history of science
laelaps | November 7, 2008With the election of Barack Obama as the next president of the United States, many science-savvy folks have breathed a (tentative) sigh of relief. Perhaps we can finally put all this creationism in the classroom nonsense to rest now that a progressive Democrat is next up for the presidency. I'm not so sure, and there was a time when the loudest defense of Creation came from progressive Democrats.
The brand of young-earth creationism we are familiar with today is not so much rooted in Victorian responses to Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, but the fundamentalist fervor prevalent in…
laelaps | October 30, 2008
From Woman Triumphant.
When I don't know what else to write about, I usually pick a phrase off the top of my head into Google Books and see what turns up. Today I chose "ape-man," and the usual parade of popular books and scientific articles showed up. I was looking for something a bit different, though, and the title Woman Triumphant: The Story of Her Struggles for Freedom, Education and Political Rights caught my eye. What would such a book have to say about "ape-men"?
The reference to early human ancestors in Woman Triumphant is fleeting, and fairly typical for a popular book. The…
laelaps | October 28, 2008
As explained in Narratives of Human Evolution (and outlined in an early chapter of Bones of Contention), scientific descriptions of human evolution have often been shaped by a belief in progress and our* superiority. Even today, when descriptions are often more objective on the surface, there are subtexts in which fossils are arranged this way or that to reflect certain values and expectations.
*[Whose superiority, however, differs depending on who is speaking. This could range from our species, Homo sapiens, to just one "race" of humans (I bet you can guess which).]
Today it requires a bit…
laelaps | October 23, 2008In the spirit of today's post about James Ussher and the date of creation, here's an all-too-true pie chart that made me laugh;
more music charts
And the worst part? While Whitney was the first to patent his particular kind of "modern" cotton gin, cotton gins had been invented previously in India. What's more, other people appear to have been working on similar improvements to the gins already being used. Whitney's cotton gin was a true new invention, but the popularity of his machine has overshadowed a more complex story. As ever, history is more complicated than I had ever been taught.
laelaps | October 23, 2008On this date, six thousand and eleven years ago (give or take a little due to the vagaries of how calendars are kept), the creation of the universe had just begun. That's according to the 1650 chronology determined by the Anglican Bishop of Armagh James Ussher, anyway, published in his Annales veteris testamenti, a prima mundi origine deducti (Annals of the Old Testament, deduced from the first origins of the world, which you can read here if you're well-versed in Latin).
Today it's easy to heap scorn on Ussher's dates. Scientific tests have confirmed over and over again that the earth itself…
clock | October 23, 2008
Yes, this has been in the works for a long time, and a few hints have been planted here and there over the past months, but now it is official - NASA and The Beagle Project have signed a Space Act Agreement and will work together on a host of projects including scientific research and education. You can read the details on The Beagle Project Blog - space, oceans, biology, science education, history of science, exploration and adventure: all at once. How exciting!
The text of the agreement is under the fold:
NASA and the HMS Beagle Trust have signed a Space Act Agreement for cooperation…
laelaps | October 22, 2008Tomorrow is certainly a very important day, although you won't get any help from your calendar. Any guesses as to what it is?
[I'll give you a hint; it's a very important date for creationists.]
laelaps | October 21, 2008As soon as you have anything to do with the gorilla the fascination of studying him begins to grow on you and you instinctively begin to speak of the gorilla as "he" in a human sense, for he is obviously as well as scientifically akin to man. - Carl Akeley
There are few places that I find as stimulating at the American Museum of Natural History, but the great halls of stuffed animals always put me in a somber mood. The organic parts of the reconstituted creatures were collected long ago, and large metal letters on the wooden frames telling the viewer who had donated the skins to the museum.…
laelaps | October 20, 2008Some days I just want to scream. For years I believed what the textbooks and teachers told me about the history of science, taking in their arguments from authority, but when I started to look into the same events myself I found they were much more complex than I had previously known. I cherish the new knowledge I have gained, but it comes with a price. When someone spews out a bit of textbook cardboard, I cringe as if fingernails were being drawn across a chalkboard.
Today's tidbit was that Charles Darwin could never account for apparently maladaptive characteristics displayed by animals, i.…
laelaps | October 17, 2008Last week I wrote about an obscure little book called Phreno-Geology by J. Stanley Grimes which, surprisingly, proposed a mechanism of evolution that combined Lamarckism with natural selection. Since I wrote it, I have been informed that this particular work is significant to the history of science, so I tried to do a little more digging to try and find reviews or reactions to the book.
As I speculated in my previous post, the good theoretical concepts Grimes came up with may have been marred with his associated with phrenology, mesmerism, and other "fads," as well as the fact that a number…
laelaps | October 15, 2008When Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859, he largely avoided the issue of human evolution. The implication that our species had evolved was there, and many were concerned with our connection to "lower" animals, but Darwin did not provide his opponents any extra ammunition in this area. In 1871, however, Darwin's two-volume The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex was printed, and this was a somewhat belated contribution to debates already stirred by T.H. Huxley's 1863 pamphlet Evidences as to Man's Place in Nature and Charles…
laelaps | October 10, 2008Eight years before the publication of On the Origin of Species, J. Stanley Grimes issued his book Phreno-Geology: The Progressive Creation of Man, Indicated by Natural History, and Confirmed by Discoveries That Connect the Organization and Functions of the Brain With Successive Geological Periods. It seems to have been forgotten, perhaps because the "science" of phrenology fell out of favor, but as we approach the "evolution year" it is profitable to look back on other ideas of evolution that have largely been forgotten. Charles Darwin was not the first to think that organisms evolve, even if…
laelaps | October 9, 2008
There are few scientific figures as misunderstood as the English anatomist Richard Owen. More often than not, he is portrayed as a sort of Grinch, brooding in his museum and muttering "I must stop this 'evolution' from coming, but how?" Not only was he a severe and vicious old man, generally disliked by all who knew him, but his brilliance was marred by a reliance on the Bible, which caused him to lash out at anyone who dared suggest that life might evolve.
So goes the story, anyway. Owen was a figure of such importance to biology in Victorian England that it is impossible to ignore him, yet…
laelaps | October 4, 2008
The skull of a wolf eel (Anarrhichthys ocellatus) from Orr's Circle of the Sciences.
For more weird fish, check out this post on Bioemphemera.
laelaps | October 2, 2008
Supposed human footprints from the "Old Red Sandstone" of Missouri. From Voices From the Rocks.
I mention these facts to show how easy it is for one to be led astray, when every possible phase of the subject is not carefully studied. Let us, therefore, attend strictly to detailing facts of observation, and they are sure to lead to a correct solution of all problems within the compass of the human mind. - Unknown author, from "Impressions of Human Feet in Sandstone," Proceedings of the Indiana Historical Society
Fossil footprint fraud isn't anything new. For nearly 200 years (if not longer…
laelaps | September 24, 2008
During his 1876 tour of the United States, the famed anatomist and popularizer of science Thomas Henry Huxley stopped to see the American paleontologist O.C. Marsh at Yale. Marsh provided his esteemed guest with access to his ever-growing stores in the Peabody Museum, showing Huxley toothed Cretaceous birds and an array of fossil horses that convinced Huxley that the horse was a creature that had evolved in the New World, not the Old. Indeed, Marsh had collected an impressive array of fossil horses, from tiny forms with many toes to the familiar one-toed Equus. Given the transitions that…
laelaps | September 21, 2008I'm about halfway through Keith Thomson's book The Legacy of the Mastodon: The Golden Age of Fossils in America, and so far I have learned quite a bit. Even though the book covers already well-trodden ground (the "American incognitum," Cuvier's mosasaur, Mary Anning, the discovery of Hadrosaurus), Thomson also pays attention to some lesser-known paleontological personas like Ferdinand Vandiveer Hayden and G.W. Featherstonhaugh.
Although Thomson's prose is easily accessible, the book isn't particularly well-written (the short chapters are essentially outlines of particular events or persons in…
laelaps | September 19, 2008
H.F. Osborn and Barnum Brown's vision for "dueling" Tyrannosaurus.
Dawn glows along the shore of a lagoon near the sea three millions of years ago in Montana. The landscape is of low relief; sycamores and ginkgo trees mingle with figs, palms and bananas. There are few twittering birds in the tree-tops and no herds of grazing animals to greet the early sun. A huge herbivorous dinosaur Trachodon, coming on shore for some favorite food has been seized and partly eaten by a giant Tyrannosaurus. Whilst this monster is ravenously consuming the carcass another Tyrannosaurus draws near determined…
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 "…
laelaps | September 12, 2008
A female okapi (Okapia johnstoni), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
There are few animals that I find as charming as the okapi (Okapia johnstoni). During the warmer months no trip to the Bronx zoo is complete until I stop by to see them. (Once the temperature drops they are taken off exhibit so they do not freeze.) While they may not always measure up to our standards of good manners, sometimes sticking their long purple tongues into their ears and noses, the okapi is one of the most beautiful animals I think I have ever seen.
Given that the nearest okapi is only a few miles away from me (as…