Mokele

Seems like you're wrong pretty often, including about this. Perhaps you should try actually thinking and reading posts for content. It helps. It works, yes, but the question is "does it still work when you come off it, or do you put all the weight right back on?' (which has been the experience of friends of mine), not to mention it's usefulness as a long-term diet. Personally, I'm of the relatively simplistic school of thought "if calories in < calories out, wieght loss, manipulate either as desired to achieve outcome." Either that or Dr. Mokele's Scientificly Proven All Natural Wieght Loss Pill* Mokele * - Contains tapeworm eggs. But they're all-natural.

Anything the ICR prints is barely worth reading, except for humor value. However, I decided to actually wade through their tripe, simply in order to more effectively demolish your arguement. Well, the second paragraph is a strawman, equating naturalistic science with necessary atheism, which is not only false but such a transparent lie that the author should be ashamed. Ok, I'm at the third paragraph now, and not only did most of these people die before Darwin (who, while he didn't discover evolution, *did* propose a viable mechanism that made it more than just speculation), but NONE listed so far were biologists with the exception of Linneaus, who falls into the first category. With this sort of logic, I could argue that many respected scientists thought the earth was flat. The inclusion of Mendel in the first list is flat-out intellectual dishonesty. Darwin's theory lacked a viable theory of inheritance. Guess who *personally* wrote Darwin a letter informing him of his results? The irony is that Darwin never opened the letter. In fact, the only biologists on that list died shortly after Darwin proposed the theory, and therefore before the current mountains of evidence had amassed. The same is true of the second list. Both are such truly underhanded manipulations of the data that they border on libel for defaming the name of people who simply had no other option in the worldview. The entire essay is, frankly, beyond the line at which willful ignorance becomes intellectual dishonesty. However, you might find this interesting: Project Steve The list of Steves (warning, very long load time) The current tally is 577 Steves. The idea that there is *any* serious doubt or opposition to evolution by those who actually *know* anything about biology or evolution is laughable. Once again, we see the creationists lying and misleading in hopes of pretending that they still have a leg to stand on. It'd be funny if they didn't fool so many people; as it is, it's just pathetic. Mokele

You missed my point. Once the environment has changed, the effects of the genes can change. Even though the gene didn't cause obesity *before*, now it does. Change the environment, and you can change what the gene does. The gene itself hasn't changed, you're right. But the *phenotype* caused by that gene *has* changed, due to environmental alterations to the expression of the gene. So, if the gene *now* causes an obese phenotype, then yes, it *can* be passed on, if the environment remains the same. But that same environment might not cause obesity in all individuals, only ones with certain genes. What I called ludicrous was your assertion that "obesity due to environmental causes can never be 'passed on through generations' or 'affect the gene pool' in any way." As I've *clearly* pointed out, the expression of genes and the resulting phenotype *can* (and often *does*) depend on environmental stimuli. Since phenotype is what natural selection acts on, it's fairly obvious that an environmental change which alters the phenotype produced by genes can alter the selective pressure a gene is exposed to, resulting in alterations in gene frequency. What I am talking about is how genes and environment *interact* to produce a phenotype, and how alterations to the phenotype due to alterations in the environment can affect the selective forces acting on the underlying gene. Mokele

But why? It's not like you can effectively use them to forge an identity, not without doing some cool spy-stuff that I doubt is actually possible outside of movies. They just strike me as a minimally useful bit of data for anything other than confirming identity.

How can they evolve separately? Easy, because (aside from annoying things like conjugation in bacteria) they don't exchange genes, and will land in different environments that have different selective pressures. Can you rephrase this? The grammar is so bad I can barely understand what you're trying to say. Is English not your first language? Will similar habitats produce similar animals? Sure. But not identical, nor will the *same* species arise in all of those habitats. There is a *lot* more going into what species show up than selective pressure, such as what species you start with, and random effects like founder effect and genetic drift. Furthermore, this does *not* apply to hominid evolution. Hominids, as the fossil record clearly shows, occupied a diverse array of habitats, from southeast asian jungles to african savannahs to seashores. Different habitats lead to *different* selective pressures. Say what? 1) This has *nothing* to do with the discussion at hand 2) From what I can understand of your garbled presentation of your hypothesis, it requires multiple organisms in multiple habits. Where, exactly, did those multiple organisms come from? 3) We have *very* strong evidence that all life arose from a common ancestor, such as the univeral codon translations. Mokele

Except what you just defined is *not* "creationism" as I, or most/all of the board and damn near everyone understands it. "Creationism" is used most typically to describe young-earth, adam-and-eve, evolution-is-a-hoax-and-Adam-lived-like-Fred-Flintstone POV. We *have* had people use the term to describe what you describe, and *every* time, it has resulted in collosal misunderstandings that went nowhere. So, before you blow everyone off, look at *your* mistake, in mis-interpreting our posts. Could God, aliens, or something else have made the universe such that evolution would happen, and/or guided it? Sure, why not. But "creationism" is *not* that highly-reasonable proposition. Regardless of the original or technical meaning of the term, it has been adopted by the biblical literalists and become so associated with them that even in *theology*, it now refers to their brand of idiocy. The POV that god was the guiding force, using evolution as a mechanism, is simply "religion". If you can come to that conclusion based on a few threads in a few days, you don't have what it takes to be a scientist anyway, so no loss there. Perhaps you can pull your head out of your ass and actually read what people wrote one day. Until then, good riddance. Mokele

"On the planet earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons." - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

I agree, it sounds very much like a rotifer, from the description.

Actually, it *can*, but not in the way you're thinking. Simply put, obesity is caused by a change in our environment, namely the availibility of much more high-calorie, high-fat foods. Because, as you allude to, phenotype is the product of both genes and environment, the change in environment can lead to genes that previously did not produce obesity doing so. For instance, if you have genes that lead to a low metabolism, that would be fine 100,000 years ago, but today, with the current food situation in the US, those genes *do* now cause obesity (in a way). That aside, though, the assertion that it will not affect the gene pool in any way is ludicrous. At the very least, selective pressures have been altered. People with natural resistances or suceptibilities to obesity-related diseases that mere previously rare will have their genes amplified or diminished much more rapidly through the generations on account of this higher selective pressure. And let's not forget sexual selection, including mate choice, which can have a dramatic impact on a species' evolution. Environmental effects, and the effect of environment on gene expression, can and do have a great influence on a gene pool, especially when selective pressure is applied. Mokele

Forgive a rather thick question, but what exactly is Disney (or anyone else) going to do with my fingerprints, other than determine who I am? Mokele

You do realize that, even if they were small, you *still* have to fit *ALL* of them on board. And food for them. Oh, and let's not forget that they'd not only have to deal with dinosaurs, but extinct mammals like baluchitherium (or whatever it got re-named). Imagine something 3 times the size of an elephant, and it was a *live-bearer*, so any young would have still been comparable to a horse in size. And, since you're convinced these things survived a flood that never happened, care to elucidate what you think happened to them? Was it alien big-game hunters? No, it isn't. There are dimensions for the ark listed in the bible. Find them,. quote them, and tell me precisely how this could possible work. No, it's gone somewhere. That somewhere is called "Biology", which, firmly based in the *fact* of evolution, is proceding to actually advance. Meanwhile creationists like yourself, apparently oblivious to this, continue to use the same arguements they did 150 years ago, and act as if the past century-and-a-half of scientific progress never happened. Yes, enough for a nice long laugh. I know they probably didn't cover this in Creationist Biology, so let's refresh: Babies do not come from storks or cabbage patches. They come from mothers and fathers. Often (4 times per individual according to a recent article in Nature), a baby is born with new, mutant genes. At some point in the past, a pair of nearly-human adults gave birth to a baby that would be, geneticly, human. However, as others have said, it's hard to establish a simple dividing line, and the process is very gradual. Eh, I'm a bit skeptical of the multi-regionalism hypothesis. With such a large gene pool, it would take a very long time for traits to propagate through the gene pool, especially with so many bottlenecks caused by travel difficulties. I'm more in favor of the idea that an isolated population was exposed to a particular environment that allowed/necessitated the adaptations that distinguish sapiens from erectus, and then they emerged from isolation. You'd need enormous selective pressures to cause the emergence of "humans" over such a large population. But I'm sure people more versed in hominid evolution than me have given the subject more in-depth consideration. After all, they're all just python-food to me... Mokele

Well, the temporal arch is mostly for two purposes. One, to lighten the skull. But mostly, it served to give an anchor point for muscles that allowed the muscles to bulge outward more when contracted. It can give us a general idea of how much jaw power an animal had, but not a very good one, since other muscles can be increased in size if other factors shrink the temporal arches. For instance, crocs have very small temporal arches, but have immense jaw closing pressure due to several other muscles. In general, it's a bad idea to try to extrapolate lifestyle and advantages very a single anatomical characteristic. The use for taxonomy is that the temporal arch preserves well, and probably correlates with other evolutionary innovations that have allowed diapsids to suceed. Mokele

Ironicly, I actually got the sideburns before I saw a picture of him. The wikipedia article has a pic of a younger Huxely, just out of med school, and the facial resemblence is creepy. Mokele

Simple. First, we need to establish what evolution is. Evolution is technically defined as "change in allele frequency in a population over time". (Micro vs macro is an artificial divide used only for communication purposes, and speciation is a direct consequence of this definition, so it is complete) Now that we know what evolution is, it's very simple to prove. Go and sample to genes of local moths or frogs. Keep fruit flies and observe their genetics under selective pressure (such as by killing the smallest 50%). Expose a population of bacteria to antibiotic resistance and watch the genes for resistance spread. All of the above have been done, and in every case evolution has been directly obversed happening. We call evolution a fact because it is. It is an observed phenomonon. Period. It's actuall *far* more difficult to *prevent* evolution from happening (so that it doesn't bollox up your microbiology experiement) than to observe it. So, evolution is a fact, an observed phenomenon whose reality *cannot* be denied except by imposing a false, different definition upon it (which is a strawman fallacy). Now, the *theory* of evolution is more complicated. It deals with *why* this phenomenon occurs, and under what rules. Darwin's theory of natural selection, while broadly true, has both been heavily revised and ammended. Sexual selection, genetic drift, founder effect, devlopmental constraints, all account for what we have observed (and all are supported by massive reams of english). So, basically, that's it. Aside from the masses of evidence supporting the theoretical framework, there is the observed, indisputable phenomenon. See the above. This is *exactly* what we're on about. If you'd actually bothered to *learn* about evolution, you might have noticed that yes, it *is* a fact. And there was a very nice essay on this published in the popular press by the late Stephen J. Gould elaborating it far more effectively than I could. And this was 20 years or more ago, so you've certainly had bloody time to find the essay. I am sitting down. That is a fact. It is not a theory, it is an isolated data point that can be gathered by simple observation. Evolution happens. This is a fact. It is not theory, it is an observation that can made by simply looking at the data. We have *SEEN* evolution happen. Denial of that is intellectual dishonesty. Then you are either evolutionist or a hypocrite. Microevolution and macroevolution are *NOT* distinct. They are distinguished simply so profs can talk more easily about what they study; there is no actual distinction between them. The existence of microevolution *LOGICALLY NECESSITATES* macroevolution. No if's, and's or but's. If you accept microevolution, you have no choice but to accept macroevolution. Failure to do so is simply ignoring logic so you can believe what you want. Once again, you are demonstrating the typical creationist ignorance of the actual scientific literature and definitions. It ticked you off because you realize, deep down, that you are wrong. First, abiogenesis is *NOT* a part of evolution. It's veracity or falsehood has *no* effect on evolution's veracity. This has been covered HUNDREDS of times, on this forum alone. Yet again, the creationist ignorance of actual science shows. And you wonder why we disparage you? Secondly, skepticism is fine. All scientists are skeptics by trade. But there is enough evidence for any aspect of evolution that refusal to accept it is beyond the boundaries of reason. Have you ever, in your life, performed an experiment? Congratualtions, you've proved yourself wrong. I have LOTS of scientific facts. 11 1-hour video tapes filled with them. What you call "facts" I call "data". It is a FACT that at timecode 34:55:23 on tape 4, snake #6's head is at coordinates X and Y. Fact = data. Data=observable phenomenon that can be measured. Guess what follows this and you get a cookie. Yet again, another case of creationist ignorance of real science and how science works. Mokele

Only if the ancient Egyptians were the most phenomenally endowed individuals of all time....

Body plans do not equate to phyla. For instance, the vertebrate body place has been modified many times since the cambrian, such as the addition of jaws and limbs. Arthropod body plans have similarly diversified. Alternatively, most worms have the same basic bodyplan, but are divided into multiple phyla. However, the problem is that in modern times, with so many ecological niches filled, major new body plans offer comparatively little advantage, since they'd be put into competetion with older, established plans. Innovation is always harder than just modifying existing infrastructures. In biology, that means it will be a comparative rarity. Mokele

It's between those, quite literally: it's in your ganglia, the nerve-clusters located alongside your spinal cord. They serve as what's referred to as a pattern generator. Your brain doesn't actually control how your muscles work unless it's a non-automatic movement. Think of it like walking. You don't actually think "Ok, now I contract the femoralis, then the gastrocnemius, then...", you just decide you want to walk in a particular direction at a certain speed. This isn't actually an illusion, either. When Russian researchers, in the days before IACUC and other lab-animal-use protocols, cut a cat's brain from it's spinal cord, they found they could actually get the animal to walk, simply by stimulating a portion of the cord cross-section with a regular pulse of electricity. The frequency of the pulse controlled the pace. The cat would actually walk unassisted, though it could not consciously control direction, and would just run into walls and keep walking. So, gruesome annecdotes aside, what you're actually doing is setting a pattern in your ganglion, so that all your brain has to do is send the "swing" command, and the ganglion will oversee the actual details of execution, such as timing of muscle contractions and alteration of the pattern in response to immediate sensory feedback. Mokele

IMHO, there are genetic properties that effect it, but they are not the only cause or an excuse. The biggest genetic influence is metabolism. Those with naturally high metabolisms have almost no chance of getting fat no matter what they eat. Those with low metabolisms have more trouble. There's also genetic influences on how fat is stored and where. There are even studies indicating that there may be genetic factors that determine just how much good exercise does for an individual (10 miles on the treadmill might do a lot more for some than others). However, a lot of it is just diet and exercise. And willpower. Mokele

Personally, I love Chocolate Silk soymilk. Great stuff, and healthy enough that I don't feel guilty about drinking what is effectively chocolate milk. However, I will note a word of warning: if you switch to soy products very fast, and go from zero to lots, you body *can* develop a soy allergy/intolerance. It happened to my GF this year, when she swtiched hard because of sudden lactose intolerance (caused, it turns out, by sudden onset of coeliac). But a little bit at a time is fine, just don't go from none to 3 gallons a day or something. Mokele

Some of the most fun people are curmudgeons. T.H.Huxley, when he found out the his famous creationist nemesis the Bishop of Wilbeforce had died of a head injury after being thrown from a horse, is reported to have remarked "At last, the good bishop's brain has made contact with reality, and the results killed him." Mokele

1) We aren't the ones posting discredited and mis-informed arguements on a forum where they're *guaranteed* to be torn to shreds and laughed at, so we aren't exactly the instigators, are we? 2) There's a lot to be said for conflict. Without conflict, there would be no evolution, no challenge, no life, nothing worthwhile. Look into Hindu theology. Kali and Shiva are two of the most-revered gods, because the Hindus realize, correctly, that death and destruction are every bit as vital to the world as birth and creation. 3) To re-phrase your post: "Waaa, I'm gonna take my ball and go home!" Come back when you actually know something, kid. Mokele

Cornelius, that you consider Answers In Genesis to be a worthy source of information has effectively killed your arguement. That alone gives us credible reason to question any fact you may cite, since you are clearly incapable of distinguishing fact from faction. As for the trackway, why don't you ask *real* paleontologists what it is? Oh, wait, that's right, because you might find out you're *wrong*. Stop wasting our time with your already-discredited information. Do you *seriously* think these disproven ideas haven't been spewed by a thousand crackpots before you? Before I go, I'd like to give you something to think about: The biblical version of creation has been out of favor and regarded as allegorical for over 200 years, even before Darwin. In *ALL* of that time, creationism has not been able to mount a strong enough arguement to be regarded as anything but a group of ignorant dogmatists incapable of logical thought. If there were *realy* any truth to creationism, how can you explain this total failure to produce any evidence or logic that doesn't fall apart at the slightest scrutiny? Mokele

We aren't sure, and there are many competing theories. However, the most popular and supported one currently is that entire clusters of genes governing embryonic development were duplicated (these duplications happen commonly), possibly several times, allowing animal life to undergo more complex embryonic development, which in turn resulted in the diversity of forms. Mokele

Except for the fact that molecular evidence completely refutes this. While there is a "mitochondrial eve", this does *NOT* mean there was only one human alive at the time, only that her descendants eventually out-competed the descendants of all the other humans of the time. Note that the above is *evidence*, not based on moldy old books of dubious veracity. There is no "belief" in it; it is fact, and failure to acknowledge it is intellectual dishonesty. Respect is earned, and here, it comes from logic, data and reasoning. The biblical view, however, popular contains no more of those than any of the "perpetual motion machine" threads in Psuedoscience, and ergo is not entitled to any respect at all. Bullshit. Dinosaurs and humans have *never* co-existed. Furthermore, care to explain how you fit two of every sauropod on that boat? The bible gives dimensions, and they're a damn sight smaller than even *one* adult of some sauropod species. Look up Argentinosaurus, and tell me how you fit 300 *tons* of dinosaur, at 100+ feet long each, onto that boat. And those *weren't* the only titanosaurids. ---------------- I would like to note that this thread is in the biological sciences forum, *not* psuedoscience. If you continue to post about bullshit (aka creationism), it will be moved, or just your posts. This is a genuine question about reality, not your fairy-tale world of arks and the Flintstones. Mokele

Yes and no. Punctuated equilibrium posits that species as a whole do very little evolving, and rarely become anything but extinct. What happens (in PE) is that some small portion of the species becomes isolated in a new and different environment, and evolves to suit it (since adaptations can spread faster in small populations). When the two meet again, they either co-exist, or one out-competes the other. The logical and paleontological consequences are that 1) not all species truly are transitional, since only small sub-populations found future species and 2) transitional forms will occur over geologically breif time periods, as little as 10,000 generations (which can be damn short in real-time for many species), and in small areas, and thus will be rare. Fossil and modern studies have supported this, and PE is widely accepted (though not perfectly in the original form, as *some* degree of gradualistic evolution does occur). Mokele