evolution
evolvingthoughts | February 19, 2007
A recent report noted that studies that rely on evolutionary processesto explain, say, antibiotic resistance among pathogens, tend not to use the "E-word" in medical journals, instead using terms like "emerging", "spreading" and "increasing". The reason appears to be the bad connotations "evolution" has in American contexts.
There is much misunderstanding of this term, and people often pack a lot of differing concepts under it. Consider this rant by a creationist in The American Spectator: there are "six types of evolution" according to him. They are cosmic evolution, chemical evolution,…
evolvingthoughts | February 18, 2007
A paper out in Nature 15 February, uses a novel technique devised by one of the authors, Dan Faith, called Phylogenetic Diversity (PD), to assess the biodiversity and conservation value of endangered species and regions in terms of how unique they are in evolutionary history.
The summary article says this:
When seeking to preserve biodiversity, simply trying to count and protect every species may not be enough. A new study suggests that conservationists should also consider the extent to which the mix of species in an area has the genetic potential to adapt to change.
In the past, many…
oracknows | February 18, 2007It's truly depressing to see children indoctrinated in anti-science like this:
The part where a preacher has the kids singing along about how the Bible supposedly describes dinosaurs in the Book of Job has to be seen to be believed, and seeing little kids parroting antievolution anti-science is truly depressing. But worst of all is the kid who says he wants to be a biochemist and go to work for the Institute of Creation Research when he grows up.
(Via Bad Science.)
evolvingthoughts | February 17, 2007
I'm late to this party, no doubt, but courtesy of Nobel Intent, here is a number of interviews with scientists and philosophers discussing the Evil Undead Zombies of creationism and intelligent design.
pharyngula | February 17, 2007Lately, the Discovery Institute has stuck its neck out in response to the popularity of showings of Randy Olson's movie, Flock of Dodos, which I reviewed a while back. They slapped together some lame critiques packaged on the web as Hoax of Dodos (a clunker of a name; it's especially ironic since the film tries to portray the Institute as good at PR), which mainly seem to be driven by the sloppy delusions of that poor excuse for a developmental biologist, Jonathan Wells. In the past week, I've also put up my responses to the Wells deceptions—as a developmental biologist myself, I get a little…
sporte | February 17, 2007 Yes, yes, I know Darwin Day was Februrary 12th. Nevertheless, the Alliance for Science is sponsoring an essay contest in Darwin's honor and, if you're a high school student you can still celebrate by writing an essay.
And if you're a high school teacher, and your student wins, you win $$ for buying lab supplies.
Okay, I suppose it's only us geeky bloggers who consider writing an essay to be a kind of celebration.
If the sheer joy of celebrating Darwin Day by writing an essay, doesn't pique your interest, there are prizes.
Write an essay on the topic: "Why would you want your…
evolvingthoughts | February 16, 2007
As everyone is tired now of hearing, Intelligent Design booster Michael Behe has argued there is an "irreducible complexity" in some biological processes that means they cannot have evolved. The basic logic is pretty simple - if a system needs all its parts, then the lack of any part means it would be nonfunctional. This means, he says, that for it to have evolved, those other parts would be twiddling their thumbs evolutionarily, until all the parts are in place.
The incredibly smart, handsome and active Ian Musgrave has a piece on Panda's Thumb on Behe's key example, the clotting cascade…
clock | February 16, 2007It does not matter if you care or not about Behe's silly creationist claims, but they sure provide great starting points for cool science blog posts. Here, Ian Musgrave uses this tactic to educate us all about the ancient roles of some molecules we use in blood-clotting, but invertebrete Chordates use for other functions.
grrlscientist | February 16, 2007
Brenthia hexaselena, a species of metalmark moth,
flares its hind wings (HW) and spreads its forewings (FW) to mimic a jumping spider.
In lab trials, spiders caught 6 percent of the metalmark moths presented to them, as opposed to 62 percent of other moth species. What's more, the spiders sometimes made territorial gestures at the metalmarks -- and occasionally backed away.
For most moths, the sight of a jumping spider makes them panic as they try to escape its lethal pounce. But not so for metalmark moths in the genus Brenthia. These moths stand their ground with hind wings flared and…
purepedantry | February 16, 2007I know that a bunch of other people covered this story, but I managed to find a video of it so I thought I would post it anyway.
Researchers working in Ivory Coast have found remnants of a chimpanzee habitation from over 4,000 years ago, and these remnants include tools that chimps use to break open nuts:
Researchers have found evidence that chimpanzees from West Africa were cracking nuts with stone tools before the advent of agriculture, thousands of years ago. The result suggests chimpanzees developed this behaviour on their own, or even that stone tool use was a trait inherited from our…
clock | February 15, 2007The latest issue of Conservation Magazine has picked several 'people to watch in 2007', including Randy Olson and Martin Wikelski.
Who do you think are 'people to watch in 2007'?
pharyngula | February 15, 2007
(This is a rather long response to a chapter in Jonathan Wells' dreadful and most unscholarly book, Icons of Evolution)
The story of Haeckel's embryos is different in an important way from that of the other chapters in Jonathan Wells' book. As the other authors show, Wells has distorted ideas that are fundamentally true in order to make his point: all his rhetoric to the contrary, Archaeopteryx is a transitional fossil, peppered moths and Darwin's finches do tell us significant things about evolution, four-winged flies do tell us significant things about developmental pathways, and so…
oracknows | February 15, 2007I've written quite a bit about the role of the theory of evolution in medicine, including how it can be used to better understand disease processes such as cancer and sleeping sickness. I've also lamented the woeful state of knowledge about evolution that is possessed by all too many medical students and physicians, most recently taking to task an orthopedic surgeon named David Cook for some astoundingly ignorant statements about evolution and Dr. Geoffrey Simmons. (At least it's somewhat comforting to know that I'm not the only one who's embarrassed for his profession in this matter.)…
evolvingthoughts | February 14, 2007
Most of us have seen or heard of those who challenge the age of the Earth, from the undue pressure on the NPS, to the assertions that the Earth is "really" just 6000 or so years old. But how did we arrive at the present figure of 4.55 billion years?
"The Chronologers' Quest: The Search for the Age of the Earth" (Patrick Wyse Jackson), gives a nice and comprehensive account of the project to date the earth, and the means used to do it, from early modern theological approaches like the famous Ussher's (and Jackson has some corrections to make to Gould's essay on the topic), through to the…
mikethemadbiologist | February 14, 2007Having been trained as an evolutionary biologist, I've always thought that the medical literature avoids using the word evolution: instead, words like emergence, development, spread, and acquisition are used. In PLos Biology, there's an article that quantifies what I've always suspected:
The increase in resistance of human pathogens to antimicrobial agents is one of the best-documented examples of evolution in action at the present time, and because it has direct life-and-death consequences, it provides the strongest rationale for teaching evolutionary biology as a rigorous science in high…
sporte | February 13, 2007Evolution!
Wow! A jolt of electricity went down my spine. I feel like Harry Potter saying "Voldemort."
Apparently, in biomedical journals, drug resistance and other phenomena can "emerge," "arise," or "spread." It can "appear", "develop", "become common", or "be acquired."
As long as you don't say it "evolves."
A group of researchers, at the University of Virginia, discovered that authors who were studying evolution and publishing in biomedical journals were reluctant to use the word (1). They found that:
In research reports in journals with primarily evolutionary or genetic content, the…
grrlscientist | February 13, 2007
Stones excavated from a forest in the Ivory Coast.
They are 4,300 years old and have use patterns consistent with what is seen in modern chimpanzee sites.
People like to believe they are somehow more special than animals, that we are set apart from other animals in some mysterious way. For quite awhile, the differences between humans and other animals were listed as the use of a language and tool use, as well as culture. Well, it turns out that chimpanzees have been using tools for quite some time, according to a recently published paper.
Archaeologists have found ancient chimpanzee stone…
pharyngula | February 13, 2007I'm going to be driving to the Varsity Theater in Dinkytown this afternoon. It's time for a Café Scientifique on the subject of "Understanding Evolution" at 6:00 this evening. We have a 3 person panel, with Mark Borello of UMTC talking about the history of evolutionary thought, Scott Lanyon of the Bell Museum describing evolutionary patterns, and me saying a few words about public misconceptions about evolution. It should be fun.
One word on what to expect, though: this is Café Scientifique. It's not just us three babbling at you; we're each going to give a 10-15 minute overview, but the main…
evolgen | February 12, 2007Does anyone know anything about NESCent (the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in North Carolina)? They're affiliated with Duke, UNC, and NC State (the Research Triangle universities), and they offer postdoctoral fellowships. One of my committee members suggested it as a possible location for a postdoc, but I'm concerned that any potential project would be way heavy on computational work. I'm just trying to get a feeling for the center from anyone familiar with the research going on there.