Evolution Definition and 735 Threads

This is a very general set of questions but sincere the same. If humans evolve to become telepathic, how would we have enough self control not to speak our private thoughts or accidentally insult others? Assuming we did gain enough self control during our evolution, what about the mentally...

can anyone recommend any good books or online articles that cover all the evidence in favor of evolution? I found this so far: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/ it seems very long and detailed, considering I have very little background in biology. Is it a good site, nonetheless?

I realize that the understanding of physics and the perferred description or mathematical representation of our understanding evolves over time. So I have a feeling that the answer to my question is strongly a mix of history and physics. Please, when at all possible add some of the historical...

Personally i don't think evolution is stupid. I was watching a documentary with this title out of interest. You can watch the full documentary here: h**p://tv-links.co.uk/video/9/5566/8296/53218/76984# (If you copy and paste the link and replace the *s with ts it should work, if not...

Dear Zapper, I have read about evolution and agree with its explanations, atleast to the most part. My question is a bit deeper than the pressures of the environment. The universe is made up of all these tiny "particles" (lets keep the wave nature aside for the moment) and they formed atoms...

why doesn't life choose to keep living - is evolution stupid or crazy in that case? All life promotes its own kind by reproduction. Life is designed or has chosen to reinforce its existence so that it will continue. It is a mandatory priority for life to continue its existence. Why...

Homework Statement Can someone give me a general idea (I do not need and probably will not understand the rigorous mathematics) of how you can use the propagator equation \psi(x,t) = \int{U(x,t;x',t')\psi(x',t')dx'}, the equation for a Gaussian wave packet, \psi(x',0)= e^{i p_0...

I have no education in biology, nor am I going to get it, so this is just out of curiosity: as life fills the Earth and develops into more advanced forms, filling up the different niches - does evolution slow down because of "lack of room"?

I get the impression that all life on earth, including extinct life, goes back to the same single common source. Is this the general view? Or could life have started out independantly at different times and/or places. If so is there any evidence? Tony

It seems evolutionary thinking is growing in popularity, even among those that really doesn't seem to be take the is principles as first principles, and developt a theory from scratch. I have a question for those working on some of the "big" approaches: Do you ask yourselves what the...

Inspired by a book review of: The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation by Matt Ridley Ridley suggests that altruism is instinctual. Cooperation and even self-sacrifice appear to Ridley to have evolved out of a need for and the instinct of survival of the species...

They have not found any major evolution is humans for nearly 30,000 years... I know it is a very slow process but 30,000 years is not enough for a little some thing to happen so we can prove that evolution is real?

This is scary: http://www.galluppoll.com/content/default.aspx?ci=27847 What do you think, is this mainly an educational problem? Is it a world wide trend, or just a local flaw in US? (It would be nice to compare with results for other countries, but I havn't found any good such polls.)

Publications on the evolution of stars? Can anyone suggest a book that goes into detail on the evolution stars? I very much enjoyed as much as was discussed in Kip Thorne's Black Holes book and would like to read more about stars.

I have read before that grooming a mate evolved among the apes as a means of showing affection. All of the great apes existing today (with the exception of humans) include eating insects off of each other as part of grooming ritual. I wonder if kissing is the homo-sapien substitute for eating...

Hello I am a student in high school and my physics teacher is a complete idiot. He just gave us a project to draw the life cycle of stars without even teaching the class. I am completely lost. Can someone help me draw the life cycle of stars that includes small: G-yellow K-orange...

Can evolution theory work from a "plan" over generations ? I saw something rather interresting on TV one day, I believe it was National Geographic. or something like that. The TV program was about the historical evolution and development to animals living in the sea to then develop lunghs...

I thought many who contribute to this glorious forum would appreciate this. Tomorrow night "Flock of Dodos" a deep and gentle look into the whole creationism v. evolution thing premieres on Showtime. I highly recommend not only watching this film, but trying to get as many people as you can...

Hi all, I'm trying to understand someone's PhD thesis on the topic of variational surface evolution and its application in computer vision, and I'm having trouble working out how he evaluates some particular types of expressions involving the gradient. I think it'll be easier if I specify the...

What is time evolution? Is it a term only applicabe to matter waves or does it apply to other waves as well?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17879317/site/newsweek/?from=rss The poll: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17875540/site/newsweek/ Myself I find a number of the poll results very alarming, to say the least: - 48% of the Americans still think God created us about 10000 years ago. - 13%...

I am new to astronomy, though really interested in it Just read up on stellar evolution from multiple sources, but have some questions about it Let me summarize the theory of stellar evolution 1. gas clouds collapse due to multiple mechanisms, e.g. shock wave, collision of clouds... 2. the...

Hello, I haven't studied PDEs much yet, but checked out what the Navier Stokes equations are. I think I understood meaning of the terms in Navier Stokes equations, and what is their purpose in defining the time evolution of velocity of the fluid, but I couldn't see any conditions for the...

Here's a question that some of the biology people might be able to answer. What role does physics play in the study of evolutionary biology? When I was in college last year, a physics professor once came to my seminar class to give a talk on the role of physics in evolutionary biology...

Hi, (I think I started a thread similar to this earlier) I was wondering if anyone knows of any good websites or books or DVD's that focus on the evolution of organs and organ systems. That is, the point at which a group of cells stopped being a "blob" and started differentiating into organs...

Hello! I wanted to ask about the possible inflation era when considering the Big Bang model. Can someone explain me carefully but quite briefly what this inflation was? Thanks :)

Science has no idea of the mechanism. All that will be said is that it just happened and because it did there was life, which continued. There is no explanation beyond that. Of course there are other explanations outside science which account for this issue, which I believe, but I cannot talk...

Probably on the list of top 5 interesting (science) topics, of which I know next to nothing. Okay, natural selection, survival of the fittest and all that, but I'd like to have a better understanding, at least at the level of a layman. My last biology class was in school, about 7 years ago...

CAtaclysmic evolution! project ..help! i have to do a project where an asteroid hit Earth 500 million years ago. My project is onthe camel and how it would adapt to these feature. I got most of it but there is one part that i need a little help on. The Earth oxygen is decreased from the curren...

In my fall 2004 biology class at junior college, we covered the debate with the Creationists who point to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, that entropy increases. Ever since my 9th grade biology class in 1990-1, where we staged a debate over Creation vs. evolution, I've been trying to figure this...

Are intelligent people really happier than less intelligent people? Some people are less aware and more oblivious to what goes on around them and seem quite content with it and living happy lives even though they don't seem to realize or care who or what they perhaps unintentionally hurt. Would...

I'm having some interpretation problems with a rotating dipolar magnetic field, so I need your opinion (I apologise for my bad English). Let there be a magnetic moment "mu" tilted relative to the rotation axis (the "z" axis), with an inclination angle "alpha". The magnetic moment is steadily...

is it proportional to a^3 or 1 / a^3 . thanks!

Note that I kind of subscribe to Dawkins' model. Also, the location of the file is at http://students.washington.edu/achen89/4_evolution2nddraft.doc . I can receive e-mail at hemaalpha@gmail.com. Thanks! Evolution is a comprehensive biological theory that draws much of its support from many...

hello i'm new here and looking for some help with my assignment. i am currently working on an assignment about how the eukaryote evolved from the prokaryote, currently i have come across only one theory which is symbiosis, i need to find several theories and was wondering if anyone here had...

Which one do you believe, Charles Darwin's Evolution Theory or Bible ? I prefer Darwin's theory because his theory pointed everything varying with time and environment. Not everything in this universe is not stable and static but moving and dynamic. And his theory is scientific theory.

As I've learned it, mutations can be grouped into 3 categories as they relate to evolution: harmful, neutral, or beneficial. Is there any way to figure out the ratios (in relation to each other) of these types of mutations?

The source is lost to me now, but I remember hearing that cancer and evolution (and even radioactive mutation) are all the same physical process, and that the difference between them is human conception. That is, if the changes result in what was see as a benefit, we call it evolution, but if...

As I understand it evolution is the process of a species changing to suit it's enviroment. Based on this definition I ask a question. Is Eugenics and Reprogenetics the only way? I believe that humans will never evolve from their current form because humans now change the environment to...

Hey, would anyone be able to tell me quality websites/ or help to answer the following questions: 1. What is a star? 2. How Astronomers can tell the difference between different stellar objects? 3. What powers a star? 4. The evelotionary path of a star and it's different stages. 5. Why...

Hello there! I'm developing a "4x" game a-la Master of Orion. I was coding some algorithms to help me generate a somewhat realistic galaxy. I'd like to know if it is possible to compute the time that a main sequence star will spend in its subgiant and giant status. For example, given the...

It seems to me that people with flat feet should have been weeded out by evolution back in the day when they actually had to walk and run around all day long. Am I missing something? Aren't people with flat feet at a huge disadvantage in those conditions?

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/08/060810-evolution.html"

I'm not positive that this belongs in the philosophy section but I'm not really sure that it belongs in physics or anywhere else either. For too long I've been trying to unify the fundamentals laws of the universe and those laws that govern how life behaves and how the planets behave. And...

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ocean30jul30,0,7764272.story?page=1 "...In many places — the atolls of the Pacific, the shrimp beds of the Eastern Seaboard, the fiords of Norway — some of the most advanced forms of ocean life are struggling to survive while the most primitive are...

I'm looking for a good book/paper/whatever that discusses the role of self-awareness in the evolution of primates/early humans. Basically, I'm looking for a work that addresses questions like: What is the role of self-awareness in evolution? Does self-awareness confer some survival benefit...

On 22 june 76 Academies of Science all over the world made a statement regarding "Teaching of evolution". ( http://www.kva.se/KVA_Root/files/newspics/DOC_2006622103638_83921484512_IAP_Evolution.pdf ). Since ID-fans often try to convince people (and themselves?) that there is a quite...

Great op-ed piece in the New York Times by evolutionary biologist Olivia Judson. Just thought this was a good read considering how many threads on evolution have been started recently...

Exactly how can evolution theory be falsified?

hi guys, I want to learn about the theory of evolution and its mechanism at the micro and maco levels, punctuated equilibrium, gradualism, game theory, natural selection, modern synthesis, evidence for evolution, open questions about evolution, etc. I would be glad to read your suggestions...