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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 05/04/2009 : 03:40:13
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Taking a break from dreary political insanity, I thought I might share some evolutionary eye-candy.
This is an early flatfish showing the migration of the eye. And there's more!
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Edited by - filthy on 05/04/2009 03:43:30
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 05/04/2009 : 07:00:20 [Permalink]
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| That's really cool! Transitional species are always so neat... |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 05/04/2009 : 09:33:23 [Permalink]
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| Two more gaps, bitches! |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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pleco
SFN Addict
USA
2998 Posts |
Posted - 05/04/2009 : 10:50:37 [Permalink]
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| Looks like good eatin' |
by Filthy
The neo-con methane machine will soon be running at full fart. |
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Hawks
SFN Regular
Canada
1383 Posts |
 Posted - 05/04/2009 : 17:32:44 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by BigPapaSmurf
Two more gaps, bitches!
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ONE more gap. Or, alternatively, two new gaps and one less gap. |
METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL
It's a small, off-duty czechoslovakian traffic warden! |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 05/04/2009 : 21:17:28 [Permalink]
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When I was a wee lad, my family had an already very old (1930's?) set of The Book of Knowledge. (I seem to recall that Piltdown Man was still treated seriously in its pages.)
One of the things I recall being fascinated with was a series of photos in the BoK of the growth and development of flatfish. Young flatfish had eyes of both sides, but as they aged, one eye would slowly move to the other side, while the other would move over to make room for it. I seem to remember that the author of the article wrote that this developmental eye migration probably reflected the evolution of flatfish ancestors.
And now I can see one of those ancestors. Cool!
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 05/05/2009 05:04:48 |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 05/05/2009 : 02:41:17 [Permalink]
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Even cooler than you might think -- it's a sharp stick in the eye of creationism and creationism's mongoloid whelp, Intelligent Design. From a link in the text: Intelligent Design?
Ever since a geneticist invoked the hopeful-monster explanation in the 1930s, it has been the conventional wisdom for the origin of modern flatfishes.
Intelligent design advocates have seized on the idea of instant flatfish rearrangement as evidence of God or another higher being intentionally creating new animal forms. (Also see: "Does 'Intelligent Design' Threaten the Definition of Science?" [April 27, 2005].)
Intelligent design advocates often cite the relative scarcity of transitional species in the fossil record as evidence of the intentional creation of species.
Lee James Best, Jr., for example, wrote in his 2003 book, God and Fallacy in the Theory of Evolution, that neither the flounder itself nor "unplanned environmental pressures" caused the change.
"As with aimless squeezing of wet clay, without a mold or other purposeful directed pressures," he wrote, "an intended end to a construction project would not occur."
The new discovery, however, is unlikely to change the minds of many creationists.
Zoologist Frank Sherwin, science editor for the Institute for Creation Research, called the findings "underwhelming."
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Tough titty, Frank! 
Of at least equal interest in the article is Ambulocetus, the walking whale.
And, for those who don't open links but should, there are 5 others noted, equally interesting and equally embarrassing to the Book of Genesis.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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pleco
SFN Addict
USA
2998 Posts |
Posted - 05/14/2009 : 06:30:36 [Permalink]
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by Filthy
The neo-con methane machine will soon be running at full fart. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 05/14/2009 : 07:50:22 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by pleco
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Yeh, and there's a deity of some sort or another in every lame one of 'em.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Transitionals
