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Dinosaurs Placed in Big Tree

Dinosaurs didn’t take advantage of the big rise in diversity at the end of the Cretaceous, say British researchers.  Their big “supertree” of dinosaur evolution shows that the dinosaurs were just evolving at a regular speed while flowering plants, social insects, birds and mammals were evolving like crazy.     Science Daily and New Scientist […]

The Cro-Magnon Were Europeans

There’s no genetic difference between Cro-Magnon Man and modern Europeans, a genetic study reported by Science Daily.  Researchers took extra care to avoid contamination of bones found in southern Italy, they said.  They claimed Cro-Magnon people were able to maintain genealogical continuity for 28,000 years, remaining distinct from Neanderthals, whom they said lived in Europe […]

Another Evolutionary Statistic Is Wrong

Marine invertebrate diversity has not increased dramatically over time, contrary to conventional wisdom.  That’s the conclusion of a team of 35 researchers who spent a decade analyzing seashell fossils from around the world.     Science Daily reported the story July 7.  A week later, on July 14, Science Daily reported a follow-up story, entitled, […]

Feather Fossil Fallacy?

Imprints of melanocytes have been found in fossil feathers.  What does this mean?  The popular science news reports, like Science Daily, Live Science, PhysOrg and the BBC News seem convinced it can tell us something about how birds evolved from dinosaurs.  Understanding what was discovered requires sifting through claims that go far beyond the evidence. […]

Not Another Tetrapod Missing Link

Fossils don’t contain light bulbs, but almost every time a new one is found, scientists claim it sheds light on evolution.  The BBC News kept that tradition going with this line, “Scientists say a fossil of a four-legged fish sheds new light on the process of evolution.”  What, exactly, was found?  Whatever Ventastega curonica was, […]

Big Dino Site Found in Utah

A big dinosaur fossil quarry has been found in Utah near Hanksville, reported the Associated Press (see copy on PhysOrg).  The Bureau of Land Management says it may be comparable to the Dinosaur National Monument site and other well-known quarries in the region.  Apparently feeling a need to appeal to the MTV generation, a National […]

Will Evolutionary Psychology Be the First Darwinian Theory to Go?

Evolutionary psychologists are not getting much respect these days.  Some evolutionists, like Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin, criticized them for years.  Now, a new book came out against them and Science gave it a good review.1  To turn a Darwinian phrase, reviewer Johan J. Bolhuis said that the field of evolutionary psychology is undergoing […]

Lamarckism Still Shuffles Around

Examine the following quotation and see if it sounds like what Darwin or Lamarck would say: Somewhere in the murky past, between four and seven million years ago, a hungry common ancestor of today’s primates, including humans, did something novel.  While temporarily standing on its rear feet to reach a piece of fruit, this protohominid […]

Evolution Out of Sync

Evolutionary theory explains everything but the kitchen sink, but what if things get out of sync?  According to Darwin’s tree of life, things happen in a particular order.  The same complex trait should not emerge on separate branches independently.  Findings contrary to the tree pattern could sink the theory – or at least give some […]

Think Like a Neanderthal Child

How should you stop a child’s tantrum?  Think like a Neanderthal, reports Live Science.  Dr. Harvey Karp, a pediatrician, “sees our little darlings as less-evolved savages driven by instinct and emotion, not thoughtful reasoning, and he suggests it’s our job as parents to civilize them into Homo sapiens.”     It’s fruitless, therefore, to talk […]

Fossil Frog-amander Claimed to Be Missing Link

It looks like a frog with four equal legs and a tail; is it the ancestor of frogs and amphibians?  It depends on whether you read the original paper or the popular press.     Live Science writer Jeanna Brynner is absolutely certain this puts a feather in Darwin’s cap: “the creature represents a transitional […]

Dinosaurs Walked in Yemen

Dinosaur tracks have been found in Yemen – a region with few fossils of dinosaurs.  The reports on National Geographic News, Science Daily and the BBC News said the tracks had been covered up with rubble and debris.     Dinosaur evidence is “exceptionally rare” in this part of the world.  The paleontologists believe that […]

Update:  Cambrian Explosion Damage Control

Here’s an update to the “State of the Cambrian Explosion.”  Two years ago, our 04/23/2006 entry analyzed a lengthy paper in Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences by Dr. Charles R. Marshall, a Harvard professor of biology and geology.  Dr. Marshall had taken on the arduous task of explaining, in evolutionary terms, the sudden […]

Neanderthals Can’t Get No Respect

Will evolutionary paleontologists ever make up their minds about Neanderthals?  The story seems to change every year.  Just when they had been getting more respect as Homo sapiens brethren, another researcher is demoting them to outsiders.     An Argentinean anthropologist has measured anatomical features and concluded they were a separate species, reported PhysOrg.  Understandably, […]

Human Mind Outwits Darwinian Models

Evolutionists struggle to explain complex human behaviors in Darwinian terms. Sure, corporate squabbles can seem like survival of the fittest, but humans also sacrifice for people they don’t even know and do other weird, un-Darwinian things. In Darwinism, selfishness rules. How does cooperative and altruistic behavior arise from selfish motives? Here are some of the recent attempts to reconcile observations with a theory in which selfishness is key.
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