Photo credit: Travis S. via VisualHunt.com / CC BY-NC What most people “know” about human evolution is wrong, or at least isn’t quite right. The image showing people moving from chimpanzee to modern human, slowly becoming taller and more erect at various stages is wrong. It’s a good way to sort-of understand the concept of…
570 million years of evolution in 60 seconds (video)
This short video beautifully illustrates the history of life (as we know it) on Earth in just 60 seconds. Its real point, I think, is that humans are pretty new at all of this which is true. People tend to take this though as some kind of admonishment or warning: a sort of “we’re pretty…
Amazing video shows 3.5 billion years of your evolutionary family tree
You probably have a relative who talks your ear off about genealogy, or at least tries to. If they’ve been at it awhile they’ve probably traced your family tree for 3 or even 4 centuries. Here is a video you can send them to speed up their work a bit: If you ever feel insignificant…
A real ‘Birds Eye View’ goes way beyond seeing things from up high [video]
If you’ve ever heard people speak, you’ve probably heard the expression “bird’s eye view”. When people say this they generally mean a top down view, usually from a high place. As it turns out though the view from up high is the least interesting thing about the way birds see. Obviously birds have sharp vision…
Video explains evolution and why there was no ‘first human’
Biologist Joe Hanson of PBS Digital Studios It’s Okay To Be Smart explains why, when you look at evolution there really was no ‘first human’. In the simplest possible terms it is the idea that an ape didn’t just go into labor and give birth to a modern human. Evolution simply doesn’t go that quickly and most…
Carl Sagan Explains Evolution in the Original Cosmos
If you’ve been watching Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Cosmos: A Spacetime Journey then you’ve seen the wonderfully animated segments on Evolution. It was touched upon in the first episode and discussed in much more detail in the second. This video is the evolution segment from Carl Sagan’s original Cosmos. The animation is much less complex and…
Fox station in Oklahoma “accidentally” cuts human evolution from Cosmos premiere
A poll on the New York Daily News website says that absolutely no one believes that it was an ‘accident’ but that is what Oklahoma’s Fox 25 is claiming. The station says that “operator error” is responsible for human evolution being absent from the premiere of Cosmos last Sunday night. As you will see on…
Video: The Difference Between Evolution and Natural Selection
A quick video from minutephysics that explains the difference between evolution and natural selection. It is important to understand the distinction between these two concepts. Those who argue that evolution isn’t real are not only wrong but they haven’t even taken the time to learn the basic vocabulary of science. To argue that evolution isn’t real is to…
Scientists Hatch 700 Year Old Eggs
As the discovery of extrasolar planets has accelerated in recent years there has been a great deal of discussion about which planets might and might not support life. At the same time life has been showing us just how resilient it can be. Tardigrades (water bears) have shown that they can live in extremely high…
Suggested Reading: Can Science Deliver the Benefits of Religion?
The centuries old battle between science and religion is continuing to heat up. With each passing year it is more clear, not only that, religious creation myths are wrong but even that classic religious texts are historically inaccurate. There is, for example, little to no evidence to back up the idea that there ever was…