Mokele

It's possible, but not probable. I'm not familiar enough with anthropoid evolution to know the current arguements of why we started walking upright, but whatever it was would have to re-occur, and the chimps would have to not solve this problem in another way (either by cognition or evolutionary alternatives). Basically, covergence occurs when similar life-forms solve similar problems. In order for a chimp to evolve into something like us, it would have to face similar problems, which, given the complexity of the environment, is unlikely. However, it is considerably *more* likely that a chimp would than, say, a rat, or a lizard. That's possible, yes, but our forms have only a few good traits (free hands, seeing over stuff), with a lot of bad ones (poor defense due to posture, inherently unstable posture, etc). Lots of creatures have had the opportunity to evolve erect-backed bipedality, but only a few have (the others being cormorants, auks, and penguins) and only one (us) uses that posture as the primary one and during any serious locomotion where performance matters. Speaking strickly biomechanically, the human form is vastly inferior to most other animals. I would say that it's not an pure adaptation itself, but a result of our past history constraining our adaptive possibilities so that this was the best of a limited set of options. Mokele

Not currently possibly, and possibly never. Such things are wings, limbs, tails, eyes etc all form during early development of an organism. Once the organism is fully grown, the possibility to producing these structures, even if the genetic material is added, is almost nill. It's just just a matter of what genes, but of when they're activated. Mokele

Adaptation is defined by the environment, and is constrained by development (why kangaroos hop, for instance). In order for humans to "re-evolve", a vertebrate with similar genetic and ecological state to our ancestor would have to encounter more-or-less the same situations thoughout millions of years. As this is very unlikely, so is the re-occurence of the humanoid form. Truly effective forms occur numerous times in distantly related species (the wings of birds and bats, the shapes of sharks and dolphins, the proboscis of a butterfly and the beak of a hummingbird). Human form has only evolved once. While that doesn't mean it's *bad*, that also means it's not exactly overwhelmingly useful in most situations. Mokele

Actually, evolution is both fact and theory. The fact of evolution is that the genetic composition (and resultant phenotype proportions) of populations change with time. This is indisputable. The theory of evolution is that natural selection (and sexual selection) are responsible for this observed data. Think of it like gravity. The fact/law of gravity is that if I drop an object, it falls in a certain way. The theory/theories of gravity explain why in terms of space-curvature, gravitrons, superstrings, whatever. Proven and observed happening. You have to tape record evolution lectures, then play them backwards to hear the real satanic messages. ::nods knowingly:: It doesn't in the slightest. Plus, just because we don't know how doesn't mean it doesn't happen. We don't know how gravity *really* works (gravitrons?), but it still happens. Alternatively, we also have polychaete worms, who show numerous "stages" of eyes, highlighting the probably evolutionary path. I have a nice picture for this here, though I don't know the reference and would love if anyone could tell me. That individual peoplke are wrong, or that phylogenies and fossil histories are difficult to reconstruct, doesn't prove a theory wrong. You gave it a good shot, though. Sad, isn't it? Someone *deliberately* trying to find the best arguements they can still can't find anything. Says a lot about creationism. Oh, we've got plenty. Google "triadobatrachus". It's a fossil "frog" that's an almost perfect intermediatry between salamanders and frogs. Neither of which supports anything. Just because one part of the bible is right doesn't mean it all is. If I write on a napkin "I had a lean pocket for lunch. 2+2=5", that doesn't mean I just refuted all of math. Jesus's reality (which is actually dubious) also says jack shit about the subject. Actually, even a cursory reading shows Leviathan to be a crocodile. The characteristics work perfect, and the jews were certainly familiar with them from Egypt. The most likely candidate for behemoth is a hippo (vicious bastards, worse than crocs, really). We've proven Genesis wrong for a start. Mokele

Try turning the ignorance setting of your posts down, they're painful to read. News flash for the uninformed: We have *lots* of transitional fossils for most of the major groups. You want scores, we have 12 alone for whales, over half a dozen for humans, hundreds for early mammals, and *thousands* for hard-shelled invertebrates. In fact, there is actually a fossil deposit, iirc, that captures punctuated equilibrium in action. You see one type of clam in the deposit, then suddenly a new one, except for one small, offset area. In this area, you see the first clams colonize, then slowly begin to change into a new species. Finally, the new clams re-appear in the main deposit and rapidly outcompete the old ones. Or perhaps you'd like to hear a 200 page post on fossil evidence of whale evolution? Try actually looking up the facts *before* you post. Makes you look less stupid than you actually are. ::plays "Dueling banjos":: Ya'll come back now, ya hea? Mokele

That's a belief, not science. Science is facts, evidence, logic, and the scientific method. Creationism doesn't even come close. It deserves the title of "science" as much as I deserve the title of "Lead singer of the Rolling Stones". Believing in evolution is like believing in gravity. Jump off a building to see how much effect your disbelief has on reality. Evolution is fact, and therefore not subject to belief. You clearly have no idea what the hell you are talking about. Learn something, then we might not dismiss you as a crackpot. Oh, and FYI, evolution not only can be tested and demonstrated, it *has* been. So many times that denial of it can only arise from either ignorance or willful denial to the point of intellectual dishonesty. Which category are you in? You really, truly don't have a clue, do you? Theories *ARE* science, and evolution has been *observed* empirically, in the lab and in the wild. Not just at the small scale; we've witnessed *dozens* of speciation events. Your ignorance is actually painful. Welcome to one of the many things that earned you a ban. So is gravity. I suggest you test this theory for us, preferably by hurling yourself from the top of a tall building. It will simultaneously demonstrate the theory of gravity *and* the theory of evolution. I swear, we need to make "It's just a theory" a bannable offense. Mokele

It's not his field. I'm an expert in biology, but I'm sure my ideas in economics are childish and stupid. And, in the professional world, I'll only be judged on my biological knowledge. He arrived at those numbers by a simple process. First, bend over. Then relax, it only hurts for a second... Basically, they're bullshit. Talk.origins has a lovely page on probability and abiogenesis. And he's wrong about that. Advantageous mutations are much more common than we realize (on the order of over 5% of mutations that affect final protien structure). Plus, even if there's a 1 in 10,000 chance, it doesn't take long in a population of 100 million rats. Most living things are small and exist in huge numbers. Mokele

Dowsing and divining have been proven to be hoaxes/fake. Even the most "accomplished" dowsers fail to achieve anything more than chance rates in a properly controlled experimental setup. Mokele

Modelling is nice, but you cannot claim that something *IS* the source of consciousness because of a model, only that it *might* have a role. As for actual experiments, it's *easy*. You don't have to directly see a process to figure out it's going on. For instance, figure out a wavelength of photons that can force the sugar into a particular conformation, and pass through flesh and bone. This will allow you to "push the reset button" on any information stored in the sugars. Teach a mouse something, like a maze or a trick or somesuch. Expose it to this wavelength. If the mouse displays no memory of the training, you have evidence for your model. If the mouse shows no loss of memory, your model has been disproven, or at least seriously weakened. It should be easy, using computers, to figure out a wavelength to do that, and then the experiment is simple, straightforward, and easy. No, it isn't. It sounds like you're asserting that you have the final answer, not just a model. Mokele

Typically, speciation requires two populations to become geneticly isolated. Given the way communication and transport have resulted in globalization, I cannot envision this happening anytime soon for long enough for speciation to occur. That said, I *could* see humans splitting into multiple species if we develop interstellar travel, colonize other star systems, but then drop into a "dark age", isolating the humans on each star system for millions of years. But that's more a science-fiction plot than scientific hypothesis. Mokele

"Intelligence" is just a culturally defined "weighted average" of a whole series of mental attributes, such as knowledge, problem solving, speed of learning (classically and operantly), reasoning (spatial, social, mathematical, etc), memory, communicatory ability, and more. Just look into animal intelligence and you'll see how useless the term is. It cannot be defined in any formal operational sense. All IQ tests just make up a series of questions (usually based on what the culture values), test a sub-set of people, and use that group to set the averages and such. For something measurable and real (rather than social fiction), focus on the sub-sets, like social reasoning or memory or knowledge. Mokele

I doubt it. Some men are actually XX, on account of a rare crossover that put the SRY gene (which basically triggers the process that makes a fetus develop into a male) on the X chromosome. As the Y chromosome diminishes, these XX males will be selected for, and eventually humans will all be XX, but still male and female. Non-heterochromatic sexes are quite common in other species, and are probably the basal condition of vertebrates. Mokele

I agree with those in the article who state that his metrics of "innovation" are flawed, but would also argue that as technology becomes more sophisticated, it takes longer to develop. If two devices have 100 and 10,000 moving parts, respectively, guess which is gonna take longer to get working and get the bugs sorted out for. The tree analogy is flawed, because a tiny twig can become a huge branch, possibly even bigger than the parent branch. There was a time when Quantum was just some obscure, pointless research, and now look. Mokele

I can, and all I need is your photo, address and a gun. Mokele

Are you even reading my posts? So it can happen in atoms, molecules and crystals and such. Whoop-de-****in-do. That doesn't *prove* it happens in cells. *THAT* is what I am after, and have been since about my 2nd post in this thread. Chemicals can do lots of freaky things, but not all things happen in cells. You can have D and L chiralities of amino acids, but living things can/do only use one. Just because it's possible in a test tube does not mean it's possible in a living cell. Furthermore, even if it is possible, that doesn't mean it exists. Lots of *possible* things don't happen. ------------ All I ask is that you actually provide evidence that this phenomenon occurs in living cells for the purpose you describe (not in test tubes or models, in living cells). Can you do that? If not, how can you even remotely claim that this process has *anything* to do with *anything* in life? I repeat: All I ask is that you actually provide evidence that this phenomenon occurs in living cells for the purpose you describe (not in test tubes or models, in living cells). Do so. Mokele

If you *really* have something, why are you posting here? To boast? Your post contains *nothing* useful beyond an announcement which you've made before (and which was recieved with deafening silence). Seriously, what's the point of this post? Not dicussion, obviously, since you raise no points to discuss. It's redundant as an announcement. Do you just expect everyone to pat you on the back? Mokele

You posted the *exact* same thread a month ago (and I mean verbatim, word-for-word the same), and it got a whopping 0 replies. What makes you think we care? If this idea is so great, go patent it and sell it. Unless you're talking out of your ass like every other crank who blows through here with an "invention".

Agreed, I've been hearing enough noises about Iran and the "Axis of Evil" that it truly would not surprise me. The best way to explain my POV is by annecdote: A few issues back, The Onion, a parody/satire newspaper, ran the main story "Bush announces plan for withdrawl from Iraq:'We'll go out through Iran'." I got distracted by an IM between clicking the link and reading it, and when I read it, there was a small moment when I forgot that it was the Onion and thought it was serious. When it takes concious effort to distinguish your foreign policy from a parody of it, it's time to re-write the policy. Mokele

Dandelions are not just edible, but also quite nutritious. Not that I've eaten them, but apparently they are human-safe food, and also good for vegetarian reptiles like iguanas. Mokele

Footlong cybernetics?

Skye has fortunately provided you with *correct* mechanism for how CN compounds work. The fact that you don't know how cyanide works (which, by the way, we know from empirical observation, which is, after all, the basis for all science) nor could you even be bothered to learn not only gives us credible reason to doubt any of your biomolecular speculations, but also showcases your total isolation from the world of empirical results (a world that includes *all* science). By which you mean "Speculate without any basis in reality, and then offer flimsy justifications when confronted with real-world data that proves you wrong." --------- You know, from the start of this thread, it was obvious that English wasn't your first language, so I assumed that many of your statements were possibly just being mis-translated. However, as this thread has continued, it has become more and more evident that such is not the case. Even the language barrier cannot conceal your incompetence. You offer hypotheses as if they were conclusions, then get angry when people ask you to support your 'conclusions' or challenge your findings. Since experimental support and inquiry are the cornerstones of science, your crackpot ideas are psuedoscience at best, and dogmatic assertion at worst. I'm no stranger to theory. My current "Big" project is one that's purely theoretical in nature. But you know what I'm going to do as soon as the equations are done? I'm going to *test* them, empirically, both on models and on the living system they were designed to provide insight into. Actual data is the core of science. Without it, science becomes nothing but speculation and dogma. Like your post. Mokele

Oh, believe me, knees and eyes will the some of the *last* places getting cyberneticly enhanced. Think about it, if you could have superhuman abilities in one part of your body, what would it be? But you're right that the part of the body being modified will have a lot to do with self-esteem. Or maybe my predictions have been altered by passing through the sewer that is my mind.... Mokele

Your definition of "religion" is trivial, poorly reasoned, and so broad as to be totally meaningless. Any definition which does *not* include the above flaws excludes science. The two have fundamental differences far beyond any of the differences *between* religions. Mokele

Vlamir evidently thinks that "consciousness" is a product of resonant frequencies of the sugar backbone of RNA, something he has yet to provide any empirical support for, in spite of my repeated requests for such. For that matter, his theoretical support is pretty crappy too. Mokele

::bangs head againsts the desk:: OK, I'm going to reduce this to one simple question: Where is the empirical evidence that your hypothesis even works, or occurs in living cells? EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE, not math. Mokele