''The Panda's Thumb'' is a
blog
A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...
on issues of
creationism
Creationism is the faith, religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of Creation myth, divine creation, and is often Pseudoscience, pseudoscientific.#Gunn 2004, Gun ...
and
evolution
Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...
from a
mainstream scientific perspective. In 2006, ''
Nature
Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the Ecosphere (planetary), ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the Scientific law, laws, elements and phenomenon, phenomena of the physic ...
'' listed it as one of the top five science blogs, and
Mark Pallen has called it "the definitive blog on the evolution versus creationism debate".
It is written by multiple contributors, including
Wesley R. Elsberry,
Joe Felsenstein
Joseph "Joe" Felsenstein (born May 9, 1942) is a Professor Emeritus in the Departments of Genome Sciences and Biology at the University of Washington in Seattle. He is best known for his work on phylogenetic inference, and is the author of ''Infer ...
,
Paul R. Gross,
Nick Matzke, and
Mark Perakh, many of whom used to have complementary blogs at
ScienceBlogs before it went defunct. The blog takes its name from The Panda's Thumb, the pub of the virtual
University of Ediacara, which is named after the
book of the same name by
Stephen Jay Gould
Stephen Jay Gould ( ; September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American Paleontology, paleontologist, Evolutionary biology, evolutionary biologist, and History of science, historian of science. He was one of the most influential and widely re ...
, which in turn takes its title from the essay "The Panda's Peculiar Thumb",
[Gould, S. J. (1978)]
"The panda's peculiar thumb."
''Natural History'' 87 (Nov.): 20–30. which discusses the Panda's
sesamoid bone
In anatomy, a sesamoid bone () is a bone embedded within a tendon or a muscle. Its name is derived from the Greek word for 'sesame seed', indicating the small size of most sesamoids. Often, these bones form in response to strain, or can be presen ...
, an example of
convergent evolution
Convergent evolution is the independent evolution of similar features in species of different periods or epochs in time. Convergent evolution creates analogous structures that have similar form or function but were not present in the last comm ...
.
See also
*
Rejection of evolution by religious groups
Recurring cultural, political, and theological rejection of evolution by religious groups exists regarding the origins of the Earth, of humanity, and of other life. In accordance with creationism, species were once widely believed to be fixed ...
References
External links
*
Status page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Panda's Thumb
Science blogs
Evolutionary biology literature
Criticism of creationism