Biology

Here.

From Thomas Hayden, “How to Hatch a Dinosaur” (Wired September 26, 2011): Human beings are almost indistinguishable, genetically speaking, from chimpanzees, but at that scale we’re also pretty hard to tell apart from, say, bats. Yeah, it figures. Batman. Hints of long-extinct creatures, echoes of evolution past, occasionally emerge in real life—they’re called atavisms, rare cases of individuals born with characteristic features of their evolutionary antecedents. Whales are sometimes born with appendages reminiscent of hind limbs. Human babies sometimes enter the world with fur, extra nipples, or, very rarely, a true tail. Horner’s plan, in essence, is to start off by creating experimental atavisms in the lab. Activate enough ancestral characteristics in a single chicken, he reasons, and you’ll end Read More ›

Those of you who have been following this blog, as well as Evolution News & Views, for some time, will be aware that I have previously discussed, across multiple articles, the phenomenon of endogenous retroviral inserts into the genomes of primates. Those familiar with the debate over origins will also be familiar with the various arguments for common descent which are based upon these fascinating genetic elements. A friend recently asked me if I would compile my thoughts on the topic into a single article, and hence that is what I intend to do here. Since my previous articles on the topic (and since my progression from undergraduate to postgraduate status), my knowledge of the subject has increased and I Read More ›

Fox news reports that an armchair astronomer, David Martine, claims that he’s discovered evidence of intelligent life on Mars. In this YouTube video Martine speculates that it could be a bio lab, or a dwelling or garage (he hope’s its not a weapon. NASA is investigating. So, is this evidence of intelligent design? Is it a natural phenomenon of some sort? Or is it a hoax (albeit an intelligently designed one)? And how might one go about making the determination? Thoughts anyone?

From Jason Palmer at BBC News (19 May 2011), we learn, “Protein flaws responsible for complex life, study says.” This time mistakes produce more functional proteins: Tiny structural errors in proteins may have been responsible for changes that sparked complex life, researchers say.A comparison of proteins across 36 modern species suggests that protein flaws called “dehydrons” may have made proteins less stable in water. This would have made them more adhesive and more likely to end up working together, building up complex function. Remarkably, we read, Natural selection is a theory with no equal in terms of its power to explain how organisms and populations survive through the ages; random mutations that are helpful to an organism are maintained while Read More ›

… and, despite best intentions, this doesn’t feel like an exception. The effort to meld developmental biology and fashion statements may be doomed in the chrysalis: Helen and Kate collaborated in 1997 to create a series of fashion/textile designs, spanning the first 1,000 hours of human life. Producing these at London College of Fashion, Helen and Kate worked interactively using design at multiple levels to evoke the key embryonic processes that underlie our development. Seen and acclaimed by millions internationally and called a ‘cultural hybrid’, it changed the course of Helen’s career – her time is now devoted to ideas and work rooted in science. Kate is dedicated to the public understanding of science.  Mixing fashion and biology doesn’t work Read More ›

In “Protein evolution in BIO-Complexity”(Todd’s Blog , April 13, 2011), Todd C. Wood comments on the recent BIO-Complexity paper by Ann Gauger and Doug Axe. He finds their work puzzling because they proceed as biochemists rather than evolutionary biologists, and summarizes: In the larger scheme of things, I am sensing a discouraging pattern to BIO-Complexity publications. As I quoted above, the journal is supposed to be about “testing the scientific merit of the claim that intelligent design (ID) is a credible explanation for life,” which is a great goal. But this is the fifth paper published by BIO-Complexity, and it’s the fifth paper that focuses on perceived inadequacies of evolution. So when are we going to test “the scientific merit of Read More ›

Of course not. Consider what the biologists at war with language are trying to do: Replace “to accomplish metabolic process X, enzyme Y evolved a specificity for Z” with “ ‘in accomplishing X, Y concomitantly evolved a specificity for Z”. It won’t work because it is not fluent, not even fluid, just stodgy and inconvenient. Historically, such newspeak strategies seldom work because they call attention to the very thing they seek to extinguish: In this case, awareness of design For example, what happens when our local “human picket sign” insists that we all acknowledge global warming? Sure, I acknowledged it. In fact, as I pointed out to her, “A huge dump of global warming fell last night, and now someone Read More ›

In “The “Newspeak” of Evolutionary Biology Hopes to Banish the term “Design,” by Design”, Evolution News & Views (April 6, 2011) Casey Luskin tells us The anti-ID biologist Richard Dawkins once said, “Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.” Now some ID critics today are so fearful of lending any credence towards intelligent design that they are recommending that biologists stop using the word “design” entirely.A recent article in the journal Bioessays by its editor Andrew Moore, titled “We need a new language for evolution. . . everywhere,” suggests that biologists should stop using the term “design.” According to Moore, under “Evolution old-speak” we would say, “Structure X is Read More ›