- National Geographic reports on the dolphin that’s been discovered with four fins The rear limbs may be an atavistic throwback to a time where dolphin ancestors had limbs and walked on land. Unless you’re against evolution, of course. In which case the dolphin’s extra limbs can be considered evidence of your stupidity…
- Ryan Carson reveals DropSend’s month on month earnings What a fascinating move, and what an interesting situation to be in, to have build a simple functional service that generates money month on month for limited amounts of physical effort.
6 replies on “Links for 2006-11-08”
or possibly the water quality sucks so bad that the dolphins are preparing to get out now and walk around.
A dolphin with legs proves ancestry in the same way that a double-headed snake proves ancestry?
This is what happens when an arts graduate leaps on a bandwaggon.
The fact of evoultion, if you really think it’s so shaky that this example proves anything much at all, may be firmed up in your understanding by a careful reading of biology textbooks or by, for example, listening to Zacchary Moore’s Evolution 101 podcasts.
Or you just carry on thinking a freak demonstrates anything much at all.
David. Thank you for your comment. As usual, your insight is formidable. If you read my post, you’ll see that I summarise the article with the line, “may be an atavistic throwback to a time where dolphin ancestors had limbs and walked on land”. Note the word ‘may’. I’m not qualified to stand up and say categorically it is evidence for two reasons – that I’m not a geneticist and I do not have access to all the evidence. I imagine you’re in the same situation.
On the other hand, I’ve read enough about evolution in my life to notice analogies and parallels with other examples of atavism that I’ve read about, and am aware that there is evidence elsewhere for the resurfacing of archaic traits that have been lost through the process of evolution – traits that could not resurface if they were not previous extant and had not been lost over time.
However, whether or not this is in fact the case is sort of irrelevant, because the ‘freak’ as you put it is still evidence for mutable animal forms, and at the point where you accept that form is significantly determined by the genetic code and is transmitted to subsequent generations, it’s quite difficult to argue with the possibility that some of these weird mutations may produce reproductive advantages and hence become dominant within a population.
In the meantime, sir, you should know that half of America doesn’t believe in evolution and that there is a significant religious pressure all over the world to undermine it as a theory. So yeah, frankly, any evidence that could be used to convince these people that they’re wrong should be gestured towards.
One final piece of advice: should you wish to try and point out my inadequacies in future, you might make a more convincing case by being able to spell words like ‘bandwagon’ and ‘evolution’ and by using sentences that actually make some kind of logical sense.
**** In the meantime, sir, you should know that half of America doesn’t believe in evolution***
But the problem, Tom, is that evolution isn’t a question of belief anymore than gravity is a matter of opinion.
Leaping stupidly on a silly example when there’s already a wealth of incontrovertible evidence is exactly what I’d exepct of someone who understands nothing at all about the subject and really thinks there’s something left that needs demonstrating.
Oh, look. I spelt ‘expect, ‘exepct . I exepct you’ll be mentioning that.
If there are people that are unconvinced, there is something that needs to be demonstrated. Taking advantage of news stories to do this seems to be an obvious thing to do.
Whether you agree with this or not is actually completely irrelevant. What is relevant is that you feel you have the right to come onto my site and just be rude. If your objective was to convince me that I was wrong, or to educate me or the people who read my site, then the approach you would have taken would be very different. Instead, with absolutely no knowledge of how much I know about this subject or how much I’ve read around it – and without giving any indication whatsoever about what authority you can bring to bear – you’ve just decided to lay into me. It’s pretty bloody obvious that you’d rather take the opportunity to be an arse.
And I’m bored of it. I’ve been pretty tolerant over the years, and I’ve put up most of the crap that you’ve written as a comment on my site, but frankly I don’t have to and I’m not going to any more. So bye! Nice to hear from you as ever. Any subsequent comments you want to post will be deleted. Feel free to post your comments on your own site.
“One final piece of advice: should you wish to try and point out my inadequacies in future”
Frankly, it would be appear to be easier just to let you speak as you seem to do a good job yourself.