R M Cullen MD MSc MFM BA DipStats DipProfEthics

opinion pieces - evolution

The definition of evolution has changed over the last fifty years and would not be recognised by Darwin. ... read full piece

there was a first human, (november 2015)

There are biologists who say that there was no first human, no first homo sapiens. Their argument goes like this: according to standard evolutionary theory the change from one generation to the next is very very small. So small as to be undetectable... there is no one animal whose parents are not human but who is human. ... read full piece

standard evolutionary theory offers only a plausible explanation for complex adaptations (May 2015)

A central problem in evolutionary theory concerns the development of complex adaptive features such as eyes and wings. These are the 'modifications' central to Darwin's conception of evolution as descent with modification from a common ancestor. ... read full piece

punctuated equilibrium is a challenge to standard evolutionary theory (Mar 2015)

A pillar of Darwin's theory of evolution is the claim that evolution proceeds by the continuous accumulation of very small changes each of which confers a reproductive advantage to individuals possessing that change. Gould and Eldredge with their theory of punctuated equilibrium challenged the notion that evolution is a "continuous accumulation". ... read full piece

human races exist! (Feb 2015)

In The Myth of Race: the troubling persistence of an unscientific idea Robert Sussman, Professor of physical anthropology at Washington University in St Louis writes (p 305) "Race is not a biological reality among humans; there are no human biological races. What humans have designated as races are based on non-existent differences among peoples. People are more similar to one another biologically and genetically as a whole than they are to any of the classifications that racists have devised." ... read full piece

why are there polynesians?(Dec 2014)

Four thousand years ago there were no polynesians. The islands of polynesia, roughly speaking those islands in a longitudinal line from Hawaii, down through Tonga and Samoa to New Zealand and across the Pacific to Easter Island, had no human inhabitants. ... read full piece