04Aug 2021 by Post

Diatoms, an Evolutionary Mystery, Come into Nano-Focus

archaea, bacteria, beauty, Blaise Pascal, Caltech, Coscinodiscus, Cristobal Vila, Current Biology, diatoms, electron microscope, Engineering, eukaryotes, frustules, Germany, God Hypothesis, Gothic cathedrals, Intelligent Design, Izabela Zgłobicka, Life Sciences, light microscope, Michael Gross, microbes, Nature by Numbers, Nature Scientific Reports, photosynthetic algae, Poland, purpose, Zachary Aitken
The jewels of the microbial world, when seen with new nano-scale imaging techniques, look like Gothic cathedrals. Source
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26Feb 2021 by Post

Study: Hands of “Ardi” Indicate a Chimp-like Tree-Dweller and Knuckle-Walker

Ardi, Ardipithecus ramidus, bipedality, bonobos, chimpanzees, Evolution, Germany, hominins, human ancestor, Human Origins, Madelaine Böhme, primates, quadrupedality, Rosetta Stone, Sahelanthropus tchadensis, Science Advances, The Scientist, Tim White, University of Tübingen
Initially, Ardi was widely called the “oldest human ancestor,” due to its supposed skeletal traits that indicated an early bipedal (upright walking) species. Source
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11Aug 2020 by Post

Darwinism Paved the Way to Our Perilous Cultural Moment

Adolf Hitler, atomization, Chicago, civilization, Cliff Mass, Communism, Darwinian evolution, Dawinism, democracy, Edward Feser, Evolution, freedom, Friedrich Engels, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Germany, Hannah Arendt, Karl Marx, Kristallnacht, lockdown, Ludwig Feuerbach, Michael Egnor, Mind Matters, Nazism, npr, paralysis, Plato, Portland, terror, tyranny
The year so far has delivered a stunning lesson in the fragility of freedom and of civilization. Source
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23Jun 2020 by Post

The Biology of the Second Reich

Center for Science & Culture, Culture & Ethics, Darwinism, documentary, Evolution, German Southwest Africa, Germany, Herero people, Intelligent Design YouTube Festival, science, Second Reich, society, The Biology of the Second Reich, World War I, YouTube videos
From June 16-30, we are holding an Intelligent Design YouTube Festival by highlighting 15 Center for Science & Culture YouTube videos that have received more than 100,000 views each. Here is video #8, “The Biology of the Second Reich.” Darwinism isn’t just bad for science. It’s been bad for society. This award-winning documentary tells the little known story of Darwinism’s influence on Germany before World War I, including its role in the genocide against the Herero people in German Southwest Africa. A couple of years after its debut, YouTube suddenly restricted the video to older viewers (and rejected our appeal to lift the restriction) — so you will need to log-in to your YouTube account to view it. If you’d like us to create more videos like this one, please…
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06Apr 2020 by Post

Opposition Is True Friendship: A Remembrance of Adolf Grünbaum (1923-2018)

Adolf Grünbaum, Alec Stewart, art school, Arthur Schopenhauer, atheists, Bas van Fraassen, Bertrand Russell, Brahma, Carl (“Peter”) Hempel, Carnegie Mellon University, Catholics, Cologne, depression, Education, Faith & Science, Forbes Avenue, German, Germany, Intelligent Design, Jews, Joseph Stalin, Kristallnacht, National Academy of Sciences, Nazis, Nicholas Rescher, Notre Dame University, Philip Quinn, Phillip Kitcher, Philosophy of Science, Protestants, Richard Feynman, Robert Griffiths, Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion, Thomas Kuhn, U.S. Army, University of Pittsburgh, Vishnu, Wesleyan University, Yale University
“Opposition is true friendship.” —William Blake (1793) Art School Dropout Becomes Wannabe Philosopher of Science In September 1980, as an art school dropout, I wandered into the University of Pittsburgh and the best philosophy of science program in the world. At the time, I had no clue about Pittsburgh’s high standing in this particular academic field. I had no clue about much of anything, actually, except that I was keenly interested in questions about the foundations of science. Pitt was local, affordable, and by some inexplicable kindness, they had admitted me. (Years earlier, to show the world how unhappy I was with my art school, I stopped attending classes there, but for inscrutable reasons, still registered and continued to make the tuition payments. Understandably, this persuaded the art school that,…
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26Mar 2020 by Post

Ancestor of All Animals in 555-Million-Year-Old Ediacaran Sediments?

annelids, arthropods, bilaterian animals, Buddenbrockia plumatellae, burrowing, Cambrian Explosion, Cambrian News, China, cnidarians, Deuterostomia, Ediacaran animals, Evolution, Germany, habitus, Helminthoidichnites, Ikaria wariootia, incertae sedis, microbial mats, mortichnia, Nephrozoa, PNAS, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Protostomia, Scyphozoa, South Australia, UC Riverside, University of California, Xenacoelomorpha, Yilingia spiciformis
For my series of articles about alleged Ediacaran animals predating the Cambrian explosion there is a new candidate that deserves a closer view: New research on Ediacaran fossils was just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by a team of scientists from UC Riverside (Evans et al. 2020), and it has already made global news headlines including, “Ancestor of all animals identified in Australian fossils” (University of California 2020) and the even more sensational, “Fossil hunters find evidence of 555m-year-old human relative” (Davis 2020). What did those scientists discover and are their far-reaching conclusions really justified?  Grains of Rice The authors of this study looked at fossil layers from the National Heritage Nilpena site in the Flinders Range of South Australia, which are slightly older than…
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17Jan 2020 by Post

Did Cloudinids Have the Guts to Be Worms?

Acuticocloudina, bilaterian animals, bilaterian worms, Cambrian Explosion, Cambrian News, Cambrian Small Shelly Fauna, Chengjiang biota, China, Cloudina, cloudinids, cloudinomorphs, cnidarian, Conotubus, Costatubus, Darwinian evolution, Dickinsonia, digestive tract, Ediacaran biota, Ediacaran Period, Ediacaran Small Shelly Fauna, Ediacaran-Cambrian boundary, Evolution, Feiyanella, Germany, GUT, James D. Schiffbauer, Multiconotubus, Nature Communications, Nevada, polyp, Rajatubulus, Saarina, sessile filter feeder, Sinotubulites, skeleton, University of Missouri, Wood Canyon Formation
In my Evolution News article “Why Dickinsonia Was Most Probably Not an Ediacaran Animal” (Bechly 2019), I promised last year to follow up on other alleged Ediacaran animals. Now is a good moment to come back to this, because a new study has just been published in the journal Nature Communications by Schiffbauer et al. (2020), who identify a problematic Ediacaran shelly fossil as a bilateral animal most likely related to annelid worms. The crucial evidence is the alleged preservation of a digestive tract, which would also represent the oldest fossil record for this organ system (Stann 2020). The new fossil is considered to be a close relative of the genus Cloudina, which is a globally distributed Ediacaran index fossil first described by Germs (1972). It represents one of the…
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