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archives push me to post webmail :: xenii mail the hive :: for trading and raiding polymorph :: a cosmographia universalis chrisnelson.ca :: chiefwagonburner has a blog fortune cookie distro :: x's distro
Thanks Z! I can't elaborate right now. But let it be said, that all humanity is of value. Enough said! My comments about Darwin are unimportant, as I don't know much about the man or his theories. My continued comments on the subject of evolving species, have as much to do with working out these ideas by saying/posting them, and receiving response/comments, further developing them; as it does about my not being sure of what I am saying. I am learning as I go. We can drop the subject, if it becomes somewhat "out-of-bounds", bothersome, or for whatever reason status non-gratus. I'll stop anytime you say. But I have discovered that sometimes I say one thing and do another, Heh! Dinosaurs are a nerdy love of mine. But I only peripherally understand some of the modern theories regarding the beasts! I know that my comment about the recent migration out of Africa is scandolous, significant! That is the thing! I may be overcompensating the racial tip. Excuse my zealous search for converts! All one human! We are all brothers, Amen! That is true, and especially to the point that the diversity we share may increase our ability to survive. And at the same time, were it not for periodic isolations of portions of humanity, there might not be much difference of diversity of our genetics. Isolated evolution may encourage greater diversity. More freely inter-mingling, may encourage homogenization, a loss of diversity! Racist idea or not, there may be a genetic survival foundation, for the preservation of racial differences. It'd be nice if that was a personal choice, and not an ideaology. That sounds racist! I mean, it'd be nice if people who fell in love chose to be together out of choice, whatever their racial or cultural backgrounds might be. Rather than a person choosing a race or culture through peer or other pressures/ideaologies. Sorry if that's another over-explanation. Or under explaning and not sticking to the subject. New genes, maybe. New allelles, maybe. At least re-introducing information to other, non-African gene pools. It just happened, right in front of our faces! That migration is well documented! To describe this new (or re-introduced) information as "strengthening", may be inaccurate. But there are many observably positive affects! The harshest effects are the societal/social problems we encounter due to this sharing. But as has no doubt happened in the past, society can change, it will change. It will incorporate all of it's constituants. Well, that's way over-simplifying things! It could lead us to less desirable genocidal/ethinic cleansing times! Lord help us, NO! Anyway, thanks for the comments Jimmy. I'm still awake from Monthend at work. It's 7:30am here. That's almost 22 hous of awakeness! I haven't done such since my college days... or okay, almost every weekend! Do others try to squeeze every moment they can out of "time-off?" Now to peaceful, deep and soundless sleep! Awwa \A/
Aw I thought you said you were done with this subject, Awwa? As far as I know, and according to Stephen Jay Gould, Darwin was not a racist. From what I've read, he was actually quite an enlightened man. His ideas were incorporated by assholes who called themselves "Social Darwinists" and used Darwinism to justify all sorts of horrible acts and ideas against humanity, such that not only is Divine spinning in his grave tonight but Darwin as well. It's said he would have abhorred the idea. I don't know when they came around, and whether or not they are pre world war II (I think they are). But I've read some pretty horrifyingly racist stuff in the diaries of many famous dead men. Maybe Darwin was a racist; but Darwinism itself would explain the morphological differences among people, and he had a deep understanding of the force of his own ideas...so perhaps the term 'race' meant nothing to him , as it should. The genetic differences between a random black person and white person on the street are often less than the genetic differences between two white people. This implies many things... a) Race is malarkey. A meaningless construct only useful for social systems. b) Differences between people are familial. Awwa, what I meant when I said you were on dangerous ground was your comments about slavery. The paragraph in your post starting with "Perhaps there has been a recent, observable migration and intermingling of sub-species out of Africa", middling with "the observably recent migration of humanids out of Africa, would be those who were displaced through slavery" and ending with a bang: "are these Africans spreading new genes, which strengthen the humanid gene pool? That much is undeniably observable" was the most borderline thing I've ever read from you because it was not flippant, but thought out. Awwa, those are words to start wars! Crap, man, be careful. Human beings have not changed in over 300,000 years. You're suggesting that 400 years ago a "sub-species" out of Africa came and added new genes? New allelles maybe, but damn....maybe I misinterpreted you. Also, I might be wrong, but a lot of your questions appear to have the built-in assumption that a) "evolution" implies the progression of a species toward betterment or perfection. b) Darwin believed in "evolution". "Evolution" was not Darwin's word. It was probably applied by other scientists, accademics, or journalists who sensationalized the idea. Darwin's words were "descent with modification". He never used the word "evolution". His theory was not the theory of evolution, but of descent with modification. The word 'modification' is free from value statements which might imply that the species is actually improving, and would have been free of political manipulation because of that, but someone else popularized the word "evolution". Darwin did not believe that any species existing today was "more evolved" than any other. All species existing at May 31st, 2003 at 2:47 a.m. are equally "evolved". I am as equally evolved as the finch, dingo and tit mouse. Indeed, Darwin knew that many modifications brought on by descent with modification and governed by natural selection and were deleterious depending upon the situation. There is a bird in Africa caught in a positive feedback loop...It's females have a predeliction for males with long tails. Their offspring with these males, then, if female, prefer long tails, and if male, have either long tails or carry the desire for long tails which is then only expressed in its female offpspring. The male's tails then, just get longer and longer with each successive generation....that is, until the rainy season that counts. When the rainy seasons come around, the males with especially long tails are grounded, unable to get off the ground for their huge wet tails, and they become wildcat food. This leaves the lesser preferred short tailed males with all the females. The race card is currently being misapplied to Darwin by creationists probably as a strategy to get his work out of the school system. As long as they're going to attack the man and not the man's work (if he was a racist, how on earth could it matter?) they may as well stop teaching Abraham Lincoln, Einstein, hell...Fuck, everybody was a racist, perverted, fraternizer. Beethoven was a peeping tom and rubbed his faeces on his walls. Martin Luther King and Ghandi were womanizers. So was Einstein. Benjamin Franklin invested some of his genius on a book called "Fart Proudly". Our elementary school history books are full of drunk heroes on heroin, morphine and coke. The person and the work are so seperate. Sylvia Plath was ridiculous enough to put on a fake English accent in mixed company to appear sophisticated, but her poetry is miles above superficiality. Anyhow, the word 'racist' means nothing when applied to a culture or a group who firmly believed that their beliefs were in the right out of ignorance of they way of things. When the ignorance is removed, and the bad ideas persist, well....another story. We can't just retroactively start reviewing the people of yesterday according to the values of today. That would be historical suicide. I think we all know we were fucked up. We're still fucked up. Anyhow. Your questions about how evolution occurs are either known today or unknown today, depending upon how deep of an answer you're after. Basic biology and genetics textbooks explain the mechanism of evolution, but often times, people mistake the description of reduced phenomena for the how. This is I guess, why some people feel fit to dismiss "love" because it is, after all, merely "a chemical reaction in the brain". Reduction of a thing to its individual principles does not reduce its majesty. The recent discovery of a center in the brain responsible for religious epiphany does not explain away the religious epiphany. In fact, science admits to itself that it cannot ever prove a cause, it can only show relationships. If everytime Bill Clinton spoke publically in the state of California, a small tremor occurred, we would be silly to assume he was the cause. This would be the Fallacy of False Cause. Searching for causes is an inherently inane task, but if you're asking for the mechanism, it's available to you. Evolution is far more sophisticated than I ever imagined; from jumping genes to junk genes, a lot of complicated and well documented information is out there. Good luck finding the answers to all of your evolutionary questions, Awwa. I know I can't answer them, and I know you're not asking me, yet we're still babbling about it. I'll bet the answers to your question lie in some combination of genetics, emergent systems, chaos theory, and some sort of strange science that hasn't been invented yet. Perhaps that's your calling! Man I'm tired. It's time for bed, yo. Liberte! Egalite! Fraternite!
jimmy To smooth ovetr a few sketchier details, and to further inflame those paleontologists with baseball bats, outside the Xenius frathouse... I have gone a step further in supposing. A friend and I were discussing evolution (one of our favorite topics/arguments), and he said one of the reasons that he was against most of Darwinism, was that it was built off of racist idealisms, that Darwin himself was a racist. Lord I wish I read more, but admitting that I didn't know that much about his history (Darwin's), yet understood the feelings of the times and how some scientific knowlege was misused to prove such racist idealologies, I had to agree that there might be some misinformation built into some of Darwin's theories, if for no other reason than he didn't know any better. But approaching the subject with an open mind, and acknowledging that most humans are created equal (aside from those who may have handicaps, and yet are no lesser for them), I have to agree that some sort of evolution of species might be true. To clarify, advance upon and inflame anthro-paleontologists, I make this addition to my statements. We are searching for a catalist, for a leap in speciation, for the cause of genetic changes in species... why does, and how does evolution occur? How does evolution occur? Perhaps it occurs because it is genetically programmed to occur. Or at the least there may be as yet an undiscovered mechanism, bywhich evolution is not only possible, it is inevitable. The cause undiscovered, the occurence, observable. Because we dion't know how it occurs, doesn't mean that it doesn't occur. But back to the idea. If all of these humans; homo erectus, neanderthal, cro-magnon, homo sapiens are of the same lineage, they may represent the evolution, the gradual change that we seek. But moreso, maybe this evolution has to happen. If homo erectus evolved into neanderthal and, or homo sapiens, maybe it occured because that is how life is set to survive. Some mechanism, perhaps it's genetically coded (but not necessarily a gene issue), perhaps there are other mechanisms we are not aware of at this time, causes this change to occur. But whether it seems logical or possible, or not; these biological beings have to foillow a matrix, a fixed design, that states, 'This is how they will evolve.' Okay if that is so, it supposes convergent evolution may have a larger control, a set design. Perhaps it is more likely that evolution follows gievn, proven models which work, and moreso by properties of these possible designs of life; than by all of the possibilities which wouldn't be as successful, or as life-like. Perhaps life has to evolve by given standards. Then we might be less driven by genetic contact. Perhaps convergent evolution has a greater validity, that homo sapiens evolved all over the place, nearly at the same time and were able to inter-mate; because they were from the same species and they were all following an as yet undiscovered design, dictated by an as yet undiscovered structure (whether genetic or not). All of that is so gobble-de-gook messed-up. I'm on a half drunk trying to articulate. Maybe evolutionary changes are so gradual, that we can't find the changing of one species into another in the fossil record. And maybe those changes are inevitable, within specific species along specific designs, controlled by unknowns. And maybe these changes do not come from a single Eve, but rather crop-up as often as they can, becoming inter-bred within the given gene pool, where-ever they occur. All of these millions of little changes, over all of these millions and millions of years, lead to the evolution of a species. Heh! Got a batter's helmet anyone? ;-) Awwa \A/ "We need a little more open-minded surgery!"
Aw Divine is rolling in her grave. :)
Anna I don't think you sound judgemental, Anna; you're right. Also: I would be perfectly miserable with a 400 pound girl.
jimmy At the risk of sounding judgemental, I don't really agree. The reason I don't is that I dated *quite a few* guys who had about none of the 'similar interests and opinons'. And was miserable. Over and over again. My guy is similar to me, not in every way, but in those that count. It doesn't mean I can't appreciate people who are different than I am in perspective. I just don't want to marry them. If that is judgemental, so be it.
Anna  Just finished the Calculus III final yesterday. One of my creature comforts when I have something on my mind is what I call "radiomancy". It means I ask a question and turn on the radio. The very first lyric I hear is the one I take as the answer to my question. So yesterday on my way to the bar to meet the other students right after the exam, I asked: "How did I do on my exam?" and turned on the radio. It was on the Oldies station, and this was the very first thing I heard: "Baby I’m yours (baby I’m yours) And I’m yours until two and two makes three Yours until the mountains crumble into the sea In other words until eternity" I told my friends that at the bar, and they insist it's a bad omen. I dunno. I disagree, even though I think I did poorly myself. And while we were at the bar...the sweetest song came on the jukebox, in the middle of my friend's rant about her emotional status quo, and how she needed the perfect intellectual man; someone that was worthy of her. Distracted by the beauty of the song which mesmerized me, I told her something I had only just realized myself. Searching for the intellectually perfect mate is just as shallow as searching for a mate with a perfect body. I dunno. Do you agree? In any case, it really has changed the way I see things. It's changed the way I interact with people. I was never ever judgemental, really, not in the sense of which I'm now babbling, and never felt as though I had the right to be, but I was really intent on finding someone with 'similar interests and opinions', to the extent that I would miss out on folk that had a lot to offer. Now I think that's just shallow as hell. Of course, as soon as I'd realized that, she came along anyhow.  But then...I ran over to the jukebox to find out what the song was. I remember thinking, "wow, a new song I actually like!", when it wasn't that new, actually. It was Bowie. It's in the hive and is almost 4.3 mb.
jimmy Wow, Awwa. You are treading on observably dangerous ground. Awwa, except for the slavery part which would drive most anthropologists and paleoontologists to wait in the dark just outside the dorm party with baseball bats, I think most of what you said is true. In any case, Awwa, I hope that I didn't sound like I thought that only the currently accepted theories or ideas were true and everything else was hogwash, because a) I am not an expert (obviously) and b) more currently accepted theories arrive literally every 15 minutes I'll finish this post later. Gotta go to work!
jimmy Okay, with and except for a few huge leaps of faith, or imagination, built on scattered evidence, an incomplete and interrupted fossil record; I present to you, the hodge podge theory of life evolution, as seen by Awwa. Occam's (Arcum's?) razor rules! If the idea looks right, tests right, seems to be right, it might be right. Still, with the huge gaps of fossil evidence, we must suppose. Disclaimer: I don't know, haven't read much of recent Darwinism or other such related theories. Spontaneous, (punctuated) catastrophy driven evolution is part of these ideas, but I am admittedly unread. Jimmy only just enlightened me to the difference between evolution and natural selection. Thanks Jimmy. All of that only helps to support these ideas. Yet I hope to speak within accepted doctrine and theories. I am not blowing away any norm, accepted by science as I understand it. Now onto the evolution stuff. All of these millions of years! There have been many years, thus many generations of beings, of life survivng on this planet. We search for a direct fossil record of lineage, something that shows the gradual development of one species into another. But what we find are scattered examples of a given species, with little to support a direct lineage between one species into another. We observe a puzzle, with only one or two pieces found, out of a thousand, or a million, or even many, many more! We have so few clues to tell us, it is difficult to describe a solution that could be true, or which is likely, by what few fossils/clues we have to examine. A few things are obviously observable. Yet, they may not be true. So we need to continuously update this information, update what is obvious; with new, observable information. We may also have to continuously update these theories, which attempt to describe evolution. But, as with Occum's razor, we may be able to find an obvious truth, which is true by choosing the path of least resistence. Thus what may sound right, may be right. Choose any cat in the world, as science knows it. Choose a tiger, or lion, or leopard, or house cat, or linx, or cougar, or bobcat, etc. Thay all have similarities that other animals don't have. Choose any dog or canine family member; bear, fox, racoon, wolf, etc. They all have similarities. Choose a primate: man, chimpanzee, gorilla, other apes, various monkeys, lemers, etc. They all have similarites that are undeniable. Okay, so somehow, these amazingly diverse creatures, may have a common bound, some sort of familiaral, genetic linkage. It is supposable, that these diverse animals have a common family relative. This is observably true, at least as a theory. Somewhere millions of years and generations ago, the horse might have only been as large as a chihuahua (a small dog). After all of these millions/billions of generations, perhaps the largest horses were the survivors. Even so the fossil evidence supposes that they lost toes (early horse relatives had five toes, modern horses have a single toe/hoof), and have other changes of structure, all perhaps leading to the modern horse. If it appears that the fossils present an early horse-like animal, then perhaps it is related to modern horses. That is observably true. However, what the fossil record presents us with, is a few examples of horse-like creatures, which might in fact, not be directly related to modern horses. At the least they may be from a different branch of a similar animal, and thus not be directly related. Donkeys, Burros, Zebras and other modern animals resemble and have genetic traits of modern horses. Observably, they might be related. This seems to be observably true in that at least some of these can be cross-bred, producing offspring, if usually neuter offspring. Horses crossed with Zebras have produced children (striped horses), though they may not have been able to reproduce nor have (striped horse) children. Effectively they were not viable offspring. They could not pass on the bloodline/genetic information, because these children could not have children. A mule is what you get when you mate a horse with a donkey. All mules (or all observable mules) are neuter and thus can not have children. Mules can not pass on their genetic information (the crossing of the species, horse and donkey). Recent genetic testing of Chimpanzee DNA against the mainstays of Human DNA, proved to be closer than previously thought. Chimpanzees are so much closer to humans than previously thought, that they (chimpanzees) are now considered humanids. Previous ideas regarding humans, chimps, gorillas or other apes, monkeys or other primates placed them fairly far apart. As developing species, there were no observably direct links, thus there was supposed a "Missing Link." This missing link, linked humans to an early, ape-like ancestor, which might have beget humans, apes, monkeys and, or other primates. Now, with the new genetic evidence, a closer connection of humans to chimps, it is observably suggested, that something like a chimp, might be our closest early ancestor. They might be so close to humans, that they might be a near branch off of the same tree. In terms of years or generations, humans and chimps might be separated by only a few million or so life cycles. Australopithicus, Homo Habilus, Homo Erectus, Neanderthal, Cro Magnon Man, Homo Sapiens; all are supposed humanids, supported by observably closely related fossil records of human-like beings. If we add Chimpanzees to this group (and possibly other apes or primates), then we suppose a closer connection to the more human-like fossils. Neanderthals were once thought to be brutish beasts, with little intelligence. Their fossil evidence presents heavy browed, slightly smaller brain panned humans (homo sapiens/cro magnon), than other, more "modern seeming" humanoids of their period. After years of study, it is observably supposed that Neanderthals may have had an organized society, with some sort of order, only thought to be understood or practiced by more developed humanoids (cro-magnon man/homo sapiens). There is observable evidence that Neanderthals practiced rituals and order, only observable in other human beings. We may all be part Neanderthal. At the least some of the cro-magnon men who lived in proximity to Neanderthals, may have cross bred, and, or intermingled in as much as to assimmulate them into the human/homo sapien gene pool. Likely as not, they were very nearly close to modern humans, in any case. It is still possible that modern humans (homo sapiens/cro-magnon man), drove Neanderthals to extinction, if not by killing them off, then by depleting their ecospheres, starving them. At present there is not enough observable evidence to suppose one way or the other. The settling of Earth by humanids is supposed to have come out of Africa. Africa is a unique continent. It is lush in vegetation and many varied animals. Other resources are also abundant, but were not necessarily useful to early humanids. To survive in Africa is observably a benchmark to survivng in other Earthly ecospheres. However it is also observable that some African suited animals might not survive in other Earthly ecospheres. Africa presents some extremes, not present in other Earthly ecospheres, extremes which might have taught valuable survival techniques. Perhaps humans learned to hunt and gather in Africa. And in Africa they learned to do this well, dominating their ecosphere. Other migrations of earlier humanids is possible, in fact likely. But I am about to concentrate on the more recent humanid forms; homo erectus, neanderthal and cro-magnon/homo sapiens or modern humans. Homo Erectus is one of the earliest humanids to come out of Africa, and populate the Earth (Africa, Asia, and Europe, but not necessarily the Americas, the new world, at least not yet not observably fossil proven). Homo Erectus was very modern human-like. They stood upright, walking on two legs, had similar hands with opposable thumbs, probably used tools and had complex societies, or relationships with each other, though observably no modern cities, or structures. It is then supposed that homo sapiens/cro-magnon man evolved in Africa, migrating to the rest of the world, killing or driving-off, or simply replacing the possibly extinct homo erectus. It is supposed by observable fossil evidence that this migration happened several/many times. It is supposed that there were many migrations of homo sapiens out of Africa, eventually populating all of the "old world." In this manner it is supposed that modern humans came to dominate the Earth. Perhaps they were stronger, smarter, dominating other humanids already in place, pushing them off of good territories, or even killing them, driving them into extinction. Or these modern humans might have been filling a void, left by already extinct humanids. There is no written history as these are all prehistorical times. The fossil record suggests migrations. It doesn't display how the displacement might have occurred. One way or the other modern humans (homo sapiens) dominated the Earth and all living specimens of earlier humanids disappeared (except perhaps, chimps and other primates), or they were assimulated into the common, modern gene pool. Assimulation is the key to this idea, theory. Perhaps as close as chimpanzees are to modern humans, the two could have offspring. I'd not dare to suggest such an experiment. The chimp-human would be dissatisfied with being partially human, and the chimp aspect would not be comfortable as only chimp. That is the truth of modern human horror stories. The idea that such could happen and the child be denied a normal, acceptable life. Yet perhaps similar events happened, throughout prehistory. Even in recorded history, such urban legends abound, such matings or other strange relations are common in myth. Perhaps not different species inter-mated. Perhaps same, but different variations of species mated. Perhaps our definitions of different humanids, is lacking in the details. We may not have enough evidence to determine, definite, separate species. If rather than kill-off, or through migration, redominate the land already discovered by earlier humanids, modern humanids inter-mated and assimulated the existing humanids, as they are in place. Perhaps there has been a recent, observable migration and intermingling of sub-species out of Africa. An athropologically informed friend of mine stated that a few thousand years ago, evidence supports that a given group of Africans replaced most of the other indigenous Africans. He said the exception were the pigmies, who survived that wave, with little change. Most of the other groups of Africans are directly related. The observably recent migration of humanids out of Africa, would be those who were displaced through slavery. I don't suggest that this migration was intentional nor to any observable advantage. But a mass exodus/migration of humanids from Africa occurred through the mechanism of slavery. Are these Africans spreading new genes, which strengthen the humanid gene pool? That much is undeniably observable. The last bit I jumped a few huge barrels, to finish the course. Sorry if this has been entirely dull or inaccurate information. It's late and I've got Monthend tomorrow! Yikes! I'll finish this weekend and answer questions as I am able! Now let's see if this will post, Heh! Peace! Awwa \A/
Aw Sheharezadd! That's probably not the right spelling. But the princess of a thousand and one nights, what a cool name! Or Raquel or Rachel or Elizabeth, or Sandra... I probably already said these. Well, not the Sheharezadd one, heh! But it is a cool name! Peace All! Awwa \A/
Aw what a cute little baby you have already! Now I can tell what I'm looking at in the ultrasound. she does have your nose and she's even holding her little belly just like you do in your pregnancy pics. hee hee! congratulations! What are you gonna name her? I vote for Minnie Cooper (hee hee...)
Miss Speck and the Giant Librarians By the way Coop... Congratulations on the girl! So is the morning sickness finished with? Also...I've heard that you can tell what gender the child is by certain aspects of your morning sickness or by your appetite and cravings. Have you heard or experienced this? -and heartburn. It's the only reason I don't envy you right now. Everything else sounds wonderful. God. I feel like I ask such naive questions. I haven't really ever been around pregnant people. Kinda makes me want a kid.
jimmy Thanks for the weigh station info, Awwa. I always wondered about that one.
jimmy I Love you! Unconditionally! What is unconditional Love? I've come to this agreement with myself. I will accept me, as I am, with moderate mutability. I do not seek change, but I can accept it. I seek to accept reality. I have this agreement with the physical universe, That it will enlighten me to it's truths, as it is able. We have coffee sometimes. I don't ignore the obvious. Or my obvious. I seek to understand what, or why, or how. And then I accept it. And I accept myself. I love you! That's unconditional LOVE! IIEEEYEEEEIiiIIIYyyyeeeeeee! I am looking to make sense! I want to be seen! I am trying to be played! No, wait, I want to be good! But I am more often played! I no longer belong, I don't belong! I am alone! I love you! Bamm! Unconditional LOVE! Peace! Awwa \A/
Aw 
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