## 4. BIOLOGY

#### Subsections

- 4. biology - general
- 4.1 biology poetry
- 4.2 biology quotes
- 4.3 biology puns
- 4.4 cloning
- 4.5 biochemistry
- 4.6 evolution
- 4.7 mice and rats
- 4.8 cell biology
- 4.9 bacteria

### 4.6 EVOLUTION

Index | Comments and Contributions | previous page

biology
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    From: aj13@mindspring.com (Blind faith is overated, and very dangerous when
    the terrain is rough.  ) [That's what the header gives as name anyway - JV]

                              LADIES & GENTLEMAN !!!!
                       IT'S THE BATTLE OF THE MILLENIUM !!!!
                             CREATION VS. EVOLUTION!!!

    This is going to be a caged, no holds barred match, to the death!!!!

    In one corner we have EVOLUTION, who brings with it an assortment of
    weapons, including : records,  fossils, actual proof, and even a bit
    of faith & belief.

    In the other corner we have CREATION, who brings---wait a minute,
    CREATION is pulling something from out of a sack, it's a....it's a....
    It's a book ?!?  CREATION has brought a book to use in battle. And yes
    a bit of faith & belief.

     It's unbelievable the way they are going at each other folks !  It's
    a battle royal.  Who will win this grudge match?  Who will suffer from
    their loss?   We may never know.  Let's watch & see, and pray ours is
    the victorious one, which ever that may be.

biology
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    From: LEISTI@cc.Helsinki.FI (Teemu Leisti)

    (Original version by Erkki Aalto, Dept. of Obstetrics, Gynaecology and
    Stork Science, University of Helsinki)

    (English version by Jopi Louko, Institute of Stork Research, University of
    Alberta)

                              Ovulation versus cretinism

    Two different theories exist concerning the origin of children: the theory
    of sexual reproduction, and the theory of the stork. Many people believe in
    the theory of sexual reproduction because they have been taught this theory
    at school.

    In reality, however, many of the world's leading scientists are in favour
    of the theory of the stork. If the theory of sexual reproduction is taught
    in schools, it must only be taught as a theory and not as the truth.
    Alternative theories, such as the theory of the stork, must also be taught.

    Evidence supporting the theory of the stork includes the following:

    1. It is a scientifically established fact that the stork does exist. This
    can be confirmed by every ornithologist.

    2. The alleged human foetal development contains several features that the
    theory of sexual reproduction is unable to explain.

    3. The theory of sexual reproduction implies that a child is approximately
    nine months old at birth. This is an absurd claim. Everyone knows that a
    newborn child is newborn.

    4. According to the theory of sexual reproduction, children are a result of
    sexual intercourse. There are, however, several well documented cases where
    sexual intercourse has not led to the birth of a child.

    5. Statistical studies in the Netherlands have indicated a positive
    correlation between the birth rate and the number of storks. Both are
    decreasing.

    6. The theory of the stork can be investigated by rigorous scientific
    methods. The only assumption involved is that children are delivered by the
    stork.

biology
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    From: "THE BIG PIG" <edwardaharkceaze@hotmail.comNoJunk>
    Received from Poor Innocent Guy Bernard of Sennett, New York:

    Scientists and God

     One day a group of Darwinian scientists got together and decided that man
    had come a long way and no longer needed God. So they picked one Darwinian
    to go and tell Him that they were done with Him.

     The Darwinian walked up to God and said, "God, we've decided that we no
    longer need you. We're to the point that we can clone people and do many
    miraculous things, so why don't you just go on and get lost."

     God listened very patiently and kindly to the man. After the Darwinian was
    done talking, God said, "Very well, how about this? Let's say we have a
    man-making contest." To which the Darwinian happily agreed.

     God added, "Now, we're going to do this just like I did back in the old
    days with Adam."

     The Darwinian said, "Sure, no problem" and bent down and grabbed himself a
    handful of dirt.

    God looked at him and said, "No, no, no. You go get your own dirt!!!!"

biology
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    From: mini-air
    1996-07-04	Scientific Correctness Survey

    A recent survey by the U.S. National Science Foundation found that
    52% of the respondents believe that the earliest human beings
    lived at the same time as the dinosaurs.

    Once again it is time to vote on "scientifical correctness" and
    help the scientific community decide which side of various issues
    it should accept as "correct".

    Please check only one:

    13% Dinosaurs and man walked together millions of years ago.
    06% Dinosaurs and man walked together less than 10,000 years ago.
    61% Dinosaurs and man walked together, but it was purely platonic.
    14% Dinosaurs became extinct before the first humans existed.
    06% Humans became extinct before the first dinosuars existed.

    But later on, mini-air reported:
    1997-01-12	Scientific Correctness: Dino Survey Results

    Thank you to everyone who participated in the first of our
    SCIENTIFIC CORRECTNESS SURVEYS to establish the correct answers to
    heated scientific controversies. This first question is now
    settled. The lion and the lamb, the preacher and the politician,
    the spider and the fly -- all can now walk hand in hand (or other,
    analogous appendage), in harmonious agreement.
    Here are the results, of the vote:

    33% Dinosaurs and man walked together less than 10,000 years ago.
    30% Dinosaurs became extinct before the first humans existed.
    23% Dinosaurs and man walked together millions of years ago.
    09% Humans became extinct before the first dinosaurs existed.
    02% Declined, or were unable, to express an opinion
    02% Agreed with all of the choices listed above
    01% Dinosaurs and man walked together, but it was purely platonic.

    Investigator Thomas B. Roos reports that he plans to use this
    survey in future exams at Dartmouth College.

    Investigator J. Mohler reports, "As documented in the comic strip
    "Alley Oop", while dinosaurs and humans coexisted during
    prehistoric times, they rarely if ever walked together. When they
    were going in the same direction, the human invariably choose to
    ride."

    Investigator John J. Lannutti concludes that, currently,
    "dinosaurs mostly fly while man mostly walks."

    Investigator Jim Culter concludes that dinosaur bones were placed
    in the fossil strata 10,000 years ago in order to confuse and
    mislead 20th century scientists, and that dinosaurs never actually
    existed.

    Investigator Frank Stephan raises a concern common to the German
    scientific community, in reporting, "This vote is placed in the
    belief, that alligators do not count as dinosaurs in spite of the
    fact that these two species are relatives. But in this case it was
    more a hating than loving relationship."

biology
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    From: jokemaster@jokecenter.com (JokeMaster)

                                 Dating Dinosaur Bones
    Some tourists in the Chicago Museum of Natural History are marveling at
    the dinosaur bones. One of them asks the guard, "Can you tell me how old
    the dinosaur bones are?"

    The guard replies, "They are 73 million, four years, and six months old."

    "That's an awfully exact number," says the tourist. "How do you know
    their age so precisely?"

    The guard answers, "Well, the dinosaur bones were seventy three million
    years old when I started working here, and that was four and a half years
    ago."

    [JokeCenter.com - http://www.jokecenter.com]
    (PS I added 70 million to the date to get some semblance of correctness
                                       - JV)

biology
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    From: TSlothrop <slothrop@the.zone>
    Back in the 40s or 50s a young dinosaur hunter excavated some fossilized
    tracks in Texas (I believe). His work was being funded in part by an
    eccentric philanthropist. A nearby small town had a pawn shop which
    displayed in it's window a block of stone with a human footprint
    purportedly recovered from the same locale as the dinosaur prints. The
    human print was an obvious carved fake but the paleontologist took a
    picture of it and used it as the frontispiece in a book he published
    because it was the kind of far-fetched item that would appeal to his
    benefactor. It seemed a harmless joke until creationists picked up on it
    and used it as an example of a respected scientist proving the coexistence
    of humans and dinosaurs. Don't remember where I read this but it may have
    been in one of Stephen Jay Gould's essay collections.

biology
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    Special Category: Why the chicken crossed the road according to scientists
    From: Stan Kegel <kegel@fea.net>
    Why did the chicken cross the road?
    Jacques Ives Cousteau: Zee cheecken, unaware of zee dangare beehind heem,
    crosses zee street. Weezout warning, zee Porsche strikes, and zee balance
    of zee nature ees maintained.

biology
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    Special Category: Why the chicken crossed the road according to scientists
    From: Stan Kegel <kegel@fea.net>
    Why did the chicken cross the road?
    Rene Dubois: The chicken, by daring to cross, shapes himself through
    decisions that shape his environment..

biology
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    Special Category: Why the chicken crossed the road according to scientists
    Special Category: Charles Darwin
    Why did the chicken cross the road?
    Darwin:
    A1: It was the logical next step after coming down from the trees.
    A2: The fittest chickens cross the road.
    From: Stan Kegel <kegel@fea.net>
    A3: Chickens, over great periods of time, have been naturally selected in
    such a way that they are now genetically dispositioned to cross roads.

biology
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    Special Category: Why the chicken crossed the road according to scientists
    From: Stan Kegel <kegel@fea.net>
    Why did the chicken cross the road?
    Hippocrates: Because of an excess of light pink gooey stuff in its pancreas.

biology
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    Special Category: Gregor Mendel
    Special Category: Why the chicken crossed the road according to scientists
    From: Stan Kegel <kegel@fea.net>
    Why did the chicken cross the road?

    Gregor Mendel:
    (1) To get various strains of roads.
    (2) It was dominant.

biology
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    Special Category: Linus Pauling
    Special Category: Why the chicken crossed the road according to scientists
    From: Stan Kegel <kegel@fea.net>
    Why did the chicken cross the road?
    Linus Pauling:  To get some Vitamin C.

biology
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    From:  (Bloody Viking)

                                  OCCEAM'S RAZOR

    Prigator (prigator@aol.com) wrote:
    :If there is no fossil or other evidence of the aquatic ape, why do we
    : need him?
    :Isn't it time go get out Occam's razor?

    That's it! A hominid a long time ago was named Occeam. He invented a flint
    cutting tool and shaved his skin. Everyone else adopted Occeam's Razor and
    started shaving. Becuse of that, the fat layer was needed to keep warm, now
    that the fur coat was removed. Over time, people died of shaving cuts so a
    selective advantage came from not having the fur to shave in the first place.

    "Me furless. Occeam shave. Too hot outside." -- Occeam of 3,000,000 BC

    How long ago were sharpened flint tools made? Given all the problems found
    with AAT but Occeam's Ape Theory is so much simpler, if we apply Occeam's
    Flint Axe, we see that the simpler is more likely when no evidence exists,
    like the god debate.

    And that's the Homo Erectus Occeamus theory.

biology
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    Subject:   (requesting critiques)
    From: "Aron-Ra" <ilcunl@hotmail.com>
    This is lifted from a serious articicle "A laymen's explanation of
    evolution" - Joachim Verhagen.

    This essay was originally posted on July 24th 2000 in response to a Biblical
    creationist who misunderstood evolutionary theory so badly that he used the
    following example in an attempt to refute it:
    "If you put automobile parts in a box and shake it up for a trillion years,
    you will not get an automobile".

    I have since heard other creationists define evolution as a collection of
    single cells that suddenly, intentionally, and purposefully amassed
    themselves directly into a human being while other separate cell groups
    independently evolved into reptiles, birds, fish, etc.  Another creationist
    also described a single individual fish suddenly growing legs and walking
    within one lifetime. Another demanded that if evolution were true, why
    didn't horses sprout wings to escape predators?

biology
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    From: Cal King <getulus@no bull.net>
    That reminds me of the cladist's weird world.  They assume that the
    ancestral species becomes extinct in a speciation event and two daughter
    species are born, but they concede that one of these two daughter species
    is actually the ancestral species.  They call this an "asymmetrical split."

    I will give a sociological example of the type of thinking cladists
    practice below:

    The world according to cladism:

    A cladist's wife is pregnant.  One day she is experiencing labor pains.
    The cladist calls an ambulance.  His wife and him arrive safely at the
    hospital.  After a few hours of pacing back and forth in the waiting room,
    the doctor congratulates the cladist: "Congratulations, you have two new
    daughters."  The cladist asks the doctor in excitement: "Doctor, does that
    mean that I have twin daughters?"  The doctor answers, "No, there was no
    symmetrical split.  Instead, there was an asymmetrical split.  That means
    one of your daughters is 25 years older than the other one, but your wife
    seems to be missing."

biology
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    From: Tommy Tyrberg <tommy.tyrberg@norrkoping.mail.telia.com>

                             Strange world of Cladism

    I saw this in a paper somewhere as an example of how cladists think:

    The US Air Force originally started as a single company in the Corps of
    Engineers (fact).  As it grew larger and more complex this caused problems
    since a company only has four platoons each of four squads, so to
    accommodate increasing complexity cladists had to introduce superplatoons,
    subplatoons, infraplatoons, parvplatoons, supersquads etc.

    Finally somebody thought this was getting ridiculous, so he proposed
    removing the Air Force from the Army and making it a separate service.
    However, all the cladists protested: No, no, You mustn't do that, it would
    make the Army paraphyletic!

biology
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    From: "Ted Smith" <tcsmith@calweb.com>
    Evolution is God's way of issuing upgrades.
    Evolutionism: The speciocity of speciation!

biology
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    Special Category: Why the chicken crossed the road according to scientists
    Q :Why did the chicken cross the road?
    Evolutionist: Pure chance.
    Evolutionist: Only the fittest chickens survive crossing the road.
    Creationist: God created the chicken on the other side of the road.  There
    is no proof it ever was on this side.

biology
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    Special Category: Why the chicken crossed the road according to scientists

    Q: Why did the dinosaur cross the road?
    A: Chickens hadn't evolved yet.

biology
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    From: "Vladimir Matveev" <matveev@mail.cytspb.rssi.ru>
    Man did not  originate not from monkey, but from two monkeys...

biology
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    From: "Vladimir Matveev" <matveev@mail.cytspb.rssi.ru>
    How does natural selection differ from sexual selection?

    In distinction to natural selection, sexual selection may be natural,
    unnatural, or perverted.

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    From: Michael Weiss <columbus@pleides.osf.org>
    Letter from the Smithsonian:

    Paleonanthropology Division
    Smithsonian Institute
    207 Pennsylvania Avenue
    Washington, DC 20078

    Dear Sir:

    Thank you for your latest submission to the Institute, labeled
    "211-D, layer seven, next to the clothesline post.  Hominid Skull."

    We have given this specimen a careful and detailed examination, and regret
    to inform you that we disagree with your theory that it represents
    "conclusive proof of the presence of Early Man in Charleston County two
    million years ago."  Rather, it appears that what you have found is the
    head of a Barbie doll, of the variety one of our staff, who has small
    children, believes to be the "Malibu Barbie."

    It is evident that you have given a great deal of thought to the analysis
    of this specimen, and you may be quite certain that those of us who are
    familiar with your prior work in the field were loathe to come to
    contradiction with your findings.  However, we do feel that there are a
    number of physical attributes of the specimen which might have tipped you
    off to it's modern origin:

    1. The material is molded plastic.  Ancient hominid remains are typically
    fossilized bone.

    2. The cranial capacity of the specimen is approximately 9 cubic
    centimeters, well below the threshold of even the earliest identified
    proto-hominids.

    3. The dentition pattern evident on the "skull" is more consistent with the
    common domesticated dog than it is with the "ravenous man-eating Pliocene
    clams" you speculate roamed the wetlands during that time.  This latter
    finding is certainly one of the most intriguing hypotheses that you have
    submitted in your history with this Institution, but the evidence seems to
    weigh rather heavily against it.  Without going into too much detail let us
    say that:

    a. The specimen looks like the head of a Barbie doll that a dog has
    chewed on.

    b. Clams don't have teeth.

    It is with feelings tinged with melancholy that we must deny your request
    to have the specimen carbon dated.  This is partially due to the heavy load
    our lab must bear in its normal operation, and partly due to carbon
    dating's notorious inaccuracy in fossils of recent geologic record.  To the
    best of our knowledge, no Barbie dolls were produced prior to 1956 AD, and
    carbon dating is likely to produce wildly inaccurate results.

    Sadly, we must also deny your request that we approach the National Science
    Foundation's Phylogeny Department with the concept of assigning your
    specimen the scientific name "Australopithecus spiff-arino."  Speaking
    personally, I, for one, fought tenaciously for the acceptance of your
    proposed taxonomy, but was ultimately voted-down because the species name
    you selected was hyphenated, and did not really sound like it might be
    Latin.

    However, we gladly accept your generous donation of the fascinating
    specimen to the museum.  While it is undoubtedly not a hominid fossil, it
    is, nonetheless, yet another riveting example of the great body of work you
    seem to accumulate here so effortlessly.  You should know that our Director
    has reserved a special shelf in his own office for the display of the
    specimens you have previously submitted to the Institution, and the entire
    staff speculates daily on what you will happen upon next in your digs at
    the site you have discovered in your back yard.

    We eagerly anticipate your trip to our nation's capital that you proposed
    in your last letter, and several of us are pressing the Director to pay for
    it.  We are particularly interested in hearing you expand on your theories
    surrounding the "trans-positating fillifitation of ferrous ions in a
    structural matrix" that makes the excellent juvenile Tyrannosaurus Rex
    femur you recently discovered take on the deceptive appearance of a rusty
    3/8 inch Sears Craftsman automotive crescent wrench.

    Yours in Science,
    Harvey Rowe
    Curator, Antiquities

next page | Index | Comments and Contributions

#### Subsections

- 4. biology - general
- 4.1 biology poetry
- 4.2 biology quotes
- 4.3 biology puns
- 4.4 cloning
- 4.5 biochemistry
- 4.6 evolution
- 4.7 mice and rats
- 4.8 cell biology
- 4.9 bacteria

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