by Richard William Nelson | Jul 11, 2010
Natural selection is a simple scientific theory, according to the American Museum of Natural History, New York. For the museum’s Darwin Exhibit, the museum curator, Niles Eldredge, explains:
“A century and a half ago, Charles Darwin offered the world a single, simple scientific explanation for the diversity of life on Earth: evolution by natural selection.”
“Natural selection.” Eldredge explains, “is a simple mechanism that causes populations of living things to change over time.”
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by Richard William Nelson | Jun 27, 2010
RNA World, a natural explanation for the origin of life, has a Catch-22 dilemma. Stanley-Urey’s experiments in the early 1950s laid the foundation for the RNA hypothesis.
Their experiments demonstrated that essential biological molecules, specifically amino acids, could have naturally emerged in Earth’s presumed early environment. However, amino acids alone, while essential for life, since they cannot reproduce, cannot account for abiogenesis – the origin of life.
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by Richard William Nelson | Jun 20, 2010
In The Origin of Species, along with natural selection, Charles Darwin (pictured left) included an unexpected explanation for the origin of life. In the six editions between 1859 and 1872, the last sentence he ventured on an origin of life concept, noting —
“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one.”
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by Richard William Nelson | Jun 6, 2010
The discovery of a primate-like fossil named Ida in 1983 launched a complex, nearly three-decade-long investigative and media blitz and bust. Ida (pictured left with Bloomberg and Hurum) was discovered in the Messel quarry (pictured right) in Hesse, Germany.
Rumors soon emerged that this pristine, primate-like fossil appeared to be a potential link in human evolution. In 1995, the pit was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. By 2009, Jens Lorenz Franzen (pictured right below with Ida and Hurum), head of Paleoanthropology at the Naturmuseum Senckenberg in Frankfurt, declared the fossil as –
“The eighth wonder of the world.”
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by Richard William Nelson | May 30, 2010
The name “chimpanze” was first published in The London Magazine in 1738, meaning “mockman” in Angola. While the “chimpanzee” spelling appeared in a 1758 supplement to Chambers’ Cyclopædia, the “chimp” colloquialism was coined in the 1870’s.
Before the publication of The Origin of Species in 1859, Charles Darwin gave his view of the differences between chimpanzees and humans. In a letter sent to Joseph Hooker, a close colleague, it read –
“I cannot swallow Man [being that] distinct from a Chimpanzee.”
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by Richard William Nelson | May 9, 2010
Three years before the publication of The Origin of Species, the first Neanderthal fossil was discovered in Neander Valley, Germany. However, even Darwin questioned whether Neanderthals were human ancestors. More than a decade later, in The Descent of Man (1871), Darwin addressed his issue with the Neanderthal skull size –
“Nevertheless, it must be admitted that some skulls of very high antiquity, such as the famous one of Neanderthal, are well developed and capacious.”
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by Richard William Nelson | Apr 25, 2010
Each fossil record discovery has a unique story, and the Archaeoraptor composite is an exceptional example. In November 1999, a feature article in National Geographic titled “Feathers for T. Rex?” emerged as one of the most spectacular disasters in the history of paleontology. Archaeoraptor China hoax rivals the Piltdown Man saga, alleging –
“A true missing link in the complex chain that connects dinosaurs to birds.”
The Archaeoraptor storyline began in 1997 in northeastern Liaoning Province, China, following its presumed discovery by farmers (pictured above). At the time, the fossil appeared to have a bird’s body with small, terrestrial-dinosaur teeth and a tail. The name given, Archaeoraptor liaoningensis, was in recognition of its discovery site.
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by Richard William Nelson | Apr 18, 2010
Karl Heinrich Marx (pictured left) was intellectually aligned with Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection. In 1848, Marx published The Communist Manifesto two decades before The Origin of Species. However, what Marx lacked, Darwin had: specifically, objective, observable, and measurable cause-and-effect explanations for change.
Both theories center on struggle, but Darwin’s struggle is biological and mechanistic, while Marx’s is social and dialectical. However, Darwin had what Marx didn’t: a popular, logical, and seemingly scientific causal mechanism for change – natural selection.
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by Richard William Nelson | Apr 4, 2010
In 1825, at the age of sixteen, Charles Darwin was sent to Edinburgh University to study medicine. Soon, however, he found the study of medicine “intolerably dull” and “hated the sight of blood.” Fearing that his eighteen-year-old son would “ne’er do well,” his father transferred him to Christ’s College (pictured left), University of Cambridge.
His father, Robert Darwin, thought that a generalist Bachelor of Arts degree would qualify him to be a government clergyman. The Church of England offered a low-cost, high-status career pathway, a position socially comparable to medicine, law, or politics.
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by Richard William Nelson | Mar 21, 2010
A consensus understanding of Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection varies even among evolutionary scientists. Richard Dawkins (pictured left), in his “Illusion of Design” paper originally published in the Natural History Magazine, envisioned natural selection as –
“Non-random survival of randomly varying hereditary instructions.”
While Dawkins’ explanation of natural selection is widely held, developing a consensus among evolutionary scientists remains contentious. In reference to an understanding of natural selection, Darwin conceded –
“No one definition has satisfied all naturalists.”
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Natural selection is a simple scientific theory, according to the American Museum of Natural History, New York. For the museum’s Darwin Exhibit, the museum curator, Niles Eldredge, explains:
A consensus 