Mokele

My main problem is, well, who are we to say that other countries *must* be democratic, or that we should force it upon them. They should be offered the option and help if they want it, sure, but to try to democratize everywhere smacks, to me, of claiming that our beliefs about government are the only correct ones, and that everyone should fall in line, regardless of their beliefs about government. Purely hypothetically, what if some country was run under Plato's (?) ideal of philosopher-kings, and it was actually working, with the people happy and free? Should we still try to democratize them? I'm all for freedom and giving it a helping hand, whether it appears in the form of a democracy or not, but I feel it's something we should *help*, not instigate or initiate. Mokele

I would say no, except in the cases of permanent artificial body parts, like artificial hearts or pacemakers or mechanical/robotic legs. Mokele

Allow me to second that. Is this guy an asshole? Sure. Might he actually cause some harm? Possibly. But that does *not* equate to a reason to restrict his freedom of speech. IIRC, the *only* time such restrictions are justified is when the speech presents a "clear and present danger", such as revealing classified information publicly or publicly planning an assassination, etc. This dude is just some obnoxious crackpot who isn't worth getting excited about. Mokele

Ok, I might be totally off-base here, but I recall hearing something about the moon's rotation slowing the Earth. Or was it speeding up, or slowing down the moon? Something involving the two interacting and altering each other's rotation, anyway. So, this got me thinking, could you possibly calculate, using what we know of this phenomenon, the day length a million years ago (assuming this was the only factor)? What about, say, 65 million years ago? Or 250 million? I'm not really interested in the usual "will the moon fly off or hit the earth?" stuff, but more about day-length in general, and the possible ramifications for paleoecology. Mokele

While I think *some* aspects do look nice, it's not actually very compelling as a whole, since one would expect numerous other adaptations in an aquatic species (webbed feet, for example) that are not seen in humans. I do, however, place a lot more creedence in the idea of our ancestors are beachcombers and foragers of fertile coastal lowlands. IIRC, coastal movements actually account for some of the movement data of our species better than overland movements could. Mokele

Depends how well they're designed, but none can ever be completely accurate. However, some measurement, even with error, is better than none at all. Mokele

Because humans have such a great variety of heights (even in countries like the US where we can assume there to be negligible malnutrition), I'd be pretty confident in it being a polygenic trait. Basically, you'd have, say, 6 loci (genes), and if you have 3 short and 3 tall, you're average. Of course, there could be many more than 6, and many more alleles than "tall and short" at each gene, but that's just an example to explain the concept. Mokele

AL's completely correct: exaptation (what he described) basically squashes any "irreducible complexity" garbage. An excellent example is the IDiot's own claimed "irreducibly complex" mechanism of the bacterial flaggelum. It seems too complex and interdependent, until you look at other bacteria and see the same mechanism, in a simpler form, used to inject poisons into cells. What good is half a wing? A lot, if it's being used a courtship/territorial display or thermoregulatory device. Mokele

The problem is that even if you use the shared DNA of birds and crocs to reconstruct much of the DNA of dinosaurs, you're still missing all the genes that made dinosaurs *different* from birds and crocs, genes unique to them which vanished when they did. Without an original sample of dino DNA, reconstruction will be impossible, since we don't know what we're trying to reconstruct. No dinosaurs were frozen, and any DNA in fossils (mosquitoes in amber, bones like the one above, whatever) will have long since decayed simply by the effects of time. DNA is pretty stable, but eventually, it just breaks down. Entropy and all that. Mokele

Yes, that's right.

Well, I went to the UK this past summer, and didn't notice any obvious difference in sizes. If there is one, it must be small.

True, but if each successive president does better than the one before, eventually it will be eliminated. After all, things like poverty can't be solved overnight. Well, OK, they *can*, but asteroid impacts that eliminate all vertebrate life aren't exactly the best way of solving the problem. Mokele

A few quick comments: There isn't a simple, 1:1 result of "if you have this gene, you will do this" in most cases, and evnironment does play a role, correct. But there's a difference between a gene "causing a behavior" and "causing differences in behavior". Any behavior needs nerves, muscles, etc to be carried out, and thus cannot be the result of any one gene. *But*, differences in behavior *can* be caused by a single genetic difference. An excellent example occurs in fruit fly larvae. Some larve will move very little in a nutrient plate, others with roam widely. Not only is the difference genetic, it's been traced to a single gene that displays classic mendelian dominant/recessive interactions. Anything shaped by natural selection *must* be heritable, either geneticly or culturally. A behavior that is not transmitted, but leads to reproductive success, will vanish, regardless of whether it is genetic or cultural in origin. While, of course, not *all* behavior can be explained genetically, certain behaviors with certain characteristics seem to be best explained by genetics. The face humans make when angry is pretty much the same as that of all mammals. This makes it likely that it is genetic in nature, rather than cultural. The occurance of a behavior among all primates or all apes also makes this likely, though less clear-cut. Given the occurence of kissing in other species of ape, I'm inclined towards a genetic view. But then again, I'm inclined towards a genetic view for *most* human behavior, as I don't think we're as smart or rational as we think we are. Mokele

As swansont pointed out, what credibility? Everything you've said here has been shown to be wrong. Did you ever *read* the post solidsquid made? The one that points out Sir Keith *died* many years before the 100th aniversary of the Origin's publication? So, are you going to admit you were wrong, or claim Sir Keith was a zombie/vampire/both? Because those are your only two options. Mokele

Also, lip-to-lip contact is seen as a social and pair bonding ritual in chimps and bonobos, including wild ones. Mokele

He's a Louisiana politician, so this should come as no suprise at all. Seriously, *nowhere* in the US has corruption and abuse of power like LA, and we're actually *proud* of it, in a warped way. Remember, this is a state who's most popular governor (Huey P Long) once openly said: "I've never bought a senator in my life. I rent them. It's cheaper that way." Seriously, bribery is "local culture", rather than a crime in LA. We elected Edwin Edwards governor 4 times, and he's ended each term in jail. Yet he still got re-elected each time. A KKK grand dragon ran for governor (against Edwards) and, while he lost, he still carried a significant portion of the vote. As Louisiana politics goes, this is par for the course. Mokele

Tilda's actually right, and my GF can confirm it. Girth matters more than length. ;-) Mokele

Not to mention the *dozens* of other fossil primitive birds, and *hundreds* of fossils of a group called the Enantiornithines, a group of toothed birds (a sister taxon to modern birds, Neornithines) that did very well during the cretaceous (their name reflects an unusual aspect of ankle morphology, iirc). Mokele

Ok, a few pics will show what I mean about archaeopteryx. Here's a Compsognathus fossil, on slab: And here's an Archaeopteryx fossil, the Berlin specimen: Look at the arms, look at the legs. In *both*, Archaeopteryx displays more length than compsognathus. Furthermore, both are articulated, indicating that the Archaeopteryx fossil could not have been made from a Compsognathus fossil. And a 100% forgery would have been easily detected. Look, it's called "evidence". Mokele

404 errors are not references. I tried a bit of googling, and come up with *nothing* linking that quote to that individual, except on creationist websites. Given that they have been know to flat-out *lie* about what people have said (like the myth of Darwin's deathbed conversion), their word is worthless. The entire link is worthless. First, they assume a conspiracy and treat *everything*, no matter how innocuous, as evidence for it. Second, they claim Archaeopteryx was actually a forged compsognathus. Unlike the author of that page, however, I actually have knowledge of both comparative anatomy and paleobiology, and am familiar with *both* genera. There is *no* possible was to turn a compy into an Archaeoptery. Why? Becuase in the latter, several bones are *longer* than in compys, notably the radius, ulana, carpals, phylanges, tibia, fibula, metatarsals and tarsals. It's *easy* to shorten a bone in forger, but impossible to lengthen it, especially while preserving the articulations. How about a link that *isn't* bullshit? Or how about actually responding to my posts? Tell me how ID explains the pelvis and leg bones of modern whales. Or will you keep avoid the question because you *know* you can't answer it? Mokele

True, but what I meant was that they theories are not logically dependent upon each other. The veracity or falsity of one does not necessitate nor imply the same of the other. Mokele

Not off the top of my head, but Gould mentions it in one of his essays. Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes, iirc, in a collection of his essays by the same title. I'm pretty sure he mentions who did it in there, an then you could find the original source. I think he also includes pictures. Mokele

IIRC, the Kinsey report already deals with this, or is it Masters & Johnson? Either way, I've seen a proper study done somewhere. Anyhow the results were that African-american males had a slightly longer average length, but the variation in both groups was such that this difference was statistically insignificant. Mokele

Invidual neurons can be quite large. The common squid had a giant axon (often used in neuron research and where we know most everything from) so large it's actually visible to the naked eye (and this is a 12-15 inch squid), because greater diameter means faster transmission. This huge axon allows squids to jet backward with contractions of mantle before a predator can reach them. Mokele

Ok, ecology's not my best subject, so bear with me. Say you've got a plot of land, as you do, and your plants just keep making more seeds, which make more plants. Since your land is not infinite, nor does it contain infinite resources, some plants will eventually fail to thrive or just die. Maybe space became the limiting factor because the roots didn't have enough room, or maybe it was this or that soil nutrient. Maybe even just how much solar energy enters the plot isn't enough to sustain all the plants. So the surplus individuals die, and then it becomes a normal evolutionary scenario, with only the best surviving the competition for sun, space and/or nutrients. As for this "order" you mention, IIRC, the correct term is "succession communities". Lets say you just paved over you entire yard. Eventually, lichen would grown on the rock, and gradually break it down into a poor soil. Mosses are better growersthan lichens, but as such need more nutrients, so only after the lichens have established some soil can the mosses move in. They, in turn, by biomass accumulation, generate better soil, and common weeds move it. And so on and so forth until you have a "climax community", with no further levels of sucess (typically old-growth forest is a "climax community"). It tends to be the most rich in both biomass and diversity. At least, that's what I recall from the times in ecology when I wasn't asleep. Mokele