Baidarka

A good theory should be able to explain some things.
If creationism is a scientific theory it should be able to explain some basic things about life.
Lets get some answers to some questions from creationists and evolutionists.
1- Why do men have nipples?
2- How are behaviors inherited? Fear of heights- fear of snakes- Nest building
3- How do you explain vestigial appendages and organs?

Duvenoy

I can help a little.

It's been my experience that fear of snakes is learned behavior. I do presentations at elementary schools, fire and police departments, and for Fish and Game with a small conservation society. My part, indeed specality, is venomous snakes. I've seen that most young children quickly get over any fear they might have had for these creatures, mainly from one of my partners letting them touch a non-venomous serpent. Indeed, I have to keep an eye open lest one of them opens a cage. My own kids and grand kids have never feared them, although only one of the grands shows the same interest I have.

Adults, on the other hand, never get over it entirely.

d

RufusAtticus

I can explain 1.

Men have nipples because God has nipples.

Why does God have nipples? Because He is God.

~~RvFvS~~

tronvillain

Apparently most primates, even those raised in captivity, exhibit a fear of snakes. I would be surprised if we didn't at least have a predisposition towards being afraid of them, making it far easier to learn to be afraid of snakes, than say, electricity.

Anyway, I'll take a crack at them:

1)Males have nipples because constraints prevented our distant ancestors from developing the system as a purely female trait. In other words, males have nipples because females need nipples.

2)Behaviors are presumably inherited by genes affecting brain development - perhaps by linking visual systems to systems responsible for arousal and fear, in the cases of heights and snakes.

Daydreamer

Given how easily people (at least some people) jump away from moving snake-like objects - ropes, plastic snakes, etc., my guess would be that its one of Dawkin's 'Brittle' behaviors tying the visual stimulus of a middling length, thin moving object with a fight-or-flight reaction. Probably has a very low heritability factor due to the complexity of even such a simple human emotion as 'Fear', given how easy it is for children to overcome it.

Daydreamer

A few more of my favorites:

Why do we have ribcages seemingly build for horizontal/angular movement if we walk upright?

Why do our ankles break/sprain so easily relative to the rest of our joints?

Why, when our head/neck/chest oreintation more closely resembles that of a bird than an ape, can we not rotate our heads in 120+ degree arcs like many birds can?

Why are male gentalia place in outside our bodies and in front of us, where they are so vulnerable?

Why is it difficult for us to move our 3-5th fingers (going from thumb to pinky) and 2-5th toes (from big toe to pinky) independ of each other?

Duvenoy

"Apparently most primates, even those raised in captivity, exhibit a fear of snakes. I would be surprised if we didn't at least have a predisposition towards being afraid of them, making it far easier to learn to be afraid of snakes, than say, electricity."

With the exception of some preditors (and some very stupid, domestic cattle), most land mammals avoid snakes. Indeed, anything that moves quickly on the ground will startle them. Young children however, will happily pick up the pretty animal, sometimes disasterously. There was a case of this invloving an Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake (Crotalus adamanteus)in FL a couple of years ago. The child died.

We are far more dependant on our parents for our education than other species of primate. I think we've lost a great many natural instincts due to simply not needing them. How often might you find a serpent wandering around your house (that's your house - mine's full of them)?

We quickly teach our children what to beware of. In Africa, I'm sure that avoiding snakes is much higher on the Watch-out List than, say, sticking a fingernail file in a wall reseptical (I did this one. It is still a vivid memory).

Men have nipples because women refused to carry around four of them.

d

Panta Pei

Men have nipples so that when we are completely alone we can press on them while going "Beep Boop Beep Beep Boop..."

C'mon, it can't just be me

Koiyotnik

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the reason males have nipples is because during the development of a fetus in the womb, it is for a time gender non-specific.

At a certain period in the pregnancy, the gender is determined, and the fetus begins to develop specific organs.

Essentially, the male and female reproductive organs are the same things (to a certain stage), though developed differently. (ie, the clitoris and the head of a penis are pretty much the same thing.)

The same reasoning could be said for nipples, I suppose.

Then again, this is just me trying to remember Grade Eleven health classes.

DRFseven

Basically right. Mammalian gender is determined at conception (genotype), though the developing fetus will not develop gender differentiation for several weeks. Thus, the embryonic body must be the same for both sexes before differentiation.

[ June 09, 2002: Message edited by: DRFseven ]</p>