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Richard Dawkins interviewed by 3 Quarks Daily permlink
Here. The embed is the best bet if you can view it; the download often fails (server has been slammed?). Only a moderate amount of discussion about religion; Dawkins talks a fair bit about an obscure field, evolutionary biology. Well...Posted on May 12, 2008 10:25 PM • 3 Comments
FOXP2 & Neandertals; a reprise permlink
Via Dienekes, The Timing of Selection at the Human FOXP2 Gene: Krause et al. (2007) recently examined patterns of genetic variation at FOXP2 in two Neandertals. This gene is of particular interest because it is involved in speech and language...Posted on April 15, 2008 9:33 PM • 3 Comments
Tasmanian devils won't go extinct! (probably) permlink
We've talked before on ScienceBlogs about the extinction risk to Tasmanian Devils because of contagious cancer. Well, perhaps there's a light at the end of this population tunnel, Hope over Tasmanian Devil cancer: The world's largest marsupial carnivore is facing...Posted on April 6, 2008 8:44 PM • 2 Comments
Big Brain: The Origins and Future of Human Intelligence permlink
I have a review copy of Big Brain: The Origins and Future of Human Intelligence; but I'm not planning on reading it at this point. See John Hawks for why. Sometimes interdisciplinary work sheds new light on old questions because...Posted on March 30, 2008 1:09 PM • 0 Comments
Neutral Neandertal? permlink
John Hawks responds to the new paper in PNAS, Close correspondence between quantitative and molecular-genetic divergence times for Neandertals and modern humans....Posted on March 18, 2008 3:10 PM • 1 Comments
Interview with John Hawks permlink
Long interview with John Hawks at Archaeology....Posted on March 15, 2008 3:29 PM • 0 Comments
Palau pygmies? permlink
You've probably heard about this story. Check out Afarensis and Anthropology.net for a summary of the science. But Kambiz also has some juicy gossip about the back-story here.......Posted on March 12, 2008 3:34 AM • 1 Comments
Humans mostly out of Africa? permlink
Genetic evidence and the modern human origins debate: A continued debate in anthropology concerns the evolutionary origin of 'anatomically modern humans' (Homo sapiens sapiens). Different models have been proposed to examine the related questions of (1) where and when anatomically...Posted on March 6, 2008 9:50 AM • 0 Comments
The edge of evolutionary dynamics permlink
When the adaptive acceleration story hit the wires I started wondering if population size wasn't the only parameter that might have changed in the past 10,000 years. To make it short, perhaps a small-world network model is more much accurate...Posted on February 17, 2008 5:34 AM • 5 Comments
For the ethologically inclined permlink
If you enjoyed William D. Hamilton week, I highly recommend Lee Alan Dugtakin's books. The Imitation Factor is a book length exposition on research which shows how many organisms use socially embedded information in making their decisions; if you want...Posted on February 17, 2008 4:13 AM • 0 Comments
The Structure of Evolutionary Theory blogging, chapter 7 permlink
Chapters read:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7. And so with the completion of the 7th chapter the first half, book I of The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, ends. From this point on we shift from history of science...Posted on February 15, 2008 12:55 AM • 6 Comments
The Structure of Evolutionary Theory blogging, chapter 6 permlink
Chapters read:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7. Chapter 6 of The Structure of Evolutionary Theory was short. Yes, you read that right, this was a short chapter! It was only 38 pages, but it was also one of...Posted on February 14, 2008 2:06 AM • 7 Comments
William D. Hamilton was wrong permlink
Last week I reviewed some seminal early papers of the evolutionary biologist William D. Hamilton. Hamilton was arguably the most accomplished theoretical biologist of the second half of the 20th century; Richard Dawkins referred to him as the most "...distinguished...Posted on February 13, 2008 4:15 AM • 2 Comments
Genetic Jewdar permlink
Dienekes points me to a provisional open access paper, Analysis of genetic variation in Ashkenazi Jews by high density SNP genotyping. Here's the conclusion: There were small but significant differences in measures of genetic diversity between AJ [Ashkenazi Jewish] and...Posted on February 12, 2008 5:05 AM • 8 Comments
The Structure of Evolutionary Theory blogging, chapter 5 permlink
Chapters read:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7. And now there have been 5. Through 5 chapters of The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. Stupidly I only realized that Stephen Jay Gould wrote two books which he had insisted be...Posted on February 11, 2008 3:45 PM • 1 Comments
Ernst Mayr and the elevator permlink
I've finished the 5th chapter of The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, but I don't have time to put up a review right now. But I do want to comment on a funny passage: I ran into Ernst Mayr as I...Posted on February 11, 2008 5:29 AM • 4 Comments
