evolution
gregladen | January 31, 2008I wish we had more details of this story, but this is what we know so far:
The Lafayette County School Board unanimously adopted a resolution in protest of a proposed Florida Department of Education revision of the science portion of the Sunshine State Standards at a special meeting on Jan. 25.
According to Fred Ward, Lafayette County superintendent of schools, FDOE is considering new standards which would make the teaching of evolution mandatory in every school and to disallow the teaching of any other explanation about how the earth, universe, and man came into existence.
"The new Sunshine…
gregladen | January 31, 2008
Proposals to give the latter part of the present geological period (the Holocene) a new name ... the Anthropocene ... are misguided, scientifically invalid, and obnoxious. However, there is a use for a term that is closely related to "Anthropocene" and I propose that we adopt that term instead.
The pithy title of the paper making this proposal is "Are we now living in the Anthropocene" (sic: no question mark is included in this title, enigmatically).
It is not an entirely stupid idea. The paper argues that there are major changes of the type often used to distinguish between major…
razib | January 30, 2008Chapters read:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7.
17% of the way through The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, can I get a w00t, w00t!?!?! Chapter 3 was a change. I am wondering if the verbal excesses on garish display in the first two chapters was just an extended fart that Stephen Jay Gould had to get out of his system so that he could be a bit more comfortable. Barely a mention of Shakespeare, medieval architecture or the Bible. An occasional gratuitous toss of Latin here and there, but a most definite improvement in that most nebulous character, readability. Though Gould won't be accused of…
jlynch | January 30, 2008DESIGNING DARWIN - Prize competition Organized by the British Society for the History of Science Outreach & Education Committee
The year 2009 sees both the bicentenary of Charles Darwin’s birth (on 12th February) and the 150th birthday of his most famous work, On the Origin of Species. In anticipation of the celebrations, the BSHS Outreach & Education Committee is offering prizes for original designs that best illustrate the significance of either (or both) of these anniversaries.
Format of the entry: entries may submitted in one of the following electronic formats:
A poster up to…
gregladen | January 30, 2008This is a very interesting guest post at Remote Central:
All species vary through time and space. You don't necessarily look the same as any one of your ancestors. Therefore "like begets like" but each individual can be a bit different. It is impossible for a sperm whale to evolve from a bowl of petunias, or a duck from a dandelion, as some creationist and Intelligent Design supporters accuse evolutionists of believing. But over time it is possible for a cow to evolve from something like a camel, or a human to evolve from something like an ape. Evolution doesn't proceed in a straight line…
evolgen | January 30, 2008Everyone's blogging about Stephen J. Gould's Structure of Evolutionary Theory (Razib, John Lynch, Laelaps). I'm not. The book's too long, and I'm too busy. But that doesn't mean I can't link to them, and to another review of Gould. The other is Richard Lewontin's review of two Gould books: The Richness of Life: The Essential Stephen Jay Gould and Punctuated Equilibrium. The latter is a chapter in Structure of Evolutionary Theory. Yes, a chapter of a book was released as a book on its own.
Lewontin's review of the two books isn't really a review of the two books. It's more of a eulogy or an…
gregladen | January 30, 2008Color is funny. Anthropologists have long known that different cultures have different relationships, linguistically and in day to day practice, to the color spectrum. For example, the Efe Pygmy Hunter-Gatherers of the Ituri Forest describe things as white, black, or red, and that's it. They live in a world of green. Going with the model for "Eskimos" having a hundred words for snow because snow is so important in their environment, one would expect that the Efe would have a hundred words for green. On the other hand, the Efe Hunter-Gatherers must have a fairly primitive culture,…
purepedantry | January 30, 2008I was distressed to read this at Wired because usually I feel like they are more on top of things. This is by Thomas Hayden:
Even worse, those same cortexes that invented science can't really embrace it. Science describes the world with numbers (ratio of circumference to diameter: pi) and abstractions (particles! waves! particles!). But our intractable brains evolved on a diet of campfire tales. Fantastical explanations (angry gods hurling lightning bolts) and rare events with dramatic outcomes (saber-toothed tiger attacks) make more of an impact on us than statistical norms. Evolution gave…
razib | January 29, 2008Chapters read:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7.
Booyah! Over 10% of the way through The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. Unfortunately, I'm still in heavily exegetical territory. Personally I much prefer Richard Elliott Friedman when it comes to textual interpretation of ancient works, but I knew what I was getting into. In any case, in chapter 2 Stephen Jay Gould mentions the Bible and Shakespeare considerably less, though his verbosity keeps on a truckin'. Instead of an exposition of Gould's own view of evolutionary theory he recapitulates and interprets Charles Darwin's argument in Origin of…
clock | January 29, 2008If you liked Sigma Xi last weekend, and if you are in the Triangle on February 8th, and if you are interested in the origin and early evolution of life on Earth (and potentially elsewhere), you will love attending the NESCent symposium on the topic:
The National Evolutionary Synthesis Center invites you to the 2nd annual Darwin Day Symposium. Carol Cleland, Mark Bedau, Janet Siefert, Abigail Allwood, Andrew Roger and Laura Landweber will be talking about their research in early life, generating life and astrobiology. This day-long program is open to the public and will be held at the Sigma…
laelaps | January 29, 2008Given that so many of us are picking up Stephen Jay Gould's The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, I thought I would post an interview he gave on the Charlie Rose Show about his book Full House. (The sound and video become a bit disconnected during the video, unfortunately);
Most of what is said will be familiar for those of you who've read Full House, a book that (to tell the truth) I was a bit disappointed with. I liked the discussion about understanding evolution as the expanding or contracting of variation and complexity over time, but the section involving baseball went on for too…
pharyngula | January 29, 2008I don't know how I missed it, but I was just made aware of OESE, Oklahomans for Excellence in Science Education, another great group of smart people rising up to fight for good education. I presume all the Oklahomans in my readership will now inform me that they've known about this forever, and it's about time I highlighted their good work?
laelaps | January 29, 2008
It seems that we have something of a book club starting up here on Sb. Razib has started to blog his way through Stephen Jay Gould's "magnum opus" The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, and it looks like John is going to join in, too. I purchased the book after seeing at the AMNH about two years ago, but I didn't get very far (my eyes started to go cross around page 90). Given that I've learned a bit more about evolution and the arguments that still surround Gould & his writings since that time, I'm probably in a better place to pick the book up again.
The project will be made all the…
grrlscientist | January 29, 2008tags: researchblogging.org, evolution, avian flight, ornithology, birds, avian, researchblogging
Chukar, Alectoris chukar;
Capitol Reef National Park (Utah, USA) 2004.
Image: Wikipedia [larger view].
For more than 150 years, the evolution of flight in birds has one of the most controversial topics that one can discuss at a professional meeting because this topic splits evolutionary biologists into one of two camps; the "ground up" people who think that birds evolved from dinosaurs that ran along the ground and flapped their wings, either to collect food or to escape predators, and the "…
jlynch | January 28, 2008 Razib is reading Stephen Jay Gould’s monumental The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. I have to admit that I bought it when it appeared nearly six years ago and, as yet, have not managed to get beyond the first ninety-odd pages. What I liked about Gould when I was an undergraduate over twenty years ago now just seems annoying. What worked in small doses turns into a nightmare when presented in a five pound package. In short, Gould clearly needed an editor. That said, Razib has inspired me to try again. Who knows, I might even finish it this time.
So, have any readers started (or finished!)…
gregladen | January 28, 2008"The first witness called by attorneys for the parents was Dr. Kenneth Miller"
esiegel | January 28, 2008Okay, so I got a question from my friend Tamara, who's a high school teacher in my hometown of New York City. It concerns a recent article she read on the front page of the New York Times about something funny that us scientists are calling Boltzmann Brains.
I've read this article three times since it was featured on the front page of the science section in the NYT and I'm still confused about the Boltzmann brain problem, it's (non?)validity, the reason it made it's way onto the front page and whether Emerson's philosophy about imagined worlds came from this...
There's a lot of interesting…
terrasig | January 28, 2008If you read nothing else: Men with prostate cancer should avoid any dietary supplement containing testosterone (or anything that sounds like it) or that offers claims of increased virility, sexual performance, or increased muscle mass.
Consumption of a herbal/hormone dietary supplement has been linked to two cases of aggressive prostate cancer as reported in a paper in the 15 January issue of Clinical Cancer Research (abstract free; full paper paywalled) . The observations and follow-up studies were conducted by urologists at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School and Baylor…
mikethemadbiologist | January 28, 2008When I read Olivia Judson's post about hopeful monsters, I didn't think she used the term correctly (here are some good explanations why), but I was surprised by Jerry Coyne's response.
First, the personal attack on Judson is unwarranted: when we reach the point where the serious challenge to evolutionary biology is the misuse of a discredited decades-old idea, as opposed to the politically powerful anti-science creationist movement, we're in a pretty good place. She made a mistake--I don't think her motives were self-aggrandizing. Second, if you're going to launch an ad homeniem attack,…