Darwinism

From Cornelius Hunter at Darwin’s God: Jerry Coyne’s website (Why Evolution Is True) has posed study questions for learning about evolution. Evolutionists have responded in the “Comment” section with answers to some of the questions (see here, here, and here). But when I posted a few relevant thoughts, they were quickly deleted after briefly appearing. That’s unfortunate because those facts can help readers to understand evolution. Here is what I posted:More. Maybe some of you smart boys can spell hellzapoppin. See also: Darwinian fundamentalist Jerry Coyne responds to“Atheist Fairytales”

From Guillermo Paz-y-Miño C. and Avelina Espinosa at Evolution: Education and Outreach: The controversy around evolution, creationism, and intelligent design resides in a historical struggle between scientific knowledge and popular belief. Four hundred seventy-six students (biology majors n = 237, nonmajors n = 239) at a secular liberal arts private university in Northeastern United States responded to a five-question survey to assess their views about: (1) evolution, creationism, and intelligent design in the science class; (2) students’ attitudes toward evolution; (3) students’ position about the teaching of human evolution; (4) evolution in science exams; and (5) students’ willingness to discuss evolution openly. There were 60.6% of biology majors and 42% of nonmajors supported the exclusive teaching of evolution in the Read More ›

From W. Ford Doolittle and S. Andrew Inkpen at PNAS: Many practicing biologists accept that nothing in their discipline makes sense except in the light of evolution, and that natural selection is evolution’s principal sense-maker. But what natural selection actually is (a force or a statistical outcome, for example) and the levels of the biological hierarchy (genes, organisms, species, or even ecosystems) at which it operates directly are still actively disputed among philosophers and theoretical biologists. Most formulations of evolution by natural selection emphasize the differential reproduction of entities at one or the other of these levels. Some also recognize differential persistence, but in either case the focus is on lineages of material things: even species can be thought of Read More ›

This vid. Here is a 6:57 pm EST live link from a different lecture making largely the same points. Download it if you can. Otherwise, Feel the Smug. You will be living with the tenured Smug the rest of your crappy lives.

From ScienceDaily: Many tame domesticated animals have a different appearance compared to their relatives in the wild, for example white patches in their fur or shorter snouts. Researchers have now for the first time shown that wild house mice develop the same visible changes — without selection, as a result of exposure to humans alone. The significant part of the story is that the mice were not exposed to any kind of selection other than free handouts (although one suspects that mouse predators may have avoided the barn due to the common presence of humans). A team of researchers led by Anna Lindholm from the Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies at UZH has now also observed this phenomenon Read More ›

This one from 2010, sent in by a reader. From John Horgan at Scientific American: Early in his career, the philosopher Karl Popper ,, called evolution via natural selection “almost a tautology” and “not a testable scientific theory but a metaphysical research program.” Attacked for these criticisms, Popper took them back (in approx 1978). But when I interviewed him in 1992, he blurted out that he still found Darwin’s theory dissatisfying. “One ought to look for alternatives!” Popper exclaimed, banging his kitchen table. More. Popper was forced to back down from public expression, of course, because one cannot doubt Darwin and still be Big Cool. Stupidity is much safer and more popular. But life goes on and so does doubt. Read More ›

But, a witness says, he said it was too late for him. We’ve all had rammed down our throats past the vomiting point that Theodosius Dobzhansky was a religious Darwinist. That’s a way tenured Darwinians enforce dhimmitude among those who feel the need. His actual view: “Dobzhansky was a religious man, although he apparently rejected fundamental beliefs of traditional religion, such as the existence of a personal God and of life beyond physical death. His religiosity was grounded on the conviction that there is meaning in the universe. He saw that meaning in the fact that evolution has produced the stupendous diversity of the living world and has progressed from primitive forms of life to mankind. Dobzhansky held that, in man, Read More ›

From Mel Greaves et al. at BNC Biology: Paraphrasing Dobzhansky’s famous dictum, I discuss how interrogating cancer through the lens of evolution has transformed our understanding of its development, causality and treatment resistance. The emerging picture of cancer captures its extensive diversity and therapeutic resilience, highlighting the need for more innovative approaches to control. Abstract: ) PDF. Jonathan Wells, author of Zombie Science, offers, Greaves’s article is more silliness from “Darwinian medicine.” Greaves: “An evolutionary logic pervades all major areas of cancer sciences.” Me: So evolutionary logic can explain the progression of a deadly disease. How does this help us explain the origin of new species, organs, and body plans—except, perhaps by invoking the opposite of evolution? Greaves: “The majority Read More ›

Spiders evolving disguises separately, in parallel, are another problem for Darwinism Not that one can directly admit it. From Catherine Offord at The Scientist: The Hawaiian stick spider has evolved the same three color morphs on multiple different islands in parallel, according to research led by biologists at the University of California, Berkeley. The team’s findings, published today (March 8) in Current Biology, provide a rare example of evolution producing the same outcome multiple times and could throw light on the factors constraining evolutionary change. “The possibility that whole communities of these spiders have evolved convergently is certainly exciting,” Ambika Kamath, a behavioral ecologist at the University of California at Santa Barbara who didn’t take part in the study, tells Read More ›

From NASA: The Twin Study propelled NASA into the genomics era of space travel. It was a ground-breaking study comparing what happened to astronaut Scott Kelly, in space, to his identical twin brother, Mark, who remained on Earth. The perfect nature versus nurture study was born. The Twins Study brought ten research teams from around the country together to accomplish one goal: discover what happens to the human body after spending one year in space. NASA has a grasp on what happens to the body after the standard-duration six-month missions aboard the International Space Station, but Scott Kelly’s one-year mission is a stepping stone to a three-year mission to Mars. More. So what did they find? Among other things, After Read More ›

From Suzan Mazur in a profile of and interview with computational biologist Lisa Manning at Oscillations: A half dozen or so years ago, Carl Woese and Nigel Goldenfeld characterized biology as the new condensed matter physics. More recently, Eugene Koonin advised “biology has to become the new condensed matter physics”. It’s an area of scientific research that is indeed ramping up, and not a moment too soon, after decades of puffery about a so-called selfish gene. But what exactly is meant by “the new condensed matter physics”? I decided to contact Syracuse University physicist Lisa Manning to help sort it all out in a conversation that follows. … The promo for your upcoming Simons Foundation lecture titled: “A Body Made Read More ›

Whatever that means. From Kerry Grens at the Scientist: The administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Scott Pruitt, said that evolution, at least as it concerns the origins of humans, is a philosophical and not scientific matter, according to audio from a 2005 radio show unearthed by Politico. “There aren’t sufficient scientific facts to establish the theory of evolution,” Pruitt said. More. What exactly is the “theory of evolution”? Efforts to establish it seem to end either in tautologies like “survival of the fittest” or advertisements for atheism/Christian atheism, none of which are part of Pruitt’s remit anyhow. Apparently, Pruitt’s boss Donald Trump gets evolution wrong too: Human evolution has a public relations problem. That isn’t just because Read More ›

Richard Weikart, UCal history prof, writes to note that he recently gave a talk at North Dakota State Univ. on “Darwinism and the Death of Humanity,” using material from his book, The Death of Humanity And the Case for Life: It’s still legal to offend people by talking about this stuff. See also: Weikart vs Darwin on the value of human life

  From Richard Weikart, author of The Death of Humanity, on Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment Now: The Case for Science, Reason, Humanism, and Progress, at ENST: In his zeal to defend science from the onslaught of those allegedly waging a “war on science” Steven Pinker (in an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education taken from his recent book, Enlightenment Now) cries foul against anyone who dares suggest that science (including Darwinian science) has anything to do with racism. Racism, Pinker informs us — as if anyone needed to be informed — is much older than the dastardly scientific racism of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Pinker admits that scientific racists deserve our opprobrium, but he rescues science from any Read More ›

Science journalists are actually fun— provided they are not just a flock of page boys for science boffins: This, for example, from Alex Berezow at ACSH: 314 Action’s stated mission is laudable. It includes, among other things, a desire to “elect more leaders… from STEM backgrounds” and to “strengthen communication among the STEM community, the public and our elected officials.” One would be left with the impression that the mission is bipartisan, which would be outstanding. Unfortunately, it is not. The leadership are all Democrats. All the candidates 314 Action has endorsed are Democrats. The site’s news page refers to Republicans as “anti-science denialists,” and one of the endorsed candidates refers to a GOP politician as “science’s public enemy number Read More ›