Dan Graur is the author of the book Molecular and Genome Evolution (2016). Dan Graur has a very low threshold for hooey, hype, hypocrisy, postmodernism, bad statistics, ignorance of population genetics and evolutionary biology, and hatred of any kind. This blog is a diary of peeves, dislikes, antipathies, annoyances, and random feelings of contempt. Rarely, do I have good things to say. Following a silly letter from Scotland, I found it necessary to state very, very clearly that all the opinions…
This essay was prompted by a belated obituary in The New York Times from July 4, 2026, titled: “ Stanley M. Gartler , Pioneer in Cancer Research, Dies at 102.” Gartler actually died earlier, on May 25, 2026, at his home in Seattle, but his death “was not widely reported at the time.” Stanley M. Gartler in a photograph taken around 1960 Introduction This essay deals mainly with a subject that has…
In a paper published in Scientific Reports , I came across a description of a small fish (mean length = 42 mm or about 2 inches) capable of climbing a a vertical waterfall that 15 meters or ~(~50 ft) in height. In the popular pres s, this feat was compared to free climber Alex Honnold scaling the Taipei 101 Tower (508 m or ~1,667ft) in Taiwan on January 25, 2026. The comparison led to the…
Published in Harper’s Magazine , September Mark Twain wrote this note after visiting Austria in 1896, where he witnessed antisemitism firsthand. Unbeknownst to him, an Austrian called Adolf Hitler was growing up in the small Austrian town of Lambach . “If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star dust lost in the blaze…
Let’s begin with a bit of context — not that Chase W. Nelson cares for it. Hamas has ruled Gaza with an iron fist since its 2006 “democratic” election victory. In 2007, it ousted Fatah in a violent coup and has clung to absolute power ever since — no elections, no dissent, just brute rule. On October 7, 2023, the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust unfolded. Gaza’s rulers — and Gaza’s…
Porphyran is a complex sulfated carbohdrate found in abundance in seaweed species, such as those belonging to the genus Porphyra from which the sushi ingredient nori is made. The backbone of the molecule porphyran can be hydrolyzed by a group of enzymes called porphyranases . In nature, porphyranase-coding genes are found in the genomes of a group of Gram-negative anaerobic bacteria called…
The Economist has an article on the changing fashions of baby names by analyzing the first names of 400 million people born in USA and the UK in the last 143 years. There are two novel elements in this analysis. The first is that the names are not analyzed simply by frequencies, but are first assigned to eight main categories: strength , intelligence , benevolence/love , beauty , religion , joy ,…
The 1918 influenza pandemic, also erroneously referred to as the “Spanish flu,” has affected up to one billion people—half the world’s population at the time—and has killed an estimated 20–30 million people in the Western World and God-only-knows-how-many people in other countries. Previous and subsequent influenza pandemics usually hit infants and the elderly the hardest. The 1918 influenza…
Dr. James Caswell Coggins (1865-1958) was the first President of Atlantic Christian College (now Barton College) in Wilson, North Carolina. His academic degrees consisted of a Bachelor of Arts from Milligan College and three law degrees. In 1940, he published a book entitled “The Eugenics of Abraham Lincoln,” in which he “irrefutably" established that the 16th President of the United States was of…
Reading the musings of prominent anti-vaxxers and promoters of alternative medicine, I started thinking about Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson, famous for being the wife of Thomas Jefferson, our third president, and a tragic figure in the Greek sense of the word. Our story starts with Bathurst Skelton who was born in 1744, graduated from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia,…
In biology, there are two main concepts of function: the selected-effect and causal-role functions. The selected-effect function is a historical concept; it explains the origin, the cause (etiology), and the subsequent evolution of a trait. In other words, the selected-effect function of a trait is the effect for which the trait was selected and/or by which it is maintained. The selected-effect…
In 2022, 42% of women voted Republican; 57% voted for the Democrats. Who got a better return on their vote? Let us do a simple cost-benefit analysis by using the percentage of women from both parties in Congress . We start with the expectation. Given the above numbers, the percentage of Republican women in in Congress should be 74% of the percentage of Democratic women in Congress. There are 202…
One of the most ridiculous and inadvertently hilarious genres in nonfiction is the “five-year plan.” I became acquainted with this literary form in my first grade in Communist Romania. At the end of the year, I stood in front of an audience of teachers, parents, and party bosses and read aloud the following immortal sentence: “We, the proletariat, pledge to fulfill the five-year plan in four…
Pentecostalism is a renewal movement within Christianity, and like many such movements, it adheres to the inerrancy of scripture and the necessity of accepting Christ as personal Lord and Savior, while placing special emphasis on direct personal experiences. A main tenet of Pentecostalism is the belief in empowerment , which leads to spiritual gifts, such as speaking in tongues ( glossolalia ),…
Baylor University is a Baptist university. Thus, at Baylor, they celebrate a research creed whereby “research, scholarship and faith guide the mind in understanding the complex diversity of God’s creation.” At Baylor University evolution is taught, but the Biology Department finds it necessary to provide an explanation as to why they do that. Most universities do not provide an explanation. What…
“As a rule, theologians know nothing of this world, and far less of the next; but they have the power of stating the most absurd propositions with faces solemn as stupidity touched by fear.” “It is a part of their business to malign and vilify the Voltaires, Humes, Paines, Humboldts, Tyndalls, Haeckels, Darwins, Spencers, and Drapers, and to bow with uncovered heads before the murderers,…
As most textbooks would have it, the term “junk DNA” was coined in 1972 by Susumu Ohno as part of his work on the role of gene and genome duplication. The first time I met Susumu Ohno was at a meeting in Crete many years ago, and the way I remember it, he told me that he “deliberately” chose a “provocative term” for “junk DNA” to emphasize the “uselessness” of this DNA fraction. (Indeed, the term…
(a) 1616: A movement or change of position, e.g., “The nature of this Euolution is clearely to leaue the File-leaders in front, and Bringers in reare.” (b) 1624: The process of unrolling, opening out, or revealing. © 1671: The process by which living organisms or their parts develop from a rudimentary to a mature or complete state. These days, this process is referred to as “development.” The…
A letter from the President of University of Houston, Renu Khator, landed in my inbox on August 10 at 1:00 PM. I was waiting for such a letter to see how a responsible university president will deal with the inane rules of Texas governor, Greg Abbott, who decreed that public schools are require marks, proof of vaccination, testing, or social distancing. I was also looking—most probably naively—at…
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A painting hangs in the Nijmegen Town Hall showing a young woman with an old man lying in her lap, and six sons standing next to her: two in red , two in green, and two in white . It is accompanied by the following text: The wife of the old man says: “Remark and see that I declare The two in red are my father’s brothers. The two in green are my mother’s brothers. The two in white are my children…