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Why do people....... More.....

Gregg M said:
Tyler, I have a very good and 100% true answer for you, but this is not the place.....LOL
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And why is that? It goes hand and hand with the discussion?
My belief is that we were :alien: 's from a foreign planet. We came to Earth after a big uprising :2gunsfiri had a big party :beer: followed by some ...well... :smokin: and now here we are!

Ok, so I don't believe that but I am sure someone does!
 
I will tell you why Gene..... Because people are free to believe in what they want and who am I to impose my beliefe religiously on to anyone..... I will not preach to anyone as I do not want to be preached at...... Especially on a public board..... I talk about things that can be proven or disproven only..... Religion is a faith that can not be proven at all...... Besides what I believe in is more of a study rather than a religion....
 
If you don't feel someones beliefs belong in this topic then you need to just sit down because this is not a subject you should be arguing if you want to silence someone elses opinion. There is scientific evidence that backs what he is saying, whether you want to hear it or not.
 
Gregg M said:
The Srtess they do feel is not a mental stress like we feel.... It is a stress on their physical being that cause them to have problems......
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Actually, being a long-term sufferer of stress-related illness myself... humans don't feel 'mental' stress. Stress in any animal including humans has major physical components - whether it be nausea, reduced immunity, loss of weight, increased hunger or physical aches and pains. The physical effects, in turn, can cause mental distress and discomfort - and vice versa.

We as humans are just more aware of WHAT causes us the stress and we are ALSO often put into situations that induce unnatural levels of -prolonged- stress. A wild zebra does not feel stress often enough or long enough in duration to cause ulcers, for example - if the zebra is stressed, it is typically because it is starving, dehydrating, being attacked by a conspecific or being attacked by a predator. All of those things either lead to resolution (Finding food, finding water, moving away from the attacker) or death (Dying of dehydration or starvation, being killed by the other animal.)

Humans, on the other hand (and the animals who share our homes)... the things that cause us stress are often long-term problems. Things that we cannot fight or run away from. And so, humans have much more emotional distress shown with the physical effects of stress - and more physical effects, because the stressors are constant rather than intermittent.

Short bursts of stress have even been shown to be beneficial to animals including humans... but long-term stress is debilitating.

I'd argue that my geckos are capable of the following:
Distinguishing between individuals of the household and individuals who are visitors and reacting with fear to the latter.
Expressing reactions to sudden stressors - typically fear responses.
Expressing contentment in certain locations or temperatures.
Expressing a desire to be 'out on people' instead of 'in vivarium' - my males do NOT scratch on the viv door if I'm not sat at my computer.
Expressing something particularly reminescent of curiosity - investigation of new things without fear.

That indicates that, though they might not have as much going on in those little heads as my cats or my dog or my parrot... they're not totally unaware little biological machines, either.

Conversely, it's pretty obvious that a dog who wants to be with her pack 'loves' her pack members in the same way that children 'love' their parents - they have a sense of need-to-be-with-them. A cat who treats you like its mother - kneading, purring, and particularly bumping you with his forehead - is making a similar statement of 'I need to be with you', even if you do not have the capability to nurse them. And our parrot... she's another thing entirely. She's got more going on in her peanut-sized brain than any of our other animals put together. Knowledge of self, knowledge of others, knowledge of difference and similarity... all well within an African Grey's scope. And the ability to articulate it in the language of her flock, no less.

- Ssthist
 
StinaUIUC said:
Funny you should mention brontosaurus...I'm pretty sure they are a dino that never existed! I believe they put the head of an apatosaurus on a brachiosaurus body and called it a brontosaurus...lol I could be wrong...but I'm pretty sure that's true...
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Nope... it's actually that they found certain parts of an animal and that animal was called Apatosaurus... then found other parts of another animal, and they gave THAT a new name, Brontosaurus. When they compared the remains later, they found it was the same animal - and the first name takes precedence, so it's an Apatosaurus, not a Bronto.

However, for many years, the American Museum of Natural History in New York City had the wrong head on their Apatosaur skeleton - they had a Camarasaurid skull mounted on it (Blocky, heavy skull more like a brachiosaur) ... when the genus actually had a fairly narrow, slender skull like a Diplodocus.

Incidentally, the 'bird hipped dinosaurs' (Ornithschians - including stegosaurs, ceratopsians and the 'duckbilled' dinosaurs) are NOT related to birds as far as any research I've ever read (Gregory Paul and Robert Bakker, primarily) indicates. They just happen to have a similarity of build, possibly because it was the most convenient way to have a bipedal animal with enough gut capacity to hold quantities of mostly indigestible plant matter (most ornithschians, even if they later developed forms that were quadrupedal, had small bipedal ancestors).

It's the 'lizard-hipped dinosaurs' (Saurischians) which gave rise to the theropod branch of Dinosauria - and the Maniraptorans (Velociraptor, Deinonychus, Archaeopteryx, etc - the other sickleclaws) are either:
a) Feathered "dinosaurs" that were steps on the way to modern "birds" (one theory, held by a lot of paleontologists)
or
b) Secondarily flightless "birds" that just happened to look like "dinosaurs" (A theory that I first read about in Gregory Paul's 'Predatory Dinosaurs of the World').

Both of these are at this point equally probable - there just isn't a clear-cut line between what makes a maniraptoran dinosaur and what makes a bird. It used to be pretty clear - if it had feathers, it was a bird, even if it had teeth and a long bony tail (Archaeopteryx, for example) ... but the discovery of sickleclawed 'dinosaurs' that have feather impressions... muddies the waters a bit.

And it'd be the first, but not the last, time that happened in history, as far as ground-pounding flightless carnivorous avians goes... the terror birds like Diatryma and Phorusrhacos of South America were very dinosaurian in many ways, save for the lack of teeth and bony tails.
 
What the ????

science and religion are separate entities. evolution is science, there is no other theory that is based in science...all other theories are based in theology of some kind.
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As many of you may know, I spent 26 years as a scientist, and am now an Ordained Christian Minister. While I do not think this forum is the place to discuss religion, I am going to give you my definition of the above satement. God and Science are the exact same thing... science is our way of trying to understand God's works. I believe in the 'big bang' theory, but it was God that did the bangin'!

BTW... What does ANY of this have to do with the original subject of this thread? Wasn't it someting like, "Why do we humanize our reptiles?" Well, the only thing I can think of is... because we love them! Plain and simple.
 
montezuma said:
If humans evolved from monkeys and apes... why are there still monkeys and apes?
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How about phrasing it this way:

If I descended from my grandparents, why do my grandparents' other grandchildren, my cousins, still exist?

Humans, Bonobos and Chimpanzees are the biological equivalent of first cousins on a genus/species level. Chimps still exist because their ancestors branched off from ours (or, more likely, we branched off of THEIR tree, since chimpanzees and bonobos are still fairly similar) some time ago. They went with their own environmental pressures and wound up looking like what they do, and humans wound up in their own set of environmental pressures (I favour the 'aquatic ape' theory myself) and look like what we do in the present day. 'Chimpanzees' didn't necessarily exist six million years ago, and neither did 'humans'.

The other 'great apes' like Gorillas and Orangutans are probably the equivalent of 'second cousins' - you know, the grandchildren of your grandparents' siblings.

Monkey ancestors split off even further back - they might be the equivalent of human third cousins - the great-grandchildren of your grandparents' parents' siblings...

To put it another way still.... if chihuahuas are descended from wolves, why are there still wolves? That's 'selective' evolution - we've applied environmental pressures to cause the changes that made ONE subgroup of wolves (not ALL wolves) turn into the dogs we're familiar with today.

As a case in point:

Take a group of ten wolves - males and females. Take a group of ten labrador retrievers - males and females. Put both of them into the same territory, with deer as a primary food source. Don't feed either group. Over time, you'll find that the wolves are better equipped to survive - they work better as a pack, for example. They manage to make more successful hunts, and they also manage to make more successful puppies. The labradors aren't very good at hunting large prey (They've been specialized into bird hunting!), so they don't make as many kills, and they don't make as many puppies. Eventually, the wolves will outnumber the labradors to a point where the labradors just aren't a sustainable population and die out. THAT is one aspect of evolution in action - the fact that an organism that is particularly fit for a given environmental niche and survives to reproduce will out-compete any other organisms that occupy the same environmental niche.

On the other hand, the other aspect of evolution... take a group of ten wolves - males and females. Take a group of ten corgis - males and females. Put both of them into the same territory, with moose as a primary large-animal food source and deer mice as a primary small-animal food source. Don't feed either group. Over time, you'll find that the wolves are better equipped to hunt the moose - they work as a pack, and if moose is all there is, then the larger wolves will probably be more successful at hunting them. The large wolves manage to make successful moose hunts, and they also manage to make successful puppies - some of which will be large and equally successful. The corgis aren't very good at hunting large prey... but they excel in hunting small prey, since that's what they're bred for. They ALSO manage to make successful hunts - even if each mouse is only enough for one individual to eat, which would probably lead the normally pack-loving corgis to live separately and only come together to breed. And if they did adopt that separate-except-to-breed behaviour... they'll also have successful puppies - and the ones who continue the adaptive behaviour will continue to have more pups. In this case, the wolves and the corgis aren't in direct competition - but environmental pressure - having one large prey type and one small prey type - will still exert itself on both, forcing them to adapt to the environment they've got. THAT is the other half of evolution - that environmental pressure can cause behavioural and physical changes to a species over multiple generations.

- Ssthist
 
I've read this entire thread and my headache has now EVOLVED into a migraine.

Talk about spiraling out of control.....
 
montezuma said:
There is also proof humans were around in the same period as dinosaurs and they were homo sapiens. Why is it "evolution" stopped 10,000 years ago?
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Actually, the supposed 'proof' of humans being around with dinosaurs (A footprint found next to a duckbilled dinosaur's hindfoot print) ... is in fact the FRONT foot of that exact same duckbilled dinosaur.

And where did you get the idea that evolution 'stopped' 10,000 years ago? Animals are still evolving in response to environmental pressures - artificial or otherwise - even now.

Superbacteria are a case in point. There are types of bacteria on the planet now that did not exist thirty years ago - and humans inadvertently applied the environmental pressures by using antibiotics.

The 'munchkin' breed of cat is another - it's a shortlegged cat, like a dachshund. It was a chance mutation - but it's a viable one, it doesn't appear to be harmful to the cat, and it's been perpetuated by the 'environmental pressure' of humans selectively breeding for the trait. There WERE 'munchkin' cats in the 1930-1940s in Europe, but they were lost in WWII. Theoretically speaking, a cat that can more easily maneuver in tight spaces might outcompete taller cats in that particular niche...

Heck, OBHerp, thirty years ago, there weren't Blizzard leopard geckos. No wild population, no captive one. But now? It's a viable subpopulation. If nobody - from today forward - ever bred a Blizzard to anything other than a visual Blizzard, you might get other morphological changes over time - expressions of other genes, other mutations, and so forth - and you might eventually end up with a new species - an animal that cannot or will not interbreed with Eublepharis macularius.

All of those are evolution in a very real sense - environmental pressures on a population of animals which cause some individuals to be more successful at breeding than others - and further changes occurring over time to those isolated individual populations.
 
Tripple H Herps said:
Ssthisto,
So far I have been liking your responses, they are very well thought out :)
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Thanks. I've always been fascinated with dinosaurs, particularly - and as a dino nut, you can't help but get interested in evolutionary theory. Though credit for the '10 labradors/10 wolves' idea has to go to my partner, who pointed out that was a good way to express the 'survival of the fittest' idea. The '10 wolves/10 corgis' idea was mine - to express change in the face of adverse conditions and how similar forms can coexist if they do not compete.

As for emotions in animals... I think 'anthropomorphism' is a misnomer. Humans are just specialized animals, so it's fairly unlikely that other animals lack equivalents. The mistake is not attributing human -emotions- to an animal... it's attributing human -motivations-, -interpretations- and -morals- to an animal... and in underestimating an animal.

For example, a tiger behaves just like a housecat... on a much larger scale. A purring housecat kitten bumping its head up against your chin because it's expressing 'need-to-be-with-you' is cute. An adult tiger doing the same thing is dangerous, even if its motivations are the same.
 
For example, a tiger behaves just like a housecat... on a much larger scale. A purring housecat kitten bumping its head up against your chin because it's expressing 'need-to-be-with-you' is cute. An adult tiger doing the same thing is dangerous, even if its motivations are the same.
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-Yes very dangerous, however from my experience’s, its just as cute (given you know what your doing).....lol. Still good thought out answers and interpretations of thought.
 
Tripple H Herps said:
-Yes very dangerous, however from my experience’s, its just as cute (given you know what your doing).....lol. Still good thought out answers and interpretations of thought.
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Exactly. It's just as cute if you know what you're doing... and if you know enough about cat behaviour as a whole to tell if that tiger is going to switch to 'play' mode - because it's not as safe to PLAY with a tiger as it is with a housecat. Worst a housecat can do is hurt you if it plays too rough... worst a tiger can do is kill you, and it might not even mean to do it.

I'd love to get up close to a big cat that's habituated to humans and doesn't automatically flip 'fight, feed or flight' about them. Closest I've ever been is twenty feet or so from a wild mountain lion - and THAT one was stalking myself and my friend. But because I KNEW that's what it was doing, and because we were taking reasonable precautions, it wasn't that dangerous a situation.

Stepping on the rattlesnake on a hike in the same mountains a different time, however... that could have been bad, and was preventable if I'd been watching where I was putting my feet. I know darn well the snake didn't strike me because it was 'mad' at me - it struck because I either stepped on it or too close to it - but I DO know that it didn't 'want' to kill me, either. It just made me move away from it as fast as I could by -hitting- me with its face and fangs rather than envenomating me.
 
Ssthisto, Again, you are just pointing out natural, instinctive behavior, not reasoning or emotion.....

Being content in a location where the temp is suitable??? That is instinctive....

Scratching at the cage when it sees you is also a learned behavior triggered by instinct...... No animal wants to be confined to a particular location so when it sees you, it sees an out...... As much as you want to think it wants to be with you, it is silly to truely believe that is the case..... It instinctivly knows that it should not be confined..... It is unnatural for a reptile, or any animal, to be caged..... These actions are driven by instinct, not emotions towards its keeper...... I will repeat this again, reptiles do not have the parts of the brain to feel or control emotions......

You can slice it up anyway you like with what you think you are seeing but the truth of it all is that reptiles are incapable of feeling or showing complex mamalian feelings and emotions.....

A side note..... I think it is just fine to show your reptiles love and emotions, but realize you will never get the same in return......
 
GeckoPalace said:
Thats dangerous? :shrug01:
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Potentially, yes. A tiger's an awfully large animal, and having it bump the top of its head against the bottom of your jaw if you aren't expecting it... well, you might react in such a way (shouting, waving hands around, even falling over, if you're as clumsy as I am!) that might make the tiger think that you want to play, or fight... and that can be disastrous.

And that's a case of "tigrimorphism" - the tiger is attributing tigerlike motivations and morals to YOUR actions instead of the other way around.
 
True,
I currently have no big cats. I just don't have the space or time right now. I used to own some. Nothing as big as a tiger, however I got to work with some that a friend had. If you want to check out some shows like in NC or SC, there is a rescue group with a pet tiger there as well. Its really a good experience. What got me started in this business were my Rhino iguanas and big(er) cats. Venomous came after allot of experience.
 
Potentially, yes. A tiger's an awfully large animal, and having it bump the top of its head against the bottom of your jaw if you aren't expecting it... well, you might react in such a way (shouting, waving hands around, even falling over, if you're as clumsy as I am!) that might make the tiger think that you want to play, or fight... and that can be disastrous.

And that's a case of "tigrimorphism" - the tiger is attributing tigerlike motivations and morals to YOUR actions instead of the other way around.
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Lol Ssthisto i was just joking. :crazy03:
 
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