Origins – Page 239

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Ida Not a Human Ancestor

March 3, 2010

If Ida known then what I know now: the media-frenzied presentation of Ida (Darwinius masillae) as a distant relative of human beings last year has been debunked. “Many lines of evidence indicate that Darwinius has nothing at all to do with human evolution,” said Chris Kirk (U of Texas) in an article on Science Daily. […]

Amazing Facts

Flight Design: Flies and Birds Get it Wright

March 3, 2010

Parse the following sentence for logical consistency: “Just as the Wright brothers implemented controls to achieve stable airplane flight, flying insects have evolved behavioral strategies that ensure recovery from flight disturbances.” That is the first sentence from a paper in PNAS yesterday about the stabilizers in fly wings.1 Ristroph et al just compared design principles […]

Origin of Life

Origin of Life: Claiming Something for Almost Nothing

March 2, 2010

Getting life to emerge from nonliving chemicals is either a cinch or the most impossible thing in the universe, depending on whom you ask. Let’s look at a couple of recent papers that suggest the origin of life was no big deal. A press release from the University of Colorado advertised a paper […]

Darwin and Evolution

How to Call Your Opponent Stupid Using Evolution

February 27, 2010

It may be that Professor Kanazawa was intending to be compassionate by couching his assessment in the language of evolutionary theory, but he essentially made a categorical judgment that conservatives and Christians are stupid, and atheists and the sexually promiscuous are smart. How could he say such a thing? He could dodge the charge of […]

Biomimetics

Life Leads the Way to Invention

February 26, 2010

Here’s a factoid for the party: a cell is 10,000 times more energy-efficient than a transistor. PhysOrg tells us that “ In one second, a cell performs about 10 million energy-consuming chemical reactions, which altogether require about one picowatt (one millionth millionth of a watt) of power.” This and other amazing facts lead to an […]

Amazing Facts

Making Evolution Simple

February 25, 2010

Getting the vast diversity of highly complex creatures seems an impossible task for evolutionary theory, but some recent stories claim it’s not so hard. Beak of the finch: Darwin’s finches keep pecking their way into the media. A new study claims that the wide diversity of beak shapes that have evolved can be explained by […]

Darwin and Evolution

Hopeful Monsters and Other Tales: Evolutionists Challenge Darwin

February 24, 2010

Two recent articles show that Darwin is not invincible. On one side he is being attacked by hopeful monsters. On the other, he is being attacked by an atheist truth-seeker. Neither of these attacks are coming from creationists. Return of the hopeful monster: Tanguy Chouard raised eyebrows in Nature News with a headline that sounds […]

Bible and Theology

Evolutionary Inferences: Are They Incontrovertible?

February 23, 2010

No matter what is found in plants or animals, it finds its way into an evolutionary explanation eventually. Are these explanations driven by the data, or forced into a belief system? Are other explanations possible? Some recent reports might inform these questions. Your inner plant: Get in touch with your inner plant with a report […]

Cosmology

Multiverse Explanations Are Fashionable, If Not Justifiable

February 22, 2010

How can scientists get away with speculating about unobservable universes, when science is supposed to concern itself with observation? “In the end, there is no way to know for sure what other universes are out there, or what life they may hold,” an article in PhysOrg ended, “But that will likely not stop physicists from […]

Amazing Facts

Molecular Highway Motor Comes into Focus

February 19, 2010

A beautiful new image of kinesin, a molecular machine that carries cargo on cellular highways, has been produced in greater detail than ever by a team at Berkeley and Brandeis Universities. Science Daily published a picture and description of how kinesin works. “Life’s smallest motor – a protein that shuttles cargo within cells and helps […]

Darwin and Evolution

Who Should Be Listening to Scientists?

February 17, 2010

“Stop Listening to Scientists?” is an unusual title for a letter to Science.1 In a commentary last week prompted by the recent scandals regarding climate change, Kevin Robert Gurney (Purdue) made a shocking exclamation: don’t listen to scientists. Here’s how he began. As a climate scientist and a contributing author to the Intergovernmental Panel on […]

Origin of Life

March Moon Madness Arrives Early

February 16, 2010

Some of the most interesting bodies in the solar system are the objects not big enough to be called planets. Moons, asteroids and comets continue to yield their secrets and surprises. Here’s a quick rundown on recent findings. Why do some asteroids look so fresh? It’s because they get a facelift, Space.com reported […]

Genetics

Is Your Bod Flawed by God?

February 14, 2010

Are your body’s imperfections reasons for you to reject intelligent design and embrace evolution? Professor John Avise (UC Irvine) thinks so. His new book Inside the Human Genome was given good press by PhysOrg: “Distinguished Professor of ecology & evolutionary biology at UC Irvine, Avise also makes the case that overwhelming scientific evidence of genomic […]

Darwin and Evolution

For His Birthday, Darwin Gets a Scrambled Arthropod Tree

February 12, 2010

If Darwin lost his tree last year (01/22/2009), it would seem any corrections or rearrangements would be academic. Nevertheless, eight evolutionary biologists at Duke University tried rearranging one of the biggest branches on Darwin’s tree of common ancestry – the highly diverse group known as arthropods (animals with jointed appendages). Arthropods comprise the largest number […]

Darwin and Evolution

More Surprises for Darwin

February 11, 2010

It’s not uncommon for theories to have to deal with anomalies, but Darwinism sure seems to get more than its share. Here are some recent examples. Fossils lie: Fossils preserve unmistakable clues about past life, right? Not so fast. Nature reported that “Non-random decay of chordate characters causes bias in fossil interpretation.”1 The way early […]

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