Newsgroup sci.bio.paleontology 9293

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Steve Jones - JON  wrote:
>Ed Conrad wrote:
>> 
>> scottb@ucr.campus.mci.net (Scott Begg) wrote:
>> 
>> >Strange... And how could a comparatively fragile bony structure like a
>> >human skull become fossilized  in a SOLID BOULDER without being filled
>> >or rendered solid itself?
>> 
>[.. insulting stuff removed ..]
>> For crying out loud, Scotty, how the hell do I know?
>> Ask Macrae and Myers. They seem to have all the answers.
>So you don't know how this happened then... but you refuse to listen to
>people who have studied in this field ?
>Sounds a little strange to me, if I don't understand something I read up
>on it and learn, ask questions of those that have studied and expand my
>knowledge.  Never thought of pig-headed arrogance as an approach to
>learning before.
       Hey, Steve, it's time YOU went back to school.
       To wit, your hairbrained statements:
>>   (1.)  You refuse to listen to people who have studied in this field . . .
        but have been brainwashed in their total acceptance of
        nonprovable theory as undisputable fact (concerning man's
.       orgin).
>>  (2.)  Ask questions of those that have studied and expand my
>>  knowledge . . .
      of gobbledegook in which Fiction and Fantasy reign supreme
.     while Facts and Evidence keep getting the cold shoulder.
>>  (3.)  Never thought of pig-headed arrogance as an approach
>>  to learning . . .
      with the notable exception of your own profession.

In <32873F4C.7AA0@courier6.aero.org>, "Walter E. Shepherd"  writes:
>I suggest that we stop thinking of intelligence in
>binary terms... i.e., intelligent/not intelligent.  I think
>intelligence, like most everything else, is a continuum...
  Well put!  However, once a species becomes tool-using and
starts using tools to make better tools, a binary separation *does*
form.  It doesn't take very many generations for the tool-using
species to build a society qualitatively different from even
the most intelligent non-tool-users.
  --Cathy Mancus 

Jim Foley wrote:
> 
> In article <5620jq$98n@news.ptd.net>, Ed Conrad  wrote:
> >
> >
> >Truth is,  ``Lucy" is a mosaic of a few bones that were found over a
> >square mile.
> 
> This misconception is based on creationist incompetence and ignorance.
> Lucy was found within a small area.  A knee joint found a year earlier
> and about 1.5 km away was a separate find and has never been claimed to
> be a part of Lucy, creationist claims to the contrary notwithstanding.
> 
> See http://earth.ics.uci.edu:8080/faqs/knee-joint.html
> 
Don't bother Jim,
He won't read the FAQ and in a few months he'll be out claiming
the same old 'Lucy is made up of bits from a square mile of land'
story.
It doesn't matter how often you tell him, he won't listen.
He can't advance an argument. When faced with this situation
most people would read the evidence and either accept it or
propose an argument as to why the evidence was invalid, this is
what the people who wrote the FAQs did. (T)ed however will simply
repeat his tired old falsehoods until the day he dies.
Barry.
-- 
E-mail: Barry_Vaughan@hp.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Is this sloppiness caused by ignorance or apathy ? 
I don't know and I don't care. - William Safire
------------------------------------------------------------------------
My opinions do not necessarily reflect those of Hewlett-Packard Ltd.

Hey Ed Conrad.  How about putting better pictures of the skulls
on your web site so we can see sutures or muscle scars that 
would confirm that what you found were skulls.  If you don't respond
then I'll assume there aren't any sutures and that the pictures aren't 
of skulls but of rocks as I gleaned from my original look at the 
pictures.
Stu Hobbs
"Common sense is all the prejudices layered on before age 18."--Einstein

wvanhou237@aol.com wrote:
: In article <55nnm3$nhe@news.ycc.yale.edu>, bdiebold@pantheon.yale.edu
: (Benjamin H. Diebold) writes:
: 
: >
: >I just wanted to add that Neanderthals of course disappear about
: 20-25,000
: >years before the Neolithic got underway. I'm sure there are perfectly
: good
: >neolithic industries in the southeast that need no dramatic explanations,
: >since there are plenty of genuine first peoples around.
: >
: >Ben
: 
:            Acker was watching a rerun of the same show Discovery had on
: quite
: a while back. He got only the "'lithic" part wrong. It was paleo not neo.
	Thanks.  Since I was working without a transcript, I 
wrote what I thought I heard, which was clearly incorrect.  I'm
grateful for any clarifications that make this information more
accurate.
	To be specific, the object was described as a flint hand-axe
shaped by flint knapping.
===============================================
|  James G. Acker                             |
|  REPLY TO:   jgacker@neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov  |
===============================================
All comments are the personal opinion of the writer
and do not constitute policy and/or opinion of government
or corporate entities.

Barry Vaughan  wrote:
> (T)ed however will simply
>repeat his tired old falsehoods until the day he dies.
>Barry.
You obviously have me confused with Brett Vickers.  You
know, the guy who maintians the t.o/Ediacara/Toromanura/
BandarLog FAQ/FGU system, which still has the one flagrant item
claiming that Babylonian Venus observations contradict
Velikovsky, which still maintains Tim (Hey-Boy) Thompson's
BS treatise about albedo readings for Venus taken from Earth
in 1890 being just as good as those taken from Venus orbit
by Pioneer Venus in 1978, and which still maintains Kathleen
Hunt's idiot "Intermediata Fossil" FAQ/FGU making the
claim that there are more intermediate fossils than anybody 
knows what to do with despite Gould, Eldridge, and every other
competent paleontologist of the last 30 years being plainly
on record that there aren't any.
Now, THAT's repeating falsehoods.
Ted Holden
medved@digex.com
	But I's a SCIENTIST, see, you jus don understan
	how a chimpanzee can turn into a man
	an dress fine, an drink wine, an exhibit perfection
	an do alla dis shit, wid natrel see-lection...

Mike Noreen wrote:
> Unfortunately 'Wonderful Life' is full of errors. It is not one of
> Gould's finest - he misunderstands what a phylum is, and he suggests
> non-mendelian genetics to explain the cambrian explosion.
Could you please expand on the errors a bit? My education is in
physics, so I didn't pick up on any errors when I read this book.
I certainly wouldn't have spotted any error about what a phylum
is (something to do with metal work I expect :) but I would have
thought I'd spot non-mendelian genetics. Maybe I skimmed that bit.
-- 
Standard disclaimers apply.
In an attempt to decrease the junk e-mail advertising I get,
I have mangled my return address. Commas to dots in the
obvious fashion.
Dan Evens

In article <567cfl$hc5@news.ptd.net>, edconrad@prolog.net (Ed Conrad) wrote:
>
>scottb@ucr.campus.mci.net (Scott Begg) wrote:
>
>>Strange... And how could a comparatively fragile bony structure like a
>>human skull become fossilized  in a SOLID BOULDER without being filled
>>or rendered solid itself? 
>
(Bizarre Rant Snipped)
>
>For crying out loud, Scotty, how the hell do I know? 
>Ask Macrae and Myers. They seem to have al the answers.
>
>
Interesting, Ed. When someone stumps you and you can't answer you defer to the 
experts, but when the experts tell you your "fossils" are nothing but 
concretions, you raise holy hell, claiming a sinister conspiracy by the 
scientific community to supress the facts. Oh well, I guess logic has no place 
in your arguments anyway, so why cloud the issue?
Larry Usselman, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
ljusselm@amp.com (AMP Incorporated)
lju@ezonline.com (personal)
*******************************************************
"When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of,
       he always declares that it is his duty. 
              - George Bernard Shaw
*******************************************************

I am a senior in high school and am working on a persuasive paper on the
theory that birds could have very well evolved from dinosaurs.  I would
like to know what this theory is called and what does it state exactly. 
Any info would be most appreciative, just send to:  eichorn@aol.com
Thank you, 
Kristen Eichorn

David L Evens wrote:
> Actually, the most common argument I've seen against considering viri to
> be alive is that they MUST have living hosts to reproduce.  There exist
> no possible set of natural environmental conditions that would allow
> isolated viri to reproduce.
And there are spores and seeds which can be in the ground dormant for
years, by all means dead -- without the right conditions, they will not
proliferate.  The same thing could be said for viruses (not _viri_, you
silly goose).
After all, as someone else pointed in this thread, put a human male and
female in a desert and see if they procreate successfully.
It's all about natural environments.  Parasites and symbionts, for
instance, require other organisms to live; without them they die.  That's a
far stronger cry than simply needing another organism to assist in
procreation (ever heard of sex?  :-), and no one's saying that parasites
aren't alive.
Furthermore, sterile humans can't reproduce; does that make them not alive?
And you have whole species that can't reproduce:  mules, for instance.  Are
they not alive?
Procreation is a requirement of evolving life on the species level.  It
doesn't matter how they do it.
> I like this, as it also fits in with the general method of determining if
> life is abundant on a planet:  A planet has abundant life iff it has an
> atmopsheric composition far from chemical equilibrium.
Or, alternatively, even if it's what people would generally not consider to
be "alive," it will see represent some interesting and/or unique chemical
reactions.  And that's worth investigating, anyway.
-- 
                             Erik Max Francis | max@alcyone.com
                              Alcyone Systems | http://www.alcyone.com/max/
                         San Jose, California | 37 20 07 N 121 53 38 W
                                 &tSftDotIotE; | R^4: the 4th R is respect
         "But since when can wounded eyes see | If we weren't who we were"

Peter Kwangjun Suk wrote:
> (P.S.  It's "precludes", not "procludes"  ;-)
Hey, at least it was just a typo.  :-)
-- 
                             Erik Max Francis | max@alcyone.com
                              Alcyone Systems | http://www.alcyone.com/max/
                         San Jose, California | 37 20 07 N 121 53 38 W
                                 &tSftDotIotE; | R^4: the 4th R is respect
         "But since when can wounded eyes see | If we weren't who we were"

Erik Max Francis  writes:
> Alastair Ward wrote:
> > Yuus ... perhaps add time factor , that is  ... steady, local,* temporary *
> > decrease in entropy. All known living organisms have finite life. So ... we
> > have life consists of small lumps of space-time within which entropy is
> > decreasing.
> 
> Why include the finite lifetime requirement?  The point here is to be as
> general as possible (certainly that's the case if you're favoring the
> thermodynamic definition over other, more traditional definitions, such as
> the metabolic or physiological definitions), and just because all known life
> has a finite lifespan doesn't mean that all life everywhere does.  (Yes, all
> natural, evolving life probably will, but we're looking for generalized
> definitions, not just natural life.)
> 
> Plus, there's a higher-order decrease in entropy all around the Earth due to
> evolution.  This has no end in sight; it's hardly worth including a finite
> time term in the criteria.
Are you sure about that?  It seems to me that evolution does not
produce an decrease in entropy.  You could make an argument that the
lifeforms on earth from the first cells to, say, the first chordates
have increased in complexity, but that does not immediately translate
to thermodynamic entropy.  I have heard of information theoretic
arguments for lower "information entropy", but none that seemed
reasonable for thermodynamic entropy.
In addition, wouldn't you have to argue that the biosystem has lower
entropy now than before _taken as a whole_, and that is also a
function of the number of creatures isn't it?  We'd have to know the
biomass and distribution of it in different time periods.
Finally, how do you compare the entropy now with the entropy from the
mid-Jurassic?
-- 
Clark Dorman				"Evolution is cleverer than you are."
http://cns-web.bu.edu/pub/dorman/D.html                -Francis Crick

Barry Vaughan  wrote in article
<328877FB.C7F@hp.com>...
> Jim Foley wrote:
> > 
> > In article <5620jq$98n@news.ptd.net>, Ed Conrad 
wrote:
> > >
> 
> > >
> > >Truth is,  ``Lucy" is a mosaic of a few bones that were found over a
> > >square mile.
> > 
> > This misconception is based on creationist incompetence and ignorance.
> > Lucy was found within a small area.  A knee joint found a year earlier
> > and about 1.5 km away was a separate find and has never been claimed to
> > be a part of Lucy, creationist claims to the contrary notwithstanding.
> > 
> > See http://earth.ics.uci.edu:8080/faqs/knee-joint.html
> > 
> 
> Don't bother Jim,
> 
> He won't read the FAQ and in a few months he'll be out claiming
> the same old 'Lucy is made up of bits from a square mile of land'
> story.
> 
> It doesn't matter how often you tell him, he won't listen.
> He can't advance an argument. When faced with this situation
> most people would read the evidence and either accept it or
> propose an argument as to why the evidence was invalid, this is
> what the people who wrote the FAQs did. (T)ed however will simply
> repeat his tired old falsehoods until the day he dies.
> 
> Barry.
> 
> -- 
> E-mail: Barry_Vaughan@hp.com
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Is this sloppiness caused by ignorance or apathy ? 
> I don't know and I don't care. - William Safire
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> My opinions do not necessarily reflect those of Hewlett-Packard Ltd.
> 
Creationists seem to believe in a "god of the gaps".  They use their
version of religion to fill in gaps in their knowledge.  The problem is
that as knowledge increases or expands, God is diminished. It is my belief
that God does not reside in the gaps of knowledge but in knowledge itself. 
After all he did say that he was the light, and we may expand that to
include "enlightenment".

In article <3286125A.651B@hcn.hcnews.com>, brblaze@hcn.hcnews.com wrote:
> Achim Recktenwald, PhD wrote:
> 
> > 
> > There exist many fungi, quite a lot of plants, even some animals which
> > do not procreate sexually. For them reproduction is a purly vegetative
> > process.
> > Are they then as a species not alive, as stated above by  'Brother
> > Blaze'?
> > 
> 
> But they still procreate.  The members of the species create more
> members of the species.  They qualify.
> I don't claim that this definition of life (growth, reaction,
> metabolism, procreation) is an absolute definition. I simply state that
> it's a standard definition given, and a good starting point in
> recognizing a new organism as being alive.
   It's all completely arbitrary. How do we figure out whether or not
something is alive? Well, we see if it fits our definition of "alive".
Where do we get our definition? We look for the property(ies) of things
that are alive, possessed by the set that is composed of all things alive
and only those things alive: i.e. bacteria, slime molds, ostriches, etc. 
   See the problem? How do we determine what fits into the reference set -
i.e. is alive in the first place- if we don't have a definition yet? Some
people include viruses, others do not. How about self-replicating RNA
strands? What about the computer program Tierra's self-replicating,
evolving computer programs? We create a definition but we start out with a
definite idea of what is alive or not alive in the first place, and use
those things we "know" to be alive to compare other things to them. 
   To put it another way, life arose from abiotic conditions- molecules
that were not "alive" eventually developed into things like bacteria. Is
there some magic moment, some magic point in time when a set of carbon,
oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen stops being just C, O, H, and N and takes on
that elusive stuff of "life"? Or is there some definite, quantifiable
point at which a human being becomes no longer alive? All living things
came from nonliving compounds and return to them, and division between
nonliving organic compounds and living organisms is an arbitrary division.

Nick Longrich wrote:
> [...]
>    If anybody's thought this up before, ignore me, otherwise, HOLD YER
> HORSES! Okay, so the study supports heavy hunting of mammoths. Let's just
> take that as a conclusive, indisputable fact for a moment. Now let's ask:
>    Hunting by WHAT?
> [...]
> be... I don't know, could it be (church lady voice here) SMILODON?
Smilodon - or other predators - are not nearly so efficient or organized
as man.
I would take hunting pressure by nonhuman predators as a baseline and
then see the
effect of human introduction (the basis of the paper). Nonhuman
predators would likely
stop at one kill, humans would go for more than if they could get away
with it. The 
mammoth provided more than just food, it also provided skins, ivory,
sinew, hair,
etc. Definite inducement to get more, whereas a Smilodon et al would
stop when full
eating. Net effect is a real stress to the population.
> [...]
>    Can somebody give me the ref. on this paper?
I posted the start of this thread, quoting a newspaper article. If you
wish I could
mail you a photocopy.
+----------+    Rich Travsky   RTRAVSKY @ UWYO . EDU
|          |    Division  of  Information  Technology
|          |    University of Wyoming   (307) 766 - 3663 / 3668
|       UW |    "Wyoming is the capital of Denver." - a tourist
|        * |    "One of those square states." - another tourist
+----------+    http://plains.uwyo.edu/~rtravsky/

suk@pobox.com (Peter Kwangjun Suk) wrote:
>What about eusocial organisms?  One could imagine that an intelligent ant
>colony would have an evolutionary advantage.  Yet an ant colony as a sort
>of meta-organism is essentially sessile.  (Foraging worker ants amount to
>the root system of a plant without the infrastructure.)  As far as
>environemntal manipulation goes, sessile ant colonies really don't affect
>the environment more than plants that emit toxins to kill off
>competitors.  Perhaps an intelligent species of "army ants" which did not
>have sessile colonies would arise, and wipe out all non-intelligent
>species.  Over time, sessile variants of the intelligent species would
>evolve to take over the environmental niches of the extinct
>non-intelligent ants, but retain their intelligence.  
Evolutionarily, it's unlikely that the sessile variants would retain their
intelligence over time. So for the first few generations they might be
intelligent, but it would lapse as they no longer need it for survival.
Bascially intelligence needs more brain given over to it. If you don't need
intelligence you don't put all the effort into building the extra bit of
brain it requires. By not building the extra bit of brain you save energy,
because you don't need to feed it glucose (etc) to keep it going. 
In a drought/famine situation the sessile things with the extra bit of
brain for intelligence will die off more quickly, because they need more
energy to keep going, the thick ones last longer, and may still be around
when the famine breaks. Admittedly, this is a contrived situation that I've
used to show how energy considerations come in when intelligence isn't
required. The small amount of extra energy required would not make that
much difference, but then the brain does take a lot of food to keep going,
so maybe the example does work.
With humans experience counts for a lot, especially in our developing
years. Even later in life having plenty of stimuli helps you keep your mind
going - 'use it or lose it'. Being in one place really cuts down your
experience, so an ET intelligence that was sessile would have a different
learning system to us, perhaps some way of inheriting experience, so it
could be built up over time?
Paul.
(This is a very interesting thread for designing aliens)
--
psilver@mistral.co.uk
                Silence to those who oppose freedom of speech!
Webwork: www.bag-hotels.co.uk - selected & inspected UK accommodation

JHOLL4@ wrote:
> 
> In <32873F4C.7AA0@courier6.aero.org>, "Walter E. Shepherd"  writes:
> >I suggest that we stop thinking of intelligence in
> >binary terms... i.e., intelligent/not intelligent.  I think
> >intelligence, like most everything else, is a continuum...
> 
>   Well put!  However, once a species becomes tool-using and
> starts using tools to make better tools, a binary separation *does*
> form.  It doesn't take very many generations for the tool-using
> species to build a society qualitatively different from even
> the most intelligent non-tool-users.
> 
>   --Cathy Mancus 
> 
I agree that tool use has a marked impact on survivability of a
species... I will refrain from using the word "mastery", but it
certainly offers a much greater degree of control over a species
environment... a leg up so to speak, which I suggest works in a positive
feedback manner to further the development of intelligence.
But... I still think that even tool use comes in various shades. 
Chimpanzees use sticks to dig out termites... sea otters use rocks to
crack shells... Moose use tree bark (OK I know... the tree is just
standing there) to help the sheding of their antlers.
I have a dog who puts his paw on the rim of his dogfood dish to steady
it and keep it from "walking away" as he eats.  I have a cat who stands
up on his hind legs in front of a kitchen cabinet door, puts his paw
behind the cabinet door knob, and throws his weight back to open the
door to get inside (for various reasons).  Is this, or isn't this tool
using?... I don't know. But I do know that they are manipulating their
environment to enhance their existence.  And that is precisely what we
humans do when we use our own tools.
No, I still don't think there is anything binary about it... we share
this planet with brethren species... they all have different degrees of
skill and various shades of competency.  I'll say it again... I don't
think we, as humans, have passed through any magical threshold,... we
are good at what we are and what we do... we are definitely an
impressive species, but not magical.
-- 
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\'o.O'               He is as bothered and bewildered as you, and he
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   U     Thppft!!    thought he meant or said.
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Achim Recktenwald, PhD  wrote in article
<32836881.818@ibex.ca>...
> JHOLL4@ wrote:
> There exist many fungi, quite a lot of plants, even some animals which
> do not procreate sexually. For them reproduction is a purly vegetative
> process. 
> Are they then as a species not alive, as stated above by  'Brother
> Blaze'?
> 
> Achim
> 
The third rule was to 'procreate'.  Nothing was said about whether the
procreation was sexual or asexual.  
Chris Gardner
chrisg@cbm.com

In article <3287E733.2D6DDC33@alcyone.com>, Erik Max Francis (max@alcyone.com) writes:
>Alastair Ward wrote:
>
>> Yuus ... perhaps add time factor , that is  ... steady, local,* temporary *
>> decrease in entropy. All known living organisms have finite life. So ... we
>> have life consists of small lumps of space-time within which entropy is
>> decreasing.
>
>Why include the finite lifetime requirement?  The point here is to be as
>general as possible .... 
I have in mind that local decreases in entropy may only be possible for finite
times. It is almost as if these localised entropy decreasing processes
inevitably carry within them the seeds of their termination. That is to say in
order to occur there has to be exchange of material and energy with the
surrounding environment. This exchange allows the entropy to decrease locally
but in all such dynamic processes there is always the risk of failures. It
sounds a bit like my car . I very much doubt if entropy decreasing
subsystems can persist for ever. 
>Plus, there's a higher-order decrease in entropy all around the Earth due to
>evolution.  This has no end in sight; it's hardly worth including a finite
>time term in the criteria.
Yes, but I believe some biologists think that even a species may have an
intrinsic lifetime and who knows perhaps this sort of limitation applies to
life as a whole. Species to species is a bit like a relay race perhaps. And
even a relay race comes to a stop eventually. 
>> The net effect of such lumps in general being to increase the
>> overall entropy. Mmmm ...
>
>The entropy of a closed system _always_ tends to increase; it doesn't matter
>whether or not there are local eddies of decreasing entropy enclosed or not.
What I have in mind here is that the local eddies of decreasing entropy may
be one of the methods by which the complete closed system moves _most rapidly_
towards its maximum entropy value. Associated with this is a lurking feeling
that the 2nd Law seems a little terse. Accompanying it there may be a codicil
which states that the entropy of the closed system not only increases with time
but does so by those paths which maximise the rate of increase , subject to any
global constraints. Life seems on the evidence around us to be a very effective
way to speed up entropy increase in a closed (or even partially open) system.
This is just a hunch though ... I have no proof.
Al. 

f.j.lindemann@toyen.uio.no (Franz-Josef Lindemann) writes:
>Sets of characters should be used as tools to detect the various groups, 
>not to define them. To continue to define a clade on a whole number of 
>apomorphies is to hope for a bad fossil record. 
I gather from what follows that by a "whole number" you mean
more than one.
>The fossil record, 
>however, will improve, and there will be more and more groups for which 
>the chronology of character aquisition becomes better known. That is, 
>more and more taxa will have to be redefined and must ultimately be 
>based on a single character.
>There are three mutually excluding ways of defining a clade:
>a) as a crown group (one possibility)
>b) as a total group (one possibility)
Let me see if I got the definition of "total group" straight: 
a total group is found by starting with 
a group of recent species, looking at the characters which set them
apart from all other known recent species, and then looking at all
descendants of the FIRST comon ancestor that had even one of the
characters.  Correct?  
>c) by an apomorphy (many possibilities)
>It was already Hennig who made the distinction between the crown and the 
>total group, though not in these terms. He used "*group" for the first 
>and "group" for the latter.
Not very imaginative.  Also, unless he thought of ALL clades as being
total groups, he was restricting "groups" to not even include all of
what he called the monophyletic groups, was he?
> Jefferies (1979) then invented the terms 
>crown group and total group.
>In article <55l6p6$77j@redwood.cs.sc.edu>, nyikos@math.scarolina.edu 
>says...
>(fjl):
[...]
>But one will probably never knowingly identify a crown group, i.e. its 
>basal apomorphy.
>I wouldn't see this as a weakness, however. The strength of the crown 
>group is that it is real, irrespective of the mistakes systematists 
>might make in the search of the apomorphy it is based upon. And being 
>phylogentically defined (sensu De Queiroz & Gauthier, 1990) it can never 
>become para- or polyphyletic.
Indeed, I have been making these same points for some time.
>Whether the name Mammalia should be attached to the crown group is a 
>different question. It is probably correct that most neontologists do so 
>(which was the reason for De Queiroz & Gauthier to make their proposal). 
>It's different, however, when paleontologists are asked. Some, like 
>Wible (1991, J.Vert.Pal.11,1), prefer the crown group definition which 
>would probably date the origin of the mammals as Early Jurassic. The 
>majority, however, prefers an apomorphy-based definition. The 
>traditional one is the dentary-squamosal jaw articulation which would 
>give a minimum age of Late Triassic.
By this, do you mean (a) when the two first started to articulate,
or (b) when this became the exclusive articulation, with the quadrate
and articular completely out of the picture, on their way to
becoming the incus and malleus of the middle ear?
At any rate, my preference would be for following the paleontologists
as far as what clade to give the exalted name "Mammalia" goes.  I 
am in favor of calling the crown group "Neomammalia", in analogy
with "Neornithes".
> Lucas & Luo (1993) accept the 
>presence of a petrosal promontorium in forms like Adelobasileus and 
>Sinoconodon as a mammalian character, though I am not sure whether they 
>suggest it to be the defining apomorphy.
Do you have any idea what changes in lifestyle or abilities this
change represents?  One can try to make a case for more acute
hearing with the malleus and incus being freed from the jaw 
articulation, but what evolutionary advantage might the petrosal
promontorium have conferred?
>When opting for an apomorphy-based definition, systematists should try 
>to agree on one character. The character with the best chances for 
>acceptance would probably be one of those that are identifiable in 
>fossils.
I should think "that goes without saying", as the English idiom goes.
Peter Nyikos                      -- standard disclaimer --   
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics
University of South Carolina
Columbia,  SC  29208

In article <56a66n$afo@news3.digex.net>, medved@access.digex.net says...
>
>Barry Vaughan  wrote:
>
>
>> (T)ed however will simply
>>repeat his tired old falsehoods until the day he dies.
>
>>Barry.
>
>You obviously have me confused with Brett Vickers.  You
>know, the guy who maintians the t.o/Ediacara/Toromanura/
>BandarLog FAQ/FGU system, which still has the one flagrant item
>claiming that Babylonian Venus observations contradict
>Velikovsky, which still maintains Tim (Hey-Boy) Thompson's
>BS treatise about albedo readings for Venus taken from Earth
>in 1890 being just as good as those taken from Venus orbit
>by Pioneer Venus in 1978, and which still maintains Kathleen
>Hunt's idiot "Intermediata Fossil" FAQ/FGU making the
>claim that there are more intermediate fossils than anybody 
>knows what to do with despite Gould, Eldridge, and every other
>competent paleontologist of the last 30 years being plainly
>on record that there aren't any.
>
>Now, THAT's repeating falsehoods.
>
>Ted Holden
>medved@digex.com
Ted, why do you only believe "Gould, Eldridge, and every other competent 
paleontologist of the last 30 years" when they (supposedly) say something you 
already agree with?
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jamie Schrumpf                            http://www.access.digex.net/~moncomm
"It is morally as bad not to care whether a thing is true or not, so long as
it makes you feel good, as it is not to care how you got your money as long as
you have got it."    ---  Edmund Way Teale, "Circle of the Seasons"

Phillip Bigelow  wrote:
>Graham Shields wrote:
>> 
>> Phillip Bigelow  wrote:
>> >Here is some additional information (with my comments) on that
>> >Chinese theropod with some type of integument. This information
>> >did not pop up on the thread we had on this a while ago, so I
>> >thought I would post it.
>> >The following information can be found in _Science News_
>> >for October 26, 1996, p. 260.  Author is Richarad Monastersky
>> >(earth science staff writer for _Science News_).
>> >  
>
>
>
>> I think the tone of this post leaves a great deal to be desired.
>
>
>I think the tone of your response leaves a great deal to be desired,
>too.  I spent a few minutes of my time typing that article in
>to UseNet.  What have YOU contributed (of substance)
>to sci.bio.paleontology lately?
Oh now, now. I only just got back from China.
I am not a palaeontologist but I do try my best.
> Personally, I tend to believe that the purported "feathers"
>will indeed turn out to be feathers. That is, when the science
>is eventually done.
> And keep in mind that most (MOST) of my post was paraphrasing
>the _Science News_ article.
> You got a problem with the "tone" of my post?  Then have it
>out with Richard Monastersky (the author of the article).
>I thought my post was well ballanced and fair...I gave both
>sides of the argument.
>
It is not clear which are your comments and which bits are
paraphrased from the original author.
>
>
>> I am also skeptical as to how you know that there are no vertebrate
>> palaeontologists involved in Beijing and Nanjing:
>
>Where the HELL did you dredge THAT up from my post?
>Where in my post did I say that there were no vertebrate
>paleontologists in China?  For the literary-impared, I
>shall make it clearer:  The buerocracy of who is PRESENTLY
>in charge of the specimen(s) (ie., that the present managers
>of the fossil(s)are not vert. paleontologists) makes it only a 
>matter of time before someone publishes on it.  The key word, 
>Graham, is TIME. Learn to read.
>
>Personally, I am sick of seeing all of the blather from
>Ed, Ted, and even the Ed and Ted bashers.
>It's responses like yours that don't further discussion at all.
>You want more of Ted and Ed, and less of my science journal article
>posts on paleontology?  Then keep it up, bub.
>             

http://tyrrell.magtech.ab.ca/index.html
http://tyrrell.magtech.ab.ca/tour/																																

eichorn@aol.com wrote:
>
> I am a senior in high school and am working on a persuasive paper on the
> theory that birds could have very well evolved from dinosaurs.  I would
> like to know what this theory is called and what does it state exactly. 
> Any info would be most appreciative, just send to:  eichorn@aol.com
The theory has no special name, other than perhaps the theory of the
dinosaurian origin of birds.  (I suppose one could call it the Huxleyan
or Ostromian theory of bird origins, but no one does).
A very good review of the main aspects and evidence can be found in
Chapter 13 of D. Fastovsky and D. Weishampel's textbook "The Evolution
and Extinction of the Dinosaurs" (Cambridge U. Press, 1996).  You might
be able to find this at local libraries or good book stores.
The theory states that birds are the direct descendants of dinosaurs,
and not simply close relatives (as was once the belief, due to the
influence of Gerhard Heilmann's "The Origin of Birds").  There is a
vast body of skeletal evidence demonstrating that birds derived from,
and indeed are part of, a radiation of advanced theropod (carnivorous)
dinosaurs called the Coelurosauria.  Among the features linking birds
with coelurosaurs (and more generally with other dinosaur groups)
are the presence of a maxillary fenestra and promaxillary foramen in
Mesozoic birds (openings in the skull between the nostril and the
antorbital fenestra, itself an archosaurian feature), many specializations
of the brain case, a semilunate carpal block in the hand (the "half-moon
shaped wrist bone" alluded to near the beginning of the movie Jurassic
Park), the proportions of the hand (short, divergent metacarpal I,
longer metacarpal II, long and slender metacarpal III, attached at the
end to metacarpal II), presence of a furcula (wishbone) (now confirmed
in several coelurosaur groups, including tyrannosaurids, and in the
more primitive carnosaurs, including Allosaurus), a particular configuration
of the pelvis (like that seen in dromaeosaurid coelurosaurs (aka "raptors"),
but unlike that in the poorly-named "bird-hipped" dinosaurs), a reduced
fibula, a simple ankle joint without a heel, a backturned digit I (homologous
to our big toe), large digits II, III, and IV in the foot, no digit V
(homologous to our little toe), tail vertebrae of which the first
five-to-nine or so are very mobile and the rest which were highly
stiffened, and other featuers (whew!).  Oh, yeah, and feathers, which
have now been confirmed on fairly primitive coelurosaurian dinosaurs.
If you check the textbook or similar source, these features are illustrated,
and will hopefully make more sense.

David L Evens wrote:
> 
> Erik Max Francis (max@alcyone.com) wrote:
> : Brother Blaze wrote:
> 
> : > The Definition of life is:
> : >
> : > 1) Growth or movement
> : > 2) Reaction to external stimuli
> : > 3) Procreation (creating copies--though not exact, perhaps)
> : >
> : > The lifeform must exhibit *all* of the above.  This is a fairly standard
> : > set of criteria for determining life.  As to whether it's intelligent or
> : > not is another story.
> 
> : Uh, and where did you get this?
> 
> : There are a half-dozen or more preliminary definitions of life; all of them
> : are flawed.  Yours is closest to the physiological definition -- but is by
> : no means "The Definition of life" [sic] as you phrase it.
> 
> : Automobiles, for instance, could be considered alive by this definition.
> : So could candleflames.
> 
> Well, no, actually.  Automobiles most definitely do not make any sort of
> copies (flawed or not) of themselves.
> 
> Candle flames do seem to fit, but that's only a cursory inspection of the
> problem.  I'll probably figure out a reason why they don't in the next
> few days (although I doubt I'll remember to hunt this up and post it).
> 
> --
> ---------------------------+--------------------------------------------------
> Ring around the neutron,   |  "OK, so he's not terribly fearsome.
> A pocket full of positrons,|   But he certainly took us by surprise!"
> A fission, a fusion,       +--------------------------------------------------
> We all fall down!          |  "Was anybody in the Maquis working for me?"
> ---------------------------+--------------------------------------------------
> "I'd cut down ever Law in England to get at the Devil!"
> "And what man could stand up in the wind that would blow once you'd cut
> down all the laws?"
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> This message may not be carried on any server which places restrictions
> on content.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> e-mail will be posted as I see fit.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In a twisted sense, WE are the genetic material of cars and other
devices.  A device is made by a plan.  If the device is successful, it
survives and copies of it are made by its very survival (ever see many
Edsels?).  Modifications are made due to natural (consumer) selection. 
If the modified versions are fit, survival and replication continues.
Great topic at a really boring party.

For a look at Productid Brachiopods by the dozen and other marine fossil
goodies, point your browser to the URL below and go to "Fossils". These
were found on the Kaibab Plateau just north of the Grand Canyon. Lots of
close-up pictures. Comments are welcome. Positive identifications even
more welcome!
-- 
    _       _      _                   
   / \   __| |_ __(_) __ _ _ __   ___  
  / _ \ / _` | '__| |/ _` | '_ \ / _ \ 
 / ___ \ (_| | |  | | (_| | | | | (_) |
/_/   \_\__,_|_|  |_|\__,_|_| |_|\___/ 
http://www.vcnet.com/edmar/adriano/

Mike Noreen wrote:
> Unfortunately 'Wonderful Life' is full of errors. It is not one of
> Gould's finest 
I have read Gould for years and thoroughly enjoy and respect his 
writing.  However, I too would welcome a critique of  'It's a Wonderful 
Life'.  While I'm certainly not qualified to criticize him on 
technicalities, I'm not sure I quite got his point either.  I just 
wasn't surprised to hear that invertebrates diversified like crazy with 
no competition, or that most of the experiments died out relatively 
quickly. Granted the Burgess Shale records a wonderfually uncontaminated 
example of animal evolution in action, but he seems to be trying for 
something more.  I would appreciate an opinion.  By the way I also 
believe that a phylum is as -real- as a species. That's not saying  much 
however, all that I've ever actually seen are individuals.
Felicitations
Hob

In article <56aej4$oqf@news.mistral.co.uk>, psilver@mistral.co.uk (Paul
Silver) wrote:
> suk@pobox.com (Peter Kwangjun Suk) wrote:
> 
> >What about eusocial organisms?  One could imagine that an intelligent ant
> >colony would have an evolutionary advantage.  Yet an ant colony as a sort
> >of meta-organism is essentially sessile.  (Foraging worker ants amount to
> >the root system of a plant without the infrastructure.)  As far as
> >environemntal manipulation goes, sessile ant colonies really don't affect
> >the environment more than plants that emit toxins to kill off
> >competitors.  Perhaps an intelligent species of "army ants" which did not
> >have sessile colonies would arise, and wipe out all non-intelligent
> >species.  Over time, sessile variants of the intelligent species would
> >evolve to take over the environmental niches of the extinct
> >non-intelligent ants, but retain their intelligence.  
> 
> Evolutionarily, it's unlikely that the sessile variants would retain their
> intelligence over time. So for the first few generations they might be
> intelligent, but it would lapse as they no longer need it for survival.
> 
> Bascially intelligence needs more brain given over to it. If you don't need
> intelligence you don't put all the effort into building the extra bit of
> brain it requires. By not building the extra bit of brain you save energy,
> because you don't need to feed it glucose (etc) to keep it going. 
But the presence of other intelligent colonies will maintain a need for
intelligence.  The intelligent colonies would be able to outcompete the
non-intelligent ones.  Perhaps the "sessile" nature of the colonies is not
inborn.  Perhaps the some of the intelligent mobile colonies simply
decided to "settle down" by ousting a sessile colony and using its hive. 
Perhaps the intelligent colony can mimic the chemical signals of a
nonintelligent one and "merge" with it to take advantage of it's
hive-building ability.  This would require a constant deception by the
intelligents to keep from triggering the defensive mechanisms of the
nonintelligents.  
> In a drought/famine situation the sessile things with the extra bit of
> brain for intelligence will die off more quickly, because they need more
> energy to keep going, the thick ones last longer, and may still be around
> when the famine breaks. Admittedly, this is a contrived situation that I've
> used to show how energy considerations come in when intelligence isn't
> required. The small amount of extra energy required would not make that
> much difference, but then the brain does take a lot of food to keep going,
> so maybe the example does work.
But this isn't limited to just intelligence.  A lot of animals devote
considerable resources to things that have a less than direct bearing on
survival.  But they must because they are involved in evolutionary arms
races.  Why do warm-blooded creatures exist at all?  It's much more
efficient to be cold blooded, after all.  Examples abound.  (Peacock's
tails, antlers,...)
Also, cooperating intelligent hives would have some tremendous advantages
in surviving a famine.  A group of hives could pool and redistribute
resources, voluntarily reduce their mass, and cooperatively fight off the
marauding mobile colonies that are driven to aggressive desperation by the
famine.  
> With humans experience counts for a lot, especially in our developing
> years. Even later in life having plenty of stimuli helps you keep your mind
> going - 'use it or lose it'. Being in one place really cuts down your
> experience, so an ET intelligence that was sessile would have a different
> learning system to us, perhaps some way of inheriting experience, so it
> could be built up over time?
Human beings are fairly sessile.  Even hunter gatherers have certain
ranges with which they are most familiar.  And we also have a way of
inheriting experience. (Gossip & storytelling.)  If the intelligent
eusocials had some way of communicating over large distances, then their
situation would be similar to that of early humans who associated with
clans of around 150-300 members.  
> Paul.
> (This is a very interesting thread for designing aliens)
Perhaps the alien eusocial's method for communicating is derived from
their sexual functioning.  Many varieties of ants and termites produce
winged variants that have the potential to start new colonies.  (In this,
they are much like gametes.)  Perhaps these winged variants could be used
to disperse chemical signals and communicate with their neighbors.  This
might have interesting effects on the alien's mentaility, since the
timescale of their communications and the very means by which it is
conveyed would be intimately tied up with sexual functioning.  
Would such intelligences "fall in love"?  Perhaps not, since the act of
procreation would not involve courtship.  (Their "gametes" would engage in
courtship, but not _them_, just as _we_ are not directly involved with the
struggles of our own sperm cells or tribulations of our eggs cells.)  But
what if they did?  Would they use the same mechanism for invading another
species' hive to merge with one another?  Could this also give rise to
another form of "rape"?  Also, how would such intelligences view the
world?  Their constituent organisms might have eyes, but that does not
mean that they would be able to see.  They would likely live in a
2-dimensional world of temperature and smells.  An encounter between such
beings and humans would make quite an interesting story, especially since
even merely recognizing each other's sentience would be quite a
challenge.  
Somebody's got to have written this story already.
--PKS
-- 
There's neither heaven nor hell
  Save that we grant ourselves.
There's neither fairness nor justice
  Save what we grant each other.
Peter Kwangjun Suk 
Musician, Computer Science Graduate Student
[finger suk@pobox.com for PGP public key]

suk@pobox.com (Peter Kwangjun Suk) writes:
> We don't yet have any "xenological examples" to establish what is
> "universal" to intelligence and what is not.
But we have a lot of observations of animals. Anything that animals do
and that isn't enough to grant them "intelligence" has to be considered
not a component of intelligence.
Likewise, anything that we do but primitive humans didn't do can't be
considered as a valid component either.
> And until we know more about
> intelligence, we have to rely on such data.  But this is
> rec.arts.sf.science, so we can speculate.  What do you folks think of the
> items on this list (as regards to being or not being universal attributes
> of intelligence):
>
>         1) Language with syntax
Several studies show that syntax is more a matter of how our brains are
"wired" than any sort of feature of intelligence. And many creatures
that we are not about to call intelligent *do* have languages, with
syntax. Bees, for example.
>         2) A concept of "self" / Self Awareness
>         3) Consciousness
>         4) Is a social organism
>         5) "Civilization"
There are a lot of humans who aren't civilized in any sense of the
word. And at some point, in the past, that was true of *all* humans.
But they were just as intelligent.
Intelligence can lead to civilization. But being intelligent is
possible without being civilized.
>         6) Curiosity
>         7) Mathematics
Again, this is something that intelligence can *create*, but lack of it
does not equal lack of intelligence.
>         8) Science
See comments on math. And consider that "science" has only existed for
a few hundred years. Before that we had philosophers speculating about
nature, but that is *not* science.
>         9) An external means for recording data (writing, computer disks, 
> etc.)
Lack of this does not equal lack of intelligence. An illiterate person
is no less intelligent than a literate one. Just less *knowledgable*.
And perhaps not even that.
>         10) History
So we were unintelligent before history developed?
>         11) Names
No *relation* to intelligence. All a name is is a symbol for a person
or creature. And even animals can symbolize *that* well.
>         12) Emotions
Another trait that has no relation to intelligence or lack thereof.
>         13) "Pleasure" and "pain"
no relation to intelligence. Fair amount of relation to survival
capabilities.
>         14) Tool manufacture
Sorry, but the "man is a tool maker" went out the window a *long* time
ago. There are too many examples of other creatures modifying objects
so they can be used as tools. 
One possibility is "using tools to make tools" *that* seems to still be
a uniquely human trait, and the one *required* to have technology.
>         15) Fiction / the ability to think about "what if"
Many animals seem to be able to plan.
-- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com	<--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com	<--last resort

Peter Kwangjun Suk (suk@pobox.com) wrote:
: In article <567lo2$84j@ccshst05.cs.uoguelph.ca>, devens@uoguelph.ca (David
: L Evens) wrote:
: > Peter Kwangjun Suk (suk@pobox.com) wrote:
: > : In article <565qni$7og@ccshst05.cs.uoguelph.ca>, devens@uoguelph.ca (David
: > : L Evens) wrote:
: > 
: > : > Erik Max Francis (max@alcyone.com) wrote:
: > : > : Well, that's basically what it is right now.  Look at viruses, for
: instance.
: > : > : Half the scientists think they're alive, half think they're not. 
: The most
: > : > : common argument you'll hear against is that, "But they're nothing but
: > : > : chemicals that perform interesting reactions!"  Well, no kidding, that's
: > : > : what all life is.
: > : > 
: > : > Actually, the most common argument I've seen against considering viri to 
: > : > be alive is that they MUST have living hosts to reproduce.  There exist 
: > : > no possible set of natural environmental conditions that would allow 
: > : > isolated viri to reproduce.
: > 
: > : Aren't cells the "natural environment" of virii?  If you "isolated" humans
: > : in any number of ways, they'd also fail to reproduce.  (In a desert, for
: > : example.)  
: > 
: > Isolated viri don't carry out any life processes, however.  They just sit 
: > there, close to chemically inert.
: Are dehydrated brine shrimp alive?  Do creatures that enter into severe
: forms of suspended animation cease to be living creatures?  Not just
: hibernation like arctic squirels, but becoming seriously rock-like. 
: Apparently some bacteria can do this.  (This reminds me of a part of
: Searle's chinese room:  What if the guy manipulating the chinese symbols
: took a sabbatical?  During that time, the simulated intelligence would
: cease to function.  What would happen to its consciousness?)
: Somehow, temporary inertness doesn't strike me as a disqualification.  One
: could imagine a species of self-reproducing machine that was capable of
: having a "metabolism" comparable to life as we know it on Earth and of
: being stone-cold inert.  
The problem with these examples as arguments in favour of viri being 
considered alive is that they all are organisms which are, isiolated from 
other organisms, cable of carrying out life processes.  Viri don't do that.
--
---------------------------+--------------------------------------------------
Ring around the neutron,   |  "OK, so he's not terribly fearsome.
A pocket full of positrons,|   But he certainly took us by surprise!"
A fission, a fusion,       +--------------------------------------------------
We all fall down!          |  "Was anybody in the Maquis working for me?"
---------------------------+--------------------------------------------------
"I'd cut down ever Law in England to get at the Devil!"
"And what man could stand up in the wind that would blow once you'd cut 
down all the laws?"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This message may not be carried on any server which places restrictions 
on content.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
e-mail will be posted as I see fit.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Erik Max Francis (max@alcyone.com) wrote:
: David L Evens wrote:
: > Isolated viri don't carry out any life processes, however.  They just sit
: > there, close to chemically inert.
: And there are spores and seeds that sit, inert, for years or decades, before
: finding the right environment to come alive.  If viruses aren't alive, it's
: probably not fair to consider those alive either.
A virus needs a host that everyone agrees is alive in order to do its 
life cycle.  A spore merely needs a suitable non-living environment.
--
---------------------------+--------------------------------------------------
Ring around the neutron,   |  "OK, so he's not terribly fearsome.
A pocket full of positrons,|   But he certainly took us by surprise!"
A fission, a fusion,       +--------------------------------------------------
We all fall down!          |  "Was anybody in the Maquis working for me?"
---------------------------+--------------------------------------------------
"I'd cut down ever Law in England to get at the Devil!"
"And what man could stand up in the wind that would blow once you'd cut 
down all the laws?"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This message may not be carried on any server which places restrictions 
on content.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
e-mail will be posted as I see fit.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

David L Evens wrote:
> A virus needs a host that everyone agrees is alive in order to do its
> life cycle.  A spore merely needs a suitable non-living environment.
I notice you didn't quote the rest of my article, where I went on to talk
about parasites/symbionts.  These need another living organism to _live at
all_, much less to reproduce.  If anything, there should be a stronger
calling to classify these as nonalive than viruses.
-- 
                             Erik Max Francis | max@alcyone.com
                              Alcyone Systems | http://www.alcyone.com/max/
                         San Jose, California | 37 20 07 N 121 53 38 W
                                 &tSftDotIotE; | R^4: the 4th R is respect
         "But since when can wounded eyes see | If we weren't who we were"

Ed Conrad wrote:
> To my mind, the ONLY physical anthropologist who possessed scientific
> integrity in a search for honest answers to legitimate questions about
> man's origin and ancestry was the late Dr. Earnest A. Hooton, longtime
> professor of anthropology at Harvard University.
> 
> It says a lot about the man's integrity and intestinal fortitude when
> he could write a book, appropriately titled ``Apes, Men and Morons."
> 
> Two quotes in his book stand out like beacons:
> 
> >         ``I can point to many anatomical features of man
> >          in which the known courses of evolution can be
> >          explained plausibly by the theory of natural
> >          selection, but I do not know of one in which
> >          it can be proved."
> 
> >                                   +++++++
> 
> >        ``I am also convinced that science pursues
> >         a foolish and fatal policy when it tries to keep up
> >         its bluff of omniscience in matters of which it is still
> >         woefully ignorant. Sooner or later the intelligent
> >         public is going to call that bluff."
Actually, I happen to agree with both of these quotes, and I suspect
that most of the evolutionists on this newsgroup do as well.
Terry

Graham Shields wrote:
> 
> Phillip Bigelow  wrote (to Andre):
> > If most of the original supporters
> >of moderation left in disgust a long time ago (like yourself?),
> >there would be few supporters left behind to promote the proposal.
> >
> I think that most of us were probably away in the field. I know I was,
Unless one was on sabatical, or has a very unusual college teaching
schedule (ie., one that begins in November), most of the field
types got back a while ago.  I was back from my field stuff
by Sept. (and I don't even teach!).  
This moderation-thing was pretty much gone from the discussion here
well before summer break. There is little in the way of excuses,
except perhaps for admitting apathy.
                

Erik Max Francis  writes:
>>         14) Tool manufacture
>
> This is one of the big ones.
They've pretty much given up on counting "use of a found object as a
tool", since so *many* animals do it. Otters use rocks to crack shels,
so do seagulls. 
Modifying an object to make it a better tool occurs in chimps and
several other species.
*Keeping* tools, and using tools to make better tools seem to be the
dividing line. A chimp may look for a good stick to fish for termites,
and even strip leaves and branch stubs off, but once he's had enough
termites, he throws away the stick.
-- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com	<--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com	<--last resort

Theodore A. Holden wrote:
> 
> Barry Vaughan  wrote:
> 
> > (T)ed however will simply
> >repeat his tired old falsehoods until the day he dies.
> 
> >Barry.
> 
> You obviously have me confused with Brett Vickers.  You
> know, the guy who maintians the t.o/Ediacara/Toromanura/
> BandarLog FAQ/FGU system, which still has the one flagrant item
> claiming that Babylonian Venus observations contradict
> Velikovsky, which still maintains Tim (Hey-Boy) Thompson's
> BS treatise about albedo readings for Venus taken from Earth
> in 1890 being just as good as those taken from Venus orbit
> by Pioneer Venus in 1978, and which still maintains Kathleen
> Hunt's idiot "Intermediata Fossil" FAQ/FGU making the
> claim that there are more intermediate fossils than anybody
> knows what to do with despite Gould, Eldridge, and every other
> competent paleontologist of the last 30 years being plainly
> on record that there aren't any.
> 
> Now, THAT's repeating falsehoods.
> 
> Ted Holden
> medved@digex.com
> 
>         But I's a SCIENTIST, see, you jus don understan
>         how a chimpanzee can turn into a man
>         an dress fine, an drink wine, an exhibit perfection
>         an do alla dis shit, wid natrel see-lection...
I assume then that you've read the FAQs and have analyzed the evidence, 
consulted the original sources and published a paper in a peer 
reviewed journal which scientifically disproves each of the 
transitionals listed therein.
I thought not.
Glenn Anderson

Glen --
I have a complete set of pterosaur skeletons. They are unique and they are
copyrighted. Let's talk.
David Peters
DPterosaur@aol.com

Try: From the Beginning by me.  It traces the early synapsids and
therapsids that were ancestral to mammals, the early mammals ancestral to
primates, etc.  Skeletons and "life" drawings.
David Peters
DPterosaur@aol.com

In article <32838370.1388@ro.com>, Patrick Reavis   wrote:
>John Ladasky wrote:
>> 
>>         On the other hand, checking for stereospecific molecules would
>> probably be an excellent test for the presence of life in *freshly-iso-
>> lated* Martian soil.  Let's send a retrieval robot or some astronauts.
>> And if we bring home the Andromeda Strain, at least we can say that he
>> human race died in pursuit of a noble cause... :^)
>> 
>> --
>> Unique ID : Ladasky, John Joseph Jr.
>> Title     : BA Biochemistry, U.C. Berkeley, 1989  (Ph.D. perhaps 1998???)
>> Location  : Stanford University, Dept. of Structural Biology, Fairchild D-105
>> Keywords  : immunology, music, running, Green
>Why send Astronouts, why retunr soil samples? Would it not be less 
>expensive to send an automated biology lab and transmit the results?
	This is exactly what Viking attempted to do, and people argued 
over the results for years.  Did living organisms or zeolite clays effect
the catalysis seen in the Viking results?  There are too many unknowns
involved in remote experimentation of this nature.  If you send a package
that looks for stereospecific amino acids and nothing else, how will you
interpret a negative result?  Life based on other chemistries might still
be present, or might once have been present.  The method of preparation
used to obtain the sample from the soil by the robot might induce the 
loss of sterospecific structures.  Given our current results with poly-
aromatic hydrocarbons from the ALH meteorite (*not* stereospecific as I
recall), I don't think that we would gain much from yet more tinkering at
the margins with questionable results from a one-shot experimental appar-
atus 100,000,000 kilometers away.  It's much better at this point to bring
the scientists and the rocks together, so that rigorous and flexible ex-
periments can be performed.
-- 
Unique ID : Ladasky, John Joseph Jr.
Title     : BA Biochemistry, U.C. Berkeley, 1989  (Ph.D. perhaps 1998???)
Location  : Stanford University, Dept. of Structural Biology, Fairchild D-105
Keywords  : immunology, music, running, Green

In article <56a66n$afo@news3.digex.net>,
Theodore A. Holden  wrote:
>Barry Vaughan  wrote:
>
>
>> (T)ed however will simply
>>repeat his tired old falsehoods until the day he dies.
>
>>Barry.
>
>You obviously have me confused with Brett Vickers.  You
>know, the guy who maintians the t.o/Ediacara/Toromanura/
>BandarLog FAQ/FGU system, which still has the one flagrant item
>claiming that Babylonian Venus observations contradict
>Velikovsky, which still maintains Tim (Hey-Boy) Thompson's
>BS treatise about albedo readings for Venus taken from Earth
>in 1890 being just as good as those taken from Venus orbit
>by Pioneer Venus in 1978, and which still maintains Kathleen
>Hunt's idiot "Intermediata Fossil" FAQ/FGU making the
>claim that there are more intermediate fossils than anybody 
>knows what to do with despite Gould, Eldridge, and every other
>competent paleontologist of the last 30 years being plainly
>on record that there aren't any.
>
>Now, THAT's repeating falsehoods.
Yes, it is.  You already have been informed that Gould has never
stated that "there aren't any" transitional fossils, and in fact
has written that
   Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends,
   it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by
   creationists--whether through design or stupidity, I do not
   know--as admitting that the fossil record includes no
   transitional forms.  Transitional forms are generally lacking
   at the species level, but they are abundant between larger
   groups.
("Evolution as Fact and Theory", _Discover_, May 1981, reprinted
in _Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes_, 1983, W. W. Norton & Co., pp.
253-262.  The quoted passage appears on p. 260.)
I am certain that this passage has been pointed out to you on this
newsgroup before.
Is it design or stupidity that causes you to keep attributing
to Gould a belief he has explicitly disclaimed?  What explains
your repetition of falsehoods?
--
Jim Lippard    lippard@(primenet.com ediacara.org skeptic.com)
Phoenix, Arizona  http://www.primenet.com/~lippard/
PGP Fingerprint: 35 65 66 9F 71 FE 50 57  35 09 0F F6 14 D0 C6 04