Fiach

Sexless organisms have an advantage over sexad ones, because where we only pass on 50% of our heritable material, sexless organisms pass the whole lot.

Exchanging DNA is advantageous to sexed organisms. It facilitates evolution by mixing of mutated sequences with 50% of its offspring each differing, say in a 50 group litter. 25 will have the altered allele in 25 different and differing sets of the ofsprings genomes. It may only be certain combinations that will work with the mutation. It also protects against harmful mutations that cannot be simply recessive in a unicellular one. Sex evolved because it worked better.

There are sexual organisms (plants, in this case,) that self fertilise more often than not. All these intermediate forms show that there is no distinct gulf between these two extremes

But they were less successful.

There is no clear distinction you can draw between uni and multi celled organisms that can not be filled by an extant or extinct organism

I am not sure of what you mean. There is not question that complex multicellular organisms have been successful but so are bacteria. They are so for different reasons. Multicellular organisms leave more fossils than bacteria that are recognizable as fossils. We may not be disagreeing. I just am not sure of your point.

there are a hundred other things that an animal could adapt to breathing

Gas bladders for buoyancy are ideal organs to transform into lungs. Perhaps gills as in some land crabs, but what else, the stomach?, the liver? The spleen?, the colon (everyone would have terribly bad breath?

Remember you made me do this. It is rather nit-picking, and I like your overall theme.

Fiach

Albert Cipriani

Dear Fiach,
You tell me: “Try to be nice, Albert” And in the same post say:
I’ll leave it to your well-formed conscience to sort out an analysis of what’s with you.

On to less hypocritical and more quasi-intelligible statements. You said:
I did not make that assumption and have no idea why you think I think such an ignorant thing. Maybe cuz, as you say, it’s getting harder for you to like me.

You say:
Talk about extinctions! There is virtually no such thing as a European Christian. More Moslems (tho they only represent a fraction of the population) go to their mosques in England than all Christians put together in that country go to Church on Sunday. The percentage of French Catholics who go to Mass on Sunday is in the single digits.

You say:
Yeah, and in a poll taken a month ago, 80% of the English, our most sympathetic erstwhile ally, agreed with the premises that our president is more dangerous than Saddam Hussein who is a documented torturer. Europe serves as no model for me. – Sincerely Disappointed In You, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Doubting Didymus

Well, so long as we're nitpicking...

Don't count on it! My list of intermediate forms between sexual and asexual forms included bacteria, fungus and angiosperms which are quite everywhere you look.

My point about uni/multicellular organisms was just that they are not opposites to each other, and that there are many intermediate forms between the two, so they are not divided by some sort of impassible gulf.

'Tis a misunderstanding. I did not mean that there are many different organs that organisms could adapt to use as respiratory devices, I meant that there are many different gases, liquids, and possibly even solids other than just air or water, that organisms could adapt to breathing.

I do believe we are both now uncontaminated by nits.

Fiach

George Bush is certainly not as bad as he is perceived around the world. He has a severe image problem. I think the chap is trying hard, means well, but lacks a certain intellectual capacity of a Jefferson or Adams. Europeans including us, have difficulty understanding how a candidate who comes in second in votes win such an important election. That just made his image worse. I think it is so entrenched that the man can't change it easily. But remember that our lads are fighting along side of yours in Iraq. We are each other's only allies.

Lets call a truce, eh mate?

Fiach

Albert Cipriani

Dear Fiach,
Thank you for your gracious response. We are both passionate people and that's what makes our dialogues prone to explode.

All will always be forgiven with me if you want it to be. Seems that you want it to be and so thus it is. Such forgiveness is not even an act of my free will, as it is not for me to withhold that which I myself desire to give.

You may object to my categorization of you being forgiven by me, as you've only asked for a truce and have not admitted to being wrong. But on this point I will not budge, you gabberloony gobshite boye! And furthermore…

By the way, since I’ve grown fond of flinging your own barmy brogue back at you, could you provide a translation of some of it? I assume “boye” means boy, but what the barmy does “gabberloony” and “gobshite” mean? – Cheers, Albert

Non-praying Mantis

Since DD handled much of this stuff with his excellent post, I will only cover what he missed...



I assure you, I am not toying with you. I am indeed serious. How is my example of cold/warm adaptation toying with you? Or perhaps you make the mistake of assuming that living things only adapt to non-living environments?

I assure you that is not the case. Organisms can evolve not just to changes in physical conditions (temperature, light, oxygen, moisture, etc.), but they can also adapt to other organisms that are part of their "environment." Predators, parasites, diseases, and other competitors, are important sources of "environment" that organisms have to adapt to. Parasite resistance can have a large effect on a population, just like that of cold. Individuals that are more resistant to the parasite will breed more successful offspring than those that are succeptable to it.

Parasites and predators are important parts of the environment in an ocean, just like other physical factors such as light availability and salinity. The ocean contains many varied environments, one of which is the coral reef (a colonial animal). Animals that can eat coral are here, as well as those that can live among the coral, and the parasites and predators that live off of all of them.

Plus, living conditions have the ability to adapt as well, causing an ongoing evolutionary "arms race" of co-evolution. As one organism adapts to a predator (for instance), the predator will then adapt in response, an so on.



Huh? Christians rarely (if ever) suppose that they are God. I was merely making the statement that evolution is a brutal, but effective, way of running living things, and if I was God, I would not use such a brutalistic way. Any God that would prefer such a method would also be brutal, or at least unable to use another less brutal method.



I hope that you are not trying to insult me...

You again fall under the fallacy that I alluded to when I said:

"just because gravity exists does not mean that no animal, including humans, should not fly."

There is no reason that we humans should be brutal toward one another if there is no God! Evolution is like gravity in this respect. It is a physical law that acts in a certain way under certain conditions, but it does not dictate to us our actions. We have a choice here. We decide what to do, not the application of some evolutionary theory to our social relationships!

Tell me, Albert, why do I have to be brutal, if God does not exist???

I do not understand your logic here...

NPM

Non-praying Mantis

Actually, there are at least two examples of animals that do use their rectums for obtaining oxygen from water: some sea turtles, and dragonfly nymphs.

Essentially, they are "breathing out of their asses!"

NPM

Fiach

Thanks Albert. I realise that you are a bonny boyo (a very nice guy) and accept your apology as you accept mine. I like to use some of my native street lingo, partly to let Americans (including many Irish and Scots) about our culture. Barmy is crazy. Gabberloony is nonsense talk or one who talks nonsense. Gobshite is the Scottish equivalent of one who lies or bullshits (literally gob=mouth, and shite=shit), wanker is an allpurpose insult (literally one who masturbates). But it is like the American "fuck" it has 1000 meanings. BTW we often say "feck" for "fuck".

However due to a unique Scottish custom, we sometime use these otherwise rude words as terms of friendship or endearment. "Oi, Jaime, ye eld gobshite woould ye jine me fer a wee spot o' rum at Murphy's Pub?" Jaime might reply, "Aye, ye barmy wanker. I'll be along rightly."

Have a great evening, Albert.

Fiach

Albert Cipriani

Dear Mantis,
I absolutely meant no insult. Don’t know how you could derive a hint of that in my remarks. The bout Fiach had with me must have been contagious. Seriously, I sincerely appreciate our dialogue. Why would I bite the hand that feeds me?

You say:
For a law to be a law it must not be arbitrary, but rather, always operable. So, for example, even when a body is at rest, gravity is still operating on it. Even when you and I are not mutating or getting selected (i.e., trying to get lucky), evolution must still be operating on us. We are incrementally advancing or retarding our species by the intelligent or stupid applications of our genetic traits. Our actions are the bio-feedback loop that is part and parcel of the law of evolution.

The question then becomes, what constitutes intelligent evolutionary feedback versus stupid evolutionary feedback? It would seem to me the actions that make our species more fit are the intelligent ones.

So Himler (a former chicken farmer before his rise to Hitler’s #2 man) had it right when he was trying to genetically breed a super race from his experiments on twins. His techniques were woefully inadequate, even stupid, but his intent was, by the light of the law of evolution, intelligent.

You assert:
On what grounds do you make such a sweeping counter-intuitive claim? Evolution is making the brutal choices for us anyway, so why shouldn’t we couple our intelligence to its blindly brutal means of selecting the fittest of us for survival? Our efforts would not only allow us to evolve more speedily and efficiently, but even less painfully. We could mercy kill with pleasure-inducing drugs the infirm and the stupid.

You ask,
Because, as Dostoevsky said 100 years ago, “If God does not exist, all things are permissible.” – Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Wounded King

Dear Albert,

This doesnt mean we are required to act brutally simply that we may, and as a quick scan will tell you, people act brutally all the time God or no God.

It is certainly not impossible that eugenics could be used to eliminate certain heritable conditions or even theoretically to make people more intelligent or longer lived. The fact that something can be done doesnt mean that we should do it though.

The mere fact of being an atheist doesnt render someone amoral.

Merely because we are products of evolution doesnt mean must be slaves to it. Indeed much of the history of medical science is an ongoing battle to render those that nature may consider unfit to have healthy, productive and normal lives.

Cheers,

Wounded