To: All Msg #57, Oct2993 06:00AM Subject: Re: Attention Chris! Attention Chris! Ok here co

From: Chris Heiny To: All Msg #57, Oct-29-93 06:00AM Subject: Re: Attention Chris! Attention Chris! Organization: Xerox Corporation, Webster NY From: chris@eso.mc.xerox.com (Chris Heiny) Message-ID: <1993Oct29.140003.10446@spectrum.xerox.com> Reply-To: chris@eso.mc.xerox.com Newsgroups: talk.origins Ok here comes a semi serious attempt at a beer cladogram. The early beer history is from memory, and may be somewhat faulty. The later branchings are intended for recreational purposes only. Note that adaptations such as lagering were developed in several clades independently. Attributes such as lagering, degree of filtration, color, and so on are not useful in cladistics for this reason. Similarly, a line may divide to occupy stout/beer/ ale/porter/etc niches, but in general this development is not useful for cladistics either, since it occurs frequently in many different lines. Egytian beers---extinct + | | water---(a)----(b)------extinct | | | (c)------> mead to present | | | (d)-----> southern european beers to present | | | (e)-----> many German beers, some microbrewery beers to present | | | (f)-----> "Old World Beer" to present | | | (g)------> "New World Beer" to present | | light beer | | (h)------> Dry beer to present | | +-------> Light beer to present ???(i)---->Zima (a) Ancient Tigris/Euphrates beers develop from ancestoral water at some unknown point, pre 4000BC. Egyptian beer diverges prior to 3000 BC. In a remarkable case of parallel evolution, Egyptian beers develop to be more like modern beer than the Mesopotamian root stock. (b) European beers diverge prior to about 2000 BC, Mesopotamian beers eventually go extinct (prior to AD 1000). (c) European beers diverge into mead-type drinks (relying on varying degrees of fruit and or honey) and grain based beers about 500 BC (d) Southern european beers diverge around 1000 AD. These are those light, limp-wristed beers from Greece, France Spain and other such Mediterranean places. These beers have also populated North Africa. (e) Reinheitsgebot c. 1400 AD Beers characterized by severely restricted ingredient lists and proportions. (f) Old World Beer/New World Beer divergence. Characterized by yummy flavor (usually), nice color and interesting labels, OWBs are not restricted to the Old World, but many, if not most, are from Northern European traditional breweries. Recently OWBs have experienced a major North American radiation. It is possible to find a bad, even awful OWB, but the truly dismal beers are found in the New World Beers and their descendants. Similarly, NWBs are not restricted to the New World, being found in virtually all parts of the globe. They are most prominent in North America and Australia, and significant in Europe as well. Sometimes referred to as 'Millbudcoors', NWBs are characterized (if you can call it that) by a homogenously bland flavor and texture regardless of the species, niche, color, attributes, or label. It is thought that this is a protective adaptation of some sort, perhaps to prevent the average beerivore from actively avoiding the beer [beer is unusual in that it must actively attempt to attract beer predators (known as beerivores) in order to succeed - the more predators that consume a given beer (and the more beers consumed by a given predator), the more successful that beer is considered to be]. NWBs reached a maximum diversity in North America in the late 1800s and again near 1940. Since then although diversity has declined dramatically, the remaining NWB types still dominate the local beer fauna. NWBs do not occupy the heavier (porter/stout) niches very often, but when they do the result is uniformly dismal. NWBs and their offspring are characterized by a unique protective coloration in their advertising, which is designed (by inclusion of bikini clad women, aging athletes and various adventure references) to convince beerivores that the NWB in question not only has a unique flavor, but that drinking said NWB will result in dramatic lifestyle changes (in addition to the usual morning after beer farts). (g) Light beer diverges from NWB c 1970. Light beer is an amazing development of NWB. It enhances almost all aspects of NWB to extremes. Some LBs come close to the ancestral water condition. Light beer and dry beer are never found in the porter/stout niche. (h) Dry beer, c 1985. Perhaps the ultimate in NWBs, Dry Beer has evolved to have no taste whatever. (i) Zima 1993. Beer cladists have been unable to classify Zima, probably because their research notes are covered with vomit shortly after any taste testing is attempted. ===================================================================== From: Chris Nedin To: All Msg #116, Oct-31-93 04:59PM Subject: Re: Irrevalent Beer Thread (was Re: Attention Chris! Attentio Organization: Geology & Geophysics, Adelaide University Subject: Re: Irrevalent Beer Thread (was Re: Attention Chris! Attention Chris! From: cnedin@geology.adelaide.edu.au (Chris Nedin) Message-ID: Followup-To: talk.origins Newsgroups: talk.origins > Scott H Mullins (smullins@cidmac.ecn.purdue.edu) wrote: > : > : And ANOTHER thing! What are the odds that the number of bottles in a > : six-pack would evolve to exactly FILL the carton?!!!! HAH! chew on that > : you atheo-commie-tri-lateralist scumbucket! I'll bet you drink > : Budweiser and enjoy it! Simple. What is happening here is an amazing act of symbiosis. The carton is a symbiont on the beer bottles. They appear to be fully functional only on full beer bottles. They have evolved to fit exactly around 6 bottle, so exactly in fact that it generally requires the destruction of the organism in order to extract the bottles. In some forms the bottles can be removed with apparently minimal damage to the covering organism. However something vital appears to have been lost, since - even if the bottles are replaced - the enveloping ability is lost. The reason why 6 beer bottles are covered is simple. It has been shown statistically that 6 is the optimum number for a group of beer bottles which optimises safty whilst not bringing undue attention to the group. In an amazing piece of camouflage, the organism generally takes on the colleration and markings of the enveloped beer bottles - often just *before* envelopment takes place. This implications of this are poorly understood, although rare exceptions have been found. It is thought, however, that this allows the form to adapt to the external identification marks of new beer species as they evolve. There appears to be at least 3 species involved in this symbiosis. One a symbyont on 6 beer bottles, one a symbiont on 24 beer bottles - this one is thought to be the ancestral form, and a third - thought to be a separate genus - which is a symbiont on 12 bottles, however these bottles are the 'giraffe' species of long-necked bottles. Chris -------------------------------------------------------------------- | cnedin@geology.adelaide.edu.au | "How can Nedin be trusted" | | Dept. of Geology & Geophysics | C Wieland Director, | | University of Adelaide | Creation Research Foundation, | | South Australia 5005 | Queensland Australia | --------------------------------------------------------------------