ScaryPirateMan

I'm in the military and I can tell you from meeting indivduals that have been in combat and on stressful deployments that PTSD can mess people up. If the woman was giving him enough trouble, breaking him down and such, coupled with the stress of being in court, it is very possible he just snapped. People snap all the time with no obvious symtoms prior to. When the governement gives us training, they frequently cover PTSD due to the higher percentage of Military members affected.

My uncle in-law, who is actually a little crazy keeps going on about ball bearings and magnets. Placing the bearings on tracks with magnets spaced out so that the bearing is kept spinning on the tracks. I'm not sure about the rest of it but that may be something to look into. Just don't tell my uncle I said that cause he might kill me. Seriously.

Okay then. I see what you mean by that. So then the theory of evolution isn't that you'll see neandrathals all of a sudden giving birth to cro-magnons, but that slight changes over a long timeline will eventually produce a new species.

so then, would you say using the term macro evolution is just a way for skeptics to try and disprove such theories? By saying that you can't just change from a monkey to man?

I understand what your saying, but you have to see where I'm coming from as well. According to the beliefs of the superstition that I came from, there is/was a God that made everything. I still don't know if I fully discount intelligent design from the equation as there still seem to be gaps in both sides of the story. I'm just wondering, really, how many small changes, or how significant, makes a macro-level change?

I am a recovering Christian (you know, like a recovering alcoholic. Get it?) and I still have a hard time believing in evolution. I've always believed in micro evolution, but only in the sense that we were created as humans, and adapted into the many colors and features that we boast today. Would it be safe to say, though, that micro evolution started with homo habilis or even earlier and snowballed into macro evolution? I don't know, the way schools always talked about it was that there was one type of less evolved man and then poof, there was the next best thing and they killed them off and it kept moving in that cycle until we have us today.

I was watching a documentary on the Discovery Channel a few months back (i'll locate the title for you when I can) that was discussing the "missing link" in the evolutionary chain of humans and bipedalism was one of their main concerns. I need to find the documentary so I can give more informed statements, so for that I apologize, but I wasn't just making assumptions.

I still like the theory from Michael Chrichton's Time Line. The particles are disappearing because they are traveling between dimensions on a quantum level. That would be awesome.

So what is the likelyhood that something will evolve with traits that aren't necessarily useful or detrimental. Like bipedalism. I mean, human arms aren't long enough to pick fruits from a lot of trees, especially when we were to have evolved. They aren't strong enough to swing through trees like simians. I guess you could say the use of more complicated tools could have been a reason, but even so, we could have done without it. Why did we develope balance to the degree we have without the need to walk on our knuckles or have a tail? All I'm really asking here is what is the likelyhood that something could evolve with traits that really provide no benefit?

I have another question. If light is the absolute speed that energy or information can travel, what is the force that makes these things travel that fast? Why does light move... at the speed of light? I've been reading into everything everyone has said and I'm starting to finally see where this is all going. But I'm still a "why" guy. Also, what I've been reading says that Velocity is indeed what slows time, but you can't achieve velocity without acceleration, so, in turn, acceleration is necessary for time to slow.

So if it doesn't gradually fade, how then, does it disappear? It's either passed or not?

Hmm... interesting. So is it safe to assume then that no matter what, if, over time, a species is to survive, and a certain genetic trait is no longer visible (let's just make it easy for me and go with eye color) then later on down the road, if somehow the genes come together again, you can have a blue eyed freak? No matter how vast the time scale?

Say the two creatures mated, only one had the mutation, they have offspring that matures and breeds again. If the creature the aforementioned offspring breeds with doesn't have the mutation as well, wouldn't there be a chance that the mutation wouldn't further spread, or couldn't it be degraded? I'm thinking in terms of skin pigmentation, eye color, hair color and texture. When people of different types mate, they have a child that is a mixture of both (black and white person get a lighter brown baby) and the other traits are up in the air. If the child mates with another white person, the darker skin will be further dilluted, same for another black person. So the mutation, in essence, could be bread back out of the species instead of spreading. Right?

Got it. I think I'll just leave it alone and just read what the people who actually understand all this say. Thanks