02/12 Open Thread: International Darwin Day

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Evolution According to.........

Kindly Reduce Expectations
1958 Edsel Bermuda Station Wagon.

We are getting ready to head out on yet another multi-week adventure in the near future. This means that I need to write, post and schedule a whole bunch of OTs for the period of my absence, as well as some to bridge the gap between now and the start date. This means, among other things, that you shouldn't expect too much from them and will need to provide content as well as commentary yourselves (as if you don't already, heh). So, here we go ...

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I recall being amazed in 10th grade that my high school biology still spouted that "you may be descended from monkeys, but I'm not" crap, but I have long ago ceased being surprised that it is still parroted today. For the record, everybody (and everything) is "descended" from a chain of common ancestors.

Also, it isn't necessarily progress. There is no built in directionality. It isn't survival of the fittest, but simply natural selection, and nature needn't always side with the fittest, by any measure for any envornment. Even if it did, what constituted the fittest in one given place and time might not be anywhere else or any other time.

Really, just about everybody knows that we didn't evolve from apes, but from cavemen

But there are those who are certain that we've gone or are certainly going in the other direction entirely. The question is, I guess, as of when and from whence.

The sad truth is that it isn't genetics, but simply ignorance, stupidity, and illogic combined with hubris:


So, our poor maligned simian brethren need a simian awareness and appreciation day. Today is as good as any, n'est ce pas?

Run Red Run

The Monkey and The Engineer

The Monkey Time

Can Your Monkey Do The Dog

Monkey Man

So think about it, next time you don your Monkey Suit

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Alrighty, now, officially on the road, gone, done gone and, hence, in absentia today.

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Title Image is evolution

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It's an open thread, so have at it. The floor is yours
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12 users have voted.

Comments

in the cerebrum development?
(Rhetorical question).

Frontal Lobes...

... coordinates high-level behaviors, such as motor skills, problem solving, judgment, planning, and attention. The frontal lobes also manage emotions and impulse control.

Seems we are regressing in some of these skills.
Or is this re-evolution?

1024-Fun_Facts_About_the_Brain-732x549-thumbnail.jpg
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8 users have voted.
studentofearth's picture

@QMS talking heads and our betters that have all the information we are too ignorant to know.

It would be real easy to misspell apps to apes.

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7 users have voted.

Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.

@studentofearth

according the the merry men:

to copy closely but often clumsily and ineptly

there is an aspis for that Wink

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5 users have voted.

Bomb

If Bloomberg Wants to Buy an Election, He Should Run as a Republican Against Trump—
Not Sabotage Democrats

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/02/11/if-bloomberg-wants-buy-ele...

So Bloomberg’s legacy would be that he left his own party to the neo-fascist crowd and went on to blow-up the Democrats, keeping the Republicans in control.

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10 users have voted.
TheOtherMaven's picture

@QMS

two major parties is "flirting with fascism". They both are. It's just that much more blatant on the R side.

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11 users have voted.

There is no justice. There can be no peace.

PriceRip's picture

@TheOtherMaven

BOTH

          This can not be emphasized enough. I have met some very nice people promoting the whole "vote blue" schtick, so I try to be gentle, but they do try my patients with their naïvetè.

RIP

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1 user has voted.

Seems like this political circus
is developing into two basic camps
the haves vs. the have nots

the rich class have trumpet and bloomie
the middle / lower class have tulsi and bernie

the wealthy have the media and the establishment
the rest of us have the numbers and maybe green

if money is equated to 'free' speech
poverty = silence on the stage

what gives?

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8 users have voted.

Swept down the memory hole
Perez shouted recount (to save face)
Iowa stipulates campaigns only have that right

Buttigieg filed a request for a recanvass of 66 precincts and Sanders for 28 precincts, the party said in a statement. It said it will review the requests to determine whether they meet the requirements.

maybe splitting hairs, but important to keep
the shenanigans in the spotlight, imho

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9 users have voted.
smiley7's picture

enjoy modern art most of all ...

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3 users have voted.
dystopian's picture

I'm a fleabit peanut monkey...

I've been bit and I've been tossed around by every she-rat in this town...

Safe travels and good birds EL!

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3 users have voted.

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein

Hawkfish's picture

On the South Island of NZ:

Kiwi humour

Kiwi humour doesn’t suffer fools gladly...

I was down here trying to do the Milford sound and Routeburn tramps but they were closed because they got a meter of rain in three days and the trails were completely washed out. Four hikers were washed into a local river along with a trail hut and they recovered the bodies a few days later.

A local barman was strongly of the opinion that this was global heating pushing weather systems south, so they got all the rain that Oz would normally get. This matches my understanding, which just goes to show how uncontroversial this issue is outside of the USA. Barmen are generally apolitical - it’s just better for business.

The tour company very unexpectedly gave us a full refund (this had only happened three times in the last 16 years) but we had been planning this for years and I don’t know when we will be able to get back. After what happened to those poor trampers, I’m not sure I’m as gung ho as I was.

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3 users have voted.

We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg