AzurePhoenix

Isn't true that evolution strives for diversity above all else? A great variety of genotypes and phenotypes ensures our continued survival, our ability to adapt. Any falling back on it as support for superiority is nothing but a perversion of most rudimentary basics of the concept.

Yes it was shown in spanish. But does that make a difference when our generation already knows the story and words by heart? And watching the movie only brings frustration as you watch and realize that you only know at the very best, four or five words throughout the movie. And it's distracting when the love scene comes around. It's so innocent, but in spanish for some reason, the two lions rolling around in the grass suddenly take on a rather pornographic appearance.

A mole smells us better than we smell each other. It can hear us, and feel our vibrations. Monkeys are only inferior because we say they are. But I don't see any monkey's driving the world into decay. A maggot might eat the same food that we may. They may taste our flesh, smell our rot, feel the enormity of our shoes. They may not see us, but they do percieve us. A shark may percieve us in ways that we can't start to comprehend, and a mantis shrimp may see us in a rainbow of hues lost to us. A dolphin may see within our bodies. And how they look upon us, what they think of us, is as mysterious as the alien world they inhabit. If we are gods to the poor maggots, moles and trees of the world, are these creatures not gods in comparison to us? No creatures are superior to any other. Only better adapted for certain standards of living. And the one thing I do know, it's true that humans most certainly have a mob mentality, but not because of spiritual resonance or whatever, but because at our hearts, we're weak pack animals, needy for acceptance in a sea of fear, uncertainty, and yes, ambition and greed. Why does English catch on so quickly? Because it is profitable. As is religion. And a world of 6,000,000,000+ people cannot be galvanized into a utopian society for the simple fact that paradise, though quite a lovely concept, does not feed every man's ambition to succeed, to leave his brethren behind in a quest for his own glory, even his own god-hood. The very same quest that drives life to survive, adapt, and evolve.

Was my initial question wrong? Or is he talkin' philosophy here?

In Marine Bio we're watching Finding Nemo and in Biology we're watching Evolution. Neither movie would make a good impression scientifically in the student's mind if we just watched the movies and left it at that, but our teachers make us go through and pick apart things that are wrong or improbable and then explain why, as well as describe concepts that the movies did cover accurately, or why something was approached from a certain way. I've seen it to be far more effective than the average research project. Now, in spanish we watched lion King, and that was just a load of useless garbage

Or it just might be our Golden Calf...

Oh, yeah, no doubt at all....

What do you mean by "give life larger purposes" ? If you mean it the way I'm reading it, it sounds too philosphical

What sucks is that we don't seem able to balance intelligence beauty and strength. A few are gifted with all three, a larger number with two, but most of us are limited to one. Then of course, there are the poor bastards who don't have anything. Selective breeding might lead to making sure no one ever has to be born a loser ever again.

I suspected as much, but seeing those teal ones (a true turquoise hue) shook my faith in my own observations. Are there any other possible colors, no matter how rare?

If by completely you mean "partly but not entirely", then yes.

I agree. I just think something needs to be done to limit access for those who shouldn't be watching it.

It'd be more advantageous to sterilize students who are clearly stupid, not those who have lower IQ's. I've met some wierdly smart people with low scores, plus they might have other mental gifts.

I don't think I've actually ever seen eyes I would call green. I know a girl with striking teal ones, but no green. Is it an actual green-green, or more of a hazel-like hue? And that is a very difficult question mostly because we still don't know what gene combinations make each color show up in the phenotype. We know eye and hair and skin color are close to one another on the chromosome, so often correlate, but it's not that simple.

Ouch. And yeah, I did eventually get saddled with a bad rep, that of the Wild Prude. It died though after sophomore year, when I became just one one of the other 49 percent of the 1,500 girls at my school to ADMIT to doing it. Am I proud? Not really, not that I'm ashamed. Why, because porn has desensitized me even further. Not a good thing, I believe.

My parent's never said a word to me. Ever. With my interest in science and young-adult scifi novels, I basically knew more than my parents by the time I was ten (but then again, my parents didn't own a single book, much less a medical one) But everything in my family has a "if you even consider doing such a thing, think through the implications and possible threats, and decide if it's worth becoming the target of cruel mockery and unspoken dissapointment." Science and my parent's attitude desensitized me to the emotional aspects, and for a while made sex little more than a biological fact to me, interesting indeed, but not something worth risking my pride and childhood with. And it worked for a while. Then I fell into the river that is highschool, and sort of settled in with the sexy fish. But by then, I'd educated myself enough to approach sex more responsibly than most teens. That's when I came to understand the moaning and the groaning, and the importance of the words "faster" and "harder". Then came the porn.

Coral, do you know if your daughter knew what the intention of the mating was? I know when I was little, I understood such things to some extent. At the zoo an older child pointed to the tortoises and said "why's that durdle on top of the little one?" And I loudly responded "They's tortoises, and they's matin', Stupid." He said something along the lines of "what's that" and I told him that that was how the mommy was able to make eggs in her tummy. I understood what mating was, and that it was the source of babies (never believed in the stork myth, especially after I saw the Marabou species) but it was years before I found out that sex had anything to do with mating. On TV, when the people rolled around in the bed or were pushed against foggy glass, it seemed obvious to my naive little brain that they were playing some sort of game. I never made the connection between natural reproduction and recreational sex. One was science, teh other was a matter for adults, and adults only. I don't know what I'm trying to say, but it's somewhere in there.

Not for long. Crafty as I am, I'd learn to compensate. Or I could take the easy way out and date a troll. Of course, I'll need to find a bridge...

Doesn't make a diff. The average kid is as logical as our much-loved Willow-Tree. Doesn't matter what you do, education has little or no effect on teens in this regard. They teach us not to drive recklessly, or smoke, drink or get high, but most of us seem to get smashed nightly anyway. Same with sex and protection. I hate teens....

Is porn too easily accessed? Inarguably. Can anything be done? Not as long as the world is divided into nations and we have those stupid laws regarding the human right to privacy. Not now anyway, but, if Operation Chia Pet goes as planned, I will very soon be in a position to reforge the world in the fires of logic and true freedom. Bwa-ha-ha-ha!!! Haha!! Ha. Don't get me wrong. I like porn as much as the next person, and I've certainly learned much from it, but there are some things that should be restricted to adult access. Unfortunately, with the internet, it's impossible. So we might as well just deal with it.

Actually, I was speaking of the second heart. I don't see any probs with the "shark" teeth, except for the necessary jaw modifications .

I have to lend my vote to the skark-tooth thing. My mom work's dental, and having bad teeth is one of the things that ruins an elderly person's life most of all. A backup heart might be good also. Wait, no, nevermind, that just means you have to take just as good of care to tend to both.

har-har-har. I doubt we'll lose our hair, socieity's value of it lends it's long-term genetic survival. Same with eye-colors, so we won't get huge black peepers, especially considering the implications such eyes would have physiologically, I believe. I don't think it's too much to assume that we could evolve a phenotype with a gray skin color. Just a matter of time and isolation. I do though picture our noses getting smaller, and our heads slightly larger in the near future.

Like synthflesh in starwars?

Especially considering that since TV was created, the average IQ has actually risen a couple points. Ironic, eh? The device that turns a mind to mush has the power to enhance it. Anyway, current trends are at least leading to taller people, more gracile teeth and jaws, and that's all I know. I could see that as our dependence on computers increases, and upon more heavily processed foods, our fingers will become more nimble, and our digestive track less geared towards normal vegetable matter. Of course, this is just extrapolation into the near future. Like Mokele says, it's impossible to gesticulate with any accuracy past that, especailly when you facotr in the fact that we may eventually begin to alter our own DNA.