I’m with Sage Rat. Young people of child bearing age still had good teeth and could chew things well. After they got old and had few teeth with which to chew they already had produced offspring so who cares if they choke to death? 
I forget to add… I’m sure **Colibri **was using the term “whale” in its broadest sense-- ie, all cetaceans. I wasn’t trying to correct him, since he knows more about that stuff than I do.
That’s right. I was just too lazy to type “whales, dolphins, and porpoises,” and didn’t want to use “cetacean” since it’s a bit technical. But I should know enough by now to include every possible permutation in an answer in GQ if I don’t want someone to remark on it. 
If you mean that many people misunderstand (or misuse) evolution (because of hazy memories of simpliefied explanations in 8th grade biology class), then yes.
But really, no - evolution or organisms don’t have the purpose of changing from amoeba to the crown of creation, the human. Just because Evolution is a feedback-guided process (not a blind one!), doesn’t mean “it” = the process knows where it’s going (or even cares).
“Self determination” sounds more Lamarckian to me, which is close to how evolution comes out when over-simpliefied (because the total evolution theory is quite complicated). Unfortunately, while Lamarck makes for a better story, and appeals to human belief about things being “Just so”, it’s still quite wrong. (I remember in my high school biology final, I had to explain why snow geese change the color of their feathers from brown in summer to white in winter - I had to explain everything in detail, because otherwise, it would have sounded Lamarckian. The snow geese don’t think “It would be an advantage to have white feathers, to be invisible against the snow”. A mutation appears that provides an advantage, and gets selected for. )
Hi MrSquishy. I don’t consider this a hijack. A hijack in this instance might be more like… say… a pointless debate on whther dolphins are whales… or perhaps one on the lunacy of intelligent design… :rolleyes:
You are right about the coughing can’t be choking thing. But when we both woke up, it was more like a strangled wheeze than a cough – not much air was getting through at that moment. But since she had simply aspirated some saliva, her windpipe couldn’t have been blocked. I think it may have been more of a reflexive constriction of the bronchial tubes in reaction to the shock. This has happened to me once too at night and I remember it the same way.
Or, as Alfonso el Sabio (Alphonse the Wise) of Castille said, during a visit to the Astronomer’s wing of the school he built in Toledo:
He probably would have been right at home around here.
Or, as Alfonso el Sabio (Alphonse the Wise) of Castille said, during a visit to the Astronomer’s wing of the school he built in Toledo:
He probably would have been right at home around here.