I’ve defended Charles Darwin’s metaphorical Tree of Life previously; now I shall celebrate his vision by showing how it developed over time and why it is still relevant today. Darwin’s first inkling (1837) Charles Darwin had been back less than a year from his tour on the HMS Beagle and he had been thinking furiously [...]

I did warn that this year was likely to be full of muddled attempts to explain Darwin. This time the intrepid but doomed essayist is Carl Safina, who writes in the New York Times an article called “Darwinism must die so that evolution may live”. The title alone tells you that Safina has got the [...]

It seems the 150th anniversary of Origin of Species is to be marked by a neverending series of muddled articles that are marked by a notable lack of research. Following on the heels of New Scientist’s irredeemable conduct, we now have Philip Ball, a science journalist who should know better, writing a lazy review which mucks [...]

Observe the New Scientist cover above. This is the final straw for me. I used to subscribe to New Scientist, but after reading a series of very poor articles I let the subscription lapse. Since then, I have bought a few issues from the newsstand and I see the occasional story referred on by email, [...]