News

From Philip Lieberman at The Scientist: In On the Origin of Species, Darwin noted “the strange fact that every particle of food and drink which we swallow has to pass over the orifice of the trachea, with some risk of falling into the lungs.” Because of this odd anatomy, which differs from that of all other mammals, choking on food remains the fourth leading cause of accidental death in the United States. This species-specific problem is a consequence of the mutations that crafted the human face, pharynx, and tongue so as to make it easier to speak and to correctly interpret the acoustic speech signals that we hear. In humans, however, a developmental process that spans the first 8 to Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: Scientists at Washington State University and China Jiliang University have discovered that the quality of the host rice plant determines whether the brown planthopper, a major pest on rice in Asia, grows short wings or long wings. Wing size determines whether the insect can fly long distances to other plants or stick around and feed off nearby rice plants, said Laura Lavine, professor in WSU’s Department of Entomology. “It’s all about the amount of glucose, or sugar, in the plant,” Lavine said. “Rice plants with higher glucose levels are older and dying. That increase in glucose causes adolescent brown planthoppers to develop into the long-winged adults. The plant really is telling the insect how to grow.” … “It’s Read More ›

From Bruce Bawer at Science News:: A largely complete, 3.3-million-year-old child’s foot from Australopithecus afarensis shows that the appendage would have aligned the ankle and knee under the body’s center of mass, a crucial design feature for upright walking, scientists report July 4 in Science Advances. “The overall anatomy of this child’s foot is strikingly humanlike,” says study director Jeremy DeSilva, a paleoanthropologist at Dartmouth College in Hanover. But the foot retains some hints of apelike traits. Compared with children today, for example, the A. afarensis child — only about 3 years old at the time of death — had toes more capable of holding onto objects or anyone who was carrying her, the team found. Those toes included a Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: University of Alberta neuroscientists have identified the neural circuit that may underlay intelligence in birds, according to a new study. The discovery is an example of convergent evolution between the brains of birds and primates, with the potential to provide insight into the neural basis of human intelligence. “An area of the brain that plays a major role in primate intelligence is called the pontine nuclei,” explained Cristian Gutierrez-Ibanez, postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Psychology. “This structure transfers information between the two largest areas of the brain, the cortex and cerebellum, which allows for higher-order processing and more sophisticated behaviour. In humans and primates, the pontine nuclei are large compared to other mammals. This makes sense given Read More ›

From Agustín Fuentes at Sapiens: Researchers have observed multiple chimpanzee societies for more than 50 years, so we know a lot about what these primates do and what they don’t do. Chimpanzees have a fascinating array of social traditions (using stone tools to crack open nuts, drinking from leaf cups, “fishing” for termites) and capacities (complex social hierarchies, deep social relationships, complex group conflict with other communities of chimps). Studying these behaviors can tell us a lot about chimpanzees and their evolution. It may also reveal some things about humans. But we also know chimpanzees don’t have cash economies, governments, religious institutions, creeds, or fanatics. They don’t arrest and deport one another, or create massive economies of material and social Read More ›

From Dalmeet Singh Chawla at Undark: N SEPTEMBER 2016, the psychologist Dana Carney came forward with a confession: She no longer believed the findings of a high-profile study she co-authored in 2010 to be true. The study was about “power-posing” — a theory suggesting that powerful stances can psychologically and physiologically help one when under high-pressure situations. Carney’s co-author, Amy Cuddy, a psychologist at Harvard University, had earned much fame from power poses, and her 2012 TED talk on the topic is the second most watched talk of all time. Carney, now based at the University of California, Berkeley, had, however, changed her mind. “I do not believe that ‘power pose’ effects are real,” she wrote on her website in Read More ›

With Philip Cunningham Philip Cunningham writes to say, “As the preceding e-mails strongly indicated, Biological Form simply is not reducible to Darwinian Mechanisms” Paper. See also: Do all genes affect every complex trait? Veronique Greenwood: The roots of many traits, from how tall you are to your susceptibility to schizophrenia, are far more tangled. In fact, they may be so complex that almost the entire genome may be involved in some way… and Other bad news from the genome for neo-Darwinism From Philip Cunningham: The paper makes the genotype-phenotype mapping problem that much worse for neo-Darwinists. Here are few notes to that throw a little light on how bad the problem is.

Philip Cunningham hat tipped us earlier on the article at Quartz that raised the possibility that all genes affect every complex trait. He also writes to say, “The paper makes the genotype-phenotype mapping problem that much worse for neo-Darwinists. Here are few notes to that throw a little light on how bad the problem is:” These news items from recent years give some sense of the issues, he says: The next evolutionary synthesis: from Lamarck and Darwin to genomic variation and systems biology (Bard, 2011) Excerpt: If more than about three genes (nature unspecified) underpin a phenotype, the mathematics of population genetics, while qualitatively analyzable, requires too many unknown parameters to make quantitatively testable predictions [6]. The inadequacy of this Read More ›

The more closely geneticists look at complex traits and diseases, the harder it gets to find active genes that don’t influence them. From Veronique Greenwood at Quanta: Mutations of a single gene are behind sickle cell anemia, for instance, and mutations in another are behind cystic fibrosis. But unfortunately for those who like things simple, these conditions are the exceptions. The roots of many traits, from how tall you are to your susceptibility to schizophrenia, are far more tangled. In fact, they may be so complex that almost the entire genome may be involved in some way… One very early genetic mapping study in 1999 suggested that “a large number of loci (perhaps > than 15)” might contribute to autism Read More ›

From “Tyson” at the Bee: There are a lot of things we can learn from science. Did you know that the earth is round? It is round, and it is not flat. A lot of religions think the world is flat, but they are wrong. It is round. I know this because I am a scientist. More. We are informed that the Bee will soon feature an op-ed by Stephen Hawking as well … See also: March for Science: Neil DeGrasse Tyson thinks science denial dismantles democracy and Tyson bombshell: Universe likely just computer sim Twenty-first century, meet your science.

From former Evergreen biologist Bret Weinstein at YouTube: Bret Weinstein’s follow up report on the Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson debates that he moderated in June of 2018 in Vancouver, B.C. This event was billed as an in-depth discussion between Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson about the relationship between science and ethics, facts and values, meaning and intellectual honesty. More. Weinstein’s main claim to fame is that he discovered that the progressive assault on science is serious and that inside every woke student is a little totalitarian screaming to get out. See also: Bret Weinstein’s shocking testimony at YouTube Sam Harris on taboo topics, Jordan Peterson, and getting sent to PC hell Jordan Peterson: Do the stitches hold? and You Read More ›

From Jim Baggott at Prospect: Over the last few decades “multiverse theories” have become increasingly fashionable within a relatively small—but publicly vocal—group of theoretical physicists. This group specialises in foundational problems in cosmology, particle physics, and quantum mechanics. These theories are advertised as science’s answer to much that we can’t otherwise explain about the universe we inhabit, the elementary particles we have discovered in it, and the reasons for our own existence. … The first victim is context. For example, in a recent post to this blog, Philip Ball reports on a paper published by a team of astrophysicists in the “Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.” Ball reports on this paper with an accuracy entirely consistent with his Read More ›

Michael Behe’s new book at Amazon: Darwin Devolves: The New Science About DNA that Challenges Evolution is due February 26, 2019. No cover image as yet. From HarperOne: The scientist who has been dubbed the “Father of Intelligent Design” and author of the groundbreaking book Darwin’s Black Box contends that recent scientific discoveries further disprove Darwinism and strengthen the case for an intelligent creator. In his controversial bestseller Darwin’s Black Box, biochemist Michael Behe challenged Darwin’s theory of evolution, arguing that science itself has proven that intelligent design is a better explanation for the origin of life. In Darwin Devolves, Behe advances his argument, presenting new research that offers a startling reconsideration of how Darwin’s mechanism works, weakening the theory’s validity Read More ›

At Undark, Michael Schulson asks, Why are ostensibly respectable, peer-reviewed journals now publishing discussions of what has long been dismissed as bigoted psychological research? IN THE 20 years since the publication of his best-known book, “The Culture of Critique,” Kevin MacDonald, an emeritus professor of psychology at California State University, Long Beach, has complained that his work receives scant attention from academics — though there are reasons for the silence. The book, after all, has much in common with centuries-old anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, and, using the language of evolutionary psychology, MacDonald infamously argues that many Jews oppose the values of Western civilization in order to pursue insular group interests. … Since the book’s publication in 1998, MacDonald has openly aligned Read More ›

From Maria Temming at Science News: New infrared telescope observations reveal an exoplanet that appears to be growing inside the disk of gas and dust around a star about 370 light-years away. Astronomers have indirectly identified other exoplanet embryos by observing the paths that these young worlds cleared through the dusty disks around their parent stars (SN Online: 11/6/14). But pictures released July 2 of the newly discovered exoplanet, dubbed PDS 70b, give the first clear visual of a still-forming exoplanet itself, seen as a bright splotch of light off to the side of its host star. But beyond that, we don’t know much: These observations revealed PDS 70b to be a giant, cloudy world about as far from its Read More ›