Welcome to Berry Go Round #3, the blog carnival deicated to all things botanical.The previous installment, Berry Go Round #2, is located here, at Further Thoughts. If you would like to submit an item to the next Berry Go Round, you may use this handy submission form. The Berry Go Round Home Page is here. Continue reading Berry Go Round #3
Tag Archives: Evolution
Is there a limit on the number of species in a clade?
A “radiation” (sometimes called an “adaptive radiation”) is when a single ancestral species gives rise to a number of novel species, often in a fairly short (geological) period of time. Following this radiation event, it seems often to be the case that subsequent speciation is less common. In fact, many living clades that have only a small number of extant species have such radiations in their history. It is quite possible that the radiation event occurred for reasons local in time and space, such as a recent extinction leaving various niches open, or the presence of a particular adaptation suddenly enhancing fitness as it had not previously because of an ecological change.But one basic question (among many) that needs to be addressed when thinking of these issues of macroevolutionary patterning is this: For a given clade, where we can presume that there is a great deal of competition among closely related species, is there a sort of maximum limit on how many species you can get? In other words, as a clad starts to diversify, does it fill up the available eco-morpho-nichey space, which would eventually slow down the rate of speciation because new species become less likely to arise?The answer is a resounding: Probably! Continue reading Is there a limit on the number of species in a clade?
Genetics of Behavior: Fire Ants
A common presumption is that behavior is part of phenotype, and since phenotype arises from genotype (plus/minus Reaction Norm), that there can be a study of “behavioral genetics.” This is certainly an overstatement (or oversimplification) for organisms with extensive and/or complex neural systems, such as humans and mice. Neural systems probably evolved (not initially, but eventually) to disassociate behavior with the kind of pre-determined micro-management of behavior that a simple gene-behavior link requires. However, in organisms with neural systems the size of the period at the end of this sentence, we often do see cases of allelic variations causing behavioral variation in the whole organism. The study discussed here is an example of this. Continue reading Genetics of Behavior: Fire Ants
Genie Scott Scores Another PhD
Genie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education and author of Evolution vs. Creationism: An Introduction
The Flores Hobbits Were Members of a Separate Species
… according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study compares skull measurements of Flores material with a wide range of other hominid data and concludes that Flores cannot be clustered with Homo sapiens. This is the first published study that takes into account how size affects shape. By correcting for size, this study makes, the authors claim, a more valid comparison between measurements taken on the Flores material and other comparative data. Continue reading The Flores Hobbits Were Members of a Separate Species
Children can be so post-modern, without even knowing it
The Discovery Institute is Beating Up Larry Moran
First, Larry said:
…the right people hate Idiots…Wells makes a virtue out of lying for Jesus…He should be an embarrassment to the intelligent design creationist cult except that the members of that cult are all incapable of separating fact from fiction when it comes to science…When I first saw the Wells article I seriously wondered whether Jonathan Wells was mentally stable…
Continue reading The Discovery Institute is Beating Up Larry Moran
Good news on Toxoplasmosis Treatment
Toxoplasmosis is a disease caused by Toxoplasma gondii, a protozoan. It is very common in cats, but also known in humans. This is the disease people worry about when they have children and cats in the same house. Don’t let your child eat cat poop! Pregnant women should avoid this disease, as there are especially bad outcomes for the offspring.The good news is this: A new drug currently in testing phase for treating malaria is very effictrive against T. gondii. This new drug, a form of triazine, goes by the memorable name JPC-2067-B. Continue reading Good news on Toxoplasmosis Treatment
Yale Peabody Evolution Exhibit
Charles Darwin turns 200 next year–Happy birthday, dude!–and the Peabody Museum of Natural History is getting excited. You would think that a couple centuries would have kicked the last bit of dust over the grave of “intelligent design,” but sadly, it ain’t so. The people at the Peabody still have some convincing to do, and that’s where Travels in the Great Tree of Life, a multimedia exhibit curated by evolutionary biologist, Yale professor and Peabody Director Michael Donoghue, comes in. …[Read the rest here]
Ben Stein, Expelled
You may have noticed that I’ve been entirely silent about the movie Expelled. This is because of something that I do: Utterly ignore certain aspects of reality because my level of interest does not exceed my level of annoyance. I also ignore entire chunks of reality because I find them too interesting yet don’t have the available time or energy to invest at the moment. Like the Maya. I’ve totally ignored the Maya for this reasn.But, here’s the thing: If you go to my old blog, which is a dormant archive, I’ve got a few Google ads set up, and they tend to display ads for Ben Stein, Expelled. Why? I don’t really know, but Google has always put lots of creationist ads on my old site. Moving to Scienceblogs.com was actually very nice in this respect. There is some control over, or thought put into, ad selection on this site (I assume).Anyway, I decided to help Ben and the movie Expelled out a little, so I wrote a post that includes links to many (indirectly, hundreds of) blog posts providing helpful commentary on this production. Since at the moment I don’t actively blog on that site, this post will be the top post for an indefinite period of time. My list of posts includes two search engine listings, one showing all the Scienceblogs.com posts on the movie, and the other showing all the other posts ever in the whole world, via the MnCSE science-only search engine. (That should eliminate all the creationist sites.)So go on over to and have a look if you want to know more about Expelled.
Icons of Evolution
There are two books called “Icons of Evolution.” One is by Jonathan Wells. The best way to learn about Well’s Icons of Evolution is to watch Randy Olson’s Flock of Dodos. It is an anti science piece of dreck.The other is a more recently published is Icons of Evolution [Two Volumes]: An Encyclopedia of People, Evidence, and Controversies (Greenwood Icons)
Students and the general public are frequently confronted with contradictory and confusing claims about the people, ideas, and artifacts that were essential in the development of the science of evolution. Where can they find accurate and understandable information on these important concepts? Icons of Evolution comprises twenty-four in-depth essays on the most famous ideas, artifacts, people and places of evolutionary biology. Dinosaurs, Neanderthals, Charles Darwin, peppered moths, carbon dating, the fossil record, and more, are explained by some of the most respected scientists, historians, and philosophers of evolution in the world. Icons of Evolution dispels some of the myths and confusion about evolution and answers questions like:
What do all those horse fossils mean? Was Archaeopteryx the first bird?What is a missing link and is it missing?Did Peking Man really disappear?Where did the word fossil come from?What does ‘survival of the fittest’ really mean?Why does the idea of evolution seem to scare people so much? While written by technical experts, Icons of Evolution uses non-technical language that explains these icons for readers new to the field and for those seeking more depth. Taken together these icons tell a story that is sometimes fascinating, sometimes puzzling, always thought provoking. It is a story billions of years in the making, and one that everyone needs to know.
Icons of Evolution
Creationism’s Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design
Creationism’s Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design
… a no-holds-barred commitment to particular, parochial religious beliefs about the history and fabric of the world … This variant has eliminated brilliantly the obstacle of rational opposition to ideology … The new strategy is wonderfully simple. Here is how you implement it: exploiting that modern, nearly universal, liberal suspicion of zealotry, you accuse the branch of legitimate inquiry whose results you hate, in this case the evolutionary natural sciences, of — what else? — zealotry! … Crying “viewpoint discrimination,” you loudly demand adherence to the principle of freedom of speech, especially in teaching, insisting that such freedom is being denied your legitimate alternative view…This bold strategy is working, not just with religious fundamentalists, who do not need to be convinced anyway, but with people who have no such fundamentalist commitment and who are in principle well-enough educated to see what is happening. …This lusty new variant of creationism is advancing rapidly by means of a strategy called “The Wedge.”
Continue reading Creationism’s Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design
Schools should put faith in science
Scott Rowed published an Op Ed piece in the Calgary Herald last October that has just come to my attention. It is about evolution in schools in Canada, and provides an interesting perspective.
Should we reward them with taxpayers’ money to pass on these wonderful insights to the next generation? Should our future leaders learn to smother their critical thinking and make decisions based on faith rather than evidence and reason? From Canada, we don’t have to look too far south to see how tragic these faith-based decisions can be.
Read the whole thing here. Scott has another Op Ed piece coming out shortly. I’ll pass on that link when I get it.
Life Science Teachers….
…. Have you ever had this happen: You are minding your own business, teaching your life science course, it’s early in the term. A student, on the way out after class (never at the beginning of class, rarely during class) mentions something about “carbon dating.” This usually happens around the time of year you are doing an overview of the main points of the course, but before you’ve gotten to the “evolution module” (more on the “evolution module” another time … or come to the Bell on Friday to hear me rant about that in person).
Jeanne d’Arc was a very influential 10th grader. I understand she gave her Life Science teachers a very hard time. This is the only contemporary depiction of Joan of Arc. Some say the banner reads “IHS” but I’m pretty sure it says “AIG.” The student is talking about C14 dating and how it “has problems.” But you are a life science teacher and can’t think of a single point in your class that you really touch on C14. Dating in the evolution section does not involve C14. This is for later time periods, more in the area of archaeology, and you know nothing about it. So you brush off the question but are left with an uneasy feeling.
Why the Hobbits of Flores Were Probably Not Broken People
There is a new paper out suggesting that the Flores hominids, known as Hobbits, were “human endemic cretins.”From the abstract of this paper:
… We hypothesize that these individuals are myxoedematous endemic (ME) cretins, part of an inland population of (mostly unaffected) Homo sapiens. ME cretins are born without a functioning thyroid; their congenital hypothyroidism leads to severe dwarfism and reduced brain size, but less severe mental retardation and motor disability than neurological endemic cretins. We show that the fossils display many signs of congenital hypothyroidism, including enlarged pituitary fossa, and that distinctive primitive features of LB1 such as the double rooted lower premolar and the primitive wrist morphology are consistent with the hypothesis. We find that the null hypothesis (that LB1 is not a cretin) is rejected by the pituitary fossa size of LB1, and by multivariate analyses of cranial measures. We show that critical environmental factors were potentially present on Flores, how remains of cretins but not of unaffected individuals could be preserved in caves, and that extant oral traditions may provide a record of cretinism.
Continue reading Why the Hobbits of Flores Were Probably Not Broken People