RufusAtticus

Becareful not to confuse adaptation and acclimation. As far as modern biology is concerned, populations adapt; individuals acclimate.

pz

That's the physiological definition.

Our problem here is these terms, adaptation and evolution, shift in meaning from discipline to discipline...when astronomers talk about stellar evolution, for instance, they mean something completely different from the process biologists mean when they talk about evolution. "Adapt" also changes its meaning completely when it describes an individual vs. a species.

I'm sure this is painfully confusing for creationists, except that it also provides nice loopholes for them to elide from meaning to meaning and thoroughly bamboozle their audience.

Non-praying Mantis

Notice that "adaption" is not the same as "adaptation." An
adaptation, is usually defined as a particular consequence of, or a singular result of, evolution.

NPM

Doubting Didymus

I'd just like to chime in to say that classifying viruses as not living things is plain silly. I know they don't satisfy the criteria for 'living', but that just goes to show that we have the criteria wrong. Viruses are obligate parasites, so what? there are plenty of those in the animal kingdom, not to mention the sodding protists!

pz

No, "adaptation" and "adaption" are synonyms, with "adaption" being the less used and (at least in the circles I frequent) somewhat frowned upon version of the word. A quick glance through the indexes of several of the big fat evolutionary biology and physiology books on my shelf reveals no entries for "adaption", but plenty for "adaptation".

ex-xian

Biology isn't my area of study so I'll just comment on :
Well, I used to think that AIDS was god's punishment for loose living, just as Duvenoy said. Trying to think like I thought then, I'd probably have said that the virus was the result of the fall of man and sin...and that it sat dormant or was passed around by animals until a)God unleashed it, or b)man just happened to catch it.

pz

How did you rationalize the high incidence among hemophiliacs? And the lower incidence among lesbians?

Gurdur

You want to classify prions as living things too ?

Doubting Didymus

Someone want to be a smartarse!

I think 'alive' and 'not alive' is as grey a distinction as 'consious' and 'nonconsious' is. Any hardline distinction is bound to be arbitrary. True, in one sense viruses are really just a small conglomerate of dead molecules, and they are no more alive than a rock. However, what, then, is it about bacteria that makes them 'alive', but the virus does not also fulfill? The fact that viruses are obligate parasites means little to me. Its still a high fidelity replicating mutable object with the capacity for differential replication efficacy. I'ts no more or less alive than obligate bacterial parasites.

Prions (you smartarse) do not, I think, satisfy the criteria for evolution to work on them. They sit even further into the soft grey edges of our distinctions than viruses do. I am well aware that it makes little less sense to draw the line at prions than it does to draw it at viruses, but my point is that there should not really BE any strong distinction. There is no inherent 'life-stuff' present in matter, and eukaryotes, bacteria, viruses and prions are all just different degrees of organisation in matter. I don't think any line can be drawn that isn't arbitrary.

ex-xian

I just want to clarify, that I no longer think this way, and am ashamed that I ever did. That being said, I would probably have said that the hemophiliacs contracting AIDS was the same as a victim of a drunk driving accident. Sin not only harms you, it harms innocents as well. About the lesbians...lesbians turned me on too much so I tried not to think about them (that other bit about not thinking this way...doesn't apply to lesbians turning me on...anyway, I'd better stop before I get booted back to the "lower levels" of smilie abuse and post-slutting)