evolution
cmooney | February 17, 2006Over at Real Climate, Raypierre has an exceedingly enlightening post about the similarities and differences between attacks on evolution and attacks on global warming. As someone who has explored both areas extensively--and who has also found striking similarities, if also some differences--I think he gets almost everything right.
Almost. You see, there's one philosophical point that bugs me. Raypierre strains the entire discussion through an attempt to explain what constitutes science, and on this matter he takes guidance from Judge Jones' already famous opinion in the Dover evolution trial…
loom | February 17, 2006Randy Olson, director of the movie, Flock of Dodos has sent in some thoughts regarding the ongoing conversation here about his movie. A lot of commenters were offering opinions on how evolutionary biologists should communicate with the rest of us. I thought I'd publish his entire comment here in a post of its own. (Added note: Randy is fielding questions and opinions in the comment thread if you want to join in.)
Hi - A big thanks to Carl for such a nice write up about the screening (which was a huge amount of fun). At each of the panel discussions for the first round of screenings of "Flock…
oracknows | February 15, 2006As someone who lived in Cleveland for 8 years and whose wife grew up in Toledo, it does my heart good to see that the Ohio Board of Education finally got something right. They voted to strike language in their state science standards singling out evolution for a "critical evaluation:
COLUMBUS, Ohio, Feb. 14 -- The Ohio Board of Education voted 11 to 4 Tuesday to toss out a mandate that 10th-grade biology classes include critical analysis of evolution and an accompanying model lesson plan, dealing the intelligent design movement its second serious defeat in two months.
The board, which became…
pharyngula | February 15, 2006
In yet another example of evolution in action, investigators have documented morphological changes in the cane toads (Bufo marinus) that infest parts of Australia. They're an invasive species that was introduced in a misbegotten attempt to control beetles that were damaging the sugar cane crop; as it turns out, they are aggressive predators that eat lots of other native fauna, and they secrete toxins that kill animals that try to eat them.
Another feature that contributes to their unwanted success is their rapid dispersal. Individuals can move up to 1.8km per night, occupying new territory…
cmooney | February 15, 2006I've written at length in the past about why Zogby polls, conducted on behalf of the Discovery Institute and invariably showing that a large percentage of the public supports "teaching the controversy," shouldn't be relied upon. I was about to blog about this topic yet again, but Matt Nisbet beats me to it, and does a far better and more exhaustive job debunking the latest pro-ID poll than I myself would have done. Suffice it to say that by touting these surveys, Discovery is undermining the science of polling in pretty much the same way that it is undermining the science of evolution.
cmooney | February 15, 2006I'm as happy as the next person that the Ohio Board of Education is backing down in the wake of the Dover trial decision, and will be getting rid of its silly anti-evolution lesson plan. However, I don't think evolution fans ought to be rejoicing too much--at least not yet.
If the Ohio board is willing to get rid of the lesson plan voluntarily, that means it doesn't have to be sued. But make no mistake: Had this one gone to court, it would have been a significantly tougher case than the Dover trial.
It's much easier to prove in court that Dover's introduction of "intelligent design" itself…
loom | February 13, 2006Last night I drove into New Haven, Connecticut, to catch an advanced screening of Flock of Dodos, a movie about evolution and intelligent design. Afterwards I took part in a panel discussion. It was an interesting evening, not only because the movie was quite good, but because it provoked a noisy discussion.
I don't want to give away too much of Flock of Dodos, because I would prefer that a lot of people get a chance to see it for themselves. Randy Olson, the creator of the film, spoke after the film and explained that the version we saw was still a bit rough around the edges, and he's…
evolgen | February 13, 2006One of the most important developments in evolutionary biology in the past few decades has come without much fanfare outside of a small circle of population geneticists. The early models of population genetics were limited when it came to analyzing the nucleotide sequence polymorphism data that began to appear in the 1980s. New statistical techniques were developed to analyze this data, and they all fell under the umbrella of coalescent theory. If you want to understand the evolution of populations, you're missing a lot if you do not understand the coalescent.
When I wrote about the best…
jstemwedel | February 13, 2006I meant to post yesterday on Darwin Day, but I was swept up in doing tasks around the house that some have posited women are better at and/or care about more for reasons that lie deep in our evolutionary past. I don't buy it (nor do others, who you are encouraged to read), and the Free-Ride household seems to me a good example that tidiness is not a sex-linked trait (or, if it is, it's riding on the Y chromosome).
Anyway, first I wanted to link a fine appreciation of Darwin written by Michael Weisberg and Richard M. Leventhal, both of the University of Pennsylvania. The closing paragraphs…
cmooney | February 13, 2006I didn't end up giving my special comments about Charles Darwin at my talk last night; a snap judgment led me to decide that I would be wiser to dive right into my speech given the unexpected format of the event. So instead, I've decided to publish here what I had planned to say at the beginning of my talk. Here goes:
I'm no ace with numbers, so I may mess this up. But it's my understanding that, if he were still alive today, Charles Darwin would be 197 years old. It's hard not to play the game of imagining what he would think of us. I think it's safe to say that, though he might be dismayed…
razib | February 12, 2006Today is Darwin Day. Chris at Mixing Memory has qualms about the name, and suggests "Evolution Day" as a more appropriate celebratory appellation in keeping with the spirit of Charles Darwin's scientific insights. I tend to have sympathies with Chris' point, though I would assert that Darwin was the Newton, not the Kepler, of evolutionary biology. Many scientists observed the reality of evolution and formulated "laws" before and after his time, but it was Darwin who placed natural selection upon heritable variation at the center of the process of evolutionary change over time. But Chris'…
evolgen | February 12, 2006The Virginia Quarterly Review has published an essay by Niles Eldredge on its website, entitled "Confessions of Darwinist". I have no problem with Eldredge referring to himself as a Darwinist, as he is not misusing the term. Eldredge's essay explains how punctuated equilibrium (the theory that earned him fame) does not conflict with Darwinian evolution (ie, his model is not anti-natural selection). He also gives us some good history on Darwin to read on this Darwin day. I have reproduced a short passage below the fold.
This passage contains a quote from George Gaylord Simpson that I find…
pharyngula | February 12, 2006Niles Eldredge has a fine essay online on what it means to be a Darwinist (not the term as caricatured by creationists, but merely as someone who respects the work of Darwin while acknowledging the vast increase in understanding evolution since his time). It's also useful for explaining how creationists distort the concept of punctuated equilibrium.
The creationists of the day got into the act as well. In a clear demonstration of how thoroughly political the creationist movement has always been in the United States, Ronald Reagan told reporters, after addressing a throng of Christian…
jlynch | February 12, 2006I have just been notified that the Spring edition of the Virginia Quarterly Review will feature articles on evolution and ID by Niles Eldredge, Michael Ruse, Thomas Eisner, Robert M. Sapolsky and David Quammen. To celebrate Darwin Day, the Review has put Eldredge's essay online.
jlynch | February 12, 2006 I was going to post the text of a talk ("The Myths of Darwinism") that I gave to the Humanist Society of Greater Phoenix in February 2002. But I can't find a scanned copy. I should be able to post it tomorrow, though. So, in place of that, I give you ...
"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved."
evolgen | February 11, 2006There's lots of cool stuff coming out in the speciation literature. The Questionable Authority has posted on two recent studies on sympatric speciation (see here and here). Nature, which published the two sympatric speciation papers, has a summary available here. I am of the opinion that most examples of sympatric speciation are actually allopatry with reinforcement (for more on this, see here). That is not to say that sympatric speciation is impossible, just extremely rare. In the end, some reproductive isolation is a requirement for speciation in sexually reproducing organisms (whether…
evolgen | February 10, 2006A few weeks ago Cell published a commentary by Paul Nurse, president of Rockefeller University, on US biomedical research under siege from people with political motivations. Nurse's intentions were noble, but his language was sloppy. The issue of Cell published today has a commentary by Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education. Scott's article provides an excellent review of American policy, education, and the anti-evolution movement -- if you're lucky enough to have access to Cell, go read the entire thing. If you don't have access, I have a few…
pharyngula | February 10, 2006This afternoon, I'll be at the Bell Museum at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities campus, celebrating the birth of Charles Darwin. Everyone is welcome, so come on down!
Events:
1:00P - Lecture by historian of biology Professor Mark Borrello, Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, on the history of Darwin and evolutionary theory.
2:00P - Lecture by biologist and blogger Professor P.Z. Myers, University of Minnesota—Morris, on evidence for evolution.
3:00P - Panel discussion of University of Minnesota evolutionary biologists on their cutting-edge research at the U of M titled "…