One of the books I’m reading at the moment is about teaching evolution (NAS, 1998). I’ve come across an excellent and thought-provoking quote that I thought I’d share with you – for you to think about..
Continue readingTag: evolution
more forensic genetics – and the origins of multicellular animals
When I'm lecturing about animal diversity and the origins of the multicellular animals (aka metazoans), I point out the similarity between the single-celled protozoans called choanoflagellates and the choanocytes (or 'feeding cells') of sponges. The textbook interpretation is that choanoflagellates may have shared a common ancestor with metazoans, and there's an increasing amount of genetic […]
Continue readingpolio & evolution
I read quite a few science blogs & just stumbled across this excellent post about polio virus: the vaccines we use against it, the virus's evolutionary responses – oh heaps of stuff. And a chilling photo of a ward full of polio patients in iron lungs: in extreme cases the patients lost the ability to breathe […]
Continue readingcreationist argument #3: Darwin –> Hitler
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 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 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 readingdeifying Darwin? I think not
Yesterday one of the students in our 'Evolution' paper commented that those of us teaching the course were 'deifying' Darwin, which he felt was not a good thing. And if we were, it wouldn't be. To deify someone (or something) means to set them up as a god and worship them. And I can't think of […]
Continue readingIs evolution a random process?
Evolution is often characterised – particulary by those who argue against it – as a random process which could not possibly give rise to the complexity and diversity of life on Earth. How true is this?
Continue readingforensic genetics & an evolutionary puzzle
At the moment I'm lecturing to our first-year biology class about plants. In my lecture about algae, there were a couple of slides about malaria. You might well ask 'why'; I know my students were thinking that. Well, I did have a reason – & today I found a brief summary paper (Keeling, 2008) on just […]
Continue readingthe nature of science (again)
The new Science curriculum has the 'nature of science' right up there at the top. And why? Because it's so important for people to learn, not just science facts and concepts, but also about what science is: how it's done, the tools and methods scientists use, how they communicate, its history, & how science is […]
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