jlynch
Posts by this author
July 1, 2007
Events
1858 - The joint reading of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace’s papers on evolution to the Linnean Society.
Births
1742 - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, German physicist
1915 - Joseph Ransohoff, American neurosurgeon
1929 - Gerald Edelman, American biologist, Nobel laureate
1941 -…
June 29, 2007
Events
1905 - Albert Einstein publishes the article "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies," where he introduces special relativity.
Births
1817 - Joseph Dalton Hooker, British botanist and confidant of Charles Darwin.
1926 - Paul Berg, Nobel Prize laureate
Deaths
1709 - Edward Lhuyd, Welsh…
June 28, 2007
Births
1868 - George Ellery Hale, American astronomer
Deaths
2004 - Bernard Babior, American biochemist
June 28, 2007
In January, Michael Shermer reviewed Dawkins’ The God Delusion (TGD) for Science (see here). This weeks edition features a letter by Martinez Hewlett (Molecular & Cellular Biology, University of Arizona) which argues two points: firstly, that Dawkins' book is not a work of science, and secondly…
June 28, 2007
One of a set of red ruffed lemur (Varecia rubra) triplets born at Palm Beach Zoo last month. The species is critically endangered with approximately 1000 remaining on Madagascar. Kind of screams for a LOLlemur caption, now doesn’t it?
June 27, 2007
Births
1824 - Paul Broca, French physician
1873 - Alexis Carrel, French surgeon and biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
1906 - Maria Goeppert-Mayer, German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
1912 - Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, German physicist and philosopher
1914…
June 27, 2007
The negative reviews of Behe’s Edge of Evolution continue. Kenneth Miller has a review in this week’s Nature and Richard Dawkins will have one in next New York Times Sunday Book Review (available here for NYTimes Select customers).
From the former:
Behe, incredibly, thinks he has determined the…
June 27, 2007
Births
1717 - Louis Guillaume Lemonnier, French botanist
1869 - Hans Spemann, German embryologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
1931 - Martinus J. G. Veltman, Dutch physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
June 25, 2007
Events
1948 - William Shockley filed the original patent for the grown junction transistor, the first bipolar junction transistor.
Births
1694 - Georg Brandt, Swedish chemist and minerologist
1824 - Lord Kelvin, Irish-born physicist
1904 - Frank Scott Hogg, Canadian astronomer
1937 - Robert…
June 25, 2007
Apparently, five-foot tall penguins (Icadyptes salasi) with seven inch beaks (top) roamed a warm South America 40 million years ago. Details will appear in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week. Opus is impressed.
June 24, 2007
Births
1814 - Gabriel Auguste Daubrée, French geologist
1864 - Walther Nernst, German chemist, Nobel laureate
1894 - Hermann Oberth, German physicist
1907 - J. Hans D. Jensen, German physicist, Nobel laureate
1911 - William Howard Stein, American chemist, Nobel laureate
1928 - Alexei Alexeyevich…
June 23, 2007
Births
1795 - Ernst Heinrich Weber, German anatomist and physiologist
1883 - Victor Franz Hess, Austrian-born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
1915 - Fred Hoyle, British astronomer
1927 - Martin Lewis Perl, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
Deaths
1637 - Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc,…
June 22, 2007
Births
1750 - Déodat Gratet de Dolomieu, French geologist
1894 - Alfred Kinsey, American entomologist and sexologist
1912 - Alan Turing, English mathematician
Deaths
1806 - Mathurin Jacques Brisson, French naturalist
1832 - James Hall, Scottish geologist
1891 - Wilhelm Eduard Weber, German…
June 21, 2007
Events
1633 - The Holy Office in Rome forces Galileo Galilei to recant his heliocentrism.
1978 - Charon, a satellite of the dwarf planet Pluto, is discovered.
Births
1871 - William McDougall, British psychologist and polymath
1887 - Julian Huxley, British biologist
Deaths
1429 - Ghiyath al-Kashi…
June 20, 2007
Births
1646 (O.S.) - Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, German philosopher and scientist
1781 - Siméon-Denis Poisson, French mathematician and physicist
1791 - Robert Napier, British engineer
1805 - Charles Thomas Jackson, American scientist, polymath
1811 - Carlo Matteucci, Italian physicist
1823 -…
June 20, 2007
In 2002 William Brookfield (our favorite "pleasurian" and "ID scientist") published his paper "In Search of a Cosmic Super-Law: The Supreme "Second Law" of Devolution" in Dembski’s vanity journal PSCID. Mark over at Good Math, Bad Math takes on Brookfield’s "science" here and here.
When Mark took…
June 19, 2007
Births
1861 - Frederick Hopkins, English biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine
1889 - John S. Paraskevopoulos, Greek-South African astronomer
1941 - Ulf Merbold, German physicist and astronaut
Deaths
1925 - Josef Breuer, Austrian psychologist
1958 - Kurt Alder,…
June 18, 2007
Births
1623 - Blaise Pascal, French mathematician and philosopher
1846 - Antonio Abetti, Italian astronomer
1897 - Cyril Norman Hinshelwood, English chemist, Nobel laureate
1906 - Ernst Boris Chain, German-born biochemist, Nobel laureate
1910 - Paul Flory, American chemist, Nobel laureate
1922…
June 18, 2007
Afarenis has mentioned the birth of a manta ray (Manta birostris) at the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium in Japan - notable because this is the first captive birth for the species. Below the fold is video of the birth.
June 18, 2007
This image released by the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing shows front views of a new fossil panda skull, Ailuropoda microta, from Jinyin Cave, Guangxi, China, left, and a living giant panda skull, Ailuropoda melanoleuca, right. The first skull of the earliest…
June 18, 2007
I haven’t spoken of Michael Egnor is a long time. If you remember, he’s the DI’s pet neurosurgeon who, as many have documented, has a penchant for silly arguments. Attacking Egnor is a little like harvesting low-hanging fruit, but I couldn’t let this (lack of) logic go unnoticed ... think of it as…
June 17, 2007
I’ve set up a Facebook group for this blog - if you are a reader and/or commentor, feel free to join!
June 17, 2007
Events
1178 - Five Canterbury monks see what was possibly the Giordano Bruno crater being formed.
1858 - Charles Darwin receives from Alfred Russel Wallace a paper that included nearly identical conclusions about evolution as Darwin’s own. This prompts Darwin to publish his theory.
1983 - STS-7…
June 16, 2007
Births
1714 - César-François Cassini de Thury, French astronomer
1832 - Sir William Crookes, English physicist and chemist
1898 - Carl Hermann, German physicist
1920 - François Jacob, French biologist, Nobel laureate
Deaths
1940 - Arthur Harden, English chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
1996 -…
June 16, 2007
Over at Uncommon Descent, Dembski wonders how the NCSE will deal with "the growing number of non-religious ID proponents" and links to this blog which is something called ICON-RIDS "an international coalition of non-religious ID scientists & scholars." Let’s take a look at this "international…
June 15, 2007
I finally got to watch the final two Sopranos episodes. For the record, I thought the ending was perfect. I do realize that people seem to be complaining, but I can’t see why. What were they expecting to happen? Tony get killed? Or he flips? Let me know if I’m wrong.
Best moments in the last…