Old Weblog Archive - July 2002
Tougher bugs beat pesticides
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Farmers are losing ground in the war against common agricultural pests as insects become hardened to chemical sprays, say scientists.
BBC: 30-Jul-02
Natural Selection in action.
The Virtues of Promiscuity
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"Slutty" behavior is good for the species. That is the conclusion of a new wave of research on the evolutionary drives behind sexuality and parenting. Women everywhere have been selflessly engaging in trysts outside of matrimony. And they have been doing it for a good long time and for excellent reasons. Anthropologists say female promiscuity binds communities closer together and improves the gene pool.
AlterNet: 22-Jul-02
More sociobiological sillyness. I always wondered who all us polygamous men were supposed to be cheating with.
Film council bets on costume drama
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The British film council has announced it is to invest in three new period dramas. The largest award, £64,000, will go to Four Weddings and a Funeral director Mike Newell's story of Charles Darwin's wife Emma, Mrs Darwin.
Guardian: 19-Jul-02
Origins of domestic horse revealed
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The story of how wild horses were tamed by ancient people has been pieced together by gene hunters. DNA evidence shows modern horses are descended from not one but several wild populations.
BBC: 16-Jul-02
Original Darwin edition sold off
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A rare first edition of The Origin of Species, written by Shropshire's most famous son Charles Darwin, has fetched £38,000 at auction.
Shropshire Star: 12-Jul-02
First synthetic virus created
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Scientists have assembled the first synthetic virus.
The US researchers built the infectious agent from scratch using the genome sequence for polio. Scientists are divided about whether a virus is alive. For those that think it is, then this synthetic artefact would constitute a simple form of life.
BBC: 11-Jul-02
"The reason we did it was to prove that it can be done," said Dr Eckard Wimmer, re-enforcing the "irresponsible mad scientist" stereotype.
'Astonishing' skull unearthed in Africa
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A recently unearthed human-like skull is being described as the most important find of its type in living memory... The fossil makes it clear how messy the process of evolution had been. It shows that there wasn't a nice steady progression from ancient hominids to what we are today.
BBC: 10-Jul-02
...But, see also:
- Skull find sparks controversy (It's a gorilla, say other experts) [BBC: 12-Jul-02]
- Scientists clash over skull [BBC: 09-Oct-02]
The joy of living dangerously
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Forget exams and league tables, writes Richard Dawkins. Real education, exemplified by a maverick headmaster almost 100 years ago, is about the power of knowledge and the thrill of discovery.
Guardian: 06-Jul-02
What's this? Dawkins writing a brief historical/biographical piece and linking it to a modern issue? Is he trying to fill the gaping gap in this genre left by Stephen Jay Gould? Let's hope so: he turns out to be rather good at it.
Fish policies 'ignore evolution'
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Current fishing regulations need to be rethought because they ignore evolution, according to new research. The policy to catch only the larger individuals of any given species - in an attempt to protect juveniles - may cause the average adult size of fish to decrease, it is claimed.
BBC: 04-Jul-02
First humans 'small brained'
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Larger brain size was probably not the only driving force behind the exodus of early humans from Africa. A third skull found at the camp of some of the the first humans to leave the continent is much smaller than the others.
BBC: 04-Jul-02
Warning: The article contains full-frontal nudity. If that doesn't make you read it, I don't know what will.
Fossil was 'first walker'
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The most primitive foot to walk on land has been described by scientists.
It belonged to an animal that lived about 345 million years ago - in what is now Scotland. The skeletal remains are the oldest in the fossil record to show bones that had the ability to move on land.
BBC: 03-Jul-02
A reader writes...
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A reader has written to comment on a statement I made in my May 2002 weblog that Bernard Kettlewell's experimental methodology in his famous peppered moth study was bad. As they clearly know a lot more about the subject than me, I include their comments in full:
[Note to the person who sent me the comments: I tried to reply to your e-mail, but my reply was bounced]
You claim that the peppered moth study was discredited and that it was due to faulty experimental methodology. I agree with you that even if this were the case it would not affect Darwinism but may I point out to you that while Kettlewell's approach may not have been perfect, the evidence supporting selective predation as a major factor in the distribution of the peppered moth is quite strong.
There are some 'details' which were incomplete at Kettlewell's time such as the natural resting place of moths, the vision of birds. But what did Kettlewell establish? This will also show how the various experiments may have been mixed up by reviewers.
First Kettlewell performed aviari experiments to determine if birds have the same problem observing moths against a matching background. the second step involved mark-release-capture experiments. Moths were tagged and released on mornings and recaptured using mercury lamps and phermones. He found as expected twice as high recapture rates for carbonara in polluted woods and three times as high recapture rates for typica in unpolluted woods.
Some reasonable objections were raised wrt these experiments such as the time of release, the resting places of moths, the vision of birds in the UV light.
Many additional experiments since then have supported Kettlewell's findings.
If you are interested in further details, please let me know. It's time to present an accurate picture of these experiments.
Links:
Bruce Grant on the peppered moth paradigm:
http://www.wm.edu/biology/melanism.pdfCertainly there are other examples of natural selection. Our field would be in mighty bad shape if there weren’t. Industrial melanism in peppered moths remains one of the best documented and easiest to understand.Two great books to read are both written by Majerus, namely "Melanism" and "Moths". In moths Majerus addresses some of the limitations in Kettlewell's methodology
A BAYESIAN ANALYSIS OF STRATEGIES USED IN EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY David Rudge
http://iws.ccccd.edu/rcoltman/NTPA/Rudge%20paper%20(1997).htmlSome relevant recapture numbers
http://www.biology.duke.edu/rausher/lec6a.htmHow Kettlewell found Darwin's missing evidence in the British Peppered Moth
http://genbiol.cbs.umn.edu/peppmoth/peppmoth.html