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OMG AMNH PONIES!!1!

The Scibling meetup weekend included free passes to see the ponies at the American Museum of Natural History. OMG PONIES... but I found the exhibit depressing, for the following reason: I don't understand why more organizations don't give out press kits to bloggers. We make such good use of the material. Anyway, the horse exhibit was nice, as far as exhibits about squishy living things go, but I ran off to see the rocks as quickly as possible. I wish I'd had time to do more than a quick jog through the earth science exhibits; there are ultra old-fashioned displays asserting that geologic…

Facebook shares at $4,000 each!

So it's official. I now own a portion of Facebook, even if it's a very tiny fraction of the some 240 million shares now on the market today, the initial public offering. The opening price this morning was at $42 per share, but even before they went on the market, some wealthy investors were already jockeying for their own piece. In one extraordinary case: From the Wall Street Journal: Knight Capital Group, one of the biggest aggregators of US retail share trading, is seeing orders for Facebook come in from brokerage firm clients -- including one from an investor willing to buy the stock…

Battle for the genome continues: Pacific Biosciences goes public

The long-awaited public stock offer from third-generation sequencing technology company Pacific Biosciences has finally arrived (here's the SEC filing, and coverage from Matthew Herper and GenomeWeb). PacBio has already raised almost US$400 million in venture capital, and aims to increase this by up to US$200 million from its share offering. The sheer scale of these figures gives you a sense of just how much money is being thrown around in the race towards ever cheaper, faster and more accurate DNA sequencing machines. Of course, whether investors will decide to throw more money in PacBio's…

Crocodile Fishing

So, I'm just hanging out here by the side of the water waiting for my lunch. Sure, I could go in the water and get my lunch. But that's not how I roll. I wait patiently for my prey to get within striking distance, and then I attack. So, here I am just hanging out by the side of the water. Click to enlarge. There they are. Just a bunch of cichlids waiting to be eaten. By me. Lunch would be good right now. But they won't get close enough. So I'll just hang out here with my jaw agape. And I can see them. They're not too far away. Maybe one of them will swim close enough to the shore. And then I'…

The "American Rally for Personal [Antivaccine] Rights" metastasizes

It figures. I've written a couple of times about a rally to be held tomorrow in Grant Park that would be hilarious were it not an indication of the threat to public health that the anti-vaccine movement represents. Actually, it is to some extent hilarious, mainly due to the anti-vaccine Poe-worthy "music" that will be the featured entertainment. It was bad enough that the fair city of Chicago would be blighted with this nonsense--and Andrew Wakefield, too--but now the "American Rally for Personal Rights" (a.k.a. the Autism One anti-vaccine rally featuring disgraced and unethical British…

So, this was a little embarassing...

... but fun on so many levels... The scene: At a gathering of semi related people, with my daughter, sitting next to two conservative born again Christians (one being a "perfected" Jew). All very nice people in their own way, just don't bring up religion. Then M comes along very interested in discussing The Golden Compass ... could she take Julia to the movie, has she seen it yet, etc? I'm thinking, great, good idea, and I'm thinking how smart I am for deciding to get The Golden Compass books for Julia for Solstice. That's when Julia pipes up and says "Yea, I love those books I've read…

Addressing the public health implications of climate change

I recently attended the Emory University Climate Change Dinner series. We were first treated to a delicious dinner of "sustainable food" followed by great speakers who touched on different aspects of the public's response, involvement and responsibility towards climate change. One noted speaker was Howard Frumkin, M.D., Dr.P.H., Director of the National Center for Environmental Health/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (NCEH/ATSDR) at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Climate change can influence severe weather patterns and, as a result, the public health of…

A True Clown Doesn't Need a Rubber Nose

The other day, perennial political tool Rush Limbaugh was on CNBC defending his now infamous "I want Obama to fail" comment. His argument went something like this (paraphrasing): Yes, I want him to fail. His policies are liberal policies and I want liberal policies to fail. I want conservative policies to succeed. I find this to be a stunning argument because what it really says is "I am an unrepentant partisan ideologue. I am a political clown." It's a shinning example of us-versus-them, as-long-as-my-side-wins-at-any-cost hackery. I guess it's nice to know that his position isn't personal…

Inequality is Healthy

That's the conclusion of a new study by economists Andrew Leigh and Christoper Jencks. (I suppose this is good news - poor people aren't more likely to die in developed countries - although I fear how these statistics will be interpreted by policy makers and the Wall Street Journal editorial page. Yet another reason to abolish the estate tax...) The actual paper hasn't been released yet, but here is Leigh's summary: It is often argued that inequality is bad for your health. In theory, there are several ways this might happen. If each additional dollar does less for your health, then moving a…

Point-counterpoint

David Klinghoffer of the Disco. 'tute wants to draw links between evolution and 9/11 conspiracies. In his usual long-winded way, he makes a lot of efforts to link evolution to anything evil, but doesn't offer much beyond hand-waving to back the claim up. This must be the best he can do for the 9/11 memorial week, since I doubt even he can find a way to link al Qaeda to Darwin. After all, Islamic fundamentalism isn't known for its love of Western science! It'd hardly be worth noting, if not for the fact that the only 9/11 "truther" I've seen pop up on either side of the creationism/…

Obesity & ancestry in African Americans

Another study on obesity & Africans, with a slight twist, Admixture Mapping of Obesity-related Traits in African Americans: The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study: Obesity is an important cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. In the United States, the prevalence of obesity is higher in African Americans than whites, even after adjustment for socioeconomic status (SES). This leads to the hypothesis that differences in genetic background may contribute to racial/ethnic differences in obesity-related traits. We tested this hypothesis by conducting a genome-wide admixture…

Complementary and Alternative Medicine: What is it, and should we fund it?

Skeptics love to hate CAM. And often, with good reason. Alternative medicines or medical treatments, as is often pointed out, become "mainstream" when the available science suggests that they work, so it is almost axiomatic that "alternative" means "unproven" and it is probably almost always true that the kinds of things that end up as "alternatives" come from sources with poor track records. For instance, one of the most common forms of alternative medicine used over the last several decades is Extra X where X is some substance we know the body uses, and that we know a deficiency of is…

A trio of terror, part I: The Hitler zombie escapes

Things are crazy now for me, both at home and at work. I mean really, really crazy. So crazy that even I, one of the most verbose bloggers out there, am forced to take two or three days off from my little addiction--I mean habit. Consequently, having foreseen that this time would come around these dates, I, Orac, your benevolent (and, above all verbose) blogger have thought of you, my readers. I realize the cries and lamentations that the lack of fresh material inevitably causes. That, I cannot completely obviate. However, I can ease the pain somewhat, and I can do this by continuing my…

The state of modern evolutionary theory may not be what you think it is

I was rather surprised yesterday to see so much negative reaction to my statement that there's more to evolution than selection, and that random, not selective, changes dominate our history. It was in the context of what should be taught in our public schools, and I almost bought the line that we can only teach a simplified version of evolution in grade school, but then it sunk in that I was talking to a group of adults about the standard biological perspective, and their reactions were a mix of total bafflement, indignant rejection, and strange evasive waffling. Well, when should we talk…

One year later: Sadly, it was only a matter of time: An autistic boy dies during chelation therapy

Note: One year ago today, an autistic boy, Abubakar Tariq Nadama, died of a cardiac arrest while undergoing chelation therapy to try to "cure" his autism. Today, as I am on vacation, I have scheduled several of my old posts on the topic to appear.The investigation into his death is ongoing regarding whether to file criminal charges against the doctor, although it irritates the hell out of me that they are arguing over whether Tariq was given the "right" agent when in fact there is no "right" agent for chelation therapy for autism. The boy should never have been getting chelation to "cure"…

Art and Visual Representation at ScienceOnline2010

Last year we had a session on Art And Science and a workshop How To Paint Your Own Blog Pictures. At this year's conference we have more sessions that explore the visual aspects of science. Click on links to see what discussions have already started on these pages and add your questions and thoughts: Paint your blog images using a digital tablet led by Glendon Mellow Description: Get a chance to test out a digital tablet, and see why it's like having an entire art supply store on your computer. Beginning with tutorials on Glendon's blog before the conference, we'll try using Gimp, ArtRage…

11 Scientific Advances Of The Past 100 Years Gave Us Our Entire Universe (Synopsis)

“Gamow was fantastic in his ideas. He was right, he was wrong. More often wrong than right. Always interesting; … and when his idea was not wrong it was not only right, it was new.” -Edward Teller 100 years ago, our conception of the Universe was so small it's almost laughable. We still were mired in Newtonian thought, conceiving only of the stars within our own Milky Way, with a Universe that was perceived as static and unchanging, and where the stars which made it up perhaps even lived forever. Yet today, we have a Universe that's expanding, cooling, full of dark matter and dark energy, and…

What is causing the California drought?

Peter Sinclair has tackled this difficult topic with an excellent video and informative blog post. The blog post is here, and I've pasted the video below. This is a complicated issue. The water problem in California is obviously made worse by increased demands from population growth and expansion of agriculture. Under "normal" (natural) conditions, California and the American Southwest is fairly dry and can undergo extra dry periods. But climate change seems to be playing a role here as well. It appears that recent lack of rain in the region is the result of changes in atmospheric…

A Behind-The-Scenes Look At Building The Greatest Space Telescope Of All (Synopsis)

"One way or another the first stars must have influenced our own history, beginning with stirring up everything and producing the other chemical elements besides hydrogen and helium. So if we really want to know where our atoms came from, and how the little planet Earth came to be capable of supporting life, we need to measure what happened at the beginning." -John Mather Launching in October of 2018, the James Webb Space Telescope will revolutionize our conception of the Universe. The biggest scientific find that we know it can uncover is how the Universe came to be the way it is today. How…

The Long Road from Genes to God

I am sure that in 50 years, we are going to know a lot more about how the mind works. The fusion of psychology and genetics will tell us about how our personality is influenced by our genes, and they'll also show exactly how the environment plays a hand as well. The preliminary evidence is just too impressive to seriously doubt it. Likewise, I am sure that we will have a deeper understanding how our minds have evolved, pinpointing the changes in DNA over the past six million years have given us brains that work very differently than apes. Again, the first results can't help but inspire a lot…

Art and Visual Representation at ScienceOnline2010

Last year we had a session on Art And Science and a workshop How To Paint Your Own Blog Pictures. At this year's conference we have more sessions that explore the visual aspects of science. Click on links to see what discussions have already started on these pages and add your questions and thoughts: Paint your blog images using a digital tablet led by Glendon Mellow Description: Get a chance to test out a digital tablet, and see why it's like having an entire art supply store on your computer. Beginning with tutorials on Glendon's blog before the conference, we'll try using Gimp, ArtRage…

Campaign Watch II

Yes, another political post. What can I say? Here's Michael Kinsley providing still more evidence that the Sarah Palin seen on television and discussed by the media bears little resemblance to the Sarah Palin that has been governing Alaska for the last two years: Sarah Palin thinks she is a better American than you because she comes from a small town, and a superior human being because she isn't a journalist and has never lived in Washington and likes to watch her kids play hockey. Although Palin praised John McCain in her acceptance speech as a man who puts the good of his country ahead…

Abraham's law: Bad medicine has made bad law

There hasn't been much news in the last two or three months about Abraham Cherrix, the 16-year-old with Hodgkin's lymphoma who rejected conventional chemotherapy, first in favor of the quackery known as Hoxsey therapy and then for the ministrations of a radiation oncologist in Mississippi named Dr. Arnold Smith, who combines non-woo (low dose radiation therapy) with woo (a form of "immunotherapy" involving "belly plaques" that has no evidence showing efficacy, not "more innovative techniques, such as immunotherapy, which uses medications and supplements to boost the immune system," as the…

Another despicable abuse of a dead celebrity

I was originally going to switch it up and blog about something other than cancer. In fact, there is a particularly juicy bit of anti-vaccine nonsense that I wanted to write about because it shows the utter mendacity of a certain anti-vaccine website that, believe it or not, is not Age of Autism. I know, I know, it's hard to believe, but there actually is an anti-vaccine group that is giving Generation Rescue a run for its money when it comes to sheer crazy. It'll keep, though, until next week. In the meantime, I have even worse crazy to deal with. In the meantime, I have even more despicable…

The Nature of Modern Cynicism

Having used the moniker StCynic for nearly a decade now in various places, I have often been asked what a cynic is. More often, I am simply presumed to be whatever the person asking the question presumes cynicism to be - unduly negative, hateful, unhappy, angry, etc. For myself, the best definition I have seen is from the arch-cynic himself, Ambrose Bierce: Cynic, n: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be This preference for truth over lie, fact over fiction, is at the heart of my approach to the world. In political terms, this primarily means seeing…

Basic Concepts: Force

This is the first post I'm doing for the "Basic Concepts" series. When I asked for suggestions, I got a good long list of stuff, and it's hard to know quite where to start. I'm going to start with "Force," because physics as we know it more or less started with Isaac Newton, and Newton is best known for his work on forces. In fact, as-you-know-Bob, the SI unit of force is the "Newton," in ol' Isaac's honor. (I should note that this particular discussion is adapted from a lecture that I give in the introductory mechanics class, so there's also a "path of least resistance" argument for starting…

My picks from ScienceDaily

What I Was Doing Vs. What I Did: How Verb Aspect Influences Memory And Behavior: If you want to perform at your peak, you should carefully consider how you discuss your past actions. In a new study in Psychological Science, psychologists William Hart of the University of Florida and Dolores AlbarracaÂn from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign reveal that the way a statement is phrased (and specifically, how the verbs are used), affects our memory of an event being described and may also influence our behavior. American Adults Flunk Basic Science: Are Americans flunking science? A…

Test post in shiny new MT4, with help from They Might Be Giants

Regular readers may note that ScienceBlogs.com has been off the air for the installation and upgrade of our blogging platform, MovableType. So while I finally learned how to use the old one after being here two-and-a-half years, I am now starting over. Hence, this first post being completely devoid of content. However, I wish to honor my first two commenters with the new interface: a spammer from Istanbul (not Constantinople). So without further delay, some music to mark this occasion: There is also a very impressive version performed live (for an audience of one, the host) on MTV Europe in…

Reply to a 14 year old creationist

While I am on vacation, I'm reprinting a number of "Classic Insolence" posts to keep the blog active while I'm gone. (It also has the salutory effect of allowing me to move some of my favorite posts from the old blog over to the new blog, and I'm guessing that quite a few of my readers have probably never seen many of these old posts.) These will appear at least twice a day while I'm gone (and that will probably leave some leftover for Christmas vacation, even). Enjoy, and please feel free to comment. I will be checking in from time to time when I have Internet access to see if the reaction…

An "expose" full of sound and fury, signifying nothing

Due to annoying stuff at work and good stuff personally, I didn't have time to grind out my usual bit of Insolence, either Respectful or not-so-Respectful, today. Fortunately, there is a long history on this blog, full of good stuff that I can repost. So, as I did when I went to TAM7, I'm picking a couple of posts for today that originally appeared in August. This one happens to have first appeared in August 2006; so if you haven't been reading at least three years, it's new to you (and if you have, I hope you enjoy it a second time). I'll be back tomorrow. I debated for a while about whether…

The "C is Efficient" Language Fallacy

I came across an article yesterday about programming languages, which hit on one of my major peeves, so I can't resist responding. The article is at greythumb.org, and it's called [Programmer's rant: what should and should not be added to C/C++](http://www.greythumb.org/blog/index.php?/archives/152-Programmers-rant-…). It's a variation on the extremely common belief that C and C++ are the best languages to use when you need code to run fast. They're not. They're good at things that need to get very close to the hardware - not in the efficiency sense, but in the sense of needing to be able…

No wonder white power rangers like Ron Paul so much!

In one on my rare forays into political blogging (albeit with an emphasis on "alternative" non-evidence-based and non-science-based medicine), I discussed Ron Paul's record of supporting quack-friendly legislation and in not accepting evolution. Because of my interest in Holocaust denial, it also interested me that Hutton Gibson, a notorious Holocaust denier and conspiracy theorist, would endorse Paul for President. Whenever anyone criticizes Ron Paul for being associated with white nationalists (whom I like to refer to as "white power rangers" or, when I'm feeling really snarky, "mighty…

When what an acupuncture study shows is much more interesting than what acupuncture believers think it shows

Of all the "alternative" therapies out there, arguably the most studied is the modality known as acupuncture. Perhaps the reason is that, unlike homeopathy, which based on physics, chemistry, and biology alone is so implausible that, for it to "work," huge swaths of well-established physics and chemistry would have to be shown to be not just wrong but extravagantly and outrageously wrong (making homeopathy far more akin to magic than science), or reiki, which, when you come right down to it, is nothing more than faith healing based on Eastern mysticism rather than Christianity, acupuncture…

Brian Hooker and Andrew Wakefield complain to the CDC about its vaccine research. Everyone yawns.

The antivaccine movement and conspiracy theories go together like beer and Buffalo wings, except that neither are as good as, yes, beer and Buffalo wings. Maybe it’s more like manure and compost. In any case, the antivaccine movement is rife with conspiracy theories. I’ve heard and written about more than I can remember right now, and I’m under no illusion that I’ve heard anywhere near all of them. Indeed, it seems that every month I see a new one. There is, however, a granddaddy of conspiracy theories among antivaccinationists, or, as I like to call it, the central conspiracy theory of…

“Refinery Town” points the way forward to protect communities and defend rights

Let’s just say there was a working class community – of various skin colors – which was dominated for a century by a giant corporation who ran the town with bought-and-paid-for politicians, and whose operations regularly poisoned the community, threatened the health and safety of its workforce, and periodically blew up, sending thousands to the hospital. How could they even begin to protect the health of their families and community, and exercise their democratic right to a local government that put the needs of the vast majority ahead of corporate profits? The answer to that question can be…

The Iron As Technological Art Object: Part II

When I was a young girl, I used to watch my mother at her ironing board. There was always a lot of ironing to be done. She kept a big clear plastic bag of clothes waiting their turn at the ironing board, and would sprinkle them with water - there was a special bottle for this sprinkling. I do not think we owned a steam iron when I was very young, and dampening the clothes in this manner was an attempt to help ease the wrinkles out during the ironing process. Eventually I became old enough to assist in the never-ending ironing chores, and my mother let me practice on pillow cases, just as…

Lying Losers and Cheap Victories: Uncommon Descent at its best

I just had to promote this to the top level of the blog. If you remember, way back in December, I posted something about Sal Cordova's new blog. (As an interesting sidenote, Sal started his blog after supposedly resigning from Uncommon Descent, claiming that he was returning to school, and that the evil darwinists would sabotage his academic career if he continued to be associated with UnD. But of course, now, he's back with the UnDs.) Anyway... I was mocking him because on his blog he was posting something about how math and physics were going to prove his young-earth creation rubbish.…

Brunswick school board may be OK…for now

The Brunswick school district in North Carolina was hurtling towards a lot of pain…and it's all thanks to the intransigent arrogance of the ignorant. There are some signs that they're going to see the light of reason, but there are holdouts, and as is usual in these cases, it's a few uninformed individuals possessing only a furious conviction and the certitude of religion who are causing the problems. Joel Fanti seems to be one of the instigators of this stupidity, and he's surprised that so many have been opposing him. "It just amazes me some of those responses, how venomous they have been…

Peter & Rosemary Grant—Natural Selection, Speciation, and Darwin's Finches

How do we explain the diversity of species in the world? The core process is speciation, a splitting of a lineage into two divergent lines that at the end, cannot interbreed. What do we know about speciation in Darwin's finches? They evolved from a common ancestor in 2-3 million years into 14 different species, filling different ecological niches in the Galapagos, largely free of human interference. Showed us photos of four different species with very different beaks. Developed predictions of population density from things like available biomass, and worked out relationship of expected…

Five key points about Medicaid and GOPcare

Kim Krisberg has already ably described how the Senate’s “Better Care Reconciliation Act” would gut Medicaid while giving massive tax breaks to the wealthiest, so I want to emphasize a few key points that are worth bearing in mind. The Congressional Budget Office score of the Senate bill finds that over the next 10 years, 22 million people would lose coverage (relative to keeping the current law), and 15 million of those people would be losing Medicaid. The worst of the Medicaid cuts would come after 2026, though, as the per-capita cap on the federal share of spending rises much more slowly…

Older than Dirt?

Every once in awhile, a question makes it to my inbox that's too good to ignore. A friend and I were joking about being "older than dirt" and he asked a question I thought you might enjoy: "Hey, ask Ethan how old dirt is and how it got here." You did the smart thing by coming to me, because the alternative is to ask yahoo. (Shudder!) Well, right away, we've got an upper limit, because the entire Solar System is only about 4.5 billion years old. So, there's no way that this: is any older than this: Now, you can definitely go looking for the oldest rocks on Earth, and if you look very hard,…

We English-speakers have to hang together

In an interview with Michael Specter in the New Yorker, we get to be really depressed at the way the Bush administration is politicizing science to an unheard-of degree. Bush is bowing and scraping before the twin gods of the Religiously Ridiculous and the Myopic Mullahs of Big Business, and letting science diminish. As a patriotic (isn't it sad that that word is fast becoming synonymous with stupid and selfish?) American, this bothers me: Are we losing ground in science as a nation? Are other countries doing better science, and doing more of it? Are there economic as well as medical costs?…

Jon Rowe on Religion and the Founders

Jon Rowe has another excellent essay on the role of religion among the founding fathers. He draws on an op-ed piece by Mark Lilla in the NY Times on the same subject. Lilla rightly hammers the "schlock history written by religious propagandists like David Barton" while pointing to more serious scholarly efforts at defining the role of religion among the founders. Rowe quotes this from Lilla: What distinguished thinkers like David Hume and John Adams from their French [Enlightenment] counterparts was not their ultimate aims; it was their understanding of religious psychology. The British and…

Hurricane Gustav: Changing Predictions

There has been enough change in the predictions regarding Gustav to make it worth a fresh look. Bottom line: It is weaker than previously predicted, it is still almost exactly on the same track, and it may be speeding up a little bit. Tropical Storm and soon after hurricane force winds may strike the Northern Gulf Coast by 2:00 or so Monday Morning (or even sooner), certainly during the night tonight. The eye may cross the coast about mid day Monday (tomorrow). The center of the predicted path is just far enough west of New Orleans proper to worry a lot about the storm surge. Details: 1…

Friday Sprog Blogging: Groundhog's Day 2007

Last night, while tucking the Free-Ride offspring into bed: Dr. Free-Ride: Tomorrow is Groundhog's Day. Elder offspring: I really hope the groundhog doesn't see his shadow this year so we can have an early spring. Younger offspring: Yay! Spring could start tomorrow! Dr. Free-Ride: Hold on now, "early spring" doesn't mean spring will start immediately, it means -- Younger offspring: I really want spring to start early because then my birthday will come sooner! Dr. Free-Ride: OK, you guys realize that what the groundhog sees has no impact whatsoever on how many calendar days are left until…

Memory is a Liar

The NY Times Magazine had an interesting article on deja vu and memory. It's about a group of cognitive psychologists who are using patients afflicted with a continual sense of deja vu (sounds a little hellish to me) in order to understand the neural mechanisms of remembering. This is a relatively new field. While psychologists and neuroscientists have long wondered how we create new memories, they have shied away from a far more complicated question: how we remember our old memories. But now that's beginning to change. The Times' article doesn't discuss this research, but I think some of…

Brignell vs Wikipedia

Last year I wrote how John Brignell repeatedly tried to add untrue claims to the Sourcewatch article on Brignell because it was critical of him. Now he is complaining about his Wikipedia article: Anyway, reading hostile critiques of one's efforts is very much like being in that hall of mirrors. All the bits are there, but grossly distorted. We could dismiss overt politically motivated character-assassination sites such as Sourcewatch and the Australian Adhominator, except that they are then quoted by less obviously biased sources. As usual, Brignell calls me names instead of addressing…

What Is Ecology?

Ecology is a study of interactions or relationships between organisms and the environment; the connectedness between living systems and non-living systems on the Earth. Ecology is, in a sense, a historical field, founded upon the Earth's far reaching and ever evolving natural history. The term ecology comes from the Greek root words oikos logos, literally "the study of household," first combined by Ernst Haeckel in 1866. Haeckel was referring to the interactions within the house of nature, and we have used the word ecology (translated from the German Oekologie or Ãkologie) to describe complex…

Buddhists believe in God, but don't care as much

The blog of the Buddhist magazine Tricycle has responded to my post that Buddhists generally believe in God. Some of the comments also brought up some semantic issues which are real in how Buddhists view God, and how it might be distinguished from more personalized conceptions of the divine being, especially in the Abrahamic religions. The short of it is that many Buddhists will accede that gods may exist, but that their role in the religion is relatively marginal. Additionally, Buddhists reject the Creator God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, which is an important distinction. First, though the…

The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution

The normal story we are told is that as rose civilization, so declined evolution. The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution, inverts that formula as indicated by the title. The idea that humans are beyond evolution isn't limited just to non-scientists, Steve Jones, an evolutionary geneticist, made the same argument last year. I've pointed why the emergence of modern culture and all its accoutrements, such as effective medicine, does not mean that the power of evolutionary forces are somehow negated. In The 10,000 Year Explosion Greg Cochran and Henry…