Why you should attend the University of Minnesota
Category: Local
Because we're all geeks and nerds....
Posted by PZ Myers at 11:49 PM • 34 Comments •
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PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
…and this is a pharyngula stage embryo.
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To command the professors of astronomy to confute their own observations is to enjoin an impossibility, for it is to command them not to see what they do see, and not to understand what they do understand, and to find what they do not discover.
[Galileo Galilei, "The Authority of Scripture in Philosophical Controversies"]
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October 30, 2009
Philip Ward—What do phylogenies tell us about evolution?
Category: Science
A phylogeny is a statement about the evolutionary history of organisms. Cladograms give branching order only, but phylograms include branch lengths as well. They inform us about diversification of lineages, patterns and rates of trait evolution, and the ages of...
Posted by PZ Myers at 5:01 PM • 36 Comments •
Eric Lander—Genomics and Darwin in the 21st Century
Category: Science
Lander began by saying he wasn't an evolutionist — an interestingly narrow definition of the term. He's a fan of the research, but considers himself a biomedical geneticist, as if that was something different. Having entire genomes of many species...
Posted by PZ Myers at 4:12 PM • 23 Comments •
Jerry Coyne—Speciation: Problems and Prospects
Category: Science
Earlier today, Jerry mentioned to me that he noticed my earlier blog posts on the meeting, and thought I wasn't being critical enough. So I think that means I'm supposed to let my inner beast out for this one. (Nah,...
Posted by PZ Myers at 3:10 PM • 32 Comments •
More coverage elsewhere
Category: ChicagoDarwin2009
There are two parallel sessions going on here at the Chicago Darwin meetings, so I can only attend half…and I'm focusing on the biology sessions. There's a whole 'nother track of philosophy and history talks that I've been neglecting! Science...
Posted by PZ Myers at 2:28 PM • 3 Comments •
Frederick Cohan—the Origins of Ecological Diversity in Prokaryotes
Category: Science
How do we distinguish bacterial species? Cohan shows us some nice diagrams of phenotypic and molecular clusters, and they show groups separated by gaps — therefore, species. Unfortunately the species defined thereby are big and contain considerable diversity within them....
Posted by PZ Myers at 2:22 PM • 7 Comments •
Paul Sereno— Dinosaurs: Phylogenetic reconstruction from Darwin to the present
Category: Science
Oops, missed the first part of this talk due to the distractions of Lunch. Walked in as he was talking about tree vs. ladder thinking (people have a hard time conceptualizing trees) and history as a chronicle — barebones description...
Posted by PZ Myers at 1:38 PM • 13 Comments •
Douglas Schemske—Ecological Factors in the Origin of Species
Category: Evolution
How do different varieties become species? Darwin credited selection. What are the details of this process? Speciation is a booming topic in the science literature, with 25,000 titles last year. Need to define a species to begin. Uses Mayr's biological...
Posted by PZ Myers at 12:19 PM • 7 Comments •
Peter & Rosemary Grant—Natural Selection, Speciation, and Darwin's Finches
Category: Science
How do we explain the diversity of species in the world? The core process is speciation, a splitting of a lineage into two divergent lines that at the end, cannot interbreed. What do we know about speciation in Darwin's finches?...
Posted by PZ Myers at 11:12 AM • 35 Comments •
Douglas Futuyma—Evolutionary Ecology and the Question of Constraints
Category: Science
I have wireless access in the lecture hall today, so I'm going to try liveblogging these talks. This may get choppy! What it will lack in editing will be compensated for by more timely and regular updates. I hope. At...
Posted by PZ Myers at 9:52 AM • 15 Comments •
