evolution
grrlscientist | January 27, 2009tags: evolution, speciation, diversification rate, Zosterops, White-eyes, ornithology, birds, molecular phylogeny, South Pacific Islands
The Splendid (Ranongga) White-eye, Zosterops splendidus,
endemic to Ranongga Island in the Solomon Islands archipelago.
This species' home range is smaller than Manhattan Island.
Image: Chris Filardi [larger view].
For many decades, the white-eyes (Family: Zosteropidae) were known as the "Great Speciators" in honor of their apparent ability to rapidly give rise to new species while other birds in the same areas showed little or no diversification. But…
cmooney | January 27, 2009You can watch it here. Tons of funny stuff in Colbert's segment on science, which starts roughly at 6:15 and runs to roughly 10:45. I was on for about three minutes, and was instructed: "No monkey business. No evolution."
Of course, even though Colbert plays a rightwinger who thinks with his gut rather than his head and doesn't trust book learning, the truth is that his show features a ton of science content and, indeed, is doing vastly more than most other parts of the media to improve the role of science in our culture.
I was thrilled to be on.
jwhitfield | January 27, 2009Science is fun. Now, I know that someone telling you a thing is fun is usually a guarantee that it isn't. And I know that people who tell you science is fun usually do so in strained and pleading tones, and expect you to believe them because they have spiky hair and can play the harmonica. But it's true.
To see what I mean, read chapter 6 of the Origin, 'Instinct'. Despite, or because of, having its share of 'are you sure about that?' moments, it's a delight, because it shows Darwin doing the most fun thing in science: mucking about with reality, sometimes called experimentation.
In this…
evolvingthoughts | January 26, 2009If you happen to be near the University of Guelph, then not only is Massimo Pigliucci giving a talk there, but there's this event by my friend and former colleague, Stefan Linquist:
jrosenhouse | January 26, 2009Jerry Coyne returns to the pages of The New Republic with this review of Ken Miller's recent book Only a Theory and Karl Giberson's book Saving Darwin. I previously reviewed Giberson's book here and Miller's book here.
Miller and Giberson, recall, were both rying to carve out space for a reconciliation of evolution with Christianity. Coyne's verdict:
This disharmony is a dirty little secret in scientific circles. It is in our personal and professional interest to proclaim that science and religion are perfectly harmonious. After all, we want our grants funded by the government, and our…
hrynyshyn | January 26, 2009New Scientist's recent cover that heralded the stunning news (not) that "Darwin was wrong" has generated an enormous amount of antipathy in these parts. Bora's keeping notes, and the feature article's author, Graham Lawton, surely doesn't deserve the vitriol. (Although with the umbrage he takes in return via blog comments, he is hardly doing himself any favors).
I understand the reaction among those who live, eat and and breathe evolutionary biology ;;;; perhaps Lawton's interpretation of a few issues is questionable ;;;; but stand back and take a deep one, folks. This is journalism we're…
evolvingthoughts | January 26, 2009An excellent fisking by Johnny at Ecographica is here - including the cover that New Scientist should have used...
More from Larry at Sandwalk here, on the cover and the intent of the article. Marco F at Leucophaea has a blog in Italian that I think says complimentary things about the critics [Babelfish kept on interpreting something as the evolution of the geniuses, and I'm fairly sure that wasn't about me].
And a drunken front doorstop by Malte and David at Mr Darwin's home here. Mr Darwin was unfortunately unwell. Naturalists should never be allowed to drink.
More: Chance and Necessity…
razib | January 26, 2009
The normal story we are told is that as rose civilization, so declined evolution. The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution, inverts that formula as indicated by the title. The idea that humans are beyond evolution isn't limited just to non-scientists, Steve Jones, an evolutionary geneticist, made the same argument last year. I've pointed why the emergence of modern culture and all its accoutrements, such as effective medicine, does not mean that the power of evolutionary forces are somehow negated. In The 10,000 Year Explosion Greg Cochran and Henry…
grrlscientist | January 25, 2009tags: 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 a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited by me and published here for your information and enjoyment. Below the fold is this week's issue of The Birdbooker Report which…
clock | January 24, 2009In Boone, NC:
Michael Ruse will present "Darwin at Two Hundred Years Old: Does He Still Speak to Us?" Monday, Feb. 2, 2009, at 8 p.m. in Farthing Auditorium. Ruse is the Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at Florida State University and the foremost philosophical scholar on the relationship between evolution and science. He is the author of "Can a Darwinian Be a Christian?"
On Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2009, Jim Costa, director of the Highlands Biological Station at Western Carolina University, will discuss "Charles Darwin and the Origin of the Origin." The talk is…
evolvingthoughts | January 24, 2009It came as an email. Then it was on the Seed Bloggers Forum. Now it's on my frigging Facebook - they really want me to answer this:
In his first speech as President-elect last November, Barack Obama reminded us of the promise of "a world connected by our own science and imagination." And on Tuesday, in his inaugural address, President Obama cemented his commitment to a new ethos and culture by vowing to "restore science to its rightful place."
At Seed, we are firmly committed to President Obama's vision and want to help make it a reality. We begin today by asking you, our friends and…
evolvingthoughts | January 23, 2009this makes you laugh out loud:
It's even relevant to this blog...
evolvingthoughts | January 23, 2009There's been a slew of "Darwin was wrong" and "Evolution is more complicated" stories in the media lately. It's nearing Darwin day so simple minded media hacks can be explained as needing to find the requisite "drama" in their "stories". But the real picture is a lot more nuanced, and ultimately a lot more interesting, than the dichotomies pedalled by what passes for science journalism these days. I am picking up themes also covered by Larry at Sandwalk, Evolutionary Novelties, and Jason at Evolution Blog.
The targets journalists I wish to attack here are those of New Scientist, Newsweek, The…
jwhitfield | January 23, 2009Up until now, our route into the theory of evolution by natural selection has been all downhill. One thing has led effortlessly to another, with Darwin giving the occasional nudge to steer things in the right direction. Not any more. If it's human interest you're after -- doubt, sweat, anxiety -- then chapter 6 of the Origin, 'Difficulties on Theory', is the one you've been waiting for.
I obviously wasn't going to admit it, but after chapters 4 and 5, I was beginning to fear that we'd peaked with the struggle of chapter 3. But this chapter is full of gems, both in the science, and in the…
jrosenhouse | January 22, 2009Recently, ScienceBlogs own Abbie Smith made some trenchant remarks about the problems with science journalism. The combination of sensationalism with writers who frequently do not understand the work about which they are writing leads to some serious difficulties for scientists wishing to communicate with the public. Abbie was talking specifically about reporting on AIDS, and used the example of presenting every small breakthrough in AIDS treatment as tantamount to a cure.
It all seemed pretty noncontroversial to me, but then science journalist George Johnson got cartoonishly offended by…
pharyngula | January 22, 2009The cover story of New Scientist asks, "Was Darwin wrong?", as if this were surprising news (he was wrong about many things) or as if the discovery of new details would somehow demolish the whole structure of evolutionary theory. I'll let Larry Moran take care of this one.
It's a symptom of creationist influence that journals would think that hyping a story that "150 year old theory gets revised!" is newsworthy. And, of course, the creationists are eating it all up.
pharyngula | January 22, 2009Usually, Begley is reasonably good on science, but her latest piece is one big collection of misconceptions. It reflects a poor understanding of the science and of history, in that it confuses long-standing recognition of the importance of environmental factors in gene expression with a sudden reinstatement of Lamarckian inheritance, and it simply isn't — she's missed the point of the science and she has caricatured Lamarck.
Some water fleas sport a spiny helmet that deters predators; others, with identical DNA sequences, have bare heads. What differs between the two is not their genes but…
ksharpe | January 22, 2009Review by John Lynch, from Stranger Fruit
Originally posted on: January 16, 2009 12:56 PM
It is always cute when the anti-evolutionists (in all their guises) try to do history; witness here, for example. Veteran observers are not surprised to find them trying to warp history (see here, here, here & here for that). Nowhere is this warping more evident than in how DI-hacks such as John West & Richard Weikart have promulgated a meme linking Darwin to Haeckel to Nazism. This has been clearly dealt with by a number of historians (see references herein and read Robert Richards' latest book…
razib | January 21, 2009
The Monito del Monte is the only extant member of its order, the Microbiotheria. This order is itself part of the superorder Australidelphia, which includes Australian Marsupials and the Monito del Monte, whose native habitat are the forests of Chile and Argentina. In other words, the Monito del Monte is more closely related to the Marsupials of Australia than to those of the New World.
jwhitfield | January 21, 2009To a man with a hammer, said Mark Twain, everything looks like a nail. The better your hammer, I would add, the more nail-like everything looks.
In natural selection, Darwin had crafted one of the best hammers of all time. And in chapter 5 of the origin, 'Laws of Variation', you can hear him umming and aahing about various alternative mechanisms of evolutionary change before deciding that, actually, you know what this needs...hold 'er steady...Thwack!
How about, for example, the "effect of external conditions" -- "food climate &c.". Well, "Gould believes that birds of the same species are…