darwin
gregladen | February 24, 2010From the NCSE:
OAKLAND, CA February 23, 2010
They came from Texas. Big, brawny men, with big, brawny brains. They had a mission: To make evolution education safe for kids throughout the Republic of Texas.
These three men--David Hillis, Gerald Skoog and Ron Wetherington---stood tall for evolution!
In recognition of their decades of defending and promoting evolution, the National Center for Science Education has bestowed the 2010 "Friend of Darwin" award on three Texans who have fought the good fight for science. (To get a taste of what they've faced, go to http://ncse.com/news/texas.)
The…
thusspakezuska | February 15, 2010Philagrafika 2010 is happening now, all over Philadelphia.
Involving more than 300 artists at more than 80 venues throughout the city, Philagrafika 2010 will be one of the largest art events in the United States and the world's most important print-related exposition. Prominent museums and cultural institutions across Philadelphia are participating in Philagrafika 2010, offering regional, national and international audiences the opportunity to see contemporary art that references printmaking in dynamic, unexpected ways and to experience the rich cultural life of the city in the process.
If…
cagapakis | January 29, 2010The music from the Darwin Electro-Opera I mentioned a while back is now available for free, streaming on Pitchfork!
(via Nick)
cagapakis | January 13, 2010There have been a lot of great Darwin themed things popping up in the past few months in celebration of the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of Species, but none as avant garde and awesome as "Tomorrow, in a year", an electro-opera based on the life and work of Charles Darwin by The Knife, a Swedish electronic music duo (and one of my favorite bands). From the website of the company performing the opera, Danish theater group Hotel Pro Forma:An opera singer, a pop singer and an actor perform The Knife's music and represent Darwin, time and nature on stage. Six dancers form the raw material…
gregladen | November 24, 2009Mark Pagel, evolutionary theorist extraordinaire, has published an Insight piece in Nature on Natural selection 150 years on. Pagel, well known for myriad projects in natural selecition theory and adaptation, and for developing with Harvey the widely used statistical phylogenetic method (and for being a reader of my thesis) wishes Charles Darwin a happy 200th birthday, and assesses this question:
a repost
How has Darwin's theory of Natural Selection fared over the last 150 years, and what needs to be done to bring this theoretical approach to bear as we increasingly examine complex systems…
razib | November 24, 2009
Since The Origin of Species was published 150 years ago many articles on evolution are seeing the light of day today. Normally I'm all in favor of this, I ♥ evolution. But it also means that woolly thinking is put out there as conventional wisdom as journalists simply act as stenographers for any scientist who's in their rolodex. Some of the quotes in this National Geographic article make me want to tear my hair out. Ian Tattersall, a paleoanthropologist, decides to offer up his opinions as a population geneticist:
"Everything we know about evolutionary change suggests that genetic…
gregladen | November 24, 2009With ID proponents increasingly and more loudly decrying Darwin as the reason the Holocaust happened, Bogused-Up copies of The Origin being circulated by Banana Loving Christians, and attacks on real science and real science education in the US continuing as though there were no Constitution or court system telling them to take it down a notch, it is appropriate to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species with a certain amount of noise and gusto. I won't say that is the only way to do it, but it is one way. There are not a lot of other days on which one…
gregladen | November 24, 2009Perhaps 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…
gregladen | November 24, 2009A podcast from earlier in the year, celebrating Darwin's birthday.
A few essays focusing on Darwin's Voyage on The Beagle
Bon Voyage HMS Beagle
The Voyage of the Beagle
Darwin Crossing The Atlantic
Charles Darwin and the Rain Forest
Darwin Gets his Wellies Wet
South America on Five Dollars a Day
Bugs (Darwin)
Darwin South of the Tropics
Darwin and The Gauchos
Fossil Quadrupeds
Rheas and the Birth of Evolutionary Theory
Elephants and Horses
gregladen | November 24, 2009The The Origin Of Species by Charles Darwin was published 150 years go as I write this. At the time, several different alternative theories of the origin and history of life were being discussed in the West. Some of these theories were theological. Theological ideas included a literal translation of the bible, with the flora, the fauna, and humans created in three separate but related creation events on a freshly made earth just a few thousand years ago. Another theological idea had an Abrahamic God's hand involved in the history of life but in ways we were not likely to understand until…
gregladen | November 16, 2009I believe they are trying to keep it secret, but that's Robert Luhn swinging around the big knife while raging about Ray Comfort:
The source of this video is the new NCSE Don't Dis Drwin site, HERE.
gregladen | November 16, 2009Tomorrow, the NCSE will release a response to Ray Comfort's tricked-out version of Darwin's Origin of Species.
I got a sneak preview of the web site and if you are good, I can let you see it too.
(a GLB exclusive!)
First, you need to go here and click around and get interested in dopplegangers. Then come right back.
...
OK, you're back, cool.
The new site addresses this gosh-awful rendition of the Origin of Species put out by the creationists that includes a creationist introduction and some pre-quote mined text. The NCSE has responded.
On November 19th, Los Angeles-based creationist…
gregladen | October 30, 2009Skepchick Rebecca writes about the Low Anthem's song "Oh my god, Charlie Darwin with comes along with a video:
Rebecca has the lyrics and more information, like who this band is and stuff.
sb admin | October 28, 2009
Oliver Morton wrote a delightful book all about photosynthesis called Eating the Sun: How Plants Power the Planet, which I reviewed earlier this year for Search Magazine (R.I.P.) under the title "A Song for the Heartless". One of my favorite passages in the book beautifully explains the difference between art and science:
Discoveries feel determined. They are there to be made, and if one person doesn't, another will. This doesn't lessen the achievement; indeed it can give it spice. The thought that 'this is the way the world is--and I am the first to see it as such' is an intoxicating…
razib | September 14, 2009A British film about Charles Darwin has failed to find a US distributor because his theory of evolution is too controversial for American audiences, according to its producer:
"The film has no distributor in America. It has got a deal everywhere else in the world but in the US, and it's because of what the film is about. People have been saying this is the best film they've seen all year, yet nobody in the US has picked it up.
"It is unbelievable to us that this is still a really hot potato in America. There's still a great belief that He made the world in six days. It's quite difficult for…
gregladen | September 6, 2009The Bloggingheads with David Dobbs and Moi is now up at Blogginheads, and embedded here:
I had just posted a review of Dobb's book, Reef Madness, which I enjoyed a great deal, and here we discuss the book in more detail. I left out a lot of detail, especially the exciting multi-part ending, in my review. You'll hear more about what happened to the competing reef theories and to Alexander Agassiz in this hour long bla-bla-blawginghead's interview.
David Dobbs' main web site is here.
Added: Note something funny (as in funny strange) happening at about 23 or 24 minutes.
emjohnson | July 14, 2009On this day 76 years ago (July 14, 1933) a sterilization law was passed in Nazi Germany, known as Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses (Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring). Any German was a target if they were found to be suffering from a range of perceived hereditary ailments, such as congenital mental deficiency, schizophrenia, manic-depressive insanity, epilepsy, Huntington's chorea, blindness, deafness, any severe hereditary deformity or even severe alcoholism. Official pronouncements insisted that these individuals were a drain on the German people, both…
gregladen | July 14, 2009 Darwin and Wallace, chillin' Let's talk about Darwin and Wallace's joint presentation on Natural Selection in 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…
gregladen | July 7, 2009The British Council, a Royally Chartered organization involved in education, has completed a survey which indicates that there is "a broad international consensus of acceptance towards his theory of evolution."
From the press release:
The research, conducted by Ipsos MORI, surveyed over ten thousand adults across ten countries worldwide including Argentina, China, Egypt, India, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Great Britain and the USA.
The results show that the majority of people polled have heard of Charles Darwin with the highest levels of awareness in Russia (93%), Mexico (91%),…
gregladen | July 1, 2009Dear 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.
This letter comes as a reaction to Buchanan's most recent column, which addresses Darwinian theory and evolution in an over the top intellectually dishonest, inaccurate, and offensive manner. I will not discuss the details of his absurd column; several of my colleagues on…