BS: Monkeys

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Feb 05 - 10:37 PM

Life can be seen as a 3-legged kettle, I suppose. Why not? :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: Bill D
Date: 27 Feb 05 - 06:58 PM

you'd put an obviously vague and misleading proposition on Mt. Rushmore? *grin*

"You mean life is NOT a 3-legged kettle?"

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Feb 05 - 08:13 PM

Oh yeah!!! robomatic said:

"The main conflict between the religious and the scientific is lack of humility on the part of both sides."

That ought to be written in solid gold, seven stories high, and put up on Mount Rushmore. Good stuff, robomatic.

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: robomatic
Date: 26 Feb 05 - 06:41 PM

LOL again. I'm willing to refine my statement to allow for the quality of the airpusher. AND I have an Einstein accordion T SHirT.

But I also know the joke about perfect pitch...

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: CarolC
Date: 26 Feb 05 - 06:26 PM

Evolve or face extinction, robomatic.

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: robomatic
Date: 26 Feb 05 - 06:03 PM

LOL like I said, such jumps are not necessarily an improvement!

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: Jim Tailor
Date: 26 Feb 05 - 11:27 AM

oh, and accordians are definitely a monster jump in evolution! There is hope for all because of the accordian.

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: Jim Tailor
Date: 26 Feb 05 - 11:26 AM

I'd like to know the basis for the assertion that only changes not included in existing genetic material are considered valid evolution.

'snot what I'm sayin, y'know?

I'm saying that the distinguishing difference between evolution and creation is not adaptation -- it is in how the jumps occur. And how the jumps occur is not adaptation. (as robo has chimed in, some are satisfied that the jumps are "mutations", others are not thus satisfied -- hence, a less exacting term "monster".)

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: Amos
Date: 26 Feb 05 - 11:23 AM

God, in my opinion, is a democratic verb, and we'll know when its done. This Supra pluribus Unum notion is alien to my nature, sorry.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: robomatic
Date: 26 Feb 05 - 11:13 AM

Let's be clear: Evolution is what we all see: That different animals such as dinosaurs, and different species of mammals and insects, existed in eras gone by at different periods.
Darwin's theory of Natural Selection is one among many to explain why we find the evidence of evolution, and is by far the most scientifically accepted such theory.

If by 'monster' you mean a step-wise change in an animal that then is either 'accepted' or 'rejected' by whether it survives or does not survive in nature, the common term in use is: mutation.

AS to whether or not one can put a value of chance on such occurrences, it depends on how you put together your initial conditions. All the declarations on how rare it would be for life to occur 'randomly' either are not very well defined, or indicate that life is a rare occurrence in the known universe, which complies with existing knowldge.

A common misperception of evolutionary theory is that somehow we (life) are becoming more advanced, or that there is some predestination in which some intelligent handsome creatures such as ourselves are the logical 'result'. This is the rankest of anthropomorphic attitudes.

We are simply the latest thing to come along, at best we are an intermediate form along the journey of time.

There is no biblical denial here. We are the latest of God' experiments. God will know when He's done, not us.

The main conflict between the religious and the scientific is lack of humility on the part of both sides.

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: Amos
Date: 26 Feb 05 - 11:06 AM

Jim:

I'd like to know the basis for the assertion that only changes not included in existing genetic material are considered valid evolution. It seems to me that the change in genetic structure caused by an adaptation is just as valid an evolutionary change as one caused by an accidental breakdown of a molecular chain somewhere.

Do you know the ratio between total genetic material and those genes used to express characteristics of the individual?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: CarolC
Date: 26 Feb 05 - 10:52 AM

You're both wrong (re: guitar chords). The wave of the future (the next evolutionary step) is accordions sans polkas.

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: Jim Tailor
Date: 26 Feb 05 - 10:37 AM

(by the way -- the "monster theory" is evolutionary theory -- not a refutation of same)

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: Jim Tailor
Date: 26 Feb 05 - 10:36 AM

barre chords are so passe', so yesterday. Three note chord melodies are the way of the future. I guess you're, you know, headed for extinction. That Pizzarelli boy's getting all the breeding stock.

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: Amos
Date: 26 Feb 05 - 10:26 AM

Given the amount of DNA that is not "used" in the building of an individual, if I understand it correctly, there's no telling what the number of combinations already available for adaptation in the genes might be.

But I think this distinction is not really important, ezcept rhetorically. Leaving the preferences of religious organizations to one side, the organism produces off-spring which have slightly or dramatically different traits --a human with slightly stronger fingers, say.

That human, being better at barred chords, makes better music, and attracts more mates.

As a result he has more children than some other humans. The strong-fingers gene-shift persists in the subsequent generation and gets cross bred into other family trees thus spreading through a per centage of the species.

Obviously, the consequence is the same whether the code for strong fingers is in the genetic makeup or was a freak reaction of a cell being hit by a gamma ray or something.

I think this "monster" theory is just a rhetorical device designed to make evolutionary theory appear discreditable.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: Jim Tailor
Date: 26 Feb 05 - 09:58 AM

"opts" isn't a very good word -- the genetic manifestation that is not as useful for survival is merely bred into non-manifestation.

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: Jim Tailor
Date: 26 Feb 05 - 09:56 AM

adaptation is a subtractive process whereby an organism, in response to its environment, over some generation's time, opts for one of many possibilities already within its genetic makeup.

evolution requires a "monster" -- a step not within the genetic options already within that organism.

Almost all discussion (as far as I've read) has been explanations of how the changes necessary for survival could have been anticipated and called for on the one hand, and questions over irreduceable complexity on the other.

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: robomatic
Date: 26 Feb 05 - 09:53 AM

HL Mencken:

"Darwin was wrong. Man's STILL an ape!"

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: CarolC
Date: 26 Feb 05 - 09:04 AM

Please define "evolution" and "adaptation" according to your understanding of the terms, Jim Tailor.

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: Jim Tailor
Date: 26 Feb 05 - 08:13 AM

It's a curious thing...

I don't think I've ever seen a lay discussion of evolution that did not "devolve" *snicker* into a description of adaptation, not evolution.

Creation doesn't refute adaptation and evolution doesn't require it.

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: GUEST,PPP Heathcare
Date: 26 Feb 05 - 07:51 AM

Munkeys can type shackspear.

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: Cluin
Date: 03 Dec 04 - 11:17 AM

Until that time, give the gist of a subscription to this magazine to your favourite chimpanzee for Xmas.

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: Cluin
Date: 03 Dec 04 - 09:50 AM

Species are still around because they are still successful at thriving in their environments.. When they cease to be, they cease to BE.

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: Pied Piper
Date: 03 Dec 04 - 08:09 AM

Evolution is a theory based on evidence in the same way that rebirth is fact based on superstition and scientific illiteracy.

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: freda underhill
Date: 03 Dec 04 - 08:02 AM

Years ago I read a book called the Aquatic Ape, which suggested that humans have features developed from living for millenia by the sea. we have a lot of features that are different from apes, but are similar to aquatic animals.

aquatic ape theory

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: InOBU
Date: 03 Dec 04 - 07:53 AM

forgot to sign the above, that was Larry and best to all... (but you all knew that from the bad spelling....)

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: InOBU
Date: 03 Dec 04 - 07:52 AM

Jeri wirtes:
"John, I once saw a show on TV which demonstrated humans weren't the only animal to use tools. The monkey would select a twig and strip it of leafy things, then stick it into an old rotting tree-stump and pull it out covered with...well, they might have been termites. Either ants or termites. Bugs. The monkey would then eat the bugs of the stick. "

        

Chimpanzees they were... at least an ape, a fellow primate, not monkey... and some anthropologists today place Chimps in the hominid line, as our common ancestor was more hominid than ape... which also speaks to the post about early hominids living at the same time, there is likely two hominids today... chimps and folks have only one enzime different in our dna ... as apposed to the closest primate which has hundreds of enzimes different...

and why are there still monkeys? Someone has to hold the cup for organ grinders...

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 03 Dec 04 - 02:10 AM

The Film 28 Days Later is good.
The DVD version has Alternative endings as a bonus.

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: GUEST,alinact
Date: 14 Jun 03 - 12:55 PM

Heard a story at the pub the other night that the people swear is true - or they were just trying to take the mickey out of a visiting Aussie.

Anyway, the story goes that during the Napoleonic wars, a monkey was washed up on a beach up Newcastle way (presumably a pet of some matelot who was shipwrecked) and when the locals, who obviously lived very sheltered lives back then, found it they thought it was a Frenchman, so they hung (hanged?)it.

I'm not saying whether I believe it or not but has anybody ever heard of this? and, if it is true, surely there has to have been a song created about it?

Allan

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Jun 03 - 05:35 AM

For some reason the title is sometimes "The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee", and sometimes just "The Third Chimpanzee".

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: GUEST,Bagpuss
Date: 12 Jun 03 - 05:17 AM

Another suggestion for a good read on the subject, is "The Third Chimpanzee" by Jared Diamond.

Bagpuss

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Jun 03 - 12:26 AM

My feeling is that we've been around a lot longer than that. I figure several million years. I may be wrong, of course. I was wrong once in 1972. I said this bird was going to fly off a fence before this other bird, and it didn't. Imagine that! Anyway, like I was saying...

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys, Men and "X"?
From: Amos
Date: 11 Jun 03 - 11:37 PM

Ya know, it's downright amazing to think that the arrival of our very species is viewed as occurring no further back than 200K years. An individual in his life has a near-range of about 100 years between his own experience and that he has heard about from those he knows or their parents. You can probably conceive readily enough of the nature of change in our world between 1903 and now. At full maturity, a well-connected human adult can see with somecertainty perhaps 90 years back and 10 forward.

That means that there are only 2,000 steps back to the shore of Lake Adis Ababa, or whatever it was called, when the early homo sap was sorting out which end of the stick to hold. Maybe 3,000 allowing for some overlap.

Now, I can't even predict with any certainty where we will have gotten to in 2103. That's just ONE hundred-year forward leap. 2203 is even harder for me to imagine. That's two steps.

What can you say about three steps forward -- 2303? All bets vanish in the mists of future. But we can look back hundreds, or even thouands of centuries with some clarity.

Because the rate of change has accelerated so dramatically we will be breaking through into unknown territory faster in the next hundred years than 'we' ever did in the past 1000 or 2000 years, let alone the past 2,000 centuries.

It is gonna be interesting. That's for certain!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: Sorcha
Date: 11 Jun 03 - 11:17 PM

June 11 — Scientists have unearthed three 160,000-year-old human skulls in Ethiopia that are the oldest known and best-preserved fossils of modern humans' immediate predecessors. The nearly complete skulls of an adult male and a child and the partial skull of a second adult appear to represent a crucial stage of human evolution when the facial features of modern humans arose.

The entire article, if it doesn't disappear....Click!

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Jun 03 - 07:08 PM

Don't you just love the way they start with those little, tentative "ook, ook, ook" sounds, and then build up to full-throated shrieks of excitement?

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: Gareth
Date: 11 Jun 03 - 06:39 PM

From the posts on this thread John, I suggest you NEVER vist Hartlepool, or enrol at the Unseen University.

Oook !

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: Amos
Date: 11 Jun 03 - 06:05 PM

John:

I suggest you read The Blind Watchmaker, or any of several other books by Richard Dawkins, who has a marvelous lucid way of explaining Darwin to the untutored and / or confused of the world. Maybe its just yer broken keyboard but you appear to qualify...


A

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: Ebbie
Date: 11 Jun 03 - 03:39 PM

John, I've had three monkeys as pets. The first one was a Squirrel Monkey- they're the small greenish, freckled ones that often are allowed to run free in zoos.

The other two were Capuchin. Entertaining and bright but determined and strong and distructive.

They ate mostly commercial Monkey Chow but they liked most everything. For instance, Jeannie, the female Capuchin, loved uncooked spaghetti and I let her have it for an occasional treat. Jimmy loved hairy-armed men; he'd lie in their arms and cry into their faces...

I often let Freckles stay out of his cage overnight, and he'd curl up under my chin to sleep. I'd awake when his tiny fingers very gently opened one of my eyelids; the first thing I saw in the mornings was his warm brown eye looking tenderly into mine.

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Jun 03 - 02:13 AM

Particularly in Spaw's case. In fact, he can do it without the Bass, and prefers to, specially if it's the talking one on the plaque.

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: Doug_Remley
Date: 11 Jun 03 - 01:06 AM

Apparently, John, Peg was pointing out that sick monkeys vomit. After being infected with Budweiser, as was statistically proven last week end when one hundred monkeys were infected then voluntarily forced to watch NASCAR; and, increasing their intake of the poison within minutes they were violent, vomiting in the rest rooms and writing "for a good time call Sally" in the stalls.

The civilized homininid, however, drinks Bass while eating curried, pickled eggs, watching football. While still prone to violence, rather than vomiting, noxious odors are emitted in volume sufficient, scientist believe, to power a motor car if contained and compressed.

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 10 Jun 03 - 06:29 PM

heloo,wahts,that,got,too,doo,with,monkeys,then?

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Jun 03 - 01:06 PM

I'm not bothered by violence either, if it's done intelligently and the script is good. A good script does not beat the viewer into submission. I agree that Hollywood occasionally makes a good one. One category of film I have almost no interest in is horror films (unless they are done for laughs...like "Tremors"...that was really entertaining). I guess I don't have much of an emotional need to be terrified. I'm puzzled why other people do. (Oh, and the horror films almost never actually scare me...I've seen the odd one here and there that did...they just annoy me, because they are so idiotic.)

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: Peg
Date: 10 Jun 03 - 10:34 AM

There's no accounting for tastes, Little Hawk. I thought it was brilliant and provocative. I am not bothered by violence in films, though I have no desire to sit through your typical Hollywood action flick, either...

Not all American films suck...there are a great many films from independent filmmakers well worth seeing, and once in a while Hollywood makes a good one...

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Jun 03 - 11:20 PM

Sounds like a good Hollywood excuse for an incredible amount of bloodshed and violence. I am finding it harder and harder to believe that it could possibly be a good movie or a movie I would ever want to see, but if it was made in England, maybe. The English have more class when it comes to films, and far better scripts, I think.

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: Peg
Date: 09 Jun 03 - 08:45 PM

I used to work for Greenpeace. Sanest bunch of people I've ever known.

There are many ironies in the story line of the film...By wanting to free teh chimps from being forced into violent behavior, they exposed the human race to this virulent epidemic of violence (thus reducing them to "animals."

But even more interesting is what the film has to say about the nature of the killing instinct. Once someone is "infected" there is between 10 and 20 seconds before the victim goes mad and starts tearing apart everything in sight and vomiting blood thus spreading the virus...so they must be killed instantly, even if seconds before they were your best friend or father...mild-mannered bike couriers must turn into utter mercenaries. There is also a fascinating plot twist which suggests that the implementation of martial law and the rounding up of women as chattel/cattle may be an even worse development than the virus which turns everyone into killing machines...some people, in other words, don't need an excuse to behave in a depraved manner.

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: Sorcha
Date: 09 Jun 03 - 07:07 PM

Well, LH, from personal experience, the PETA People are almost that crazy. Friends of Animal and Greenpeace sometimes come close, too.

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Jun 03 - 06:14 PM

That's a pretty dramatic storyline, Peg. Like I said, beliefs that lead directly to actions which harm others are pretty undesirable beliefs, whereas believing the Earth is flat does nothing but provide amusement and a feeling of smug superiority for all those who believe it's round...more fun for everyone, in other words.

My belief is that the Earth is actually kidney-shaped. I realize there's little or no evidence to support such a notion...but...it could explain why most of the surface of the planet is covered in water.

By the way, I think it would have to be a VERY stupid bunch of animal rights activists who would not hesitate and back off, when advised that the chimps were infected in that fashion...but that's what you need to get a lively movie plot rolling...some people who simply will not listen to reason.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: Peg
Date: 09 Jun 03 - 05:50 PM

There's a great new film coming out June 27th called 28 Days Later directed by Danny Boyle.

In the opening scenes, animal rights activists break into a laboratory to liberate some chimpanzees being used for experiments. A lab technician begs the activists not to release the chimps because they are highly contagious: they've been infected with a virus which keeps them in a constant state of psychotic rage. One chimp is strapped down in front of a bank of monitors all showing different images of violence.

When the chimps are released, they immediately attack and infect the humans (the virus is spread through blood to bloodstream contact, so in addition to being scratched or bitten, one can be infected when the attacker vomits copious amounts of blood onto its victim, which this virus seems to ensure will happen 99% of the time), and a viral Armageddon is unleashed...28 days later, the whole of London is wiped out...a few survivors remain.

Absolutely brilliant film, I have been unable to stop thinking about since I saw a press screening last week. Major cities in the US have a sneak preview on Friday the 13th. I understand it did well in the UK. I can't wait to see it again.

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Jun 03 - 12:42 PM

I can't really see any harm in someone believing the World is flat if that's what makes them feel good. :-) Believing in "trickle-down economics", on the other hand, has caused a great deal of harm. One should pick one's beliefs carefully, bearing in mind the impact they may have on others. This is more important than merely being "right" all the time, I think.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Monkeys
From: Gurney
Date: 09 Jun 03 - 06:50 AM

TIA, I URGE you not to make disparaging comments about Flat-Earthers!
They are a growing force, and if their High-Priest, Terry Prachett, tells them to, they will come around to your house and beat you to death with computer mice.