Evolution, Morphology and Exobiology

A bit of speculation of my own. If anyone can contribute with evidence or relevant information I'd love to hear it. Many now accept that the great extinction at the KT boundary was probably caused by an asteroid hit. One of the puzzles regarding that extinction is the selection of animal species, specifically dinosaur species surviving the catastrophe. We still have the birds with us, but in different forms to the archaic birds, and the non-avian dinosaurs are gone. Has anyone suggested the following? Or, can you suggest a book or other reading? Birds now largely have one of two mechanisms for attracting a mate; either gaudy plumage which they may disp…

Tell me!!!!

I was wondering if anyone has done some research into this topic. I know there are some quick answers to this question but I think the topic deserves a lot more study.

Hello, Sorry to bother you but this question was asked to me by my 5 year old and I could not find an answer. His question was:" If God created man did he create a baby or a grown-up?If it was a baby, how did he survive? (on his own) and who created God?" Not being religious I said that God was the easy explanation to creation. We read that new species (animal, fish, insect) appear all the time but is the first of all a newborn (and if so how do they survive?) or an adult? Many thanks

This question appeared in another thread, but it was OT there, so I post it anew. When we find a promising but sterile world, shouldn't we throw some archaea there with a purpose to spread life? After all, if / when we all go extinct here on Earth, then 4 billion years of evolution will go down the drain. This way we would be instrumental in saving the life. Nobody on Earth but us is capable of doing so.

OKay I am sure at least some people on this site has ever heard the story creationists lke to parrot about Darwin's deathbed recanting? Apparently as Darwin was on his deathbed, he asked for a bible and apologized to god for comeing up with the theory of evolution or something along those lines. This really annoys me as even if this did happen, what does it change? So this is supposed to make all the observations concerning evolution null? I have a challenge for anyone who wants it. Find me a reliable, attributed source (i.e. "proof") that this took place. Any discussion about this topic or any related topics are welcome. -Hellbender

To what extent are humans in a technological society exempt from natural selection????

How is it that an Amoeba has 200 times the DNA of a human ? An onion 12 times as much. A rasberry has 12% of the DNA of a human wich seems logical. It`s a simpler organism and would require less DNA to produce the fewer attributes to be expressed. As far as I know ,no one has come up with a cohesive answer yet. If someone did I did not read of it. The Harvard Gazette is where I got the figures used here. There is speculation out there but no decisive answers. I appears to me amoebas have simply been piling up random DNA that occurred through mutation as long as it did not prove fatal or detrimental to it`s survival over the 2 billion year history of thier existance. No de…

I have been looking for weeks for a good answer to this question, and have yet to find one that makes total sense. Why are humans the only primate to lose its hair? One of the best explanations that I read to date said that when humans were almost extinct we resorted to being fishermen, and as aquatic apes it was more beneficial to lose the hair in favor of sweat glands. Another good explanation was sexual selection.. less hair meant more skin contact which heightened sexual pleasure, and as emerging intelligent thinkers and sex machines, it was sexually selected into us. Would love to know what others think.

topic. secondly if there are aliens would they look like humans?

Ive always been into health and healthy living. Ive been in a phase of studying evolutionary theories for a a few months now and have some questions! The "Out of Africa Theory" makes sense and I tend to lend towards believing it. Obviously humans all spread out eventually to places all around the world but it got me to thinking... are we living in the right place? All other animals tend to stay in there natural habitat. I mean, the great apes and primates are all still in Africa! Maybe we should be there still? What would happen to a chimpanzee if you suddenly placed a group of them in the South American Rainforest... would they survive and thriv…

One of the really bad flaws in the creationist argument is based on their idea of a perfect creator. Evolution is imperfect by its very nature - too many random variables. The results of evolution are very often seriously imperfect. If life had been created in finished form by a perfect creator, that life would, ipso facto, be perfect. Why would a perfect creator indulge in crappy workmanship? Some of the imperfections I see as a result of evolution's stuff ups are ; The human appendix The fact that our breathing tube (trachea) and our swallowing tube (esophagus) open in our throats side by side, resulting in thousands of choking deaths each year. Me…

There is some information that this may be possible using some simple IVF techniques to remove human or ape antibodies from the semen sample before implantation in the host. There is one chromosome differance between humans and chimpanzees, and has been rumored that this has been achived by Russian scientists, and a Chinese scientist. Anyone else have any info on the subject?

I am a supporter of evolution, and I often see creationists claiming that evolution is not scientific because it fails to meet the requirements of the scientific method. They claim that any scientific idea must be testable, observable, repeatable and falsifiable, and this is true. I know that direct observation is not always possible in science, but I want to know, how do scientists test evolution (changes that create new species)? How is it observable? I am not referring to natural selection, like bacteria resistance or changes within the same species, I am referring to those changes above a species level, which create new ones. How do scientists test and confir…

What is the evolutionary reason for humans to have large penis compared to Gorillas and for Gorillas to have small penis that is only about 4 inches long? Btw Gorillas are my favorite animal!

I found this book a while ago, and managed to read most of it. It challenged my ideas at the time but, looking back with an analytical approach, I find that some thing don't seem to sound quite right. If anyone else has read this book, please tell me what you think. How much of what is said is true at face value, and how much is made up of facts that have been specifically worded to create the wrong impression? Also, how much of the 'facts' are merely oppinions stated as facts? I would like to know how reliable this information is. Click on this link to Amazon.com to view the book.

Is homophobia a consequence of natural selection? viz heterosexual men are evolutionarily required to be attracted to the opposite sex because if they weren't they wouldnt reproduce and so the species wouldn't survive. At the same time the heterosexual male animal needs biologically to be reasonably repelled by homosexual sex, because if he weren't he wouldn't spend so much time reproducing and the species wouldn't survive so well; an example of Evolutionary psychology( as indicated by darwin and developed by William James et al..) I only ask because a lot of psycho-babblers, pundits and gay-rights people imply that homophobia is culturally constructed. But this d…

I ask this with the evolution of the universe in mind. The universe was born 14 billion years ago, the earth 4.5 billion years ago, and life on earth...I don't know 1.5-2 billion years ago? How much earlier than 4.5 billion years ago could a planet like earth of been created. How about intelligent life. Could people smarter than us of lived 2 billion years ago, which means life on their planet probably started 2-3 billion years before that (if their evolution is anything like ours) or was the universe just not fit to do such a thing yet? About stars also. Stars have been observed "burning out" right? Our star's lifespan will be longer than 14 billion years....right? W…

Welcome fellow evolutionary biologists, other biologists, other scientists, theologizes and of course other random people. Proving Darwin’s theory of evolution for me is a simple task. However since many do not (and never will) accept this magnificent theory in all of its elegance, we will once again be in conflict where science shall have to fight against religion. Darwin’s theory is based of something called "Natural Selection" He states that: 1. Life forms will produce more young than could possibly survive. 2. Most life forms die before they can reproduce. 3. Life forms show variation. 4. Some variation will give life forms a competitive edge agains…

I think it's past time that we discussed that natural selection comes in 3 forms. Too often speculations in this forum (and others) are based upon the premise that natural selection only directionally changes a population. Purifying or stabilizing selection. Also called normalizing selection, this type of selection acts to preserve a certain array of phenotypes because of their selective advantage. Due to mutation and recombination, any Mendelian population can generate an enormous array of phenotypes, but selection limits the phenotypes to those of selective advantage. This is the type of selection seen when a species is well-adapted to a constant environment and…