Now that mechanobiology is becoming a bigger topic, the worms’ ability to easily behave according to two states may help us understand life forms better.
Evolution
Eric Holloway: Atheists, agnostics more skeptical of evolution now
The editors of the new journal, Communications of the Blyth Institute, are looking for contributors with expertise in the relevant areas.
Worms challenge idea that complexity just arises from simplicity
Maybe it’s the other way around in many cases.
Mike Behe’s new book, Darwin Devolves: “Absolutely convincing” or “omits contrary examples”
From two people, from very different perspectives. First, German biologist Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig and Nathan Lents, author of a “bad design” book.
NYT: Beauty in nature acknowledged — but only as “Darwin’s neglected brainchild”
The biggest problem, which Jabr discusses, is whether beauty really exists or is it just an illusion that promotes our genes’ survival, as a naturalist (nature is all there is) must insist. Yet, despite the stale “Darwin himself” creedal statements, the long piece ends on a curiously tolerant, ecumenical note.
Green darner dragonflies migrate over several generations
Like monarch butterflies. Apparently, the shimmering dragonfly migrates like the Monarch butterfly, taking three generations to loop across North America: At least three generations make up the annual migration of common green darner dragonflies. The first generation emerges in the southern United States, Mexico and the Caribbean starting around February and flies north. There, those […]
Some hatching mechanisms unchanged from 130 mya
One wonders whether the larval tubes (as opposed to clubs or bumps) relates to different plant species providing the camouflage, hence different portage methods used. Otherwise, this is a lovely example of stasis (for very long periods of time, evolution doesn’t seem to happen), trapped in amber
Universal formula for “turning on” monogamy: Common descent or common design?
From ScienceDaily: According to a new study led by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin that looked at 10 species of vertebrates, evolution used a kind of universal formula for turning non-monogamous species into monogamous species — turning up the activity of some genes and turning down others in the brain. “Our study […]
Denmark: Perhaps not so rotten after all
Says Karsten Pultz, author of Exit Evolution: Recently, I wrote a piece for UD describing how a Danish Christian newspaper, Kristeligt Dagblad, is obviously biased in favour of evolution whenever it covers the creation vs. Evolution issue. In the article “Something Is Rotten In The State Of Denmark” I aired my frustration over the fact […]
Darwinists are not usually software engineers
Andrew Jones: In particular, software engineers know how complex it can be to implement a “simple” change. From this perspective, the Darwinian story is a lot less plausible.
Gull wing stability prompts talk of “design” in nature
One wonders how the proper authorities are coming with Darwinizing our language, so as to take out all suggestion of design or agency in nature and in humans. Not far, it seems. Maybe, instead of following Dawkins and insisting that design in nature is an illusion, researchers should just be agnostic about it for discussion purposes, given that that is how they routinely talk about it anyway.
Evolution or art? The chicken as a human artifact
We’ve probably had even more influence on the dog, of course. But here’s the interesting thing: When dogs run wild, they just go back to being wolfhounds after a few generations. Apparently, feral chickens just breed with still wild fowl and revert to ancestral types. Just how really significant irreversible changes occur remains unclear.
Steve Meyer on the information enigma in evolution
Steve Meyer, author of Darwin’s Doubt, offers a handy illustration of the sort of specified complexity that life forms show, which indicates design, in an April 2018 essay: Cryptographers distinguish between random signals and those carrying encoded messages, the latter indicating an intelligent source. Recognizing the activity of intelligent agents constitutes a common and fully […]
Can cities serve as cauldrons of evolution (speciation)?
For spiders, raccoons, and such? Big, high-tech cities are new and different. But you don’t get remarkable results from these independent theatres of evolution. That’s clear from a recent long article, well worth reading, mostly for the fascinating information but also for the need, so common these days, to assert that something is happening which obviously isn’t.
Why did bigger, more complex organisms get started earlier in deep oceans?
A new paper tests the hypothesis that stable temperature was the key — cold but stable.