Myths and misconceptions about evolution???

This is a video produced by TEDed. The "lesson" is by Alex Gendler. I don't know who he is and what his background is. What concerns me is whether this video makes a positive or a negative contribution to the public's understanding of evolution. Personally, I think it's another example of a video that does more harm than good.

What do you think?

---

Looking for Frankenfood

The students in my third year lab course are about to test various food products to see if they contain any DNA from genetically modified organisms. They'll be using a variety of PCR primers to detect the Cauliflower mosaic virus 35S promoter and the nopaline synthase terminator sequence from the Ti plasmid of Agrobacterium tumefaciens [see Roundup Ready® Transgenic Plants ].

Every student has to bring in their own food sample to test but I'll be providing a number of "controls" that I picked up in the cafeteria and at the grocery store. Which ones are Frankenfood?

We're using some additional sets of primers as controls. One set detects a chloroplast gene (rbcL). We have two sets of primers for corn-specific genes (invertase and zein) and one set for a soybean specific gene (lectin). An important part of the exercise is figuring out what controls to use and what DNA samples to analyze. Each group of two students can do 24 PCR reactions. It's going to be a challenge for them to figure out which reactions are the most important.

(They were told that corn and soy products are most likely to test positive in the GMO assay.)

---

Are universities doomed?

This month's issue of The Atlantic has another one of those boring articles on the imminent death of universities (colleges) [The Future of College?].

This time it's a new "university" called MINERVA that's going to kill off all the old-school schools. Minerva is a for-profit university where all the learning takes place in electronic seminars of up to 19 students. Sort of like a Skype conference call only it uses copyrighted software. Students will pay only $28,000 (US) per year for this experience.

There have been articles about the death of universities published every year for as long as I can remember. Almost all of them think that a "university" is just a place where you go to get an undergraduate education. That's because almost all of the potential murderers only experienced university as an undergraduate.

What are students interested in and does it matter?

PZ Myers [Oh, dear] picked up on a tweet from Jeffrey Ros-Ibarra [Tell me botany doesn’t have a recruitment problem]. He posted the result of a survey of 800 first year students.

This shouldn't come as a big surprise to any Sandwalk readers. The question is, what should we do about it?

Most university professors share this bias so they are very comfortable with teaching biochemistry from a strictly animal (mostly human) perspective. When challenged, they point out that students are mostly interested in animals and themselves. They think we should design our courses to accommodate these interests because that's what students want to hear. I call these professors the "caterers."

A minority (that includes me) look upon this data as a challenge. Our goal is to convince students that they should broaden their interests and learn about other species. People like me will emphasize broad principles and concepts that apply to ALL living organisms. We teach comparative biochemistry and talk a lot about evolution. These guys are the "challengers." (They're also the ones with the low student evaluations.)

The easiest way to tell the difference between the two types of professor in introductory biochemistry courses is to see whether they teach photosynthesis or the glyoxylate shunt, and whether they spend as much time on gluconeogenesis (the most ancient pathway) as they do on glycolysis (the derived pathway). It's also informative to observe whether they cover the biosynthesis of amino acids or whether they treat amino acids as food.

It's a really bad sign if they spend any time at all on the difference between "essential" and "nonessential" amino acids.

---

Banning the views of those who disagree with you

The blogosphere is excited about a petition that's being presented to the Scottish Parliament on behalf of the Scottish Secular Society. A chemist, and Nobel Laureate, Sir Harold Kroto, has backed the petition [Nobel prize winner backs Scottish Secular Society petition to exclude creationism in Scottish schools].

Here's what it says ....

Calling on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to issue official guidance to bar the presentation in Scottish publicly funded schools of separate creation and of Young Earth doctrines as viable alternatives to the established science of evolution, common descent, and deep time.

I would never, ever, sign such a petition. I think it's a bad idea for politicians to get involved in the specifics of what should and should not be taught in publicly funded schools. You can see what happens in the USA when you give them that right.

If the teaching of Young Earth Creationism is creeping into Scottish schools then it's time to show students why it is wrong and why science can refute it. Banning it will only make it seem like a genuine threat that can't be confronted by teachers and education.

---

A bun bargain

We were at our local supermarket yesterday and I wanted to buy some large Kaiser rolls. Unfortunately, the bins were empty.

I guess the customers couldn't resist the bargain if they bought half-a-dozen buns.

---

Do you really "get" evolution?

Stephanie Keep is the new editor of Reports of the National Center for Science Education at NCSE (National Center for Science Education).

She tells an interesting story in her first post on the Science Laegue of Amercia blog [A New Finger in the Pie].

An editor friend of mine asked me the other day to read an activity she’s developing for middle school, one of the soon-to-be plethora of activities aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards. This particular one was about evolution, and asked kids to look for variation in a number of human traits and then infer adaptive explanations. For example, they could measure finger lengths and then come up with a reason that longer fingers are more adaptive than shorter ones. What followed was a half-hour conversation in which I tried my best to explain why that was a terrible idea for an activity. And here’s the thing—this friend of mine, she’s super-smart and has an advanced degree in biology from Harvard University. Now, she completely understood, once we discussed it, why that kind of activity will reinforce misconceptions about evolution (that every feature is adaptive, that you can infer a structure’s adaptive value from its current function, etc.), but we still had to have the discussion.

I have worked for the past decade-plus with scientists, science writers, and science educators, all of whom have the best intentions in the world, all of whom would have no problem declaring their allegiance to the cause of an authentic science education grounded in evolution. But—and I don’t want to point fingers at anybody here—many of them would have not batted an eye if that activity had come across their desks. And this, I believe, is one of the most important truths we have to face: many of us don’t really get evolution. It’s such a beautiful, simple, and powerful idea, but it’s also finicky, demanding vigilant attention to detail to be properly explained and explored.

Most of you will be familiar with this idea since I've been complaining about adaptationism for decades. In order to "get" evolution, you need to know about Neutral Theory and random genetic drift—and that's just for starters. We need to work much harder to dispel misconceptions about evolution.

Lot's of people don't really "get" evolution but, in fairness, they don't study it either. But if you are going to write about evolution—or teach it—then you'd better make sure you understand it. Unfortunately, there are far too many people like Stephanie Keep's friend. We have to fix that.

There's one group that spends an extraordinary amount of time "studying" evolution without ever "getting" it. I'm referring to creationists, especially the Intelligent Design Creationists, otherwise known as IDiots. They've been told time and time again that there's much more to evolution than just adaptation. Recently, some of them actually seemed to "get" the ideas of Neutral Theory and random genetic drift although that turned out to be an illusion. They still don't get evolution.

In any case, one of the creationists (Donald McLaughlin¹) has blogged about Stephanie Keep's story [see A New Hire at the National Center for Science Education Admits "Many of Us Don't Really Get Evolution"]. Here's part of what McLaughlin says,

Bear in mind, too, that the very educators who don't get evolution are also the ones who fuss and complain whenever a state legislator or science standards committee member proposes language about "teaching the strengths and weaknesses" of evolution. From the way they kvetch, you would think there are no weaknesses in evolutionary theory. But if many of them don't get evolution in the first place, how would they know?

Keep says that evolution is a "beautiful, simple, and powerful idea, but it's also finicky, demanding vigilant attention to detail to be properly explained and explored." Perhaps Keep could provide a helpful list of exactly what those details are so educators like her Harvard-trained friend can stay on the straight and narrow Darwinian path, lest they join the chorus calling for a new theory of evolution.

This is ironic and confused on so many levels that I'm not even going to try and point them out. I just post it here for your amusement.

---

1. Here's his profile on the Discovery Institute website.

Donald McLaughlin joined Discovery Institute in August 2013, as a Development Officer and Regional Representative in the upper Midwest and Northeast regions. His areas of responsibility include cultivating and stewarding major gifts, and planned giving. Donald has had a successful career in development, including 8 years as a Regional Director of Advancement for Prison Fellowship Ministries, 2 years as National Director of Major Gifts for Teen Mania Ministries and 5 years as Regional Director of Advancement for Taylor University.

Donald is a 1975 graduate of Taylor University where he earned his BA in Speech and Drama. In 1977, he earned an MA in Clinical Audiology from Ball State University in Muncie, IN. While at Prison Fellowship, Donald also participated in the Centurions Program. Prior to his work in Development, Donald spent more than twenty years in financial services with both AG Edwards and Merrill Lynch. Donald lives in Granger Indiana, near South Bend, with his wife of 35 years, Elizabeth, who is Chair of the Communications Department at Bethel College in Mishawaka, IN. Donald enjoys reading, traveling, and music.

He also has a religious profile at: Donald McLaughlin.

"Flipping the classroom": what does that mean?

The latest issues of ASBMB Today contains an article by Brent R. Stockwell and Michael Cennamo with a provocative title: Reimagining the undergraduate science course.

It describes an undergraduate course in biochemistry at Columbia University. Apparently, this course used to be taught in a way that's similar to many biochemistry courses. The lecture consisted of PowerPoint slides and a description of basic facts such as metabolic pathways. Stockwell and Cennamo want to redesign the course to allow more time in the classroom for debate and discussion. This is an admirable goal.

They decided to "flip the classroom."

What does it mean to flip the classroom?

When we say we flipped the classroom, we mean that we had students watch recorded videos before class, freeing classroom time for discussion, group work and solving problems. But this is not something you can do overnight.

We took time to define our goals: Obviously, we wanted the students to be better prepared for each class, allowing them to engage more fully in class discussion. But we also wanted to have students put lecture material into action by tackling practical biochemistry problems.

Last summer, we had a number of meetings to design a new course that not only would get students thinking and problem solving in a new way but would provide instant feedback on how well they understood the material.

What they did was to create a video with their PowerPoint slides and a recording of the lecturer explaining what's on the slides. The students were supposed to watch the video before class and, to ensure that they did, there was a quiz at the end of the video presentation. For example, at the end of the lecture on amino acid metabolism, the students were asked to identify the product of the deamination of alanine.¹

Here's the part I don't understand. What's the value of having students watch a video presentation when they have a textbook? (The recommended textbook is Lehninger, Principles of Biochemistry by David Nelson and Michael Cox (6th edition, 2013)).

Why not just assign readings from the textbook? I assume that most lecturers are not very knowledgeable about the content of most lectures in an introductory biochemistry course so they probably rely on a textbook anyway.

And what are the students supposed to do when they watch the video? In the new version of the course, students are divided into groups and they deal with problems that "required students to synthesize and apply the information from the textbook, videos and class discussion" (i.e. "problem-based learning," according to the authors). One of the question is ....

If glucose labeled with ¹⁴C at C-1 were the starting material for amino acid biosynthesis, the product(s) that would be readily formed is/are:

A. Serine labelled at alpha carbon
B. None of these
C. All of these
D. Serine labelled at the carboxyl carbon
E. Serine labelled at the R-group carbon²

I assume that the students would have to take notes while watching the video and/or download the PowerPoint slides in order to answer this question during class. Or, they could bring their textbook to class.

Do PowerPoint video presentations add anything to the course that can't be found in the textbook?

---

1. Pyruvate and glutamate?
2. I assume the instructors are thinking about organisms that regularly utilize glucose as a carbon source so that amino acids like serine are mostly derived from intermediates in glycolysis (e.g. humans). In that case, the students have to understand the distribution of carbon atoms in the aldolase reaction. I had to look this up to determine that the correct answer is "E." I hope I'm right. For species that use the pentose-phosphate pathway, I think the correct answer is "B." (This doesn't seem to me like a fundamental principle or concept based on an evolutionary approach to biochemistry.)

Science literacy and "belief" in evolution

On May 24th 2014 Ed Yong (@edyong209) tweeted ....

Those surveys about views on evolution are a terrible guide to “science literacy” (which is itself a silly term) [Weekend update: You'd have to be science illiterate to think "belief in evolution" measures science literacy]

You can follow the Twitter thread here but it's not very enlightening.

The article that Ed Yong linked to is by Dan Kahan, a Professor of Law and a Professor of Psychology at Yale University (New Haven, Connecticut, USA). He has a B.A. from Middlebury College and a law degree (J.D.) from Harvard.

The issue that upsets Ed Yong and Dan Kahan is a serious one. It's about how one measures scientific literacy and what it means to be capable of using the scientific way of knowing to distinguish between reality and superstition. The specific issue is whether asking people if they "believe" in evolution is a valid measure of scientific literacy.

Core concepts in genetics

I stumbled across an article in Science & Education that caught my eye. The authors discuss the way genetics is taught in introductory university courses (McElhinny et al. 2014). They quote several sources that define the core concepts of genetics that students must learn.

Here's the list ...

1. DNA is the universal information molecule in living organisms, encoding genes and allowing for genetic variation within and genetic continuity between generations (DNA);
2. Mendelian patterns of inheritance are directly related to the mechanisms of meiosis (MENDELIAN);
3. Traits result from the expression of one or more genes working alone or together, with the environment, often in unpredictable ways (GENE EXPRESSION);
4. The activities of genes and the environment regulate all developmental processes (GENES + ENVIRONMENT);
5. Genetic variation underlies variation in traits, which is the basis for the differential survival and reproduction that allow populations to evolve (VARIATION); and
6. The ability to analyze and manipulate genetic information raises a variety of complex issues for individuals and society (GENES + SOCIETY).

These six concepts for genetic literacy will hereafter be referred to as the core genetics concepts.

This is a strange list. Let me explain why.

1. The structure of DNA and how it is expressed should be covered in other mandatory courses, including introductory biology and biochemistry. You should not have to spend any time at all on these topics in a genetics course. (P.S. DNA does not "encode genes.") You may want to spend some time on the biochemistry of recombination if it's not covered elsewhere. Students should understand Holliday junctions and how they are resolved.
2. Mendelian genetics is important. Students should learn and understand the three laws he discovered. They should also learn about meiosis and sex. However, it's important for students to understand that simple transmission genetics is not limited to diploid eukaryotes. Bacteria also do genetics.
3. Traits (phenotype) are due to information in DNA (not just genes) but most of those traits have very little to do with the external environment.
4. Of course the activities of genes regulate development. They also regulate the citric acid cycle, photosynthesis, and protein synthesis. Surely you don't want undergraduates to think that development is the only thing that's important in genetics?
5. It's important for students to understand that populations contain genetic variation. That means they have to learn about MUTATION and how it happens. They also have to learn why there's so much variation in populations—one of the most important discoveries in genetics in the last century. The answer is Neutral Theory and random genetic drift. No genetics course should leave out this important concept, especially because so few students will have never heard of it before enrolling in the course.
6. Discussions about cloning, GM foods, and personal genomes are interesting but, unfortunately, there are very few scientists who can handle those issues in a genetics course. The important core concept is to get the science right and make sure students understand that getting the science right is absolutely essential whenever you discuss controversial issues.
7. POPULATION GENETICS is an essential core concept in an introductory genetics course. You can't teach students about the genetics of EVOLUTION without it.

The authors discovered that only the first three "core concepts" were taught in every genetics course. Variation and mutation were taught in only 88% of the courses they surveyed. Only 63% covered GENES + ENVIRONMENT and only 9% covered GENES + SOCIETY.

McElhinn et al. (2014) discuss one possible change in the curriculum. It's a suggestion originally made by Dougherty (2009) and echoed by Redfield (2012). The idea is to "invert" genetics courses by beginning with coverage of poplations, variation, and complex traits. I strongly disagree with Rosie Redfield's proposal [see Questions for Genetics Students] but what surprises me in the McElhinny et al (2014) paper is that they can seriously list those core concepts without mentioning mutation and population genetics.

---

McElhinny, T.L., Dougherty, M.J., Bowling, B.V., and Libarkin, J.C. (2014) The Status of Genetics Curriculum in Higher Education in the United States: Goals and Assessment. Science and Education 23:445-464.
[doi: 10.1007/s11191-012-9566-1]

Redfield, R. J. (2012) "Why do we have to learn this stuff?’’—A new genetics for 21st century students. PLoS Biology, 10, e1001356 [doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1001356]

Critical thinking and standardized tests

Lawyer Barry Arrington has posted a link to an article that compares scores on standardized tests (LSAT) with undergraduate discipline. It also looked at university GPA. That article is: The best prospective law students read Homer. Look at the chart below.

It's not a big shock to see that the average GPA of religion and classics students is higher than that of biology and engineering students (Y-axis). It's interesting that students specializing in biology perform slightly better than religion students on the LSAT (X-axis) but these differences aren't very significant.

Barry Arrington thinks they are significant. His post at Biology Students Score Below Religion and Classics Students on Test of Critical Thinking makes the following claim ...

One wonders why biology students do so poorly while classics and religion students do so well. One hypothesis: classics and religion students learn critical thinking skills while biology students are taught to parrot the central dogma. The chart is from a study of which undergraduate majors correlated most highly with success on the LSAT.

Barry is making the false assumption that scores on the LSAT correlate with the ability to think critically. I suppose it's natural for a lawyer to think like this.

My experience indicates that one of the serious downsides to teaching critical thinking is that it hurts the students' chances of doing well on standardized tests such as the LSAT, MCAT, and GRE. Those tests are usually set up to encourage memorization and regurgitation even though some of the questions look like "think" questions. That's why I tell students to always give the standard, expected, answer on the MCAT even if they know it's wrong or misleading.

---

Alan Sokal explains the scientific worldview

As most of you know, I prefer a broad definition of science as a way of knowing. I usually refer to it as a way of knowing based on rational thinking, evidence, and healthy skepticism but there are many other ways of expressing the same idea.

However you say it, the broad definition of the scientific way of knowing covers everything, not just physics, biology, chemistry and geology. Not only that, it appears to be the only way of knowing that has proven to be successful. Thus, I can tentatively conclude that it is the only way of knowing until someone provides an example of knowledge obtained by another way of knowing.

Alan Sokel has posted three articles on Massimo Pigliucci new blog, Scientia Salon [What is science and why should we care? — Part III].

Here's how he describes science in Part III.

We have now travelled a long way from “science,” understood narrowly as physics, chemistry, biology and the like. But the whole point is that any such narrow definition of science is misguided. We live in a single real world; the administrative divisions used for convenience in our universities do not in fact correspond to any natural philosophical boundaries. It makes no sense to use one set of standards of evidence in physics, chemistry and biology, and then suddenly relax your standards when it comes to medicine, religion or politics. Lest this sound to you like a scientist’s imperialism, I want to stress that it is exactly the contrary. As the philosopher Susan Haack lucidly observes:

“Our standards of what constitutes good, honest, thorough inquiry and what constitutes good, strong, supportive evidence are not internal to science. In judging where science has succeeded and where it has failed, in what areas and at what times it has done better and in what worse, we are appealing to the standards by which we judge the solidity of empirical beliefs, or the rigor and thoroughness of empirical inquiry, generally.” [21]

The bottom line is that science is not merely a bag of clever tricks that turn out to be useful in investigating some arcane questions about the inanimate and biological worlds. Rather, the natural sciences are nothing more or less than one particular application — albeit an unusually successful one — of a more general rationalist worldview, centered on the modest insistence that empirical claims must be substantiated by empirical evidence.

Conversely, the philosophical lessons learned from four centuries of work in the natural sciences can be of real value — if properly understood — in other domains of human life. Of course, I am not suggesting that historians or policy-makers should use exactly the same methods as physicists — that would be absurd. But neither do biologists use precisely the same methods as physicists; nor, for that matter, do biochemists use the same methods as ecologists, or solid-state physicists as elementary-particle physicists. The detailed methods of inquiry must of course be adapted to the subject matter at hand. What remains unchanged in all areas of life, however, is the underlying philosophy: namely, to constrain our theories as strongly as possible by empirical evidence, and to modify or reject those theories that fail to conform to the evidence. That is what I mean by the scientific worldview.

---

Hat Tip: Jerry Coyne: Alan Sokal highlights the incompatibility of science and religion

The Oklahoma Academy of Sciences says, "The Academy contends that the acceptance of the general theory of evolution and a belief in God are compatible."

I just read a couple of papers on teaching evolution. The focus was on common misconceptions and whether teachers share the same misconception as students (Yates and Marek, 2013; Yates and Marek, 2014). The authors are associated with Oklahoma Baptist University. Their survey results cover Oklahoma high school teachers and students taking biology.

The authors refer frequently to "the theory of evolution" but none of their questions cover the understanding of what that means. I still don't know whether they looked at misconceptions about the meaning of the phrase.

They did reference a statement by the Oklahoma Academy of Science from 2007 so I thought I'd check it out to see if they define evolution. I was able to find the statement via a link from the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) who endorsed it in 2008 [Oklahoma Academy of Science adds its voice for evolution]. You can find the complete statement at: Science, Religion, and Teaching Evolution – 2007. I reproduce it below.

Before you read it, let me make one thing clear. I do not believe that scientific associations should say anything at all about religion. I do not think they should say that science and religion are incompatible, even though I think that's correct. I also don't think they should say that science and religion are compatible, but not because it's wrong (IMHO).

There is considerable debate about the compatibility of science and religion and the one thing we can say with certainty is that scientists and philosophers do not agree. Therefore, it is wrong for scientific organizations to take one side or the other and pretend that the issue has been decided. They should stay out of the issue. This applies to ALL scientific organizations. I think it should also apply to NCSE.

Here's the statement. What do you think? Is it true that if you are an atheist you will never be able to answer "Who?" or "Why?" questions? There's a growing belief that we need to teach more about the nature of science. Is this statement a good place to start?

Science and religion can coexist harmoniously if people understand the strengths and limitations of each field. Albert Einstein said, “Science without religion is blind and religion without science is lame.” (1) Science and religion can complement each other - each informing the other in the domain where each is knowledgeable. Respected religious and world leaders such as Billy Graham, Jimmy Carter, Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have written statements affirming harmony (2).

Strengths of Science – Science is very successful at understanding the tangible, perceivable world; anything that can be weighed, measured, detected, imaged or described objectively is the domain of science. Science can predict future actions of matter, energy, time, and space, based on past observations and experiments, or it can deduce past events, based on observing the results of those events. For example, geology can deduce what physical happenings occurred in the past and how long ago they occurred. Science can answer the HOW? and WHEN? questions about the physical world extremely well. Science is self-correcting; if new data or better interpretations become available, the scientific community will refine or add to its conclusions to reflect the recent findings.

Limitations of Science – Science cannot answer the ultimate WHO? or WHY? questions. Science is restricted to the domain of physically tangible things. Science can explain HOW things work in ever-finer detail. For example, physiology is explained in terms of biology and chemistry, which is further explained in terms of physics. Beyond the most detailed scientific explanation lies another question -- What is the First Cause? Most scientists would argue that the “First Cause” is not knowable by the methods of science.

Teaching of Evolution in Public Schools – The Oklahoma Academy of Science strongly supports thorough teaching of evolution in biology classes. Evolution is one of the most important principles of science. A high school graduate who does not understand evolution is not prepared for college or for life in a technologically advanced world, in which the role of biology and biotechnology will continue to grow. The Academy affirms that the tangible, perceivable world is the domain of science and that science is clearly the discipline to explain HOW and WHEN the universe came into being. There is no credible scientific evidence that the earth came into being recently or that evolution is not the best explanation of the origins of living organisms. Science, by definition, starts with all available evidence, draws conclusions, and generates testable predictions. The content of science courses should be determined by scientists and science educators, and not by political or religious directives. In particular, science teachers should not be required to teach ideas, models, and theories that are extra-scientific (3). "Creationism" and “Intelligent Design” are not science because they do not conform to the testable and falsifiable criteria of science. It is not appropriate for science textbooks or science teachers to teach creation as science. Creation and other matters of faith are topics for religion, philosophy, and humanities courses.

Conclusion – The Academy regards the fundamental unity of life to be evident in the common building blocks and biochemical reactions of cells and in the remarkable conservation of information in DNA sequences across the biological kingdoms. The latter documents the relatedness of all organisms--plants, microorganisms, and animals.

The Academy contends that the acceptance of the general theory of evolution and a belief in God are compatible. A wide diversity of religious faiths and belief systems are celebrated in the community of science, and the overwhelming majority of scientists accept the principles of evolutionary theory. Many do this without compromising their individual faiths in a Creator. This includes many evangelical Christians today and in the past who accepted both the Judeo-Christian Bible and evolutionary theory. One such individual was Harvard botanist Asa Gray, who was also Charles Darwin’s principal and earliest American proponent in the nineteenth century. There is no inconsistency in holding both viewpoints because the practice of science--observation, measurement, forming and testing hypotheses, controlled experimentation, drawing conclusions, and finally establishing an overall theory of how things happen--simply does not address the ultimate questions of purpose. The theory of evolution is our most rational system that explains an enormous number of observations; why or by whom that system was set in motion is not within the bounds of scientific inquiry. (4)

Understanding of the strengths and limitations of both science and religion can alleviate concerns of both scientists and non-scientists. Scientists do not accept the suppression or neglect of well-understood science because non-scientists dispute it for non-scientific reasons. Similarly, science does not speak on issues of purpose and creation, as these are not objectively testable. Science and religion have different perspectives when they address common issues, and recognizing the differences may make it possible for those active in both to realize that their most important goals are not in conflict.

---

Yates, T.B. and Marek, E.A. (2013) Is Oklahoma really OK? A regional study of the prevalence of biological evolution-related misconceptions held by introductory biology teachers. Evolution: Education and Outreach 6, 1-20. [doi: 10.1186/1936-6434-6-6]

Yates, T.B. and Marek, E.A. (2014) Teachers teaching misconceptions: a study of factors contributing to high school biology students’ acquisition of biological evolution-related misconceptions. Evolution: Education and Outreach 7, 1-18. [doi: 10.1186/s12052-014-0007-2]

What does "liberal arts education" mean in the 21st century?

The President of the University of Toronto recently published an article about undergraduate education. I questioned whether my university really is committed to the ideals of undergraduate education (critical thinking etc.) [Does the University of Toronto really care about undergraduate education?]. The answer, IMHO, is "no."

Now I want to bring up something else from the article by President Meric Gertler. It's not a major point—more like a motherhood throwaway line—but I think it raises an interesting question. Gertler said,

U of T reaffirms the value of a broad liberal arts education at the undergraduate level, and we are working to help our graduates extract the full benefit from that education.

I suppose there are as many definitions of "liberal arts education" as there are teachers but I think we can agree on a few points. A "liberal arts education" does not put much emphasis on math and science courses. In fact, I'm pretty sure that there are many who would be happy with a "liberal arts education" that didn't include a single math or science course.

I think that there are some extremely important humanities courses that every student should take. Philosophy (logic and reasoning) is the most obvious one but there's also history and maybe even sociology. I think university students should be familiar with great literature and many other topics in the humanities programs. But I also think that every single university student needs to take (and pass) some math and science courses in order to call themselves university-educated.

This is the 21st century. Surely we can agree that science is at least as important as "liberal arts"? Maybe we should be talking about a "broad science and humanities" education as the important value that we are trying to achieve?¹

I'm not sure where that leaves the thousands of students who are getting degrees in commerce and business. Perhaps we should admit that those undergraduate programs, like engineering, are not really education programs. They are job training programs.

---

1. I'm not talking about "astronomy for poets" and other watered-down science courses. Humanities majors should take the same courses that science majors take just as science majors take the same courses that humanities students take.

Does the University of Toronto really care about undergraduate education?

My university, the University of Toronto (Toronto, Canada), is huge. We have 60,000 undergraduates making it one of the biggest universities in North America. You'd think that undergraduate education should be a very high priority.

The university publishes an online "newspaper" called the Bulletin every Tuesday and Thursday. It's basically a PR ploy to advertise everything that's great about the University of Toronto. There was a time in the past when the Bulletin had editorials that were critical of university practice and policies but I haven't seen anything like that in years.

The latest issue has a link to an article by the President of the University, Meric Gertler. The title of the article is: Job Ready: U of T is developing new programs to help students succeed after graduation. I want to discuss two things in that article. The first is whether the university really is committed to the goals of undergraduate education (this post). The second is What does "liberal arts education" mean in the 21st century?.

Science education and indigenous knowledge

Yesterday afternoon I attended a forum on Science and Mathematics teaching in Ontario schools. It was put on by The Centre for Science, Mathematics and Technology (SMT) Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto (Toronto, Canada).

OISE is one of the places responsible for training teachers in Ontario. It offers advanced degrees (Masters. Ph.D.) in education. I thought this might be a good opportunity to network with the people responsible for teaching science in our high schools.

Here's a description of the forum ...

Cosmos presents evolution

The second episode of the new Cosmos series is Some of the Things That Molecules Do.

It's about evolution and it's not bad. I have four comments.

A missed opportunity. Natural selection is important and Neil deGrasse Tyson did a pretty good job of explaining it. It wouldn't have taken a big effort to mention that there's more to evolution than natural selection. He could, for example, have pointed out that some breeds of dogs are prone to certain genetic diseases or health problems because some bad mutations were accidentally fixed alone with the good ones. He could have pointed out that our eyes have a blind spot.

The Theory of Evolution is not a fact. Neil deGrasse Tyson said that the theory of evolution is a fact. This is not correct. Evolution is a fact. Evolutionary theory attempts to explain how evolution occurs. Some of the explanations, like natural selection, are facts but many aspects of modern evolutionary theory are still hotly debated in the scientific community.

We don't understand the origin of life. The episode closed with deGrasse Tyson saying the we don't understand how life began and there's nothing wrong with admitting that we don't know something. Excellent!

There are better ways of drawing DNA. I don't like the way DNA is pictured in the first two episodes, especially in the opening sequence. It looks like the bases grow out of the backbone and fuse to form base pairs. They could have drawn a more accurate representation without losing any visual appeal.

I give the episode a B⁺.

---

On teaching creationism in American public universities

I think that universities are places where diversity of opinion should be encouraged and where fringe ideas should be protected. I'm very much opposed to letting outside interests (i.e. politicians and lawyers) decide what should and should not be taught on a university campus.

Clearly there are limits but those should be decided by faculty who understand the concept of academic freedom. It's not a good idea to offer astronomy courses on an Earth-centered solar system or geology courses based on the idea that the Earth is only 6000 years old. Those ideas are just too far out on the fringe. You're unlikely to find any university professors who want to teach such courses.

However, there are lots of other controversies that aren't so easily dismissed. If some of the more enlightened Intelligent Design Creationists want to teach a science course at my university, I would not try to prevent them. Just as I didn't try to prevent Michael Behe and Bill Dembski from speaking on my campus.

Philip Ball writes about molecular mechanisms of evolution

It's been almost a year since I commented on an Nature article by Philip Ball [see DNA: Nature Celebrates Ignorance]. Here's part of what I wrote back then ...

The main premise of the article is revealed in the short blurb under the title: "On the 60th anniversary of the double helix, we should admit that we don't fully understand how evolution works at the molecular level, suggests Philip Ball."

What nonsense! We understand a great deal about how evolution works at the molecular level.

The worst thing about the Nature article was the misuse of the Central Dogma of Molecular Biology. The second worst thing was the "revelation" that genes are regulated by regulatory sequences as if that was a new discovery. (He mentions the ENCODE results.)

My molecular evolution midterm test

My students wrote the midterm test today. Here are the questions. They had to answer the first question and 4 other questions (out of 5). How would you do?

1. What’s the most important new thing about molecular evolution that you have learned in this course so far? Explain your answer by describing your "important new thing."
2. If mutation rates are relatively constant then why does the molecular clock tick at different rates in different proteins?
3. Many evolutionary biologists think that population genetics is the key concept in understanding evolution but biology students often complete several years of courses without ever learning about effective population sizes, mutation rates and the importance of random genetic drift. Why? Is it because population genetics is not a necessary key concept in evolution?
4. Grad students at this university publish a journal called Hypothesis. A few years ago (2005) there was a student who wrote ...
   

   I am a grad student, and long hours at the bench have got me thinking of other things lately, including the idea of marriage. I came up with a few criteria to direct me on my quest for a wife, and near the top of the list was that she needs to know what a gene is. I thought that this would be a reasonable thing to ask for. I like learning about how we and the rest of life work, and knowing how, in a general sense, cells are programmed to do what they do is a pretty good indicator of similar interest. My friends, however, disagreed with me, and on several occasions, as I shared my list, I feared that things were going to get violent. They argued that I will never get married with such a short-sighted and elitist attitude.

   Imagine that you would only seek partners who knew what a gene was. What definition would you require and why?
5. What’s the best evidence that a substantial amount of our genome is junk?
6. Imagine that you are teaching a class and you ask students to calculate a mutation rate in humans based on what they know about biochemistry. What mistakes are they most likely to make and why?

---