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Fossils

Cambrian Explosion Still Explosive
August 20, 2002
51; Two new papers about Cambrian and Precambrian fossils did nothing to help soften the blow of the Cambrian explosion – the sudden appearance of all the animal body plans in the geological blink of an eye.  They essentially restated the problem for Darwin, who hoped that fossil discoveries would fill in the gaps where […]
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Bible and Theology

Only Atheists Need Apply
July 20, 2002
51; He’s a Christian, yes, but he is also a leading American scientist and a harsh critic of intelligent design.  He supports research on embryonic stem cells and upholds Darwin’s theory of evolution completely.  That’s not enough to get Francis Collins off the hook with the scientific establishment.  Both Nature and Science expressed “serious misgivings” […]
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Dumb Ideas

Fishing for Darwinian Stories
June 20, 2002
51; Stickleback fish can learn from each other where the best food sources are.  This proves you brain’s remarkable learning abilities have their roots in fish heads, according to science news sources this week.  Science Daily said the findings by UK scientists “show that the cognitive mechanisms underlying cumulative cultural evolution may be more prevalent […]
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Genetics

Something from Nothing Dept.: Can a Divide-and-Conquer Strategy Climb Mt. Improbable?
June 20, 2002
Darwinian evolution from the most primitive organisms to the most advanced must have produced huge increases in functional information (see 06/12/2003 entry).  Yet finding specific genetic mechanisms for just how DNA succeeded in “climbing Mt. Improbable,” as Richard Dawkins termed it in his book of the same name, has been daunting.  In a recent paper […]
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Dumb Ideas

Stupid Evolution Quote of the Week:  The Evolution of TV Dinners
April 20, 2002
Humans still have genetic memories of feasting and telling stories around the campfire, says Martin Jones at Cambridge University.  That’s why we gravitate toward eating TV dinners in front of the telly.  This opinion is expressed in all seriousness by United Press International, titled “Television dinners linked to evolution.”  Jones calls today’s TV dinners “today’s […]
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Mammals

Findings vs Surmisings in Evolutionary Biology
April 20, 2002
51; What part of the following story is a finding, and what is a supposition?  Science Daily told about work by Julie Baker (Stanford) and a graduate student who set out to discover the evolutionary origin of the mammalian placenta.  They evaluated differences between placentas and eggs of a number of different animals, and told […]
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