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Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne on intelligent design: “You cannot have it both ways. Either ID belongs in the science classroom, in which case it must submit to the discipline required of a scientific hypothesis. Or it does not, in which case get it out of the science classroom and send it back into the church, where it belongs.”
Daniel Dennett on why intelligent design isn’t science. “Evolutionary biology certainly hasn’t explained everything that perplexes biologists. But intelligent design hasn’t yet tried to explain anything.”
Lengthy examination of what makes people gay by the Boston Globe. “What makes the case of [identical twins] Patrick and Thomas so fascinating is that it calls into question both of the dominant theories in the long-running debate over what makes people gay: nature or nurture, genes or learned behavior.”
A small ocean microbe called Pelagibacter has the smallest genome of any self-sufficient organism with 1,354 genes. It also doesn’t appear to have any extra DNA…no junk or redundant copies of genes.
Interview with Frans de Waal about his work with primate behavior and politics. “I call the human species the most bipolar ape, meaning that we go beyond chimps in our violence, which is systematic and often results in thousands of dead, and we go beyond the bonobo in our empathy and love for others, so that human altruism is truly remarkable.”
Pharyngula rips Deepak Chopra a new one regarding his skepticism of evolution. Skepticism is fantastic, but Chopra seems to be deeply engaged in an impressive display of uninformed hand-waving. Deep, put down your cup of invigorating tea and at least read a little about what evolution is so that next time, you actually sound like you know what you’re being skeptical about.
Evolution shocker! The discovery of a dinosaur footprint on the wall of a contemporary Brooklyn school proves that the earth is less than 6000 years old (and, perhaps, that dinosaurs could walk vertically). No word on the Flying Spaghetti Monster’s involvement.
Biologists are beginning to simulate living things by computer, molecule by molecule. They’re starting with E. coli, but they’ve still got a long way to go.
Spirals on nanoparticles show order, specifically our friend the Fibonacci sequence, which can be seen in places like seashells and plants. In the case of the nanoparticles, the Fibonacci pattern results from minimizing the stress energy in the system.
Can we out-collaborate a pandemic? Alex Steffen challenges the blogosphere to sound the alarm about the avian flu. The WHO says: “never before [has] any avian influenza virus caused such extremely high fatality in humans”.
When bent, why does dry spaghetti break into three or more pieces instead of two? This was one of the simple problems Richard Feynman amused himself with but never solved. Someone’s come up with the answer: when the first breakage occurs, it causes a local increase in the curvature of the two pieces, resulting in more breakage. (thx dj)
Explaining what a scientist is using Goofus and Gallant as an example. Goofus and Gallant have also been pressed into service to explain 21st century etiquette, politics, and journalism.
Modelling nuclear decay in atoms may tell us something about dating and relationships. One of the findings: people who date often are beneficial to the dating ecosystem “because they break up weak couples, forcing their victims to find better relationships”.
Scientists who have tried drugs have included Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, and Stephen Jay Gould. Like Sigmund Freud, fictional detective Sherlock Holmes was a fan of cocaine. (via cyc-c)
Carl Zimmer responds to the idea that Charles Darwin’s evolutionary ideas turned him (Darwin) away from religion (as stated in this Slate article).
Thanks to Napoleon Dynamite, ligers have a new-found popularity.
David Galbraith has “a new theory - Unintelligent Design, which is the same as Intelligent Design, except that the creator is either a moron or Satan”. Hee.
A company called Enologix uses spectroscopy and chromotography to predict wine scores with a high level of accuracy. Critic Robert Parker introduced wine scoring (here’s his perfect score list) but some say that his dominance is not such a good thing.
Making sense of the appendix, the one in your body, not the one in books. “Perhaps the appendix lifted the odds that our ancestors could resist childhood diseases and live to childbearing years.”
Suggestions for the name of our solar system’s tenth planet from New Scientist readers. Neither Matt Webb’s suggestion (Daes) nor this suggestion on LJ (America) are on the list.
Newly discovered example of convergent evolution: frogs in Madagascar and South America who independently developed poisonous defense systems.
Why do people laugh? It’s a way for humans to bond, a sign that the danger has passed, or to feel superior to others. New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff is also doing research on humor.
An account of the discovery of Einsteinium and Fermium, elements 99 and 100 on the periodic table. They were generated by the detonation of Mike, the first hydrogen bomb to be tested.
The Red Delicious apple has fallen out of favor. It’s been dumbed down too much for the market. For more on apples, see Michael Pollan’s excellent The Botany of Desire.
Hurricane Ivan generated what is thought to be the tallest wave ever observed. The wave was 91 feet high.
Advice from Dr. Michio Kaku on formulating a proposal for the Unified Field Theory. I can just imagine all the crackpot theories that prompted this list.
When I posted a link to Jared Diamond’s Discover magazine piece on agriculture being “the worst mistake in the history of the world”, two people wrote in suggesting that I read Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael. As I was between books, I did just that. Ishmael, nutshelled:
Ishmael’s paradigm of history is startlingly different from the one wired into our cultural consciousness. For Ishmael, our agricultural revolution was not a technological event but a moral one, a rebellion against an ethical structure inherent in the community of life since its foundation four billion years ago. Having escaped the restraints of this ethical structure, humankind made itself a global tyrant, wielding deadly force over all other species while lacking the wisdom to make its tyranny a beneficial one or even a sustainable one.
That tyranny is now hurtling us toward a planetary disaster of pollution and overpopulation. If we want to avoid that catastrophe, we need to work our way back to some fundamental truths: that we weren’t born a menace to the world and that no irresistible fate compels us to go on being a menace to the world.
It’s a work of philosophy, centering on technology, culture, religion, and ecology. The Platonic-dialogue-with-a-gorilla format seemed forced to me (Quinn wrote the novelized version of this story to win a $500,000 book prize)…I guess I would have preferred the shorter essay version. But Quinn’s main thesis is an interesting one and worth considering.
Las Vegas is in for some water troubles. Surprisingly, it’s residential use that’s the problem, not the showy water displays by the casinos.
The science of Lance Armstrong. Between 1992 and 1999, he increased his muscle efficiency by 8 percent, a gain previously thought to be impossible.
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