Re: Hands and brains

[T.L.G.vanderLinden@student.utwente.nl (Timothy van der Linden)]

More reply to Kelly

>> Are you sure or are you guessing? The story that David wrote, I had heard
>> before. It was the reason why I thought (before I read otherwise) that an
>> elephant (and a dolphin) had a small brain too.
>
>Yes, elephants have very large brains with normal sized cells, but the cells
>are not aranged in a complex structure, and are not as proportionally large
>as humans.  Dolphins brains are larger (in mass and proportion) then humans,
>and are more structuralu complex, but the complexity isn't in the intelegence
>centers.

So than the final question is what determines the complexity of the connections?

>Look what happened in the past.  Technology allowed farming (which used to
>take up the bulk of the population) to be done by less than 5% of the pop.
> That doesn't mean the other 95% decided to goof off all the time.  They just
>spend their time doing something else.

Only food would not be enough for a humane living, clothes, a house, health,
communication, travel and amusement are important too.
Nowadays a lot of these things are automated and need less people to operate.
These days the first needs for life are more and more automated, so no one
has to work after a few decennia but of course the secondary needs aren't
that far YET. 
A lot of people would rather not have to work, when they have a certain
minimum (depends per individual) they just want to maintain that and do the
things they like. Of course some of them just like to work, but there is a
significant difference in wanting to work or having to work.

>> Of course I don't have the hands on an experiment that proved it but I find
>> it very hard to believe that no one has tried to figure out to what kind of
>> radiation the so called greenhouse gasses are most opaque. This very simple
>> experiment would show the proof or rebuttal.
>
>It is not a simple experiment.  NASA tried to do some studies comparing
>thermal emmisions from earth and space to get a ballence audit.  So far the
>info is frustratingly inconclusive.  Climatologists really have little handel
>on what percentage of the earths heat comes from solar heat, or converted
>light, or internal heating.

Ah, but in that experiment they didn't test the isolating properties of
greenhouse gasses. They tested the total result. So since greenhouse gasses
do keep the heat in (I'm sure that is tested) they should have conlcuded
that there probably were some other mechanisms reducing the effect of
heating up. (I've seen graphs showing the amount of CO2 rose significantly
since 200 ago)
For example a higher amount of CO2 increases the growth of plants, so in
total they absorb more light and store it in their leaves instead of
reflecting it as heat.

>Then again, it was only a few years back that
>someone showed the greenhouse effect dosen't work in greenhouses.

I heard this before but still don't know how they thought a greenhouse worked.
Of course the glass walls are much better of keeping the convective heat in
than the greenhouse gasses are in keeping the radiative heat in.

>> Did these images show there was no temperature increase or did they show
>> that there was no increase due to the so called greenhouse effect. If you
>> mean the latter, how can they distinguish between normal and greenhouse
>> deviations?
>
>They showed no detectable global increase in temp.

So all these stories about a global temperature increases of 0.2-0.4 C/year
are not true?

>But in an alien environ those isolated patchs here, could be the norm for the
>planet.  (It would be worth a lot of study, but no one would want to live
>there!)

Yes, but it would mean they could not have evolved to higher organisms.

>Not for other tree dwelling apes or monkeys, but it is an unusual structure.
> but then humans have had a very odd history.  trees, to water, to savanas,
>and each left odd evolutionary twists ranging from legs, fat distrabution,
>noses, weak lower backs, etc..  Maybe thats why we finally developed
>intelegence.  We were such an adaptable patchwork, that without intelegence
>we couldn't use our bodies as well as they were capable of.

That's an interesting theory...

Timothy