laelaps |
When Linnaeus was attempting to organize "the Creation," he gave the chimpanzee the binomial Homo troglodytes. Since Edward Tyson's 1699 dissection of a "pigmie" (a juvenile chimpanzee [see Gould's essay "To Show An Ape" in The Flamingo's Smile]), the close resemblance between apes and humans has been recognized, even if a recognition of our actual evolutionary relationship has been harder won.
Sometimes Tyson's landmark work is heralded as a true understanding of the relationship between humans and apes, but in fact it was primarily an attempt to weld on a "missing link" in the Great Chain…
laelaps |
Today is going to be another day of putting work into my book. Last night I read The War of Art from cover to cover, and while it waded into some vague notions of spirituality here and there (angels, muses, and the like), it still was a worthwhile read. It's put together as a collection of little definitions or thoughts, each strung together by a common theme but also floating on its own (the book Monogamy was organized in a very similar fashion). This made it more digestible as I definitely couldn't take a "Here are the 12 steps to getting your book done" approach.
The main idea I got from…
laelaps |
"The Spine" by Michael Spence (collected in The Spine) [hat-tip to Vasha for sending this along]
"The fossilised vertebrae of a large dolphin-like reptile dating from 150 million years ago were recently discovered in this mining town." -- Australian travel brochure
The ichthyosaur,
Like ancient water
It flashed through,
Dried to dust. A few
Pieces of spine
Dug from a mine
At Coober Pedy
Are the only
Remains. They glint
Iridescent
Blue, purple;
Bits of gold fill
Every crack.
The Jurassic
Faded: the reptile
Changed to opals.
Thirty-three
Vertebrae
Like those here --
One for each year
I've lived…
laelaps |
They just keep coming. A few hours ago I posted about a lukewarm review of Expelled that appeared on the Variety website, and rottentomatoes.com has pointed me to a few more reviews of the film. A Slant review by Nick Schager skewers the film for the hypocrisy within it;
For a film about American freedom of expression and the necessity for open dialogue, it's hard to imagine Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed being more one-sided, narrow-minded, and intellectually dishonest. Co-written by and starring actor and former Nixon speechwriter Ben Stein, this "documentary" investigation into the…
laelaps |
The extinct "saber-toothed" creodont Hyaenodon.
During the middle Eocene, about 49 to 37 million years ago, the largest meat-eating mammal from what would become of the Wind River Formation of Wyoming was Malfelis badwaterensis. Although a cursory glance at the fossil remains of this animal might suggest it was related to dogs or cats (which are living carnivorans), Malfelis was actually a creodont, belonging to an extinct group of meat-eating mammals that may have shared a common ancestor with the carnivorans (see the comment by johannes below). Although people who are not actively…
laelaps |
So far most of the reviews that have popped up about Expelled have been negative, and the creators of the film have increasingly come under fire for plagiarizing cgi-reconstructions of the cell from two sources (even though the company that produced the film has now filed suit, claiming that the accusations are egregious and just part of the "Darwinist machine" trying to keep them down.). A review of the film by Justin Chang on the Variety webpage, however, is more sympathetic;
There's an intelligent case to be made for intelligent design, which is why "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," a…
laelaps |
I'm not really plugged in to the Rutgers community; I rarely read the newspaper, I don't have many friends on campus, and I don't have much (if any) "school spirit," but some rather disturbing news has been making the rounds over the past few days. I haven't been able to find any news reports or details about either of these reports other than what I have been told my professors and students who were sent an e-mail, but the weekend before last someone was murdered right outside the building where I have my human osteology class. No one seems to know any details about it other than it happened…
laelaps |
True to my word, I worked for about 5 hours on my book today. As always, I didn't get as much done as I would have liked, but I figure another 2 and 1/2 pages in Word isn't too bad. The main difficulty with the writing I did today involved correcting some mistakes and incorrect interpretations in an earlier draft concerning T.H. Huxley and the origin of birds. Working from books like Taking Wing by Pat Shipman, I naively accepted a bit of textbook cardboard, which Adrian Desmond's Archetypes and Ancestors and some original source material helped set straight.
This slowed down the writing…
laelaps |
The NCSE website Expelled Exposed has now gone live, and it's full of great information debunking the conspiracy theories in the film. There will also be an anti-Expelled blogswarm and a "To Hell With Expelled" blog carnival this Friday for those who have posts critiquing the film.
laelaps |
Things may be a little slow on the blog today. After lamenting my lack of progress writing my book, I've decided to take most of the day to do something about the situation. Hopefully I'll be able to update my progress sometime tonight.
laelaps |
As for the the little furballs around here, Little Foot has gone back to the adoption center. Beatrice is now with us, although she seems to be suffering from spring allergies. We'll probably have some kittens in the rotation soon, though, as the summer-long wave of kittens starts not too long after the weather warms up. Chase and Charlotte went to the vet last Friday, but despite Chase evacuating his bowels in his crate along the way everything was fine.
laelaps |
Spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta) have a bad reputation; they look strange, they have an unnerving repertoire of yips and yowls, the females have a pseudo-penis, and they are often portrayed as ruthless scavengers. I actually like hyenas quite a bit, and although not much can be done about their looks, they are not simply mangy scavengers that steal kills from the more "noble" lions (Panthera leo). Alone or in groups, hyenas are effective hunters, and lions try to steal hyena kills just as hyenas will compete for lion kills (the relationship between the two carnivores varies from place to place…
laelaps |
Has it really been over a month since I last worked on my book? That's what the calendar tells me. Between the cat eviscerating the keyboard of my laptop, said laptop being stolen, midterms, and other activities, I haven't done much of anything since March 9. Last night, for example, I intended to sit down a write for a while, but the evening slipped away from me and I didn't write a word. This needs to change.
As I thought about why I haven't written anything in a month as I got dressed this morning, it became clear that I lost my focus. The main thread that I hope will connect the entire…