Dr. Dalek

Hi everybody.

It has been awhile since I posted. I have been busy with school.

Anyway I was doing some reading online and I found something interesting. Apparently Mules which are the hybrids of Donkeys and Horses and are normally sterile and are so because of their odd number of chromosomes.

Since Horses have 64 chromosomes and donkeys have 62 the mule has 63. When they try to breed the differing numbers of chromosomes don't match up with the gametes of the other mule and they fail to breed. I know there may be more too it than that however for simplicity sake this is all I will share on the matter.

However if a female mule is bred with a pure horse or a pure donkey there can occasionally be offspring from this union. This has been documented and observed several times and even confirmed with genetic testing on one occasion.

From what I have read this is said to occur occasionally because haploid gametes of the mule can have (on occasion) the appropriate number of chromosomes to match up with the gametes of either a pure horses or a pure donkey. However the circumstances have to be just right as to what gametes meet or the zygote will not form.

Morocco's miracle mule.

I am wondering if this is true can the offspring of the mules breed? If so this means that there can be genetic drift between horses and donkeys because of chromosomal crossing over during gamete formation.

Someone I know asserted that this could not happen and that the offspring of the mules would be sterile. He gave to reason why this would be the case. If they had an even number of chromosomes (which must be the case because how else could they be born?) I don't see why they wouldn't. He simply asserted that he knew it was true and cited his high marks in AP Biology in high school (Nothing I haven't done as well) as evidence for his authority on the matter.

Is there another aspect to this puzzle that would prevent the offspring of mules from breeding besides chromosome number. I know that the proteins around an ova are supposed to be selective to sperm and only allow the sperm of similar species to pass into the ova. However I do not see why this would be the case. If donkeys and horses were dissimilar enough to block out each others gametes there would be no mules in the first place. Does anyone have any information on this matter?

that they are not doing the same as meat eaters and killing a life?

 

Who says the corn wants to be cultivated in a square field? Then reaped to be cut down and eaten? Why can't its seed be left to create more corn?

 

Who says the the carrot wants its food reserve to be traken from it for its leaves to wither and die?

Not to mention all the animals that are accidentally killed when harvesting crops.

I think it's every life form's right to eat what it has evolved to eat. Everything came out of the big bang, its all from the same source of energy and matter. It's all the same stuff. All life formed from the same ancestors, so it can eat itself if it likes.

 

hmmm, is it lunch time yet?

I argue that too however many Vegans believe that as beings of superior intelligence we have a moral responsibility to treat other animals with the same respect we give each other rather than killing them and eating them they way they kill and eat each other.

Kinda speaks for arrogance on the part of humans but it is odd. They believe that we are superior thus we must preserve all life, but at the same time others have used superiority as a justification for destroying life. The Nazis killing the Jews is a big example. I've met people before who have a MIGHT MAKES RIGHT! philosophy; they believe that since humans can kill more efficiently than other animals it gives us the right to destroy whatever we want for any reason. Makes them some what like my avatar.

EX-TER-MIN-ATE!!!

More over Humans in general are weird; I have an easier time understanding Wolves and Dogs than i do people.

As I recall, I think two different eyes is a genetic defect in which one eye received a bit more pigmentation than the other, so the colors are different.

How is that a defect? I thought a defect was a trait that gave the creature a significant disadvantage?

I read something about subterranean microorganisms that live near the mantle and produce chemicals which we find inside the Earths crust. I only saw it in passing; but I remember it was some theory related to the existence of Oil in the Earths crust.

can anyone give me more information about this?

That may not work. And what do you do while you are doing the research and testing?

We could give the pedfiles virtual reality equipment.

Yes, but we already have problems trying to figure out what to do with pedophiles. New York wants to confine them to mental hospitals for life. Is that any different than giving them a geographical location such as an island?

There is none, but both situations are to reminisent of Typhoid Mary, they would never be allowed by pollitically correct politicans. Also I don't want a huge population of pedophiles living off the coast of my state.

Besides if you are going to go as forcing them to relocate you might as well go the whole nine yards and develope surgery's or drugs to removed their sex drives.

Given that there seems to be so much conflict between pro-pedophiles and anti-pedophiles, why not just allow pedophiles to have their own country where they can do whatever they want? This may not work because, for most people, even just the thought that a child in another country is abused causes discomfort. However, even an extremist Muslim who believes that some child in Israel is reading the Torah instead of the Koran might cause discomfort as well, so if nationalism applies to religion then why shouldn't it apply to sexual orientation?

A; Were are we going to put this Pedofile country?

B; Forced relocation of popultions large or small always causes problems.

C; This country would be destroyed by the United States not long after an American child was molested when his family changed planes in this country.

D; These people are not just a minority that comes into conflict with other minorities they are people with a psycological condition that causes a pre-evolved system to encourage natural reproduction to malfuntion. They are essentialy sick.

The only conceivable reason I can see to put all these people into one country is to isolate and EX-TER-MIN-ATE them. Which is what a lot of Conspiracy theorists think the motavation behind the creation of Isreal was.

Why do people mix up homosexuallity with pedophillia?

 

I understand that some peopel feel they are both "forbidden by my religion" and therefore equally wrong (though even that seems a strange opinion to me) but even then "equally wrong" doesn't mean "the same thing as".

Most religious groups who condemn both of these groups also condemn infidelity in the same way. Yet the followers of those faiths don't generally mix up people who sleep with someone else's wife with pedopiles.

Even the most devout (or deranged depending on your point of view) can tell that homosexuallity is not actually the same as eating shellfish even if they are both an abomination.

So what is it? Why the blind spot?

 

(BTW, just in case anyone's wondering- no I'm not a member of any of those groups but I'm hopelessly prejudiced against irrationallity)

Uh . . . I'm not Christian myself but I do know that there are verses in the Bible that can be interprited as forbidding homosexuality. It doesn't justify intollerence though as the verses are ment to encourage individuals within the faith to avoid it.

I found this article on Wikipedia that refers a way of thinking known as Animal Supremacism. However I cannot find any information on Animal Supremacists or their philosophy. I was wondering if anyone has any information on it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misanthropy#Forms_of_misanthropy

Sup Peeps. This is your transexual friend Marilyn Manson! What I say for animal testing is that we go for it. We only use animals that are over populated for testing AND we kill more in hunting or road kill.

 

I WANT YO COOKIES~ kicker

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . o_o . . . . . . . . . . Uh, okay . . . .

Anyway I recently hear a statistic that suggested that animals have less health problems in an environment they are native to. Since things like hoarses, and cows are not native to north America it is possible we would require less drugs for animals if we selecivly breed native, naturalized animals for the same purposes. So we wouldn't need as many drugs or test subjects if we ate more commercial venison and less beef. As for hoarses, domestic stock heavily mixed with mustangs would benifit from hundreds of years of natural selection against disease.

I've actually been arguing agaisn't predisposition entirely....

What I meant was you seem to be saying there isn't any predisposition because your assuming that genetic predispositions are automatically going to forbid acclimation. Which they don't. They just limit it.

Right, but given equal time with swapped "sensing" as with proper sensing and the degeneration would be larger if not completely reduced.

Would you mind rephrasing that please? I think you might have mistyped something.

"the degeneration would be larger if not completely reduced" more detail would make this clearer. And simpler sentence structure.

it's probably good for someone to say that motor control probably does not equate with the usual definition of intelligence.

Right.

 

Once again.....if this is true a person couldn't learn to use things that they weren't born with...and that has been shown over and over again to be false.

No they could but they would never be able to use them to their fullest potential. Thats what I'm trying to say. You assuming that genetic predispositions are automatically going to forbid that sort of change/adaptation phenomenon. They don't they have an entirely different purpose, but in theory they would make it difficult to fully acclimate.

Eh? Maybe from the beginning I wasn't clear....we aren't attaching tentacles to a person...we are attaching extra arms.

What is more difficult...coordinating 8 tentacles that wiggly around and grab things.

 

The coordination abilities of a human far surpass those of an octupus.

I don't think it is an assumption that the brain's limitation is its throughput. The limit of its throughput is its frequency and memory capacity.

Ok I'll try to find a link for this later, but there was an experiment that supports my point.

Ferrets were once used in a test where the nerves of the audio and visual sensory organs (eyes and ears) were switched destinations in the brain. Meaning the visual info was going to the audio processing and the audio was going to the visual processing. After some acclimation the ferrets were able to see, but not well. They only had worse vision than the a normal ferret. The brain is adaptable and plastic but it has limits based on its genetic and epigenetic specialization mechanisms, and the fact that nerve cells grow more slowly than other cells in the body, at some point they basically stop growing all together.

Oh, haha, earlier I was talking to someone else about the amazing feats that our brain was capable of in adapting and acclaimating to new systems.

 

Researchers have used a pad to place on a blind person's tonque and using tiny impulses on the taste buds acting as "radar" the blind person learned to see and could reach out and grab door knobs, coke cans, etc.

 

The point being that our brains can do far more than what it was genetically predisposed to do.

I'd like to see some documentation on this. Also from your description it sounds more like they found a way to "sense" something rather than "see" There is a significant different, if you face your tonge in a certain direction feel a sensation, and have been told the apparatus is supposed to allow you to sense objects then yeah you'll beable to do that without genetic predetermination. Using limbs is entirly different.

Yeh...the brain is acclaimating to the feedback circuits it is experiencing. If what you were saying was true than people wouldn't be able to learn to control prothetics, or the example I just gave about seeing with taste buds....

Some of it is acclamation, some of it is genetic predisposition. After all something has to exist geneticaly to tell the nerves from the eyes and ears to link to certain sections of the brain, and what would be the purpose of predesignated locations unless the cells were already partly specialized for that task?

The prosthetics don't have muscles and hardly resemble a human limb. It once again is all about acclaimating to the feedback provided by the prosthetic. And AGAIN the taste bud thing, along with other interesting feats the previous guy pointed out would not be possible if what you are saying is accurate.

Yes they require acclimation, but they are still designed for the purpose of imitating human limbs. Designed obvoiusly if it is a prostetic the designers would intend for it to be easy to adapt to. A number of tenticles is entirly different.

I have to point out that we are both making assumptions, thought they are all based on facts we can't possibly know what would happen untill we stick a human brain in an Octopus body and see what he can do.

I don't think I have ever suggested that upon immediate attachment 8 arms/tentacles could be manipulated as effeciently by a human as the octupus. I have in fact said numerous times it requires acclaimation. If a person can learn to use taste buds to see learning to control 8 tentacles/arms should not be a problem. Obviously people were not predisposed to see with their taste buds, and yet the brain can learn to do it, amazing.

 

 

 

It is a simple concept. The brain works through feedback loops from muscles, organs, etc that it sends signals too. In fact the vast majority of neural activity is not output from the brain, but feedback going into the brain. The brain acclaimates to what signals it is receiving and what the feedback changes too as it sends signals, it learns and adapts. Just like people can learn to control prosthetics, they weren't genetically predisposed to control those either, and yet somehow they can. The shaky assumption is that the brain controls things it was predisposed to control.

 

The brain is a memory with variations in associative levels. The memory block sends outputs as well as receives massive amounts of feedback from its VAST connections to the outside world (the muscles and organs of the body). The only limitation of a brain in controlling apendages, organs, and being coordinated is the throughput abilities of that brain and nervous system. There is no predisposition of animal brains for a specified number of limbs.

See with their taste buds? Did I miss something?

Also the Brain IS predisposed to operate a certain muber of appendages, it could adapt to more through aclamation, but it would never be as adept as an animal predisposed to have them and here is how I know this.

The brain develops in a set way, each persons brain (barring abnormalities or mutations) develops in a bilateraly symetric way to correspond with the operation and controll of different parts of the body. Some of this is the result of genetics and some of it is the result of developmental adaptation. The brain must have genetic predispositions or it would not develop in this way.

Also prostetics are built in the image of already existing human limbs, we can learn to use them because they are copy of our natural limbs.

Here is another way of looking at this:

 

The coordination storage capacity and accuracy of the two organisms.

 

What is more difficult...coordinating 8 tentacles that wiggly around and grab things.

 

Or coordinating 4 apendages, and standing up right and balancing without falling. Running all out at near 20mph without losing the balance. Hand and eye coordination to catch things that are going very fast, to hit baseballs that are going 90mph, etc etc.

 

The coordination abilities of a human far surpass those of an octupus.

Again shaky assumptions! It is not a matter of weather it is harder or not its a matter of that it is different! A tentacle may not be as complex as an arm or a leg, but it certainly moves differently and has different methods of use and manipulation attached to it. A humans brain is designed to be plastic so that it could adapt to unusual attachments like tentacles, but the sheer fact that the brain is organized into different sections through inheritance indicates that these sections of the brain are genetically predisposed to handle certain tasks. If you woke up tomorrow with tentacles at first your brain would be trying to move them like the were arms and legs. Eventually you would become more proficient in their use, but your brain is predisposed to operate only four appendages, none of which are tentacles so you would not be able to use them as proficiently as an animal born to have tentacles. Its actually a very simple concept to grasp. Its not a matter of how many muscles you have its what your brain is designed to operate.

But I don't really care what the candidates believe, what matters is what they’re going to do with this belief. Huckabee doesn't believe in evolution, but he has no problem with evolution being taught in public schools, and he doesn’t support the teaching of creationism in science classes.

An excellent point.

I agree. Thoughts are not as important as actions. in something like politics.

I am baffled. What is it that predisposes the octupi to control these 8 apendages that a human wouldn't be able to control as well? If it isn't neurons, or the architecture of the brain, than what is so special about octupi that allows them to control the 8 apendages?

 

Are you suggesting that the capacity of our brain is coincidentally the number of limbs we have (or any animal for that matter), and that our brain limited the limbs we evolved....and that maybe with an octupi brain we would have ended up with more limbs?

 

 

foodchain:

 

smell, sight, other sensing that animals have that are superior to a human's isn't a result of better function of the neurons of the animal's brain.

 

It is the organ retreiving the data for the brain. The eye, the nose, the tongue, etc.

 

The superior intellect we developed apparently alleviated the need for such sensitive sensing organs.

If something is genetically predisposed to have eight appendages than its brain will be genetically predisposed to accommodate them!

You seem to be assuming at an animals ability to manipulate its limbs and handle its sensory organs is a direct function of the same kind of intelligence that humans measure with an IQ test. The brain is more complicated than that.

Really?

 

How so?

 

Is there something unique about the neurons of other animal brains which human neurons are inferior too?

 

Don't think so.

 

Are animal brains or specifically octupi brains constructed in a way that is special so they can handle extra apendages?

 

Nah.

 

The only difference is octupi are born having the 8 apendages and therefore the neural pathways with muscle feedback exist from the beginning so that the animal immediately begins training its brain to control its tentacles.

 

There is nothing that limits our brain to controlling 4 apendages, I don't think that even makes logical sense to assume that because we have four that is the obvious limitation of our brain.

Experiments with ferrets have yielded results suggesting that a brain is plastic enough to adapt to unusual situations like that, still though I doubt that a human would be able to control eight appendages as well as an animal that is genetically predisposed to have eight appendages.

Um...yeh....a human brain could control far more apendages than any animal in the animal kingdom....it of course would require acclaimation.

Uh . . .thats a fairly shaky assumption

Ok a very shaky assumption.

Although, I recently spoke to a very very clever Prof. from Oxford Uni who told me that it appears that our oceans appear to be cooling overall. Not sure what's going on there as corals are dying 'cos they get too hot. He wasn't sure either!

Maybe the reports of coral die off were exaggerated by the media, that happens a lot.

Or maybe there is another reason they are dying that has been overlooked.

Also "cooling overall" is not suggesting that it is cooling everywhere some locations may be cooling and the other are heating up a little, and the coral just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Also could u help me find that oceans cooling thing in writing, I have some Vendettas to settle.

This whole discussion is sopping with anthropomorphism. Animals haven't 'learned' anything of the kind. The whole kingdom minus humans didn't try out big brains for a while and then decide "Eh, this isn't really for us. Too much stress."

 

Animals aren't 'smart' like humans are but that doesn't mean they don't have unique mental abilities. Think of the mental acumen it takes to coordinate eight tentacles at once, or to navigate a maze of vines and branches to find a favorite fruit tree. No gibbon could write the Odyssey, no gibbon could write at all, but really who cares? Certainly not the gibbon.

Hmm, good point. However how are we going to discuss this in any way other than anthropomorphism. Were humans, unless we were raised by animals, or have clinical lycanthropy we can't see things from animals perspectives without making a shit load of assumptions and guesses.

It's not that simple, Intelligent Designers believe in evolution in their own twisted way and I'm pretty sure that the most prominent IDist would have answered "yes" to the question, even though they're engaged in quite a battle with the scientific community.

I don't really understand on what battle this ground lies.

I'm not really religious myself, but my understanding of ID is that religious people are approaching evolution basically the same as everything else scientific.

A scientist says "Ok this is how it is and this is how it happened" and the only modification the religious puts to it is "Yeah God meant to do that."

Its not scientific to make such assumptions because it is not falsifiable by current standards, but u can't really prove it wrong. So as long as the IDers don't put any crazy spins on the scientific theory other than that (which i don't know if any are) than it should not really be the topic of controversy. As long as they agree with what happened, just personally applying their faith too it and teaching it to their own children should they desire.

Ever heard the phrase "Ignorance is bliss?"

Maybe we are ignorant regarding a fact that animals have already learned. "We don't need to be all knowing to be happy."

Because, to me, it's akin to the president believing marshmellows grow on trees. It's not that it's inherently bad, but rather indicative of a non-logical, or irrational person. I don't trust matters of national security with folks like that.

 

Evolution isn't something to believe in, anymore than choosing to believe the sun doesn't exist, so those who ignore that have lost deductive reasoning credibility with me.

I see your point, though I would rather like to judge an individual on there actions rather than their beliefs I agree that this could be indicative of a less than rational mind.

I wish the question had been posed to the democrats. It's not an enviable position, to be running for president, and to have to disagree with much of the country's belief system.

A Democrat would just say "I believe in evolution" just because he knows its what people want to hear. I know I'm gonna catch heat for saying this, but frankly I don't care.

Yes it matters. I'd prefer my president not shrink and shuck the complications and logic of science down to the childish simplicity of "god did it"...

Well uh what about specialization? After all a botanist can discuss biology and perform their job easily and know absolutely nothing about politics.

So why should a President necessarily need to know or even care about anything in evolution if its not a matter of national security? After all thats basically what the Executive Branch does, military, law enforcement. How does knowledge, understanding, or belief in evolution change you qualifications in that context.

Observing a correlation between sunspot activity and temperature is one thing. Quantifying it exactly is another.

Here is a little anicdote I thought might be relavent;

Long ago people thought that the World would end by drying up. They believed that water erroded caves were evidence that all the water on Earth was slowly penetrating downward into the Earth and that in centuries the Earths surface would be dry and unable to support life. Naturaly this theory later turned out to be false when we learned more about the Earths interior and its workings, but it was the most reasonable logical outcome of the knowlage they had at the time. I read this in high school in a book about caves.