Could the eye have evolved? The answer is YES!

I have been meaning to recommend the excellent website Expelled Exposed, which documents all the lies and misleading statements in Ben's Stein's creationist "documentary," Exposed. A central claim is that professors who believe in intelligent design are being persecuted, a claim that is totally unfounded. Expelled Exposed was created by the National Center for Science Education. You can hear an excellent interview with Director Eugenie Scott on the April 9th episode of Science Talk, Scientific American's podcast. One of the claims that is popular with ID proponents is the idea that the eye is too complex to have been the product of evolution. Actually, as was pointed in David Bainbridge's excellent book, Beyond the Zonules of Zinn: A Fantastic Journey Through Your Brain, nothing could be further from the truth, because there is evidence that eyes have actually evolved a surprising number of times. (For more on Bainbridge's book listen to Episode 32 of the Brain Science Podcast.) To learn more about the evidence for the evolution of the eye check out this new video which NCSE has posted on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOtP7HEuDYA
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Check out this interview with linguist, Alice Gaby

sciampodcast.jpgI just listened to the February 6, episode of Science Talk, the podcast from Scientific American. Steve Mirsky talks with linguist Alice Gaby, from the University of California-Berkeley, about the relationship between language, culture, cognition and perception. This is very relevant to episode 30 of the Brain Science Podcast (due out on February 8), which is about the evolution of language.
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