The Civic Platform - A Political Journal of Ideas and Analysis

16% of US science teachers are crackpot creationists

16% of US science teachers are creationists
Continue reading 16% of US science teachers are crackpot creationists…

Were Neanderthals a sub-species of erectus?

Friday, November 30, 2007
Convergent evolution?
In an earlier post, I discussed how mtDNA evidence now shows that the Neanderthals ranged at least as far east as Lake Baikal. This finding is significant because there no longer seems to have been any geographical or ecological barrier to Neanderthal occupation throughout non-tropical Eurasia.
Continue reading Were Neanderthals a sub-species of erectus?…

Darwin and deduction

One of the most remarkable but insufficiently noted features of Charles Darwin’s conception of evolution is that its logical implications are still being worked out. I am not merely claiming that experimental and observation studies continue to make use of and bear on Darwinian ideas and principles. I am calling attention to the fact that after almost a century and a half, new deductions are still being teased out of his very fertile axioms of descent with modification and natural selection.

Does your brain have a mind of its own?

How many times has this happened to you? You leave work, decide that you need to get groceries on the way home, take a cellphone call and forget all about your plan. Next thing you know, you’ve driven home and forgotten all about the groceries.

Ape Genius reveals depth of animal intelligence

Chimpanzees in Senegal make and sharpen spears with their teeth to go hunting. Like our own ancestors they have learned to use tools to kill their quarry more effectively.

Understanding “fitness”

Ultimately, the single yardstick is survival and reproduction: does this trait help its bearer to survive and have children? If this is to be our yardstick, we must conclude that some people are ‘superior’ even though their behavior is widely deemed to be inferior, if not pathological. As anthropologist Henry Harpending points out:

Evolution is a double-edged sword. What evolution cares about is that I have more offspring. If you can do it by charming and manipulating, and I’m a hardworking farmer that’s going to feed the kids [of the charmer-and- manipulator] ten years down the road, then you’re going to win. Hit-and-run, irresponsible males are reproducing more. That isn’t good for anyone except those males, but that’s evolution. (Keim, 2007).

Neanderthals were separate species, says new human family tree

A new, simplified family tree of humanity, published on Sunday, has dealt a blow to those who contend that the enigmatic hominids known as Neanderthals intermingled with our forebears.

Hominin life history: reconstruction and evolution.

Note that the Eurasians are closer to modern humans.
Continue reading Hominin life history: reconstruction and evolution….

Human line ‘nearly split in two’

Ancient humans started down the path of evolving into two separate species before merging back into a single population, a genetic study suggests.

The Origin of Bipedalism: hypotheses

Except for the reference to monogamy, this is one of the better hypotheses for the origin of bipedalism. The citations are rather dated, however.
Continue reading The Origin of Bipedalism: hypotheses…

Evolution: 24 myths and misconceptions

It will soon be 200 years since the birth of Charles Darwin and 150 years since the publication of On the Origin of Species, arguably the most important book ever written. In it, Darwin outlined an idea that many still find shocking – that all life on Earth, including human life, evolved through natural selection.

Slowly-developing primates definitely not dim-witted

Some primates have evolved big brains because their extra brainpower helps them live and reproduce longer, an advantage that outweighs the demands of extra years of growth and development they spend reaching adulthood, anthropologists from Duke University and the University of Zurich have concluded in a new study.

Neanderthals speak out after 30,000 years

The image of the Neandertal reconstuction portrays a VERY fair-skinned boy!

ARE HUMAN BRAINS UNIQUE?

Scientists compared the genetic sequences of ethnically and geographically diverse people from around the world and found that the genes which code for the nervous systems, had some sequence differences (known as polymorphisms) among individuals. By analyzing human and chimpanzee polymorphism patterns, genetic probabilities and various other genetic tools, and geographical distributions, they found evidence that some of these genes are experiencing ongoing positive selection in humans. They calculated that one genetic variant of microcephalin arose approximately 37,000 years ago, which coincides with the emergence of culturally modern humans, and it increased in frequency too rapidly to be compatible with random genetic drift or population migration. This suggests that it underwent positive selection.[xxi] An ASPM variant arose about 5800 years ago, coincident with the spread of agriculture, cities and the first record of written language. It too is found in such high frequencies in the population, that it indicates strong positive selection.[xxii]

Earliest Step In Human Development Revealed By Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research

ScienceDaily (Apr. 11, 2008) — Researchers at Johns Hopkins have uncovered the molecular underpinnings of one of the earliest steps in human development using human embryonic stem cells. Their identification of a critical signal mediated by the protein BMP-4 that drives the differentiation of stem cells into what will become the placenta, will be published in the April issue of Cell Stem Cell.

Darwin on My Mind

“When enough people share a delusion, it loses its status as a psychosis and gets a religious tax exemption instead.” Ronald De Sousa on how we think…

And the first animal on Earth was a…

Pre-Darwinian ‘trees of life’, such as Lamarck’s tree, were not called ‘trees of life’. Indeed, Lamarck’s branched down from the top rather than up from the bottom as Darwin’s. But to say that Darwin introduced the tree of life is entirely false unless one is referring only to the nomenclature associated with the branching hierarchy of the evolution of species.

Darwinian Evolution on a Chip

Computer control of Darwinian evolution has been demonstrated by propagating a population of RNA enzymes in a microfluidic device. The RNA population was challenged to catalyze the ligation of an oligonucleotide substrate under conditions of progressively lower substrate concentrations. A microchip-based serial dilution circuit automated an exponential growth phase followed by a 10-fold dilution, which was repeated for 500 log-growth iterations. Evolution was observed in real time as the population adapted and achieved progressively faster growth rates over time. The final evolved enzyme contained a set of 11 mutations that conferred a 90-fold improvement in substrate utilization, coinciding with the applied selective pressure. This system reduces evolution to a microfluidic algorithm, allowing the experimenter to observe and manipulate adaptation.

Scientists find a fingerprint of evolution across the human genome

The Human Genome Project revealed that only a small fraction of the 3 billion “letter” DNA code actually instructs cells to manufacture proteins, the workhorses of most life processes. This has raised the question of what the remaining part of the human genome does. How much of the rest performs other biological functions, and how much is merely residue of prior genetic events?

Darwin on War

Darwin felt that “social instincts” such as “sympathy” and “moral sentiments” also evolved through natural selection, and that these resulted in the strengthening of societies in which they occurred, so much so that he wrote about it in Descent of Man: “..at some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world.”

Descent of Man, chapter 6 ISBN 1-57392-176- 9