Slashdot Mirror
Warm-blooded Fish?
DIY News writes "Scientists now have direct evidence that the north Pacific salmon shark maintains its red muscle at 68-86 degrees Fahrenheit, much warmer than the 47 F water in which it lives. The elevated muscle temperature presumably helps the salmon shark survive the cold waters of the north Pacific and take advantage of the abundant food supply there. The heat also appears to factor into the fish's impressive swimming ability."
The next round of global warming is going to see warm blooded land-dinosaurs roaming the tropical forests of the North American continent. We'll all be sorry then!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
both are theories, both have zealots. Everyone will claim this. No-one will ever know.
ID isn't theory, it's a belief.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
How to convince my mother-in-law to stop swimming. 8-)
Is that what the kids are calling it these days?
8-PP
For example. Honeybees generate heat in the winter to keep the hive warm and use heat to kill predatory wasps -- surrounding the wasp, heating up to 45 C (113 F) and killing the attacker.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
ID is not a hypothesis, it's a wish.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
There's so much to learn from our oceans and yet they're disappearing fast because of the need for food and for some really stupid/ignorant reasons. It would be great if more folks would see this as more reasons for onservation and the repeal of the "tragedy of the commons"... I know, in my fucking dreams.
Evil people don't think they're evil. - George Lucas, Making of Ep III
What advantege does it give for lasers?
One that hath name thou can not otter
Who's going to claim this as evidence first...?
...or maybe we could (gasp!) be courteous and try "Intelligent Design proponents or Evolutionists"?
Intelligent Design whackos or Evolutionists?
Don't you mean "Intelligent Design whackos or Evolutionist whackos"?
[/offtopic]
This sig left blank for page turns.
The distinction is not between "cold-blooded" and "warm-blooded" animals but between poikilotherms, whose body temperature is the same as that of the environment, and homeotherms, whose body temperature is closely regulated and held within a normal range of a couple of degrees or less
On the one hand, practically every poikilotherm that's been studied actually thermoregulates in some ways. Very few of them truly assume the temperature of their environment.
On the other hand, "maintaining" temperature at "68-86 degrees Fahrenheit" -- 77 degrees plus or minus 9--is far from comparable to the degree of thermoregulation shown by mammals. Nine degrees too high or too low is enough to kill you, and most mammals.
It's interesting to learn how another kind of poikilotherm performs a crude kind of thermoregulation, but by no means earthshaking.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
As a long time deep sea fisherman I thought there were a bunch of fish who lived with an elivated core temperature. Many of the red meat fast swimming open ocean fish (such as tuna, dorado, baracuda, swordfish) are decidely warm when you pull them in and have a radicaly different muscle structure than what you see with slow moving cold fish. Also the tend to have many fewer visable internal parasites, which I always associated with having a much different metablism.
I used to have a cool sig, back when I cared
Intelligent Design isn't a theory. Being non-falsifiable, it isn't even a model. Saying that it is "wrong" is being overly generous. Lamarck was wrong. ID doesn't even try to be right. The geocentric model of the solar system is a far more compelling idea, frankly. Perhaps fundamentalists should go back to touting that; after all, at least you can try to fudge things with epicycles and such in astronomy.
English is easier said than done.
Since salmon's propulsion muscles are like heart muscles, they never get tired and are always working, doesn't it stand to reason that a muscle that's always working is always generating heat? Expending calories will always have some excess waste heat unless salmon have figured out how to have 100% efficient muscles. So then why is this a suprise?
It is a cartilagenous fish. Common ancestor somewhere way back, but still different. This is also not localized to this fish. Tuna and other sharks exhibit this. It is called regional endothermy, or also heterothermy. We just learned about it in Vertebrate Zoology. It has been hypothesized it allows them a huge increase in swimming speed for attacking prey.
Call a spade a spade. And he didn't mean evolutionist whackos.
A theory can predict. A theory has rules and models. A theory has mountains of evidence pointing towards its validity.
Evolution fits all these parameters. ID fits none.
Bah, evolution is not 'provable'? It is testable, it has been tested. I am aware that said testing and verification prove no theory 100% (hence the name 'theory') but let's look at the score:
Evolution - theorized, tested. directly observable in organisms with short life spans (bacteria, small insects). indirectly observable with long-lifespan organisms (fossil record)
ID - theorized, untestable. impossible to prove on ANY level.
Based on this score, why does ID get argued as if it's an entirely equal theory to evolution? The media feels the need to cover both sides of the issue, why must both sides be considered equal? As scientific theories go there is no comparing the two. One is a scientific theory. One is not. Why is the nonscientific theory given equal weight?
We call gravity a theory but you don't see people in legislatures trying to get 'both sides of the controvery' tought. I can't say gravity has been proven 100% but I can say there's a damn lot of testable evidence.
I know your point, you are playing the Devil's Advocate. You don't like seeing scientific theory getting called 'fact'. I can accept that. What bothers me is this equal weighting. Evolution has a damn lot of testable evidence on it's side, just like gravity, just like a huge number of scientific 'theories' that are accepted by many people on the basis of that testable evidence.
Fine, don't call it 'fact', but don't act so damn surprised when most of the scientific world looks at you funny for giving equal weight to ID and evolution. Simply claiming that evolution has to be 'believed in' is foolish too, as you can go test the published theories on your own.
You forgot, one of them has withstood scrutiny by the scientific community for over a century, one has not.
I'm just point out one of ways they are different since you were pointing out how they are the same. Fair's fair.
Wanted: Clever sig, top $ paid, all offers considered.
Only the ones around North America!
Evolution is a scientific theory. ID is only a theory in the loosest sense of the word.
Perhaps you could explain what there is to scrutinize in ID. It amounts to nothing more than a god-of-the-gaps argument with the premise "somehow something somewhere is wrong with evolution". Heck, guys like Michael Behe don't even deny that evolution happened, but ID is starving for substance that it can be adopted be Young Earth Creationists just as easily as by a theistic evolutionist. This is because it actually says nothing at all.
Science isn't about truth, but evolution is the best explanation for the data. ID explains nothing, and is specifically designed not to. It's a political ploy to sneak Creationism into the public school science class.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_strategy
Interesting...
Which is exactly the problem. Evolution allows people to be atheists. It undermines the power of the religious establishments and they hate that.
Worse yet, AFAIK most Western Christians also believe the theory of evolution is broadly correct - i.e. that anything it has wrong is detail, like having the sequence of ancestry a bit off here or there, or having some missing fossils, but the overall principle being sound. What does that do to 'Made In God's Image'? What becomes of the Fall, and hence of Original Sin, and hence of the need for Christ's salvation?
Certainly it's possible to overcome all these problems and accommodate modern biology and cosmology within a Christian worldview, but it requires a good deal of mental flexibility, a rather different mindset to the absolutist fundamentalist.
It's interesting to notice that the Vatican has already come pretty much to terms with evolution and modern cosmology - indeed, they were said to be quite delighted with the Big Bang model, since the alternative was Steady State and a universe with nothing for a creator to do at all!
Basically what it boils down to is: if evolution is taught, then some of those kids will realise that God is an unnecessary addition to their worldview and will drop him into the same bin where they already put Santa Claus. If it is not taught, then some of them will continue to believe in God. That's enough for the fundamentalist. That's a soul saved from hell. Perhaps introducing intelligent design will save a few kids from this insidious atheist menace. Perhaps then, bit by bit, it might be possible to expand on intelligent design and introduce creationism proper, and from there roll back the whole materialist worldview...
There was a very good investigation into the fundamentalist agenda here in the New Scientist a few weeks ago. It was the 8th October 2005 issue, if you want to track it down at your library. Interesting stuff.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Or at least, can CHOOSE to be. Female rattlers incubating eggs will wrap themselves around the eggs, and 'shiver', to elevate their body temperature to keep the eggs warm.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Here's a start. Tell me what constitutes a *scientific* theory?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
While I understand your interest in the evolutionary mechanism, I'm not sure that's the right way to look at it. I don't think any creature is ever done. At best, a species achieves a relatively stable period where its configuration--for want of a better word--matches its current environmental conditions.
We like to think of species as something strictly-defined and set in stone, but they aren't, really. Not is the long term. In the long term, they're always somewhere between what they were and what they will become. At best, a species is a way of saying "from this time to that time, this organism had this configuration."
Sorry, I'm a writer. That makes you raw material.
Could you not use metric temperatures? Celcius is the norm for science. (Kelvin when it is about physics.)
It also matters because ID is not science. It is not testable. It is not falsifiable. It isn't even a theory save in the most general and non-specific meaning of the word. More importantly however, is that public schools in the US are not supposed to be places of religious indoctrination, and ID is formulated as a legalistic scam to sneak Creationism past the 1st Amendment.
Evolution is not a religion. It is not a bit of wild-ass speculation. Not all ideas are created equal, and in the world of science there is no debate. Any theory that seeks to replace evolution is going to have to explain the evidence, and DesignerDidIt explains nothing whatsoever.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
"Same can be said about Evolution, it depends on which side of the fence you sit on."
NO, it can't. Evolution has PREDICTIVE ability, and is FALSIFIABLE. If you understand what that means, then you know I'm right, and why evolution is a theory while ID is not.
If you don't know what I mean, look it up, and keep your mouth shut until you bother to learn what makes a theory a theory.
Just because there are people claiming something, that does not make it so. You would claim you're intellignet, but your post is significant evidence to the contrary. In the face of evidence, claims without evidence are known as "zealotry" or, altenatively, nonsense.
"A true scientist would explore all theories only only discredit those that can be completley proven wrong."
Ok, give me an example of an experiment I could use to falsify ID. Waiting.
Right, there is none, which is exactly the reason you should refrain from discussing this subject. You're too ignorant to understand what you don't know, yet are making declarations as though you have some real insight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuna
Wow, not sure why it is news that some fish are warm-blooded.
The warm-bloodedness of tuna also makes allows them to be very good swimmers even in cold water.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Nothing. These three concepts are absolutely not mutually exclusive with the idea that evolution was the process God used to create Man.
Which is exactly the problem. Evolution allows people to be atheists. It undermines the power of the religious establishments and they hate that.
You're 100% correct about this. However 'religious establishments' oftentimes have little to do with what they supposedly represent. Too often they are only interested in shoring up their numbers instead of practicing what they preach.
Having something in place that 'allows people to be atheists', as you put it, is a good thing. God doesn't want people who want nothing to do with him. Better to have people as being outright atheists than fake Christians. Lord knows there's enough of those running around...
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
The complication comes in that scientific laws are almost universally expressable as a simple equation, devoid of units and specifics. F=M*A is a law.
Evolution will *never* be a law, because it cannot be expressed in a one-liner. Biological systems are infinately more complex than anything we have quantified and reduced to a scientific law.
However, as you said in your post, "Scientific Theory" doesn't mean what the Religious ID proponants think it means. A scientific theory has been tested and, to the extent possible, all evidence we have supports its truth. Theory is as far as Evolution will ever get, and it might as well be fact.
When the school board of _________ says that they have to put a sticker in the textbooks claiming that "Evolution is just a theory and that other ideas should be considered", the word they are thinking about is "Hypothesis". Theory in the scientific world, and "I have a theory about where I left my car keys", do not have the same meaning, and therein lies the main distortion between proponants of ID and of creationism vs. evolution - most of the creationists see the word "Theory" and assume they have a foothold because of some longstanding debate in the academic world, where the reality is that no such debate is taking place - all serious scientists without an agenda agree that evolution is a fact.
sig?
I agree with you on almost every point, I only have a problem with this one: "Mathematically, it's possible that all of these traits appeared simultaneously, but it's also an extremely minute chance".
I hear this one a lot, but I don't think it is valid. Since we are talking about a large number of random events that just happen to randomly occur in one organism to produce a useful trait, I compare it to asking somebody to pick a number from one to infinity. The odds of picking the number 1,234,543 are essentially zero, but I picked it anyway. According to the logic of hardcore ID believers, because the odds were so small, it must never have happened.
Finding other idiots on
Live birth not required (see platypus). But you forgot the best part of being a mammal, mammaries!
Same can be said about Evolution, it depends on which side of the fence you sit on. Zealots on both sides have arguments to discredit each other. A true scientist would explore all theories only only discredit those that can be completley proven wrong. Neither side of intelligent design or evolution can say 100% that the other side can not be proved.
All I can say, is that I foe everybody that has "free stuff" in their signatures or their "homepage" here on slashdot, and it really increases the signal to noise ratio.
I'm getting sick of seeing this crap about "Intelligent Design" vs evolution. Also, I have never heard of an evolution zealot until this post.
No, ID nor evolution can be "proved". Proofs are only valid in a self contained system like mathematics, everything else is evidence.
My question to all of the ID zealots, is this. If I were able to prove to you that ID was real, and nobody could discredit it, what the fuck would that get you? What is that knowledge going to benefit your life?
I don't believe in evolution 100%. Seems pretty good, but I would not be upset in the least if a better supported theory came around. I'm sure that everybody looked to the south-west and stomped their feet 5 times when Newton's laws were not found to be laws, because they broke down at the subatomic level and at high speeds.
The theory of evolution gives us things like genetics, selective breeding, and an understanding of why different species exist at a point in time, why they disappear, and rapid changes in species are good indicators that there is something radically different in their environment.
Again, what would 100% proof of ID give anybody?
Dinosaurs disappeared because the Flying Spaghetti Monster stopped anointing them with His Noodly Appendage, thus giving rise to the human race to do His noodling for Him.
That is a great story to tell kids. Its entertaining. But outside of that, its nothing.
Sharks are fish, just not bony fish. Sharks secondarily lost their bony structure, giving way to cartilaginous skeletons; giving rise to the Class Chondrichthyes. Bony fish fall under Class Osteichtyes.
It IS irony. See point 2 below
irony Audio pronunciation of "irony" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (r-n, r-)
n. pl. ironies
1.
1. The use of words to express something different from and often opposite to their literal meaning.
2. An expression or utterance marked by a deliberate contrast between apparent and intended meaning.
3. A literary style employing such contrasts for humorous or rhetorical effect. See Synonyms at wit1.
2.
1. Incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs: "Hyde noted the irony of Ireland's copying the nation she most hated" (Richard Kain).
2. An occurrence, result, or circumstance notable for such incongruity. See Usage Note at ironic.
3. Dramatic irony.
4. Socratic irony.
I think you confused it with 'sarcasm' :
sarcasm Audio pronunciation of "sarcasm" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (särkzm)
n.
1. A cutting, often ironic remark intended to wound.
2. A form of wit that is marked by the use of sarcastic language and is intended to make its victim the butt of contempt or ridicule.
3. The use of sarcasm. See Synonyms at wit1.
The Dutch will inherit the earth. If not, we'll settle for a bit of ocean. Beta delenda est!
Darned if I see any validity in the way ID and Evolution got into this discussion, but I must comment: Evolution is two things: a theory, and a principal. Both are scientific terms, and have validity only as long as evidence supports them. They describe things known to be true, because Observations from around the world and under different environments support both. Should new observations conflict with some part of either, then our description of them will be modified to fit the new information. This is how science advances. ID is not a theory, it is an idea based upon a belief. It has no observational support. This does not make it false, simply not verifiable and not science. I am a Christian. Not only Christian, but also Catholic. I am also a Physicist and Mathematician. You should not be required to be any of these to understand the difference between Science and Faith. Now, to dive deep into my own meditations: If you want, you may consider ID an article of faith. If you have faith, Science should not be any challenge. You should also be secure that whatever men decide about God, he (or she) will remain unchanged and immune to our manipulations! If one view: Faith is what you believe God did, Science is our attempt to understand HOW! These do not conflict, and no one need study them together to benefit from either. Those who confuse this issue and generate needless conflict only display their lack of both faith and understanding. Mind you, I welcome anyone who wants to disagree with these thoughts. Those who offer scientific evidence may help me modify my understanding of science. With or without evidence, none will be successful in prompting any change in my faith. My children go to a church school. Anyone who suggests having them taught ID or Creationism in Science would meet with my strongest objections because these are NOT science. I would not react quite so strongly to an attempt to teach them the Theory of Evolution if Theology class, because it just MAY demonstrate a tool of Gods will! Please consider, and be kind to each other.
Light, Love, Happiness,
This is still a bit of a debate, but:
Shark != Bony Fish, Sharks = Cartilaginous fish
The distinction is important, because taxonomy-wise, that makes them as different from 'fish' (bony) as mammals, amphibians, reptiles or avians. It's a split at the class level. A warm blooded shark is not as impressive as a warm blooded bony fish would be.
Of course, since chondrichythes (cartilaginous fish) and osteichythes (bony fish) still contain the word chythes (fish), sharks are still refered to as 'fish' but biologically, they're just as different as the other classes. They just also happen to look kind of the same.
The same mistake is often made between reptile and amphibian, or aracnids and insects, etc.
Mind the frickin' laser...
"ID is not a hypothesis, it's a wish"
Actually ID is a doubt: "we don't think that evolutions explains...blah blah"
How it got from a doubt to saying: "somebody must have created life forms as they are" it's beyond me.
But anyway, all those discussion about ID vs. evolutionism are ridiculous: what can a professor say in a class for more than 5 minutes about ID?
"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore
68 - 86F = 20.0 - 30.0C
47F = 8.3C