Well, I will not deny that I am trying to impress you (and others) but the truth is, I really do like having a large vocabulary. Words are amazing things, and the more you learn, the more amazing they are. I can be succinct. I can also carry on and on, telling lots of stories about my appendectomy scar and my dog Teddy, who once piddled on my snowman but was eventually taken away by the dogcatcher in my tendency to be loquacious.

As you would know, if you saw me from the beginning, I am a poet. Not a great poet, but still, I do write. Iacchy is also a poet, in his own way. Both of us use words to create a scenario. I don't necessarily believe my scenarios, but love the poetry anyway. Iacchy loves the scenarios, but does not seem to appreciate his own poetry. I am a skeptic. He is a romaticist. So we use the same tools, but to different ends. I have fruitlessly tried to convince him to put his talents to better use than bad philosophy, but he is what he is.

Ah well, I ramble. It is what poets do.
Wow! I must be psychic! No really it was just an educated guess by deconstructing you forum name. I also threw out "Lilly" which you didn't bite on. I had two chances to get a lucky guess.

But I still don't know your last name. Please don't tell it to me, because I think anonymity is very important in these forums. It allows you to let loose with whatever you feel, yet not worry the people will judge you. After all, elihal is not you. It is just your forum name.
LOL. Work on your typing skills, Hally. That last sentence was a bit... um... weird. Errors in communication can lead to all sorts of problems. Like the joke about the monk who was translating the original bible in Hebrew and came out crying saying "It's not 'celibate', it's 'celebrate'!"
He just basks in my brilliance. I am the one who comes up with the great ideas, and he just puts them in "science talk". Without me, he'd be nothing. Yeah, I'm talking to you, mollusk man.
Try to enjoy it Hally. My friend the ESL teacher finds it very rewarding. Think of how you could be helping others to understand. Search for parts that you can enjoy and use, even if it seems impossible right now.

I admit that I find some parts of schooling very tedious. Statistics was particularly grueling, but I have found it useful. But the most useful course I ever had in high school was the one I hated the most and that I did poorly at. I use it every day. I am using it right now. Typing.
Actually, I learned everything from Diggy. When I first came to these forums, I couldn't put two brackets together. But you're welcome. Tips should always be shared.

Well, that's good, because now I'm going to be the bitch and critique your points (or as Iacchus says, "rip you to shreds").
I don't think any of those things would classify as "intelligent" under most definitions. According to Merriam-Webster:Normally we associate intelligence with the actions of a brain or at least ganglion, so it would be hard to catagorize the reactions of plants as intelligent even under the most liberal definition. Well adapted, to be sure.

As I side note, I used to own a Venus Flytrap, and it was very stupid. I could make it close just by touching it's trigger hairs with a pencil. Still, very cool. I used to feed it hamburger.
This is a very good question. The truth is, humans are really not much different from other species on the planet. We are made of the same building blocks, and we all contain DNA. In fact, the DNA of chimpanzees is something like 98% identical to humans (I forget the exact number, but it is in the high nineties). Different creatures have evolved different survival techniques. Intelligence is just one of them. How successful it will be we can't say yet. Certainly humans have been here a much shorter time than the dinosaurs were, so we shouldn't get too cocky about how wonderful our big brains are. They may be the thing that destroys us (along with lots of other species).

And yes, other organisms change the environment, often to their detriment. Some weeks back we discussed the fact that most of the original free oxygen on the earth was generated by blue-green algae, some of the most primative prokaryotic (cells have no nucleus) organisms around. It was a waste product for them. Problem was, they were so good at it that they eventually raised the oxygen content on earth so high that they killed themselves off except for small niches where oxygen can't get to. They literally died in their own poop.
I have some responses to this, but I'm going to let it sit. I agree that this is would merely divert the issue. Perhaps we can start another thread on this topic.
Creationists believe that God controls everything. I don't think that you can call people who manipulate biology "creationists".

And I think that we all "play God" in certain ways. If you take an antibiotic, you are interfering with the "natural" way that the world operates. Yes, that's an extreme example, but you can keep progressing to higher and higher levels until you see that what we do is very much like "playing God". We make artificial limbs for people and synthetic blood plasma. The question is where to draw the line. That is the thing that causes disagreements.

There is a religious group called Christian Scientists who think it is immoral to have medical treatment, even if they die because of it. I think they are loonies.
I pointed out some of the other ways that we manipulate life. You don't object to a manufactured wooden leg, so how can you object to a manufactured uterus? What difference should it be if the "artificial" part is on the inside or the outside?

Personally, I am convinced that Iacchy has a metal plate in his head which allows him to receive radio messages from God.
I was pretty sure you were not one of the ones who believes everything they tell you. You have my respect. But I understand if you don't want to get into that issue. It is a big can of worms.

I have to go play God for a while. Talk to you later.

Hey Goozy
I must admit that you have some points in your last post, but I have a feeling that you missed the point that I was trying to make. I also think that your difination of intelligance may be lacking. Should it not include some referance to the way humans interact. If we were to take a small child away and let it be raised by animals, then the child would learn their ways, and not ours. Our knowlage is tought, but are the two not connected. IQ tests are a good example, if you are brought up under a differnt set of values, in a different country, and a different economic class then your answers will probably be different from a middle class Canadian's. There was a radio discussion on this; on the CBC quite a while back. If your upbringing effects how you do on the IQ tests, is it not possible that you would be precieved as a less intellagent person. Our intellagence is based on more then just our genetic material, our interactions also should factor in.
Quote: If you take an antibiotic, you are interfering with the "natural" way that the world operates. Yes, that's an extreme example, but you can keep progressing to higher and higher levels until you see that what we do is very much like "playing God". We make artificial limbs for people and synthetic blood plasma. The question is where to draw the line. That is the thing that causes disagreements.
Yes antibiotics mess with mother nature, but most of them were at least at one point derived from natural components found in plants and animals. I don't think that it was a very good example, but most of that is because I can't find a logical argument to counteract it. Artifical limbs are hardly a case, for side stepping mother natures plan for us. One of my father's best friends has an artificial leg. He was borne with one leg the just wouldn't grow so the doctors cut if off at the knee, and now he has an artificial leg. He works as a Emergance Medical Responce Person. Even with out the leg he could work, maybe not at what he is doing now, but he could still contribute to our society. Blood plasma from what my Biology 30 teacher said, is not the be all end all of the blood problems. It is not natural so according to her, it doesn't work for everyone. As I don't really know too much about artifical blood plasma, I think that I should move on to defending myself on other topics.
Quote: I pointed out some of the other ways that we manipulate life. You don't object to a manufactured wooden leg, so how can you object to a manufactured uterus? What difference should it be if the "artificial" part is on the inside or the outside?
I can simply reject a manufatured uterus on the grounds that my dad's best friend having a wooden leg will not effect his children, or any future generation that comes from him. This arguement would be like looking at a body builder, who has worked hard at his muscles for many years, and then expeciting his children to also be born with big muscles. There is a difference between genotypic and phenotypic traits. A person with a manufactured uterus may or may not pass thier birth defects on to thier children. I'm not at any point trying to say that people who have genetic problems should not be allowd to have children, my opinion is quite the opposite but it makes for an interesting conversation. You're right it shouldn't matter if the cloned body part is on the inside or on the outside. But I could easily see some rich old man or woman who doesn't want to grow old or even die, and they keep changing out their defective out dated body parts for something that is younger. This could end up being quite bad for the human race. What if it was a person like Hitler, I mean onece he came into power there was no stopping him. He had a goal and he stuck to it. If now he could live for a hundred years, then, well I'm sure that you can see the problem for yourself.
I also think that the quality of all life would go down if we started to clone ourselves. Just think instead of going out and doing something, we could simply sit at out jobs, because there will be plenty of time to do the fun things later on. People will stop living, and start waiting for the perfect time later on. Maybe after retirement, but hey they will have the body parts to start to surf. Lets all go to California!!
I don't know how the Amercian population pyramid stacks up to the Canadian one, but I do know that when I'm 65 I will not be able to collect my Canadian Pension. It will simply not exist. Now in Canada there is roughly three siniors to ever one working member in our society. I was reading an article in the Economist that stated the Britian was in a compairable situation. There the older citizens are being given a chance to go back to work. Here well, you can always work for yourself, but most are content to meet at my grandmothers house and complain about the little bit that they get from the government over cups of steaming coffee. If we could ever clone, I can imagine that this problem would be worse. I suspose that if these people entered the work force again, we could fill some of the jobs that are currently empty, but what if they decided to just collect thier pension cheques and that was it? Big touble for the working class that pay in to CPP.[Quote=goozy] I have some responses to this, but I'm going to let it sit. I agree that this is would merely divert the issue. Perhaps we can start another thread on this topic.
IF you wish to start another thread on this topic, please do so. I would be one of the first people to post my opinions on it. Just let me know where.
I think that I'll call it a night.
Hally

Just one quick comment. Gooze, your definition of intelligence, I agree, does not allow for intelligent plants. However, it is very much an anthropocentric definition, and given the debate on defining intelligence just in humans (compare the early IQ tests with later Wechsler tests, compare those to Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences or Sternberg's crystalized and fluid intelligence), trying to stretch an obvously human definition to fit all situations is perhaps inappropriate.

Not to mention...take a good look at that definition. It contains a great deal of circularity. "Indicating high...mental capacity", for instance. How? This definition forces us to go look up any number of other things...what it comes down to is, what does an organism have to do to be called intelligent? Most current definitions have decided to define intelligence as the ability to thrive in one's environment (i.e., intelligence = successful adaptation to environment). By that measure, the heliotrope is more intelligent than other plants, and the flytrap as well. Yes, the "intelligence" is something that changes phylogenetically, rather than within the lifespan of the organism, and that is a serious difference. But whether or not it is a deal-breaker is up for argument.