There’s a lovely article in this week’s Nature documenting a transitional stage in tetrapod evolution (you know, those forms the creationists like to say don’t exist), and a) Nature provides a publicly accessible review of the finding, and b) the primary author is already a weblogger! Perhaps there will come a day when I’m obsolete and willl just have to turn my hand to blogging about what I had for lunch.
For an extra super-duper dose of delicious comeuppance, though, take a look at this thread on the Panda’s Thumb. I wrote about Panderichthys, and a creationist (“Ghost of Paley”) comes along to mangle the phylogeny and make wild negative assertions about the validity of interpretations of fossils based on work from the Ahlberg lab…when Martin Brazeau of the Ahlberg lab and author of this new paper shows up to straighten him out.
And for my next trick, let me introduce you to Marshall McLuhan…
Brazeau MD, Ahlberg PE (2006) Tetrapod-like middle ear architecture in a Devonian fish. Nature 439:318-321.
Oh, and the author/blogger in question is Lancelet if anyone wants to check it out. He has a post on his own paper today.
But yo will always have squid to write about! And pirates! Incidentally (and this is off topic) how did you change your font size?
Here is another article that talks about tetrapod evolution.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000DC8B8-EA15-137C-AA1583414B7F0000&sc=I100322
I like the last paragraph of that Nature summary:
Don’t keep us hanging like that, what did you have for lunch?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Hey hey! Thanks, I’m flattered to be sure!
Sorry I didn’t say anything more meaningful on my own blog. There comes a point when you’ve written and re-written the manuscript a dozen times to fit Nature’s staight-jacket format that the thought of writing anything more about it is repulsive! Nevertheless, I’m not complaining!
I think I’ve taken my last round out of Ghost of Paley. Obviously, the discussion can’t continue if most of my effort is spent trying to rebuild the ‘dialogue’ into a coherent argument for him.
Hey hey! Thanks, I’m flattered to be sure!
Sorry I didn’t say anything more meaningful on my own blog. There comes a point when you’ve written and re-written the manuscript a dozen times to fit Nature’s staight-jacket format that the thought of writing anything more about it is repulsive! Nevertheless, I’m not complaining!
I think I’ve taken my last round out of Ghost of Paley. Obviously, the discussion can’t continue if most of my effort is spent trying to rebuild the ‘dialogue’ into a coherent argument for him.
Hey hey! Thanks, I’m flattered to be sure!
Sorry I didn’t say anything more meaningful on my own blog. There comes a point when you’ve written and re-written the manuscript a dozen times to fit Nature’s staight-jacket format that the thought of writing anything more about it is repulsive! Nevertheless, I’m not complaining!
I think I’ve taken my last round out of Ghost of Paley. Obviously, the discussion can’t continue if most of my effort is spent trying to rebuild the ‘dialogue’ into a coherent argument for him.
Hey hey! Thanks, I’m flattered to be sure!
Sorry I didn’t say anything more meaningful on my own blog. There comes a point when you’ve written and re-written the manuscript a dozen times to fit Nature’s staight-jacket format that the thought of writing anything more about it is repulsive! Nevertheless, I’m not complaining!
I think I’ve taken my last round out of Ghost of Paley. Obviously, the discussion can’t continue if most of my effort is spent trying to rebuild the ‘dialogue’ into a coherent argument for him.
Nope, you won’t be able to turn to that either! I recently found a blog of someone who writes about what he has for lunch: http://monzyummylunch.blogspot.com/
Besides, we can always use more folks to provide an empirical “slap in the face” to creationist thinking.
Martin is a regular Ghostbuster. I see my old alma mater still produces. (Shameless self promotion. Especially since obviously I wasn’t a biologist. :-)
From the last comment:
“Martin is a regular Ghostbuster”
That he is, and from way back. I remember he used to debate creationists while in high school here in Ottawa.
Nature pod casts also has an interview with one of the authors on this critter, see
http://www.nature.com/nature/podcast/v439/n7074/nature-2006-01-19.mp3
Funny: I’ve been searching the archives at “ID the Future” and “Uncommon Dissent,” but I can’t find a single instance there where people came to blog and science education broke out. Panda’s Thumb has its share of trolls, and many dilettents like me — but nothing in the anti-evolution sphere ever accidentally breaks into real science with an Annie Hall/Marshall McLuhan moment.
Not only is the universe queerer than we imagine, and queerer than we can imagine, it’s more entertaining when we let real science unveil itself than it could ever be if there were a man behind the curtain.
Maybe this thread is more likely to net me an answer to a question I raised on PT and on The Loom…
In the SciAm article on Tetrapod evolution (linked to by Kerry, above) the writer, Jennifer Clack, discusses the early tetrapod Acanthostega. She writes about how this animal had legs and feet but no ankles (and thus couldn’t have supported its weight on its legs out of the water) — and she also mentions that it had more than its fair share of digits (eight per foot). This seems to imply that the later evolution of loadbearing feet coincided with a reduction in the number of digits. Did the evolution of ankles involve the cooption of finger bones? And could this explain the remarkable convergence in the evolution of false thumbs in Simocyon batalleri and Ailuropoda melanoleuca? Or is this speculation a load of nonsense? Thanks to anyone who can tell me!
No, the change probably was not due to an incorporation of all those extra fingers into the wrist. It’s all about genetic regulation: there’s an arc of gene expression across the base of the hand that encodes positional information for finger formation. That arc was cut short, reducing the number of fingers produced, early in tetrapod evolution. We don’t know why, yet, but suspect it was to stabilize and make more robust the formation of the digits we retained.
Ok, thanks… bang goes my speculation.
(Note to any ‘just a theory’ types: that was ‘speculation’, not even ‘hypothesis’, let alone ‘theory’. Like ID…)
Frank,
I am glad we didn’t corrupt Martin over here! (And I think I meant to say “real Ghostbuster” – sometime the nuances gets befuddled outside ones native language.)
But canadians may easily thrive over here. Usually canadians and swedes have a lot in common – similar climates, a supportive social system, appreciation of nature, and appreciation of tasty beer. (Which was much more apparent at the time US still brewed water instead of beer.)
Indeed, I quite enjoy life in Sweden. However, I’ve been pretty slow learning the language! By and large, I agree that Swedes and Canadians have a lot in common. That is until Stephen Harper gets elected. Then we can see our social system go down the shute fast.
Frank: sorry I haven’t been around the Ottawa scene much these days! I’m still disappointed to hear that you’ve given up your trilobite hunting days.
Indeed, I quite enjoy life in Sweden. However, I’ve been pretty slow learning the language! By and large, I agree that Swedes and Canadians have a lot in common. That is until Stephen Harper gets elected. Then we can see our social system go down the shute fast.
Frank: sorry I haven’t been around the Ottawa scene much these days! I’m still disappointed to hear that you’ve given up your trilobite hunting days.
Indeed, I quite enjoy life in Sweden. However, I’ve been pretty slow learning the language! By and large, I agree that Swedes and Canadians have a lot in common. That is until Stephen Harper gets elected. Then we can see our social system go down the shute fast.
Frank: sorry I haven’t been around the Ottawa scene much these days! I’m still disappointed to hear that you’ve given up your trilobite hunting days.
Indeed, I quite enjoy life in Sweden. However, I’ve been pretty slow learning the language! By and large, I agree that Swedes and Canadians have a lot in common. That is until Stephen Harper gets elected. Then we can see our social system go down the shute fast.
Frank: sorry I haven’t been around the Ottawa scene much these days! I’m still disappointed to hear that you’ve given up your trilobite hunting days.
“However, I’ve been pretty slow learning the language!”
May I suggest less beer and more girls? ;-)
Frankly, swedish is an awful language to learn as an adult english and/or french speaker – quite irregular, germanic in its roots, and with a few strange sounds. While swedes cheat by learning english from third grade, by prefering texted film translations instead of dubbing, by prefering us-canadian movies before native ones and by using many english textbooks in universities. I can’t imagine why someone would like to learn swedish later on… oh, I forgot, the girls. :-)