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If you're ok with the idea of intelligent extraterrestrials you probably don't have problems with evolution. That said alien life shouldn't be so... Earthy. Just about every alien we think up (or actually meet?) is either human but more like a lizard or otherwise mixed with some other entity we've got in our heads or it's just flat out some other species with a few changes. We've got the arm and leg bones we do because of how fish are put together but the same bones have stuck around for all of the reptiles, mammals, and birds with just changes in shape. Why should so many aliens have what are clearly the same sorts of legs? And if they came from a planet that was not very similar to Earth that form might not even make sense. Worse though is how many of them walk on flat feet from toe to heel. Even most life on Earth doesn't do that; things walk and run on their toes. Just look at a cat some time. But hey, maybe two joints in a leg really works best for everything between the size of mouse and elephant. Well then breathing is something where other life forms have no excuse. With fish the gills are pretty much where our vocal cords are and the whole breathing air thing basically started as swallowing some of your oxygen source. There are clearly other ways to do it as insects pretty much just absorb their air through their skin and I'm sure you learned about how big those were when the dinosaurs roamed the Earth. To fuel anything that uses oxygen as fast as we do you'd need more surface area than that though so lungs do make sense but there's no reason the air intake should always be so linked with the food intake. Of course, I haven't done autopsies on any of these so they might breathe through their anus but it's a bit far fetched to think that so many would have a nose right on their face without there being internal bellows to drive the air through it. And fish? They've got a face like that because they evolved from worm type creatures rather than something like jellyfish. The whole facing forward thing probably does make for a more adaptable body plan most of the time but there should be environments that favor something else. *this is also the abridged version. The earlier forms of this rant went into a lot of other body plan features.  Yes, I believe in darwinian evolution. I think there is a ver high possibilty that there are human beings, like you and me, that have evolved on other worlds (other "Earths") If nothing else look at all of those species of ape-men that just dead ended after a few thousands of years. There were dozens of them and yet only the one even figured out agriculture much less space travel.  yes,but perhaps that is the way it always is. The members of the species best adapted to survive are the ones that are going to propagate. And on a planet with closely the same composition and age as the Earth then perhaps there are humans like you and I. After all,we KNOW that humans are possible....... The first post in these quotes explained why that shouldn't be the case. They'd have to have had the same worms grow into the same fish whos bones grew into the same legs and so on. If it was so similar they'd have had the same dinosaur age and do you really expect them to get hit by the same space rock so the same little class of mammals could take the place of dinosaurs as the main family of large life? Well no, that's why people imagine them looking like some other animal progressing to a generally human shape but expecting a planet to have life so identical up to whichever point that other species gets onto the planet but then just have some insane change so it develops into a humanoid is preposterous. Walking upright is only important for a four legged animal. Something shaped like a scorpion would only need hands instead of claws to get the same benefit. Something shaped like a praying mantis would work great as well. We know those shapes work But if, like I mentioned, jellyfish took over instead of fish you'd have yet another total shift in forms. You should have things that didn't use hands but rather many tiny legs like lobsters have hidden under their tails and on and on. But I'm still just using Earth examples. Another planet would still need life to be identical to Earth for billions of years to spit out the same ocean life as jellyfish and worms. |
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If you're ok with the idea of intelligent extraterrestrials you probably don't have problems with evolution. That said alien life shouldn't be so... Earthy. Just about every alien we think up (or actually meet?) is either human but more like a lizard or otherwise mixed with some other entity we've got in our heads or it's just flat out some other species with a few changes. We've got the arm and leg bones we do because of how fish are put together but the same bones have stuck around for all of the reptiles, mammals, and birds with just changes in shape. Why should so many aliens have what are clearly the same sorts of legs? And if they came from a planet that was not very similar to Earth that form might not even make sense. Worse though is how many of them walk on flat feet from toe to heel. Even most life on Earth doesn't do that; things walk and run on their toes. Just look at a cat some time. But hey, maybe two joints in a leg really works best for everything between the size of mouse and elephant. Well then breathing is something where other life forms have no excuse. With fish the gills are pretty much where our vocal cords are and the whole breathing air thing basically started as swallowing some of your oxygen source. There are clearly other ways to do it as insects pretty much just absorb their air through their skin and I'm sure you learned about how big those were when the dinosaurs roamed the Earth. To fuel anything that uses oxygen as fast as we do you'd need more surface area than that though so lungs do make sense but there's no reason the air intake should always be so linked with the food intake. Of course, I haven't done autopsies on any of these so they might breathe through their anus but it's a bit far fetched to think that so many would have a nose right on their face without there being internal bellows to drive the air through it. And fish? They've got a face like that because they evolved from worm type creatures rather than something like jellyfish. The whole facing forward thing probably does make for a more adaptable body plan most of the time but there should be environments that favor something else. *this is also the abridged version. The earlier forms of this rant went into a lot of other body plan features. Yes, I believe in darwinian evolution. I think there is a ver high possibilty that there are human beings, like you and me, that have evolved on other worlds (other "Earths") If nothing else look at all of those species of ape-men that just dead ended after a few thousands of years. There were dozens of them and yet only the one even figured out agriculture much less space travel. |
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Topic:
Violence in the world .
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believe it or don't but the past ten years are one of the most peaceful decades in all of recorded human history in terms a fatalities due to military action and crime or any other killing of humans by humans. go back another ten years and the argument can be made that never has there been two consecutive decades when the world has experienced fewer violent deaths because of mans doing. interesting to note when it was that the ussr collapsed and america became the lone superpower. the worlds policeman? ok, call us that if you must, but seems we're doing a better job than anybody in history if you call this policing. i wouldn't though. Trouble is when we can recall actual images of something we naturally start to think it happens more frequently so simply the way we do news has given people who were around before it the impression that all the war related atrocities and other things happen much more often than they used to and for people who don't think their parents are idiots that pretty well gives the thought of that trend to the next generation and so on. It's almost like the graphics were getting "better" but we've never looked past that to see what they were representing. |
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Topic:
Violence in the world .
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Actually the no wars if women ran the world thing is rather silly when you look at our evolutionary history.
Going through the trend of all of the species that have very energetically expensive babies the mothers are... well, deadly. They're either extremely poisonous or built like a truck or both. Human females are oddly lacking when you try and figure out what weapon they deploy... until you think about how dangerous men are. We make war because our babies are difficult to raise. Our babies are more difficult to raise because being smart isn't so much useful for living in the forest or desert but because it's useful for near dangerous neighbor groups. ...I'm pretty much paraphrasing all of this. I learned it in a lot more detail but I don't think I can go into all of it and keep anyone's attention. Now, last year I attended a conference where many of the leading experts on human violence came together to give a series of presentations. Adding that on to how risky violence is (most of the time if you try to kill someone similar in strength to yourself they have a good shot at killing you in defense,) people are choosing these nasty things when it looks like a good option. With totalitarian leaders there's no system to make them keep their word so there's no way to bargain with anyone that rebels and if they do manage to calm them down the next time people get riled up it's usually even worse so just killing them turns into the better option. With inner city kids they see that a few of the people that grew up in the same poverty situation end up really successful and over the long run letting people be really successful while you barely hang on isn't better than just dieing right on the spot so they take whatever actions they think might work to also rise up. As much as people rail against socialism the cold hard statistics make it hard to keep thinking it would be that bad. It reduces so many of the sources of violent crime and the arguments against it are "well if you left me in charge of it I'd screw up" and "I ****ing hate taxes and the stuff I'm paying them for now is good but there cannot possibly be any other good way to use my tax dollars." |
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If you're ok with the idea of intelligent extraterrestrials you probably don't have problems with evolution.
That said alien life shouldn't be so... Earthy. Just about every alien we think up (or actually meet?) is either human but more like a lizard or otherwise mixed with some other entity we've got in our heads or it's just flat out some other species with a few changes. We've got the arm and leg bones we do because of how fish are put together but the same bones have stuck around for all of the reptiles, mammals, and birds with just changes in shape. Why should so many aliens have what are clearly the same sorts of legs? And if they came from a planet that was not very similar to Earth that form might not even make sense. Worse though is how many of them walk on flat feet from toe to heel. Even most life on Earth doesn't do that; things walk and run on their toes. Just look at a cat some time. But hey, maybe two joints in a leg really works best for everything between the size of mouse and elephant. Well then breathing is something where other life forms have no excuse. With fish the gills are pretty much where our vocal cords are and the whole breathing air thing basically started as swallowing some of your oxygen source. There are clearly other ways to do it as insects pretty much just absorb their air through their skin and I'm sure you learned about how big those were when the dinosaurs roamed the Earth. To fuel anything that uses oxygen as fast as we do you'd need more surface area than that though so lungs do make sense but there's no reason the air intake should always be so linked with the food intake. Of course, I haven't done autopsies on any of these so they might breathe through their anus but it's a bit far fetched to think that so many would have a nose right on their face without there being internal bellows to drive the air through it. And fish? They've got a face like that because they evolved from worm type creatures rather than something like jellyfish. The whole facing forward thing probably does make for a more adaptable body plan most of the time but there should be environments that favor something else. *this is also the abridged version. The earlier forms of this rant went into a lot of other body plan features. |
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