Podcasts by Evolution Talk
Everything you wanted to know about evolution by natural selection in short, easy to digest, episodes. Hosted, and produced by writer Rick Coste.
Further podcasts by Rick Coste Productions
Podcast on the topic Naturwissenschaften
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The Case of the Missing Chromosomes from 2023-12-11T05:00
Our story starts with cells. Not our cells but the cells of our closest relatives. The great ...
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Suboptimal Design from 2023-11-27T05:00
Vestigial features and atavistic traits are all evidence of our past. They are glimpses into a species distant past. We have nature and evolution by n...
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About Those Fingerprints from 2023-11-13T05:00
When it comes to personal IDs, we have many. There’s your driver’s license, passport, online username, among other human-made forms of proving who yo...
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What's Old is New Again from 2023-10-30T05:00
Attics aren’t the only places you’ll find old secrets from the past, begging to be rediscovered or let out. You have them in you as well. I’m not talking about the the type of secrets...
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The Ants Have It from 2023-10-16T05:00
Ants have mastered the art of cooperation. They have highly organized social structures, caste systems, and with everything they do, they d...
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Reading, Writing,&Evolution from 2023-10-02T05:00
Evolution by natural selection is not perfect, nor does it strive to be. It doesn't strive to be anything at all. An adaptation that is beneficial under one set of circumstances may be a detri...
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Playing Dead from 2023-09-18T05:00
If you've ever heard the phrase "play possum", you may know it means to feign death. It's real thing. Possums do it, as do sharks, ants, and a multitude of other animals. It's a defense mechanis...
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Why Teach Evolution? from 2023-09-04T05:00
With the start of a new season of episodes, I thought it appropriate to revisit why I created this podcast in the first place with the question - "Why Teach Evolution?"
Evolution Talk...
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Did the Homo Naledi Bury Their Dead? from 2023-06-19T05:00
The Homo Naledi have been intriguing scientists since their discovery in 2013, challenging our understanding of early human life. In this episode, we explore the burning question: how did they e...
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Nature's Halloween Party from 2023-06-12T05:00
Dive into the mysterious world of Batesian mimicry, where harmless creatures masquerade as dangerous ones to survive. Journey with us from Britain’s south coast, where hoverflies fool predators ...
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Gene Flow: The Recipe of Life from 2023-06-05T05:00
When a vibrant caravan of travelers arrives with new foods, traditions, and stories, a sleepy hamlet's culinary landscape is forever altered. We explore how this 'mixing of recipes' changes the ...
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The Bone Wars from 2023-05-29T05:00
Discover "Fossils, Feuds, and Fantastical Creatures: The Cope and Marsh Saga." Journey back to 1863 Berlin, where Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh kickstart a rivalry for the ages. ...
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Get 25% off the Evolution Talk Book until June 8! from 2023-05-23T05:00
You can get 25% off the Evolution Talk book at Amazon! The discount is good until June 8th. If you buy one let me know what you think!
Ha...
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Our Reptilian Brain? from 2023-05-22T05:00
From the quiet roads of New Hampshire, where snapping turtles are more common than lizards, to the depths of our evolutionary past, we'll grapple with the idea that we may still carry a piece of...
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It's All One Song from 2023-05-15T05:00
Using the metaphor of a simple beat evolving into a complex symphony, we explore how small-scale genetic changes within populations give rise to new species. From microevolution to ma...
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The Grand Tapestry of Macroevolution from 2023-05-08T05:00
In this episode, the focus is on macroevolution, which deals with larger scale evolutionary changes compared to microevolution. Macroevolutionary changes can give rise to new species,...
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The Dance of the Alleles from 2023-05-01T05:00
The constant dance of microevolution is driven by alleles, different versions of genes that determine traits. Sexual reproduction results in organisms inheriting a unique combination of genetic ...
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Where There Is No Light from 2023-04-24T05:00
In 2015,a spelunker named Joachim Kreiselmaier discovered a troglobite, a species that lives in underground environments, in the Danube-Aach cave system in South Germany. This small, ...
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The Galapagos&Adaptive Radiation from 2023-04-17T05:00
On September 15, 1835, the Galapagos Islands welcomed the arrival of a ship that had traversed South America, offering a strikingly different landscape. The vessel, HMS Beagle, still ...
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Fact&Theory from 2023-04-10T05:00
It can be straightforward to confuse facts and theories, but they remain distinct entities. Asserting that evolutoion by natural selection is not a fact does not diminish its significance as a t...
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What They Ate from 2023-04-03T05:00
Our diet has a direct impact on our quality of life, and this fact is not new. Throughout the evolution of our species, food availability and our diet have been influential factors. T...
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Hominins: The End of the Hominin River from 2023-03-27T05:00
Our journey down the Hominin River in search of our ancestors and the evolution of our species has been extensive. Homo sapiens began exploring the world 300,000 years ago, and anatom...
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Hominins: Homo erectus and the Mystery of the 5 Skulls from 2023-03-20T05:00
The discovery of a Homo erectus skull in 2005, known as Skull 5, marked a significant archaeological find. Among the five skulls found, estimated to be approximately 1.8 million years...
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Hominins: Homo habilis from 2023-03-13T06:00
In 1959, a significant event took place when teeth were discovered at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. These teeth were identified as belonging to a hominin species known as Homo habilis, w...
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Hominins: Paranthropus from 2023-03-06T06:00
Thomas Plummer, an archaeologist, had received information about the discovery of stone tools on the Homa Peninsula hillsides in Kenya. In an attempt to gain more knowledge, he initiated an exca...
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Hominins: Lucy and the Australopithecus from 2023-02-27T06:00
We’ve come quite a long way along the Hominin River. We’ve passed tributaries and navigated some pretty large bends.Listen
Hominins: Ardipithecus ramidus from 2023-02-20T06:00
Between 1992 and 1994, working in the Awash region of Ethiopia, the same region that Ardipithecus kadabba would be found a few years later, paleoanthropologist Tim Wh...
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Hominins: Ardipithecus kadabba from 2023-02-13T06:00
In the last couple of episodes we’ve met two early travellers along the Hominin River. Today, we will meet yet another one. This one lived approximately 5.5 million years ago. It i...
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Hominins: Orrorin tugenensis from 2023-02-06T06:00
We continue with our exploration into hominin history by introducing one who once walked the earth six million years ago - the Orrorin tugenensis. It was bipedal, a mix of ape-like and human-lik...
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Hominins: Sahelanthropus tchadensis from 2023-01-30T06:00
We begin our exploration into hominin history with an introduction to what is arguably the oldest hominin fossil yet found. Does Sahelanthropus tchadensis represent our earliest hominin ancesto...
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Hominins or Hominids from 2023-01-23T06:00
When talking about our ancient anscestors the question often comes up over how we refer to them. Are they hominins or hominids? It's a good question and it depends on how it is being used and ...
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Walk This Way from 2023-01-16T06:00
When did our ancestors descend from the trees and walk on two legs instead of four? How exactly did bipedalism develop? We have some ideas but that's all they are - ideas. We may never know, ...
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Return of the Naledi from 2023-01-09T06:00
Our study of the Homo Naledi continues to surprise us. In December 2022, Professor Lee Berger announced yet another insight into the mystery surrounding the presence of the Naledi in the Rising...
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A Spandrel in the Works from 2023-01-02T06:00
In 1979 Stephen Jay Gould and genetecist Richard C. Lewontin presented the paper “The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme”. ...
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The Eclipse: A Watchmaker from 2022-12-26T06:00
In Part 4 of a 4 Part Series on "The Eclipse of Darwinism", we take a look at William Paley's watch analogy and how it evolved into another explanation for the abundance and intricacies of life ...
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The Eclipse: Mutationism from 2022-12-19T06:00
In Part 3 of a 4 Part Series on "The Eclipse of Darwinism", we take a look at "Mutationism". Can a new species evolve in a single step or is it a series of gradual, accumulated changes as Darwi...
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The Eclipse: Neo-Lamarkism from 2022-12-12T06:00
In Part 2 of a 4 Part Series on "The Eclipse of Darwinism", we take a look at "Neo-Lamarkism" as proposed by Jean-Baptiste Lamark. Proponents hoped it would push Darwinian evolution aside as th...
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The Eclipse of Darwinism from 2022-12-05T06:00
After Charles Darwin's death, the period from the 1880s to the 1920s is known as "The Eclipse of Darwinism". Coined by Julian Huxley, it was a time where alternative theories to explain evoluti...
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Speciation Pt. 2 from 2022-11-28T06:00
In this continuation of the look at speciation we began in the last episode, we will tackle some more "not so obvious" causes.
Evolution Talk is also a book! You can fin...
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Speciation Pt. 1 from 2022-11-21T06:00
It's been awhile since we took a look at speciation and its causes. In the first of two parts we'll jump right in with Allopatric speciation.
Evolution Talk is also a b...
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One Cell's Junk from 2022-11-14T05:00
For decades, ever since we first began to study and understand our cell’s biology and the coding sequences of DNA, we saw bits and pieces that didn’t seem to make sense.Listen
Orthogenesis from 2022-11-07T05:00
In 1893, the German zoologist Wilhelm Haacke published Design and Inheritance. In it, Haacke introduced the concept of orthogenesis. Acco...
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Gone Forever from 2022-10-31T05:00
Consider this episode a memorial to the millions of extinct animals that once walked the earth long before we inherited it. Like fragments of novels a...
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Eureka Moments from 2022-10-24T05:00
Great idea don't spring out of a vacuum, but they do sometimes seem to. In this episode we take a look at a few.
For show notes and more, please visit Listen
Evolution Talk - The Book from 2022-10-15T05:00
Evolution Talk - the book is now available at your local bookstore!
If you love the show, and have listened to the last 100 episodes this book is for you.Listen
The Eggplant of Life from 2022-10-10T08:30
What came first, the chicken or the egg? It's an age old question. How about another one? What stored genetic information first? DNA or RNA?
For show notes and mor...
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Bringing Back the Mammoth from 2022-10-03T05:00:56
Colossal Biosciences hopes to reintroduce the wooly mammoth to the world, thousands of years after the last one walked the earth. If successful they will have paved the way for a "de...
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A Gut Feeling from 2022-09-26T05:00:34
Evolution by Natural Selection has assisted many amazing symbiotic relationships. Here's one you may not be familiar with, and which you're a participant in. It involves your gut mi...
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The Immortal Gene from 2022-09-19T05:00:43
In 1976, British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins published The Selfish Gene. It made exactly the splash he’d intended, but...
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Hitting Replay from 2022-09-12T05:00
Stephen Jay Gould once asked what would happen if the evolution of life on Earth were to take the same path if we had the ability to start it all over again? In this episode we'll ask the quest...
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The Joy of Mutation from 2022-09-05T05:00:32
Imagine a world without mutants. I don’t mean those super-powered heroes that populate the comics and movies from Marvel. I’m talking about you, me, and everyone else we know. We are all mutant...
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Love is Like... Hydrogen? from 2022-05-09T05:00:37
It has long been believed that an early oxygenation even gave rise to the eukaryotes. Perhaps oxygen had nothing to do with it. A castle deep bene...
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A Selection Strategy from 2021-09-20T05:00
If you were somehow in control of repopulating and regenerating an area that had essentially been wiped clean of life, how would you do it? With limit...
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Carrion My Wayward Plant from 2021-08-23T05:00
A friend of mine recently poased a question on his podcast about carrion plants. If you don't know what one is, the carrion plant emits an odor that i...
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Artificial Selection from 2021-03-30T05:00
We don’t know why dogs became man’s best friend, but we have some ideas. And those ideas take us back anywhere from 10,000 to 40,000 years ago.They ar...
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Cro-Magnon from 2021-02-02T06:00
As a kid I was fascinated by the idea of cavemen. Of course, all I had to go on were a few porrply produced movies that depicted cavemen battling din...
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Dating Fossils Again from 2020-12-22T06:00
It's time to look at fossil dating again! The last episode mentioned two dating methods used to estimate how old the Homo Naledi bones found the Rising Star cave system might be.Listen
Homo Naledi 2020 from 2020-12-08T06:00
Quite a few episodes back, I produced a show that looked at a new hominin species discovered in 2013. This history-changing discovery happened when paleoanthropologist Lee Berger, assisted by ca...
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Evolution Does Not Produce Perfection from 2020-11-24T06:00
Natural selection isn't perfect. It only cares that something works. If it works and is not harmful to its host, then that something is passed on. Listen
Is Evolution Random? from 2020-11-10T06:00
There is more than random mutations when it comes to evolution by natural selection. You also have to look at other variables outside of a genetic mutation. Variables such as the environment the...
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Series 2 Update from 2020-11-03T06:00
Please join me for a brief update on the show, it's future, and what you can do to help.
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The Second Law of Thermodynamics from 2020-10-27T05:00
Evolution by Natural Selection is a beautiful theory. But as wonderful a theory as it is, it does have its detractors. One argument states that evolution violates the second law of thermodynam...
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The Human Eye from 2020-01-28T06:00
Evolution by natural selection can build complex features through small, incremental changes. But can it build an eye?
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The Human Eye from 2020-01-28T06:00
Evolution by natural selection can build complex features through small, incremental changes. But can it build an eye?
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The Human Eye from 2020-01-28T06:00
Evolution by natural selection can build complex features through small, incremental changes. But can it build an eye?
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Survival of the Fittest Part 2 from 2020-01-15T11:32:59
Consider this a 'lost episode' of Evolution Talk. In it I talk with Stephanie Keep of BiteScis.org about the origins and misconceptions around the ...
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Mary Anning from 2016-02-22T06:00:45
In 1811 , or 1812, a young girl by the name of Mary Anning, along with her little brother, happened upon an incredible find while digging around the cliffs of Lyme Regis in England. It was a sku...
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Rosalind Franklin from 2016-02-08T06:00:12
It’s safe to say, and very few would disagree, that without Rosalind Franklin the double helix structure would not have been discovered when it was, nor perhaps by the same team of discoverers.
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An Interview With Emma Darwin from 2016-01-25T06:00:51
Way back in Episode 30 I stepped into a time machine and traveled back to 1869 in order to interview Charles Darwin. This time around I brought someone forward in time... his wife Emma Darwin.
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Convergent Evolution from 2016-01-18T06:00:59
Convergent evolution has shown us that nature will find similar solutions under similar conditions. So too might it be on other planets. Life might not look that much different that it does here...
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Cladistics from 2016-01-11T06:00:55
A cladogram will show those animals that share similar form and structures. It’s not about animals which have evolved from one another. In this episode we are going to look at clades and cladist...
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An Interview With Jonathan Tweet from 2016-01-04T06:00:19
Jonathan Tweet has authored a very remarkable book for children. He wasn’t just trying to make evolution and its concepts easier to understand for kids in elementary school, Jonathan was shootin...
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Are We Still Evolving? from 2015-12-28T06:00:29
There are some who say that evolution by natural selection, at least when it applies to you and I, is no longer a driving force. The argument is that we are no longer evolving and that we’ve pus...
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Your Brain from 2015-12-21T06:00:41
Over the course of billions of years a small region of specialized cells began to develop sensory organs. These light sensitive cells slowly developed into eyes. Behind them another organ began ...
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Homo Naledi from 2015-12-14T06:00:33
In 2013 a secret that had been hidden for hundreds of thousands of years in a South African cave was discovered. Bones... many bones. Upon inspection by a team of specialists a picture began to ...
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The Evolution of Music from 2015-12-07T06:00:57
In this episode of Evolution Talk we take a look at some of the theories which have attempted to trace the evolution of music, from Charles Darwin to philosopher Daniel Dennett.
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Math and Maupertuis from 2015-11-30T06:00:13
Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis was fascinated with the origin and evolution of life. If there was a creator, finding the keys to his work had to involve careful study of the facts and an exam...
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Coevolution from 2015-11-23T06:00:12
Coevolution often involves an arms race. You have a predator and prey both upping the game. Like a bat and a moth. Each one trying to outdo the other. If the change in one organism is linked to ...
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Why Water? from 2015-11-16T06:00:29
Without water there would be no life. We are lucky. Extremely lucky that it is here at all. Especially in its liquid form. It doesn’t need to be. In fact, as far as the universe is concerned, wa...
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Misconceptions About Evolution & Natural Selection from 2015-11-09T06:00:31
In this episode of 'Evolution Talk' I am joined by a very special guest - Stephanie Keep from the National Center for Science Education (NCSE). Among her many talents as a writer and educator, S...
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An Explosion of Cambrian Proportions from 2015-11-02T06:00:06
In the era known as the Cambrian, an era which kicked off 541 million years ago, life exploded. Natural Selection began to produce new creatures, one after the other. A parade of unique forms an...
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An Appendix from 2015-10-26T05:00:57
For years the appendix has been considered a vestigial organ. In 2007 researchers at Duke University began to take another look at the appendix. While taking their closer look something interest...
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Radiation and DNA from 2015-10-19T05:00:24
What does radiation do to us exactly and why do we care? The American geneticist Hermann Joseph Muller worried about it back in the 1920s.
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Mendel and His Peas from 2015-10-12T05:00:23
In 1865 Gregor Mendel pulled together his work on heredity in peas and produced a paper which he read to a group of his peers. Unfortunately for Mendel, the world would't be ready to listen unti...
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Our Unique Species from 2015-10-05T05:00:49
In the last episode I asked the question ‘Are we unique?’ and then set about showing why it is we are not by looking at the animal kingdom. From tool use to altruism it appears that we are not a...
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Are We Unique? from 2015-09-28T05:00:18
In what ways are we special or unique? Is it because we can think, like Rene Descartes said? Or is thinking just a chemical process that directs our actions as La Mettrie would have us believe? ...
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Hairless Apes from 2015-09-21T05:00:39
If chimps are our closest relative why aren’t we hairy like they are? The answer lies somewhere in the far distant past. Imagine how hot it must have been on the savannah after our ancestors lef...
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Master Switches from 2015-09-14T05:00:21
Nestled comfortably within our DNA are a set of switches. Like the light switches you casually flip on and off in your home, they are responsible for making you who you are. And just like that o...
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The Predictive Power of Evolution from 2015-09-07T05:00:59
We can make broad predictive strokes when it comes to how an organism will evolve. But that’s all we can do. What those changes will look like, if they happen at all, is beyond our power to know...
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The Strange Case of Richard Owen from 2015-08-31T05:00:06
Every good story needs a villain. And there has been quite a few in the history of evolution theory. History has not been kind to Richard Owen. But just like the story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, ...
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Epigenetics from 2015-08-24T05:00:53
In 2005 biologist Michael Skinner witnessed something that shouldn’t have happened. His mice were exposed to a toxin. A toxin which caused the children of these mice to experience birth defects....
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The Hobbits of Flores from 2015-08-10T05:00:51
In 2003 something was found in a large limestone cave located in Liang Bua, Flores. It was a small skull which was at first identified as being that of a small child. Upon further examination th...
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Evolutionary Psychology from 2015-08-03T05:00:19
Evolutionary psychology seeks to explain why we feel the way we do in certain situations. It also looks to understand what psychological adaptations were naturally selected to accompany us on ou...
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The Missing Link from 2015-07-27T05:00:29
Darwin himself never used the term ‘missing link’. He wasn't concerned with a missing link but he was concerned with gaps in the fossil record. It wasn’t that he thought these gaps hurt his theo...
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Self-Directed Evolution from 2015-07-20T05:00:55
Mankind has only just begun to unlock the secrets hidden within our DNA. As we move from gene to gene we will begin to see how it all ties together, and where evolution made a few mistakes. It w...
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Mitochondrial Eve from 2015-07-13T05:00:57
Mitochondrial DNA is only inherited from your mother. Everyone alive on earth today can trace their lineage back to Mitochondrial Eve. We know this because we’ve all received our Mitochondrial D...
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The Anthropocene from 2015-07-06T05:00:40
The Cretaceous period ended 65 million years ago as did the reign of the dinosaurs. According to the International Union of Geological Sciences, we are currently in the Holocene. The Holocene ha...
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Having a Laugh from 2015-06-29T05:00:57
It’s probably safe to say that everyone enjoys a good laugh. But where did it come from? What is it about laughter that gave us an advantage over our ancient competitors?
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Punctuated Equilibrium from 2015-06-22T05:00:19
In 1972 Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldridge published a paper that immediately went viral among biologists. Gould and Eldridge pointed out, using the fossil record as evidence, that evolution b...
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The Piltdown Man from 2015-06-15T05:30:48
In the late 19th century, Europe was having a grand old time when it came to fossils of ancient hominids. The problem was - nothing was being discovered in England. Germany had the Neanderthal a...
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Darwin’s Bulldog from 2015-06-08T09:53:16
On June 30, 1860 a great debate took place at the Oxford University Museum. This debate helped to launch Thomas Huxley's career as 'Darwin's Bulldog".
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Neanderthalis Extinctus from 2015-06-01T09:44:09
In the last episode we came face to face with the Neanderthal. What happened to the Neanderthal? Did they die on the battlefield or did they live out their lives in a quiet struggle for survival...
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The Neanderthal from 2015-05-25T09:34:17
in the Neander valley limestone miners had found something which shocked them. They had found bones which they first thought belonged to a bear. Once Professor Schaafhausen had seen the bones he...
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Genetic Drift from 2015-05-18T08:58:28
Frog populations remained pretty much the same in Podville until the Great Fire of 2015. After the fire the population of blue frogs increased. Welcome to genetic drift, the subject of this week...
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Non-Overlapping Magisteria from 2015-05-11T09:02:48
In 1997 Professor Stephen Jay Gould published an essay in Natural History which also appeared in his book Rocks of Ages. This essay was titled ‘Non-Overlapping Magisteria’. It’s commonly referre...
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Survival of the Fittest? from 2015-04-27T09:11:46
The term 'Survival of the Fittest' was unleashed on the world in 1864 by Herbert Spencer when he published his work Principles of Biology. It was later picked up by Charles Darwin who used it hi...
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Putting the Selection in Sex from 2015-04-20T09:14:34
For Charles Darwin, the idea of sexual selection explained a lot of what he saw in the animal kingdom. He gave sexual selection just as much importance as natural selection.
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Warm Blooded Dinosaurs from 2015-04-13T10:24:17
In 1986 Professor Robert Bakker, a paleontologist, published 'The Dinosaur Heresies'. According to Professor Bakker there have been waves of extinction, and these extinction events mainly attack...
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Where Are the Dinosaurs? from 2015-04-06T09:11:42
What killed off the dinosaurs? There are many competing theories yet there is no ‘smoking gun’. There is evidence however, and with each bit of evidence comes another theory. Dinosaurs didn’t di...
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A Whale of a Tale from 2015-03-30T09:27:05
Today’s episode of Evolution Talk is brought to you by all of those animals out there who exhibit vestigial features (which is pretty much every animal out there). Our DNA contains traces of our...
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An Interview With Charles Darwin from 2015-03-23T09:48:22
To mark the occasion of Evolution Talk's 30th episode, Rick Coste steps into the past to interview Charles Darwin.
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Mistakes Were Made from 2015-03-16T09:58:46
In the X-Men movies the X-Men are mutants. Mistakes were made during DNA replications that brought out features and abilities which were not present in the population prior to their births. Defe...
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Is Everything Related? from 2015-03-09T09:53:55
The Human genome project took 13 years to complete. Hundreds of scientists from all over the world were involved. What’s just as amazing as the completion of the project is the story that it tel...
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Fossil Dating from 2015-03-02T10:05:57
How do we date fossils? There are a few ways and in this episode we will look at a couple.
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Robert Chambers from 2015-02-23T10:14:42
Robert Chambers' masterpiece was titled 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation'. In it he explained how everything evolved. Everything from simple, less complex forms, to more complex form...
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The Case of Patrick Matthew from 2015-02-16T10:46:38
Patrick Matthew published 'On Naval Timber and Arboriculture' in 1831. There were a few positive reviews but they were somewhat tepid in their praise. Only a couple reviewers happened to notice ...
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The Work of WC Wells from 2015-02-09T10:20:04
William Charles Wells, in no uncertain terms, pointed out that mankind is not immune to nature’s ability to modify an organism's features over time.
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Unlucky Lamarck from 2015-02-02T11:03:42
Jean Baptiste Lamarck's mechanism for evolution was wrong, as history shows, and that fact has haunted his memory ever since. But ideas and theories have ways of being resurrected and, in recent...
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Erasmus Darwin from 2015-01-26T10:33:46
Erasmus was a country physician. He believed that women should have access to the same education that men did, and that slavery should be abolished. He also believed that life evolved from a sin...
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Hutton’s Hypothesis from 2015-01-19T10:00:45
James Hutton saw the power of natural selection, but he didn’t see how it could eventually, over vast spans of time, mold an animal into something completely different. That would have to wait u...
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Diderot’s Dream – Updated from 2015-01-12T12:30:26
Diderot devoured the written word. It was food for his mind and he couldn’t get enough of it. He was ravenous when it came to ideas. Especially when those ideas took him into places that others ...
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Of Mermaids and Men from 2015-01-05T10:39:11
Benoit de Maillet believed that life, all life, came from the sea. And not only did it come from the sea, but it continued to evolve into different species as it encountered different environmen...
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Lucretius – Evolution’s Poet from 2014-12-29T11:07:47
In the first century BC the Roman poet Lucretius wrote On the Nature of Things. A poem with 7400 lines of verse that covered everything from the tiniest particles of matter and how they move, as...
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The Father of Zoology from 2014-12-22T09:59:07
Aristotle actually came close to explaining natural selection, 2200 years before Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace did.
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Darwin and God from 2014-12-15T10:55:26
Charles darwin questioned everything when it came to the origin of species and the evolution of life here on earth. That questioning led him into some pretty dark places. As he grew more and mor...
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Darwin or Design from 2014-12-08T11:15:26
As a young man, the more Charles Darwin learned about nature the more he began to question things. If species were immutable, meaning they never changed, then how was it that breeders were able ...
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Darwin’s Doubts from 2014-12-01T10:13:01
Throughout his life Charles Darwin suffered bouts of anxiety and often went off alone by himself to think. His work afforded him the perfect escape and he dove into it at every opportunity.
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The Beginning: Out of the Sea from 2014-11-24T11:15:29
The sea was full of life a half a billion years ago. Arthropods fought to survive and there were some interesting things happening on land as well. We have here our first plants - and they sprea...
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The Beginning: An Arms Race from 2014-11-17T10:50:11
As predators evolved to better catch their prey, their prey evolved unique and efficient ways to avoid being eaten. It was because of this sudden arms race that we see the proliferation of body ...
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The Beginning: Multicellularity Rules from 2014-11-10T09:49:10
The reason natural selection had such a grand old-time with multicellular organisms is because it gave it something to select for. These organisms increased in size, moved into new areas for foo...
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The Beginning: Sexual Reproduction from 2014-11-03T10:43:34
One day, millions of years ago, something occurred between two unsuspecting eukaryotes. When they bumped into one another something magical happened. They both left that encounter slightly diffe...
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The Beginning: Cyanobacteria from 2014-10-27T10:09:04
3.5 billion years ago microbial organisms appeared on the earth. These organisms combined, split, and combined some more, until the formation of microbes and single-celled algae. One of these si...
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The Beginning: Life from 2014-10-20T10:06:46
In the beginning the Earth wasn’t exactly a hospitable place. It was hot, volcanic, and oxygen was a rare commodity. So the question now is how did life emerge from these conditions? We are stil...
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Only A Theory from 2014-10-13T10:00:30
Charles Darwin had a hypothesis was that animals evolved due to a process he called natural selection. He strengthened his hypothesis with tests and observation. Evolution by natural selection h...
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Alfred Russel Wallace from 2014-10-06T10:08:15
In 1858, Charles Darwin received a paper authored by a young naturalist named Alfred Russel Wallace. In it, Darwin found that the young man had reached the same conclusions about evolution that ...
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Why Darwin Matters from 2014-09-29T09:05:46
Over the last 150 plus years there is one subject which has caused its advocates and detractors to butt heads, often with incredulity at their opponents stance, and sometimes with animosity. Tha...
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On the Origin of Species from 2014-09-22T09:00:04
On November 24, 1859, "On the Origin of Species" was published. To say that it made a splash would be an understatement. It changed the world.
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Darwin: The Calm Before the Storm from 2014-09-15T09:00:56
In the years following his return from his voyage on the Beagle, Charles settled into a life as a naturalist. On all fronts, both personal and professional, things were looking up for Charles. H...
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Darwin On The HMS Beagle from 2014-09-08T09:52:37
Charles Darwin, at 22, had never sailed before. With his notebooks, gear, rifles, and trunks loaded, he stood on the deck of the HMS Beagle to bid England farewell. The date was 12/27/1831.
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Darwin Before the Beagle from 2014-09-03T17:42:33
Charles Darwin will be forever known as the man who came up with the brilliant, and magnificent, idea that life evolved on this planet from a common ancestor and that the driver, or the mechanis...
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Introducing Evolution Talk! from 2014-08-31T12:04:18
If you've ever wondered what all of the fuss was about, or how evolution works, then you've come to the right place. Over the next few weeks, months, and years, we will look at Darwin's revoluti...
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Introducing Evolution Talk! from 2014-08-31T12:04:18
If you've ever wondered what all of the fuss was about, or how evolution works, then you've come to the right place. Over the next few weeks, months, and years, we will look at Darwin's revoluti...
Listen