But not, says a press release, for the usual reasons. Over my muesli this morning I read an item in the Herald (sorry, the link’s to the identical item in a UK paper cos the Herald website doesn’t carry it) saying that a group of scientists had ‘disproved the theory’ that competition for pollinators led to the […]
Continue readingMonth: March 2009
a field guide to logical fallacies
A while ago now I wrote something on common logical fallacies. I’ve just come across an e-book that talks about this area in rather more detail than I did. If you’re interested, you can read the digital version of Humbug on-line, & it’s also available to download. (And thanks to the Millenium Project for the heads-up.)
Continue readinghow to read between the lines
Recently the journalist Amanda Gefter wrote an article for New Scientist on how to recognise ‘science’ books with a hidden (anti-evolutionary) agenda. While that’s still available in the print version, the journal has now removed the on-line version – apparently, due to a complaint or complaints from readers. This strikes me as more than a […]
Continue readingfish evolution under our own noses
My colleague Brendan Hicks heads a research team that, among other things, has been looking at the evolution of some of New Zealand’s freshwater fishes. A number of these fish species belong to the bully family – & it seems that they arrived here relatively recently (in terms of the geological timescale, that is!). Using […]
Continue readingmore on sodium chlorite – the ‘miracle mineral supplement’
After reading & commenting on that letter, which attributed health benefits to sodium chlorite, I found my interest had been piqued. Just what has been claimed for this chemical? So I went looking…
Continue readingapplying evolutionary theory in the lab
From time to time, someone will make the comment that evolution is totally irrelevant to everyday life in general, & to medicine in particular. Today ERV’s got a post detailing just how evolutionary theory has been & is being applied by medical researchers working on development of an HIV vaccine. Great stuff!
Continue readingincoming woo – ‘stabilised liquid oxygen’ & other nonsense
A letter in our local free newspaper caught my eye tonight. Along with the rather outrageous statement that medical pharmaceuticals are ‘just toxic pills and potions’ pushed as medicines by marketing types (sorry, what? Does this person really think that drug companies & doctors are out to poison people?), there were some other interesting claims […]
Continue readinga hearing chair – retraining the senses
Reading Simon Ing’s book, The eye, I was intrigued to hear about the possibility of learning to ‘see’ through the skin on your back. It involved a ‘vest’ bearing a set of rods with little actuators, controlled by a camera & computer. An image from the camera was converted into a fairly low-res image in the […]
Continue readingelephantine evolutionary history
A couple of posts ago I linked to a post by PZ on the fact that it’s populations that evolve, not individuals. Now he’s written an extended article that starts there – & morphs into a lovely piece on the evolutionary history of elephants. Complete with great illustrations of their phylogenies. Superb stuff. PS to […]
Continue readingpopulations vs individuals
One of the things I expect my students to understand, when we’re talking about evolution, is that populations evolve, & not individuals. PZ has said it rather well: Populations evolve, not individuals, and male and female elephants evolved from populations of pre-elephants that contained males and females. Species do not arise from single new mutant males that […]
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