Next time some one wants to tell you evolution isn't real

[_canpakes]

It would be much more awesome and logical if we processsed food with 100% energy efficiency and had no need to excrete waste. Or simply extracted our needs from our immediate surroundings. Or were structured as one large superorganism possessing all of our functions without need for organ specialization or individual discrete cells. Or never had hiccups.

Seriously, why is our current design so ‘intelligent’?

If you say so. I know there are people who can almost live off the just energy of the sun, as you suggested, eating almost nothing.

Yes; bikini supermodels.

No offense, but what you suggest seems so short sighted to me.

Short-sighted to the recipient, or the designer?

There’s little out there to back up the idea that something has to be designed poorly to function at its most optimal. But more to the point, what defines how ‘intelligently’ a biological critter’s design is?

Like, have you encounterrf those stories of humans that were immortal and super human, not really challenged, couldn't lose? How they lose interest with life and try to kill themselves? (fictional projection)

No. Sounds like they just need to consider a different challenge if they’re considering killing themselves, given the relative ease of that particular quest.

What we have here, with us now, is what worked. To this day, I wonder how the Egyptian did was they did, build what they built, and were so powerful, yet, still so gone??

One can combine with their fellows to create and build great things, if one knows what one needs to do.

If one knows.

Ask yourself, what did the Egyptians not know about that contributed to their demise?

Is it that we die simply because we need a fresh start?

Maybe we just die because we our design isn’t intelligent enough. Why does a designer not want his creation to last as long as he himself does?

There are immortal being on earth, so it can be done. But those immortal beings are OK with just doing nothing for a long, long, time.

Apparently, eternity, even.

[_Doctor Steuss]

Primates, as I understand it, don't have blubber like we do.

Thank you for taking the time to explain/reply. The linked article mostly focused on social and cognitive stuff, but it was still an interesting read.

Regarding the above; while we tend to have more adipose tissue than primates (quite a bit more… om-nom-nom-nom), it's pretty much the same stuff that primates have as evidenced by research on obese monkeys. Being adipose tissue is probably about all our fat has in common with blubber. Blubber has many more blood vessels, is designed to help with thermoregulation (ours is pretty much just to store energy), and is attached to muscles and skeletons.

I’m fairly certain that blubber also stores proteins, whereas our adipose tissue is for the most part lipids.

[_Dr. Shades]

Science is like a religion.

And infertility is like parenthood.

Science is just another church.

And infertility is just another parenthood.

Why do you adhere so strongly to so many opinions that you admit are only illusions anyway?

[_Xenophon]

Thank you for taking the time to explain/reply. The linked article mostly focused on social and cognitive stuff, but it was still an interesting read.

Regarding the above; while we tend to have more adipose tissue than primates (quite a bit more… om-nom-nom-nom), it's pretty much the same stuff that primates have as evidenced by research on obese monkeys. Being adipose tissue is probably about all our fat has in common with blubber. Blubber has many more blood vessels, is designed to help with thermoregulation (ours is pretty much just to store energy), and is attached to muscles and skeletons.

I’m fairly certain that blubber also stores proteins, whereas our adipose tissue is for the most part lipids.

Thanks for the added information. Probably also worth pointing out that most of the items on the list aren't all that unique to dolphins either. Lots of animals are social creatures. Plenty of animals have dialects, cows being my favorite. A primate is listed in that very article as also having sex for pleasure. Varying forms of homosexual behavior have been observed in a wide variety of animals, which also could be considered sex for pleasure. As DrW points out, our brains, although similar, behave in drastically different ways. I didn't have enough curiosity to explore the other points.

Also, I found an article from the same website that if titled just a little bit differently would actually read exactly the same... but about cows.

[_Doctor Steuss]

Plenty of animals have dialects, cows being my favorite.

And just like that, I'm glad I got out of bed today.

So much awesome.

[_Res Ipsa]

Boy does this bring back memories.

When our daughter was around middle school age she watched a "documentary" on Animal Planet her friends were anxious about that showed there was a species of primates-like creatures that had evolved to live underwater that were the basis for the mermaid myth. It took a bit of work to explain to her why this supposed TV documentary was a crock of dog feces in a way that was helping her become a better critical thinker rather than just rely on, "That's stupid because I said it is" though it seems to have worked out. That and the entire 2012 Mayan calendar thing were very real to her. Thank Goddess she is a smart kid, and Neal Degras Tyson can speak at a level even an 11 year old can follow.

If SPG believes in mermaids based on the same "documentary"...uh, wow.

ETA: Wiki for the "documentary": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mermaids:_The_Body_Found

I quickly identified the "Cave of Swimmers" as the location of SPG's cave paintings. But when I looked at photos, it was really weird. Some had mostly faded and kind of worn paintings. There were two different images of three swimmers in a row, with the third having legs close together. But there were other pages with vidvid and dazzling paintings of many humanoid figures with obvious tales. They damn sure looked like mermaids. But both sets of pictures were often not very clearly identified.

Then I found an article on the fake documentary. It included a picture of the vivid, mermaid-like drawings and identified them as CGI created for the documentary. And then I finally understood what I was seeing. Pages from the British Museum and other institutions had only the two sets of three figures. Photos dated before the documentary had only the two sets of three figures. But there were many, many postings by regular folks of the vivid mermaid figures that represented them as the actual cave paintings.

Had I seen your post before I looked, I'd have saved lots of time.

[_Res Ipsa]

Primates, as I understand it, don't have blubber like we do.

Oh, do tell. https://www.bu.edu/research/articles/ch ... evolution/

If primates don't have body fat, how do they get so fat?

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q ... nLr2OrsFLU

[_Res Ipsa]

Why isn't Earth a big round lump of moss? Because there are patterns in the nature of consciousness that lead us to where are.

Wrong. Would you care to try again?

[_Res Ipsa]

I know there are people who can almost live off the just energy of the sun, as you suggested, eating almost nothing.

This is the kind of nonsense that gets people killed. Yet you claim to "know" people can do it.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/breatharians/

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog ... -anythings

[_Themis]

As honorable as this sounds, BS.

Science is like a religion. You have your general authorities that dictate what is said in the name of science. Then your NOM types that don't quite buy it. So they go out and start looking at stuff themselves. Even though they are "scientists" what they find is buried.

Sorry but no. There is no prophet of science who tells other scientists what to think or believe. Scientists speak their minds all the time. Lots of bad science and pseudo science is out there, so if something you want to believe in is not accepted by the scientific community you think they are purposely burying it. Merpeople should be an obvious pseudo science, but you clearly do not understand what constitutes good evidence. Vague pictures, videos, etc do not qualify as good evidence. We have maybe millions of pictures and videos of Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. Should they be good evidence they really exist? And how many of them are faked?