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Category: Charles Darwin
Perhaps we are all subject to falling into the trap of what I call the Hydraulic Theory of Everything. If you eat more you will be bigger, if you eat less you will be smaller. Emotional states are the continuously varying outcome of different levels...
Posted by Greg Laden at 2:09 PM • 13 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Agassiz
The The Origin Of Species by Charles Darwin was published 150 years go as I write this. At the time, several different alternative theories of the origin and history of life were being discussed in the West. Some of these theories were theological. Theological ideas...
Posted by Greg Laden at 9:50 AM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Paleontology
The evolutionary history of mammals can be reviewed as the evolutionary history of tooth loss. The early mammals had many teeth, and every now and then in evolutionary time, a tooth is lost wiht subsequent species arriving from that n-1 toothed form having that smaller...
Posted by Greg Laden at 4:10 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Natural Selection
Natural Selection is the key creative force in evolution. Natural selection, together with specific histories of populations (species) and adaptations, is responsible for the design of organisms. Most people have some idea of what Natural Selection is. However, it is easy to make conceptual errors...
Posted by Greg Laden at 5:09 PM • 28 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Falsehoods
In my initial s.php">list of Falsehoods, I included these two closely related items: Evolution has stopped for humans; and Serious scientists often entertain the question: "Has evolution stopped for humans?" I'll make the distinction between them clear eventually. For now, let's focus on the first:...
Posted by Greg Laden at 11:55 AM • 34 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Genetics
Mendel was born on July 20th, 1822. He is famous for his discovery of peas and genetics. Here is his stuff translated into English....
Posted by Greg Laden at 8:43 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Anthropology
I've noticed that Scienceblogs.com has been running ads for hot Russian mail order brides. These ads are rather funny ...
Posted by Greg Laden at 12:01 AM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Natural Selection
In an BBC article describing a Royal Society paper on the rate of mutation in warm vs. cooler climates, the BBC made this statement: DNA can mutate and change imperceptibly every time a cell divides and makes a copy of itself. But when one of...
Posted by Greg Laden at 12:58 PM • 29 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Genetics
Junk DNA is like bigfoot. If a zoologist says something like "Hmmm... it would be cool to find bigfoot" all the other zoologists jump on him or her, drag the poor sap into the alleyway, toss on a blanket, and beat the scientist with rubber...
Posted by Greg Laden at 8:36 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Anthropology
I first became acquainted with the Romanovs (as historical figures, not the actual Romanovs) reading in middle school about Russian History. Later, someone turned me on to Massie's Nicholas and Alexandra, which is quite a well known popular historical account of the last Czar of...
Posted by Greg Laden at 8:00 PM • 13 Comments • 0 TrackBacks