Bobblebrook has released a nice little evolution game: “Put on your garden boots (or your lab coat, if you prefer) and breed a unique collection of flowers! Each flower in “Rare Breeds: Petunia” has its own genetic code. Crossbreed two flowers and their genes will combine, with random mutations sprinkled in. Create something beautiful or strange, by simply selecting for traits that you want to emphasize.”

An internal document, however, sheds light on what was going on in Mr. Hauser’s lab. It tells the story of how research assistants became convinced that the professor was reporting bogus data and how he aggressively pushed back against those who questioned his findings or asked for verification.

— Document Sheds Light on Investigation at Harvard

During the past century, though, a mutant form of math has deflected science’s heart from the modes of calculation that had long served so faithfully. Science was seduced by statistics, the math rooted in the same principles that guarantee profits for Las Vegas casinos. Supposedly, the proper use of statistics makes relying on scientific results a safe bet. But in practice, widespread misuse of statistical methods makes science more like a crapshoot.

— Odds Are, It’s Wrong – Science fails to face the shortcomings of statistics

Kon-Tiki is a Norwegian documentary about the Kon-Tiki expedition led by Norwegian explorer and writer Thor Heyerdahl in 1947, released in 1950. The movie, which was directed by Thor Heyerdahl and edited by Olle Nordemar, received the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 24th Academy Awards in 1951. The Oscar officially went to Olle Nordemar. It is the only feature film from Norway to win an Academy Award. (wikipedia)

Human evolutionary change has been rapid and extensive; so much so that the genetic similarity and recent divergence between the human and the chimp lineages came as a profound surprise. Three million years ago humans were relatively minor elements of a rich East African mammalian fauna. Since then, our lineage has expanded geographically, demographically and ecologically. Over roughly the same period, our lineage has experienced an explosive increase in co-operation. We are the only large mammal that depends for essential resources on co-operation with non-relatives. Likewise, tool-use. Beginning about 2.5 million years ago, we became obligate technovores, with the pace of innovation picking up over the last 200,000 years. These changes have been accompanied by others in morphology, life history and family organization. We are not what we used to be. Tellingly, this pattern has not been mirrored in other lineages, as it would be if this trajectory had an external cause. So a first framing idea is that human evolutionary change has been self-generated through positive feedback. Specifically: a feedback loop driven by the increasing complexity of human social environments, and by the problems this complexity causes for co-operation management.

Continue reading The Evolved Apprentice

The findings have resulted in the retraction of an influential study that he led. “MH accepts responsibility for the error,’’ says the retraction of the study on whether monkeys learn rules, which was published in 2002 in the journal Cognition.

Two other journals say they have been notified of concerns in papers on which Hauser is listed as one of the main authors.

Full story here at Boston Globe.

The process of evolution, through which single-celled organisms slowly developed over billions of years into exponentially more sophisticated forms of life, has inexplicably culminated in local Albuquerque resident Mitch Szabo, leading evolutionary biologists reported Monday.

Even at the expense of having to say “I don’t know how it evolved” most of the time, biologists should not engage in idle speculations.