Driving Too Slow (2023 Update)

I don't think that's right. Animals are critters that eat other critters, versus using photosynthesis. Critters that live off chemical gradients are probably considered animals.

Viruses appear to have evolved very early as well, along with bacteria.

Anyway, there were lots of one-cell critters that ate other one-celled critters, long before multi cellular animals evolved. Here is the early store, the three kingdoms.

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Joe Gwinn

At that time, there was a very different ecosystem (if it can even be called that) and certainly didn't support human life.

So, we're polluting the air with excessive plant food. Phosphates in lakes cause clots of algae, that's water pollution with a plant nutrient.

It would have. We just hadn't evolved yet.

John Larkin claims to believe in evolution. He doesn't seem to understand it, or appreciate that he's coming across as the kind of random variation that needs to be selected out as quickly as possible.

Multi-cellular life existed at least 1600 million years ago. The Cambrian explosion brought new types, and has the ancestors of most modern branches of life.

The term "Animal" is now used just for multi-cellular animals - organisms that were known as "single-celled animals" are now referred to as "protozoa". I'm not sure of the exact definition of the term, but animals get their nutrition by eating organic matter (plants, fungi, bacteria, other animals, etc.) and move around - that separates them from fungi and plants.

The earliest animals are around 600 million years old, while the Cambrian explosion was about 540 million years ago. Animals evolved very rapidly in the early days.

Possibly before, possibly later, possibly simultaneously - there are various theories, but evidence is hard to find.

Yes, but those are not classified as "animals".

Archaea are not animals either. They are prokaryotes, like bacteria, but with a metabolism and biology that bears some resemblance to eukaryotes. There are vast numbers of archaea species, including some that photosynthesise, some that eat rocks and inorganic matter, some that eat organic matter.

Yes.

Hmm. So they changed the name. I learned the prior definition in school. At the same times as I learned of amoebas, and watched them hunt using a microscope in the bio lab. This was the standard "drop of pond water" lesson.

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But the basic point remains.

Yes. May well be unknowable.

Hairsplitting, don't you think?

Well, I bet that they had their predators, by whatever name, and some of them did eat one another.

Which lifestyle may not have survived the great oxygen crisis, the greatest environmental catastrophe of all time:

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I'd hazard that the renaming of what is an animal was fallout from the discovery of the Archaea.

Joe Gwinn

Silly; ecology doesn't have will. Your fairy tale, not suitable for betting lives on.

I too learned that amoeba were examples of "single-celled animals". The definitions change as scientists learn more, or find better (or at least different) ways to classify lifeforms. I suppose we also need to distinguish between more formal and precise use of terms, and more colloquial uses (where "animal" just means it moves about and eats stuff).

Indeed.

Almost certainly, yes. Like a lot of early biological history, the best we can hope for is clear evidence and justification of plausible development paths (possibly several different such paths), rather than finding which paths were actually taken.

Maybe - I didn't make the terms. But I guess it's worth noting the formal terms as well as accepting the common use.

Sure.

You are using the past tense here - while it was once thought archaea were early ancestors to bacteria (hence the name) with only a few types still around, it is now clear that there are huge numbers of them around in all sorts of environments, many having been misclassified as bacteria. So while they certainly did eat each other and get eaten, they still do.

I don't know when or why the term was changed (or even if the term "single-celled animal" was always considered inaccurate, and the scientific definition of "animal" didn't change).

Anyway, the biology and evolution is more fun than the terms used, most of which are far too Latiny for me to pronounce!

Any group that WANTS to kill millions can only be considered to be an international terrorist organization. I don't think that the greenies want to kill millions - they are just too stupid to understand the consequences of their actions.

Translation: "I don't know WTF I am talking about" Yeah, you don't.

Coming from an IDIOT who wants to nuke his OWN COUNTRY! This IS the definition of insanity, moron.

FlyTard snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

Trump wanted to nuke hurricanes. It does not get more stupid than that.

Trump is three orders of nagnitude more stupid than a common yard mole and you are four times more stupid than Trump.

To be fair on Trump, real scientists had considered nuking hurricanes many years before Trump's ravings. But they did so scientifically, with the view of figuring out what would probably happen, using mathematics, simulations and physics, rather than "Let's give it a shot and see what happens - it will certainly shut up the people who saying I'm not doing anything!".

The conclusion was that it would be useless at averting or reducing the hurricane, but would add nuclear fallout to its damage.

Hurricanes are destructive enough that it is worth the time and effort for scientists to consider all sorts of ideas that might reduce their cost to countries around the world. But there is a big difference between scientists quietly doing some calculations in a lab somewhere, and a half-wit world leader suggesting a war on wind.

SNIPPERMAN excuses ALL of the verbal slip-ups, forgetfulness, and meanness out of the mouth of Lyin' Biden, but holds Trump to account for everything. The truth is that Trump's talk is mostly a stream of consciousness of things that pops into his mind. We all do it, but most of what we say is not broadcast to the world.

Not remotely true. I just point out that Joe Biden makes speech errors like everybody else, and that it isn't any kind of evidence that he is slipping into senile dementia, because he has been doing it all his life.

If Joe Biden has said something mean, Flyguy hasn't made a fuss about it here,

I don't think much of Trump, and you don't have to make an effort to find him at fault. I certainly wouldn't bother going to the trouble of holding Trump to account for all his bad behavior - as the Democrats have demonstrated, Trump supporters in the Republican party will block any attempt to hold him to account for his numerous failures of judgment.

We mostly aren't as deceitful as Trump is - and always has been. His stream of consciousness is that of a remarkably unpleasant person. If he were more competent he'd be downright dangerous.