Tag Archives: natural selection

You Are a Giant Tongue! The Five Key Adaptive Traits That Made Us Human

Posted on December 28, 2013 by Santi Tafarella

__________ Leonardo da Vinci’s famous Vitruvian Man and its variants (such as that done by William Blake) present human beings as the pinnacle of creation, unusually beautiful beings of perfect proportions obviously arising to their impressive stature in the cosmos … Continue reading →

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Charles Darwin’s Thinking Path

Posted on October 4, 2011 by Santi Tafarella

I love this image from Wikipedia Commons. It’s the path that Charles Darwin frequently trod at the grounds of Down House, his home. Darwin called this his “Thinking Path.”

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Jonathan Wells on Whale Evolution

Posted on September 14, 2011 by Santi Tafarella

Some thought-provoking observations on whale evolution by biochemist Jonathan Wells (a Berkeley graduate and vocal skeptic of strict philosophical naturalism): In the case of the Durrett and Schmidt (2008) paper, evolutionary biologist Richard von Sternberg has applied the equations employed in that … Continue reading →

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Mathematician David Berlinski Doubts Whale Evolution by Random Variation and Natural Selection

Posted on August 31, 2011 by Santi Tafarella

Whales, obviously, evolved from land mammals. But did they achieve this feat via a blind process of random variation and natural selection? Mathematician David Berlinski doubts it:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         . To my mind, the jaw-dropping informational complexity of life is the strict Darwinian … Continue reading →

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Jerry Coyne on Natural Selection and What Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini Get Wrong

Posted on August 5, 2010 by Santi Tafarella

University of Chicago evolutionary geneticist, Jerry Coyne, reviewing, for The Nation, Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini’s book, What Darwin Got Wrong (2010), gives as clear a definition of natural selection as you’re ever likely to find: In principle, natural selection is simple. It … Continue reading →

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Jerry Coyne v. Jerry Fodor: The Great Divorce

Posted on August 5, 2010 by Santi Tafarella

Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini’s book, What Darwin Got Wrong (2010), received a fair amount of attention (and drubbing) when it first came out in February. On Tuesday of this week, evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne expressed dismay that Jerry Fodor, in a recent interview, continues … Continue reading →

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Does a Process of Darwinian Natural Selection Quietly Undergird American Politics?

Posted on May 14, 2010 by Santi Tafarella

Have you ever thought of running for political office? No? Neither have I. How come? Perhaps it’s similar to my own reason. I find the very thought of running for a political office tiresome, for to be a politician means that you … Continue reading →

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Evolution v. Intelligent Design Watch: Jerry Fodor’s Anti-Natural Selection Argument for Beginners

Posted on December 30, 2009 by Santi Tafarella

Perhaps you’ve heard some buzz about an anti-Darwin book, coming out in February of 2010, by an atheist philosopher and cognitive scientist by the name of Jerry Fodor. Curious, I searched the web a bit to see if I could find out—before the … Continue reading →

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Evolution v. Intelligent Design Watch: Can Natural Selection Acting on Random Mutations Account for the Origin of Species?

Posted on December 5, 2009 by Santi Tafarella

Catholic biochemist, Michael Behe, thinks not, and Evangelical philosopher, William Lane Craig, in this YouTube clip, clearly and admirably sets out, in broad outline, Behe’s doubts:

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Life Gets Complicated—Really Fast

Posted on November 21, 2008 by Santi Tafarella

A single cell organism that, when it moves, makes track lines identical to those found fossilized in precambrian strata suggests that the multi-cellular “Cambrian Explosion” really was quite the explosion indeed. Discovery Channel News explains: Until about 550 million years ago, there … Continue reading →

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Evolution? The Fossils Say Yes: In the NY TIMES Today is an Extensive Report on Tiktaalic, a Fossil Fish/Amphibian Transition

Posted on October 15, 2008 by Santi Tafarella

Money quote from the Times science article: In a new study of a fossil fish that lived 375 million years ago, scientists are finding striking evidence of the intermediate steps by which some marine vertebrates evolved into animals that walked … Continue reading →

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