Evolution highlights VI

PZ Myers is reporting from the Darwin/Chicago 2009 conference (schedule) organized by Jerry Coyne. Talks by Richard Lewontin on bad metaphors in evolution, and by Ron Numbers on the history of creationism.

Tomorrow Douglas Futuyma, Jerry Coyne, and Daniel Dennett, among others.

On his blog, Coyne has a post about the refutation of the worst paper of the year in PNAS: Caterpillars evolved from onychophorans by hybridogenesis. Complete dismissal of that zany paper.

Update: There's now even more good summaries from Darwin/Chicago 2009 by PZ:

Marc Hauser— where do morals come from? NOT religion
Douglas Futuyma—Evolutionary Ecology and the Question of Constraints
Peter & Rosemary Grant—Natural Selection, Speciation, and Darwin's Finches
Douglas Schemske—Ecological Factors in the Origin of Species
Paul Sereno— Dinosaurs: Phylogenetic reconstruction from Darwin to the present
Frederick Cohan—the Origins of Ecological Diversity in Prokaryotes
Jerry Coyne—Speciation: Problems and Prospects
Eric Lander—Genomics and Darwin in the 21st Century
Philip Ward—What do phylogenies tell us about evolution?

Like diarrhea from a babycalf.