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Author | Topic: Quick Questions, Short Answers - No Debate | |||||||||||||||||||||||
ringo Member (Idle past 412 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Tram law writes:
Threats are in the eye of the beholder. Neanderthal fathers used to tell their daughters, "Look out for the ones with the chins." ... I can't really see how it would be threatening, but actually would look more comical than threatening. If you have nothing to say, you could have done so much more concisely. -- Dr Adequate
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Tram law Member (Idle past 4704 days) Posts: 283 From: Weed, California, USA Joined: |
Well, I don't see how it would actually relieve stress caused by speech. I don't understand how speech causes stress and is unnatural.
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fearandloathing Member (Idle past 4145 days) Posts: 990 From: Burlington, NC, USA Joined: |
There were several theories presented, Google your question, you might find a better answer? If I find one I will let you know as it his got me interested.
"I hate to advocate the use of drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they always worked for me." - Hunter S. Thompson Ad astra per aspera
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Tram law Member (Idle past 4704 days) Posts: 283 From: Weed, California, USA Joined: |
Is evolution concerned with the origins of life? Why or why not?
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jar Member (Idle past 394 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Tram law writes: Is evolution concerned with the origins of life? Why or why not? No. Evolution is only about how life diversified. The actual origin is irrelevant, it could be magic, aliens (that just moves the issue astronomically), by act of creation from Nu or any other means. Edited by jar, : wrong ward Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 284 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
So would the chin be a mistake in adaption? That's not quite what's being suggested. But it may be a side-effect of a useful adaptation. It might happen that some gene that (for example) makes us so much smarter than chimps, and is therefore selected for, also gives us chins, which might be of no particular use.
Or, as has been pointed out, maybe it is an adaptation to something humans particularly do, such as speech. Obviously more research is needed to (a) find the chin gene (b) find out what if any mechanical role the chin plays. Alternatively, we were made in God's image, and God has a chin to support the weight of his mighty beard.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 284 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
I don't fully understand expatiation either. One reason for this might be that the author of your book is using the word "exaptation" wrong. An exaptation is something which evolves for one purpose and subsequently is useful for some further evolutionary development. For example, the tongue is an exaptation for speech --- obviously tongues didn't first evolve in order that one day humans would be able too speak with them, but rather, having evolved for a different purpose, they were pressed into the service of speech. If we hadn't had them in the first place then our range of vocalizations would probably be too small for communication. From the point of view of speech it was just a bit of luck for us that we already had tongues. Another example would be the wide range of joint movement in the forearms of maniraptoran dinosaurs. Obviously this didn't evolve in order that one day birds would be able to fly. But if it hadn't been present, birds might be just one more group of moderately successful gliding animals. What Rice wants to say is that chins are a side-effect. They can't possibly be an exaptation because chins aren't part of our pre-human ancestry. P.S: you might be able to find out more about this subject if you stop spelling "exaptation" as "expatiation", which is a completely different word.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
More accurately, the origin of the first replicators which eventually gave rise to modern life is outside of the theory of evolution.
The reasons why this is a better description are firstly that life is not clearly defined, so that it could be argued that those replicators did not quite qualify as living, and the development from the replicators to life would then be included in the theory. Secondly the origin is of interest, because it may shed light on other matters, even though it itself is outside of the theory.
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Taz Member (Idle past 3291 days) Posts: 5069 From: Zerus Joined: |
I was gone for some time due to work taking up all my time. Let just say that I've been in the lab til 3 am almost every weekend.
Anyway, what the hell happened to my beloved evcforum and when did the change occur?
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Tram law Member (Idle past 4704 days) Posts: 283 From: Weed, California, USA Joined: |
What changes are you referring to?
Secondly, I watched Amon Ra's 15th Foundational Falsehoods Of Creationism on you tube and in one of the parts he mentions that Evolution has a large influence on eleven fields of scientific study. Unfortunately it didn't list them and I've been wondering about them ever since I saw it. So what are these fields of science it does impact? Does it have any effect on medical sciences? Are there any other practical uses for evolution other than showing how life diversifies? Edited by Tram law, : No reason given.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 284 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
So what are these fields of science it does impact? Does it have any effect on medical sciences? Are there any other practical uses for evolution other than showing how life diversifies? Yes, it has medical uses; for example, it would be hard to study and circumvent the evolution of bacterial resistance to medicine without knowing about evolution. Another medical application, in preventative medicine, would be the Ames test. This tests to see how mutagenic (and therefore how carcinogenic) a substance is by quantifying the amount of beneficial evolution it causes. (Remember that mutation is random, so the harmful somatic mutations the substance produces will be proportional to the beneficial germ-line mutations.) A third medical application is in epidemiology: finding the molecular phylogeny of a disease helps epidemiologists to reconstruct its history. A fourth medical application is the creation of live vaccines. A virus or bacterium which has evolved to adapt to one environment is less fit for another: so, for example, a strain of polio which has been cultured in monkey kidney cells will no longer be any good at preying on human nerve cells but will still trigger an immune response. This is how the oral polio vaccine works. There are a number of other practical applications both within and outside medicine, but I hope that this is enough to be going on with.
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Admin Director Posts: 12998 From: EvC Forum Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
What format changes are you referring to?
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Dogmafood Member (Idle past 348 days) Posts: 1815 From: Ontario Canada Joined: |
Is there any connection in the etymologies of the english words 'God' and 'good' and 'devil' and 'evil'? Are their similarities just coincident? Is this similarity present in hebrew or old aramaic?
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 284 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Is there any connection in the etymologies of the english words 'God' and 'good' and 'devil' and 'evil'? No. god | Etymology, origin and meaning of god by etymonlinegood | Etymology, origin and meaning of good by etymonline devil | Etymology, origin and meaning of devil by etymonline evil | Etymology, origin and meaning of evil by etymonline
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Dogmafood Member (Idle past 348 days) Posts: 1815 From: Ontario Canada Joined: |
I guess I could have done that. Cheers.
"It is often forgotten that (dictionaries) are artificialrepositories, put together well after the languages they define. The roots of language are irrational and of a magical nature." -Jorge Luis Borges, Prologue to "El otro, el mismo."
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