---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <steve.sundur@...> wrote :
Now, that is a question worthy of consideration. It certainly is. I find it hard to be a strict evolutionist. Try reading more about the subject, it isn't as straightforward as people think. In fact, genetics is downright complex but you don't need a PHD in biochemistry to understand how it works when we have great science communicators to help. Richard Dawkin's books like The Blind Watchmaker and Climbing mount improbable are good places to start. Or you can get into the nitty-gritty with The selfish gene. I tend to believe there has been some kind of intervention, somewhere along the way, or at various times. Ah, the god of the gaps. You don't understand something and therefore conclude their must be "something else" involved? Standard religious thinking. But where did this intervener come from and how did it develop it's complexity? All you've done is push the explanation onto something ineffable. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <s3raphita@...> wrote : But a more serious objection to Darwin's natural selection hypothesis (beautifully simple and powerful as the idea is) than weird monsters from our prehistoric past is the prevalence of homosexuality (in humans if not our animal cousins). How can behaviour that is sterile possibly have evolved according to a theory that claims Nature favours acts that increase an organism's chances of sexual reproduction? Anyone want to attempt an answer? A gay man or woman is walking, talking proof that natural selection is either wrong or (more likely) radically incomplete as an explanation of how we got to be the way we are. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> wrote : ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <s3raphita@...> wrote : Survival of the fittest? This is what the original looked like of that fossil just found in China (the Zhenyuanlong suni - a cousin of the better known Velociraptor). But it couldn't fly so those wings are surely (as the tired old cliché has it) about as much use as a one-legged man in an arse-kicking contest. Let's see those neo-Darwinians explain this one! Hmm, maybe they were originally for keeping warm and became useful for catching insects or mating displays. Or maybe they just helped it run faster? Feathers are deformed scales so they must have had some sort of advantage early on or they wouldn't have got very far. Don't suppose you'd accept enhanced cuteness as an explanation? If I had a time machine this is the sort of problem I would work on... http://tinyurl.com/p8kf48h http://tinyurl.com/p8kf48h http://tinyurl.com/p8kf48h http://tinyurl.com/p8kf48h http://tinyurl.com/p8kf48h View on tinyurl.com http://tinyurl.com/p8kf48h Preview by Yahoo
