Scientists in Berkeley and China have discovered what appears to be the fastest leap of evolution ever observed in humans.
The results were very different when they allowed horizontal gene transfer between different organisms. Now, with advantageous genetic innovations able to flow horizontally across the entire system the code readily discovered the overall optimal structure and came to be universal among all organisms. "In some sense," says Woese, "the genetic code is a fossil or perhaps an echo of the origin of life, just as the cosmic microwave background is a sort of echo of the big bang. And its form points to a process very different from today's Darwinian evolution."
I think we have to start thinking about the idea that humans in the last 30, 40, or 50,000 years have been domesticating ourselves.
Taylor's book is a superb account of recent advances in genetics which have refuted once and for all the belief that humans have hardly evolved since we parted company with the common ancestor of ourselves and modern chimpanzees.
T-shirts worn by members of the Smith-Cotton High School band have been recalled by the school district because they contained images of evolution.
In The Evolution of God, Robert Wright takes on fellow nonbelievers Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, and argues that religion may be nonsense—but it helps mankind.
By bridging aspects of intelligent design with evolution in a new approach they call “possibilism,” authors Diana Alstad and Joel Kramer probably haven’t solved the American culture wars. But they might have.
The never-ending attempt to reconcile science and religion, and why it is doomed to fail.
By using the tools of evolutionary theory and new approaches to mathematical modeling, researchers are drawing a clearer picture of how and why rumors spread. As they do, they are finding that far from being merely idle or malicious gossip, rumor is deeply entwined with our history as a species. It serves some basic social purposes and provides a valuable window on not just what people talk to each other about, but why.
Human evolution is grinding to a halt, according to a leading genetics expert.
Although humans and chimpanzees genetically vary by just 1.2 percent, that small percentage makes a world of difference in the mental and linguistic capabilities between the two species.
This is a video of animations of Darwin at Home creatures which result from survival of the fittest and random mutation. Narrative by Gerald de Jong the author of the software behind the project.
Epigenetics is the study of heritable traits that are not dependent on the primary sequence of DNA.
The mainstream approach to cognition holds that it happens in the mind and that material culture is nothing more than an outgrowth of our mental capacities. Archaeologist Lambros Malafouris is challenging this deep-seated idea with a radical new notion: the hypothesis of extended mind, which posits that material culture is not a reflection of the human mind but an actual part of it.
With biologist Richard Dawkins leading the way, many scientists today are locked in an unending match of whack-a-mole with Christian creationists, who insist that God created heaven, earth and humanity in its present form, and with disciples of intelligent design who want to expel evolution from its scientific prominence in public schools. If you've been following the battle, you might be inclined to believe that Americans are faced with a choice between believing in God and scientific fact.
God may work in mysterious ways, but a simple computer program may explain how religion evolved By distilling religious belief into a genetic predisposition to pass along unverifiable information, the program predicts that religion will flourish. However, religion only takes hold if non-believers help believers out perhaps because they are impressed by their devotion.
Many scientists have denied any evolutionary significance to human consciousness, dismissing it as illusory smoke dancing above the fire of real neurochemistry. But Donald sees in consciousness the very key to understanding how humankind developed. After assaulting (with great panache) the arguments commonly deployed to remove it from the research agenda, Donald presents a natural history for consciousness, focusing particularly on its astonishing and clearly unique complexity among human beings-- Why does the human brain so closely resemble those of other primates yet so dramatically outstrip them in capacity?
In this episode Ben Stein is taken to task over his inability to distinguish science from free speech. Stein claims that those who question evolution are discriminated against, whereas in reality this 'discrimination' is merely people getting held accountable for demonstrating their pathetic grasp of both the scientific method and scientific literature.
Biophony, Krause has theorized, is unique to each place; nowhere in nature sounds exactly like anywhere else. This idea has led him toward a controversial way of thinking that would broaden the scope of todays evolutionary biology. Many animals, he argues, have evolved to squeeze their vocalizations into available niches of the soundscape in order to be heard by others of their kind. Evolution isnt just about the competition for space or food but also for bandwidth. If a species cannot find a sonic niche of its own, it will not survive.
The first two minutes of Mike Judge's film, Idiocracy.
Rusting Occam's Razor -- A major flaw of Forbidden Archaeology is its quick leaps toward sensational hypotheses (see in general Williams 1991, 11-27). Sensational ideas are not intrinsically bad -- plate tectonics was pretty astonishing at one point (Williams 1991, 132), but also true. However, the cautious investigator hopes that less sensational, or simpler, hypotheses are first proposed and well tested before more complex or less likely explanations are considered. ...
If horses can alter their own brain chemistries at will (and have good reasons to do so), what about human beings? In On Deep History and the Brain, Daniel Lord Smail suggests that human history can be understood as a long, unbroken sequence of snorts and sighs and other self-modifications of our mental states. We want to alter our own moods and feelings, and the rise of man from hunter-gatherer and farmer to office worker and video-game adept is the story of the ever proliferating devices from coffee and tobacco to religious rites and romance novels weve acquired to do so
Building on diverse examples, Wilson demonstrates that evolution is completely relevant to modern human affairs, including how we use language, create culture and define morality.
God has always been a puzzle for Scott Atran. When he was 10 years old, he scrawled a plaintive message on the wall of his bedroom in Baltimore. God exists, he wrote in black and orange paint, or if he doesnt, were in trouble. Atran has been struggling with questions about religion ever since why he himself no longer believes in God and why so many other people, everywhere in the world, apparently do.
Today we live in a less barbaric age, but an otherwise comparable disjunction between science and religion still roils the public mind. Why does such intense and pervasive resistance to evolution continue 150 years after the publication of On The Origin of Species, and in the teeth of the overwhelming accumulated evidence favouring it? The answer is simply that the Darwinian revolution, even more than the Copernican revolution, challenges the prehistoric and still-regnant self-image of humanity. Evolution by natural selection, to be as concise as possible, has changed everything.
A study of how cooperation is a crucial component of evolution.
You may think, subconsciously, that you're choosing someone who will transmit 'good genes' to your kids, but just ask yourself how that perky little nose will look on your son or those rippling pecs on your daughter.
Excellent speech by Douglas Adams addressing evolution, the belief in God and other theories of life.
