to want to stick together when it comes to opinions for fear they will be ridiculed or Ostracized. In my opinion individuals are more likely to be objective than groups of people working together, or individuals that are highly subjective to the influences of a large group. Now look we know that Global Warming is a natural Phenominon that mankind could be influencing it. The problem is that there is more uncertainty about wheather the phenominon is anything to be worried about or not than people tend to acknowlage.

I don't know; I've met quite a few humans and first impresion is that alot of them are fairly stupid, I'm voting for some other animal. Only because I havn't had a conversation with any that have confirmed any level of stupidity. [Aside: This is an attempt at a joke I am open to criticisum. I am also open to spelling citicisum.] Quite right if we were to try to define intelligence based on more than just what makes a human intelligent I'm sure we would find plenty of creatures that either rival or exceed our own.

Inorganic? What are you talking about?

Might be related to size, steryotypicaly the male muscles are larger, also given the more obvious anatomic differences in the chest and pubic areas there could be different arrangments of muscles there.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . There is a difference between being well adapted and being intelligent.

I'm not sure where your confusion lies but I can answer this one. In theory yes, but there are also mechanisms like transposons, or "jumping genes" that can cause localized mutations and also hypermutation which can happen in white blood cells. Transposons more or less just activate or deactivate genes as neccissary over the course of a creatures lifetime whereas hypermutation is just a proccess of speeding up natural mutation in white blood cells so that antibodies can be created. So mutations do have some controlls but they are essentialy random. (someone correct me if I'm wrong about the transposons)

They don't know what to make of them. They have no instinct that ells them to avoid, or to approach them. Especialy if they are young they don't know they are dangerous so that leaves their curiosity. Plus Deer arn't that smart.

Evolution is a very lenthy process that happens as a result of guided accidents. The most likly scenario is that the plant was being eaten by the butterfly larvea, by sheer coincidence one plant either developed berrys, or the color of the berries it naturaly had, through a genetic mutation and the the butterflies became less likely to lay their eggs on it thinking it was already occupied. Thus this plant gained an edge and multiplied faster than its butterfly consumed neighbors. Its all about the flip of a coin the plant didn't "know" anything about the butterfly in the strcitest sense of the word, but developed a mechanism for protecting itslef never the less. As for how long a mutation would take, there are mutations happening all the time, but to come up with one that is benifical in the sense of one situation would take thousands of years of one or more mutations happening out of sheer coinincidence. In theory.

My father, like myself is a Deer hunter. He once speculated, that if one were to leave a boom box in the middle of the woods deer would not be afraid of it, and might actualy be curious about it and approach it. For the same reason that deer will avoid a hunter like the plauge, but will walk out in front of a car nearly without heasitation. He suggested that hey have instincts to avoid hunters, and things that hide while trying to be silent, but something that makes no secret about its presence is obviously no threat to them. So does anyone else have any thoughts. How would Deer react to a Boom Box in the forest?

I would describe them more as instincts gone awry. Makes sense to me. However if it is in terms of instinct or some sense of familiarlarity rather than racism than the question would mean the same as asking "Would you save the black babe or a puppy" "the white babe or a babe lynx".No matter what the combination the one you have the closest natural affinity toward will win out.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Last time I checked plants were not inorganic, if I have mistook your statements please correct me or clarify yourself. Yes people who perform better because of intelligence, athletic gifts, etc would seem more likly to make more money, gain more fame, and therefore breed more. That is why I am a firm believer in capitolism, survival of the stingiest and most clever.

Is this an answer to the inorganic life thing? Because if it is it dosn't make sense. Anything that contains carbon is organic, chemicaly, and all known life contains carbon.

Strange; I have always heard the exact opposite.

I don't think there will ever be a super-species blackhole, such seems too much of a second rate science fiction concept to me. But I think you are right we are likly to slow down, if not totaly corrupt our genome out of excessive compassion and go extinct. Also there might be alittle more tha just brain power to our evolution, such as that new theory of humans being designed to be long distance endurance runners.

The advantage of having a mobile home is that if its on fire you can meet the fire truck half way.

I'm actualy working on a story that involves a futer meeting and conflict between two soceities. One have which has already done something like this.

Hmm, it could just be an example of conditioning; thought the fact that she made that connection at all does seem indicative of some line of reasoning intelligence. It actualy reminds me of something my dog used to do. Whenever he wanted to go outside he would tap the doornob with his nose. Apparently he like your cat was smart enought to make the connection between an object and its function. Interesting.

I wasn't sure if this should be under biology or psycology so I guessed. Anyway I recently made a comment in a thred about the intelligence of non-human animals: So the more I think about it the more I think there is something to this. How much could we learn about animal psycology by trying to guage and graph the ratio of the drivers on an animals behavior including instinct, intelligence, and emotion. What if anything could this teach us?

That question was once affectionatly refured to as the "sadistic choice". (Credit goes to the Green Goblin in Spider-Man)

Uh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The reason bonoboos are promiscuous and peaceful is because their diet and native habitat allow for very little stress and competition, but isn't it those challenges that, at least partialy, build intelligence? Also bonoboos are primarily herbiverous, isn't meat a brain building food? I want to go for some kind of primate as well, or a dolfin. Canines, and birds are also pretty smart. Certain types of Molusks maybe. My question would less oriented towards how intelligent the animal is and more towards the ratio of influence that intelligence has on its observed behavior compaired to instinct and emotion.

I don't know, a firend of mine hears Whos quite frequently.

You know this is where you would expect me to begin franticaly screeching EX-TER-MIN-ATE, but I'm not gonna. This is just weird. How many time do people have to become what they hate befor they figure it out? I mean if this guy is so uppity about being repressed by whites, how is it logical to jump right to EX-TER-MIN-ATE-TION! (PS, I'm 15/16ths white so you can understand my predisposition against EX-TER-MIN-ATE-TION!) The steryottpe (is that the right word) is that speaking against the opinion of a black guy is racist. I'm not sure how it would count in this case, . . but you never know, stranger things have happened than being labeld as racist for saying you don't want to be Exterminated.

Bu then again Mokele their have been discoveries before of untapped cave with all manner of strange creatures living inside of them. As I recall they found one just a few years ago that had been sealed up for several million years, it had all sorts of new species of scorpians and crustacians in it; why couldn't their be ecosystems of microorganisms doing the same thing. In my oceanography class recently the professor talked about this theory of microrganisms living near the earths mantle producing hydrocarbons. Also there are new theories about bacteria that can live inside clouds, and I read some time ago that there is a reasearcher claiming that if thermosynthetic organisms existed they would be almost undetectable by current methods. So their could be something to this. (I'll try to get you some websites for these things I mentioned)

How about this? http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/Iraq_WMD_Declassified.pdf