Putting our close genetic relationship to chimpanzees into perspective

Genomics Professor Katherine Pollard explored the genetic basis for being human in a video presentation titled "What Makes Us Human. Here a rather dramatic announcement from her talk:

Mouse and rat actually have a common ancestor longer ago than human and chimp, and some people will be surprised by that. They will say, "We are so much more different than a chimp . . . mouse and rat must be pretty similar." Actually mouse and rat on average are much more different from each other than we are from a chimp, and that's sort of a humbling fact to keep in mind.
We're not exactly like chimpanzees, of course, but there are quite a few overlaps (as well as differences), which Pollard explores beginning at the 4-minute mark. Surprisingly, young chimpanzees have a better competency in counting and numbers than young humans. At the 11-minute mark, you can see that the human genome is 95% similar to that of a chimp (or 99%, depending on how you define similarity), and that it is 28% similar (or 89%, depending on definition of similarity) to the genome of a mouse. [More . . . ]

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Richard Dawkins discusses the Greatest Show on Earth

In this Fora.TV video of a talk he gave at U.C. Berkeley, Richard Dawkins discusses his most recent book, The Greatest Show on Earth. In the early minutes of the talk, he explains why fossils are "icing on the cake" and he illustrates the "problem" with gaps by use of a humorous story. At minute 43:00, Dawkins explore the anthropic principle. At minute 49:00, Dawkins comments on the use of the word "why," as part of his comment on the question "Why are we here?" He explains: It's no more deserving of an answer than the question: "Why are unicorns hollow?" Dawkins also comments on the mechanism the creates conscious pain at minute 52:00, before declaring his own attempt to explain it to be incoherent. On the likelihood of a random mutation improving an organism, Dawkins points out that it is highly unlikely: "There are many more ways of being dead than alive." This video offers lots more engaging back and forth in the comments portion, following the main presentation. [More . . . ]

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Tim Minchin

I've recently discovered a new comedian and I would like to share. He's an Australian, Mr. Tim Minchin. I forget now where I stumbled upon him, but he is a delight. For one he's a musician/composer, and, as a keyboard player myself, I have to admit to being envious of his chops. But his comedy...ah, this is something special. I urge everyone to go to YouTube and see all of the videos. He is a skeptic. This video gives a fair example.

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Varieties of life under the sea

I am continually amazed at the wide variety of shapes of plant and animal life. Today, I ran across this series of photos of sea life, some of it from the deep sea. If I had been asked to design a new underwater life form, my imagination would not possibly have been able to concoct functioning animals like these. It's incredible that each of these life forms continues to live today, the successor to a long series of earlier and simpler life forms.

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Huffpo gives platform to Discovery Institute

I follow the Huffington Post carefully on political issues. It's credibility is far lower on health issues and, as Alex Pareene points out at Salon.com, Huffpo has completely dropped the ball in allowing a high ranking member of the Discovery Institute to publish a post blaming Charles Darwin "for eugenics and the Nazis." Shame on Huffington Post for allowing such anti-factual drivel.

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