This one has been getting a lot of air time in the US lately. Basically, what it says is that Darwin's theory of evolution (they tend to call it 'Darwinism') was used by Hitler to justify the Holocaust, and therefore evolution is evil and should be rejected. This particular argument has the usual logical flaws […]
Continue readingAlison’s Posts
orrorin tugenensis & the origins of bipedalism
Ever since its fossil remains were discovered, scientists have wondered about the place of Orrorin tugenensis and its place in our family tree. Was it bipedal? And where were its closest relatives? One controversial suggestion was that Orrorin was directly ancestral to our own genus – leaving the australopiths completely out in the cold.
Continue readingscientifique kiwis
Gosh, we had a good Cafe Scientifique this week. My friend & colleague, Dave Lambert, was there to talk about his latest project – sequencing the kiwi genome. (That's kiwi bird, not kiwi people.) And he wants to get you involved!
Continue readingfish oil & exam results
Last year I put up a couple of posts to do with suggestions that taking fish-oil capsules would enhance exam performance. You might be interested in this latest comment from Ben Goldacre on the issue, following the Durham 'trial' of fish-oil supplements in the UK.
Continue readingsome historical reading: darwin on human ‘races’
The other day one of my students came by my office to ask about his essay. He’d found a book that suggested that the human species was split into 3 races (black, white, & oriental, in case you’re wondering), & that these races differed in things like fecundity and birth rate. Should he include this […]
Continue readingbetter s*x from headless males…
On Monday night a newspaper article caught my eye – the reporter had picked up on a study suggesting that, if you’re a female praying mantis, eating your partner during sex can actually be quite beneficial…
Continue readinguse of colour by early sapiens
This one’s been sitting in my ‘good blogging material’ folder for a while now: time to have a look at it, I think.
Continue readingwhy the bioblog?
There’s been a discussion on various blogs about just what a science blog should be – why write one, & what should be in it? It followed the suggestion by one writer that if a blog didn’t deal exclusively with peer-reviewed research, then it wasn’t a science blog. Everyone else that I’ve read was pretty […]
Continue readingask a biologist
I've just found a really excellent site called "Ask a Biologist" – just the place if you can't get those burning biology questions answered anywhere else. (They won't do your homework for you, though!) There are some big names there behind the answers, & some great links – well worth a look.
Continue readingnon-random nature of natural selection: a comment
On that post on the non-random nature of natural selection, Keith says: "evolution cannot prepare them for some future change in that environment." Remind me how this applies/interacts with regards to preadaptations.
Continue reading