jlynch | January 11, 2007
A fossil skull discovered in 1952 offers support for the hypothesis that Upper Paleolithic Eurasians descended from a population that emigrated from sub-Saharan Africa in the Late Pleistocene. In tomorrow's Science, Fred Grine and co-workers describe a South African skull dated to 36.2 ± 3.3 thousand years, and note that while the skull is morphologically modern overall, its strongest morphometric affinities are with Upper Paleolithic Eurasians rather than
recent, geographically proximate people.
The paper is available here (subscription required).
jlynch | January 11, 2007As mentioned earlier, it's National De-Lurker Week. PZ "exposed" himself and has 420 comments, Orac has 122, Dave & Greta have 56, Janet has 46, Tara has
21, Afarensis has 16, Bora has 10, and I have ... 4 .... yes, 4 ... as in less than 5 and more than 3.
Come on people, throw me a bone - wander over here and say "hi".
(Fixed embarrassing error in basic counting due to long day with little sleep the night before)
jlynch | January 11, 2007Earlier on today, I noticed the following by Dembski:
If I ever became the president of a university (per impossibile), I would dissolve the biology department and divide the faculty with tenure that I couldn't get rid of into two new departments: those who know engineering and how it applies to biological systems would be assigned to the new "Department of Biological Engineering"; the rest, and that includes the evolutionists, would be consigned to the new "Department of Nature Appreciation" (didn't Darwin think of himself as a naturalist?).
PZ comments here. This is worth putting side by…
jlynch | January 10, 2007A few days back, I noted that January 5th 2006 marked my first post on Scienceblogs. And indeed it did. But I forgot that it was actually a back-dated post from my old blog. It was today - January 11th - one year ago that Sb launched with fifteen intrepid bloggers - Janet, Tara , Afarensis, Dave & Greta, Tim, Ed, RPM, Razib, Chris, GrrlScientist, Kevin, PZ, Chad, and myself - boldly going where no bloggers went before.
For those of you who wish to feel nostalgic, the Wayback Machine has the front page from January 12th 2006 online. Oh, how far we have come!
jlynch | January 10, 2007Janet notes that it is National Delurking Week 2007. So, if you read this blog but have never commented, give a shout out and let us know who you are and where you're from. This is particularly true for those of you who read via RSS (which probably could stand for Real Silent Syndication).
jlynch | January 9, 2007Dembski himself once defined intelligence as "the power and facility to choose between options - this coincides with the Latin etymology of 'intelligence,' namely, 'to choose between'". What happens if you use this definition to argue, on Dembski's own blog, that the theory of evolution "postulates as the agent of evolutionary change - a process of_selection_
(aka 'choice') between options" - that is, given Dembski's own definition of intelligence, natural selection is an intelligent process. Predictably, you get banned. Richard Hoppe has more.
jlynch | January 9, 2007
Otocinclus batmani
O. batmani is a new species of loricariid catfish native to the Rio Pure in Colombia and two creeks draining into the Rio Amazonas near Iquitos in Peru. The specific name ("batmani") is in honor of Batman and is due to the bat-like black markings in the tail (source).
Ref: Lehmann, PA (2006) "Otocinclus batmani, a new species of hypoptopomatine catfish (Siluriformes: Loricariidae) from Colombia and Peru" Neotropical Ichthyology 4(4): 379-383.
jlynch | January 9, 2007Unfortunately, there was no "Monday Mammal" yesterday and there will be none this week - I am unfortunately too busy to put together a decent post what with catching up after SICB.
However, as an update to last week's post on the mystery mammal from Borneo, you could do much worse than check out these two posts by Darren Naish. (The posts are newer than mine, but we were both posting independently
of each other. Darren was interested in the mystery from the beginning while I only became interested in the issue after being sent a reprint of the Mammal Review paper by my good friend and…
jlynch | January 8, 2007Bora has announced the contents for the soon-to-be published anthology of science-related blog writings, and and my post on Edward T. Oakes' treatment of Darwin and Marx has made the cut. I want to thank the readers of the post for making some suggestions/comments that I subsequently incorporated into the final version which
I mailed to Bora just a few hours ago.
(The entry actually started life as a minor part of an unfinished paper on YEC misuse of intellectual history that I began in 1998 . It subsequently appeared in a set of talks I gave between 1999 and 2001 at various venues around…
jlynch | January 8, 2007This has been doing the rounds but I thought I'd link to it in any case. In January 1995, Internet World published its "Best and Worst of 1994" along with predictions for 1995. You can read the article here. If you remember Canter & Siegel, Gopher, setting up SLIP, alt.rec.somethingorother, cancelbots, or Netcom Netcruiser, this link
is for you.
jlynch | January 7, 2007
On this day in 1823, Alfred Russel Wallace, co-discoverer of natural selection, was born in Usk, Wales. He died in 1913.
jlynch | January 7, 2007Over at his blog, Jim Lippard has just completed his series of ten posts examining the finances of a number of creationist organizations: Answers in Genesis, Institute for Creation Research, Access
Research Network, the Creation Evidence Museum, Creation Illustrated Ministries, Creation Moments, Creation Research Society, Creation
Worldview Ministries, the Discovery Institute, and the Center for Scientific Creation.
jlynch | January 7, 2007
This strange gelatinous ball - approximately 20 inches in diameter - was seen in the ocean off Norway last October. Apparently, it has been identified as a squid egg sack.
And this may be the only post about squid I have ever made. Blame my recent encounter with PZ.
jlynch | January 7, 2007
Apologies for being MIA over the past day - the hotel's wifi was acting up and I basically decided to go a day without connectivity. I'm now happily at home after thoroughly enjoying my SICB experience - science, beer, and discussion makes for a good four days. I'll hopefully get some more SICB-inspired posts up over the next few days.
Special thanks have to go to Jim and Kat Lippard for putting up with us last night. We had a wonderful evening of discussion and I got to meet Brent Rasmussen whom I hadn't even realized was living nearby. The above photo is of (left to right) Jim, Brent,…
jlynch | January 5, 2007We had out meetup this evening and it was fun. A special shout-out has to go to Bruce Thompson for driving 90 minutes to get here (and thus 90 minutes back) and regaling us with stories of flying fast and low over the ground.
PZ or GrrlScientist may have photos later ...
jlynch | January 5, 2007A year ago (at this exact time - 7:15 EST) I started here at Scienceblogs with a post on "Lawyers and Evolution". After over 600 posts and 2000+ comments, I'm still having fun. Thanks to all my readers over the past year.
(All going well, I'll be in a bar in Phoenix with PZ, Grrl Scientist and our readers as this posts)
jlynch | January 5, 2007One of the thinks that surprised me when I first started attending history of science conferences was how many (virtually all) presenters just stand up and read a paper. No visuals. Nothing. Sort of boring. I used to therefore think that in general, scientists were better communicators (at least to their peers). Boy am I wrong.
After this morning, I think I've realized that some scientists should never, ever, ever, be allowed to make any sort of presentation, slides or no. They talk to the slides, they mutter, they put too much information on a slide, they try to say everything in 25 minutes…
jlynch | January 5, 2007After an early night, I awoke to an unusually dark and cloudy (and cold .. .only 50 degrees) Phoenix. I blame the out-of-towners for ruining our perfectly good weather!
This morning it's a toss-up between Key Transitions in Evolution and Evolutionary Morphology. The former wins. Highlight of the day will probably be the mid-day Town Meeting on Evolution - Kevin Padian, Patricia Princehouse, and Stephen Harvey (of Pepper Hamilton LLC) will be discussing the Kitzmiller decision.
More later, no doubt.
jlynch | January 5, 2007
The Thought Fox
I imagine this midnight moment's forest:
Something else is alive
Besides the clock's loneliness
And this blank page where my fingers move.
Through the window I see no star:
Something more near
Though deeper within darkness
Is entering the loneliness:
Cold, delicately as the dark snow,
A fox's nose touches twig, leaf;
Two eyes serve a movement, that now
And again now, and now, and now
Sets neat prints into the snow
Between trees, and warily a lame
Shadow lags by stump and in hollow
Of a body that is bold to come
Across clearings, an eye,
A widening deepening greenness,…