AzurePhoenix

I have stuff I have to add in as well, I'm just smoothing them over and looking for some more supporting sources. Once this last week of class is done with, I'll throw all of my stuff together.

Well, we still are. People just seem to think we aren't. In fact, we're still apes. If we wanted to go into specific means of getting smarter like silkworm is doing, I'd also like to point out that our behavioral existance as social creatures and part-time predators was good for intelligence, some think living in the trees in earlier forms helped foster the brain-abilities needed for spatial understanding to swing and leap, a diet rich in brain-food, whatever mutations helped the actual brain to get along well, and of course, the hands.

I wish the rules were as stringent here; my sibs and they're punk associates are always bouncing around the street and park pelting eachother with the damn things, and me if I'm not careful to watch for them. Of course, in Arizona, they could be using real guns and no one would throw a fit.

Just because a source decides to stand by verifiable fact rather than imaginary bull**** an infant could see through doesn't mean it's not reputable. And your source for coelocanth facts is quite innacurate, they have stayed RELATIVELY the same in all that time. But they have changed enough so that they aren't even the same genus! If I attacked you it's because YOU are the one denying the facts and hiding between a shield of stoner delusions. YOU and all of your ilk are the issue here, not the theory

A few months ago I definately would have agreed with your proposal Tree, but after comments like this... ... I'm more prone to support the idea to test whether or not it is possible to beat the stupidity outa someone.

He's the diskworld guy, right? How are those?

Keep in mind, I'm keeping this simplified... The genes for intelligence combined with a social partially-predatory species' (our ancestors) opportunies that arose are what drove us to intelligence. Considering our physical abilities, intelligence was a great boon to us and really helped us make it through. Other species are fine where they are, and even if they get the genes for greater intelligence, it might not necessarily make it into the species' gene pool if it isn't much of a benefit. Take sloths for instance. Would being a really smart sloth be all that useful? Intelligence is just another adaptive trait to benefit the species. In some cases, it'll be a great benefit, in others, non-intellectual abilities and/or behaviors are what count.

Other species are mentally where they need to be for the niche in which they're evolved to fill, and based on the opportunities evolution has presented to them. Human evolution met a few roads that specifically led to intelligence based on our lifestyle and the traits that were beneficial to survival, the resources available (if fish oil-rich diets were indeed key), and it all happened rather damned fast (all originating from the random mutations that made it all possible of course).

Definately the Orang. Pretty fur, and you can trust them to not bash in your skull with a rock and rape your corpse when you aren't looking. Unlike chimps.

My gift to you is a jar of eye-jelly and jerkied creationist meat-strips with which to enjoy it. Happy co-birthday!

It's largely a matter of complexity, and by proxy, the abilitiy to learn. "Warm-blooded" creatures are often more intelligent, with behaviors that go beyond simple inborn instinct. But you'll notice that there are a number of intelligent "cold-blooded" creatures as well such as turtles, certain lizards, or as an extreme example of intelligence, the octopus, which can be at least tamed if not trained. Plus, there's willingness to cooperate to consider as a factor. Some species just don'wanna play nice warm blooded doesn't actually mean they have "warm blood" it just means that they are able to maintain their own body-temperature largely without the environment around them, whereas "cold-bloodeds" rely on the environment to regulate their temperatures.

hehehe, gotta love the bunny... I'm touched, I'm getting that hot and electric feeling that usually only comes from watching a rabid monkey shred a Jehova Witness's eyes with a cooking-whisk I was planning on relaxing tonight, but with such thoughtful gifts I simply must go out on the town and share the gift of mayhem, garotte a few folks, use the dagger to sacrifice their hearts to the Penguin Buddha, and after that, cake and "natchos"! Snail, I hope you won't be offended if I tuck your gift away in the storage closet with Lance

No, he's just confused because the sentence didn't start with "Praise the Lord Almighty' and end with "Jesus forgives the Faithful" with "science is of satan" somewhere in the middle

Herme3 ^ THAT basically covers what I meant.

Seeing them alive or dead makes no diffference on what something was. Say you find a dead giraffe out on the plains; is it any less a giraffe than the live ones? Just because a dead critter doesn't have living examples doesn't mean we don't know what it was. If all giraffes were dead, they'd still be giraffes! That simply isn't a choice in regards to the many species that simply aren't one or the other. There are no clear-cut lines in taxonomy, and to pretend it were, you'd have to erase all evidence of the existences of countless species to get those lines, and their would STILL be blurred similarities between the existing species that would show how wrong you are. Excuse me for asking this, but what the hell is the difference in believing what it is based on whther or not you saw it moving once? The livng example and the fossil would be the same, there'd be absolutely no difference. SO why, just... just... why? It doesn't make any damned sense, and I mean even compared to countless other idiot statements, this one takes the cake. Their bodies are here and now. They just got a little hard and don't move anymore. Go read a sentence or two about evolution. If you have as much brains as a bar of soap, you'll figure out why that question shows your absolute lack of any understanding for evolution whatsoever. Humans ARE evolving, but you'd never notice it until thousands of years had passed, with detailed records comparing details for every generation! Monkeys don't evolve into humans because we weren't programmed to become human int eh first place. Random mutations combined with environmental pressures molded us up from what it had at the time! Monkeys could evolve into anything you can imagine! Gliding predators, amphibious grazers, a type of armor-backed creature that clings to the side of trees sucking out the sap! And get this, they might just evolve into *gasp* different monkeys!!! Humans didn't even evolve from a type of monkey in the first place!!!

Best House-antic EVER, from one of the best television characters ever. The whole destroying of the MRI machine tied in with the necrocide was pretty good too, but I'd be hard pressed to favor either of those things over some of his more memorable quips and pranks of the more witty nature. No clue what the problem could be in this episode, but I'm driving myself insane thinking about it...

I'm not sure... sometimes tou seem to be better of than my post suggest, but then again I had this particular post of yours in mind when I responded... ->

All the love in the world isn't enough if the people involved don't have a foundation on which to support it. And that foundation includes all the aspects of sociability that you seem to find troublesome. A good partner is a friend with some more odds and ends attached, and in the end, it's even more complex and difficult to uphold. I'm sorry to point this out, but how strongly you reacted to one girl being nice to you is an indicator of how unprepared for a relationship you are. Your reaction to this best friend of yours seems desparate and unwarrented. I can't imagine how emotionally entangled you could get in a "relationship" that for anyone else would pass for a negligible casual fling. For you, the best thing right now is to do like I suggested before, go out and just meet people, learn to intereact with them on a casual, friendly basis. Maybe even find some sort of social therapy program. I'm sure there must be soemthing like that out there for people in similar situations as you.

Trust me when I say I had words with silkworm about this before but I'm just pointing out that right now' date=' meaninglessness isn't necessarily a bad thing. Definately don't take his advice and just use people to get what you want and leave it at that, and eventually you should look for someone you can really care about, but at this point, a meaningful relationship is the [i']very last thing you need[/i] and will not likely be healthy. Don't hop in the deep end of the pool when you haven't yet walked across a puddle.

Well, that's not really how it works.There was no "first human" because the evolutionary change would have been occuring slowly and gradually across the interbreeding populations. The interconnected organisms evolved together in a manner of speaking. Unless you've been reading too many Greg Bear novels, no creature jumps species in a single generation. A single trait miight pop up in one individual, but not enough to call it a new species, and if succesful that trait will spread through the population. Over time more and more of these traits might slowly build up and together show a notable difference from tha ancestral organisms being compared, often enough infuriatingly slowly. And because it's the population that's evolving, there is no need to interbreed or hybridize.

I'd say there's a notable difference between over-sensitive and humane. I think the opposite. At worst, the plotting father-killer simply shows he has no love for his child, which is terrible in its own-right, but not on par with the monstrous brutality of someone who kills their child in a simple and meaningless fit of temper.

Balloons I'd do that for you (and I already know how to take screenshots:-p ), but I took your adware advice and now the problems are gone Thankee for the help, and I'll be sure to keep an eye out for any other related issues just to sate my paranoia.