Buddy said:
Interesting indeed!
bngenoh, you're a scientist, right? What do you think about the possibility that mer-people might be simply humans having undergone an evolutionary adaptation? When I think of 'mermaids', I'm reminded of Turner's syndrome with it's characteristic webbed neck and the fact that it affects mainly females. 'Aquatic apes' may also fit I guess, but I don't know.
Anyway, we know there's been speculation about things like: how 'conditions' that might be considered a disease condition in one place might really have been 'adaptation' in another. For example, in the U.S., 'sickle-cell anemia' might be looked at as a disease condition, while it might actually be an evolutionary adaptation that conferred immunity to malaria in the jungles of Africa.
Plus, according to the Human Genome Project, we are seeing massive and rapid changes now in n-somias on chromosome 23 and 21, though less so on chromosome 21.
So, if Nature is engineering chromosomal changes, they might have been evolutionary trial runs at one time or our current 'conditions' might be continuations of trial runs, so to speak.
Hi buddy,
I am a scientist by nature, but I don't have any pieces of paper to show. You hit the nail on the head when you said that genetic diseases in one environment could be an advantageous evolutionary advantage in another. Consider the fact that the human when developing in the womb, possesses gills, a tail, etc, at different stages of development which are now known to be controlled by genes that are precisely timed, and when activated, initiate the production of various factors, whose concentrations in different areas, determine what is developed. Trial runs of nature or an experiment by higher level scientists, both are not mutually exclusive.
With Fukushima, the Gulf oil disaster, and all the other forms of ecocide currently unfolding on our planet, it won't take long for many things which have managed to remain hidden to come to the surface if they exist.
About merpeople and the possibility of them being humans, I think that the genetic changes would have had to be done very early on phylogenetically speaking, ie from a common ancestor. The same way the C's have said that all races are of the same age and that one of the reasons for their existence is as experimental creations. It didn't take that long relatively speaking, for the polar bear to emerge with it's webbed front paws, and if there are conscious forces out there who intervene periodically to alter the evolutionary destiny of species, then rapid changes such as speciation events could be very common, and their occurrence and rate may be quite rapid osit.