The Aquatic Ape Theory is being discussed over at Pharyngula. As PZ points out, an excellent resource on this idea is Moore’s site on the topic. Here, I just want to make a few remarks about it.
Continue reading Musings on the Aquatic Ape Theory
Tag Archives: Evolution
Darwin and Wallace 1858
It is not usually the case that I write a blog post for a carnival. I usually just write for the blog, then now and then sit down and figure out which posts should go to with carnivals. That is not the case with this post.
Some time ago I thought, while writing a Peer Reviewed Research post, that it would be interesting to write up older papers, classics, or more recent papers that were of great interest for one reason or another but maybe a few years old. Just around that time, this idea of a classic carnival … a carnival of classic science papers … came around (details here and here), and I thought that was a very cool idea.
I have a plan to write a couple of different series of posts, one with Bob Trivers’ papers (see this for a taste), which will come along very easily, as I have taught a course based primarily on his work. Another would be on papers regarding Race and Racism. Again, this would draw heavily on my course on Race and Gender. A third stream of posts may come from the Bioanthropology tutorial I taught at Harvard. That was some years ago, so even the ‘current’ papers from that effort may now be classics (Tim Caro’s work with hyenas springs instantly to mind). Thinking about that approach led me to consider the first paper I usually assigned in that tutorial, and in fact, ‘the’ first paper in the field of evolutionary biology (perhaps, depending on your perspective).
That paper, I thought, is what this post should be about. Darwin and Wallace’s first composite paper on Natural Selection.
The only question remains: How many other people are going to do the same thing? Probably scads of them. So, I’ll have to make this a little different…..
MSNBC: Time to retire Buchanan (an open letter)
Dear MSNBC,
I know it is appropriate to have a range of opinions among the talking heads representing a news agency, and MSNBC certainly does have a range. Pat Buchanan, regular commentator on two or three MSNBC news shows, probably serves at the most conservative individual in the MSNBC panoply.
But he has to go now.
Continue reading MSNBC: Time to retire Buchanan (an open letter)
Fins Limbs and Gills (And how they evolved)
From a University of Chicago Press Release.
The genetic toolkit that animals use to build fins and limbs is the same genetic toolkit that controls the development of part of the gill skeleton in sharks, according to research to be published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on March 23, 2009, by Andrew Gillis and Neil Shubin of the University of Chicago, and Randall Dahn of Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory.
Continue reading Fins Limbs and Gills (And how they evolved)
Why didn’t Darwin discover Mendel’s laws?
Perhaps we are all subject to falling into the trap of what I call the Hydraulic Theory of Everything. If you eat more you will be bigger, if you eat less you will be smaller. Emotional states are the continuously varying outcome of different levels of a set of hormones, forming “happy” or “stressy” or “angry” cocktails. Your brain is a vessel into which life pours various elixirs. Too much of one thing, and there will not be enough room for something else. Even political arguments are hydraulic. The ‘balanced’ middle view between two arguments is like the mixture of contrasting primary colors on a pallet.
Continue reading Why didn’t Darwin discover Mendel’s laws?
Diatoms Large and Small
Diatoms are algae with hard parts. They make up a major part of the plankton found in fresh and salt water environments. Usually, diatoms exist as single celled free floating organisms, but they can also be colonies of several single cells. Their tiny little ‘shells’ are made up of silica (these shells are called “fustules”).
Continue reading Diatoms Large and Small
Darwin Year Panel Discussion, Sunday in the Twin Cities
Feb 15 – Darwin Year Panel Discussion Featuring Myers, Laden, Moore, Cotner and Phillips
2009 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origins of Species. In honor of this, we have assembled a distinguished panel of scientists to give us their thoughts on evolution, creationism, and Darwin. The panelists are: PZ Myers, Randy Moore, Greg Laden, Sehoya Cotner, and Jane Phillips.
The discussion will be moderated by Lynn Fellman. Lynn is a frequent science interviewer on our Atheists Talk radio program. She is also an independent artist and designer (FellmanStudio.com) who incorporates science into her work.
This event is free and open to the public.
Location:
Rondo Community Outreach Library
461 N Dale St
Saint Paul, MN 55103
651-266-7400
Minnesota Atheists Feburary Membership Meeting
February 15, 2009
1:00-1:15 p.m. – Social time.
1:15-1:45 p.m. – MNA business meeting, including annual elections.
1:45-2:00 p.m. – Social time.
2:00-3:00 p.m. – Panel discussion.
3:00-3:30 p.m. – Social time.
4:00 p.m. – Dinner at a nearby restaurant.
Darwin’s Birthday Gallup Poll on “Belief in Evolution”
The Gallup Poll is not surprising in any of its results but it is, of course, alarming and interesting. Here’s a summary.
On the eve of the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth, a new Gallup Poll shows that only 39% of Americans say they “believe in the theory of evolution,” while a quarter say they do not believe in the theory, and another 36% don’t have an opinion either way. These attitudes are strongly related to education and, to an even greater degree, religiosity.
The data:
Believe in evolution 39%
Do not believe in evolutoin 25%
No opinon either way 36%
Not surprisingly, education level has a strong effect on tresponse. Have a look at this graph:
The good news:
Younger Americans, who are less likely to be religious than those who are older, are also more likely to believe in evolution. Still, just about half of those aged 18 to 34 say they believe in evolution.
Well, not great news, but good news.
In answer to the question “Can you tell me with which scientific theory Charles Darwin is associated?” only a little over half knew. That was asked before all the other questions. And, knowing or not knowing the answer to that question went way way up with higher education levels, not surprisingly.
The poll reporters conclude:
As Darwin is being lauded as one of the most important scientists in history on the 200th anniversary of his birth (on Feb. 12, 1809), it is perhaps dismaying to scientists who study and respect his work to see that well less than half of Americans today say they believe in the theory of evolution, and that just 55% can associate the man with his theory.
… Americans who have lower levels of formal education are significantly less likely than others to be able to identity Darwin with his theory, and to have an opinion on it either way. Still, the evidence is clear that even to this day, Americans’ religious beliefs are a significant predictor of their attitudes toward Darwin’s theory….
Two chimps walked into a bar …
… and made a real mess of the place when one of them spotted the jar of pickles on the counter. They fought over it until one of them had almost all the pickles and the other one had a number of bruises and a tiny fragment of one pickle that the other chimp dropped by accident.
That would be the way it would happen if two chimps walked into a bar. Or imagine two chimps, and each finds a nice juicy bit of fruit out in the forest. And instead of eating the fruit, because they are not hungry, they carry it around for a while (this would never happen, but pretend) and then accidentally run into each other. What would happen? Same thing. Event though neither chimp actually needed the fruit and each chimp had its own fruit, the dominant chimp (between the two) would end up with both pieces of fruit.
This is why chimps could not possibly cooperate in any effort to scour the forest for various edible items, bring them all back to a central place, share and then cooperatively process the food items, and ultimately produce a meal that is eaten by all of the chimps on an as needed basis. Humans do that but chimps can’t. Explain this and you explain one of the major features of human evolution…
Continue reading Two chimps walked into a bar …
Great Moments in Human Evolution: The Invention of Chipped Stone Tools
Or not.
Much is made of the early use of stone tools by human ancestors. Darwin saw the freeing of the hands ad co-evolving with the use of the hands to make and use tools which co-evolved with the big brain. And that would make the initial appearance of stone tools in the archaeological record a great and momentous thing. However, things did not work out that way.
Continue reading Great Moments in Human Evolution: The Invention of Chipped Stone Tools
Bugs (Darwin)
When reading the Voyage, it is impossible to miss the observation that much of the time Darwin was engaged in adolescent boy behavior: Pulling the heads off insects, noting how long they would wiggle after cut in half, closely examining the ooze and guts, occupied much of his time. Obviously, careful observation and a strong stomach were not all that was required to think up Natural Selection and his other theories, or the Origin of Species would have been written dozens of times by dozens of grown up kids.
Continue reading Bugs (Darwin)
Mutation Patterns in the Human Genome are More Variable Than Expected
I want to bring your attention to a somewhat dense and possibly inconclusive (but important) paper accompanied by a very informative overview in PLoS Biology, concerning mutations in the human genome.
Mutation rates and patterns of mutation are important for a number of reasons. For one thing, the genome itself is a data set that is both broad and deep. There is a lot of information in a given individual genome (a haploid set of genes from a person, for instance) but there is a wide range of variation in that information. So, inferences or assertions regarding the nature and distribution of genes or their variants cannot really refer to a single version of the genome, but must also take into account the variation in DNA sequences.
A very obvious area where variation is important is in reconstructing phylogenies. “Family trees” of populations or species can be reconstructed by estimating the genetic difference between pairs of samples, and from this, estimating the amount of time that has passed between a Last Common Ancestor and each of two later populations. These dyads (or triads, depending on how you count them) can then be pieced together to get a phylogeny … a graph representing the historical divergence of populations or species … that tells us a particular version of history. Obviously, the rate of mutation must be known or assumed to make this work. Variation in mutation across the genome, or across a population, or across the structure of the family tree itself will cause incorrect inferences.
The research paper is “Cryptic Variation in the Human Mutation Rate” by Hodgkinson et al. Here’s the key finding:
Continue reading Mutation Patterns in the Human Genome are More Variable Than Expected
The Voyage of the Beagle
Of his time on the Beagle (1832 – 1836), Darwin wrote, “The voyage of the Beagle has been by far the most important event in my life and has determined my whole career.” Of the manuscript describing that voyage, he wrote, “The success of this my first literary child always tickles my vanity more than that of any of my other books.”
Taking a cue from these reflections, I’d like to spend some time with this book, in celebration of Darwin’s 200th birthday, coming up in just a few days.
Continue reading The Voyage of the Beagle
Neanderthal Genome Will Be Released
The complete genome of a Neanderthal dating to about 38,000 years ago has been sequenced by the team lead by Svante Paabo. The genome will be announced on Darwin’s Birthay, Feb 12.
“We are working like crazy at the moment,” says Pääbo, adding that his Max Planck colleague, computational biologist Richard Green, is coordinating the analysis of the genome’s 3 billion base pairs.
Comparisons with the human genome may uncover evidence of interbreeding between Neanderthals and humans, the genomes of which overlap by more than 99%. They certainly had enough time for fraternization — Homo sapiens emerged as a separate species by about 400,000 years ago, and Neanderthals became extinct just 30,000 years ago. Their last common ancestor lived about 660,000 years ago, give or take 140,000 years.
Despite the remarks made in the Nature coverage about interbreeding, Svante has indicated in previous discussions about this genome that there is nothing to indicate this in the present analysis.
Amazing Fossil Finding: Proto Whales Gave Birth on Land, not at sea
An article released moments ago in PLoS ONE, by Gingerich et al., describes one of the more interesting fossil discoveries ever.
To cut right to the conclusion: We now have reason to believe that the proto-whale Maiacetus inuus, a true transitional form, gave birth on land, not in the water.
Artist’s conception of male Maiacetus inuus with opaque skeleton overlay. Credit: John Klausmeyer and Bonnie Miljour, University of Michigan Museums of Natural History
Continue reading Amazing Fossil Finding: Proto Whales Gave Birth on Land, not at sea