More to Love about Springtails, Those Adorable Gymnasts

Adrian Smith, Ant Lab, Arthropoda, collophore, convergent evolution, Cyrille D’Haese, Darwin Devolves, Darwinism, deserts, dry deserts, engineers, Evolution, evolutionists, fungus, furcula, Günter Bechly, gymnasts, habitats, Harvard University, ice deserts, Intelligent Design, Mark Stevens, Mollusca, mouthparts, rotting wood, science fair, sea slugs, Spain, springtails, stasis, Subterranean Biology, The Conversation, Zoological Journal of the Linnaean Society, zoology
Does it have to be called an “evolutionary success” instead of a success? The word “evolutionary” performs no function. It is also contrary to the evidence. Source
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Could Genetic Mutations Be Non-Random? New Evidence for Mutational Bias

Africa, African sleeping sickness, APOL1, Daniel Melamed, diseases, Engineering, Evolution, genes, genetic mutations, genetics, genomes, germline genome, haploid, heterozygotes, HindIII, homozygotes, Intelligent Design, Israel, malaria, MEMDS, mutation DNA, Mutation Enrichment followed by Maximum Depth Sequencing, mutation frequency, mutations, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, randomness, restriction enzyme, sperm, sperm DNA, Trypanosoma brucei, University of Haifa, wild-type DNA
The researchers examined the emergence of a mutation in the human APOL1 gene that confers protection from African sleeping sickness. Source
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Oldest Ancestor of Modern Sea Turtles Was — A Sea Turtle

Atlantic Ocean, Cape Cod, dinosaurs, Drew Gentry, endangered species, Evolution, hawksbill sea turtle, humans, hypothermia, Indian Ocean, Intelligent Design, jellyfish, leatherback sea turtles, Mozambique Channel, reptiles, Scientific Reports, sea turtles, snapping turtle, snorkeling, Sumatra, tragedy of the commons, Turtle Conservation Technical Operating Unit, University of Alabama, zoology
There are seven species of sea turtles in the world today, all beautifully designed and, sadly, all endangered. Source
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The Nigerian Experiment: Social Darwinism in Practice

Benjamin Kidd, Benjamin Wiker, Christianity, Christians, Darwin Comes to Africa, Darwinian theory, Darwinism, Darwinists, Europe, Evolution, Faith & Science, Flora Lugard, Frederick Lugard, Fulani, Galton Chair of Eugenics, Great Britain, Islam, John West, Karl Pearson, livestock, Lord Salisbury, Nazi Germany, New Testament, Nigeria, Nigerians, Northern Nigeria, Olufemi Oluniyi, Racism, Richard Weikart, scientific racisim, scripture, Sir Charles Eliot, Social Darwinism, United States, University College London, William MacGregor, Yoruba
In the late 19th century, Great Britain, the United States, and twelve European nations got together and divided Africa up among themselves. Source
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Sexual Reproduction: Engineered for Success

Bayesian reasoning, Charles Darwin, Darwin's Black Box, egg, Engineering, Evolution, evolutionary theory, fertilization, forethought, goal, human reproduction, ID The Future, Intelligent Design, Irreducible Complexity, irreducibly complex systems, Jonathan McLatchie, Michael Behe, natural selection, Podcast, purpose, seminal fluid, sexual reproduction, sperm, sperm capacitation
I continue a three-part discussion with Dr. Jonathan McLatchie on why sex is the queen of problems for evolutionary theory. Source
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In Biology, Replacing Chance with Purpose Is the New Paradigm

Abraham, Aristotle, biology, Chance and Necessity, Chemistry, Christianity, Darwinism, Evolution, God Hypothesis, Intelligent Design, Jaques Monod, Kansas, laws of nature, Mariusz Tabaczek, materialism, Modern Synthesis, molecular biology, natural processes, naturalism, Neo-Darwinism, Nobel laureates, paradigm, physics, purpose, René Descartes, science of purpose, scientific atheism, scientism, St. Thomas Aquinas, teleology, telos, theistic evolution, Thomistic Aristotelianism, Thomists
In my most recent post in this series on the science of purpose, I concluded that the proper means of understanding our world requires that we include both purpose and necessity as fundamental elements of any comprehensive framework. I noted that the flagship phrase of 20th-century scientific atheism, as articulated by Nobel laureate Jaques Monod in his book Chance and Necessity, acknowledged necessity but explicitly and intentionally eliminated purpose from scientific dialogue.  Now some fifty years later we see that Monod’s paradigm has failed. And that the only possible way of understanding life on earth is to replace chance with purpose. Doing so reverses an epistemological trend stretching back almost 150 years. As such, it is incumbent that we fortify and substantiate the basis for what many would see as a revolutionary new paradigm. That is the goal of this essay. In Read More › Source
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New Paper Has Bad News for Popular “Oxygen Theory” of the Cambrian Explosion

Cambrian animals, Cambrian Explosion, clades, Darwin's Doubt, David Coppedge, Douglas Erwin, Evolution, evolutionary precursors, Gizmodo, Intelligent Design, James Valentine, oxygen, oxygen theory, oxygen trigger model, oxygenation, paleontologists, paleontology, partial pressure of oxygen, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, The Cambrian Explosion (book)
The technical paper acknowledges that this level of oxygenation, if sustained, would indeed “challenge the view” that oxygen was a trigger for animal evolution. Source
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