Natural selection
At Phys.org: Mathematical model of animal growth shows life is defined by biology, not physics
Eric Holloway on Dawkins’s dubious weasel
Devolution in a flower is remarketed as “sudden evolutionary change”
The Galapagos finches as fractured icons of Darwinian evolution
Paper: “anatomical novelty precedes ecological success”
Everything is Coming Up “Non-Random”!
On January 12, 2022, Phys.Org had a PR on an article documenting “non-random” mutations found in wild tobacco plants, published by a team from UC Davis. Now, three weeks later (Feb 1, 2022), we have another paper, working with human populations in Africa, and which, according to a team from the University of Haifa, “surprisingly” turns up “non-random” mutations. From the PR on the first paper: The scientists found that the way DNA was wrapped around different types of proteins was a good predictor of whether a gene would mutate or not. “It means we can predict which genes are more likely to mutate than others and it gives us a good idea of what’s going on,” Weigel said. The Read More ›
Are humans changing evolution? Like tuskless elephants…
At Evolution News and Science Today: Why C. S. Lewis doubted the creative power of natural selection
New Video Presentation on YouTube: Intelligent Design & Scientific Conservatism
I have recently posted a new video on my Intelligent Design YouTube channel. In this video I discuss several areas in the philosophy of science and modern evolutionary biology, and their relationship to ID. These thoughts were prompted initially by an interesting paper by philosopher of science Jeffrey Koperski ‘Two Bad Ways to Attack Intelligent Design, and Two Good Ones’. Koperski thinks that one good way to critique ID is to point out that it violates principles like ‘scientific conservatism’. Because there are several potential naturalistic mechanisms on the table, even if orthodox neo-Darwinism fails, ID is an unnecessary proposal. To turn to design explanations would be to adjust our theories too drastically. I argue against this claim, concluding that Read More ›