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To: Alter Kaker
None of us know all of the creatures that were around three or four or thirty thousand years ago.

Of course we do. We have intact humans from longer ago than that. 3000 years ago was well within the realm of recorded history, in many places.

There you go with the logical fallacies again. I state that we do not know all of the creatures that existed thousands of years ago, and you say we have intact human fossils. I will grant that we certainly had recorded history, and that tells us a lot more than fossils alone. However, it hardly tells us all of the species that existed. We have a significant number of specialists looking for new species, and sometimes they are still found. The fossil record, even from 3,000 years ago is far from complete, much of the historical record is lost, and large parts of the world have no extant history from that era. So, of course we do not know all of the creatures walking the earth 3,000 years ago. There might be a moa or dodo type creature that died out, forgotten to all, with no found remains. There might be more than a handful of such creatures . . . or not. We just don't know.

We certainly don't know what similar looking specimens could mate with others and produce fertile offspring.


No, and without DNA from early Equines, we will likely never know. But we can make a very educated guess, judging from the fact that extant equines (like horses, zebras and asses) cannot normally produce fertile offspring.


Agreed. And educated guesses are not scientific fact.

Peanuts are different from legumes in all sorts of ways.

Name one.


I should have said "other" legumes, though I think you should have know that from the context. The root of the peanut is edible, while the fruit of other legumes are edible. Peas are green and grow in soft pods. Peanuts are light brown and grow in harder shells. In short everything that anybody from a grocer, to a botanist to a four year-old can say that separates peanuts from the other legume of your choice.

I am glad to see that you no longer pretend that the grocer is "wrong" to put the peanuts in with the other nuts in the supermarket. Should grocers pack Swedish Fish in the seafood section too?

If they do, maybe it should go by the imitation crabmeat. Of course, we call peanuts "nuts" nut primarily because the word "nut" is in it. After all, we don't think of coconuts as nuts. Of course, Swedish Fish are manmade, the base of seafood is natural (ditto for candy corn). The grocer puts peanuts in with nuts (with USDA approval) because of their size, edibility out of the shell, texture and general use. Except for a slight remblance to tiny fish, Swedish fish don't pass muster in that regard.
233 posted on 09/22/2006 4:40:20 AM PDT by sittnick (There is no salvation in politics.)
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To: sittnick
The fossil record, even from 3,000 years ago is far from complete,

I suggest you find a subject you know something about, and argue that. Your posts are inane in the extreme. For one, there really aren't fossils from 3kya -- there are intact and nearly intact human and animal remains. To pretend that we don't know anything about what large mammals were alive within the recent realm of recorded history suggests you're talking out of your ass. Equines weren't rare 3kya, and we know a heck of a lot about their development from a huge variety of sources. Those include skeletons, yokes, bits, chariots, written records, artistic depictions, saddles, and probably about a thousand other kinds of sources I'm forgetting to include. Horses were domesticated in just that part of the world where we do have excellent historical information. If you still think that anatomically modern horses evolved 2mya, you're just being deliberately obtuse.

The root of the peanut is edible, while the fruit of other legumes are edible.

Huh? Peanut roots aren't edible. The edible part of the peanut is the fruit (which does grow underground). If you want to try to eat peanut roots, you can try to prove me wrong, but I doubt they taste very good. In any event, edibility has nothing to do with the plant and everything to do with human digestion.

Peas are green and grow in soft pods. Peanuts are light brown and grow in harder shells.

I'm sorry, do you have a point? Is your time best served by explaining to me that peas are, in fact, green? Or are you still insisting that peanuts are meat?

253 posted on 09/22/2006 9:14:17 AM PDT by Alter Kaker ("Whatever tears one sheds, in the end one always blows one's nose." - Heine)
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