I’ll be going through some questions at 12 Central. You can watch it here! You can leave new questions in the comments (or on youtube)! You can berate me for my errors! It’ll be fun, he says, as he prepares to expose himself.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Thank you, PZ.
OMG ATHIEST PZ MEYERS JUST SAID EATING BABIES IS FINE
/predictable creationist response
Seriously: thank you indeed. Very thoughtful answers. Educational and entertaining.
Thank you for your answer, PZ. My babies might have made a nice snack a few years ago, but I wouldn’t want to try it now – I might end up in a bit of a stew.
Creation Today hasn’t responded yet, have they?
Creationists remind me of cats. Even though I really like cats, they cannot extrapolate at all. If you try to point something out to a cat all they will do is investigate the end of your finger. Similarly, if you point out to a creationist that you can make a great dane and a chihuahua out of a wolf in a relatively short period of time, they will not be able to extrapolate that into the possibility of a new species.
As a reply to the first question, the one posed by johnlee, it might be useful to point to Kangaroo mothers, who have the very unusual (unique…?) ability to selectively pause or even terminate the gestation process, depending on the maturity of the young they may already have in their pouch (which can only have one occupant at a time) and the scarcity of food supply.
PZ, while the questions & your answers were great, I had a ball reading the captioning included. ?
Thank you for your answers! I will try and look more into the sources you offer.
Probably out of your area of expertise, but how well do computational genetic algorithms in computer science mimic actual evolutionary forces? Do they take some short cuts that don’t fit real world evolutionary processes. Also Scott Manley has an interesting video on Space Invaders clone that uses genetic algorithms.
Thanks for taking the time there, PZ. Long time stalk, now second time commenter.