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At this point, the idea of somebody publishing an attack on Charles Darwin isn’t exactly surprising. The 19th-century naturalist, and the man behind the theory of evolution, has never been a particularly popular figure among conservative Christians, and, these days, the anti-Darwin movement is a cottage industry. In the last year, which marked the bicentennial of Darwin’s birth and 150 years since the publication of "The Origin of the Species," the man was even subjected to the peculiar indignity of an assault by former "Growing Pains" star Kirk Cameron.

But unlike most of these attacks, "What Darwin Got Wrong," a new book by Jerry Fodor, a professor of philosophy and cognitive sciences at Rutgers University, and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, a professor of cognitive science at the University of Arizona, comes not from the religious right, but from two atheist academics with -- surprise -- a nuanced argument about the shortcomings of Darwin’s theories. Their book details (in very technical language) how recent discoveries in genetics have thrown into question many of our perceived truths about natural selection, and why these have the potential to undermine much of what we know about evolution and biology.

-Article continues off site, courtesy Salon.

Here we go again. The Los Angeles Times is reporting that the California Science Center, an organization affiliated with the Smithsonian, is facing a lawsuit from a group called the American Freedom Alliance. The group planned to rent the Center's IMAX theater in order to show a movie called "Darwin's Dilemma," which attacks the theory of evolution and promotes intelligent design. When the anti-evolution, pro-ID Discovery Institute stepped in, the Center used a clause in the contract to cancel the showing, attracting suits from both groups.

The AFA's vision statement says that it "aims to build a national alliance of people of faith," and the group apparently decided to use the public controversy over evolution as a way to do that. The film it chose features several Discovery Institute fellows, and was produced by a company that lists the DI as a "research link," along with an organization, the Access Research Network, that has Discovery fellows on its board

-Article continues off site, courtesy ars technica.

BRISTOL, England — A newly described, profusely feathered dinosaur may give lift to scientists’ understanding of bird and flight evolution, researchers report. The lithe creature, which stood about 28 centimeters tall at the hip, is the oldest known to have sported feathers and is estimated to be between 1 million and 11 million years older than Archaeopteryx, the first known bird.

Several fossils of the creature, which has been dubbed Anchiornis huxleyi, have been unearthed in northeastern China, Xing Xu reported September 25 at the annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology. The strata that contained those feathered fossils were laid down as sediments between 151 million and 161 million years ago, he and his colleagues note online September 24 in Nature.

Two types of feather adorn the creature, said Xu, of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing. One kind, commonly referred to as “dino-fuzz,” resembles a frayed bundle of filaments. The other type, similar in overall structure to the feathers of modern-day birds, consists of small filaments that branch from a larger shaft-like filament.

-Article continues off site, courtesy Wired.

On the heels of a February 2009 Gallup poll showing that only 39% of Americans believe the theory of evolution, a new British film about Darwin has had difficulty finding US distributors, apparently because the topic was deemed too controversial for American audiences.

It's a remarkably low degree of support, even in a nation that flirted with the idea of vice-president Sarah Palin. After all, America has often been seen as an innovator, at the forefront of technological and scientific change.

Perhaps America's distrust of a major scientific theory could be dismissed as part of the country's quirky charm, with no real consequences because the story of creation has little to do with our practical, day-to-day lives. As long as that 39% of disbelievers are making our microchips and producing swine flu vaccine, who cares?

-Article continues off site, courtesy The Guardian (UK).

ScienceDaily  (9/3/09)— Scientists at the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease (GICD) have traced the evolution of the four-chambered human heart to a common genetic factor linked to the development of hearts in turtles and other reptiles.

The research, published in the September 3 issue of the journal Nature, shows how a specific protein that turns on genes is involved in heart formation in turtles, lizards and humans.

"This is the first genetic link to the evolution of two, rather than one, pumping chamber in the heart, which is a key event in the evolution of becoming warm-blooded," said Gladstone investigator Benoit Bruneau, PhD, who led the study. "The gene involved, Tbx5, is also implicated in human congenital heart disease, so our results also bring insight into human disease."

From an evolutionary standpoint, the reptiles occupy a critical point in heart evolution.

-Article continues off site.

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