Andean mountain cat, Leopardus jacobitus Cornalia 1865. (source)
I'm currently reading Hoelldobler & Wilson’s The Superorganism and just ran across this post by Alex Wild which claims that the whole section of The Superorganism devoted to the evolutionary history of ants is muddy, incoherent, and entirely at odds with the increasingly clear picture emerging from modern studies of ant relationships. Alex is inaugurating Scienceblogs' new photoblog, Photo Synthesis, and will be guest-blogging for a month, so wander on over and check it out. His own blog is also worth a read and his photos (here and here) are excellent.
Full strip here.
Today we celebrate Paul Nelson Day in honor of the five year anniversary of his theory of "ontogenic depth" and a promised exposition that has never appeared. Methods of celebration vary - PZ has in the past suggested that we should make it a point to ask people "How do you know that?" today, and the ones who actually can explain themselves competently will be complimented by being told that they're no Paul Nelson. I have suggested that you can invent a new concept (such as "ontogenic depth") and promise to explain it later. No matter how you choose to celebrate, have a happy Paul Nelson Day!
Most readers probably have heard of Michael Egnor, the DI's pet neurosurgeon. Egnor has been harping on about what he perceives as the lack of utility of evolution - which he, of course, equates with "Darwinism" - in medicine since 2007, and various folks here have commented on what has been termed his "egnorance". This is going to annoy him. Jerry Coyne has in the past argued that evolutionary biology "doesnât have much practical value in medicine" but has now changed his mind based on evidence presented by David Hillis. Dr Egnor could take a lesson from this illustration of evidence leading…
Kodkod or guiña, Leopardus guigna Molina 1782 (source)
A few weeks back, I updated you on the story of Macho B, the male jaguar that was captured in southeastern Arizona and subsequently euthanized due to apparent chronic kidney failure. The Arizona Republic is reporting that Sharon Dial, a pathologist at Arizona Veterinary Diagnostic Lab, is claiming that the euthanization was premature and that the jaguar was not suffering from renal failure. The initial diagnosis was made from bloodwork and Dial examined the kidneys: "Nothing is absolute. There is nothing to say that he absolutely would have recovered, but I can say by looking at the kidneys…
Sadly, to the DI, this is what counts as the utterance of a "serious scholar who knows what he's saying:" Evolutionary theory is at odds with itself: It cannot accept that man is a special being, raised above all others in evolutionary history, and it cannot deny that only man is capable of science, which allows him to transcend his animal selfishness. In closing, I note that I have made no reference to religion but only brought out the inner contradiction of Darwinism. Mansfield should stick to political philosophy, methinks. If he honestly thinks this is "the inner contradiction of…
Matt Taibbi on Jake DeSantis' narcissism: Only a person with a habitually overinflated sense of self-worth could think he deserves a $700,000 retention bonus, even if it has to be paid by taxpayers, when in reality no one "deserves" that much money. It may be that some people do get paid that much, but most people who make that much money have enough sense to realize their cushy lifestyles are an accident of fate, of birth, of class, not something that is "supported" by some unwritten natural law of compensation. Hey Jake, it's not like you were curing cancer. You were a fucking commodities…
Nina Simone - My Baby Just Cares For Me
SkeptiCamp Phoenix 2009 went off wonderfully yesterday. Big thanks to Jim Lippard for doing such a wonderful organizational job. The picture above is me beginning my 20 minute gallop through the issue of academic freedom and the intelligent design movement. Shorter - and undoubtedly more coherent -  version is: Evolution is not an unchallengeable orthodoxy within science and major areas (of evolution as fact, the pathway of evolution, and its mechanisms) have been challenged in the past by researchers working within the field. These researchers used the institutions of science (peer reviewed…
SkeptiCamp Phoenix beings in a few minutes. Jim Lippard has all the details and Magic Tony, one of the presenters, will be live-blogging the event, and there may also be twittering at #skepticamp. I'll be adding bits and pieces as the spirit moves me.
Asian small-clawed otter pups @ San Diego Zoo. More here.
Geoffroy's cat, Leopardus geoffroyi d'Orbigny & Gervais 1844 (source)
The following was posted to the mailing list for the International Society for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology (ISHPSSB) by Dick Burian. I felt it worth reposting here. Marjorie Grene passed away March 16 at age 98 after a brief illness. Marjorie Glicksman Grene, born Dec. 13, 1910, was an important historian of philosophy (with books on Aristotle, Descartes, and various existentialist philosophers), epistemologist (with a special emphasis on perception and the contextual relations of knowers to the world around them) and philosopher of science, especially biology, on…
NCSE is reporting that the Supreme Court has today denied certiorari without comment to Caldwell v. Caldwell, which challenged the constitutionality of the Understanding Evolution website. It's yet another setback for the DI who supported Caldwell. Let's just blame those liberal Darwinists over at the Supreme Court, shall we? More details over at NCSE.
Or at least it did in Darwin's day. See here. "Thanks to the discovery, historians now have the exact date of Darwin's arrival at the university - January 26th, 1828 - as well as a huge assortment of details which will enable them to reconstruct his undergraduate life as never before."
The Dawkins @ Oklahoma debacle continues. As Greg Lukianoff correctly notes: Think about it: If every time a student or faculty member invited, say, Rick Warren to speak on campus, they knew they would be subjected to a thorough and time-consuming investigation by state officials, you can all but guarantee that schools across the country would think twice before inviting Rick Warren. This would be a great way for state legislatures to chill speech they dislike without ever having to find the speaker guilty of a single thing. Talk about your un-American activities. Given the fact the…
Darren Naish brings an interesting paper to our attention: a claim that over 400 new mammal species have been discovered since 1993. While 60% of these were formerly classified within another species (i.e. were cryptic species), the remainder are apparently brand-spanking-new. Wander on over to Darren's post for further details and discussion. The paper in question is: Ceballos, G. & Ehrlich, P. R. 2009. Discoveries of new mammal species and their implications for conservation and ecosystem services. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106, 3841-3846 (link)
Nicholas Hughes was an evolutionary ecologist specializing in salmonids at the University of Alaska (Fairbanks). He was also the son of poets Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. He killed himself by hanging yesterday after a bout with depression. He was 47. Times of London obit is here. (HT to TR Hummer)