Evolution as Fact and Theory

Here’s a link to Stephen Jay Gould’s notable essay, “Evolution as Fact and Theory.”

According to idealized principles of scientific discourse, the arousal of dormant issues should reflect fresh data that give renewed life to abandoned notions. Those outside the current debate may therefore be excused for suspecting that creationists have come up with something new, or that evolutionists have generated some serious internal trouble. But nothing has changed; the creationists have presented not a single new fact or argument. Darrow and Bryan were at least more entertaining than we lesser antagonists today. The rise of creationism is politics, pure and simple; it represents one issue (and by no means the major concern) of the resurgent evangelical right. Arguments that seemed kooky just a decade ago have reentered the mainstream.

.The basic attack of modern creationists falls apart on two general counts before we even reach the supposed factual details of their assault against evolution. First, they play upon a vernacular misunderstanding of the word “theory” to convey the false impression that we evolutionists are covering up the rotten core of our edifice. Second, they misuse a popular philosophy of science to argue that they are behaving scientifically in attacking evolution.

Chandra X-Ray Observatory cuts through star-fog

Phil Plait at the Bad Astronomy blog shows what Chandra can do to resolve a dim glow of star-fog in the Milky Way.

Rocket science

You know all those times you heard, “It’s not rocket science!” Well, some things are rocket science.

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Carnival of the Africans 6 at Everyday Skeptics

Check out this carnival about African science, skepticism, and academic life.

Africa at night

Strange and wonderful birds

I caught a bit of a nature show on birds: The Life of Birds, with David Attenborough narrating. Some of the birds of New Zealand really caught my eye.

Flightless birds: kiwi, rhea, cassowary, ostrich & chick

Perhaps it’s just as well that the elephant bird or the terror bird are no longer around to dine on us; but it’s a shame that the giant coots, flightless parrots, kiwis, and other birds are so close to extinction.

Skeleton of giant, flightless bird

The kakapo is a ground-living parrot of New Zealand. It survives only on one or two islands, and even there up in the hills where climate is harsh. The birds eat the juicy bases of grass stems and it takes an adult bird at least a year to teach its single young how to forage. Consequently, they don’t mate every year.

The kakapo, a flightless parrot that eats grass

And the hoatzin! I’d heard vaguely of a bird that had claws on its wings. But I never pictured the way the nestlings climb around on branches.

Hoatzin chick using clawed wings to climb

They look very much like prehistoric birds just getting ready to use their feathers for the first time. Gliding from tree to tree has evolved much more often and in more animal taxa than pure flying.

Hoatzin chick climbing

The hoatzin is so adapted to eating masses of low-energy vegetation that it flies poorly. But its wings are well developed. The claws are a juvenile evolutionary trace.

Updated from 2 July 2008 because I finally inserted the pictures.