Micro-evolutionary bursts of change

Of course, it was obvious that the Discovery Institute would get someone to blog about the responses that they’ve had to Casey Luskin’s recent posts about Haeckel’s embryos, but I never knew it would be such a vicious and personal attack against yours truly.

You see, Jonathan McLatchie has just posted a “response” to Nick Matzke and Matt Young, but my post about Haeckel and his embryos, which also responded to Casey, was not mentioned! I’m shocked and outraged. This is blatant discrimination. How dare they expel me from the discussion!

…

I’m not being entirely serious, come on, but it’s still telling that the Discovery Institute always chooses to go after the same targets (who, don’t get me wrong, make excellent points against what they have to say – The Panda’s Thumb is great) again and again. My guess is they do it so that they can build up an easy “us vs them” mentality, where you have the Discovery Institute and its allies on one side, and then the NCSE, The Panda’s Thumb and PZ Myers on the other – rebut those few “Darwinist” sources and you’ll seem to have neutralised all of your opposition in the blogosphere.

Well, that’s a highly dishonest approach, and I feel that they need to pull their socks up if they want to be seen as intellectually honest individuals. But, haha, who am I kidding? The Discovery Institute? Intellectually honest? The day will never come.

New research by Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, published in the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences, has revealed problems with origin of life hypotheses that are based on metabolic systems developing first, as opposed to an RNA or DNA system. 

The researchers found that compound genomes, or “composomes”, the basic unit of proto-life in metabolism-based hypotheses, are unable to undergo Darwinian evolution, putting serious doubt onto thoughts that they could foster the beginning of life on planet Earth.

However, this is just one study – more research needs to be done to confirm or deny these results.

Two kinds of killer whale have been found in UK waters, prompting evolutionary biologists to posit that the species of dolphin may be undergoing a speciation event.

The differences are fairly obvious – one kind, dubbed Type 1 had significant adult tooth wear, showing that they feed primarily by sucking up fish into their mouths, while Type 2 showed no wear at all. Type 2, on the other hand, seem to prey on other dolphins and small whales. Type 2 males also seem to be up to two meters larger than Type 1 males.

Evolution in action – an amazing thing.

You might be familiar with James Randi, the grandfather of the organised skeptical movement we see today, and his recent blog post about anthropogenic global warming (or AGW), which was rather critical of the mainstream scientific opinion. It caused quite a stir on the Internet, as you would expect it would, so much so that he felt compelled to clarify his statement in another blog post.

As various people, myself included, predicted on Twitter, the AGW denialist crowd were quick to capitalise on a leading “legitimate skeptic” sympathising with their position, starting with James Delingpole over at the Telegraph. He accuses Randi’s pro-AGW followers of being “Warmist thugs” and “eco-facists”, and backs up the claim with these comments left on Randi’s blog post:

“It would be hard to imagine Randi siding with one of the many similar petition projects against evolution instead of accepting the consensus of biologists.”

Err, that’s an excellent point.

“What disturbs me is the phrase, “Warming will not be disastrous”. Tell that to the millions in Pakistan, India, and South America whose river sources will die with the glaciers from which they spring. Tell that to the thousands of parents whose children will die of malaria, dengue fever, and the other tropical scourges whose ranges are increasing as the climate warms.”

Facists, the lot of them!

“Objections to Randi’s position have been duly noted here and elsewhere, and they are not new — and neither is Randi’s cynicism disguised as skepticism. The logical fallacies are numerous in his post, and easy to identify, should someone wish to play a game of AWG-denial Bingo.”

Watch where you’re swinging that trident, you common thug!

Come on. Seriously.

The skull of an ancestor of the modern-day seacow, which lived 48.6-372 million years ago, has been discovered in Madagascar. The location of the discovery may be a new fossil bed, one which may help unlock some of the evolutionary history of the country.

Professor Karen Samonds, the scientist who unearthed the find:

“The fossils of this ancient sea cow are unique in that it has a full set of relatively unspecialized teeth whereas modern sea cows have a reduced dentition specialized for eating sea grass, and most fossil species already show some degree of reduction. It may also be the first fully aquatic sea cow; confirmation will depend on recovering more of the skeleton, especially its limbs.”