Titan's Lakes of Methane and Ethane

Rob Carr writes "During the most recent Cassini fly-by, the surface-mapping radar spotted what appear to be lakes in the high northern latitudes of Titan. From the article: 'The channels have a shape that strongly implies they were carved by liquid. Some of the dark patches and connecting channels are completely black, that is, they reflect back essentially no radar signal, and hence must be extremely smooth. In some cases rims can be seen around the dark patches, suggesting deposits that might form as liquid evaporates.' At Titan's temperatures, water is a solid; the lakes would be comprised of methane and ethane. The fluids are different, as are the temperatures, but these lakes cement Titan's status in the solar system as the place with the most earth-like weather — except for Earth, of course."

Comments

Re:we can have zero population growth

[AdmiralWeirdbeard]

Uh... care to support your claim that it *is* a fallacy?
we could just play the "no the burden of proof is on *you*" game back and forth, wouldnt that be fun.
Do I have proof? obviously not. Nor do you, or you'd have included it rather than just being a trumped up negative nancy.
but...
I am, however, equiped with powers of reasoning, so I'll just work them a bit. If you're basically blind, you're more likely to trip and fall, and therefore more likely to be injured walking around. You're less likely to see the sabre-tooth tiger crouching behind that bush, or the poisonous snake or spider siddling up next to you.
I'd say that increased risk of accident and predation might constitute pressures capable of negatively selecting the trait of bad vision in human populations before modern times.

Also, way to go, demanding statistical proof for the contrary notion, while supporting your own theory with "I'm pretty sure that..."
You're pretty sure are you? Well, fanFUCKINtastic. I'm equally sure that 'they just coped with it' is the lamest explanation of anything ever. They could 'just cope with it' and still not see well enough to get killed before procreating.

Now, if there were somethign that showed a genetic correlation between bad eyesight and say, hotness, which is clearly selected for evolutionarily, this would be a different thing. but all other things being equal, an allele that makes it more difficult to reach procreation age and so procreate, than a different allele for said trait, will, to some extent be selected against.
If you would like to explain how bad eyesight is survival neutral with good eyesight, I'm all ears. Tho, as hinted at earlier, the "they'll just cope with it" argument is flawed at best.