Lots of great stuff last week, but if you only have time to read one thing this week, read the interview with Mary Schweitzer below. What might the world look like if more scientists took Jack Horner’s approach?
- The Unlikely Paleontologist: An Interview with Mary Schweitzer: part 1 and part 2, The Well (InterVarsity), July 12-13, 2016 — Mary Schweitzer discusses her transition from young-earth creationist to evolutionary scientist, her controversial discovery of soft tissues in dinosaur fossils, and
the importance of studying paleontology. - When Subpoenas Threaten Climate Science, The New York Times, July 19, 2016 —Rep. Lamar Smith has doubled down on his strategy of using subpoenas to intimidate the climate science community. First NOAA officials and scientists, now the Union of Concerned Scientists. Read Who’s Next? on the NCSE blog for more detail.
- Were Ants the World's First Farmers?, Smithsonian, July 20, 2016 — A new genomic study reveals how attine acts made the move from hunting and gathering to farming, possibly as long ago as sixty-five million years. "It's a symbiosis" between the ants and the fungus they cultivate, "and selection is acting on the combination."
- Righting America at the Creation Museum, Times Higher Education, July 21, 2016 — Randy Malamud reviews Susan L. Trollinger and William Vance Trollinger's book on Answers in Genesis's Creation "Museum," observing, "A small part of me wanted to hit the road and see at first hand what all this looks like up close. But the Trollingers have provided a service by writing this book so that we do not have to go there ourselves."
- How a Guy From a Montana Trailer Park Overturned 150 Years of Biology, The Atlantic, July 21, 2016 — The inimitable Ed Yong tells the tale of how Toby Spribille discovered that lichens are not alliances between a fungus and an alga but among two different types of fungi and an alga. “Textbook definitions of lichens may have to be revised.”
