evolution
stcynic | November 27, 2004Yesterday I raised the question of why such a high percentage of Americans reject evolution and accept creationism despite the evidence. Here are some other suggestions on why that is from others. Timothy Burke, in an open letter to my Panda's Thumb colleague PZ Myers, suggests several possible explanations. PZ replies to that letter, agreeing with much of it and adding some further analysis to those parts he doesn't agree with. I think perhaps Burke nails it best with this statement:
One tentative hypothesis that requires thinking in rich and subtle ways about the history of the United…
loom | November 26, 2004On Wednesday I spoke on "The Current," the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's morning radio show. The hour-long segment focuses on various aspects of evolution, such as the evolution of diseases and the ongoing creationist circus in Georgia. I spoke about how humans are altering the evolution of other species. You can listen to the entire episode here. The audo file is broken up into pieces; part two and part three are the evolution segment.
loom | November 26, 2004Last month saw the bombshell report that a tiny species of hominid lived on an Indonesian island 18,000 years ago. Since then there has been a dribbling of follow-up news. Some American paleoanthropologists have expressed skepticism, pointing out that while bones from several small individuals have been found, only one skull has turned up. The skull was the most distinctive part of the skeleton, with a minuscule brain and other features that suggested it was not closely related to our own species. The skeptics suggest that these hominids were actually modern human pygmies, and that the skull…
mikethemadbiologist | November 20, 2004Granted, at this point, I'm not going to trust polls ever again, but Gallup released a poll that examined religious beliefs. Part of the poll dealt with evolution and creationism. I found two good articles on the topic (here and here). As an evolutionary biologist, it's nice to see others, especially non-scientists entering the fray. It can be really frustrating at times, when you feel like you're the only one fighting the battle; the support helps and is appreciated.
I think part of the problem stems from a complete misunderstanding of what science is, how is works, and what it can't tell us…
loom | November 19, 2004There are lots of news stories today (as well as PZ Myers' take) about the fabulous new discovery in Spain of Pierolapithecus catalaunicus, a 13-million year old fossil close to the common ancestor of all living great apes.
The early evolution of apes is where some of the most interesting developments are emerging. Until the recent discoveries of fossils of Pierolapithecus catalaunicus and other early species, the fossil record from this period of our history was pretty scanty. These new fossils are starting to shed light on some pretty major questions, such as how our upright stance came…
loom | November 19, 2004Apparently so.
...Actually, this new Gallup report shows that 35% of people believe that Darwin's theory of evolution is not supported by the evidence, while another 29% don't know enough to say, and 1% have no opinion. So perhaps I should say, wrong or uninformed.
loom | November 18, 2004A little more horn-tooting: The Loom has just been named a winner of the American Association for the Advancement of Science's 2004 Science Journalism Award. The judges considered three pieces: Hamilton's Fall, Why the Cousins Are Gone, and My Darwinian Daughters. Here's the press release. Thanks to the judges--it's gratifying to see that it's possible for a little blog to swim with the big online sharks.
On the other hand, the news is a bit embarrassing, coming as it does while I've left the Loom woefully neglected over the past couple weeks. I've been working on a lot of articles, such as a…
stcynic | November 12, 2004The Cobb County evolution disclaimer trial wraps up with closing arguments today. The judge will likely take a few weeks to make a decision, during which time briefs will be filed in addition to the ones already filed. We are finishing up a brief on the question of whether there is any real scientific evidence against evolution and it should be filed soon. I should be able to put all of those briefs up for everyone to see, as well as the original complaint filed and the school district's response to it, sometime next week. For the 2 people who aren't bored to death with it already.
After…
stcynic | November 11, 2004The AP has a story about the string of problems Georgia has had with evolution recently and how it has hurt people's view of the state:First, Georgia's education chief tried to take the word "evolution" out of the state's science curriculum. Now a suburban Atlanta county is in federal court over textbook stickers that call evolution "a theory, not a fact." Some here worry that Georgia is making itself look like a bunch of rubes or, worse, discrediting its own students.
"People want to project the image that Georgia is a modern state, that we're in the 21st century. Then something like this…
mikethemadbiologist | November 10, 2004Two nights ago, ABC News reported that in Cobb County, Georgia, those who favor creation "science" are in court arguing over whether they can place stickers on biology textbooks that state that evolution is a "theory", not a fact. As an evolutionary biologist, I am so sick of this. I could write an exposition on the historical roots of evangelical/fundamentalist opposition to evolutionary biology, but I don't know what the point would be. I'm not sure how to even begin to fix this. Many of my colleagues say that we have to do a better job educating the public. I don't know about this-the…
stcynic | November 10, 2004As some of you know, there is a trial going on in Georgia this week involving the Cobb County School District (CCSD) and their use of a disclaimer on all public school biology textbooks. The disclaimer says:
This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.
It all sounds very rational. Who could be against studying any textbook with an open mind and careful consideration? The problem is that this is applied only to textbooks…
stcynic | November 9, 2004The school board in Grantsburg, Wisconsin is just asking for legal trouble:
The city's school board has revised its science curriculum to allow the teaching of creationism, prompting an outcry from more than 300 educators who urged that the decision be reversed.
School board members believed that a state law governing the teaching of evolution was too restrictive. The science curriculum "should not be totally inclusive of just one scientific theory," said Joni Burgin, superintendent of the district of 1,000 students in northwest Wisconsin...
The decision provoked more than 300 biology and…
stcynic | November 8, 2004Kelly Hollowell is not the only one making absurd statements about the new Homo floresiensis find. Ken Ham, founder of Answers in Genesis, sees her absurdity and raises it to outright idiocy in this interview with Agape Press. The way this is phrased is absolutely precious:
Answers in Genesis founder Dr. Ken Ham says he is always amazed by the reactions of evolutionists whenever a new, so-called "humanoid" bone is found. Inevitably, he says, the evolution proponents say with the finding of a new fossil that creationists have lost their age-old argument with Darwinists.
But Ham says this is…
loom | November 3, 2004Thanks to Wired for excerpting my post on what DNA has to say about one-man-one-woman marriage. When the editors told me that they were going to run the excerpt, I thought at first that it might be a bit stale by the time the magazine came out. But it seems today that the proper form of marriage is on the nation's mind again...
loom | October 26, 2004
Get to know that little skull. Scientists are going to be talking about it for centuries.
As researchers report in tomorrow's issue of Nature, the skull--and along with other parts of a skeleton--turned up in a cave on the Indonesian island of Flores. Several different dating methods gave the same result: the fossil is about 18,000 years old. (Additional bones from the same cave date back to about 38,000 years.) If all you had was the 18,000 year figure and this picture to go on, you might assume that the skull belonged to a small human child. After all, there is plenty of evidence that Homo…
loom | October 21, 2004Last month I blogged about my Scientific American review of Dean Hamer's new book, The God Gene. I was not impressed. It's not that I was dismissing the possibility that there might be genetic influences on religious behavior. I just think that the time for writing pop-sci books about the discovery of a "God gene" is after scientists publish their results in a peer-reviewed journal, after the results are independently replicated, and after any hypotheses about the adaptive value of the gene (or genes) have been tested.
Apparently Time doesn't agree. In fact, juding from this week's issue,…
loom | October 18, 2004I have an article in tomorrow's New York Times about the mystery of autumn leaves. Insect warning? Sunscreen? The debate rages. The one thing I was sad to see get cut for space was the statement by one of the scientists that the answer might be "all of the above." This sort of multitasking is the cool--and sometimes maddening--thing about living things. Very important, and very hard to sort out.
loom | October 17, 2004
Last week I blogged about the strange story of our past encoded in the DNA of lice. We carry two lineages of lice, one of which our Homo sapiens ancestors may have picked up in Asia from another hominid, Homo erectus. I always get a kick imagining human beings, having migrated out of Africa around 50,000 years ago, coming face to face with other species of upright, tool-making, big-brained apes. It's pretty clear that it happened in Europe, which was occupied by both humans and Neanderthals for several thousand years. But encountering Homo erectus would be even weirder. Studies on DNA…
loom | October 16, 2004Here's the most important thing about The Ancestor's Tale that I couldn't fit in my review. I kept noticing how little Richard Dawkins mentioned the other celebrity evolutionary biologist of our time, Stephen Jay Gould. After all, Gould was a prominent character in many of Dawkins's previous books, cast as the brilliant paleontologist misled by leftist ideology.
Gould was famous for his attacks on adaptationism--the notion that the creative powers of natural selection are behind all sorts of fine points of nature, from jealousy to 11-year cicada cycles. Dawkins was an ultra-Darwinian…
loom | October 16, 2004The New York Times is running my review of Richard Dawkins's new book The Ancestor's Tale this weekend.
I'm particularly grateful at times like these to have a blog, where I can add extra information and the occasional correction.
Towards the start of the review I mention a remarkable tree of 3,000 species. You can download a pdf here. It's files like these that the zoom function were made for.
Towards the end of the review, I say that jellyfish and humans share a common ancestor that lived perhaps a billion years ago. There's plenty of debate about early animal evolution, but a billion years…