Denial of evolution II

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A proper sceintist would have patented the word before anyone thought of it.
Craig Venter?
Pfft.
 
Billy T said:
Just watching the reaction of animal to its mirror image does not proof much, beyond reasonable doubt, I agree. However, the standard test is objective. After an animal with arms and hands has seen his mirror image many times, while he sleeps you paint a small spot on his forehead. Then when he looks at image and nearly immediately plucks at the spot or otherwise investigates you know two things.

(1) He has a concept of "me" or self.
(2) He knows that it is him he is seeing in the mirror.

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I am not sure what you are saying /claiming for the sponge. If only that when I jab it with stick it will react more than if I jab a nearby sponge, I will accept that as fact, but so will one of two nearby rocks, when it is jabbed with a stick. So I hope you can tell me something entirely different than "if I jab it ...." type of argument to support your claim.

It is possible my bird has a concept of "me" (self) and just does not understand the bird he see in the mirror is him. Occasionally one of his very fine fluffy small feathers will get stuck on his beak, but he makes little effort to remove it. This plus the fact that he has no hands plus fact he would strongly resist me doing so has prevented me from putting a dot of paint etc on his beak to test with. I also have a lot of empathy with him and do not want some experimenter to put a drop of paint on my nose, so don't do it to him for that reason also.

You can be quite intelligent, solve problems, have different vocalizations for different conditions, even defend "your" territory, etc. (My bird does this and more)* without having any concept of self, I believe. Thus I find your claim about the sponge hard to believe of at least think it impossible to demonstrate.

*For example, he will ask, mainly by coming to me and lower head, but sometimes with a soft vocalization also, for me to pet his head. He will not allow me to touch his back or wings. This does not show that he knows they are "his." (During the day he flies where ever he likes inside the house, but usually remains in the room I am in or even on my shoulder for few hours. His open cage, or of anything high, like top of a picture frame or a window sill of our 14 floor apartment are his favorite spots.)
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Sorry I've taken so long to get back to this (you're one of my favorite posters on the internet).

Sponges have the ability to reconstitute themselves after being pushed through, say, cheese cloth. If you take two sponges, of the same species, and label one sponge (typically by feeding them radioactive food), then push both through cheese cloth, they will reconstitute themselves as separate sponges. You will end up with one radioactive sponge and one non-radioactive sponge.

I think the mirror test to detect "self-awareness" is horribly biased towards simian, bifocal criteria.
 
Roman said:
... Sponges have the ability to reconstitute themselves after being pushed through, say, cheese cloth. If you take two sponges, of the same species, and label one sponge (typically by feeding them radioactive food), then push both through cheese cloth, they will reconstitute themselves as separate sponges. You will end up with one radioactive sponge and one non-radioactive sponge.

I think the mirror test to detect "self-awareness" is horribly biased towards simian, bifocal criteria.
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I would agree, but that is sort of what I meant by concept of self. What you're describing with sponges I will agree is a recognition of self - like immune system recognition. I suspect that goes pretty far down in evolution time. If you can asexually reproduce or clone a sponge A to get two genetically identical sponges, B & C and then do your radioactive tagging, I bet the post cheese cloth B' & C' are both radioactive.

I.e. having a functional immune system that recognize "not me" cells or proteins is not what I meant by having a concept self.
 
Hi guys. you both seem pretty knowledgeable about these things, but on the topic of spnges you are saying the exact opposite. Do either of you have any research that backs up their belief?
 
I'll take the long silence as a 'No', shall I? It's just it seemed either outcome would be interesting and you both seemed convinced you were right. I'd kind of like to know.

Thanks.
 
Roman said:
I think the mirror test to detect "self-awareness" is horribly biased towards simian, bifocal criteria.
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Well yeah. Dogs have poor vision. Even the so-called "keen eyed" breeds like poodles and greyhounds would be around 20/100 on the human scale. There's no way they can tell each other apart by sight.

Nonetheless dogs make a good example because they certainly identify other dogs as unique individuals, not generic pack-mates. Why would they not think of themselves the same way?

Dolphins, at least some species, identify themselves by a combination of sounds in their songs that we would call a "name."
 
Fraggle Rocker said:
...Dolphins, at least some species, identify themselves by a combination of sounds in their songs that we would call a "name."
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I know you like birds and bet you already know about penguin's amazing identification abilities. There will tens of thousands of them sitting on their egg in an ice field, very close together, waiting sometimes weeks for their mate to return from a fishing trip and regurgitate food to the egg sitter and the chick if it has hatched. Somehow each returning bird finds her (or his) mate just from slight difference in the chirp and response patterns, I think. They all look just alike to me anyway.

BTW I am still continuing my mirror test with my Cockatoo, several times each day. He sits on my shoulder in front of the bathroom mirror when washing my hands after necessary trips there. No longer, if placed on my finger and brought close to the mirror, will he be hostile towards the image. Now he often does a lot of head bobing etc. (to see if the mirror bird can follow?) Yesterday, I just leanded forward to bring him close to the mirror while still on my shoulder. He immediately moved behind my head, and then peeked out. (To see if that "mirror bird" was still there?)
 
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Billy T said:
BTW I am still continuing my mirror test with my Cockatoo, several times each day. He sits on my shoulder in front of the bathroom mirror when washing my hands after necessary trips there. No longer, if placed on my finger and brought close to the mirror, will he be hostile towards the image. Now he often does a lot of head bobing etc. (to see if the mirror bird can follow?) Yesterday, I just leanded forward to bring him close to the mirror while still on my shoulder. He immediately moved behind my head, and then peeked out. (To see if that "mirror bird" was still there?)
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Mirrors don't occur very commonly in the environment of most animals, so they haven't developed the ability to recognize themselves. Psittacines--budgies especially--are famous for regarding "the bird in the mirror" as a playmate.
 
Can someone tell me if they've found this common ancestor we're supposed to have descended from? I know there's lots of inferential evidence but do we have bones yet?
 
stereologist said:
Common ancestor with what? Between what species?
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Can someone tell me if they've found this common ancestor we're supposed to have descended from? I know there's lots of inferential evidence but do we have bones yet?

The term "human", in the context of human evolution, refers to the genus Homo, but studies of human evolution usually include other hominins, such as the Australopithecines. The Homo genus diverged from the Australopithecines about 2 million years ago in Africa. Scientists have estimated that humans branched off from their common ancestor with chimpanzees—the only other living hominins—about 5–7 million years ago. Several species of Homo evolved that are now extinct. These include Homo erectus, which inhabited Asia, and Homo neanderthalensis, which inhabited Europe.
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EmmZ said:
Can someone tell me if they've found this common ancestor we're supposed to have descended from? I know there's lots of inferential evidence but do we have bones yet?
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Your question still does not make any sense.

A common ancestor is the common ancestor between two or more species. To ask what is the sound of one hand clapping is great philosophy, but poor science.

Take an analogy of personal relations. The common ancestors of my sister and I are my mother and father. The common ancestor of my cousin and I are my grandfather and grandmother on my father's side. The common ancestor of myself and this guy with the same name who runs a local business is a couple in Kintyre who left there in the early 18th century.

So, I have to ask again, which common ancestor? Between us an chimpanzee's, between us and other primates, between us and other mammals, between us and other vertebrates, between us and other eukaryotes, betwee us and all other lifeforms. Which is it you are asking about?
 
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