Mokele

But donkeys and horses are practically identical anyway. They undergo more or less the same developmental plan, so there's not much chance of the screw-ups I described. However, all of the human congenerics are either extinct or in the White House, meaning there is nothing with a sufficiently similar developmental plan to us. The story of human evolution is one of neoteny, in which we retain juvenile features throughout life, or have re-written the later developmental stages. That's what makes us so smart: we have a child's brain with a child's neural plasticity. Any hybrid, even with a chimp, would either be stillborn or so deeply retarded as to be an embarassment to both species. Mokele

Translation: "I can't refute or even offer a half-assed rebuttal to anything Mokele said, so I'm going to tuck my tail between my legs and pray nobody notices." Your simile is inept and poorly formed, especially if you actually think you're a real biologist. As for "black boxing", it's a useful conceptual tool that allows us to continue to make advances in spite of a current lack of understanding, and by doing so generates data that will lead to the eventual understanding of the contents of said conceptual box. The Discovery Institute? Why don't just just cite Bozo the Clown while your desperately fishing for any source, no matter how disreputable. FYI, the Discovery Institute is a creationist think-tank, not a reptuable source of science. Try looking at *real* science in *real*, *peer-reviewed* journals. Mokele

Slim to none. Aside from the fact that anyone even attempting it would run into so many problems with ethical review boards that they'd be crushed to death beneath the mountain of paperwork and justifications, I seriously doubt that it would work (and, even if it could be made to work, the effort of doing so would render it unfeasible compared to other methods). The main problem is development. When an organism develops, there's a lot of cell-to-cell signaling going on. If you mix human and non-human DNA, or just mix the cells together (called a chimera), you're going to get some mixed and contradictory signals going on about what goes where and why. It'd produce some pretty f-ed up looking spontaneously aborted fetuses, but I doubt anything viable. Mokele

As Calli said, from the biological POV, yes we are, and it's proven simply by the fact that we gastrulate during embryogenesis (meaning the hollow ball of cells, the bastula, develops an inpocketing). Mokele

In other words, you're only interested in spouting your bullshit, not supporting it or the logical extensions of it. No, *YOU* do. Or at least claim to in general. You specifically state that, and I quote, In response to: This exchange makes it perfectly clear that you believe that it is logically inconsistent to hold a liberal view on one issue and a conservative view on another one. This was the single biggest problem I had with your posts in this thread (even more than your apparent defense of that bigoted remark by Falwell). I have *repeatedly* called you to task about this, and you perpetually repeat that you believe having a political position in which you are liberal on some issues and conservative on others is "shallowness" and "ignorance". So I designed the above bolded statement as a test. I selected two *totally* unconnected beliefs, one conservative and the other liberal, and challenged you to put your money where your mouth is. Once again, I notice you have dodged the question. Is that your response to every difficult problem, to run away from it? No, you argued that it is logically inconistent to hold political views that are not 100% conservative or 100% liberal. See the above quote, in which you *explicitly* state as much. You know, I don't know. You clearly have a dogmatic attitude and refuse to even consider anything outside of your gospel truth, so why are you even here? Unlike your local Republican headquarters, we actually like thought and discussion, not blind assertion. Frankly, your debating style reminds me of that of creationists. Mokele

In the third instance, because it was the sole line in response to a section of my post you quoted. That's pretty clearly directed at me. If not, you *seriously* need to work on the formatting of your posts. And? I argue that there is a problem that ED solves. Does it solve it the only way, or the best way, or even a good way? I don't know. That's all I've been saying. Mokele

My question is "how much do we really even need this ammendment, and how much is just a political ploy?" I mean, I've seen news clips of the US flag being burned, and now that I think of it, I can't recall any clips that were not 30 years ago (the bellbottoms give it away) or in another country. Granted this might not be reflective of actual frequency, but *still*, I'd expect if they had more recent and local file footage, they'd use it. To me, it seems like a useless and unconstitutional ammendment which solves no real problems except "How to I make myself look good for my next re-election campagin?" Mokele

Please, for the sake of gene pool, start abusing inhalants. The pot habit that spawned these posts evidently isn't killing your brain fast enough.

Congratulations, you can read! That's because, and listen carefully, that isn't my point. In case you didn't notice, *I* and writing these posts. Therefore *I* decide what position i want to take and what I want to say. My initial post in this thread as a simple thesis of "ED exists because in some cases it is needed." Nothing else. I don't argue about the larger ethical ramifications, I don't argue about the 'nobility', and I don't argue about how often or if ED is abused. You have perpetually attempted to insinuate that I have said something about this and try to draw me out, when frankly I have nothing to say on those issues. What do I care if it's "noble" or not? That's not what I'm concerned with in this thread, and frankly, I don't give a shit. Your perpetual attempts to attach the "ED is noble" position to me, in spite of my repeated assertions that it is not, is a Strawman, for which I have sent in a warning. Don't do it again. It's called "only adressing the point I was posting about". My position is *NOT* about the ethics of ED, only it's functionality. The two are, of course, not one and the same, and frankly,I don't give a shit about the ethical ramifications, or I would have posted about them wouldn't I? Yes, yes you still do have that question. Congratulations, it's a doozy, and I'm sure you'll have hours of fun figuring it out. However, I have no interest in it at all, and am not going to waste my time on it. I mean that the law itself is necessary (in that it needs to exist) to resolve such conflicts, not that there is an internal necessity test. Mokele

Dodging the question again? You still have not answered the question from the previous post, and I'm through until you do so and stop avoiding it. I repeat: Show me why it is logically inconsistent for a person to support tax cuts and gay marriage. I want an answer *specifically* to this *particular* question. Not in general, *SPECIFIC*. I want you to address why these *exact* positions are contradictory. If your thesis is that there is some great logical divide between republican and democratic positions, show it, explicitly. Once you do that, I continue this debate. Until you actually put your money where your mouth is and show *why* these views are contradictory (something you have been avoiding for 3 posts), I will not waste my time with your stupidity. Answer the question, or stop wasting our time. Mokele

You're missing my point. I'll use myself as an example. If I were asked in such a survey, I would say I am liberal, and I voted for Kerry (reluctantly). However, that does not mean I am *entirely* in line with "liberal" positions. I despise socialized medicine and disagree with thier extreme attitude towards guns. But at the same time, I like their positions on other subjects, such as church-state separation and gay rights. I prefer the conservative view on some issues (mostly economic, though admittedly that's my weakest area), but cannot stand the Religious Reich, and I like the libertarian view on some things, but their environmental policy is so stupid an infant could see the flaws. The point is that I, as a person, have my own constellation of views, as a product of my experiences, upbringing, education and whatnot. I categorize myself by best fit, not total fit, and I know very few people who do not do so, and do not disagree with their own party, even if only on minor issues. My mother is a staunch republican, but she similarly detests the RR and doesn't like conservative views on guns. Yet if anyone asked in a survey, she'd say she's conservative without missing a beat. My point is that just because someone self-identifies as "liberal" does not mean that *must* hold the liberal position on all points, only that it's the best fit for their personal views. If I had to accuse anyone of not thinking, it'd be those who toe the party line on all issues. If someone says "Well, I'm a blank, but I disagree with them on X, Y and Z", to me at least that signifies that they have invested significant thought into the process, rather than just swallowing the party line whole and saying whatever they're supposed to. I'm not saying nobody who does toe the party line thinks it through, only that I, personally, see disagreement as an indication of active thought. My point is that these thoughts are not, necessarily, contradictory. Just because someone has arrived at different conclusions does *not* mean they are wrong, only that they're working with different data, some of which are arbitrary assumptions which cannot be tested. Imagine the options of "people are basically good/bad/stupid/selfish". Which one you hold as a core personal belief will *massively* affect your political leanings, and none of the options can really be proven; they're just beliefs. Repeat this for all beliefs, and you'll find a lot more variation in the *logical*, *consistent* conclusions that people can draw in politics than can be accounted for by two parties. Where did I defend shallowness and ignorance. I defended the idea that *Gasp* maybe some people might not be 100% with the party on all issues, and that is not erroneous in any way. In contrast, *you* have offered not a single justification for your dismissal of this possibility. You have yet to offer any justification for your ridiculous and arbitrary division of everyone into two neat little boxes. So, let's have it, clear and in the open. Justify your dismisall, and not with more flippant comments about ignorance and shallowness. *SHOW* precisely why an individual cannot hold views different from their party without committing logical errors. Ok, let's examine your total failure to do this for one simple point. I asked: To which you responded: Here's some Logic 101 for you, since you seem to have totally missed it. There's a phrase for this: Dodging the question I asked a SPECIFIC statement. I asked why one cannot be for both tax cuts and gay marriage. I asked for *specific*, *precise* reasoning as to why you cannot hold both of these views at once. You ignored the request and failed to provide any reasoning? Maybe this is because you are wrong, know you're wrong, and know that any attempt to show why one cannot hold these views at the same time will merely further expose you as the knee-jerk partisan hack that you are? Seriously, I want you to show me why FOR THAT SPECIFIC EXAMPLE it is logically inconsistent to hold those two views. Or are you just going to dodge the question again? Show us that "critical thought process" that renders those two views contradictory, if you even can. Mokele

1) Did I even once lead you or anyone reading my post to believe I was giving the situation a comprehensive treatment from all angles? Was that even my purpose? No. My purpose was to show that, in some cases, ED is necessary to resolve problems. Not noble, not even nice, but a necessary evil to deal with problems that can arise. 2) My personal feelings in the hypothetical situation are irrelevant, for two reasons: a) I already explictly stated that ED exists to trump selfish individual desires, and I fully admit to being a very selfish person and b) I did not argue that *ALL* cases of ED were valid, ethical, or otherwise "good", merely that some are. Every law that can be abused *will* be, but that doesn't mean the law should automaticly be thrown out, only that it should probably be ammended, re-written or somesuch. As for "Necessity is clearly not an active principle in the law", I'd argue that necessity is the guidance for *all* laws. If it wasn't necessary to resolve a situation legally, we wouldn't have a law for it, now would we? Situations arise, and must be dealt with, often within a legal context. I'd say that much of law exists in order to create a system or to create rules to deal with theese situations. While it's nice to talk about the higher purpose and such of laws, at the end of the day they must be functional. Mokele

What distinguishes humans from other hominids, and hominids from other apes? A whole plethora of things, including what's listed above. What's the *official* taxonomic basis for distinction? I'd bet it's something skeletal, probably having to do with the skull, because language, culture, curiousity, etc don't fossilize, and most of the lines we have to draw in that arena deal with "How do we classify this skull we found?" Mokele

I'd also like to add, as a side-note to the above, that I recall some recent thought on Out-of-Africa proposing that the path from Egypt to Australia was among the first taken, because of the abundance of beaches and nearly fertile land for foraging on. Mokele

From what I know, it's not so much noble as necessary. If something for public use *needs* to get built (like a bypass to releive near-stationary traffic), it would, without eminent domain, be possible for suitably stubborn individuals to simply prevent anything from happening by refusing to sell their property, no matter what the price. I actually drove on an example of just such an instance not too long ago, outside of Peoria, while visiting an ex. There was a nice long bypass to relieve congestion, but it literally dead-ends after 6 miles because someone would not sell their property and had a good-enough lawyer to fight things and make it not worth the city's effort. What could have been effective was ruined by individual selfishness and stubbornness. In such cases, it is sometimes necessary for the government to overpower the will of the individuals in order to accomplish something for the collective good. Now, as for this decision, I'm a bit skeptical, but at the same time, I'm not sure it's all that alarming. The decision was mostly that the locals officials know best, and, while there could be a few negative consequences, I doubt they'll be much different from now. Mokele

Ok, some more questions: I purchases a peltier junction with a basic resistance of 1.45 ohms. However, the 1V, 800 mA power supply I constructed (4 small solar panels) is insufficient, and I'm thinking of just using batteries.. So, is there a limit to the amps batteries can dish out? I know that more amps=shorter life, but is there any reason that, if I hook it up to a few AA batteries in series that they'd do anything terribly bad, like explode? Mokele

I was refering to your assinine, ignorant and frankly offensive comment... ...which was in response to the perfectly reasonable assertion that individuals can agree with conservatism on some points and liberalism on others. Frankly, you arrogant and dismissive tone towards perfectly legitimate points of view renders the discussion pointless and artificially polarized. I'd like to remind you of a quote from one of the *Founding Fathers*: "Politics is the art of compromise" - Alexander Hamilton However, that doesn't even begin to touch how simply *stupid* your assertion is. Tell me *precisely* why I cannot simultaneously believe that gays should marry *and* that tax cuts stimulate the economy? Tell me *precisely* what logical fallacy prevents someone from holding those two views at once? Perhaps you should actually try *discussing* things, rather that committing the fallacy of false dichotomy by lumping people into diametrically opposed camps. Oh, wait, that's right, you don't want to hear anything from us liberals, no matter how valid our points may be. I suggest you pull your head out of you ass, look around, and notice that the middle ground is a *LOT* more popular than you think it is. Mokele

This entire thread, Rove's quote included, reeks of false dichotomy and hasty generalizations. News Flash: There are not just two sides with no middle ground. News Flash 2: All conservatives do not think alike, nor do all liberals. This has been you daily dose of the blindingly obvious, since several people in this thread clearly need to reminded of such things. Mokele

Well, pulling from one of my old textbooks, apparently birds split fairly early on into Enantiornithines and Ornithurans, based on the manner in which the metatarsals are fused, with the latter containing modern birds. From what I gather, both groups had teeth until the Eocene or later, with a few exceptions who lost teeth earlier. So, tooth loss seems to have happened independently in each lineage. As such, there's no real taxonomic term for birds with teeth. Perhaps "Extinct basal birds" would cover it, but there's nothing formal from what I can tell. Mokele

Well, in most cases, the animal isn't instantly killed and eaten. For instance, take nudibranchs, which are often very brightly colored. They have numerous circae (finger-like projections) all over their backs, in which they sequester the stinging cells (nematocytes) of the corals and hydrozoans they feed on. Thus, when a predator attacks them, they get stung. This causes the predator to bugger off, and the nudibranch lives to breed another day. It might be injured, but injured is better than dead. Over time, predators learn or develop an instinctual aversion or both. Also, it can benefit kin. If a predator kills you, but in the process learns to avoid your kids (while otherwise they'd be killed too, eventually), you've come out ahead in evolutionary terms even though you died. Another important thing to remember is that most animals have numerous predators. Warning coloration might not save an individual beetle from a hungry gecko (though, again, it might aid it's kin), but if that beetle species is also preyed upon by praying mantids who *do* release the beetle without killing it, the trait will spread, simply because individuals with bright colors have only one predator (geckoes), while those without have two (geckoes and mantids). In fact, it could even spread if it makes them *more* likely to be killed by geckos, if the advantage in not being mantis-food is high enough to counterbalance this drawback. Mokele

You also wrote the following: In the above quote, you *EXPLICITLY* refer to molecular oxygen (not SO2 or CO2) coming out of volcanoes *directly*, not after processing by life. You can't even keep track of what you've said, you need to stop wasting our time. Then you obviously have *no* formal or even decent education in biology. News flash: We've *witnessed* natural selection. We've caused it in the lab. We've charted the effects both on phenotype *and* genotype (including directly watching gene frequencies change through time). Natural selection has been tested so many times it's impossible to list them all, and it has passed every test with flying colors. Are you quite finished making a display of your ignorance, or do you wish to flaunt it some more for my amusement? Do you remember the part where I said "However, the immune system is *not* a good model for evolution as a whole." ALL somatic cells are total failures if you try to apply straight evolution to them as if they are separate organisms, because only germ cells reproduce. News flash, sparky: cells work via kin selection. Becuase they're all geneticly identical, the B-cells can do things that bacteria *NEVER* could and still work, because they are helping the germ cells reproduce. Bacteria do *not* have any such kin-selective processes, on account of being unicellular, and therefore can *NOT* hold the same effects. Oh, and as for the "memory", once again you're wrong. All cells in your body contain all possible antibodies. Only the immune cells *express* those genes, and in doing so they shuffle them around a lot, producing a nearly limitless number of possibilities. Ditto for the MHC. These "memory" stores persist because they help the organism as a whole reproduce, and to hell with the metabolic burden on the cells. But, lest you try to divert into this again, I will repeat for the third time: "However, the immune system is *not* a good model for evolution as a whole." Are you *seriously* claiming that genetic diseases do not exist? If so, you're a total moron. We have *PROVEN* that achondroplasic dwarfism is genetic. Ditto for many other diseases. As for "rich daughters" I strongly suggest you start relying on *real* data, not what you see on TV. So, we've got this heterochromatic mass that is metabolicly inert, right? Now, the bacteria divides. You have ONE heterochromatic mass. How do you get two? Oh, that's right, replication. And guess what, dipshit? REPLICATION TAKES ENERGY. Oh, and guess what, heterochromatin relies of protiens. But protiens degrade. In order to *keep* something as heterochromatin, you need to constantly synthesize new packing protiens to replace the ones that are wearing out. That takes metabolic energy too. Are you really so dim that you cannot understand this? Bullshit. I'm calling you on that. I want you to list every formal, university course you've taken in genetics, cell biology and evolution, and your grades in each. Oh, that's right, you haven't taken anything. Your "knowledge" is random facts without context or deeper understanding. Shit, this isn't even my field (I find genetics boring, and work at the organismal level whenever possible), and I can *still* effortlessly prove you wrong. This is science, not Never-Never-Land. Imagination will only take you so far, and there are rules of the system which cannot be broken or simply ignored. Your perpetual displays of ignorance concerning basic biological facts have *made* this part of the subject. If you want us to stop hassling you about this, go out and actually *learn* about evolution, rather than pretending it doesn't exist simply because it contradicts a plan that you obviously just copied out of a dime-store sci-fi novel. Mokele

Cyber, I think this post clearly demonstrates the difference between being able to cite crap from a textbook and actually *understanding* the governing principles of life, evolution and genetics. Mokele

Precisely. The physics of living beings, at the organismal level, is called Biomechanics (what I do), and is basically all about muscles, joints, hydrostatic skeletons and the like. Most of it deals with how animals move, since that's generally more interesting than them standing still. Mokele

I'll only breifly poke my nose in, since everyone else seems to have it covered. As for dinos and humans, not a chance in hell. Hominids are the product of a unique environment which, while it involved predators, didn't involve things quite as nasty as theropod dinosaurs. Anything even remotely like humans would have been eaten before it could say "lunch". Additionally, roaming foragers like early humans would have been quickly out-competed by the smaller ornithischians in the same niche. As for the flood, even if we ignore the idea of limited water on earth, things float, and animals in modern floods have shown themselves to be damn good at clinging to floating debris in order to outlast the flood. This goes double for reptiles, who have made vast oceanic journeys between islands on just such rafts. As for the dating, not by carbon, but by other radiometric methods, such as calcium-argon or uranium series. And no human bones have ever been found in the same strata as dinosaur bones, unless artificically placed there during burial. Another good book, in addition to those listed, is Gould's Structure of Evolutionary Theory. It's about 1000 pages long, intended to be comprehensive of modern thought on the subject, and, because it's so long, almost never read. Exactly. "Dinosaurs" actually refers to a very specific group of mesozoic reptiles diagnosed by numerous features such as an anorbital fenestra (hole in the skull in front of the eyes). Contemporary reptiles such as crocs, pterosaurs, ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and the like, were not "dinosaurs" in the technical sense. Sharks did not evolve from dinosaurs, and they last shared an ancestor with dinos some 400 mya. They didn't even evolve at the same time: sharks showed up in the devonian, dinos in the triassic. Gators are similarly non-dinosaurian, for the same reasons, though the difference is less dramatic in that case. Mokele

Oh, numerous species of tarantulas eat mice, but the species formerly used in the lab next to ours was the largest spider of all, the Goliath Bird-eating spider. They can take out full-grown mice, birds, even small rats. And several escaped over the years and made their home in the elevator shafts. Makes for a great annecdote to tell while actually in the elevator with people. We do too, at least for the snakes. We never bother with the lungfish, since they're so stupid and sedentary they barely qualify as "alive". Except when they're trying to remove your fingers. Mokele