marnixR

"if i were an enzyme i would be a DNA helicase so i could unzip your genes"

EvoWiki is also a decent site with counter-arguments against a variety of creationist drivel

do you mean villi ?

why would you make the leap from being able to throw weapons to the conclusion that H.sapiens may have thrown rocks at H.neanderthalensis ? on the other hand, i can see how the ability to throw rocks or spears efficiently might be of survival value whilst hunting - if it is true that neanderthals were not good throwers they would have to come a lot closer to their prey to go for the kill, which could well have led to more injuries and fatalities during a neanderthal hunt than a sapiens hunt

interesting thought, yes - however, from a scientific point of view there's so little meat on the bones of that hypothesis that i can't think how you would go about testing it any ideas ?

it's just that it might sound rather rude coming from a newbie like me

** shrug ** i suppose you know better than i do what goes in this forum, having been here longer than i have while i must admit that it would be nice to know where the quote came from, i wouldn't want to sound rude by insisting on it

i wonder whether wikipedia should start having the same articles at different levels of expertise, ranging from novice to professional where applicable

my understanding of plagiarism is that you try and pass someone else's work off as your own pioneer's was clearly a quotation of someone else's words even though not referenced + the latter didn't particularly bother me, even though it would have been a nice add-on

so i assume that it wasn't ever used in your standard operating theatre

Q.: is it true that superglue was initially invented for use in surgery ?

just ask him 2 simple questions : how does he define complexity, and how does he recognise complexity in creatures that have been extinct for 500 million years after all, it's no good comparing present-day "advanced" and present-day "primitive" creatures, because both are thoroughly modern and have a history of 500 million between them and their cambrian predecessor

what i liked about Crichton (i haven't read his controversial novel on the "global warming conspiracy") was how he could weave fact and fiction together so tightly that it was at times hard to distinguish which was which for a long time i was in 2 minds whether "Eaters of the Dead" was fiction at all ! my favourite passage comes from Jurassic Park (the book, obviously, not the film) : ... Hammond said, "These animals ... might get out and destroy the planet." "You egomaniacal idiot," Malcolm said, in fury. "Do you have any idea what you are talking about ? You think you can destroy the planet ? My, what intoxicating power you must have." ... "You can't destroy this planet. You can't even come close." "Most people believe," Hammond said stiffly, "that the planet is in jeopardy." "Well, it's not," Malcolm said. ... "Let's be clear. The planet is not in jeopardy. We are in jeopardy. We haven't got the power to destroy the planet - or save it. But we might have the power to save ourselves." never was a truer word said in a work of fiction, and it's something to comes to mind whenever i hear someone claim hysterically that we're destroying the planet : we're not, we're just having a good go at destroying ourselves

i had noticed - thank you

are you using the Wikipedia search facility (which i'd say is suspect) ? what i do is google the search word(s) and then pick up any entry (incl. Wikipedia) that comes up - any Wikipedia link that comes up then seems to be relevant