Recent content by Champagne

They've found other Australopithecine skeletons. Considering the number of bones and fragments found at the Lucy site, and considering there was no duplication, it would be exceedingly unlikely for more than one individual to be represented.

Erm, they have to what?

If the bones are symmetrical from one side to the other, you don't need both sides to know what the bones are like, you just need one. Which means that the researchers know a lot more about the Lucy skeleton than you're suggesting with that 40% figure. They have the pelvis and femur from one...

Erm, no. This sort of evidence has been found consistently over the last 150 years. This particular fossil is significant because of (a) the high degree of preservation and (b) the overall scarcity of early primate fossils. What did humans evolve from, then? Or are you saying humans didn't...

Rubbish. They want to find cold fusion in the worst way, but the scientific method is what's showing that the various claims haven't held up so far. You do understand that with a bilaterally symmetrical species, 40% of bones is actually more than it sounds, right?

No they weren't looking for the missing link because scientifically the missing link is a meaningless concept. What theory are you talking about? If you're referring to the basic theory of evolution by variation and selection, it's already been developed; scientists are using observations to...

Read the link in my previous post and see what you think they were doing.

Scientifically, a theory is an explanation. It most certainly is not an assumption. Other definitions of "theory," which are used in a nonscientific sense, are irrelevant when you're talking about the scientific context, which we're doing here. Where Ida is concerned, I wish the press would...

Theories are explanations. The scientific method is a way to explain observations on the basis of the laws of nature. Since explanations (in other words, theories) are the whole point of science, there's no such thing as "only" a theory. Evolution is a process. The theory of evolution is an...

Just this vaccine, or vaccines in general?

No surprise there, unfortunately.

Apparently Gwen Ifill had been told ahead of time to stay away from certain subjects. It looks as though religion might have been one of them. We went to see Religulous today, and the notion of having a biblical-literalist end-times-believing fundamentalist in the White House (or, actually...

I don't understand why the Democrats keep caving in like this. So she isn't a good debater - why are the Democrats going along with this attempt to help her compensate for something she isn't good at? That isn't how it's going to work when she's Vice President or even President and sitting...

She was heard to say that she was a young-Earth creationist, but I expect her to duck it or deny it in the VP debate if it comes up. In the Bill Maher show last year Joe Biden called creationism malarkey, and one of the other panellists said that that might come back to haunt him if he went much...

I saw an article in the Times saying that McCain's advisors were urging Palin to arrange this wedding for Bristol and her boyfriend sometime in the next few weeks so it takes place before the election. It's supposed to create goodwill for the Republican ticket or something. Some of the quotes by...