evolution
pharyngula | September 5, 2006Carl Zimmer is one kinky dude—he has a new article on sexual cannibalism in the NY Times, and his expansion on the topic in his blog is also darned interesting, focusing on the scientific duels fought over adaptationism and exaptations in explaining the phenomenon.
evolgen | September 5, 2006Razib pointed out this blog article on theory in biology. The author deals with three, self defined, points:
Unifying theory in biology.
Theory vs. experimental biology.
Justification through medical applications.
His first point, that biology (or a given biological discipline) lacks a unifying theory, is a bit silly and comes across as physics envy. But even physics doesn't have a unifying theory, with different models for small objects and large objects. In his second point, he argues that there is a rift between theoretical and experimental biologists. He is correct, there is a…
clock | September 4, 2006If you are interested in the pros and cons of cannibalism in praying mantises, you should check out the latest Carl's post and article on the topic.
loom | September 4, 2006This female praying mantis is finishing up the last tasty bits of the male that just mated with her. In the lead article in tomorrow's science section of the New York Times, I talk to scientists who study females of some species that sometimes devour their mates. Sexual cannibalism is not common, but it is revealing. The evolutionary forces that shape the sexes can drive them into some extreme conflicts, even turning one sex into a meal for the other. In some cases, males actually become partners in their own demise--passively or complicitly. A new study indicates that male praying mantises…
pharyngula | September 4, 2006
Good news for Minnesota! Minnesota Citizens for Science Education has been officially launched. This is a new advocacy group with the goal of promoting good science education in our state. Specifically—
A scientifically literate population is essential to Minnesota's future. To that end, Minnesota Citizens for Science Education (MnCSE) will bring together the combined resources of teachers, scientists, and citizens to assure, defend, and promote the teaching and learning of evolutionary biology and other sciences in K-12 public school science classrooms, consistent with current scientific…
jrosenhouse | September 4, 2006The New York Times reports on the big evolution meeting in Rome:
They meet every year, the eminent German professor and his old doctoral students, for a weekend of high-minded talk on a chosen topic. For years it was nothing more than that.
But now the professor, once called Joseph Ratzinger, has become Pope Benedict XVI. And this year, for three days beginning Friday, the topic on the table is evolution, an issue perched on the ever more contentious front between science and belief.
And so the questions rise as the meeting unfolds at a papal palace just outside Rome. Is this merely…
scientificactivist | September 4, 2006In the comments of a recent post, one reader asked for recommendations of good science-related causes to donate to. Not having much (or any) disposable income myself--being a poor grad student and all--I realized that I didn't have many suggestions myself. So, I asked around, and I found, not surprisingly, that there are a ton of worthy causes and organizations out there that need funding. In particular, some of my SciBlings here at ScienceBlogs.com were very helpful with their own suggestions. Although I've compiled quite a list here, I know that this just barely scratches the surface,…
mikethemadbiologist | September 3, 2006Over at Pandagon, Pam's aunt had her ancestry traced using mitochondrial DNA ('mtDNA'). The results given to her aunt were that she is:
51% Sub-Saharan Africa (she didn't get any information as to country)
37% European (we have known ancestry in Ireland and England)
12% Native American (likely a NY or Connecticut tribe; we thought Shinnecock, but have not been able to confirm)
How is it even possible to conclude that one is 'percent-anything' based on a mtDNA haplotype? Is there something about the test that I'm missing here?
One really can't say that an mtDNA haplotype is 50% X and 50% Y,…
oracknows | September 3, 2006John Wilkins over at Evolving Thoughts has posted an excellent brief summary of the history of the eugenics movement. In the process, he makes a strong argument that it was genetics far more than evolution that influenced eugenecists and that the entire eugenics movement was based on the concept that evolution was being thwarted by human society and thus needed "help" (a process that is far more like "intelligent design" than natural evolution). Moreover, he gives examples of scientists who pointed out that, for example, weeding out eugenics through selective sterilization was totally…
sporte | September 1, 2006If we compare sections 1, 2, and 3, we see that section 2 matches very well in a number of different samples, and that there are differences between the sequences in sections 1 and 3.
We also learn something about the people who did the experiment.
At first it appears somewhat odd that there are many matching sequences that are all shorter than the genome and all the same length.
What's up with that?
It turns out that information doesn't have anything to do with the fraction of the genome that matches our query. These short segments are PCR products. They're the same size because the PCR…
loom | August 31, 2006Before I moved the Loom to this address earlier this year, I got a fair amount of comments on my blogs about evolution from creationists. (See this entry, for example.) They fell off after the move, but now they're back in fine form. Today we are joined by Kevin Anderson, editor-in-chief of the Creation Research Society Quarterly.
Here's a little background: last week I wrote here about stumbling across a radio show put out by the Institute of Creation Research. It claimed that recent research on the human genome supports Young Earth creationism. Dr. Anderson spoke on the program about how…
clock | August 31, 2006Chimpanzees Can Transmit Cultural Behavior To Multiple 'Generations':
Transferring knowledge through a chain of generations is a behavior not exclusive to humans, according to new findings by researchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center of Emory University and the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. For the first time, researchers have shown chimpanzees exhibit generational learning behavior similar to that in humans. Unlike previous findings that indicated chimpanzees simply conform to the social norms of the group, this study shows behavior and traditions can be passed along…
clock | August 31, 2006What's with manatees in the news lately? First intelligence, and now this:
Manatee Bones Lead To New Insight On Evolution:
"Most research professors spend their days writing grants, teaching and managing graduate students, so when Stanford's David Kingsley, PhD, ventured from his office to his lab, pulled out a scale and started weighing 114 pairs of manatee pelvic bones, it was a sign that something was afoot.
The results of Kingsley's efforts make his departure from the routine worthwhile. He found that in almost every case, the left pelvic bone outweighed the right. Although seemingly…
stcynic | August 31, 2006Dembski links to a site called Origin of Life Fairness in Pubic Schools, which seems to be trying out a new argument against the teaching of evolution in public schools. I've heard various people use this argument in the past, but no one seriously propose this as a legal argument. It's really quite laughable. Their argument goes like this:
A. The Supreme Court has said that atheism is a religion.
B. Evolution = atheism
C. Therefore it violates the establishment clause to teach evolution in schools.
Let's quote them directly on the first claim:
The entire origin of life debate concerning what…
pharyngula | August 30, 2006
We're only sorta bilaterally symmetric: superficially, our left and right halves are very similar, but dig down a little deeper, and all kinds of interesting differences appear. Our hearts are larger on the left than the right, our appendix is on the right side, even our brains have significant differences, with the speech centers typically on the left side. That there is asymmetry isn't entirely surprising—if you've got this long coil of guts with a little appendix near one end, it's got to flop to one side or the other—but what has puzzled scientists for a long time is how things so…
pharyngula | August 30, 2006
How do evolutionary novelties arise? The conventional explanation is that the first step is the chance formation of a genetic mutation, which results in a new phenotype, which, if it is favored by selection, may be fixed in a population. No one sensible can seriously argue with this idea—it happens. I'm not going to argue with it at all.
However, there are also additional mechanisms for generating novelties, mechanisms that extend the power of evolutionary biology without contradicting our conventional understanding of it. A paper by A. Richard Palmer in Science describes the evidence for an…
oracknows | August 29, 2006While I am on vacation, I'm reprinting a number of "Classic Insolence" posts to keep the blog active while I'm gone. (It also has the salutory effect of allowing me to move some of my favorite posts from the old blog over to the new blog, and I'm guessing that quite a few of my readers have probably never seen many of these old posts.) These will appear at least twice a day while I'm gone (and that will probably leave some leftover for Christmas vacation, even). Enjoy, and please feel free to comment. I will be checking in from time to time when I have Internet access to see if the reaction…
razib | August 29, 2006Look at this bitch. No, seriously, check it out, he has this long ass post on fossils and paleoanthropology. How the hell am I supposed blog about human evolution with some pride & self-respect if John Hawks has to cover every damn angle!!!. I know a little about fossils, words like stratigraphy don't terrorize me, but I just don't have all the details of every damn fossil at the Awash site or Sterkfontein in my head. Fossils make me want to tear my hair out, how the hell am I supposed to ascertain if the Hobbit is a new species or a pathology? Hawks on the other hand looks at…
oracknows | August 28, 2006While I am on vacation, I'm reprinting a number of "Classic Insolence" posts to keep the blog active while I'm gone. (It also has the salutory effect of allowing me to move some of my favorite posts from the old blog over to the new blog, and I'm guessing that quite a few of my readers have probably never seen many of these old posts.) These will appear at least twice a day while I'm gone (and that will probably leave some leftover for Christmas vacation, even). Enjoy, and please feel free to comment. I will be checking in from time to time when I have Internet access to see if the reaction…
razib | August 28, 2006Recently, myself, RPM, afarensis, Robert Skipper, John Wilkins and John Hawks made about 10 assertions about evolution of about 10 words or less (some participants fudged, no worries, I'm not Tony Soprano). We all went in different directions, but issues that cropped up several times
* The relationship between selection and evolution, and its particular elucidation
* Mutation is not always deleterious
* Common descent of species
* Species concepts
* The fact that humans are still evolving
I haven't done a rigorous comparison, so your thoughts are welcome.