And then there are the DUhmmies....or maybe this just means they're on the path to extinction.
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Posted on 07/10/2004 7:06:11 AM PDT by jalisco555
Think about the deaths in WWII.
Don't think in terms of which side they were on,
Whether American, British, German, Jewish, Russian, Japanese, or Chinese...
think instead of what % of the alpha males were
destroyed prior to having a chance to pass on their genes.
Add to that WWI, Korea, Vietnam, and every other war.
Agressive males have been killed off prior to reproduction
in great numbers for thousands of years.
This is but one aspect of our current evolution.
There are many more.
And then there are the DUhmmies....or maybe this just means they're on the path to extinction.
.
Yeah ... we're "still evolving".
Sometime soon we will evolve into lizard like creatures.
LOL!
We're not "evolving" and netiher is anything else.
It's not necessary for a male to reproduce directly. If he gives his life so that his tribe can survive, he will pass on his desirable genetics indirectly. Many brave soldiers that attacked knowing they faced certain death passed on their genes by proxy, when their tribe continued on. That's why some of us have no problem sacrificing our lives during war. It's been bred into us indirectly. Tribes with a percentage of heroes do really well against tribes with a disposition to surrender and appease. It's why America is a super power and France is an embarrassment.
Genetics is only a raw material, at best is only half of who we are. The other half is our culture and environment. That lives on even if our best and brightest die on the battlefield.
Once again, you sure showed us with your stunning, detailed and fully scientific refutation.
"Once again, you sure showed us with your stunning, detailed and fully scientific refutation."
No sense of humor. Tsk, tsk.
What's even more humorous is that I have never seen you display, "stunning, detailed ... scientific" evidence to support evolution.
Maybe this will cheer you up. Maybe you're evolving into a genius. There. Better now?
Nighty night.
The only folk not evolving are the severely uptight snake handling creationists that have condemned all them scientist types to hell. Oh well, the gene pool don't need them.
Where have I heard this before??? Hmmm Oh Yes!!!
When der Fuehrer says, "Ve ist der master race"
Ve HEIL! (phhht!) HEIL! (phhht!) Right in der Fuehrer's face...
...Are ve not the supermen
Aryan pure supermen
Ja ve ist der supermen
Super-duper supermen...
Ah, but that doesn't count because you didn't demonstrate when it was a pimple.
OK everybody, who volunteers to step off? I say that whoever complains about overpopulation needs to slit his own throat first and then go on complaining.
The page gives a sequence which starts with an eye spot, and ends with a fish eye. There are 8 other kinds of eyes (such as a fly's compound eyes) but this is the sequence leading towards human eyes.
The sequence meets the criteria we have already stated, namely:
The diagram below shows a simple eye spot. Let us assume it is in the skin of a multicellular creature. It has a dark backing, because that makes vision a bit more directional.
Next, an inward dimple happens under the eye spot. The eye spot begins to be on the surface of a shallow pit or depression. This increases the visual acuity, and also protects the eye spot from damage.
The dimpling continues until the depth of the pit is about equal to its width. This is now much like the eye of a planarian (flatworm).
Next, the rim of the pit begins to constrict. In camera terms, the eye begins to have an "aperture".
At some point - perhaps now, or perhaps later - the pit fills with a clear jelly. This may be a small mutation, or it could just be that the creature is covered by a slime layer anyway. In either case, the jelly or slime helps to hold the shape of the pit, and helps to protect the light sensitive cells from chemical damage. And, the jelly keeps mud out.
The aperture continues to decrease. Visual acuity increases until the aperture gets so small that it begins to shut out too much light. There will come a point when the aperture is the perfect size. A bigger aperture gives worse eyesight, and a smaller one gives worse eyesight. (The exact size that is "perfect" depends on how bright the lighting is.)
This is now much like the eye of a nautilus.
The eye above is a perfect "pinhole camera". It can only be improved by adding a lens.
To get a lens, one mutation is needed. The pit must be roofed over with a transparent layer. This mutation is not that strange. First, it could have happened at any time before this stage. (The original eye spot might have been covered.) Second, the transparent layer is useful, to keep a lensless eye from damage. And third, transparent materials are not hard to come by. (The human cornea is made from a protein which is also used elsewhere in the human body.)
So, the next step is the transparent layer becoming a little thicker in the center. Suddenly it isn't just a layer. It is a lens.
Now that the eye has a lens, the aperture is in the wrong place. The eye will be more acute if the lens moves inward, towards the center of curvature of the light-sensitive surface.
The lens continues to move inward. As it moves, the laws of optics say that a thicker and thicker lens is valuable.
Also, the refractive index of the center of the lens changes. This is possible because the lens is made from a mixture of proteins. The ratio of the proteins can be different in different places, so the lens material is not optically uniform. It is common for a biological lens to have a higher refractive index at the center than at the edges. This "graded index" is a very valuable property.
And we're done. This is a fish eye, complete with a spherical graded-index lens, placed at the exact center of the light-sensitive layer. The optical quality is excellent, being "aberration-free" over a 180 degree field of view.
These diagrams, and the analysis about them, are taken from
A Pessimistic Estimate Of The Time Required For An Eye To Evolve, D.-E. Nilsson and S. Pelger, Proceedings of the Royal Society London B, 1994, 256, pp. 53-58.
Placemarker
If you find a source, I wear a 42 (Plain old "large" where I buy T-shirts) and I'll even pay for yours.
By determining whether or not the scientists doing and proposing new procedures have adequately considered what could go wrong and taken adequate procedures to control the downside of experiments.
From what I've seen they haven't. They grow experimental genetically engineered crops not in a contained lab, but out in the open where cross polination with other plants can occur.
I would probably support the one attempt using a genetically engineered virus to correct a deadly genetic defect. But they applied the virus and sent the kids home. Since the defect they were trying to correct was deadly anyway, I think that was a worthwhile try. But how certain were they that the virus couldn't have affected other people? I'm not sure how long they kept them in isolation, but apparently it wasn't long enough for the ill effects of the virus to manifest. I hope before they released them to go home, they were VERY certain they weren't contagious. One bad mistake with a virus and you could really dimenish the human race.
SHAZAM!!!
Interesting choice of words. Shazam!!! Well chosen, for that would be magic if it were true.
A = Side of worm.
B = Pimple on worm.
C = 2 Pimples on worm.
D = 2 popped pimples.
E = Acne problem (Pimples showing some fight).
F = Dreaded dual whiteheads.
G = Irritated dual whiteheads.
Evolutionary Clearasil needed!
Totally honest placemarker. 100?
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