Darwin

VIEW HEADLINES ONLY

Ho-Hum, Another Human Missing Link

May 19, 2009

Shoppers typically are wary of over-hyped ads, knowing that any claim sounding too good to be true probably is. What would they think about media reports claiming a new fossil monkey is the “8th wonder of the world”? The scientific paper in PLoS ONE1 had hardly been published before the press went ape, […]

Dinosaurs

Missing Links Found: Walking Seal, Teen Tyrannosaur

April 23, 2009

Science news media are abuzz with reports that two missing links have been found. One is a fossil seal (pinniped) with four legs, the other a smaller presumed ancestor of the famous Tyrannosaurus rex. Seal: National Geographic News calls it a seal with arms, and features artwork of an otter-like animal doing a kind of […]

Dumb Ideas

Publish Your Kooky Idea

April 22, 2009

Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute has a solution for sorting science from pseudoscience: publish. In the weekly SETI article for April 16 on Space.com, he said he gets lots of wacky theories in the mail and email. What’s the best way to sift through claims and find the gems? Publication. Shostak acknowledged […]

Bible and Theology

Art as Propaganda for Evolution

April 10, 2009

Should a scientific theory be propagated by appeal to scientific evidence, or by appeal to emotions through visualization? Nature this week contained two articles that shamelessly praised art as propaganda for evolution. Surprisingly, one of them mentioned Charles Darwin as someone “at the cutting edge of visualization.” Endless Forms: Carl Zimmer reviewed an exhibit currently […]

Physics

Physicists Bow to Darwin

March 18, 2009

What’s Darwin got to do with physics? Presumably, if you dropped his statue off the leaning tower of Pisa, it would fall at 32 feet per second squared, but the man is remembered for his speculations about biology, not physics. Why, then, did Nature Physics devote a special issue to Darwin? Here’s what it presented. […]

Genetics

Darwin Had Genetic Blinders

March 4, 2009

Darwin was a contemporary of Mendel, so why did he get inheritance wrong? That question was addressed on Science Daily by Jonathan Howard of the University of Cologne, Germany. His thesis is that Darwin had philosophical blinders on that prevented him from recognizing the significance of evidence before him. “Why Didn’t Darwin Discover […]

Bible and Theology

Darwinism as Religion in a Holy War

February 19, 2009

It might be expected that media attention on Darwin would be exceptionally high this month because of his bicentennial, but some of it seems downright religious. The adulation he has been receiving is almost embarrassing sometimes. It is only exceeded by the righteous indignation Darwin’s fans frequently express against intelligent design. In any other context, […]

Uncategorized

The Nature of Natures Darwin 200

February 13, 2009

As could be expected for yesterday’s Darwin Day February 12, Nature devoted almost its entire 2/12/09 issue to Charles Darwin with at least 20 Darwin-related articles. The caption for the special edition states, The latest edition of Nature to celebrate Darwin’s life and work looks at the human side of evolution. We have features on […]

Politics and Ethics

Darwin Losing in the Polls

February 12, 2009

Many scientists are celebrating Darwin as the greatest scientist in history on his Bicentennial, but public support for his theory is slipping. A new Zogby poll shows significant erosion over the past few years over the question of whether evolution only should be taught, and a new Gallup poll shows only a minority believe in […]

Uncategorized

Darwins Wrong Turn in Argentina

February 12, 2009

When the Beagle was sailing the coast of Argentina in 1834, it stopped at the mouth of the Santa Cruz River. 25-year-old Charles Darwin, who had been reading Lyell’s Principles of Geology, got out and explored the area on foot as the crew made camp on the cliffs. Darwin was impressed by the six-mile-wide canyon […]

Darwin and Evolution

Exploring the Malleability of Evolutionary Explanation

January 23, 2009

Is evolutionary theory just a very malleable and ductile idea, able to adapt to changing observations, or should it be described as a strong theory, powerful in its explanatory breadth?

Education

For His Birthday, Darwin Loses His Tree

January 22, 2009

The “tree of life” is the central icon of Darwinism. Charles Darwin’s only illustration in the Origin of Species was a drawing of organisms descending from a common ancestor in a branching tree pattern. It has been reproduced, expanded, embellished and decorated into a primal symbol of what science believes about biology. Why, then, are […]

Origin of Life

Darwin Blogs on Origin of Life

January 14, 2009

He may not blog himself, but Darwin has disciples who blog for him. There’s bound to be a lot of blogging this year with Darwin’s 200th birthday next month and the 150th anniversary of the Origin of Species this November. Science began a blog called Origins with some entries from their Jan 8 issue. Two […]

Terrestrial Zoology

Darwin Missed the Pink Iguanas

January 6, 2009

The news media are excited about pink iguanas found in the Galapagos Islands. The rare type was discovered accidentally in 1986 but received almost no attention till now. Reports with pictures can be found on Live Science, PhysOrg, New Scientist and the BBC News, based on the paper by Gentile et al in PNAS.1 […]

Intelligent Design

Nature Cannot Wait for Darwin Day

November 23, 2008

Darwin Day (Feb. 12, 2009) is months away, but Nature devoted a special issue to it this week. The cover story, Darwin 200, includes 15 articles and features, some of which are available to the public. Features include a list of celebrations and exhibitions around the world, including a re-enactment of Darwin’s voyage on a […]

All Posts by Date

[archives type="yearly" cat_id="1498"]