Researchers: Embryonic and fossil evidence proves that the human middle ear evolved from the spiracle of fishes. However, the origin of the vertebrate spiracle has long been an unsolved mystery in vertebrate evolution.
EH: It seems that evolutionists have a much softer definition of what amounts to proof than in other fields of science.
Evolution
At Skeptic: Why Christians Should Accept the Theory of Evolution
Larry Arnhart writes: American Christian fundamentalists reject Darwinian evolution for at least two reasons. The first is their belief that the Bible has revealed a clear teaching about the divine creation of the world that denies Darwinian evolution. The second reason is their belief that Darwinian evolution contradicts the foundational principle of the American creed Read More…
At Quanta: Brain-Signal Proteins Evolved Before Animals Did
Researchers found that, “choanoflagellates made protein precursors of two mature neuropeptides, phoenixin and nesfatin.”
At Sci-News: Chromatin First Evolved in Ancient Microbes 1-2 Billion Years Ago, New Research Suggests
Scientists hypothesize that chromatin evolved in this microbe as a result of selective pressures in the primordial environment of Earth.
The Death of Neutral Theory
In today’s Nature, we find this article: “Synonymous mutations in representative yeast genes are mostly strongly non-neutral.” They investigated what effect “synonymous, nonsynonymous and nonsense” mutations involving “21 endogenous genes” would have on yeast. The fitness levels of synonymous and nonsynonymous fell in equal (though not ‘identical’) measure–around 75%. I don’t have access to the Read More…
Eric Holloway: The Salem hypothesis as to why engineers doubt Darwin
Engineers doubt chance evolution because a computer using an evolution-based program to do simple tasks would be chugging away well past the heat death of our universe, as Eric Holloway demonstrates.
At Evolution News: Three Realities Chance Can’t Explain That Intelligent Design Can
Professor Granville Sewell appeals to common sense and the limitations of natural forces to argue the obvious: “Unintelligent forces cannot rearrange atoms into computers and airplanes and nuclear power plants and smartphones.”
Researchers: Steve Gould’s Punk Eek is right; evolution can pause a long time, then happen rapidly
Punctuated equilibrium is what we observe but it isn’t popular. Punk eek makes it even less likely that life develops due to unintelligent random processes. It just does not allow anywhere near enough time.
Eukaryogenesis: The Rise of an Emergent Superorganism
In his lengthy article, Bell draws attention to evolutionary hurdles to the origin of eukaryotic cells. The “chasm” between eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells is causing a re-think of the universal common ancestor notion.
Nature article: Origin of life theory involving RNA–protein hybrid gets new support
Davide Castelvecchi: Chemists say they have solved a crucial problem in a theory of life’s beginnings, by demonstrating that RNA molecules can link short chains of amino acids together.
Fun! Are these the most realistic CGI dinosaurs ever?
Gizmodo says they are: … Now, I suggest you compare all that you’ve seen about dinosaurs before to Apple TV+’s newest five-part series, Prehistoric Planet, which shows the true lives of dinosaurs as they were 66 million years ago, to our best current understanding. There are reptiles that need back scratches, hadrosaurs harried by mosquitos, Read More…
At Mind Matters News: Information theory: Evolution as the transfer of information
The authors of the open-access paper, marine researcher Rasmus Skern-Mauritzen and forester Thomas Nygaard Mikkelsen make clear that they understand information to be immaterial.
Researchers: Eukaryotes got started from a merger between bacteria and archaea, without oxygen
On the whole, it might be easier to conclude that the timing is somewhat off than that complex life started without oxygen. But symbiosis is an intriguing theory nonetheless.
Studies of co-evolution biased toward “striking and exaggerated phenotypes”, researchers say
The authors seem to suspect that “the widespread impression that coevolution is a rare and quirky sideshow to the day-to-day grind of ecology and evolution” is wrong and that new tools for uncovering it will show it to be more common. Co-evolution must require a fair amount of cooperation between utterly different life forms. If natural selection is the model, one failure would end a multi-stage process.
At Mind Matters News: Evolutionary psychologist argues that worms feel pain. But how?
Wait. Barash’s hypothesis overlooks the fact that suffering is more than an alarm system. An alarm could be going off in an empty building. If some invertebrates show much more self-awareness than expected, it hardly follows that all do. We risk impeding humane reforms if we cast the net too widely.