[traveling mode - recycled material - first appeared here]

Most of you are probably familiar with the case of the peppered moth. In it's original form, the moth was lighter in color. Enter the industrial revolution and the discoloration of surfaces, such as tree trunks, due to soot in the air. Over the course of moth generations, they took on a darker coloration. Those that blended with their environment better avoided predation and survived to reproduce. Dark color-genes were naturally selected for, you could say. Though there wasn't an agent doing the selecting, nor was there a greater purpose to the selection.

A similar case has been discovered and studied. This time it was not peppered moths in England, but deer mice Nebraska. And the species did not darken in color, but lighten. Why? During the last ice age, "glaciers deposited sand dunes atop what had been much darker soil."

For a mouse, as with a moth, standing out is not a good thing. Although hawks and other predators would differ in their preference for the color of their dinner.

How do we know these mice were once darker in color? Because the darker variety still exists. One might argue that the darker is a transitional variant of sorts. At least were the sand dune mice to eventually become a completely isolated and separate breeding population that eventually didn't recognize the darker mice as potential mates. Call it evolution in action. And it's happening right under our noses.

Here a little more info from the source article:

This and other evidence, including much greater genetic uniformity among pale mutants than their dark wildtype cousins, suggests this mutation is a relatively recent development, likely arising shortly after the formation of the Sand Hills in north-central Nebraska.

By mating light Sand Hills mice and dark mice found outside the Sand Hills, Linnen and Hoekstra determined that the light coloration seen in Agouti mutants is genetically dominant to the darker coats seen among wildtype mice.

One last point. During a recent Colbert Report episode, Richard Dawkins told the host of the show that any purpose to life is a human purpose. We create any purpose perceived. And I agree with that. Dawkins also said that, yes, evolution is random. But this point I wonder about. Hear me out.

In the case of the mice, for instance, genetic mutation responsible for the change in deer mice coloration. I wonder if this type of mutation is completely random. Could there be some sort of epigenetic input involved? Biologists have recently come to understand that experiences can turn off and on already existing genes. Nurture triggers nature. Can some types of experience likewise make some genes more likely to mutate than others? Has the differing visual input (experience) of the deer mice, triggered a greater propensity for it to undergo genetic change (nature) in it's fur-coloring genes? I wouldn't be surprise if in the future we discover that much of randomness to evolution is actually more of a reflection of our ignorance than anything else. Of course, the opposite of random is not purposefully determined.

Reproductive fecundity, variation, selection. That's how you "spell" evolution.

For more on evolution--particularly on combating creationism--see my post at Florida Freethinkers: Countering Creationism (1): The Emperor is All Gaps

Like all human beings, I have a tail-bone. This nub of a tail I have bashed and fractured more than once. What is the purpose of this undeniable feature of the human body? To remind us that we didn't evolve from a life-form with a tail? If the tail-bone isn't necessary--and it is much harder to argue for its necessity than to point out that it may be less than necessary--why include it in the design?

Can you claim that there is a supremely intelligent designer and at the same time recognize that many design elements aren't so intelligent? If the human being, to use a single example, were in fact perfectly designed the unemployment office would be crowded with orthodontists--to single out one profession profiting from the imperfectly designed human form. Chiropractors and optometrists would be there as well.

Intelligent design cannot explain why the many kinds of American sparrows (all small, brown birds)--savannah, chipping, marsh, song, house, fox, Lincoln--are each a different species, and yet the beagle, the bulldog, the Shi-Tzu, and the greyhound are all one species. The theory of evolution (i.e., natural selection) answers this problem easily. Dogs have been selectively bred over the past few thousand years and the resulting kinds have not remained isolated populations for enough time, and the necessary selective pressures applied, for them to become distinct species. That is why a one-hundred pound Rottweiler will attempt to mount a ten pound Chihuahua.

In a similar vein, true-believing proponents of intelligent design cannot provide a non-convoluted answer as to why human beings seem willing to drop their pants at so much as a wink from the opposite sex, despite the fact that the god of these believers wants his children to refrain from all but marital procreative sexual activity (and even then, there should be no giggling involved).

When I was a child a number of seriously religious adults taught me that sex is a dirty thing. Why were we designed to want to get dirty? The real answer--we are driven to get our genes into the gene pool; those and their genetic material that aren't driven, disappear. Give 200 points to the theory of evolution. Maybe the creator god will do better in the lightning round.

Any contestant on Jeopardy knows that dinosaurs and human beings did not walk the earth at the same time. If they had, it probably would not have been for long. A large carnivore could easily have snapped off our heads for a between-meal snack. Delicious: hard and crunchy on the outside, warm and noodle-y on the inside. Only after a rogue asteroid (they're all rogue, aren't they?) slammed into our planet, and the slate of megafauna wiped clean, were mammals, and eventually Homo sapiens, able to "populate and subdue the earth."

Human ascendancy to the top o' the heap was contingent upon a god knocking down the number ten pin after having been blindfolded, spun around, the laces on his rental shoes tied together. High five, big guy, a perfect toss! Without the supernatural intervention of a wayward hunk of rock, there would probably be a brontosaurus in the White House. Okay, that's silly. Subtract the asteroid impact and there would be no White House. Maybe there'd be a Yellow House. As much as we may want it to be the glorious case, the human animal did not pull itself up by the bootstraps of some divine inevitability.

Here's the problem: Our self-consciousness provides us with the feeling of importance. This is true for individuals as well as groups. How many times have you, when in line at a supermarket waiting to check out, viewed the other shoppers as being in your way? Those shoppers, however, were on their own way. Individually, we each reside at the center of a universe. As groups, whether they are exclusive and small or inclusive of all human primates, we likewise consider ourselves to be at the center of it all. The pampered poodle being pushed in a cart down the canned-goods aisle? Just a prop for our amusement. The live lobsters in a tank crawling over one another in the seafood section? Nothing more than edible do-dads to be taken or left . . . by humans.

That person who can look in a mirror--preferably the full-length variety while buck-naked--and not see a relatively hairless primate is blind to the essential element of who they are: an animal. Sure, we are fairly intelligent animals, thanks largely to cultural evolution. (We are also the ones who invented and implemented the measuring of "intelligent.") But in the unflattering light of nakedness, ours is a species whose design manifests evolutionary processes much more than intervention by the divinely perfect.

Need I say more than "male nipples"?

[recycled material - first appeared here]

What do you call a fossil of a "transitional species" between ancient, hippo-like creatures and modern whales? A whippo? An orcapotamus? I call it a whopper of a nightmare for Creationists.

Check out these elements to a new study into whale evolution:

1) "hippos are the cetaceans' closest living relatives." This has been known for some time. Cetaceans include whales, dolphins and porpoises -- carnivorous, swimming, air-breathing animals.

2) "Cetacean ancestors probably moved into water before changing their diet (and their teeth) to include carnivory; Indohyus, a 48-million year-old semi-aquatic herbivore, and hippos fall closest to cetaceans when the evolutionary relationships of the larger group are reconstructed."

3) "'Indohyus is interesting because this fossil combines an herbivore's dentition with adaptations such as ear bones that are adapted for hearing under water and are traditionally associated with whales only.'"

Indohyus now joins Ambulocetus as gap-fillers in the evolution of the whale. Ambulocetus, by the way, has been nicknamed the "walking whale," for it had half-limb/foot, half-flipper appendages. And could pursue prey in the shallows and depths.

Fascinating. Well, for me. For some minds shackled with anachronistic dogma -- troubling. Why would the great Creator encapsulate within rocks the skeletons of whippos? Did the Intelligent Designer not finish his job, thus we find evidence of orcapotamus-like species stumbling their way to a more final design?

[recycled material - first appeared here]

ONLINE Viagra FOR SALE, Some who doubt evolution say there is a lack of proof. Viagra gel, ointment, cream, pill, spray, continuous-release, extended-release, What they want is one slam-dunk piece of evidence of evolution occurring. Trouble is, buy Viagra from mexico, Purchase Viagra online no prescription, like the motion of flip-book images, a single page, where can i order Viagra without prescription, Online buying Viagra hcl, a single piece of data, will never encapsulate the whole of a dynamic process.

Consider this photo of evolution in action:

It's just a bird, order Viagra online c.o.d, Viagra samples, right. Well, ordering Viagra online, Japan, craiglist, ebay, overseas, paypal, yes, but it is also a likely "transitional form." Two populations of one bird species are undergoing a plumage divergence, kjøpe Viagra på nett, köpa Viagra online. Buy generic Viagra, And that change is likely heading down the road to speciation.

In the article Study Catches Two Bird Populations As They Split Into Separate Species you will read:

The question of whether these two populations are on the road to speciation comes down to sex. When two populations stop exchanging genes—that is, stop mating with each other—then they can be considered distinct species, ONLINE Viagra FOR SALE. Uy and his team wanted to see if these flycatchers were heading in that direction.

One crucial bit of "evidence" that speciation is likely occurring consists not of a single photo or of a preserved skeleton or of anything you can hold in your hand, purchase Viagra. Order Viagra from mexican pharmacy, The evidence is bird behavior. Behavior.

That males from the two populations no longer view the other as a reproductive threat is a good indication that not much mating is taking place between the two groups, buy Viagra no prescription. Buy Viagra without prescription, Their evolutionary paths are diverging, Uy and his team found—all because of a change in plumage.

Fascinating.

While science does take more effort to comprehend than the blind acceptance of religious claims, buy Viagra online cod, Where can i find Viagra online, the payoff is immense.

Similar posts: ONLINE Sinequan FOR SALE. ONLINE Dapoxetine FOR SALE. ONLINE Detrol FOR SALE. Buy no prescription Lopressor online. Buying Mobic online over the counter. Canada, mexico, india.
Trackbacks from: ONLINE Viagra FOR SALE. ONLINE Viagra FOR SALE. ONLINE Viagra FOR SALE. Viagra over the counter. Where can i buy cheapest Viagra online. Australia, uk, us, usa.