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A Natural History of Anarchy - Part I
2008-04-01 06:01:00
Evolution, Cooperation and Social Change?If the misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature,but by our institutions, great is our sin.?- Charles DarwinAll political and economic philosophies are based on fundamental assumptions about human nature. Early assumptions were based on the premise that a supernatural entity fashioned man in His image but that this creation was flawed. As a result, while we may strive for perfection, the harmony we seek is unattainable without embracing the Supreme Being and His law. Throughout recorded history, all-too-human tyrants have used such views to their political advantage.Even in the Republican systems that emerged out of the Enlightenment, the premise that there must be a class of rulers and a class to be ruled is the established norm (the modification being that the ruler is approved first by the populace rather than chosen through nepotism). Totalitarian regimes are predicated on the assumption that humans are innately selfish and ...
More About: History , Natural , Part , Anarchy , Natural History

God is a Metaphor
2008-01-27 16:29:00
Your Sunday Skepticomic from Jesus and Mo.To view last Sunday's comic click here.

Tangled Bank #97
2008-01-24 02:07:00
The latest edition of the net's best science blogs can be found at The Inoculated Mind. It looks like there are a few Open Laboratory 2008 entries already in the running.
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Time to Wake Up
2008-01-23 05:58:00
Elections are the warning that it's time to emerge from our cocoon.I'm going to lay it out plain. We live in a racist and materialistic society that none of us can any longer deny. There were fifty white supremacists protesting Martin Luther King Jr. Day in Jena, LA, the source of the most significant civil rights issue of this generation. Where were those countering the Neo-nazis and southern bigots? Where were the people of good conscience who refuse to allow ignorance to have the sole voice on issues that affect our countrymen?Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.While I often focus on issues emphasizing science, I am not unaware of the social hypocrisy occurring all around me. The assault on science by the religious right is mirrored by social conservatives who assault the respect of multiple cultures. The ultimate concern of these groups is profound ignorance, ignorance of science and ignorance of those aspects they would condemn in others. While they t...
More About: Time , Wake , Wake up

Star Wars Coming to America
2008-01-21 14:00:00
May the farce be with you.Here is a hilarious reedit of Star Wars with Coming to America (both of which James Earl Jones starred in). Happy Monday.Linked from Break

The Amazing Threat Alert Jesus
2008-01-20 15:30:00
Your Sunday Skepticomic from Threat Alert Jesus .comTo view last Sunday's comic click here.
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The Open Laboratory 2007 is HERE!
2008-01-16 04:17:00
The best science writing on blogs now on saleThere are some fantastic entries in this year's collection, including one from yours truly. Sure, you could read that selection here. But then you would miss out on all of the other fantastic writing from the net's best science bloggers.Many thanks to Bora and Reed for putting together a marvelous collection.
More About: Open , Laboratory

The Blind Leading the Blind
2008-01-15 05:11:00
Creationists spin-doctor the evolution of blind cave fishImage: Jesus! vs. Darwin! by The SearcherIt's a tired old routine, yet time and again the same argument is taken off the shelf, dusted, buffed and then presented with a sly smile as if it were something new. Evolution, it's asserted, is only progressive and builds on earlier adaptations in its march forward through natural history. Therefore, if there is any evidence that a species adapted "backwards" it must mean that natural selection is flawed. However, the fallacy in this argument is that natural selection has nothing to do with progress, it's merely one of the mechanisms by which species successfully adapt to their environment. Genetic mutations don't have a direction in mind when there's a mistake in transcription or as a cosmic ray collides with a nucleotide of cytosine. If the organism succeeds once this genetic alteration occurs, they'll reproduce and spread the mutation further. It says nothing abou...
More About: Blind , Leading

It's All in the Method
2008-01-14 01:53:00
Your Sunday Skepticomic from John Trever.To view last Sunday's comic click here.
More About: Method

And We're Back . . .
2008-01-14 01:10:00
Sorry for the delay, there was much to do. I'm pleased to report that I will be presenting my bonobo research before the august body of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists at their annual conference this April. But, until that time, I'm feeling fresh and rejuvenated and ready to explore anew the great mysteries of life for your reading pleasure.Thank you for all of your e-mails of support.
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How Secularization is Destroying America
2007-12-16 16:42:00
Your Sunday Skepticomic from Russell's Teapot.To view last Sunday's comic click here.
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Karl Rove Arrested at Duke University
2007-12-04 05:21:00
Bush's Brain removed from ivy league school "dialogue"Image: Daniel KurtzmanI wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't imagined it myself. Karl Rove , the Turd Blossom of Bush's Brain, forcibly removed from stage at the Paige Auditorium. It went down like this. I was excitedly decked out in my Sunday best (I have more than one pair) for today's "Dialogue with Karl Rove." After about an hour of leisurely, Special Olympic softball questions from political science professor (and former Bush administration strategist) Peter Feaver, I was feeling calm and relaxed about the present state of political affairs. Rove explained how Republicans were "the party of the middle class." Conservatives just need to get the message out on "urban radio" in order to see a rise in African-American and Latino votes. No Child Left Behind has been "the most successful education policy in 27 years." All was right in the world.Then the forum was opened for questions. This was a mistake. Predictabl...
More About: Arrested , University , Duke

Religion Masquerading as Science
2007-12-02 16:06:00
Your Sunday Skepticomic from Cox and ForkumTo view last Sunday's comic click here.
More About: Science , Religion

Polyamory and the Evolution of a Jealous God
2007-11-30 18:39:00
Dawkins critiques the myth of monogamy as moralityGod the voyeur wants to know what happens in your bedroom.Image: Adam & Eve by Enrico BajIn my earlier post, The Origins of Forbidden Love, I highlighted the absurdity of our culture (and dogmatic religions in general) in regards to sexual infidelity. Today, Richard Dawkins has an article in Newsweek that challenges this nearly ubiquitous social ?crime? of infidelity. As the good doctor states:?I want to raise another question that interests me. Why are we so obsessed with monogamous fidelity in the first place? . . .The underlying presumption -- that a human being has some kind of property rights over another human being's body -- is unspoken because it is assumed to be obvious. But with what justification???Even sticking to the higher plane of love, is it so very obvious that you can't love more than one person? We seem to manage it with parental love (parents are reproached if they don't at least pretend to love all thei...
More About: Evolution , Jealous

Which Sweatshop Would Jesus Exploit?
2007-11-30 00:40:00
Christian company uses Chinese sweatshop to make crucifixes.Capitalist Jesus asks, "What are the residuals on $4.6 billion?"My friend over at Atheist Revolution has a regular series entitled Know Them By Their Deeds, in which he asks the simple question: what sort of morals do we find among the so-called Moral Majority? Expect to find this story prominently displayed in the coming weeks as the controversy breaks.A new report by the National Labor Committee documents how the Association for Christian Retailers mass produces crucifixes in a Chinese sweatshop under appalling conditions. The company is the largest supplier of Christian merchandise in the United States with reported earnings of $4.63 billion in 2006. Ed Brayton (of ScienceBlogs) reported on this breaking story for the Michigan Messenger. According to the report: "Crucifixes are being made at the Junxingye Factory in Dongguan, China, by mostly young women ? several just 15 and 16 years old ? forced to work routine...
More About: Exploit

Great Ape Rights and Human Rights
2007-11-29 15:48:00
Legal standing of great apes and the legacy of child exploitationChimpanzees are regularly used for biomedical experiments in the USImage: Martin OCEarlier I posted on the court cases that challenged the conventional framework of great apes as property and would offer them some protections as sentient beings (see Trapped Between People and Property, Primate Experimentation Under the Microscope and Courts Dismiss Great Ape Personhood). Since the European Union is moving towards granting more expanded rights to great apes it's high time that the United States got on board, and perhaps even stepped up to take a leadership role on this issue.Pagan at Beacon Broadside has a terrific post on the issues that these legal cases raise and offers an insightful historical perspective on how animal rights may directly impact human rights.The whole argument may seem trivial, but consider this: Laws that protect animals often change the nature of human rights. In the early 1870s, no laws existe...
More About: Human , Rights , Human Rights

Gorillas Use Tools to Fight Human Invaders
2007-11-28 19:54:00
Suggests earlier use of tools in human evolution.Don't mess with other primates, human.Wild gorillas have been seen using "weapons" for the first time, giving a new insight into how early man learned to use sticks and stones for fighting and hunting millions of years ago. Researchers observed gorillas in the Cross River area of Cameroon throwing sticks, clumps of earth and stones at human "invaders". It is the first time that the largest of the great apes has been seen to use tools in an aggressive way.Experts believe that our ancestors may have learned to use sticks and stones in a similar way to frighten away predators. The scientists noticed the unusual behaviour during a three-year study. They believe the animals might have learned to throw objects from humans who were seen throwing stones at the gorillas.Jacqueline Sunderland Groves, from the University of Sussex in Brighton, a member of the Wildlife Conservation Society team, said:"The area is largely isolated from other g...
More About: Tools , Gorillas , Human , Fight , Invader

You Groom My Back, I?ll Groom Yours
2007-11-15 06:44:00
Tit-for-tat a common pattern across primate speciesGrooming reciprocity common in our evolutionary cousins.Image: UnattribatedIt is one of the oldest questions of philosophy: why are people good and why should we be kind to each other. Research with nonhuman primates is beginning to bring an answer to this age-old question: return benefits.Thirty years ago Robert Trivers developed the framework of reciprocal altruism. His hypothesis predicted that social organisms would benefit others if the cost to themselves was less than what the expected returns were likely to be. This hypothesis has been successfully tested for species ranging from ants to lions, and now a new analysis can confidently add primates to this list.Writing in the journal Biology Letters, Gabriele Schino and Filippo Aureli report that across 22 different species and 12 genera of primates females will preferentially groom others that preferentially groom them. Previous studies have suggested that primates will dir...
More About: Back

Animal Torture in God's Name
2007-11-14 14:00:00
From Jesus to the Jesuits, animals afflicted with religious cruelty.The cat piano developed by Roman Jesuits in the 17th century.Image: Magia universalis, 1657The Bible is full of descriptions of cruelty to animals. When Jesus exorcises a demon from an afflicted man (see Luke 8:27, though Matthew 8:28 states there were two men) he sends the spirits into a herd of pigs who he then commands to drown themselves in a lake. Why he couldn't have merely drowned the offending spirit(s) without the intermediary isn't explained. However, the religious interpretation that animals are merely to be used for human purposes meets a truly despicable level in this example from historian Anthony Grafton:Roman Jesuits "developed the cat piano (a clavier whose keys, when played, drove nails into a set of imprisoned cats carefully chosen for their voices, a musical and non-lethal cat massacre . . . guaranteed to cure the most melancholic ruler of his lethargy).Ghandi has stated that moral progress ...
More About: Animal , Torture

Tool-Wielding Chimps Reflect Early Human Behavior
2007-11-13 15:58:00
Pan the Tool -Maker creatively adapts to harsh environmentsChimpanzees use tools in many environments (here shown with hammer and anvil).Image: Clive Bromhall/Oxford Scientific FilmsA new report from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveal multiple tool technologies employed by chimpanzees in their harsh savanna environment, findings that may help researchers understand how our hominin ancestors coped with a changing climate.As Science Daily reports:A team of researchers including University of Wisconsin-Madison anthropologist Travis R. Pickering reports evidence of tool use among rare savanna chimps to harvest edible tubers, roots and bulbs.The finding is important because it chips away at behaviors once seen as uniquely human. It supports the notion that chimpanzees, our closest living evolutionary relatives, can serve as models for understanding some aspects of the lifestyles and behaviors of the earliest members of the human family.The new study demonstrates th...
More About: Behavior , Human , Early

Primate in Chief
2007-11-11 15:34:00
Your Sunday Skepticomic (artist unknown) with no offense meant towards other primates.To view last Sunday's comic click here.
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A Primate Meets his Maker
2007-11-09 14:45:00
Frans de Waal and a fate worse than deathYour humble narrator with Frans de Waal (the bright glow on my face isn't because of the sun).I'm presenting on my bonobo research today, so I apologize for the sporadic posting recently. It's been a little crazy. However, a funny thing happened yesterday. I met one of my heroes. This doesn't happen to me very often and the feeling was . . . what's the right word? . . . nice. Perhaps a little more than nice. Somewhere between nice and indescribably vast joyful excitement.Frans de Waal (recently one of TIME's 100) has been most responsible for inspiring me to pursue the work I am currently doing. For those of you who haven't encountered his work before, dive right in to his latest book Our Inner Ape: A Leading Prim atologist Explains Why We Are Who We Are. For those of you who want a more academic example of his writing you simply must, must, MUST, read Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved.I will write about his talk a...
More About: Maker

Richard Dawkins at Atheist Alliance Convention
2007-11-06 14:12:00
Author of The God Delusion at international assemblyDawkins is at his best as he addresses critics who say he's been too aggressive and strident in his views about religion.Part 1Part 2Both videos are linked from Richard Dawkins.netTo view Sam Harris' address at the 2007 AAI Convention click here.
More About: Atheist , Richard Dawkins , Alliance

Encephelon #35
2007-11-05 13:35:00
Do you like brains as much as we do?Image: The Man With Two BrainsWelcome to the 35th installment of the bi-weekly neuroscience blog carnival, Encephelon. You're in for a treat as bloggers from around the globe have put on their thinking caps and related the best of the brains.Starting us off, Mo from Neurophilosophy has a fascinating (and highly colorful) post on the new technology that allows for multicolored 'brainbows'.Ed from Not Exactly Rocket Science explains how even crucifixion can’t undermine the neuroscience of optimism. However, broken chains and faulty mirrors cause problems for autistic children.Robert at Brain Blogger describes a new study showing that anxiety is increased when the immune system detects infection.Sudip at Brain Blogger shows that finishing high school can help you avoid more than a dead-end job, it can also decrease your likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s disease.Jake at Pure Pedantry shares his excitement over the new development in brain ...

Perfect Happiness
2007-11-04 18:57:00
Your Sunday Skepticomic from Russell's Teapot.To view last Sunday's comic click here.
More About: Happiness , Perfect

Please Stand By . . .
2007-10-31 01:30:00
We are experiencing temporal difficulties.Image: Tammey StubbsActually I'm just extremely busy right now with this pesky grad school business. But don't worry, The Primate Diaries will be back to its regularly scheduled programming shortly.
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Situational Science Man
2007-10-28 13:50:00
Your Sunday Skepticomic from Doonesbury.(click image to enlarge)To view last Sunday's comic click here.
More About: Science , Situation

The Problem with Atheism
2007-10-28 02:53:00
Sam Harris at the Atheist Alliance International ConventionIn my view Sam Harris had some of the most astute comments at this year's AAI convention. The text of his speech was earlier posted at RichardDawkins.net but is now available through YouTube.Part 1Part 2
More About: Atheism , Problem

Controversial and Sad
2007-10-25 23:59:00
James Watson retires after promoting racist scienceJames Watson and Francis Crick after their discovery of DNA in 1953.Image: A. Barrington Brown/Photo Researchers Inc.The final chapter (one hopes) in a shameful history of scientific racism has just departed in a cloud of embarrassment. As I detailed earlier, DNA co-discoverer James Watson made the unambiguous statement that he thought Africans were less intelligent than other people, a claim he has just as unambiguously rejected. "To all those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologize unreservedly. That is not what I meant. More importantly from my point of view, there is no scientific basis for such a belief."Watson has now announced his retirement as chancellor of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was director from 1968 - 2003.As New Scientist reports:Eduardo Mestre, chairman of the board of CSHL, says Watson's contribution to the understa...
More About: Controversial

Four Stone Hearth #26
2007-10-24 12:16:00
Net's best anthropology blog carnival begins its second year.Welcome to the newest installment of the four field anthropology blog carnival Four Stone Hearth . As the carnival enters into its terrible twos there were many wonderful voices clamoring for attention. I've done my best to select only the choicest beans to make this blend a sensation you won't soon forget.CulturalMango Girl at Kafr Al-Hanadwa discusses how fasting in Hinduism is perceived to have spiritual benefits, but only for women. Such is the romance of the self-denying woman.Meanwhile, anthropologists working with the military are still raising controversy. Oh No a WoC PhD has her say about Anthro and the State while The Interrogation Diaries makes a few points about the little rituals of dehumanization. Marcus, From an Anthropological Perspective, puts it all into context by exploring the way politics affects how academics make a living (in a post which I’m not sure is a justification or an excuse).Anthrop...
More About: Tone