Around the internets 23 Jul 2009 Razib has a post on a paper in BMC Evolutionary Biology that shows, fairly well, I thought, that Australian aborigines are most closely related to relict populations of indigenous Indian tribes. They are touting this as evidence that the “southern route” from Africa was the one taken by the Australians (which was hardly to be disputed, but it remains the case that a different route might have been taken, say by sea, and that some of that radiation ended up in India. Meanwhile, at the same journal, a paper on Old World toads being nested inside New World toads argues that a single colonisation of India and later Eurasia accounts for it. A typically amusing interview between two of my favour deviants, Henry Gee interviewed (one could call it that, I suppose) by Bora Zivkovic. A cool piece of work on why streams and hills tend to be evenly spaced. And some real criticisms of the appointment of Francis Collins to the head of NIH, based on his science, not his religion. Biology Evolution Humor Religion Science
Religion As ye sow… 9 Jul 2007 A woman who stabbed her entire family, killing her father and teenage sister, in Sydney, turns out to be a psychotic…. She was doing the right thing and her stupid parents’ religion (that parses both ways, and rightly) interfered. Read More
Evolution Evolution quotes 9 Jun 2010 For although there seems to be so great a difference between widely separate nations, that you might easily take the inhabitants of the Cape of Good Hope, the Greenlanders, and the Circassians for so many different species of man, yet when the matter is thoroughly considered, you see that all… Read More
Chocosophy Chocoholism 14 Jul 20126 Feb 2013 Who put the holism into chocoholism? Why, I did. Here’s why: As every First Philosopher has known since at least the fall of the Roman Empire, the universe is composed of four contrarieties. This is a fancy way of saying that there are four things that form opposites. This view… Read More