wait 95 % of DNA is considered "junk" and they don't know what its for, they just know it doesn't have anything to do with the "living function" of the organism.

Could it not be the "rest of the potential" in "hibernation" unactive until the environment triggers it into action?

That's what I'm saying?

What prevented the non-webbed polar pears from producing hardy offspring? Was it some plot by the webbed polars bears to get rid of them?

Evolution isn't a force or a result. It's imagination. Non-webbed footed polar bears aren't going to decide to stop reproducing because some polar bears suddenly evolved partially webbed feet.

My belief would be that there were never any non-webbed footed polar bears because there's no evidence for them.

I accept the fact that a tiger is more likely to sink it's teeth in to prey that is crippled.



"Relatively".



Competition.

The individuals which are most able to go out and hunt, do so. The ones which aren't, go home hungry. They're less likely to thrive and less likely to procreate.



What you're saying is that e.g. a population of animals has very thin fur, but then the climate becomes colder, so now thicker fur is favourable. These animals will have 'thick fur genes' already stored away in this junk DNA, and now that they need it, they'll swap for that instead; right?

What I'm saying is that this junk DNA doesn't have a store of functional genes like that contained within it in the first place.

I'm glad you recognize that this is what it is. Good luck to you on that and for the last time can you please stop derailing this thread with your Evolution debate. Thanks

Your evidence that tigers prefer to go rummaging for crippled prey rather than go where they know sources of healthy animals, such as packs of wild dogs, are?

No. Tigers hunt but if they happen upon prey which is crippled then they will most likely go after that because it cannot escape and is a easy kill. Please try and understand that instead of keep asking for evidence after evidence over things which in the end don't have anything to do with the topic at hand you did this on the evolution thread and it just lead in circles as far as I could tell.

I'm not saying that predators look for unhealthy prey.

Turn down the volume on your TV, now pay attention and read what I'm writing. Done that? Good.

We have fifty antelope in a herd. A pack of lions is stalking them. They jump out. The antelope begin to run for their lives. Which antelope are most likely to be caught? The strongest and fastest antelope with the keenest senses? Or the ones which are slowest?

Think logically about that for a good ten minutes and tell me what you think.

I'm responding to positive statements that were made by raptor and truethat. Raptor made a positive claim that tigers prefer to go after crippled prey.

I was under the impression that big cats liked to hunt things, not scavenge after things.

Well, the antelope generally start running at the same time. It could be their position when they start to run. Maybe a stronger antelope is behind the others and gets wedged out or trampled, and because of this gets caught by the lion. Maybe a stronger antelope gets broken off from the pack. Or maybe it is the weakest antelope. Who knows?

Now take ten minutes to think about this and then give me a good honest answer. Do the stronger antelopes ever get caught by the lions? Why do you suppose this happens? Too much to drink the night before?

I was trying to stay out this but I will add this. You can't be serious. Have you never watched wild cats hunt? Ever? They invariably take the very young, the very old or the crippled. Why? Because they are slower, less experienced or simply less intelligent. It's a paradigm of all predators that they take the easiest prey, that is the prey that takes the least energy to catch and poses the least threat.

Alright, I'm out again. I just couldn't believe you were actually saying that.

Lions like to fight, chase, and tackle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKqjYa1j3kI...feature=related

Maybe the discovery channel is wrong? Or maybe they like to fight, chase, and tackle crippled zebras?

How do you not see that a crippled prey animal will be killed instead of healthy dangerous prey animal. Are you really that dense? Here:

Expansion by wolf (Canis lupus) populations in the western United States creates new opportunities and challenges for researching and managing large mammal predator-prey systems. Therefore, we compared patterns of prey selection between wolves and cougars (Puma concolor) to ascertain the effects of multiple predators on prey and on each other. Because of differences in hunting techniques, we predicted that wolves would kill more vulnerable classes of prey than cougars. Our results did not support this prediction. White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) composed the greatest proportion of wolf (0.83) and cougar kills (0.87), but elk (Cervus elaphus) and moose (Alces alces) composed a larger proportion of wolf (0.14, 0.03, respectively) than cougar (0.06, 0.02, respectively) kills. Wolves and cougars selected older and younger deer and elk than did hunters. Cougars killed relatively more bull elk (0.74) than did wolves (0.48). Male deer killed by cougars had shorter diastema lengths than did male deer killed by wolves (P = 0.02). Pack hunting by wolves and dense stalking cover may have partially explained the failure to support predictions of the coursing versus stalking dichotomy. Wolves and cougars may be exhibiting exploitation and interference competition that is affecting each others' behavior and dynamics, and that of their prey.

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-541X...%3E2.0.CO%3B2-O

For example, a pride of lions which occasionally foraged along Namibia’s Skeleton Coast desert learned how to prey and scavenge upon Cape fur seals (Bridgeford 1985, Berry 1991a). (The entire pride was eliminated in 1991 by cattle herdsmen [Berry 1991b., L. Scheepers pers. comm. 1993]). Lions (especially males) frequently scavenge (>40% of food items in the Serengeti: Packer et al. 1990), although this behavior is less common in arid environments, where prey occurs at lower density (4.6 [Mills 1990] - 6% [Stander 1992a] of food items).

http://www.catsg.org/catsgportal/cat-websi...lk/afrleo02.htm

I can't cut and paste this so I'll give you the gist and you can read it.

Wolf prey selection:
33% calves, 39% adults with signs of debilitation.

http://books.google.com/books?id=a0u2XJ9gE...nSQbU-Y11yOK5o8

The patterns of selection by wolves (Canis lupus) preying on moose (Alces alces), caribou (Rangifer tarandus), and Dall sheep (Ovis dalli) in Denali National Park and Preserve, Alaska were studied from 1986 through early 1992. Wolves and their prey are legally protected or relatively unharvested in most of the area, and wolf numbers doubled during the study. Based on remains of 294 moose, 225 caribou, and 63 sheep, wolves killed calves and old adults disproportionately, and individuals with low marrow fat, jaw necrosis, or arthritis. Seasonal trends in proportions of various species, ages, and sex of kills were found. During the winters following winters of deep snowfalls, wolves greatly increased the proportion of caribou cows and calves taken. We conclude that in a natural system, wolves can survive on vulnerable prey even during moderate weather, and when snowfall exceeds average, they can respond by switching to newly vulnerable prey and greatly increasing their numbers.

http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/mammals...ex.htm#contents

We documented prey characteristics and kill site attributes of predator kills during winters 1999–2001 in Idaho, and located 120 wolf-killed and 98 cougar-killed ungulates on our study site. Elk (Cervus elephus) were the primary prey for both predators, followed by mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus). Both predators preyed disproportionately on elk calves and old individuals; among mule deer, wolves appeared to select for fawns, whereas cougars killed primarily adults. Nutritional status of prey, as determined by percent femur marrow fat, was consistently poorer in wolf-killed prey.

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/1...06.2003.12230.x

The only systematic study of this problem found that, over a twoyear
period, wild dogs took just 26 cattle from a herd of 3,132 in the Nyamandhlovu
region of Zimbabwe, and none of these were adult cattle (Rasmussen 1998).

http://www.cbsg.org/cbsg/content/files/REP...al%20Report.pdf

I mean, really, do I have to go on? Do you not see the common sense in it?

Lion is big and strong! Prey is small and weak! Lion like fight!



*ahem*

...and of course, it doesn't matter that it would be advantageous in terms of energy expenditure to hunt the easiest prey, because evolution is imagination!

Please refrain from pointless insults. I believe you have been warned before about this and if you continue I will consider reporting you, although I would prefer not to. It's just kind of sad when people do this.

Your first article has nothing to do with "crippled animals" being scavenged on by lions
Your second article isn't talking about "crippled" cape fur seals, but rather healthy ones. At least as far as I can tell.
Your third post. Wolves aren't "cats". And you had the nerve to call me dense?
Your fourth post...Again...the wolves. LOL
Your fifth post...At least cougars are cats, but it's talking about preying on young and old elk, not crippled elk. It does however point out that the cat went after the bigger prey.
Your sixth post...Ummmm, wild dogs aren't cats.

Why dont you quite arguing just for the sake of arguing and being a pain in the ass and just move on from the subject that we all know you understand and agree with?

We were talking about predation. This is beyond pointless. I shouldn't have bothered coming back to this thread. You're dense. Report me if you must and everyone else who would agree while you're at it.

We're talking about predation of wild cats. Lions, tigers, etc... Wild dogs and wolves aren't cats.

I don't think anybody would argue that there are animals that specifically go after the weak and crippled, such as various birds like vultures.

We're talking about the earth being a living organism and the origin of life on the planet and yet you all keep going OT. WWF I've answered a few of your questions. Please start your own thread if you'd like to discuss this completely irrelevant and off topic issue.



Now




What about Orcas and the way their fins bend in captivity. That's an example of an environmental change effecting the appearance of an animal is it not?

http://au.answers.yahoo.com/answers2/front...18081532AAMD00j

I always thought because most of the time they have to stay near the surface in captivity so that gravity takes hold and eventually pulls the fin down.

Well, gravity and shallow swim areas are part of the environment right?

Yup


Sorry I am a little slow today...............okay everyday.

LOL, no prob, my son was the one who pointed that out to me.

You're unbelievable - hi everybody, merry christmas - You derail the thread, go into "I'm only asking questions" mode, and then make statements like

to back up your already ludicrous position! And this beauty -

Oh do they? And you know this from the discovery channel, do you? Someone askes you to think logically and you post:

Well, most likely people who study wildlife for a living.
Let me just reiterate what has been pointed out to you already:
1. This topic is on the possibility that the earth is a living organism.
2. preditory animals like to live. They will do what ever it takes to achieve this. They will also, in the getting food stakes, take the option that burns the least energy. Guess which option that is going to be, when choosing between the fittest, and the weakest.
P.S Happy new year, all!

I killed a mouse in my garage. I didn't eat it. I killed it because I didn't like it. It couldn't have possibly harmed me. I just didn't like it...so I set a trap and I killed it.

Lions don't like Cheetahs. They kill their babies. They don't eat them...they just don't like them...so they kill them.
Life only evolves so far in the 'weakest, fittest' motif...then it mutates into something else.

I heard someone say planets are using lightning to communicate with each other. He heard it in a dream and didn't believe it, but I did some digging and found out people in the 1920s were using lightning detectors and detected signals apparently coming off other planets. They never thought these signals might have been interplanetary lightning, but the signals appeared intelligent, and this led to today's SETI project.

Can we keep this thread on topic - WalkingWithFire and Capeo, enough with the insults please.

If this thread doesn't start to improve then warnings will be issued to those derailing it.

This is interesting . You mean lightning as a sign of life , sort of ?

But is it a functional change, true? Our skin becomes wrinkled when we are immersed in a long time in water, but this change is not functional in that our skin develops a new function to improve our survival characteristic (as a species) due to this immersion. Similarly the bending of the Orca's fin has no effect on their survival characteristic (I'll add a caveat here: that we know of) and therefore has no evolutionary function.

When we look at how a species evolves we look for functional changes through differing allele expression that modifies (hopefully beneficially) the chance of the species to survive in its environment. If a change in appearance has no purpose, no evolutionary function, then where is the possibility that it will affect selection?

Some changes in appearance do affect selection and so promote the evolutionary trend of the species.

quote ["We're talking about the earth being a living organism "]


Do you mean it can die , too?

Please don't go quote mining my posts and then take things out of context.

Big cats do like to hunt things. Where is your argument against that since you pulled out this quote? Are you debating against them liking to hunt?

There was a link with a clip from the discovery channel that pointed out that lions like to hunt, chase and tackle. I'll post it again below. Are you suggesting the information in this clip wasn't valid and that we should disregard the information given by the discovery channel on lions?

My third quote that you mined was just suggesting that it's not always the strongest that gets caught, it can be other reasons as well.

I would suggest your point #2 to not always be true. There are times when the lion catches an antelope that isn't crippled or the weakest of the pack. And as the discovery channel stated, lions like to chase their prey and fight. Also, I know prides of lions will war with packs of hyenas. This does not sound like an activity where the lions are looking to conserve energy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKqjYa1j3kI...feature=related

I don't believe that the earth is a living organism that spits out animals.

Did you mean weakest there?

I'm not saying that on every single occasion only the weakest will ever be caught. I'm saying that in general, the ones least fit will tend to be caught with a greater frequency. You truly deny that?

Fitness being the individual's ability to reach adulthood and procreate; taking in to account all of it's survival instincts, height of senses, physical strength, attractiveness etc.

This is what natural selection is all about, differential reproductive rates.

Sorry, thanks for the correction.

I'm not saying that weak animals won't get caught or that they won't get caught more. What I'm suggesting is that there are more variables that come in to play, such as the skills/tactic of the predator, and the conditions when the predator strikes.

For example, a snake waits patiently in a bush for a mouse to pass by. Is it just going to wait for an unfit mouse, or will it strike at a healthy mouse if it passes by?

LOL

Definitely, which is why we're only discussing this in terms of likelihood, not absolutes.



No, what I'm saying is that a fitter mouse is less likely to pass by and be caught in the first place. It may have survival instincts which tell it to avoid a particular area where snakes may be hiding, and keen senses with quick reflexes which would help it to escape.

Now this mouse has a brother that's slower and can't see or hear as well, it's less likely to survive. Not necessarily because the snake will look for the weaker target, but because it may attack both but the fitter one is more likely to get away. See what I'm getting at?

Even if you take in to account all of the chance factors, an unfit individual may be lucky and escape, a fit individual may be unlucky and get caught; and say that the fitter individuals only have a 10% advantage, that still provides a big "push".

I would agree that these are not absolutes.

Can you show me a scientific article or video discussing these special mouse senses/instincts/abilities that help them to know where snakes are hiding?

Another example I would give would be a black bear in a river fishing for salmon. Is it only going to strike at the young, weak, and crippled salmon? Wouldn't it prefer to catch an adult salmon that would provide a better meal?

*sigh* Read my last post again. "Not necessarily because the snake will look for the weaker target, but because it may attack both but the fitter one is more likely to get away."

Surely I don't need to provide scientific evidence to persuade you that prey use their senses to detect predators?

You edited your post and added that while I was replying.

I'm looking for the evidence that mice have these senses/abilities to know where their predators are hiding? Can they smell snakes? Have they evolved snake radar? Please post a link to a video or an article about these mouse abilities.

we don't know what is under the ice of places like Europa. nor planets outside our system.

the earth is 'alive' and once the molten core solidifies the earth will die ( unless something else happens first)

Vision. Hearing. Why do I have to explain this? Search google for "antipredator adaptation" and you should find a lot.

This planet *is* a living organism...gaia theory or not. If I pour heavily salted water on my garden - it will suffer and die. Put poison/toxins/radioactive substances in the ocean and marine life will suffer and die. The water befouled and not fit for healthy life. Water sustains all life.
If we wipe out an eco system, the creatures that rely on that eco system will also be wiped out, or heavily compromised.
We live on a living organism...if it wasn't alive it couldn't sustain our lives.

well , yeah , but how did life originate in that huge living organism called earth in the first place ?

That's like saying a plant pot must be alive because there's an organism inside it.

I agree with this very much. And we can see that we are having an impact on the balance of life on the planet. This is because we interfere with Nature. For example we "help the poor" rather than letting them die off. I know that sounds cruel, I don't feel like writing it out nicely in order to be PC.

RAPTOR you didn't answer my question about the Orcas and the way their fins bend.


Here's another one that was given to me in a PM so I don't know if its true or not but what about this?




And I'd like to bring up the did that inorganic matter can produce organic life. So just for the sake of argument can we say that even if the earth is not "alive" as a carbon based life form, the evidence shows that life comes from earth.

Life does come from earth. So my point is why can't it be that we come prepared with all the genetic code.

You say 95 % of the genetic code is junk so how do you know that it isn't shut down and sort of hybernating until it is activated by changes on the planet.

Well I posted about the feral hogs don't know too much on that. A science person sent me that as quite often happens in these debates but wishes to remain anonymous. So I hope I'm not being set up.

But my point about the orcas is that you still see a pretty drastic change, a lot different than skin wrinkling. So what this shows is that the environment is having an impact on the animal.

The point that is missed is "Do Orcas in captivity breed babies with curved fins" I don't think they do.

But what I'm pointing out is that the genetic information might be there in "remission" and its not a matter of stepping from one form of species to another but instead what PE supports and things like the cambrian explosion, life can "suddenly" exist on the planet.

My point in this theory is to point out that Abiogenesis is a theory that in my opinion is based on debunking Creationism. As such since our minds can't conceptualize life organically and without divine intervention coming into existence on its own in a sophisticated form, we have attempted to reduce life to the lowest common denominator. Its easier for use to believe that a single living cell could be produced than it is a shark or a crocodile. But these animals started out at tiny genetic codes.

I suggest that as the earth itself evolved it got more sophisticated in what it was able to create.

Maybe the earth is just dying and life is the decay on the planet. But I do see evidence that shows LIFE on earth is directly linked to EARTH.

The data that suggested the Gaia Hypothesis to James Lovelock concerned the interaction of all the species within the earth's ecosystem, as well as within the earth's meteorological system. He found that the earth maintained certain equilibriums in situations where you wouldn't expect it. Like a living entity. The name "Lovelock" doesn't exactly inspire confidence but the guy's been a Visiting Fellow at Oxford since 1994.

I'll look around for my "Gaia" book... it's rattling around the house somewhere.

Are we not part of nature? Does a volcanic eruption 'interfere' with nature. But the Volcano is part of nature. How can Nature interfere with nature? Many who don't support deer hunting for instance. So...let nature take it's course...the end result is total decimation of entire herds due to overpopulation and rampant disease. If nature cannot sustain the population of a given species, then nature will kill off that which it cannot support.

I'm not being disagreeable...just thinking out loud...I do indeed believe that Earth is a living Organism. She is covered with life on virtually every square inch of her naked body.

The link you gave explained the different theories, e.g. the lack of water pressure. It's a direct physical consequence (as opposed to a biological response) of a physical condition. It's like saying that if you stick someone in an oven they're going to burn.

Most importantly it's not a heritable trait, as would be required if your hypothesis were true.



I'd take a guess that that's phenotypic plasticity in action (and it's actually just dawned on me that this process is probably what you're looking for. Look it up on google and see what you think, it's very well studied, and unfortunately can not account for the amount of changes that you're proposing).

Similar to how you can get different castes of ants from the same species (soldiers, workers etc.) all depending on how they're treated before hatching.

Right but its naturally controlled. Death is natural. Extinction is natural. Sadly our compassion for the weak in this society is different from natural selection. You could of course argue that this is part of our nature. Might be so.

I'd be more inclined to believe it if we weren't destroying the planet in the process. But as I said maybe the planet is dying and this is its decay.

Maybe all the other planets went through the same thing and earth is last to die.