Perhaps the greatest question driving science—and human thought in general—is the mystery of origins. This question has manifested itself in myriad shapes and sizes: our fascination with the Big Bang, the birth of our Earth, the evolution of our own species, and even our own individual genealogies. Especially as many have turned away from religion—the […]
Evolution
Posted inBiology, Evolution, News, Science
Surprise! The Nobel goes to evolutionary sciences, not COVID research
Swedish geneticist Svante Pääbo joined a rare group this morning: not just of Nobel Prize winners, but of “family Nobels”. His father, Karl Sune Detlof Bergström, shared the 1982 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Bengt I. Samuelsson and John R. Vane, for work related to local-tissue hormones, or “prostaglandins”. Forty years later, that award went solely […]
Posted inEducation, Evolution, Parenting & Family
When science goes south
I’m sometimes asked by religious friends why I make such a big deal over evolution in particular. Some have suggested that secular types beat the drum for evolution only because it’s a sharp stick in the religious eyeball. The question itself is a good one. Fortunately the answer is even better. And it’s not just […]
Posted inEvolution, Parenting & Family
Children of the evolution
OnlySky · Children of the evolution | Dale McGowan When we lived in Minneapolis, our family used to take walks through an area called the Quaking Bog. On one fall walk, I spotted a fawn and waved the kids over. “Look, look. See the deer?” I said. “You can just barely see it against the […]
Posted inEvolution
The Silurian hypothesis: Are we the first intelligent species on Earth?
If humans weren’t the first intelligent species to evolve on this planet, would we know it?
Posted inEthics, Evolution
What might 100,000 more years of evolution do for the future of morality?
It was a bawdy planet for hundreds of millions of years; the whole of it reeked of sex without a whiff of morals in the air. Then, rather late in the day, a mere several thousand years ago, humans began offering moral codes recommending ‘licit’ sexual expression. But humans found it difficult to live up to those […]
Posted inBiology, Critical thinking, Culture, Deep Dive, Evolution, History, Science
Why we need to decolonize our thinking on archaeology
In a world of significant scientific illiteracy, it’s easy to point fingers at “the other side”. Religious extremists, and the politicians who leverage them for power, are a serious problem. But what habits have we formed, and what narrative structures exist in our media, that only make things worse? Today I interrogate my own weaknesses, […]
Posted inBiology, Critical thinking, Evolution, Science
Can we make science journalism better for everyday readers?
Every person with an active interest in the natural world has their personal bugbear when it comes to the way journalists write about science. Maybe it’s neuroscience. Maybe it’s a common engineering problem. For me, it’s evolution. I cannot stand the way that most mainstream media reports on evolution for the everyday reader. And since […]
Posted inEvolution
Editing the infallible
For nearly a century and a half after the 1859 publication of On the Origin of Species, the Catholic Church did a coy dance with evolutionary theory, deciding at last to accept it in the same way it decided Galileo deserved an apology—glacially and partially. I at least give the Vatican credit for noticing something […]
Posted inBooks, Evolution
Screwing with Darwin
Charles Darwin wrote a terrific book. Loved it the first time I read it, then read it twice more. And the more I read it, the more I liked it. Just super. Not everyone feels the same about this book. Some were so disturbed by what he wrote that they cut whole passages out before […]