PZ has been live-blogging the new “Evolve” series on the History Channel since it began a few weeks ago. This week’s episode is on the evolution of jaws, and should be a good one. Alas, none of the Minions will be able to live-blog the program, but I will post an ‘Evolve’ open thread in time for the East Coast airing at 10 PM Tuesday night, in case anyone is interested in commenting as they watch.
Danio, for the collective.
Suppose it’s MAJeff, since there is no name?
Sounds a bit heavy on the gnashing teeth of large-jawed animals.
It’s something to look forward to, though. I do hope they do better in following the evidence, especially since there is a great deal of fossil evidence of jaw evolution.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
A whole science show on this guy?
Is this episode directed by Spielberg?
I hope it doesn’t have that fingernails across the blackboard bit.
-jcr
What are the odds of this series being put out on DVD?
You know who had big jaws? T. rex.
@ Benji: Danio signed.
…for the collective.
“For the hive!” “Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.” How’s that for herding cats?
#4 You’re gonna need a bigger boat….
As “evolution” (aka random genetic changes culled by selection) never happens I wonder what they’re going to talk about.
They’ll talk about all of the evidences of evolution that the DesignerTM built into all of its creations.
See, we know that evolution never happens (only a conspiracy makes us say that it does), but we do know one thing: the Designer revealed in genes, fossils, etc., how it would have happened, if it had happened.
We’re proclaiming the word of the Designer, while stan and his ilk deny the story written into life by the self-same entity.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
OT — what a shameless piece of shit:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/08/11/bush.endangered.species.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
Is it November yet?
Gee stan how enlightening. I hope they talk about puppies and lollypops instead then.
I assume they’ll at least mention the exaptation of the quadrate and articular jaw bones for use as the malleus and incus in the middle ear.
The old-style creationists (an extinct lineage, distinguished from the modern version by their honesty) celebrated the natural world. They saw their creator revealed in his creation.
You got yourself a problem stan. There is the universe, which you think your creator made, and there is this little book here, which you think your creator wrote. The one contradicts the other, so either your creator did not make the one or write the other, or it has lied to you.
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
Open your eyes stan, and look at something other than your navel, for once.
Yeah I’ll never understand how creationists think a god-made universe is somehow more profound that the universe as it really is. Early tomorrow morning when I’m watching the Perseid meteors, I won’t limit my thinking to “how does God do that?” Instead, I’ll be thinking “wow what else is out there?” and “gosh imagine what it must be like to be up there amongst them”. Creationists are so simple-minded with their thinking of “God makes me pretty things.” It contributes nothing to humanity.
It brings to mind a recent trip to Carlsbad Caverns. I overheard a little kid ask his mom how the cave was made. She replied “God made it this way”. I thought, “poor kid, luckily one day he’ll learn and appreciate the true scope and magnitude of the natural world.”
Off-topic, but probably of interest to many people here: Jeff Medkeff’s last request.
According to the History Channel site, it’s being released on DVD in November…
never happens
I’m sure that will come as a great comfort to all the people who aren’t actually suffering from antibiotic-resistant infections. I guess they’re imagining it.
-jcr
i forget, are whales dogs or hippos inda oceans???
am i the only one that thinks their t-rex CGI is woefully inadequate? it doesn’t even look anything like a t-rex, looks like a cartoon.
i mean, they’re showing you a real skull in one shot, talking about how they continually evolved widers jaws and a narrowers snout to aid with binocular vision… and the next shot is of their CGI dinosaur with a block for a head that couldn’t see past its eyebrows.
As an aside, some good news on the legal front: The campaign to force the University of California to accept nonsense as accredited courses has ended with the judge throwing the case out: http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/08/08/news/californian/murrieta/za3f1fe48ff6b8872882574a0000ff96d.txt
I need me some PZ!
This is EXTREMELY off-topic but must be seen.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290251369136&ih=019&category=1469&_trksid=p3286.m7&_trkparms=algo
Click that now. NOW. This is incredible. There are zero bids, which I find surprising.
is it true that Ann Coulter was considered for inclusion in this episode but was rejected on the grounds that although she has a big mouth, there’s nothing behind it?
She’ll be on the episode that discusses the evolution of loud-mouthed, ignorant, bigoted hysteria. Along with Limbaugh and O’Rielly she’ll be shown as a current example, with Helms, Thurmond and others as transitional fossils.
The 2nd episode of the Genius of Charles Darwin was due to be shown on Channel 4 last night.
Does anyone have a link to a torrent of it?
If you saw it, how was it?
Stan can’t see the natural world because he has his head up his ass.
That said, I find it difficult to talk science as I don’t have much of a science background. I think the last science class I did okay in was Biology in high school. I remember dissecting a frog, a worm, and a fish. The frog was the worst as we had to mount the skeleton after the dissection. I remember ruining my by using too much bleach.
Anyhow, I do appreciate science. I don’t go a week without thinking about something scientific that affects my life. I was thinking the other night on the way home about how we need to replace fossil fuels (especially gas) with other methods of energy before these fuels run out.
The thing that led me to this website was an interest in the creation/evolution conflict. (Note: I didn’t use the word controversy as I now know there is only a manufactured controversy.) What led me to this was my “born again” sister came home for a visit and told me that the earth was ONLY 6,000 years old. I didn’t tell her I thought she was crazy to think this.
So, when Expelled came out I was checking out reviews which indirectly led me to PZ’s website.
I say GO SCIENCE! Screw IDiots.
I am all for protecting the INTEGRITY of science in our schools.
Stan can’t see the natural world because he has his head up his ass.
That would tend to make it difficult for his eyes to jump out of his head and go meet visual stimuli.
I don’t have a torrent for part 2 of Dawkins’ Genius of Darwin programme I’m afraid. If you’re in the UK Channel 4 On Demand are streaming it, and I expect it will make it onto YouTube like part one has.
I thought it was very good. Better than the first part, Dawkins visits the Narakotomi boy in his wooden box, and explains why there are still chimps to an African Bishop who doesn’t like the idea of evolution. He takes about 5 minutes out of the middle of the programme to demolish Expelled‘s conflation of Social Darwinism with evolution, whizzes through sexual selection and spends about a third of the programme discussing altruism.
I thought it was much better than the first episode, which really should have spent more time promoting the evidence. We could have had a programme each devoted to kin selection and reciprocal altruism, but the only people likely to produce that programme are the Open University.
Next week we get creationists (and the IDers), and an exploration of Darwin’s own doubts.
Torrent of part 2 of Genius of Darwin is up on Youtube now. Search for username CrucieFiction
Dave Godfrey, thanks for the review; sounds delicious.
And ellindsey, thanks for the link.
Now off to enjoy that epicurean mind-meal.