Most of the people who left Africa in prehistoric times did so accidentally, with pretty much no knowledge that they were in Africa to begin with--it was pretty much random human migration, nothing more. Also, how on earth has some thinly-veiled racist remark gotten modded up a 3, Insightful?
The Resnet is the network service provided in university dorms. Students can easily live off campus and buy internet service on the open market--in a Kansas college town the rent will probably be lower than their housing fees already are. That's certainly the case at Washington State in eastern Washington, where the dorms are patrolled continuously by taser-wielding university police and where downloading large amounts of data gets your resnet service cut off.
I'm sure a 747 is much better at surviving German anti-aircraft guns. This brings to mind an old joke:
"British Airways Flight 27, this is Frankfurt airport, please taxi to gate 7."
(pause) "British Airways Flight 27, please taxi to gate 7."
"Stand by, I'm looking up the gate location now."
"British Airways Flight 27, have you never flown to Frankfurt before?"
"Yes, in 1944, but I didn't land."
There probably was something there, since there's a slight "gap" so to speak between sub-saharan Africans and other humans, and that usually occurs with a geographic barrier.
Speciation occurs when one population can no longer interbreed with another, either directly or transitively. (Transitive interbreeding is what happens in ring species--population A can interbreed with population B, who can interbreed with population C, so A and C are part of the same species even if they can't directly interbreed).
Believe it or not, the basic design for a nuclear rocket that can accelerate to a significant fraction of the speed of light has already been done. Unfortunately, it works by jettisoning and detonating a series of nuclear bombs behind it, which means we can't launch it from the Earth. Also, it requires nuclear bombs in order to work.
It seems intuitively absurd to think that people want things for literally no reason, because it seems intuitively absurd to think that anything happens for literally no reason. (That's not the same as people wanting things for bad reasons or unjustifiable reasons.) The right or wrong we can argue about, but it's certainly reasonable to think that.
By that standard, the bombing of the barracks in Lebanon, the attacks on US troops in Iraq, and arguably the attack on the Pentagon were not terrorist attacks. I might be comfortable with that conclusion, but lots of people aren't.
Microsoft is offensive to people who like quality software and open standards. Wal-Mart is offensive to price-gouging small businesses and anti-trade labor unions. Can you see why maybe Slashdotters are more offended by one than the other?
Most condoms aren't made from plastic. Okay, almost no condoms are made from plastic. Condoms are made from latex, a naturally occurring product of certain South American trees. They are also made from animal intestine, for whose who are allergic to latex.
I'm not an anthropologist (only a lowly engineer), but I can't help but notice everyone basing their conclusions solely on the genetic distribution of humans. This seems fundamentally flawed given that humans are unlike any other creature
But not in ways that would affect genetic distribution, at least not by now. Maybe in 200 years, if everybody is flying all over the place and international/interracial matings are commonplace, genetic distribution is gonna be all fucked up. But until a vanishingly short period of time ago (by an evolutionary standpoint), nobody got any further than they could walk on foot within a lifetime, and most people didn't go very far. Further, from what we know about prehistory, people organized themselves in hunter-gatherer tribes. Human migration at the time wasn't very purposeful--you went from where you were to where you could find enough game and vegetation to live off of. For a very long time, Africa was big enough for everyone, and crossing the Sahara was daunting enough that pretty much everyone stayed in Africa. Eventually some tribes ended up heading up through the Sinai into western Asia--again, not purposefully, but because that was the only place they could find enough vegetation and game to live off of. By combination of this process and a very long period of time, people ended up on every continent. (Well, some ancient people did make boats to colonize certain islands, but that's relatively recent compared to this.)
Most genetic diversity we see today is due to this process, which is not unlike what happens with other species. True, in recent years, vast areas of land have been colonized by people of different ancestries, and a lot of evidence was destroyed through genocides (the Mongols just plain wiped out a lot of people), but since we can control for what's happened within written history, and are fairly sure that people did not sail the Atlantic in prehistoric times...
That's now how it works. "Turning into humans" (or any other species) is a long, involved process that entails some random genetic mutations being advantageous enough for you to spread them around. Then there's some separation that blocks interbreeding between populations. Evolution continues in both populations until they speciate--i.e. they can no longer interbreed because they have separately evolved for long enough. While parallel evolution does happen, the "parallel" species are still different species and can't interbreed. The probability that the exact same series of mutations would happen in even two separate populations is absurdly great, to say nothing of the countless different populations that would arise globally.
Another vague way that could happen is if there were interbreeding between nearby tribes of hominids. This is known as a ring species, and if humans were a ring species, then you could only interbreed with people who descended from your general area. Turks and Arabs could interbreed, and Greeks and Turks could interbreed, and maybe even Greeks and Arabs could interbreed some of the time, but none of them could interbreed with Koreans. This isn't how humanity is--all human populations can interbreed.
Slashdot Mirror
If you keep playing, you get back 95-98% of what you put in.
Most of the people who left Africa in prehistoric times did so accidentally, with pretty much no knowledge that they were in Africa to begin with--it was pretty much random human migration, nothing more. Also, how on earth has some thinly-veiled racist remark gotten modded up a 3, Insightful?
The Resnet is the network service provided in university dorms. Students can easily live off campus and buy internet service on the open market--in a Kansas college town the rent will probably be lower than their housing fees already are. That's certainly the case at Washington State in eastern Washington, where the dorms are patrolled continuously by taser-wielding university police and where downloading large amounts of data gets your resnet service cut off.
Slashdot's comments are for the most part written in literate English. That's the main difference.
Do you complain this much when people make anti-American remarks? Or are you a fat steaming pile of hypocrite?
I'm sure a 747 is much better at surviving German anti-aircraft guns. This brings to mind an old joke:
"British Airways Flight 27, this is Frankfurt airport, please taxi to gate 7."
(pause) "British Airways Flight 27, please taxi to gate 7."
"Stand by, I'm looking up the gate location now."
"British Airways Flight 27, have you never flown to Frankfurt before?"
"Yes, in 1944, but I didn't land."
Having parachutes and escape systems on airlines would allow D.B. Cooper-style hijackings and escapes.
As I already said, by the standard we're discussing, the Pentagon was a legitimate military target.
There probably was something there, since there's a slight "gap" so to speak between sub-saharan Africans and other humans, and that usually occurs with a geographic barrier.
Speciation occurs when one population can no longer interbreed with another, either directly or transitively. (Transitive interbreeding is what happens in ring species--population A can interbreed with population B, who can interbreed with population C, so A and C are part of the same species even if they can't directly interbreed).
The US has only had unsuccessful businessmen as presidents. Look up Bush's bio.
Saddam himself held personal command of the entire Iraqi military. That makes him a military target.
Believe it or not, the basic design for a nuclear rocket that can accelerate to a significant fraction of the speed of light has already been done. Unfortunately, it works by jettisoning and detonating a series of nuclear bombs behind it, which means we can't launch it from the Earth. Also, it requires nuclear bombs in order to work.
It seems intuitively absurd to think that people want things for literally no reason, because it seems intuitively absurd to think that anything happens for literally no reason. (That's not the same as people wanting things for bad reasons or unjustifiable reasons.) The right or wrong we can argue about, but it's certainly reasonable to think that.
I don't think it's a flaw to assume that people have reasons for wanting whatever it is they want.
By that standard, the bombing of the barracks in Lebanon, the attacks on US troops in Iraq, and arguably the attack on the Pentagon were not terrorist attacks. I might be comfortable with that conclusion, but lots of people aren't.
That's no reason not to do it.
Microsoft is offensive to people who like quality software and open standards. Wal-Mart is offensive to price-gouging small businesses and anti-trade labor unions. Can you see why maybe Slashdotters are more offended by one than the other?
I think "booze" should be spelled "boos"--"boobs" without the second "b".
Why would evolution be controlled by God? That would imply that God didn't do a good enough job of creating evolution in the first place.
I loved "Carry On Wayward Son", but I had no idea you folks were creationists.
Most condoms aren't made from plastic. Okay, almost no condoms are made from plastic. Condoms are made from latex, a naturally occurring product of certain South American trees. They are also made from animal intestine, for whose who are allergic to latex.
But not in ways that would affect genetic distribution, at least not by now. Maybe in 200 years, if everybody is flying all over the place and international/interracial matings are commonplace, genetic distribution is gonna be all fucked up. But until a vanishingly short period of time ago (by an evolutionary standpoint), nobody got any further than they could walk on foot within a lifetime, and most people didn't go very far. Further, from what we know about prehistory, people organized themselves in hunter-gatherer tribes. Human migration at the time wasn't very purposeful--you went from where you were to where you could find enough game and vegetation to live off of. For a very long time, Africa was big enough for everyone, and crossing the Sahara was daunting enough that pretty much everyone stayed in Africa. Eventually some tribes ended up heading up through the Sinai into western Asia--again, not purposefully, but because that was the only place they could find enough vegetation and game to live off of. By combination of this process and a very long period of time, people ended up on every continent. (Well, some ancient people did make boats to colonize certain islands, but that's relatively recent compared to this.)
Most genetic diversity we see today is due to this process, which is not unlike what happens with other species. True, in recent years, vast areas of land have been colonized by people of different ancestries, and a lot of evidence was destroyed through genocides (the Mongols just plain wiped out a lot of people), but since we can control for what's happened within written history, and are fairly sure that people did not sail the Atlantic in prehistoric times ...
That's now how it works. "Turning into humans" (or any other species) is a long, involved process that entails some random genetic mutations being advantageous enough for you to spread them around. Then there's some separation that blocks interbreeding between populations. Evolution continues in both populations until they speciate--i.e. they can no longer interbreed because they have separately evolved for long enough. While parallel evolution does happen, the "parallel" species are still different species and can't interbreed. The probability that the exact same series of mutations would happen in even two separate populations is absurdly great, to say nothing of the countless different populations that would arise globally.
Another vague way that could happen is if there were interbreeding between nearby tribes of hominids. This is known as a ring species, and if humans were a ring species, then you could only interbreed with people who descended from your general area. Turks and Arabs could interbreed, and Greeks and Turks could interbreed, and maybe even Greeks and Arabs could interbreed some of the time, but none of them could interbreed with Koreans. This isn't how humanity is--all human populations can interbreed.
Actually, the Inuit, who eat Vitamin-D-rich seals, are still fairly dark, unlike other Arctic populations.