Category: Evolution
Fats recovered from Ediacaran fossil, 558 mya, shows that animals then were “large,” “abundant”
| September 21, 2018 | Posted by News under Ediacaran, Evolution, Intelligent Design |
Yes, you read that right and our physics color commentator Rob Sheldon explains why it was possible below. From ScienceDaily: Scientists from The Australian National University (ANU) and overseas have discovered molecules of fat in an ancient fossil to reveal the earliest confirmed animal in the geological record that lived on Earth 558 million years […]
Plants as “revolutionary geniuses”?
| September 20, 2018 | Posted by News under Darwinism, Evolution, Information, Intelligent Design, Plants |
We’ve been talking about intelligence in termite mounds. Not “of” termite mounds but “in” them. From a review of The Revolutionary Genius of Plants: A New Understanding of Plant Intelligence and Behavior, by plant biologist Stefan Mancuso, To overcome the human bias toward brain-centered intelligence, Mancuso writes, one must consider that, unlike animals, plants can’t move. […]
J. Scott Turner and the “Giant Crawling Brain”
| September 19, 2018 | Posted by News under Animal minds, Darwinism, Evolution, Intelligent Design |
J. Scott Turner, author of Purpose and Desire: What Makes Something “Alive” and Why Modern Darwinism Has Failed to Explain It, features in a long read about his specialty, termites. For a time, superorganisms were all the rage. The concept dealt neatly with what Charles Darwin had called the “problem” with social insects. Darwin’s theory […]
New book: Darwin, unlike some of his followers, was an “evolutionary pluralist”
| September 18, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Darwinism, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Science |
Now they tell us. But how did his followers get it so wrong? Or were they just funning us all these years? Re Revisiting the Origin of Species: The Other Darwins (Thierry Hoquet, CRC Press, August 13, 2018): Contemporary interest in Darwin rises from a general ideal of what Darwin’s books ought to contain: a […]
Must Christians believe in the Big Bang theory?
| September 16, 2018 | Posted by News under Big Bang, Creationism, Evolution, Intelligent Design, theistic evolution |
J. R. Miller offers a reasonable discussion of varieties of Biblical creationism: Maybe you have heard the accusation that biblical creationists are blinded by their ancient theology which forces them to reject the modern “scientific fact” of evolution. But what do people mean by this accusation? What is evolution? Is biblical creation a de facto […]
Here’s the film about Mike Behe
| September 15, 2018 | Posted by News under Evolution, Irreducible Complexity, Video |
Or here. Note: Behe has a new book coming out. See New book from Michael Behe on how today’s DNA findings “devolve” Darwin See also: The bombardier beetle, the toad, and – after all these years – Mike Behe
Jumping genes drive changes in strawberries
| September 13, 2018 | Posted by News under Evolution, Intelligent Design, Plants |
Does anyone else remember when “evolution” was just some guy going on about how survival of the fittest creates the world of life? Now, it’s much more like a history than a rant.
Evolution is evolving?
| September 12, 2018 | Posted by News under Evolution, Intelligent Design |
Here’s a spring conference of possible interest: Evolution Evolving: Process, Mechanism and Theory Churchill College, University of Cambridge, UK 1-4 April 2019 Evolutionary biology is a vibrant field with a theoretical framework that itself evolves. The Evolution Evolving conference will focus on some emerging themes in the relationship between development and evolution. Topics include the […]
Sam Harris vs. Jordan Peterson on whether an “objective” moral code is possible
| September 10, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Mind, Philosophy, Science |
We’ve written some things about Jordan Peterson and a fair bit about Sam Harris: Here’s an appraisal of their recent debate in Vancouver, moderated by Bret Weinstein : Peterson and Harris spent a large part of the first night discussing what they had in common. For example, both agreed that it was important to establish […]
A Big Bang of insects in the mid- to late Triassic
| September 7, 2018 | Posted by News under Evolution, Intelligent Design, stasis |
About 237 million years ago: The sites underscore that this burst of evolution took place much earlier than researchers had thought, particularly for water-loving insects. Among the remains are fossil dragonflies, caddisflies, water boatmen, and aquatic beetles. Until now, paleontologists had thought such aquatic insects didn’t diversify until 130 million years ago. These insects—which include […]
YouTube debate: If Darwin were to examine the evidence today
| September 4, 2018 | Posted by News under Darwinism, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Video |
Using modern science. Would his conclusions be the same? Here: The participants are Dr. Nathaniel Jeanson (yes) vs. Dr. Herman Mays (no) The topics are from Jeanson’s book, Replacing Darwin: The NEW Origin of Species “Dr. Nathaniel Jeanson holds a PhD in cell and developmental Biology from Harvard University. He serves as a research biologist, […]
Newly discovered tiny tunnels run from skull to brain
| August 31, 2018 | Posted by News under Darwinism, Evolution, Medicine, Natural selection |
They may be a shortcut for the immune system. From ScienceDaily: “We always thought that immune cells from our arms and legs traveled via blood to damaged brain tissue. These findings suggest that immune cells may instead be taking a shortcut to rapidly arrive at areas of inflammation,” said Francesca Bosetti, Ph.D., program director at the […]
Peter Ward: Epigenetics explains why there are fewer “species” than we think
| August 29, 2018 | Posted by News under Darwinism, Epigenetics, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Natural selection |
Says biologist Peter Ward, because epigenetics changes can account for life forms that have been classified as different species: More and more, biologists are discovering that organisms thought to be different species are, in fact, but one. A recent example is that the formerly accepted two species of giant North American mammoths (the Columbian mammoth […]
The python family tree is, um, “tangled”
| August 28, 2018 | Posted by News under Evolution, Intelligent Design, speciation |
The pythons invading Florida have been found to be Burmese-Indian hybrids, which means that they may be more adaptable than hoped. From ScienceDaily: The study also found that at least a few of the snakes in the invasive South Florida population are not 100 percent Burmese pythons. Instead, the genetic evidence shows at least 13 […]
“Perfect” fossil foal, 30-40 kya, found in Siberian permafrost
| August 28, 2018 | Posted by News under Evolution, Genetics, Genomics, Intelligent Design |
There were no external injuries. The fossil — discovered in the region of Yakutia — has its skin, hair, hooves and tail preserved. Yakutia is also famous for having found woolly mammoth fossils in the permafrost. Scientists from Russia’s Northeast Federal University, who presented the discovery Thursday, said the foal is estimated to be 30,000 […]
Jerry Coyne minimizes the significance of horizontal gene transfer
| August 27, 2018 | Posted by News under Darwinism, Evolution, horizontal gene transfer, Intelligent Design |
As we might expect. Darwinian evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne offers his thoughts on science writer David Quammen’s new book about Carl Woese, The Tangled Tree:A Radical New History of Life: Quammen is right that the horizontal transfer of genetic information does complicate our effort to understand the evolutionary past, but he goes too far in claiming […]
John Hawks is cool to epigenetics shedding light on evolution
| August 27, 2018 | Posted by News under Darwinism, Epigenetics, Evolution, Intelligent Design |
John Hawks is an anthropologist we’ve often noted here. In his review of palaeobiologist Peter Ward’s LaMarck’s Revenge: How Epigenetics Is Revolutionizing Our Understanding of Evolution’s Past and Present (“Epigenetics upends natural selection and genetic mutation as the sole engines of evolution, and offers startling insights into our future heritable traits.”), Hawks has this to […]
Does exaptation show that nature is “not intelligent”?
| August 25, 2018 | Posted by News under Darwinism, Evolution, Intelligent Design |
Here’s a definition of exaptation: a trait, feature, or structure of an organism or taxonomic group that takes on a function when none previously existed or that differs from its original function which had been derived by evolution. – Merriam-Webster In other words, a feature that once served one purpose now serves another. How is that not […]
Find deepens mystery of turtle’s origins
| August 23, 2018 | Posted by News under Evolution, Genetics, Intelligent Design, Tree of life |
From ScienceDaily: There are a couple of key features that make a turtle a turtle: its shell, for one, but also its toothless beak. A newly-discovered fossil turtle that lived 228 million years ago is shedding light on how modern turtles developed these traits. It had a beak, but while its body was Frisbee-shaped, its […]
