Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
…and this is a pharyngula stage embryo.
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Three years ago, Ralph Reed, the executive director of the Christian Coalition, wished not to be seen. 'I want to be invisible,' he said. 'I do guerilla warfare…'… But on June 25th Reed played the expansive host at a luncheon given by the Coalition, the most influential group on the religious right, which was attended by hundreds of delegates to the Iowa Republican Party convention. They were celebrating their victories in gaining control of the state Party's central committee, ousting moderate Republicans, and in dictating a platform that supported the teaching of creationism in the public schools.
["Christian Soldiers", New Yorker magazine, July 18, 1994]
Modules and the promise of the evo-devo research program
Generating right-left asymmetries
"Prides and Prejudices: The Tragedy of Genius" Update Page
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September 30, 2006
Category: Politics
Don't you dare diss Kip Hawley! He's head of the Transportation Security Administration, and he's awfully touchy, you see. His minions also take it personally when you say unkind things about him. P.S. Kip Hawley is an idiot. Spread the...
Posted by PZ Myers at 8:44 PM • 24 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Nick Matzke has compiled all the data on hominin cranial capacities into a single chart: I think I can see a pattern there, can you? He also has data on body size and brain size over there, take a...
Posted by PZ Myers at 4:19 PM • 26 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Godlessness
Here's another review of Dawkins' The God Delusion(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). It's unbelievable, as if the critic hadn't actually read the book. Here's the hed/dek: Dawkins needs to show some doubt Scientists work in a field full of uncertainties. So how can...
Posted by PZ Myers at 2:22 PM • 63 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Art • Cephalopods
Charity and art come together in a project to create structures out of canned food, which are then donated to food banks. I fear I don't have a big enough supply of canned food to pull this off at...
Posted by PZ Myers at 12:09 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Development • Evolution • Molecular Biology • Organisms • Science
Here's a prediction for you: the image below is going to appear in a lot of textbooks in the near future. (click for larger image)Confocal image of septuple in situ hybridization exhibiting the spatial expression of Hox gene transcripts in...
Posted by PZ Myers at 11:33 AM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 29, 2006
Category: Creationism
Earlier this week, I had a chance to talk with Randy Olson about this business of communication good science to the public. I've had some disagreements with his strategies before; I think we resolved them a bit. What I had...
Posted by PZ Myers at 11:02 PM • 51 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The work of Craig McClain (of Deep-Sea News) is written up in Science Daily—it's cool stuff. Also notable is that it is illustrated with a photo of a giant isopod…one of those creatures Kent Hovind calls a trilobite, and uses...
Posted by PZ Myers at 5:07 PM • 12 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Note the headline on our student newspaper. It refers to the fact that our football team played Trinity Bible College's and beat them by a damnable 67 to zip…and that we've probably got a smart-ass heretic on the newspaper...
Posted by PZ Myers at 2:27 PM • 41 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Development • Science
Forgive me, but I'll inflict a few more zebrafish videos on you. YouTube makes this fun and easy, and I'm going to be giving my students instruction in video micrography next week, so it's good practice. This is a more...
Posted by PZ Myers at 10:00 AM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Carnivals • Open Thread
We've harvested a fine collection of links this week: Circus of the Spineless #25 (there's a tattoo parlor I want to visit!) I and the Bird #33 Carnival of Education #86 Skeptics' Circle #44 Friday Ark #106 Carnival of the...
Posted by PZ Myers at 9:18 AM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Cephalopods • Organisms
Planktonic octopus larva Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman....
Posted by PZ Myers at 7:00 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 28, 2006
Category: Development • Organisms • Science
Ah, the evils of strong drink. Or weak drink. You all know that you shouldn't drink alcohol to excess during pregnancy, and the reason is that it can affect fetal development. We take zebrafish eggs and put them on a...
Posted by PZ Myers at 5:39 PM • 44 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Development • Organisms • Science
By popular request, here's a roughly annotated version of that zebrafish development movie. Stuff to watch for: This movie starts at the 8-16 cell stage. The cells of the embryo proper (blastomeres) are at the top, sitting on a large...
Posted by PZ Myers at 5:20 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Evolution • Genetics • Science
Carl Zimmer brings up another essential point about the HAR1F study: it was work that was guided by evolutionary theory. The sequence would not have been recognized in the billions of nucleotides in the genome if it hadn't been for...
Posted by PZ Myers at 12:25 PM • 14 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Godlessness
Hey, this is a pretty good interview of Richard Dawkins by Jeremy Paxman. I don't know much about this Paxman fellow, but he asks hard, sharp questions, yet still gives Dawkins plenty of time to answer them. That's good interviewing...
Posted by PZ Myers at 10:32 AM • 142 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Development • Organisms • Science
At my talk on Tuesday, the centerpiece was a short movie of zebrafish development—I was trying to show just how amazingly cool the process was. People seemed to like that part of the show, at least, so I thought I'd...
Posted by PZ Myers at 6:00 AM • 13 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
