Future of evolution

Most just want to muddy the issue so that no good information gets exchanged. Spendius is a prime example of that.

I prefer the full frontal hair-shirt Creationists than the ego driven tap dancers like spendi. They at least have some "religion" and they are more concerned with their beliefs as science than merely posting silly irrelevancies.

I don't insult the intelligence of A2Kers like those two glops of vanity do.

Could you explain effemm why you are less ego driven than I am. Your daily doings and self praise litter every thread you appear on. You hardly know a thing about me.

Even in little things you can't resist the macho symbol. A 9 hp engine is a "kicker" to you. To me it's a phut-phut of wet farts.

I invite readers to check out your post 3741919 on your "My holiday diary" thread to gain some idea of your self obsession and it isn't in the least unusual. You even see fit to inform us all that you went to sleep and then, goodness gracious, later woke up. We have been told endlessly what a Big Mon you are. Over and over again. You use the topics for no other reason.

And you sulk. (ignore). Sure sign of ego freaker.

But I feel complimented by "tap-dancer" but you need to know your Schopenhauer to understand why but I'm very well aware than you don't engage you mind with anything classy.

Your post is mere assertion. It means nothing. How can I be "irrelevant" when I'm the only one who is focussed on the social consequences of these debates and all they are to you are word games in which to preen. You seem to think that getting those girlish assertions in first gives them credibility. Anybody could say those things about anybody else.

Who cares what "you prefer"? What you prefer has nothing to do with the education of a nation's kids. What an inflated ego that "I prefer" conjures up. Even the whales only exist for you to have a trip on. I hope that one didn't hear you say it was "loping".

You patronise everything. The whole of creation seems to be a mirror in which you admire yourself.

Just look at your very silly answer to phoney's extremely apposite point. It's as if you are trying to drive intelligent people off A2K so you can shine better yourself. All you offered was a slimy sarcasm. Again with no meaning.

It's just the same with Ed. His assertions are just as pointless and insult A2Kers intelligence. These waters are already muddy. Anybody who isn't very bright might think from Ed's babyisms, which anybody also could blurt out in a fit of lip-trembling pique, that the waters are crystal clear and that I have the power to muddy them and render them opaque. What a load of crap. And just because Ed can't keep up an intellectual argument. And he's on the record concerning his daily doings too.

Pure philistinism the both and easily recognisable as such by anybody over 10. And neither of you can write worth a blow on a ragman's trumpet.

Schopenauer

And here's me cant get out of before before 10,30 am, sits in a recliner reading, dozing and watching sport on TV and saunters to the pub for an hour on a barstool and getting accused of being egotistical by Mr Frenzied Activity his very self.

And compare our respective profiles.

And evolution ratifies my way of life.

It shows he uses words without understanding what they mean.

If only all that energy could be put to a constructive use, Spendi. What a waste.

We could get him one of those wheels they have for hamsters and connect it up to a turbine and bob's your uncle--clean energy.

That definitely seems to be part of the general strategy. Made worse by the fact that most Creationists don't even realize that they are being used simply to muddy the waters.

I think that it can be reasonably assumed that most of the religiously motivated are sincere and honest. That makes it all the more despicable that those who are better educated and informed than the "flocks" are manipulating them. There is something particularly sinister about it, on a par with the televangelists who fleece them of their funds and then weep for the cameras if they are busted while enjoying their ill-gotten gains.

If only ros would give us a view of what unmuddied waters looked like in practice instead of all this effete posturing in which a certain pejoritive texture clings in his mind to the metaphors he so vainly deploys and which every fertile flood plain in the whole wide world provides objective proof of the literary desert within his ridiculous noggin.

Muddy waters are a sure sign of fertility and never moreso than when there are innundations of them.

And watch how Set distances himself from the "flocks" by the very simple and tried and tested expedient he has thought fit to regale us with as if only the select few have ever thought of his brilliant insight which was well wrung out over 2,500 years ago.

As if a few miscreants are proof of the stupidity of the sincere and honest religiously motivated who have thereby been patronised by his glib and shallow sentences.

He's just a snob. It's as simple as that.

And I think even the ones fleecing their flocks are rationalizing their actions as a "necessary evil" to reach their goal (of imposing their belief system on everyone else ... for their own good of course).

I wonder if ros is going to continue spouting that stuff for the rest of his life. It seems such a shame. It never changes.

What a boring chap he is.

I wonder if smart squids will have religion 65 million years from now. I wonder if they will have squishy preachers telling them they were created in God's image. I wonder if they will be digging up fossil humans and saying how squid Jesus walked beside predator people (before the calamari was served).

That's scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Squids will first have to develop opposable suckers.

One of the latest wrinkles in the "natural selection" theory is twofold

1Natural selection may not be the appropriate term anymore since the growing areas of epigenetics have rekindled interest in some form of a "neo Lamarkianism" as a workable hypothesis. It appears that aquired traits can be passed on to following generations in human physiological evolution studies . Of course, at present, all the data seems to be purely statistical inference based and I always wonder why one needs statistics to clarify a hypothesis.


2. "SPECIES" is undergoing a major overhaul. The obvious interbreeding evidence among what were originally considered sexually isolated species is becoming somehwat overwhelming.
I am proposing that, with whole bunches of species found to be freely interbreeding and because the diversion of species actually needs to separate further and further apart before real "sexual isolation" occurs, the actual presence of many more "Intermediate species" in the fossil record can be inferred from the number of interbreeding species alive today.
Darwin stated that it was because of an imperfect fossil record, Creationists have said, where are the intermediates. Now we have a mechanism that states that intermediates are everywhere around a living species.

Interesting.

What is the mechanism that allows acquired traits to be passed on?

the way Ive been reading it, its the ability of the extra cellular DNA that is affected and then the "Acquired characteristics" are preserved and passed on. The studies had to do with human alleles and epigenesis that are associated with some effects due to habits of a previous generation. EG a mothers smoking affecting a childs health may not be amniotic but genetic. (Studff like the roise in diabetes or asthma, or other xhronic and axcute effects).

Im not taking any positions but Im finding that this type of research is actually taking off in the realms of science. Its almost like someone is relooking at all the old chestnuts and trying to see whether they are actually true.

How bout the new species concepts and "intermediate" species?

Hmmm, I can see how random changes (mutations) to the DNA of the reproductive cells could get passed on, but I don't see how any morphological changes to an individual organism can possibly get reverse-translated into a corresponding change in the DNA of a sperm or egg.

And it seems even more unlikely that any morphological changes can get translated into changes in the basic DNA of every cell in the original organism.

So I still don't understand how they are proposing such "lamarkian" changes can occur.


Maybe what's happening is that the health (or lack of health) of a mother or father is adversely affecting the formation of sperm or egg, and the resultant mutations are being interpreted in the test results as "acquired traits" (although I would not call them that).


It's often valuable to re-check core assumptions. I have no problem with that. Some of the most interesting answers come from questions about common things you don't often think about. Like, what does the "H" stand for in Jesus H. Christ

I don't blame you fm for standing aloof and not taking sides.

I suppose the research "taking off" is a manifestation of Parkinson's Law which derives from the saying about some people having so much money thay don't know what to do with it.

"Circuits and bumps" is the best I can do to avoid the metaphor mixing.

Which use of "extra" are you employing? Is it like in "extra terrestrial" or in "extra" as a lady of questionable virtue might use it. I'm not sure either usage makes any sense.

Some meanings of "epigenesis " involve a degree of misogyny don't they. How are you employing that term? I think we should be told.

Where would a fetus injured in a car accident figure in your calculations?

I once read a review of a book written by an American lady in which one of the characters had a travelling freak show. She drank cleaning fluids and disinfectants to produce the freaks. I didn't read the book mind you.

There are no species really. Everything must be an intermediate. They say it is impossible to throw the 22 snooker balls onto the green baize into the exact same position a second time so the DNA job must be really, really impossible. Although in an infinite universe it might be theoretically possible.

PS I forgot to compliment you on your "opposing suckers" joke.