Slashdot Mirror
Mutant Gene Responsible for Speech?
An anonymous submitter writes: "A new study published in Nature reports that humans developed speech and language 200,000 years ago as a result of gene mutation. Washington Post story with more background. The mutation in the FOXP2 gene allowed humans greater control over their mouth and throat muscles, and gave them the ability to produce new sounds. It was apparently such an advantageous mutation that it quickly swept through the human population (10,000 - 20,000 years) almost entirely wiping out earlier versions. This development seems to also match up closely with the time period humans began developing culture. Researchers next want to try altering the gene in mice to see what happens, although they suspect there are many other genes involved. So, how long until I can get a talking dog?"
Wow, I want a talking dog too!
::i visited slashdot and all i got was this lousy sig::
Now those "Would you eat me if I talked?" Greenpeace ads will actually be reality. Goodbye Big Mac :( - s200.org
Of cource people who could speak had an advance over people who did not.. so they Slaughtered them down..
:)
an we lived happily ever after
"If you keep an open mind people will throw a lot of garbage in it."
woohoo
How are you going to keep them down on the farm once they've seen Karl Hungus?
...A talking dog..." - Gecko
help fill in hidden movie endings @ End of the Credits
These new genes taught us the sounds 'ah', 'tee', 'see' and 'gee'.
My bet is that they will soon realize that speech underlying human culture is due to networks of thousands of genes and also due to advances in human culture and technology.
There can not possibly be a gene making a human out of a monkey.Googlefight "Slashdot Troll" against "BSD is dying" 303:229. BSD thus cant die.
...isn't evolution based on genes mutating? Why is this such a surprise?
They had a show on there about human evolution abouta month ago. The chick said that the reason humans can speak is because we can swim. Being ablt to hold our breath and control our breathing in gerneal allows us to controll the air over the vocal chords. She seems to believe that way back when we were semi-aquatic monkeys or something. Can't say I totaly disagree
Behold, the time has come for Dr Rat to lead the revolution.
(Dr Rat is a novel by William Kotzwinkle about a talking rat in a research lab. Well worth reading)
Tales from behind the Lagom Curtain
Does this now prove that evolution exsists? Last I heard, theres no solid proof. It could be very interesting for animals to communicate more. I don't think you'll get a talking dog out of it! Atleast, not for a good thousand years or so, if it happens quickly.
We're ALL X-Men?
"So, how long until I can get a talking dog?" Oh dear God, soon Scooby Doo clones will be sold in the petshops. Right next to the Dogberts and Huckleberry Hounds.
"Beware the squirrels"
Isn't that exactly evolution at work?
Aren't we all what we are because of a series of accidental gene mutations?
The mutation in the XP2 gene allowed humans greater control over their mouth and throat muscles, and gave them the ability to produce new sounds.
..After they signed the EULA
Parrots can make most of the sounds that humans can make ( and then some). Does that mean parrots can "speak" like humans, or develop a culture? I don't think the ability to make sounds has anything to do with culture.
I believe this article makes some wrong assumptions, such as that speech leads to language. In fact, we find that children born without the ability to speak and/or hear, when exposed to sign language, develop language skills in parellel and in the same stages and manner as people who speak. Language is clearly a skill seperate from speech.
Truth stranger than fiction?
Shouldn't be too tricky to apply this to a chimpanzee and before you know it! Charlton Heston to the rescue...
Similar research has isolated "Multi-variable Calculus" and "Printing Press" genes.
Wow, can't believe nobosy said they wanted a talking Penguin. Just image a talking parrot! Oh, wait...
"I used to have that really cool,funny sig
...when speech is about to be ruled a DRM circumvention device under the DCMA.
I mean....uh.....::grunt::::grunt:::
--an unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys--
Instead of the ancient ancestors hopping up and down looking at the slab, the slab will actually talk to them. "Go over there and pick up that bone. Very good. Now club that guy (you know, the one who called you a baboon) over the head with it. Very good. You see? Tools are useful."
And the monkey will respond, "Gee, wally, this is great! What else can I do with tools? I know, I'll make something round and call it a wheel! Won't this be fun!"
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
Mutation must be how porn stars can take down a 12 inch Kielbasa on Howard Stern. Do you think those researches doing the mice gene implant can take a porn star throat gene and place it in my wifes throat? :)
Actually, God invented man...speech and all. Mutant genes...now that's funny.
...now if they could only get rid of the gene responsible for the voices in my head... /foo
I knew it wasn't a cartoon, its actually the lab report after the genetic modification to enable them to speak.
Of course if you tried the same on Rabbits they'd only ever say one thing..... "grass".
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Well... the whole evolution is based on mutations. The mutations that are helpfull survive.
I hope this wasn't a surprise.
I'm not big into Macs, but those young sheep would have to hold pretty good conversation before it put me off eating them.
Anything that can help to understand how the forkhead genes work is worth exploring. FYI, they are genes coding for proteines that are supposed to regulate the expression of other genes during embryogenesis, so the value of studyning this mutation isn't only about language, imho.
And to give into the silliness of the first comments, a chimp with the ability to produce more sounds may be able to show rudimentary speech and would be a great test subject for animal "intelligence". And one day, maybe , we'll have those fabled eight-legged chicken...
However, some recent research has claimed that some of the great apes posess the rudiments of culture, in that genetically homogenous groups that are from different regions perform the same task (for instance gathering a particular type of food) in different ways. Another (artificial) example of a rudimentary "culture" was some monkeys (forget where) that were tempted into the water by food thrown into it, and subsequently learned to swim. In addition, they also grew to like the taste of the added salt from the water on their food, and started to take the food they gathered themselves and dip it in the salty water to flavour it - something not seen previously. They have continued to do so long after the original stimulus disappeared.
Now, I'm not claiming that this is anything remotely approaching the complexity of human cultures, but it is interesting nonetheless.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Goooood!
The geneticists U. N. Known and I. Maginary of the University of Nowhere have found a new gene, which appeared through a mutation in the 20th century, probably somewhere in USA.
As the scientists tell us, the gene has the following effects:
- affinity to penguins and gnus
- aversion against windows
- signs of paranoia
- a strong demand for news
- the impulse to comment everything
The gene is called "Slashdot gene", because carriers of that gene tend to gather on Slashdot. According to Maginary, it must be a very successful gene, given that it was able to spread that wide in such a short time frame.
There are rumors that Microsoft has hired geneticists to find a way of disabling that gene.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
They had better not give this to an ape! Or he'll start talking and become super intelligent and start rallying the Earth's apes under his super power and then take over human kind only to establish a new ape government onto of a nuclear wasted planet so that some astronaut sent up and forgotten can wake up on this new Earth and find the broken statue and fall to his knees a scream...
REBORN, Linux audio software is dead :(
From ReBorn's website:
It was fun while it lasted...
I have today been instructed by Propellerhead Software to remove ReBorn from my Website. The ReBorn user interface falls foul of the copyright inherent in the ReBirth product and is consequently an infringement of Propellerhead Software's rights.
Unfortunatley, this situation means I have had to reverse my position on releasing the ReBorn source code, which will now not be made publicly available. However, the effort in developing ReBorn will not go entirely to waste. I already have plans to integrate the core audio code into a new soft-synth application, with an all-new interface and 100% incompatibilty with all Propellerhead's products :-)
Thankyou to all those people who contacted me to say nice things about ReBorn. I ask all of you to respect Propellerhead Software's wishes (as I have) and not to distribute the program on other websites.
David J. Singer
The "aquatic ape" theory is not well supported by evidence and has few adherents. Most mammals can hold their breath and swim.
. ht ml
Cecil has a good summary:
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/maquaticape
I don't want a talking dog, how about something cuter like a talking bird?
N/T
Why would it NOT be desireable? Friggin' moronic sheeple.....
This post is protected under the DMTA (Digital Millemium Trolling Act). It is illegal to moderate it as a troll.
"emerges historically - it's a sociological product, not genetic".
I agree, try to teach a flock of Grey Jacko's (a great talking parrot), to say two or three worlds. 10-1 their offspring would be easier to teach the same words.
This gene:
/. headline is misleading. It is suspected that this mutation in the FOXP2 gene is responsible for language development and not necessarily speech. Some birds can "speak" but they do not have language abilities.
may have played a central role in the development of modern humans' ability to speak
could have given them a critical advantage
may at least partly explain why humans can speak and animals cannot
The
The confusing part to me is the fact that gorillas obviously have language ability, as seen in Koko, a gorilla that is able sign. So the mutation in this gene does not determine whether a species has the capacity for language or not, perhaps it only determines the proficiency in language.
The future isn't what it used to be.
Perhaps in a few dozen millenia the giant mutant african greys will run the planet...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It's trolls like this that make me proud to be a slashdot reader.
Keep on trollin'!
...and many do it better. Where are my muscles to close my nostrils/ears?
I wonder if you read the article?
:)
No halfway modern geneticist nowadays believes that there is a single gene responsible for more than the most simple of traits. And I had the impression that the Nature article linked from this story expresses that view quite clearly with statements like:
Finding one gene is like finding one part of a car. It looks useful, as though it's part of a larger mechanism. But we don't know what it does, what other parts it interacts with, or what the whole vehicle looks like. "It's an unbelievably complex system, and we've got one tiny glimpse," says Michael Tomasello, a psychologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.
A very nice explanation on the limited usefulness of trying to assign "the" function for a particular gene was proposed in the book The "Collapse of Chaos : Discovering Simplicity in a Complex World" by Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart, a molecular biologist and a mathematician, respectively.
In general, it is easy to remove one part from a network of interacting parts, and observe the mechanism breaking down. Naively, these parts are then called the "key regulators" of this or that phenomenon, be it speech or whatever. Only lengthy experiments will then reveal the whole underlying mechanism maybe.
The stance that you attribute to geneticists, that they expect simplistic, monogenetic solutions to complex problems is actually more caused by the press (not only laymen's journals, btw), which always go for a snappy headline without "maybe" or "can be a part of a complex mechanism".
just my 2 centimorgans
Perhaps they'll also be able to produce "how to program a VCR" gene?
we talk upright. Whales don't walk at all. Dogs don't walk upright, either. And we all know Dolphins communicate telpathicaly w/ the aliens anyway and don't need to speak ;)
Ever heard of a little movie called "the secret of nimh" ?
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
I just heard it, it will probably be available in the archives later today.
Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.
There is that ancient mystery puzzling the science world many things.
What happened to neathadrals? Somehow we Humans managed to overthrow those big creatures who ruled the mammals world and became their successors.
Could that be the explanation?
I have no idea of human history but just imagine what speech could have done to our ancestors...
The question now is who made that mutation happen? could that be the core reactor of the space ship that came from the stars?
nope.. it probably been the experiments...
It is so funny to see "scientific guessing" so readily stated as absolute fact. I think more scientist should study history and learn just how many times they have been wrong before stating absolute fact -- unless of course you still contend that the world is flat?
SL33ZE - Artificial Intelligence is No Match For Natural Stupidity -
Consider for a moment, a futuristic scenario where researchers were successful in accelerating the evolution of a species through genetic engineering. The result of this is an that is not only capable of speach, but can maintain a basic conversation. This would surely not be unreasonable, given that such an advance (can I call it that) would surely accelerate other 'learning' capabilities of the said animal. Care to consider the moral dilemas that this would introduce? Or to put it another way, how do you slaughter a pig for meat when it's looking back at you saying "Please don't kill me!".
It was apparently such an advantageous mutation that it quickly swept through the human population (10,000 - 20,000 years) almost entirely wiping out earlier versions
Realize that what we're saying here is that the individuals who had this mutation had a reproductive advantage over others. Since making new sounds doesn't increase the number of live births per "litter", this finding inevitably means that smooth-talking cavemen got all the girls.
Clearly, it must be that this mutation allowed the creation of the earliest dating technology: the pick up line.
Doubtless, such old pick up lines as "Hey, baby! Want to come back to my cave and see my bison paintings?" date back to this early period and have been passed down to us through the ages.
If a goddamned bird can speak, you better believe a mouse can. How about a border collie?
Hypothetically:
if:
big brain + prehensile digits + warm blood + speech = culture
and speech is the only thing missing, then, once you get speech you get culture.
Parrots have pretty good brains, they can be taught basic arithmetic, and they can pick things up with their claws. However, they can't easily manipulate objects to make tools and they've not been shown capable of higher-order thought. Parrots are great mimicers, but I haven't seen anything to make me believe they understand grammars and syntax. So, probably their brains aren't quite big enough. [big == surface area, not volume]
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Language problems run in the 'KE' family. Members of several generations speak "as if each sound is costing them their soul", one researcher has said.
... down here... ... ...Kahn! KaAaAaAaAhn! KaAAAAaaaaaaHn!
Is... that... you... ?
Hurray it's William Shatner's lost family! I'm so glad. Maybe now they can fix 'em up.
You... keep... missing the... target... If... you want... me... you'll have to... come...
Screw having a talking dog, I want a superintelligent, telepathic dog that can help me get chicks...
"No, no, no. Don't tug on that. You never know what it might be attached to."
Now those "Would you eat me if I talked?" Greenpeace ads will actually be reality. Goodbye Big Mac :( - s200.org
Best Deep Thought Ever:
"If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason." - Jack Handey
OddManIn: A Game of guns and game theory.
To quote the talking dog (which is ridiculous, because everybody knows dogs can't talk) Gaspode from Terry Pratchett's universe:
'Woof bloody woof'.
sig sig sputnik
Anyone else read Snowcrash? This is eerily similar to the explanation of the formation of language Neal Stephenson gives. A virus causes the genetic mutation, if i remember correctly.
Sometimes what we think is going to be an obvious answer ends up being something completely different.
Long ago people thought that it was obvious that if you swing a ball at the end of a rope then release it, it would continue on in a curve... but a quick study showed that it consistently flew off in a tangential line. Obviously by today's standards that isn't a breakthrough, but pre-Newtonian physics sure didn't get it.
...And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me." - Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984)
wtf is this N/T nonsense? this isnt k5!
what does it stand for anyways? no tail?
So, what will the future be like - Planet of the Apes (pre simian evolution, when they are all domestic slaves) or Uplift war (a la David Brin)?
How long before they try to put the human version of this gene in a chimp to test this out?
"Well it's not Victory - but then it's not Death either."
Carlos
To get a talking dog, is to marry one. Such technological incompetence!
Three race horses are standing around in the stable talking. The first horse says to the others, "I've been in 10 races and won 6 of them." The other two horses said, "That's pretty good." The second horse says, "Well, I've been in 15 races and won 11 of them." The other two horses were impressed and said, "That's really good!" Then the third horse says, "Well, I've been in 20 races and won 16 of them!" The other horses were very impressed and said, "Wow! That's great!"
A greyhound dog walks up and says, "I couldn't help overhearing you guys and just wanted you to know I've been in 26 races and won 21 of them." The horses all look at each other and said, "Holy crap! A talking dog!"
So, how long until I can get a talking dog?
I know that comment submitters like to put "cute" things at the end of the comment, but this one is just inane.
First of all, the gene just adds the ability to make extra sounds. You have to be able to process language in the brain before you can speak, listen, comprehend, and respond.
So the answer to How long? is "Much longer than you have to wait."
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
don't send anyone into space
Your mother implements multi-vendor protocols without synergy
Egads! The next thing you know, the mice will be doing sociological studies on man.
-- Knuckle Blood : Official Lube of Team Rusty Nuts.
It may be less advantageous for dogs to vocalize than you think. The basenji for example, while incredibly expressive, has suppressed the desire to bark like other dogs for over 6000 years. They can perform an amazing array of sounds, similar to a wolf, jackal, or heyena, but they rarely if ever will bark. Usually when they do let out their sad little bark, it is when they are sleeping soundly and dreaming. Yes, aminimals do dream. Just watch one "run", growl, and yelp in their sleep and you will und
Ability to speak didn't wipe out the rest of the humans, those who couldn't speak were just nagged to death ;-)
mnewberg.com
In fact speach isn't even required to have language and culture, as evidenced by the various deaf groups that have risen though out time.
Somthing else, much more important than the ability to make sounds, is required for human language.
...not gecko!
Animals are smarter than what people think. Humans are considerably more intelligent than the other animals but not exponentially. People automatically come to the conclusion that there is this tremendous gulf, an insurpassible distance between the intelligence of humans and the lower species. Is there really a way to test these assumptions in a accurate manner?
a Border Collie is very intelligent. Other animals are smart too. Given vocal chords, why shouldn't they be able to speak with us? Maybe it's just too uncomfortable to admit that you are only maybe 2 or 3 times smarter than your dog, rather than the 1000 times, you've always assumed.
I had a cat that would talk to himself. When he thought he was alone, he'd mutter to himself. No coherent words but it sure as hell sounded like information. And if you approached him when he was doing this and weren't careful, you'd surprise him, and he'd meow with the same stresses and intonations a person makes when they he says "You scared me!"
But the muttering was almost disturbing to hear. Often he'd do it when he was looking for someone in the house. He'd go from room to room, muttering to himself, sticking his head in each door to and do a questioning meow and then mutter unhappily if noone answered.
Hearing him do it was kind of like listening to someone talking in another room. You can hear what sounds like a voice but can't make out the words. Raise the hair on your neck to hear it.
Even the poster has a question mark after the title.
At least science tries to support their theories with evidence as opposed to religion which has long been an oppressive force against the search for the truth (e.g. Socrates, Galileo, etc.).
-- Scientist: You aren't going to leave me here, are you? Boagh! Thump...
Dr. Rat!! Thanks for reminding me about that excellent book. (read it over 20 years ago.)
Flowers for Algernon is another good example of a story involving genetic research/experimentation gone awry.
And then there was Ben...
'*snicker*I have no idea how that could have happened...*snicker*.'"
Trolls lurk everywhere. Mod them down.
I think more scientist should study history and learn just how many times they have been wrong before stating absolute fact -- unless of course you still contend that the world is flat?
Umm, scientists have known the world is round since at least the Greeks and probably long before that. The even knew the Earth's diameter to within 5%. The idea that scientists didn't know this until recently is laughable
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
So those who are mute can't communicate? Hasn't anyone thought of signing?! It's just as effective as speech, and you can be sure our anciestors did it before they could speak.
Which mutant gene is repsonisble for blogs?
Please somsone that REALLY knows something about this reply. Thanks - Matt
Yeah, and if one of those mice escapes, we either have the precursor to rats of NIMH or a real life Pinky and the Brain... wahoo for science!
** Curb Your Enthusiam **
I don't know about you guys, but a lot of the people I hear speaking now adays sound like a bunch of mutants, anyways.
*cough*georgebush*cough*
-- Bandit450...If-Else-Do-*TWITCH*!
If your assumption were true, it would be possible, with enough patience and care, to teach a chimp to talk and be just like us, so the chimp could go to school, get a job, and say, run slashdot. This is clearly not the case despite more and more findings that chimps have really advanced mental capabilities. Well Shit, wow, I guess, I should be giving less credit to Micheal, considering he is not a chimp, and is a part of the "human" (smart quote) race.....
In other news, researchers from the Bethesda Institute for Genetic Research report that chin dimples, which have done so much to endear stars such as Robert Mitchum to women, are also the result of a mutated gene.
>Evolution is a bunch of garbage. Umm then how would you explain it? If you say divine intervention... how do you explain dinosaurs? An old girlfriend once told me that Dinosaur bones were "planted"... She was later deemed legally insane by the court system...
1+2+1+1 || 1+2+2+1
Working on my car I always wonder why it just doesn't evolve itself to something better -- like a Lexus or something. IT surely can't be that hard since DNA is a much more complex mechanism....and yet here I am! Stupid cars! For that matter at least my watch should evolve itself into maybe a Rolex....
I don't know Davey, that doesn't sound like such a good idea.
Some men spend their entire lives trying to kill themselves for having been born. --Ross MacDonald
cool.... maybe we'll see some super intelligent rats that will wipe out mankind. yeah, I didn't read the article, so what!
Biolofical reductionism tries to explain living things with single causes. This has been mostly done with disease, but now they are trying to explain human behaviors. Too simple.
I *told* you.
It's not a bug, it's a feature!
Here's a good link.
If you get the money, can I PLEASE have half of it? I'm too poor for Outback... and that Microsoft subscription scheme too, while we're at it.
http://www.drdino.com/cse.asp?pg=250k
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.
Dog: Hi, Homer. Find your soulmate.
Homer: Hey, wait a minute! There's no such thing as a talking dog!
Dog: [barks]
Homer: Damn straight!
(thanks, SNPP)
wait a moment there.this is one gorilla we are talking about. for example, i was born in russia. if i was the only russian speaking person in the US, then i could teach some people some russian, but obviously not as good as myself. does this prove that russian is not retained through generations???
QED
BSD is for people who love UNIX. Linux is for those who hate Microsoft.
Except for the (completely unsupported) thesis that a mutated FOXP2 gene is in some very vague way important to the evolution of language, the assertion of these articles are absolute truisms.
Almost all genes must be mutations of what came before them (the exceptions being genes that crossed species barriers because of viruses or something and genes that are extra copies).
Obviously we talk a little better than monkeys, so a few genes must have mutated along the way...
Rocky J. Squirrel
By reading Genesis 11:1-9 from the Bible. [sarcasm]What wonderful new revalation will science come up with next!?[/sarcasm]
Herb Terrace's research with "Nim Chimpsky" in the 1970s blew away the "animals can sign" theories. Some people cling to this, but in general nobody claims that chimps can talk (with their hands).
There might be a link between semi-aquatic behaviour and the shortness of our hair. There is also a link between mental activity and fish. Animals like dolphin, whales, sea lion etc are more clever than the grass eating mammal like horse, goat.
How did these geneticists come up with their estimates for the time to replace the previous gene in the population, and when the replacement occurred?
It sounds to me like they completely pulled these numbers out of their hats, especially the estimate of the time it took this allele to replace the previously dominant one(s). How could they possibly know what this number would be?
They talk about this gene as if there are no other alleles other than those possessed by the non-talking family etc. Are there? This would help me believe (or not) their estimate of when the beneficial mutation occurred. But if there is only one very (completely) dominant form of this gene, how would they measure the age of it? How can these scientists realisticly weigh its genetic advantage? The family in England with the mutant copy; do they have the same version of this gene that is possessed by chimps? (This is the unlikely case, and the interesting one. The chimp version may have been the previously dominant version.) Or do they just have some random, harmful mutation of it? (This is the likely case, and less interesting in gauging the importance of this gene.)
Details, I want details.
Now, if only they could remove that gene from a smoking hot woman, make her infertile, give her a tapeworm, and clone me a couple of her, life would be grand.
so you are saying a "mutant" gene evolved the human species. No shit, any new gene is a mutation.
This is all just part of the Mice's experiments on us... They wanted the cavemen to be able to tell them the answer, not just grunt it or spell it out on the scrabble board!
"Information wants to be paid"
The word "culture" doesn't just mean human-type culture; it refers to any passing of information from one generation to the next by behavioral means.
Behavioralists have written a fair amount about parrot "culture". Parrots are generally adapted to exploiting a food source that is difficult to exploit. Parrots mostly eat seeds (and sometimes the fruit around them), so to a tree they are predators, and in areas with parrots, trees tend to protect their seeds. Part of the protectin is hard shells, but part is by hiding them so that parrots can't easily find them.
Part of the explanation of how parrots survive is that they learn to find seeds from the flock's elders. A flock member will remember that at this time of year, over on the east side of that hill, there are these trees that have good seeds about half-way up and 2/3 of the way out from the trunk. That parrot will lead the others there, and they'll learn about the seeds, and remember.
This is the conventional explanation of their intelligence, memory and longevity. These are needed to remember how to find all those hidden seeds from year to year.
We have a female cockatiel that we got from a friend with a breeding pair about 5 years ago. She's generally a skittish bird who is very wary of strangers. He moved away about 3 years ago. When he was in town a few months ago, he came by for a visit. After a few seconds of looking at him skeptically, she flew over, landed on his shoulder and nibbled his ear. This illustrates the memory abilities of even a small parrot.
Anyone who has had a pet parrot knows quite well how effective a "three-fingered hand" their beak and tongue are. If they had managed to spare a few brain cells for more complex language, they would now be the ones running the planet.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
I've often wondered, with this research and an earlier article about scientists creating mice with larger, crenellated brains. If we created a race of intelligent, articulate mice, could we ethically keep them as pets? Wouldn't they be entitled to rights, like self determination?
How could it be acceptable to kill them for research, or hold them against their wills?
I wonder how long it will be beforea a tlaking dog can have you?
I would think that our species holding onto this planet it pretty tenuous currently, and I think introducing competition is not the smartest of ideas. I think this applies double to something like a mouse. Mice are hard to kill off, they breed insanely fast, they eat the same food as us, and they carry disease. If you're gonna mess with this stuff, do it on something big and slow, like an elephant or a woman from Massachusettes.
Carpe Deez
And once they re-engineer us to talk out of other holes we'll have all sorts of advancements in culture! I wish the telepathy mutation had kicked in instead.
Why is a mouse that spins?
Talking dog: "Homer, find your soul mate!"
Homer: "Wait, there's no such thing as a talking dog!"
Talking dog: "Arf arf!"
Homer: "Damn straight!"
It's even possible that complete languages existed before humans were able to speak. American Sign Language is an example of a language with its own complete, unique grammar and morphology, which does not make use of speech. (See Pinker's book again.) Its existence supports the hypothesis that the parts of the brain responsible for language can operate independently of the parts that co-ordinate speech. In summary, there is a lot more to language than co-ordinating the muscles of the mouth and throat.
Man walks into a bar with his dog, and says "Ill bet anyone 100 bucks that I can make my dog talk."
Bartender looks up and says, "Ill take that bet"
Man says to dog, "What goes on top of a house"
dog says, "ROOF!"
Bartender says, "Hey, wait a minute, he didnt talk!"
so man says, "Okay smart guy watch this...". He turns to the dog and says "Who was the greatest baseball player ever?"
dog says, "RUFF!"
Bartender picks the man and dog up and throws them both out into the street.
The dog looks at the man and says, "Maby I should have said Dimaggio?"
-- 4 8 15 16 23 42
I am wondering how long after speech was developed that women evolved a nagging gene.
I think we can probably pinpoint this event to when men started living much shorter lives than their female counterparts.
ROTFL! That reminds me of the unfrozen caveman lawyer from Saturday Night Live.
Read "The Blind Watchmaker" By Richard Dawkins, if you still don't understand how evolution could possibly have happened. I'd like to see Dr. Hovind's scientific evidence that there even IS a God. Is it not hypocritical to believe in one theory that has no evidence while calling another theory that is backed up by fossil records, Darwin's actual experiments, other notable scientific experiments and countless other pieces of evidence?
It's not like I did the research, it was much more involved than what I explained I'm sure. Plus I'm sure they didn't consider it to be entirely conclusive.
Personally, I find it interesting that the other gorillas picked up the language at all.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
"sit booboo sit" BOOBOO: "ruck ru, im out!"
Reminds me of a joke:
A boy was crossing a road one day when a frog called out to him and said, "If you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess".
He bent over, picked up the frog and put it in his pocket.
The frog spoke up again and said, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess, I will stay with you for one week."
The boy took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it and returned it to the pocket.
The frog then cried out, "If you kiss me an turn me back into a princess, I'll stay with you and do ANYTHING you want."
Again, the boy took the frog out, smiled at it and put it back into his pocket.
Finally, the frog asked, "What is the matter? I've told you I'm a beautiful princess, that I'll stay with you for a week and do anything that you want. Why won't you kiss me?"
The boy said, "Look, I'm an engineer. I don't have time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog is cool."
I always suspected they were freaks
Well I have a fact or two to report after reading a book about the history of languages (a pretty good book).
The ability for humans to talk comes from our larynx dropping down allowing greater control of the vocal chords. Before that happened all we could do was grunt to communicate the most primitve of signals to each other. Since we lived in a (extremely primitive) tribal society (like an native american tribe but muchhhh less advanced) the more we could communicate the better our odds of survival. For instance, it's very hard to say "ill sneak up behind the lion while you distract it" by using only grunts (obviously it was the ancient form of the lamer that got to do the distracting... the ancient geek was already trying to destroy the enemy). Of course, this was all accomplished through evolution. It took a very long time to develop the human vocal chords that way. And it made them more open to harm. Thus, dog's can bark for hours on end but humans would get a sore throat. Personally, I think it's a good trade off because I'm almost positive that dog's dont have several hundred words to describe breasts. Fin.
...WHAT money? And for the record..why do you keep bashing Microsoft (besides the fact that they're Microsoft)? Like it or not, they ARE profitable, the internal auditors of say WorldCom are who you should be directing your anger at. So please, when you're arguing a point that carries divine consequence: MAKE SENSE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!
--- What
"greater control" of the muscles etc. that enable speech did not make language magically appear.
bC
We don't need muscles to close our nose or ears.
- Water just rolls out of our ears on its own.
- We actually do have muscles that allow us to close our nostrils, they just aren't used that much in every day life.
- Noses are angled in such a way that as long as we stay upright in water we can keep the water out.
I used to do a lot of swimming. I never wore ear or nose plugs and never had a problem with water seaping in.
mutant genes are responsible for everything - it's what genes do.
sic transit gloria mundi
I thought that was called evolution.
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
Koko can already talk. She was taught sign language, and has a vocabulary of over 1000 signs, and can understand over 2000 spoken engligh words. Which is far more than many posters on slashdot.
I dont know if you got the pun when you were writing this, but isnt "Beowulf" also the one of the first books ever found?
keanmarine.com
Haha, lost my train of thought there, last sentence is supposed to say "Is it not hypocritical to believe in one theory that has no evidence while calling another theory that is backed up by fossil records, Darwin's actual experiments, other notable scientific experiments and countless other pieces of evidence unbelievable?
In 1 AD, there were about 150 million humans worldwide (Source), and according to Columbia University there were ~6B people in 1995 (a growth factor or 40).
As best as I can figure, that means we are 40 times more likely NOW that someone on the planet will develop a significant new gene mutation than we were at the birth of Christ (give or take 15 years, but that's another story entirely). I wonder what the factor is if we had an idea of the population in 198,000 B.C. I couldn't find a source.
At any rate, I guess my point, or question, is this; Given that it's 40 times more likely that someone will have experienced a significant gene mutation today than in 1 A.D., and the factor probably goes up a tremendous amount given the population difference between 198,000 B.C. and the birth of Christ, isn't it possible (maybe even likely) that just ONE of the people in this world who claim Extra Sensory Abilities might actually be telling the truth?
Now OTOH (On The Other Hand), it's also JUST as likely that some mutation will come along which will wipe out these beneficial mutations, but those mutations won't spread like beneficial ones.
This also leads me to a question: How did the first person with the ability to speak spread the gene? It's not like they had anyone to TALK to. I'm guessing the first person to speak was a man. Here's why:
Man Speaks First:
Man: "Hey baby, you want to come back to my cave and check out my wall paintings?"
Woman: "Grunt"
(Man and Woman go back to cave, presumably check out wall paintings, have children...)
Woman Speaks First:
Man: "Grunt"
Woman: "Buzz off, loser. You don't have a fast enough rock." (Man goes off and kills deer)
Just my humble opinion.
The Dopester
"Yes, I'm a Karma Whore, but I'm doing it to pay my way through school."
no msg
Sig:
Navy nuke sub lifestyle?
((Scene: mid 1800's, ranch territory...)) A cowboy is making his way through ranch land when he meets a native American Rancher on horseback. "Can I talk to your horse?" the cowboy says. "Horse no talk," says the N.A.R. "Do you mind if I try?" the cowboy asks. "Go ahead," says the N.A.R. So the cowboy walks up to the horse and says, "How is this guy treating you?" To the N.A.R.'s surprise, the horse speaks! "Not too bad, he feeds me good. He whips me once in a while, though, and THAT I don't like." The NAR can't believe what he is seeing. He and the cowboy continue back towards the ranch when the NAR's dog runs out to greet them. "Mind if I talk to your dog?" the cowboy asks. "Dog no talk!" exclaims the NAR. "Mind if I try?" the cowboy asks. "Go ahead," says the N.A.R. So the cowboy walks up to the dog and says, "How is this guy treating you?" To the N.A.R.'s surprise, the dog speaks! "Not too bad, he feeds me good. He whips me once in a while, though, and THAT I don't like." So the NAR and the cowboy continue toward the barn and the corral when the cowboy sees that the NAR also has a few sheep on the ranch. The cowboy says, "Mind if I talk to your sheep?" To which the NAR replies, "SHEEP LIE!!!!!"
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
is it possible to not have another genetics related story posted? ever? no? well then just mod this as flamebait, I guess...
sic transit gloria mundi
Researchers are very close to synthetically mutating genes to reverse this mutation in women. Half of earths population has stepped up to fund them.
I thought that basically gene mutation was responsible for basically everything about us. Did I miss something?
Oh boy, Kent Hovind's alleged prize for proof of evolution. Needless to say, finding evidence of evolution that is convincing enough for this nutcase would be next to impossible. You'd pretty much have to invent a time machine and carry him back millions of years, and then you'd have to convince him your time machine wasn't an elaborate hoax.
On the flip side, some other shmoe could offer a huge prize for "proof" that God created the world in seven days about 6,000 years ago. The prize would be just as unclaimed as Hovind's. Would that make you doubt the Bible? Of course, such a prize is not out there, because real scientists don't attempt to prove their theories by saying "nyah nyah, you can't prove yours."
Here's a link for you: The Wild, Wild World of Kent Hovind.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
As the owner of two dogs, I don't think I'd want a talking one. Whatever would they say? My border collie would say "Want to play frisbee?" repeatedly twenty hours a day. And my cocker spaniel would spend all his time trying to convince people he's just as tough as a big dog. Gourmet meals from out of the trash and sniffing crotches would probably also become popular conversation topics.
Oh, and by the way, it's spelled "ridiculous" as in "deserving of ridicule".
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
Like it or not, they ARE profitable
Then why hasn't Microsoft paid out dividends to its shareholders in its entire corporate existence? I'd imagine, 21 years after MS-DOS was shipped to IBM, that I'd see something. No, Microsoft had to go and blow its earnings on fulfilling stock options.
Will I retire or break 10K?
In fact, it's going to be the next gene to sweep the globe, and when it does, it's going to be you non-autistic people who are going to be said to lack "key social skills"
And I wished like Hell my co-workers had this instead of whatever gene it is they have now. Looks like code, works like cow pies. Never tested, and less than half the functionality.
Send me the talking dog and I'll teach him to code.
I can't believe that anyone would believe this crap. When was the last time you saw a mutation that was positive? The answer is never.
This proves that people are a bunch of mutants.
Judging from some people's speaking abilities I'd say the process of developing speech is still in flux.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
He chose me as his prophet and told me that all you cranks are sick and perverted and have no concept of what God really is and wants.
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
This article is fascinating, no doubt. But the Slashdot headline had me confused for a second, because EVERY evolutionary advantage (in fact every property a living thing can have) has been created by a mere mutation. So I was wandering how this is news. What had me fascinated most about the article is the timeframe - 20.000 years! This is really a short time, not so long ago evolutionary speaking. I think it's interesting to know that the human race is in fact that young, which means we're merely at the beginning!
Shut up, ass-fucking troll.
"I don't know, Davey..." Davey and Goliath
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Why do scientists have to have a reason for everything. They have to stop extrapolating they're data, and just take a look around them.
Jonahweb.com has stuff.
The fossil record before the past million years or so (when homo sapiens sapiens became prominant) has a great deal of gaps in it. Overall these gaps are not HUGE, but they do account for many changes in phenotype.
This speech discovery shows how an advantageous mutation can quickly transform a species, both advancing it, and also erasing those that failed to evolve with it.
This provides a decent analogy to how primates (Great apes specifically) were able to evolve into autralopithecus and other early hominids so dramatically.
I have a feeling that as we dissect and analyze the human genome more (as well as the genomes of animals) we will discover many more evolutionary links that explain in much more detail how we evolved.
I can imagine what CmdrTaco's dog would say:
... the Cat did it!
You're Late!
I'm Hungry
Why don't we go out anymore?
It wasn't me
What does "Neuter" mean?
I think so.
if (insert an animal you eat here)s could talk, albeit very very very limited, it might make some people realize that (insert an animal you eat here)s are sentient beings and should not be consumed merely to pleasure their tongues.
maybe green peace activists will resequence (insert animal that is being exploited here)s dna to talk etc. as an act of... activism... could happen? maybe?
-judging another only defines yourself
Judging by the spelling, do you suppose CmdrTaco still has the old gene?
Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Languageby Robin Dunbar
First of all, in primate society grooming is very important (establishing and maintaining bonds, blah, blah). Dunbar posits that pre-language vocalization was a way to "groom" more individuals at once and to do so at a distance. He pits this theory against other familiar explanations. Namely the "there's-food-down-by-the-water" theory and the "oh-shit-a-bear" theory. After some field research he has determined that the bulk of linguistic interaction is inconsequential chit-chat. This need to maintain a relationship with BS conversation holds true today - think about it. Anybody have a wife/girlfriend. How often do you send an e-mail or give someone call just to say "hi". You're not really exchanging valuable information. You're making an effort to keep whatever connection is there alive.
If you have any interest in the matter, I recommend that you read this book. My explanation doesn't do the author justice. I highly recommend this book to anyone. The style of writing is a pleasantly academic, but still accessible to the uninitiated.
A publicly traded company exists solely to make profits for shareholders.
The mutation added extra control over our vocal chords. So maybe the evolutionary advantage was singing? No words or language required.
:-)
Romantic crooners probably had an advantage in finding mates over their less-musically-endowed competitors...
...Is more like it.
Typical evolutionist article that focuses in only on part of the facts. Language is not caused by one simple gene that accidentally 'mutated': as Noam Chomsky pointed out many years ago, it is wired throughout our brain structure (the famous 'black box'). Besides, all theoretical linguists know that languages over time gradually reduce in complexity: some of the most complicated and sophisticated languages are spoken by the most 'primitive' tribes. That well-known scientific fact doesn't seem to cope well with the evolutionist stance of ever-increasing complexity.
If we're so damn sure about evolution and it's truly fact and not theory, where's the proof? More importantly, where's the evidence that disproves creationism? This is definitely news to me.
Oh, and one point I'd really like to hear you touch on is how the moon and its expanding orbit of the earth fits in with evolution. I see that is a serious problem myself. What about you?
"Get your damn dirty mice hands off of me"
Evolutionists conveniently ignore any evidence that could support biblical fact, as well as any "holes" it their theory. They make it seem as if it is scientific fact while the theory actually has facts contrary to it. The Bible, while some may disagree, has never been proven wrong. Even though throughout history, people have tried everything to disprove it, it has overcome.
If Evolution is possible, then where are the fossils from all of the missing links between evolutionary stages? That would be proof. Where is it? Am I to believe that every evolutionary stage between Entity A and Entity B died without leaving a single fossil? And if macro-evolution is possible, then why isn't each Entity on the face of our super-ancient planet it its own stage of evolution. Isn't it an amazing coincidence that all of humanity is on the same level of evolution? Shouldn't at least some of us be a few millennia behind others? And primitive cultures don't apply, I am talking physical, not social development.
As you can plainly see, I don't believe in the evolutionary "work-around". I think that the theory exists simply because many of us need to find a way to disprove the Bible, so that they can sleep soundly at night thinking that they will not have to answer for their actions to some supreme being.
As for the dinosaur bones, they weren't planted to confuse mankind. That is not God's way. Besides, that would border on the dishonest, and God cannot lie. And since (if you take into account Biblical and secular histories) the earth is somewhere in the vicinity of 8 to 10 thousand years old, evolution and guided evolution doesn't work. Also there would not have been millions of years for dinosaurs to exist before man. So various day-age theories about the 7 days of creation don't fit. So what's left? Dinosaurs had to have co-existed with man. In the book of Job, two creatures are described that perfectly fit with a land-based dinosaur and a dragon-like, fire-breathing, sea monster (dinosaur). Plus, there are ancient drawings in caves in the Grand Canyon that depicts men and dinosaur-like beings together. As far as I know, these races of people did not draw things that they did not see. Where did they all go? Our scientists and archaeologists have claimed that only a global disaster could have wiped out so many of these creatures. Gee, isn't the great flood a global disaster?
Anyway, I could go on for hours, but since by now, most of you are flaming mad or getting bored with this post, I will stop. If you are interested in trying to find out more about any of this, then check out this site. Dr. Bert Thompson is a brilliant man who has devoted most of his life to the study of scientific "fact" versus Biblical "fact".
>If I have to carve the definitions of law,
:-)
>fact, hypothesis, and theory backwards on
>one more 2x4 and beat one more ignorant
>putz who was asleep in science 101 about
>the head and shoulders with it, I'm
>switching to PT 4x4s for durability.
Why carve the definitions backwards? That way won't they leave an imprint on the putz's forehead the right way around? An imprint which will then appear backwards to the putz when they look in the mirror?
Carve them the right way around! Educate the putz!
Or are you trying to educate the putz's friends?
William S Burroughs speculated on this possibility at great length in his writings. It certainly seemed plausible when he discussed it and it's good to see some science help to clarify the idea.
Perhaps science will assist in backing up my supposition that psilocybin mushrooms were responsible for the creation of a human ability to be aware of our own consciousness. Combined with this Word virus it paints a picture of some pretty radical transformations leading to everything we now hold dear.
: Some members of our society would do well to be cured of this ancient virus. (I'm thinking of politicians)
So, how long until I can get a talking dog?
I don't knooow, Daaavey...
"So, how long until I can get a talking dog?"
He probably wouldn't have to much to say except to walk around your apartment shouting "I like to lick my ass!" Your dates and neighbors would just love that I bet.
Just for the record, I didn't send the previous profain message. That wasn't me.
-word
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.
Evolved speech is one thing but how about music? Here is a few little questions for the evolutionary crowd.
What is it about appreciating music that is evolutionary important? Does loving music make one more fit for survival? If not, where are the music-insensitive humanoid species? Why were they wiped out if they ever existed? Was it war? Di the music lovers kill off the others? Is there something about a mutated music-loving gene that makes some of us violent and want to kill off non-music lovers?
On a related note, I read somewhere that it would be impossible to write out the number googol because their aren't enough atoms in the universe (here). Uhuh. As if some crazy scientists started counting the atoms and figured out how many their were...
Scientists have been trying for over a thousand years to unravel the "mysteries" of life and the universe, and haven't really gotten anywhere. Sure, they have all this knowledge about genes and DNA, but what has that really proven, besides what we are made of. Science is almost always contradicting itself, to the point where people hardly pay attention to scientific discoveries anymore because, more likely than not, within a few years a new discovery will be made that says the previous one was wrong.
On the other hand, the Bible explains pretty much everything. People don't want to believe it, though, because to believe it would also mean you would have to follow its teachings, and people don't want to give up sin. What's easier to believe, though, that a divine being created the universe according to a plan, and that's why there is order, or that everything just happened by chance and accident, and we are only here because of luck. Personally, I don't believe accident would create something as complex as the universe or human beings.
I'm curious how the ability to produce more types of sounds confers a 'significant evolutionary advantage.'
Its not like it make a man run really fast, or have super strength its... whistling. Look as man takes over the world with his amazing whistling powers!
Best thought is that perhaps they were already starting to organize into tribal-type groups and that this development allowed better communication. Which would mean that, yes, this gene played an essential role in starting culture.
Anyways I think that part of the article is a bit lacking. Anyone read the actualy online publication?
I think that the theory exists simply because many of us need to find a way to disprove the Bible, so that they can sleep soundly at night thinking that they will not have to answer for their actions to some supreme being.
I have no problem answering for my actions, and I stilll don't believe in god.
I think religion exists because some people need a sense of belonging, a sense of purpose and a sense that one day the wicked will be punished because they can't handle the fact that life isn't fair.
To me, Christianity is no different than Greek, Roman or Egyptian mythology - neat stories, but nothing more.
I will proceed to write out the number google:
100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000
There.
Now, if I tried to do it in binary I might have trouble.
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
I can just see it now super intelligent talking whales, mice, etc bent on fulfilling some mad environmentalist's dream of wiping humanity off the earth. This is basically the plot of Blue Submarine No 6, an anime movie.
Yes you can go on for hours, thankfully you aren't. The Bible is nothing more than stories handed down. There are many items in the Bible that can be disproven, and have been disproven but the general society simply doesn't want to hear it. IE: Christmas. the churchs follow the general thought that Jesus was born on Dec 25. He wasn't. There is plenty of evidience that he was in fact born in the Spring time. Around 320AD the Roman Catholic church set that date to compete with the Pagans who were celebrating the Winter Solstice, and to lure them away and show them "the path". In fact most major religions can be debated over 1 thought: Free will. All major religions believe that 'God' is in control and our futures are already set. If our future is already set, then we have no free will. Open your mind, and think for yourself...
So those who could sweet talk their mates or talk themselves out of a fight were the ones who lived longer, eh?
Trolls lurk everywhere. Mod them down.
That's a nice start, Billy, but you forgot the most important part of being a successful slashdot troll--don't go over the top. You're trying so hard to push the collective buttons around here that you hurt your fingers.
The webpage link you sent seems to do a lot of bashing concerning Hovind's credentials. However, his credentials mean absolutely nothing. Do you happen to remember Darwin's backround?! Attacking someone's credentials just shows that you can't argue against their viewpoints, so you try to make them look bad by attacking them as a person.
Also, like one previous person said...beneficial mutations are just a theory on top of a theory. And you call this science? And how bout the origin of time, space, and matter? (E = mc^2) And the origin of life? It seems this "scientific" theory is based on faith just as much if not more than any other religion.
Heck, why not a talking horse? Wouldn't it just be so perfect to have to stop thinking of the old Mr. Ed show as a comedy and to start thinking of it as prophetic science fiction?
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
This one even happens to be funny and makes a good statement.
Did anyone else read "Mrs. Frisbee and the Rats of NIMH?" (later translated into the cartoon movie "The secret of NIMH") ;)
Reality has been mimicing sci-fi/fantasy for ages now - maybe this is just another step.
Prolly not, buy what does it hurt to dream?
After all - yesterday we had the man with 'bionic' eyes
"Who am I" and "Why are we here" are not the problems.
The problem is when someone asks "Why are they here."
If Evolution is possible, then where are the fossils from all of the missing links between evolutionary stages? That would be proof. Where is it? Am I to believe that every evolutionary stage between Entity A and Entity B died without leaving a single fossil? And if macro-evolution is possible, then why isn?t each Entity on the face of our super-ancient planet it its own stage of evolution. Isn?t it an amazing coincidence that all of humanity is on the same level of evolution? Shouldn?t at least some of us be a few millennia behind others? And primitive cultures don?t apply, I am talking physical, not social development.
Archaeopteryx is a bird with teeth and a lizard-like tail. That sounds like an intermediate between evolutionary stages to me. Also, a very small percentage of animals are fossilized, and a smaller percentage of that have been discovered so far. Intermediate stages are rarer still, considering Gould's punctuated equalibrium. So it isn't unusual that we don't have a complete record of every developmental stage of an animals evolutionary development.
As for humans being at different stages of evolution, until recently, (30,000 years ago) that was the case. But humans at our stage killed or out-competed the rest. Because that's the way evolution works. Survival of the fitest.
I'm not sure what you meant about each Entity being at its own stage of evolution. Evolution isn't like a pre-planned route with certain pre-planned stages to reach the "top stage" or anything like that. Essentially the rule is "Whatever survives survives." Simple as that. You need a population of a certain size with genes similar enough so that they can reproduce with each other. Scientist call them "species".
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
If they'd change the gene structure of mice, where's the protests for them, we're mutating them after all. If so many people are against mutating humans, why not protest for the little guys, sure they're not as advanced, but they're sentient
You forgot to mention those of us who are rolling around on the ground laughing at your idiotic, superstitious, hyporcritical ass. I'd suspect that actually makes up the majority.
Of course this gene spread like wildfire through the human species.
What would you respond better to? "Ung o-o, urggh, blarg, gooAh?" or "Hey sexy, whats a fine thing like you doing in a swamp like this?"
How can you not be familiar with this problem?
;)
The evolution of the lunar semimajor axis presents the well-known time scale problem; the lunar orbit collapses only a little over a billion years ago.
Jihad Touma and Jack Wisdom, "Evolution of the Earth-Moon System," The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 108, No. 5, November 1994, p. 1954.
We are presented with an unresolved mystery. All theories of lunar formation require that formation take place in the equator plane, yet models of tidal evolution do not place the Moon there.
Touma and Wisdom, p. 1955.
etc etc etc, Google is your friend.
I'm waiting for someone to patent the gene.
The royalties would be enormous and we could get everyone to shut up.
(* Since making new sounds doesn't increase the number of live births per "litter", this finding inevitably means that smooth-talking cavemen got all the girls. *)
But it takes a listener also. If you make up new words, it does not matter unless the other person understands. IOW, it takes two to tango.
Like another poster said, perhaps it was singing that made the big difference. Or, perhaps that person had more ability to "sound sexy" regardless of communication.
Hey, when did the Geek Gene appear and why did it spread? Obviously not during a dot-com-like bust.
Table-ized A.I.
What evidence that the Bible is correct? that the authors actually used cities that existed to stage their fables? That there was a city called Jerusalem 3000 years ago? WOW! How could I ever doubt based on that huge pile of evidence!
You completely misunderstand natural selection. Each living thing is not its own "species" because its differences from every other member of its type are small enough to allow it to interbreed, and most mutations are not significant enough to create a massive selective advantage between the have and have not's. About the humans at different levels of "evolution" same deal, however notice that there are differences between many groups of people, or are you going to argue that people all look exactly alike, or perhaps that negroids and mongoloids aren't people?
People don't draw things that they don't see? What rock have YOU been living under?
--
At least she had good taste.
The cost of drug research is gonna skyrocket:
Rat to intern: "Pssst. I'll do cute circus tricks for your girlfriend if you let me out of this maze."
Table-ized A.I.
What do you call fossils such as Neanderthal, Homo-habilis, homo-erectus, even Lucy? These are quite obviously the "missing" links that you quite explicitly state do not exist.
Isn't it an amazing coincidence that all of humanity is on the same level of evolution? Shouldn't at least some of us be a few millennia behind others? And primitive cultures don't apply, I am talking physical, not social development.
Why would you think that all cultures arise independantly? Isn't it most logical (and also biblical) that man spread across the planet? BUT, since you bring it up, why not take "primitive" peoples into account. Take the pygmy's or the fact that different cultures have different average heights (compare Norwegians and Mexicans, for instance)
I can't prove that you don't have a high IQ, but that doesn't mean you have one.
This comment is guaranteed*
*not guaranteed
First speaking human: "Where you from ?"
Non-speaking human: "Uh ?"
First speaking human "Uh 'ain't no country I ever heard of"
Lets make an Earth clan
heh sorry i meant to say googolplex (10^googol) not googol. now try typing it :)
TV must have been boring before that mutation.
Ricky: "Lucy!"
Lucy: "Whah?"
Ricky: "Booboo!"
Lucy: "Where booboo?"
Ricky: "There booboo!"
Lucy: "I see *no* booboo"
Ricky: "Move head to there"
Lucy: "Okay, I look for booboo there"
[Bonk!]
Lucy: "Zzzzzzzzzz"
Ricky: "There! Bad Lucy make booboo, lucy now sleep."
Table-ized A.I.
After what creature are Canary Islands named?
Uhuh. As if some crazy scientists started counting the atoms and figured out how many their were...
Scientists know how many atoms there are roughly by using estimation. PS Obotics you still owe me a dollar for that source code...... :
Are you sure you'd want to hear what dogs would have to say if they could talk?
I for one, am looking forward to the day we give cats opposable thumbs. Just think of the havoc they could wreak!
Nathan's blog
If you have ever bothered to actually read the Bible, then you would know that "Christmas" is never mentioned. Christmas is something that most Christians have adopted as a holiday over several generations. Jesus was not born on Dec 25? You are right. I never have claimed that he was. I have no doubt that many Christians think that he was, sadly because people don't take the time to understand what they claim to "believe". I also don't celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday. Yes I sing the songs, and all that, but not in celebration of the Birth of Jesus. Christmas is a time to be with family and friends, and buy lots and lots of stuff. :)
Now a note on Free will. I believe 100% in free will. We are "free moral agents" who chose our own path. That is the purpose of life. I do not hold to the Calvinistic view that we are predestined to either be in heaven or hell. This is determined by 2 things: the grace of God, and our actions. Grace alone cannot get us there. And we cannot "earn" our way by just our actions. You are incorrect when you say that "All" major religions believe in predestination. They do not. Many do, but not all. God, being omnipotent, knows our futures, but he doesn't determine them.
The Bible is not just a bunch of stories handed down. People say that who haven't read and do not believe the Bible. That makes sense. By your comment on Christmas, I know that you have not read the Bible, or if you have, you didn't pay much attention to its content. If you wish to tell me of a case where the Bible has been proven wrong, go ahead, and I will comment on that. But Christmas, not being in the Bible at all, is not proof of a fallicy.
I think for myself all the time, thank you. And I do have an open mind. Unlike many others, I do not believe just what my parents told me or my preacher told me. I believe what I have studied and found to be true. My mind is open. Yours is not.
This exact same thing applies to evolutionary concepts. Some scientists finds a bone, uses carbon dating, and then magically reports that this was an ape-man whoe evolved from a lizard-cat and began using iron tools to grind gecko meat. Bleh!
Hmmm, genetic mutation allows man to develop speech. Isn't that the way evolution works in general?
My guess is that it would be related to the development of prefrontal cortex...RAM...unhardwired space where the base symbolic connections that are the foundation of language can swim around until they are in the right configuration...
Even if there are holes in macro-evolution, you can't ignore micro-evolution. That has been clearly documented. I will give you two popular examples right now: the finches on the Galopagos (sp) Islands, and those moths in England that were primarily white and became primarily black. Microevolution is very stong evidence for the possibility of macroevolution. Now I believe in God, but the bible does not say how old the Earth is. And don't you find it interesting that in Genesis, the Bible describes the Earth being created exactly the same way that scientists believe it to have been created? First the heavens and the earth. Then the water and the land. Then the sea animals. Then the land animals. Then the sky animals. Then man. There are also connotations that cannot be understood by us today. Perhaps the word for "day" actually was understood as "period of time" or "eon" or something like that. Who's to say that God didn't use evolution? While it is true that evolution is a theory, your views are also theory. This means that neither one can be proven, and for all anyone knows both could be wrong.
A historical note on Christmas is that it was originally the holiday Saturnalia celebrated in Rome. Then Constantine made the official religion to be Christianity, and remade all of the pagan holidays into Christian ones. Jesus would not have been born in the winter, due to the fact the Bible states that there were shepherds out. Easter is also named after a pagan god. Something else you may find interesting is that the Wise Men did not visit Jesus in the manger as is popular belief, but actually when he was about 2 or 3.
This fact is made even funnier by the fact that the guy doesn't even seem to know what evolution is. After reading his "contest", it is obvious that he is using "evolution" as a blanket-word for any "major" theories (evolution, Big Bang, or whatever other scientific theory of the creation of our universe you may aspire to) that contradict his beliefs (like many other uninformed people do). So the question begs: What did this crackpot get a doctorate in? Iridology?
Actually, I'm betting that the ability to sing (not talent mind you) fueled the spread of the gene. It would go a long way in explaining the popularity of groups like the Backstreet Boys now wouldn't it?
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
Assuming this discovery of gene mutation is valid, anyone heard of any other cases of "macro-evolution"?
Christians Conveniently ignore any evidence that could refute biblical mythology, as well as any contradictions and ridiculous claims in their bible.
As you can see your rhetoric is meaningless and can be easily turned against you.
Creationists, are constantly trying to depict scientists as closed minded and narrowly set in their ways. That may be true of some individual scientists, but not of the scientific community as a whole. Einstein's Theory of Relativity turned Centuries worth of Newtonian physics on it's head, but scientists accepted it, because the arguments were sound and could be proven thoroughly.
If you (or anyone else) could similarly offer significant evidence against evolution (as you claim to be able to) scientists would (perhaps reluctantly) consider it, and perhaps accept it. However all of the claims against evolution are shallow and weak. Yes it's true that evolution is "only a theory", but so is all of science. Scientists have never claimed to possess absolute knowledge (as Religious persons seem to do), They merely claim to have the best of all competing explanations. As it stands, Evolution is the best scientific explanation of the origin of species we have. And yes there are questions that remain unanswered, but when using science (or just good reasoning capabilities, or that matter) to explain, you cannot simply claim that given certain unanswered questions and supposed "holes" we can suddenly declare that god must be the explanation. I don't buy the God "work-around" (I like to call it the theological cop-out).
Properly phrased: "We lack sufficient evidence to determine exactly how we got here, therefore it must be god"
Imagine if the law operated in this way"We lack sufficient evidence to determine exactly who committed the crime, so it must be god"
The hole process is unscientific and irrational. The way scientists vs. creationists handle the situation shows this. Scientists are constructive: Any scientist will agree that evolutionary theory is far from perfect. However, There are many scientists who are hard at work perfecting the theory; trying to answer those questions and fill in the "holes" that you speak of. Creationists however, are destructive. They are quick to use the tiniest uncertainty in a feeble attempt to bring down the whole foundation of science, in favor of Mythology. Creationist thinking is reminiscent of the same medieval thinking that had people imprisoned or put to death for being audacious enough to claim that the earth was not the center of the universe. BTW, do you still believe that?
Finally (yes finally) let me point out that although evolutionary theory isn't perfect, that is no argument against it. All of science is a work in progress and no scientist claims to hold the key to absolute knowledge (as religious people do). However, in case you didn't realize this "imperfect" work in progress powers all of our modern technology, from the medicine that keeps you alive (a lot longer than you should be), to the technology which allows you to read this message. Do you deny that this is real? Evolution is a part of science, and it doesn't use any trickery or deception, just the same techniques that brought you the aforementioned technology. To turn your back on evolution in the manner in which you do is to turn your back on science as a whole, and our modern society with it. If you wish to do so, I can't stop you. Science is, after all, based on empiricism. And if you want to question that, it's a whole different ball game (and a different post).
And one last thing (OK so I lied).There's a big difference between a theory being incomplete (yes evolution may be incomplete), and a theory being wrong (there are facts which contradict it). In the former, you can continue to complete and perfect the theory, in the latter, the theory is simply wrong. There are (poor) arguments which attempt to show that evolution contradicts some fact or another, and all of them (that I have seen so far) are refutable:
argument 1: The probability of us evolving out of inorganic matter is the same as say, a rocket ship being created from a junk yard explosion
This argument may sound nice, but if you read the mathematics behind it, it's clear that whoever wrote it doesn't understand the first thing about statistics or evolution. Evolution doesn't happen in a day, its not as if one second you have non-organic matter, and the next you have organic. There are thousands of steps which have to occur in the process. In order to access the probability of organic matter evolving from non organic, we would have to know the probability of every step along the way in the process, given the conditions of the earth at the time. These are facts that we simply do not know. No one can even begin to describe the process which led to the evolution of DNA, let alone anything else. Of course no human beings were around to observe it, so you'd have to invent a time machine. But, of course, we lack not only the evidence, but the means to obtain that evidence, so it must be god.
There's more, but I'm getting bored and this post is way too long! If you have other week arguments you'd like me to counter (such as say the argument using the second law of thermodynamics, very bad argument, maybe I'll write about it later), I'll gladly do so. But I'm sure that no one is reading this anymore, So I'll end it.
whole process weak arguments yes I need to proof read before i submit
I don't entirely agree with the naysayers that point to the fact that just one gene usually doesn't control an entire feature. However, even if a gene exists to permit speech, there's still something missing from dogs and chimps: the proper vocal apparatus. A chimp has a larynx similar to that of a human infant, which allows them to breathe and swallow at the same time. This larynx design, however, interferes with speech.
Being optimistic, maybe a little gene therapy and a little surgery could get chimps to talk like humans. Ethical issues aside, I'd be interested in what they would have to say. Their conversation couldn't be worse than that of most humans.
Mi klopodas varbi por Esperanto.
I agree the bashing is a bit much, really what I should have linked to was the article about the researchers who attempted to claim the alleged prize money, and Hovind's responses which indicated that any attempt to claim the prize would probably be a fruitless endeavor. Still, the fact that Hovind's "degree" in science comes from a university that is housed in what looks like a suburban family home is quite interesting.
;)
Oh, and there are a bunch of people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki (or at least, there were who can attest that E=mc^2 is based on a lot more than faith. Of course, that's hardly a fair comparison to evolution - Einstein's equations are mathematical derivations based on the observed fact that the speed of light in vacuo is measured to be the same by all ovservers in an inertial frame of reference. That's about as hard science as science gets - questions on origins of life, the universe, and everything (42?) can never be as cut-and-dried.
To say that evolution is based on faith, though, ignores the amount of circumstantial evidence in the fossil record, in genetics, in geology, in astronomy/cosmology, et cetera. All these scientific disciplines have differing evidences that indicate an age of the earth and the universe far in excess of the 6,000 years or so indicated in the Bible. And to anyone who believes they all got together and conspired against Christianity, I've got some real estate near Roswell you might be interested in.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
This is Slashdot, where the content of the posts is nothing more than a karma whoring festival where no actual intelligent discussion takes place, just nit-picks combined with assumptions, etc. :P
:)
Just yet another AC who is vaguely familiar with this 'problem' and would like to hear the facts associated with a seemingly well-known issue, actually *gasp* _discussed_!
Are you trolling, or too stupid to know that the word you want is "there"?
Oh, and the fact that you have vertebra is also due to mutations, as is all of evolution.
> I bought a "Science for Christian Students" book at the thrift store for laughs.
Anyone curious about the intellectual stature of creationist authors should rush over to the talk.origins newsgroup, find the week-old thread named "Weasel program", and skim down to the point where the published and oft-quoted creationist author Walter ReMine intervened and ended up making himself look like a fool of the first rank (and IMO raised some reasonable question about his basic honesty while he was at it).
Be sure to read all his posts in the thread, because it gets better as it goes.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
It's amazing to me to see how many christians truly believe that god working like a magaician is somehow more interesting, beautiful, or more godly than a god working with evolution. To be more clear, god working within evoulution is far more convincing, beautiful, and thought provoking than a cop out of creationist rheotirc.
It's not so much that it's uncertain as the authors are couching their study in typical scientific language. The most top two-word phrases most commonly seen in research papers are: may be, might be, or could be.
How the heck would they know the number of years ago that 'x' happened...
Simple: Study archeological finds.
Ever heard of carbon dating? No, it's not a new dating show on Fox. It's the method used to determine the age of archeological finds.
Look here for more info: The OCR Carbon Dating home page
In case you didn't understand what they said there, it basically means they have a constant (the rate of decay during a specific amount of time) which they can apply to a variable (current state of decay) to find out how long it took for the variable to get that way.
Numbers as large as the ones quoted by scientists are never 'absolute facts' nor should they be taken as such. They are simply the closest estimates based on the information they have.
Remember, there are always three sides to every story: what you say, what I say, and then there's the truth.
I say evolution, you say no evolution, but we're probably both wrong. But right now, those are the only two options we have, and to me evolution makes more sense.
But, back to the topic at hand. Personally I don't think any of us will live to see talking animals, but who knows what might happen 500 generations from now?
oh, and it's rIdiculous...
-- This sig for rent.
Look, I'm not a creationist or anything, but your logic is unbelievably retarded. You do realize that, don't you?
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Your criteria for judging these alternatives ("convincing", "beautiful", and "thought-provoking") are all subjective. This makes your argument extremely strong. Oh, wait... no it doesn't.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Fossil-formation is actually a rare process. Every critter that dies is not going to leave a fossil, far from it. It takes a particular set of circumstances to produce a fossil-- such as quick and complete burying under sediments or igneous flow. Evolution theory itself is evolving to explain the processes as they are better understood.
Currently, Gould's Punctuated evolution is given greater credence than pure Darwinism. That means that changes occur very rapidly leaving the chance that the fossil record will reveal every gradation of change between species much smaller. The chance that a fossil in one of the stable periods of speciation to be higher.
As for your question on why there aren't individuals in different states of evolution. Human beings are not microbes. We have this function called sex which recombines genes and traits, local variations persist but because of this amazing sex thing you see fuzzy areas between the local variations. This is called genetic drift. With modern conveyances of travel, these variations are getting less and less significant. All told, though, human beings show a wide diversity of traits from those diminishing isolations.
The Bible may contain some encoded historical facts (a massive flood), but it is a far from accurate historical document. For instance, there is very little archeological evidence to support the jewish enslavement in egypt and the subsequent journey from bondage. Do you stop believing in that? There is much more evidence to support evolution than the historical bible. If you choose to ignore that, then you are responsible for your own continuities.
I suggest they skip the mice and put put the gene in a gorilla. We've already seen they can learn sign language. I'm sure koko would love to have a baby that can speak.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Big Deal. Just about all of our genes (maybe even all at our point) our mutations. That's how you get new features, like, jaws, hair, genitals, brains, insert your favorite feature. If the mutation manages not to kill you, and be passed on to your kids, that's evolution. If it makes your life easier or manages to make you more succesful in getting laid, having more kids, even better.
Nice Marmot
Us language capable species also rear our young
in a sea of verbal behavior, the verbal
community. Speech isn't just sounds, it's
what you do with them, how much you're exposed
to them, how important they are in the rest
of your life. What contingencies they
figure in.
We have a few not-very-controlled examples of
individuals who were raised without a verbal
community. They had the same gene, the same
genetic endowment. They did not develop speech.
With all due respect to genes, without the
right environment, quite a few potentials
will never be realized. One of them is
verbal competence.
This ought to have been from "no-shit-sherlock" department.
You'd think most people 'round here would have at least heard of the theory of evolution already.
Suppose the announcement had been a gene had been discovered/identified that enabled humans to use toilets or similar facilities. Would you believe that?
Suppose the annoucement had been a gene for wearing clothes.
Suppose the claim was a gene for fashion.
You wouldn't believe that? No?
You'd say, no that's a social construction. It's not genetic, can't be. Different humans do it differently, and it's obviously related to their culture, not what they're born with.
But these are all things uniquely human. All humans do these things to one degree or another, and no members of other species do them. Gotta be in the genes, right? Gotta be a gene for each of 'me, no?
No.
Some things uniquely human, we learn as humans from other humans. Examples include clothing and speech. And if you believe otherwise, you're welcome to try getting those behaviors from a human without letting him learn them from other humans.
People using this argument aren't looking for missing links, they are looking for a frigging family tree.
And people who use this argument don't understand how unlikely fossilisation is. To be fossilised an animal not only had to die (a fairly likely occurence), it had to die in such a way that it's bones weren't exposed to the elements, scavengers, bacteria etc. The chances are one in millions if not billions. So yes, it's quite likely a whole group of animals lived and died without leaving a single identifiable fossil. And I think that religion exists because most people can't believe that life is as pointless as it is. You live, you breed (maybe), you die. Deal with it. No comment necessary I don't think. Ahhh, you've hit on something that real science has gone to work on. There's quite a lot of evidence to suggest that the great flood actually happened. Except it wasn't a world wide disaster, it didn't even happen to the ancestors of the Jews and there was no ark. It is most likely the flooding of the Black Sea after the last ice age. When all the ice melted, sea levels rose which left the black sea (which was then fresh water) seperated from the Mediterainian sea by a high dam of mountains. Eventually these gave way and flooded the black sea. The people who fled this kept the stories and became the Assyrians. The Jews got the story from them.Not exactly a world wide disaster but a good example of how an actual event becomes "biblical".
That is not research. Research requires you come up with a theory that fits with the evidence and then find more evidence to see if it's correct. If it's not then you throw out the theory and find a new one that better fits with the evidence. Christian "Science" works on the presumption that the bible is correct and then finds evidence to "prove" it. Thing is you can prove anything correct if you ignore enough of the evidence. No, something somebody wrote in a book a couple of thousand years ago cannot explain away the massive body of evidence to support evolution.Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
Humans actually share a lot in common with sea mammals. We can hold our breath, we have a downward pointing nose (useful to prevent your wind pipe filling up with water, unlike other primates), fat bonds to our skin rather than muscle (like other sea mammels and unlike most other land mammals except those that live in very cold climates, bonding to the skin provides better boyancy and keeps you warm), being hairless (much better hydrodynamics) and the odd reflex new borns have when placed in water. They hold their breath and do a breast stroke action. Better chance of survival if they happen to accidently fall into the water.
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
>Am I to believe that every evolutionary stage between Entity A and Entity B died without leaving a single fossil?
Yes. For example, in the dinosaur era, we have found say a dozen each of the most common species, which existed in large numbers for millions of years. It is quite unlikely that we will ever find every intermediate variation that existed for say hundreds or thousands of years in small numbers.
Tor - did evolutionary research at Caltech
The book I recommended answers all of your arguments. The reason that there are not fossils from all "missing links" is because we have not searched everywhere, and because fossilization is very rare. I could quote "The Blind Watchmaker" to disprove every one of your arguments you just made against evolution, but that would take the fun out of you reading it, wouldn't it?
1. Where did the water go?
2. The bible is not a historical record. It was written by men in power, and heavily edited several times both in context and translation since its inception.
3. Dinosaurs didn't breathe fire.
4. The fossil "record" is not a record, it is a convenient fluke that the bones and imprints survive to this day. It's not a roadmap of all who have walked on this planet.
5. The earth is much much older than 10 thousand years, even the most retarded tree hugger can tell you this and back it up with fact.
Stephen Hawking has found himself in hot water many times over how he treats this very issue. Which is even worse than you or me, he can't swim!
Creationists, are constantly trying to depict scientists as closed minded and narrowly set in their ways. That may be true of some individual scientists, but not of the scientific community as a whole. Einstein's Theory of Relativity turned Centuries worth of Newtonian physics on it's head, but scientists accepted it, because the arguments were sound and could be proven thoroughly.
But not before scientists were excommunicated and imprisoned FOR LIFE for these very views that we all now know to be true.
God bless the child molesters.
I know because aletheiometer never lies. See p.69, The Subtle Knife.
"Researchers next want to try altering the gene in mice to see what happens..."
Does anyone else find that really funny? I mean, what do they expect, mice that can squeak funny? What possible use could it serve? Who cares, more mutant mice!!!
Scientist A: "There's no denying it, the correlation between this gene and advanced oral motor control is rock solid."
Scientist B: "Indeed... let's put it in mice!"
Scientist A (hand's B a Corona(TM)): "Bitchen."
The webpage link you sent seems to do a lot of bashing concerning Hovind's credentials. However, his credentials mean absolutely nothing. Do you happen to remember Darwin's backround?! Attacking someone's credentials just shows that you can't argue against their viewpoints, so you try to make them look bad by attacking them as a person.
True. However a lot of creationists are sporting PhDs from what look like "prestigious nonaccredited universities". Having a diploma from Inkjet University says something about your credibility.
More goodies are available on the same page.> So the question begs: What did this crackpot get a doctorate in?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I haven't read the article but this headline reminds me of the X-men of Marvel comics.
:)
The main theme of that comic centered around normal people who were afraid of mutants with extra abilities and the X-men trying to intervene in the conflicts that resulted. The writers at Marvel had some nice stories sometimes, the execution could have been better though.
Anyway, it's amazing to me, that civilisation has only existed for 200.000 years (I'll adopt English punctuation when you go metric ok?
Imagine what it must have been like for those non-mutants whose world got turned upside-down completely by these strange beings that for them were like aliens.
I wonder how our society would react to mutants. Or other beings that are superiour to us but not sexually compatible. Maybe "gene altered freaks" or artificial intelligence will appear in our future. It's not outside the realm of possibility.
Would society react like the normal people in the X-men or would we somehow co-exist peacefully during the transition?
- -- Truth addict for life.
Got any more easily falsifiable claims you'd like to try on us?> Evolutionists conveniently ignore any evidence that could support biblical fact, as well as any "holes" it their theory.
Actually, scientists are generally quite well informed about the problems with their theories, and quite concerned to correct them.
But I've never met a creationist who even knew what the theory of evolution actually says, let alone knew what the problem areas are.
For example:
> If Evolution is possible, then where are the fossils from all of the missing links between evolutionary stages?
It may come as a big surprise to you, but the ToE doesn't predict that every last species will be preserved in the fossil record - let alone found. We simply have to work with the evidence that's available.
> I think that the theory exists simply because many of us need to find a way to disprove the Bible, so that they can sleep soundly at night thinking that they will not have to answer for their actions to some supreme being.
That's the drill: when you can't win on the evidence, impugn the competition with bad motives.
> Besides, that would border on the dishonest, and God cannot lie.
> Our scientists and archaeologists have claimed that only a global disaster could have wiped out so many of these creatures.
No, most scientists say that a global disaster did wipe out the dinosaurs, but none have ever said that only a global disaster could wipe them out. I would hazard a guess that most species have gone extinct due to regional or even local causes.
> Gee, isn't the great flood a global disaster?
And only real disasters can wipe stuff out anyway.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Right! I just picked up the latest issue of the free trade rag, "Bio I.T. World" and in it was an article about a scientist studying a genetic trait found in flies. Apparently, some of them have a tendency to fly low, while others prefer to fly up high, when they're let loose in a fixed maze-type environment.
The reason this had any relevance and interest is because the researcher was able to isolate a set of 3 genes that work together to determine this trait in the fly.
Basically, they hoped that the methods used to isolate the gene group responsible would eventually be usable on humans. They, of course, pointed out that it's far easier to accomplish a task of this type with a fly because the genetic code is relatively simple, and all of it is even available on an Internet web site. (I don't recall the URL, but it's published in the article.)
There's obviously been quite a stumbling block in deciphering most human traits for this very reason.... You can't tell much with a single gene.
Personally, I've always suspected that most studies proving what seems incredibly obvious are created primarily to secure some government funding. Government grants are issued for all sorts of research, as long as it meets certain guidelines. If, say, the federal government has some tax dollars allocated for studies related to the improvement of farming - then you might qualify by offering to research whether or not crops taste better when harvested by hand or by machine. (You'd probably also conclude, after "much research", that they taste pretty much the same whether hand or machine picked. You'd also have thousands of dollars to buy yourself that new car or PC or whatever with, disguising it all as tools needed for said research.)
I haven't read the bible cover to cover, nor will I admit to knowing everything, nor will I admit to believing it. You are correct that christmas was never mentioned in the bible. I was trying to use that as an example of the general populace being set in their way.
If God knows our future, and he is omnipotent, then that means that we are on a set course. If we had free will and were able to do what we wanted, then God wouldn't know what was going to happen next.
I don't have the bible memorized, but A couple of points-
Genesis 1:1 If God had to creat the heavens, where was he before? Biblical scholars determined that biblical chronology fixes the date of creation at 4004 B.C. thereby making the earth about six thousand years old.
Genesis 1:16 there are not 2 great lights. The light coming from the moon is a reflection of the light coming from the sun.
Genesis 1:29 God gave us all the plants on the Earth to eat. So why are there poisonous plants that will kill us?
Genesis 2:17 Adam ate from the tree and did not die.
Genesis 7:11-12 Noah was 600 years old?!?! What ever. And are we to believe that the world was popluated from only Noah, his wife and his sons and their wives? geneticly impossible to stem out into asian, blacks, whites, hispanic etc from just the original 'arabic' race in the last 4000 years(the floods are to believed to have happened aroung 2007 B.C.)(arabic term used because this all happened in the middle east).
Genesis 6:15 There would have been about only 1.5 cubic feet of space for every pair of animals on the Ark for the estimated 4 million+ different species of animals. Since you don't believe in evolution, that would mean everything(and everyday we are finding different species)(hmm, what about the fish? If God wanted to kill all the animals of the world, why would he leave the fish 7:14 no metion of fish, there is only mention of animals that walk the ground, and the birds in the air.)
Genesis 7:19-20 It would have to rain more than 750 feet per day for 40 days/night to cover the world so that the mountains would be covered by a depth of 15 cubits (about 20 feet) There is no evidence of such a massive flood. Wouldn't there be evidence if the whole world was covered in water for 150 days?
Genesis 32:25-30 If God was so powerful why could he not win in a wrestling match with Jacob, a mortal?
Exodus 12:37 There was 600,000 men on foot, not including women, children, and the elderly. Round up to 1.5 million total. The total population for Egypt at the time was estimated at less than 2 million. Doesn't add up.
Leviticus 14:49-53 Sounds like witch craft.
1 Timothy 6:10 Money is not the root of all evil. Lots of poor people do evil things. Lots of rich people do good things.
Matthew 26:52 says all who take the sword, perish by the sword. But Jesus took a sword in Matthew 10:34
MK 11:12-14, 20-21 Wouldn't it have been better to make the fig tree produce, than to curse it and kill it?
And many more. I will admit that not all of these points are proving the Bible wrong(as per my original post), but major inconsistencies in a faith that is perfect and has all the answers. Now there might be a point, or 2 that might have been translated slightly off, but a minorority of these inconsistencies fall under that. Some of the points I threw in for fun. But a vast majority of inconsistencies are in Genesis. A perfect and omnipotent God could, should, and likely would see to it that such problems did not exist in a book which he had inspired.
The bible is a book of stories handed down. There was never written documentation from the time Adam and Eve were created. So how did it all get in the Bible? Stories handed down from generation to generation.
Just to let you know, I am not an Athiest. More along the lines of an Agnostic. I believe that all the major religions stemed from the same thought, but then Man started messing it up to suit his own needs. And to get back on topic, I don't believe in evolution. That also has too many holes in it's theory.
Since this is a technology based site/forum/board, I will resign from this religious discussion.
I am thinking with my mind wide open, that's why I can type this.
Humans are the only mammals that can mouth breath. We don't even start that way. New born babies can't until they are about 6 months of age. That opening at the back of your throat allows your vocal cords to vibrate sounds up through the sinus cavity. The enables a far greater range of vocal tones then what would be available to us otherwise.
Better control over the muscles in our mouths would have developed later in response to the new vocal range we now had. We would never have developed the languages we now have with out that mutation at the back of our throats.
I wish I could think of a witty Sig. Sigh!
Why not chimps? Maybe they could get funding from some movie company wanting to make another "Planet of the Apes" remake.
"Atoms" are only the smallest constituents of X (where the common interpretation of X is "matter" but can be whatever you want) by definition. The formal "atom" is a thing composed of many parts -- electrons, protons and neutrons (and below that quarks, fermions, etc).
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The ends are ape-chosen, only the means are man's. -- Aldous Huxley
If somebody found a gene that codes for humor, it'd still be news. Whether or not current theory says that a certain complicated thing is probably genetically coded in an organism's DNA, it's still interesting when the genes are found (especially when the behavior coded for is very complicated).
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The ends are ape-chosen, only the means are man's. -- Aldous Huxley
Of course the taco bell dog would have an english accent.
Someone hates these cans.
> The Bible, while some may disagree, has never been proven wrong.
Are you nuts? The genesis account of Creation for one (creating the earth at the same time as the rest of the universe, light before the sun etc).
The many similarities between bits of the Bible and earlier myths from different religions, demonstrating at least some of the Bible was cribbed from other traditions (much like Roman deities were cribbed from Greek ones).
The torture of Job so God could get his kicks (certainly immoral).
The (and I repeat) lack of mention of Dinosaurs. A couple of mentions buried in a paragraph somewhere doesn't cut it - these were creatures that ruled every nook and cranny of the planet for a couple hundred million years.
I could go on but I have a job to do...
After this post, I will also resign from this discussion, but I feel that your points should be addressed. I appreciate that you did not resort to futile name calling like many of the anti-creationists do.
Being a Christian, and choosing to find my own answers to what is truth and what is not, I have studied and thought on many of your points. Here I will address the points that you have made.
If God knows our future, and he is omnipotent, then that means that we are on a set course. If we had free will and were able to do what we wanted, then God wouldn't know what was going to happen next.
Not necessarily. God created space and time. Therefore he exists outside of conventional space and time. If you will try to think 4 dimensionally for a minute: A being existing outside of the bounds of our timeline could potentially see all points in that line simultaneously. I know that it is hard for us (being inside the bounds of this line) to comprehend that, but I think that it stands to reason that many things concerning a supreme being are going to be hard, if not impossible for us to visualize or comprehend. We have no way of knowing what would and wouldn't be possible if we were outside of the boundaries of time. Therefore, I believe that it is possible that God can know our futures without taking a direct hand in forcing the outcome. Does that mean that our futures are set and we can't control our own lives? I don't think so. We control our destiny, we make the choices, and we perform our own actions. God just has a knowledge of what the end result will be. This topic is one of the things that we Christians have to eventually admit that only Faith in the truth of the Bible can resolve at this time. Just like other incomprehensible subjects such as the Godhead, Infinity, Perfect Justice, and Providence.
Genesis 1:1 If God had to creat the heavens, where was he before? Biblical scholars determined that biblical chronology fixes the date of creation at 4004 B.C. thereby making the earth about six thousand years old.
I believe that I answered this point in my previous paragraph. God exists outside conventional space and time.
Genesis 1:16 there are not 2 great lights. The light coming from the moon is a reflection of the light coming from the sun.
There is a lot that literary tools used in Genesis. I believe this to be one of them. From an observation point of view, it is two great lights.
Genesis 1:29 God gave us all the plants on the Earth to eat. So why are there poisonous plants that will kill us?
I don't think that this passage says that we are to eat every plant on earth. It says that we are given every "herb bearing seed." He also gave us all of the animals to have dominion over, but then Jewish law specifies which animals not to touch because they are "unclean."
Genesis 2:17 Adam ate from the tree and did not die.
When Adam ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he did die. It was not an instantaneous death, but he died spiritually at that point, and I think that it can be argued that he began to die physically. Before this act, he was able to eat of the tree of Life. There was no indication that Adam or Eve were ever aging or going to die. After this act, they were banished from the garden, and the presence of the Tree of Life. After this, they began to grow old and die.
Genesis 7:11-12 Noah was 600 years old?!?! What ever. And are we to believe that the world was popluated from only Noah, his wife and his sons and their wives? geneticly impossible to stem out into asian, blacks, whites, hispanic etc from just the original 'arabic' race in the last 4000 years(the floods are to believed to have happened aroung 2007 B.C.)(arabic term used because this all happened in the middle east).
Yes he was. And there were older. Methuselah lived to be 969 years old. That is almost 1000 years! By a interesting coincidence, by my observations, that would mean he died in the year of the flood, so he must not have been faithful. Or he died before the flood. Anyway, at that time, people could live that long. After the flood, the average lifespan of man was shortened. I believe that it was shortened again at the tower of Babel. This also ties in with the physics behind the flood. When God created the earth, it says that he separated the waters, and the space between he called the heavens. One body of water above, and one below. So apparently there was a sphere of water surrounding the earth. It has been speculated that this body of water would act as a barrier to harmful radiation from the sun and other cosmic bodies. It is safe to assume that with Adam and Eve, the genetic structure was perfect. No mutations. This is why it was possible for there to be inbreeding at the beginning without adverse effects. Remember, Cain and Seth had to have wives too. Stands to reason that it was their sister. Who else? Anyway, after the flood, this protective barrier would be eliminated, allowing harmful radiation to affect us. Remember this is just speculation. I don't know if God took a direct hand in limiting the lifespan of man, or if he allowed nature to do it for him. But I think that either is plausible.
Genesis 6:15 There would have been about only 1.5 cubic feet of space for every pair of animals on the Ark for the estimated 4 million+ different species of animals. Since you don't believe in evolution, that would mean everything(and everyday we are finding different species)(hmm, what about the fish? If God wanted to kill all the animals of the world, why would he leave the fish 7:14 no metion of fish, there is only mention of animals that walk the ground, and the birds in the air.)
It wasn't God's purpose to kill all the animals. He wanted to wipe Man from the face of the earth. The animals had done nothing wrong, not being able to sin or know right from wrong. Man was the problem. So he would have no reason to kill the fish or sea mammals. And it would have been silly to put them in the ark. Now about the animals. You are probably overestimating the space if your calculations are correct. (I am assuming that they may be, and not checking) Noah only took some animals in pairs. Some of the animals, I believe the ones at the time deemed "unclean," were taken in groups of 7. So they probably had much less space. I don't know how they fit. And if you take into account that Noah may have had some dinosaurs on board, this might further complicate matters. But remember that Noah did not have to take fully grown animals into the ark. They could have been babies, or even eggs at the time. God could have made sure (through divine intervention) that no eggs would break and that all animals would survive the journey. Maybe they didn't even have to eat during that time. I can see how this could have been plausible, so chalk another one up to Faith.
Genesis 7:19-20 It would have to rain more than 750 feet per day for 40 days/night to cover the world so that the mountains would be covered by a depth of 15 cubits (about 20 feet) There is no evidence of such a massive flood. Wouldn't there be evidence if the whole world was covered in water for 150 days?
Two things here. One is my comment from above. The water sphere around the earth. This was the time that God collapsed that sphere. This would account for quite a bit of water. Also, it says that water came from within the ground. So all of the water did not have to come from above. Was all of the water there before the flood? Maybe not. God could have intervened and added plenty of water. He could also have taken it away after the flood. So the flood is possible. Plus I have seen lots of scientific evidence that points to a global flood. Fossilized remains of fish on the tops of mountains and the like. So the flood was definitely possible.
Genesis 32:25-30 If God was so powerful why could he not win in a wrestling match with Jacob, a mortal?
Well he could have. That must not have been what he was trying to do.
Exodus 12:37 There was 600,000 men on foot, not including women, children, and the elderly. Round up to 1.5 million total. The total population for Egypt at the time was estimated at less than 2 million. Doesn't add up.
I disagree. I think that it does add up. Joseph died, and the Pharaoh, who had liked him and given the land of Goshen (the most fertile land around) to his family, had died. The new Pharaoh had no reason to sustain these people in his country. So he enslaved them. They grew and multiplied while they were enslaved. They were abused and ruled with iron fists. The Egyptians made sure that they would not rise up. Maybe God had a hand in their complacency as well. The Pharaoh was afraid of the Israelites. God could have influenced this nation to grow and multiply quickly.
Leviticus 14:49-53 Sounds like witch craft.
So? Lots of the laws back then were similar. What about spreading lambs blood on the door posts to avoid the angel of death in Exodus. No matter what it sounds like. This was God's law at the time.
1 Timothy 6:10 Money is not the root of all evil. Lots of poor people do evil things. Lots of rich people do good things.
Yes they do, but this verse is pointing out that human greed is the root of all evil. Not necessarily that every evil action is caused directly by greed.
Matthew 26:52 says all who take the sword, perish by the sword. But Jesus took a sword in Matthew 10:34
No he didn't. He is speaking metaphorically of a sword. Not taking one up to use in battle. However, he did, in essence "Die by the sword", which I take to mean die by violence.
MK 11:12-14, 20-21 Wouldn't it have been better to make the fig tree produce, than to curse it and kill it?
It depends greatly on what is trying to be accomplished. Jesus cursed the tree as another proof of who he was and the power of God (Verse 22).
One final note. The Bible cannot be logically explained without including the divine power of God and the supernatural. Everything in the Bible may not be physically possible today. I have yet to discover a fallacy that cannot be explained with thorough study. This fact, as well as my observations of the world around me, make me positive that there is a God. And the Bible is his message to us. This helps me to have Faith in both him and his word. What inspires the Faith of the evolutionist?
I know that micro-evolution is a proven fact, and have no problem with it. That is why I specifically addressed macro-evolution. The day-age theory of the creation is fairly popular. I don't believe that. I believe that the world was created in 7 actual days. And I think that you can discern the age of the earth, and therefore the universe, via secular and biblical histories.
You are right. My belief is a theory. I personally see it as a fact, but would not try and force this belief on anyone else. My belief is commonly viewed as a theory. Evolution is given lip service as being a theory, then convieniently portrayed as a fact in schools and media. I object to that.
i disagree. I choose to read the Bible, which I believe is infallable, and to discern what I believe as truth from there. I agree that it would have been equally possible for God to have used evolution, because I believe that he is all powerful. I don't think that either one is more bueatiful, interesting, or godly than the other. I simply believe what I believe because that is what the Bible says.
To be more clear, God could have created the universe however he saw fit, whether it was 7 days, evolution over millenia, or a big sneeze. But God cannot lie, God inspired Genesis, and Genesis does not agree with directed evolution.
Just like all of the Scientists knew that the earth was the center of the universe and imprisoned Gallilao for saying otherwise.
whew, I feel safe now.
1. God put it there, he could take it away. 2. You don't know the history of the bible very well. It was never written by anyone with power. 3. How do you know? 4. Fine. 5. This is not a fact. It is a THEORY
With the whole sphere of water thing, you are wrong. The old belief was that beyond the sky was water, and the stars were holes in the protective bubble that let water leak through causing rain. The flood wasn't the collapse of all of the water through the protective dome above the earth. You or someone fairly recent is making that up. With time, science shows the bible to be wrong, so people change the bible through transliteration, interpretation, and flat out cut and pasting.
Also there are herbs that bear seeds that are poisionous. So yeah, thats a mistake too. Now, please tell me what the new interpretation/translation/edit is which explains that.
Or, you could in essence censor things that frighten you like a child who doesn't want to be told of the murderer that lives nearby... ignorance never solves problems.