Showing posts with label evolution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label evolution. Show all posts

Saturday, November 01, 2008

Fee Fi Fo Fum

I smell the blood of a Tricertops......Or we could say this was as obvious as the nose on his face...after all with a snout like that why is this a surprize?!

Tyrannosaurus Rex could sniff out distant prey even at night, yet another reason the flesh-ripping predator reigned supreme as king of the dinosaurs, according to a study published on Wednesday.
Earlier research had shown that the towering T-rex could see better than an eagle and would have been able to run down the fastest of humans.
The new study now unveils a previously unheralded weapon in the fearsome theropod's arsenal: a dangerously keen sense of smell.



SEE:
Dino Time
T-Rex In Your Gas Tank
Hooversaurus

Sex Can Be Dangerous
Sudbury And The Dinosaurs
Dinos and World Systems Theory
Prehistoric Bi-Plane
More Dino News
Prehistoric Happy Feet
Creationism Is Not Science
Paleontologist Versus Paleo Conservatives



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Monday, October 27, 2008

Mutual Aid Down Under


Leo the dog made world news yesterday for saving a litter of kittens in a house fire in Melbourne. People are alsways surprised by altruism in nature and especially interspecies solidarity. Proving again Kropotkin's theory of Mutual Aid.
And in this case a male dog refused to abandon helpless young kittens, showing that nuturing is not simply a matter of biological destiny,mothering, males too nuture the young.

Compassion is a necessary outcome of social life. But compassion also means
a considerable advance in general intelligence and sensibility. It is the first
step towards the development of higher moral sentiments. It is, in its turn, a
powerful factor of further evolution.
Chapter 2 Mutual Aid Among Animals
Mutual Aid: A Factor of
Evolution

Peter Kropotkin 1902


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Friday, January 11, 2008

Tax Funded Creationism


When you allow Creationists charitable status you are in effect having taxpayers fund them. CTM is right here in the heart of the bible belt and ironically the largest collection of dinosaur remains in North America. Ask yourselves why Revenue Canada allows them charitable status to promote creationism as an alternative to evolution.Still waiting for Revenue Canada to give charitable status to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Creation Truth Ministries

Box 25147

Deer Park P.O.

Red Deer, Alberta

T4R 2M2

Canada


Creation Truth Ministries is a not-for-profit corporation recognized by the federal Government of Canada. Creation Truth Ministries is also a registered charity. Since Creation Truth Ministries is now a registered charity, you will receive a Canadian income tax receipt for all financial donations. Our charitable status is now approved by the Federal Government of Canada.

Purpose/Goals of CTM:
1. To see unbelievers come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

2. To build the faith of believers in the accuracy of the Bible.

3. To teach believers to defend their faith in a secular age.

4. To counter-act the atheistic/evolutionary indoctrination that faces adults and children alike on a daily basis.

Creation Education For Children
CTM offers interesting and creative education programs for children that include learning the truth about dinosaurs, the six days of creation, the true history of the world from the Bible. Children will not only be taught the truth about these and other areas, but will be equipped to defend the Biblical view of history.

Creation Museum Traveling Exhibits
CTM also makes available a wide selection of displays. These displays include around fifty authentic museum quality fossils. Among other things, two different dinosaur eggs from China will be on display (Hadrosaur, Segnosaur/Therizinosaur). Many museum quality fossil replicas will also be displayed.

We will bring such things as two eight foot long fossil cabinets filled with museum quality genuine fossils. We also have a 1:87 scale model of Noah's ark, a full size Coelophysis dinosaur cast, a T. rex footprint replica, and a full size Mosasaurus sp. skull cast. We will also bring Three realistic dinosaur models - a Triceratops (9 1/2 feet long), a Raptor (about 4 1/2 feet tall), and a T. rex (8 feet long). Included in our displays is a wonderful ten-foot wide display of many pictures of evidence that provide powerful positive support of Biblical creation. More displays are in the plans. These displays are assembled neatly and professionally. They are wonderful education tools.


SEE:

Creationism Is Not Science

Islamicists and Evangelical Christians

The War Against Secular Society

Dinos and World Systems Theory

Missing Link Missing Funding



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Sunday, September 09, 2007

Alex RIP

You may have seen Alex on TV. That is where I first came across him.

He provided evidence that animals are not dumb.

And he gave new meaning to bird brained.

The African Grey Parrot is a medium-sized parrot of the genus Psittacus native to Africa, and is considered one of the most intelligent birds. Pet owners often liken the experience of keeping an African Grey to that of raising a young child, not only because of the birds' intelligence, but also arising from the substantial time commitment which they require.

Sad! Alex the Grey Parrot, Dead at 31

Dr. Pepperberg purchased Alex from a Chicago pet store in June, 1977. He can label seven colors, is learning the alphabet and can count up to six objects. Alex is also working on identifying objects from photographs. Alex likes cardboard boxes, keychains, and corks.



Teaching an Avian Scholar


Here at the lab, we are often asked exactly how it is that
Alex is trained. Just as you would assume, Alex has
been taught using a strong language-based format. We
are careful to always use words in context when
speaking to Alex, Griffin, and Wart, and we constantly
label all actions and objects associated with their daily
lives. Objects we’re likely to speak about include
everything from food items to toys to favorite perches.
Common actions that are labeled include such activities
as making breakfast, taking a shower, giving a tickle, or
going back (which is the delightful way Alex asks to be
returned to his cage top).

We simply talk to the birds in a way that most people speak to human babies
and small children during their quest to acquire language. However, that is by
no means suggesting that meaningless baby talk is ever used with the lab parrots.
Rather, we use sentence frames as a way of inserting and stressing the label for
a single object in several different sentences.

For example, let’s say the target word might be ‘corn’. While offering corn to Alex,
we might say “Alex, would you like some corn?” and “Did you notice the corn is
yellow?” and “Corn tastes yummy.”

The practice of using such sentence frames combined with consistently labeling
everyday objects and actions has greatly aided in Alex’s vocabulary development.
However, we use actual training sessions to teach Alex the necessary things he
needs to know for the research work.

Alex (1976 - 2007)

Category: Animal Behavior
Posted on: September 8, 2007 3:54 PM, by Coturnix

It is not unusal to write an obituary when a great scientist passes away. It is much more unusual to do so when a lab animal does so. But when that animal is not just an experimental subject, but also a friend, colleague, teacher and collaborator, than the species boundaries lose importance. And Alex, the famous African Grey Parrot, was just that, and more, to Irene Pepperberg and to the entire field of cognitive ethology. He died yesterday, unexpectedly, at the age of 31 (about half the normal life expectancy for the species) and he will be sorely missed. You can send donations, that will assure the research goes on with Alex's younger buddies Griffin and Wart, to the Alex Foundation.


Repost: The Story of Alex

Category: Friday Grey Matters
Posted on: September 8, 2007 4:52 PM, by Shelley Batts

This is a repost from July of 2006. I thought it was appropriate, given Alex's passing. Please check out Friday Grey Matters in my archives for many more reports on Dr. Pepperberg's work with Alex.

alex%201.bmp

Alex is a 28-year-old African Grey parrot who lives in the lab of Irene Pepperberg, in Brandeis University, and is the eqivalent of a superstar in the bird world. Long ago, Dr. Pepperberg chose Alex at a pet store as neither an exceptional nor sub-par bird. Through the years, Dr. Pepperberg has engaged Alex in a complex form of communication, where, much like a parent teaching a child, Alex is taught the proper "name" for an object. Now, he can label more than 100 items, including seven colors, five shapes, counting up to six, and three categories (color, shape, material of an object). This is amazing when you consider that this bird is working with a brain the size of a walnut! In addition, Alex has learned to ask for an item he wants. When the incorrect item is brought, he will either ignore it, or throw it at the person! :) He has learned to say "no" if an item is incorrect, and to tell his handlers when he wants to go back to his cage, or come out.

Here's an example of a test that Dr. Pepperberg might present to Alex: seven items on a tray, of differing colors and shapes. She asks "What shape is green and wood?" (This is the way to ask what is the shape of the object which is green and made of wood?) Amazingly, Alex answers correctly over 80% of the time. This is obviously far more than chance, and operant conditioning also cannot account for it as he answers the same, even to novel researchers. The content of the question, and answer, is understood by this bird. She also might ask, "How many wood?" (How many objects on the tray are made of wood?) He looks at the tray for a few seconds, and then answers with a number, again correct 80% of the time! He can replicate this up to six items.

Alex has also "coined" words, or made up new words to use for unfamilar objects. An example of this is when he first encountered an apple. He already knew the word for "banana" and "strawberry, " and the first time he saw an apple he called it a "bananaberry." This was hypothesized to be because an apple was red like a strawberry by white inside like a banana, so Alex put the two words together to make a new word! He has done this several times, like calling an almond a "cork nut" because of the nut's texture like a cork. He can be inventive and creative.

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Saturday, September 08, 2007

Brave New World


When I went to high school utopian and dystopian novels were considered must reading in social studies class. And this reminded me of Aldous Huxely's brilliant, and underappreciated, dystopian society of Brave New World.

Who is human? Do Chimeras have souls?

The English have decided that they will allow their scientists to combine human genes with animal genes to make embryos.

The embryos will not be a few human genes in an animal embryo, or a few animal genes in a human embryo, but a full blown merger of animal eggs and bird eggs to form a “chimera”, a mixed animal human being.


While the author, who opposes this on moral grounds, refers to H.G. Wells, Island of Dr. Moreau, and the more obscure Cordwainer Smith! Whom I also read while attending high school. Checking on his bio, I discover another influence on my theory of conspiratology.

Which seems appropriate given the conspiracies and conspiracy theories abounding around Chimera's.

Scientists have begun blurring the line between human and animal by producing chimeras—a hybrid creature that's part human, part animal.

Writers ranging from ancient Greek and Hindu poets to novelist Michael Crichton have all envisioned the fictional possibility of creating human-animal hybrids. The notion of "chimeras" was particularly horrifying to H. G. Wells, author of "The Island of Dr. Moreau."

But over the past two years, the subject has quietly made its way into scientific journals. Unbeknownst to most Americans, today the creation of human-animal chimeras represents a valuable experimental tool that could revolutionize science and medicine.

However, the creation of these hybrid organisms also raises ethical questions: What rights should these organisms possess?

Great Britain has already begun to take up the question; an official government report released last month backed the creation of human-animal hybrid embryos).

One of the main forces driving research in this area is the widespread interest in human embryonic stem cells. In vitro experiments suggest that these cells can differentiate into any cell type in the body, but whether they would retain that potential if implanted in an actual human body is not yet clear.

Chimera embryos have right to life, say bishops

A recent article (subscription required) in the NY Times Science section discusses the role of interspecies chimeras in biomedical research. They point out the chimeric organisms are nothing new:

“Biologists have been generating chimeras for years, though until now of a generally bland variety. If you mix the embryonic cells of a black mouse and a white mouse, you get a patchwork mouse, in which the cells from the two donors contribute to the coat and to tissues throughout the body. Cells can also be added at a later stage to specific organs; people who carry pig heart valves are, at least technically, chimeric.”
Regardless of the minimal ethical controversy amongst biologists, new research using other animals (e.g., pigs) to harvest human organs derived from progenitor cells has the potential to "gross out" most Americans. In essence, it's analogous to watching a horror film with a mad scientist manipulating the natural order for some (often undefined) egomaniacal purpose.

The Stranger Within

New Scientist vol 180 issue 2421 - 15 November 2003, page 34

Human chimeras were once thought to be so rare as to be just a curiosity.
But there's a little bit of someone else in all of us, says Claire
Ainsworth, and sometimes much more...

EXPLAIN this. You are a doctor and one of your patients, a 52-year- old
woman, comes to see you, very upset. Tests have revealed something
unbelievable about two of her three grown-up sons. Although
she conceived them naturally with her husband, who is definitely
their father, the tests say she isn't their biological mother.
Somehow she has given birth to somebody else's children.

This isn't a trick question - it's a genuine case that Margot Kruskall, a
doctor at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston,
Massachusetts, was faced with five years ago. The patient, who we will
call Jane, needed a kidney transplant, and so her family underwent blood
tests to see if any of them would make a suitable donor. When the results
came back, Jane was hoping for good news.

Instead she received a hammer blow. The letter told her outright that
two of her three sons could not be hers. What was going on?

It took Kruskall and her team two years to crack the riddle. In the end
they discovered that Jane is a chimera, a mixture of two individuals -
non-identical twin sisters - who fused in the womb and grew into a single
body. Some parts of her are derived from one twin, others from the other.
It seems bizarre that this can happen at all, but Jane's is not an
isolated case. Around 30 similar instances of chimerism have been
reported, and there are probably many more out there who will never
discover their unusual origins.

The image “http://www.informatik.uni-bonn.de/~idea/chimera.gif” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

SEE

Homunuclus

Chickens Have Teeth!!!

Dialectical Science-JBS Haldane

Bring on the Clones

GOTHIC CAPITALISM

Whose Family Values?



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Friday, September 07, 2007

Humanness


I would hope so.

Human toddlers outperform apes in social learning

One theory holds that humans have distinctive "cultural intelligence," she said. Alternatively, some think humans hold an advantage in social cognitive tasks simply because they have more general intelligence.

Human toddlers show markedly better social learning skills compared to their primate cousins, a new study finds.

"Social cognition skills are critical for learning," Herrmann said in a news release.

"The children were much better than the apes in understanding nonverbal communications, imitating another's solution to a problem and understanding the intentions of others," she said.

Hermann's study involved 230 subjects -- 100 chimps, 30 orangutans and 100 children.

The children were two-and-a-half years old. That age was picked because the subjects could handle the test's tasks, but they were not old enough to know too much.

The apes resided in sanctuaries in Africa and Indonesia. They ranged in age from three to 21 years.

All the subjects were subjected to the cognitive tests of the Primate Cognition Test Battery.

In areas such as space, quantities and causality, the toddlers and the primates were found to be about equal.

For communication, social learning and theory-of-mind skills, the children scored 74 per cent and the primates only 33 per cent.

Sometimes it takes an art historian to define what science and religion cannot agree on; what makes us human.


In "The Human Animal in Western Art and Science" (University of Chicago Press, 320 pages, $40), the Oxford art historian Martin Kemp offers a new solution.

Mr. Kemp's new solution proposes to draw a line between man and beast not on the basis of reason or the presence of a soul, but in accord with a subtler distinction. Although some animals use crude tools, no animal uses what he calls "indirect tools." These are tools, such as a needle or a bow and arrow, which require a series of imaginative "pre-visualizations," both to invent and to use.

To conceive a needle, one must be able to envisage the process of connecting two pieces of material; this in turn involves picturing such implements as thread or the needle's eye and, in a further stage, the specific looping motion of sewing. As in chess, the ability to picture objects and processes in future and successive stages is required. This seems clearly beyond the capacity of any animal.

Mr. Kemp's argument is persuasive. Such strategic visualization, proceeding by a logic of images rather than of concepts, does appear peculiarly human. And yet, the puzzle of our apartness remains; to be human is to be caught in a strange midway kingdom. We sense but can't know the minds of our fellows in that neighboring realm. Montaigne put it best, in a remark Mr. Kemp quotes: "When I play with my cat, how do I know that she is not passing time with me rather than I with her?"





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Thursday, September 06, 2007

John Tory Sees Flying Spaghetti Monster

This is scary. Ontario Conservative Leader John Tory thinks that a creation myth is equivalent to the scientific theory of evolution.

The Conservatives have pledged to give private religious schools $400 million if they opt into the public system, teach the provincial curriculum, hire accredited teachers and administer tests, Tory said. The funding would not prohibit Christian schools from teaching creationism on top of the existing provincial curriculum, he added.

"It's still called the theory of evolution. They teach evolution in the Ontario curriculum, but they also could teach the fact to the children that there are other theories that people have out there that are part of some Christian beliefs."

He has confused empirical theory with metaphysics.

This is of course understandable since the word physics appears in the latter. Which has nothing to do with science but refers to the physical world.

Given John Tory's belief that creationism is equivalent to evolution I would hope his new curriculum would include the creation theory of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.




SEE:

Creationism Is Not Science

Islamicists and Evangelical Christians

The War Against Secular Society

Dinos and World Systems Theory

Missing Link Missing Funding


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Friday, May 25, 2007

Creationism Is Not Science

Creationists continue to make ludicrous claims to being science, when in fact they are simply another example 0f myth and folktale.

BIG VALLEY - Alberta will soon have a museum filled with "scientific evidence" that the flood in the Book of Genesis and other biblical events actually happened, and that people walked the Earth at the same time as dinosaurs.

Canada's first creationist museum will open June 5 in Big Valley as "a scientific and biblically based alternative to the evolutionary view of Earth history" put forward by the Royal Tyrrell Museum 60 kilometres to the south, said Harry Nibourg, founder of the Big Valley Creation Science Museum.

Creationist museum causes stir

- A Kentucky museum where Adam and Eve share exhibit space with dinosaurs is drawing criticism from groups of science educators as it nears completion.

The $27 million Creation Museum tells a biblical version of the Earth's history, asserting that the planet is just a few thousand years old and man and the giant lizards once coexisted.

These are not museums they are entertainment centres, like West Edmonton Mall. Consumer culture for Christians.

In the case of Alberta they have deliberately exploited the popularity of the Royal Tyrell Museum to pursue their religionist assault on reason.

These of course are the folks that supported Ted Morton for Premier.


See:

More Dino News

Fossils

Dinosaurs

Creationism

Evolution

Darwin

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Friday, February 23, 2007

Another Dirty Little Secret

Science and Shamanism combine in the unusual discovery of our Lady of Flores aka the Hobbit.

The people of Flores follow an unusual mix of Catholicism and ancestor worship. Sacrificing chickens and reading their entrails was all in a day's work for the archaeologists to ensure their digs proceeded smoothly, with the invaluable help of local villagers.


Catholicism fits well with Ancestor Worship since both deal with veneration of the dead over the living. And Christianity and Ancestor Worship arise from guilt over murder.

Morwood and van Oosterzee now believe our species, modern humans, killed the hobbits about 12,000 years ago.

Another dirty little secret revealed? So the humans occupying the area having race memories realize them through religion.

This was the time of the Stone Age, and for the scientists to assume this is an obvious modernist bias. Like this....

No final word ... the disputed picture of a male hobbit, which became the defining image of the new species.

No final word ... the disputed picture of a male hobbit,
which became the defining image of the new species.

Disputed is right this is a male and so far the archaeological remains found are female, hence our Lady of Flores. This is her undisputed skull.

Homo floresiensis (Liang Bua Cave, Indonesia) and a modern human skull
Homo floresiensis (Liang Bua Cave, Indonesia)
and a modern human skull

And here is the result of the female skull being fleshed out...

















But at least we now accept that they are a different species of humans. That was still being contested last fall.

And like the Neanderthals before them, they were wiped out by colonizers say the scientists. Imperialism and War are the natural outcome of Homo Sapiens need to dominate and colonize.

The image “http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/46/46_images/2001ape.gif” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

The hobbit pre-dates modern peoples in the region. Though race memory may create a zeitgeist in the wilderness, a hint, a legend, a myth of people who came before. The little people of legend. This is what the shaman experiences in their trance state. It is after all one of our oldest cross cultural beliefs.

This just another cultural/historical conjecture by scientists, based on little evidence and theorizing, speculating, hypothesizing, a priori on looking backwards from todays culture of war and Imperialism. After all they are still contesting the evidence that Our Lady of Flores is a different species.

So this assumption is contestable as well. The fact that humans and our hominid relatives existed side by side does not mean that we killed them off. There is just as much evidence for mutual co-existence, as Kropotkin asserts in his work Mutual Aid, and assimilation, as there is that we wiped out Neandertal.

It appears that our closest living relatives in the primate world are now also discovering tool making , and experiencing their own Primate Stone Age,including the making of spears.
Chimps using spears to hunt bushbabies

And like our Lady of Flores, the female of the species stands out in this as well.

The image “http://djuna.cine21.com/movies/1/2001_a_space_odyssey_2.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

This new information on chimpanzee tool use has important implications for the evolution of tool use and construction for hunting in the earliest hominids, especially given our observations that females and immature chimpanzees exhibited this behavior more frequently than adult males.

Mistaking tool use for weapons use has been a common problem amongst anthropologists, archaeologists and historians of religion.

A case in point is William Irwin Thompson's expose of an ancient neolithic shaman's (male) warrior spear which he speculates is not, but is actually a woman shamans lunar calendar calculated on menstrual cycles and womens collective dream time.

Pruetz noted that male chimps never used the spears. She believes the males use their greater strength and size to grab food and kill prey more easily, so the females must come up with other methods.

And to defend themselves and their babies from more aggressive males.

Maria Gimbutas suggests that during the period of Our Lady of Flores and after there was a long period of matriarchal cultural development, which was not based on later armed male nomadic warfare, but settled peaceful civilizing of the world.

There remains no scientific evidence that humans wiped out Our Lady of Flores, they could have assimilated or have been wiped out by disease, lack of food, natural disasters, etc.

It is idle speculation like this that moves beyond science into science fiction. Just like 2001 a Space Odyssey.

http://www.actuabd.com/IMG/jpg/Kirby2001-01.jpg




See;

Primates

Neandertal


Apes

Evolution


Primates

Magick

Shamanism


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Thursday, February 01, 2007

Hobbit Controversy

The scientific controversy around Our Lady of Flores, (Lady of Flowers), aka the hobbit, continues...

The hobbit is definitely a new species of human, related to but separate from Homo sapiens, concludes a study by a Florida State University team published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Neuro-paleontologist Dean Falk, the head researcher, says she is "absolutely convinced" the brain of LB1, as the hobbit is officially known, is not abnormal.

The discovery of Homo floresiensis makes it much more likely that stories of other mythical, human-like creatures are founded on grains of truth.

Homo floresiensis (Liang Bua Cave, Indonesia) and a modern human skull
Homo floresiensis (Liang Bua Cave, Indonesia) and a modern human skull
Peter Brown

File under cryptozoology; Dwarves, fairies, picts, brownies, gnomes, little people.

For more cryptozoology news check out this blog; Cryptomundo.




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