[[[[ From: "Anne Gilbert" <kebara@...>
Subject: Re: Re: O/T Music concert playing online now
Isabelle, Mike, or anybody else with the proper knowledge:
What on earth prompts this "minister of health" to flap his lips with
such a pronouncement?]]]

---Who knows? She is actually a qualified medical doctor. But she
fell in with the wrong crowd, namely HIV deniers, and apparently
believes whatever they say. I suppose accepting that HIV really does
cause AIDS is a somewhat tragic thing to realize. HUGE numbers of
South Africans are HIV positive. Without proper treatment, every last
one of them is going to die within a decade or so. Imagine the kind
of load that is going to put on our already overstretched medical and
social services. In the face of this, I suppose the temptation to
rather believe something else is huge. One can easily convince
oneself of that which one WANTS to believe!

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Brian van der Spuy [mailto:brianvds@...]
> Sent: 29 November 2003 20:36
> To: DebunkCreation@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [DebunkCreation] Re: I'm back!
>
>
>
> [[[ From: "Dave Oldridge" <doldridg@...>
> Subject: I'm back!
> The subject says it all.  In the meantime I moved 4000 miles!]]]
>
> ---Great to have you back, Dave! Hopefully B.C.'s weather will be
> kinder to you...
>

And the same from me.

Alan

This is a joke, right?


--- rickey jones <rickey_janes@...> wrote:
> Warning message about AIDS:
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard

> ATTACHMENT part 2 image/pjpeg
name=aids_warning_dont_be_the_next_victim.jpg



__________________________________
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----- Original Message -----

From: Ray T. Perreault

To: DebunkCreation@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Sunday, November 30, 2003 9:22 PM

Subject: [DebunkCreation] Trouble in Heaven

Got on DI's website last night, and clicked on Fellows.  Jonathan Wells
name was absent. 

What do you suppose happened?  Howard Ahmanson's God beat up Wells'?  You
can still order Icons of Evolution.

Ray

________________________________________________________________
The best thing to hit the internet in years - Juno SpeedBand!
Surf the web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER!
Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today!


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On 1 Dec 2003 at 21:17, Anne Gilbert wrote:

>
> Ray:
>
> More likely Ahmanson found out Wells was a Moonie and threw a holy
> fit. . .


So much for that "Big Tent" idea, huh . . . . .

I have always thought that the major vulnerability of the DI is its
inclusive policy of allowing all sorts of differing religious views
(YEC, OEC, etc etc etc) to join, then papering over all those
differences (their attitude being "let's beat the evolutionists
first, then we'll settle our own internal differences").  But ya KNOW
that deep inside what they really want to do is wage jihad on each
other, and I do everything I can to encourage and provoke them.
Nothing like a good internal civil war to remove DI's effectiveness
as a political organization.




=====================================
Lenny Flank
"There are no loose threads in the web of life"

Creation "Science" Debunked:
http://www.geocities.com/lflank
My Reptile Page:
http://www.geocities.com/lflank/herp.html

lflank@... writes:

> Nothing like a good internal civil war to remove DI's effectiveness
> as a political organization.

You're such an anarchist at heart :-)

On 2 Dec 2003 at 12:44, mike@... wrote:

> lflank@... writes:
>
> > Nothing like a good internal civil war to remove DI's effectiveness
> > as a political organization.
>



> You're such an anarchist at heart :-)
>



You have no idea.  ;>


But it's a good political tactic.  The entire aim of DI is to unite
all the various anti-evolution factions long enough to give them a
fighting chance against their "common enemy" (by themselves, each of
the anti-evolutionist factions is unable to provide enough political
power to get what they want -- the YECers, the largest power bloc,
already having lost every one of their attempts to force their views
into school clasrooms).  Their only possible strategy is to "unite
and fight" and paper over their differences as much as possible, and
the easiest way to *frustrate* that strategy is to specifically point
out their differences and provoke them into doing what, deep down,
they really want to do anyway --- kill all the unbelievers.  Since
the fundies are such paranoid lunatics anyway, it is a crushingly
simple matter to provoke them into slitting each other's holy little
throats (and thus saving *US* the trouble).


=====================================
Lenny Flank
"There are no loose threads in the web of life"

Creation "Science" Debunked:
http://www.geocities.com/lflank
My Reptile Page:
http://www.geocities.com/lflank/herp.html

At 13:22 02/12/2003, lflank@... wrote:

> > You're such an anarchist at heart :-)
>
>You have no idea.  ;>

An anarchist who uses the world's most monopolised operating system... You
gotta love the irony of it.

>the easiest way to *frustrate* that strategy is to specifically point
>out their differences

Such as Behe accepting chimps and us share a common ancestry...

>and provoke them into doing what, deep down,
>they really want to do anyway --- kill all the unbelievers.

Imagine what havoc you'd create in the Senate...

FYI

I have forwarded cheques and cash sent to me
by listmembers for Dave Oldridge.

This is, indeed, a caring group.

Bil Gladstone
Kelowna, BC:
5 hours or so by highway from Chilliwack




Shameless seasonal plug:
http://MomandMeFlowers.com

On 2 Dec 2003 at 20:55, Mikey Brass wrote:

> At 13:22 02/12/2003, lflank@... wrote:
>
> > > You're such an anarchist at heart :-)
> >
> >You have no idea.  ;>
>
> An anarchist who uses the world's most monopolised operating system... You
> gotta love the irony of it.



It's called "boring from within".   ;>




>
> >the easiest way to *frustrate* that strategy is to specifically point
> >out their differences
>
> Such as Behe accepting chimps and us share a common ancestry...
>




Yes.  And also Wells being a  Moonie, Spetner being Jewish, the Holy
Yoyo being Muslim.  Also, Johnson and Demsbki both concluding that
that 'Intelligent Designer' could be a space alien and not a god at
all.

Not to mention the OEC's who think YEC's are nuts, and vice versa.





> >and provoke them into doing what, deep down,
> >they really want to do anyway --- kill all the unbelievers.
>
> Imagine what havoc you'd create in the Senate...



I'd paralyze the entire government.  (That anarchist thingie, ya
know).  ;>


=====================================
Lenny Flank
"There are no loose threads in the web of life"

Creation "Science" Debunked:
http://www.geocities.com/lflank
My Reptile Page:
http://www.geocities.com/lflank/herp.html

On 2 Dec 2003 at 21:38, Bil Gladstone wrote:

> This is, indeed, a caring group.



Or, at least, a group that needs care.   ;>



=====================================
Lenny Flank
"There are no loose threads in the web of life"

Creation "Science" Debunked:
http://www.geocities.com/lflank
My Reptile Page:
http://www.geocities.com/lflank/herp.html

At 23:36 02/12/2003, lflank@... wrote:

>It's called "boring from within".   ;>

Lets set you loose on Linux...

>Not to mention the OEC's who think YEC's are nuts, and vice versa.

And the geocentrists.

> > Imagine what havoc you'd create in the Senate...
>
>
>
>I'd paralyze the entire government.

More like you'd have the Senate leader wanting to kill the unbelievers;-)

On 2 Dec 2003 at 12:44, mike@... wrote:

> lflank@... writes:
>
> > Nothing like a good internal civil war to remove DI's
> effectiveness
> > as a political organization.
>
> You're such an anarchist at heart :-)

Naw, that's just pragmatic realpolitick.

On 2 Dec 2003 at 21:38, Bil Gladstone wrote:

> FYI
>
> I have forwarded cheques and cash sent to me
> by listmembers for Dave Oldridge.
>
> This is, indeed, a caring group.
>
> Bil Gladstone
> Kelowna, BC:
> 5 hours or so by highway from Chilliwack

And I thank you and all who contributed in my time of trouble.

Frayer, D. 1997. Perspectives on Neanderthals as Ancestors. In Clark, G.A.
& Willermet, C.M. (eds.) Conceptual Issues in Modern Human Origins
Research. New York: Aldine de Gruyter

Conclusion

In summary, based on these comparative evolutionary rates, the average and
individual rates of evolutionary change between European Neanderthals (or
late Neanderthals) and early Upper Paleolithic hominids are not especially
rapid. Rather, rates of change between either European Neanderthal samples
and the early Upper Paleolithic are within the magnitude of change found
for recent Homo sapiens. Thus, contrary to the commonly stated argument
that not enough time exists for European Neanderthals to be ancestral to
subsequent Europeans, these data clearly demonstrate that there was no
"tremendous acceleration" in rates of change between the Neanderthals and
the Upper Paleolithic Europeans. For me, these data falsify the argument
that European Neanderthals as a group cannot be ancestral to subsequent
Homo sapiens in Europe (at least with respect to metric features of the
face and teeth) because too much change is required over too little time.
Moreover, based on the rates of dental evolutionary change, there is
nothing to support the contention that European Neanderthals represent a
separate species. Such a conclusion would only hold if one is also willing
to accept a speciation event between the early Upper Paleolithic and
Neolithic, since all of these comparisons have similar, or in some case
considerably higher, average or individual evolutionary rates.

While rates of dental evolutionary change by themselves do not prove that
Neanderthals are ancestral to early Upper Paleolithic Europeans, these
results do indicate that European Neanderthals cannot be eliminated as
possible ancestors based on speculations which require grossly elevated
evolutionary rates. Moreover, the period following the Neanderthals in
Europe is not characterized by absolute or relative stasis but by marked
change within the Upper Paleolithic and from the Upper Paleolithic to the
Neolithic. These observations should put to rest both the contention that
difference between the European Neanderthals and the early Upper
Paleolithic require an exorbitant rate of change and the unsupported claim
that tooth size shows little absolute or relative change after the
appearance of the Upper Paleolithic. Those who still maintain that European
Neanderthals are unrelated to subsequent European Homo sapiens must look to
other data; these data do not include the presence of so-called Neanderthal
autapomorphic traits or exorbitant rates of change.

----- Original Message -----

From: Mikey Brass

To: Recipient list suppressed

Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2003 10:04 AM

Subject: [DebunkCreation] Neanderthal teeth and facial change rates

Frayer, D. 1997. Perspectives on Neanderthals as Ancestors. In Clark, G.A.
& Willermet, C.M. (eds.) Conceptual Issues in Modern Human Origins
Research. New York: Aldine de Gruyter

Conclusion

In summary, based on these comparative evolutionary rates, the average and
individual rates of evolutionary change between European Neanderthals (or
late Neanderthals) and early Upper Paleolithic hominids are not especially
rapid. Rather, rates of change between either European Neanderthal samples
and the early Upper Paleolithic are within the magnitude of change found
for recent Homo sapiens. Thus, contrary to the commonly stated argument
that not enough time exists for European Neanderthals to be ancestral to
subsequent Europeans, these data clearly demonstrate that there was no
"tremendous acceleration" in rates of change between the Neanderthals and
the Upper Paleolithic Europeans. For me, these data falsify the argument
that European Neanderthals as a group cannot be ancestral to subsequent
Homo sapiens in Europe (at least with respect to metric features of the
face and teeth) because too much change is required over too little time.
Moreover, based on the rates of dental evolutionary change, there is
nothing to support the contention that European Neanderthals represent a
separate species. Such a conclusion would only hold if one is also willing
to accept a speciation event between the early Upper Paleolithic and
Neolithic, since all of these comparisons have similar, or in some case
considerably higher, average or individual evolutionary rates.

While rates of dental evolutionary change by themselves do not prove that
Neanderthals are ancestral to early Upper Paleolithic Europeans, these
results do indicate that European Neanderthals cannot be eliminated as
possible ancestors based on speculations which require grossly elevated
evolutionary rates. Moreover, the period following the Neanderthals in
Europe is not characterized by absolute or relative stasis but by marked
change within the Upper Paleolithic and from the Upper Paleolithic to the
Neolithic. These observations should put to rest both the contention that
difference between the European Neanderthals and the early Upper
Paleolithic require an exorbitant rate of change and the unsupported claim
that tooth size shows little absolute or relative change after the
appearance of the Upper Paleolithic. Those who still maintain that European
Neanderthals are unrelated to subsequent European Homo sapiens must look to
other data; these data do not include the presence of so-called Neanderthal
autapomorphic traits or exorbitant rates of change.



Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

----- Original Message -----

From: Mikey Brass

To: DebunkCreation

Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2003 10:04 AM

Subject: [DebunkCreation] Neanderthal teeth and facial change rates

Frayer, D. 1997. Perspectives on Neanderthals as Ancestors. In Clark, G.A.
& Willermet, C.M. (eds.) Conceptual Issues in Modern Human Origins
Research. New York: Aldine de Gruyter

Conclusion

In summary, based on these comparative evolutionary rates, the average and
individual rates of evolutionary change between European Neanderthals (or
late Neanderthals) and early Upper Paleolithic hominids are not especially
rapid. Rather, rates of change between either European Neanderthal samples
and the early Upper Paleolithic are within the magnitude of change found
for recent Homo sapiens. Thus, contrary to the commonly stated argument
that not enough time exists for European Neanderthals to be ancestral to
subsequent Europeans, these data clearly demonstrate that there was no
"tremendous acceleration" in rates of change between the Neanderthals and
the Upper Paleolithic Europeans. For me, these data falsify the argument
that European Neanderthals as a group cannot be ancestral to subsequent
Homo sapiens in Europe (at least with respect to metric features of the
face and teeth) because too much change is required over too little time.
Moreover, based on the rates of dental evolutionary change, there is
nothing to support the contention that European Neanderthals represent a
separate species. Such a conclusion would only hold if one is also willing
to accept a speciation event between the early Upper Paleolithic and
Neolithic, since all of these comparisons have similar, or in some case
considerably higher, average or individual evolutionary rates.

While rates of dental evolutionary change by themselves do not prove that
Neanderthals are ancestral to early Upper Paleolithic Europeans, these
results do indicate that European Neanderthals cannot be eliminated as
possible ancestors based on speculations which require grossly elevated
evolutionary rates. Moreover, the period following the Neanderthals in
Europe is not characterized by absolute or relative stasis but by marked
change within the Upper Paleolithic and from the Upper Paleolithic to the
Neolithic. These observations should put to rest both the contention that
difference between the European Neanderthals and the early Upper
Paleolithic require an exorbitant rate of change and the unsupported claim
that tooth size shows little absolute or relative change after the
appearance of the Upper Paleolithic. Those who still maintain that European
Neanderthals are unrelated to subsequent European Homo sapiens must look to
other data; these data do not include the presence of so-called Neanderthal
autapomorphic traits or exorbitant rates of change.



Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

>    Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2003 10:11:56 -0800
>    From: "D. Keith Howington" <ceo@...>
> Subject: Re: O/T Music concert playing online now
>
> Mikey Brass wrote:
>
> > Nelson Mandela is hosting an AIDS awareness concert in SA,
> featuring
> > bands
> > and singers such as Queen.
> >
> > It is currently being streamed over the Net, live now.
> >
> > Go to http://46664.tiscali.com/index.php . Go to community/message
> > board and follow.
> >
> > You can also buy merchandise and songs from the concert. The
> > proceeds will go to combating Nelson Mandela's charity.
>
> You know, there are many things about the Mandela family that I find
> troubling -- but I confess that "combating Nelson Mandela's charity"
> struck me rather funny. ];-)

I don't think Mikey is laughing, but his bringing this to our
attention far outweighs his unfortunate miswording, IMO,
especially since I doubt that anyone here failed to recognize
what he intended to write.

As for "the Mandela family", since Nelson divorced Winnie about
a decade ago, she no more qualifies as a member of "the Mandela
family" than as a member of the Addams family, into which she
would certainly fit better.

Having avidly followed the life and career of Nelson Mandela,
I would never claim he hasn't made his share of mistakes.  What
I do claim--and that most adamantly!--is that Nelson Mandela
stands head and shoulders above most if not all contemporary
heads of state, not just those of Africa but those of the
entire world.  Were his example to be seriously taught and
followed, world-wide, the net result would be a better world
for all of us!

Regards,
Jim


=====
"The bread that you withhold belongs to the poor;
the cape that you hide in your chest belongs to the naked;
the shoes rotting in your house belong to those who must go unshod."
--St. Basil the great

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Free Pop-Up Blocker - Get it now
http://companion.yahoo.com/

>    Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2003 21:03:45 +0000
>    From: Mikey Brass <mike@...>
> Subject: Re: O/T Music concert playing online now
>
> At 20:56 29/11/2003, you wrote:
>
> >On 29/11/03 8:50 pm, "Mikey Brass" <mike@...> wrote:
> >
> > > one thing from all list members: who is going to make a donation
> > > via a physical monetary donation or via purchasing merchandise
> > > or downloading some of the digital music ?
> >
> > I won't be. Any charity cash I have will go to other charities
> > that I think need the cash more here in the UK. This does not
> > mean that I don't think that the 46664 charity is unworthy. But
> > I have to choose.
>
> No worries. Just a word for others: the funding is for global
> combat of AIDS.

I would add that any charity organized and/or supported by Nelson
Mandela deserves, at the very least, serious consideration by all
of us.

Regards,
Jim


=====
"The bread that you withhold belongs to the poor;
the cape that you hide in your chest belongs to the naked;
the shoes rotting in your house belong to those who must go unshod."
--St. Basil the great

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Free Pop-Up Blocker - Get it now
http://companion.yahoo.com/

>'Life's Solution': It Had to Happen
>
>By ELLIOTT SOBER
>
>Fifty years before Darwin defended his theory of evolution in ''The Origin
>of Species,'' the French biologist Jean Baptiste Lamarck put forward a
>theory of his own. For Lamarck, life has an inherent tendency to develop
>from simple to complex through a preordained sequence of stages. The
>lineage to which human beings belong is the oldest, since we are the most
>complex of living things. Present-day worms belong to a lineage that is
>much younger, since they are simpler. For Lamarck, today's human beings and
>worms do not have a common ancestor, even though human beings derive from
>wormlike ancestors.
>
>Darwin's theory was radically different. All the organisms alive today
>trace back to a common ancestor. And Darwin found no merit in the vague
>idea that lineages have an ''inherent tendency'' to develop through a set
>sequence of stages. Rather, he proposed a concrete mechanism -- natural
>selection -- to explain why lineages change through time and why they
>diverge as each responds to different environments. No wonder he was
>irritated when some of his contemporaries dismissed his theory as a mere
>restatement of Lamarckism.
>
>Darwin's successors further advanced the idea that evolution has no
>pre-established sequence of stages. Lineages evolve in response to
>accidental circumstances. Where Lamarck's theory sees the history of life
>as the unfolding of an inevitable pattern, Darwinism gives pride of place
>to contingency. In ''Wonderful Life,'' Stephen Jay Gould provided a vivid
>metaphor for this thought, drawn from the 1946 movie in which the character
>played by Jimmy Stewart gets to see that his world would have been
>profoundly different if he had not existed. Gould contended that life would
>have been profoundly different if conditions at the start of the
>evolutionary process and along the way were only modestly different. Human
>beings, and the features we have that we most prize, are radically
>contingent. Replay the tape and there would be no human beings, and nothing
>remotely like human intelligence and language. Indeed, there would be no
>mammals and no vertebrates.
>
>Full text
>http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/30/books/review/30SOBERT.html
>Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

>Delivered-To: ITRDBFOR@...
>
>Hi all!
>
>There is now a new version of the CDendro program available for FREE
>download at my site
>   http://www.cybis.se/forfun/dendro
>
>CDendro is a Windows based program for ring width correlation analysis,
>i.e. for dating
>tree samples and for building and analyzing reference curves of ring
>width data.
>
>Several new tools have been added to the program to facilitate
>quality analysis of reference curves and for interactively or
>automatically building new reference curves out of samples from a site
>(with or without visual inspection of curve matching before addition).
>
>I.e. tools to check and to support the work of making the puzzle fit
>together!
>
>The new commands include:
>Create collection from decadal file
>Find cross correlations within a collection
>Correlation test of each collection member towards a reference
>(with or without block checking)
>Correlation test of each collection member towards the rest of the
>collection (with or without block checking)
>Show time lines (diagram showing how samples overlap each other)
>Find best members to add to target collection.
>
>The "lessons" at my site on how to use the program have been updated and
>
>a new lesson covering some of the new features has been added.
>
>The program is still available for free, but I do appreciate if you
>write me
>an email and tell about your usage of the program. Without some
>encouraging letters
>from users, this new version of CDendro had probably not been published.
>
>By the way... when visiting the site, do not miss the article
>"About birch sap and pollen allergy"!
>
>With kind regards
>/Lars-Åke Larsson
>Stockholm, Sweden
>software developer, technical writer and amateur in dendrochronology

I don't recall seeing this article about Kangaroos:
http://objective.jesussave.us/kangaroo.html

And I'm quite sure I never saw Hopsiah the Kanga-Jew!!!!

http://www.cafeshops.com/objectivemin.7741748

Regards,
MB

>Animals 'can think about thought'
>
>Tim Radford, science editor
>Wednesday December 3, 2003
>The Guardian
>
>Monkeys can manage mathematics. Dolphins can be decisive. But US psychologists
>have broken new ground in the animal intelligence challenge. They have proved
>that animals are also smart enough to join the "don't-knows".
>
>It means that animals, like humans, may be capable not just of thinking,
>but of
>thinking about thinking, of knowing that they don't know. Psychologists call
>this "metacognition", evidence of sophisticated cognitive self-awareness.
>Ordinary mortals know it as "dithering".
>
>A team from the University of Buffalo, New York, the University of Montana and
>Georgia State University report in the December issue of Behavioural and Brain
>Sciences that they gave humans, bottlenose dolphins and rhesus monkeys
>nonverbal memory tasks. Some were hard, some easy.
>
>Full text
>http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1098372,00.html

>THE LAB AND THE MOSQUE
>http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/labandmosque.shtml
>Can science and religion work together?
>Tuesday 2 December 2003 11.00-11.30am
>
>In western eyes, science and religion don't mix. But Muslims see no
>contradiction in a belief system that embraces both science and religion.
>
>             The Lab and the Mosque
>
>             In the Western world, science and religion occupy different
>spheres. Religion might sometimes be called on to provide an ethical dimension
>to a scientific issue, but by and large, it is believed that science and
>religion are best kept apart.
>             In Islam, there is no such antipathy.
>
>             From its beginnings, the Prophet Muhammad emphasised that the
>material world could only be understood through scientific inquiry. Islamic
>culture, he said, should be a knowledge based culture. He valued science over
>extensive worship and declared: 'An hour's study of nature is better than a
>year's prayer'. But despite the Prophet's teaching, by the middle of the
>sixteenth century, Islamic science had gone into a steep decline. Why?
>
>             Ziauddin Sardar investigates the philosophical and practical
> links
>between science and Islam. He visits Al-Azhar University in Cairo, where
>technical subjects such as Medicine, Engineering and Agriculture are taught
>within a religious framework.
>
>             Given the revival of Islam and the emergence of a modern Islamic
>culture, how can the spirit of scientific enquiry be brought back to Islam?
>
>Listen again to the programme
>http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/rams/labandmosque.ram

Tiny fossil found to have the world's oldest known penis
By Steve Connor

05 December 2003

A tiny fossil of a creature that lived some 425 million years ago has
entered the record books as the oldest unequivocally male animal. The
organism, which resembles a cross between a shrimp and a clam, sports
a large penis which has been perfectly preserved in three dimensions.

David Siveter, professor of palaeontology at Leicester University,
said there was no doubt the fossilised creature was a male, making it
the oldest unambiguous member of its sex.

Professor Siveter said the fossil was found at a site in
Herefordshire where soft body parts of ancient creatures have been
perfectly preserved by being buried in volcanic ash before being
rapidly mineralised within rocky nodules.

The animal, whose Latin name Colymbosathon ecplecticos means "swimmer
with a large penis", is just 5mm (2/10ths of an inch) long and a
member of a group of crustaceans known as the ostracods, crustaceans
like crabs and lobsters and the most complex organisms studied within
the field of micropalaeontology.

Three-dimensional images of the fossil, in the journal Science, were
constructed by the scientists who carefully ground away layers of the
rock while photographing polished cross-sections of the fossil as
they went. One of the most intriguing aspects of the study was the
discovery that the basic body plan of the 425 million-year-old
ostracod looks essentially the same as the body plan of present-day
ostracods, Professor Siveter said.

"The ground plan of the fossil strikingly resembles living groups of
ostracods which shows the pace of evolutionary change has not been
particularly fast," he said.

The copulatory organ of the fossilised male is "large and stout"
which indicates that "maybe size mattered" for the ancient ostracods,
he added.

"This is a male and there must have been females around. The
discovery tells us something about the biology of reproduction; it
provides unequivocal evidence for sex in an animal that lived in the
Silurian age," he added.

In addition to the penis, the scientists were able to trace the
animal's entire digestive tract from mouth to anus as well as study
anatomical details such as its six pairs of gills and the limbs it
used for sensing, feeding and swimming.

"The whole animal is amazing," Professor Siveter added. "We've got
something we could only dream about before."


=====================================
Lenny Flank
"There are no loose threads in the web of life"

Creation "Science" Debunked:
http://www.geocities.com/lflank
My Reptile Page:
http://www.geocities.com/lflank/herp.html

--- In DebunkCreation@yahoogroups.com, Mikey Brass <mike@a...> wrote:
>
> >Animals 'can think about thought'
> >
> >Tim Radford, science editor
> >Wednesday December 3, 2003
> >The Guardian
> >
> >Monkeys can manage mathematics. Dolphins can be decisive. But US
psychologists
> >have broken new ground in the animal intelligence challenge. They
have proved
> >that animals are also smart enough to join the "don't-knows".
> >
> >It means that animals, like humans, may be capable not just of
thinking,
> >but of
> >thinking about thinking, of knowing that they don't know.


Tin:  Reminds me of an experiment where pigeons were reinforced for
differentiating wether they or a computer caused a keylight to shut
off.  If they pecked the light off they were reinforced for pecking a
light on the right, if the the computer turned it off they were
reinforced for pecking on the left.  They did far better than chance
(50%).







Psychologists call
> >this "metacognition", evidence of sophisticated cognitive self-
awareness.
> >Ordinary mortals know it as "dithering".
> >
> >A team from the University of Buffalo, New York, the University of
Montana and
> >Georgia State University report in the December issue of
Behavioural and Brain
> >Sciences that they gave humans, bottlenose dolphins and rhesus
monkeys
> >nonverbal memory tasks. Some were hard, some easy.
> >
> >Full text
>
>http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1098372,00.html

"We've got
> something we could only dream about before."
>

Dreaming about a tiny and extremely old penis?  I don't believe that
is something most people dream about.

I'm sorry.  I could not resist. :-)


Winston

On 5 Dec 2003 at 22:05, Winston C. Moran wrote:

> "We've got
> > something we could only dream about before."
> >
>
> Dreaming about a tiny and extremely old penis?  I don't believe that
> is something most people dream about.
>


They shoulda taken a clue from Monty Python and named it   _Biggus
dickus_.

Or at least    _Colymbosathon johnholmesi_.





> I'm sorry.  I could not resist. :-)



Gee, if I'm lucky, I'll be preserved and fossilized after death, and
future scientists will be looking at MY penis.  It'll make the cover
of "Science" or "Nature".    <big fat evil grin>


Sorry, couldn't resist either.  It's a guy thing.       ;>



=====================================
Lenny Flank
"There are no loose threads in the web of life"

Creation "Science" Debunked:
http://www.geocities.com/lflank
My Reptile Page:
http://www.geocities.com/lflank/herp.html

Where's Twit  . . . . . .  . . . .  . . . . . . .







Public release date: 4-Dec-2003

Contact: John Easton
jeaston@...
773-702-6241
University of Chicago Medical Center

Changing one gene launches new fly species
Study also ties sex appeal to cold tolerance

In what has been described as the "perfect experiment," evolutionary
biologists at the University of Chicago replaced a single gene in
fruit flies and discovered a mechanism by which two different "races"
begin to become different species, with one group adapted to life in
the tropics and the other suited to cooler climates. The tropical
group was more tolerant of starvation but less tolerant of cold. The
temperate group was less able to resist starvation but better adapted
to cool weather.

The altered gene also changed the flies' pheromones, chemical signals
that influence mating behavior. As a result, the researchers show in
the Dec. 5 issue of Science, the two groups of flies are not only fit
for different environments but may also be on their way to sexual
isolation, a crucial divide in the emergence of a new species.

"This study directly connects genetics with evolution," said Chung-I
Wu, Ph.D., professor and chairman of ecology and evolution at the
University of Chicago and director of the study. "For the first time,
we were able to demonstrate the vast importance in an evolutionary
context of a small genetic change that has already occurred in
nature."

"We had the luxury," added co-author Tony Greenberg, Ph.D., a
postdoctoral student in Wu's laboratory, "of watching the essential
event in Darwinian evolution, the first step in the origin of a new
species. We were quite impressed, that this simple alteration played
such a dramatic role, both adapting flies to a new environment and
changing their sex appeal. Once two groups become sexually isolated,
there's no turning back."

The scientists used a new technique to knock out one gene from fruit
flies and then replace it with one of two slightly different versions
of the same gene.

They focused on a gene called desaturase2 that plays a role in fat
metabolism. Flies from Africa and the Caribbean, where there is
tremendous competition for food but cold temperatures are not a
problem, have one version of ds2. Flies from cooler climates, where
there is less competition for food but greater temperature variation,
have a smaller, inactive version of ds2.

The same gene plays a role in the production of cuticular
hydrocarbons -- waxy, aromatic compounds that coat the abdomen of
female flies. A male fly, in a romantic mood, strokes the female's
abdomen with his feet, which have sensors that recognize specific
hydrocarbons, like a perfume.

In a previous report, Wu's laboratory found most males with the
temperate version of the ds2 gene preferred females with the same
gene; tropical males preferred tropical females.

"Developing increased cold tolerance was an important step for flies
that migrated out of Africa to Europe and Asia," Wu said. The change
in pheromones, which altered patterns of sexual attraction, "was a by-
product of adaptation to colder weather."

Fruit flies have a migratory history similar to humans. They
originated in Africa, spread to Europe and Asia and went on to
populate the world. As with humans, there is greater diversity within
African flies than between flies from Africa and other continents.

Although fruit flies have been a favorite model for the study of
genetics since the early 20th century, recognition of consistent
differences between tropical and temperate flies came only in 1995.
The discovery, however, "has allowed a lot of analysis of the
evolution of adaptive traits," Wu said.

"But this was the first time we have been able to study the process
from the very beginning," he added, "to watch the first steps as one
species begins to split into two, then seals the bargain by
increasing sexual isolation. This is the essence of biodiversity."

Additional authors include Jennifer Moran from the Wu lab and Jerry
Coyne of the University of Chicago. The National Institutes of Health
and the National Science Foundation funded the study.



=====================================
Lenny Flank
"There are no loose threads in the web of life"

Creation "Science" Debunked:
http://www.geocities.com/lflank
My Reptile Page:
http://www.geocities.com/lflank/herp.html