Evolutionary Theory

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Evolutionary Mutualism Flutters

December 12, 2008

A story on Science Daily is decorated with a butterfly collection. Amazonian butterflies studied by an international team were chosen to test Darwin’s theory of mutualism – a kind of symbiosis in which two species benefit one another. The test yielded a surprise. The idea going in was that sister species would evolve […]

Marine Biology

Fish and Reptiles Converge on Magnetic Navigation

December 11, 2008

Two very different kinds of animal both have outstanding ability to navigate by earth’s magnetic field: salmon and sea turtles. A new hypothesis by scientists at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, published in PNAS,1 suggests that the young are “imprinted” with their local magnetic field signature at birth. From a navigational perspective, some […]

Fossils

Tiktaalik Not a Missing Link

December 4, 2008

Has all the colorful artwork of the fish-a-pod been for naught? Three European biologists claim that Neil Shubin’s famous Tiktaalik fossil, supposedly of a fish evolving into a four-footed land dweller (see 05/03/2006, 11/13/2008) which has garnered iconic status in the media (01/16/2008), is not a missing link after all. The situation is […]

Dinosaurs

Turtle Vaults Over 65 Million Year Evolutionary Hurdle

November 22, 2008

The Scots are bragging about their latest missing link – a swimming turtle. The BBC News could hardly contain the excitement over this claim to evolutionary fame: “The new species forms a missing link between ancient terrestrial turtles and their modern, aquatic descendants,” the article said. But along with celebration, there were admissions of ignorance: […]

Dumb Ideas

Selfishness and Responsibility Are Just a Game

November 22, 2008

It’s become increasingly common for evolutionists to explain human behavior in terms of games. Another entry in this genre was published by Science Daily, which began, “‘Game theory’ is used to predict the behaviour of individuals when making choices that depend on the choices of others. First developed as a tool for understanding economic behaviour, […]

Politics and Ethics

Is Darwinian Environmentalism an Oxymoron?

November 21, 2008

There’s something magnetic about letters to the editor. We feel attracted to the responses of readers to what magazines print – especially when a mini-debate takes place and the author of an article replies. In PNAS this week,1 two scientists aired a friendly squabble about the meaning of “biodiversity” and whether humans should defend it. […]

Genetics

Unique “Orphan Genes” Are Widespread; Have No Evolutionary Explanation

November 19, 2008

We often hear about the similarities between genomes, but what about the differences? There’s a growing realization that groups of animals have genetic orphans – genes that are unique to that line (see 01/02/2003). These genes have no evolutionary homology or kinship to genes from other lineages. How did they arise? And what do they […]

Birds

Lizard Hair and Other Fables

November 12, 2008

In some science reports, it’s hard to tell where the data stops and the speculation begins. In any case, evolutionary theory usually arrives in time to take credit for whatever happened in the unobservable past (cf. 08/24/2007). Bad hair joke: Live Science wants you to blame your bad hair days on lizards. Why? Because according […]

Early Man

Scientific Terms Can Obfuscate, Not Enlighten

October 29, 2008

When scientists classify things and use scientific terms, are they really shedding light on nature and natural history? It’s possible they may just be glossing over their own ignorance, suggested three articles in Nature last week. They underscore cases where subjective human conventions are falsely assumed to correlate with external realities. They lead us to […]

Human Body

Evolutionizing Religion: Whos Assuming What?

October 26, 2008

“Findings from cognitive psychology, neuroscience, cultural anthropology and archaeology promise to change our view of religion,” said Pascal Boyer in Nature.1 His essay summarized studies that offer an evolutionary explanation for mankind’s propensity to embrace religion. “We can probe the shared assumptions that religions are built on, however disparate, and examine the connection between religion […]

Mammals

Tooth Evolution Theory Lacks Bite

October 14, 2008

The hardest substance in your body is your teeth. The varieties of teeth among vertebrates is astounding, from the tiny incisors in a mole to the bone-crushing scimitars on a T. rex. Many fossils are known only from their teeth. One would think teeth are the best-studied objects in evolutionary theory, but a recent paper […]

Dumb Ideas

Its Fun Seeing Evolution Falsified

October 8, 2008

“Mysterious Snippets Of DNA Withstand Eons Of Evolution” is the strange title of an article on Science Daily. Gill Bejerano and Cory McLean from Stanford are wondering why large non-coding sections of DNA are very similar, or “ultraconserved,” from mice to man (see 08/18/2007). Evolutionary theory would expect that non-functional genetic material would mutate more […]

Early Man

End of the Neanderthal Myth?

September 23, 2008

A grim Neanderthal face stares out from the cover of the October 2008 National Geographic Magazine. Coinciding with the cover story is a TV special, Neanderthal Code, about the Neanderthal genome. Both are replete with artwork from the magazine’s army of illustrators charged with putting flesh on bones and bringing lost prehistories to life. The […]

Terrestrial Zoology

Ant What it Used to Be

September 18, 2008

A new species of subterranean ant discovered in Brazil is so weird, biologists have classified it as the sole representative of a new subfamily. The alien creature has been whimsically named Martialis heureka: “the ant from Mars.” An article about it in Nature News said, “It adds a new branch to the ant family tree […]

Philosophy of Science

Looking for Laws to Make Darwinism Scientific

September 15, 2008

Science needs natural laws. Darwinian laws that have been put forward by evolutionists contain so many exceptions and complexities, they seem to have a bad case of physics envy. Coping with Cope’s Rule: Evolution tends to make animals larger over time – except when it makes them smaller. In Science,1 Kaustuv Roy lamented the perils […]

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