EvolvEarth

Check out some textbooks on the subject. I'll echo Dak and suggest getting familiar with the central dogma and Mendelian inheritance above all else. My recommendations: Central dogma Mendelian inheritance The structure of DNA and RNA: Phosphate-sugar-base, negatively charged phosphate backbone, hydrogen bonding, et cetera Basic mechanisms of eukaryotic and prokaryotic replication, transcription, and translation Eukaryotes: learn about histones; Prokaryotes: learn about supercoiling Evolution: a little bit of population genetics, phylogeography, and phylogenetics Know the basics, don't worry about the details only until the basics make sense. For eaxmple: don't worry about overdominance and underdominance until you thoroughly understand dominant and recessive alleles. Don't worry about the names of all the proteins responsible in DNA replication, just know about the basics.

It depends on the mechanism. If your professor discusses a mechanism, all I can say is draw it out and memorize it, because reactions do some crazy things sometimes that you can predict. Electrons are the ones moving, never protons. If a hydroxyl group grabs a hydrogen, you draw the arrow pointing to the hydrogen. Remember resonance structures as well. I can't help you any more beyond that, you simply need to draw out mechanisms over and over again. Many similar mechanisms work similarly, but you'll always find something that is a little funky and may not figure out why.

New Port Richey over here and I'm a bit worried about this one.

Obviously, there is a mechanism that was lost in humans because we relied so heavily on speech. When observing common household pets, you could tell they are thinking in many situations. They don't have language, but by reading their body language, you can tell they are thinking about something. Now, they could be very lucid visuals, or perhaps it's a thought process totally unfamiliar with us. There are slightly autistic people out there who do not think in words and have been studied. Maybe you can pull an article on that somewhere.

Glider is correct. Manmade just refers to materials not naturally formed without some kind of human intervention. That's a natural behavior of ours, though, but we don't call them natural simply to distinguish purely naturalistic processes of design from human design. Did that make any sense?

Your body becomes a source of energy for other organisms when you die. Your consciousness ceases to exist because the organ that produces consciousness is no longer functioning. Reincarnation does happen, but since there is no soul, it's based on the effects of your actions. I'm not going to get into it from there because it's just important to know that your consciousness is finite.

You're going by pure anecdotal evidence. Going by my anecdotal evidence, I only know a few people who smoke pot who actually care about nature. Most of the people I know who smoke pot couldn't care any less for the environment.

What did people say about assuming? While I do think animals are superior to humans, because that is ridiculous, I do think we're equal in worth. There's a difference in thinking that animals are equal in worth as humans than thinking animals are equal in every way to humans. Having equal worth means that we should be aware of their capabilities of pain and suffering and treat them equal to humans who also can feel pain and suffer. It has NOTHING to do with intelligence level. Since when did intelligence mean anything when it came to the value of a life? Would you perform experiments on the mentally handicapped because they aren't as intelligent as the rest of us? Why not? There are many mentally handicapped people out there who aren't half as smart as the animals we perform experiments on. Should we perform experiments on them, then? Of course not, that's barbaric. Well, this is an emotional debate, you cannot debate facts when it comes to morality. There is no logical reason to test on animals as there is no logical reason to not test on them. Perhaps there might be one logical reason to test on animals, and it's for selfish reasons like protecting you or your family. To me, that's not a good enough reason simply because it's making one life suffer for another. Should I condone that? The little Buddha in me tells me to follow the five precepts, and one of the five precepts is do not kill or harm, and that doesn't just mean humans for The Buddha himself was an advocate for protecting animals. You and I have a difference of opinion, but I have to follow my ethical guidelines. I wouldn't agree to it, but at least they might deserve the suffering brought on to them. Do these animals really deserve it?

I can't disagree with you there. I wish I knew of a solution to this problem, but I was mainly arguing how the program is good for biology majors without having to dissect an animal in labs. For going into the actual field where research needs to be conducted, well, that's a different story altogether.

So instead of having a mature debate, you resort to mocking my opinion on how animals should also be allowed to pursue happiness by illogically comparing that to letting animals vote to make my argument seem ridiculous?

Is there something wrong with an animal pursuing happiness? How does this relate to allowing them to vote? Emotions != Intellect

Most of what I've said has already been observed, but they don't take into consideration that the rats feel emotion or experience pleasure when going through this. They used to scorn Jane Goodall for using "human" characteristics when describing chimpanzees. We now accept those descriptions with open arms, but we didn't then. The question is, what good are we actually doing? By making cures for diseases and such, we're not exactly helping our species. Overpopulation is a problem we must consider--especially because of the severe lack of drinkable water in this world. Perhaps humans should get together and try to figure out how to conduct these experiments without harming other creatures. We some great minds in this world, even though it may take an extremely long time, we should come up with some worthy substitutes. For dissection purposes, studies have shown that computer programs are a worthy substitute for animal dissections when learning about animal anatomy and physiology. People have a problem with respecting other species other than their own. Caring for humans is great, but so is caring for other animals.

All right, but it still makes sense if the word "better" was replaced with "special." Certainly all animals are special in their own little way due to different abilities. Vampire bats are special because of echocommunication and the such. I guess I should've asked what made us the most special. Hmmm.

But you're also depriving the rats of the wild and their freedom. Most animals are curious creatures and explorers, and these rats are merely raised in laboratory settings taking their natural environment away from them. You automatically assume that food, drink, sex, and comfortable bedding makes for an extremely elated rat, but does it really? They have no natural environment to explore. They no longer can search for food which is entertainment value for them. Maybe the rats can bond with each other, but do you kill all of the rats at once? If not, then you're killing a rat that bonded with another one. The problem is, though, is that you're shortening the lifespan of a rat and that rat doesn't even get to live in his or her natural environment. Also, you don't think a rat knows when he or she is going to die? Don't you think that's suffering enough when the rat is at his or her last few hours of life? I think the biggest mistake of science is NOT anthropomorphizing animals. Why? Because if human beings and other animals were developed through the process of evolution, then why would humans be the only creatures capable of thought, emotion, reason, et cetera? Varying degrees makes sense, but being completely separate is merely a work of faith.

While I would be tempted to, since I'm closer to my brother than I am to the rat, I still don't see it as moral. Do I have that rat's consent? No, I do not. If I do not, is it ethical to trade in the rat's life for another life? I can't honestly say what I would do in that situation. Evolution has set us up where our emotional decisions usually rival over logical ones. Since I'm going on a logical decision right now, I can't possibly see what I would do if the situation came up and therefore cannot give you an accurate answer. You haven't provided me with an adequate response. What do you mean by the term "anything"? Is it our intelligence that makes us better? Isn't our intelligence the cause of global ecological damage and mass poverty? Is it our superior adaption capabilities? The same capabilities that caused us to introduce bio-invaders into other regions on the planet causing a decrease in biodiversity and an increase in ecological destruction? Is it the soul? A soul that has no empirical evidence supporting its existence? What exactly makes us any better? Sure it is consistent. I don't eat animals, so it doesn't matter. There are plenty of nutritious food substitutes for meat. The only human beings who would really need to eat meat would be hunter-gatherers. I have no objections towards hunter-gatherers eating meat because they have to like many other animals in the wild. If it is for survival, then it is necessary even if causing suffering towards other animals in the process due to logical reasons as my animals would die out simply because they wouldn't be allowed to eat meat. If we simply have other resourced to supplement, however, then it is no longer ethical to consume animals.