Posted on 09/13/2005 4:15:07 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
So what would Charles Darwin have to say about the dust-up between today's evolutionists and intelligent designers?
Probably nothing.
[snip]
Even after he became one of the most famous and controversial men of his time, he was always content to let surrogates argue his case.
[snip]
From his university days Darwin would have been familiar with the case for intelligent design. In 1802, nearly 30 years before the Beagle set sail, William Paley, the reigning theologian of his time, published "Natural Theology" in which he laid out his "Argument from Design."
Paley contended that if a person discovered a pocket watch while taking a ramble across the heath, he would know instantly that this was a designed object, not something that had evolved by chance. Therefore, there must be a designer. Similarly, man -- a marvelously intricate piece of biological machinery -- also must have been designed by "Someone."
If this has a familiar ring to it, it's because this is pretty much the same argument that intelligent design advocates use today.
[snip]
The first great public debate took place on June 30, 1860, in a packed hall at Oxford University's new Zoological Museum.
Samuel Wilberforce, the learned bishop of Oxford, was champing at the bit to demolish Darwin's notion that man descended from apes. As always, Darwin stayed home. His case was argued by one of his admirers, biologist Thomas Huxley.
Wilberforce drew whoops of glee from the gallery when he sarcastically asked Huxley if he claimed descent from the apes on his grandmother's side or his grandfather's. Huxley retorted that he would rather be related to an ape than to a man of the church who used half-truths and nonsense to attack science.
The argument continues unabated ...
[snip]
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
500
It was Zeus, not society. But remember what society did to Socrates.
Rats!
I really meant 501.
Hee hee.
Tigers don't. Jaguars don't. Most cat species don't. Lions and feral housecats do. Lions are open-country animals whose best hunting strategy can be described as "stampede toward ambush." Why Felis domesticus does what it does is anybody's guess. I sure don't understand mine.
According to this resource, cougars have good reason to hunt alone. :)
Have a good evening...
This sentence is not true.
So you're saying I was a funny-looking kid, too? Geez, maybe mom was right ...
Housecats form rather strange and variable societies. Neutered cats retain much of their playfulness, and when they hunt, they tend to play with anything they capture.
I have had adult males that brought back live prey for younger cats to torture. Often they bring things into the house and free them so they can catch them again. If we're lucky, they do.
This would of course be a sensible behavior in the wild. I can almost hear Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young singing "Teach Your Children."
It's just interesting to see neutered males behaving like mother cats. They don't do this in the wild. But it says something about hormones and gender roles.
So, based upon the theory espoused by some that forming social organizations is an advanced form of evolution...
Humans - evolved
Cougars - not evolved
House cats - perhaps evolved
Dolphins - evolved
Honey bees - evolved
termintes - evolved
I think this is made up. I think that humans recognize a moral value to other human's lives and that is why they value them, not for selfish survival needs.
That discipline is called quorum sensing.
No really. I'm serious.
Missed part of your point there. My fat old guy is a neutered male who of course thinks I'm his mommy.
Used to have neighbors who apparently liked to raise males and not neuter them. There's very little difference after a while between a virile tomcat and a skunk. Skunks are less trouble, if anything.
Based on some FR posts, I'd say yes.
I think you're trying to bludgeon me with creative misunderstandings. Social behavior is an adaptation that works where it works. It probably doesn't work for cougars because they live in forest habitats where stalking and pouncing from cover work fine without help. A cougar hunting territory is necessarily so big that it dictates a low population density for the cougars. That in turn makes a social approach unlikely.
All housecats think people are their mom. That's really the only fully understandable social relationship that cats have.
Some cats have friends, but stable friendships seem rare in my experience. My older tom gets very twitchy when the younger cat stays out late. Sometimes he goes out looking for him. Then he beats him up.
I may have said it first, but you said it such that he could understand.
"I just drank WHAT?"
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