tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77743790857144326812024-03-13T22:14:24.809-05:00Debunking CreationismInteresting articles and blog posts countering creationismAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07163302778654874895noreply@blogger.comBlogger94125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7774379085714432681.post-80020148864581334682013-06-27T06:24:00.001-05:002013-06-27T06:35:13.634-05:00700,000-Year-Old Horse Becomes Oldest Creature With Sequenced Genome - ScienceNOW<h1 class="asset-name entry-title" id="page-title" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #333333; font-family: arial; font-size: 24px; margin: 0px 0px 4px; padding: 0px;">
700,000-Year-Old Horse Becomes Oldest Creature With Sequenced Genome</h1>
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<span class="byline" style="color: #666666; font-style: italic; margin-bottom: 4px;">by <span class="hcard author">Gisela Telis </span></span>on <abbr class="published" style="border: 0px;" title="26 June 2013">26 June 2013, 2:45 PM</abbr> </div>
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<span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.796875px;">Scientists have sequenced the oldest genome to date—and shaken up the horse family tree in the process. Ancient DNA derived from a horse fossil that's between 560,000 and 780,000 years old suggests that all living equids—members of the family that includes horses, donkeys, and zebras—shared a common ancestor that lived at least 4 million years ago, approximately 2 million years earlier than most previous estimates. The discovery offers new insights into equine evolution and raises the prospect of recovering and exploring older DNA than previously thought possible.</span></div>
<a href="http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/06/700000-year-old-horse-becomes-ol.html?ref=hp">Go To Article</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07163302778654874895noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7774379085714432681.post-30562417175607795152013-06-26T09:11:00.001-05:002013-06-26T09:12:31.215-05:00Two mutations triggered an evolutionary leap 500 million years ago<h1 class="story" id="headline" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 10px 0px;">
Two Mutations Triggered an Evolutionary Leap 500 Million Years Ago</h1>
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<span class="date" style="color: #666666; font-style: italic;">June 24, 2013</span> — Evolution, it seems, sometimes jumps instead of crawls. A research team led by a University of Chicago scientist has discovered two key mutations that sparked a hormonal revolution 500 million years ago.</div>
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<a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130624152617.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Ffossils_ruins%2Fevolution+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Fossils+%26+Ruins+News+--+Evolution%29">Go To Article</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07163302778654874895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7774379085714432681.post-37339980724891582962013-06-26T08:35:00.001-05:002013-06-26T08:37:14.828-05:00What caused the Cambrian explosion? « Why Evolution Is True<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">What caused the Cambrian explosion?</span><br />
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The “Cambrian explosion” marked the rapid appearance of many animal phyla that persist today, and began about 570 million years ago (mya). Life itself appeared in the fossil record as simple cyanobacteria—”blue green algae”—about 3.6 billion years ago (bya); the first “true” cell with a nucleus probably arose about 2 bya; and the first multicellular organism between 1 and 2 bya.<br />
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The “explosion”, contrary to some creationists, wasn’t instantaneous, so it couldn’t have marked a single creation “event” at one time. Rather, the origination of many (but not all) modern phyla occurred between 570 and 540 mya. So the “explosion” took at least thirty million years.<br />
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<a href="http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/06/20/what-caused-the-cambrian-explosion/">Go To Article</a></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07163302778654874895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7774379085714432681.post-52151734842963330772013-06-25T17:32:00.001-05:002013-06-25T17:32:54.470-05:00A Transitional Turtle | Eye on the ICR<h1 class="title" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(231, 231, 231); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; font-family: Rockwell, Georgia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 32px; margin: 0px 0px 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 25px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; width: 500px;">
<a href="http://eyeonicr.wordpress.com/2013/06/25/a-transitional-turtle/" rel="bookmark" style="border: 0px; color: black; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="A Transitional Turtle">A Transitional Turtle</a></h1>
<a class="date" href="http://eyeonicr.wordpress.com/2013/06/25/a-transitional-turtle/" style="background-image: url(http://s0.wp.com/wp-content/themes/pub/bueno/styles/blue/date.png); background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border: 0px; color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 14px; height: 60px; left: -40px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px 0px; position: absolute; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; top: 30px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 71px;"><span class="day" style="border: 0px; display: block; font-size: 36px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">25</span><span class="month" style="border: 0px; display: block; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase; vertical-align: baseline;">JUN</span></a><br />
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<a href="http://eyeonicr.wordpress.com/2013/06/25/a-transitional-turtle/horniman_turtle_carapace_skeleton/" rel="attachment wp-att-6543" style="border: 0px; color: #17517b; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="Horniman turtle carapace skeleton" class="alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-6543" height="80" src="http://eyeonicr.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/horniman_turtle_carapace_skeleton.jpg?w=150&h=80" style="border: 5px solid rgb(159, 206, 241); float: right; height: auto; margin: 10px 0px 10px 15px; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="Horniman turtle carapace skeleton" width="150" /></a>Turtles: how did they evolve?</div>
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Turtles (a group which includes within it tortoises) are most famous for their shells, which are made of their fused ribs. No other animal has a shell constructed in this manner, and it is a feature that all turtles share. The turtle evolution question, therefore, is somewhat synonymous with how turtle shells evolved. It’s also a case where creationists might reasonably ask “where are the transitional forms” – how do you get to shell from no shell? Unfortunately for them, fossils that fit the bill do exist. In 2009, for example, fossils of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odontochelys" style="border: 0px; color: #17517b; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank" title="WP: Odontochelys"><i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Odontochelys</i></a> were discovered in China. This turtle had a complete plastron, the bottom of the shell, but instead of the upper part (the carapace) it merely had broadened rib bones. That sounds like a transitional form to me.</div>
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<a href="http://eyeonicr.wordpress.com/2013/06/25/a-transitional-turtle/">Go To Article</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07163302778654874895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7774379085714432681.post-57247679736589114212013-06-25T17:14:00.001-05:002013-06-25T17:16:33.591-05:00From tiny to massive: Mammal size evolution explained<h1 class="story" id="headline" style="background-color: white; color: #af0313; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 10px 0px;">
From Tiny to Massive: Mammal Size Evolution Explained</h1>
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<span class="date" style="color: #666666; font-style: italic;">June 25, 2013</span> — Scientists have added another piece to the evolutionary puzzle to explain why certain mammal families evolved to be very large, while others remained tiny.</div>
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<a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130625092012.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Ffossils_ruins%2Fevolution+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Fossils+%26+Ruins+News+--+Evolution%29">Go To Article</a></div>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07163302778654874895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7774379085714432681.post-1316821514692930232013-04-11T17:59:00.001-05:002013-04-11T18:00:18.106-05:00Evolution to blame for bad backs, dropped arches and impacted wisdom teeth, say scientists - Telegraph<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/evolution/9873352/Evolution-to-blame-for-bad-backs-dropped-arches-and-impacted-wisdom-teeth-say-scientists.html">Evolution to blame for bad backs, dropped arches and impacted wisdom teeth, say scientists - Telegraph</a>: "Evolution to blame for bad backs, dropped arches and impacted wisdom teeth, say scientists<br />
Evolution may have catapulted humans to the top of the food chain but it also landed us with bad backs, dropped arches and impacted wisdom teeth, according to scientists.<br />
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Although humans and chimpanzees separated six million years ago, we still share 96 per cent of our genome and the gene is one of only about 30 which have copied themselves since that time "<br />
<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/evolution/9873352/Evolution-to-blame-for-bad-backs-dropped-arches-and-impacted-wisdom-teeth-say-scientists.html">Go To Article</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07163302778654874895noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7774379085714432681.post-71812431455129311502013-03-09T11:26:00.001-06:002013-03-09T11:28:20.209-06:00Providing evidence for evolution | Skeptoid<h1 class="entry-title">
Providing evidence for evolution </h1>
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<span class="meta-prep meta-prep-author">Posted on</span> <a href="http://skeptoid.com/blog/2013/02/16/providing-evidence-for-evolution/" rel="bookmark" title="9:01 am"><span class="entry-date">February 16, 2013</span></a> <span class="meta-sep">by</span> <span class="author vcard"><a class="url fn n" href="http://skeptoid.com/blog/author/collapsedpsiguy/" title="View all posts by Chad Jones">Chad Jones</a></span></div>
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Last week I pointed out some common misconceptions about evolution and arguments that are often used to support creationism. This week I would like to share some of what I feel to be the strongest evidences for evolution. <span id="more-6678"></span>I feel like too often in debates about evolution the focus seems to be on refuting creationism instead of correctly presenting evolution – and the science is really awesome. With the evidence I present here I seek to answer the following questions:<br />
What is the fossil evidence for evolution?<br />
What can we learn about evolution from living animals?<br />
Does evolution present any testable predictions?<br />
<b><span style="text-decoration: underline;">What is the fossil evidence for evolution?</span></b><br />
One of the common arguments against evolution is “where are the transition fossils”. This is perhaps the weakest of all arguments against evolution. The transition fossils (or casts of the fossils) are <a href="http://paleo.cc/kpaleo/museums.htm" target="_blank">available in every reliable natural history museum</a>. Wikipedia has an extensive list of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils" target="_blank">transition fossils</a>. These fossils include the human evolution of <i>Australopithecus</i> to <i>Homo Habilis</i> to <i>Homo Erectus</i> to <i>Homo Sapien</i>. They include evolution of invertebrates to fish. They even include the evolution of insects.<br />
The fossil evidence is extensive, and the argument that we don’t have fossil evidence is tired. Creationists quickly say things like “just show me the transition fossils” or “where is the missing link”, but we actually have quite a bit of fossil evidence. Just this last week <a href="http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/transition-denial-and-feathered-dinosaurs/" target="_blank">Dr. Steven Novella wrote a great article on feathered dinosaurs</a> – an excellent example of transition fossils.<br />
Unfortunately, each time new evidence of this type is presented creationists treat the new fossil like the hydra from greek mythology – finding one transition fossil just creates two new transitions whose fossils haven’t been found yet.<br />
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/Providing%20evidence%20for%20evolution%20Posted%20on%20February%2016,%202013%20by%20Chad%20Jones%20%20Last%20week%20I%20pointed%20out%20some%20common%20misconceptions%20about%20evolution%20and%20arguments%20that%20%20are%20often%20used%20to%20support%20creationism.%20This%20week%20I%20would%20like%20to%20share%20some%20of%20what%20I%20feel%20to%20be%20the%20strongest%20evidences%20for%20evolution.%20I%20feel%20like%20too%20often%20in%20debates%20about%20evolution%20the%20focus%20seems%20to%20be%20on%20refuting%20creationism%20instead%20of%20correctly%20presenting%20evolution%20%E2%80%93%20and%20the%20science%20is%20really%20awesome.%20With%20the%20evidence%20I%20present%20here%20I%20seek%20to%20answer%20the%20following%20questions:%20%20What%20is%20the%20fossil%20evidence%20for%20evolution?%20%20What%20can%20we%20learn%20about%20evolution%20from%20living%20animals?%20%20Does%20evolution%20present%20any%20testable%20predictions?%20%20What%20is%20the%20fossil%20evidence%20for%20evolution?%20%20One%20of%20the%20common%20arguments%20against%20evolution%20is%20%E2%80%9Cwhere%20are%20the%20transition%20fossils%E2%80%9D.%20This%20is%20perhaps%20the%20weakest%20of%20all%20arguments%20against%20evolution.%20The%20transition%20fossils%20(or%20casts%20of%20the%20fossils)%20are%20available%20in%20every%20reliable%20natural%20history%20museum.%20Wikipedia%20has%20an%20extensive%20list%20of%20transition%20fossils.%20These%20fossils%20include%20the%20human%20evolution%20of%20Australopithecus%20to%20Homo%20Habilis%20to%20Homo%20Erectus%20to%20Homo%20Sapien.%20They%20include%20evolution%20of%20invertebrates%20to%20fish.%20They%20even%20include%20the%20evolution%20of%20insects.%20%20The%20fossil%20evidence%20is%20extensive,%20and%20the%20argument%20that%20we%20don%E2%80%99t%20have%20fossil%20evidence%20is%20tired.%20Creationists%20quickly%20say%20things%20like%20%E2%80%9Cjust%20show%20me%20the%20transition%20fossils%E2%80%9D%20or%20%E2%80%9Cwhere%20is%20the%20missing%20link%E2%80%9D,%20but%20we%20actually%20have%20quite%20a%20bit%20of%20fossil%20evidence.%20Just%20this%20last%20week%20Dr.%20Steven%20Novella%20wrote%20a%20great%20article%20on%20feathered%20dinosaurs%20%E2%80%93%20an%20excellent%20example%20of%20transition%20fossils.%20%20Unfortunately,%20each%20time%20new%20evidence%20of%20this%20type%20is%20presented%20creationists%20treat%20the%20new%20fossil%20like%20the%20hydra%20from%20greek%20mythology%20%E2%80%93%20finding%20one%20transition%20fossil%20just%20creates%20two%20new%20transitions%20whose%20fossils%20haven%E2%80%99t%20been%20found%20yet.">Go To Article</a> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07163302778654874895noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7774379085714432681.post-21723168982096498322013-03-09T11:05:00.001-06:002013-03-09T11:08:17.995-06:00NeuroLogica Blog » Transition Denial and Feathered Dinosaurs<h2 class="title">
<a href="http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/transition-denial-and-feathered-dinosaurs/" rel="bookmark">Transition Denial and Feathered Dinosaurs</a></h2>
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Published by <a href="http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/author/snovella/" rel="author" title="Posts by Steven Novella">Steven Novella</a> under <a href="http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/category/creationismid/" rel="category tag" title="View all posts in Creationism/ID">Creationism/ID</a> <br />
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There are a few areas of evolutionary biology that particularly fascinate me, partly because they represent such a dramatic example of large-scale (macro) evolutionary change. The evolution of whales from terrestrial mammals and of humans from ape ancestors are two of my favorites. But perhaps more dramatic still is the evolution of birds from theropod dinosaurs.<br />
Each discovery of a feathered dinosaur or bird ancestor is a lance straight through the heart of creationist denial of evolution. I have to admit it’s fun to watch prominent creationists squirm when confronted with such clear evidence of transitional forms and evolutionary change – not that they flinch in their denial, but their protestations do become increasingly shrill and desperate.<br />
Welcome Eosinopteryx brevipenna, <a href="http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v4/n1/full/ncomms2389.html">the latest feathered dinosaur discovered in China</a>. This little guy had feathers, although described as “reduced plumage”, stubby wings (and so was probably flightless), a bony tail, teeth, and clawed fingers. It also lacked many modern bird features, such as bony features that would have allowed for full flapping flight. Its feet were clearly adapted for running.<br />
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<b><a href="http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/transition-denial-and-feathered-dinosaurs/">Go To Article</a></b> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07163302778654874895noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7774379085714432681.post-34731546904035795232013-03-07T15:36:00.001-06:002013-03-07T15:37:54.856-06:00RDFRS: Human Evolution: Gain Came With Pain<br />
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Human Evolution: Gain Came With Pain </h1>
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<span class="author"><a href="http://www.richarddawkins.net/news_articles?author=Ann+Gibbons">by Ann Gibbons</a></span> <span class="date">posted on February 28, 2013 03:51PM GMT</span> <br />
<span class="credit">Thanks to <a href="http://www.richarddawkins.net/users/8528">Nodhimmi</a> for the link!</span></div>
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Humans are the most successful primates on the planet, but our bodies wouldn’t win many awards for good design. That was the consensus of a panel of anthropologists who described in often-painful (and sometimes personal) detail <a href="http://aaas.confex.com/aaas/2013/webprogram/Session5714.html">just how poor a job evolution has done sculpting the human form</a> here Friday at the annual meeting of AAAS (which publishes <i>Science</i>NOW). Using props and examples from the fossil record, the scientists showed how the very adaptations that have made humans so successful—such as upright walking and our big, complex brains—have been the result of constant remodeling of an ancient ape body plan that was originally used for life in the trees. “This anatomy isn’t what you’d design from scratch," said anthropologist Jeremy DeSilva of Boston University. "Evolution works with duct tape and paper clips."<br />
<a href="http://www.richarddawkins.net/news_articles/2013/2/27/human-evolution-gain-came-with-pain#">Go To Article</a> </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07163302778654874895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7774379085714432681.post-61786078720213401932013-02-27T12:36:00.001-06:002013-02-27T12:39:16.614-06:00Skepticblog » Junk DNA and creationist lies<h3>
<a href="http://www.skepticblog.org/2013/02/27/junk-dna-and-creationist-lies/" rel="bookmark"> Junk DNA and creationist lies</a><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">by <span class="smallcaps">Donald Prothero</span>, Feb 27 2013 </span></span></h3>
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One of the common tropes you hear among modern creationists is the denial of the idea that there is any non-coding DNA, or “junk DNA.” To them, the idea that a large part of the genome is simply unread leftovers, carried along passively from generation to generation without doing anything, is clearly a contradiction with the idea of an “Intelligent Designer.” So the Discovery Institute and numerous other creationist organizations that are actually sophisticated enough to recognize the issue (including Georgia Purdom of Ken Ham’s “Answers in Genesis” organization) keep spreading propaganda that “junk DNA is a myth” or “every bit of DNA has function, even if we don’t know what it is.” Moonie Jonathan Wells, who has written crummy books misinterpreting fossils and embryology, wrote a whole book denying the subject—even though he hasn’t done any research in molecular biology since 1994. Do they actually do any research to explore this topic, or trying to test the hypothesis that all DNA is functional? No, their labs and their “research” are not that sophisticated. Instead, their entire output on the topic (just as in every other topic) is based on cherry-picking statements of the work of legitimate scientists, quote-mined to distort the meaning of the original scientific publication. Either they don’t understand what they are reading and their confirmation bias filters screen out all but a few words that seem to agree with them, or they are consciously lying and distorting the evidence—or both.<br />
<a href="http://www.skepticblog.org/2013/02/27/junk-dna-and-creationist-lies/">Go To Article</a> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07163302778654874895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7774379085714432681.post-54025252868229378492013-02-21T08:34:00.001-06:002013-02-21T08:35:11.080-06:00Studying Recent Human Evolution at the Genetic Level - NYTimes.com<h1 class="articleHeadline" itemprop="headline">
East Asian Physical Traits Linked to 35,000-Year-Old Mutation</h1>
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By <span itemid="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/w/nicholas_wade/index.html" itemprop="author" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"> <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/w/nicholas_wade/index.html" rel="author" title="More Articles by NICHOLAS WADE"><span itemprop="name">NICHOLAS WADE</span></a></span></h6>
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Published: February 14, 2013 </h6>
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Researchers have identified a mutation in a gene that confers several distinct traits to East Asians, including thicker hair. </div>
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The traits — thicker hair shafts, more sweat glands, characteristically identified teeth and smaller breasts — are the result of a gene mutation that occurred about 35,000 years ago, the researchers have concluded. </div>
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The discovery explains a crucial juncture in the evolution of East Asians. But the method can also be applied to some 400 other sites on the human genome. The DNA changes at these sites, researchers believe, mark the turning points in recent human evolution as the populations on each continent diverged from one another. </div>
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The first of those sites to be studied contains the gene known as EDAR. Africans and Europeans carry the standard version of the gene, but in most East Asians, one of the DNA units has mutated. </div>
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Seeking to understand if the gene was the cause of thicker hair in East Asians with the variant gene, a team of researchers led by Yana G. Kamberov and Pardis C. Sabeti at the <a href="http://www.broadinstitute.org/">Broad Institute</a> in Cambridge, Mass., decided to test the gene in mice, where its effects could be more easily explored. </div>
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Mice already have EDAR, an ancient mammalian gene that plays a leading role in the embryo in shaping hair, skin and teeth. The Broad team engineered a strain of mice whose EDAR gene had the same DNA change as the East Asian version of EDAR. </div>
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When the mice grew up, the researchers found they did indeed have thicker hair shafts, confirming that the changed gene was the cause of East Asians’ thicker hair. But the gene had several other effects, <a href="http://www.cell.com/abstract/S0092-8674%2813%2900067-6">they report</a> in Thursday’s issue of the journal Cell. </div>
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One was that the mice, to the researchers’ surprise, had extra sweat glands. A Chinese member of the team, Sijia Wang, then tested people in China and discovered that they, too, had more numerous sweat glands, evidently another effect of the gene. </div>
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Another surprise was that the engineered mice had less breast tissue, meaning that EDAR could be the reason that East Asian women have generally smaller breasts. </div>
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East Asians have distinctively shaped teeth for which their version of EDAR is probably responsible. But the mice were less helpful on this point; their teeth are so different from humans’ that the researchers could not see any specific change. </div>
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The finding that the gene has so many effects raises the question of which one was the dominant trigger for natural selection. </div>
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Dr. Sabeti said the extra sweat glands could have been the feature favored by natural selection, with all the other effects being dragged along in its train. </div>
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“We’re the only mammals to have changed their entire hair pattern. So the changes in teeth, hair and breasts — it’s very possible they are the passengers and thermoregulation is the key,” she said, referring to the role of sweat glands in cooling the body. </div>
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East Asians are sometimes assumed to have evolved in a cold environment because of their narrow nostrils, which conserve heat, and the extra eyelid fat that insulates the eye. But the Broad team calculates that the EDAR variant arose about 35,000 years ago in central China and that the region was then quite warm and humid. Extra sweat glands would have been advantageous to the hunter-gatherers who lived at that time. </div>
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But <a href="http://www.gs.washington.edu/faculty/akey.htm">Joshua Akey</a>, a geneticist at the University of Washington in Seattle, said he thought the more likely cause of the gene’s spread among East Asians was sexual selection. Thick hair and small breasts are visible sexual signals which, if preferred by men, could quickly become more common as the carriers had more children. The genes underlying conspicuous traits, like blue eyes and blond hair in Europeans, have very strong signals of selection, Dr. Akey said, and the sexually visible effects of EDAR are likely to have been stronger drivers of natural selection than sweat glands. </div>
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Yet a third view is held by Dr. Kamberov, who believes that each of the effects of the EDAR variant may have been favored by natural selection at a different time. A series of selections on different traits thus made the variant version so common among East Asians. About 93 percent of Han Chinese carry the variant, as do about 70 percent of people in Japan and Thailand, and 60 to 90 percent of American Indians, a population descended from East Asians. </div>
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The Broad team is studying EDAR as part of a larger plan to identify all the genetic variants responsible for recent human evolution. Many researchers, including Dr. Sabeti, have devised ways of scanning the human genome to detect the fingerprints of natural selection. But these scans have typically identified large chunks of the genome that contain many genes. There is often no way to tell which gene was the target of natural selection. </div>
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A team led by Dr. Sabeti and Sharon R. Grossman of the Broad Institute has now refined the usual scanning methods and identified 412 sites on the genome that have been under selection. Each site is small enough that it contains at most a single gene. </div>
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Each race has a different set of selected regions, reflecting the fact that the human population had dispersed from its African homeland and faced different challenges that led to genetic adaptation on each continent. About 140 of the sites affected by natural selection are in Europeans, 140 in East Asians and 132 in Africans, the authors report in <a href="http://www.cell.com/abstract/S0092-8674%2813%2900087-1">another article published Thursday in Cell</a>. </div>
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Inserting some of the other selected genes into mice might help explain why they were favored, and point to critical turning points in recent human evolution, Dr. Sabeti said. </div>
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In the case of EDAR, putting the gene into mice has only magnified the mystery of why it was selected. But the researchers are not discouraged. “A reflection of good science is that a step forward opens up a lot more questions,” Dr. Akey said. </div>
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A version of this article appeared in print on February 15, 2013, on page <span itemprop="printSection">A</span><span itemprop="printPage">18</span> of the <span itemprop="printEdition">New York edition</span> with the headline: East Asian Physical Traits Linked to 35,000-Year-Old Mutation.</h6>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07163302778654874895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7774379085714432681.post-64280049074455941872013-02-05T20:02:00.001-06:002013-02-05T20:03:46.856-06:00Only a bird » Pharyngula<a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/02/04/only-a-bird/">Only a bird » Pharyngula</a>:<br />
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Another feathered dinosaur has been found in China, <a href="http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2013/02/02/a-tiny-feathered-dino/" style="color: #1772af; text-decoration: none;">prompting Ken Ham to dig in his heels and issue denials</a>.</div>
<blockquote class="creationist" style="background-color: white; background-image: url(http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/files/2011/08/tiny_gumby_trans.gif); background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-color: rgb(227, 227, 227) rgb(227, 227, 227) rgb(227, 227, 227) rgb(221, 221, 221); border-style: dotted dotted dotted solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 3px; clear: both; color: #111111; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', MarkerFelt, MarkerFelt-Wide; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 12px 18px; padding: 8px 12px 5px;">
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Yet another supposed “feathered dinosaur” fossil has come to light, again in China. (Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell, AiG–U.S., reported on another Chinese fossil of a supposed feathered dinosaur in April 2012) Now, one headline described the fossil as “almost birdlike,” and the authors of the report in Nature Communications note many features the fossil shares with living birds, particularly those that live on the ground. In fact, Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell and Dr. David Menton (AiG–U.S.) both examined the photos of the fossil and the criteria the authors used in classifying the fossil as a dinosaur. They agreed that it is a bird, not a feathered dinosaur.</div>
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Oh, really? It’s just a bird? Take a look at this image of <i>Eosinopteryx</i>, and you tell me.</div>
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<a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/files/2013/02/eosinopteryx2.jpg" style="color: #1772af; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="eosinopteryx2" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-9224" height="737" src="http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/files/2013/02/eosinopteryx2-500x737.jpg" style="border: 4px solid rgb(227, 227, 227); display: block; height: auto; margin: 5px; max-width: 98%; padding: 0px;" width="500" /></a></div>
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Notice a few things about this animal: it’s got teeth. The forelimbs have clawed digits. It has a long bony tail. It lacks the bony keel that anchors breast muscles in modern birds.</div>
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The only thing that might cause you to question its dinosaur nature (and it’s a criterion that’s proving more and more inappropriate) is that lovely gray fringe of feather impressions that surround the whole fossil. And look at those forelimbs! It looks like it has stubby wings. It does not, however, have the skeletal and muscular structure to allow for extended flapping flight, and the wings are way too short for it to have been an adequate flyer.</div>
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But Mitchell and Menton and Ham looked at that and said ‘ALL BIRD’. They’re idiots.</div>
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Ham goes on: there are no transitional forms, he squeaks, there can be no transitional forms, transitional forms don’t exist…all while looking at a winged, feathered reptile with teeth and claws and a bony tail.</div>
<blockquote class="creationist" style="background-color: white; background-image: url(http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/files/2011/08/tiny_gumby_trans.gif); background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-color: rgb(227, 227, 227) rgb(227, 227, 227) rgb(227, 227, 227) rgb(221, 221, 221); border-style: dotted dotted dotted solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 3px; clear: both; color: #111111; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', MarkerFelt, MarkerFelt-Wide; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 12px 18px; padding: 8px 12px 5px;">
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The fossil record doesn’t reveal any kind of dinosaur-to-bird evolution—and it certainly does not show a molecules-to-man evolution. We have no proof of transitional forms, and we won’t. God’s Word says clearly that He created animals and plants according to their kinds (Genesis 1). Through genetic loss and other factors, new species have emerged over time—but birds are still birds and apes are still apes. Nothing in the history of biology has legitimately shown that dinosaurs could develop the genetic information to evolve into birds.</div>
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Pitiful. Pathetic. I’d like to see a creationist sit down in front of me with that illustration and try to defend the claim that it’s only a bird.</div>
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Godefroit P, Demuynck H, Dyke G, Hu D, Escuillie F, Claeys P (2013) Reduced plumage and flight ability of a new Jurassic paravian theropod from China. Nature Communications 4, 1394. doi: 10.1038/ncomms2389</div>
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<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk" style="font-size: 13px;">'via Blog this'</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07163302778654874895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7774379085714432681.post-36749888622803862702012-12-27T10:18:00.001-06:002012-12-27T10:20:40.567-06:00Bad taxonomy<a href="http://www.skepticblog.org/2012/12/12/bad-taxonomy/">Bad taxonomy</a>: by Donald Prothero <a href="http://www.skepticblog.org/2012/12/12/bad-taxonomy/">via Skepticblog</a><br />
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One of the strangest aspects of “creation science” is their attempt to reconcile the fact that there are between 5-15 million species on earth, yet somehow they all had to fit on Noah’s ark (one pair or seven pairs of them, depending upon which version of the story you read). Such an idea might have made sense to the ancient Hebrews, who only knew of a few dozen kinds of larger mammals in the ancient Middle East, and did not make distinctions between most types of insects or other invertebrates (just as most people today call almost all insects, arachnids, and other small land arthropods “bugs”), let alone recognize the existence of microorganisms. But the modern-day “creation scientist” must be a strict literalist, and cannot take these ancient stories in the context of their times. Instead, these myths must be literally true in today’s context, and then whatever modern science has revealed in the past few centuries must be re-interpreted or discredited or ignored. It’s one of the most astounding examples of motivated reasoning, reduction of cognitive dissonance, cherry-picking, and confirmation bias one could imagine. In the case of shoehorning all of life into tiny Noah’s ark, they even have invented a name for it (“baraminology”). Quite a few creationists play at this pointless game of sophistry, arguing how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.<br />
Let’s start with the term <em>baramin</em> itself. It was created out of nothing by Seventh-Day Adventist Frank Marsh in 1941 by tacking two words together from a Hebrew glossary (<em>bara</em> ”created”; <em>min</em>, ”kind”) without any idea how Hebrew actually works. Since almost none of the creationists read the Old Testament in the original Hebrew (or they would spot the problems and inconsistencies that make literal interpretation absurd), they don’t realize how ridiculous this term is, and why it doesn’t mean what they think it means. As I learned when I studied Hebrew, the Semitic root “B-R-A” (vowel points were not invented until centuries later) is translated “he created” or “he conjured,” so it is a past-tense verb, not a past participle of a verb, as Marsh used it. And <em>min</em> can be used to mean not only a “kind” but also a species, or even a sex. Slapped together as Marsh did it, the object <em>min</em> replaces the original subject <em>Elohim</em> (one of the names for the gods), so literally translated, <em>baramin</em> means “the species created”, not “god created”—and certainly not “created kinds” in any sense the scriptures use. If Marsh had known any Hebrew and wanted to create a grammatically correct translation of “created kind”, it would have been <em>min baru</em> (past participle). But given the consistently sloppy scholarship of creationists, I would never expect them to get this part right.<br />
Leaving aside their ignorance of Hebrew, the whole topic of “baraminology” reminds one of a laughably poor imitation of science—science as imagined by kids at play, or amateurs who are parroting the forms without understanding any of the principles or protocols or implications of the actual research, or the silly imitation of science in the movies and TV where they spout sciency-sounding words that make no sense whatsoever. The focus of their “research” is to skim over the entire field of modern animal classification and then imagine ways to shoehorn hundreds of individual species and genera into the smallest possible number of categories. They don’t bother to work with actual animals, or get their hands dirty with the dissections and anatomical work that established the modern taxonomy of organisms, or spend the years in graduate school to obtain the kind of training necessary to understand and analyze molecular phylogenetic data, or wade into the gigantic literature of modern systematic theory since the days of Simpson and Mayr and cladistics. No, that would require that they be trained in actual science, and confront the evidence for evolution that runs throughout life. Instead, they do superficial, high-school level “book-report” types of analyses, where they cherry-pick ideas here and there from highly simplified internet sources and Wikipedia articles. They know just enough science to pick up a stray factoid here and there without any understanding of the caveats and methods behind the data, or the relative significance or importance of one kind of data versus another that only comes with years of graduate study in a field.<br />
So what are the methods of “baraminology”? In a nutshell, they are wildly inconsistent. A baramin might correspond to what a real biologist recognizes as a species, a genus, an order, a family, or even an entire phylum (Siegler, 1978; Ward, 1965)! In some cases, they mimic the methods of phenetic taxonomy and look for overall similarity; in others, they ape the terminology of cladistics with such odd terms as “holobaramin”, which has no rigorously-defined meaning whatsoever (since it is based on a concept with no consistent basis or meaning). Unlike real systematists, “baraminologists” don’t work with actual specimens or enumerate real anatomical characters, or analyze their own molecular sequences, or use rigorous methods of character analysis and computerized methods of determining parsimonious solutions. Instead, if this <a href="http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/arj/v5/n1/mammalian-ark-kinds">recent effort</a> by veterinarian and “independent scholar” Jean K. Lightner (NOT a systematic biologist) is any indication, it consists largely of looking at images of the animals on the web and deciding by a glance at single photograph which ones rate their own baramin and which ones don’t. Indeed, one “baraminologist” <a href="http://documents.clubexpress.com/documents.ashx?key=op4ksBhACOsM%2bAWCDrf5aITkqE8Om8qA">said</a> so in no uncertain terms: “The cognita are not based on explicit or implicit comparisons of characters or biometric distance measures but on the gestalt of the plants and the classification response it elicits in humans.” They remind one of what Humpty Dumpty told Alice (in <em>Through the Looking Glass</em>), “Whenever I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean.”<br />
Lightner’s article is particularly revealing. She is trying the reduce the thousands of species of mammals alive today into the smallest number that can fit on Noah’s ark, and ends up with 137 baramin: some are families, some are genera, some are species and others are whole orders within the class Mammalia. She clusters all pigs and peccaries and hippos in one baramin, but splits up the many families of possums and other Australian marsupials into separate baramin. All cats, from tiny ocelots to giant tigers, are one baramin; so too are all canids, from tiny foxes to big wolves. She occasionally quotes parts of recent molecular studies (particularly in the case of hybridization) to lump or separate baramin, but completely ignores the overwhelming evidence from those same molecular studies of the interrelatedness of the taxa involved. In a nutshell, she cherry-picks what makes animals look different today, and avoids anything that might suggest they are closely related to each other. This is like looking at the terminal branches of a tree and trying to find their distinctiveness today, but failing to notice the fact that they are connected the further down you go, and they all come from a common trunk. Her article explicitly avoids talking about ANY fossil evidence (except in the case of horses, which even creationists cannot ignore). But it is precisely that evidence that confirms what anatomical and molecular data have long demonstrated: everything converges to common ancestor if you go back far enough. As I demonstrated in my book <em>Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters</em>, you can trace many such terminal branches of the tree of life down to common ancestors that cannot be distinguished. For example (pp. 304-306), those same horses that creationists are so happy to lump into one “kind” can be traced back to primitive dog-sized four- and three-toed ancestors which are nearly identical to the earliest rhinos and earliest tapirs. These are separate baramin according to Lightner, but if she bothered to look closely at these Eocene fossils, she could not tell which baramin they belonged to. In my book, I provide many other examples of lineages which can be traced down to ancestors that are nearly indistinguishable, such as whales and their anthracothere ancestors, the different lineages of antelopes and giraffes and pronghorns, the elephants and the manatees, the pinnipeds (seals, sea lions, and walruses) and their bear-like relatives, and so on. Clearly, if you ignore 99% of the evidence and cherry-pick the most recent members of diverging lineages, you will not see the evidence of evolution in every part of their biology, anatomy, fossil record, and molecular sequences.<br />
Even more startling is the fact that creationists will shoehorn ALL of horse evolution into one baramin! If a creationist saw an early Eocene horse like <em>Protorohippus</em>(formerly “eohippus”) without knowing its connection to modern horses, they would NEVER consider it to be related to a horse. This is virtually all of evolution right there, a concession that evolution on even the largest scale is real. Their only difference with real scientists is that horses are separate from tapirs and rhinos as different kinds, yet the fossil evidence demonstrates even that “macroevolutionary” transition that they refuse to admit.<br />
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<a href="http://www.skepticblog.org/wp-content/uploads/misty12.jpg"><img alt="" height="255" src="http://www.skepticblog.org/wp-content/uploads/misty12.jpg" title="misty12" width="340" /></a><br />
A plushie version of a pseudocheirid possum from Australia, originally displayed on a website selling plushies but mistaken for the real animal by creationists and posted as such in their article about “baramin”</div>
Perhaps the most revealing aspect of this whole exercise in amateurish incompetence concerned one of the many photographs of animals that Lightner’s web paper stole (without permission or attribution) from various web sources. One of her “animal photos” of a pseudocheirid (“ring-tailed possum”) was not a real animal at all, but a photo of a plush toy! That photo has since been replaced in the original website, but the point is clear: they can’t even tell real animals from toy plushies, since their total level of analysis is to glance at photos on the web, not to work with actual specimens. <a href="http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Answers_Research_Journal_volume_5#Mammalian_Ark_Kinds">RationalWiki</a> and <a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/11/18/the-science-of-antediluvian-plushies/">P.Z. Myers in his Pharyngula blog</a> noticed this, and pointed out that with a bunch of plush toys on the ark instead of real animals, they might have a lot fewer problems with feeding them or dealing with all the poop. It reminds one of Turkish creationist Harun Yahya and his habit getting fooled by photographs of <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/01/09/well-fly-fishing-is-a-science/">fishing lures instead of real insects</a> in his ridiculous book <em>Atlas of Creation</em>, that was sent out a few years ago. And it reinforces the conclusion that creationists are completely out of their depth on topics like this, dabbling in stuff stolen from the web like a high-schooler cribbing a report without understanding what they are doing, or even noticing that their pictures don’t show what they think they show!<br />
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References</h4>
<ul>
<li>Siegler, H.R. 1978. A creationist’s taxonomy. <em>Creation Research Society Quarterly</em> 15:36–38.</li>
<li>Ward, R.R. 1965. <em>In the Beginning</em>. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.</li>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07163302778654874895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7774379085714432681.post-47915016297280098372012-12-27T10:12:00.001-06:002012-12-27T10:15:23.336-06:00The Rocks don’t lie<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.skepticblog.org/2012/11/28/the-rocks-dont-lie/">The Rocks don’t lie</a> <span id="goog_1127767778"></span><span id="goog_1127767779"></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/"></a>:<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">by </span><span class="entry-author-name" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Donald Prothero <a href="http://www.skepticblog.org/2012/11/28/the-rocks-dont-lie/"> via Skepticblog</a></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.skepticblog.org/wp-content/uploads/images-12.jpeg"><img alt="" height="277" src="http://www.skepticblog.org/wp-content/uploads/images-12.jpeg" title="images-1" width="182" /></a></div>
A review of <em>The Rocks Don’t Lie: A Geologist Investigates Noah’s Flood,</em> by David R. Montgomery<br />
Creationists are notorious for distorting or denying the facts of biology (evolution), paleontology (denying the evidence of evolution in fossils), physics and astronomy (denying modern cosmology), and many other fields. But some of their most egregious attempts to twist reality to fit their bizarre views are found in “flood geology,” a concoction of strange ideas about the geologic record that clearly demonstrate how little actual experience any of them has in looking at real rocks. I dissected this issue in great detail in Chapter 3 of my 2007 book, <em>Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters</em> (Columbia University Press, New York).<br />
David Montgomery, however, devotes an entire book to the topic of geology and creationism. The title is tantalizing, making one wonder whether this is yet another creationist book disguised as real science. But the content is relatively straightforward. Montgomery is a well-respected geomorphologist at the University of Washington who has studied landforms around the world, and he makes it clear up front that he is not about to support the ridiculous ideas of flood geology. Instead, he embarks on a long narration that is part travelogue, part history, and part description of the breakthroughs in biblical scholarship that long ago led to the rejection of biblical literalism by anyone who can actually read the Bible in the original Greek and Hebrew.<br />
His first chapter looks at a number of places on earth where he has done research on Ice Age glacial dams and floods, and shows that they show no evidence of being part of a global flood. In Chapter 2, he recounts the evidence of Grand Canyon with the creationist’s <em>Grand Canyon: A Different View</em> in his hands as he hikes, and remarks (p. 16) simply that “the story was nothing like the tale I read in the rocks I had spent the day hiking past.” Unfortunately, he does not provide enough detail (or illustrations of key outcrops) to really debunk the interpretations of “flood geologists”.<br />
The next two chapters then recount the early history of geology, from the Greeks and Romans, to the Middle Ages when scholars and natural historians tried to shoehorn all of earth history into the narrow accounts of Genesis, and finally were forced to reject the idea of Noah’s Flood by about 1840—all without losing their Christian faith. At the end he remarks (p. 91), “After Cuvier, the drive to find evidence of Noah’s Flood in the rocks was well and truly dead, although modern creationists would later resurrect the idea.” The next chapter then carries the historical narrative through the birth of modern geology, with Hutton, Buckland, and Lyell, and the eventual realization that the earth is immensely old with (in Hutton’s words) “no vestige of a beginning.”<br />
Chapter 8 then jumps to another topic altogether: the discovery by George Smith and the others of ancient Sumerian and Babylonian flood myths that were directly plagiarized by the authors of Genesis. In Chapter 9, Montgomery looks at flood myths in cultures all over the world, and shows that there is no evidence they are describing a single universal flood of Noah. Chapter 10 then goes through the history of modern American creationism, from the Kentucky “Creation Museum” to the birth of fundamentalism, to George Macready Price and his amateurish efforts to create a new “flood geology” in the 1920s through the 1950s. Throughout this account, Montgomery points out how far from reality Price’s imaginary geology was, and how it was fought by genuine Christian geologists like J. Laurence Kulp, who attempted to reconcile Genesis and geology without violating the laws of earth science. Kulp’s efforts were eventually overshadowed by the later backlash into extreme fundamentalism, and marked the end of any attempt at scientific rationality trumping literalism in the creationist community.<br />
Chapter 12 shifts to the story of J Harlen Bretz and the “Scablands floods,” and how this and other Ice Age glacial-dam floods bear no resemblance to Noah’s Flood (despite creationist attempts to hijack this discovery to their advantage). Then in Chapter 13, Montgomery describes the modern incarnation of “flood geology” proposed by Whitcomb and Morris in the 1960s, and this marked the birth of the current creationist attempts to push “flood geology” on the faithful. Throughout the chapter, Montgomery points out the absurdities of the Whitcomb-Morris model. In his final chapter, Montgomery talks about the conflict between science and faith, and tries to be conciliatory to both sides, as long as religion doesn’t try to deny science with absurdly literalistic interpretations of the Bible. In the final pages (pp. 256-257), he adopts a lofty tone:<br />
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“The scientific story of the origin and evolution of life, the vast sweep of geologic time, and the complexity of the processes that shaped the world we know today inspire more awe and wonder than the series of one-off miracles from Genesis that I read about in Sunday School. Miracles do not fuel curiosity or innovation. If we embrace the claim that Earth is a few thousand years old, we must also throw out the most basic findings of geology, physics, chemistry or biology. The concept of geologic time, on the other hand, opens up an entirely new creation story, along with the idea that the world is unfinished and creation is ongoing. And a complex, evolving world is one we would be well advised to do our best to understand. Personally, I find a world that invites exploration and learning more inspiring than a world where all is known….Yet no honest search for truth can deny geological discoveries—not when the Earth’s marvelous story is laid out for all to see in the very fabric of our world. We may argue endlessly about how to interpret the Bible, but the rocks don’t lie. They tell it like it was.”</blockquote>
In summary, Montgomery has covered nearly all the bases relevant to creationism, Noah’s ark myths, and “flood geology.” His tone is deliberately relaxed and non-confrontational, and he makes a great effort to educate the reader (both geologist and creationist) about the historical background to these ideas, and why Christian geologists in the 1830s and 1840s rejected Noah’s flood as soon as the rock record became well enough known. He is clearly trying to win the reader who is religious but conflicted about creationism and “flood geology” without saying anything that might alienate either side. My own preference, as I showed in my 2007 evolution book, is to be a bit more pointed and direct, and call a spade a spade when creationists are distorting the truth. I prefer to be explicit in the details of why “flood geology” is wrong, and not to gloss over such evidence (since the creationists themselves seem to relish this sort of nitpicking). I’m not sure which approach works better. Judging from the reviews of Montgomery’s book on its Amazon.com site, most readers seemed to like the gentle tone, although many reviewers would have preferred a stronger attack on creationist absurdities. The one creationist review on Amazon.com shows the usual complete lack of comprehension of the book (if he read any of it at all). If Montgomery attempted to really reach them, his non-confrontational, history-heavy approach did not succeed. However, it cannot hurt to have books with more than one approach to tackling “flood geology” and creationism available on the market. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to read about the background to the debate and the general nature of the evidence, and doesn’t require the point-by-point refutation of creationism that other sources (such as my 2007 book, or the www.talkorigins.org website, provide). Either way, science wins with such books in the hands of readers wavering on the fence between science and superstition.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07163302778654874895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7774379085714432681.post-12694142608784500202012-12-05T22:57:00.000-06:002012-12-05T22:57:28.060-06:00The Top 10 Claims Made by Creationists to Counter Scientific Theories by George Dvorsky<a href="http://io9.com/5965884/draft-10-claims-made-by-creationists-to-counter-scientific-theories">The Top 10 Claims Made by Creationists to Counter Scientific Theories</a>: <br />
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One of the most challenging tasks for the modern day creationist to is reconcile the belief in a 6,000 year old Earth with the ever-growing mountain of scientific evidence pointing to a vastly different conclusion — namely a universe that's 13.5 billion years old and an Earth that formed 4.5 billion years ago. So, given these astoundingly dramatic discrepancies, biblical literalists and 'young Earth creationists' have had no choice but to get pretty darned imaginative when brushing science aside. Here are 10 arguments creationists have made to counter scientific theories.<br /><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Liberation Serif', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;"><a href="http://io9.com/5965884/draft-10-claims-made-by-creationists-to-counter-scientific-theories">Go To Article</a></span><br />
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<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk" style="font-size: 13px;">'via Blog this'</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07163302778654874895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7774379085714432681.post-7742441769813048762012-11-23T08:36:00.000-06:002012-11-23T08:36:15.646-06:00Real Geology vs. “Flood Geology” via eSkeptic<br />
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<a href="http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/12-10-17/" style="background-color: #fce5cd;">Real Geology vs. “Flood Geology”</a></h4>
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<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">BY DONALD PROTHERO</span></div>
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<span style="display: block; float: left; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 72px; line-height: 63px; margin: 0px 4px -2px 0px;"><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">A</span></span><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"><br /><br />ny time you read creationist attempts to claim Noah’s flood was real, they point to the Grand Canyon or cherry-pick a flood event in a local region and claim there was once a giant flood that could cover the entire earth. Such claims show that creationists not only don’t know much about real geology and have never looked at very many real outcrops, but also that they don’t know history.<br /><br />First of all, all geologists before 1800 were creationists and devout Christians who believed that the rocks they were studying were deposits of Noah’s flood. But by 1840, they had completely rejected the idea of a global flood because the rock record clearly didn’t support the idea. The Noah’s flood story was rejected by creationists based on the actual hard evidence over 170 years ago, and no geologist with legitimate training and any real experience in the real rock record has taken it seriously since then. The reason is simple: there are no flood deposits in most parts of the world that could reasonably be connected to Noah’s flood, and 99% of the rock record (including the Grand Canyon) are not flood deposits whatsoever. As I explained in my 2007 book, <a href="http://www.skeptic.com/productlink/b127HB">Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters</a> (pp. 58–64):<br /><br /><br />The first detailed attempt [to revive the “Noah’s flood geology” model] came from a Seventh-Day Adventist schoolteacher named George Macready Price, who published a series of books starting in 1902. Price had no formal training or experience in geology or paleontology, and in fact attended only a few college classes at a tiny Adventist college. But inspired by Ellen G. White, the prophetess and founder of the Seventh-Day Adventist movement, he dreamed up an explanation called “flood geology” and aggressively promoted it for more than sixty years until his death in 1963. According to Price, the Flood accounted for all of the fossil record, with the helpless invertebrates being buried first, and the larger land animals floating to the top to be buried in higher strata, or fleeing the floodwaters to higher ground.<br /><br />Ignorant of history or geology, Price was unaware of the fact that religious geologists had believed in a Noachian deluge explanation of the fossil record in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but abandoned it when their own work showed it to be impossible—long before evolution came on the scene. The most famous geological treatise of the seventeenth century, The Sacred Theory of the Earth, by Reverend Thomas Burnet, dealt with the problem of the Noachian Deluge explaining the rock record. Burnet, unlike the modern creationists, did not fall back on the supernatural. Although others urged him to resort to miracles, Burnet declared: “They say in short that God Almighty created waters on purpose to make the Deluge…. And this, in a few words, is the whole account of the business. This is to cut the knot when we cannot loose it.”<br /><br />In Price’s later years, his bizarre ideas about geology were generally ignored as embarrassments by most creationists (see Numbers, 1992, pp. 89–101). Most subscribed to the “day-age” idea of Genesis, where the “days” of scripture were geologic “ages,” and did not try to contort all the evidence of geology into a simplistic flood model. Some disciples of Price actually tried to test his ideas and look at the rocks for themselves, which Price apparently never bothered to do. In 1938, Price’s follower Harold W. Clark “at the invitation of one of his students visited the oil fields of Oklahoma and northern Texas and saw with his own eyes why geologists believed as they did. Observations of deep drilling and conversations with practical geologists gave him a ‘real shock’ that permanently erased any confidence in Price’s vision of a topsy-turvy fossil record” (Numbers, 1992, p. 125). Clark wrote to Price:<br /><br /><br /><i>The rocks do lie in a much more definite sequence than we have ever allowed. The statements made in the New Geology [Price’s term for “flood geology”] do not harmonize with the conditions in the field… All over the Middle West the rocks lie in great sheets extending over hundreds of miles, in regular order. Thousands of well cores prove this. In East Texas alone are 25,000 deep wells. Probably well over 100,000 wells in the Midwest give data that have been studied and correlated. The science has become a very exact one, and millions of dollars are spent in drilling, with the paleontological findings of the company geologists taken as the basis for the work. The sequence of microscopic fossils in the strata is very remarkably uniform … The same sequence is found in America, Europe, and anywhere that detailed studies have been made. This oil geology has opened up the depths of the earth in a way that we never dreamed of twenty years ago. (quoted in Numbers, 1992, p. 125)</i><br /><br />Clark’s statement is a classic example of a reality check shattering the fantasy world of the flood geologists. Unfortunately, most creationists do not seek scientific reality. They prefer to speculate from their armchairs and read simplified popular books about fossils and rocks, rather than go out in the field and do the research themselves, or do the hard work of getting the necessary advanced training in geology and paleontology.<br /><br />In the 1950s the young seminarian John C. Whitcomb tried to revive Price’s ideas yet again. When Douglas Block, a devout and sympathetic friend with geological training, reviewed Whitcomb’s manuscript, he “found Price’s recycled arguments almost more than he could stomach. ‘It would seem,’ wrote the upset geologist, ‘that somewhere along the line there would have been a genuinely well-trained geologist who would have seen the implications of flood-geology, and, if tenable, would have worked them into a reasonable system that was positive rather than negative in character.’ He assured Whitcomb that he and his colleagues at Wheaton [College, an evangelical school] were not ignoring Price. In fact, they required every geology student to read at least one of his books, and they repeatedly tested his ideas in seminars and in the field. By the time Block finished Whitcomb’s manuscript, he had grown so agitated he offered to drive down to instruct Whitcomb on the basics of historical geology” (Numbers, 1992, p. 190).<br /><br />In 1961, Whitcomb and hydraulic engineer Henry Morris publishedThe Genesis Flood, where they rehashed Price’s notions with a little twist or two of their own. Their main contribution was the idea of hydraulic sorting by Noah’s flood, where the flood would bury the heavier shells of marine invertebrates and fishes in the lower levels, followed by more advanced animals such as amphibians, reptiles (including dinosaurs) fleeing to intermediate levels, and finally the “smart mammals” would climb to the highest levels to escape the rising floodwaters before they are buried.<br /><br />The first time a professional geologist or paleontologist reads this weird scenario, they cannot help but be amazed at its naiveté. Price, Whitcomb and Morris apparently never spent any time collecting fossils or rocks. What their model is trying to explain is a cartoon, an oversimplication drawn for kiddie books—not any real stratigraphic sequence of fossils documented in science. Those simplistic diagrams with the invertebrates at the bottom, the dinosaurs in the middle, and the mammals on top bear no real resemblance to any local sequence on earth. In fact, those cartoons show only the first appearance of invertebrates, dinosaurs, and mammals, not their order of fossilization in the rock record (since invertebrates are obviously still with us, and are found in all strata from the bottom to the top). This diagram is an abstraction based on the complex three-dimensional pattern of rocks from all over the world. In a few extraordinary places, such as the Grand Canyon, Zion, and Bryce National Parks in Utah and Arizona, we have a fairly continuous sequence of a long stretch of geologic time, so we know the true order in which rocks and fossils stack one on top of another. But even in that sequence, we have “dumb” marine ammonites, clams, and snails from the Cretaceous Mancos Shale found on top of“smarter, faster” amphibians and reptiles (including dinosaurs) from the Triassic and Jurassic Moenkopi, Chinle, Kayenta, and Navajo formations.<br /><br />Just to the north, in the Utah-Wyoming border region, the middle Eocene Green River Shale yields famous fish fossils have been quarried by commercial collectors for almost a century. The Green River Shale produces fossils not only of freshwater fish, but also freshwater clams and snails, frogs, crocodiles, birds, and land plants. The rocks are finely laminated shale diagnostic of deposition in quiet water over thousands of years, with fossil mud cracks and salts formed by complete evaporation of the water. These fossils and sediments are all characteristic of a lake deposit which occasionally dried up, not a giant flood. These Green River fish fossils lie abovethe famous dinosaur-bearing beds of the upper Jurassic Morrison Formation in places such as Dinosaur National Monument, and above many of the mammal-bearing beds of the lower Eocene Wasatch Formation as well, so once again the fish and invertebrates are found above the supposedly smarter and faster dinosaurs and mammals.<br /><br />If you think hard about it, why should we expect that marine invertebrates or fish would drown at all? They are, after all, adapted to marine waters, and many are highly mobile when the sediment is shifting. As Stephen Jay Gould put it:<br /><br /><br /><i>Surely, somewhere, at least one courageous trilobite would have paddled on valiantly (as its colleagues succumbed) and won a place in the upper strata. Surely, on some primordial beach, a man would have suffered a heart attack and been washed into the lower strata before intelligence had a chance to plot a temporary escape….No trilobite lies in the upper strata because they all perished 225 million years ago. No man keeps lithified company with a dinosaur, because we were still 60 million years in the future when the last dinosaur perished. (Gould, 1984, p. 132)</i><br />In addition to the examples just given, there are hundreds of other places in the world where the “dumb invertebrates” that supposedly drowned in the initial stages of the rising flood are found on top of “smarter, faster land animals,” including many places in the Atlantic Coast of the United States, in Europe, and in Asia, where marine shell beds overlie those bearing land mammals. In some places, like the Calvert Cliffs of Chesapeake Bay in Maryland or Sharktooth Hill near Bakersfield, California, the land mammal fossils and the marine shells are all mixed together, and there are also beds with marine shellsabove and below those containing land mammals! How could that make any sense with the “rising flood waters” of the creationist model?<br /><br />In short, the “flood geology” model was rejected by trained, experienced geologists (who also happened to be creationists) over 170 years ago, and has not been taken seriously since then. Real geology has proven enormously powerful, for without it we would not have the fossils in our museums or our understanding of geologic history. Without it, we would never find oil, gas, coal, or many other economic deposits that are based on understanding real geology, not theological fantasies. If “flood geology” were still in use by real geologists, we would have none of these benefits. <img src="http://www.skeptic.com/images/S-glyph.gif" /><br /><br /><b>References</b><br />Gould, S.J. 1994. “Hooking Leviathan by its Past,” pp. 375–396, in Gould, S.J.,Dinosaur in a Haystack. W.W. Norton, New York.<br />Numbers, R. 1992. The Creationists: The Evolution of Scientific Creationism. Knopf, New York.<br />Prothero, D.R. 2007. Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters. Columbia University Press, New York.<br />Whitcomb, J.C., Jr., and H.M. Morris. 1961. The Genesis Flood. Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., Nutley, NJ.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07163302778654874895noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7774379085714432681.post-80635236143253988822012-11-23T08:27:00.001-06:002012-11-23T08:27:06.881-06:00A Flood of Nonsense! The Myth of a Universal flood via eSkeptic<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
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“And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.” —Genesis 7:24 </div>
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“The World Destroyed by Water” by Gustave Doré.</div>
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<a href="http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/12-10-17/">A Flood of Nonsense!</a><br /><a href="http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/12-10-17/" style="font-size: 13.333333969116211px;">The Myth of a Universal flood Myth</a><br /><br /></h4>
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by Tim Callahan<br /><br /></div>
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<span style="display: block; float: left; font-size: 72px; line-height: 63px;">O</span>ne of the programs of the (so-called) History Channel that is particularly galling to me as a skeptic is their <em>Ancient Aliens</em> series, where Erich von Daniken, Zecharia Sitchen, Georgio Tsoukalos and David Childress, among others, advance the pseudo-scientific theory that extraterrestrials both created us through biological engineering and gave us our ancient civilizations. In the process of advancing their dogma, they spout blatant falsehoods that go utterly unchallenged. The History Channel, shamefully, makes no attempt whatsoever to offer any rebuttal to these spurious claims. Rather, as is their policy with any program dealing with the historicity of anything from the Bible, their policy toward ancient astronaut theorists is one of shameless pandering, a strategy most probably determined by favoring profits over proof and ratings over reason. Fortunately, filmmaker Chris White has addressed this imbalance, putting the lie to these claims thoroughly in his three-hour documentary <em>Ancient Aliens Debunked</em>,<a href="http://thunder.lyris.net/t/4520520/6741970/7633/31/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">recently posted on Skeptic.com</a>.<br /></div>
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<em>Un</em>fortunately, in one area in particular Mr. White has stumbled badly in his assertion that the biblical story of the flood is not derived from Sumerian flood stories (whose connection to the ancient alien series is thin in any case) and instead claims that both biblical and Sumerian flood stories reflect an actual worldwide flood and are not the result of cultural diffusion from some earlier myth. According to White, all over the world there is a universal myth of a worldwide flood in which only a few people, usually about eight, are saved by entering a boat, while the rest of humanity is drowned. White argues that, of course, one great drawback to such an assertion is that science in no way supports such a universal flood. Geology and the fossil record and genetics all militate strongly against any historical validity of a worldwide flood. Thus, comparative mythology is his only evidence on the offing.<br /></div>
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Are flood myths universal? No. At least, not one in which a worldwide flood wipes out all of the human race but for a couple or a single family. Consider the case of China. Does this large country with an unbroken history going back to ancient times have a flood myth, replete with a boat on which a few survivors escape, from thence to reestablish the human race? It does, however that particular flood myth comes from an ethnic minority called the Miao. They speak a language similar to Thai and appear to have immigrated to China from Southeast Asia. The only other flood myth from China involves annual flooding from rivers and the need for people to work together to prevent such destruction. It involves no ark and no destruction of all life on the planet.<br /></div>
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Consider also an Egyptian flood myth. Surely this one should be similar to those of the Bible and Mesopotamia if the flood were, in fact, historical. In this myth the gods, suspecting mortal treachery against them, dispatch the goddess Hat-hor to take vengeance on the human race. However, her blood lust gets out of hand and threatens to utterly annihilate humanity. Since this is not the aim of the gods, they pour out upon Egypt a flood of beer brewed from mandrake root, which has soporific properties. Hat-hor, setting out on her daily rampage, looks down at the flooded land of Egypt, sees her own beautiful visage reflected in the beer and bends down to kiss it. She begins to drink the mandrake root beer and drinks so much of it that she forgets the plan of destruction and instead staggers off to bed. Thus, in the Egyptian flood story, the flood <em>saves</em> the human race.<br /></div>
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Yet another flood story that differs significantly from the biblical one is found in Norse myth. Odin and his two brothers, Villi and Ve, kill the <em>frost giant</em>, Ymir, and make the world out of his body. His blood creates a flood that drowns most of the other frost giants. All this happens before the creation of the human race.</div>
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There is no <em>native</em> Celtic flood myth. I have to stress the word “native” since the Celtic myths, like those of the Teutonic peoples were written down by Christian monks, who harmonized them with myths from the Bible. Here is yet another problem with the vaunted universality of flood myths: Many of them appear courtesy of cultural contamination by Christian and, in some cases, Muslim, missionaries.<br /></div>
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Diffusion of flood myths is also a factor. While there are differences between earlier Mesopotamian myths and the story of Noah’s ark, and while there is not a literary descent from the earlier material to the later, there is a cultural continuity. Thus, the Akkadian flood epic, <em>Atrahasis</em>, gave rise to later flood tales, not only the story of Noah in the Bible, but, as well, that of Deucalion and Pyrrha in Greek mythology. We do not find, nor would we expect to find, any great literary correspondence between an Akkadian epic, written on preserved tablets dating from <em>ca</em>. 1650 BCE and the biblical flood myth, the earliest version of which probably dates from <em>ca</em>. 850 BCE.<br /></div>
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In his defense of the biblical flood story as history, White also falls back on an old canard, to whit, that the scribal transcription of the biblical text is so precise that it is far more accurate and less open to corrupting changes than any other ancient document. Certainly this might have been true of their transcription once the documents in question were seen as holy writ. However, varying versions of biblical tales were still being written perhaps as late as the Babylonian Captivity (587–538 BCE). That the biblical text is of late compilation is further attested to by its many anachronisms. Consider, as an example, what Genesis says of the place of origin of Abrahm, that is, Abraham (Gen. 11:31 emphasis added):</div>
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Tereh took Abrahm his son and Lot, the son of Haran, his grandson and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abrahm’s wife, and he went forth from <em>Ur of the Chaldeans</em> to go into the land of Canaan; but when they came to Haran they settled there.</blockquote>
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While this test purports to be from the hand of Moses, written sometime between 1400 and 1200 BCE, the Chaldeans did not occupy Ur until ca. 800 BCE. Hence, this document’s reference to Ur as “Ur of the Chaldeans” dates it as having been written after that time.<br /></div>
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Chris White would do a great service to the cause of critical thinking, and to himself as well, were he to excise the flood material from his otherwise exemplary documentary. <img alt="END" height="12" src="http://www.skeptic.com/images/S-glyph.gif" width="12" /></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07163302778654874895noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7774379085714432681.post-90148926986559604742012-09-25T07:33:00.001-05:002012-09-25T07:34:29.336-05:00Another creationist drops by to show that there’s no evidence for evolution « Why Evolution Is True<a href="http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/09/24/another-creationist-drops-by-to-show-that-theres-no-evidence-for-evolution/">Another creationist drops by to show that there’s no evidence for evolution « Why Evolution Is True</a>: "About ten days ago I got this comment from “Steve” (obviously not one of the “evolution Steves”) about my July 9 post “What would disprove evolution?” That one listed a number of conceivable observations that could be seen as countering the existence of evolution, though none of them had ever been been made.<br />
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I offer Steve’s comment as another specimen of the mindset of creationists, and of their ignorance of biology. It seems to be a willful ignorance, since it’s easily dispelled with about ten minutes of Googling.<br />
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I have one more of these in the series, a post from yet a third creationist asserting that humans didn’t evolve."<br />
<a href="http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/09/24/another-creationist-drops-by-to-show-that-theres-no-evidence-for-evolution/">Go To Article</a><br />
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<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk" style="font-size: 13px;">'via Blog this'</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07163302778654874895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7774379085714432681.post-632313527009568382012-09-07T06:44:00.001-05:002012-09-07T06:45:07.284-05:00Animals’ Lifestyles Evolve When Old Genes Learn New Tricks - NYTimes.com by Sean B. Carroll<br />
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<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk" style="font-size: 13px;">'via Blog this'</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07163302778654874895noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7774379085714432681.post-41575010030271630422012-08-03T12:36:00.000-05:002012-08-03T12:36:22.121-05:00How the Blind Watchmaker Made Eyes<br />
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How the Blind Watchmaker Made Eyes</h4>
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by Donald R. Prothero</div>
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<span style="display: block; float: left; font-size: 72px; line-height: 63px;">S</span>ince the days of Darwin, eyes and evolution have been an irresistible topic for scientists and amateur authors alike. British biologist St. George Jackson Mivart was initially a supporter of Darwin, but when his Catholic religion caused conflict with Thomas Henry Huxley in 1871, he changed to a critic. Mivart’s critique focused on the issue of the perfection of the human eye and how he could not fathom how it could have evolved by natural selection and random chance (a point still raised by creationists today who know nothing about comparative biology).</div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1477670785/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=skepticcom-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1477670785" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank" title="On the Origin of
Species"><img alt="On the Origin of Species (book cover)" height="251" src="http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/2012/images/12-07-04/Origin-of-Species-cover-2012.jpg" style="margin-bottom: 5px;" width="200" /></a><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1477670785/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=skepticcom-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1477670785" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank" title="On the Origin of
Species">Order the 2012 paperback version from Amazon</a></div>
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In later editions of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1477670785/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=skepticcom-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1477670785" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank" title="On the Origin of
Species"><em>On the Origin of Species</em></a>, Darwin specifically addressed Mivart’s criticism and carefully explained how the incipient stages of complex structures like the eye could be useful, and could have evolved by small steps; it did not require a giant leap to the complexity to develop the human eye. As Darwin first showed, nature is full of examples of every kind of photoreceptor, from simple light-sensitive cells to eyespots to simple eyes with no lenses, to a variety of solutions of seeing with more and more complex eyes. Once you arrange these solutions in an array, it is only a small step from one to the next, more complex eye. (Indeed, many animals actually show this transition during their embryonic development as their eyes change, and in some organisms, the eyes develop differently in males and females). In fact, the passages where Darwin talks about the eye are one of the most frequently “quote mined” by creationists trying to distort Darwin’s meaning, because they quote only the beginning of the paragraph were Darwin is setting up the creationist position in order to shoot it down the in the rest of the passage (which creationists never quote). Here is the first section that creationists quote (<em>On the Origin of Species</em>, 6th ed., 1872, 143–144):</div>
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To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree.</blockquote>
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Here is the rest of the quote that creationists conveniently leave out:</div>
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Yet reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself first originated; but I may remark that several facts make me suspect that any sensitive nerve may be rendered sensitive to light, and likewise to those coarser vibrations of the air which produce sound.</blockquote>
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The rest of Darwin’s chapter goes into great depth describing the full range of photoreceptor solutions in the animal kingdom, which creationists also conveniently fail to address.</div>
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Fast-forward 153 years later to the culmination of this line of argument, represented by Ivan Schwab’s outstanding book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195369742/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=skepticcom-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0195369742" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank" title="Order the book
from Amazon"><em>Evolution’s Witness: How Eyes Evolved</em></a>. There have been a number of scientific papers that have expanded on Darwin’s comparative sequence of ocular solutions, but none in the beautiful full-color coffee-table book format that extensively reviews photoreception across all of biology, as does Schwab’s book. Schwab is a professor of ophthalmology at University of California Davis, so he knows eyes in a way that few biologists do, but he also takes great trouble to study and image photoreceptors from nearly every group of living organisms. The book shows not only spectacular color photographs of a wide range of organisms and close-ups of their eyes, but many images of histological sections through the eyes and head (done by Richard Dubielzig, DVM), color reconstructions of prehistoric animals by renowned paleoartist John Sibbick, and microphotography of eye histology. Detailed discussions of the eye anatomy of many key living organisms are provided, along with speculation about the eye anatomy of fossils with excellent preservation. Some, like trilobites, have preserved their crystal calcite lenses unaltered, so we can actually see what they could see. The anatomical discussion might be heavy going for those without any background in biology, but the author provides excellent diagrams and definitions of every anatomical term, plus a glossary, so those who wish to dig in and learn the material will be rewarded.</div>
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The book also attempts not just a comparative biology exercise, but a fully chronological account of the geological factors that were in play when each type of eye arose prehistorically. Thus, rather than running through the full gamut of eye types in, say, phylum Arthropoda or phylum Chordata, the chapters jump from the kinds of eyes that existed in invertebrates of a given geological period to the contemporary vertebrates, and back again. This exposition may be a little hard to follow for some readers, but it does allow one to see when each type of eye arose and under what geological conditions. Thus, we can better understand, for example, how 300 m.y. old Carboniferous dragonflies with wingspans almost 3 feet across had eyes the size of golf balls! They, like the 9-foot <em>Arthropleura</em> (a sowbug relative on steroids) or the foot-long cockroaches of this period, were able to grow so large because atmospheric oxygen levels at that time were much higher; oxygen is a critical limiting factor not only for arthropod growth, but especially for eye development. Elsewhere, he describes the amazing dolphin-like marine reptiles known as ichthyosaurs, some of which had eyes the size of beach balls, the largest eyes ever known. These animals apparently were divers into the dark depths of the oceans where they must have hunted prey (possibly large squid like modern sperm whales hunt) that live at such depths.</div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195369742/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=skepticcom-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0195369742" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank" title="Order the book
from Amazon"><img alt="50 Popular Beliefs That People Think are True (book cover)" height="261" src="http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/2012/images/12-07-04/Evolutions-Witness-cover.jpg" style="margin-bottom: 5px;" width="200" /></a><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195369742/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=skepticcom-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0195369742" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank" title="Order the book
from Amazon">Order the hardcover from Amazon</a></div>
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Schwab begins at the beginning of the simplest life forms, discussing the chemicals and pigments found even in bacteria and algae, and how many (besides chlorophyll) are sensitive to light. He shows how some non-photosynthetic light-sensitive pigments have non-light-sensitive precursors, and evolved before the advent of photoreceptors, then were later co-opted for light sensitivity. Schwab goes into the recent research on evolutionary development of eyes, and how certain genes turn on or off expression of certain eye features, or even the entire eye. He reminds us how many animals have no need for sensitivity to light at all, let alone photoreceptors or eyes, and dispels our anthropomorphic notion that eyes are essential to evolutionary success.</div>
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In discussing the appearance of the first real eyes of the trilobites in the Cambrian, Schwab does not make the mistake that Andrew Parker made in his 2004 book <a href="http://thunder.lyris.net/t/4501961/6741970/7069/19/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank" title="Order the
book from Amazon"><em>In the Blink of an Eye: How Vision Caused the Big Bang of Evolution</em></a>. Parker’s book was excoriated in the scientific community, not only for its execrable writing style and lack of proper references, but for the even simpler reason that the “Cambrian explosion” was no “explosion” (it took at least 20–80 million years in a series of steps) and that the trilobites and their eyes were one of the last events in this long slow process, so they are unlikely to have caused anything more than the late radiation of more trilobites.</div>
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Finally, in his review of cephalopod eyes, Schwab shows how the structure of the fluid-filled eyeball of an octopus evolved independently in that lineage and in the vertebrates—but the octopus eye is actually designed <em>better</em> than our eye! It has no “blind spot” in the retina caused by the exit of the optic nerve, and its layers of photoreceptors are not buried under several other layers of cells, distorting the vision, as our retinas are. The next time you run into a creationist who rhapsodizes about how beautifully designed nature is, remind them of the flawed construction of our eyes compared to that of an octopus or squid, and ask what that tells them about the Designer!</div>
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In a project this large in scope, small errors are bound to creep in, especially in areas far from the author’s expertise in eye anatomy. For example, he mentions the discredited notion that a meteorite impact might have something to do with the great Permian extinction; he follows the controversial idea that turtles are nested within Diapsida; but he retains the outdated notions that mesonychids are closer relatives of whales than hippos and other artiodactyls. These can be forgiven, because the author is making an attempt to reach across disciplines and paint a broad picture in a geological context, and such an effort is hard for anyone, regardless of specialty, to manage.</div>
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In the broader sense, the entire book is an outstanding antidote to scientific ignorance and creationist lies. It is beautifully written and illustrated, yet the writing is accessible to anyone with some biology background and a willingness to follow the details carefully. The evidence for evolution screams out at you page after page. Like Darwin did in 1859, Schwab pounds the case home with example after example in a way that no creationist can rebut. Among the overwhelmingly positive reviews the book has received in the professional journals and on the Internet, there are three pathetic one-sentence negative reviews by creationist trolls on the book’s Amazon.com page, which clearly show that they didn’t actually read the book and could not comprehend it. Indeed, one of them admits that he gave a bad review to the book after only reading the “look inside” feature on the Amazon.com site and skimming the few pages that are presented. If that doesn’t summarize creationist “scholarship” in a nutshell, nothing does! <img alt="END" height="12" src="http://www.skeptic.com/images/S-glyph.gif" width="12" /></div>
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About the Author of this Review</h5>
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<img alt="photo" height="140" src="http://www.skeptic.com/geology_tours/2011/Alaska-Cruise/images/speakers/Donald-Prothero-thumb.jpg" title="Dr. Donald R. Prothero" width="100" /></div>
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<strong>DR. DONALD R. PROTHERO</strong> was Professor of Geology at Occidental College in Los Angeles, and Lecturer in Geobiology at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. He earned M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. degrees in geological sciences from Columbia University in 1982, and a B.A. in geology and biology (highest honors, Phi Beta Kappa) from the University of California, Riverside. He is currently the author, co-author, editor, or co-editor of 32 books and over 250 scientific papers, including five leading geology textbooks and five trade books as well as edited symposium volumes and other technical works. He is on the editorial board of <em>Skeptic</em> magazine, and in the past has served as an associate or technical editor for <em>Geology</em>, <em>Paleobiology</em> and <em>Journal of Paleontology</em>. He is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America, the Paleontological Society, and the Linnaean Society of London, and has also received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Science Foundation. He has served as the President and Vice President of the Pacific Section of <a href="http://www.sepm.org/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">SEPM</a> (Society of Sedimentary Geology), and five years as the Program Chair for the <a href="http://thunder.lyris.net/t/4501961/6741970/2506/20/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">Society of Vertebrate Paleontology</a>. In 1991, he received the Schuchert Award of the Paleontological Society for the outstanding paleontologist under the age of 40. He has also been featured on several television documentaries, including episodes of <a href="http://thunder.lyris.net/t/4501961/6741970/3710/21/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><em>Paleoworld</em></a> (BBC), <a href="http://thunder.lyris.net/t/4501961/6741970/3711/22/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><em>Prehistoric Monsters Revealed</em></a> (History Channel), <em>Entelodon and Hyaenodon</em> (<em>National Geographic</em> Channel) and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000XCK0N2?ie=UTF8&tag=skepticcom-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B000XCK0N2" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><em>Walking with Prehistoric Beasts</em></a> (BBC). His website is: <a href="http://thunder.lyris.net/t/4501961/6741970/6034/23/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">www.donaldprothero.com</a>. Check out <a href="http://shop.skeptic.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=SS&Category_Code=TPIDP" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">Donald Prothero’s page</a>at Shop Skeptic.</div>
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07163302778654874895noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7774379085714432681.post-89462293265459830332012-07-09T20:36:00.001-05:002012-07-09T20:42:43.125-05:00What would disprove evolution? « Why Evolution Is True"If evolution is a scientific theory worth its salt, then there must be some conceivable observations that could show it to be wrong. I just wanted to put down, for the record, what some of those observations might be. First, let’s reprise what I see as the major components of the theory of evolution."<br /><a href="https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/07/09/what-would-disprove-evolution/">Read On</a><div>
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<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk" style="font-size: 13px;">'via Blog this'</a></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07163302778654874895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7774379085714432681.post-55537224816727515502012-07-09T20:33:00.001-05:002012-07-09T20:33:48.184-05:0011 Eye-Opening Highlights From a Creationist Science Textbook - 11Points.com<br /><br />A few months ago, I was reading about homeschooling, because I do things like randomly reading about homeschooling. I read an article that mentioned a family using science textbooks produced by Bob Jones University. (If you're not familiar, that's a large, for-profit, evangelical Christian university in South Carolina.) I had to see what one of those textbooks was like. I bought one for a few bucks on Amazon and a few slow shipping weeks later, I had my answer. <div>
<br />I purchased a copy of Science 4 for Christian Schools, an evangelical-written and -approved science textbook published in 1990. According to the stamp on the inside cover, my copy was previously owned by The Country Church & Country Christian School in Molella, Oregon. So, thanks guys!<br /><a href="http://www.11points.com/Books/11_Eye-Opening_Highlights_From_a_Creationist_Science_Textbook">Read On</a><br /><br />
<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk" style="font-size: 13px;">'via Blog this'</a></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07163302778654874895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7774379085714432681.post-23171539814261171632012-06-19T20:36:00.001-05:002012-06-19T20:36:14.092-05:00If we evolved from monkeys…{Infographic} « Science-Based Life<a href="http://sciencebasedlife.wordpress.com/2012/06/14/if-we-evolved-from-monkeys-infographic/">If we evolved from monkeys…{Infographic} « Science-Based Life</a>: <br />
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<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk" style="font-size: 13px;">'via Blog this'</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07163302778654874895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7774379085714432681.post-62184689594900489242012-05-15T13:45:00.000-05:002012-05-15T13:45:07.527-05:008 Humanlike Behaviors of Primates via Live Science<span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: 12px;">While we lost most of our body hair and bulked up our brains, humans are evolutionarily close to other great apes, with about 97 percent of our genes DNA matching up. Beyond looks, researchers have found a startling number of humanlike behaviors practiced by our ape ancestors.<br /><a href="http://www.livescience.com/15309-humanlike-behaviors-primates.html">Go To Article</a></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07163302778654874895noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7774379085714432681.post-24766155237077722682012-05-15T13:40:00.000-05:002012-05-15T13:40:17.742-05:00Did a Copying Mistake Build Man's Brain? via Live Science<br />
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A copying error appears to be responsible for critical features of the human brain that distinguish us from our closest primate kin, new research finds.</div>
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When tested out in mice, researchers found this "error" caused the rodents' brain cells to move into place faster and enabled more connections between brain cells.</div>
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When any cell divides, it first copies its <a href="http://www.livescience.com/6098-frozen-hair-yields-ancient-human-genome.html" style="color: #00467f;">entire genome</a>. During this process, it can make errors. The cell usually fixes errors in the DNA. But when they aren't fixed, they become permanent changes called mutations, which are sometimes hurtful and sometimes helpful, though usually innocuous.</div>
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One type of error is duplication, when the DNA-copying machinery accidentally copies a section of the genome twice. The second copy can be changed in future copies — gaining<a href="http://www.lifeslittlemysteries.com/1536-mutants-average-human-60-genetic-mutations.html" style="color: #00467f;">mutations</a> or losing parts.<br /><a href="http://www.livescience.com/20102-copying-mistake-build-man-brain.html">Go To article</a></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07163302778654874895noreply@blogger.com0