tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8225855.post7337383579926494189..comments2023-10-18T16:25:13.593+01:00Comments on Famous for 15 megapixels: Fish of the Month August 2008 - The CoelacanthStefhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01467757421113856218noreply@blogger.comBlogger41125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8225855.post-19730240139715388792008-08-12T13:59:00.000+01:002008-08-12T13:59:00.000+01:00not that cowardlynobody's truly anonymous in cyber...not that cowardly<BR/><BR/>nobody's truly anonymous in cyberspaceStefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01467757421113856218noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8225855.post-23255884630018244722008-08-12T13:54:00.000+01:002008-08-12T13:54:00.000+01:00@StefNo need to respect me, I'm only some anonymou...@Stef<BR/><BR/>No need to respect me, I'm only some anonymous coward. No mention of amphibians indeed, it was just my own imaginitis.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8225855.post-9370402844035349222008-08-11T21:40:00.000+01:002008-08-11T21:40:00.000+01:00with all respect (honestly) that article does not ...with all respect (honestly) that article does not refer to coelacanths evolving from amphibians<BR/><BR/>It does refer to a puzzle which has long vexed evolutionists<BR/><BR/>and that puzzle is how can they spin the fact that the coelacanth has apparently evolved so little over the last 400Ma, when sixty years ago other evolutionists were claiming that it was possibly the Gt Grandaddy of all tetrapods<BR/><BR/>the answer?<BR/><BR/>its fins have changed a little bit<BR/><BR/>...am catching the Big Dick's latest show on Dawkins+1 as I type - the Fib Gene is strong in that oneStefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01467757421113856218noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8225855.post-74517969667765950032008-08-11T20:25:00.000+01:002008-08-11T20:25:00.000+01:00@StefThere you go: how the coelacanth got its fins...@Stef<BR/><BR/>There you go:<A HREF="http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/dn12462-how-the-coelacanth-got-its-fins.html" REL="nofollow"> how the coelacanth got its fins </A>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8225855.post-91748006505948180702008-08-11T11:30:00.000+01:002008-08-11T11:30:00.000+01:00Murray is bang out of order on this one - lines li...Murray is bang out of order on this one - lines like...<BR/><BR/><I>An immediate ceasefire is required now and a de facto Russian annexation of South Ossetia must not be permitted, unless we eventually want a war for East Ukraine. Sadly, the West will learn the wrong long-term lesson. The answer is not to strengthen NATO. NATO is part of the cause of the problem, not the solution. <B>By encircling and humiliating Russia, not least with new missile systems, NATO has creaated the climate in Russia so favourable to Putin</B></I><BR/><BR/>...display his prejudices<BR/><BR/>By encircling and humiliating Russia, not least with new missile systems, NATO is understandably pissing the Russians off. Full stop<BR/><BR/>If Murray was talking straight shouldn't that article have been titled...<BR/><BR/>'There Are No Good Guys, But We Must Be Most Wary of NATO'Stefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01467757421113856218noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8225855.post-72154687236928118922008-08-11T09:23:00.000+01:002008-08-11T09:23:00.000+01:00I'm too lazy to look for the sources, but I was un...<I>I'm too lazy to look for the sources, but I was under the impression that coelacanths were actually thought to have evolved from an amphibian quadruped back into a proper fish. That's based on a coelacanth fossil which shows four asymmetric limbs, whereas the "modern" coelacanths have four symmetric fins.</I><BR/><BR/>New to me. It would be well-funny if someone had come out with that<BR/><BR/>@merkin<BR/><BR/>Dawkins always sounds plausible but that's not the same thing as being right. He persistently refuses to debate with sceptics and prefers to rant unopposedStefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01467757421113856218noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8225855.post-28090185946382558832008-08-11T08:04:00.000+01:002008-08-11T08:04:00.000+01:00War comments, There Are No Good Guys, But We Must ...War comments, <A HREF="http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2008/08/there_are_no_go.html" REL="nofollow">There Are No Good Guys, But We Must Be Most Wary of Russia</A> (Craig Murray).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8225855.post-56760012836986309242008-08-10T19:41:00.000+01:002008-08-10T19:41:00.000+01:00War Comments, Oh Please!War Comments, <A HREF="http://grayfalcon.blogspot.com/2008/08/oh-please.html" REL="nofollow">Oh Please!</A>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8225855.post-50746510628237308532008-08-09T22:39:00.000+01:002008-08-09T22:39:00.000+01:00Darwin made BIG mistakeHe called his book the Orig...Darwin made BIG mistake<BR/><BR/>He called his book the Origin of Species<BR/><BR/>It should have been the first part of a greater and larger work called<BR/>The Origins of Species.<BR/><BR/>Duz that hilp ?zizhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15249645812407323273noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8225855.post-19433019444309249982008-08-09T21:35:00.000+01:002008-08-09T21:35:00.000+01:00I liked the Dawkins programme.Thought he explained...I liked the Dawkins programme.<BR/>Thought he explained things reasonably well.<BR/>Still, doesn't matter as I live only a ferry ride away from Faslane.Merkinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02499327449561248731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8225855.post-56424996943365623792008-08-09T20:13:00.000+01:002008-08-09T20:13:00.000+01:00Found myself looking over some Max Kaiser viewpoin...Found myself looking over some Max Kaiser viewpoints for Al-Jazeera's "People and Power" series and found this http://blip.tv/file/1157098/ via http://www.maxkeiser.com/<BR/><BR/>Prescient or what?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8225855.post-84320602400643569982008-08-09T19:59:00.000+01:002008-08-09T19:59:00.000+01:00I'm too lazy to look for the sources, but I was un...I'm too lazy to look for the sources, but I was under the impression that coelacanths were actually thought to have evolved from an amphibian quadruped <I>back into a proper fish</I>. That's based on a coelacanth fossil which shows four asymmetric limbs, whereas the "modern" coelacanths have four symmetric fins.<BR/><BR/>Anyway, evolution is still a theory, with many gaps. It's just that until proven completely wrong, I prefer evolution taught in schools than creationism. The only intelligent design theory I dig is Crick's panspermia.<BR/><BR/>Otherwise, on the more juicy subject on Georgia, try to read The Grand Chessboard by Brzezinski , and Chossudovsky's War and Globalization for more background.<BR/><BR/>Don't worry, it's al about oil. Georgia is part of the GUUAM (Georgia, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldavia) alliance formed under NATO. It purpose is basically to protect the pipeline that starts in Azerbaidjan, and ends in a Georgian port, completely bypassing Russia...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8225855.post-44219239136620900982008-08-09T16:24:00.000+01:002008-08-09T16:24:00.000+01:00I thought Stanisław Szukalski was the Looniest of ...I thought Stanisław Szukalski was the Looniest of them all, until I discovered <A HREF="http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt1Yo610lG0" REL="nofollow">Gorilla 199's</A> Youtube accountAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8225855.post-4749896995961978932008-08-09T10:35:00.000+01:002008-08-09T10:35:00.000+01:00re Georgia. I hope the Russians find Saddam Husse...re Georgia. I hope the Russians find Saddam Hussein and parade him for all the world to see. I wonder how the BBC would explain themselves?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8225855.post-17087763837292492662008-08-09T09:38:00.000+01:002008-08-09T09:38:00.000+01:00"...in a parallel universe ..."Not so far fetched ..."<I>...in a parallel universe ...</I>"<BR/><BR/>Not so far fetched is the secession of Scotland; not so far fetched would be Scotland joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation; would it be so far fetched to imagine Faslane with Russian troops?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8225855.post-21930704328091161892008-08-09T01:43:00.000+01:002008-08-09T01:43:00.000+01:00"A cretin-imbecile woman, 39 years old, sexually m..."A cretin-imbecile woman, 39 years old, sexually mature, as the breasts show, but half as tall as her nurse and mentally equivalent to an ape"<BR/><BR/>Bloody hell, just for a minute I thought he was talking about my ex...Shahidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14555080365070123707noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8225855.post-78917971349142296582008-08-09T01:37:00.000+01:002008-08-09T01:37:00.000+01:00Outstanding!<A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanis%C5%82aw_Szukalski" REL="nofollow">Outstanding!</A>Stefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01467757421113856218noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8225855.post-22099209842994852062008-08-09T01:30:00.001+01:002008-08-09T01:30:00.001+01:00*despite a chip on each of either his both shoulde...*despite a chip on each of either his both shoulders.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8225855.post-72596410305716332492008-08-09T01:30:00.000+01:002008-08-09T01:30:00.000+01:00BTW, anyone found the missing link yet?http://najm...<I>BTW, anyone found the missing link yet?</I><BR/><BR/>http://najmita.150m.com/szukalski/macimowa/yetisyny_ang.htm<BR/><BR/>If anyone has, it'll have been Szukalski. His proud bearing denotes a proto-Loon well used to keeping his nose above water.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8225855.post-39257647467836602008-08-09T01:22:00.000+01:002008-08-09T01:22:00.000+01:00"Anyone watching the start of Dawkins' latest seri..."Anyone watching the start of Dawkins' latest series on C4 last week would have been treated to the sight of Dawkins comparing evolution to selective breeding of livestock"<BR/><BR/>They would also have been treated to Mr D saying he would go to talk to some kids (they don't answer back and can be fairly readily manipulated) about evolution. THis was somewhere else from wher he was ...so we saw Mr D ambulate to a bus / train station (? - I was losing interest at this point)then he got on bus / train / plain / time machine (by this point I had lost the will to live) ... he then conducted a desultory conversation with some schoolkids who evidently had been tiodied up and told to be polite ....<BR/><BR/>Having trouble sleeping ... 10 minutes of Mr D ... works wonderszizhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15249645812407323273noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8225855.post-21420356433332001032008-08-09T01:05:00.000+01:002008-08-09T01:05:00.000+01:00"at this point, Darwinists would traditionally poi..."at this point, Darwinists would traditionally point to the sickle cell"<BR/><BR/>They obviously haven't seen the <A HREF="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2558439.stm" REL="nofollow">queue of people who want to be cured</A> of this "beneficial mutation"Shahidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14555080365070123707noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8225855.post-66153454630958407662008-08-09T00:54:00.000+01:002008-08-09T00:54:00.000+01:00What you're talking about is natural selection. I ...<I>What you're talking about is natural selection. I don't have a problem with natural selection. What I don't see evidence of is evolution by natural selection. I don't see any mutations that are ever beneficial.</I><BR/><BR/>at this point, Darwinists would traditionally point to <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sickle-cell_disease" REL="nofollow">the sickle cell</A>Stefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01467757421113856218noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8225855.post-82702509198341761352008-08-09T00:41:00.000+01:002008-08-09T00:41:00.000+01:00Dawkins is a fundamentalist guilty of spouting shi...Dawkins is a fundamentalist guilty of spouting shit and getting pulled up on it time and time again.<BR/><BR/>I'm perfectly happy to be convinced about evolution by someone who can actually explain it to me. It's not evolution per se that I'm suspicious of, moreso the industry and fascism that surrounds it.<BR/><BR/>I also despise what it has produced in the form of social Darwinism. Hitler was of course, happy to "accelerate" Darwinism. <BR/><BR/>Sure; thin, slippery sticks make it down stream, but they are still sticks. They don't turn into coelecanths and then bipeds. And as far as I can see, coelecanths are the same as they ever were tens of milions (hundreds of millions?) of years ago.<BR/><BR/>What you're talking about is natural selection. I don't have a problem with natural selection. What I don't see evidence of is evolution by natural selection. I don't see any mutations that are ever beneficial. The chances of beneficial mutation on the scale we're talking about, even over tens of millions of years. Hundreds of millions of years? Now that's something I can barely comprehend. And that might be part of the problem. My complete inability to comprehend massive time scales.<BR/><BR/>In the religion of evolution, why is it so necessary for there to be so much fraud and deception? Why do creeps keep fabricating skeletons or pictures?<BR/><BR/>BTW, anyone found the missing link yet?Shahidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14555080365070123707noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8225855.post-63961894445598572922008-08-09T00:23:00.000+01:002008-08-09T00:23:00.000+01:00as it happens I don't pretend for a second that st...as it happens I don't pretend for a second that stuck twigs, or coelacanths, disprove Darwinism - Darwinism is based on too subtle a tautology to be so easily taken down<BR/><BR/>but I do pretend that any scientific theory which can't distinguish between a fish that remained essentially unchanged for 400 million years and one that evolved into all land based tetrapods isn't worth crap<BR/><BR/>and, on the subject of Darwinian bollocks, this extract from the wikipedia entry on the vexatious subject of <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium#Criticism" REL="nofollow">punctuated equilibrium</A> is pretty special...<BR/><BR/><I>Richard Dawkins dedicated a chapter in The Blind Watchmaker to correcting, in his view, the wide confusion surrounding the theory of punctuated equilibrium. His first, and main point, is to argue that phyletic gradualism in the sense of uniformity of rates—what he refers to as "constant speedism"—is a "caricature of Darwinism"[12] and "does not really exist."[13] His second argument, which follows from the first, is that once this caricature is dismissed, we are left with only one logical alternative, which Dawkins calls "variable speedism." Variable speedism may be distinguished in one of two ways: "discrete variable speedism" and "continuously variable speedism." Eldredge and Gould, believing that evolution jumps between stability and relative rapidity, are described as "discrete variable speedists," and "in this respect they are genuinely radical."[14] They believe that evolution generally proceeds in bursts, or not at all. "Continuously variable speedists," on the other hand believe that "evolutionary rates fluctuate continuously from very fast to very slow and stop, with all intermediates. They see no particular reason to emphasize certain speeds more than others. <B>In particular, stasis, to them, is just an extreme case of ultra-slow evolution</B>. To a punctuationist, there is something very special about stasis."[15] Dawkins therefore commits himself here to an empirical claim about the geological record,[16] and it is this particular claim that Eldredge and Gould have aimed to overturn</I>Stefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01467757421113856218noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8225855.post-80193164824801505262008-08-08T23:42:00.000+01:002008-08-08T23:42:00.000+01:00If I throw a bunch of sticks into a river, much li...If I throw a bunch of sticks into a river, much like Pooh, some will float on downstream, some will get stuck etc.<BR/><BR/>I can repeat that a lot with roughly the same stuckness to non-stuckness distribution. Nothing was mysteriously turned on or turned off for any of the sticks. All depends on the river and the weeds. <BR/><BR/>I can happily make a theory on Survival of the Stickiest but I'm thinking it wouldn't be very intertesting. Maybe it would say that thin smooth sticks didn't get stuck so much, wheras thick muddy sticks did. Maybe trees producing thin sticks got to see the ocean more often. Is the river a cleverly designed sieve for thin sticks? <BR/><BR/>Oh I give up - you all hate Dawkins, I'm going to tell my mummy about you. Waah!DEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13468138772103258101noreply@blogger.com