Paralith

"junk DNA" is a term many geneticists greatly dislike. The DNA is not junk - it simply does not directly translate into a protein. however, a great deal of it consists of very important regulatory sequences that interact with proteins and other coding DNA sequences to direct the manner in which the "non-junk" DNA is expressed.

so can we agree that a squirrel probably has a significantly different level of mental presence than a plant or an amoeba? though you consider the term consciousness to be the same as self-awareness, i think that most people would consider the word consciousness to indicate a level of awareness at least like that of a squirrel, which is why we feel that consciousness and self-awareness are different. we're just defining the terms differently, I think.

I disagree. Before the scientific cannon changed you'd need further studies to at least prove that there wasn't any other factor at play - for example, maybe all those red hat people chose similar numbers, and it was in fact the numbers chosen that affected who won, and not the color of hats worn. It just seemed that way, since people who pick similar numbers also have similar tastes in other things, such as clothes. These kinds of things in the least need to be ruled out. Additional corroborating studies are required for this. (As you say, if this lottery situation wasn't the made-up example that it is.) Psychics etc. will only pick the instances their predictions came true to use as evidence. The same use of bias can be done with prospective analysis - continuing with the example above, you chose only to look at hat color vs. lottery winnings, and chose to not make any other predictions and see how they came out as well. If we accurately assessed every prediction the psychic ever made and saw how many of them actually came true, the truth of the matter would be easy enough to see. That seems kind of silly to me. So a phenomenon is only real if it never happened before but happens when you set up the right experiment? The theory of gravity is only valid because when a human came along and predicted that a dropped pencil would fall to the ground, it fell? All the other times that pencils fell in the past means nothing?

ah, gotcha. thanks. I think we are defining the word "decision" differently. Let me ask you a question - what, then, do you think is the difference in mentality between a plant and an animal? The difference between the "decisions" as made by an amoeba, and those made by the squirrel? Is it simply a matter of complexity?

I see. So timing is all that matters? No matter what way you look at it, the results are the exactly the same: a statistically significant correlation of red hat wearers winning the lottery. A correlation by itself is hardly means anything, no matter how you arrived at it. You need other types of supporting evidence from multiple viewpoints and data that all continually support the red hat hypothesis. This is the problem with your criticism of fossil evidence. It might hold more water if fossil evidence was the only line of evidence used to support evolution. But it isn't. Fossil evidence is just one of many different lines of evidence that all align to support evolutionary theory. By itself fossils may not have as much strength, but as yet another of many supporting elements, it can be very valuable.

I think all observable phenomena (both directly and indirectly observable) would count as "pre-existing evidence." If you hypothesize that a plant will grow better if you give it fertilizer than if you don't, the plant on fertilizer does grow better because the mechanisms to take advantage of the fertilizer already existed. If you are testing a process, like evolution, one way to test it is to look at instances where the process already happened, look at what it started with, and see if your hypothesis can explain what it ended with, or vice versa. ANY type of scientific testing can be subject to bias. I don't think it's fair to say that testing against a fossil record is somehow more susceptible to bias than testing against other evidence.

I have to admit, I'm a little lost in this conversation. Someguy, I agree that some animals are probably self aware, to some degree at least, and others are not. The exact delineation of who is and who isn't (concurrent with the exact definition of self-aware) is the controversy. But relative to the OP, or at least the original context of the thread, what is your point? Animals that aren't self aware don't deserve to be treated humanely as much as animals who are self aware? This is more for my personal curiosity than anything else. On another note, I would have to agree with BhavinB that the definitions of the terms self-aware and conscious are not the same. A squirrel may not be self aware, but it most certainly is conscious - it processes information, it makes decisions - decisions steered by emotions, but decisions all the same. A plant, on the other hand, is not conscious. A plant has reactions to external stimuli - it does not accrue information about the outside world and make some sort of conclusion about it. A squirrel will evaluate several trees and decide which one is best to inhabit. A plant will grow in whatever direction the sun is. Of course, this all depends on how exactly you chose to define these terms.

not ALL the behaviors of a 9 - 12 year old, of course, but as far as experimentation with the opposite sex is concerned, yes. And experimentation isn't necessarily intercourse, either, but it can be just practice looking sexy, how to flirt, and how to compete with other females. So if you combine this sense of freedom with an older woman, I think you're more likely to get promiscuous behavior than you would otherwise. Indeed - the jacana, a wetland bird, is a popular example. One female mates with multiple males, and the males are the ones who sit on the nests and hatch the eggs and look out for the chicks. The females are even larger and more aggressive than the males, a situation usually reversed in other animals. One hypothesized reason for this kind of reversal is the extreme difficulty in raising offspring in the jacana's environment. They nest on lilypads or other floating vegetation in swampy areas, and there are tons of predators waiting all over the place for a chance to snatch up a baby jacana. If they fall in the water, they're pretty much doomed. So the female tries to have lots and lots of babies, and the males keep a close eye on each of their offspring.

I'm not an expert on rivers or anything, but I'm not sure why you think that creating river diversions is going to increase the velocity of the river. General fluid dynamics tells us that a single, wide channel offers less resistance to fluids flowing through it, and that increases flow velocity. But multiple, narrower channels increase the resistance to fluids, which would in fact reduce the flow velocity. Now, I'm not sure about this part, so I think the physicists and the like will have to correct me if I'm wrong - but I think that downstream diversions will create a sort of water back up as the river velocity decreases, which will in turn slow the velocity of water even further upstream. If I'm correct, diversions don't necessarily have to be near the mouth of the river in order to be effective. I'm also a little confused about your quote about stream channelization increasing flow velocity. I went to the link you provided for it, and it seems to me that stream channelization and river diversion are two different things. River diversion is the creation of a new channel leading off the river; stream channelization involves changing the shoreline of a stream. From what I understand, the article you linked to says that by reinforcing a stream shoreline, you are essentially making it very steep, to the point of being completely vertical in some cases. This removes the gradual slope of shore to stream bed, a slope that adds resistance to the water flow and different environmental niches required for aquatic life. Which makes sense. But river diversions aren't necessarily going to be channeled, so they aren't necessarily going to have a flow velocity greater than what would be found in a natural river diversion. I looked over the master plan draft a little bit, and it seems that most shoreline reinforcement is going to be along the coast, perpendicular to river flow, and not actually along the rivers.

These types of threads always come to the same ends. Intelligence, consciousness - we debate and debate, but since we all agree that nobody agrees on exactly what these things are, no real conclusions are ever made. Though I have to admit they can get pretty educational, which is pretty cool even if no real answer is ever reached.

I couldn't have said it better myself - except that reliable contraception hasn't been in effect in human populations long enough to affect any significant changes in the genes of our behavior. I suspect that the behavior that comes with it is an extension of the behavior of young females. Before a female becomes sexually mature, she has the ability practice mating behaviors during a time when she's not in danger of becoming pregnant by an undesirable male through her inexperience. This is part of a hypothesis explaining the behavior of many a teenage girl - wanting to dress sexier and like older women, becoming very interested in boys, and getting catty with each other. (Since human males commit to their families much more than most other animals, so too do human females compete more with each other to get the best man for the job.) Being on contraception allows this freedom to experiment and hone reproductive skills to continue well past the normal age.

I feel bad for the OPer. We snatched up his thread and dashed off in another direction with it. Personally, I've never really liked the idea of a one night stand. Just not my cup of tea, as it were. If I'm going to sleep with a guy, even if the situation may end up as a one night stand, I'd still want to do it with a person who has the potential to enter into an actual relationship with me. I'm going to look for evidence of certain personality traits, and not just cuddle up with the first pretty boy who ogles me. I like a guy with a calm self-confidence (aka not a cocky asshole), greater than average intelligence, who is considerate and loving, but also has an unapologetic sense of humor and is easy to talk to. It definitely isn't easy to get an accurate reading of these things in say a club or a bar situation, but at least looking for hints of them is better than nothing. Though I'm kind of out of touch with that whole scene anyway, I've already found my long-term mate. haha, and I just have to mention that I find it interesting that the two situations you list correspond very nicely with the two human male mating strategies that SkepticLance listed.

I most certainly agree with Premise A - at the very least, other great apes must have a degree of consciousness. I also agree with Premise B, but I think that it conflicts a little with Premise C. Going by what Bascule described, it seems to me that consciousness requires a certain amount and structure of brain material - as does intelligence. That means consciousness, also like intelligence, is not a cheap trait to maintain, since a lot of resources have to be put into brain growth and maintenance. Thus, both consciousness and intelligence should only evolve where the benefits of having them outweigh the cost of a resource-hungry brain. So, in such environments where the benefit-cost ratio favors it, then I think that yes, consciousness probably is an emergent trait. But not necessarily an emergent trait of life in general. As dichotomy mentioned, ants and bees are not conscious, and insects like them will likely outlast humans - all without consciousness.

These are the accepted strategies, yes. And I'm not saying that the weak female strategy is 100% for sure a newly discovered strategy, either - just that it is in fact a plausible hypothesis for another minority mating strategy. The difficulty in males and females not understanding each other is actually one of my primary interests when it comes to human behavioral ecology. Basic differences in reproductive interests are the origin of the differences in male and female mindsets that can make them so confusing to each other. I think that by looking at things from the evolutionary perspective, we can become somewhat less mystifying to each other - and just in my personal experience, this kind of study has already helped me a lot. So I respect that since I don't have a male mind, my understanding of male mentality can't be as complete as yours - but I think you are underestimating both of us in our capacity to understand each other. If you think my arguments in this thread are really 100000% nonsensical relative to reality, then perhaps we can discuss it more. To INow - I've always tried to make it clear that when it comes to evolved human behaviors, trends and averages are really all we can speak of with certainty. If I failed to do so in this thread, I apologize. And, no offense taken for the gender thing.

I think there's a little confusion as to the point I'm trying to make. I'm not trying to say that anorexia is a universally desirable female trait in humans. I'm defending that there is an evolutionary basis for some men desiring controllable women as an alternative mating strategy. As INow says, I used anorexia as an example of an outwardly obvious condition that might correlate with a weak will. I could just as easily have chosen shyness instead. Many animal species, including primates, will have several alternate mating strategies that a male can take advantage of. Some males will be stronger and be the leaders of the troop and defend their females, other weaker males will sneak in a mating or two with a willing female when the leaders aren't looking. Obviously being the stronger male is preferable, as you get your pick of the litter - but if your genes and/or your upbringing prevented you from fulfilling that goal, it's better to get some offspring somewhere, than none at all. Also, the professor in question was originally mentioned by SkepticLance, so all I know of what she said, I know through his post. He said that her statements about men desiring women because they seemed controllable were fallacious. I was just trying to show that there is a legitimate reason why men would want a controllable female. And there is a lot of human culture that is geared toward controlling a woman's reproduction, in various ways, for the same reason. I'm a girl, by the way. And I promise, I'm not anorexic.

And that is a personal and emotional reaction on your part. Which only speaks well of your personality, since you clearly don't believe that women ought to be so controlled by anybody other than themselves - and I believe that too. But that doesn't change the reality of what gains reproductive success and what doesn't. Especially considering that it's not necessarily that men actively think that they want to control their wives and girlfriends. A man probably isn't going to look at an anorexic girl and think, "Ah ha! I can control her! I claim that one!" It's that he has an evolved, but unconscious desire for a tractable mate, and that he may find himself attracted to this girl and others like her, but won't necessarily be aware of why that is. This why I think it's important to acknowledge and be aware of these influences - so that we put ourselves in a position to choose how we will behave, and not just be directed by indistinct gut feelings. Just think about the modern cultural ideal of love. Union, compatibility, understanding, faithfulness. And a darn good system for successfully raising your offspring, while being secure in the knowledge that they are in fact yours. Even feelings like love probably originated for these "selfish" evolutionary reasons. That doesn't make such feelings any less valuable or wonderful; but that's still no reason to fool ourselves about the reality of their nature.

I'm not saying that tractability and fidelity are the same. I'm saying that a more tractable female's fidelity will be easier for her mate to control - and all the more reason to desire such a thing, since as you say, females have always been finding ways to be unfaithful when such a thing benefits them, as it often does in nature. But things like anorexia or other visible traits that might represent an actual weakness of will and not just the appearance of tractability, could become attractive to some males. Not all males, but some of them. This is just one of the strategies by which you could help ensure your mate's fidelity. Another could be, as has already been mentioned previously, by forming a loving and respecting pair bond, enforced by pleasant and honorable personalities. Perhaps a male who isn't so good in the interpersonal department is more likely to go for the controlling strategy, where his mate may not be as fertile, but at least he can ensure through his own methods that all her children are his. Another strategy is the cultural indoctrination of beliefs about the characteristics a good and desirable woman should have - such as chastity and obedience, or tiny bound feet, or always wearing a veil that covers up those lovely fertile curves that would incite desire in other men. When the females themselves are convinced that this is how they should behave, then enforced slavery is most certainly not required. I know a lot of what I'm saying here sounds awful harsh - and a lot of times, the realities about what kinds of behaviors net greater reproductive success can be. I'm trying to say that these are the types of behaviors that would have been selected for during our evolution, not that these are good or right behaviors. But it's important to acknowledge their influence on modern human interactions.

That's a tricky one, because some comatose humans are in fact still self aware, but are in a way paralyzed. They will retain memories of the things they hear and feel, including pain, of the period they are comatose. Others will not. As far as I know, there isn't a reliable way to detect the difference. I agree with someguy that since we have more power over ourselves and the creatures around us than animals do, we have to be responsible for our actions towards these creatures. I also agree in general with PETA that animals who suffer should, whenever possible, have their suffering prevented. I also think that fetuses don't really count in this regard because not only are they not completely self aware, but if they were even somewhat self aware, they most certainly aren't going to remember any pain they experience. I'm sure being born in itself can't be a completely pain-free experience, either. But again, power and responsibility - if the circumstances that lead to an abortion can be forseen and avoided, they should be. My answer to PETA's questions about feeling compassion for other creatures would be a question of my own: do you accept that a human's life is more valuable than an animal's life? If a dog and a human were drowning next to each other, wouldn't you save the human first? If you accept this, then you have to accept that some animal suffering at the hands of humans can't really be avoided - like using them in biomedical research. But I definitely don't think pets should be abused, or dogs made to fight, or testing done on animals with cosmetics. These things do not affect human livelihood.

That's a really good point, actually. If you can't control your mate's movements, then forming a lasting pair bond is another good way to keep them from mating somewhere else, and in that sense personality could evolve to be very important.

In modern human culture, you're probably right - personality counts a lot towards forging relationships. But we still have the genetic influences that we evolved for thousands to millions of years before human society became what it is today, and those influences often affect us more than we realize. And the description of a fertile woman really isn't that mysterious. What we've been doing here is arguing the fine points. In general women who look healthy (slim/fit), young, have a good waist to hip ratio (appropriate curviness, in other words), and are more symmetrical will be considered more attractive. Fertility is a desirable mate characteristic in ALL animals, so to try and say that it doesn't affect mate choice in humans is really rather silly.

There is actually a reason for men to desire tractability in a mate. Human males, unlike most other mammals, put a lot of commitment and resources into their children. And if a male is going to expend all that commitment and resources on one female and her children, he needs to be damn sure that the children are his, and not some other male's. If all he was doing was expending his sperm and little else on lots of different females, then it's not such a big deal. In most human cultures, the males are the dominant gender. This is why many cultural practices are so strict on women - the more controlled and contained they are, the less likely it is they'll have *ahem* extra pair copulations. This becomes especially important when families are bequeathing land and other large estates - they don't want all this wealth to go to some other family without them realizing it. One hypothesis for the origin of foot binding in Asia is based on this idea. Small bound feet became erotic - the smaller, the better. But also the smaller, the harder it is for the woman to walk. And the more her movement is controlled by her mate and his family. I'm guessing this is also the grounds for the statements made by the professor you mention. Men have evolved to desire to control their mates, to avoid being cuckolded, so women who are more easily controlled would probably be more desirable. As far as heels go though, it's probably a little bit of both. It's definitely hard to run in them, but learning to walk in them correctly requires a lot of hip swinging.

haha, I never said that you weren't allowed to ask critical questions. Critical questions are fine. But what I suspect that you're doing is asking the same questions that have been asked and answered already, many times over by many different people. Which is also allowed, but tiresome. And though you've chosen to focus on one statement of mine, I hope you did notice the many and detailed answers to your questions that you also received from me and several other forum members. besides, are you really going to let one random internet person tell you what you are and aren't allowed to do?

I disagree that the " 'how' question" is just barely being touched upon. The "what" of evolution was accepted by mainstream science quite a while ago, and ever since then the "how" has been the main focus of research. Especially the eye, an example you've seized upon - this is an organ about which a lot of the "how" has in fact been answered, especially since it's a favorite example of IDers and creationists. If you have trouble accepting this "how," then you're going to have trouble accepting the rest of the "how" that evolutionary biologists have further described - and I think that's the main point that foodchain was trying to make. You'll have to forgive me for being somewhat skeptical about your acceptance of evolution. A new tactic being favored by many IDers today is to outwardly accept evolution as a changing of species - but to still question that the mechanisms of evolution can exist independently of a designer. Which of course, they can, and the eye is just one of the examples supporting that fact.

The criterion that you are looking for is determined by the environment. A trait in the "right direction," as you say, in the context of the environment, gives it's owner more reproductive success than other individuals who do not have that trait. That trait may not be perfect, but that doesn't matter - what matters is that it is better than other traits for conferring reproductive success in that environment. This trait will then be maintained in the population at a greater frequency than the other, less fit traits.

Often, but not always. The tail is still going to be an escape hindrance compared to other males with smaller tails. A trait need not necessarily be linked to an adaptive one in order to be sexually selected for. It's called the "sexy sons" theory. A female wants to mate with a particularly attractive male so that her sons, in turn, will be particularly attractive and mate often. The males, in turn, experience conflicting selective forces between predators and females. There are various ways that this preference can develop, but it doesn't have to be linked to environmental adaptations. But, it often is. In the case of birds, only strong and healthy males have the resources to grow and maintain bright and colorful plumage, for example. In other cases, a good gene might simply be passed down with a gene for large tails just through chromosomal linkage.