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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Genomes, Souls, and Cousins

You may have heard the news. Humans and Neanderthals, apparently, had sex with each other at some time. Shocking, yes, I know. But the newish technology of sequencing genomes is turning up all sorts of fascinating (and potentially scandalous) data. In NatureNews Online you can read more about it.

The researchers arrived at that conclusion by studying genetic data from 1,983 individuals from 99 populations in Africa, Europe, Asia, Oceania and the Americas. Sarah Joyce, a doctoral student working with Long, analyzed 614 microsatellite positions, which are sections of the genome that can be used like fingerprints. She then created an evolutionary tree to explain the observed genetic variation in microsatellites. The best way to explain that variation was if there were two periods of interbreeding between humans and an archaic species, such as Homo neanderthalensis or H. heidelbergensis.

Speculation over Neanderthal/Human interaction has been ongoing for a long time. Some of the idiosyncrasies of the Basque language have even been hypothesized to have resulted from such interaction, as that region of Europe seems to have been the last place Neanderthal was known to live. That they shared space---and perhaps much more---with humans is, to say the least, and intriguing notion. [More . . . ]

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