Recently in Evolution Category

Genetics has published three essays in honor of 150^th anniversary of the Origin. Allen Orr’s piece provides an interesting historical perspective on the interaction between the science of evolution (or Darwinism) and the impacts on society. The Charlesworths provide an opinion on the importance of Darwin on genetics (note that they get the D-M speciation model wrong by suggesting that it’s anything but apathetic toward the role of natural selection). And Adam Wilkins weighs in on whether Darwin was a genius or a plodder.

Acknowledgement: Thanks to Richard Meisel for the blurb and the links.

Photograph by David Collins.

Photography contest, Honorable Mention.

Delicate Arch – an Entrada Sandstone formation in Arches National Park, near Moab, Utah.

From Nova’s Becoming Human, Part 1 at -9:00 (Nova uses a countdown timer). Discussing the hypothesis that short-term (hundreds to thousands of years) extreme climate variability drove human evolution, and particularly increases in brain size, in the ramp-up from 400 cc or so to Homo habilis’s 600 or 700 cc, and maybe on to larger brained successors, the film says:

Narrator: “This observation led [Rick Potts] to an amazing new idea: Rapid [climate] change as a catalyst for our evolution.”
Rick Potts: “And I began to think that well maybe it’s not the particular environment of a savanna that was important, but the tendency of the environment to change.”

[Here it is]

Narrator: “Could it be that the need to survive violent swings of climate made our ancestors more adaptable?”

Right. And it was the need of giraffes to reach higher branches with yummier leaves that made them grow longer f***ing necks. Gaaaaah!!! Lamarck is dead! And so is Bergson.

That locution, that phraseology, that notion that a “need” somehow drives evolution, drives me bats. “Needs” don’t make populations evolve anything. Now, properties of an environment may select for traits in a population if appropriate variants occur, and as a result of that selective process the population may be more adapted to that selective environment. And it’s not necessarily implausible that an environment that varies irregularly on an appropriate time grain (bunches of generations) could select for some sort of generalized adaptability on the part of a population provided there’s some genetic basis for that adaptability that gives individuals a reproductive advantage, but a “need” doesn’t “make” the trait evolve. If that were the case we’d have wings and gills.

First things first. The 3-part series is called Becoming Human, and it begins tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern time (and 7 p.m. my time, so check your local schedule).

The website, which is in a beta edition right now, is called simply “Evolution.” Today, it features articles on Becoming Human, Evo-Devo, and The Evolution of Motherhood, among others. It looks as though a regular feature will include links to recent news articles, and there are also links to apparently original material by Neil Shubin, Sean Carroll, and Carl Zimmer. There are additional links to a number of relevant books and websites. Finally, you can watch “Intelligent Design on Trial” and “Darwin’s Darkest Hour” just by following links prominently displayed on the “Evolution” website.

As part of a year-long Darwin Lecture Series, evo-devo guy Sean Carroll will be giving a webcast talk based around his Making of the Fittest. The talk is on Wednesday, November 4, and you can sign up for the live webcast here.

Photograph by Michael Klaas.

Photography contest, Honorable Mention.

Cloud birth – an eruption of Kilauea Volcano, Hawaii.

Photograph by Paul Burnett.

Latrodectus hesperus - (male) western black widow spider. Mr Burnett assures us, “Yes, that’s my thumb and forefinger. And yes, it was alive, although unhappy.”

In spite of the Disco ‘Tute’s recent efforts to imply that the Smithsonian Institution is somehow sympathetic to anti-evolutionist films, the stodgy old place persists in being a place where evolution education is important. Most recently it has announced (pdf of press release) the upcoming opening of a new exhibition hall devoted to human origins:

A new exhibition hall dedicated to the discovery and understanding of human origins will open next year at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. Based on decades of cutting-edge research by Smithsonian scientists, the David H. Koch (pronounced “coke”) Hall of Human Origins will premiere March 17, 2010, which also marks the 100-year anniversary of the museum’s official opening on the National Mall.

The $20.7 million exhibition hall will be complemented by ongoing human origins research and education programs, which are all key components of the museum’s broader initiative, “Human Origins: What Does It Mean to Be Human?” The initiative focuses on the epic story of human evolution and how the defining characteristics of the species have evolved over 6 million years as its ancestors adapted to a changing world. The museum will launch a compelling new Smithsonian Human Origins Web site and a revolutionary virtual experience hosted on the Blue Mars 2150 virtual Web site. It will include a complete reproduction of the physical exhibition plus additional features visitors can only experience on the Web.

It’s noteworthy that the main funding is coming from two people with science and engineering backgrounds, the eponymous David H. Koch, a chemical engineer and executive vice president of Koch Industries, and Peter Buck, a physicist and co-founder of Subway restaurants. It’s good to see there’s significant science philanthropy to offset the likes of Howard Ahmanson, a major funder of the Disco ‘Tute.

Photograph by Paul Blake.

Photography contest, Honorable Mention.

Fossilized Ladder Ripples, Torpedo Creek Quarzite near Mount Oxide in the Western Succession of the Mount Isa Inlier, Queensland, Australia. In environments such as tidally influenced areas, water currents often go in different directions, resulting in unusual ripple patterns (hard to explain tidally influenced areas in a global flood). Torpedo Creek Quartzite is about 1.69 billion years old.

Today I received this e-mail:

Creation evolution free videos what is the real deal?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUu5hBp1AU8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7e0Ic03c6f8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbbh1P6DW5I

In spite of the (lack of) punctuation in the first line, the links led me to several excellent, convincing, and professional-looking videos with titles like “Evolution is REAL Science #1.” A few more clicks, and I found the home page of the producer, Jeremy Mohn, as well as his blog.

Photograph by Darren Garrison.

Hyla versicolor–gray tree frog.

If you can’t see the frog, just go below the fold.

As Matt Young pointed out recently, the fifteen year wait for the complete publication of the Ardipithecus ramidus skeletal material discovered by Tim White, and his research group, is over. The material was finally published in Science and is open access. I will discuss the morphology of Ardipithecus ramidus and its implications in a second post. In this post I would like to look at the geological, environmental, and taphonomic background to the discoveries. I examine these first because they provide strong evidence to back up some of the behavioral interpretations of Ardipithecus ramidus.

Update Tonight

That’s the title of a 2-hour NOVA program that will be shown Tuesday, October 6, on PBS. DDH is a drama presented by NOVA and National Geographic. It was written by the British screenwriter John Goldsmith and directed by John Bradshaw. It stars Henry Ian Cusick as Darwin. You may find an interview with the playwright and a wealth of other material, not least the WGBH Evolution website, linked to the website of the program. (Originally posted September 25.)

Photograph by Kari Tikkanen.

Photography contest, Honorable Mention.

Sorbus aucuparia–European Rowan, or Mountain Ash

I don’t know how I missed this, but some guy named Charles Darwin is blogging a sea voyage he’s on. It seems he’s keeping a journal, and he is blogging the entries so the rest of us can tag along. Read it as an antidote to the Luskin/Wells stupidity.

Hat tip to Phil Plait.

This week’s Science has a special issue devoted to the fossil hominid Ardipithecus ramidus. It looks as though you may read at least some of the 11 articles free, and you may see a video featuring (mostly) Tim White. The fossil is interesting in part because it appears to show that certain expected traits may be absent from the last common ancestor of chimps and humans.

NESCent has announced a travel award for an evolution blogger to attend ScienceOnline2010 (January 14–17^th, 2010, in North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park). Bloggers should submit a blog post that highlights scientific results appearing in 2009, dealing with current or emerging evolutionary research. Posts should be 750–1500 words and must mention the contest.

For complete contest information, visit NESCent.

If you submit something to this contest drop me a line as well, and I’ll try to highlight your entry on PT as well.