Paralith

That's a good point, and I'm glad you brought it up. I myself was taught that a phylogeny should be considered a hypothesis of evolutionary relationships, and that many sources should be sought to support that hypothesis, including genetic, anatomic, fossil, etc evidence. I think I focused on genetics because it was the most obvious contrast to the purely phenotypic scale that Mr.Skeptic was proposing, which I think is a much less accurate measure of actual evolutionary relatedness. It is not uncommon that close evolutionary relatives appear to differ radically in phenotype.

I do not at all think that science should at any time make sacrifices simply so ignorant people won't get their panties in a knot. But that's just my opinion.

I'm sure some people will highly dislike it. But as I understand the current theory, classification should accurately represent phylogeny, and phylogeny is a description of genetic relatedness, not phenotypic similarity. Phylogenetically, it is completely accurate to place ourselves with the apes. To change the rule for humans just because some people don't like it and most people still like to think of humans as more different and special than other animals is simply bad scientific practice and not one that I think should be taught to students.

That may be true - but, is this the result of genetic change? Not necessarily. With succeeding generations the knowledge base of the culture continues to grow, giving children a greater "head start" each time. You'll have to provide some sources for that statement, because I'm inclined to believe that's not true. Reasoning ability has long been favored by natural selection, and I think you will find that human children have a great deal more reasoning ability that many other adult animals. Of course children naturally copy. In fact, some studies suggest that human children are more likely to copy an adult when it comes to solving a problem then they are to actually try and solve it themselves, even if they're more than capable of doing so. This desire is important for a species like us with extreme behavioral flexibility, because our parents teach us which behaviors are the most appropriate for the environment into which we are born.

The definition of the word "species" has been a long standing issue in biology. It's hard to find a biologically meaningful definition that applies to every single case. However, the most commonly used definition is that different species don't interbreed for one reason or another - it might be a physical inability to mate and/or result in viable offspring, or it may be that they are environmentally separated, or that there are behavioral differences in mating that prevent it. In the latter two cases, the two species might be technically capable of producing crossbred offspring, but in natural conditions would not interbreed on their own. This failure to interbreed results in a barrier to gene flow between the two populations which then allows them to diversify from each other, which is a generally important requirement for speciation. As for the OP, the ability to interbreed is not a good measure of relatedness. While there are less genetic differences between humans and chimps than there are between horses and zebras, one of those differences between humans and chimps has resulted in a chromosome change that highly reduces the chances of producing viable offspring between the two. Horses and zebras have many more differences, but none of those differences have resulted in a change of that nature. At the time such names were assigned to these species, evolutionary theory was much less well understood and implemented. Not to mention the general desire to put humans on a separate, special level above other animals. I personally think the classifications should be adjusted to better reflect phylogenetic reality.

And the environment. Many animals exhibit flexible behavior to accommodate environmental variability. While this variability would not be possible without the genetics that enable it, the key point here is that a behavioral change does not always require a genetic change. The only way that religion could have a directional effect on the human gene pool is if those individuals with genetically determined behaviors that are solely desirable in the context of religion have greater reproductive success than those individuals without those behaviors (or who have those behaviors to a lesser degree). As per my earlier point, it is possible that the specific behaviors humans tend to exhibit when they're part of a religious group may be one aspect of our inherent behavioral flexibility, and are not dependent on a genetic difference between them and other people. Even if the behaviors humans tend to exhibit when they're part of a religious group are dependent on genetic differences, then those behaviors must only give them a reproductive advantage in the environmental context of a religion. If those behaviors are also advantageous in any socially cooperative context, then religion obviously won't be the sole driver of any resulting genetic change. Of course, it's also possible that behaviors associated with religion are a combination of behavioral flexibility and purely genetic variation, which I imagine is a more likely scenario.

You state this with such certainty. What if the cheater is identified after an instance of cheating? What if they are shunned by their group members for cheating? What if a individual cannot possibly achieve as much reproductive success living ostracized from a group as he or she can living in cooperation with a group? Again stated with such certainty. How far away are you expected to be so that you can throw a rock at someone, and they can't come running after you? And if as a group you make the decision to act against a single cheater, there is plenty of advantage in numbers to reduce the cost of pursuing physical punishment to a single cheater. Which only adds to the selective pressures, outside of the fear of thrown rocks, which could promote in-group, not-necessarily-kin cooperation. The ability to throw objects may have played some partial role in human evolution, but I think you put far too much emphais on its role in promoting group living.

Again with your "the genders will never understand each other!!!!!!11." In the same sense that no one person will every truly know another person because we cannot share our innermost thoughts, then yes, men and women will never truly know what it's like to be a member of the other sex. But that's a far cry from being able to consider and understand what the general viewpoint might be for the other gender, which is most certainly within our reach and can contribute to our discussion. I think this is a much more constructive viewpoint rather than throwing your hands and up saying, "It's useless! We'll never understand each other!" So: would I find being in a monogamous relationship as desirable as being in a polygamous relationship? No. But as CDarwin kindly pointed out, I have been raised in a particular culture and have different ideas about what I personally find desirable. However, even in a culture where facultative polygamy is common and accepted, I would say I'd only be interested in being a second wife to a man who I find much more worthy than any other potential husband that I could have to myself. Whether it be for his resources, his social status, or some particulars of his personality - I'm sure it would vary per the particulars of the woman, the environment, and the culture. Paralith also said Possible, yes, but let's just say we humans do not have a good track record in that department. And regardless of what you do professionally you are participating in a science forum where members, it is generally hoped, will have discussions that aspire to a reasonable degree of scientific rigor and objectivity, and taking particular pride in how fantastically special humans are simply does not seem like an objective viewpoint to me. (emphasis mine - paralith.)

That question doesn't really support monogamy, Lance. Of course human women want husbands. But do they want one husband all to themselves for the rest of their lives, or will they be happy to be the second wife to a rich and influential husband? Monogamy may be widespread in modern times, but behaviors that only became more prevalent recently are not good representatives of the majority of our evolutionary history. I think humans, like many other animal species, including other primates, are facultatively polygamous, with the current environment favoring the option of monogamy. I see a problem with it. As a scientist this opinion will tend to color your observations with the subjective bias of humans being somehow more special and/or more important than other life on this planet, which biologically is simply not the case. In point of fact, this opinion that has existed for most of human history has biased primate research to those primates which are most similar to humans, and to looking for characteristics in them that are most similar to what we understand. Besides, are you even familiar enough with the intimate characteristics of all the other primate species to say with certainty that they all lack a human-sized amount of relatively unique qualities? Also, humans may be the only hominid around today, but remember all those extinct species that make up the Homo genus. Many of the characteristics that most clearly separate humans from other animals were also had by those extinct relatives of ours.

You need some way to break open the cells and the nucleus so that the DNA is free and can be separated from the other cellular components. If you don't do this, you can't extract DNA. If you don't have a protease you could try grinding up your sample with a mortar and pestle, though I've never done that before myself and I'm not sure what the best technique would be.

Just hold on there, guys. No, humans didn't evolve from modern apes. Humans are modern apes. We are a member of the extant great ape family. Sparky: The ancestral species that humans "came from" is not the same as a modern non-human ape. The environment in which the ancestral species that humans "came from" evolved in is not the same as the environment in which modern non-human apes live and are evolving in. For these two reasons alone, modern non-human apes are highly, highly, HIGHLY unlikely to evolve into a species that is almost exactly like humans. This is to not even mention the random nature of the generation of the variability on which natural selection acts, which by itself would likely ensure that modern non-human apes would not evolve into a highly human-like species even if the above two statements were not true.

Vexer, you should really think about what exactly you are asking here. What is the "big idea" of evolution? It is the "idea" that life undergoes descent with modification; it is the "idea" that the gene frequencies of a population of organisms changes over time. There are no chinks or anomalies here. Life descends with modification. This statement is as good as fact. There is no where to look if you want to challenge this statement in a way that has not already been thoroughly refuted. Though I'm risking your calling me yet another witch hunter, I have to point out that you are perpetuating a common misconception (purposed confusion?) often held by people who attempt to challenge evolution. You are mistaking the "big idea" of evolution with the minutiae if it's mechanisms, of how the modifications and the changes occurring to populations of organisms happens. The mechanisms of evolution and the big idea of evolution are not the same thing, so if you are including the mechanics in your amazingly-and-uniquely-unchallengeable-theory-of-evolution, you are really talking about two things, not one. The mechanisms have been consistently challenged and changed, sometimes dramatically, throughout history, as has been described by many of the previous posters, and they continue to be researched and argued about today. There are chinks and anomalies and alternate theories aplenty at this level of study. So, which one are you talking about? Evolution, or the mechanisms of evolution?

Of course not. And considering lucaspa's "historical" take on when major contributions are made, I imagine that the advantage that most of those people had is that they just got started earlier. Start earlier, make your contributions earlier. Start later, make your contributions later. I imagine that actual age really has little to do with it. If you're willing to commit the time and effort, it's definitely not too late. I always advocate self learning in any respect. However, as Lucaspa said, you will need some kind of demonstrable record of your competency in these subjects, and going to school for it is the best way. As others have mentioned too, it will also help you adjust to the classroom atmosphere and to academia in general, which is where you will end up if you follow your goals to the end. But that most certainly doesn't mean that you can't give yourself a jumpstart, as well as amplify what you learn in class with your own outside reading. Yes, usually. Most undergrad schools start you out with basic competency tests to see where you should be placed. In this case, I'm assuming you're referring to graduate studies. And when it comes to graduate studies, the name of the school isn't everything. Obviously it's nice to have a big ole prestigious school accept you, but what's most important is finding a program and an adviser that are best suited to your interests and your needs. If you want to start looking that far ahead, start reading some scholarly physics journals, and pay attention to the authors. See which ones are doing work that sounds particularly exciting and interesting to you, and when it comes time to choose a grad school, look for them. I'm afraid I can't really help you there, because I'm in bio. But in general, if you can get a faculty position at a reasonably well-off school, you can make quite a bit of money. It just takes a long time of hard work to get to that point, and competition is always tough for such positions.

From my experience, if you can get a faculty position at a reasonably well-off research university, you can make quite a bit of money. This does, of course, involve teaching courses and taking on graduate students in addition to your research. The problem is that the road to this goal is a long one, during which you will likely experience extended periods of being fairly tight on money (enough to live on, of course, but not a lot extra), and attaining a good faculty position at all is tough because there's usually a lot of talented competition for every spot.

I don't know about this center/periphery/protoplasm business, but emotions can be understood in an evolutionary context as motivators. Things that make you happy are things you try to do more often, so often behaviors that correlate with reproductive success make us happy. Things that make you feel bad or guilty are things you try to do less, so these behaviors often hurt reproductive success. In that sense emotions "move" you towards certain behaviors and away from others.

Sorry it took a while to respond. I was particularly busy at work this past week. You can talk about the most extreme ends of the spectrum if you like, but doing so is simply not representative of the behavior of the majority of people. Also, the needs and desires instilled in us by our genes are not as conscious as you are describing them - people in general desire to accumulate resources, and when doing so they're not thinking to themselves, "By doing this I will capture a good mate and provide for my offspring! Yes!" They just know that accumulation makes them happy. And the happiness evolved to encourage them in this activity that on average correlates with reproductive success. But the resource accumulation desire is not the only one that exists in a human's mind. There also exists the general desire to live in cooperation with their group members. So the average man will not seek to ravish the earth and get everything for himself because he also desires to cooperate with his group. The average man. There will of course always be extremes and variations. Whenever I speak of a behavioral trend it is in terms of generalities and averages, because how any one given individual behaves is based on a combination of their genes (which will of course vary across of the human species) and the specifics of their environment. Yes. Remember that I said our behavior is also highly plastic. We learn from our parents what are the best ways to live in our environment, and a prince raised in privilege and children raised in the middle class will have learned different strategies. But it also possible for humans to learn and to change their strategies during our lifetimes. I'm sorry if you take offense at my saying this, but you are definitely simplifying things if you don't take human plasticity and variation into account, and compared to most other animals, we have a great deal of both. Like I said above, people of course seek what makes them happy. And when they do this they aren't consciously thinking "this will make me happy because it's good for my potential offspring" etc. The behavior that results in happiness, during our evolution, tended to correlate with increased reproductive success. This is why I think it's important for us humans to understand where our urges and desires come from. We are resource greedy because in our evolutionary past being so made us successful, but that trend does not hold in our current environment, and at the rate we're going we can't wait for evolution to catch up with us. We have to make the choice and change ourselves. It won't be easy to teach people this, but it is certainly possible, and we can change the course of things if we do. I never said it was the woman's "ultimate" goal to find the right man. Finding the right man is an important goal on the way towards reproductive success. Thus women desire to find the right man. But that is most certainly not the only desire they feel, as finding the right man is not the only thing you have to do in order to be reproductively successful. And no, many of our current behaviors are not adaptive in the current environment, because it is different from the environment we evolved in, and evolution takes time. It has not caught up to this very, very new environment, and we have to make up for it ourselves by learning. lol. You seem to treading more into philosophy at this point. Is it possible to be unconditionally happy all the time? Or do you just learn to accept the difficulties in life and work your way towards your next moment of happiness? And I also don't really see how happiness can be found in the complete absence of goals. Even if the goal is to find the state of mind that best promotes happiness, it's a goal to accomplish nonetheless. Again, today's world is very different from the one in which we evolved. In our past we had consistent, close interactions and relationships with our group members every day, and these groups weren't much larger than 150 individuals. Every day life simply doesn't have that same dynamic, and finding ways to become an active, cooperative member of a group of several million is a challenge. It is reproductive success. Many animals only survive long enough to put every ounce of energy and life they have into having offspring, and then they expire. For humans, our reproductive success is complicated. We are intelligent, plastic, variable, adaptive, so that we can take advantage of a myriad of strategies that will lead to our success. There are many paths for humans to achieve success so there are many paths towards happiness. All of the things I have described in this thread can help you to understand your own desires a little better, but in the end you have to make your own decision about what makes you happy.

Quartile - your responses are along the correct lines, but they are too simplified. For example, you talk about a woman making "an exception to her desire for the alpha-male." It is mostly in other animal species where the alpha male is by default the best mate choice. But humans are much more complex than that. There are many ways and strategies by which a person can become successful in a modern world, and different people will have different specific preferences. And especially considering that most modern humans are monogamous, finding a mate that is compatible with your individual needs is important - it helps you to form a committed bond, and parents with a committed bond to each other can better work together in raising their offspring. So to say that all a woman wants is an alpha male is incorrect. What she wants is a quality mate. It just so happens that often times alphas make pretty good mates. You seem to be losing track of a few things here. Let me say again that human behavior is a complex interaction of our personal experiences and our genes. Our genes no doubt have a strong influence on us, but a lot of our behavior also depends on what we learn as we grow up about how to achieve success in our current environment. Let's take your child care example. The basic genetic impulse is to take care of your offspring, and accrue resources that will enable you to do this. Many of the specifics of how this is accomplished are learned. Parents who drop their children off at daycare while they spend their day toiling away at their job probably believe that this is the best way to raise their family - pay someone to take good care of the kids while they make sure that the resource inflow is secure. But as human knowledge progresses, cultural paradigms and teachings may now shift towards something different. Something else I'd like to state again is that, at this point, we're not sure to what degree our learned, "free will" choices can trump our underlying genetically determined desires. No doubt people vary in this characteristic. For some people (most people, probably) playing the game, as you call it, is happiness. They want to become successful, they want to raise a family, and by doing so they feel happy and fulfilled. You may call it being a slave to your desires, but many people are happy this way. And it's also important to point out that not all of our desires are purely selfish. Their genetic origin may result from the selfish reproductive interests, but that's not how they express themselves in our lives and minds. Most humans have a general desire to be a productive member of society, to help others, to give to charity, to give something back to the community. These desires initially evolved because humans are high social animals, and feelings of goodwill towards your neighbors encourages adaptive cooperation, and cooperation is advantageous for everyone involved. So the promotion of such harmony makes us happy too.

Unfortunately, many of them don't. And this is to the detriment of the students. As described by myself and others here, math is indeed important to biological research and will become more so in the future.

I agree. The effect of a bad teacher can have rather devastating effects on your experience with a challenging subject. Math can be challenging but it's most certainly within the grasp of most people. And I disagree with those of you who say biology is not a mathematical science. The frequency with which math is used may be less, but it is very important when it comes to research. Competency with statistics is essential to good research. And as ecoli mentioned, anything that is an attempt at modeling involves math. Marconis, the specific subfield of biology you are interested in will effect how much math and to what level of difficulty you will have to use on a day to day basis. But you will have to learn it. Unfortunately not many biology programs these days have statistic class requirements, but I would strongly, STRONGLY recommend taking some. I never really liked math either, but it turns out I enjoyed my stats class a lot because it was focused towards applying stats to natural science research, and that made it much more interesting and applicable for me, and easier for me to learn. However, what you most likely WILL be required to take is physics, which is most certainly not math-free. If you are really interested in these subjects, please don't let math scare you away.

Thank you; and yes, the expression of emotions is a complicated process involving both your genetic influences and your personal experience. They both definitely play a part, I just think people tend to underplay the genetic influence. Can happiness be found without piecing one's life together from goal to goal? For the billions of years that life has been on this planet reproductive success has always been the ultimate goal; things related to bringing us reproductive success have always brought us great pleasure. Modern human life has only existed for a blink of an eye in terms of evolutionary timelines; how much can our basic needs for happiness have changed? I'm playing the devil's advocate here, because I'm unsure of the answer to this question myself. Think about it: the most attractive personality seems to be the one that loves openly. A mate who will be loving and committed, a mate who will be generous with what they have and what they give, a mate who is loved by all around them and thus has great social ties. This sounds like a pretty good deal when it comes to finding a partner to raise offspring with. I repeat, things that may seem unrelated to reproductive success often are - or, at least, could be. Further research in the field will yield the final judgment, but until then, we most certainly can't rule this out. My dear, resources are needed for far more than just self-sustainment. Resources are the limiting factor in a female's reproductive success. The process of pregnancy and the child care that follows is an immense resource drain on a woman's body, on her time and energy. In species with biparental offspring care such as ours, a female desires a mate who will help support her resource needs. A woman wants to share her future with a man with a good job, with decent prospects of a nice house and comfortable living. Men desire these things too, because without them they have little chance of winning a quality mate.

The question I would pose to you at this point is why do certain things bring us pleasure, no matter how short-lasting, and other things do not? Pleasure is a reward fed into your brain, making you feel good and instilling a desire in you to continue whatever behavior it was that caused such a feeling. This is a highly adaptive mechanism for encouraging you to engage in behaviors that increase reproductive success. I agree that drawing the line between being motivated by your genes and being motivated by your own personal preferences is definitely not easy. It's basically trying to determine how strongly we are influenced by the genetic component of our behavior, and how much of that genetic influence we can counteract via free will. It's a very difficult question, and one that at that science currently doesn't have the knowledge to fully answer. Based on what I know about human behavior, my opinion is that the genetic component of behavior is much stronger than most people realize. Obviously the ultimate goal from our genes' point of view is to increase reproductive success. How to go about accomplishing that goal, however, is a complex process that no doubt varies from person to person. Behaviors that may seem, on the surface, unrelated to reproduction, often are. Resource acquirement, social status, forming cooperative relationships with other members of your group, caring for your kin, etc etc - success in these areas is often accompanied by success in the reproduction of your genes. One of the hallmarks of human beings is flexibility. Flexibility and the ability to adapt within one lifetime to the requirements of the environment has enabled human beings to live all over the planet. In your example, the goal is to acquire resources. We have the emotion, the desire to gather resources. As you grow up you learn exactly what it takes to successfully acquire resources in your environment. For most modern day humans, that means getting a good job, or finding some way to make lots of money. Perhaps, though I think I'm looking at it in a different way than you are. You see, the genetic component of our behaviors evolved in an environment very different from the world as it is today, especially in industrialized countries. Consciously we can learn how this new world works, and rationalize what is important and what isn't. But that doesn't change the innate desires instilled in us by our genes, desires that may or may not be capable of being realistically fulfilled in the modern world. We are highly flexible, but not infinitely flexible. We probably have limits, though I couldn't say I know what they are.

I've stopped getting the 500's now. And yes, I'm curious to know page hits too.

I can make posts, I just can't edit the look of my blog.

I like to think of blogs as places where you can write your thoughts about your life or other subjects, that allows you to share these thoughts with anyone who might be interested. I don't have any grand ideas of a huge faithful readership; I'm just glad for a place to record my thoughts, and if I manage to entertain or interest a few other people with them, then it's an added bonus. I'm having trouble changing my blog style. Every time I try to navigate around the site admin area to edit things, I keep running into empty pages that say "### Internal Server Error." Am I doing something wrong?

Actually, some people might disagree with you on that point. Taylor, Klein, Lewis, Gruenwald, Gurung, and Updegraff. 2000. Biobehavioral Responses to Stress in Females: Tend-and Befriend, Not Fight-or-Flight. Psychological Review, 107, 3, 411-429. I think it also depends on what kind of stress we're talking about here. Resource stress? Social stress? Potential infanticide stress? (I know, I know, this is less likely in humans. Still, it's a common primate issue.)