Here are a few things to watch out for in the next few months, with risks seasonally increasing at social gatherings. Be cautious during gatherings, and increase your awareness in the following weeks and months of news about any spread of RSV, more than one type of avian flu, possibly Covid, and possibly (but less likely) measles. The CDC has been…[Read more]

Simon,

Yes, and we’ve wrecked every single one. We can’t compare one species with another to say one is better than the other. Like you say, each is optimised for their environment.

We’ve made progress – but in what kinds of dreadful directions?

By “progress,” I meant in terms of adaptability, the crucial trait for evolution. Of course,…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
But yes, we made progress in the sense that we evolved to live in all of the Earth’s extremes.

Yes, and we’ve wrecked every single one.  We can’t compare one species with another to say one is better than the other.  Like you say, each is optimised for their environment.

We’ve made progress – but in what kinds of…[Read more]

We did not “progress” relative to other apes. When we diverged we “went our separate paths”. But yes, we made progress in the sense that we evolved to live in all of the Earth’s extremes.

Reg,

On the right, Judeo-Christian values are out and Christian nationalism is in.

From the story:

This week, for example, Washington Post columnist Jason Willick looked at how Tucker Carlson has been pointedly criticizing the Hebrew Bible. He’s “shocked by the violence in it, and shocked by the revenge in it, the genocide in it” and empha…

[Read more]

Reg,

Chimps are not frozen in evolutionary time, stuck at a checkpoint on the way to being human. Modern chimps have been evolving for the exact same 6–8 million years since our lineages split from a shared common ancestor. They are not some sort of “old” humans or “failed humans”. They are modern chimpanzees and specialists in their own ecolo…

[Read more]

As I prepared Sunday School this week, I noticed that it had quite a few posts about Christian Nationalism. That got me thinking about how Ireland in the past functioned very much like a Christian Nationalist state, even if that term wasn’t used at the time. Not fascistic Christian Nationalism like the U.S. fringe wants today, but a soft tacit t…[Read more]