Eh?

A recent article from the BBC claims in its subtitle that “Charles Darwin may have been wrong when he argued that competition was the major driving force behind evolution.” Now if this is true then it’s pretty revolutionary. However when you read the article it fails to show anything which suggests Darwin was wrong.
What the article argues is that the main driving force behind evolution was the opening up of new ecological niches. The example they give is:
“… When birds evolved the ability to fly, that opened up a vast range of new possibilities not available to other animals. Suddenly the skies were quite literally the limit, triggering a new evolutionary burst.”
Now the article itself has a quote from Prof. Stephen Stearns which show’s the problem with this argument.
“… In general, what is the impetus to occupy new portions of ecological space if not to avoid competition with the species in the space already occupied?"
It seems fairly obvious to me, a philosophy graduate with only a layman’s knowledge of evolution; that even if ‘an evolutionary burst’ occurs when a new ecological niche opens it still requires competition to persuade species to occupy the space and to diversify once they are within it. So the subtitle seems to be at best a lazy error, or a worst dishonest. So why did they do it. My suspicion is that it was an attempt to try to get more hits by tapping into the supposed ‘evolution-creation controversy’.
And yes I feel very comfortable talking about a supposed ‘evolution-creation controversy’ because there isn’t actually a scientific one. There might be a political one in the US, but the truth of evolution is as close to proven as the theory of relativity or germs.

Facebook Places

We all know Facebook, and most of us use it. However it has hardly been without its controversies. Most of these have been around the collection of data about its users, both overtly and covertly. However the latest one, for US users at least is an application called ‘Facebook Places’. This app lets US users share their location in real time with their friends and any marketers who happen to be interested. Now whilst I can see the whole invasion of privacy thing; my objection to this is not so high minded. My objection is that like 99% of Facebook apps it’s boring. I’m afraid to say that even if you’re my closest friend I’m not that interested in having a record of everywhere you went today. For that matter I’m pretty certain that you don’t want a record of everywhere I went today. If you’ve got an interesting story to tell or somewhere to recommend, or if we’re catching up; then sure lets have a chat about it. But that’s the point. What you did today is for small talk over a pint or dinner in the evening. So my suggestion ignore Facebook Places, because it’s just plain boring.