Evolution, Morphology and Exobiology

Hey everyone! According to Darwin's theory, adopted characteristics or variations passed on to next generation. If it is true, so why not the child is armless if his/her mother or father was armless. As far as I know, mutation is needed to occur in gametes in order for variation to happen. And it is not neccessary that the mother or the father also had those variations.

Was it the opposable thumb, bipedalism, maybe a branch that broke off and the development of language, and thus communication? Maybe it was the tool making? What was it that created the hominid to the modern man we know now?

Racism and xenophobia are extreme forms of the "Us vs. Them" mentality. Prejudice in general is a destructive form of this trait. The "Us vs. Them" mentality is actually a natural trait that evolved as a mechanism that reduces internal disorder. Up until recently, before the rise of such things as nationalism, this trait has never been purposefully used - it's always been in an instinctive on/off state. First, let's look at what evolution is (this should be familiar). The process of evolution requires three things: 1.) A population of individuals. Some can be identical, some can be completely different. 2.) The replication of these individu…

Hi All! This is my first post and I am already asking for your help. I'm in the very early stages of an illustration project that I intend on developing over the course of the summer and I am looking for input. Here is my idea: I am going to do a series of about 25 illustrations depicting the evolution of an alien race from 'single celled' organisims all the way up to an incredably advanced 'Super Race'. For each stage in the evolution, i want to have a fairly detailed cross section diagram lableing parts of their insides. I also want each diagram to be accompanied with one or two paragraph synopsis explaining how the oganisim lives, what has changed from the last mut…

I have a Maple tree that drops it's seeds early in the spring, just as the leaves are starting to form. The other day, I got to wondering, why leaves? If the evolution of the Maple tree provided everything that the Maple tree needs to propagate it's species, why leaves? The seeds are already gone. My wife said that perhaps the leaves provide shade which preserves moisture for the seeds take root, but I see no advantage in a young Maple tree sprouting in the very shade of it's parent--things will get pretty crowded that way. Certainly the shade does provide a damp spot, but I think that the leaves use up more moisture that they preserve. So, my que…

I once read that humans haven't adapted to the agricultural revolution because it's only been about 10,000 years and it takes 200,000 years for humans to evolve traits in response to environment. Is this 200,000 year number nonsense? Is it roughly correct? I believed it until I considered catastrophic events like the plague. Theoretically, if a disease killed off all people without gene X, evolution could have occurred over one generation.

Hello - I'm researching a science series for Discovery International, and I'm working on a programme about the science behind the film Men in Black. I'm wondering if any of you know of an expert who can talk about alien biology, and whether the aliens in MIB are biologically possible. Any thoughts would also be welcome. Thanks, Jo p.s why am I a lepton - I'm not especially small or thin, and I don't know how stromg my nuclear force is?

The site below suggests that the theory of evolution fuels racism. I'm certainly not a creationist nor am I a racist, but it is interesting to note that eugenics, the rise of Adolf Hitler, etc were very much the result of (a misunderstanding of) Darwinian theory. http://www.onehumanrace.com/

Everyone knows dolphins are smart, but how smart? I think thier intelligence could almost rival humans. The more we learn about them the more we realise how smart they are. They are highly social, communicate and have been known to have names for each other, have a sence of humour (they have been found to pluck feathers of birds tails, pull fish by the tail), solve puzzels and reconize their reflection. Sure they don't have tools, but they don't have hands to build them. If dolphins are able to solve often complex puzzels then they are capable of complex thought. They are probably able to think on a certain level and have curiosity. So what are your thoughts?

I'm just curious to know if somebody know some exemples (articles, quotes...) of heterochrony in the evolution of arthropods...

I have on several occasions attempted to introduce systems theory into the discussion on evolutionary process, but have been told that this view point is pseudoscience, so I am seeking some feedback on what is considered systems science and what is considered pseudoscience on this forum. These are my primary sources for what I have been postulating relating to my model on “archetypal descent” steming from my discovery of the “vesica attractor.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Self-organization and the Science of Emergence (Koestler, Salthe, Von Bertalanffy, Laszlo, Haken, Eigen, Prigogine, Cohen, Turing, Von Neumann…

The Murchison meteorite fell in 1969 over Murchison, Australia. Classified as a carbonaceous chondrite, type II (CM2), this meteorite is suspected to be of cometary origin due to its high water content of 12% An abundance of amino acids found within this meteorite has led to intense study as to its origins. More than 92 different amino acids have been identified within the Murchison meteorite to date. Nineteen of these are found on Earth. The remaining amino acids have no apparent terrestrial source http://www.resa.net/nasa/origins_life.htm#murchison

hey everyone! I studied about the theory of evolution in my biology class today... but I could not understand how life begun... who was the first organism on this planet to live and from what group of species it was from....

I have a quick thought that I have been recently thinking about: If it weren't for modern medicine would natural selection have weeded out most disease and sickness? eg. AIDS, etc

I've recently read that if the giant sauropods were indeed ectothermic, they might have required upwards of two hundred years to reach sexual maturity, especially the true behemoths like Argentinosaurus or the allegedly enormous Amphecoelias. Could an adolescence of that length actually have been possible? And if so, what might their actual full life expectancy have been?

What do you think, when will we achieve the technology to keep ourselves alive as long as we have the will and materials to do it? My guess is about after 250-500 years have passed. After all keeping yourself alive is only a matter of raising the level of order inside yourself, whilst introducing disorder to the surroundings. Even now our DNA carries a powerfull machinery which keeps the cell and its contents functional and repairs any mistakes that arise. Problems tend to arise only when the repairing mechanism itself starts to fall apart and suffer from flaws. After the repair mechanisms are no longer functional errors from spontaneous damage start to …

Note: I post this as a purely theoretical question, since I base all this on understanding of evolutionary principles and not any statistics or numbers. In biological evolution, a species exists only as far as it can continue to survive and reproduce in many numbers. It would seem that the longer the life span of an animal, the greater the chances are that it would have reproduced, therefore species with greater life spans have greater survivability. So, if this is true, that would mean that biological evolution favors those species that have greater life spans. Given this, why are there still limits on life span of all species? Is it not possible for biological …

I was wondering, according to the theories we grew up as apes and stuff that couldn't really talk and resembled gorillas of this present day. It took us hundreds of thousands of years, or so, to become the way we are today. Now, do you think if in thousands, or hundreds of thousands of years the animals of today would eventually evolve into what may be human like creatures, as in they can communicate and build stuff and do basically the same stuff that we can do? anyone any thoughts on this?

I was wondering something about how evolution works. Most leaps in evolution happen via a genetic mutation, right? But what good is an advantageous phenotype when it makes your physical appearance deviate from the norm. Wouldn't that make you "ugly"? Aren't we attracted to what looks like "normal" physical features? So if one of the side effects of genetic mutation is to end up looking like a gimp (however advantageous it may be), how would you go about finding mates to reproduce, or even being socially accepted period?

I’m trying to get the big picture on genetic variance across all forms of life on the planet. This is an area of biology I have been meaning to learn more about. I was thinking that early categories of creatures were based on obvious physical similarities. Now that we are able to look into each creature’s blueprints as it were. We can make up a much more proportional picture of their relationships. Anyone got up to data on the % variance between humans and say a chimp, humans and a feline, humans and a reptile…etc I guessing humans and say clay will be something like 100% variance. Is there some sort of periodic table of the creatures so to speak? …

"Fact" does not mean "absolute certainty." Stephen Jay Gould What is fact? the quality of being actual : ACTUALITY <a question of fact hinges on evidence> something that has actual existence <space exploration is now a fact> an actual occurrence <prove the fact of damage> a piece of information presented as having objective reality - in fact : in truth http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/05.16/99-gould.html http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/4550_antievolutionism_and_creationi_2_13_2001.asp Evolution "Evolution" in its most basic sense is a simple idea: Change through time has tak…

seems creationists are more prone to writing with outbursts of anger. "Evolution is simply nonsense. This is so funny. We are then led to believe that some birds got tired of carrying around a worthless half-size wing so they grew fingers on the end to help climb trees. The wings became arms and a new species was developed. Evolutionists actually believe this nonsense." It appears as if its written with anger and insecurity guiding the person's fingers. Im writing a large thesis paper on evolution and the scopes trial; after accumulating a plethora of information and testimony, im now beginning to compute the data. When i come across articles like this one, i fin…

i was just wondering if you could believe in both evolution and creationism

There is a new science emerging, one of chaos! Its a new way to see the natural phenomenon of evolution. Opening vast areas of study, and has brought with it, its own vocabulary of —"fractals," "bifurcations," "strange attractors," and "dissipative structures.” These new models go well beyond the traditional views of reductionism. I have come to realizes, there is an ever increasing gap in science today. One that will leave the two opposing views of "IDism Movement" and Darwinism out of mainstream. The real divergence lies not in Idst and Darwinist, but rather between the view points of systems thinking, that deals in the dynamical relationships of causality…

can some one please explain to me how we are or arent smarter than 2000 years ago. just say if 2 IQ tests could be created that were equal but suited to a man from the past and a man from now's context, would they score the same or different.