CDarwin

You're confusing neoconservatives with the Religious Right. Neoconservativism is a belief that the US should maintain an interventionist foreign policy. They don't quote the Bible necessarily.

Hmmph

If I post in a thread in the science forums and then that thread gets moved to general discussion, do I get "credit" for that post? In other words does it count toward my post count?

Who on earth do you expect to read that monstrosity? It got up to the Miller experiment and got bored. In short: You're not being original and you're not smarter than the millions of scientists out there that do the sort of work that you're distorting. That's maybe the thing I find most incredible about Evolution deniers (I won't say Creationists for your benefit). Do you really think you're so smart because you read that paperback that was so brilliant and gave those Darwinians the one-two?

The New Scientist! I love that magazine. It's more for scientists than simply for your layman science-geek or technophile, but the articles are readable and infinitely interesting to even us lowly uneducateds. It also provides proper citations so you can hunt down the real articles and check what they say, and it's British. That's a bonus for me at least.

Unique relative to the other primates and sharing a more recent, but still distant (Early Eocene-age), common ancestor with tarsiers than anything else. That's really what he's saying. About 45 million years. The age is probably the biggest problem as it's 5 to 10 million years younger than both the molecular date of divergence from tarsiers and perhaps the rather securely anthropoid but less securely dated Algeripithecus, and yet it's very primitive. That's true. I'm not totally on board with Beard but from what I've been exposed to he does seem to have the best explanation. That's what I meant.

Hey... that was my joke. And no one noted it before. Waa.

Old news. Trinkaus has been harping on those Romanian skeletons for years. Femurs that aren't the "right" length and robust skulls don't change the genetic evidence.

Definitely fair. If it is a real anthropoid, though, Eosimias does seem suggestive. There's also the molecular data which I didn't touch on before. Apparently tarsiers and anthropoids diverged 55 million years ago, based on amino acid sequences. The weight of the evidence seems to lean toward Beard's suggestions.

Another primate paleontology thread. I know everyone is excited. This is a debate I've been lately reacquainted with reading Chris Beard's Hunt for the Dawn Monkey. I was wondering if anyone had read the book and/or had any particular opinions to offer on the origins of the Anthropoidea, the suborder of Primates consisting of the monkeys, apes, and humans. I'll attempt to summarize the debate if I might: There are four competing theories that posit which group of the Eocene primates the Anthropoids descended from: The Adapoid Theory: Believes anthropoids descended from lemur-like adapoids. The Omomyoid Theory: Believes anthropoids descended from tarsier-like omomyoids. The Tarsier Theory: Believes anthropoids descended from tarsiers themselves. The 'Ghost Lineage' Theory: Believes anthropoids descended from some ancient and unknown group of primates in the Eocene that are uniquely related to the living anthropoids. Chris Beard supports this idea based on A) his view that the omomyoids are uniquely related to the tarsiers and B) his discovery of ancient alleged anthropoids in Asia, Eosimias. Beard's notions also conflict with traditional ideas about the temporal and geographic origins of the Anthropoidea. All previous early anthropoids have come from North Africa, and with the possible exception of Algeripithecus, they haven't been older than about 35 million years. So Beard believes the first anthropoids originated in Asia in the early to mid Eocene (up to 55 mya) and that they are an ancient lineage that originated after the Adapoidae and Omomyoidea had gone their own evolutionary ways. A graphical representation. Opinions?

I suppose you would have to have had a relationship to participate and that "relationship" = romantic relationship?

How many examples of the ridiculous overhead costs of the HMO/PPO system do you need? Americans overpay $477 billion per year for healthcare that by many indices is worse than that of the other developed nations.

Ironic avatar. Seriously though, we have no idea if she has character. None of us know her.

Selection, genetic drift, gene flow, and mutation primarily. Selection, genetic drift, gene flow, and mutation primarily. Meaningless truism.

Uhm... Bascule and Pangloss, if we can look past the the little hissing match you two seem to be having, you both seem to be right. Pangloss's premise: Israel needs the US. Bascule's Premise: The US should use that fact to leverage the Israelis into helping along the peace process. Can we find common ground there?

Tsk, tsk, you didn't follow my links. They were from the CIA Factbook.

The CIA lies? Maybe it was just talking about aid for... things other than what the 3 billion is for. O.o

Nothing you say? Palestine receives $1.14 billion in aid each year. Israel receives $240 million. The Palestinians don't need more money they need a viable economy, which is pretty hard to develop when the Israelis are taking land to build settlements and blowing up houses, which they are doing because there are militants running all over the place, which wouldn't be running around if Palestine had a viable economy and they weren't living in refugee camps. My point is that neither side has a clear-cut moral superiority here. The Israelis aren't evil genociders any more than the Palestinians.

State's just can't afford that any more. That's the problem. In Tennessee we had something called TennCare that was about as close to state healthcare as any state had ever come and it nearly bankrupted us. The last governor had to gut it to balance the budget. People just aren't willing to pay Federal income tax to their state as well as to Washington, and that's what it would take. That's a big part of how Bredesen 'fixed' TennCare. Now you have to be in the state for so many years before you get anything.

I have no problem with private insurance companies continuing to operate for people who might want more coverage than the government might offer and could afford it. I just think it's ridiculous to pay so much insurance overhead for the highest infant mortality in the developed world.

I would be cheaper.

Now what's the difference in saying that and saying "pretty smart for a black person"? Well obviously she's not black, but you get my point.

For now and in the past, but you can't ignore the fact that Israel is on the wrong end of a massive population equality and unfriendly states that are rapidly advancing in military and technological prowess and that aren't likely to get friendlier. It's also a nation with zero natural resources and whose largest economic sectors (construction and manufacturing) depend on de facto subsidizing by the United States. You add to all that the fact that every time Isreal acts to defend itself it ends up making more enemies out of all the civilians it inevitably affects. You can't help by see how precarious such a set-up is. I think the fact that Israel is so willing to be hemmed in by the feelings of the US and EU is ample testament to how much Israel realizes it needs Western support.

How can you expect that from a cabinet position, though?

Oh, I just meant that I had nothing to add. I believe I might like to read that book someday when I don't have an English class to battle with.