This morning I spent 45 minutes, via Skype, with Professor John Willis’s Genetics and Evolution course (Bio 102L) at Duke University.  It’s an introductory course for all biology majors, and they’re reading, among other things, Why Evolution is True.  John, a University of Chicago Ph.D. who took my graduate classes, asked me to speak to [...]...

Thanks to sdando for the link For the first time, a structure comparable to our cerebral cortex has been found in an invertebrate -- a humble marine ragworm. THE GIST A marine ragworm has brain structures that researchers now believe are directly related to the human brain. Other invertebrates likely also possess the brain structures, which correspond to our cerebral cortex. The origins of th...

Note added 3rd Sept: This broadcast can be heard here. This week on the God Discussion Show, we'll be talking about science, reason and superstition, as well as separation of church and state activism. From Richard Dawkins' book, The Greatest Show on Earth – The Evidence for Evolution, we learn that "in 2008, a Gallup poll showed that 44% of Americans believed God had created man in his presen...

Igor Siwanowicz is a Polish-born biologist who works as a technical assistant in behavioral genetics at the Max Planck institute of Neurobiology in Munich.  He’s also a world class nature photographer, specializing in macro photography of animals.  I especially love his mantises.  Here are some of his images (click to enlarge); you can see many [...]...

There is a wonderful program in place at a bible camp in Massachusetts: the children get phone calls…from God. He tells the kids to proselytize for him, to be just like Jesus, and if they're really, really good, that he'll swoop in some day on his magic sleigh and harvest their souls to bring to heaven with him (OK, that last bit is an extrapolation). I like this plan, though. It sets the k...

If you’re wondering what happened to wunderkind soprano Jackie Evancho, she sang again last night on America’s Got Talent. Here’s her latest performance, singing the Italian classical/crossover song Con te partirò (“Time to say goodbye”). If you want the music without the brouhaha, it goes from 1:45 to 3:20. Yes, opera buffs are poo-pooing her, [...]...

No matter how dreadful you think Sarah Palin is, she’s far worse.  Take half an hour and read “Sarah Palin: The sound and the fury,” Michael Joseph Gross’s entertaining exposé of Palin in the new Vanity Fair.  As she gains fame among the morons and miscreants who make up her constituency, her life becomes more [...]...