Science Writing Tries to Smash Human Exceptionalism

Africa, Amanda Richardson, animal behavior, antiquity, BBC News, Bronze Age, chimpanzees, Claire Asher, Côte D’Ivoire, Culture & Ethics, England, Homo sapiens, human exceptionalism, human mind, humans, Ice Age, Merlin, metal tools, monkeys, Neuroscience & Mind, New Stone Age, paleontology, polar bears, Royal BC Museum, Salisbury, Stone Age, stone tools, vultures, walruses
Stone tool use among animals versus the Stone Age provides a useful illustration of the tendency. 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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No. 4 Story of 2024: Darwin’s Abominable Mystery Corroborated Again

abominable mystery, angiosperms, biological novelty, biology, Charles Darwin, diversification, Early Cretaceous, Evolution, flowering plants, Fossil Friday (series), genomes, Intelligent Design, jumps, Las Hoyas, Late Jurassic, Lower Cretaceous, Montsechia vidalii, nature, Nature (journal), paleontology, Philip Donoghue, Spain
This notorious discontinuity in the fossil record did not get any smaller with 160 years of research since Darwin, but instead became more and more acute. Source
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No. 5 Story of 2024: New Evidence Against Dino-Bird Ancestry

Alan Feduccia, antitrochanter, birds, dinosaur-bird hypothesis, dinosaurs, Evolution, evolutionary biology, Fossil Friday (series), fossil record, Germany, Hesperornis gracilis, iliac, ischium, Jurassic Park, Karlsruhe, Late Cretaceous, marine birds, microraptorids, paleontology, paleornithologists, penguins, phylogenetics, Temporal Paradox, theropod dinosaurs, troodontids, University of North Carolina, vertebrates
Few hypotheses in evolutionary biology have become as popular among lay people as the postulated ancestry of birds from bipedal dinosaurs. Source
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No. 9 Story of 2024: Suppressed Dissent About Neanderthal DNA in Modern Humans

"Out of Africa", Africans, bioRxiv, Current Biology, evolutionary genetics, evolutionary rate, Fossil Friday (series), heterozygous sites, Human Origins, Intelligent Design, introgression, Kafkaesque, Nature (journal), Nature Genetics, Neanderthal DNA, Neanderthals, Nobel laureates, non-Africans, paleontology, Philip Magness, PLOS, PNAS, population size, Science (journal), Scientific community, Svante Pääbo, Sydney Brenner, University of Cambridge
The case of Professor William Amos represents an interesting parallel with dissenters in the intelligent design community. Source
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Fossil Friday: Nakridletia — The Rise and Fall (and Possible Resurrection) of a Fossil Insect Order

aquatic flies, biology, China, Daohugou site, Darwinian theory, ectoparasites, Evolution, fleas, forewings, Fossil Friday (series), fossil record, gyroscopes, holometabolan insects, insects, Intelligent Design, Middle Jurassic, mouthparts, Nakridletia, paleontology, parasites, parasitic insects, pincers, pterosaurs, scorpionflies, Strashila incredibilis, Strashilidae, strashilids, Vosilidae, wings
So, were strashilids a distinct order of parasitic insects or just aquatic flies? Source
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“Doesn’t the Fossil Record Prove Darwinian Theory?”

abrupt transitions, Avalon explosion, Big Bangs, Cambrian Explosion, Cambridge, Creativity, Darwinian evolution, David Berlinski, Ediacaran biota, England, Evolution, explosions, flowering plants, fossil record, Gerd Müller, gradualism, Günter Bechly, Intelligent Design, jumps, Neo-Darwinism, paleontology, predictions, revolutions, Richard Dawkins, Royal Society, saltations
You’ve heard that challenge a million times. But as paleontologist Günter Bechly explains, the opposite is true. Source
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Who (or What) First Used Tools?

abstract ideas, algae, birds, blanket octopus, chimpanzees, Christophe Boesch, crows, decorator crab, Egyptian vulture, Hedwige Boesch-Achermann, invertebrates, Jane Goodall, Lucy, Max Planck Institute, Neuroscience & Mind, octopus, orange-spotted tuskfish, ostrich eggs, otters, paleontology, Taï National Park, tools, Tracy L. Kivell, Tremoctopus violaceus
It’s not stone tool use that is exclusive to humans; vultures can do that too. It’s the ability to form abstract ideas. Source
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Fossil Friday: Evolutionary Stasis in Beetles

academia, adults, amber, antennae, astrology, Basilosaurus, beetles, Carabidae, catching cage, Collembola, Dorudon, Evolution, Fossil Friday (series), Indohyus, K/Pg impact event, larvae, living fossils, Loricera, maxillae, Myanmar, Neo-Darwinism, Pakicetus, paleontology, psychoanalysis, unguided evolution, Wired
Natural selection is the great magician in evolutionary fantasy land, where it explains rapid change in explosive radiations as well as no change at all. Source
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