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Reposted by Niles Eldredge

Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · Jul 5

"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...

Some Thoughts on Techno-Fascism From Socialism 2025

"This is the endgame of our isolation."

organizingmythoughts.org

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Niles Eldredge @nilese.bsky.social · Jun 30

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

Brian J. Enquist @bjenquist.bsky.social · Jun 30

Phylogenetic Evidence Supports the Effect of Traits on Late-Quaternary Megafauna Extinction in the Context of Human Activity onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... 🧪🌐

Phylogenetic Evidence Supports the Effect of Traits on Late‐Quaternary Megafauna Extinction in the Context of Human Activity

Aim The late-Quaternary extinctions, which affected primarily large mammals, are strongly connected to the migration of modern humans out of sub-Saharan Africa and tropical Asia (the Palaeotropics),...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Niles Eldredge @nilese.bsky.social · Jun 30

Cool Sergi!!!

Sergi Valverde @svalver.bsky.social · Jun 30

Next July 14th, I will be at the @i2sysbio.es talking about our recent work about punctuated evolution in culture, technology, biology, and more. i2sysbio.es. @blaividiella.bsky.social @sduran-nebreda.bsky.social @andrejpaleo.bsky.social @nilese.bsky.social @ibe-barcelona.bsky.social

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Fernando Blanco @fernandoblancos.bsky.social · Jun 5

🦏🦣🦌 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...

Two major ecological shifts shaped 60 million years of ungulate faunal evolution - Nature Communications

Here, the authors analyze a fossil dataset spanning 60 million years to investigate ecological stability. Their network analysis identifies prolonged stability interrupted by two major functional tran...

www.nature.com

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James Albert @gymnotus.bsky.social · Jun 1

"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)".

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Niles Eldredge @nilese.bsky.social · May 30

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.

Elisabeth Vrba obituary

Published in Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa (Ahead of Print, 2025)

www.tandfonline.com

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Niles Eldredge @nilese.bsky.social · May 29

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

Sergi Valverde @svalver.bsky.social · May 29

Douglas et al. shows that up to 99% of evolutionary change occur at branching points across genes, morphology, and language. A major step for punctuated evolution, aligning with our goal of a unified framework. @nilese.bsky.social @andrejpaleo.bsky.social #EvoBio #CultEvo doi.org/10.1098/rspb...

Evolution is coupled with branching across many granularities of life | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Across many scales of life, the rate of evolutionary change is often accelerated at the time when one lineage splits into two. The emergence of novel protein function can be facilitated by gene duplication (neofunctionalization); rapid morphological ...

doi.org

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Niles Eldredge @nilese.bsky.social · May 21

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

George Tsakraklides @tsakraklides.bsky.social · May 21

“the reason why the climate crisis and civilisational collapse are upon us is that they are the most lucrative businesses that ever existed”
open.substack.com/pub/georgets...

Laboured to Extinction: How We Became the Planet of the Working Zombies

As societies grew into increasingly complex economies, the need for specialised skills gave rise to specialised humans.

open.substack.com

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Prof. Eliot Jacobson @climatecasino.net · May 2

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...

Ocean Heat Bands Reshape Global Climate Patterns

The world's oceans are heating in two distinct bands circling the globe, with potentially far-reaching implications for weather patterns and marine

scienceblog.com

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Mrs. Betty Bowers @mrsbettybowers.bsky.social · Apr 23

In case you hadn't noticed:

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Niles Eldredge @nilese.bsky.social · Mar 24

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!

Andrej Spiridonov @andrejpaleo.bsky.social · Mar 24

Great to see a new study in "Paleobiology" by Ilya Tëmkin further developing ideas of biological hierarchies in connection to geobiomes (described last year by us with N. Eldredge @nilese.bsky.social ).
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
🧪 #Paleobio ⚒️ #Geology #EvoBio #Macroecology

Description of the causal structure of biological hierarchies.

Biocenoses and the phylogenetic dynamics.

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Niles Eldredge @nilese.bsky.social · Mar 24

Looks fantastic!!!

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Niles Eldredge @nilese.bsky.social · Mar 20

Looks terrific. Good to see stasis called out! Ironically, same issue of Nature with my obit for Elisabeth Vrba

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Niles Eldredge @nilese.bsky.social · Mar 17

Good Grief

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Niles Eldredge @nilese.bsky.social · Mar 13

Thank you Bruce—means a lot to hear you say so !!!

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MU-Peter Shimon 🀄️ @mu-peter.bsky.social · Mar 13

🔆 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...

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Niles Eldredge @nilese.bsky.social · Mar 12

Terrific Roy!!!!

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Niles Eldredge @nilese.bsky.social · Mar 12

My Obituary of Elisabeth Vrba—out today in Nature in read-only format:

rdcu.be/ediyO

Elisabeth Vrba obituary: palaeontologist who solved a problem that vexed Darwin | Nature

The biologist’s theories about how environments prompt rapid species evolution and extinction propelled her onto the world stage. The biologist’s theories about how environments prompt rapid species evolution and extinction propelled her onto the world stage.

rdcu.be

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Niles Eldredge @nilese.bsky.social · Feb 11

That’s wonderful to hear Paulyn!!

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Bruce S. Lieberman @bruceslieberman.bsky.social · Feb 11

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

Niles Eldredge @nilese.bsky.social · Feb 10

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.

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Andrej Spiridonov @andrejpaleo.bsky.social · Feb 11

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

Niles Eldredge @nilese.bsky.social · Feb 10

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.

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Niles Eldredge @nilese.bsky.social · Feb 11

Great—I like line!

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Andrej Spiridonov @andrejpaleo.bsky.social · Feb 10

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

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Niles Eldredge @nilese.bsky.social · Feb 10

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.

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Niles Eldredge @nilese.bsky.social · Feb 7

“Lollipops and balloons” —Michelle J. Eldredge

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