Evolution, Morphology and Exobiology

I am not an expert in evolutionary biology, but I have a question regarding live reproduction that relates to evolution (I think). It is known that people of different races, no matter how remote their locality from each other or no matter how different their ways of life and culture may be, when they mate they will produce human offsprings who themselves able to produce more humans when they grow older. Okay, the reason for that is simple, is because they are all humans. Equally speaking, dogs of any pedigree can mate and reproduce dogs, but you don't see mating of dogs and cats to produce a 'dog-cat' animal. However, on extremely rare cases two different ani…

Bush, who is against stem-cell research, will retire by 2008. After that, do you think we are likely to see more breakthrough and surprising factors appearing of stem cell research?

http://www.salon.com/health/col/roac/1999/04/09/roach/ What do you think? How will it be done and how soon?

I've been reading through some articles on the web, about the urey-miller experiment.. i read that the model is currently being replaced by some other theory that life began underwater... (its all on the internet...) so, if urey-miller has been rejected as a valid theory for life origin, does it still have any importance at all?

I heard that the breakthrough of nanotech might change our humen processing. It means that probably our bodies will become half-artificial and half origin. Like maybe there will be a new element to replace our blood to provide living matters and neutrients to us. Do you think it is possible?

I've thought a lot about consciousness, and it seems to me that embodied consciousness (consciousness that is entirely represented in the brain/body) cannot be a product of Darwinian evolution. I'll explain my reasoning: First off, the theory that consciousness is embodied, by definition, means that there exists a physical representation for all conscious thought/sense/qualia. If this is in fact the case, then it would seem to me that consciousness must then be entirely redundant. In other words, there cannot be a "deferral" of unconscious brain processes to consciousness to solve some problem that is "too complex for unconscious physical processes" (as is o…

recently i read in a book which suggested birds may have evovled from small lizard like ancestor rather than theropods. it said that, fossils of earliest birds appear in mid-jurrasic period while its theropod feathered ancestor in early creteacous . secondly reptiles started from five fingered ancestors, hence early dinosaurs retained this feature. but theropod retained only I II and III digits that is thumb index and middle finger while bird's fingers are reduced to 1 but recent embroynic studies has suggested that they have II III and V fingers . i.e index middle and last. ALL This suggests that although it has reptailian orgin birds didnt came from dinosaurs. -…

Speaking of recent middle-aged people, whose age are from 40 to 60, is it possible for them (if they don't have any side-effect disease and born healthily) to live up to 130 or 150 years old in life-span? In your thought on the next few decades of medical development.

Battle lines have been drawn.... 1968, Eppeson vs Arkansas..made it illegal for a teacher in a state funded school to teach evolution. 1987. Edwards vs. Aguillard, Supreme Court rules against laws requring equal time for Creationism. Why has the Evolutionary Community failed to win over the Creationist Community. They have the facts, yet war still rages. For instance Evolutionist claim transitional fossils exist. Creationist laugh at these claims, calling them open to interperation and that no transitional fossils exist, at all. Someone is lying. Can someone present just five proofs that evolution is fact. Can someone present just five proof…

What did cause the Cambrian explosion?

Quick question: What can the different temporal arche structures in reptiles tell us about their various lifestyles and what advantages might say, diapsids have over anapsids?

recently i read a book called rise of prehistoric vertebrates.. can any one tell me names of some tertiary predatory birds other than Diatryma and Gastronis.. (my spell may be inncorrect ) . were there any other large dino-like birds comparable to diatryma in tertiary or quaternary worlds?

I just finished Richard Dawkins' book "The Selfish Gene". In it he devotes and entire chapter to the concept of the meme. This is the first time I have ever heard of this concept. "The Selfish Gene" was written in 1976, I was wondering if the concept of memes has gained a lot of ground since then and is generally accepted today.

I sorta have another thread on this subject, but i probably babbled so much that people lost interest and thus i got no replies, so here i will be more brief. Fred Hoyle said that on the rare occasion that an individual in a species has an advantageous mutation, that it has no effect on evolution because the rest of the population cancels it out. Its just too rare and thus there is nothing for natural selection to build on. I know i've heard this creationist idea before, and am quite sure there is a logical way to dispell it (else would not the theory of evolution been thrown out long ago?). I however do not recall what the counterpoint is. could someone kindly he…

creationists often say that evolution is wrong because there are no transitional species. i can immediately see two things wrong with this: 1)lack of evidence is not evidence 2)all species are transitional species, right? note: this is a scientific thread, not religious.

Gene therapy and its connection to evolution By Ivan M. Nanev What do we do when one day our world comes to an end? How do we preserve our existence? We need to secure our future at least to one more planet. It can be done by terraforming planets from desert to habitable and transfer our ecosystem there. If not done, this should be at least considered as a plan of last resource. Unfortunately not all planets can be friendly and even we might have to reach other solar systems to reach one. Needed factors for "Live" planet formation: -Acceptable distance from the sun (even extremophilies have their temperature range). -Thick nitrogen atmosphere. -Hydrocarbon ab…

I am not trying to be clever. True natural selection, survival of the fittest all play into who survives and who doesn't. But does the very machinary of Evolution have a purpose, plan if you will? Some Evolutioinists would argue that it doesn't. Thoughts?

Is there a possiblily of Humans evolving beyond Homo Sapiens ... Well I read somewhere that there was a previous species of Humans called The Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens evolved from Them ... Are we evolving beyond the Homo Sapiens??? Will be a sharp evolutionary breakthrough? I read that at a point of time Both Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens lived at the same period of time ... Is it possible that the evolution has already taken place and evolved Humans are already living among us although they are very few in number and someday they'll be the next race dominating ..

Meat Personally I think it was the meat, our brains require large ammounts of protein and it was when we first started eating lots of meat that our brains began to develop higher reasoning faculties. I think harris had the right idea.

Do u think it possible? can u make a self-aware sentient android? I almost am certain u can, we are only decades into modern robotics and the infancy of cybernetics and we are making computers smarter and faster every day. There a few programs now actively looking into building androids for differant reasons.The U.S military has declassified UCAV's unmanned combat airial vehicle is a self guided combat device not self aware but it makes decision's on its own that can take a life away ? and even to make artificial life for good can that have a bad effect if it rebels or is exploited and would u feel safe? I think it is a matter of time in perfecting the science but it is a…

Most of this is copied from another thread. Whenever someone brings up the "entropy argument" in the debate over Creation vs. Evolution, they are announcing "I do not understand basic thermodynamics!" and "I am new to the Creation vs. Evolution debate and would like to be schooled!" For the lay folk, some sites about entropy that aim to clear up confusion: http://www.entropysite.com http://www.entropysite.com/students_approach.html This site has nothing to do with c vs. e, but is the result of frustration stemming from people's confusion of entropy and "disorder." This is the result of undergrad textbooks attempts to "simplify" the concept, but are only addin…

I'm just wondering if there's really any large amount of science-based opposition towards the theory of birds evovling from dinosaurs. I'm a faithful supporter of the theory, and the evidence seems to be pretty conclusive, but I'd like to know how many evolutionists still disagree, and why. (I don't mind getting sidetracked if the thread logically leads to some similar or related topics, or just plain funny ones)

Surely not all heritable variations in a population are caused by mutation, are they? I'm slightly different than my brother for example - different eye colour, different nose, much better looking, etc. What is the correct term for the cause of this type of heritable variation? Are there other causes of heritable variation?

I have a question about Darwin's theory of natural selection and Lamarck's theory of acquired characteristics. I am not an evolutionist, but one professor of Biology of mine said something that I think was significant: he said that he did not want to change my mind about evolution, but that it was still important to know it because it is an imoportant theory today. I think that is fair, and I would like to know it well. Lamarck's outdated theory of acquired characteristics states that traits acquired during an animal's lifetime can be passed on to the next generation. Lamarck's theory was replaced by Darwin's theory of natural selection, which states that, within a po…

I just read http://www.catholic.net/rcc/Periodicals/Issues/Darwin.html I believe in evolution... but this has some good points... it is kind of bias... but the scientific stuff it puts in there makes sense... what do you guys think. The part that talks about eyes forming... how did they... why did an autotrophic organism decide to eat another... how were those channges gradual. how did they evolve to do that. I do not believe in the genesis (which sounds like a fairy tale to me), but this makes me question some parts of evolution... So I wish to gather more information on this topic. Any input, facts, or ideas you have would help my mind, allowing it t…