The Panda’s Thumb is a group weblog devoted to the evolutionary biology and defending the teaching of science in schools. It descends from the the legendary virtual bar serving the community of the legendary virtual University of Ediacara somewhere in the Ediacaran hills of southern Australia, growing out of the lore of the Usenet talk.origins newsgroup.

The panda’s thumb is also an example of jury-rigged evolutionary adaptation made famous by the late Stephen Jay Gould in an essay of the same name. Much as in any tavern serving a university community, you can expect to hear a variety of levels of discussion, ranging from the picayune to the pedantic.

De Rerum Natura is my personal blog focusing mostly on biology and computation. I began it in 2004 while a graduate student, but I am not actively blogging there much anymore. I have shifted most of my focus to The Panda’s Thumb (what little I can spare). Regardless, I still maintain it because it has useful content.

De Rerum Natura is Latin for “On the Nature of Things” and was the title of Titus Lucretius Carus’s (c. 99–55 BCE) epic didactic poem. He explored the Epicurian phylosophy of atomic materilism, and in many sections he offered suprisingly modern explainations of natural phenomena.

Talk.origins is a Usenet newsgroup devoted to the discussion and debate of biological and physical origins. Most discussions in the newsgroup center on the creation/evolution controversy, but other topics of discussion include the origin of life, geology, biology, catastrophism, cosmology and theology.

The TalkOrigins Archive is a collection of articles and essays. The primary reason for this archive's existence is to provide mainstream scientific responses to the many frequently asked questions that appear in the talk.origins newsgroup and the frequently rebutted assertions of those advocating intelligent design or other creationist pseudosciences.