Posts Tagged ‘evolution’

“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

In The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin developed his revolutionary theory of “slight, successive” evolutionary changes. During the mid-nineteenth century, however, knowledge about genes and genetics was speculative at best, no less the evolution of genes.

In fact, Darwin abandoned the scientific method and declared that his theory of evolution was based on speculation –

I am quite conscious that my speculations run quite beyond the bounds of true science.

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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

Anders Behring Breivik, a Norwegian right-wing extremist, confessed to be the perpetrator of the dual terrorist attacks in Norway on 22 July 2011. The attach included the bombing of government buildings in Oslo, causing eight deaths, and a mass shooting at a camp of the Workers’ Youth League (AUF) of the Labour Party on the island of Utøya, where he killed 69 people. Others are still missing.

In his 1518-page “European Declaration of Independence,” Breivik reveals himself as a champion of modern biology and the scientific worldview, listing The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin as one of his most “important” books. (p. 1407)

“Social-darwinism was the norm before the 1950”, Breivik laments. “Back then, it was allowed to say what we feel. Now, however, we have to disguise our preferences to avoid the horrible consequences of being labeled as a genetical preferentialist.” (p. 1227) Continue reading

Charles Darwin never mentions hemoglobin even in the sixth and last edition of The Origin of Species in 1872, even though this oxygen-carrying protein hemoglobin was discovered much earlier by Friedrich Ludwig Hünefeld in 1840. Hünefeld explains: “I have occasionally seen in almost dried blood… rectangular crystalline structures which under the microscope had sharp edges and were bright red.”

In 1851, Otto Funke published a series of articles in which he described growing hemoglobin crystals by successively diluting red blood cells with a solvent such as pure water, alcohol, or ether, followed by slow evaporation of the solvent from the resulting protein solution. Hemoglobin’s reversible oxygenation was described a few years later by Felix Hoppe-Seyler. Continue Reading

Charles Darwin in The Origin of Species explains the role of natural selection in evolution: “I do believe that natural selection will generally act very slowly, only over long periods of time…. natural selection acts slowly by accumulating slight, successive, favorable variations.” The key to evolution is the accumulation of “slight, successive” changes.

In 1995, Edward B. Lewis, Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, and Eric F. Wieschaus were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work on HOX genes. During the 1950’s, geneticist Edward B Lewis discovered the Bithorax complex (BX-C) group of HOX genes in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. Continue Reading

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

Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin are similar up to the point of the great divide.

Although born nearly 200 years apart, Newton and Darwin were both Englishmen born into wealthy families, Newton was the son of a wealthy farmer, and Darwin was the son of a wealth physician.

Newton and Darwin were abandoned by their mother early in life: Newton’s mother went to live with her new husband at the age of three and Darwin’s mother died when he was just eight years old. Neither Newton nor Darwin gained respect from their fathers.

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For Charles Darwin, natural selection was the key natural law driving evolution, as reflected in the title, On the Origin of Species, by Means of Natural Selection. Natural selection was envisioned as the mechanism for the origin of species—evolution.

Darwin declared – “I do believe that natural selection will generally act very slowly, only over long periods of time…. natural selection acts slowly by accumulating slight, successive, favorable variations.” In essence, natural selection was simply founded on a belief.

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