Evolution of the Drop Bear

Most animals in Australia are deadly, and it is well know at home and abroad of this case¹. While animals vary in their deadliness (from a scale of somewhat deadly to "you aren't getting out of this alive" deadly), the drop bear, Phascolarctos ursus dropii is one of Australia's most deadly animals.

The drop bear is typically described as "a large, vicious, carnivorous koala"². It feeds on prey that tarry too long underneath eucalyptus trees. Just so people don't get it wrong, the regular koala (below) has been known to be violent, however it is usually docile.

The drop bear on the other hand is not. Drop bears will attack for no reason and will eat until there is nothing left of its prey.

Depending on where you may look, there are many ways of "preventing" drop bear attacks. It should be noted that none of them actually work, and are only designed by local Australians to watch as foreigners make fools of themselves. It is actually believed that these "prevention methods" actually make a person more succeptible to drop bear attacks as it is thought that the drop bear can tell whether a person is local or foreign as these methods usually result in a distinct scent from the person.

The drop bear is named specifically for how it attacks prey, by dropping down upon the prey and killing it. Throughout history the types of food has swung from everything and anything to more human oriented, with human orientation occurring in about 3 stages, 40 000 years ago, coinciding with the arrival of Aborigines to the continent; 1788 when Europeans first settled the continent, and from around 1970 to the present, with the increase in tourists. At present the most common tourist eaten by the drop bear is shared with the saltwater crocodile, the German³. The reason for this is due to the German being more likely to venture out of the drop bear free zones and into areas where drop bears are more plentiful.

Every year many Germans are killed by drop bears.

The picture to your right is a stylised version of a drop bear eating. It is about half way through its meal.

Note the similarities between the regular, docile koala, and the rarer, aggressive drop bear.

From the evidence it is thought that the drop bear follows a form of aggressive mimicry⁴, specifically Batsean-Wallacian as the koala, the less aggressive species, is the model. However, it is completely possible that the drop bear is just a sub-species of koala undergoing a speciation event.

It is quite possible that the drop bear may have evolved directly from Phascolarctos stirtoni⁵, also known as the Giant Koala. Remains of P. stirtoni have been found in the Naracoorte Caves⁶, and there possibility remains that the drop bear, is actually a descendent of the giant koala.

Due to the rarity of drop bears, coupled with the fact that they are pretty much exactly the same as a regular koala the DNA sequence of the drop bear has not been sequenced, so none of these hypotheses have been tested. It should be noted that the koala population of Kangaroo Island attests to this rarity, from the initial population of koalas that were brought to the island about 90 years ago, there has not been a single record of a drop bear attack.

Undoubtedly there is still plenty of research required to determine the origins of this remarkable species, however it must be stressed that the dangers of the drop bear is quite real.

The Royal Society Backs Creationism?

I must admit that this is probably the closest to home that the creation-evolution "debate" has been in quite a while.

Except that this is occurring in the UK.

For those that can't really be bothered reading the BBC, The Times, or The Australian then the bare minimum that you need to know is that Michael Reiss, a Church of England clergyman, biologist and Director of Education for the Royal Society decided to say that creationism should be taught in schools.

Now, according to The Times, a spokesperson for the Royal Society said the following:

A spokesman for the organisation, which counts 21 Nobel Prize winners among its Fellows, confirmed yesterday that Professor Reiss’s views did represent that of its president, Lord Rees of Ludlow, and the society.

Note that it says that Reiss' veiws did represent those of the society.

However this release from the Royal Society says that Reiss was misquoted. The BBC has already picked up on this pointing out that Reiss does not believe that creationism is scientific in any way.

I am however of two minds when it comes to this specific statement:

"I have referred to science teachers discussing creationism as a worldview'; this is not the same as lending it any scientific credibility."

I don't know if that is the best thing to do. As far as I can tell in the UK creationism isn't really a "worldview" and definitely isn't one in the scientific realm.

On top of that it still allows creationism to get that all important foot in the door. If you start teaching it in science classrooms as a "worldview" then you are still exposing children to a viewpoint that is unscientific. They might actually choose that viewpoint because it is the easier one to understand, since creationism is purely a "Goddidit" concept.

The Royal Society might not believe that creationism is science, but to consider that it should be taught as a "worldview" in science classes is pretty much saying "Lookee here at this other science-y thing. 'Tis so much easier to undestand."

And they will learn about it, and might actually adopt it.

Now, apparently the creationist viewpoint is held by about 10% of UK students. Unless the student brings up the topic we can see that even going about teaching it as a "worldview" means that 90% of the student population will be exposed to an idea that is completely harmful to our society in this day and age.

I said at the start that this was hitting rather close to home.

As I pointed out at the start The Australian has gotten their hands on it. I'm checking online as I write this, but if the local Adelaide paper (The Advertiser, like The Australian is a NewsCorp publication so there might be some story crossover), gets their hands on it the Letters to the Editor will be filled with another round of "creation-evolution".

This time though, and depending on which version they publish, the creationists will be able to claim "The Royal Society agrees with us".

It will hurt a little more in the side of Australian education and for a bit longer but probably won't get anywhere further. It never does, but any time given to the issue gives loud cries from the anti-evolution and ignorant crowd.

As a side note, this argument will undoubtedly be appearing sooner or later on creationist forums or places with a decent amount of creationists because of the appeal to authority it would bring. Darwin came from England, he was awarded a Royal Medal from the society, and now they say that "creationism should be taught in the classroom".

It won't matter what the Royal Society says, since we all know how honest creationists are.

Personally I don't think we've heard the last of this.

Oh look, it appears that the ID people have picked up on the issue as well.

An Open Message To 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists

Dear "Truthers",

As you know today is September 11, or as you guys would know it 9/11. Today is the day when we remember 2998 people who died as a direct result of the attacks, 6000+ people who were injured, and the first responders who are currently ill, or dying, from lung diseases due to the poor air quality after the towers fell.

Nationals from over 90 countries totalling 327 people died on that day as well.

Project 2996 has made a list of all the people who died including where they are from.

All this because a fundamentalist Islamic organisation called Al Qaeda decided that the best way for people to follow what they believe is the "right" religion, and that their variant of that religion is the "correct" one.

Unfortunately for the last seven years there have been a bunch of people who call themselves the "9/11 Truth Movement" who have spent their time going about claiming that "9/11 was an inside job".

You go about claiming "thermite" or "thermate" or "silent explosives".
You go about claiming "space beams", "C4 coated rebar" or "holographic planes"
You go about claiming "missiles hit everything", "north of CITGO" and other ridiculous things.

There are even members of your group who claim that the people on the planes are still alive.

You willingly spout lies about the US Government, and you don't seem to care.

When you spout these "theories" you aren't a "patriot". You aren't a "hero". You are pathetic. All the evidence is there that shows who did it. There is even the admission by the leader of Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, that it was his organisation that pulled off the attacks.

But instead of that you just sit in your towers built of ignorance and lies, going "there's no way that Arabs in caves with boxcutters could have done it".

You go on and on about "the laws of physics being violated" while showing an utter ignorance of what the laws of physics are.

Do you honestly think that going about shouting "9/11 was an inside job" is going to make masses of people rally to your "cause"?

Do you honestly think that buying 10 copies of "Loose Change" or any of that crap they sell on "Prisonplanet" is going to help?

The obvious answer is no. You have had seven years to prove your case, and each time you have failed utterly.

You now go around spending your time pissing on the graves of the passengers of the planes, the members of the NYPD, and the Port Authority Police, the members of the FDNY, and children. And for what, because you don't seem to like your government.
You have had seven years to make your case and yet you have no evidence of it at all.

So I leave you with this:

Just shut the fuck up. Seriously. Just shut the fuck up.

Sincerely,

Wildy

Voices In Unison

While researching stuff for my last post, I found myself at Ex Scientology Kids (which I found through Operation Clambake).

Anyway, they have started their second submission period of Voices in Unison. But they also have put up the stories from the first one.

If you are someone who doesn't really know too much about Scientology, but wants to hear some stories about it then you should really go here.

These people are not celebrities, so they don't get the "baby-Scientology" that Tom Cruise goes on and on about. They are the regular people in proper Scientology, the one that critics and Anonymous don't like.

The one that needs to change.

Scientology. Will You Ever Learn?

The first is that they tried to censor Youtube again.

The people whose videos were taken down sent a DMCA counter notice.

Long story short they failed, the Australian (WARNING: Anna Coren Alert, expect stupid segues) and German reports are back up. However the video entitled To Anonymous/Scientology isn't.

The interesting thing is this "American Rights Counsel, LLC". A google search (A search without "LLC") only gives links to people talking about it.

I, like many others, believe that this "American Rights Counsel" is akin to the "Citizens Commission on Human Rights". It's just another "Church" of Scientology front group that allows the "Church" to influence people without getting its hands dirty.

Before I get on to the next bit, an open message to Google:

Grow some bloody balls.

A lack of balls however is not Germany's problem (ha, segue!). Germany recently held a meeting called "This is Scientology! Reports from the USA".

Basically all I can say on this is that the OSA really has failed here. Considering all that they are supposed to know about their SPs and critics they didn't seem to know that the Americans there couldn't actually speak German.

Take that propaganda!

Microblog 10

One thing I don't like about the possible end of the world is that it means that I might not get to see that new Mummy movie.

Did You Know?

That for the price that the government paid to harass Dr Haneef for giving his cousin a sim card in the UK, which was about $8 million.

For that price the government could pay for the Long Tan citations of about 6667 people..

Yep. Until that article I linked to the Australian government was too stingy to pay the $12 for the citations for the 100 Long Tan veterans.

These guys weren't permitted to receive the citations from the South Vietnamese Government because some regulation forbade them from that, and they weren't given Australian citations at the time because of some "quota" system.

Yet they were willing to piss away $8 million on a guy who didn't actually do anything wrong under any law, except that he was a Muslim. That's as much as I understand of that case.

Haneef gave a sim card to his second cousin when he was in England because he didn't need it anymore. Because it turned up in a terrorist attack he was investigated for "aiding terrorism". I guess that means that if I gave a guy who would later commit an act of terrorism I could be investigated.

But I digress in a way.

Basically, all you have to know is that for the amount of money that the government spent ruining a guys life, they could have paid for the citations of the Long Tan veterans, and had more then $7.5 million to spend on something else.

Got that?