Darwin re-visited

[Overdog]

I tell you, we got two categories of pilots around here. We got your prime pilots that get all the hot planes, and we got your pud-knockers who dream about getting the hot planes. Now what are you two pud-knockers gonna have? :wink:

Buffy

 

Interesting perspective Buffy. What exactly is a "pud-knocker" and what would be the reproductive advantages of "pud-knocking"?

[Michaelangelica]

25+ years ago I was in Germany, about 20 K from the E German border.

The fighter planes had a special technology that kept them just above tree level.

It was frightening, deafening and awesome.

 

Friends, who lived there for a year, used to go and collect bits of plane in the forests, where the technology had not worked so well.

[Michaelangelica]

LOL

I wonder what poor old Darwin would of made of this?

 

 

 

Humans could all be aliens

 

From Marlowe Hood in Paris

 

June 14, 2008 12:32pm

Article from: Agence France-Presse

* Genetic space material may have formed life on earth

* Meteorite found in Australia used for basis of study

* Latest UFO videos and stories

 

GENETIC material from outer space found in a meteorite in Australia may well have played a key role in the origin of life on earth, according to a study to be published on Sunday.

Humans could all be aliens | NEWS.com.au

[freeztar]

LOL

I wonder what poor old Darwin would of made of this?

 

He'd probably find it extremely interesting. Since his theory does not involve the origin of life, it wouldn't phase him in his studies.

[Michaelangelica]

An interesting general article on Dawin on the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of the Species

 

A small list of some of the traits we have lost along the way on page 2

Shaven ape: the origin of a very big stink - National - smh.com.au

[Galapagos]

An interesting general article on Dawin on the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of the Species

 

A small list of some of the traits we have lost along the way on page 2

Shaven ape: the origin of a very big stink - National - smh.com.au

 

Glad somebody else noticed! It's actually the 150th anniversary of Natural Selection, Origin wasn't published until about a year later. July 1st 1858 was the day in which a paper was presented to the Linnaean Society by the work of Darwin and a few other men on behalf of himself and Alfred Russel Wallace, who (I think) was in the Maylay archipelago at the time.

 

 

The Beagle Project Blog: A guest post by Wallace's Rottweiler on the 150th anniversary of natural selection.

 

Now is a good time as any to reflect on what this powerful idea did for humanity; what ancient shackles it empowered us to break free of; what doors it opened, and previously blacked out windows it revealed to us.

 

 

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

[Michaelangelica]

The Beagle Project Blog: A guest post by Wallace's Rottweiler on the 150th anniversary of natural selection.

Amazing article thanks.

[Michaelangelica]

The Beagle Project Blog: A guest post by Wallace's Rottweiler on the 150th anniversary of natural selection.

Amazing article thanks.

The Beagle Project Blog: A guest post by Wallace's Rottweiler on the 150th anniversary of natural selection.

[Galapagos]

Charlie Rose - E.O. Wilson & James Watson on Charles Darwin http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6927851714963534233&q=darwinian+left&ei=W9uMSJOSFYTSrAL18P2qBg

 

Cool video, Charlie Rose discusses Charles Darwin with E. O. Wilson and James D. Watson.

[Eclogite]

Some of you may recall a television series, fronted by James Burke, called Connections. This explored the links between diverse historical figures - principally scientists and inventors - generally working full circle back around to his starting point.

 

The reference to the Beagle sent me in search of a similar set of of connections. Ten days ago, while in Newcastle (N.E.England) to attend my daughter's graduation ceremony I called into nearby North Shields where I purchased an 1891 edition of Darwin's The Voyage of the Beagle. Could I, I wondered, find a connection between Darwin, North Shields and The Beagle?

 

At the opening of the twentieth century the head post office clerk in North Shields was also one of five weather observers in that town who reported to the Met Office. (The Meterological Office - the government agency in the UK responsible for weather forecasting.)

Circumstances led to this gentleman writing an article for the Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary. Specifically this article was on the Beaufort Scale. This is a scale that relates wind speed to sea conditions and has given us the defined terms of breezes, gales and storms - at least in nautical applications.

 

Admiral Beaufort was a hydrographer whose responsibilities covered the gathering of information that would allow Her Majesty's Ships to sail and anchor in security and safety. The definitions in his eponymous scale were a single small example of his total work.

 

As a recognised expert, with a network of contacts in the science community of Victorian Britain, he was charged with recommending a naturalist to accompany an important exploratory voyage that was shortly to be undertaken.

 

The voyage would be made by the Beagle and the naturalist he recommended was Charles Darwin.

[Michaelangelica]

Threre was a rather nice quote from Darwin's gardener

Has anyone seen it?

[modest]

Threre was a rather nice quote from Darwin's gardener

Has anyone seen it?

 

Is it this one?...

 

Re: Memorable science quotes.

 

nice quotes

This is a favourite of mine, from Charles Darwin's Gardener who said-about his employer-:-

 

"He's really a sad little man.

Sometimes he stands and stares at a flower for hours.

I really think he'd be better off if he had something to do."

 

;) I think the quote is originally from "The Voyage of the Beagle", yeah?

 

~modest

[Michaelangelica]

Thanks my posts now have a better memory than me.

[Pyrotex]

Everything I ever knew, I forgot in Hypography.

[Michaelangelica]

Everything I ever knew, I forgot in Hypography.

A local broadcaster says he wants to start a "Zen" University where you go into it with all your certainties and come out having unlearnt them all.

 

My memory does that for me automatically

[DI5STURBED]

Michaelagelica,

I do not see any flaw in evolution from the evidence you have presented. First, off the time scale you are looking at for evolution to even take place is way too small. There was a study done that took an Ecoli that thrived in a specific environment. The scientist then transferred the bacteria to an environment where the Ecoli would not thrive; there was a rapid decrease in the population of Ecoli at first. But then after 33,127 generations of the Ecoli living in this new environment it formed 10 to 20 good mutations and actually had a huge increase in population allowing it to survive in this new environment. You can find this by Google searching "E. coli long-term evolution experiment", since I cannot post links yet. So I think if we give the bird flu, AIDS/HIV, or whatever; enough time to either A) let us adapt to it and live with it in our system, :) let us form mutations that will kill it off when it enters our system so it would be like a common cold or we kill it off completely (optimistically speaking), or C) let us not adapt to the viruses/bacteria and it kills us all off, which as Darwin put it is extinction (pessimistic outlook). But as you can see all of these out come and the evidence portrayed before hand is completely consistent with evolution. As someone said we are a product of nature, we can understand bits and pieces of nature, but not nature as a whole with the knowledge we have in this day in age. There are too many questions that do not have answers, and when we find answers we end up getting even more questions. So, we are not above nature and nature will run its course whether we like it or not.

[Michaelangelica]

Thanks for your comments DI5STURBED

I am not trying to disprove evolution or Natural selection I just think they need to be updated in light of recent biological advances. I am not a biologist so it is sometimes hard for me to express my sense that Dawin's theories are not enough anymore.

 

Unfortunately the whole Darwin thing seems to be such an emotive, 'red-rag', thing with the fundamentalist religious so discussion of refinements to Darwin's theories rarely get to first base.