Evolution, Morphology and Exobiology

In light of the recent ruling in PA, a friend and I got into sort of tuffle...about evolution. I said it was fact. He...said it was just theory. Putting aside religious overtones...what I need is is three or four or more, quickie flashpoints that prove that evolution is a fact. These must be concise, accessible to the common man, i.e, not filled with biolgocial jargon overload. If you can help I would appreciate it. Max

Hey all, I am considering putting together a web based project which will list all the fossils we have currently discovered in the order they appear on the evolutionary tree of life. Anyone have any ideas where I could start gathering this information (pictures)? Is there such a project already? Any help would be greatly appreciated. FreeThinker

One of the main reasons I don't expect that we'll ever have meaningful communication with an extraterrestrial lifeform is that even on our own planet, where all life probably has common ancestry, the kind of intelligence needed for that sort of communication is basically limited to only one species (us), and even that arising out of some pretty big coincidences. However, many species seem to be on the verge of such capability. As one would expect, several of these are our closest relatives: apes. Our chances of encountering intelligent life would seem more promising if we saw such intelligence arising more independently here on Earth, i.e. in species for which our mo…

I was just wondering what the simplest known organism is? Sorry if this is a stupid question...

http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/dino_lungs/ discussion, with diagrams, of the avian "four-stroke" lung as contrasted with mammalian two-stroke more efficient at extracting oxygen, and helps achieve lighter body structure maybe a lot of people know about this, but I thought Pharyngula had a nice clear description and interesting reflections about it

here is a little bit of evo vs creatio-IDiocy, courtesy of Garry Trudeau

I often wonder about one perticular problem with evolution. I think that it might end up being a bit better when the brain is developed, but the only problem I have is before the brain there were only cells. And the cells were following chemical reactions because that is all they can follow. I wonder why these cells seemed to become intelligent and develop to better survive the conditions because cells don't become 'better' at surviving, only follow reactions. And that is what I wonder. Cells are only made of atoms, and these atoms are following reactions. Why do these reactions change for the better of the cell? This was a hard one to phrase. If you get my mea…

I just found some interesting sites that i think you guys might want to look at. http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/051102_natural_selection.html http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051212/ap_on_sc/mice_human_brains;_ylt=Ao0RzCbpaMFEIpm9NL7I0sgPLBIF;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA-- http://livescience.com/animalworld/051215_fish_color.html http://livescience.com/humanbiology/051214_brain_evo.html I personally think these sites give more insight and proof towards Evolution, and might help favor Evolution in the continued debate between ID and Evolution. Anyway tell me what you think about them.

This is based off of something that someone in my lab said the other day... so if what he says is true, I would very much like to talk about it. Humans and chimps are only lile 98.% genetically similar. (some people say 85%, but whatever, my point is the same). But, there are different strains of E.coli (same species, though) that are as much as 60% different. Why are these difference less important in unicellular organisms then they are in primates? Why is 2% enough to be very different species of primate, but a much larger percent difference is considered the same species of bacteria?

Here's an interesting question, albeit a little obscure. I was wondering since people today are educated on the topic of human sexual reproduction/intercourse, either by their parents, school, or other source, if people today could even figure out how to reproduce on their own. I mean, I'm sure everyone registered at this forum was taught about sex/reproduction (either by a person or by a reference source) and didn't just figure it out on their own, right? I find it interesting because Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons and every other species before us obviously had to either figure it out on their own or instinctively possessed the knowledge (the latter being most plausabl…

The development of the ribosome would seem to be a key watershed event in the evolution of life, bridging the gap between RNA (and possibly DNA, haven't heard anything definitive on that) world and the development of prokaryotic life... the critical point at which proteins came into play in the reactions of organic molecules. I don't know if we have any clues as to what the structures from which ribosomes evolved were originally used for, but I would like to know how much ribosomes have evolved since the progenotes gave way to the first bona fide prokaryotic cell. Do ribosomes really change all that much throughout time, or is thier function so critical that a mutati…

Times UK Kansas schools take step against evolution By Sam Knight and agencies Teachers in Kansas will have to spell out specific objections to Darwin's theory of evolution under a new set of teaching guidelines approved in the midwestern heartland state last night. In a major success for proponents of "intelligent design" and other creationist theories of evolution, the Republican-dominated Kansas Board of Education ruled by six votes to four that, from 2008, teachers will have to give reasons why Darwinism is just one of many theories to explain the origins of life. Until yesterday, Kansas had allowed teachers to take issue with the theory of evolution.…

I'm not sure if this is the correct category to post this in, but here we go: What is Kirlian photography about, and does it have any recognised scientific basis in fact?

(ed: AARGH, all this and I posted in the wrong forum. Can someone [Mokele?] please move this to the Evolution forum, or to pseudoscience if I'm being a little too craaaazy here...) There exists one pretty obvious causal relationship in the evolutionary process which I've never really heard mentioned: the rate at which the process is able to discover useful novelty is limited by its ability to keep records and share these records with other memebers of a community. For starters, all life on earth is descended from a relatively complex common ancestor which includes all sorts of complex DNA transcrption and Ribosomal machinery, all of which is needed to keep an inc…

Well, I guess the thread this guy posted to got deleted and he probably got banned, after I had typed up a whole response at that! So here's what I had to say in reply...

I'm going to have to do a lot more studying, but I think I may have my dissertation topic. What I need is a starting place. Does anyone know of a researcher working on any chondrichthyan genome? I'm curious to know if anyone is studying, or if I missed it completely, has studied, the genetics of chondrogenesis in sharks. Is it the same or similar in all vertebrates? Do sharks have genes for osteogenesis?

I found this cool article on livescience.com about a new species of ancient crocodile: ____________________________________________ In the era when dinosaurs ruled the Jurassic earth, a 13-foot oceanic crocodile with a short snout and a mouthful of deadly teeth hunted large creatures in the sea, scientists reported Thursday. Nicknamed "Godzilla" by its discoverers, the new find was much different from other marine crocodiles, which had long snouts with many small teeth. The discovery of the creature, given the scientific name Dakosaurus andiniensis, was reported Thursday in ScienceExpress, the online edition of the journal Science. "This animal was one o…

...executing a massively parallel random walk of possible life configurations, sorting out the bad from the good. Yup. Douglas Adams was right; the Earth is just one big computer.

Do you think the fact that human have evolved to laugh, smile, cry, blush etc etc have any evolutionary importance in survival rates?

Hi there, Im looking for webmasters or bloggers with an interest in science who may be interested in exchanging links in an effort to spread knowledge of scientific facts. In light of recent creationism/intelligent design mumbo jumbo wreaking havoc on the US i feel its all the more important to direct web surfers to stories based on facts! feel free to check out my blog & leave a comment if your interested DWB ------------------------------- http://disgruntledwogbeast.blogspot.com/

What way do you think the Judge will rule on the case? I heard so far that the decision will be made around Nov. 8. From what i also heard, the judge seems to be well informed on evolution and the definition of theory. I would be delighted to hear your guys views on how this and maybe future cases may turn out. BTW: here is a really interesting link that i found concerning evolution and science. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051028/sc_nm/science_usa_dc;_ylt=ApyC3CW2LMYi..IPj_.7FwxxieAA;_ylu=X3oDMTA4NmhocGZ1BHNlYwMxNzAw

Given that whales, dolphins and porpuses (porpii?) descended from a common hippo-like mammal, we should have fossil remains of mammals from the transitional phase (phase meaning millions of years). In other words, we should have fossil remains of mammals that look more like an ungulate, but through DNA recombination also have some distinctly cetacean features. I am sure we must have some fossils similar to this in order to make the link. Has anyone ever seen or heard of such fossil remains, I would really like to see something that like. Joe

I think the rate at which well renowned scientists open their arms to the most mystical and religious theories is alarming. There are many theories that appear not creationist on the surface, but are in reality nothing more than a way of injecting mysticism into science through the back door. This includes the latest craze of "intelligent design", see this Reuters article. The proponents of this theory argue that it is a way to find common ground between religion and science, since it argues that some species have evolved while others are so complex they must have been Created. The theory is rapidly gaining foothold in the scientific community, for instance the Smiths…

Daniel Dennett described evolution as a ratchet with which we can do some very heavy lifting. Provided that an ambiogenic event is responsible for life on earth, it explains how a mechanical, blind, and purposeless system could have spat out sentient life. But where is evolution going to take us in the future? I've seen a number of articles dealing with the evolutionary stagnation of humanity from a biological standpoint, wondering in which direction humanity will evolve biologically. But I think that's such a naive view, as human evolution is increasing at an unprecedented rate, but in a societal and technological manner rather than a biological one. Animal li…

All zygotes of human have the same genotype. But, when you consider carefully, starting from the unique cells, each cells divided should have the same structure, what causes them to specialize to carry out different functions?