Comments | meleah: *chomp* *chomp* My, this hat tastes great..

meleah

chomp chomp My, this hat tastes great..

Feb 17, 2007 14:10

This is a new one even for me.. evolution is evil judaism in disguise. That's right, 'secular evolution science is the Big Bang 15-billion year alternative creation scenario of the Pharisee Religion'. Einstein's kabbalism is responsible for that evil relativity thing (which is definitely the most hilarious creationist misunderstanding ever - they ( Read more... )

Comments 31

Total Threadjacking philosophyjeff February 18 2007, 23:26:28 UTC

Help me out with this question:

Is it legitimate to speak of the first member of a species? More specifically, is it the case that for every species, there existed an organism which was the unique first member of that species?

I can be more flexible on this. Perhaps there is some unique brood, all the siblings in which, are members of the uniquely first brood of a species.

Am I making my question clear?

Re: Total Threadjacking meleah February 19 2007, 00:31:38 UTC

Hmm ( ... )

Re: Total Threadjacking taavi February 19 2007, 01:32:16 UTC

What if you have a new, dominant mutation occur? Eg a homo erectus mutates to acquire a few hundered extra cc of brain (maybe some brain-growth-terminator gene got knocked out) causing him/her (I will say him for convenience and bcos of the greater ability of males to spread their genes) to exhibit differences (eg higher intelligence), but could still interbreed with other homo erecti. Since the mutation is dominant and brainiacs have an edge, it spreads until all the local homo erecti have bigger brains (but can still interbreed with the dumb non-locals from Texas, since it's only a few genes that have changed). Would that constitute a new species?

Re: Total Threadjacking meleah February 19 2007, 01:39:06 UTC

Nope. They can still interbreed to create fertile offspring. Still the same species.

Characteristics only matter to a species definition when its all you have eg: fossils. And then we're taking guesses at what is 'different enough' to represent a new species. Well. You can make statistical estimates based on related extant species differences if you can get close enough groups, but just how valid they are is questionable.

taavi February 19 2007, 01:34:43 UTC

Kool! My next Mage game plot!

delvene February 19 2007, 03:10:02 UTC

The ID "doco" that I recorded onto DVD for you a while ago was re-shown on SBS the other week. I had a good laugh at the Vatican releasing a statement approving (not really the word I'm after, but brain is busted) intelligent design. Pretty fast really when it took them until 1970-something to agree that the earth rotated around the sun and not the other way around.