The Appeal to Nature Fallacy

Everyone at some point has encountered an argument using an appeal to nature: in a grocery store label proclaiming a product is natural and therefore good for you, in a philosophical argument about where we draw our moral ideas from,...

Paleo Biome Profile #1: The Yixian Formation

This post will be the first in a series of biome profiles, intended to depict an ancient time and place as a whole, comprehensive, living ecosystem. There are many impressive fossil localities that preserve tons of information about all levels...

The Croc Family: An Overview

I said my Aquatic Reptiles post would be the last Mesozoic reptile family overview, but of course no trilogy is complete without a trilogy creep! Crocodylians and their relatives used to be so much more diverse and prolific than they...

Evolutionary Anachronisms

The world during the Ice Age was a very different place than it is today. Charismatic megafauna were common across all continents, from the North American mammoths, ground-sloths, and saber-toothed cats to the giant wombats and short-faced kangaroos of Australia,...