Evolution, Morphology and Exobiology

I see there are a few creationist posters here from time to time. So here is a very small amount of the evidence for common ancestry with the rest of the apes: (1) Chromosome Banding Patterns Here is Human Chromosome 2, alongside Chimp, Gorilla and Orang-Utan 2p,2q you can see there that the banding patterns are all pretty much the same. one major difference of course if that the other apes have 2 chromosomes there, whereas humans only have 1. However when we examine the human chromosome in more detail (which you can't from those diagrams) you find that in the centre of the human chromosome we have telomere like structures, which normally exist only at th…

I thought that the ideas behind or in this theory should help out many with the question that is on all or at least most minds, at least to fill in the general background and allow for a more informed and educational debates on Evolution. It's called the Selfish Gene Theory. Here's a brief rundown on it(plus many other goodness): Selfish Gene Theory For more information, great links, book reviews, etc, this is a very good site: Especially for those who are studying Evolution and or Physical(aka Biological) Anthropology, that site has a wealth of info, or at the very least it can set one on the right path to a great book, etc. World of Richard Da…

http://crl.i8.com/Evolution/Dna.html DNA Molecules and the Odds Against Evolution Within each cell there is an area called the nucleus which contains the all-important chromosomes. Chromosomes are microscopically small, rod-shaped structures which carry the genes. Within the chromosomes is an even smaller structure called DNA. This is one of the most important chemical substances in the human body -- or in any other living thing. Increasing scientific understanding of DNA molecules has revealed enormous problems for materialism. DNA is a super-molecule which stores coded hereditary information. It consists of two long "chains" of chemical "building b…

How is that to explain? Darwin thought Finks with different mouth shapes are different species????

My question is, could intelligent design be legitimate if it actually did some science? For example, a laptop has the signiture of intelligent design, no one would say that a laptop is the product of natural forces, it quite clearly has an intelligent agent(s) behind it. Surely it is legitimate to ask where the line between natural forces and intelligence is? I don't think intelligence design proponents do any science regarding where this line is, but there must be a limit to natural processes after which something becomes the product of intelligence. I am not an intelligent design proponent, I am just curious. A lot of stuff I read about disparaging intell…

just wondering, is it possible to predict evolution of a particular species? if we know the evolutionary history of that species and are aware of the factors that contributed to it. can scientists make accurate assumptions about the future of a species? for example, is it possible to predict the next stages in human evolution?

Since we have no free will, what purpose does/did consciousness serve? For the purpose of this topic, let us assume that free will does not exist. I do not believe in it, and I am not trying to debate its existence. And I am not the sharpest knife so don't hesitate to correct me if I am wrong about something. This is being asked purely from curiousity. I have been very troubled recently, and I have been turning this idea around in my head over and over again. Doesn't the absence of free will (that is to say that all lifeforms are nothing more than calculating machines) make consciousness pointless? We are robots whose only purpose is to not die and have sex. …

Hello. I'm new to the forum. I want to talk about a controversial subject. There is an area of research known as Scientific Racism or racialism which proposes that human races differ in innate mental ability including intelligence and personality differences. I have debated this subject for years on other message boards mostly against racists who believe in the inferiority of certain races. I want to get an idea from this board of how the majority of posters here feel about this subject and what they think the truth is about the topic. Please answer the poll and give your thoughts on the topic.

Are Caucasoids slight hybrids of Homo Sapien and Homo Neanderthalis? Do the genes of Neanderthals still flourish in certain gene pools? These are shocking and taboo questions that most dont wish to face up to. In this thread, I will present one side of the scientific debate which tries to answer that question. I will start simple. Lets take a look at Homo Sapien today, at war and in love. Written History, a good blueprint for our psychological makeup shows us that rarely would conquerers completely destroy the conquered. Instead, the individuals deemed able to assist the conquered in some way are spared and enslaved or assimilated into the dominating culture. Th…

Hi. Unsure if this is the best place for the subject, but, which animal shows the most 'intelligent' behavior ? (life, strategies, skills, self-sufficiency, activities... at its animal level) Miguel

I was just reading this article: http://frostfirefizz.com/why-males-die-before-females And suddenly realised this: Since apparently our brains are quite primitive, that means that our bodies can't tell the difference between mastubation and sex, right? Well if this is so, then if you masturbate from a young age, your body would assume you were having sex, and therefore having kids very early on, meaning you're not needed much after that - you've reproduced! Since (I gathered from that article - kindof ) you're not really needed (as far as genetics are concerned) meaning your genetics will program future generations to age faster since it assumes they'll reprod…

If amphibians evolved from fish, which presumably lived in oceans, why are there no salt water amphibians? Or am I mistaken? Or did amphibians evolve from freshwater fish because there were no oceans...?

Hi there. A question came to my mind another day, and I decided to ask around so that I would know whether somebody studied this topic or not. I tried google, but thought it might be easier to try a forum. Here it goes. Anal sex demands that the rectum is large enough to accommodate the penis. Because it is a so widespread practice, for example, see inmates in prisons, ordinary couples, etc., I suppose it has accompanied the human race since it beginnings. It seems, also, that that "ice man" found in Europe and that lived some 5,000 years ago had sperm in his rectum, which proves that he was either gay or raped. Then, I think that in the early past of the human ra…

It hasn't been proven either way. I have my opionion but what's your'se? p.s. (I would have posted this in the poll forum but there's so rediculousness about have to do it by correspondance to an admin, Hmmmm I wonder why there's only been 1 new poll posted in the last 3 months.) But anyways this forum is appropriate enough.

There was a comment made on another thread here that UV light cannot penetrate water very well, is this true?

Are there any currently living species that could be considered a common ancestor to any other species? Also, have any actual common ancestors in the fossil record been identified? If not, is it because the concept of a common ancestor is more of a theoretical determination? In other words, we know that evolutionary theory requires common ancestors but we have no way to make an absolute identification and can only suppose that a particular fossilized creature could potentially be a common ancestor to something else?

When you look at the human fossil record it seems remarkably "progressive." Species further back in time are more like apes and they are "replaced" by species looking remarkably more and more like humans. That seems a problem to me. Why wouldn't some ape-like hominids continue into the "human period," like there are still proper apes around today? Even with environmental change, were there not forest edge environments remaining in Africa for them? Australopithecus and Paranthropus were long lived genera, wide spread, and by all indications well suited to their edge environment. So why was Australopithecus gone after 2 million years ago and Paranthropus after 1? Th…

Throughout the fossil record there is a tendency for shelled invertebrates to replace the calcite with the mineral aragonite (orthorhombic calcium carbonate). This is something of a bane for paleontologists because calcite is much less likely to dissolve in water and so thus is more likely to fossilize. That is why the fossil record for Paleozoic corals is better than the fossil record for Cenozoic corrals, the older coral is all made of calcite where the younger corals are aragonite. There are similar tendencies among mollusks. Why was this? The only reason I can think of is that the aragonite would be easier to precipitate out of water. Are there some properties of …

I have just read the chapter thirteen of the selfish gene written by Richard Dawkins, it is about extended phenotype of genes. Also, it has been suggested that mutualism could have evolved from parasitism by both the so-called parasite and the host have the same means for propagation. This leads me to think about the mutualism between human and E.coli. I have tried to explain the relationship between two of them in the following way. Could any one take a look and comment on it? Here is the passage: E.coli is a bacteria which live in the human large intestine and is well adapted the the environment of human large intestine, where they could attain a higher reproductive r…

I've been butting heads for a year or two on boards with hardcore creationists trying to convince me that information can only be reduced and not added (despite the six-fingered species of humans). Is this the same argument that is typically made about the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics? If not, what is the typical rebuttal to this question? Also, I would like to read information about the evolution of the precursors to the first single-celled organisms. Can someone direct me to good sources of this type of information?

This is a puzzle to me. Why is it that gorillas,, who are herbivores, to the best of my meagre knowledge, have well-developed canine teeth? Are they as strong as those of carnivorous animals? If you had found a fossil of a gorilla with forward facing eye sockets and well-developed canine teeth, does that not show a carnivorous past? Any views? canine teeth

This is a resource page for anyone who engages anti-evolutionists. It is a list I have compiled from the literature of observed speciation, both in the lab and in the wild. It is not by any means complete. There are hundreds more references out there: General 1. M Nei and J Zhang, Evolution: molecular origin of species. Science 282: 1428-1429, Nov. 20, 1998. Primary article is: CT Ting, SC Tsaur, ML We, and CE Wu, A rapidly evolving homeobox at the site of a hybrid sterility gene. Science 282: 1501-1504, Nov. 20, 1998. As the title implies, has found the genes that actually change during reproductive isolation. 2. M Turelli, The causes of Haldane's rule. Sc…

There have been a lot of threads about the validity of Evolution, and well I'm going to post all the evidence that I know and from my biology texts so that there will be no confusion. I wouldn't like to over-step my bounds, but I would like to invite others to post on this thread other evidence or insights that I have missed (I hope to just cover the basics with this first post) and we could possibly use this as a reference in the future. What is Evoltuion?? Evolution is the change of a population of a species over time, or if you prefer the change of alleles over time. Evidence of Evolution Fossil Record Fossils provide a record for species that have lived in…

Ask anybody who smokes weed and they will tell you they like nature. The stereotypical stoner hippies always want to save animals and forests. I began smoking about 3 years ago on a casual basis and since I have taken an intrest in biology and evolution and I think it is because of weed. So you have to admit that there is something in weed that makes you like and appreciate nature. So there is something in the chemical THC that when the brain gets high on it over a period of time it slowing makes you like nature. But is this just a fluke of evolution that this plant gets this unusual chemical or is there something behind evolution...like a god. So how does sci…

We've all seen an apple , an orange , a tomato , etc . So , what is the purpose of these in the bigger picture of the evolution of plants ? I know the fruit contains the seeds to make a new plant , what is the purpose of the rest of the apple , orange or tomato ?