Evolution

In “Evolution Drives Many Plants and Animals to Be Bigger, Faster (ScienceDaily, Mar. 9, 2011), we learn: For the vast majority of plants and animals, the ‘bigger is better’ view of evolution may not be far off the mark, says a new broad-scale study of natural selection. Organisms with bigger bodies or faster growth rates tend to live longer, mate more and produce more offspring, whether they are deer or damselflies, the authors report. Researchers working at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center compiled and reviewed nearly 150 published estimates of natural selection, representing more than 100 species of birds, lizards, snakes, insects and plants. The results confirm that for most plants and animals, larger body size and earlier seasonal timing Read More ›

Going through Suzan Mazur’s Altenberg 16, after reading Bill Dembski’s post yesterday on genome mapper Craig Venter “coming out” as a disbeliever in the sacred teaching of common descent – in the very presence of Darwin’s high priest Dawkins* – I couldn’t help recalling New Zealand journalist Suzan Mazur’s effort to get a reaction from National Center for Science Education (the Darwin in the schools lobby), and its outcome: … when I called Kevin Padian, president of NCSE’s board of directors and a witness at the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover trial on intelligent design, to ask him about the evolution debate among scientists — he said, “On some things there is not a debate.” He then hung up.- Suzan Mazur, Read More ›

Interesting story at Evolution News & Views about an exchange between Craig Venter (of human genome fame) and Richard Dawkins (of neo-atheist fame). Venter denies common descent, Dawkins can’t believe that he would even question it. For the exchange, which also includes Paul Davies, go here (start at the 9 minute mark). Origin-of-life researchers such as Ford Doolittle and Carl Woese have questioned for some time whether there even is a tree of life. Venter is now following in their train. What’s significant is not so much whether Venter is right (I think he is), but what his dissent from Darwinian orthodoxy suggests about the disarray in the study of biological origins. If common descent is up for grabs, what isn’t? Read More ›

In “Frogs Evolve Teeth – Again: Mysterious re-evolution challenges evolutionary theory, scientists say”, Christine Dell’Amore (National Geographic News, February 10, 2011) tells us, Lower-jaw teeth in frogs re-evolved after an absence of 200 million years, a new study says. The discovery challenges a “cornerstone” of evolutionary thinking, according to experts.Of the more than 6,000 species of frogs, only one, a South American marsupial tree frog called Gastrotheca guentheri, has teeth on both its upper and lower jaws. Most frogs have only tiny upper-jaw teeth. Apparently, G. guentheri has acted in violation of Dollo’s law, according to which traits lost through evolution cannot be regained. “It’s a very clear case of reacquisition of a lost complex morphological structure, which, according to Read More ›

Yes, apparently, the cricket has carved out new territory in sheer conservatism:

A fossil found in northeastern Brazil confirmed that the splay-footed cricket of today has at least a 100-million-year-old pedigree.Researchers have discovered the 100 million-year-old ancestor of a group of large, carnivorous, cricket-like insects that still live today in southern Asia, northern Indochina and Africa. The new find, in a limestone fossil bed in northeastern Brazil, corrects the mistaken classification of another fossil of this type and reveals that the genus has undergone very little evolutionary change since the Early Cretaceous Period, a time of dinosaurs just before the breakup of the supercontinent Gondwana.

[ … ]

Although the fossil is distinct from today’s splay-footed crickets, its general features differ very little, Heads said, revealing that the genus has been in a period of “evolutionary stasis” for at least the last 100 million years.

– (ScienceDaily, Feb. 4, 2011)

The paper is free online at open access journal ZooKeys. While we don’t know for sure, the explanation seems to be that the cricket could always find a habitat that let it just go on being what it is. If I were a teacher, I’d love a recent find like this, to demonstrate that evolution doesn’t necessarily just happen; something pushes it.

But apparently, findings like this are not to be taught to students in Texas. According to the local Darwin lobby, Read More ›

My attention was recently drawn to this critique of physicist Stephen Barr’s comments on church father Augustine (354-430 CE). Barr, a frequent critic of intelligent design, argues that Augustine did not take the Genesis account literally. This site argues, more plausibly in my view, that Augustine aged, he became more drawn to literal accounts of events in Scripture.

None of which would matter except that Augustine is often misused as a poster boy for bashing literalism, as Thomas Aquinas is misused by Catholic Darwinists as opposed to the idea that design can be detected in nature.

The point everyone seems to miss is this: We don’t know what Augustine or Aquinas (or Aristotle) “would have” thought, if they had been given the information available today. It’s the nature of history that they were not given it, and were reasoning from what they knew. Read More ›

No, this isn’t about what you think. For once, we are talking about frogs and newts.

A friend notes that an evolutionary biologist puzzles as follows:

“One of the most puzzling paradoxes in the evolution of toxins is why organisms evolve to be deadly – contrary to venoms, for which deadly effects have a clear benefit. Extreme toxicity occurs repeatedly, from saturniid caterpillars to dart poison frogs. Selection favors the most-fit individuals, and those should be the ones that avoid predation. Killing an individual predator does not give an advantage over simply deterring one, especially if the prey has to be handled or eaten by a predator to deliver the poison. How, then, can we explain the evolution of deadly toxicity?” (Brodie, E. D., III. 2009. Toxins and venoms. Current Biology 19: R931-R935.)

Brodie, I’m told, is a leading researcher on evolutionary arms races at the University of Virginia. He goes on to suggest a solution: “arms races between predators and prey … drive the exaggerated evolution of toxicity in general, without resulting in deadly consequences to the primary selective agent.” (R933) He suggests as an example is the predator-prey relationship between garter snakes and a newt that produces tetrodotoxin powerful enough to kill 10-20 humans or thousands of mice. But the interesting thing is that the snakes, which seem to be the “primary selective agent” for newts, in the sense of selecting them for dinner, are resistant to the toxin. Brodie attributes the newts’ heightened toxicity to coevolution with the garter snakes.

My friend asks, “But how does that solve the paradox? Newts with a higher level of toxicity would only accrue selective advantage if those higher levels of toxicity protected them against the predators.”

Well, I suspect the answer lies in another question: Read More ›

Or what? Science 4 February 2011: Vol. 331 no. 6017 pp. 555-561 DOI: 10.1126/science.1197761 RESEARCH ARTICLE The Ecoresponsive Genome of Daphnia pulex John K. Colbourne et al To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: jcolbour@indiana.edu We describe the draft genome of the microcrustacean Daphnia pulex, which is only 200 megabases and contains at least 30,907 genes. The high gene count is a consequence of an elevated rate of gene duplication resulting in tandem gene clusters. More than a third of Daphnia’s genes have no detectable homologs in any other available proteome, and the most amplified gene families are specific to the Daphnia lineage. The coexpansion of gene families interacting within metabolic pathways suggests that the maintenance of duplicated genes is Read More ›

A  friend reminds me of this 2004 paper on the busted molecular clock: For almost a decade now, a team of molecular evolutionists has produced a plethora of seemingly precise molecular clock estimates for divergence events ranging from the speciation of cats and dogs to lineage separations that might have occurred ,4 billion years ago. Because the appearance of accuracy has an irresistible allure, non-specialists frequently treat these estimates as factual. In this article, we show that all of these divergence-time estimates were generated through improper methodology on the basis of a single calibration point that has been unjustly denuded of error. The illusion of precision was achieved mainly through the conversion of statistical estimates (which by definition possess standard Read More ›

Nabokov was right and the Darwinists who ignored and dismissed him were wrong. Here: Enter the Harvard biology professor, Naomi Pierce, who has had the honour of telling the world this last fortnight, that Nabokov’s fanciful hypothesis is true, down to the most provocative assertions. Using the most advanced current molecular technology, she has tracked the whole history through DNA, confirming Nabokov dead right through fine details on five out of five.This does not surprise me. It would have surprised many drudges in the field, however, who ignored Nabokov’s remarkable paper of 1945, I think for two reasons. The first is that it was written with real literary style. Nabokov invites his reader to step into a Wellsian time machine, Read More ›

Back in 2004, a well-known philosopher appeared in an interview and appeared to make a startling concession – that there was evidence that evolution itself was in some sense designed, and perhaps even directed towards a goal. This let to a lot of buzz on the internet, eventually resulting in back and forth between the philosopher and interviewer – the philosopher backed away from his previous statements and insisted he made no such concession, while the interviewer (himself a self-declared agnostic, even materialist) held to his guns and (armed with the actual interview) argued the philosopher had made this concession and was now changing his story and backing off.

So, who was this philosopher who stood accused of conceding evidence for design and purpose in nature?

Some Theistic Evolutionist, perhaps? A reasonable guess, but no. Besides, many TEs are too good at the fine art of saying nothing noteworthy to find themselves making such a concession.

Maybe Anthony Flew? Again, a good guess, but still no. Besides, when Flew went deist he no longer regarded ‘design’ as a dirty word.

No, the philosopher in question was none other than (once upon a time) fourth horseman of the Atheist Apocalypse Dan Dennett, being interviewed by Robert Wright.

And there’s a lesson to be learned from the whole affair.

Read More ›

Phillip Johnson’s classic with a beautiful new foreword by Mike Behe is hot off the press: Amazon link to this book.

Tom Woodward, author of DOUBTS ABOUT DARWIN and DARWIN STRIKES BACK, interviewed Robert J. Marks about his work at the Evolutionary Informatics Lab. For the podcast, go here: “Darwin or Design?” (program starts at 5:08 | actual interview starts at 7:52)

Just received an email from the Templeton-funded Metanexus group. The big announcement is the unveiling of a new website: www.evolutionarychristianity.com You knew it was going to happen, and now it’s here. “Evolutionary Christianity” — a phrase that rolls off the tongue and inspires theological confidence. The gallery of people on the homepage features quite an assortment of thinkers making common cause — theological differences aside, the science of Darwinian evolution must be kept sacrosanct! It will be interesting to see whether this strategy to mainstream evolution among evangelicals succeeds. Granted, the Christian Colleges have by and large embraced “Evolutionary Christianity.” But “evolution” remains a dirty word among many evangelicals. Will the Templeton-inspired PR campaign that’s evident on this website succeed? Read More ›