Seminal influences

Zeno mentions a children’s book series that had some impact on him: Danny Dunn! Oh, man, I remember reading through every Danny Dunn book my library had when I was in first and second grade—but the excerpt Zeno includes tells me I shouldn’t try revisiting them, ever, lest my disappointment in their quality become even greater.

Other books I remember well from those kiddie days were the reference books of Herbert S. Zim (which also inspire unfortunate memories now), and of course, the usual suspects: Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke. Come to think of it, last time I looked at those author’s work I wasn’t much impressed, either.

I think I shall never clickOn a poem as lovely as Tiktaalik

I saw it first at Virge’s place, but Mike Snider is also on the blogroll and I would have gotten to it eventually…but hey, if you’re a fan of fossil tetrapods and poetry, here’s a treat: a Tiktaalik sonnet. You can also view some drafts of its construction, which is developmentally interesting, I think, and not quite as messy as chopping up embryos.

I think my title reveals why I’ll leave the poesy to the pros.

Pig pile on Robert Bazell!

Bazell wrote an irritatingly obtuse commentary on Intelligent Design creationism, and I dawdled about expressing my dislike for it…but Tara and Orac and John Pieret and even non-scientific humorists (and I’m sure there are others I’ve missed) have all chimed in now, so you’d think I could just let it pass. But no! This is the blogosphere! We will all shout out our condemnations!

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mturner turns his molasses-thick wit on me

A reader who has been stymied by TypeKey (I wish I could fix that bug) informs me that mturner, one of the creationists at the ARN message board, thinks he has rebutted my post on whale limb evolution, claiming that Thewissen et al. have actually found evidence for Intelligent Design creationism. It’s fairly typical nonsense from the ARNies, but it’s so amusing I had to rebut his rebuttal.

ARN is a weird place. There are several patient, intelligent people working it to correct the babble that the flaming idiots who dominate the board put up. I am not that patient, so I can’t stomach the fools who frequent it, and mturner is one of the nastiest and dumbest of the lot. You can read his comments at ARN, or just go below the fold here—I’ve put the full text in this post.

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Jesus has an M16

Forget the Sermon on the Mount. Forget the Golden Rule. Turning the other cheek? That’s for sissies. Real Christians are militaristic thugs.

This is what happens when you build your beliefs on a foundation of nonsense, and refuse to examine it critically—you end up as willing prey to the next evil, bullying creep willing to lie to you.

No genes were lost in the making of this whale

i-ae96b1925d274fb6e2cec2bef0131fe7-cet_dolphin_tease.gif

I just learned (via John Lynch) about a paper on cetacean limbs that combines developmental biology and paleontology, and makes a lovely argument about the mechanisms behind the evolution of whale morphology. It is an analysis of the molecular determinants of limb formation in modern dolphins, coupled to a comparison of fossil whale limbs, and a reasonable inference about the pattern of change that was responsible for their evolution.

One important point I’d like to make is that even though what we see in the morphology is a pattern of loss—whale hindlimbs show a historical progression over tens of millions of years of steady loss, followed by a near-complete disappearance—the molecular story is very different. The main players in limb formation, the genes Sonic hedgehog (Shh), the Fgfs, and the transcription factor Hand2, are all still present and fully functional in these animals. What has happened, though, is that there have been novel changes to their regulation. Even loss of structures is a consequence of changes and additions to regulatory pathways.

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