Thursday, February 19, 2009

WARNING: BORING SCIENCE TALK AHEAD

Gray and I sat down last to watch a couple episodes of this new show we just found on the National Geographic channel called Morphed. We totally geeked out from the commercial last week, so I recorded them. I CANNOT DIE UNTIL I SEE HOW THE MODERN DAY TURKEY EVOLVED FROM A RAPTOR, YA'LL. It's really that important.

The first episode was about how millions of years ago, whales and dolphins were small, wolf-like land mammals that lived in Pakistan. Due to environmental pressures (like a heat wave that sounded suspiciously like global warming), they had to find another source of food. They picked fish (personally, I would starve to death if fish was my only option), and began to evolve into the ocean-dwelling, salt water-drinking creatures we know today.

The most important thing I learned from this episode is that everything dies in Pakistan.

I was also a little freaked out that over millions of years, as the whale evolved and populated the oceans of the world, his two main predators remained exactly the same: crocodiles and sharks. Those fuckers have been around for, like, EVER. (And did you know there was once a giant shark that weighted up to 100,000 pounds? I may never sleep again.)

We were about 20 minutes into this episode when Gray paused the show and said, "I don't buy it."

I realize that evolution is a theory not a fact, and that science is constantly changing its mind about shit. But personally, I understand the basics (very, very basics) about how evolution is supposed to work, and it makes sense to me. Truth be told, I'd be shocked if someone proved that monkeys were not involved in my genetic makeup. It just "fits".

But I realize that not everyone believes in the theory of evolution, and so I was interested in hearing what Gray had to say on the matter.

me: "What do you mean by, 'I don't buy it'?"

him: "I get that animals had to adapt their diets based on changing food sources, but I don't believe that animals can just suddenly grow fins to swim faster so they don't get eaten by crocodiles."

(This is the ironic part where I explain natural selection to a man who just ate his weight in burrito and sucked down another can of Dew.)

me: "You know, how people take the dogs with favorable qualities and force them to mate with the other dogs with favorable qualities. And then you take the best ones from that litter and so forth until you have The Optimal Dog. Eventually, only the wolf-whales that swam fast were left, and they mated with other fast swimmers, and then their wolf-whale babies swam a little bit faster..."

It turns out that natural selection is one of those things that make perfect sense until you have to say it out loud. Like the stock market. Or The Bachelor. By the time I stopped talking, I was fucking confused as hell about the whole thing, but apparently Gray was convinced.

him: "Oh, okay. That makes sense."

me: "How fast can you swim?"

32 comments:

  1. Exactly how he became optimal male.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dew and borrito makes for good learning. By the way i am impressed with your use of Y'all

    ReplyDelete
  3. I quite like the idea, although, I'm not fascinated by evolution for more than twenty minutes of a time.

    At the mention of The Bachelor, I recall telling someone about this television show. I've found a general principle concerning all television series: However well you describe a show, no matter how much you love a series, it always sounds lame when you try to explain what it's about to others.

    Michael.

    ReplyDelete
  4. LMAO, yeah info makes so much more sense when its locked up in my brain. The second I try to articulate it I am a goner......

    Will you watch the show again? Sounds like something I would like.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Remind me to stay away from Pakistan. That huge fucking shark? Holy shit. I grew up in FL with a healthy fear of sharks but now I'll never go in the ocean again. It's bad enough that every pond in my area is full of gators that might feast on my kids or dogs.

    Mmm, burrito.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I'm the type who considers: Gorila Society: Conflict, Compromise, and Cooperation between the sexes~one of my favorite books. I can go on about evolution til you cry. ~Mary

    ReplyDelete
  7. Swim, dammit, swim. Whether it just happens or God is screwin' around with things, it don't mean shit if you are about to get swallowed by a giant-ass shark.

    Remember, you don't have to the fastest swimmer, just faster than someone else.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Given the quality of my parents.
    I'm not "optimal" anything.

    That could be good news though.
    Cuz then I'd have to look for my birth parents, cuz it'd mean I was adopted.

    However, being adopted might not have sucked ass like my real life.

    So... I am confused..
    did a wolf mate with a fish?
    and that's how the evolution started?

    ReplyDelete
  9. I'm all about Evolution, but I'm with Grey, I don't buy it. For change to occur, there must be a random mutation or an uncommon trait that is favorable to the survival of the organism, which then is passed down and become favorable within the species. The number of random mutations/favorable traits that would evolve a wolf into a whale is just too many, and since these things take time, I don't see how evolution could have outrun the heat wave. The wolves would have just died out. I hope nobody replies to this and makes me feel stupid. Sorry for the nerdy comment.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Of course, if you could explain evolution coherently you probably wouldn't be wasting time blogging like the rest of us mooks.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I vote with Gray too. Adaptation within a species, okay. Sudden and miraculous leaps from species to species....can't see it.
    Mock me at your leisure.

    ReplyDelete
  12. A 100,000 pound shark? I'm so never surfing again. at least not in the ocean.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I tried to watch the Morphed about bears, but just couldn't get through it. And if dolphins and whales didn't come from land-walking animals, why do they still have a vestigial pelvis? I mean, animals need pelvis' to walk, right?

    ReplyDelete
  14. Again...Freak. But I can see how you got Confused. After all, in a million years, maybe people will evolve enough to know better than to live in Minnesota.


    P.S. Everything dies in Pakistan except Muslims.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Re: political rant fb friend. I had the same problem. Go to preferences and put their name under the option that basically says something like, "I don't want any news updates about this person." That way, you don't have to hear any of their bullshit unless you click on their page.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Oops, I thought you said facebook. No idea about myspace. But regardless, YES, delete them!

    ReplyDelete
  17. don't engage me in a conversation like this b/c my head will explode. That or I will say very little and just agree with everythign YOU say

    ReplyDelete
  18. Love the ending! I think I would really enjoy that program! I don't think we have Nat Geo channel though. I can only think that whales overcame their natural predators by eating burritos and growing bigger and bigger. So, when a croc or a shark would swim on up, the whale would look at them and say, "You really wanna mess with this, fucker? I shit turds bigger than you." Thus, the overpopulation of whales..
    I need to go home now.

    ReplyDelete
  19. I remember seeing the commercial for this too and was like "OMG I have to see how the turkey was once a raptor" but I never got around to TiVo'ing it. Sounds like it is an interesting show, I may have to go find it and TiVo it. :)

    Oh, yeah I also knew about the Megladon shark. I love shark week on the discovery channel hehe

    ReplyDelete
  20. sometimes you just have to tell your brain that blind acceptance is a good thing. Otherwise you can hurt it by trying to understand the understandable. At least that's what works for me

    ReplyDelete
  21. I can't add much. I mean, that shit was hilarious and NOT boring. the third to last paragraph killed me.

    Awesome.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Oh damn! I wanted to watch that! I totally forgot about it coming on. I actually read about it in the Nat Geo magazine and it was saying something about the show coming on such and such date but when you read about something in a magazine when you are taking a shit, it slips your mind when you get back into the daily grind.

    ReplyDelete
  23. From now on, burritos and Dew will be served during Science class. I'm banking on the test scores soaring now.

    ReplyDelete
  24. So you are telling me I need to go mate with a crocodile... is that right?

    ReplyDelete
  25. LOL, Jeremy, what optimal qualities do you hope to get from a Croc mating then? :)

    ReplyDelete
  26. Sorry I missed that show. I was too busy watching American Idol.

    ReplyDelete
  27. I may have to give this "Morphed" show a shot. It would at least create good 'chat' or 'blog' fodder.

    blessings

    ReplyDelete
  28. No I can't swim......... Good...... God bless you......

    ReplyDelete
  29. You slay me. I'm seriously laughing so hard I am snarfing coffee out of my nose all over my computer right now! So, I guess, technically you slay my computer...

    ReplyDelete

You.Yeah, you. Speak the fuck up.