Top 15 Worst Miss USA Answers

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Well, earth being flat doesn't mean humans started off as something other than humans and that's what theory of evolution suggests, so it's less of a threat to Christians accepting earth is three dimensional, it's not exactly round btw, it sorta bulges in the middle.
Humans were these little plankton floating in the primordial sea billions of years ago, according to evolutionary theory, along with all other life forms that had not yet evolved. This inspires fear and revulsion in the Believers.

This is unacceptable to anyone who believe humans were created in the image of God because He could not possibly exist in these little plankton.

Evolution is no longer a "theory" it is a fact that it happens. There has been conclusive proof beyond reasonable doubt in evolution for many years; that boat sailed long ago! What I find more interesting is that some Christians are still in denial about it. Even the Catholic church acknowledges that evolution is a fact. I can sympathise with the college professors who still have to put up with people who think the Sun revolves around the Earth or who believe the Earth is flat. It must be exasperating to deal with people who hang on to primitive superstitious relics like creationism.

Gravity and heliocentrism are "mere" theories as well. In fact, representatives of your outmoded superstition once tried to suppress the blasphemous notion that the earth revolved around the sun and not the other way around. Didn't quite work out.

What are you saying here?

Lions, and Tigers can interbred.

So evolution proponants latch onto that fact to say what?
And this thing they say is wrong, or unfair, in what way?

What I don't understand is, why can lions and tigers interbreed? Makes absolutely no sense from an evolutionary standpoint unless the offspring are fertile which they aren't.

It doesnt HAVE to make evolutionary sense because it virtually never happens in the wild.

The two species are obviously similiar. And infact are closely related. They branched off from their common ancestor only recently. So they still have a limited ability to interbreed. A million years hense, if both species still exist, they probably wont be able to interbreed anymore because they will continue to evolve away from each other.

So in that sense it does make 'evolutionary sense' that they retain limited interbreeding capability now (they had more in the past and likely will have less in the future) because they are trending away from each other.



I forget which way it goes- with lions and tigers- if you cross a male of one species with the female of the other you get a double dose of growth inhibition- and the hybrid offspring are dwarves (compared to either parent species). Do it the other way you get a double dose of growth- so you get giantism (the offspring grow up to be bigger than the adults of either species).

I saw a hybrid in a zoo in Miami. It was snoozing with its 'roomate' a normal lion. The 1200 pound giant looked like an enormouse tabby cat. Imagine the tawny lion color spray painted on the side of a bright orange and black tiger- and getting a washed out pink-orange with faint stripes color of domestic tabby-that what he looked like.

Animals of the two species confined in captivity do mate. But in the wild there is only one country I know of that, in historic times, even had both widespread tigers, and widespread lions. That was India. But even there the two animals kept to seperate eco zones. But if they overlapped both species lacked "the social skills" to mate with the other (kinda like aspie guys trying to mate with females of their own species).They dont understand the other species mating signals. So it was a rare occurance in the wild, if it ever happened in the wild.

Thanks for the answer but to me it will never make sense. You can either breed or you can't and if you can, the offspring should not be sterile.
There's no evolutionary point in having barren offspring. That goes against evolution.

you're looking at it the wrong way around. The ability to interbreed with a closely related seperate species is not a postive trait being selected for. Its the remnant of a once positve trait now being selected against. Originally the two populations could freely interbreed. Now the two populations have become seperate- so they evolve traits to keep seperate that range from courtship behavior traits, to anatomy of genitalia, to behavior the sex cells themselves. But because the two populations are still closely related the boundy keeping adaptations have not been completely erected yet.

And besides- if mules were fertile it would be evolutionarily worse than if they were sterile. They would grow up to be either inperfect horses trying to live in horse society, or imperfect donkeys living in donkey society. So it makes perfect evolutionary sense for them NOT to pass their hyrbid state on to offspring.

It seems like it WOULD be as positive as any other. Genetic diversity is considered positive and this certainly makes it more diverse. Two similar species breeding and producing offspring, not a big deal.

Two completely different simply would not work, a dead end, basically. You would produce something that would not be able to survive. most likely. Species A evolved a certain set of traits that enable it to survive, species B evolved an entirely different set. The two would have trouble merging. No union or offspring possible.

Then you have Species C and D, very similar, evolved similar survival traits. Their offspring could stand a chance at survival and might actually be a stronger species in coming generations than the initial parents.

No it doesn't. And naturalplastic already provided the explanation as to why this can happen.

Evolution does not, all of a sudden, restrict reproductive ability between two populations of animals once they start to differ and become two distinct species. That would be a magical kind of thinking.

What you're suggesting is nonsensical, not evolutionary science.

Yes, genetic diversity to the point that they can no longer mate with each other or produce only barren offspring.

It's a side effect of such diversity that you speak of.

But Naturalplastic said that the ability of the 2 populations to interbreed were being selected against via natural selection. I thought that the reason why 2 species can no longer interbreed after speciation was simply a natural consequence their DNA being too dissimilar, not due to natural selection.

Their DNA being different DUE TO natural selection.

No, you're confusing two different things. The two species genetically drift apart for other reasons. For example, if speciation happens because of geographic isolation, then natural selection selects for traits that allow each population to survive and reproduce in their respective environments, it does not specifically select against their ability to interbreed with each other. The reason why they can no longer interbreed is because you still need certain amount similarity in the DNA in order for that to remain possible, not because interbreeding is specifically selected against. They genetically drifted apart for other reasons and genetic mutations happen all the time, not just when there's selective pressure.

If you look back a few posts up, naturalplastic actually says what you're saying (despite his ambiguous wording):

All that elementary stuff is between the lines of what I said as the unstated backstory.

you're right that two populations evolve so they become genetically different so then after a long time they cant mate and produce for many reasons. For two species that are quite different-like horses and dogs- if they tried to mate they would have different numbers of chromosomes so you couldnt line up the chromosomes of the parents. And the genes on the chromosomes would all be the wrong genes. Like each species has different number of volumes in the encyclopedia, AND the contact of the books differs.

But what about the early stages of differentiations? Two sibling species may have the same number of chromosomes. And the difference in the genetic content may be still very slight. So in those situations if sperm from one meets the egg of the other conception could still occur because both species still have the same number of volumes- and the content of the two books dont differ much yet.

Sometimes species evolve both physical traits and behavioral traits to keep from out breeding. And that keeps the gene pools seperate. And that speeds up the rate that the rest of the genomes of the two populations evolve apart from each other.

In the textbooks its always stated that its geography that does the work seperating populations but these breeding factors also keep populations and their DNA seperate when perhaps geography fails and the two similiar groups are brought back together by geography. Behavior traits might have been what kept lions and tigers from interbreeding when both species entered India.

Last edited by naturalplastic on 18 Nov 2013, 9:58 am, edited 1 time in total.