Dumb Questions Thread

[Danoff]

How did the reproductive organs of species develop over time - i.e. what was the evolutionary mechanism?

One of the arguments for intelligent design is the incredible complexity of things such as the eye, and how improbable it is for it to have evolved without a designer. I can reconcile that it is possible for these things to have developed without some "higher input", but one thing that puzzles me is how reproductive organs developed differently for the 2 sexes, and what could have driven this in nature. How could two organ systems that are different, yet complimentary to each other have arisen?

How we evolved into male and female

According to scientists, the very first organisms to dare engage in sex were more like Adam and Steve than Adam and Eve. That's because sex was...

www.seattletimes.com

I know this doesn't answer your question, but the differences in the sex organs facilitate the differences between egg and sperm essentially. So to really understand it you need to understand why egg and sperm exist in the first place.

 

[HenrySwanson]

That is interesting.

Do we know how these mutations come about? It explains the possible need for it, but is there information about the actual process?

 

[Exorcet]

That is interesting.

Do we know how these mutations come about? It explains the possible need for it, but is there information about the actual process?

Mutations are random and continuously occurring. Gene copying is prone to error and genes themselves can be damaged or changed by many things. It's a bug that became a feature and enabled evolution.

 

[HenrySwanson]

Mutations are random and continuously occurring. Gene copying is prone to error and genes themselves can be damaged or changed by many things. It's a bug that became a feature and enabled evolution.

That I get.

But with the divergence of the sexes, would those mutations have had to have occurred simultaneously?

 

[Exorcet]

That I get.

But with the divergence of the sexes, would those mutations have had to have occurred simultaneously?

Going back to the article @Danoff posted, it seems like the precursor to sex was the response to a mate's mitochondria. One side ignores them, the other kills them. It seems plausible to me that the killer side could evolve independently. If two killers decided to mate, they wouldn't reproduce. Two non killers could, but they ran the risk of higher rates of mitochondria mutations which may not benefit them. Killer + non killer would be optimal and survive. Somewhere down the line, the non killer side may have developed a mutation where mitochondria were shed during mating, removing the need for the killer side to kill them. Combine that with another mutation that allowed each side to signal what they are to each other, and you basically have sex.

That is just a guess at how it would work out. I'm not a biologist, and as far as I know trying to figure out exactly what happened step by step would be very difficult.

 

[DK]

Given all the cries of "reeeee the West are Nazeeeeeeeeeees" from the Kremlin and their mouthpieces, I wonder - what does the average Russian know about Nazism as an ideology? What are Russian schoolchildren taught about Nazism?

 

[TheCracker]

Given all the cries of "reeeee the West are Nazeeeeeeeeeees" from the Kremlin and their mouthpieces, I wonder - what does the average Russian know about Nazism as an ideology? What are Russian schoolchildren taught about Nazism?

Given that the Putin-era of Russian political policies has an awful lot of similarities with nazi idealism - nationalism, authoritarianism, corrupution, disinformation etc i'd say that in Russia 'nazism' is thought of more along the lines of what the German army atrocities during their WWII Eastern Front offensive.

 

[Liquid]

Does evolution get things wrong?

Not by our subjective, human lens looking at something and thinking "Huh, that's weird. I wouldn't do it that way". I suppose the least confusing way of describing it is that evolution has no will but does it ever do something or change something so that a creature is actually at a disadvantage where it previously was not?

 

[UKMikey]

Does evolution get things wrong?

Not by our subjective, human lens looking at something and thinking "Huh, that's weird. I wouldn't do it that way". I suppose the least confusing way of describing it is that evolution has no will but does it ever do something or change something so that a creature is actually at a disadvantage where it previously was not?

I'd assume it gets things wrong all the time as it's supposed to be a trial and error process. Nobody ever hears about the errors though because they die out more quickly.

 

[Famine]

Does evolution get things wrong?

Not by our subjective, human lens looking at something and thinking "Huh, that's weird. I wouldn't do it that way". I suppose the least confusing way of describing it is that evolution has no will but does it ever do something or change something so that a creature is actually at a disadvantage where it previously was not?

Short answer: yes.

Long answer: Evolution is the process, natural selection is the mechanism and it refers to traits being "selected" naturally, due to the advantages they give a subset of creatures for the environment in which they live allowing them to thrive and breed - or the disadvantages another set of traits gives another subset of creatures causing them to die out without breeding (eventually).

Typically the advantages/disadvantages aren't realised until the environment changes; the traits that best allow a subset of creatures to survive the shift in environment, even if they were a disadvantage before, are selected for by the force of nature.

If there's no environmental forcing, all kinds of crazy crap is not selected out because it doesn't confer any particular disadvantage at that time. Until there is, and it does, so it is.

 

[HenrySwanson]

Does evolution get things wrong?

Not by our subjective, human lens looking at something and thinking "Huh, that's weird. I wouldn't do it that way". I suppose the least confusing way of describing it is that evolution has no will but does it ever do something or change something so that a creature is actually at a disadvantage where it previously was not?

Not an answer to your question, but something you might find interesting

 

[HenrySwanson]

Do any non-English languages have as distinctive accents as English?

Even ignoring regional accents within a country (e.g. Scouse vs Newcastle), does any other language have such immediately, recognisably different accents as English? I understand that when you are a non-native speaker it's harder to pick up differences but can any compare to the variety of the English language, and are as noticeable?

 

[UKMikey]

Do any non-English languages have as distinctive accents as English?

Even ignoring regional accents within a country (e.g. Scouse vs Newcastle), does any other language have such immediately, recognisably different accents as English? I understand that when you are a non-native speaker it's harder to pick up differences but can any compare to the variety of the English language, and are as noticeable?

You'd indeed have to be quite a cunning linguist who's skilled at using tongues in order to answer this question effectively but I heard Finnish has a bunch of regional dialects.

A next-level Finnish language experience: Discovering dialects - thisisFINLAND

Whether or not you’ve mastered Finnish, dive with us into its different dialects, as deep as you dare. You’ll get a closer look at the essence of the language.

finland.fi

 

[TheCracker]

Do any non-English languages have as distinctive accents as English?

Even ignoring regional accents within a country (e.g. Scouse vs Newcastle), does any other language have such immediately, recognisably different accents as English? I understand that when you are a non-native speaker it's harder to pick up differences but can any compare to the variety of the English language, and are as noticeable?

Aside from the obvious differences in other countries that speak English, Canada, the US, Australia, New Zealand etc, they all have different regional accents on top their own original spin on English. I know a few people who speak French well who all apparently speak it with differing accents, usually depending on where or who they learned it from. I imagine most languages follow suit in that regard.

 

[1241Penguin]

Do any non-English languages have as distinctive accents as English?

Even ignoring regional accents within a country (e.g. Scouse vs Newcastle), does any other language have such immediately, recognisably different accents as English? I understand that when you are a non-native speaker it's harder to pick up differences but can any compare to the variety of the English language, and are as noticeable?

Mandarin in Taiwan and Mandarin in Mainland China have differing accents in terms of word pronunciation in addition to slightly different vocabulary and grammar in certain contexts. The differences are somewhat noticeable for someone like me who isn't a native Mandarin speaker, and are definitely noticeable to any native speaker.

 

[MatskiMonk]

Do any non-English languages have as distinctive accents as English?

Even ignoring regional accents within a country (e.g. Scouse vs Newcastle), does any other language have such immediately, recognisably different accents as English? I understand that when you are a non-native speaker it's harder to pick up differences but can any compare to the variety of the English language, and are as noticeable?

Almost certainly.

 

[Famine]

There's definitely French (as well as Belgian) and Japanese accents, and probably the most famous example of a German accent is when Arnold Schwarzenegger was dubbed in German in the German-language release of The Terminator because his Austrian (Styrian?) accent was perceived as yokel-like.


I'm not sure I've heard of anywhere having quite as many identifiable accents (especially in such a small space) as British English though. Sometimes you can pin down which area of a town someone comes from in the UK by their accent and word choices - although sadly the permeation of American television is seeing kids' accents blurring somewhat.

 

[wfooshee]

I recall from my time in Germany in the 60s, quite young, and having become the family's best speaker of German, that I could hear German differently as we traveled around playing American Tourist. We lived near Aachen, but but we went south many times, through Munich, and north into Denmark once, through Hamburg, and I heard words differently. Not being native, I did not really conceive of it being an accent. I was familiar with accents, being from Oklahoma but being around Americans from all over the country through families of Dad's coworkers, but the concept of an accent in German never quite sank in while we were there, and I certainly couldn't describe any of the accents today.

 

[RacingGrandpa]

You'd indeed have to be quite a cunning linguist who's skilled at using tongues in order to answer this question effectively but I heard Finnish has a bunch of regional dialects.

A next-level Finnish language experience: Discovering dialects - thisisFINLAND

Whether or not you’ve mastered Finnish, dive with us into its different dialects, as deep as you dare. You’ll get a closer look at the essence of the language.

finland.fi

Swedish, Danish and Norwegian too. And French, German and Italian.
My guess is every country has it

 

[DG_Silva]

There was a TV programme on last night about how being active and eating healthily could keep you from catching cold and flu by boosting your immune system. They suggested that eating 30 different fruit, veg and pulses a week could help with this (I'd struggle that over a month, but ah well....).

The discussion then went onto developing vaccines for cold and flu and therefore eradicating it in the same way as polio, etc. My question is this:

We've seen with COVID-19 that highly-virulent and comparatively damaging diseases are out there. If we completely eradicate relatively simple illnesses like cold and flu, which have relatively low damage levels for the rate of catching the disease, what are the chances that a low-level disease could develop, and with no immunity it could wipe out massive levels of the population?

 

[RacingGrandpa]

There was a TV programme on last night about how being active and eating healthily could keep you from catching cold and flu by boosting your immune system. They suggested that eating 30 different fruit, veg and pulses a week could help with this (I'd struggle that over a month, but ah well....).

The discussion then went onto developing vaccines for cold and flu and therefore eradicating it in the same way as polio, etc. My question is this:

We've seen with COVID-19 that highly-virulent and comparatively damaging diseases are out there. If we completely eradicate relatively simple illnesses like cold and flu, which have relatively low damage levels for the rate of catching the disease, what are the chances that a low-level disease could develop, and with no immunity it could wipe out massive levels of the population?

High. Just look at how the common cold wiped out the majority of the population on Hispaniola after Columbus arrived

 

[Jimlaad43]

Accents are recognisable. I know what a French, German, Italian, Russian, American, Scottish, Irish, South African, Chinese, Thai accent all sound like. However, that caveat is I know what they sound like speaking English. As someone who only speaks one language, I have never really had the experience of hearing these people talking in a different one, but still different to their mother tongue.

Like, is there a difference between an English, American and Scottish accent when speaking French or German for example? What does the German accent sound like when speaking French. A question for those people on this forum to whom English isn't your first language, what do we sound like when speaking your language fluently?

 

[UKMikey]

I think there's a critical age after which when you try to learn a language you end up sounding like Manuel in Fawlty Towers to a native speaker.

 

[HenrySwanson]

High. Just look at how the common cold wiped out the majority of the population on Hispaniola after Columbus arrived

Is this accurate?

 

[Joey D]

Is this accurate?

Partially. Columbus did bring diseases like the common cold to the New World, along with influenza, syphilis, scarlet fever, and even bubonic plague. However, the disease that was really hard on the native population was smallpox and measles. But everything together formed a big ass Petri dish of new viruses and bacteria and wiped out up to 95% of the population (we think).

You can read more here starting on page 3 under the subheading "Disease": https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/nunn/files/nunn_qian_jep_2010.pdf

 

[Brett]

Is this accurate?

Another good resource is Behind the Bastards three part podcast on Christopher Columbus.

 

[HenrySwanson]

Ah, I was taking issue with the point that it caused widespread death rather than its introduction to an immunologically naive population.

That, I think, is relevant to @DG_Silva's original question.

 

[TexRex]

Columbus did bring diseases like...syphilis

[gasp]

 

[HenrySwanson]

[gasp]

I think that may have gone the other way, I.e. New world to old world

 

[RacingGrandpa]

I think that may have gone the other way, I.e. New world to old world

Yes, that's true.