The best of last June
… is certainly still in the future. But we have seen a step in that direction in a new paper, coming out this week in Science. This research applies intensive and extensive genomic analysis to the avian phylogenetic tree. The results are interesting.

This paper is summarized in a number of locations, most notably here on Living the Scientific Life. Here, I will summarize it only very briefly. However, there are two observations I would like to make about this paper and its apparent meaning. One has to do with the nature of science, and the other has to do with the nature of evolution in particular. I’ll argue that we can quantify (almost non-trivially) the number of times science is wrong. I’ll also argue that Stephen Jay Gould was wrong (not totally, but not trivially) about one of his most important assertions (other than his musings about the myth of vaginal orgasms … we’ll talk about that another time).

Continue reading The Perfect Bird Family Tree… →

Let us not let the death of Ed McMahon and some other stars overshadow the anniversary of the death of one of the greats. In memoriam, let’s talk bullshit:

The long running Minnesota Atheist Talk Radio air’s its very last show tomorrow morning at 9:00 Central Time. Details of how to listen to the show, which will also be a podcast, are here.

This week’s show will feature yours truly, and I’ll be interviewed by Stephanie Zvan. The subject will be Missionaries in Africa. This interview should be considered an extension of this series of blog posts on the same topic.

My understanding is that the people who have produced this radio show up until now are planning to produce a podcast in the future. I will let you know as soon as I hear anything about that.

cats:

Dogs:

Bonus cat:

We left it around here somewhere. Maybe here?