Is Human Psychology Better Explained by Evolution or Design?

African Savannah, art, behavior, cathedrals, Daniel Dennett, Darwinian evolution, David Barash, environment of evolutionary adaptedness, evo psych, Evolution, evolutionary psychologists, evolutionary psychology, genes, Henry Schlinger, Human Origins, humans, Intelligent Design, Judith Eve Lipton, just-so stories, Marc Hauser, Moon, museums, music, Oskar Schindler, Philip Skell, Pleistocene, Richard Dawkins, Subrena Smith, survival machines, The Descent of Man, Victorian England
“We are survival machines,” wrote atheist biologist Richard Dawkins, “robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.” Source
Read More

Geneticists Puzzled by Octopus’s Unique Genes: Seem to Have Appeared Out of Nowhere

Alison Abbott, Biomimetics, California two-spot octopus, cephalopods, convergence, cuttlefish, Darwin's Doubt, David Klinghoffer, Dennis Normile, distributed networks, Evolution, genes, giant squid, hydrothermal vents, Intelligent Design, Living Waters, mimic octopus, molecular clock, Mollusca, narrative gloss, Nature (journal), Nautilus, neo-Darwinian processes, Octopus bimaculoides, Paul Nelson, propulsion, reflectins, Richard Sternberg, soft robots, Stephen Meyer, triumphalism, University of Chicago
“Evolution of novel genes”? Isn’t that the question at hand? Where do novel genes come from? Source
Read More

#10 Story of 2022: Twelve “Shocking” Discoveries for Evolution

AlphaFold, alternative genetic codes, biology, Brian Miller, convergent evolution, devolution, discoveries, DNA, Douglas Axe, ENCODE, encoding, Endogenous retroviruses, epigenetics, Evolution, Evolution News, frameshifting, genes, genetics, genomes, Intelligent Design, Junk DNA, Michael Behe, mutations, neutral evolution, Paul Nelson, predictions, protein folding, protein rarity, RNAs, Scott Minnich, supercoiling, topoisomerase
Some discoveries might be surprising from an evolutionary perspective, but not necessarily from a perspective of intelligent design. Source
Read More

Twelve “Shocking” Discoveries for Evolution

AlphaFold, alternative genetic codes, biology, Brian Miller, convergent evolution, devolution, discoveries, DNA, Douglas Axe, ENCODE, encoding, Endogenous retroviruses, epigenetics, Evolution, Evolution News, frameshifting, genes, genetics, genomes, Intelligent Design, Junk DNA, Michael Behe, mutations, neutral evolution, Paul Nelson, predictions, protein folding, protein rarity, RNAs, Scott Minnich, supercoiling, topoisomerase
Some discoveries might be surprising from an evolutionary perspective, but not necessarily from a perspective of intelligent design. Source
Read More

Beneficial Borgs Have Landed

Aliyah Kovner, archaea, Borgs, Colorado, Crested Butte, CRISPR-Cas9, Darwinian theory, DNA, East River, Evolution, gene splicing, genes, genetic information, greenhouse gases, heavy metals, Intelligent Design, Jennifer Doudna, Jillian Banfield, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, methane, Methanoperedens, microbes, Nature (journal), Star Trek, storage lockers, toxins
Borg theory represents a major paradigm shift about how genetic information is stored and shared. Source
Read More

Noncoding RNA Research Gaining Ground Over “Junk” Label

biology, Caltech, Christie Wilcox, chromosomes, Debra Silver, Duke University, Eastern Virginia Medical School, ENCODE, Evolution, GENCODE, Gene Yao, genes, Intelligent Design, John Mattick, Junk DNA, lncRNA, miRNA, Mitch Guttman, mRNAs, Nature Methods, ncRNAs, noncoding RNAs, Research, RNA, The Scientist, UC San Diego, University of New South Wales, Vivien Marx
Perhaps it won’t be long before everyone, critics included, looks at the “junk DNA” concept in the rear-view mirror.  Source
Read More

Origin of Life Is Not Reducible to Physics

Anthropic Principle, biology, can opener, entropy, Eugene V. Koonin, Evolution, genes, handwaving, Intelligent Design, learning, natural selection, Neural Networks, origin of life, physics, second law of learning, Second Law of Thermodynamics, Theodosius Dobzhansky, thermodynamics, Thomas Malthus, universe, vitalism, Vitaly Vanchurin
This continues an evaluation of a proposal that treats natural selection as a law of physics that is applicable to the entire universe. Source
Read More

Khan Academy Misleads with Human-Chimp Genetic Similarity Argument for Common Ancestry

biology, cats, chimps, common design, DNA, DNA polymerases, DNAPs, embryos, Emily Reeves, Evolution, evolutionary transitions, fossil record, genes, genomes, homology, horses, humans, Icons of Evolution, Jonathan Wells, Khan Academy, Life Sciences, orphan genes, Paul Nelson, phylogenetic trees, proteins, Richard Dawkins, students, teachers, Theodosius Dobzhansky, Tree of Life, Zombie Science
The video compares humans and chimps, saying the latter’s behaviors and facial expressions are “eerily human.” I could say the same thing about my cat. Source
Read More