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I was the guest on Steve's show that made the comment about the IR of the sun, and how it would cause blindness. Another item to take into consideration is that BF would also produce their own IR from their internal body heat. This would also interfere with their ability to see. If you can imagine yourself emitting visible light, how it might interfere with you trying to see other things clearly. However, while I am not an advocate of the possibility that they can see in the IR spectrum, I would like to clarify my own position a bit. I totally agree that without a studied specimen, we factually do not know one way or another in regard to any of these type questions. Therefore none of it can be completely dismissed. All we have are opinions, theories, and speculation. For myself, I try to base my own opinions and theories on experiences I have had, things I have witnessed, and things we do know concerning other living and breathing mammals. It is of my opinion that people in this field, including myself at times, tend to over think things, or make them more complicated than need be. Their night vision capabilities is just one instance where I feel this takes place, specifically in the debate of whether or not they can see the IR spectrum. The ability to "change" your visual abilities is not something I can grasp at this time, nor is it something I've ever heard of. In other words, if BF does see in the IR spectrum, one could reach a logical conclusion that they would see in the IR spectrum all the time. It wouldn't be something they could turn on and off at will. Just as I can not switch back and forth from color vision to black and white. For myself it makes more sense to use simple logic when looking at these type problems. Is it more plausible that they have the most complex visual system, unlike any other mammal let alone primate in existence, or that they avoid certain electronic objects due to the many other reasons that are common as to why other animals tend to avoid or notice them? Are they able to see in dark conditions because of an extremely rare and unique visual trait, or because they have a similar or identical visual system compared to that of all the other mammals out there that have this ability? While it is not factually known, and therefore not out of the perceivable realms of possibility, I do find it highly unlikely when there are very solid and more simple answers out there. The following is the only remaining correspondence I could find on my computer that I had with the "expert" I made reference to on the show. His name is Gerald H. Jacobs. More information about him can be found here http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/people/faculty/jacobs/index.php He has many published papers, and I'm sure you could find more information on him on the Internet. "Mr Knapp, Here is what may be relevant to your interest. No primate, indeed no mammal, has visual sensitivity tuned to the infrared. The mammalian gene family that specifies the long-wavelength sensitive pigment cannot produce a pigment with a spectral peak longer than about 560 nm. And there is seemingly good reason why no mammal has infrared sensitivity. That is because we abundantly emit infrared and those emissions would swamp any photopigment tuned to infrared, thus rendering it unusable. The biological infrared receptors that have proved useful are all in cold-blooded animals, e. g., the pit organs of some vipers. To your other points: 1. All Old World primates (apes, monkeys, ourselves) share in common their photopigments and, to a large extent, all their visual capacities. 2. Some mammals (mostly rodents) do have visual receptors tuned into the ultraviolet, but as I noted above they do not have any infrared sensitivity. Hope this helps. Jerry Jacobs" He was a very nice, and approachable man when I corresponded with him, and I'm sure would more than likely answer any questions you might have for him. For me, the information he provided during our correspondence was enough. For others it may not be. I personally feel it is more beneficial to seek out the help and expertise of different individuals when looking for answers to questions I do not have. Matt K.

I hope this thread doesn't devolve into yet another filled with self-aggrandizing postings of just how evil is the human race. The history of the USA, like that of the entire rest of the world, is filled with bad things. Okay, I get that. We, and the rest of humanity, are not intrinsically evil, and I, for one, don't care to hear just how bad I/we are. For every evil you post about, I can mention a corresponding positive trait.