tagged w/ Evolution
-
A handful of ancient human remains from Israel garnered a huge burst of media coverage this week, as claims that the finds could "rewrite the history of human evolution" were quickly followed by a backlash from the blogosphere.
link: http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101231/full/news.2010.700.htmlA handful of ancient human remains from Israel garnered a huge burst of media coverage... more
-
-
eva2
-
added this
-
1 year ago
- |
-
-
-
Evolution's "new twist": Neanderthal-like "sister group" bred with humans like us.
Ker Than
for National Geographic News
Published December 22, 2010
A previously unknown kind of human—the Denisovans—likely roamed Asia for thousands of years, probably interbreeding occasionally with humans like you and me, according to a new genetic study.
In fact, living Pacific islanders in Papua New Guinea may be distant descendants of these prehistoric pairings, according to new analysis of DNA from a girl's 40,000-year-old pinkie bone, found in Siberian Russia's Denisova cave.
This "new twist" in human evolution adds substantial new evidence that different types of humans—so-called modern humans and Neanderthals, modern humans and Denisovans, and perhaps even Denisovans and Neanderthals—mated and bore offspring, experts say.
"We don't think the Denisovans went to Papua New Guinea," located at the northwestern edge of the Pacific region called Melanesia, explained study co-author Bence Viola, an anthropologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.
(Full story at link)Evolution's "new twist": Neanderthal-like "sister group" bred... more
-
-
kodada
-
added this
-
1 year ago
- |
-
If you're sick of climate change deniers pretending they are experts on climate change, this is the article for you. http://larrynocella.com/blog1/?p=626
===
The information age is rough. It's so hard to know what's true.
For example, how do I know which emails I forward on to ten friends will actually result in good luck versus those that won't? Can that pill really make my penis add on inches? (Inches!) And that deposed Nigerian prince sounds so sincere.
But I don't know… So many people abuse the truth in so many ways and for so many reasons. What to do? What to believe?
It's easy to drop the wise approach of "don't believe everything you hear" and regress into "don't believe anything you hear." Of course, people who claim they don't believe anything always end up believing something. Those who don't believe "The Media" always end up getting their news from some other source that could also easily be categorized as "The Media."
Still, the primal reaction to disbelieve everything is understandable. You're hesitant to take things on faith, and that's wise, but in our specialist-driven society, you have to be able to assess others because you can’t be an expert in all fields.
So the info glut is here to stay, and we can't necessarily assess the truth of something as much as we'd like, but we can easily assess our assessment. We can check our own bias, and check against timeless rules. For example, is this something we want to be true? Is this too good to be true? Is this so complex I have unanswered questions and some clown is pressuring me to act now? Etc.
That introspection is becoming (or has become) our lone critical tool. Without it, we look ridiculous.
Case in point: climate change deniers. These people could use some serious self-assessment, because the extent of their research into climate change involves a paid shill telling them it doesn’t exist. Now of course I don't know that for certain. It's entirely possible that they consulted more than one paid shill.
Besides, aren't I making a leap of faith that climate change is real? Well, sure. I am. But not all leaps of faith are created equal. I haven't done massive amounts of research into climate change, either. Who can? Scientists can. And when you line up lots of scientists and they believe it, is it wise to doubt them or believe instead the opposite view being pushed by a talking head with a well-known habit of distracting criticism of big business?
If climate change deniers are so independently-minded, why haven't they instead started a "Pilots Are Dumb" movement? On any given flight, why aren't there legions of people rushing the cockpit, shoving the pilot aside while screaming, "Get out of here! You don't know what you're doing! I can fly this bird better than you!"
Why haven't the climate change deniers called for the firing of surgeons? Why aren't hordes of talk-radio junkies kicking open the doors to operating rooms, plastic knife in hand, screaming, "Step away from the body! I'll handle this!"
And how dare they claim to "Support the troops!" Surely the troops are criminally incompetent compared to a climate change deniers' renaissance-man-like skill set.
No, they're not doing any of that. That would be absurd to claim they're experts in fields that require such intensive training!
Yet somehow, climate change deniers are experts in climate change.
So let's review: They have no piloting background, but there's no movement to overthrow pilots. No surgery background, no movement to overthrow doctors. No climate change background, yet there's a movement to disregard climate scientists. What a lucky coincidence for the industries that are anti-environmental protection! All without the use of propaganda! (Wink.)
One more example that's great for larfs: when people who don't claim to have studied any biology try to deny evolution, but offer up some insane condition which would allegedly win them over. As in, "I don't believe in evolution and I won't believe it until I see a hamster with wings. If evolution is real, where are all the hamsters with wings? And gravity? Calling B.S. on that! What about Superman? It doesn't affect Superman, so how can you say it's a hard and fast law of physicsology?"
I feel bad for scientists and true independent thinkers. In their naïve honesty, they'll say things like, "Well, we're 99% sure carbon emissions from humanity heat up the globe and screw with the climate." That’s all the fake independent mind needs. "Oh, you're not definitely sure? Well call me back when you are. Until then, shut up while I gas up my SUV for another three mile drive."
Of course thinking for yourself is a great thing, as long as you sprinkle it with some humility. But that's what the fake independent mind doesn't do. They are confusing independent thought with a mind unanchored. They refuse to believe anything they don't want to that's beyond their own experience. There's no better recipe for ignorance than that.
Larry Nocella
www.LarryNocella.comIf you're sick of climate change deniers pretending they are experts on climate... more
-
-
-
Thanks Richard Dawkins.
Directed, Shot and Edited by Jarryd Meyer
Written by Sam Sero
Produced by Poopdog Entertainment
Starring Sam Sero, Teddy Tutson, Angelo Valentin and Cameron Slater
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VISQptP4bLEThanks Richard Dawkins.
Directed, Shot and Edited by Jarryd Meyer
Written by Sam... more
-
-
This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. A number of other consequences of this result are also discussed. http://www.makeahistory.com/index.php/recent-news/15027-are-you-living-in-a-computer-simulationThis paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the... more
-
-
worrg
-
added this
-
1 year ago
- |
-
Dr. Bruce H. Lipton, an internationally recognized leader in bridging science and spirit and author of "The Biology of Belief" comments on the past 10 years, and shares his thoughts about what is to come next in our evolution.Dr. Bruce H. Lipton, an internationally recognized leader in bridging science and... more
-
-
I'm often being told that there is only one God and that God is typically the God of whatever religion the person I'm talking to is a member of. These folks seem to be rather absolute-hungry. So eager to put God in a box—four cozy walls to contain their ideology and they close the flaps and seal it shut from the inside. "There! No more outside influences. Now back to what I was saying about the one and only true God." Wait a minute, the walls of these boxes are pretty thin, you can hear what's going on inside the other boxes. The sound may be muffled, but you can hear the passion in the "other" voices. Some of those inside your box seem to be getting a little curious. Looks like they want to break free.
Hey, I wanna see what's going on outside.
No, you must stay inside this box.
Why?
It's the one true box. Those other boxes are boxes of deception.
Seriously?
Yes, seriously. They ain't talkin' about nothin' in those other boxes. You were lucky to be born in this box. You are a member of the chosen ones.
But what the people in the other boxes?
They're doomed.
Well, we should warn them.
We will. We're planning on sending some people out to break into the other boxes and "make some suggestions."
Can I be one of those people?
Actually...no...you seem like the type who may be charmed by what they have to say.
I promise I won't.
You say that now, but I know your type.
So then I'm doomed to a life in this one box?
You're not doomed, you are chosen.
But I feel doomed.
What am I going to do with you?
Let me out of this damn box!!!
No.
But I want out. I want to see what else is out there.
The devil's out there. You want to hang with the devil?
How could it be any worse than this?
CLICK THE LINK BELOW FOR MORE...
http://trickyrelativity.wordpress.com/2010/11/17/the-one/I'm often being told that there is only one God and that God is typically the God... more
-
-
Those who descended from the beings that populated what we know today as Africa may view their origin as inauspicious which may have resulted in evolutionary shame. Remember, it was their ancestors who stayed behind and endured the eternal summer with its two climatic distinctions—hot and wet and the wet was far from reliable. This instability coupled with the constant solar onslaught created a landscape that can be a bit trying at times. No wonder some of us chose to leave home and head north where we stumbled upon more temperate climates. I wonder if this created a self-loathing amongst those who stayed—a negative sense of self that would be later influenced by the poor treatment at the hands of the temperate-dwellers when they returned. This may have contributed to the doggedly religious and uber-conservative dynamic that we see "highlighted" in popular media today. I wrote that earlier as "dominates black popular culture," but then I realized I have no real way of knowing that. I just felt that way in response to constantly hearing this (not in these words, but this is the implication I gleaned):
"You must be like us or else you will suffer like the ones that were left behind."
Is this pandering to a status-quo because of fear and self-hatred or is it the acknowledgment of a blessing via a sacrifice? Were slavery and the subsequent ravaging of the African continent by Europeans punishment for staying behind? A punishment they had to endure before they could be freed and welcomed to the spoils of the temperate dwellers? Come on in, let's explore. Oh, and be warned...adult language ahead.
Click the link below for more
http://trickyrelativity.wordpress.com/2010/09/04/existential-angst-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-liberal-conservative/Those who descended from the beings that populated what we know today as Africa may... more
-
-
We all may hate each other, but for some crazy reason we cannot stop having sex with one another. Will this drive to shtup, that we literally fight to suppress, render the dark dark and the light a unifying shade of gray? If so, why does the fact that we may lose our racial identities terrify us? Could it be that we fear the Big Lowest Common Denominating One? The evolutionary asteroid impact on our DNA. It hits and we all turn to ash. All the same. All one. Death. This may explain why we fight anyone who tries to mix with us. Ironically, it is the NEED to fight that exposes the intensity of our drive to mix.
Click the link below for more...
http://trickyrelativity.wordpress.com/2010/11/11/does-integration-equal-disintegration/We all may hate each other, but for some crazy reason we cannot stop having sex with... more
-
-
In her ground-breaking study of human identity in the age of the Internet (Life on the Screen), Sherry Turkle reports that numerous computer users she has interviewed talk of their online experience in spiritual terms. In these narratives people tell her that computer networks "resonate with our most profound sense that life is not predictable. They provoke spiritual, even religious speculations." She cites one interviewee who concludes: "To me, it's God coming together with science, and computers have made it all possible." http://www.makeahistory.com/index.php/recent-news/10505-the-internet-as-a-metaphor-for-godIn her ground-breaking study of human identity in the age of the Internet (Life on the... more
-
-
worrg
-
added this
-
1 year ago
- |
-
I just can't stand the current guy!
I like the current guy!
I will vote for anyone who isn't the current guy!
I want the current guy to be reelected!
(time elapses)
Yay! The current guy lost!
Damn! The current guy lost!
Whoo Hoo!!! Yes!!! I cannot contain my glee!!! We won!!! We won!!!
AUUGGGHHH!!! No!!! I cannot contain my anger!!! We lost!!! We lost!!!
Click the link below for more...
http://trickyrelativity.wordpress.com/2010/10/05/anti-americanism/I just can't stand the current guy!
I like the current guy!
I will vote for... more
-
-
"I don't have a job, a home or a car! I don't have anything and you want me to apologize to you because you don't have anything either!? Spare me! Why don't you go cry to Oprah, Jennifer Lopez, Tyler Perry, Alex Rodriguez, Kobe Bryant or Will Smith!!!"
You can lob epithets like racist, bigot, homophobe, misogynist and the like at the infamous White Man and no one will say much. It's expected. He is The Man after all. He's not even human. Just an oppressive automaton who is responsible for all the world's ills and he even has the audacity to not apologize for simply being? How dare he!? Good thing there are liberal white men out there. At least they express their tacit guilt. But really, what is inherently wrong about him taking pride in his European heritage? Is it because you view your existence as inauspicious due to this heritage? He exploited and oppressed you and because of this there should be no celebration of European virtues. You supported his whims through your labor. He killed you. He took your land. He deceived you. He raped your women. But what is it about him that makes him behave this way and if he thinks himself superior is he truly superior or do you give him power by thinking him evil? What if he is just like you?
What if he feels powerless even though you say he controls "everything?" What if he feels like nothing? Why must you treat him as if he is some comic book-esque supervillian? Why do you laugh in his face when he expresses his frustration? What does this say about you? Are you envious of the access his skin color affords him? Do you see his lack of melanin as a blessing? Do you not feel your abundance of melanin is a curse? Do you have to overcompensate in order to battle against a deep-seated inferiority complex? Is your black or brown pride a by-product of the acknowledgement of his existence? Who were you before you found out about him? How did you see yourself then? Probably not as brown or black. Perhaps you were just you.
That's it! That's why the white man is evil! He made me acknowledge the fact that I was 'some thing.' I'm not 'some thing,' I am some ONE!
Is this all his fault? What if it is all OUR fault? And by 'our' I mean us, not them...and by 'not them' I mean them.
Hey, I clicked those hyperlinks and I'm lost. Us? Not them? What?
We're all lost. Click the link below and let's see if we can build a compass...together.
http://trickyrelativity.wordpress.com/2010/11/09/im-white-im-male-so-the-what/"I don't have a job, a home or a car! I don't have anything and you... more
-
-
A centuries-old religious ceremony of an indigenous people in southern Mexico has led to small evolutionary changes in a local species of fish, according to researchers from Texas A&M University.
Since before the arrival of Christopher Columbus to the New World, the Zoque people of southern Mexico would venture each year during the Easter season deep into the sulfuric cave Cueva del Azufre to implore their deities for a bountiful rain season. As part of the annual ritual, they release into the cave's waters a distinctive, leaf-bound paste made of lime and the ground-up root of the barbasco plant, a natural fish toxin. Believing the cave's fish to be gifts from their gods, they scoop up their poisoned prey to feed upon until their crops are ready to harvest.
However, a team of researchers led by Dr. Michael Tobler, an evolutionary ecologist at Oklahoma State University, and Dr. Gil Rosenthal, a biology professor at Texas A&M, has discovered that some of these fish have managed not only to develop a resistance to the plant's powerful toxin, but also to pass on their tolerant genes to their offspring, enabling them to survive in the face of otherwise certain death for their non-evolved brethren.
Their findings recently were published in the online journal Biology Letters.
Tobler has been studying the small, cave-dwelling fish species known as the Atlantic molly or Poecilia mexicana and its uncanny ability to survive in the toxic sulfur environment of Cueva del Azufre since 2004. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Zurich in 2008 and spent the next two years as a postdoctoral research associate at Texas A&M, studying under Rosenthal and Dr. Kirk Winemiller, a professor in wildlife and fisheries science, as part of a two-year, $79,000 Swiss National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship.
After learning about the Zoque people's sacred ritual and witnessing the event firsthand in 2007, Tobler and Rosenthal decided to investigate the effects of this peculiar ceremony on the mollies and their habitat. Ironically, it was the last ceremony ever held, as the Zoques ended the practice that year due to political pressure from the government, which sought to preserve the cave as a hotbed for tourism and potential revenue.
"We wanted to do a lab experiment where we exposed fish from different parts of the creek to barbasco," Tobler says. "Some of these fish had been more exposed than others."
In March 2010, the team collected molly specimens from two different areas of the cave annually exposed to the barbasco toxin as well as from two different areas upstream, further away from the Zoque's ritual. With both groups of fish in a single tank, they then introduced the barbasco root to determine how both groups would react.
They found that the mollies annually exposed to the barbasco indeed were more resistant than the fish further upstream -- to the extent that they were able to swim in the noxious water nearly 50 percent longer. Tobler and Rosenthal's group concluded that human beings had, over time, not only affected molly population dynamics, but also inadvertently kick-started the evolutionary process of natural selection as well. Mollies able to tolerate the poisonous conditions survived and passed those traits to their offspring, resigning those that perished to their fate of serving as a ceremonial feast for the Zoque.
"The cool thing is that this ceremony has gone on a long time and that the fish responded to it evolutionarily," Tobler says. "Lots of species couldn't live with these changes. It highlights how nature is affected by human activity."
Rosenthal contends that the idea of imposing evolutionary divergence on a species at an extremely localized spatial scale is not a new concept. In fact, he says, it's been happening since the beginning of humankind and that the idea of the "noble savage" is passé.
"We tend to have this wonderful Pocahontas idea that before Europeans came in, everything was pristine and in harmony with nature and that all of the changes in our environment have been post-industrialization," he explains. "No. People have been changing the environment forever."
Moreover, Rosenthal says, once a species has become genetically adapted to human presence, it is not very easy to suddenly reverse.
Their ritual since banned, the Zoques still perform a mock ceremony each Easter season. Tobler, however, would like to see the Zoque's original ceremony resume, but in a way that is sustainable to nature as well as other cave inhabitants. The key, he and Rosenthal believe, is to find a balance between human activity and their environment. In the case of the Zoques, it may mean a few limitations on barbasco usage for their ritual, such as releasing the toxin only 50-to-60 meters into the cave rather than 100 meters.
Pending further resolution, Tobler will continue his research with the mollies at Oklahoma State, where they are housed in a special tank built to safely imitate their sulfuric living conditions in Cueva del Azufre.
"We need to understand what the impact really is on these fish rather than eliminate the ceremony completely," Tobler says. "We want to hopefully find a balance between the cultural practices of these people and the ecosystem."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101105091811.htmA centuries-old religious ceremony of an indigenous people in southern Mexico has led... more
-
-
On May 25th, 2010 science writer Carl Zimmer gave a keynote address at the American Society for Microbiology's General Meeting in San Diego, California. The presentation entitled “Newspapers, Blogs, and Other Vectors: Infecting Minds with Science in the Age of New Media” was given at the President’s Forum, “Telling the Story of Science.”
Zimmer is a lecturer at Yale University, where he teaches writing about science and the environment.
In addition to writing books, Zimmer contributes articles to the New York Times, as well as magazines including National Geographic, Time, Scientific American,Science, and Popular Science. He also writes an award-winning blog, The Loom. From 1994 to 1998 Zimmer was a senior editor at Discover, where he remains a contributing editor and writes a monthly column about the brain. Zimmer also hosts "Meet the Scientist," a podcast from the American Society for Microbiology.On May 25th, 2010 science writer Carl Zimmer gave a keynote address at the American... more
-
-
"For a long time, Darwinists assumed that anyone who argued seriously against their theory of human evolution must be a Christian creationist. Perhaps that’s why my book Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race came as such a surprise.
In a review of Forbidden Archaeology published in Geoarchaeology (1994, 9:337-340), Kenneth Feder wrote: “The book … represents something perhaps not seen before; we can fairly call
it ‘Krishna creationism’ with no disrespect intended. The basic
premises of the authors are breathtaking…: The prevailing para
digm of human evolution … is wholly untenable. There is what
amounts to a passive conspiracy (the authors call it a “knowledge
filter”) to suppress a huge body of data that contradicts our prevailing paradigm … this purported evidence indicates that “be
ings quite like ourselves have been around as far back as we care to look—in the Pliocene, Miocene, Oligocene, Eocene and beyond.”
Interesting perspective...
http://www.disinfo.com/2010/10/christian-creationism-krishna-creationism-and-the-origin-of-the-human-species/"For a long time, Darwinists assumed that anyone who argued seriously against... more
-
-
Everyime I hear a creationist claim that evolution is a myth, I shake my head and smile. And that’s because I know only too well that the individual has not taken the time to do their due diligence and actually investigate what it is that evolution is. And how would I know this? Well because they spout off the same nonsense that came out of Glenn Beck’s mouth yesterday when he said he believes that it is “ridiculous” to believe that “we came from monkeys.”
“I haven’t seen a half-monkey, half-person yet.”
Not content with coming off as a moron with that last line, Beck goes on to say:
They have to force it down your throat. When anyone has to force it, it’s a problem. You didn’t have to force that the world was round. You didn’t have to.
Truth is truth. You don’t have to force the truth. You just keep adding evidence and evidence and evidence and evidence until it becomes self-evident.
Wow. It’s hard to imagine that anyone could pack so much crap into a couple of sentences. But then again, we’re talking Beck here, the ultimate bullshit/idiot-meister. I’m not going to bother trying to refute nonsense of this sort. I’ve wasted too many hours of my life debating people like Beck – simpletons who would rather hang on to childish fairy tales then actually do the study necessary to allow for intelligent debate. But if you do care, MediaMatters puts in the attempt here.
I’ll just say for the hundredth time that evolution does not speak of the existence of god or gods or for that matter, the beginnings of life. It says only that the diversity of life we see around us has come about in the most beautiful and elegant of ways – evolution. It is the individual’s choice to study and know or remain clouded in ignorance. What is not an option though, is forcing their self-imposed ignorance down the throat of schoolchildren.Everyime I hear a creationist claim that evolution is a myth, I shake my head and... more
-
-
The missing link for Christine O'Donnell's understanding of evolution has been found!The missing link for Christine O'Donnell's understanding of evolution has... more
-
