[aquamire]

Allright, well I dont know how many of you out their know of the Carter Prediction/Catastrophe, but it's a statistical analysis of life on Earth for the past.. well, several million years, and indicates a pattern of the life expectancy of various animals on our blue wonder. Statistically speaking, say you have this one species.. if at one point in time, there are more of that species living at one particular moment than there ever has been of that species living or dead, then their time is about up on here.. they go exctinct.. this follows true to Dinosaurs, the Wolly Mammoth, and many others.. well guess what? At this point in time we have about 6 Billion people on this planet.. and quickly growing. Our time, according to the Carter prediction, is about up.. mind you the Carter prediction is a well accepted study amongst most scientists.

Recently, I followed a story off Slashdot, about Stephen Hawking.. you all know who that is, I presume? Brilliant man.. when he speaks, I listen. Well, he's not so sure we're going to be here for the next millenium. He predicts our planets atmosphere will become to acidic and warm up to much, very similar to Venus's, and well, wouldnt be very inhabitable by mankind, if at all. His solution.. well, to colonize other places in the solar system, and universe.

If anyone's ever read Stephen Baxter's, manifold: Time, then you might know what I'm talking about.

Anyways, just my beef on our world.. we're fucking lemmings. If we dont start figuring things out soon, I'm not sure we're gona have this blue planet much longer.. sure, you and I might not be around then.. but other people will be. And as ugly, stupid, and horrible as people can be... well, I dont think we're terrible enough to just .. become extinct.

Never been much of a religous person myself, but its stuff like this that makes me wonder.

Anyone else got any thoughts on all this?

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/Aq
[email protected]

I'd put my wittiest remark here, but I'd scare you.

[Affected]

Well, once we're all gone, who's going to be left to grieve over us?

No-one. So does it matter?

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Affected

Democracy is a lie

http://affected.xs.mw

[Spitfire]

That's the spirit! extinction go!

[Count Zero]

Yeah, fuck it.
I'll be dead before the next millenium anyway, so I don't care. And I have no intention on breeding so, it won't be my grandgrandgrand(etc.)childrens problem either. www.y5b.com anyone? Now that's something to worry about.

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[aquamire]

4999999999? Thats way to much of an exageration.. try another 1000 years. And besides, if we're ever going to colonize space, it definately wont be the sluggish beurocracy of NASA. It sickens me how they've had ion propulsion and plasma drives since the 50's, and it's only now that we're using them for space exploration.. I rather doubt were ever going to leave this damned rock, before our own doom. Considering all the people who are against every feasable way of going to another planet.. such as, ahem, nuclear power.. without it we cant go very far.

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/Aq
[email protected]

I'd put my wittiest remark here, but I'd scare you.

[Nex]

Thats okay with me.
The human race is one big mess anyway.
Just let it be quick and clean-

[Impaler]

Pfft.

Species can procreate all they want and not worry about extinction one damn bit. Look at the arthropods/lower life forms. How many cockroaches do you think have lived on Earth? And there is a much larger amount of them alive than has been dead. That happens quite early in a species development. Humans reached this point thousands of years ago. I'm talking, the Neolithic period.

Species go extinct when they reach evolutionary stasis, both metaphysical (intelligence, social politics etc..) and physical (adaptations, the opposable thumb). The wonderfully balanced universe we live abhors such evolutionary stases, and thenceforth eliminates any species that has attained it.

Believe me. Humans have a long way to go before we reach the aforementioned stasis. So don't sweat it anyways.

Besides, everybody on this forum will be dead in a century or so anyways, so who cares? :P

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[-incarnation-]

not true impaler there are still species which have reached this "stasis" which are still around today. An example being the crocodile, a creature which stopped evolving a long long time ago.

Also we dont know if the dinosaurs were eliminated by nature, it's pretty much accepted that it was a asteroid which wiped them ammount. I would hardly call an asteroid hitting earth as nature eliminating a fully evolved species

Kinda over kill dont ya fink ?

[This message has been edited by -incarnation- (edited October 03, 2000).]

[Impaler]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't every species of crocodile on the endangered species list? Evolutionary stasis is accomplished by a bad evolution move. Look at any extinct species:

Dinosaurs evolved to the point where they couldn't think.

Dodo's evolved to the point where they couldn't fly.

Man is so self-involved that it'll commit accidental suicide. Evolution again.

quote

Quote:

I would hardly call an asteroid hitting earth as nature eliminating a fully evolved species

An act of nature by definition is something that man, the definer of nature itself, did not do. Be it gamma rays from a supernova, or a virus.



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My signature is slightly better than yours.

[Chris]

Well, it isn't the technology that will keep us from colonizing outside earth, it is order, control and government. We have made a lot of mistakes in the past without the above and wars are started if we don't do this right.

I know that we could start sending out ships to start colonizing outside right now, but it will take 100-200 years to figure out how to control civilization outside our rock.

And about us not living in 100 years. I am not sure of that. Life expansion is almost top priority in the medical field.

We are developing nanomachines (atom sized robots) that fight common diseases. Pretty soon, there will be no more liquid cures, we will be able to send a atom sized robot down your body with a glass of water and fight cancer, aids, even the common cold I do believe in this and you might think I am crazy...but oh well.

Plus with cloning now adays, 20-30 years from now cloning might (I think) be a common procedure to replicate human organs, hearts, eyes, etc. Heck maybe even replicate your whole body and just transfer the brain over to it

Ok, I'm done ranting.

[Affected]

Uh, er, Dodos were killed by humans, not because they didn't evolve. And I rather think the same goes for crocodiles.

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Affected

Democracy is a lie

http://affected.xs.mw

[Chris]

lol..

If we aren't off this planet and exploring other livable worlds by 4999999999 then something is terrible wrong.

[Impaler]

Extinction is extinction is extinction. Be it at the hands of me or at the hands or the hands of the own species.

Universal ways, I guess. *shrug*

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My signature is slightly better than yours.

[balistic]

http://www.mchawking.com/

Trust me



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Brian "balistic" Prince
3D Artist
Eggington Productions

[-incarnation-]

You guys dont really understand what your arguing about.

The original point being made was, that given enough time any species will evolve to a point where it's extinction is inevitable. This is a fair point but using Dinosaurs or dodo's as proof is plain silly. If evolving
to a specific point is the trigger for extinction, then how is an Asteroid crashing into earth and wiping out
almost every mamal on the planet related to evoloution? If the dinosaurs were a relativley young species
when the asteroid hit, would they have survived? The other example Dodo's were hunted and killed by
mankind, someone may argue that this is simply another form of "nature" eliminating a fully evolved species. Then by that logic every species on the planet must be fully evolved as mankind is in the position to easily kill everything on the planet, plant or animal with a few nukes.

I used crocodiles as an example earlier , but remember just about every insect species in existance is fully evolved and out number every other species by billions to one, and they show no signs of dying out any time soon.

[CapnPyro]

If them superstitous mother fuckers want to have that kind of party, I'm going to stick my dick in the mashed potatoes.

[Impaler]

Insects adapting to pesticides is evolution.

The dinosaur-asteroid is simply a matter of mathematical probability. Planet-killers like the one that hit the Yucatan only come around every 500 million years or so. There was a great extinction by such an asteroid long before we were multi-celled. Wiped out 99% of the slime living on Earth. Assumedly, they reached evolutionary stasis, even as monocelluloids. They had adapted too well to their environment. Of course this is 99.9998% speculation, but I guess a theory is a theory. A couple million centuries later, when a large amount of the species on Earth had reached their stasis (dinosaurs), another act of nature wiped them out and left the underdeveloped, highly adaptable animals to flourish and rise (mammals/birds). It's safe to say that most species, from the point of origin, have a few million centuries before they reach their evolutionary stasis. At that point, an asteroid or cosmic plague or anything else that'll suffice will take them out.

My mentioning of the dodo was not thoroughly explained on my part, so I'll clear that up here, since it's relevant to the discussion. Not all species take forever to reach a stasis. It could take a matter of minutes even, in the case of certain baceria strains. If it can't adapt to its enrironment fast enough, then it becomes extinct. Evolutionary stasis is the inability to change to suit the current conditions.

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[Impaler]

Then again, maybe it's hella random and I'm just seeing the proverbial face of God in a burnt tortilla.

*shrug*

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[Affected]

I still don't see how evolution is related to relatively random natural disasters. I mean, what're you saying? Some cosmic force out there is keeping watch on us, and when the species of a world reach stasis, sends out asteroids to wipe them out, and start it all over again? Please... Those are separate phenomena.

From another point of view, you say "Evolutionary stasis is the inability to change to suit the current conditions."
I don't see how you could possibly adapt to a sudden planet-killer impact. And anyway, from what you write, it would seem you believe such a major disaster is an inavoidable consequence of evolution ceasing. I just don't see how on earth you rationalize that.

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Affected

Democracy is a lie

http://affected.xs.mw

[Impaler]

Exactly. Those that had reached stasis couldn't adapt to a sudden planet-killer impact. They die off due to their inability to do so.

And it's not a cosmic force. It's cosmic clockwork. :P Freaky things man.

I'm not trying to vehemently argue that my theory is the only possible truth here. It's just another perspective. I do seriously doubt Hawkings' theory, however. The reasons for this are in my first post in this topic.

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[This message has been edited by Impaler (edited October 10, 2000).]

[Affected]

But what you said is that they reach the stasis first, and then an asteroid or whatever comes along to wipe them out.

[Nex]

"Exactly. Those that had reached stasis couldn't adapt to a sudden planet-killer impact. They die off due to their inability to do so - And it's not a cosmic force. It's cosmic clockwork. :P Freaky things man."

well actually it does not depend if a species has reached what you call an evolutionary stasis. There are thousands of species that have a higher polulation that humans and have reached a pretty constant state in their evolution. (enterobacteria, algae, some insect species etc.)

when it would work like that a supercosmic desaster would hit every few seconds-

well..

[Count Zero]

Uh, is there truly such a thing as "stasis" actually? At least when talking about evolution? Crocodiles were mentioned, but are they truly exactly the same as some 100 000 years ago? And besides, evolution happens at varying paces according to need. Who knows what will happen to crocodiles during the next 10 000 years or so?

[Flexible Elf]

We seem to have plenty of time. In the past thousand years we've gone from Chariots to Space Shuttles... and from Messenger pigeon to sending automated probes to other planets. Since knowledge is increasing exponentially, it's not unreasonable to assume that within the next couple hundred years we'll have well established colonies somewhere (maybe even out of our own solar system). Now let's just hope that nothing happens between now and then. We as a species have plenty of tools that can wipe us off the planet a million times over like a bad memory.

-Flexible Elf

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http://www.geocities.com/flexible_elf/Main.html

[This message has been edited by Flexible Elf (edited October 13, 2000).]

[Impaler]

Oops.

Stupid #me.Impaler got lost in my own point.

When a species reaches evolutionary stasis, it cannot adapt to changes in its environment.

When a species is evolving, it is adapting to changes in its environment and bettering itself from these changes.

Any change in a creature's environment, be it the common cold or a planet-killer, must be adapted to. If we couldn't develop immunities to the cold, we would be dead. If an asteroid hit Earth, a hella lotta people would die, but a large quantity would live, and evolve and such to suit the environment. Much like with the dinosaurs turning into birds.

The inability to adapt and to change is evolutionary stasis.

I was waayyyyyyyy off when I said that it was cosmic clockwork or whatever bull I tried to pass it off as. It's simply when a species can't change to suit the current conditions.

The End?




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[lotor]

I hate it when people say the world is millions of years old.

Even Einstein knew that the world and our universe is very young. Even by our standards.

[lotor]

On a further note.

Scientists have mutated gnats thousands of times. Well enough to cause so called evolution into a different species and guess what? They still had gnats.

Any professional breeder of horses will tell you that nomatter how many times you breed an animal to be a certain way it is still the same kind of animal.

Dogs don't eventually evolve into cats or dogs into people. They ALWAYS stay the same animal.

This isn't just my opinion, many, many scientists have given up the worn out theory of evolution long ago. The problem is that it takes a lot longer to get around to our schools.

I hope nobody gets mad and yells at me for this. I am just stating facts here.

I just believe science should be about teaching facts and not theory. Evolution is still a theory. If you really study it you'll find out that evolution is more religion then science.

[Count Zero]

So, exactly where the fuck did all these people come from?
Oh, and "I hate it when people say the world is millions of years old."
Isn't it? Sure it's young on a cosmic scale, but it doesn't make it any less true.
*addition*

"I just believe science should be about teaching facts and not theory. Evolution is still a theory." So is the theory of relativity, isn't it? And you yourself quote Einstein. If I'm wrong about this, there are plenty of other examples: how can one actually prove the existence of other planets, protons, radiation, dinosaurs, etc.?
Science tries to explain our existance through evolution, and I am inclined to believe them, because no one has provided me with a better alternative.

"Dogs don't eventually evolve into cats or dogs into people."
You're right. Wolves evolve into dogs. Ever notice the resemblance? Monkeys into humans, y'see?
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[This message has been edited by Count Zero (edited October 16, 2000).]

[This message has been edited by Count Zero (edited October 16, 2000).]

[Affected]

Show me a 10-million-year-old breeder and I'll trust them on evolution.

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Affected

Democracy is a lie

http://affected.xs.mw

[lotor]

Now ya see? This is what I'm talking about. One guy decides to talk about the fact that evolution is not proven and you guys get mad at me.

Common guys lets just talk.

I never said anything about Einstien's theories being true or proven. I only mentioned the facts he observed that the universe is young.

Perhaps the reason you get so mad is because they taught you theories in school and played them off to be facts. And rightly so you should be mad about that, I know I am.

My point about breeders is if you look at a siamese cat from 20 years ago and compare it to a siamese cat from today they look nothing alike because of the damage done by over breeding certain characteristics. But the fact remains that it is still a cat even though it is bred so many times a certain way. The mutations of this animal is enormous well enough to produce a new species by evolutionary terms and it only does damage to the animal never improvments as evolution suggests happens.

This is just one in a million examples of evolution not being possible.

I'll type more later. I have to go to lunch with my friend now.



[This message has been edited by lotor (edited October 16, 2000).]