Mokele

Not actually. Science merely says that an immaterial soul, by virtue of being undectactable, is also untestable, and cannot be evaluated. Science makes so statement about the limitations of senses being necessary since, after all, we constantly design instruments to overcome those limitations (microscopes, electromagentic field detectors, etc.)

Mustknow, you have some assigned reading: Evolution, by Futuyma. Read it cover to cover. Then come back.

Your textbook is out of date, and badly so. Neutral theory has been around since at least the 70's, and is backed by a wealth of experimental evidence. You seem oddly fixated on mutation. Natural selection is what allows mutation to spread. Mutation is merely the 'fuel' of evolution - natural selection is the driving force. First, evolution is NOT abiogenesis. Evolution occurs only once life exists. A separate mechanism is responsible for life's origin. Secondly, you clearly don't have the slightest clue about abiogenesis. Look at some of the other threads around here, because just about everything you'll find in a textbook is ~50 years out of date. It's called "natural selection". If you aren't going to make any effort to learn, why are you even here?

It's a complete load. Sadly, I can't find the video, but I remember some cocky guy who thought he could use 'chi attacks' in martial arts, and accepted a challenge from a real martial artist. He got laid on his ass in one hit.

Only if the programmer was drunk, stupid, and stoned at the time. A code littered with useless scraps, dead code, duplicates, and the occasional lethal error? So why are you here? No scientist EVER says that they will 'never accept' something. If sufficient evidence is presented, refusal to believe is nothing but willful ignorance. Wrong. We didn't even begin to understand mutation until more than 50 years *after* Darwin published. Wrong again. Most mutations are actually neutral or nearly so. More are damaging than helpful, but beneficial mutations do crop up often enough. Plus, remember, "beneficial" can depend on habitat. Longer legs are useful if you're running away, but can be detrimental if you're burrowing. Um, yes, it does, unless you have *very* few children. Remember, most species have hundreds, or even thousands, of offspring.

Common sea-grass, aka turtle grass, works well. Thalassia genus.

Remember that Cro-Magnon brain volumes are mere estimates, based on fossil data.

Sure: Every single human alive today has, on average, ten new mutations that affect final amino acid sequence. Based on odds, in the current human population, there are thousands of people who even have duplicate genes, which are free to evolve new functions. Oh, and because we're high-metabolism mammals, we're actually unusually sensitive to disruptive mutations. Other animals routines have more substantial changes. Check out genus Xenopus - within a single, small lineage of water frogs, whole genome duplication has occurred no less than 5 times. We did that ~120 years ago.

I'll just point out that won't work - med schools limit enrollment because they don't have the time, staff, or materials for more students. Principle among these is cadavers - you want to be a doctor, you need to do Human Anatomy, and that means cutting up a cadaver and being tested on it. Bodies have to be donated *specifically* to the med school for this, and how many bodies you have determines how many students you can admit. Four students per body is about the limit - any more and it becomes a demo rather than an hands-on exercise.

The birds' dancing to most of the music was merely so-so, but the cockatoo did very well dancing to 'Another One Bites The Dust'. Clearly, this broad cross-species comparison proves that Queen is the best band EVAR!

You can understand only at the most general, academic level. That's very different from having been faced with an experience yourself. Consider abortion - there's a massive gender divide in support, with most supporters being the sex which is actually affected. Or gay rights - it's a lot easier to see the myriad of subtle ways in which society discriminates when you've had the experience yourself. It's called reality. I can cite sources, too - see "All Of Human History, Ever". There are a few exceptions here and there, but 99.9999% of human interactions can be broadly summarized as 'F*** over anyone who's different in order to benefit those in my perceived ingroup'. Humans are corrupt, selfish, xenophobic, and nepotistic. A rare few can see past this, but these tendencies are hard-wired into all of our brains. However, the fact that it is the only non-elected branch of government is specifically an aspect of protection against mob rule. The point is that it is, and always has been, a large part of the SC's job. But it's not just about *you*, at the individual level. It's about constructing a group which represents more than a narrow set of interests. If that's the over-arching goal, that imposes an additional criterion beyond the level of the individual. I disagree on both counts. There are plenty of people who are *not* minorities in any way, and you can probably name dozens, because they're the ones who get hired, get elected, etc. Furthermore, an equal society is NOT about erasing differences or burying them, but about accepting them and not discriminating on that basis. A diversity of opinion can be a good thing. Yet they are the most perscuated. Seriously, go look up the number of hate crimes in the US, then compare that to the number of rapes, domestic violence, and all the incidents of some misogynistic, possessive asshole shooting his ex-wife. Eye-opening, isn't it? Mokele

Yeah, that's why we don't have any dinosaurs (aside from birds), but the modern oceans are teeming with 40-foot-long pliosaurs, snake-necked Elasmosaurs, and why no mammal has evolved to live in the sea, due to competition with our beloved Ichthyosaurs. Oh, wait....

Why shouldn't he put in extra effort to appoint a woman? The SC is supposed to represent the interests of the people including, among other things, defending the rights of the minority against 'tyranny by majority'. As far as I'm concerned "having direct knowledge of life for the largest oppressed minority in the world" is a positive *boon*. How is the SC supposed to defend the rights of the minority when only 2 of them *are* minorities? That's putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop.

But that's not how science works. Science doesn't just think of an idea, then say 'and here's some evidence that's consistent with it', because you can find evidence that supports almost any idea, from the atom to crop circles. Science works by *testing hypotheses*. Take my current work. There is this idea that elastic tendons allow muscles to shorten in more effective ways. So we said, 'OK, if this is true, then when we track the change in muscle length in a jumping frog, it should display a pattern different from the base expectation'. Then we did the experiment, and found out that yes, the pattern is different. But there was a chance the pattern would have been the base expectation, and in that case, we would have said "We were wrong". The point is that a scientific idea is a testable hypothesis which can be proven wrong by the right data. You don't just say 'and this is stuff that seems to support it', you actually go out and do a test that gathers new information, with a pre-specified criterion of 'I am wrong if this happens'. In contrast, creationism/ID just say 'God did it', and then slap some evidence on top of it. Their ideas cannot be tested, because they require divine intervention, and there's no falsification criteria, because 'God works in mysterious ways'. It's an intellectual dead-end. I know you said you don't want a discussion, but these are fundamental concept of science. Science isn't just a mass of facts, it's a carefully tested series of theories, constantly refined and re-tested. Claiming that creationism is somehow 'equivalent', is like saying that the medieval ideas of balancing the humours and bloodletting are on equal footing with modern medicine. And I'm not just being mean there - in both cases, it's the difference between just finding support for an idea and actually following the scientific method.

But your decisions are strictly chemistry too. Imaging studies of the brain have shown that most of our "decisions" are instinctive or conditioned reactions, and our 'reasons' are usually post-hoc rationalizations, at most.

universe2009 has been banned for massive amounts of PM spam

I'm very skeptical of this. Can you support this claim, or the claim that we're getting dumber?

I don't know about the former, but in the case of the latter, plain soap doesn't kill them, but rather just detaches them from the skin and lets them be washed away.

Apparently, the large number of Representatives in the House means they don't get infinite speaking time, thus filibusters aren't even possible.

On the other hand, it does provide a sort of catchment, a place where newbs can just add their opinion to the pile, rather than creating new threads.

What is there the discuss? You're just posted the description of a disease.

But we already tried that in the 80's, and the crowd was certainly all smiles, thanks to a 'unique' MC. But then one naysayer ruined everything. Stupid Batman.

Fantastic. Is there a question in there, or a discussion topic?

Trees won't work on sand - too loose and nutrient poor. There are a variety of beach grasses that work just as well. As for wave breaking, if you put down oddly shaped concrete structures, in tropical and subtropical areas they'll rapidly be colonized by coral, forming a self-repairing system to protect against waves.

The key to preventing shoreline erosion is well-known - keep the reefs and shore ecosystems intact. Unfortunately, this will never happen, because it means morons can't ride their jet skis.