Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Nelson on February 28, 2011 at 5:18pm

three problems:

1. chickens (and all birds for that matter) are directly descended from dinosaurs and, as such, whatever idle genes they've inherited from their ancestors are right there, just below the surface. in humans, even if we had an ancestor that was capable of flying, that ancestor would be so far in the past that it wouldn't be a matter of simply turning on an idle gene like it is with chicken teeth.

2. humans don't have an ancestor that was capable of flying. the branch that includes us never had an animal that was capable of flight.

3. there's a huge difference between getting chicken to grow teeth and getting humans to undergo the radical morphological changes that would be required in order for us to fly. even if we did have an ancestor that flew, and even if it were a simple matter of flipping a "switch" like it is with chicken teeth, there's no question that the resulting animal wouldn't look much like a human anymore.

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Permalink Reply by idcollapse Ra on February 28, 2011 at 5:24pm

thanks Nelson

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Permalink Reply by Jaume on February 28, 2011 at 6:11pm

4. Fliers use their arms, their hands, and especially their fingers to support their wings. And while wings are cool, both birds and bats are ill-equipped to play the piano, which is cool too.

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Permalink Reply by idcollapse Ra on February 28, 2011 at 6:57pm

you know what is cool ? it's you  Jaume !! remember the apostrophe in ' its' ? :-)

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Permalink Reply by idcollapse Ra on February 28, 2011 at 7:00pm

so Jaume , you wanna say that flying is sth probable for human ??

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Permalink Reply by Jaume on March 1, 2011 at 7:00am

Did I say that? It's about as probable as playing the piano is for birds. Or baseball for bats.

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Permalink Reply by idcollapse Ra on March 1, 2011 at 6:49pm

which means it's probable ??

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Permalink Reply by Lindsey on March 1, 2011 at 2:20am

I agree. You can't play video games with wings. I demand that geneticists find the gene for magical levitation. Its almost as good as flying.

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Permalink Reply by idcollapse Ra on March 1, 2011 at 6:57pm

maybe wings similar to Archaeopteryx's would do , replacing claws with thumbs would make us all happy !

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Permalink Reply by Chuck B. on March 1, 2011 at 1:40pm

Just watched Splice the other night and this question kind of reminds me of that.  I'm sure with enough genetic tinkering anything is possible.  How horrible the outcome might be is another matter.

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Permalink Reply by Heather Spoonheim on March 1, 2011 at 4:30pm

That was a cool movie. The sex scene was rather creepy though.

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Permalink Reply by Chuck B. on March 1, 2011 at 6:08pm

Yeah was trying not to leave any spoilers. lol

I thought there was gonna be a lot more horror, blood, and guts in it.  Was actually quite refreshing for a sci fi/horror flick.

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