Evolved or Engineered? A Geneticist Evaluates the Panda’s Thumb

bamboo, clumsy, Engineering, Evolution, evolutionary biologists, geneticists, giant pandas, ID The Future, Intelligent Design, mammals, mechanical systems, paleontologists, Panda's Thumb, Podcast, radial sesamoid, Stephen Jay Gould, Stuart Burgess, suboptimal, Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig, wrist bone
Giant pandas have an elongated wrist bone, the radial sesamoid, that allows them to handle and eat bamboo with great dexterity. Source
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High Bird Intelligence Is Consistent with Design, Not Evolution

abstractions, animal intelligence, birds, brains, chickadees, cockatoos, common sense, crows, Evolution, evolutionary biology, Germany, Giacomo Gattoni, human exceptionalism, humans, intelligence, Intelligent Design, logic, mammals, Maria Antonietta Tosches, Neuroscience & Mind, Niklas Kempynck, Onur Güntürkün, problems, ravens, Ruhr University Bochum, Science (journal), vertebrates, Yasemin Saplakoglu, zoology
A discussion of animal intelligence that refuses to acknowledge human exceptionalism becomes a script for suppressing discussions we need to have. Source
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Microbes as “Moral Agents”? Bioethicist Says Yes

Artificial Intelligence, babies, bioethics, computer software, Endangered Species Act, fish, gestating human babies, human exceptionalism, image of God, insects, invertebrates, Jeff Sebo, life, Life Sciences, mammals, microbes, moral agents, moral patients, moral responsibility, NYU, philosophers, plants, The Moral Circle, universe
Only a philosopher could claim seriously that humans owe significant moral duties to microbes. Source
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Darwin, Kinsey, and Stockholm Syndrome Christianity

Alfred Kinsey, Bible, Charles Darwin, Culture, Culture & Ethics, deviants, ethics, Faith & Science, Floyd Martinson, Harvard University, junk science, males, mammals, morality, pimps, prisoners, prostitutes, psychopaths, secularists, sex, sex offenders, sexual abuse, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, Stockholm Syndrome Christian, The Descent of Man, United States, Victorian England, zoologists
Perhaps the figure most responsible for the breakdown of traditional sexual ethics in Western culture was a Harvard-trained evolutionary zoologist. Source
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Günter Bechly on Life’s Sudden Information Explosions

ancestral species, Avalon explosion, bacteria, biological explosions, body plans, Cambrian Explosion, common ancestry, descendant species, Evolution, genes, Günter Bechly, ID The Future, Intelligent Design, mammals, neo-Darwinian process, paleontologists, paleontology, placental mammals, Podcast, protein folds, Sarah Chaffee, Stephen Meyer, Triassic explosion
“There’s no reasonable way,” Bechly concludes, “to get from bacteria to mammals via evolutionary processes.” Source
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Fossil Friday: A Scientific Controversy About Warm-Blooded Animals

birds, Brian Gardiner, Charles Darwin, convergent adaptations, Darwinism, dinosaurs, Dromaeosauridae, Evolution, Fossil Friday (series), Green River Formation, Haematothermia, Intelligent Design, John Ray, mammals, Nahmavis grande, paleontology, Philippe Janvier, physiology, pterosaurs, Richard Dawkins, Richard Owen, spermatozoa, synapsid, Søren Løvtrup, warm-blooded animals, Wyoming
How do popularizers of Darwinism such as Richard Dawkins react? Unsurprisingly, they just ignore the evidence. Source
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Fossil Friday: New Fossil Evidence Challenges Another Icon of Evolution

Brasilodon quadrangularis, convergent evolution, cynodonts, Cynognathus crateronotus, Early Jurassic, Evolution, evolutionary icons, Fossil Friday (series), Gondwana, Great Britain, James Rawson, Jonathan Wells, mammalian origins, mammals, middle ear bones, Oligokyphus major, paleontology, Reichert-Gaupp theory, reptiles, Riograndia guaibensis, South America, transitional series, University of Bristol, Zhe-Xi Luo
This would have been very interesting news to my friend and colleague Jonathan Wells, who had described many such cases in his ground-breaking books. Source
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From Bears to Whales: A Difficult Transition

bears, blowhole, body temperature, calf (whale), cetaceans, Charles Darwin, Darwinian theory, diving, dolphin, Everhard Slijper, Evolution, floating ribs, fluke, Indohyus, Intelligent Design, James Butler, lungs, mammals, milk, nipple, nitrogen, porpoise, reproduction, Richard Brown, sea lion, sperm whale, submersion, surfactants, testes, the bends, whales
Critics laughed at this, and Darwin removed it from later editions of his book, though he continued privately to believe it. Source
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Fossil Friday: Time Wanderers Debunk Popular Scenario of Mammalian Evolution

Chronoperates paradoxus, Cynodontia, dentition, Evolution, Fossil Friday, Gerhard Mickoleit, Greek, Hans-Dieter Sues, lower jaw, mammaliaforms, mammals, paleontology, Paskapoo Formation, reptiles, Saint Bathans mammal, synapomorphies, therapsid, Therapsida, University of Tübingen
The crude Darwinist presumption of more advanced descendants outcompeting their primitive ancestors turned out to be wrong once again. Source
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Is the Panda’s Thumb Suboptimal?

adaptationism, carnivores, common ancestry, computed topography, dexterity, digits, economy, efficiency, Evolution, evolutionists, George Schaller, Intelligent Design, leaves, live observation, magnetic resonance imaging, mammals, Panda's Thumb, pseudo-thumb, Religions (journal), shoots, Stephen Jay Gould, suboptimality, The Giant Pandas of Wolong
The basic argument is that “[o]dd arrangements and funny solutions” point to evolution whereas “ideal design” points to a “sensible God.” Source
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