Moontanman

If you have any evidence outside the bible for the existence of Jesus I suggest you give it, Paul never met Jesus and the writings we do have are all generations later second or third hand at best the the four gospels we use not are but a small subset of the writings that were once used. The ones we use today were confirmed by popular vote, all are anonymous, the named authors are made up names not the names of real people...

What about the prophecy where Jesus claimed he would return in the life times of his apostles? How can someone not being allowed to use their religion to discriminate against someone else be persecution? Whites used to use their Christian Faith to support their god given right to discriminate against black people too.

Well to be fair the thread is about alien invasion not mans threats to himself. The fear of the other is a well established theme in human cultures who could more "other" than extraterrestrials? I think the basic but unsaid assumption of this thread that aliens would be enough like us to want our planet is an assumption that is weak to say the least. Atmospheric differences are easily the hardest for aliens to get past.

I have log been a bit of a fan boy of the idea that the virus may have a more profound role in the operation of living system and evolution. Many ideas have swirled around the virus and proposed roles in life, the RNA world, and various other hypothesis. This article suggests that giant viruses could have been involved in the addition of nuclei to cells and perhaps a role in the change from the RNA world to our current DNA world. http://www.the-scientist.com//?articles.view/articleNo/39244/title/Viruses-Reconsidered/

PRATT, Points Refuted A thousand Times Nothing but an argument from ignorance, I can't see how it can exist naturally therefore god... What about all the prophecy that didn't come true? what about all the prophecy that came true for other religions? Nothing but argument from authority, can you give any evidence this is true? Considering that Christianity is the largest and does it's share of persecuting other religions this seems to be something that needs to be backed up. All those are explainable by natural methods, irreducible complexity isn't a proof of anything... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity

We are a part of nature, not apart from it. I don't understand your assertion that anything we do is unnatural, that makes no sense. It's like asserting that organic is somehow better than non organic but the dichotomy is false, organic has no meaning in that context... neither does natural...

Pandora!

Please stop straw manning me, I never said one was more important than the other, just that freshwater fish in NA can be documented better. No one knows how long pythons have been reproducing in the wild but we exactly when carp were first introduced or peacock bass, or flat head catfish or channel cats, the list is quite long. We know exactly when paddle fish were first repatriated, shovelnose sturgeon. We know when large mouth bass were transplanted in certain waters. What i imply?

It's not more real, we just have more documentation for it. many aquatic species were introduced intentionally, we know when and where and the spread is well documented. The biosphere has changed significantly since many species became locally or globally extinct. other animals have moved in to replace them or the habitat has significantly changed...

You have a faulty understanding of what atheist means and an unwarranted assumption what a god is and that something has to motivate you in some mysterious way, it's chemistry all the way down... I am an atheist, that means i do not accept the evidence presented so far for the existence of god, it means nothing else... Do you have any positive evidence for god or just this tired old PRATT?

I've been following the rewilding thing for at least a couple of decades, mostly though my efforts helping with population studies with the state DNR but the idea of reintroduction of species extinct either locally or globally is not new. Lots of concern for disease transmission from exotics but not much info on how often if ever it happens. We are a bit lucky in some way in NA with introduced fishes as many from tropical areas are either not capable of living though winter or the water conditions are so far from what they need being from the tropics it's impractical, Florida sadly being an exception to that. Temperate fishes from places like Europe or Asia are more of a problem with the European Wels catfish being particularly high on the "not wanted list". In my area the introduction of "non native to this area" large catfish from the Mississippi has caused considerable damage to the local ecosystem. Lessons can be drawn from these introduction problems, even reintroducing locally extinct animals can cause problems since most animals locally no longer have the instincts to deal with these animals, humans in particular. There is much concern for the consequences of both resurrection of extinct species and the introduction of exotics. exotics is my main area of concern, specifically the disease angle. More to the point of the post, I think the small animals have as much if not more potential to be disruptive than the mega fauna, a few thousand mammoths can be killed relatively easily if they prove too destructive, millions or billions of small animals might be impossible to control, example would be European starlings released into the US or grew squirrels released into the UK. I think I would be very careful of assuming small animals to be less harmful than large ones... Aquatic fauna is a real way to look at the introduction problem from several angles, much introduction of exotics was done intentionally, we know exactly when and where they were introduced, it's seldom a good thing... As an example of rewilding efforts currently underway, i point to shovel nosed and other species of sturgeon as well as paddlefish, so far they seem to be minimally disruptive but the evidence is still being collected...

I see what you mean, I guess more pigeons is not what most think of when they think of rewilding but it is legitimate but it also bring up the question of wild release just as surely as mega fauna, passenger pigeons existed in flocks of billions, I wonder if they could recover enough numbers to rewaken this old behavior of mass migration how important to their survival those huge sky blackening flocks were.

I was under the impression that the number of animals that could be resurrected was quite limited, does anyone have figures on how many are being worked on or how many have DNA available?

Is there any reason to assume those bones have recoverable DNA, there were not preserved by cold but by immersion in hot tar. I seems unlikely to me.

seriously dude, read the rules, if you want to debate pets then start another thread... I will not be gish galloped

The pet angle is Off Topic, no other reason...

So you are humor impaired? I do not expect any miniature mammoths, it was a joke son... Ok I'll get real, this thread is not about pets to begin with, if you want to pet bash start another thread and I'll be glad to go toe to toe with you. Rewilding is controversial as is bringing back extinct mega fauna. I think we could find room for mammoths, I've stated it several times, the main reason is that their habitat is not gone and is sparsely habitated with humans at best in most of the high north. I'm not sure any other mega fauna is possible except with some extreme speculations.

I doubt very seriously we can discuss this since i totally disagree, humans have been dragging exotic species around with us for many thousands of years, domestic animals is part of how we conquered the world. I take good care of my animals, I do not allow them to run free, squirrels are a nuisance, they have no real predators and are every bit as destructive as rats which we spread around the world. I am a responsible pet owner, I do my best to promote responsible pet owner ship in every way i can. No many people are not responsible at all only changing laws and attitudes can do anything about that. I suggest you do a bit of research about the collecting of wild fishes as pets, in many areas it is a sustainable way the people there make a living. The vast majority of freshwater fish are captive bred and marine fish are becoming that way. Pollution and habitat destruction are many orders of magnitude more destructive than the pet trade. I happen to agree with much of the take on things like big cats, monkeys, and other wild creatures.

How is walking your dog, around here they have to be on a leash, hurting the environment, I walk my dogs, pick up after them, and do not allow them to hunt any wild animals although they do occasionally get hold of a opossum which is hilarious, when they fall over and play dead the dogs don't know what to do with it, they poke it with their noses and run in circles howling... if it won't run they have no interest in it except to bark at it... Cat's are indeed a different story, many if not most run wild and kill for no reason since they are being fed my their owners... When I move in with my dogs (fenced back yards) the small animal population begins to go up immediately, lizards, toads, snakes do much better when not being consistently hunted by cats... I have a dog or two that liked to kill and eat rats and squirrels which are just rats with fuzzy tails but their success rate was quite small except for one who would use a "baited field" to catch squirrels..

Mammoths survived into historical times 4,200 years ago, a bit of a stretch i know. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammoth

so screw the penguins? I don't think mammoths required quite that cold of a climate, they did live in areas free of ice and even down into warm areas of NA. I think they probably migrated much like caribou and musk oxen or moose. all of them have been pushed to the limits of their range and used to be more widespread. woolly mammoths could integrate into that ecosystem and probably wouldn't be much more dangerous than moose or Kodiak beers...

In fiction the only limitation should be to keep it internally consistent, after that have at it hoss! Check out "complete book of swords" by Saberhagin for an example of this principle, he makes it easy to believe in some wild things...

Wooly mammoths are by definition big furry elephants, no reason to expect them to have significant behavior differences. Fossils indicate they had most of the identifiable behaviors of elephants. turning them loose would be problematic I agree... As for other paleofauna I am not sure but I thin the mammoth is the only one we have a snow balls chance of resurrecting... a few small herds in out of the way places could be managed I am sure...

As long as the first four are true call em what ever they want... I'm not sure we under stand GMO well enough to manipulate life forms quite that much but bringing extinct animals could give us this technology eventually...