Posts Tagged ‘evidence’

“The origin of birds is a contentious and central topic within evolutionary biology” in the WIKIPEDIA opening line of the article entitled The Origin of Birds gives insight to the current state of the dinosaur-to-bird evolutionary debate.

Famous British evolutionist Richard Dawkins in Teaching about Evolution and the Nature of Science on the supporting side simply declares “Feathers are modified reptilian scales.” Continue reading

Since the publication of The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin in 1859, not only is the theory continually challenged by the evidence, confusion rages over the actual theory. The confusion extends into the classroom; the teaching evolution has been a verified failure.

These are my top 10 highlights in 2011 presented on Darwin, Then and Now during the year with links to the original article. Continue Reading

“If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ exists which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications,” Charles Darwin wrote in The Origin of Species, “my theory would absolutely break down”.

This week a team of scientists from Australia and Spain lead by John R. Paterson, a paleontologist at the University of New England in Australia, extended even further Darwin’s dilemma. Continue Reading

In a blaze of excitement in September of this year, a recent fossil discovery in South Africa was headlined one of the missing links in the evolutionary ancestry of humans.

National Public Radio (NPR) ran an article entitled “Examining Ancient Fossils for Clues to Human Origins”. The Wall Street Journal chimed in with “Fossil Trove Sheds Light on a Stage of Evolution”. The Boston Globe speculated with the title “Skeleton could be human relative”; TIME with “Rethinking Human Origins: Fossils Reveal a New Ancestor on the Family Tree”. New Scientist ran the article: South African fossils halfway between ape and human.

To name the fossil, a competition was launched in South Africa. Omphemetse Keepile, a 17-year-old student from St. Mary’s School in Johannesburg. Keepile’s winning entry was selected from more than 15,000 submissions in a naming competition sponsored by Standard Bank and Palaeontological Scientific (PAST) in association with Wits University and the Department of Science and Technology. The winning name was Karabo that means “answer” in Setswana.

Once the excitement started settling, questions started circling. Does the fossil evidence really point to Karabo as an ancestor to humans? Continue Reading

In The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin proposed that evolution proceeds by “slight, successive changes”. Although molecular biology was largely unknown by Darwin during the nineteenth century, “slight, successive” molecular changes have become a cornerstone in the study of biological evolution.

Since steroid hormones are known to perform sophisticated regulatory functions in microbes to man, the path of steroid evolution has entered center stage in the realm of investigative molecular biology.

Steroids hormones were first discovered in the mid-twentieth century by American chemist Edward Calvin Kendall while working at the Mayo Clinic. In 1950, Kendall and colleague Philip Hench, along with Swiss chemist Tadeus Reichstein were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for “their discoveries relating to the hormones of the adrenal cortex, their structure and biological effects.” Continue Reading

On the 2012 presidential campaign tour in New Hampshire, the current Republican front-runner, Texas Governor Rick Perry, set off a media firestorm  responding to a question from a boy as prompted by his mother about the age of the Earth and evolution.

“I hear your mom was asking about evolution,” Perry said. “That’s a theory that is out there — and it’s got some gaps in it.” Continue Reading

This past week at a New Hampshire campaign event, Rick Perry was asked about his views of evolution by a boy, ushered up to the front by his mother, “do you believe in evolution?”

“It’s a theory hat’s out there,” Perry replied. “It’s got some gaps in it. In Texas we teach both creationism and evolution.” Perry went on to explain: “I figure you’re smart enough to figure out which one is right.”

The Washington Post wasted no time to launch a panel debate hosted by Sally Quinn entitled “On  evolution, can religion evolve?” The infamous atheist from the UK, Richard Dawkins, quickly joined the debate noting “There is nothing unusual about Governor Rick Perry. Uneducated fools can be found in every country and every period of history, and they are not unknown in high office… Intellect, knowledge and linguistic mastery are mistrusted by Republican voters”. At stake is the challenge by non-evolutionist to of critical thinking in public schools. Continue Reading

After taxing on the runway for years, the fossil record flight is finally off the ground. Over the past 150 years, since the publication of The Origin of Species, paleontologists have passionately searched the planet, and beyond, for evidence in the fossil record to document the evolution life. The flight is now in the air with the all the fossil record evidence available to document the history of life on the Earth safe and secure in the plane’s cargo-hold.

Fossils provide the only relevant evidence validate the history of life on Earth. Nicholas J Butterfield, of Cambridge University explains –

Fossils provide the only direct record of ancient life.

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In The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin explains how “external resemblances [of moths]… has been gained for the sake of protection” giving the moth “a better chance of escaping destruction from predaceous birds”… “So that we have an excellent illustration of natural selection.”

Bernard Kettlewell in the early 1950’s was the first to design an experiment to test Darwin’s “excellent example of natural selection” in two types of wooded areas in England—polluted and nonpolluted. Kettlewood demonstrated light colored peppered moths survived better than darker colored moths in areas where the tree trucks were of lighter color, and conversely— darker colored moths survived better than lighter colored moths in areas where the tree trucks were of darker color.

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Leonid Moroz, professor of neuroscience, chemistry, and biology at the University of Florida College of Medicine, in a recent article published in The Scientist entitled “The Devolution of Evolution,” comments on Theodosius Dobzhansky assertion nearly 40 years ago that “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.”

If Dobzhansky’s assertion is true, “How is it, then”, Moroz asks, “that so few newly minted PhDs in the biological sciences have taken any formal graduate school courses in evolution or biodiversity?” Continue Reading