h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

'They are evolutionary off-shoots independantly evolved in the isolation of the Australian continent.'


A small point of order:

'The only naturally occurring marsupial in the United States is the opossum, Didelphis marsupialis. In the past, however, marsupials were quite common. During the Mesozoic marsupials were very common in North America; more common, in fact, than placental mammals. They persisted here until the mid- to late-Tertiary.



In South America and Australia, however, marsupials continued to be an important group of land mammals. Many South American forms are similar to the North American opossum. The marsupials of South America began to go extinct in the late Miocene and Early Pliocene when a land connection with North America formed, allowing placental mammals to cross into South America. '

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/mammal/marsupial/marsupial.html

Cool!

"anthropocentism"

I will have to use that on my work hand over some time lol.

I usually give them a quatom physics lesson.

>Evolutionary Theory = variation in heritable traits between individuals + differential reproduction due to those heritable traits >Seems pretty simple and obvious. Not to people like Steavey. http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/F2564204?thread=1174071 He believes that if humans are primates then a monkey would have to have given birth to a human.

Thanks for that! That gave me a good half hour of

I thought it was great that not only does he refuse to try and learn anything, but he't also illiterate too. Admittedly we are all functionally stupid and become stupider all the time, but most of us try to make up for that by at least trying to learn knew things.

I just found that thread depressing. Sad. To horribly sad for words.

I thought about adding a post to it, but that would be too much like kicking a guy in a wheelchair. After a gang had pushed him down a long flight of stairs.

Well looking at this thread he posted about why he is on pre-mod there (which seems to be mostly linked to his homophobic obcession and belief that he is above the rules the Beeb have on these messageboards) I think he will be banned soon just like PastorW is. http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/F2213235?thread=1199480

Evolution is nothing but deceit, as a religious practictioner I believe man was created from clay, anyway nice talking t' y'all, been a pleasure.

Strangely enough, I believe that all life was created from clay or at least in clay but god was not involved in the process. I believe that life is one of the fundermental forces of nature and where life can exist it will exist.

alji

Well, in that case, you're clearly a religious practicioner who doesn't understand, or wish to understand, the first thing about evolution.

Fortunately, not all religious practicioners or believers are like you.
Even some that are a *little* like you have at least sufficient confidence in their beliefs, or sufficient understanding of the things they believe are incorrect to try and actually have a debate.

Saying evolution has been refuted by appealing to ancient creation theories seems at best to be misusing the word 'refute'.

Question: Why would a sensible deity create people, who are composed largely of oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus
out of clay, which is generally some kind or other of aluminosilicate?

Does God not even understand basic chemistry?

(simulpost)

Potholer, he's unsubscribed so you are wasting your time. i spent a good half hour reading throgh the posts @ http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/F2564204?thread=1174071, posted by Omega. Steavey is a total wate of time! alji

I love the self-description on salaams2u's homepage:
"...I specialise in listening and communicating."

Indeed Potholer, not all religious practitioners are like that young spirit who breezed in and out so quickly.

There are those of us who seek truth through both rational and irrational means. We recpgnise that much of what we experience may well be irrational, but that does not prevent it from being a viable path to truth.

I would not be so quick to denounce the idea of clay. In the stories that young spirit believes the word 'clay' is a metaphor for the most basic building blocks of the universe. A creationist deity might have found it difficult to explain to ancient men and women the theroy of atomic structures and used just such a metaphor.

All things are true, for a given value of truth.

Blessings,
Matholwch /|\

I've found a nice site that puts evolution into persective @ http://www.ecotao.com/holism/4b_histlife.htm

alji

http://www.ecotao.com/holism/4b_histlife.htm

Somewhat factually inaccurate, speculative and seemingly designed to integrate science with taoist superstition.

And we're conditioned to presume 'if it looks too good to be true then it probably isn't'. Thus when someone is first exposed to say just two possible ideas regarding how humans got to where we are, and neither is all encompassing or 100% flawless or error free, it's easy to see that there can be doubts as to the truthfullness of either idea while having no idea what the truth really is.

Over the last 30 years I have seen major strides in evidence that evolution of one variation or other has it's roots deeply planted in fact. More and more 'secrets' are uncovered in the desire to learn how things work. The so-called irreducibly complex sytems continue to be explained, in evolutionary terms, to support that train of thought. I have also seen more and more flaws in religious rhetoric pointed out and only more rhetoric regarding it-no facts, no evidence other than yet another interpretation that relies on faith. My scorecard reads:
Evolution 1 Creation 0
At this point it's a shut-out.
Also worth mentioning is how similar other animal genes are to humans. Anyone have the numbers handy for comparing human gene similarities to say earthworms, dolphins or birds?

I'd add the proviso that in terms of *speculations* about human origins, many 'scientists' are far from wholly scientific, and many have seriously strong preconceptions that colour their interpretations.
Fortunately, I think most people interested in the area take their ideas with several pinches of salt, though there is opportunity for people to be misled or misinformed.