Grim

If we could project sound along with our posts, you would be hearing a most gruntled and slightly devilish laugh at your reaction to my word picture of Runner. Brings a new slant to the words "in god's image" doesn't it?

A sci-fi fan myself, I too have pondered that humans even in the far flung future remain much as they are today. I recall David Attenborough noting that the fact that we and other quadrupeds emerged as the basic template for the larger animals on earth, was simple chance the form which made the transition from water dwelling to air breathing, was a quadruped. Bikinis would be quite different had we evolved from hexapods.

I posit in a not so distant future, along with losing the necessity for an appendix or tonsils, it is possible we will evolve to lose our smallest toes and even our smallest fingers (although this could be bad for nose-pickers).

Another point the creationists might wish to ponder is why when giraffes were 'invented' did the creature retain the same number of vertebrae (7) in its long neck as all other mammals?

Of course, I am suggesting that religious fundamentalists use the brain god gave them for some strange reason, and actually study the world around them and, dare I say, think?

What is interesting is how often the aliens have to be ugly to counter-balance being smarter than us. Even in the terrestrial-based "Time Machine", the morlocks were grotesque, while the eloi were attractive.

Now there are over six billion of us, hopefully runner's ancestor in the Year One Million, wont deny the existence of our bones and the incredible proofs then existing supporting evolution and showing we were their intermediates. Or, might some brains twice the size and one hundred times as effecient as ours' think it all began 4,004 BCE?

Oliver

Maybe humans will evolve into two separate species (the basis for the morlocks and eloi in the Time Machine); the religious and the non-religious.

The religious would develop toughened skin on their knees for kneeling in prayer and their hands would fuse together in supplication. Almost goes without saying their brains would shrink - if you don't use it you lose it. All of which would be a boon to sexually predatory priests.

The non-religious will eventually travel into the universe and adapt to life without gravity - women's hips would become even wider to allow for the larger brains of the high-domed heads of their offspring and men would subsequently learn NEVER to say "your bum looks big in that" - having developed diplomatic skills.

:-P

Severin, :-), What can More I say? Except:

http://en.videowasi.com/yt-L1Cunxy68uo/outer-limits-the-sixth-finger-part-seven/

It occurs to me that without natural (and unnatural) selection, the Ark would have had to be a really big boat. Not just two dogs, but 2 afghans, 2 pekinese...
On the sci fi issue, it bugs me that we still think in terms of vehicles and ports in space. Considering the distances involved, it seems evident that 'space ships' will need to be permanent habitats; microcosms of 'space ship earth'. Once adapted to a low gravity, enclosed and self sufficient environment, such space dwellers would be be incapable of re-adapting to a planetary environment, if they even wanted to.
I think such humans would (eventually) look radically different to us.
I know I've often wished for an extra pair of hands...

Grim,

I don't know if you have seen previous other thread posts on the Ark animals topic: There is a rule of thumb ratio of 10 prey to every predator. Had there been 2 over every kind of animal, the preditors would have killed off all the prey shortly after being released and then many of the preditors would have starved to the death.

There was a seismic event about 6,000 years ago that merged the waters of the Mediterranean to Black Sea see killing much life, and, a heavy periods of rains afterwards in the period of the pharoahs. Later, because the land had been denuded by the first event, it was hard for life to re-establish itself as rain waters kept washing over the bare land. A thousand years later, several religious stories grew around these events, misrepresenting the local event as universal and missequencing the events the flood and heavy rain, which were according to geophysicists separate occurrences.

Had the flood taken animals to a hight covering the highest mountain (see Bible); how did they breath?

Sorry, to be off thread topic, but felt the urge to comment on this other related creationist issue.