Cumulative General Science/Technology Quiz

[brennan]

Who is this 'Charles Darwin' anyway????

 

[History_Buff]

ok this is again more history of science:

explain Charles Darwin's theory of Pangenesis

Based purely on the roots of the word, it's a theory that every living species descends from one common ancestor, who's various members branched out and evolved into different things.

 

[ori]

No .

 

[sepamu92]

Does it involve abiogenesis somehow?????

 

[Perfection]

They started out as pots and slowly became flatter with longer handles?

 

[GoodGame]

The wikipedia equates it with Lamarckism, which is mostly considered an intellectual dead-end in evolution theory. I've never heard of pangenesis to this question, so I'd say it's even a deader dead-end. Basically a wild hypothesis gone looking for some facts.

 

[ori]

Does it involve abiogenesis somehow?????

no - it does not concern the way life started, but a way of how it might evolve...

They started out as pots and slowly became flatter with longer handles?

The wikipedia equates it with Lamarckism, which is mostly considered an intellectual dead-end in evolution theory. I've never heard of pangenesis to this question, so I'd say it's even a deader dead-end. Basically a wild hypothesis gone looking for some facts.

That is the right track - though don't discount Lamarck too much, with the discovery of epigenetics his theories while in essence wrong have been shown to have some truth after all...
Essentially what I am looking for is how Darwin proposed how inheritance works - it was one of the centerpieces of his theory after all - and he did propose a way that would have been (and was at the time) acceptable to Lamarckians...
And while Darwin was wrong his theory inspired later (Mendelian) scientists to coin the words pangenes which then became genes to describe those discrete determinants of inheritance they were observing - as I said it really is history of science - not a current theory...

If no one answers this today I'll switch to something more current though

 

[Mise]

If the mummy has a survival trait that the daddy lacks, the survival trait is inherited by ALL offspring? (In contrast with Mendelian inheritance, with its dominant and recessive traits 'n' all that jazz.) Lamarckians would accept this because, in their view, the survival trait needs to be deemed "beneficial" by something, therefore it doesn't go against Lamarckism. It doesn't go against Darwinism because Darwin would have classified it as "some additional evolutionary trait", over and above the "standard" set of traits a species already has, and therefore it doesn't need some arbiter of "beneficial-ness" for it to work.

 

[Catharsis]

Darwin believed in 'genetic blending' IIRC (so if one dog has a long tail, and another one has a short tail, the offspring will have a medium-sized tail, according to Darwin). Is that what 'pangenesis' is?

 

[ori]

Darwin believed in 'genetic blending' IIRC (so if one dog has a long tail, and another one has a short tail, the offspring will have a medium-sized tail, according to Darwin). Is that what 'pangenesis' is?

this is the outcome of it - so you are right.

pangenesis was his theory that all cells of an organism shed "gemmules" that accumulate in the reproductive organs and combine during fertilization - thus blending the makeup of both parents to form the offspring...

 

[Catharsis]

Hey now, this is post #991. Whoever gets this one right should probably start the new thread...

What is a 'Messier marathon'?

 

[El_Machinae]

Typing an 'eleven' more than a couple of times while doing a string of exclamation marks.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11!!!11!!!!!11!!11!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

 

[Mise]

Is Messier a scientist?

 

[sepamu92]

I think Messier discovered comets or something. So something to do with them?

 

[brennan]

For some reason that makes me think of 'random walk' mathematics. Is it something to do with displacements in brownian motion or some such?

*Utter total stab in dark*

 

[El_Machinae]

Is Messier a scientist?

Shoot, I was thinking of the hockey player.

 

[civ_king]

An attempt to find a lot of Messier objects in 1 night (of the 110 cataloged by him) usually amateur in nature involving a bunch of people? (if right thanks im going to thank my dad for that Astronomy course)

 

[Catharsis]

Civ_King is correct!

In a Messier marathon, you attempt to find all of the 110 Messier objects (or as many as possible) in one night. There's a window of time in the year when finding all 110 is possible.

(EDIT: Do threads get closed at 1000 posts in Sci/Tech? If so, civ_king can probably start a new thread. )

 

[Mise]

New Thread Time!

 

[brennan]

We close at 1000. Well willya lookit that.

Start new thread CivKing.