I don't mean to be a troll, but I want to let the poster know that proper format for the scientific name of an organism is genus is capitalized, and species lower case. So in this case, Attacus atlas and if it's possible either underline it or italicize it. Just so you know! :^D

Rottenseed,

People are born with bad health and it is not their fault. It cannot be their fault. They were given no choice. I was referring to making people pay more to keep a person alive who was doomed before they were born, to an early death.

But another argument can be made; what about the environment caused them to have congenital birth defects, or was it a hereditary illness? Was it smoking, ingested chemicals, or something of a hereditary natural cause?

I can't be sure, because it was a long time ago, but I think Richard Dawkins discussed this in one of his books. A hereditary illness is natural selection, predation is natural selection, but a congenital birth defect because mom smoked is not natural selection. The baby that mom had could have lived to reproduce, but we shan't no because of the congenital defect.

Natural selection is the process by which those heritable traits that make it more likely for an organism to survive and successfully reproduce become more common in a population over successive generations. It is a key mechanism of evolution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection

What I find interesting is that these Insurance companies were created largely out of good intention, yet they are so horribly wrong. Making decisions based on profit.

Could one argue that the evolution of corporation mirrors the evolution of the Homo Genus? I suppose, could that mean that the only predator man has is another man? I know I'm begging the question, but it is something to ponder.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_defects

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_system_in_Japan

The Health care system in Japan is one of the best in the world. Japan provides healthcare services, including screening examinations for particular diseases at no direct cost to the patient, prenatal care, and infectious disease control, are provided by national and local governments. Payment for personal medical services is offered through a universal health care insurance system that provides relative equality of access, with fees set by a government committee. People without insurance through employers can participate in a national health insurance program administered by local governments. Patients are free to select physicians or facilities of their choice and cannot be denied coverage. Hospitals, by law must be run as non-profit and managed by physicians. For profit corporations are not allowed to own or operate hospitals.

This whole discussion is why I instantly think climate change is a device to keep people fighting and arguing.

For fucks say, what is the real truth? Is there any; besides what the plutocrats tell us on the magic boxes we stare at all day?

You would think Climate Change is the new god damned religion of the sentry. Well fuck you, I remain skeptical because I will always disbelieve something that a lot of people believe; like god, and that a cake is a lie. I know Evolution is fact, because I could prove it for myself. I know climate change has something to do with the evolution of the human species and the only branch of the Homo Genus to industrialize the earth; but how does that compare with volcanoes, forest fires, and decomposition of flora?

For fucks sake every one needs to chill the fuck out, science is approximate not exact and if it were we would not be here arguing about it.

Someone post all of the studies they can find on climate change to this thread. Don't cherry pick em; break them up into sections; if it's a white paper then post it.

Then let people read them for themselves. Don't think that the scientific community is not without corruption, every community in the world has some semblance of corruption.


Climate Change is the new Fad didn't you know? Every one is wearing the T-Shirt.

So Kirk was really screwing a plant in that episode of Star Trek? I knew he was a rebel, but inter-genus sex?

>> ^schmawy:
Hey at least the origin of homosapiens in the eyes of Scientology goes back 75 million years. Christianity would have me believe humans originated 4,000 years ago.


Actually the genus "homo" has only been around for 2.5 million years, with "modern" man "homo sapiens sapiens" existing for about 200,000 years.

They're just as wrong, only in the other direction.

At times like this I can only utter one thing that can assuage my distrust for the other members of the Homo Genus who cannot control their Envy.

I'm an Atheist and yet I still find certain passages of the fiction truly appropriate.

Revenge is never the answer, but goddammit if it doesn't feel appropriate.

It is good to see that she has recovered, and woe unto those who thought they could stop her.

Congrats, im officially grossed out for the rest of the day. (and that says a lot) How the fuck am i supposed to eat pasta now that ive seen that?!?

In reply to this comment by rychan:
And another expert says it's NOT Bryozoan:
"Dr. Timothy S. Wood who is an expert on freshwater bryozoa and an officer with the International Bryozoology Association. I sent along the video and this was his reponse…

Thanks for the video – I had not see it before. No, these are not bryozoans! They are clumps of annelid worms, almost certainly tubificids (Naididae, probably genus Tubifex). Normally these occur in soil and sediment, especially at the bottom and edges of polluted streams. In the photo they have apparently entered a pipeline somehow, and in the absence of soil they are coiling around each other. The contractions you see are the result of a single worm contracting and then stimulating all the others to do the same almost simultaneously, so it looks like a single big muscle contracting. Interesting video."

This video makes it a little more believable that it could be a clump of these worms
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zn9kh7MaFQQ&
if you imagine that they would look deflated and slimy when the water in the pipe is drained.

And another expert says it's NOT Bryozoan:
"Dr. Timothy S. Wood who is an expert on freshwater bryozoa and an officer with the International Bryozoology Association. I sent along the video and this was his reponse…

Thanks for the video – I had not see it before. No, these are not bryozoans! They are clumps of annelid worms, almost certainly tubificids (Naididae, probably genus Tubifex). Normally these occur in soil and sediment, especially at the bottom and edges of polluted streams. In the photo they have apparently entered a pipeline somehow, and in the absence of soil they are coiling around each other. The contractions you see are the result of a single worm contracting and then stimulating all the others to do the same almost simultaneously, so it looks like a single big muscle contracting. Interesting video."

This video makes it a little more believable that it could be a clump of these worms
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zn9kh7MaFQQ&
if you imagine that they would look deflated and slimy when the water in the pipe is drained.

^well done averageuser! It does look like hag moth/monkey slug caterpillar (genus Phobetron). And several species are listed for Brazil (I'm assuming that's Portuguese in the video)... although I couldn't find a picture of this species. Here is another Brazilian species:
http://www.galerie-insecte.org/galerie/ref-5615.htm
It is commonly guessed that they find some refuge from predators by resembling the discarded exoskeletons of spiders. I still say the one in the video looks like a bat.

this video was a response to this debunking of arguments given by creationists :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Wyq0z2bQcE

It gives some examples of transitional animals that are in-between families/genus.

Starbuck is an angel. She has been, perceivably, since the very beginning of the show. We cant really know for sure, wether it was real kara up to the eye of juptier, and then an angel, or if it was angel kara all along. Most theories ive read, see Kara as being the one true angel since day dot.

Hera was the best DNA of the last of the colonial technological genus. She represented everything that was good in both the colonials, and the skin-job's (who were ultimately a re-creation of the final 5's race of cylons).

Her role in the film was to impart these beneficial traits onto the rest of humanity on earth, in the hopes that they can break the cycle of humans and non-humans going to war with one another every few thousand years. Instead of just telling humanity to stop building machines of war, without regard to safeguards, and hoping for the best....change humanity, attack the root of the problem. Thus, Hera.

Angels don't always have to be pure and good

The other skinjobs didn't get resurrection, as Tyrol killed Tory, which prevented Anders from unifying the 5 minds of the final 5 to regain the knowledge of resurrection. Presumably a large chunk of the skin jobs died in the last moments of the colony fight (the Cavil's side certainly was wiped out, as his entire fleet was parked at the colony, and the nuclear missiles from the dead raptor pushed its orbit into the event horizon shortly after galactica jumped to earth.)

All along the watchtower wasn't anything meaningful other than as a method for starbuck to plot the correct jump cords. That it was a well known song has no bearing on the storyline at all, just a cool song.

Well, Homo Sapiens should evolve on any planet that's very similar to earth, so its not that much of a shock.

Starbucks rotting viper/corpse may of been an event to trigger her into finding the way back to earth...the REAL earth, and not the final-five's home planet. Either way, the last Starbuck we all saw, post-juptier, was an angel.

From Wikipedia:

Myrmecia, often called bulldog ants, bull ants, or jack-jumpers (although jack jumper really only describes M. pilosula, and not all species), is a genus of ants. Bull ants can grow to over 40 mm in length, with the smallest species 15 mm long. Almost all of the approximately 90 species are endemic to Australia, with the single exception of Myrmecia apicalis from New Caledonia, where it is rare.[1]

These ants are well-known in Australia for their aggressive behavior and powerful stings. The venom of these ants has the potential to induce anaphylactic shock in allergic sting victims. As with most severe allergic reactions, if left untreated the reaction may be lethal. These large, alert ants have characteristic large eyes and long, slender mandibles. They have superior vision, able to track and even follow intruders from a distance of 1 meter.

*downunder

^dgandhi
1. I could form a social contract with someone who speaks Spanish--although we might have to use hand gestures (a form of non-verbal language), for example. I could not enter into a contract with someone who has no language, which is what you are insinuating about the fetus.

2. I didn't move the goal post I was just overly-brief with my definition the first time around. Here is the biological definition: "the major subdivision of a genus or subgenus, regarded as the basic category of biological classification, composed of related individuals that resemble one another, are able to breed among themselves, but are not able to breed with members of another species." I paraphrased this, but what I gave was the official biological definition.

3. Sentience, as it is relevant to "rights" or "morality" can be clearly defined. What is most relevant here is conscious choice. Human beings are the only species yet discovered that can exhibit a conscious choice. As far as whether we would lose our rights while we are sleeping: no. Because we gained "the right to life" the moment we gained sentience--that is, the moment we became a part of mankind. This is getting a bit convoluted, and we are straying a bit far from our original example--its interesting to examine this as it pertains to aliens, or evolutionary intermediates but it is really impractical at this point in human existence. Still, I don't think the logic breaks down in these circumstances.

I can't see an advantage from having a foot like ours, compared to monkey-feet-hands. Yet somehow, small mutations such as straighter feet took place, and selective breeding led to our feet the way they are.

Well I wrote an extensive paper on "the selective pressures leading to bipedalism in the genus Homo", and trust me, there area lot of reasons why our hands and feet are more differentiated than other primates.

For the bulk of its evolution, humanity has been a fairly nomadic, hunter-gatherer race. Mainly, you can't walk upright very well or have a smoothly operating human knee if you also have an opposable big toe. Morphology facilitating bipedal locomotion conferred a number of survival and sexual selection advantages to a primitive human. Mainly:

1. Bipedal locomotion is more energy efficient than any other locomotor pattern... humans have better endurance for long voyages by foot than any other species, including horses, large cats, etc..
2. Walking upright exposes less skin surface area to UV rays
3. Walking upright allows the focussed use of the hands to carry things, protect young, gather food, etc..
4. Walking upright allows a greater field of vision and viewing distance, which is better for hunting as well as defending the tribe.

And so on...

"Humans did not evolve from apes; humans and apes evolved from the same ancestor which was some third thing."

Actually people did evolve from apes, just not the apes as we know them today. Meaning we did not come from chimpanzees, gorilla or orangutan. People are still considered apes, as are all members of the Hominoidea family. The ancestors of the homo genus (animals that are considered human) developed from apes (are/were apes). Somewhere way back there, there was some proto-ape from which all apes evolved. Human like things came much much later.

Other than that I agree and understand what you were trying to say, I just felt the need to inform on what I thought might be a misunderstanding.