MetaFilter posts tagged with darwin

Book of the Month

Kattullus — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:28:17 -0800

Book of the Month is a feature that the University of Glasgow Library has been running for over a decade now. The format is simple, a single book is selected from their collections, written up and accompanied by pictures, maps and photographs scanned from the books. With over a 100 books to select from, it's hard to know where to start, but anywhere is good because they're all lovely. Still, here are a few, Charles Darwin's The Expression of the emotions in man and animals, a beautiful 15th century illuminated copy of Livy's Roman history, Treatises on Engines and Weapons, Valentines and Dabbities, The Birds of Australia, Facts and Observations on the Sanitary State of Glasgow, Ibn Jazla's The arrangement of bodies for treatment and finally, The Curious Case of Mary Toft, MetaFilter superstar.

Me Go Too Far! Me Am Play Gods!

WCityMike — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 08:55:50 -0800

Caveman Science Fiction. Me Go Too Far! Me Am Play Gods! Also: Advanced Dungeons and Discourse, You're a Good Man, Charlie Darwin, and the large gaping hole in the center of your chest. All from the smart-funny that is Dresden Codak.

College makes you an atheist!

ericb — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:05:10 -0800

Former child actor Kirk Cameron and his friend Ray (The Banana Guy) Comfort [previously] seek to distribute the "correct" (aka altered) version of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species to 50,000 students at the nation's top 50 universities as the book is soon to celebrate its 150^th anniversary. Their version includes a 50-page introduction which "...gives the history of evolution, a timeline of Darwin's life, Adolph Hitler's undeniable connection with the theory, Darwin's racism, his disdain for women, and Darwin's thoughts on the existence of God..." Cameron's promotional video for the project: 'Origin Into Schools.' A video response: "Origin of Stupidity."

"Atheism has been on the rise for years now, and the Bible of the atheists is 'The Origin of Species,' Cameron tells PEOPLE. 'We have a situation in our country where young people are entering college with a belief in God and exiting with that faith being stripped and shredded. What we want to do is have student make an informed, educated decision before they chuck their faith.'" *

Kirk Cameron Monkeys with Darwin.

Since when does Hollywood shy away from controversy?

zarq — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 10:25:39 -0800

The Producer Cites Religious Controversy. The Director points to a recessionary trend against "serious" movies. A new film about Charles Darwin's life ("Creation") is reportedly having difficulty finding a US distributor. ( Creation: IMDB / Official Site / Trailer / Spoiler-laden review from Roger Ebert / LA Times review // Darwin: Previously on MeFi).

Darwin's Evolving Thoughts

brundlefly — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 22:37:50 -0800

The Preservation of Favoured Traces: a visualization of Charles Darwin's edits and additions to On the Origin of Species over the course of six editions. (via) Created using Processing.

Orchids

netbros — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 10:24:46 -0800

How do you spread your genes around when you're stuck in one place? By tricking animals, including us, into falling in love. Orchids — Love and Lies Orchids are dizzying in their diversity. Over the past 80 million years, some 25,000 wild species have taken root on six continents, in nearly every kind of habitat. Representing a full fourth of the world's flowering plants, there are four times as many orchid species as mammals, and twice as many as birds. Perhaps the most clever deceit of all is offered by those orchids that hold out the promise of sex. And not exactly normal sex. Really weird sex, in fact. I went in search of one of the most ingenious and diabolical of orchids: the Ophrys. (Some botanists call it the "prostitute orchid.") I'd been eager to lay eyes on this orchid and meet its hapless pollinator ever since reading about its reproductive strategy, which involves what my field guide referred to as "sexual deception" and "pseudocopulation." The pollination strategy of the Ophrys is, like that of so many orchids, ingenious, intricate, wily, and seemingly improbable—so much so that proponents of intelligent design sometimes point to orchids as proof that the hand of a higher intelligence must be at work in nature. (And a rather sadistic intelligence at that.) Yet the peculiarities of orchid sex actually offer one of the great case studies of natural selection, as Charles Darwin himself understood. Darwin was fascinated by orchid pollination strategies, and though he was puzzled by the purpose of Ophrys's uncanny resemblance to bees (pseudocopulation wasn't observed until 1916), he taught us much of what we know about these plants in The Various Contrivances by Which Orchids are Fertilised by Insects, the volume he published immediately after The Origin of Species. Outcrossing, or mixing one's genes with distant mates, increases vigor and variation in one's offspring, maximizing fitness. The sexual frustration of a deluded bee turns out to be an essential part of the orchid's reproductive strategy. Determined not to make the same mistake again, the bee travels some distance and, if things work out for the orchid, ends up pseudocopulating (and leaving his package of pollen) with an orchid a ways off. That distant orchid is likely to look and smell ever so slightly different from the first, and some botanists believe these subtle variations from plant to plant are part of the orchid's strategy to prevent bees from learning not to fall for a flower. "Imperfect floral mimicry" [pdf] is the botanical term for this adaptation. There's a video on YouTube, a riveting snippet of interspecies porn, in which you can watch a wasp be utterly bamboozled, and then humiliated, by an Australian tongue orchid. The tongue orchid (Cryptostylis) lures its pollinator by deploying a scent closely resembling the pheromone of the female wasp. "Prurient apparitions," is how Victorian critic John Ruskin described these flowers. Prurient? Is it possible that humans can look at an orchid and, like the deluded orchid bees or male dupe wasps, see an apparition of female anatomy? (Georgia O'Keeffe certainly did.) Could it be that plant sex and animal sex have gotten their wires crossed in human brains just as they have among the bugs? That accident of evolution has proved another happy one for the orchid, for look how much we humans now do for these flowers: the prices paid, the risks to life and limb endured, the pains taken …

You sure don't see a lot of sidecars nowadays.

Afroblanco — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 18:36:48 -0800

15 Classic PC Design Mistakes, along with explanations as to what exactly they were thinking at the time.

Happy Birthday, Mr Darwin

chuckdarwin — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 01:43:01 -0800

Dawkins on Darwin | A Peek into the Life of Darwin with Jon Amiel, Director of Creation | Six scientific hot spots for modern Darwins | 'Why Evolution Is True,' by Jerry A. Coyne

Be Entertained

netbros — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 20:03:27 -0800

So you'll be ready the next time MeFi goes away for awhile, Keep Busy. This is a site with thousands of games and that'll leave a mark type videos for the kid in you.

Devolve Me.

gman — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 16:11:15 -0800

See yourself as you would have looked as an early human. Some tips: Use straight on head shots and resize them so at least the eyes and mouth line up. You can also use the slider and try out different stages of man.

Evolution and Emancipation

homunculus — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 20:31:28 -0800

Darwin the abolitionist. "The theory of evolution is regarded as a triumph of disinterested scientific reason. Yet, on the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of Species, new research reveals that Darwin was driven to the idea of common descent by a great moral cause." [Via]

(Un)blinding them with science!

Mr. Anthropomorphism — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 18:24:24 -0800

In a breathless, passionate, yet level-headed 15 part series, YouTube user, paleontologist, ex-Christian, and potential Space Coyote impersonator AronRa presents an uncommonly well-written and presented argument against what he identifies as the 14 "Fundamental Falsehoods of Creationism." All your favorites are addressed: 1. "Evolution = Atheism" (transcript) 2. "Scriptures are the 'Word of God'" (transcript) 3. "Human Interpretation = Absolute Truth" (transcript) 4. "Belief = knowledge" (transcript) 5. “Evolution = the religion of atheism” (transcript) 6. “Evolution must explain the origin of life, the universe, and everything.” (transcript) 7. “Evolution is random.”(transcript) 8. “Mutations are rare, harmful decreases in genetic information.” (transcript) 9. “No transitional species have ever been found.” (transcript) 10. “The evolutionary ‘tree of life’ is nowhere implied either in the fossil record, nor in any aspect of biology.” (transcript) 11. “Macroevolution has never been observed.” (transcript) 12. “Creation science” (transcript) 13. “Evolution is a fraud!” (transcript) 14. “Creation is evident” Part I (transcript) 15. “Creation is evident” Part II (transcript)

Darwin, extended

digaman — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 18:50:28 -0800

The "blind watchmaker" may not be as blind as we thought. A team of scientists at Princeton University discovers that organisms are not only evolving, they're evolving to evolve better, using a set of proteins to "steer the process of evolution toward improved fitness" by making tiny course corrections.

Now you must know and understand, O Best Beloved, that till that very week, and day, and hour, and minute, this 'satiable Elephant's Child had never seen a Crocodile

KokuRyu — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 20:22:22 -0800

Thrill-seekers swim with crocodiles in Australia Tourists who want to get cozy with a crocodile climb into a clear acrylic cage, dubbed "the cage of death," which is about 145 mm (5.7 inches) thick and 2.8 meters (9.2 feet) high, wearing just a pair of swimming goggles and a swimsuit. [Pictures] [YouTubery] "I can understand how this might be attractive to tourists but has anyone considered the welfare of the crocodile?" [More about saltwater crocodiles] The attraction is located at Crocosaurus Cove in Darwin, in Australia's Northern Territory. The cage has no bars, unlike cages used in shark dives, which prevents the reptiles from gripping on but deep teeth scratches are visible on the sides, deterring some hesitant participants. The cage is then slid along runners over four crocodile pens, carrying a maximum of two divers at a time, and partly immersed in the water so swimmers can see the crocodiles under the water but also come up to the surface for air. Via Meanwhile, freshwater crocodiles are encountering a "wave of death".

Charles Darwin to receive apology from the Church of England

finite — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 16:20:38 -0800

"Charles Darwin: 200 years from your birth, the Church of England owes you an apology for misunderstanding you and, by getting our first reaction wrong, encouraging others to misunderstand you still." The comments are included on a Church of England website promoting the views of Charles Darwin to be launched on Monday.

Fifty knot winds with occasional furries.

markkraft — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 01:10:15 -0800

They said that Hurricane Ike could bring unimaginable disaster in its wake...
but no one could've predicted the full extent of the horror. (YouTube, 31 sec. or still photo) This unexpected furriness brought to you by this guy. Prankster(NSFW)? Jackass? Potential Darwin Awards recipient?!

Challenging the Evolution Industry

hortense — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 23:34:34 -0800

Rethinking Evolution with Stuart Newman, The New Master Of Evolution? Video Interview: Evolution Politics. A reformulation of the theory of evolution. Susan Mazur presents most of the players in her latest e-book: Will the Real Theory of Evolution Please Stand Up? Part two Part three Part four Part five Part six

The Wandering Eye (Pleuronectiformes, We Hardly Knew You)

chuckdarwin — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 05:33:07 -0800

A University of Chicago doctoral candidate has shown that the evolution of the flatfish was much more gradual than previously thought.

Galapagos kitties exterminated

longsleeves — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 20:15:10 -0800

What would have evolved in 10,000 years? Feral cats have long-established colonies on the islands of the Galapagos chain.

What if yellow and red started breeding?

Blazecock Pileon — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 22:27:52 -0800

Survival of the fittest

"The great man's brain may need some downtime."

amyms — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 21:55:47 -0800

Dinner With Darwin. Scientists from various disciplines weigh in on what kind of dinner conversation they envision themselves having with Charles Darwin. Via.

New peer-reviewed Creationist Research Journal

Rumple — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 14:07:48 -0800

Answers Research Journal is a new "professional peer-reviewed technical journal for the publication of interdisciplinary scientific and other relevant research from the perspective of the recent Creation and the global Flood within a biblical framework." Current Volume. Call for Papers.

Why are evolutionary biologists bringing back extinct deadly viruses?

homunculus — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 11:22:38 -0800

Darwin's Surprise. "There may be no biological process more complicated than the relationships that viruses have with their hosts. Could it be that their persistence made it possible for humans to thrive?" [Via Disinformation.]

Ben Stein's Expelled

electricinca — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 05:58:34 -0800

Ben Stein, actor, game show host, economist and White House speechwriter has embarked upon a heroic and, at times, shocking journey in the new documentary Expelled to confront the world’s top scientists, educators and philosophers, regarding their 'persecution' of the academics who support the non-science that is Intelligent Design. Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers amongst others claim they were duped into appearing in the film believing it to be a film that was to be titled Crossroads (no not that Crossroads, nor this one) that would be a debate about creationism versus Darwinism. No wonder Ferris took a day off from school with this guy as his teacher (NSFW).

No Darwin, No Hitler

Sticherbeast — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 14:38:27 -0800

Darwin's Deadly Legacy illustrates how Charles Darwin caused the Holocaust. This documentary, from the late Dr. James Kennedy and his Coral Ridge Ministries, features not only rare, Bigfoot-esque glimpses of the notoriously camera-shy Ann Coulter, but also Francis Collins, the head of the Human Genome Project. Of course, Dr. Collins hates everything about the documentary and claims that his footage was simply spliced in under false pretenses, and even Michael Behe distances himself from the entire production, disagreeing as he does with its central tenets. Oh, and the ADL is pissed, but when aren't they? Anyway, not even arch-conservative websites with "We Need Alan Keyes For President" interstitial ads think the documentary is worth very much. And it seems that Hitler himself had a grand old time pimping out Christianity and denying that we came from apes. (More, more.) So watch the fucking trailer and learn yourself some history.