Natural Selection:
Category: Falsehoods
As the mother cougar approached the flood and all hope seemed to diminish, the narrator said "The mother cougar, driven by an instinct to save her species, searched desperately for any sign of the third kitten, who represented the next generation of cougars."
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Posted by Greg Laden at 12:59 PM • 16 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Evolution
There many ways of dividing up and categorizing Natural Selection. For example, there are the trichotomies of Natural Selection, Sexual Selection and Artificial Selection, and Modes of Selection (Stabilizing, Directional, and Disruptive) trichotomy. We sense that these are good because they are "threes" and "three"...
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Posted by Greg Laden at 6:09 PM • 12 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Natural Selection
Natural Selection is the key creative force in evolution. Natural selection, together with specific histories of populations (species) and adaptations, is responsible for the design of organisms. Most people have some idea of what Natural Selection is. However, it is easy to make conceptual errors...
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Posted by Greg Laden at 5:09 PM • 28 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Falsehoods
Another look at falsehoods about evolution....
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Posted by Greg Laden at 11:15 AM • 35 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Anthropology
Is the Natural World a valid source of guidance for our behavior, morals, ethics, and other more mundane areas of thought such as how to build an airplane and what to eat for breakfast?1 When it comes to airplanes, you'd better be a servant to...
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Posted by Greg Laden at 12:50 PM • 55 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: A.R. Wallace
Darwin and Wallace, chillin' Let's talk about Darwin and Wallace's joint presentation on Natural Selection in 1858. It is not usually the case that I write a blog post for a carnival. I usually just write for the blog, then now and then sit...
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Posted by Greg Laden at 5:04 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Anthropology
I've noticed that Scienceblogs.com has been running ads for hot Russian mail order brides. These ads are rather funny ...
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Posted by Greg Laden at 12:01 AM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Natural Selection
In an BBC article describing a Royal Society paper on the rate of mutation in warm vs. cooler climates, the BBC made this statement: DNA can mutate and change imperceptibly every time a cell divides and makes a copy of itself. But when one of...
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Posted by Greg Laden at 12:58 PM • 29 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Evolutionary Biology
Why does a soldier throw himself on a hand grenade to save the lives of a half-dozen unrelated fellow soldiers? Why does someone run into a burning building they happen to be passing to save a child they don't know? From a Darwinian perspective these...
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Posted by Greg Laden at 8:04 AM • 18 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Evolution
Diatoms are algae with hard parts. They make up a major part of the plankton found in fresh and salt water environments. Usually, diatoms exist as single celled free floating organisms, but they can also be colonies of several single cells. Their tiny little 'shells'...
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Posted by Greg Laden at 4:26 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks