I’ve just remembered (well, Ken reminded me) that today’s the Earth’s birthday. According, that is, to the chronology proposed by Archbishop James Ussher, way back in 1650. So, Happy Birthday, Earth! Back in 2005 we celebrated this happy event with a Cafe Scientifque – we had a cake & everything. Of course, we also talked about […]
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thinking carefully about the question
We spend quite a bit of time on critical thinking during the Schol preparation days. This is because of the need – identified by the examiner’s report every year – for candidates to think critically about both the question (just what is the examiner asking me to do?) and their response to it (what, of all […]
Continue readingtalking about ‘the controversy’ in the classroom
I spent this morning over at the School of Education, talking with trainee secondary teachers and their lecturer about the curriculum & achievement standards & teaching evolution. Over lunch a couple of the staff continued with this, talking particularly about the fact that, whether we like it or not, the issue of evolution is seen […]
Continue readingare humans evolving faster? a counter to steve jones
A little while back I put up a brief post about Steve Jones’ hypothesis that human evolution is slowing. At the time this proposal was on the receiving end of a fair bit of critical discussion on various science blogs. Now here’s an article by Benjamin Phelan, in Seed magazine, that suggests that the reverse is true […]
Continue readinghow to argue against a scientific theory…
… and also, how not to. This is an excellent essay by the Sensuous Curmudgeon. I’ll list his key points here, but you really should go over and read the whole thing.
Continue readingwells’ 9th question
Almost at the end of Wells’ list we come to ourselves: Q: HUMAN ORIGINS. Why are artists’ drawings of ape-like humans used to justify materialistic claims that we are just animals and our existence is a mere accident — when fossil experts cannot even agree on who our supposed ancestors were or what they looked […]
Continue readingpseudoscience? bad science, anyway
Here’s an interesting little press release, about a study that purports to show that women find the sound of fast cars (&, by extension, the men driving them) very exciting! Gosh, that’ll push up the sales of luxury cars… (And thanks to Orac, where I originally saw the story.) But does this study really show what’s […]
Continue readingthe ambiguity of pseudogenes
I said the other day that there’s always something new to learn, & I love that my job gives me lots of opportunities to do this. Here’s a case in point. In my second-year paper on evolution, I talk a little bit about pseudogenes. I’m not actually a geneticist & so for this part of […]
Continue readingthe 8th ‘question’ on wells’ little list
Q: MUTANT FRUIT FLIES. Why do textbooks use fruit flies with an extra pair of wings as evidence that DNA mutations can supply raw materials for evolution — even though the extra wings have no muscles and these disabled mutants cannot survive outside the laboratory? I don’t know that a lot of textbooks actually do […]
Continue readingcreationism – misconception or worldview?
My brother sent me an e-mail yesterday, saying "This should wind you up…" with a link to an article in the UK’s Guardian newspaper. He was right, it wound me up all right.
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