"Men who sell machines that mimic people want us to become people who mimic machines. They want techno feudal subjects who will believe and do what they’re told. We, as people, are being strategically simplified. This is a fascist process." organizingmythoughts.org/some-thought...

Phase one of the ongoing human gaiacidal extinction pulse of the biosphere . Once again, pitifully few insects in my backyard….

Cool Sergi!!!

🦏🦣🦌 LARGE paper alert!!! We tracked 60 million years of large herbivore evolution—over 3,000 fossil species—to uncover how ecosystems have changed and reorganized through time. What we found might help us understand the next big tipping point 🧵👇 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

"Speciation and extinction are invoked in all predictions for paleontological patterns. What processes one chooses is less important than that the meanings are clearly stated. Thus, I introduce my arguments with reference to the phylogenetic trees in figure 1 (Vrba, 1993)".

Elisabeth Vrba obituary www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10..... My thanks to Georg Vrba, Elisabeth’s husband, for information and photos on her life and work in South Africa.

I think this paper will be a tipping point in understanding the fundamental importance of punctuational change in all “evolutionary” domains—i.e. where evolution is seen as the fate of transmissible information

This essay has the deep and simple ring of truth about it…..

Your 'moment of doom' for May 2, 2025 ~10 Hiroshimas per second. "New research reveals these warming zones are located near 40 degrees latitude in both hemispheres, creating a striking pattern that has emerged since 2005." scienceblog.com/ocean-heat-b...

In case you hadn't noticed:

Great to see Ilya Tëmkin’s recent thinking on Hierarchy Theory—and on the newly reconstituted “Bretskyan Hierarchy.” Towards a “General Theory of Biology” indeed!

🔆 A great tribute to the brilliant Elisabeth Vrba Palaeontologist who solved a problem that vexed Darwin “I’m interested in pushing out the frontiers of science, not sailing my boat through tranquil seas.” Elisabeth Vrba (1942–2025) 🧪 By @nilese.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/d41...

My Obituary of Elisabeth Vrba—out today in Nature in read-only format: rdcu.be/ediyO

Could not agree more @nilese.bsky.social An honor and privilege to have known and worked with this key figure in #macroevolution & #paleontology #palaeontology

World lost a second macroevolutionary musketeer — Elisabeth Vrba. R.I.P. Elisabeth the Great. 🧪 #Paleobio ⚒️ #Geology #EvoBio

Cool new article on the punctuational nature of metastasising cancer process! doi.org/10.1098/rspb... This study strengthens our conjectured universality of the punctuational change, so called 'punctuated evolution'. cell.com/trends/ecolo... doi.org/10.1111/pala... 🧪 #Paleobio #EvoBio

I am deeply saddened to have learned of the death, on Feb 5, 2025, of Elisabeth Vrba—a fantastically creative scientist and a warm, wonderful human being. She leaves us a legacy of original macroevolutionary thinking that is still fresh and illuminating.

My letter to the Editor of the Cornell Sun in support of the Paleontological Research Institution: cornellsun.com/2025/01/31/l...

Herewith, designer Bruce Hannah’s “Polyhedral Coyote”, inspired by Chapter 9 on “Gould’s Polyhedron” and “Coywolf” evolution in our book “Macroevolutionaries”

So much for US global leadership in scientific and medical research apple.news/ABPTmNWizTkG...

Wish I could hear your talk Sergi!!!

That was indeed fun..makes me want to go back and check out Ch 4 where we jump from Super Dave to David Hume with the greatest of ease…

Looking forward to hearing more Sergi!!

We finally have an explanation for 2023’s record-breaking temperatures A decline in cloud cover means Earth is absorbing more solar radiation which could explain the 0.2°C of missing heat scientists are struggling to account for www.newscientist.com/article/2458... docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Do mass extinctions make life bounce back stronger? What does not kill Gaia makes her stronger: Impacts of external perturbations on biosphere evolution 🧪 academic.oup.com/mnras/articl... Periods of stress risk extinction, they also create opportunities for evolutionary exploration Sounds like PE

@jdegregori.bsky.social Ola James!

It’s a pleasure to share my “Reflections on Punctuated Equilibria” paper out earlier this year. Looking forward to posting more, and conversing with the growing crowd of evolutionary-minded savants of all disciplines! doi.org/10.1017/pab....

Reflections on punctuated equilibria 🧪 Niles Eldredge @nilese.bsky.social www.cambridge.org/core/journal... "It is a pleasure to be invited to contribute to the celebration of the publication of “punctuated equilibria” 50 years ago—the canonical version I did with Steve Gould"

Happy to be here, and to share this link to Andrej’s upcoming talk on our work: twitter.com/niles_eldred...