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Anthropology, Evolution and Science
Afarensis is a 3.5-2.8 million year old hominin from the Kada Hadar member of the Hadar formation in the Middle Awash, Ethiopia. He is approximately 41 inches tall, weighs approximately 60 pounds and has a cranial capacity of a whopping 410 cc (approximately). Afarensis is currently considered to be transitional between apes and humans and displays some traits of both. Since he spends a lot of time on the couch watching monster movies, some observers question whether he is an obligate biped (although no one has observed him climbing a tree). He also has a blog called Transitions:The Evolution of Life His previous blog can be found here.
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"Loyalty to petrified opinion never broke a chain or freed a human soul..."
Mark Twain
"Ideology is a poor substitute for rational thought..."
Afarensis
"It isn't faith that makes good science...it's curiosity"
Prof. Jacob Barnhardt, The Day the Earth Stood Still
"This man wishes to be accorded the same privilege as a sponge. He wishes to think!"
Clarence Darrow, Inherit the Wind
"...I become fearful when I see people substituting fear for reason..."
Klaatu, The Day the Earth Stood Still
"I want you to grab life by its little bunny ears and get in its face..."
The Simpsons
"This is between me and the vegetable..."
Seymour Krelborn, The Little Shop of Horrors
"There are bad laws and cruel laws and the people who enforce them are both bad and cruel..."
Thea, Isle of the Dead
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." Jean- Luc Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation
"But the limit of tolerance for these human foibles is obtained when the proponent of a questionable scientific doctrine endeavors to maintain it against all possible odds by misrepresentation, misinformation and suppression of contradictory data, and by insinuating unfairness in opponents of his views."
Franz Weidenreich, Morphology of Solo Man
"Man stands alone in the universe, a unique product of a long, unconcious, impersonal material process with unique understanding and potentialities. These he owes to no one but himself, and it is to himself that he is responsible. He is not the creature of uncontrollable and undeterminable forces, but his own master. He can and must decide and manage his own destiny."
George Gaylord Simpson, Life of the Past
Yeah he's the Dick to the Dawk to the phd,
he's smarter than you he's got a science degree!
Yeah he's the Dick to the Dawk to the phd,
he's smarter than you he's got a science degree!
Unknown
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.
Frederich Nietzsche
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
The Declaration of Independence
Category: General Science
National Geographic mentions that the winners in the 2008 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge have been announced and have some of the photos. My favorite is below the fold....
Posted by afarensis, FCD at 11:35 PM • 3 Comments •
Category: Book Review
Why is an anthropology blogger doing a book review on a book about Albert Einstein? The answer can be found in the book, and if I were mean I would tell you to figure it out on your own. Since...
Posted by afarensis, FCD at 10:49 AM • 2 Comments •
Category: Biology
A missing comma changes the taxonomy of primates: Just like penguins and other primates, people trade sex for resources Strangely enough, humans are the only primate mentioned in the article. Otherwise the article is about humans being hard wired (feh)...
Posted by afarensis, FCD at 8:26 AM • 3 Comments •
Category: Biology
Greg Laden mentions the plight of the prairie chicken and links to an article in the UW - Madison News. Coincidentally, there was also an article in today's St. Louis Post-Dispatch on the plight of prairie chickens in Missouri and...
Posted by afarensis, FCD at 9:45 PM • 4 Comments •
Category: Creationism
There have been a wide variety of responses to the PZ incident. Quite a large number of us a busy laughing at the irony of it. There has been some criticism, for example see here, here, here, here, and here....
Posted by afarensis, FCD at 6:33 PM • 24 Comments •
Category: Silliness
A cartoon to help get you in the Pi day mood. Alternatively, you could wait until July 22nd and approximate a celebration of Pi Day, the choice is yours....
Posted by afarensis, FCD at 9:17 AM • 2 Comments •
Category: General Science
Today the National Park Service turns 91, so go to a National Park and help celebrate a great organizations birthday....
Posted by afarensis, FCD at 9:35 AM • •
Category: Anthropology
The Smithsonian Institution is currently in the process of scanning a large number of their Contributions and Studies series into PDF's and making them freely available on the web. The main page can be found here. Currently they have a...
Posted by afarensis, FCD at 11:03 PM • 1 Comments •
Category: General Science
I just finished reading Carl Sagan's The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (great book, everyone should read it). I don't plan on reviewing here, but I would like to mention a few paragraphs that I...
Posted by afarensis, FCD at 11:40 AM • 5 Comments •
Category: General Science
I meant to publish the following picture yesterday in connection with a few remarks I made about Carl Sagan. Unfortunately, we were having issues posting pictures so here it is:...
Posted by afarensis, FCD at 2:11 PM • 3 Comments •
