Mixomatosis said:

The physical elements we're composed of limit our potential. Biological organisms aren't composed of metal that could be used to make an antenae, for example.

It would be kinda neat to have super powers, but I'm afraid technology is a much more effective way to gain these powers than through evolution. Maybe humans could evolve to a point where they could fire tazer like blasts from their fingertips, but why bother when you can just have a gun?

I'll conclude by suggesting that you quit day dreaming and unquestioningly accept the reigning belief systems, cold and unloving though they may be, as your own. That goes for all of you.

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Ravus said:

levitate-
To rise or cause to rise into the air and float in apparent defiance of gravity.

hover-
To remain floating, suspended, or fluttering in the air

Levitation is to rise and float in the air without any wings. I would not say this violates the laws of physics, but perhaps you are adding a connotation onto it that I am not.

Could not an organism potentially levitate using electromagnetism or another force of nature, or by using the air in such a way as that it could push him up without any wings or motors? Could not an organism potentially move an object without touching it using electromagnetism or powerful vibrations in the air? While there are easier ways to do this, I would not say it is impossible for either the laws of physics or evolution.

As for the third example I had, mind reading without using facial cues or such, it seems that we've started developing machines that can do this to an extent, such as lie detectors, so it's a possibility that an organism could develop a way to measure another organism's brainwave patterns, blood pressure, breathing rate, etc. by simply being near it. A type of organic antenna of information, if you will.

Most supernatural actions seem possible to develop without the breaking the laws of the physics or the universe. It's all a matter of developing the right organs and methods by evolution. Does this mean I believe that humans can perform supernatural actions? No, I don't believe any humans can levitate or use telekinesis, but I would not say it's impossible for an organism to develop such abilities. Just take away all that spiritual, mystical new age lies and connotations we add to these actions, and they seem entirely possible, though not probable.

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Mixomatosis said:

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Mixomatosis said:

Yes, you're right, IF you gave humans or any life form long enough, they MIGHT be able to develop these kinds of abilities. There's no evidence to base any kind of theorizing on, and it's all totally unfounded speculation, but you're correct in that it MIGHT be possible sometime MAYBE. Good work. Now let's all stop posting in this thread and go back to etching our unremarkable lives on the surface of this space rock by the only means that seem to work: monotonous labour.

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Interesting point. For many this would feel like truth. And who knows what the truth is. You MIGHT be right, MAYBE. For you at least. I have also found myself thinking these same thoughts at times. The tone is harsh, but I see where you're commin from.

stzacrack said:

As many have stated in posts before mine, the only possible way that we may ever develop a way to "levitate", "hover", read minds or any other useless ability, will be by importing genes that we have found in something else that contains the code for "levitating, hovering, and reading minds" into ourselves, thus hoping that it will work.  this idea is so far fetched it's not worth wasting 10 minutes reading all these posts, like i did.

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Quote:

Is anyone on this forum Wicken? I used to have a friend who was wicken who could do some crazy shit with their hands. He said it was like concentrating energy in between his hands.

What he would do is sort of wave his hands slowly around an "invisible" ball and concentrate real hard on his hands. After a few seconds you would see like a ball of light in the middle of where his hands were waving. I'm not sure how to put it into words, it was pretty amazing. He could also do this thing where after he got the ball int he middle of his hand, he could "shoot it" towards somoene, and they would sort of flinch, like they just got touched with something hot. It was pretty amazing.

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....in the same thread?


If you have seen something that is "beyond scientific explanation"....

How can you say that we can never evolve telepathy?

stzacrack said:

Maybe we ALL have abilities like this, but just don't know how to use them.

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stzacrack said:

I do not believe that we can EVOLVE into a species that will have abilities like this, but I do think that maybe some DO have these abilities, and maybe we all already do, but we just don't know how to use them. 

Isn't it often said that we only use 10% of our brain?  Or something to that sort.  Maybe we ALL have abilities like this, but just don't know how to use them.  On the other hand, I think, that since we have eliminated evolution from our species, that it would be impossible to EVOLVE into such beings with these abilities.  Who knows, maybe we already have these remarkable powers.  I can't say if we do, but I can say that I've seen some remarkable things before...and I'm not sure if they can be scientifically explained, but what can be scientifically explained is the fact that there is no more evolution, which brings me to the conclusion that we won't develop these abilities. 

I guess we'll all have to keep our fingers crossed!!

Later, have a good one

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stzacrack said:

I do not believe that we can EVOLVE into a species that will have abilities like this, but I do think that maybe some DO have these abilities, and maybe we all already do, but we just don't know how to use them.

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Morrowind said:

You can't make truth, you can only make meaning.

And which world is it that evolves levitating beings and clearly telepathic creatures on demand? You should look into science fiction.

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niteowl said:

We have never witnessed (to my knowledge) a useful genetic mutation that could help a multi-cellular creature evolve.

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niteowl said:

Didn't say that we haven't seen genetic mutation in multi-cellular creatures....cancer is a genetic mutation.

We have never witnessed (to my knowledge) a useful genetic mutation that could help a multi-cellular creature evolve.

It is a "leap of faith" (IMO) to say that ALL evolution is driven only by genetic mutations.

Does some evolution happen by genetic mutation.....sure.

Does ALL evolution happen thru genetic mutation.....I doubt it.

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Quote:

We have never witnessed (to my knowledge) a useful genetic mutation that could help a multi-cellular creature evolve.

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I don't get what you mean by this. Just browsing through the science section of the news this week, I came by a useful genetic mutation that helps squirrels evolve:

Quote:

An exotic evolution

Nikki Kahn / The Washington Post

By David A. Fahrenthold

WASHINGTON - Because the history of Washington has been written by humans, nobody has paid much attention to the fact that 18 Canadian squirrels were released at the National Zoo during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt.

But, if the capital's story were ever told by its rodents, few events would be more prominent than this one.

That's because those 18 squirrels ? whose coats of lustrous black set them apart from the native animals ? were the beginning of a shift that has changed the complexion of Washington's backyard critters. Now, probably because of a slight evolutionary advantage conveyed with a black coat, the descendants of these squirrels have spread all the way into Rockville and Prince William County.

Seriously: Scientists say it's a real-life example of natural selection at work, which has rolled on for a century here without much public notice.

"It shows the spread of a gene within a population," said Richard W. Thorington Jr., a Smithsonian Institution researcher working on a book that includes a history of the District's black squirrels. "That is evolutionary change before your eyes."

Shades of mystery
The story of Washington's black squirrels ? which scientists say are just a color variation within the common gray squirrel species ? still has its shades of mystery.

For starters, nobody is quite certain why the Smithsonian decided to bring the critters here in the first place. The zoo's best guess, according to spokeswoman Peper Long, is that they were trying to restore the local population of gray squirrels, which had been decimated through hunting.

"Some people thought the gray squirrel was going to be extinct," Long said.

The Smithsonian's archives offer only the barest of facts: In 1902, and then again in 1906, the zoo got black squirrels from "the department of crown lands" in Ontario.

The next historical evidence pops up 15 years later, in the form of roadkill.

This week, in an upper story of the rotunda at the National Museum of Natural History, researcher Katie Ferrell pulled out a drawer full of stiff squirrel carcasses. It was a tiny sample from the museum's collection of 30,000.

"Cleveland Park, 1917," she said, reading the tag of one black animal that apparently met its fate under the wheels of a D.C. motorist. It was solid evidence that the squirrels had already left zoo grounds. Scientists say the black variety now comprises 5 to 25 percent of the squirrels in some neighborhoods.

Here's why some scientists believe the black squirrels were multiplying: In winter, their dark coats allowed them to retain heat from sunlight, leaving them less desperate for warmth than their lighter-colored cousins.

"If you can do it with solar heat, you don't need quite as much metabolic heat," and, therefore, need less food, Thorington said.

In some cases, this advantage seems to have outweighed the potential downside of a black coat ? being more conspicuous to hawks and other predators.

Thorington believes that black squirrels were slightly more likely to survive and reproduce, and their genes were passed on to succeeding generations.

Whatever the reason, observers say, black squirrels have been showing up in areas where only gray-colored specimens had been.

They appeared in Bethesda, Silver Spring and Chevy Chase in the 1960s, perhaps using the Rock Creek Stream Valley as a highway north from the District. One survey of Bethesda in 1990 found that about 25 percent of the squirrels there were black.

To the east, the squirrels crossed the city a few decades ago to colonize the National Arboretum and Capitol Hill. To the south, they made it across the Potomac River into Arlington, where naturalists say they've seen black squirrels since at least the 1980s.

Black squirrels even had a cameo in the area's best-known bit of squirrel research: the survey of animals in Lafayette Park in 1980 and 1981, which showed that this tourist landmark had the densest squirrel population known to science.

"I do remember seeing melanistic [dark-pigmented] squirrels around," said David Manski, a biologist who spent eight months watching rodents in the park.

Now, the frontier appears to run through Fairfax County, where the squirrels are still rare, and Prince William County, where some have been spotted in a forest 35 miles from their origins in Washington.

In Montgomery, the squirrels are spreading into Gaithersburg and Rockville ? though not without a little controversy.

'It's the same squirrel'
Some residents have called to complain that the new squirrels are aggressive, driving out the friendly gray squirrels, said Bill Hamilton of the county Department of Park and Planning.

He said he reassures residents: "It's the same squirrel," just a different color.

Among themselves, the squirrels appear to feel the same way, according to Vagn Flyger, a retired University of Maryland professor.

Flyger devoted himself to studying squirrels because, as he explains it, they weigh less than a deer and don't bite like a polar bear. He used to smear a tree behind his Silver Spring home with a mixture of peanut butter and Valium and then tattoo the squirrels that he found passed out below.

When he first did this, more than 30 years ago, there were only gray ones, Flyger said. Now, he says, at least four black squirrels live nearby.

He has studied their behavior ? now using feeders rather than Valium ? and determined that the squirrels don't appear to treat each other differently because they are black or gray.

"They don't seem to care," he said.

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Quote:

some scientists believe .......

Thorington believes........

..black squirrels have been showing up in areas where only gray-colored specimens had been.

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