h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

High controversy in the UK as the Director of Education of the Royal Society, Rev Prof Michael Reiss, suggests that Creationism should be taught in science classes. The head of the Royal Society has confirmed that this accurately reflects the offical policy of the Society.

Of course, it turns out that there has been some slight exaggeration by the press:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article4743350.ece

Meantime the Church of England has set up a web-site attacking Creationism and offering an apology to Darwin. I would offer a link, but I can't find it!

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Oh, here we go:

http://www.cofe.anglican.org/darwin

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http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/10/old_scientists_never_clean_out.php

One of the favourite objections to the Miller-Urey experiments - that they only produced a limited range of amino acids - is comprehensively undone, as it turns out that Miller simply wasn't able to detect the low concentrations (or possibly that they formed very slowly) of many more.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7684796.stm

Another feathered dinosaur found - this one apparently seems incapable of flight and probably used its feathers for ornamentation.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/nov/07/creationism-intelligent-design-religion

The latest survey shows 29% of teachers in the UK favour teaching Creationism in science lessons, with 51% opposed.

Gif

hmm, sorry to butt in, that survey wasn't quite what it appears if memory serves. Did find someone blogging it somewhere but can;t find it now - was sure it was on badscience but can't see it now. All to do with survey size and what/how they counted and the wording involved.

I did see some comments that only around 10% of teachers asked responded, so it's likely that those with strong opinions responded. If that's right, it actually shows 3% supporting Creationism and 90% not expressing opinion. Was that what you were thinking of?

Nevertheless, expect to see this being used as evidence (particularly, I suspect, by the Creationist side) for a while to come yet.

Gif

oh yes, it'll be used as a wedge stat to start a debate and make it look like there's a bigger issue than there really is. First you have the debate and then that creates the problem and so you get your way (they hope). Really underhand tactics but then i guess that is all they have.

Yes, something about the response rate and also I think something about messing with the stats so the number of who believed creationism wasn't quite what it appeared to be. If I find it I'll post it. Might help rebutting it (not that it needs to, appeal to popularity/authority is fairly easy to head off anyway).

http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2008/11/odontochelys-a.html

Odontochelys - a fossil transitional turtle - has been discovered.

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Nature magazine has published a flyer aimed at Creationists, giving 15 examples of the evidence in favour of evolution:
http://www.nature.com/nature/newspdf/evolutiongems.pdf

And the BBC is to launch a series of programmes celebrating 'Darwin Year'; 2009 is the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth and the 150th of the publication of The Origin of Species:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/darwin/

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I think this story bears watching as well, could be some interesting stuff coming out of it:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7806062.stm

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,479777,00.html



Self-replicating RNA molecules made in a lab. That's pretty huge.

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There has been a spate of articles and TV programmes to celebrate the 200-year anniversary of Darwin's birth and teh 150th of the publication of Origin of Species. Probably the most interesting of these is New Scientist, which boldly proclaimed on its front cover: 'Darwin Was Wrong!' (though obviously they don't mean wrong about the basics of evolution).
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126921.600-why-darwin-was-wrong-about-the-tree-of-life.html

Meantime, another whale transitional has turned up:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0004366

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The Catholic church is moving to distance itself from 'intelligent design':
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5705331.ece

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7950871.stm

'Dino fuzz' - proto-feathers - have been found on a very early dinosaur. Interestingly, it's an ornithischian, part of the group of dinosaurs not thought to be ancestral to birds. This strongly implies that most (or all) dinosaurs had some form of fuzz.

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did you catch the story about the octopode fossils? Very cool and hugely detailed. Pharyngula (of course!) has the best take on it with some explanations of what it means.

and, of course, a link would help!
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/03/octopods_from_the_cretaceous.php#more

Hi Ictoan,

Yeah, I saw that, and they are

I only didn't list them here because (at a cursory glance) they didn't seem to have much relevance to evolution per se.

Gif

ah, well, check out pharyngula's take on it.
The bit about how they will be misused by creationists (pretty much the same over 95million years = no evolution = goddidit) means they are important for the argument. Sometimes the subtle changes are important to note to refute creationist arguments.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8010292.stm

T-rex transitional

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