Iacoboni: Think very large: every single organism in every single environment, from the beginning of life some 4 to 5 billion years ago until today, has been encoded by just those four letters of the DNA alphabet.
Genetics
Genes that appear from nowhere — a tutorial
A tutorial on genes that appear from nowhere.
Bad data from the academy? Darwinism makes it worse
But by embracing a Darwinian perspective, Breuning flushed down the toilet any chance of understanding the reality of human life and the human mind. Those pop psych academics she opposes are then doing the right thing and she should support them.
Unique octopus genes seem to have appeared from nowhere
The octopus — a highly intelligent short-lived exothermic invertebrate — should sink lectern-splintering Darwinism — but then the octo does not have tenure and many of the lectern splinterers do. That’s life. But so is finding out the facts.
At Mind Matters News: Researchers find more ways that human and ape brains differ
The differences between human brains and other primate brains seem greater than the 1.2% – 1.6% genetic difference the Smithsonian posits for humans vs. apes.
At Mind Matters News: Could we really increase human IQ via genetic engineering?
It’s not clear what, explicitly, human intelligence is or even how it originates. Ethics aside, there’s no way to decide who to save and who to throw away.
Domesticated Rice: the Power of Artificial Selection.
I suspect that almost every week there’s at least one article published somewhere that undermines Darwinian theory. Now using the term, ‘Darwinian theory’, might ruffle some people’s feathers. Yet, without Darwinian theory, neo-Darwinism makes no sense; it lacks any intellectual foundation. And, so, here we are inching towards the 200th anniversary of Origin of Species Read More…
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…
Fun: A giant undersea meadow turned out to be a single organism – the world’s largest
At Futurism: “According to The Guardian, this single Posidonia australis plant, more commonly known as ribbon weed, spans an astonishing 77 square miles of undersea land off the coast of western Australia’s Shark Bay. For perspective, that’s three times the size of Manhattan. Move over, trees! There’s a new — well, ~4,500 year old — giant in town.”
Gene-edited hamsters did not behave as expected
Hamsters from hell. Quote of the decade: “We don’t understand this system as well as we thought we did.” One suspects that some of these people are going to learn respect for the design of life the hard way. Hope it’s not too hard on the rest of us.
Can quantum mechanics explain spontaneous mutation of DNA?
Researchers: “The molecules of life, DNA, replicate with astounding precision, yet this process is not immune to mistakes and can lead to mutations.” Astounding precision?
Intelligent Design=Pattern Recognition
This Phys.Org press release isn’t about a particularly interesting scientific paper. However, what the authors tells us about how this paper came to be is very interesting. And, I may add, very revealing. Listen to what they have to say about their “aha” moment: Inside some of the data that a standard mapping algorithm normally Read More…
Changing the genetic code — and still enabling life — would be a challenge
The basic message is that we can’t improve on all the things that just happen to work by accident in exactly the right way. Yet in just about any area of life other than evolution theory we find a completely different picture. Why is Darwinism allowed to be such a big exception to the general rule?
What? Paper on human mutation admits to “fundamentally challenging” neo-Darwinism?
But Darwinism about human beings is the bread and butter of pop science media! If that’s under threat now, what will become of, for example, evolutionary psychology?
Researchers: CRISPR is not the big answer to de-extinction
With genes as with documents, how much do the lost ones matter? If the recreated passenger pigeon was pretty much like the old one, what difference would it make? Shouldn’t the main question be, is this a good ecological idea overall?