What occurs to me is that the incorporation of vegetation into dinosaur diets was probably just an accidental byproduct of aquatic grazing. If fish or other small prey regularly hid within shoreline plants, then it would seem more energy efficient for dinosaurs to grab a mouthful of the plantlife that was hiding the prey too. Natural selection would have probably favored such aquatic grazers by selecting teeth and digestive systems that were most suited for grabbing a mouthful of seaweed or kelp or whathaveyou that contained animals. There might have been some unforseen benefits of eating plants too, such as additional nutritional supplements, so natural selection pressures were reinforced to a greater degree.
What you've got to understand is that "programming" cells to aggregate in a predictable fashion does not confer any new toxic properties to the cells...just the shape of the "tissue" that they are forming. The cells retain all of their old toxin-producing capabilities--should they have them--and are otherwise uninfluenced.
In fact, scientists have been able to modify bacterial genomes for years with plasmid cloning...we've long had the ability to insert new genes into bacteria to make them more virulent. This "novel" technique merely uses old plasmid cloning and gene splicing technology to make the bacteria act in a predictable fashion in the presence of some local environmental cue, thus allowing them to serve as indicators of something in the environemnt when touched with it.
Nevertheless, if you really want to be paranoid about something, look up the article published in Nature about 1.5 years or so ago wherein a couple of scientists reported building a smallpox virus from scratch. That's right. From scratch. It was accomplished after about 2 weeks worth of work.
I've actually heard about some data that indicates that both the most intelligent AND the most extreme mental handicaps tend to be disproportionately male. Thus, at either tail of a normal distribution of intelligence scores, the percentage of males will be greater than that of females (smaller kurtosis for male intelligence distribution). Females are still found in both extremities, but males simply outnumber them. This could potentially mean that females' genes impart a much more stable intelligence on average when compared to males, who could be more susceptible to greater variation in genetic expression.
This is not strictly limited to math and sciences, however, as one would generally expect to find a greater number of males in more challenging fields of study by virtue of the disproportionate distribution of intelligence scores. Fewer people tend to take science and math courses at the university level, and the ones who do so generally have higher intelligence. Thus, a sample of people with higher intelligence would yield more males than females (as would a sample of extremely low intelligence). It should also be noted that not all intelligent people take these courses, so the sample is even further skewed.
In a nutshell: Males can only be said to be smarter/better at discipline 'X' on average so long as they can also be said to be equivalently 'dumber'/worse.
Hell, my girlfriend is much better at most parts of advanced math than I am, but she is an English major and I study Biology, Chemistry and Psychology. She's an absolutely brillant girl, but just doesn't enjoy a lot of the stuff she's good at.
Just some food for thought.
It's not horrible to have alternative view presented...so long as these views have a legitimate backing of evidence. Presenting a theory of Creationsim alongside evolution in a science text is inappropriate, since there is no evidence whatsoever to support Creationsim. Creationism is strictly a theological construct, requiring "faith" for belief. Science is about evidence.
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What occurs to me is that the incorporation of vegetation into dinosaur diets was probably just an accidental byproduct of aquatic grazing. If fish or other small prey regularly hid within shoreline plants, then it would seem more energy efficient for dinosaurs to grab a mouthful of the plantlife that was hiding the prey too. Natural selection would have probably favored such aquatic grazers by selecting teeth and digestive systems that were most suited for grabbing a mouthful of seaweed or kelp or whathaveyou that contained animals. There might have been some unforseen benefits of eating plants too, such as additional nutritional supplements, so natural selection pressures were reinforced to a greater degree.
What you've got to understand is that "programming" cells to aggregate in a predictable fashion does not confer any new toxic properties to the cells...just the shape of the "tissue" that they are forming. The cells retain all of their old toxin-producing capabilities--should they have them--and are otherwise uninfluenced. In fact, scientists have been able to modify bacterial genomes for years with plasmid cloning...we've long had the ability to insert new genes into bacteria to make them more virulent. This "novel" technique merely uses old plasmid cloning and gene splicing technology to make the bacteria act in a predictable fashion in the presence of some local environmental cue, thus allowing them to serve as indicators of something in the environemnt when touched with it. Nevertheless, if you really want to be paranoid about something, look up the article published in Nature about 1.5 years or so ago wherein a couple of scientists reported building a smallpox virus from scratch. That's right. From scratch. It was accomplished after about 2 weeks worth of work.
I've actually heard about some data that indicates that both the most intelligent AND the most extreme mental handicaps tend to be disproportionately male. Thus, at either tail of a normal distribution of intelligence scores, the percentage of males will be greater than that of females (smaller kurtosis for male intelligence distribution). Females are still found in both extremities, but males simply outnumber them. This could potentially mean that females' genes impart a much more stable intelligence on average when compared to males, who could be more susceptible to greater variation in genetic expression. This is not strictly limited to math and sciences, however, as one would generally expect to find a greater number of males in more challenging fields of study by virtue of the disproportionate distribution of intelligence scores. Fewer people tend to take science and math courses at the university level, and the ones who do so generally have higher intelligence. Thus, a sample of people with higher intelligence would yield more males than females (as would a sample of extremely low intelligence). It should also be noted that not all intelligent people take these courses, so the sample is even further skewed. In a nutshell: Males can only be said to be smarter/better at discipline 'X' on average so long as they can also be said to be equivalently 'dumber'/worse. Hell, my girlfriend is much better at most parts of advanced math than I am, but she is an English major and I study Biology, Chemistry and Psychology. She's an absolutely brillant girl, but just doesn't enjoy a lot of the stuff she's good at. Just some food for thought.
It's not horrible to have alternative view presented...so long as these views have a legitimate backing of evidence. Presenting a theory of Creationsim alongside evolution in a science text is inappropriate, since there is no evidence whatsoever to support Creationsim. Creationism is strictly a theological construct, requiring "faith" for belief. Science is about evidence.