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Thread: The Evolution Thread

  1. #91
    Yes, a massive object from space killed off the dinosaurs.

    IMO, the most fascinating thing about that is the actual extinction took around 75,000 years to complete. We tend to think of some massive event that killed off most of the life forms on earth within a few years leading to the rise of the mammals, but in truth it was a long transition.

  2. #92
    Sam the Sheepdog LA Ute's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by NorthwestUteFan View Post
    Yes, a massive object from space killed off the dinosaurs.

    IMO, the most fascinating thing about that is the actual extinction took around 75,000 years to complete. We tend to think of some massive event that killed off most of the life forms on earth within a few years leading to the rise of the mammals, but in truth it was a long transition.
    I think the article's point was that the object was a comet, not an asteroid. It was also new information (to me) that the object from space actually brought minerals to the earth in greater abundance than they were already here.

    "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
    --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
    --Yeats

    “True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”

    --John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell

  3. #93
    I think that article is very interesting. Scientists have long thought about the Doomsday Asteroid event but it is only very recently that the Event has become the most widely accepted theory (within the last decade).

    I just wanted to mention that the length of time required for the mass extinction was a shock to me.

  4. #94
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    Quote Originally Posted by NorthwestUteFan View Post
    I just wanted to mention that the length of time required for the mass extinction was a shock to me.
    I agree. I didn't know that, so thanks for posting the info, even though it makes human extinction event movies like "Deep Impact" less believable.

    "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
    --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
    --Yeats

    “True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”

    --John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell

  5. #95

    First Neanderthal-Human hybrid found

    This is really a science article, with theological implications for religions that believe God was a human being.

    http://news.discovery.com/human/evol...ans-130327.htm

    Population geneticists have found 1-4% of European and Asian DNA is Neanderthal. This specimen has mitochondrial DNA from a Neanderthal female, with human jaw bone characteristics.

    So, was God also part Neanderthal? Jesus, too?

    My hunch is that humans have frequently made God in their own image, but claim the theology asserts the reverse. This is another issue where theology appears set up to take a beating .

  6. #96
    Quote Originally Posted by Ma'ake View Post
    This is really a science article, with theological implications for religions that believe God was a human being.

    http://news.discovery.com/human/evol...ans-130327.htm

    Population geneticists have found 1-4% of European and Asian DNA is Neanderthal. This specimen has mitochondrial DNA from a Neanderthal female, with human jaw bone characteristics.

    So, was God also part Neanderthal? Jesus, too?

    My hunch is that humans have frequently made God in their own image, but claim the theology asserts the reverse. This is another issue where theology appears set up to take a beating .
    Those bodies may not have had spirits like we have because the evolutionary process that culminated in full modern humans (which is what God is) was not complete yet. Or perhaps humans had not been created and placed on the earth yet and this individual represents a group of animal life that, while very sophisticated, never had spirits like we have. Or maybe you are right that on the planet where God first came to be that his body was the result of the genetics of part human and part Neanderthal and that process was simply replicated on this planet to create humans. Or maybe "in his image" is something you are taking to literally.
    “The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.”
    Carl Sagan

  7. #97
    Hey gang. I guess I signed up at the beginning and then never came back. Probably because I care not for Utah sports. This is a neat thread though. A couple things after skimming:

    Scientific ideas, hypotheses, and theories basically never get promoted to laws. Theories don't, because theories and laws are simply different kinds of things (law of gravity vs theory of gravitation). How it generally goes is that if the first person to introduce an idea has already demonstrated the validity of his or her characterization of a very simple phenomenon (e.g. things tend to fall toward the earth at 9.8m/s/s unless acted upon by another force), he or she will propose it as a law. If accepted by the community, it is thereafter known as the law of whatever. One idea in my field is called "Wolff's law" which is the basic idea that bone is deposited in the body only as it is needed, or in other words, that skeletal tissue responds to loading. This is generally true, but also kinda vague. It's nevertheless referred to as a law.

    Evolution isn't generally considered to be a law, but I think it could be if it actually mattered. It could go like this: "Relative allele frequencies in a given population change over time." Not terribly interesting, but it's never been found to not be the case. Perhaps more to the point, a law of natural selection could go like this: "Given the following conditions, natural selection will occur: Variation within a population, heritability of said variation, limited resources." Because there's variation within every population, and because a large amount of that variation is indeed heritable through a mechanism Darwin didn't know about (genetics), and because resources are almost always limited, natural selection is basically always occurring. This has been demonstrated experimentally in populations with quick generation times (bacteria, fruit flies), and perhaps as importantly, it just makes sense (try to think of conditions under which it wouldn't just naturally happen. Good luck).

    So, while evolution and natural selection are still definitely theories in the sense that they are just way too complicated to ever boil down into basic equations and will therefore be studied in perpetuity, I propose that they are also laws, or at least the equivalent of laws given that being a law, as explained above, isn't actually as much of a thing as people think it is.

    The other topic I saw mentioned is the neandertal/bunny thing. The phenomenon of comical explanations for why neandertals went extinct has become somewhat of a joke in my field. For instance, a study just came out a couple weeks ago saying that they went extinct because their eyes were too big. The most obvious thing to note is that all non-African populations (and I think probably all humans in general, but those data are forthcoming), are descendents of neandertals. So, they aren't necessarily extinct to begin with, depending on how you look at it. The other issue is simply that no single silly explanation like that will ever actually explain it. Neandertals were very smart folk who lived over a very large geographical area, invented new types of tools, buried their dead, etc. They didn't go extinct because they couldn't catch bunnies, for the love.

    Given the differential populations sizes between neandertals and their non-neandertal contemporaries (non-neandertal upper paleolithic anatomically modern Homo sapiens, if you like), their extinction could reasonably explained by simple genetic dilution as the the two interbred. I don't necessarily believe that, but damn, enough with the whiz-bang "a volcano did it!" studies.

    Ok the end. I'm sure there are others here who know a lot about this stuff so I don't mean to swoop in and set everyone straight or whatever.

    Go blue.
    Last edited by woot; 03-31-2013 at 09:42 AM.

  8. #98
    Oh and I might as well also note, since my research deals directly with human and ape anatomy, that if humans didn't evolve from apes, god is playing a really funny joke. Apes used to be a lot more common than they are today. There were dozens of different genera during the Miocene (23-5million years ago). Then the climate changed and who knows what else happened, and monkeys became a lot more successful and apes became a lot less successful (in the sense of overall numbers). What's interesting is that many of the fossil apes we've found are actually more anatomically similar to humans in some ways. I think what happened is that extant apes evolved to become very specialized for doing what they do (being crazy acrobats in the trees while, in some cases, also being very proficient on the ground), but that most of this process didn't occur until after the split with humans, which is why human anatomy is often more similar to that of fossil apes than extant ape anatomy is.

    This is complicated so I don't know if I'm explaining it well, but the basic idea is the humans absolutely, positively evolved from apes. Genetic evidence 100% confirms this as well, obviously. So yeah, I guess if god wanted to play a funny joke and just make it extremely obvious to us humans that we evolved from apes when we really didn't, science has no way of knowing. But it seems more sound, both scientifically and theologically, to just go ahead and update your beliefs.

  9. #99
    Woot, I am glad you are posting, even though it is against your sports alliances to be on this site.

    I appreciate your perspective on many topics
    “Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.”
    André Gide

  10. #100
    Quote Originally Posted by sancho View Post
    Maybe if I go back and check, I'll be wrong, but I don't think anyone on here has expressed any disbelief or even skepticism of this. There seems to be a general consensus in general on this thread that genetics is pretty cool, for a science.

    It sounds like you are a scientist of some kind. I'm glad y'all can laugh at the bunny thing. It's a running joke in my family to try to come up with funny Darwinian explanations for human behaviors: "So and so does ________ because our caveman ancestors had to _________."
    I seem to recall somebody remaining skeptical of it in this thread, but if that's not the case then all the better.

  11. #101
    Quote Originally Posted by woot View Post
    I seem to recall somebody remaining skeptical of it in this thread, but if that's not the case then all the better.
    Woot, in addition to our scintillating evolution threads, you should stick around on this site for the sports. It never made any sense to me that you were a Michigan/BYU fan. There is much less cognitive dissonance for a former mormon to be a Ute fan. Thus, I invite you to ditch the independent Cougars as your second favorite team and replace them with the plucky Utes. That way, you can stay in touch with your roots while still embracing science! Win-win.

  12. #102
    Sam the Sheepdog LA Ute's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jarid in Cedar View Post
    Woot, I am glad you are posting, even though it is against your sports alliances to be on this site.

    I appreciate your perspective on many topics
    I agree. Woot and I probably won't agree on much but he has good information to offer and I learn a lot from his posts.

    "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
    --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
    --Yeats

    “True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”

    --John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell

  13. #103
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    Quote Originally Posted by woot View Post
    I seem to recall somebody remaining skeptical of it in this thread, but if that's not the case then all the better.
    I did. I don't personally believe we evolved from apes but I acknowledge that we might have and am willing to accept that as a fact. Just not yet. I guess you could say I am remaining open-minded on the subject.

    "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
    --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
    --Yeats

    “True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”

    --John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell

  14. #104
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    5-year old girl discovers previously unknown pterosaur

    http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/smar...own-pterosaur/

    "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
    --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
    --Yeats

    “True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”

    --John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell

  15. #105
    woot, glad you're here. Of course mainstream science is beyond debaating whether organisms evolve. Indeed, apparently "man's best friend" is there staring us in the face every day as irrefutable evidence. I'd be interested in your views on "evolution" of wolves into dogs, because even though I've seen this characterized as evolution in respectable publications, it seems to me to be very akin to breeding. Dogs and wolves mate and generate offshpring. I am aware that breedng was a fact of nature that inspired Darwin. I'd be interested in your views on whether wolves to dogs wsa breeding or evolution in the strictest sense.
    Last edited by SeattleUte; 04-01-2013 at 12:33 AM.
    One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike -- and yet it is the most precious thing we have.

    --Albert Einstein

    The fact that life evolved out of nearly nothing, some 10 billion years after the universe evolved out of literally nothing, is a fact so staggering that I would be mad to attempt words to do it justice.

    --Richard Dawkins

    Be kind to all, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.

    --Philo

  16. #106
    woot, I'd also be interested in your view of whether a generalization can be made that evolution at some level tends toward more complexity. I know that evolution is a lot about extinctions and there are many evolutionary dead ends.
    One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike -- and yet it is the most precious thing we have.

    --Albert Einstein

    The fact that life evolved out of nearly nothing, some 10 billion years after the universe evolved out of literally nothing, is a fact so staggering that I would be mad to attempt words to do it justice.

    --Richard Dawkins

    Be kind to all, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.

    --Philo

  17. #107
    Quote Originally Posted by SeattleUte View Post
    woot, glad you're here. Of course minstream science is beyond debaating whether organisms evolve. Indeed, apparently "man's best friend" is there staring us in the face every day as irrefutable evidence. I'd be interested in your views on "evolution" of wolves into dogs, because even though I've seen this characterized as evolution in respectable publications, it seems to me to be very akin to breeding. Dogs and wolves mate and generate offshpring. I am aware that breedng was a fact of nature that inspired Darwin. I'd be interested in your views on whether wolves to dogs wsa breeding or evolution in the strictest sense.
    Its a really interesting problem. I looked into it a couple years ago and came away thinking that much of dog domestication probably occurred incidentally, as the tamest wolves were more welcome among the humans, and therefore were more successful. More recent research has suggested that one of the major events in dog evolution was their ability to process carbohydrates, basically so they could live more effectively off human scraps. We know from the Russian fox domestication experiments that breeding for tameness is all it takes to end up with a cuddly, floppy-eared, curly-tailed, neotenous pet, so tameness being incidentally favored by selection while the ability to thrive on a more carb-rich diet would have been enough to do most of the job. Deliberate artificial selection wouldn't have been necessary. It's interesting to note that when a feral dog makes a kill today, it'll often go straight for the stomach contents, since there are probably carbs in there. Cats (and wolves) tend to just ignore carbs entirely.

    As for whether to call this process evolution, I say sure. Just as artificial selection has famously changed the banana from a seed-filled abomination into its current masterpiece, some combination of natural and artificial selection changed wolves into dogs. In either case, there was genetic change, and therefore there was evolution. When I teach evolution I sometimes like to begin with the example of artificial selection, since it's pretty intuitive that if a farmer breeds the plants with the biggest flowers or tastiest fruit, it will cause the next generation to have bigger flowers or tastier fruit. This exact kind of thing generally occurs naturally rather than according to a human's desired outcome, but either way, it's selection, which is evolution.

    Oh dear I'm rambling. I'm up late grading papers. Terrible, terrible papers. Hopefully some of that was on topic. I can't be arsed to read it back.

  18. #108
    Quote Originally Posted by SeattleUte View Post
    woot, I'd also be interested in your view of whether a generalization can be made that evolution at some level tends toward more complexity. I know that evolution is a lot about extinctions and there are many evolutionary dead ends.
    Another good question, and one without an easy answer. Other than the obvious simple beginnings and the increasing complexity thereafter, there isn't necessarily any advantage in being more complex. Or perhaps I should say that the great many advantages of complexity are matched by the great many disadvantages. The most successful organisms on the planet today, both in terms of speciosity and biomass, are bacteria. So I don't know. If you were to chart it from the beginning there's certainly an upward trend in complexity, but if you were to chart just the last 100 million years I'm not sure there would be.

    One of the most important features of humans is that we are really flexible, and can fill all sorts of niches. This is often not a very good strategy, since such an organism will generally be out-competed by specialists in every niche they try to fill. Because our flexibility is associated with our intelligence, it seems we were able to get by. There's a good body of evidence that we almost didn't make it though, which would make sense when considering that hominins gave up their long canines and proficiency in the trees well before the invention of decent weapons or the ability to throw overhand with any velocity or control. I can't imagine how those folks didn't get slaughtered. I mean, I'm sure they did, but yeah. Richard Wrangham has speculated that the control of fire may have been essential for protection at night after no longer sleeping in trees, and that cooking may have been discovered thereafter. Not a testable hypothesis, but since the publication of that idea evidence for fire was discovered dating back to a million years ago, which he had predicted and various other researchers had doubted. Anyway, while our jack of all trades routine probably imperiled us at various times, it also likely has made our extinction less likely in the long run, since the greatest instigator of extinction (other than mass extinction events) is when niche specialists have their niche disappear due to environmental change.

    Ugh rambling again.

  19. #109
    Sam the Sheepdog LA Ute's Avatar
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    Stone tools helped shape human hands

    AROUND 1.7 million years ago, our ancestors' tools went from basic rocks banged together to chipped hand axes. The strength and dexterity needed to make and use the latter quickly shaped our hands into what they are today – judging by a fossil that belongs to the oldest known anatomically modern hand....

    "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
    --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
    --Yeats

    “True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”

    --John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell

  20. #110

    This perspective always humbles me

    Quote Originally Posted by woot View Post
    One of the most important features of humans is that we are really flexible, and can fill all sorts of niches. This is often not a very good strategy, since such an organism will generally be out-competed by specialists in every niche they try to fill. Because our flexibility is associated with our intelligence, it seems we were able to get by. There's a good body of evidence that we almost didn't make it though....
    Great posts. Going back to another point you made, primitive apes were a lot more diverse and human/chimp like forms much more the norm. Overall, apes have been a pretty unsuccessful branch on the evolutionary tree with hardly more than a handful of extant species, and us as humans, barely skirting by for all but the most recent part of our history. It's so amazingly improbable that we are where we are today.

  21. #111
    Quote Originally Posted by jrj84105 View Post
    Great posts. Going back to another point you made, primitive apes were a lot more diverse and human/chimp like forms much more the norm. Overall, apes have been a pretty unsuccessful branch on the evolutionary tree with hardly more than a handful of extant species, and us as humans, barely skirting by for all but the most recent part of our history. It's so amazingly improbable that we are where we are today.
    Agreed. Paleoanthropology is fun that way. Much like astronomy, I reckon. It's all very unlikely.

  22. #112
    Sam the Sheepdog LA Ute's Avatar
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    Not really about evolution but interesting.

    What Happened to My Brontosaurus?


    The scaly, dimwitted monsters of our childhood have been killed off by fluffy, feathered, sprightly dinosaurs.


    http://www.slate.com/articles/health...aurs_like.html

    "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
    --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
    --Yeats

    “True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”

    --John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell

  23. #113
    Sam the Sheepdog LA Ute's Avatar
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    All Europeans are related if you go back just 1,000 years, scientists say

    http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/07/18107175-all-europeans-are-related-if-you-go-back-just-1000-years-scientists-say?lite

    "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
    --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
    --Yeats

    “True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”

    --John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell

  24. #114
    Sam the Sheepdog LA Ute's Avatar
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    Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction

    Annalee Newitz, founding editor of IO9 and former EFF staffer, has a new book out today called Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction, and it's terrific.

    Scatter's premise is that the human race will face extinction-grade crises in the future, and that we can learn how to survive them by examining the strategies of species that successfully weathered previous extinction events, and cultures and tribes of humans that have managed to survive their own near-annihilation.

    What follows from this is a whirlwind tour of geology, evolutionary biology, cultural anthropology and human history, as Newitz catalogs the terrifying disasters, catastrophes and genocides of geology and antiquity. From there, the book transitions into a sprightly whistle-stop tour of sustainable cities, synthetic biology, computer science, geoengineering, climate science, new materials science, urban theory, genomics, geopolitics, everything up to and including the Singularity, as Newitz lays out the technologies in our arsenal for adapting ourselves to upcoming disasters, and adapting our planet (and ultimately our solar system) to our long-term survival.

    This has both the grand sweep and the fast pace of a classic OMNI theme issue, but one that's far more thoroughly grounded in real science, caveated where necessary. It's a refreshingly grand sweep for a popular science book, and if it only skims over some of its subjects, that's OK, because in the age of the Net, one need only signpost the subjects the reader might dive into on her own once she realizes their awesome potential.

    This is a delight of a book, balanced on the knife-edge of disaster and delirious hope. It neither predicts our species' apotheosis nor its doom, but suggests paths to reach the former while avoiding the latter.

    "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
    --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
    --Yeats

    “True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”

    --John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell

  25. #115
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    Comprehensive analysis of impact spherules supports theory of cosmic impact 12,800 years ago

    Just interesting stuff.

    About 12,800 years ago when the Earth was warming and emerging from the last ice age, a dramatic and anomalous event occurred that abruptly reversed climatic conditions back to near-glacial state. According to James Kennett, UC Santa Barbara emeritus professor in earth sciences, this climate switch fundamentally –– and remarkably –– occurred in only one year, heralding the onset of the Younger Dryas cool episode. The cause of this cooling has been much debated, especially because it closely coincided with the abrupt extinction of the majority of the large animals then inhabiting the Americas, as well as the disappearance of the prehistoric Clovis culture, known for its big game hunting. . . . Now, in one of the most comprehensive related investigations ever, the group has documented a wide distribution of microspherules widely distributed in a layer over 50 million square kilometers on four continents, including North America, including Arlington Canyon on Santa Rosa Island in the Channel Islands. This layer –– the Younger Dryas Boundary (YDB) layer –– also contains peak abundances of other exotic materials, including nanodiamonds and other unusual forms of carbon such as fullerenes, as well as melt-glass and iridium. This new evidence in support of the cosmic impact theory appeared recently in a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences.

    "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
    --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
    --Yeats

    “True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”

    --John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell

  26. #116
    Sam the Sheepdog LA Ute's Avatar
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    The Evolution Thread

    The Brain Science Behind Our Obsession With Tools

    "According to researchers at Princeton, your obsession with tools may be the product of millions of years of evolution."

    And I always thought it was just a guy thing.

    http://www.popularmechanics.com/_mob...lick=pm_latest

    "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
    --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
    --Yeats

    “True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”

    --John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell

  27. #117
    I think people get that tiny feet on boa constrictors don't really fit with creative intent, but people fail to recognize that our human genome is so peppered with vestigial remnants that one would have to think any "designer" involved as being brilliant but to some extent winging it. It's not like an electric car comes with a partial gas tank and a feedbag, but that's essentially how our bodies are put together. If God guided evolution, it was Intelligent Improvisation not Intelligent Design, the difference being that improvization implies either something short of omniscience or something short of omnipotence. If there was a preconceived notion of the desired attributes of man's physical being, it would be much easier to create through means other than natural selection, and the end result could be much more tidy.

    If God directly guided the evolution of any single species on earth, it was the humped bladderwort.
    http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...ture12132.html
    Synopsis
    http://www.genomeweb.com/sequencing/...non-coding-dna

    The efficiency and economy of its genome is borderline divine.
    Last edited by jrj84105; 06-04-2013 at 11:27 PM.

  28. #118
    I side with Stephen Hawking when it comes to these useless debates:

    "There is a probably apocryphal story, that when Laplace was asked by Napoleon, how God fitted into this system, he replied, 'Sire, I have not needed that hypothesis.' I don't think that Laplace was claiming that God didn't exist. It is just that He doesn't intervene, to break the laws of Science. That must be the position of every scientist. A scientific law, is not a scientific law, if it only holds when some supernatural being, decides to let things run, and not intervene."

    This debate is useless and irrelevant. IF God exists, he follows the laws of science. Not what we say the laws are, but what they actually are. If God/Jesus happened, then Jesus did not walk through walls by magic. He did it using the laws of science. He did not snap his fingers and hocus pocus water into wine. He did it through the laws of science (btw, we are close to being able to do the whole feed thousands with a few fish with 3-D printers). He didn't wave his magic wand and travel in/at the speed of light...he did it by following the laws of science.

    That is why this debate is useless. Believe or not, but SCIENCE DOES NOT PROVE/DISPROVE GOD. Anyone who says otherwise is flat out wrong. There is no arguing that.

  29. #119
    Sam the Sheepdog LA Ute's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Utah View Post
    I side with Stephen Hawking when it comes to these useless debates:

    "There is a probably apocryphal story, that when Laplace was asked by Napoleon, how God fitted into this system, he replied, 'Sire, I have not needed that hypothesis.' I don't think that Laplace was claiming that God didn't exist. It is just that He doesn't intervene, to break the laws of Science. That must be the position of every scientist. A scientific law, is not a scientific law, if it only holds when some supernatural being, decides to let things run, and not intervene."

    This debate is useless and irrelevant. IF God exists, he follows the laws of science. Not what we say the laws are, but what they actually are. If God/Jesus happened, then Jesus did not walk through walls by magic. He did it using the laws of science. He did not snap his fingers and hocus pocus water into wine. He did it through the laws of science (btw, we are close to being able to do the whole feed thousands with a few fish with 3-D printers). He didn't wave his magic wand and travel in/at the speed of light...he did it by following the laws of science.

    That is why this debate is useless. Believe or not, but SCIENCE DOES NOT PROVE/DISPROVE GOD. Anyone who says otherwise is flat out wrong. There is no arguing that.
    I didn't start this thread as a place to debate, just a place to post interesting stuff about evolution. I find the debate boring, much like gun control debates.

    I thought this was interesting:

    Turning point in evolution of human diet found in University of Utah-led studies


    "Nutrition » Humans started eating fewer leaves and switched to grasses about 3.5 million years ago...."

    "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
    --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
    --Yeats

    “True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”

    --John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell

  30. #120
    Sam the Sheepdog LA Ute's Avatar
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    "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
    --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
    --Yeats

    “True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”

    --John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell

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