Britain’s peppered moth has long served as an evolution icon. This month, a new genetic discovery unravels the moth’s once iconic status. As ScienceDaily reports –
“Researchers from the University of Liverpool, have identified and dated the genetic mutation that gave rise to the black form of the peppered moth, which spread rapidly during Britain’s industrial revolution. The new findings solve a crucial missing piece of the puzzle in this iconic textbook example of evolution by natural selection.”
R2D2 is the good guy, the favorite character of George Lucas – known for always saving the day at least once in every film. However, R2d2 disses Darwin.
The status of evolution as a science is verging closer to extinction following a workshop in Germany last month. The essence and definition of science were on center stage at this historical convening of the leading physicists and philosophers of science last month.
Evolution paradigms increasingly struggle to survive under the weight of new scientific evidence. The malarial evolution nightmare is the latest. “Think of a deck of cards,” said Dan Larremore in an interview with Quanta Magazine science writer Veronique Greenwood.
“Now, take a pair of scissors and chop the 52 cards into chunks. Throw them in the air. Card confetti rains down, so the pieces are nowhere near where they started. Now tape them into 52 new cards, each one a mosaic of the original cards. After 48 hours, repeat.”
A new and unanticipated evolution dilemma now follows the wake of a massive new microbe discovery. Using a new technique, the number of known bacteria has been “bolstered by almost 50 percent,” according to a new article by Kevin Hartnett published in QuantaMagazine.org and reprinted in ScientificAmerica.com.
With a series of successively smaller porous filters, the University of California Banfield Group at Berkeley discovered a massive number of tiny “bacteria representing > 35 phyla… that consistently distinguished these organisms from other bacteria.”
Darwin, Then and Now, the Most Amazing Story in the History of Science, is a chronicle of who Darwin was, how he developed his theory, specifically what he said, and what scientists have discovered since the publication of The Origin of Species in 1859.
The book traces the rise and fall of evolution's popularity as a scientifically valid theory. With over 1,000 references from Darwin and scientists, Darwin Then and Now retraces developments in the most amazing story in the history of science. DarwinThenandNow.com focuses on understanding the intersection of biological evolution and science.