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What Birds See [evolution of the eye]
Scientific American ^ | July 2006 | Timothy H. Goldsmith

Posted on 07/03/2006 10:05:56 AM PDT by doc30

We humans customarily assume that our visual system sits atop a pinnacle of evolutionary success. It enables us to appreciate space in three dimensions, to detect objects from a distance and to move about safely. We are exquisitely able to recognize other individuals and to read their emotions from mere glimpses of their faces. In fact, we are such visual animals that we have difficulty imagining the sensory worlds of creatures whose capacities extend to other realms--a night-hunting bat, for example, that finds small insects by listening to the echoes of its own high-pitched call. Our knowledge of color vision is, quite naturally, based primarily on what humans see: researchers can easily perform experiments on cooperative human subjects to discover, say, what mixtures of colors look the same or different. Although scientists have obtained supporting information from a variety of other species by recording the firing of neurons, we remained unaware until the early 1970s that many vertebrates, mostly animals other than mammals, see colors in a part of the spectrum that is invisible to humans: the near ultraviolet. ...

(Excerpt) Read more at sciam.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: bird; creationism; evolution; eye; ignoranttheocrats; kindastupid; ludditefundies; lyingforthelord; paganjunk; pavlovian; roadtohorseshitpaved; saganscience; youngearthcultists
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To: doc30

.......One of my favorite examples from the article was about how birds of prey, kestrels in particular can see UV....

I visited my son an DIL yesterday and they although living in a city have an extended family of Red Shouldered hawks living in their wooded yard. There are 3 generations. An original pair and two years of offspring.

One of this years was found on the ground partially fledged. He is thought to have fallen from the nest and injured himself. He has almost no fear of humans and actually likes to rest on their deck. He brings messy presents of prey in the form of dead birds or rabbits or squirrels. He is thought to be retarded because he hangs around all the time and squeals his hawk squeal constnantly.......hours at a time. He gets up early too.

To bring the thread current, he would fly into their picture window looking out on the deck. He messed it up pretty good.He did it a lot. Hence retarded as in he wouldn't learn.

Any way, they bought some plastic maple leaves that stick to the window. They emit ultraviolet that looks clear to the human eye. Under certain conditions when viewed from outside they are faintly purple. They stopped the flights into the window immediately!!


121 posted on 07/03/2006 1:48:30 PM PDT by bert (K.E. N.P. Slay Pinch)
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To: doc30
Also, birds without sexual dimorphism (i.e. you can't tell male from female visually)


122 posted on 07/03/2006 1:50:38 PM PDT by Lazamataz (Proudly Posting Without Reading the Article Since 1999 !!!)
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To: Wolfstar
No problem. It takes a big person to admit a mistake when they don't really have to. I admire than and thank you for it.

Not only won't I admit a mistake, but I am proud of it, and I will JIHAD you unless you agree.

Allah decrees that one divided by zero is seven. All praise upon him!

123 posted on 07/03/2006 1:52:07 PM PDT by Lazamataz (Proudly Posting Without Reading the Article Since 1999 !!!)
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To: Lazamataz

Laz, you're incorrigible. ;-)


124 posted on 07/03/2006 1:56:22 PM PDT by Wolfstar (Where you go with me, heaven will always be.)
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To: Wicket

Did you even read what I wrote. The person I was addressing implied that this forum was only for Christians and that to be a Conservative you had to be a Christian. If you don't condemn that attitude your a moron. If you defend that attitude you actually don't belong on this forum because you can't understand the difference between your religion and your politics.


125 posted on 07/03/2006 1:57:20 PM PDT by Sentis (You said the world doesn't need salvation so why do I hear it calling out for a Savior.)
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To: doc30

Reproduction and the eye: no evolution there.


126 posted on 07/03/2006 1:57:52 PM PDT by onedoug
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To: Skooz; Sentis
You posted that you want to banish white Christians from the party and consign them to the darkness of the Left.

He didn't say that. He said the white Christians that want to be alone in the party, that think all other non-Christian conservatives should get out or aren't "really" conservatives, can go pi$$ up a rope.

The white Christians that accept that people of many different religious beliefs can also be conservatives are totally fine. I believe that's the point Sentis was making.

And I've been told I wasn't a real conservative because I'm not Christian. I'm an extremely conservative pro-life Buddhist. Because of that, I was branded an "opportunist" who glommed onto the great things conservatism was about, but not a "true" conservative. I don't see how I would think conservatism was so great if I wasn't one, but apparently I do.

127 posted on 07/03/2006 2:24:10 PM PDT by stands2reason (ANAGRAM for the day: Socialist twaddle == Tact is disallowed)
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To: Billthedrill; djf
Free Republic is a little like the United States of America.

It has been a noble experiment and was once a beacon for men who love freedom.

128 posted on 07/03/2006 2:28:51 PM PDT by Do Be (The heart is smarter than the head.)
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To: djf; doc30

I'm thinking my husband watches too many comic-book movies around me. I read this stuff and now the first thing I think of is, "Wow! that'd make a cool superhero trait!"


129 posted on 07/03/2006 2:31:03 PM PDT by stands2reason (ANAGRAM for the day: Socialist twaddle == Tact is disallowed)
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To: stands2reason

Thats exactly what I said, thank you. Of course it can't be helped if the same people who think that only Christian's can be conservatives, think that me telling them to join the libs in their ignorance is the same as telling all Christians to join the libs.


Hmm I'm a chistian but thats my religion not my political party. Some people here should learn that lesson.


130 posted on 07/03/2006 2:31:17 PM PDT by Sentis (You said the world doesn't need salvation so why do I hear it calling out for a Savior.)
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To: RobRoy

There is evidence for ToE.

There is no "proof" in science.


You don't think ToE is disprovable? So you disagree with the findings of ID researchers? They claim to disprove evolution.


131 posted on 07/03/2006 2:39:29 PM PDT by stands2reason (ANAGRAM for the day: Socialist twaddle == Tact is disallowed)
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To: Mogollon

Do you believe mutations are miracles?


132 posted on 07/03/2006 2:40:55 PM PDT by stands2reason (ANAGRAM for the day: Socialist twaddle == Tact is disallowed)
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To: stands2reason

I don't bother with ID researchers. And I agree there is evidence for evolution. However, I also know that the presence of some evidence does not a conviction make. Sometimes you need the murder weapon.


133 posted on 07/03/2006 2:41:21 PM PDT by RobRoy (The Internet is about to do to Evolution what it did to Dan Rather. Information is power.)
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To: Robwin

MAybe they have some sort of evidence.


134 posted on 07/03/2006 2:42:54 PM PDT by stands2reason (ANAGRAM for the day: Socialist twaddle == Tact is disallowed)
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To: Central Scrutiniser

I'm not one, I've been told. I'm just an opportunist who sees all the advantages of conservatism and gloms onto a good thing.

But not an "actual" conservative. How strange. There are people whose every political belief is on the right side, they know conservatism is a "good thing", but because they are not strict Bible-believers, they are not conservatives.

On the outside looking in...


135 posted on 07/03/2006 2:47:09 PM PDT by stands2reason (ANAGRAM for the day: Socialist twaddle == Tact is disallowed)
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To: Robwin

You think highly of Christians who think that only Christians are conservatives?


136 posted on 07/03/2006 2:48:15 PM PDT by stands2reason (ANAGRAM for the day: Socialist twaddle == Tact is disallowed)
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To: stands2reason

We really have to fight the "I dont go to church so I can't be a Republican" syndrome. Unfortunatly there are those on our side who also believe it.


137 posted on 07/03/2006 2:53:54 PM PDT by Sentis (You said the world doesn't need salvation so why do I hear it calling out for a Savior.)
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To: conservativefreak
what a creationists means when s/he says that they don't believe in evolution they mean that they don't believe that random mutations can add complexity to an organism that didn't already have it in it's genetic code

And yet that's exactly what happens in most cases of acquired antibiotic resistance. So what was your point???

(Sure, sometimes a bacteria might pick up the resistance in lateral transmission from another bacteria, but we KNOW experimentally that resistance also evolves de novo in pure, nonresistant strains. In a number of cases scientists have tracked the actual mutations.)

138 posted on 07/03/2006 2:57:51 PM PDT by Stultis (I don't worry about the war turning into "Vietnam" in Iraq; I worry about it doing so in Congress.)
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To: js1138
As a tradeoff, he has phenomenal night vision.

I'm sure he does, all rods, no cones. I have a inherited defect that inhibits my night vision -- non-malignant cataracts that are shaped like doughnuts. They don't bother my focal cones at all (where the "hole" is), instead they wreak havoc on my rods.

139 posted on 07/03/2006 2:58:43 PM PDT by stands2reason (ANAGRAM for the day: Socialist twaddle == Tact is disallowed)
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To: GourmetDan

Why do you insist on "unique" evidence? Everything can be made to fit the design paradigm. There is nothing that can't, and you know it.


140 posted on 07/03/2006 3:02:57 PM PDT by stands2reason (ANAGRAM for the day: Socialist twaddle == Tact is disallowed)
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