World Hunger and discussion of the human body

[mangaddict_reborn]

ummm... blank post? weird....

[mangaddict_reborn]

What happened to the dragons was simple. You see, gravity wasn't as strong back then. This was when the earth wasn't quite as heavy because it hadn't accumulated all that heavy iridium from comets and asteroids like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs. In the lighter gravity, there wasn't as much of a force keeping the dragons on the ground, so they didn't need to be as strong to fly. But gravity got stronger, you see, and the dragons stopped being able to fly. As more meteors hit the Earth and the planet got denser and gravity got stronger (gravity being an inverse square law directly proportional to mass, as any schoolboy can tell you), it became harder and harder for the dragons to survive. In fact, it got so bad that they started having trouble breathing, so great was the pressure of the atmosphere upon their massive bulks, squashing them into the ground. So they sought safety in the sea, where the water could keep them buoyant and support them, and take some of the pressure off. The dragons were happy in the sea, because swimming isn't that much different from flying really. Over the years they adapted and evolved, slowly but surely transforming into beasts that were equally at home in the water as the dragons had once been in the air.

Those dragons became whales, which explain why whales have claws within their tails.

[mstice]

[Kimmie-chan]

Hey guys, as much as I am enjoying reading the threads with everyone debating about these General issues. I just want to say keep it civil and take it easy with the personal attacks. Keep them in the PMs if you like.
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Get ready to vote for who you think is the Sexiest Anime Character!!

[mangaddict_reborn]

XD!!!!!!!

mstice, you complete me.

[LoneWolf325]

[mstice]

Naturally you're right, Kimmie. My bad and apologies to anyone I offended.

Addict, well... it always feels good to make somebody happy. Glad I could help. Oh, and back on the subject of the thread- 2000 calories is probably enough provided you aren't loosing weight. As said, caloric restriction has been shown to increase maximum life expectancy in rats (it's the only thing besides genetic engineering that has ever increased maximum life expectancy in anything), and there is actually a fairly large following of people who have decided to try this and see if it has similar results in humans. From what I've seen they usually consume between 1800 and 200 calories a day and claim that they are paradigms of health. For a technical explanation of how this works, keep reading:

One of the major causes of intracellular damage (to DNA in particular) are particles called reactive oxygen species (ROS). These are negatively charged compounds (containing oxygen) that are by-products of natural cellular processes, mostly from energy metabolism in mitochondria (the so called "power plants" of the cell). Now, while ROS are constantly damaging our DNA, our cells have DNA repair mechanisms that are able to correct most of the damage done. The theory on how this process causes aging is that damage still gradually builds up and may be accelerated by damage to the components of DNA that code for the DNA repair enzymes. Thus, as time passes, cells (and so the body as a whole) become less capable of repair and regeneration and aging occurs.

This theory is supported by the fact that many bird species have roughly ten times the maximum life expectancy of similarly sized mammals (size usually correlates with longevity, like a mouse maxes out at 3 years, a dog at around 15, and an elephant at 70+). The classic comparison is the pigeon's 35 year max lifespan to the roughly equal sized rat's 4 year max. As it turns out, a pigeon's mitochondria are many times more efficient than a mammal's and generate far fewer reactive oxygen species, causing the animal to age more slowly (according to the theory).

Although humans have yet to design a pill to improve the efficiency of our mitochondria (but I guarantee plenty of scientists and pharmaceutical companies are trying), it's easy enough to decrease mitochondrial ROS generation by simply decreasing the total energy produced in each cell via caloric restriction (this may cause the mitochondria to work more efficiently as well, but that hasn't been verified). Thus the logic goes fewer calories consumed-> less energy produced-> fewer ROS-> slower aging. As said, this may in fact cause the mitochondria to work more efficiently because the practitioners of caloric restriction report no loss in energy despite consuming fewer calories. On the contrary, most actually report an increase in energy.

The practice of human caloric restriction is only a few decades old, though, so there is insufficient data to say whether or not it actually works to increase humans' maximum lifespan. It should be interesting to see what the data says over the coming decades.

[LoneWolf325]

[mstice]

As I said before, Lone, a single mention of a dinosaur like creature in Job has two much more logical explanations than man living alongside dinosaurs:

-First, the ancient Jews, or some other ancient people from which the Jews heard about it, found the fairly intact fossilized remains of a dinosaur and deduced that some "behemoth" must exist in the world. They made a description of that creature the same way scientists today do (although modern scientists have much more refined techniques): they looked at the structure of the skeleton and imagined what it would look like in the flesh without ever actually seeing the creature alive.

-Second, it's a description of a crocodile, something that the ancient Jews would have been familiar with from their time in Egypt. If, as most conservative experts assert, the book of Job was written during the reign of King Solomon, some 500 years after they believe the Exodus occurred, that would explain why it was generally an accurate account of a crocodile but some errors and embellishments were made to its description over the centuries (as one would expect). I realize that the passage, "he eateth grass as an ox" does seem hard to reconcile with a crocodile, but aside from that and the fire breathing thing (which doesn't match any animal in recorded history) it's quite a good description. The "tail like a cedar" seems like an obvious hyperbole of a crocodile's very sizable tail, as the chapter also says, "He lieth under the shady trees, in the covert of the reed, and fens. The shady trees cover him with their shadow; the willows of the brook compass him about." Willows and reeds aren't going to cover and encompass any animal big enough to have a tail that's literally as big as a cedar. Also, the passage, "He maketh the deep to boil like a pot" looks to me like a very specific description of unique crocodile behavior. Fully grown male crocodiles will produce an intense, low frequency, guttural kind of grunt that will actually cause the water around them to vibrate and dance, looking very much like it's boiling. This to me seems like the most likely origin of the leviathan.

And I still stand by the fact that when you live alongside animals that try to eat you, you tend to talk about them a lot. Lions, on one hand, are mentioned 72 times in the Bible, while "leviathan" is mentioned only 3 times, and the only account outside the book of Job consists of, "Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness," which gives no description except that leviathan has multiple heads! Proof one more time that the Bible should not always be taken literally.

Finally, by claiming that creationism makes more scientific and logical sense you're basically claiming that scientists from nearly every culture and representing every major religion on Earth are ignoring the facts and working together to disprove Christian theology, even the devout Christian scientists (and there are devout Christian scientists who believe I'm going to hell for not taking Jesus as my savior that still believe in evolution. I've talked with them). As a man of science I take the philosophy of searching for the most logical and well reasoned explanations of events without regard to whether or not I want it to be true very seriously. That's the foundation of scientific thinking- you do everything to minimize the personal bias in your reasoning. It's why all reputable scientific articles are open to peer review, so that scientists all over the world can look to see if your reasoning is well-founded and unbiased. Saying that the scientific community is wantonly ignoring obvious facts and logic is about the biggest insult you could throw at it.

As for that remark on rationalization, I'm sorry you took offense but I stand by what I said. Your intense devotion to the literal interpretation of the Bible causes your brain to subconsciously filter information so that it confirms your bias. It's something all people do about one thing or another in their life that they feel very strongly about without even realizing it. The reason I recommended the book was so that you could actually read about this proven psychological process. You could, of course, make the argument that I'm biased by my strong conviction in evolution, but remember that I wasn't always a disbeliever in creationism. I grew up a Christian and was a strong believer until overwhelming evidence forced me to change my views to those that I (like you) had vehemently opposed for years.

[mangaddict_reborn]

man, you guys don't know how to take a joke. I don't believe in no dragons. sheesh.

[mstice]

[mangaddict_reborn]

I forgive you I guess. I thought for sure you'd get the joke.