An Interesting Article on Evolution

[Augusto86]

Not an argument about it...a study on recent developments in human evolution.

Just a little more ammo against the creationists, too:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/sc...b7b&ei=5087%0A

 

[Matt]

im still hoping I live long enough to devolve into a Kansas school teacher

 

[redcaimen]

The article might have a strange appeal to Creationists. After all, most of them are factose intolerant.

 

[sonick]

Originally Posted by redcaimen

The article might have a strange appeal to Creationists. After all, most of them are factose intolerant.

That... was... horrible.

 

[briancl]

A good book (actually collection of essays) on the current state of evolution was compiled this year. It's called Intelligent Thought. It is surprisingly easy to read, considering the topic, and the book approaches the argument from many different angles (each essay is written by a different person in a different field). All of the authors are professors and published academics or somesuch, so they have some credibility.

I recommend it to anyone who actually wants to see whats developing today and understand a bit more than the generally accepted notions/myths of evolution including the common misconceptions or attacks used by Creationists.

 

[lawyerdad]

I just wanted to note with amusement the suggestion that being a "published academic" gives one inherent credibility, even if one is writing non-peer-reviewed essays in a subject area beyond one's expertise.

 

[redcaimen]

Originally Posted by sonick

That... was... horrible.

I know. And the lamer they are the better I like them. I am a deeply troubled man.

 

[Reggs]

I read that domesticated cats also mirrored their masters change in lactose tolerance over the years.

 

[sonick]

Originally Posted by Reggs

I read that domesticated cats also mirrored their masters change in lactose tolerance over the years.
Are you implying that we evolved from cats instead of monkeys?

 

[DNW]

Originally Posted by sonick

Are you implying that we evolved from cats instead of monkeys?

You have something against pussies?

 

[briancl]

Originally Posted by lawyerdad

I just wanted to note with amusement the suggestion that being a "published academic" gives one inherent credibility, even if one is writing non-peer-reviewed essays in a subject area beyond one's expertise.

Poor choice of words on my part.

The contributors are professors at distinguished universities (Stanford, U Chicago, Ivy's, etc) with a great deal of published work in the area they write on in this book. Not just some grad student who shopped his dissertation around to some journals. These are true scientists who specifically stand up for peer review and point out the lack thereof for the opposing side. They are not making scientific claims and breaking ground on new frontiers in evolution in this book, they merely describe their work (in their field) up to this point, all of which has indeed been peer reviewed. If you think this book casually dances around the scientific method, then you are horribly mistaken as the common thesis throughout each essay is how important the scientific method is, how no body of work can be called science without it, and specific examples are cited, explained, and ultimately refuted with regards to Intelligent Design's place in science education.

I am not trying to be overly defensive here, but I think the book is too well done and interesting to be so easily shot down by your post. FWIW, here are the credentials of the authors:

• Evolutionary Biologist; Professor, Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Chicago; Author (with H. Allen Orr), Speciation
  
• Physicist, Stanford University; Author, The Cosmic Landscape
  
• Philosopher; University Professor, Co-Director, Center for Cognitive Studies, Tufts University; Author, Breaking the Spell
  
• Psychologist, London School of Economics; Author, Seeing Red
  
• Paleontologist, and U.C. Berkeley Professor; Co-director, the Middle Awash project, the world's largest and most successful scientific research effort into human origins and evolution.
  
• Evolutionary Biologist, University of Chicago; Specialist in the evolutionary synthesis of expeditionary paleontology, developmental genetics, and genomics
  
• Evolutionary Biologist, Charles Simonyi Professor For The Understanding Of Science, Oxford University; Author, The Ancestor's Tale
  
• Evolutionary theorist; Author, Born to Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics, and Creative Lives
  
• Anthropologist, University of Michigan; Author, In Gods We Trust
  
• Physicist, Perimeter Institute; Author, Three Roads to Quantum Gravity
  
• Theoretical Biologist; Emeritus Professor of Biochemistry, University of Pennsylvania; Author, At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization
  
• Quantum Mechanical Engineer, MIT; author The Programmable Universe
  
• Physicist, Harvard University; Author, Warped Passages
  
• Psychologist and Biologist, Harvard University; Author, Wild Minds
  Chief Curator, Utah Museum of Natural History; Associate Professor Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Utah; Host, Dinosaur Planet TV series

 

[sonick]

Originally Posted by DarkNWorn

You have something against pussies?
You like it, the velvet blazer?