"Slanted" Eyes in Orientals

not true. a sexual preference for a trait that endangers survival will ensure the survival of only the strongest members... those who can survive in spite of a purposeful handicap. that's why birds sexually select for big tails and pretty bowers (thatch housey things... see bower birds). it takes a lot of work to survive while sporting a long, heavy tail or trying to build a fabulous bower. so that particular specimen (potential mate) is more likely to be strong, have good eyesight (bowers generally include differently colored items sorted by color), and be especially clever to elude predators and rivals.there are lots of examples of this. but birds are the most common.also that weird playful jumping that antelope do in africa is a similar handicap technique. it has nothing to do with sexual selection, but it can dissuade a lion from attacking. it says 'hey look, i can hop around like an idiot and give you a headstart on catching me and yet, STILL outrun you... so why don't you save us both the effort". and it works.. because the antelope must be able to back it up, or he dies.

people also look for (subconsciously) similar proportions of extremities, and (funnily enough) proportionally identical earlobe length. people are weird.

um. i qualified that.
ensure the survival of only the strongesti meant that it ensures the strength of the survivors not that anyone will survive necessarily. the idea is to kill off the weak ones. those not strong enough to carry their tails or smart/quick enough to evade predators when their ridiculous displays call attention to them will be culled. the rest... on with the booty.

if only in the case of humans and our sexual selection for drunks and smokers.i see what you mean, but these loud displays have been around for a long time and are not respricted to birds... many creatures participate in handicapping without detriment to their species.
*shrugs* i actually don't follow it that much.

yes, but we want to know WHY those exist. it's not racist to study the differences.we know so little about it PRECISELY because of attitudes like this. because people are too scared of looking intolerant to study some of the most interesting stuff out there.This message has been edited by brennakimi, 06-17-2004 07:13 PM

i had heard something like that... but i don't know how conclusive it is. but we should look at the similarities... if the african people who have slanted eyes (i've seen some.. they're so pretty hehe) are from areas near the desert, then it might be an accurate assumption. but what of the middle east? do those people have slanted eyes? i don't think so, even though that desert is prone to windstorms... but they have developed a culture including headcoverings which might account for their survival. but it would seem according to genetic based migration research that these peoples came to the middle east after people went to the far east. they kinda passed straight through and didn't stop. so maybe they came from a different gene line and had to learn to survive the storms but didn't develop the slanted eyes because their culture was advanced enough to make headcoverings. *shrugs*random theories.

the tower of babel only talks about a confusion of language, not about environmental or genetic changes.it's really sad that you don't care to ask questions.

i agree with pink sasquatch.you have some rather evolutionary ideas... but like i've said before... why couldn't god have instituted evolution? he never exactly said HOW he made everything happen. you know. except the cosmological junk... all big-bang like and stuff.remember though. genesis isn't god writing down what he did, it's moses writing down what god told him he did. why would god relenquish the secrets of the universe to someone who couldn't understand them?

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No im definately not. For evolution to have occured all types of life would have to have been descended by natural on going proccesses from a single life form. But for this to have worked there must be a process that can generate information in living things. This is where the theory of Natural selection comes into play. But natural selection cannot explain new species, natural selection has never achieved progresive additional amounts of genetic information, only a decrease

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there is no difference between small scale evolution (what you are describing... the shift within 'kind') and large scale evolution (the shift between 'kind'). evolution simply is. the bible supports it as the theory stands today, and darwin founded it on the idea that god created the world in a way other than was commonly thought. maybe we're wrong... new theories are bound to come along. i can't wait; it will be an interesting journey. but there is no reason to limit god to a simplistic idea that is not even supported by traditional interpretations of scripture. and no, i'm sorry. the common beliefs of the new religious reicht are not traditional interpretations. the torah is a jewish book and we christians should defer to them on its interpretation.