Some people have made things happen, some responded to what was happening, while others are still asking, “What happened?”
Biography
Francisco Ayala has stepped down in sexual harassment controversy at University of California Irvine
The library named in honor of the well-known theistic evolutionist and 2010 Templeton winner is to be renamed. From a university media release: UCI proposes new name for School of Biological Sciences, science library after internal investigation substantiates sexual harassment claims against signature donor June 28, 2018 IRVINE, Calif., June 28, 2018 – The University of Read More…
Philosopher Jerry Fodor, foe of the natural selection cult, no longer needs the Witness Protection Program
And we can still read him. From Suzan Mazur at HuffPost, including a 2008 interview: We are grateful to Jerry Fodor—perhaps the most substantial philosopher of our time, who has now died—for exposing what he called the “empty” Darwinian theory of natural selection and for his courage as well as his superb humor in the Read More…
Next time an Internet atheist claims science caused him to discard God, offer to trade books with him
MIT prof: But Ell won’t preach at you – consider the science – make up your own mind.
New biogeography book argues for chance survivals, not continental drift …
… based on molecular clock. So, “improbable, unpredictable,” meet “highly uncertain.”
Fossils of Australasian tree unexpectedly found in South America
The giant coniferous tree’s fossils date from 52 million years ago. Current representatives of the tropical Agathis no longer thrive in (now) cold, wet Patagonia
What are the Odds?
An expert in “frog evolution” has demonstrated that frogs in different continents “evolved” the same sorts of characteristics. Now just ask yourself: what are the odds that “evolution,” which works via random processes, would “evolve” the same kinds of characteristics on different continents? Yet, that is what our evolutionary biologist friends would ask us to Read More…
“Dawkins believes what he wishes to believe”
Richard Dawkins’ autobiography has been reviewed in the London Spectator: http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/9025021/an-appetite-for-wonder-by-richard-dawkins-review/. The reviewer’s verdict? “He relies just as much on a leap of faith as those religious believers he so keenly affects to despise. His theory also cannot explain how those selfish genes eventually came to evolve the one species on earth which is marked out Read More…
From Telic Thoughts, we learn more about non-Darwinian biologist John Davison (1928-2012)
This obituary implies that he had discovered at the end that there is a country for old men.
Was Isaac Newton (1642-1727) a bad scientist because he believed the world ends in 2060?
What would become of Newton at the hands of a British science czar like Beddington who advocates that scientists be “grossly intolerant”?
Must-see Vid: Darwin’s heretic — Alfred Russel Wallace
A few months back, we looked at the story of Wallace’s views here and again here. Now, thanks to an online premiere, here’s the movie (HT: ENV): [youtube hxvAVln6HLI] Relax, enjoy, and discuss. END _____________ F/N: to understand Wallace, have a read of his major book published in 1910 ff, The World of Life (cf. Read More…
Lynn Margulis (March 5, 1938-November 22, 2011)
Best known for her theory of endosymbiosis.
New Book on Alfred Russel Wallace and the ID Connection
In my new book, Alfred Russel Wallace: A Rediscovered Life, I take the reader on a journey from 19-century England, to the wilds of the Amazon River Basin, to the Malay Archipelago, and back to the highly charged scientific climate of Victorian London. Wallace’s story is one of discovery, from shocking Charles Darwin with his Read More…
Leigh Van Valen (1935-2010)
Leigh Van Valen — an evolutionary biologist for whom the word “polymath” is entirely appropriate — died this past weekend, after a long illness. Leigh was a student of both Theodosius Dobzhansky and G.G. Simpson at Columbia University, and spent most of the rest of his career at the University of Chicago, where he served Read More…
Himmelfarb on Darwin: An Enduring Perspective After 50 Years, Part 4
Since writing Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution, Gertrude Himmelfarb has moved on to treat a wide range of topics. Nevertheless, her influence as an especially cogent historian of the man and his theory continues. A few have taken notice. Margaret A. Fay, for example, mentions her “insightful and lucid analysis.”1Philosopher/theologian Edward T. Oakes, S.J., PhD, wrote: “I Read More…