Liberals, Atheists Are More Highly Evolved?
Smarter people are more inclined to nontraditional values, a study suggests, reported by National Geographic:
Your apelike ancestors probably aren’t top of mind when you enter the polling booth. But a new study suggests that human evolution may have a big influence on whether you’re liberal or conservative—not to mention how smart you are, whether you believe in God, or whether you’ve got a cheatin’ heart.
It’s all linked to the evolution of intelligence, says author Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Kanazawa’s theory is that intelligence—particularly our ability for on-the-spot problem solving and reasoning—arose as an adaptation to deal with the unusual and unexpected, such as a sudden forest fire.
Since disasters like that are rare in daily life, responding to them wouldn’t likely be…
Critics Of Man-Made Global Warming And Evolution Theories Join Forces
The anti-establishment science movement is truly gathering momentum in the United States, making the front page of the New York Times today:
Critics of the teaching of evolution in the nation’s classrooms are gaining ground in some states by linking the issue to global warming, arguing that dissenting views on both scientific subjects should be taught in public schools.
In Kentucky, a bill recently introduced in the Legislature would encourage teachers to discuss “the advantages and disadvantages of scientific theories,” including “evolution, the origins of life, global warming and human cloning.”
The bill, which has yet to be voted on, is patterned on even more aggressive efforts in other states to fuse such issues. In Louisiana, a law passed in 2008 says the state board of education may assist teachers in promoting “critical thinking”…
A Third Of Texans Say Dinosaurs And Humans Coexisted
Does a third of the population believe that “The Flinstones was a documentary”? In a poll, one out of three Texans say that humans and dinosaurs lived together at one point. Oh, and, the majority say that humanity did not develop from an earlier species. The Texas Tribune reports:
Nearly a third of Texans believe humans and dinosaurs roamed the earth at the same time, and more than half disagree with the theory that humans developed from earlier species of animals, according to the University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll.
[Professor David] Prindle recall[s] a line from comedian Lewis Black. “He did a routine a few years back in which he said that a significant proportion of the American people think that the ‘The Flintstones’ is a documentary,” Prindle says. “Turns out he was right.”
…
Obesity? Big Feet? Blame Darwin
From the Wall Street Journal:
Evolution, the theory goes, guarantees survival to the fittest. But we can blame evolution for some of today’s most pressing health problems, such as cancer, obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
A 2009 Gallup poll found that 44% of Americans believe that God created human beings in their present form within the past 10,000 years. Many of them also think the human body is perfectly designed.
But most scientists—including biologists, anthropologists, paleontologists and geneticists—see the 21st century human body as a collection of compromises, jury-rigged by evolution as our ancestors adapted to changing conditions.
“In many ways, we are maladapted for modernity,” says Stephen Stearns, a Yale evolutionary biologist. He and others in the field are urging medical schools to include more evolutionary thinking when teaching doctors about modern diseases.
For…
An Archaeological Dig in Turkey is Reshaping Human History
Patrick Symmes writes on Newsweek:
A temple complex in Turkey that predates even the pyramids is rewriting the story of human evolution.
They call it potbelly hill, after the soft, round contour of this final lookout in southeastern Turkey. To the north are forested mountains. East of the hill lies the biblical plain of Harran, and to the south is the Syrian border, visible 20 miles away, pointing toward the ancient lands of Mesopotamia and the Fertile Crescent, the region that gave rise to human civilization. And under our feet, according to archeologist Klaus Schmidt, are the stones that mark the spot — the exact spot — where humans began that ascent.
Charles Darwin On The Ouija Channel
by Robert David Singer
[Note: If you are not up-to-date with the debate over Evolution, Creationism and Intelligent Design, you will want to read the Preface Notes first, identified by a [p] at the beginning of the sentence. Preface Notes will separate fact from fiction and rumor from humor in my prima facie case for Intelligent Design.]
[p1] Professor Richard Dawkins, one of the greatest living “experts” on blind Watchmakers and selfish gene-centric Evolution got out his Ouija Board to channel the spirit of Charles Darwin, author of The Origin of Species and the father of Naturalism and Atheism.
Contacting Darwin was considered of a dangerous and controversial nature because if his current residence is Hell then a whole lot of evolutionary biologists will be out of work.
[p2] Dawkins and company agreed it…
Humans Were Once an Endangered Species
Lin Edwards writes on PhysOrg:
Scientists from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City in the U.S. have calculated that 1.2 million years ago, at a time when our ancestors were spreading through Africa, Europe and Asia, there were probably only around 18,500 individuals capable of breeding (and no more than 26,000). This made them an endangered species with a smaller population than today’s species such as gorillas (approximately 25,000 breeding individuals) and chimpanzees (an estimated 21,000). They remained an endangered species for around one million years.
Modern humans are known to have less genetic variation than other living primates, even though our current population is many orders of magnitude greater. Researchers studying specific genetic lineages have proposed a number of explanations for this, such as recent “bottlenecks”, which are events…
What Happened to Our Larger-Brained Hominid Ancestors?
Gary Lynch and Richard Granger write on Discover:
The following text is an excerpt from the book Big Brain by Gary Lynch and Richard Granger, and it represents their own theory about the Boskops. The theory is a controversial one; see, for instance, paleoanthropologist John Hawks’ much different take.
In the autumn of 1913, two farmers were arguing about hominid skull fragments they had uncovered while digging a drainage ditch. The location was Boskop, a small town about 200 miles inland from the east coast of South Africa.
These Afrikaner farmers, to their lasting credit, had the presence of mind to notice that there was something distinctly odd about the bones. They brought the find to Frederick W. FitzSimons, director of the Port Elizabeth Museum, in a small town at the tip of South Africa.…
40-Million-Year-Old Virus Found In Human Genome
Reported on AFP via Yahoo News:
Humans carry in their genome the relics of an animal virus that infected their forerunners at least 40 million years ago, according to research published by the British science journal Nature.The invader is called bornavirus, a brain-infecting pathogen that was first identified in 1970s. Scientists led by Keizo Tomonaga of Japan’s Osaka University compared the DNA of a range of mammals, including humans, apes, elephants, marsupials and rodents, to look for tell-tale signatures of bornavirus code.
In the human genome, the team found several bornavirus fragments but also in the form of two genes that may be functional, although what they do is unclear. Until now, the only viruses known to have been handed on in vertebrates were retroviruses, which work by hijacking cellular machinery in…
Bank Robbers Who Blew Themselves Up Top Darwin Awards
Via the Courier-Mail:
TWO bank robbers who blew themselves up trying to make a sizable withdrawal from an ATM have been declared the 2009 winners of the Darwin Awards.
Organisers say the annual “prize” is given to “those doing the most to improve the human gene pool … by removing themselves from it”.
This year the dubious first place went to the pair of bungling thieves in Belgium who wildly overestimated the amount of dynamite they needed to rob a bank.
They both were killed when the blast demolished the entire building the ATM was housed in.
Police only found the body of the second robber some twelve hours after digging through the debris. They had initially assumed he had made a getaway.
Read More on the Courier-Mail
California Science Center Sued Over Documentary Attacking Evolution
In the Los Angeles Times:
It may not have the dramatic sweep of “Inherit the Wind,” but a local court case involving a documentary film that addresses the origins of life on Earth has bigwigs in the museum world talking.
The California Science Center, located in Los Angeles’ Exposition Park, has been sued for allegedly canceling an October screening of a documentary that criticizes Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.
A group called the American Freedom Alliance has sued the L.A. museum, claiming that the center violated both the 1st Amendment and a contract to rent the museum’s Imax theater when it nixed the screening of “Darwin’s Dilemma: The Mystery of the Cambrian Fossil Record.”
The AFA, which sued the museum in L.A. Superior Court, is seeking punitive damages and compensation for financial losses,…
Howard Bloom: Buckle Up for Catastrophe
Howard Bloom writes on Scientific Blogging:
Climate change will happen with or without carbon sequestration and green technology — much as green technology and green energy are necessities. How do we know? There have been 60 ice ages in the two million years during which we’ve climbed from Homo erectus to our current peak as Homo industrialus. And there have been 20 sudden global warmings in the 120,000 years since we emerged from our pre-human state to our current physical form as fully modern humans, Homo sapiens.
The 12,000 year stretch from the end of the Ice Age to today has been an abnormally long period of climate stability. We are long overdue for a major climate flip. And frankly, we do not know whether that flip will be a rapid warming or…
The Evolution of Richard Dawkins, the Rock Star of Neo-Atheism
David Gibson writes on Politics Daily:
Is Richard Dawkins getting soft? It’s hard to believe that the leading exponent of a brash new school of pugnacious atheism would somehow, miraculously, transform into the soul of charity. But consider the evidence:
Dawkins says, for one thing, that he is tired of rehashing the forceful — many would say withering — arguments against religion he made in his bestselling book, The God Delusion, and he objects to his frequent portrayal as a gratuitous provocateur.
“I’m not really that at all,” he told me during a recent stopover in New York to promote his latest book, The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution. Dawkins almost sounds hurt by the criticism. “That’s propaganda made up by religious opponents, I’m afraid. They love this word ’strident.’…
Consciousness and the Direction of Structure
This article was written by Tony Wright for Brainwaving and is reposted here by Mr. Wright.
The molecular origins of our species wide insanity
The fundamental causality of our self inflicted suffering
Solving the mystery of human evolution using Darwin’s basic theory required no more than a simple reinterpretation of existing data and the application of basic biological principles. The same approach simultaneously resolves several other major enigmas in disciplines rarely considered within the same context. By following in the footsteps of William of Ockham, the path of least resistance leads to a simple, coherent and elegant explanation for our unique physiological traits and sheds light on the state of our mind.
Your ability to read and understand this article, your perception, state of mind and sense of self is directly related to the co-ordinated…
The Evolutionary Cost of Being Extremely Sexy
Annalee Newitz writes on io9.com:
It’s a classic tale of how mediocrity is maintained. Evolutionary biologists in California have discovered that when males shower attractive females with attention, it actually undermines those females’ fitness as mothers. That means fit females don’t pass their genes on.
Today PLoS Biology published a study of fruit flies, a species where the male flies show a marked preference for mating with larger females because they are more fecund. The problem is that the males show such aggressive preferences that they basically badger the females constantly to mate. What this means is that the females are so harried that they have less time to search for food, which degrades their health. Also, among fruit flies, the mating process is itself damaging to the health of the females — fruit fly sperm is toxic.
As a result, the most-desired females become far less capable of generating healthy offspring. And the smaller, less fit females wind up bearing as many offspring as the fitter ones. In the end, the males’ aggressive mating with the fittest females ends up preventing their species from evolving into a much fitter group…
Evolution of the God Gene
Nicholas Wade reports in the New York Times:
In the Oaxaca Valley of Mexico, the archaeologists Joyce Marcus and Kent Flannery have gained a remarkable insight into the origin of religion.
During 15 years of excavation they have uncovered not some monumental temple but evidence of a critical transition in religious behavior. The record begins with a simple dancing floor, the arena for the communal religious dances held by hunter-gatherers in about 7,000 B.C. It moves to the ancestor-cult shrines that appeared after the beginning of corn-based agriculture around 1,500 B.C., and ends in A.D. 30 with the sophisticated, astronomically oriented temples of an early archaic state.
This and other research is pointing to a new perspective on religion, one that seeks to explain why religious behavior has occurred in societies at every…
Birth of New Species Witnessed by Scientists
Brandon Keim reports in Wired:
On one of the Galapagos islands whose finches shaped the theories of a young Charles Darwin, biologists have witnessed that elusive moment when a single species splits in two.
In many ways, the split followed predictable patterns, requiring a hybrid newcomer who’d already taken baby steps down a new evolutionary path. But playing an unexpected part was chance, and the newcomer singing his own special song.
This miniature evolutionary saga is described in a paper published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It’s authored by Peter and Rosemary Grant, a husband-and-wife team who have spent much of the last 36 years studying a group of bird species known collectively as Darwin’s finches.
The finches — or, technically, tanagers — have adapted to the conditions of…
Richard Dawkins: The Greatest Show on Earth (Video)
Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion created a storm of controversy over the question of God’s existence. Now, in The Greatest Show on Earth, Dawkins presents a stunning counterattack against advocates of “Intelligent Design” that explains the evidence for evolution while keeping an eye trained on the absurdities of the creationist argument.
More than an argument of his own, it’s a thrilling tour into our distant past and into the interstices of life on earth. Taking us through the case for evolution step-by-step, Dawkins looks at DNA, selective breeding, anatomical similarities, molecular family trees, geography, time, fossils, vestiges and imperfections, human evolution, and the formula for a strong scientific theory.
Dawkins’ trademark wit and ferocity is joined by an infectious passion for the beauty and strangeness of the natural world, proving along the way that the mechanisms of the natural world are more miraculous — a “greater show” — than any creation story generated by any religion on earth.
Will E.T. Look Like Us?
Michael Shermer asks an imponderable question in Scientific American Magazine:
What are the odds that intelligent, technically advanced aliens would look anything like the ones in films, with an emaciated torso and limbs, spindly fingers and a bulbous, bald head with large, almond-shaped eyes? What are the odds that they would even be humanoid? In a YouTube video, produced by Josh Timonen of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, I argue that the chances are close to zero:
Richard Dawkins himself made this interesting observation in a private communication after viewing it:
I would agree with [Shermer] in betting against aliens being bipedal primates, and I think the point is worth making, but I think he greatly overestimates the odds against…
