Mokele

Can you back that up? In English? It seems rather silly to reduce "consciousness" down to a single monomer, as if it's just some crystal or polymer. That's like saying that malate dehydrogenase is the the elementary particle of the Kreb's cycle. The cycle is a series of interconnected, interdependent reactions, not just a polymer. In fact, I'd even be amazed if you could actually *define* consciousness in terms that lend themselves to experimental analysis; nobody else seems to be able to. Mokele

I, personally, just see that as pointlessly excessive. If they have an unhealthy lifestyle, they'll suffer the consequences sooner or later. Why add more consequences on top of that? On the other hand, I can see the other side's point. Why should someone who lost an organ to accident or disease be forced to wait their turn behind people who simply abused what they had. Mokele

Yes, but it's the BMI, which is a worthless method of evaluation. Aside from not taking build or muscle mass into account, it ignores basical laws of geometry as they apply to biology. Simply put, if I suddenly grow to twice my current size, but keep my proportions, I'd be twice as tall, but 8 times as heavy (mass increases cubicly with respect to linear dimensions). If I kept the same BMI, though, I'd be 4 times as heavy. Basically, the BMI has this intrinsic flaw, and as a result, I definitely don't trust it, nor any statistics based on it. I prefer using things like % body fat as metrics of obesity. Mokele

That society shouldn't act as a moral judge? Also, you could argue that, since those with unhealthy lifestyles will be more likely to need the organs (and such surgery isn't exactly a walk in the park), they're already paying for their choices (and paying through the nose, in the US), from a statistical POV. Those who choose to be unhealthy have an increased chance of needing such help, and those who choose to be healthy have a decreased risk. Why lump additional punishment on top of the illness itself? Mokele

Out of curiosity, if net access was banned, wouldn't there be no infrastructure to connect these to? Or was it just banned for the general public, or recently installed? Mokele

As the others said, anything with big fish in it means they'll get eaten (though, of course, this is natural, otherwise we'd be waist-deep in frogs). But, well, frogs aren't really at the top of the food chain. As everyone said, a shallow pond or swamp would be perfect. They'll likely all disperse into the surrounding area fairly quickly, though. Mokele

Without the drugs, no, she wouldn't. She'd probably be horribly depressed and never get out of bed even to go to her job. It's easy to just blame any bad behavior on the drugs, but these are the best option for many people. Plus, well, it might just be exhaustion. Teaching elementary school does *not* sound like an easy job. Mokele

Yes and no. Technically, all different alleles must have arrisen by mutation at *some* point down the line. However, individuals may have heritable phenotypical variation due to interactions between alleles. For instance, say we have a population of mice with two alleles for coat color, B and b. BB mice are black, Bb mice are grey, and bb mice are white (incomplete dominance). If two Bb mice mate, they'll have offspring of all different colors. In one sense, this variation is just caused by the shuffling of genetic information, especially when there isn't complete dominance and genes or alleles interact. However, in another sense, the only reason that more than 1 allele exists is because at some point (possibly in the far distant past), a mutation occured. So it all depends on how far back you want to go. There is also a growing body of evidence that you also inherit certain protiens from your parents which regulate gene activity. In a sense, these protiens produce heritable variation that isn't directly coded in DNA. Of course, the protiens themselves are coded for, and the entire system did at one point arise from mutation. So it really depends on how far back you want to go. Ultimately, all allelic differences stem from mutation, but differences in phenotype between parents and children can be due to simple shuffling of genetic material rather than mutations occuring within that generation. There's a lot to be said for the shuffling of genetic material even without mutation. It confers such a high advantage that it even justifies the arduous, complicated, risky and expensive process of sex. Mokele

Did you read the link? Or even the post? I sense that you do not have faith in The Flying Spaghetti Monster. Pray with me that he shall reach down and Finger You with His Noodly Appendage! Mokele

Someone must've punctured his hot-air gland.

But you can't make zombies in English class!

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,15739502-13762,00.html Yep, real zombie dogs. Ok, not *really* zombie dogs, but still... And it's actually from a peer-reviewed and reliable source: Journal of Trauma Injury Infection and Critical Care. 2004; 57(6): 1266-1275 Mokele

http://www.venganza.org/ You know, this actually makes *more* sense than the Christian version. I also propose we immediately act to test the correlate between global warming and # of pirates. ::Puts on an eyepatch and a lizard on his shoulder:: Cap'n Atomic Lizard. Yarrr.

Check out the vid linked to above it, Alligator vs rat. It's not actually an alligator, though. It's a lizard (hence only distantly related), and it's actually the same species as my lizard. Though I don't hold with live-feeding unless it's unavoidable (due to the risk of injury to the reptile), I'm almost tempted, just to see Darwin get off his scaley ass and actually *run*. Mokele

Potassium-Argon and Uranium-Lead are two of the most common, and so far as I know all are quite reliable, probably moreso than C14, since C14 is generated by the actions of cosmic rays in the upper atmosphere (introducing possible variation), while the aforementioned methods use isotopes that are generated in the earth's mantle. For much, much more info, see here: http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens.html Mokele

Hear, hear!

Of course, I never disputed that. In fact, not just by gene therapy, large chunks of genetic material get duplicated all the time in nature due to uneven crossing over and meiotic errors. Plants are spectacular at this, and routinely form new species via polyploidy. However, that was not my issue, an issue which you seem to be ignoring. My issue was that any such duplication will either be modified into a useful form or, if it imposes too great of a metabolic burden, discarded. I'm not aguing that it can't be done, I'm arguing that it will be selected against. Pay attention, kid. First, natural selection doesn't mutate anything. Mutation is chemical process totally separate from selection, and each can occur without the other (though it's never very good when they do). Secondly, yes, it will mutate, because a) it's *still* inside the organism, and this still subject to environmental nastiness like mutagens and radiation and b) it still has to be replicated when the cell divides, introducing unavoidable replication errors. Strawman fallacy. Try actually *reading* and *understanding* my posts. It is possible for cells in a whole organism to self-sacrifice and do "extra work", because they are operating on a form of kin selection. All the other cells are geneticly identical to them, so if they help the other cells reproduce, it's the same as them reproducing themselves. However, for bacteria, in which each organism is independent and not perfectly clonal (because of their higher mutation rate than eukaryotes), such a system would not and cannot work. In short, the cells of multicellular organism can do these things because of a form of selection that is not present in bacteria, and therefore these are not applicable examples. If you want to raise this point again, for the love of all that is holy, please at least learn what "kin selection" is. ----- Seriously, kid, take Evolution 101 and you'll actually understand what I'm talking about. Until then, stop wasting the board's time. Mokele

But cholesterol is a poor analogy, because it doesn't cause pain during the periods when it's high. It increases risk, and can lead to death, but it is, in and of itself, painless, while depression is not (though the pain is mental). I think YT's toothache analogy is much more cogent. Mokele

Gee, humor having an element of the absurd and exagerration? Who'd've thought?

Actually, my GF is currently (temporarily) on anti-depressants due to depression resulting from her long struggle with a chronic illness that she has only recently overcome, and the decision-making process we went through has applicability here. Her primary objection was that she viewed them as a weakness, a crutch, an admission that she could not cope on her own without assistance. Also, she is skeptical of the seeming "over-medication" of society at the expense of more traditional (and hopefully preventative/reparative) therapy. However, one of her doctors, when talking about it, put it this way: You're suffering, but you don't need to suffer. Why not aleviate it? To my eyes, it's like taking tylenol (but with more side-effects). You take it to ease pain, not cure a condition. It shouldn't be used as a cure, but at the same time, it should not be disparaged for not being one when it can and does fulfill a useful purpose. Mokele

You didn't ask anything in your last post, and your entire participation in this thread has never produced any answers to any of my questions (at least none that weren't wrong or astonishingly ignorant). In fact, I have patiently responded to every point you have raised, as appropriate. Your personal failure to understand these points as well as several fundamental issues of biology is not my problem. Now do everyone a favor and go play in traffic, kid. Mokele

It's called "humor". If you're too thin-skinned to be able to take a bit of topical humor, even if from a POV you disagree with, then how are you even able to cope with life? Mokele

So far as I understand it, fossils are dated by the layer they're in. Sedimentary rocks of any kind (either the stuff replacing the fossil or around it) are useless, because the isotope ratios are a product of the forces in the earth's core. Only lava has the initial isotope levels, and decays from there. Sedimentary rock might be eroded from a recent lava flow, or from one 100 million years ago, or both mixed together, so you can't get valid results. You can only date igneous rock. But we can still find dates by using lava flows that are in layers of rock. We can't date the sedimentary rock around the flow, but we *can* date the flow. Having done that, we now know that any fossil found in that layer is from date X. Mokele

That's basically what genetic engineering is. Add stuff to bacteria to make them do useful things. DNA is vastly more stable than RNA, which breaks apart and degrades much more quickly. Mokele

It's hogwash. There is no reputable record of any such "giant" human races, and you could be sure that if any existed we'd hear about them (witness the pandemonium over the "hobbits", Homo floresiensis). Also, note that every source is from the 1800's or so. If there was something to this, don't you think there'd be a information that's a *little* more recent? Futhermore, there are biomechanical limitations to the size of an erect-walker like humans. While organisms 8 feet tall would be possible, they'd be so ungainly, slow, proportionally weak, and just generallys bio-mechanically screwed that they'd be selected out pretty fast. Humans with gigantism tend to suffer from cardiac, back, and joint problems due to their size. Mokele