Archives
Do Shared ERVs Support Common Ancestry?
In my previous article, I discussed the background of one of the most commonly made arguments for primate common ancestry. In this article, I want to examine the first of the three layers of evidence offered by a popular-level article written about this subject.
Science Writers, Metaphysics, and the End of the Dissemination Chain
CSC Fellow Cornelius Hunter gives us the big picture view of the recent dustup with John Farrell at Forbes as “an interesting example of how evolutionary thinking is handed down and disseminated.”
Revisiting an Old Chestnut: Retroviruses and Common Descent (Updated)
One common argument for common descent which one hears very frequently in the evolutionary literature concerns the placement of endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) in orthologous loci in primate genomes.
At Forbes, John Farrell Joins in “Ayala’ing” of Jonathan Wells
Farrell thinks the myth of junk DNA is itself a myth — that “scientists never dismissed junk DNA in the literature.” In other words, Wells has set up a straw man. Of course, not having looked at the book, Farrell can’t have consulted Dr. Wells’s fifty pages of notes documenting his argument.
Biology and Mathematics
Perhaps mathematics can explain certain biological phenomenon.