What does it mean to be a primate? One of many paths through the phylogenetic tree.

Strap on your seat belt and learn about the reality of primates:

“Primates” are collectively defined as any gill-less, organic RNA/DNA protein-based, metabolic, metazoic, nucleic, diploid, bilaterally-symmetrical, endothermic, digestive, tryploblast, opisthokont, deuterostome coelemate with a spinal chord and 12 cranial nerves connecting to a limbic system in an enlarged cerebrial cortex with a reduced olfactory region inside a jawed-skull with specialized teeth including canines and premolars, forward-oriented fully-enclosed optical orbits, and a single temporal fenestra, -attached to a vertebrate hind-leg dominant tetrapoidal skeleton with a sacral pelvis, clavical, and wrist & ankle bones; and having lungs, tear ducts, body-wide hair follicles, lactal mammaries, opposable thumbs, and keratinized dermis with chitinous nails on all five digits on all four extremities, in addition to an embryonic development in amniotic fluid, leading to a placental birth and highly social lifestyle.

See here for the full transcript. This video constitutes a highly condensed summary of some of the basic principles of evolutionary biology so often overlooked by creationists. The author goes to pains to point out that scientists don't just make claims about evolutionary development because they want to make these claims. Rather, the conclusions of evolutionary biology are compelled by an elaborate well-documented scheme of development based on massive collections of evidence, verified by thousands of scientists over hundreds of years, including more than a few scientists who were conservative Christians. Using this evidence, we can trace the development of a species from antecedent related species , but the phylogenetic tree of life . . . can be just as objectively confirmed from the top down when re-examined genetically. This is why it is referred to as a “twin-nested hierarchy.”

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Proposed change to DI comment policy re: scientific method and evolution

Topic:  Proposed change to comment policy concerning ill-informed comments regarding A) the scientific method and B) evolution by natural selection. At DI, we’ve had a wide-open comment policy.  Until recently, I have rarely rejected comments.  The ones I have rejected consisted mostly of preaching (see the current comment policy).  I’ve…

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George W. Bush: The Bible is probably not literally true.

Now that he doesn't need the evangelicals to get elected (and now that John McCain doesn't need them either), George W. Bush can safely say the the Bible is "probably not literally true." In a recent interview on ABC with Charles Gibson, Bush freely admits that Muslims can go to…

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Texas “Intelligent Design” results not quite overwhelming enough.

Less than 1% of the 464 biology and biological anthropology faculty members who responded to a recent survey approved of the following proposition: “Modern evolutionary biology is mostly wrong. Life arose through multiple creation events by an intelligent designer, although evolution by natural selection played a limited role.” The biologists…

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