Saurabh Chowdhury writes from an anthropological perspective to discuss the entanglements between evolutionary biological variations and modern sociocultural prejudices. Over millions of years, the human body has evolved with a wide range of variations.| the polyphony
Sugar is actually quite healthy when consumed in moderate amounts and in its natural form. The main natural source of sugar is fruit. In prehistori...| Science Questions with Surprising Answers
Scientists have uncovered fossils detailing a new huge predatory worm species thought to have hunted in the Earth’s water column more than 518 million years ago.| New Atlas
North American mammoths interbred more often than previously believed, suggesting hybrids were surprisingly common in the past 400,000 years.| The Debrief
veröffentlicht am 07.10.2025; Autor: Prof. Dr. Wolf-D. Stelzner Gespräche und Rückmeldungen, von der Frühphase des Corona-Phänomens bis Mitte 2022, veranlassten Prof. Dr. Wolf-D. Stelzner zu einem Streifzug in Form dieser Foliensammlung „Biochemie im Kleinen“.Sie verbindet klassische naturwissenschaftliche Inhalte mit gesellschaftlichem Kontext. Wir erinnern uns: Eine Zeit gesellschaftlichen Unbehagens, geprägt von Verunsicherung, strittigen Diskussionen und teils […] Der Beitrag ...| MWGFD
This study sheds light on the unique structural and chemical properties of alpha backbones as critical factors in the early stages of life's proto-peptide evolution.| MedicalResearch.com | Strong Foundations for Healing: The Vital Role of Relia...
Genetic analysis of plant hybrids in western North America reveals how hybrid zones can bridge fragmented landscapes and boost ecosystem resilience under climate change.| Conservation Corridor
Deep-sea mining threatens thirty shark and ray species already endangered, risking their extinction through habitat disruption and sediment plumes. The post Sharks, rays, chimaeras further threatened by deep-sea mining first appeared on Scientific Inquirer.| Scientific Inquirer
New research reveals fungi evolved and influenced terrestrial ecosystems long before land plants, highlighting their crucial role in early life.| Scientific Inquirer
Figure 1: This stepper machine is my kind of fitness landscape. Fitness, in evolutionary biology, measures an organism’s expected reproductive success. Utility, in economics and decision theory, measures an agent’s preferences, i.e. it is what we seek out. We often blur the lines between what an organism wants and what it evolutionarily needs. Why do we love sugar? The standard explanation is that in ancestral environments, sweetness signalled calorie density, which aided survival and r...| The Dan MacKinlay stable of variably-well-consider’d enterprises
The mystery of biological form has led some biologists, most prominently Michael Levin, back to Plato’s theory of Ideas. Levin is driven primarily by the surprising empirical findings of his lab. He argues that his results are best explained by reference to modes of causality not traceable to genetic histories or molecular components. While he has […]| Footnotes2Plato
New research not only deepens our understanding of animal movement, but also points toward new potentials inspired by biology.| Futurity
A crushed and distorted skull discovered in central China nearly 35 years ago is now redefining our understanding of early human evolution in Asia. Scientists have digitally reconstructed the 1-million-year-old Yunxian 2 cranium and discovered that it likely belonged to a close relative of the mysterious Denisovans and was a member of a lineage called […]| Archaeology News Online Magazine
The ISO C++ Standards committee, WG21, has a new convenor, Guy Davidson, or rather they will have when the term of the current convenor, Herb Sutter, expires at the end of this year.| The Shape of Code
New research reveals how human brain evolution may explain autism’s high prevalence, highlighting genetic trade-offs in cognition.| The Debrief
A recent study confirmed the existence of a hybrid bird between the blue jay and green jay species in nature.| The Debrief
After 125 years, a mysterious Welsh fossil is confirmed as Newtonsaurus, one of the earliest giant predatory dinosaurs ever found.| The Debrief
Samuel Jay Keyser on why repetition enchants the mind, and what evolution has to do with it.| The MIT Press Reader
Scientists are re-examining whether genetic changes remain the primary catalyst of human evolution, or if another factor has become more influential.| The Debrief
Scientists have revealed that queen ants in southern Europe can produce male clones of a completely different species.| The Debrief
Charles Darwin’s discovery of biological evolution has profound moral implications. Neither his discovery nor the moral truths it teaches have reached all of our people yet, mired as many good folks are in Abrahamic nonsense. American Dissident Voices broadcast of 23 August, 2025 by Kevin…| National Vanguard
Garden Culture Magazine| Garden Culture Magazine
I recently posted — and made a video about — a story about how de novo genes are made. I guess I was more timely than I expected, because The Scientist just posted on article on the sam…| Pharyngula
This was recorded on Saturday, September 13, 2025 as part of the Frontiers of Knowledge event at Wheeler Opera House in Aspen, CO. Below is the recording and a lightly edited transcript. Good morning, everyone. I want to begin by thanking you all for allowing your curiosity to draw you here. We are engaged in a […]| Footnotes2Plato
Investigating Evolution is a DVD resource for general biology courses. These short (3-11 minute) videos explore standard topics relating to evolution covered in many biology textbooks. The purpose of each module is to raise thought-provoking scientific questions and facilitate inquiry-based learning. (Note: These modules were adapted from the Icons of Evolution documentary for classroom use and contain additional clips and narration.) Source| Books – Discovery Institute
In this fascinating piece of historical detective work, Robert Shedinger draws on Darwin’s letters, private notebooks, and an unfinished manuscript to piece together a puzzle and reveal an embarrassing truth: Darwin never finished his sequel to The Origin of Species because in the end he could not deliver the empirical evidence he promised would validate his theory. Source| Books – Discovery Institute
We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary. The world — indeed, the universe — is charged with grandeur. Everything speaks of its beauty, power, and purpose — of its exquisite and Read More ›Source| Books – Discovery Institute
According to Michael Denton, the cosmos is stunningly fit not just for cellular life, not just for carbon-based animal life, and not even just for air-breathing animals, but especially for bipedal, land-roving, technology-pursuing creatures of our general physiological design. Source| Books – Discovery Institute
To hear some tell it, Adolf Hitler was a Christian creationist who rejected Darwinian evolution. Award-winning historian Richard Weikart shows otherwise. According to Weikart, Darwinian evolution crucially influenced Hitler and the Nazis, and the Nazis zealously propagated evolutionary theory during the Third Reich. Source| Books – Discovery Institute
How do some birds, turtles, and insects possess navigational abilities that rival the best manmade navigational technologies? Who or what taught the honey bee its dance, or its hive mates how to read the complex message of the dance? In Animal Algorithms, Eric Cassell surveys recent evidence and concludes that the difficulty remains, and indeed, is a far more potent challenge to evolutionary theory than Darwin imagined. Source| Books – Discovery Institute
University professor Neil Thomas was a committed Darwinist and agnostic — until an investigation of evolutionary theory led him to a startling conclusion: “I had been conned!” As he studied the work of Darwin’s defenders, he found himself encountering tactics eerily similar to the methods of political brainwashing he had studied as a scholar. Thomas felt impelled to write a Read More ›Source| Books – Discovery Institute
Darwin’s Black Box thrust Michael Behe to the forefront of the intelligent design movement. The Lehigh University biochemist has haunted the dreams of Darwinists ever since. Each of his three books sparked a firestorm of criticism, in everything from the New York Times and the journal Science to the private blogs of professional atheists. Over the years, Behe has had a delightful time rebutting each attack, and Read More ›Source| Books – Discovery Institute
Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913), co-discoverer of natural selection, was second only to Charles Darwin as the 19th century’s most noted English naturalist. Yet his belief in spiritualism caused him to be ridiculed and dismissed by many, leaving him a comparatively obscure and misunderstood figure. In this volume Wallace is finally allowed to speak in his own defense through his grand Read More ›Source| Books – Discovery Institute
Are life and the universe a mindless accident — the blind outworking of laws governing cosmic, chemical, and biological evolution? That’s the official story many of us were taught somewhere along the way. But what does the science actually say? Drawing on recent discoveries in astronomy, cosmology, chemistry, biology, and paleontology, Evolution and Intelligent Design in a Nutshell shows how the latest Read More ›Source| Books – Discovery Institute
The origin of life from non-life remains one of the most enduring mysteries of modern science. The Mystery of Life’s Origin: The Continuing Controversy investigates how close scientists are to solving that mystery and explores what we are learning about the origin of life from current research in chemistry, physics, astrobiology, biochemistry, and more. The book includes an updated version of the Read More ›Source| Books – Discovery Institute
In Foresight: How the Chemistry of Life Reveals Planning and Purpose, learn about jumping insects with real gears, and the ingenious technology behind a power-punching shrimp. Enter the strange world of carnivorous plants. And check out a microscopic protein machine in a bird’s eye that may work as a GPS device by harnessing quantum entanglement. Join renowned Brazilian scientist Marcos Eberlin as Read More ›Source| Books – Discovery Institute
The scientist who has been dubbed the “Father of Intelligent Design” and author of the groundbreaking book Darwin’s Black Box contends that recent scientific discoveries further disprove Darwinism and strengthen the case for an intelligent creator. In his controversial bestseller Darwin’s Black Box, biochemist Michael Behe challenged Darwin’s theory of evolution, arguing that science itself has proven that intelligent design is a better Read More ›Source| Books – Discovery Institute
Alfred Russel Wallace and His Evolution from Natural Selection to Natural Theology Source| Books – Discovery Institute
Are We an Accident…or Not? The question of cosmic origins and our place in the grand scheme of things has been debated for millennia. Why do we exist? Why does anything exist at all? Today’s popular narrative, based on advancements in science, is that it all happened by natural, random processes. Melissa Cain Travis points to powerful evidence that the Read More ›Source| Books – Discovery Institute
What happens when an up-and-coming European bioscientist flips from Darwin disciple to Darwin defector? Sparks fly. Just ask biotechnologist Matti Leisola. It all started when a student loaned the Finnish scientist a book criticizing evolutionary theory. Leisola reacted angrily, and set out to defend evolution, but found his efforts raised more questions than they answered. He soon morphed into a full-on Darwin skeptic, Read More ›Source| Books – Discovery Institute
Tom Wolfe, whose legend began in journalism, takes us on an eye-opening journey that is sure to arouse widespread debate. The Kingdom of Speech is a captivating, paradigm-shifting argument that speech — not evolution — is responsible for humanity’s complex societies and achievements. From Alfred Russel Wallace, the Englishman who beat Darwin to the theory of natural selection but later renounced Read More ›Source| Books – Discovery Institute
Four Views on Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design presents the current “state of the conversation” about origins among evangelicals representing four key positions: The contributors offer their best defense of their position addressing questions such as: What is your position on origins – understood broadly to include the physical universe, life, and human beings in particular? What do you take to be Read More ›Source| Books – Discovery Institute
A professor, biologist, and physiologist argues that modern Darwinism’s materialist and mechanistic biases have led to a scientific dead end, unable to define what life is — and only an openness to the qualities of “purpose and desire” will move the field forward. Scott Turner contends. “To be scientists, we force ourselves into a Hobson’s choice on the matter: accept Read More ›Source| Books – Discovery Institute
Science has made great strides in modeling space, time, mass and energy. Yet little attention has been paid to the precise representation of the information ubiquitous in nature. Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics fuses results from complexity modeling and information theory that allow both meaning and design difficulty in nature to be measured in bits. Built on the foundation of a series of Read More ›Source| Books – Discovery Institute
To show the substantial incompatibility (contradiction) between Thomas Aquinas’s teachings and theistic evolution we need to refer to the two levels of his intellectual enterprise. One is the level of philosophy (metaphysics); the other is the level of theology. Whereas philosophy is based entirely on the principles of natural reason and being (reality) without the help of revelation, theology is Read More ›Source| Books – Discovery Institute
About the Book In 2000, biologist Jonathan Wells took the science world by storm with Icons of Evolution, a book showing how biology textbooks routinely promote Darwinism using bogus evidence — icons of evolution like Ernst Haeckel’s faked embryo drawings and peppered moths glued to tree trunks. Critics of the book complained that Wells had merely gathered up a handful Read More ›Source| Books – Discovery Institute
About the Book In this provocative history of contemporary debates over evolution, veteran journalist Tom Bethell depicts Darwin’s theory as a nineteenth-century idea past its prime, propped up by logical fallacies, bogus claims, and empirical evidence that is all but disintegrating under an onslaught of new scientific discoveries. Bethell presents a concise yet wide-ranging tour of the flash points of Read More ›Source| Books – Discovery Institute
Revolutionary: Michael Behe and the Mystery of Molecular Machines tells the story of Michael Behe’s transformation from mild-mannered biochemist to orthodoxy-challenging revolutionary through the publication of his path-breaking book challenging Darwinian evolution, Darwin’s Black Box. It also explores the rise of the broader intelligent design movement in biology, the attempt to silence supporters of intelligent design in federal court, and the eventual Read More ›Source| Books – Discovery Institute
Throughout his distinguished and unconventional career, engineer-turned-molecular-biologist Douglas Axe has been asking the questions that much of the scientific community would rather silence. Now, he presents his conclusions in this brave and pioneering book. Axe argues that the key to understanding our origin is the “design intuition” — the innate belief held by all humans that tasks we would need Read More ›Source| Books – Discovery Institute
More than thirty years after his landmark book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (1985), biologist Michael Denton revisits his earlier thesis about the inability of Darwinian evolution to explain the…| Discovery Institute
This video is about to go live on YouTube. And now I add the script, below the fold!| Pharyngula
by Glenn Branch Glenn Branch is deputy director of the National Center for Science Education, a nonprofit organization that defends the integrity of American science education against ideological i…| Righting America
I posted it to Patreon, but if you aren’t a subscriber, you’ll have to wait until 5pm Monday to watch it on YouTube. . I’ll post a transcript here for those of you who hat videos.| Pharyngula
According to the SEP page on David Hume (see my emphasis in bold): "Kant reported that Hume’s work woke him from his “dogmatic slumbers” (Prolegomena, Introduction) and Jeremy Bentham remarked that reading Hume “caused the scales to fall” from his eyes (“A Fragment on Government”, chapter 1, paragraph 36, footnote 2). Charles Darwin regarded his work as a central influence on the theory of evolution." More specifically, the following is also stated (lower down) on the same page:...| Recent Questions - Skeptics Stack Exchange
A classic critique shows how creationists’ calls for “equal time” in classrooms blurred the line between legitimate scientific debate and intellectual imposture.| The MIT Press Reader
Earlier we discussed that Angry God is a foundational harmful belief because it gives rise to other misguided, harmful beliefs. We can say the same about Inerrancy and for the same reason. In fact, the two are closely connected. Inerrancy leads … Continue reading →| Jesus Without Baggage
Researchers have identified the oldest known fossils of primates, dating them to around 65.9 million years ago. That’s just after one of Earth’s biggest mass extinction events, and it suggests that the ancestor of all primates originally lived alongside the dinosaurs.| New Atlas
A groundbreaking study has traced the 66-million-year evolutionary history of primates and overturned conventional thought that our ancestors originally inhabited warm tropical forests. Using advanced statistical and climate-modeling techniques, researchers have discovered that the earliest members…| New Atlas
Lange dachten Forschende, die frühen Säuger seien Primitivlinge gewesen, die im Schatten der Saurier durchs Unterholz huschten. Nun zeigen spektakuläre Fu...| geo.de
LLMs are not going to replace developers. Next token prediction is not the path to human intelligence. LLMs provide a convenient excuse for companies not hiring or laying off developers to say that the decision is driven by LLMs, rather than admit that their business is not doing so well| The Shape of Code
How evolution wired us to act against our own best interests.| The MIT Press Reader
Sojabohnen vererben negative Erfahrungen offenbar weiter. Was bedeutet das für die Landwirtschaft und den Selbstanbau?| geo.de
Ever since The Origin of Species appeared in 1859, Charles Darwin’s followers have co-opted him as the patron saint of materialism. In False Messiah, longtime Darwinist and agnostic Neil Thomas looks…| Discovery Institute
Is your B2C marketing strategy keeping pace? Learn why personalization, authenticity, and seamless omnichannel experiences are non-negotiable for success in the dynamic consumer landscape of today and tomorrow. Unlocking Success: The Evolution of B2C Marketing Strategies The landscape of Business-to-Consumer (B2C) marketing has undergone a phenomenal transformation, mirroring seismic shifts in technology, consumer behavior, and […]| Marketing Smartly
Music is an art without an apparent object – there are no scenes to look at, no sculptured marbles to touch, no stories to follow – and yet it can cause some of the most passionate and intense feelings possible. How does this happen – how can sounds from resonant bodies produce emotion (1) in … Continue reading "CON MOLTO SENTIMENTO: On the Evolutionary Biology and Neuropsychology of Music"| Marsha Familaro Enright
With a 13 billion year head start on evolution, why haven’t any other forms of life in the universe contacted us by now? (Arrival is a fantastic movie. Watch it, but don’t stop there – read the Story of Your Life novella it was based on| Coding Horror
I'm always a little wary of popular science books that start with a personal story, but I'll make an exception for Madeleine Beekman's excellent book, which sets out a possible explanation of our ability to speak, because the approach fits in with a well-balanced combination of storytelling and scientific information. There have been a good number of books that either set out to explain some of our species' physical oddities or abilities that seem to set us apart from other animals. Twenty y...| Popular Science Books
The preserved lung of an 18-year-old Swiss man has been used to create the full genome of the 1918 "Spanish flu," the first complete influenza A genome with a precise date from Europe. It offers new insights into the deadly pandemic that claimed the lives of up to 100 million people.| New Atlas
An overview of our latest preprint on Anthrobots and what it means for evolution, biomedicine, and beyond.| Forms of life, forms of mind
The colours of human skin, eyes and hair in living people across the world are determined by variants of genes (alleles) found at the same place on a chromosome. Since chromosomes are inherited from both… More| Earth-logs
Anxiety is a mental disorder and is oftentimes treated with medication. However, there are a few ways that being anxious might just be a good thing.| Learning Mind
Identifying Life is child's play, but maybe the dividing line is not as real as we think, and Life is one of the amazing feats the universe CAN contrive when conditions permit. Continue reading →| Do the Math
There is no confirmed evidence of two-headed dinosaurs in the fossil record. While polycephaly —a rare congenital condition resulting in tw...| Geology In
To say that plants are important is a truism beyond doubt. They fill almost every ecosystem and niche on earthContinue reading| Biodiversity Revolution
Fossils from the Burgess Shale, because creationists would definitely hate the Cambrian Explosion. (Credit: Brooks Hanson) The Scopes Monkey Trial was held 100 years ago this month, but it feels like just yesterday. Actually, it feels like today; it feels terrifyingly like tomorrow. The theocrats are ascendant, friends, and their rejection of evolution is tied to all the other monstrosities they’re imposing on public life. Theodosius Dobzhansky said that nothing in biology makes sense excep...| The Last Word On Nothing
An extension to game theory where agents can split and merge, reveals interesting dynamics.| Forms of life, forms of mind
Join us as John Smout recounts his journey to Straniger Alm in the Austrian Alps, where alpine pastures and boggy slopes provide a backdrop for an extraordinary encounter with lizards at the edge o…| Naturally Speaking
Humans have been getting infected by ancient bacteria and viruses for at least 37,000 years. Now, for the first time, pathogen DNA has uncovered a pivotal disease "turning point" that happened 6,500 years ago, during which our biology and society created a perfect storm that would forever change…| New Atlas
(Courthouse photo by Robert Buckman) One hundred years ago this July, the nation’s media were riveted on a trial in the unlikely venue of the small town of Dayton, Tennessee. It wasn’t a sensational murder trial like that of Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold in Chicago the year before, but a seemingly mundane misdemeanor that captivated the country’s attention and became part of American popular culture.| Quill
A rare occurrence in the wild, exclusive self-pollination is an evolutionary strategy that may lead to extinction.| Asian Scientist Magazine
The evolutionary ladder is meant to be climbed one rung at a time with an organism shedding some traits and gaining others on the way up. However, in a very surprising twist, some tomatoes on the Galapagos islands are inching back down the ladder.| New Atlas
During the paleobiological revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, the status of paleontology as an evolutionary discipline was attempted to be established by a number of paleontologists. From 16th to 19th October 1980, the Field Museum of Natural History held the Macroevolution Conference, a historic event that challenged the four-decade-long dominance of the Modern Synthesis. […]| Letters from Gondwana.
Killer whales have joined the rare club of animals that can make and use tools, for the first time being observed crafting a kind of brush out of kelp and then using it on fellow pod members.| New Atlas
For more than a century, many of the writings of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook remained in manuscript, hidden away from the public eye. The works of Rabbi Kook that were published in the interim had many passages removed from them. … Continue reading →| The Book of Doctrines and Opinions:
Jonathan R. Goodman— Recently, I ran my daily Google search about my upcoming book, Invisible Rivals, expecting the pages I’ve seen about it before. But this time there was something... READ MORE| Yale University Press
May 3, 2010 Revised, March, 2015 Chapter One: Roots and Branches Overview: Spiritual direction as a profession has expanded and grown throughout the centuries and most spiritual lineages have directors, guides and/or soul friends to support the laity (Empereur, p. 23). As a field, it continues to grow and develop, adding the insights from other […]| 404 Not Found | Terri O'Fallon
Spanda Journal 111, 1/2012 The new parents received their newborn with eyes of wonder — a miracle of their own making. Already they had images of her walking, talking, learning to read, and eventua…| Terri O'Fallon
Introduction by Janine: All right, we’ve got two more talks this evening for the next hour. I’m really excited to welcome Matt Segall. He is a transdisciplinary philosopher, associate p…| Footnotes2Plato
Saying that "language evolves" is no enough to dismiss complaints about the misuse of words, since "language erodes" is just as valid, but without the suggestion of progress. Read more (9 min, 2300 words).| Everything Studies
Figure 1: And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer, put fire in it, added incense, and offered strange fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them. Then fire went out from the Lord and devoured them, and they died before the Lord. Lev 10:1-2 Notes on committing to things, and the implications of that for cooperation. Relevant to multi-agent causality where agents make decisions, in the context of iterated games in multi-agent systems with applications to AI safe...| The Dan MacKinlay stable of variably-well-consider’d enterprises
I’m grateful to Tevin Naidu for getting Deacon and Levin together. They only had 90 minutes but still managed to cover a lot of territory, including where they overlap and where some tens…| Footnotes2Plato
Anxiety disorders are commonly associated with being a purely negative thing. But what if I told you they may actually be hiding some remarkable powers?| Learning Mind
In Schwämmen lebt ein Meereswurm mit verzweigtem Körper. Von seinen Leibesenden schnüren sich Geschlechtsorgane mit Gehirn und Augen ab| geo.de
In the spring of 2017, Hampshire College welcomed a new faculty member, one without a brain or even a nervous system. Physarum polycephalum, a species of slime mold, joined the campus not just as a scientific curiosity but as a non-human thinker. As the college put it, this organism “researches important problems from a non-human […]| NeuWrite San Diego
The Lazy Life of the Sea Cow Manatees are the gentle giants of the ocean. Reaching 13 feet long and weighing more than a ton, these mammals should give off a dominating presence, but in reality, the opposite is true [1]. Manatees tend to get along well with most aquatic species. They have no natural […]| NeuWrite San Diego
In boreal forests, many hares adopt white winter coats before the snow arrives. In a snowless landscape, these white hares lack camouflage against predators. However, their early moult from brown i…| ConservationBytes.com
artificial and natural intelligence, including politics, policy, ethics and security| joanna-bryson.blogspot.com
One summer when he was about six, my nephew Nate got totally traumatized by fireflies. Delighted at first sight, he skipped and jumped as they lit up our field, collecting a dozen or so in a mason jar. That night he fell asleep happy, mesmerized by the soft glow from his bedside jar. But next […]| Silent Sparks
