RE: Sinosauropteryx filament melanosomes challenged

[Sim Koning <simkoning@msn.com>]

>Supernovae
 
I wouldn't exactly call the death of a giant star after it went through long 
series of stages in stellar evolution, before exploding and releasing heavier 
elements that lead to solar systems like this one a simple process, same goes 
for everything else you listed.  
 
>white and brown dwarfs, black holes, quasars, pulsars etc. Just because your 
>brain is perceiving a trend in the universe doesn't necessarily mean >that 
>such trend actually exists.
 
I think you took what I wrote the wrong way, since I'm guessing you would agree 
that the universe as it exists now is more complex than the singularity it once 
was.
 
> Whoa, whoa, whoa! This is the endothermocentric fallacy brought to its most 
> extreme. What is your basis that endothermy gives one the capacity to do >all 
> that you say (and by "endothermy" I assume you are talking about automatic 
> endothermy, or the classic "warm-bloodedness" of mammals and birds)?
 
> You know that the next "most advanced" animal society is in the world? The 
> one that also has agriculture, architecture, war, slavery, and maybe even 
> >language and culture?
>
> Social insects. Especially the various ant and termite species out there. 
> These are "cold-blooded" animals that have a series of ganglia housed in 
> >mushroom-like bodies, instead of having a "brain."
 
Yes I agree, but I was worried that bringing up an extremely speculative 
eusocial alien species that has developed technology and/or society comparable 
to our own would take this thread more off topic than it already is.
 
 
> Again, this is a trend, or pattern that your brain has perceived, but is 
> there any statistical, or other empirical data to back it up?

I never claimed it was anything beyond hypothetical in nature, I never 
described this as a theory. I find it a little strange that most here have no 
problem speculating on the social lives of animals that have been dead for over 
a 100 millions years, yet now I'm getting a rather harsh reaction for something 
that is no less speculative in nature. 
 
> The Kardashev scale is a neat though experiment, but this piece of science 
> fiction says more about the biased nature of humans (and western 
> >civilization in particular) than anything else.
 
No, it is just hypothetical scenario regarding a *possible* exponential 
increase technological advancement and expansion, you know, like speculating on 
whether dromaeosaurids hunted in packs based on scant evidence and living 
analogs. I honestly don't understand this reaction. I never claimed that I 
believe this as some sort of faith or absolute truth.  
 
>There is no reason to believe that any civilization should progress in the way 
>suggested by the >Kardashev scale, just like there is no reason to >suspect 
>that a tribe of bushmen in Papua New Guinea should go through a "bronze," or 
>"silver age." >The only reason we see things like >industrialization in "third 
>world" countries is because of the global nature of our society. We are 
>extending >knowledge gained from one culture, to >others, rather than having 
>it evolve separately.

I agree, I never expressed any degree of certainty on this issue. My point was 
that the idea of "higher" or "lower" forms of life would have some meaning when 
speaking of things such as the emergent properties of the universe. The human 
species may just eradicate itself with some new weapon, and most intelligent 
species in the universe may self destruct...it's just specualtion at this 
point.  
 
> Besides, how trustworthy can something like the Kardashev scale actually be 
> given that we don't even have an example of a type I civilization?
 
How trustworthy is hypothesis regarding how a deinonychus used its claws to 
kill its prey? Cosmologists are simply taking observations on current trends 
and extrapolating into the future, in the same way a paleontologist might look 
at modern animal behavior and make inferences on the social behavior of extinct 
animals.
 
when I used the word "higher" I meant higher degree of complexity in an 
organism, vs a lower degree of complexity. Life is more complex now than it was 
3 billion years ago. Birds/dinosaurs are more complex than jellyfish, so 
dinosaurs have a higher degree of complexity. How that got equated to 
"superior" when I said that was *not* what I was referring is beyond me. 
 
 
Sim Koning  
 
 

----------------------------------------
> Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2010 20:22:02 -0800
> From: pristichampsus@yahoo.com
> To: dinosaur@usc.edu
> Subject: RE: Sinosauropteryx filament melanosomes challenged                  
>