NYT article on genes 10 Nov 2008 Here, by the incredibly young, handsome and way too successful Carl Zimmer, late of the Seed stable. Carl brings to mind my favourite Truman Capote saying: It is not enough to succeed. Friends must be seen to have failed. Anyway, go read the bastard’s excellent essay. I will just sit here in my pool of failure. Evolution General Science Humor
Evolution Quotemining in the 19thC 23 Jul 2009 Dispersal of Darwin again has an excellent piece of the history of evolution: he traces the quotemining by the theologians in the 1880s of John Tyndal, a known Darwinian of the day, to “show” that evolution is unproven and speculation. It seems that the dishonesty is unchanging. Read More
Humor God damn Tony Piro! 2 Aug 201122 Jun 2018 Tony Piro does this comic: But that’s not why God should damn him. Philosophers do these sorts of things to their kids, and neither of my kids could leave home because Achilles and the Tortoise were always blocking the door. Instead, he should be damned because He’s a godless atheist… Read More
Humor Animation movie meme 11 Jun 2010 I haven’t done one of these for a while: Animation Movie Meme (From here, via Siris) X what you’ve seen O what you saw some but not all of Bold what you particularly liked Strike-through what you hated CLASSIC DISNEY ——————————- [ X ] 101 Dalmatians (1961) [ X ]… Read More
It’s a decent review of the past 50 years of genetics for the lay person. I think that’s why Zimmer is so successful; he conveys mind numbing quantities of science into something readable for the average individual with little background in science. In any event, I know most of that, and I’m a bit upset that he didn’t go more in depth with how untranslated regions within an a sequence function (like operators), but it was still a decent place to send people for a very general overview.
It’s a decent review of the past 50 years of genetics for the lay person. I think that’s why Zimmer is so successful; he conveys mind numbing quantities of science into something readable for the average individual with little background in science. In any event, I know most of that, and I’m a bit upset that he didn’t go more in depth with how untranslated regions within an a sequence function (like operators), but it was still a decent place to send people for a very general overview.
For a layman like me, it’s a great piece of work. One of the difficulties a non-specialist faces in keeping up with the field is that it changes so quickly, and new discoveries keep happening. That’s why I started reading Scienceblogs. Zimmer is indeed absurdly talented. But reading him was what led me to other fascinating blogs like this one. (Fishing for compliments, John?)
For a layman like me, it’s a great piece of work. One of the difficulties a non-specialist faces in keeping up with the field is that it changes so quickly, and new discoveries keep happening. That’s why I started reading Scienceblogs. Zimmer is indeed absurdly talented. But reading him was what led me to other fascinating blogs like this one. (Fishing for compliments, John?)