Into the Void

I have to give a speech on evolution…help? – Yahoo! Answers

My nephew would tell you that a shark doesn’t turn into a chair.

Darwin and Wallace were the first guys to write about evolution.

Darwin got his ideas while traveling around the world and seeing all kinds of animals. The ship was called the “Beagle.” You’ll want to talk about Galapagos Island, where he saw different species of birds in a place so far from the continent that they had to have all come from one ancestor. He thought that their beaks were shaped by what food their ancestors ate. Seeds vs. berries vs. bugs, etc. Don’t forget the tortoises.

There are different theories of how evolution occurs.

**Lamarck** said that species evolve because acquired traits are passed down through the generations. Like giraffes stretching their necks up to get leaves makes their offspring have longer necks. (not true)

Darwin believed that evolution was a slow process of population drifting in response to the environment. The average height of a giraffe changes each generation because the short ones all died. (closer, but not quite)

Basically, evolution occurs when something in the environment – Nature – kills off certain animals and let others live. So if the short-necked giraffes always died there would only be taller giraffes left to reproduce. But the next valley over the trees might be really short so the tall giraffes have trouble reaching down and after a couple of generations only short giraffes are left. So now there are two different animals. This is called “Natural Selection.”

Darwin, like most people of his time, believed that offspring were a blend of their parents traits, like a black cat and a white cat have grey kittens and after that all kittens are grey. (not true) He had trouble believing his own theory, and waited many years to publish it. Actually, he published it only after he found out that Wallace had the same ideas.

**Mendel** came up with modern genetics, where there are dominant and recessive genes. So black cats can have white kittens, orange tabby kittens, and black kittens.

Another theory is that small mutations – like birth defects – might make an animal better suited. Maybe a horse had a long-necked colt that could eat from taller trees so it survived. After enough generations the mutations add up until the horse looks like a giraffe. Obviously some mutations don’t help at all, or even kill. It’s random. Some folks can’t handle randomness – everything has to be planned in advance or they freak out.

Still another theory is that small changes aren’t good enough – there had to be a miracle to change one species to another. They always say that the eye had to be a miracle because it’s so complex, but they forget to tell you about lizards with light-sensing patches in their skin instead of eyeballs, or about lower mammals whose species can’t see colors yet. ANY eye is an evolutionary advantage over no eyes at all, even if it’s only a light-sensing patch.

The main thing is that to be scientific, you have to be willing to change your theory to match what you observe. It’s not enough for some scientist to tell you “THIS IS TRUE.” You get to go out and prove it for yourself – or even disprove it! Anybody who doesn’t let you question their theory is trying to control your mind. And that, my young friend, is politics.

Darwin loves you, man.

Technorati: Charles+Darwin evolution LaMarck Galagapos+Island Origin+of+Species acquired+traits mutations natural+selection Gregor+Mendel genetics scientific+theory

<rant>
Email to someone I don’t even know who has been spamming me with chain letters.

Date: Sun, 13 May 2007 09:57:50 -0400
To: ————-
From: Leslie
Subject: I’m blogging this. Thanks. Re: Gas War

Did you write this in crayon? Or worse, did someone else write it in crayon and you merely forwarded it because you liked the big purple letters? You obviously didn’t think this through.

If you do this you’ll drive the price up at the other gas stations…

1. because most Exxon-Mobil gas stations are privately owned by local merchants, not by Exxon-Mobil
2. because unbranded gas stations usually buy from the big oil companies, including Exxon-Mobil
3. because when BP and Citgo and Hess and Lukoil stations run low on gas they’ll buy some at an exorbitant price from Exxon-Mobil
4. because the small stations also increase their prices according to supply and demand – they have to make a living.

Consumers don’t call the tune in a capitalist society. Deal with it. The producers do and they employ sophisticated marketing strategies based upon well-established behaviorial psychology techniques to do so. Psychology in the US has been focused on predicting the actions of large numbers of people, and of MANIPULATING them. You don’t get to decide what you want – you buy without thinking why you prefer one brand over another. And you forward junk mail with the same lack of thought.

The real answers to the problem are too hard for Americans. Bicycle. Take the bus. Get a hybrid vehicle. Don’t use electricity from oil-burning power plants. Instead, set up solar panels and wind turbines to generate your own electricity, using commercial nuclear power as a backup only.

Let’s see… an food industry executive is an expert on the oil industry? What’s his name again?  And the Halliburton engineer – knowing how to crack petroleum doesn’t make you an expert in Microeconomics.

According to Snopes.com, the Gas Wars email you sent me has been circulating since 2001. You missed the May 15th boycott by 6 years.

Who are you and where did you get my email address?

Leslie

</rant>

At 08:13 PM 5/8/2007 -0700, you wrote:
Date: Tue, 8 May 2007 20:13:09 -0700 (PDT)
From: ————————-
Subject: Gas War
To: ———————

In addition to the Gas War set for 15th May 2007, here is something else we all can do ..

jdowney01@GAS GAS WAR – an idea that WILL work. This was originally sent by a retired Coca Cola executive. It came from one of his engineer buddies who retired from Halliburton.
It’s worthy of your consideration.
Join the resistance!  I hear we are going to hit close to $4.00 a gallon by summer and it might possibly go higher! Want gasoline prices to come down? We need to take some intelligent, united action. Phillip Hollsworth offered this good idea,
This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the “don’t buy gas on a certain day” campaign that was going around earlier!

… and lots more of the same. Click the snopes.com link above.

I have to get this out before it rots my head.

Stuff happens.

“I don’t think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees.”
– George W. Bush, to Diane Sawyer.

It didn’t take a Nostradamus to know this could happen. National Geographic predicted the New Orleans disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina in October, 2004.

Thousands drowned in the murky brew that was soon contaminated by sewage and industrial waste. Thousands more who survived the flood later perished from dehydration and disease as they waited to be rescued. It took two months to pump the city dry, and by then the Big Easy was buried under a blanket of putrid sediment, a million people were homeless, and 50,000 were dead. It was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.
When did this calamity happen? It hasn’t – yet. But the doomsday scenario is not far-fetched. The Federal Emergency Management Agency lists a hurricane strike on New Orleans as one of the most dire threats to the nation, up there with a large earthquake in California or a terrorist attack on New York City. Even the Red Cross no longer opens hurricane shelters in the city, claiming the risk to its workers is too great. [Italics mine]

PBS NOW’s producers must have read Nostradamus too, according to this excellent interview from September 2002.

WALTER MAESTRI: It’s going to look like a massive shipwreck. There’s going to be – there’s going to be, you know – everything that that the water has carried in is going to be there. Alligators, moccasins, you know every kind of rodent that you could think of.
All of your sewage treatment plants are under water. And of course the material is flowing free in the community. Disease becomes a distinct possibility now. The petrochemicals that are produced all up and down the Mississippi River – much of that has floated into this bowl. I mean this has become, you know, the biggest toxic waste dump in the world now. Is the city of New Orleans because of what has happened.

Apparently Scientific American was gazing into the same crystal ball in October 2001. Scientific American: Drowning New Orleans [CIVIL ENGINEERING]

A major hurricane could swamp New Orleans under 20 feet of water, killing thousands. Human activities along the Mississippi River have dramatically increased the risk, and now only massive reengineering of southeastern Louisiana can save the city.

What is a shame is that they are laying the groundwork to blame Mayor Nagin of NO for the FEMA failure. I wouldn’t ask the head of FEMA, GOP activist and sycophant Mike Brown, to manage a horse show. Thanks to Memex1.1 for this one.

Today the New Orleans Times-Picayune published An open letter to the President. It says, in part:

State Rep. Karen Carter was right Friday when she said the city didn’t have but two urgent needs: “Buses! And gas! Every official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be fired, Director Michael Brown especially.
In a nationally televised interview Thursday night, he said his agency hadn’t known until that day that thousands of storm victims were stranded at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. He gave another nationally televised interview the next morning and said, “We’ve provided food to the people at the Convention Center so that they’ve gotten at least one, if not two meals, every single day.”
Lies don’t get more bald-faced than that, Mr. President.
Yet, when you met with Mr. Brown Friday morning, you told him, “You’re doing a heck of a job.”

According to this article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, while the folks were dying in New Orleans “Homeland Security won’t let Red Cross deliver food.”

“The Homeland Security Department has requested and continues to request that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans,” said Renita Hosler, spokeswoman for the Red Cross.
“Right now access is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities. We have been at the table every single day [asking for access]. We cannot get into New Orleans against their orders.”

Racial bias in reporting the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina: African-Americans “loot”, Whites “find” food and water.

Was Homeland Security doing God’s Work? In case you want to look for a hidden agenda in the poor response by the government, this press release from Repent America explains why Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans.

“Although the loss of lives is deeply saddening, this act of God destroyed a wicked city,” stated Repent America director Michael Marcavage. “From Girls Gone Wild to Southern Decadence, New Orleans was a city that had its doors wide open to the public celebration of sin. From the devastation may a city full of righteousness emerge,” he continued.

Perhaps this suspiciously homophobic “In-your-face evangelist” doth protest too much.

Relevant cartoon on RedMeat.com – Lord, I pray that you will grant me…. I think it pretty well sums it up.