Thread: An Intelligent Discussion on Nature

First it is a momentous day. A new fossil has been found linking modern hominids including humans with lemurs and other lower order mammals. Just another example of the many 'transitional forms' (in quotes because we are all in transition) found in nature. This is the first to link all hominids together.

"MISSING LINK" FOUND: New Fossil Links Humans, Lemurs?

Secondly, I was crunching numbers with an engineer and a mathematician over some ales last night and I asked what the chances are of producing another child (I have one now) with precisely the same genetic makeup (mutations excluded) from the same partners. The number we got was 37.5 quintillion to 1, or more stars than are in the known universe! The chances of two unrelated couples at any time in history producing two identically genetic offspring at a steady population of 10 billion coupling citizens becomes fathomable. It should occur once in just over 100,000 years. Anybody care to quibble with these numbers?

Finally, for your entertainment I provide a fabulous spoken word piece by Tim Minchin entitled Storm.
YouTube - Storm by Tim Minchin (with text)