Eric Michael Johnson has a Bachelors degree in Anthropology and a Masters in Evolutionary Anthropology. He pursued his PhD in Evolutionary Anthropology at Duke before joining the University of British Columbia to complete a doctorate in the History and Philosophy of Science.
Journal of Human Evolution
Sociality, ecology and relative brain size in lemurs. JHE 2009 56(5):471-478.
American Journal of Physical Anthropology
Career or Family?: Maternal style and status-seeking behavior in captive bonobos (Pan paniscus). AJPA 2008 135(S46):126
American Journal of Physical Anthropology Lack of inbreeding avoidance and reduction of alliance formation in matrilineally- housed bonobos (Pan paniscus). AJPA 2007 132(S44):137
Now that his plan has backfired drastically (his own website has removed the link to his "Introduction" of Darwin's book) and more people were offended by his distortions than anything else, let me briefly point out some useful information. Comfort makes the following assertions in his introduction:
Adolf Hitler took Darwin's evolutionary philosophy to its logical conclusions [and] the legacy of Darwin's theory can be seen in the rise of eugenics, euthanasia, infanticide, and abortion.
As the National Center for Science Education has pointed out:
This is simply hyperbole on Comfort's part. This laundry-list of unrelated controversial issues is meant to inflame passions rather than inform.
Now that the Darwin Reclamation Project collage has been posted, I can confess that I have a few problems with the recent atheist action that sought to counter the dunderhead Ray Comfort and his Creationist propaganda ministry. I'm not sure who originally suggested this action, but I don't think it was well thought out. Having athiests systematically round up as many copies as they can of a work they disagree with (however ridiculous such a work may be) stinks of censorship and creates an impression in the broader public that Comfort's arguments are somehow threatening to evolutionary biologists. Obviously neither is the case. But a successful campaign is one that changes the debate and/or uses the powerful group's strategy against them.
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(To watch this as a music video click on the volume icon in the top left.)
Here you are, all your bright, shining faces with a brand new copy of On the Origin of Species. It's extremely generous of Ray Comfort and Living Waters Publications to distribute so many free copies of a book with no political agenda whatsoever. I noticed that some of you found an odd additional chapter to the book that never appeared in the original edition. But many of you reclaimed Darwin's intent by removing these unfortunate pages and now have an excellent copy for yourselves or to donate to a worthy cause.
Books to Prisoners is an excellent charity, as is Books for Soldiers. Since you'll be sending them this book anyway, why not toss in a few more titles from your shelves and write a letter letting them know that you're thinking about them and that the friendly atheists of the world hope they return home soon so they can enjoy the beauty of life.
To learn more about Comfort's generosity please visit the National Center for Science Education's new website Don't Diss Darwin. Keep sending those photos to primatediaries [at] gmail [dot] com and I'll add them in as they arrive. Also, if you're in the collage please introduce yourself below.
As you can see Ray, your "enemy" is extremely frightening and dangerous.
PZ has information that Ray Comfort and his merry band of misfits have changed their plans and are passing out their Origin of Species propaganda today. You should go and get a copy right away. They're most likely located at the busiest part of your college campus between 11 and 1pm (or whenever it's busiest).
Go and get your copy and send me a photograph with it and I will post it here. But hurry, supplies are limited.
E-mail me at primatediaries [at] gmail [dot] com or post the photo on your blog or twitpic and put the link in the comments below.
Carl Zimmer, science writer extraordinaire and blogger at The Loom will be speaking tonight at the University of British Columbia. It's at 7pm in
Room 2 of the Woodward Instructional Resources Centre (map).
This year the world celebrates the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species; the most important book in the history of modern biology. The science of evolutionary biology has come a long way since 1859. In this talk, Carl Zimmer takes a look at how scientists are studying evolution to grapple with one of the most important challenges we face: the emergence of new diseases.
There's also some significantly smaller news. I'll be presenting my research as a history department colloquium at 4:30 in Buchanan Tower 1207. My talk is entitled "The Nature of Leviathan: Biology and Physics in Hobbes' Political Science." Maybe I'll see you at one or both events.
As I posted earlier, graduate teaching assistants at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign had voted to authorize a strike unless the university negotiated with them in good faith. It appears that this strike was a success because at 7pm EST tonight the Strike Committee of the Graduate Employees' Organization (GEO) at UIUC unanimously voted to suspend the strike that had brought the University to a standstill for two days. According to a press release posted at GEO's website the agreement with the university "achieved gains across all four "pillars" of its original contract platform."
To understand some of the reasons why this strike came to be in the first place GEO Member Kerry Pimblott offered the following impassioned speech in the buildup to this weeks actions.
On November 24, 1859 Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species. Then, as now, many people were made uncomfortable to think that human beings could be related to the "lower" animals and this discomfort was regularly represented in popular depictions of Darwin during the 19th century. An excellent study on this was written by Darwin scholar Janet Brown in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. Interestingly enough, it was believed that the most cutting insult to Darwin (or perhaps just the funniest) was to compare him to a primate. Primates have often made people uncomfortable due to their alarmingly human characteristics. However, in what is perhaps the greatest irony, the reasons that people are made uncomfortable are the very reasons that show primates to be our closest evolutionary relatives. Today, the theory of natural selection is one of the best tested ideas in all of biology. While Darwin may have been pilloried in the past by the popular press, now it is he who has the last laugh.
See thro' this air, this ocean, and this earth
All matter quick, and bursting into birth:
Above, how high progressive life may go!
Around, how wide! how deep extend below!
Vast chain of being! which from God began;
Natures ethereal, human, angel, man,
Beast, bird, fish, insect, who no eye can see,
No glass can reach; from infinite to thee;
From thee to nothing.--On superior powers
Were we to press, inferior might on ours;
Or in the full creation leave a void,
Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroyed:
From Nature's chain whatever link you like,
Tenth, or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.
Alexander Pope, in this portion from his Essay on Man, demonstrated in lucid prose the social significance that the great chain of being, or scala naturae ("ladder of nature") had for centuries of philosophers and naturalists. In my earlier post Reexamining Ardipithecus ramidus in Light of Human Origins I showed the flaws in Owen Lovejoy's reasoning concerning his grand evolutionary narrative of human origins. However, what was nearly as irritating as Lovejoy recycling his unsupported theory from the 80s and using it for a new species, was the repetitive use of the term "missing link" in relation to this fossil discovery.
Now that his plan has backfired drastically (his own website has removed the link to his "Introduction" of Darwin's book) and more people were offended by his distortions than anything else, let me briefly point out some useful information. Comfort makes the following assertions in his introduction:
Now that the 
Carl Zimmer, science writer extraordinaire and blogger at 
As I 
On November 24, 1859 Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species. Then, as now, many people were made uncomfortable to think that human beings could be related to the "lower" animals and this discomfort was regularly represented in popular depictions of Darwin during the 19th century. An excellent study on this was written by Darwin scholar Janet Brown in the 
