Evolution, Morphology and Exobiology

An item from New Scientist points out that males with certain anti-social qualities get far more sex, albeit in short term relations, than 'nice' guys. Now I know why I missed out at University! Damn!! http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19826614.100

I am relatively new to the Forum so take it easy. However, despite the life cycle of bacteria (20 minutes per cell division in rich medium), bacteria have stayed bacteria over millions of years. They also would have more mutation due to the sheer rate of cell division than animals so why have they stayed bacteria? Also the same with flies.

History channel aired the show "How Life Began" will air again 10 PM Saturday June 21 Very disappointing. Full of platitudes and they spent only one minute on the very title of the show, "how life began." It took place behind a curtain about which the narrator commented that no one understands how life began. I think the show should have gone more like this. Perhaps anyone can chime in and suggest errors I made. 1) chemicals and condition necessary for abiogenesis ????? presto chango -- ABIOGENESIS of one or more first replicators over perhaps 100 to 500 million years ??????? 2) first replicators adapt to acquire nutrients and avoid fatal circums…

There has been a lot of debate about whether organisms evolve in a gradual way with changes occuring in a normal rate or often need sudden bursts of big changes followed by some small mutations. Now a days there is a compromise on both sides accepting each others argument. But I really have a problem with this model How big is really big in terms of evolution? I think we need to have a criteria to distinguish big changes from small changes. A mutation to one of the pigment proteins changes the colour of a flower attracting new pollinators and in another case a mutation in the Hox genes can create macroevolutionary changes changing crustaceans into insects. I think it is t…

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…

In this modern age we are able to cure many dieseazes and can keep people alive when the would have otherwise died. We are moving towards the point where everybody lives no matter what genetic or non-genetic contintions they may have. I do think this is a good thing I value all human life. I am wondering what this does for natural selection and for evolution.

Truly hermaphroditic species (two fully functioning sets of reproductive organs) would have an immense advantage in virtually all aspects of prosperity in nature and survival. Major examples: - During any calamity that drastically reduces the population (be it a natural disaster, climate shift, starvation, drought, over-predation, plague, etc.), when only a handful of individuals are left, hermaphroditism would be greatly more beneficial than two sexes. Let's say that in a given area, only 3 males and 1 female survived the catastrophe. One of the males mate with the last female. However, during or shortly after pregnancy the female dies, and her young obviously wi…

Not much is know about evolution of winged insects. I read some where that insects evovled directly from marine arthropods. Unlike birds , who evovled from land dwelling reptiles. Insects wings evovled from gill like structures on some arthropods used to float on freshwater lakes during early carboniferous period. does anybody has good resource on this subject?

Life has a long history of conquering new environments, from the ocean into freshwater bodies, from water to land, and from land to air (and some cases of water to air). It has also adapted to and even flourished in the most extreme environments on Earth, from Antarctica to the Sahara Desert to subterranean habitats miles under the surface. I suppose life has one place left to go: space. And through space, the untapped and virtually unlimited energy and resources that abound in our Solar System and beyond. We already know that at least one species has evolved to enter, and even partially inhabit, space. This was done by way of the evolution of larger brains, leadi…

Some of you have probably heard about this. E.O. Wilson, one of the great reductionists, has abandoned his gene-based notions of kin selection and resurrected group selection theory to explain altruism and the evolution of insect colonies. Essentially, the notion holds that while individuals within a group may suffer relative to other members of the same group in being altruistic, the group itself does better than other groups without altruistic members. Thus the altruistic groups are selected for. Here is a recent article on it in the New Scientist: http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/mg19726383.900-altruism-is-no-family-matter.html Here's Dawkins' criticis…

It seems science is loaded with paradigms, constantly in motion evolving in time all over the place via people working on it. Is evolution really a paradigm though? I mean of course evolution as it would apply to the realm of biologic inquiry mainly. I personally do not view it as a paradigm in any sense. I guess a better question may have been to ask if natural selection could be viewed as a paradigm, but I don’t really view it as one either. I think that some aspects of science mainly get shown to be paradigms as the sciences come to exist in hybrid states. Though I don’t know how much you can discern the simple reality of differences with what happens to be a para…

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…

I just want to answer to something SkepticLance said about vitamin C, first because he made a mistakes, but also because it leads to a simple explanation of the molecular clock (the idea that we can use DNA to date events).

Wing evolution in dinosaurs... A professor of mine (philosophy, not evolution) said he had heard a hypothesis that wing evolution could have arisen to aid in body cooling (to literally fan the body). A student proposed the opposite... that wing expansion could have helped early bird-like creatures to expand the body surface area to collect more sun. Whatever the origin, bird wing evolution is a case of co-opting anatomy for other tasks. What I've heard though, is that early wings were merely meant for gliding. So, are any of these ideas correct?

The second thread in the series. Who do you think is the most influential evolutionary biologist living today? We're defining that as who's had the greatest impact on the field in his or her lifetime... I think. If anyone wants to offer another definition and propose people to fit it, you're welcome. I suppose we also have to deal with "what is an evolutionary biologist?" I think it would be safe to include paleontologists and evolutionary anthropologists in on top of your typical population geneticists and proper 'biologists' as long as they've made contributions to evolutionary theory per se. Obviously most every biologists is an 'evolutionary' biologists in th…

Is it more likely that life per se should evolve or that "complex" life (plants and animals or their equivalent) would evolve (once life has) on any given planet? Don't try to add up the probabilities. We're comparing the chances of life evolving with the chances of complex life evolving on any planet where life is. This is a question posed by Carl Sagan in his Cosmos (sort of). He seems to take the position that complex life is more the more unlikely of two. I do as well. The mechanisms for the origin of the simplest 'life' seem fairly straightforward. It's just chemistry really. From there natural selection should take any primitive cell on a fairly automatic path o…

A nice reference for those interested has just been placed by New Scientist. http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/dn13620?DCMP=NLC-nletter&nsref=dn13620 This is a good resource, with lots of information about evolution, and based on good science. It describes a lot of poorly understood matters. For example : Why do males have nipples? Why are some people homosexual? etc. Take a look.

Being more or less self-educated in evolution, sometimes (maybe more than that) I find myself getting a little confused on some things sometimes. I'm hoping some of you don't mind helping me become less befuddled. Presently I'm confused about the whole mammal-like reptile thing. My current understanding is this: They were the dominant species, then what's now part of Russia blew up, there was runaway global warming and a mass extinction. Over several million years the mammal-like reptiles became proto-mammals hiding in the bush and dinosaurs became the dominant species. Is this more or less accurate? Does it match the current thinking, or am I ha…

I know this is science, but I found this amusing. A Neanderthal pronouncing the letter “e.” http://www.fau.edu/explore/media/FAU-neanderthal.wav http://www.fau.edu/explore/homepage-stories/2008-04speaks.php It's probably just me.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080417112433.htm seems pretty awesome doesn't it?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/ghostgenes.shtml I have always thought there was more influence from the environment and our response to it on our genes. I admit this is mostly from ignorance and the inability to conceive such a huge passage in time, but if this is true, it might fill in some gaps. What say you?

Seems to me that Darwin-type bio-evolutionary theory has no (scientific) theoretical opponents. None. Never has had. That makes it pretty unusual, if not unique. (I can only think of our concept of ‘time’ as an equally large and mostly unchallenged set of ideas - though, I have read ‘the End of Time’ (Balfour). (And one day, I’ll understand it)). Which makes me suspicious. It seems to me that the most scientifically interesting thing that could happen, would be if ‘Evolution’ was challenged. Be brave: where would I start looking, if I were interested in challenging Evolution? Where are the anomalies? What doesn’t quite make sense about the theory(s)…

I cast my stone for bunk, for the simple reason that I find the notion that Gigantopithecus was bipedal, crossed the Bering Land Bridge, and is now suddenly an omnivore (when its teeth from the Pleistocene clearly indicate it was a heavy-duty herbivore) highly improbable. Bigfoot has all the trappings of a culturally fabricated boogeyman and none of a real ape. But that's just me. What say you?

This article appears in Discover Magazine http://discovermagazine.com/ I found it really quite interesting and not knowing if it already has a “thread” of it’s own I will post an exert from said ……. and await opinions from the more learned on the subject than myself.

Ohohohoho Apparently some new finds are casting "Homo floresiensis," the vaunted "Hobbit" from the Indonesian island of Flores, as simply a pathological human. http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/human-evolution/dn13441-new-bones-suggest-hobbits-were-modern-pygmies.html I'm still not convinced either way, but I can recall hearing on a documentary some paleoanthropologist, it might have been Lee Berger, saying that "We all might look very foolish over this" and that's the sort of feeling I've had since I first started hearing about "H. floresiensis." But what are the thoughts of ye distinguished of SFN?