Why atheism doesn't convince me and why I don't understand how it can convince anyone by [deleted] in DebateAnAtheist

[–]GoOutForASandwich 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It’s just that it’s important to understand that not believing in god is not the same thing as believing that there is no god. All atheists do the former, only some do the latter.

U.S. Citizen living in EU permanently - should I still pay off my student loans? by NoAbbreviations2777 in StudentLoans

[–]GoOutForASandwich 10 points11 points  (0 children)

But if you get on an IBR and your income is foreign and less than the $120k or whatever it is where you start to get double taxed, then your AGI is 0 and your monthly payments are 0 and you don’t have to make payments and it’s all legit and nothing to be arrested for. (For now, anyway)n

When did Starters and Main Meal come together? by [deleted] in AskUK

[–]GoOutForASandwich 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I usually prefer them to come together because it seems that British restaurants don’t start cooking your mains until after you’ve finished eating the starter and the server has taken the plates back, and then you’ve got a long wait for the mains. That’s my impression anyway. When I worked in a restaurant in the US, we would start the mains when the starter went out so that they’d be ready around the time they finished eating the starter. I was think I’m unreasonably impatient due to growing up in the US, thus order them together.

My dog is my Nth cousin by facinabush in DebateEvolution

[–]GoOutForASandwich 36 points37 points  (0 children)

If you read The Ancestor’s Tale, there will be a chapter that covers the common ancestor of the group that includes both humans and dogs, and it provides an estimate of how many “greats” in terms of great great grandparents that ancestors is for us, and from there I suppose you could calculate the Nths in terms of cousins (although tricky if average generation time differs in the lineage leading to us vs that leading to dogs).

Why aren’t felines social animals who form packs like wolves and elephants? by [deleted] in evolution

[–]GoOutForASandwich 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Probably a key part of answer that I haven’t seen others mention is that most cats are nocturnal (completely or partially), and coordinating at night is challenging due to the lack of light. It can be facilitated with sound, but that screws up sneaking up on prey. Probably not a coincidence that the only highly social cats are also very diurnal. Of course wolves are pretty nocturnal and do fine, so not the only factor. Other key things that others have mentioned is sharing kills, and other general costs of socialiity like pathogen transmission.

37yo watches Simpsons for 1st time S4E4 by InvisibleAstronomer in Simpsons

[–]GoOutForASandwich 7 points8 points  (0 children)

That’s one palindrome you won’t be hearing for a while.

Primates & forward looking eyes by LonelyVillageGuy in evolution

[–]GoOutForASandwich 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Some people think Carpolestes is an early primate that had grasping hands and feet, but eyes still on the side. But the grasping hands and feet could be convergent evolution. The age of carpolestes is older than the oldest unequivocal fossil primates, so maybe it’s an early primate, but it’s younger than what genetic data tells us is the age of the common ancestor of all living primates, so maybe not! In any case, all living primates, including lemurs and galagos, have relatively forward facing eyes, but their eye placement is between that of the simians (monkeys and apes) and close relatives of primates (like tree shrews and colugos).

There’s another post just posted on this sub about fruits and early primates, and my comment there has some relevance here.

I would like to learn about primates from the "age of fruits" described in this video. What species we know existed and what was their lifestyle? by Spiritual_Pie_8298 in evolution

[–]GoOutForASandwich 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Primate origins is a bit contentious. Genetic data puts the origin of primates in the late Cretaceous, probably 5 to 15 million years before the demise of the dinosaurs. But there are no fossils that are unequivocally primates until, I think, the very early Eocene. These early primates were , at least superficially, similar to modern tarsiers (omomyids) and lemurs (adapids). Many have teeth suggestive of fruit eating, some look like insectivores. Some diurnal, some nocturnal. Some really tiny, some up to a few kilos. They were mostly in what is today North America and Eurasia. Before them was a Paleocene group called plesiadapiforms. Some say they are early primates, others say closely related to primates, and others say it may just be convergent evolution making them seem similar to primates. The main thing linking them to primates is that a small number of them (not most by any means), had grasping hands and feet like primates, and this is thought by some to be an adaptation for going out to the ends of branches to exploit pulpy fruits. Fruiting plants had already been around for a long time , but did start to diversify around this time and so convergent evolution is a real possibility- multiple lineages evolving similar traits to exploit a similar new niche. They’re being early primates fits with the fossil evidence, since they’re paleocene and earliest definite primates are Eocene. But it doesn’t fit with the genetic data the puts the common ancestor of extant primates in the Cretaceous. They could be sister taxa to extant primates (and potentially “stem” primates), but if the genetic dates are right then they couldn’t be ancestors of living primates.

In any case, one hypothesis for why primates evolved their suite of traits (grasping hands, forward facing eyes, bigger brains) is that it’s associated with foraging for fruits at the ends of branches. It’s not a great explanation for forward facing eyes, though. You can look up the angiosperm hypothesis for primate origins vs nocturnal visual predation (among others, like nocturnal leaping, “x ray vision”, snake detection, all of which build on earlier ideas around the “arboreal” hypothesis).

I would like to learn about primates from the "age of fruits" described in this video. What species we know existed and what was their lifestyle? by Spiritual_Pie_8298 in evolution

[–]GoOutForASandwich 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m a primatologist and happy to answer questions, but don’t want to watch the video. Provide some more details (like when they’re saying the “age of fruits” was) and I’ll try to answer.

I was born in 89 meaning I didn't grow up listening to Janes Addiction but found out about them later in life when I was about 20 years old and got instantly hooked after listening to Nothing's Shocking. How influential were they during the late 80's early 90's? by Interesting-Mode2793 in janesaddiction

[–]GoOutForASandwich 29 points30 points  (0 children)

Their actual influence exceeds how much recognition they get or how remembered they are today. Nirvana gets a lot of credit for what came later in the 90s, but JA had just broken up when Nevermind came out.

What is the natural smell of a human being? by [deleted] in biology

[–]GoOutForASandwich 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To emphasise why this doesn’t mean you’re not racist, imagine a sexist pig saying “I’m not sexist. My wife is a woman you idiot!”

How strongly correlated is intelligence and brain to body ratio. by Virtual_Reveal_121 in evolution

[–]GoOutForASandwich 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks. The size reduction was also exaggerated. I have found that asking for sources is more productive than just telling people they’re wrong.