Apr 11 2013
So goes the creationist mantra, perhaps sung to hymnal-like notes on an organ or flute or something both deliciously neolithic and middle eastern. But if there were transitional fossils, and we happened to have an example of a transitional fossil specimen bridging the gap between modern humans and more ape-like ancestors, we’d want something roughly 2 to …
Feb 24 2013
This was supposed to be a secret until this coming Wednesday, and it was secret, right up until someone spilled the beans almost a week early: Buzz is building about a planned 2018 private mission to Mars, which may launch the first humans toward the Red Planet. A nonprofit organization called the Inspiration Mars Foundation …
Sep 19 2012
I’m not sure why a magazine dedicated to business would delve into the evolution issue. Nor how exactly this writer was taken in by the frauds at the Discovery Institute. But it reads like a press release straight off of Stephen Meyer’s private printing press, let the fisking begin:
Sep 16 2012
When I was a kid lo these many years ago, there was a comforting notion about the balance of nature. I didn’t know at the time, but an eclectic mix of computer hobbyists and assorted math and physics geeks were in the process of demolishing it with a new branch of study called Chaos Theory. That’s also comforting …
Aug 31 2012
Here’s on the biggest problems with youTube in the view of many. Bill Nye the Science Guy posted a video that read in part:
Aug 17 2012
I was born in Lexington, but moved to Austin decades ago as a kid with the first wave of IBM immigrants traveling from blue grass to lone stars. Austin’s great, but Kentucky to Texas is not exactly a political improvement for a budding rational atheist. Because sadly, in many ways they’re the same, including creationism:
Aug 13 2012
It’s fair to think we know life when we see it. But is that really true? Scientists have worked on defining life for decades, and in most cases they’ve ended up with a pragmatic suite a characteristics that’s both useful and clearly incomplete. With the recent focus on Mars, the effort is rejoined. Here’s one stab …
Aug 09 2012
At one time the proposed hominid line taught to new anthropology students was pretty simple. It went something like Australopithicus to Homo habilis, habilis to H. erectus, erectus to us. This was debated, but it was a basic view the fossil evidence supported. It’s more complicated now, that tree is bushy, but the good news is some details have …
Aug 08 2012
As has been noted, domestic cats descend from predators well honed by evolution to be killers. Not since the days of raptors have such well-engineered killing machines silently stalked and taken down prey. House cats have been bred by humans for traits we find appealing for a lot less time than dogs (Sorry, cat vs dog lovers), …
Jul 31 2012
There is a debate in paleoanthropology, well, there are lots of them. But this one has to do with behavior that doesn’t fossilize well, and which suggest the presence or lack of modern cognition. The ancestors of the San, pictured above, are a great source of data for that question. A new find pushes back the …
:)
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