evolution
grrlscientist | September 21, 2008tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that are or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle bird pals, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is published here for your enjoyment. Here's this week's issue of the Birdbooker Report by which lists ecology, environment, natural history and bird books that are (or will…
grrlscientist | September 20, 2008tags: political views, politics, physiology, threat response, psychology, philosophyfight or flight, nature versus nurture
Most Americans have been actively engaged in the frustrating sport of arguing about politics, which often leads to the common refrain; "You just don't get it!" So this made me wonder why people who seem to have similar life experiences can end up with such dramatically different personal philosophies -- philosophies that ultimately affect their political views and voting behavior. Apparently, I am not the only one to wonder about such things, because a paper was just…
razib | September 20, 2008Dienekes points out that John Hawks is staring in a new National Geographic special on the Neandertal genome.
edyong | September 20, 2008
The decades that make up a typical human lifespan can seem like vast stretches of time to us. But to the forces of evolution, they are mere temporary blips. Common wisdom has it that evolution occurs over geological timescales - thousands and millions of years. As such, evolutionary biology takes a lot of criticism for being a 'descriptive science', being less open than other fields to that fundamental aspect of science - experimentation. Though there are exceptions, those who study evolution must mostly be content to observe snapshots of life, either present or entombed in rock, and…
gregladen | September 19, 2008 Gustavus The Nobel Conference at Gustavus Adolphus College, naturally.
Gustavus Adolphus was the king of Sweden and founder of the Swedish Empire from the age of seventeen until he his death at the age of 37, in 1632. He looked, as a testosterone-ridden teenager, at vast unconquered lands, at his large and experienced army, and noticing that he was in charge of everything, made a run at taking over the world. He left Sweden with his army and never looked back.
Meanwhile, well, a couple of centuries later, Alfred Nobel was busy inventing TNT and establishing the Nobel Prizes for…
grrlscientist | September 18, 2008tags: ratite, tinamous, evolution, biogeography, phylogenomics, convergence, flightlessness, Paleognath, homoplasy, vicariance
White-throated Tinamou, Tinamus guttatus.
Image: Wikipedia.
New research suggests the ostriches, emus, rheas and other flightless birds known as ratites have lost the ability to fly many times, rather than just once, as long thought. Further, the ratites appear to form a group with the tinamous, a group of birds that can fly, while the ostriches are set apart as the "sister group" -- the closest relatives.
Birds are divided into two groups based on jawbone…
razib | September 17, 2008Does the reconstructed Neandertal look like someone you know? I was talking to a friend and he mentioned it looked like a friend, and I immediately thought of some dude I know.
Update: A reader says that the Neandertal looks like Pete Postlethwaite.
Update II: Sandman has more.
Update III: Some are saying Heath Ledger....
awild | September 16, 2008Here's something that bugs me. Instead of emphasizing the real significance of the find, a discovery like the "Mars ant" Martialis heureka is usually condensed down to "Wow, this ant is weird!".
I've pasted below a sampling of leads:
Newly-Discovered Bizarre Ant - Boing Boing
'Ant From Mars' Discovered in Amazon Rainforest - Fox News
'Ant from Mars' found in Amazon jungle - Science News
But weirdness misses the point. We have weird ants already. The suicidal exploding Camponotus is plenty weird. So are the gliding ants, and the ants that swim. The real story here is the…
evolvingthoughts | September 16, 2008
A paper I recently saw in EMBO Reports made the following assertion:
Ancient Greek philosophers laid the groundwork for the scientific tradition of critical inquiry, but they nevertheless missed out on one aspect important to modern science. Many philosophers obtained their results through a tradition of contemplation and thought rather than experimental procedure, which, not surprisingly, led to errors. Aristotle’s belief that the brain is a cooling organ for the blood was definitely not based on anything that scientists today would consider scientific evidence. He also thought that in…
pharyngula | September 16, 2008There is good cause to be aggravated by some of James Watson's recently expressed views, but he's still an interesting fellow who made a significant contribution to our understanding of biology; and E.O. Wilson, of course, is always cool. So here they are together in an interview with Charlie Rose, discussing the significance of Charles Darwin:
(It was a little too gushy at the beginning — Darwin certainly did get some things very wrong! — but it's still the kind of conversation it's fun to hear.)
jrosenhouse | September 15, 2008Update (9/16/08) : I forgot to include the link to the evolution carnival mothership! Please go here for more information.
Its carnival time! Thanks to everyone who sent me submissions for the big party. There were too many, alas, to respond to each one individually, but I appreciate the opportunity to sample so much good writing. How about we go sample the merchandise...
Aydin Orstan, who writes the blog Snail's Tales, gets pride of place. He serves up a fascinating post about, I kid you not, the reproductive organs of snails. Doesn't sound like your cup of tea? Give it a try anyway…
jrosenhouse | September 15, 2008The Anglican Church has decided to apologize to Darwin for the rude manner in which their nineteenth century forebears responded to evolution. That's decent of them, I suppose.
Spearheading the effort is Malcolm Brown, Director of Mission and Public Affairs. In this article, entitled “Good Religion Needs Good Science,” he makes his case for the compatibility of evolution and Christianity.
Alas, it is a sadly typical, and poorly argued, representative of the genre. Here's the opening:
The trouble with homo sapiens is that we're only human. People, and institutions, make mistakes and…
awild | September 15, 2008Martialis heureka Rabeling & Verhaagh 2008
drawing by the inimitable Barrett Klein for PNAS
Most scientific discoveries these days emerge through carefully planned and controlled research programs. Every now and again, though, something unexpected just pops up in a distant tropical jungle. Martialis heureka is a fantastic discovery of that old-fashioned kind. This little ant simply walked up to myrmecologist Christian Rabeling in the Brazilian Amazon. It is not only a new species, but an entirely different sort of ant than anything known before.
The remarkable find was…
laelaps | September 15, 2008Yesterday a Church of England member announced that the institution owes Charles Darwin an apology. Writing directly to Darwin, the Rev Malcolm Brown said the church should be penitent "for misunderstanding you and, by getting our first reaction wrong, encouraging others to misunderstand you still." While initially reported as an apology from the church itself, a CoE spokesperson said that this attempt at posthumous reconciliation is being made by Brown and not by the church itself. Nevertheless, a new section on Darwin has been added to the Church of England website in the run-up to the "…
evolvingthoughts | September 14, 2008If I weren't such a reductionist mechanist, I'd probably find this very very funny. And what Cleese does to things deserves its own verb.
evolvingthoughts | September 14, 2008
The hyperborean John Pieret, notes that my love for the "social glue" theory of religion (I henceforth steal that name, John; sue me. Oh, wait, you're a lawyer aren't you? Never mind) has been backed up by two ASU anthropologists in a new book. I'd feel a lot happier if my views weren't being supported by Craig T. Palmer, who previously coauthored a book on rape in the natural world with Randy Thornhill. However, I'll take whatever support I can get.
Meanwhile the Church of England is apologising for getting stuck into Charles Darwin for the theory of evolution. In my mind the Thomists and…
grrlscientist | September 14, 2008tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that are or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle bird pals, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is published here for your enjoyment. Here's this week's issue of the Birdbooker Report by which lists ecology, environment, natural history and bird books that are (or will…
edyong | September 13, 2008
As you read this post, your computer is probably busy. You may have multiple programs running in the background, with email clients, anti-virus software or file-sharing software all competing for valuable memory. The ability of computers to multi-task has grown substantially in recent years, as processors have become increasingly powerful.
Evolution has chartered a similar course, and humans are particularly talented at dividing our attention among multiple priorities. Now scientists are showing that the asymmetrical differences between the two sides of our brain are essential for this…
evolvingthoughts | September 12, 2008
Here is a roundup of links and stuff that I don't have time to blog on right now.
A. C. Grayling replies in a piece of beautiful snark to Steve Fuller's response to his review of Dissent over Descent. Thony is not permitted to point out any further historical inaccuracies...
Leiter reports that a philosopher who blogs, from Yeshiva, James Otteson, may have been removed because he said things on the blog that are sexist, or at least interpreted to be, according to Inside Higher Education.
Will Thomas at Ether Wave Propaganda has the first of a series on the historian Simon Schaeffer, on…
purepedantry | September 12, 2008Philosopher Thomas Nagel, writing in the journal Philosophy and Public Affairs, criticizes the exclusion of Intelligent Design from science classes on the grounds that evolutionary science too rests on an assumption: the naturalistic assumption. He argues that both evolution based on natural selection and ID have untestable assumptions.
Frankly, I think that Nagel is wrong partly because he doesn't understand the people pushing ID and partly because he doesn't understand science. With respect to the first, he seems to give the IDers like Michael Behe credit as honest brokers pushing a…