From TED talks: “In his lab, Martin Hanczyc makes “protocells,” experimental blobs of chemicals that behave like living cells. His work demonstrates how life might have first occurred on Earth … and perhaps elsewhere too.” His presentation contains this great diagram explaining how science has defined “life”. Martin also describes how in the lab he …
From the BBC: It may seem strange that humans have evolved from fish, but the evidence can be found not just in fossils but also within our own bodies. Your face is your most expressive feature; it tells the world what you are feeling, who you are and where you come from. Although no two …
Richard Dawkins uses the piano to explain the vastness of geological time
Evolution predicts that species with common ancestors should exhibit those same traits during embryological development. New studies have found that not only do embryos of wildly difference species exhibit the same visual similarities during development, they do so on the molecular level:
This Nova documentary explores how crows are able to think in the future, beyond the ability of many apes. Extraordinarily, they also display the ability to communicate complex ideas to each other, a skill akin to story telling.
Despite its coverage of all the ways in which evolution can be demonstrated, Why Evolution is True provides a compact read of all the evidence for evolution. Only at the very last chapter does the author address creationism directly. Coyne suggests that anti-evolutionists do not oppose the idea of evolution solely, but rather reject the science because of the implications evolution has on the meaning of their personal religious beliefs. In short, evolution more than adequately explains how humans and our surroundings developed into what we are today. It leaves no gaps for a god to fill. To combat this rejection for the sake of religion, Coyne says: “Evolution is simply a theory about the processes and patterns of life’s diversification, not a grand philosophical scheme about the meaning of life. It can’t tell us what to do, our how we should behave.”(p. 225)
Recent Comments