Evolution, Morphology and Exobiology

Hey, guys. I'm the webmaster at the evolution education website EvoEdu.com. I've been lurking here for a bit (without registering), and I thought you folks might be interested. EvoEdu explains evolution in a way that a layman can actually understand. We go over what evolution is and how it works, some of the evidence for it, and whether the arguments against it hold up. We've also got this material available in MP3, and we're doing regular updates. Just thought you might be interested!

I'm heading to the Creation Museum this weekend. I thought I should have some questions ready in case I see Ken Ham there. Any ideas?

the other day I was asked a question about evolution that I feel has an easy answer yet i just don't know. If evolution is a long process of change, then why aren't there any half-chimp/half-human? Or why are there chimps still left today that aren't human?

evolution gone bad. Half Man - Half Tree Part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgQpMKES7BI&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K002UfnH64&feature=related

Having just read recently more research is to be conducted into psuedopods and volcanic underwater vents and the micro organisms that are released, are we closer to a lifeforms origins ? . The amoeba for example is a moving cell we often here about panspermia being the necessary cells for all forms of life do we draw closer to the darwin when we consider moving cells .The white blood cell being the closest to a psuedopod it must have a close relationship as these water micro organisms, it struck me on visit to chile and the tatio geysers that i was observing micro organisms being vented out of hot thermal springs and a great deal of organic matter maybe introduce…

According to some scientists homosexuality is heritable. In other words, the tendency to prefer your own gender to the opposite in mate choice is influenced by genetic factors. This is a controversial topic for many reasons but for the sake of argument let us consider the possibility that it is true. Explain why heritable homosexuality poses a problem from an evolutionary viewpoint and what are some possible explanations as to how homosexuality could be adaptive.

If the moon was so close to the earth Billions of years ago when life originated, and the moon was whizzing around the earth several times per (24-hour) day, how could life originate in the midst of such violent tides that were a THOUSAND times higher than they are today? Huge tsunamis over a mile high would rush in and out several times per day.

Just musing about the Earth's early atmosphere as being mostly carbon dioxide and then slowly being converted into substantial amounts of oxygen from photoautotrophs. I just wonder if the original conditions for the transformation of the Martian atmosphere can be re-created as an evolutionary experiment and then periodically seeded with further and further species until levels of oxygen are created. I would envisage a dome-like structure to protect the bacteria or protists from the harshness of the Martian atmospheres. Any views on this?

I can't imagine a Chihuahua ever producing offspring with a Great Dane... they'd never get past gestation for one thing! Would this essentially make different breeds of dogs forever unable to interbreed with each other, and thus mean they are different species?

This is a video I made for my Human Anthropology class. It talks about how animals that walked on 4 feet, evolved into animals that walk on 2 feet... THere are some funny moments in the video. Check it out if you wanna learn something!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-g7Inj62Axk

Firstly I will add a caveat that I am not entirely familiar with the exact mathematical models and algorithms involved in this (phylogenetics), so I might not be able to clear up any misunderstandings. I'm trying to see if there are representative haplotypic structures inherent to particular populations beyond that which is initially apparent by local LD; lets call them extended haplotypes. Now I want to see if there is any evidence for these extended haplotypic structures (background haplotypic structure) that may confound the association signals seen in GWAS due to either a) insufficient marker coverage on commercially available SNP chips, or b) whether fallacio…

This article makes a case that homosexuality may function as a form of kin selection. Perhaps gays are not expunged from the human population, as one might expect for a group that does not participate in sexual reproduction, but instead are allowed (and even maintained) to function beneficially in supporting roles to their population. Any thoughts or relevant extrapolations?

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/columnist/vergano/2009-02-01-hobbit-bones_N.htm?se=yahoorefer This is an interesting news article for anyone interested in the "Hobbit bones" story. Scientists are arguing whether they were humans with brain pathology or a different species.

Why do women avoid men of high intelligence? I once asked the noted anthropologist Donald Symons (University of California in Santa Barbara), and the evolutionary psychologists David Buss (University of Texas) and David C. Geary (University of Missouri) this rather quite interesting question: The French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau once said: "Women, in general, are not attracted to art at all, nor knowledge, and not at all to genius." A close personal acquaintance of mine seems to believe that most women are physically repelled by men of high intelligence because most women are seeking a man who can be easily manipulated mentally into handing over whatever n…

I am a firm believer of Evolution. I also believe that Evolution and "Intelligent Design" can co-exist. Although I do not find as much evidence for creationism as I do for the other. I would like to know if anybody had some intellectual thoughts on evidence of evolution.

okay, explain this to me: how can mutations make wings and junk? there are no mutant flying pengiuns. what do you do when you get half a mutated wing anyway? pick your nose with it? so much for survival of the fittest..,,..... seriously. everyone says there's all this evidence and crap but i havent seen people coming out of nuclear waste dumps with four eyes. it doesnt happen.

How do you get a self-replicating molecule to form a cell wall around it or perfectly designed nucleic acid perfectly nestled in the right environment to develop into a self-replicating protocell? How do you make this jump from what we know to what we expect? What are you thoughts? I'm starting to envision this primordial world of nano-bots, a world full of nothing but virus-like organisms and prions, before they developed further. Of course, their precursors are just an idea. How can you have a functioning cell without known components? How simple can you get it to where it can still be called life?

My thoughts on evolution. It occurred to me that unnatural selection is a vital part of evolution after reading that this is how the great variation of dog races are produced in some instance of their race history. Its quite trivial to understand this because when a population is decreased so increases the chances of inbreeding. For this to work the population cant be to small as a whole. By this I mean as an example of populating a small isolated island, the population as a whole do have the gene pole to prevent irreversible defect generation but the population on the island will start to inbreed catapulting (as seen in dogs) the defect variation and with natural…

hey everyone, My first post hurrah! Ok well lately i've been really becoming quite an atheist and have truly started to get into evolution and all that has to do with it even though i know that to truly get know everything would be quite impossible. Now i am quite young so i'm not at the school level to be able to truly delve into a specific scientific area as you can in later years so you guys/girls are one of my main sources of information! lucky you so now for my stupid questions of which i'm sure you have all heard before but if you would care to answer at least once more then that would be great I''d just like o have a couple of things cleared up 1.…

The New Scientist I am reading right now ((10 January edition) has an article on the possibility of resurrecting extinct animals. They suggest it will one day be possible for cases where we have good sources of undamaged DNA and a related organism to be a surrogate mother. They restrict their examples to animals that are big and interesting enough to motivate humans to do it, and where good DNA is accessible and a surrogate mother is possible. The examples given are : Sabre-tooth tiger Neanderthal man Short faced bear Glyptodon Tasmanian Tiger Woolly rhino Dodo Giant ground sloth Moa Irish elk There is no suggestion that other organisms cannot b…

SF writer question... Given that the color of plant life is dependent upon the type of light absorbed and reflected (the process itself dependent upon factors such as atmospheric chemistry, and the proximity and brightness of the star the planet happens to be orbiting, etc.), I'm wondering whether it would "theoretically" be possible to encounter an alien world possessed of darker purple or black vegetation (say on a planet orbiting a red dwarf) AND an atmosphere capable of sustaining human life? I stress "theoretically". Thanks in advance.

hi. i'm a first-time poster on here and i'd like to point out straight away that i don't have a science background and am a layman who is fascinated by natural history. was wondering whether anyone could tell me what the best current thinking is on how and when the mammals split into the three groups we have today - the placentals, the marsupials and the monotremes. in particular, do the marsupials date back further than the placentals and, if so, did the placentals descend directly from them or, more likely, diverge later from a common ancestor. i asked a similar question on another forum and a couple of guys on there were quite helpful in telling me that …

I understand the very basic concepts on innate and learned behavior but I would like to learn a little bit more about Fixed Action Patterns and Imprinting. And, does it have to do with any type of classical or operant conditioning??? If so, please explain...

How do habitats and niches and fall under the category of ecology? What is the broader spectrumof ecology??

How are Sexual Selection and Animal Adaptations correlated? I'm guessing animals adapt in order to become more appealing to possible mates (sexual selection)??