David Attenborough illustrates the tree of life in six minutes

In this six minute Youtube video, David Attenborough illustrates this deep truth: All Life is Related. This is an especially elegant story these days, where so many people are looking for so many ways to divide humans from the other animals, and to divide many groups of human animals from other groups of human animals. BTW, for anyone who hasn't yet viewed any of David Attenborough's nature DVD's they are all thought-provoking and beautifully filmed. They aren't just spectacular videos of animals in the wild; they also contain Attenborough's elegant descriptions and explanations of what you are viewing. One of Attenborough's more recent efforts is Planet Earth (a STEAL for $36). I have just ordered, but have not yet viewed his most recent series, Nature's Most Amazing Events.

Continue ReadingDavid Attenborough illustrates the tree of life in six minutes

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.”

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