Psychology and Finger Length

There was a lot of interesting stuff going on at the Human Behavior and Evolution Society (HBES) conference held recently at California State University, Fullerton (USA).

You can check out HBES.com and read the abstracts of the papers presented. It gives you a real flavor for the kind of "science" being done in the name of evolutionary psychology.

There was a session on "Digit Ratio." Apparently this is a new field of research in evolutionary psychology. It attempts to correlate the lengths of your fingers with various behaviors. The most relevant parameter appears to be the ratio of the length of your index finger and your ring finger (2D:4D). In women these two fingers are the same length while in men the fourth finger tends to be slightly longer.

Two of the papers at the HBES meeting were from Gad Saad, an Associate Professor of Marketing at the John Molson School of Business at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He's the author of a book called The Evolutionary Bases of Consumption.

Gad Saad recently posted on the Psychology Today blog [Can the Length of Your Fingers Affect Your Consumption?]. He said ...

Some have argued that the 2D:4D is nothing more than a "sophisticated" form of palmistry. Others have ventured that it belongs with astrology and phrenology, former scientific fields that are now completely discredited. The reality is that the sheer number of papers that have yielded robust 2D:4D effects in prestigious peer-reviewed scientific journals suggests that it is going to take more than a flippant dismissal, as the means of critiquing this thriving research stream.

That's an interesting argument. It doesn't address the real issue; namely, whether those papers are scientifically valid or not. It merely states that because they are reviewed and accepted by other evolutionary psychologists they must be true. This is, unfortunately, becoming a common excuse these days.

What if peer review is failing to distinguish good science from bad science? I think this is what's happening in most disciplines these days.

Here's the abstract of the presentation given by Gad Saad's group at the HBES meeting.

Finger length ratio and attitudes towards several product categories
Marcelo Vinhal Nepomuceno, Gad Saad, Eric Stenstrom, Zack Mendenhall

The second-to-fourth finger length ratio (2D:4D), a sexually dimorphic trait, is affected by androgen exposure in utero. It has been linked to a wide range of human phenomena including economic outcomes, personality, sexuality, athletic and musical abilities, health status, and occupational interests to name but a few examples. Surprisingly, it has yet to be investigated in the consumption context. Using a sample of 555 university students, we examined if finger length ratio was negatively correlated with products with a male penchant and positively correlated with products preferred by females. Participants responded to several items, which assessed their attitude towards several product categories namely: cosmetics, electronics, pornography, clothing, movies genres (drama, action, science fiction, romance, animation and war), sports (hockey, boxing, synchronized swimming and gymnastics) and genres of video-games (First-person Shooter, Real-time Strategy, Party-game, Platformer and Life Simulator). Two key findings were obtained. First, the length of the index finger relative to the sum of the lengths of all four fingers (2rel) was generally a better predictor of product attitudes than 2D:4D, given that it yielded a greater number of significant effects. Second, we found significant (p<.05) or marginally significant (p<.10) correlations, in the predicted directions, between 2rel and attitudes towards four out of the nine product categories preferred by males and towards five out of the ten product categories preferred by females. The remaining product categories were not significantly correlated to 2rel. This constitutes the first study to demonstrate a link between a morphological trait and attitudes toward specific products.

Could this be scientific evidence that palm reading actually works?

Does this have anything to do with evolution or is the evolution of consumption a separate study?

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Why Won't Your Daughter Call Home?

 
The Human Behavior and Evolution Society (HBES) is meeting at California State University, Fullerton. There are 450 evolutionary psychologists in attendance [Notes from an evolutionary psychology conference]. I don't think I could be happy there.

One of the attendees is a graduate student named Elizabeth Pillsworth. She studies the evolution of adaptations for avoiding incest. You'll be surprised at what she reports.

The researchers' hypothesis on incest avoidance was that near ovulation, women are motivated to avoid affiliation with male kin (fathers) but not mothers, to avoid the potential costs of inbreeding. Their predictions were that relative to low-fertility days, on high-fertility days women would initiate fewer calls and engage in shorter conversations with fathers, compared to mothers.

They had 51 normally-ovulating women (mean age 19.1 years old) provide complete cell phone bills from one month, along with their menstrual cycle information and details about individuals on their phone bill. It turned out that the subjects called their fathers significantly less than their mothers during high fertility days, and when both mothers and fathers called them during high fertility days they spent less time on the phone with their dads than with their moms.

Conclusion: "this is the first evidence of adaptation in human females to avoid affiliation with male kin when fertility is at its highest."

Isn't that amazing? I can't possibly think of any other explanation. There must be a gene for not talking to your father when you're fertile. I wonder what chromosome it's on?

I wonder if there were any controls—like how often the women spoke to their boyfriends, or when mothers called their sons?

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Laughter Evolved but Is It Adaptive?

 
Jerry Coyne wrote an interesting article about the evolution of laughter. He closes with ..

So laughter, at least when being tickled, appears to be an evolved, innate phenomenon. As I emphasized above, this says nothing about whether it was selected for directly, whether it was a byproduct of something else that was selected, or is simply a nonadaptive epiphenomenon. But as I write, evolutionary psychologists are working on why evolution may have promoted laughter.

Of course evolutionary psychologists are busy working on an adaptive just-so story. That's what they do. You won't catch them explaining anything as an accident or an epiphenomenon.

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Is There a Problem?

 
Fr. Alphonse de Valk writes in Catholic Insight: Atheism: a threat to civilization

Christian belief in Canada

Today the Christian belief in God is under tremendous attack. It began in the 1960’s with the overthrow of the age–old condom nation of contraceptives, divorce, abortion, and homosexual activism (1967-1969). Today in Canada, the leaders of three out of four political parties are agnostics or aetheists. The print and visual media are overwhelmingly agnostic atheist, with the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, and the CBC in the lead. Catholic Insight’s March article, “The Frankfurt School” indicates the prevailing ideas now dominant in educational circles. The world-wide elitist hostility towards the Pope for contradicting the folly of the condom is good example of atheists at work. (see above).

So, what's the problem? Sounds like Canadians are on the right track if they condemn the Pope for advocating abstinence instead of condoms.

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[Photo Credit: The Interim]

[Hat Tip: John Pieret of Thoughts in a Haystack]

The Selective Advantages of Hairlessness, Baldness, and Gray Hair

 
Denyse O'Leary collects silly Darwinian tales of the sort usually referred to as "just-so" stories. She alerted me to some real live ones on her blog Uncommon Descent [Darwinian fairy tales: Why middle-aged men have shiny scalps].

It's embarrassing that the creationists have such easy targets.

The just-so stories are written by Terence Kealey who bills himself as vice-chancellor of Buckingham University. (He's also a clinical biochemist.) The stories were published on Times Online as: Guys, be glad to be grey or thinning on top.

Here's are the funny parts ....

We human beings, too, are highly selected sexually, but in our case it is women who are the peacocks: the more beautiful they are, the greater the number and quality of the men who court them. This is why, some 75,000 years ago, we made our last two evolutionary advances: we lost our body hair and we invented art.

...

Art and hairlessness co-evolved because they fed off each other. The girl whose skin was least hairy could paint it, tattoo it, decorate it and clothe it more adventurously than could her furry sisters. So she got more and better men. And in consequence her children - even the males, though to a lesser degree - lost their hair too. We had become the naked ape.

This was all supposed to happen about 75,000 years ago, according to Terence Kealey. It's interesting to speculate on what must have happened.

Small groups of hunter-gatherers met from time to time. Almost all the females probably had sexual partners when they were all hairy. It's unlikely that there were many females who couldn't find a mate.

All of a sudden, there were some new girls on the block. They had less hair and they covered their body with paint and tattoos. These mutants were so attractive to men that they were preferentially chosen as mates and, more importantly, their hairy sisters were ignored. The hairy women didn't have offspring so there must have been quite a few men who were celibate as well. (Unless the mutants had multiple mates.)

That's why hairlessness was rapidly selected.¹

In order to understand the next just-so story you have to know that the article begins with an explanation of why Silvio Berlusconi, the Prime Minister of Italy, had a hair transplant.

Which brings us back to Mr Berlusconi. Hair plays a social signalling role in many older mammals. It goes grey - which can be a good thing. It is only the silverback gorilla(so-called named for obvious reasons) who can corral a harem of females, in part because gorillas of both sexes revere older males. We have retained our head hair so enabling that social signalling: grey hair on men can reinforce an alpha message of chiefdom. As can baldness.

Men have evolved to attract women. Because only some men go bald, we must assume that different women are attracted differently. Some women will be attracted to young men, but young men are untried and therefore risky, so some women will seek sugar daddies instead. Mating with sugar daddies invokes a different set of risks but the trophy wife is nonetheless making a rational choice - one that may well have been rewarded preferentially in the Stone Age - to which she is in part guided by baldness in her man.

Now, what sort of girl will fancy Mr Berlusconi? Clearly the sugar daddy type. But such a girl will subconsciously be looking for baldness in her beau and she may be put off by the mixed messages Silvio's head is transmitting.

The biology of baldness is complex. Some theorists believe that it renders older men so unattractive that - rather than sowing additional wild oats - they are forced to spend more time with their families and so help their children to survive. But the myriad Becky Sharps in literature and history help to disprove that theory.

Now let's imagine that we are back in the stone age. There are a bunch of men who, for undisclosed reasons, have reached the age of fifty and don't have a mate.² There are a number of young women who want an older man for a mate instead of the young men who are probably available.

Most of the fifty year olds have hair that's the same color it has always been. All of a sudden a few mutants appear who have white hair or (gasp!) no hair at all. These older men become so sexually attractive to the young women that they get to reproduce while their hairy friends are spurned. Maybe they painted or tattooed their bald heads. Yes, that would work. I think I'll try it.

That's how the alleles for baldness and white hair get selected in ancient hunter-gatherer societies.

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1. It's a good thing that razors hadn't been invented, otherwise the hairy women could have fooled the men into thinking they were a hairless mutant.

2. I'm assuming monogamy as the default option. As far as I know, this is generally accepted.

Science Literacy and the New Atheist Ideology

 
Matt Nisbet is at it again. Here's something from his latest posting [Science Literacy and the New Atheist Ideology: Rethinking Definitions and Relevance].

Next week there will be big news on the science communication front. In anticipation, I was just going back over some things that I have written on the topic over the past decade. I ran across an essay I wrote for Skeptical Inquirer from 2003, which I posted below the fold. The essay puts into context an interesting debate that took place in the pages of The Guardian between eminent UK scientist Susan Greenfield and science communication professor Jon Turney.

Greenfield's side of the debate reflects a continued dominant line of thinking referred to as the "deficit model," the assumption that public controversies over science are a product of ignorance and that improving the public's knowledge of the technical facts of science--or filling in the deficit--will make the public view science-related issues as scientists do.

Six years on, we still see these deficit model assumptions at play. In fact, as I write in a forthcoming book chapter, the deficit model remains a cornerstone of the New Atheist ideology and movement.

Well-framed, Matt!

Here's my opinion, which I imagine is not that much different from Susan Greenfield's or that of the "New Atheists."

Most public debates about science issues are not really about science at all. They're about religion, morality, ideology, politics etc.

To the extent that natural science is involved, it is beneficial for everyone to understand the facts and concepts correctly. Nothing is more frustrating than when these debates degenerate into disputes about the science. To that end, scientists have a role to play. When it comes to issues like evolution or global climate change, the idea is that everyone should be on the same playing field when it comes to the science.

Is that too much to ask?

No scientist that I know, thinks that's the end of the story. Getting the science right is just one step in the right direction. Communists & capitalists, atheists & theists, vegetarians & omnivores, and quacks & doctors can all have raging debates about science-related issues as long as they all agree on the correct scientific interpretation of the facts.

Read Matt's blog to see why he opposes that point of view.

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Chris Mooney Changed His Mind

 
Chris Mooney and Jerry Coyne are having a discussion about whether religion and science are compatible. Coyne says they are not and I agree with him. We don't know what Chris really thinks on this issue but we do know that he's opposed to debating it in public.

Chris supports the accommodationist position, which means that even if you think science and religion are incompatible you should not voice that opinion in public.

Chris didn't always think that way. Back in 2001 he wrote an article in Slate that mentioned how accepting evolution challenges most religious beliefs. He addresses this in his latest posting [Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself].

…indeed, I find my work from 2001 on this topic pretty unsatisfying. I guess you could say I’ve changed my view; certainly I’ve changed my emphasis. A lot more reading in philosophy and history has moved me toward a more accomodationist position. So has simple pragmatism; I don’t see what is to be gained by flailing indiscriminately against religion, other than a continuation of the culture wars. That’s especially so when those who flail against religion do so in philosophically or historically unsophisticated ways, or (worse still) with the bile, negativity, and even occasional intolerance that I have encountered in such discussions.

This last part is ... how shall we put it ... disingenuous. Mooney and Coyne are having a polite (so far) and intellectual discussion about the compatibility of science and religion. Why do the accommodationists always have to bring up the worst examples of atheists in support of their arguments? Who's "flailing," Chris?

Isn't it strange that they never mention the bile, negativity, and intolerance of the worst religious fundamentalists? Shouldn't that be just as relevant for an accommodationist? I always wonder why people like Chris Mooney and Matt Nisbet don't tell Ken Miller and Francis Collins to shut the heck up because of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter?

And I'm not even going to discuss the backhanded slap about the "unsophistication" of those who think that science and religion are (mostly) incompatible. That's just childish ... and somewhat intolerant.

I am as much an atheist as I have ever been–and I have been one essentially since birth. But I am also much more interested in liberal tolerance (in the classical sense) and in finding common solutions than I am in eradicating religion (if that’s even possible) or in making other people think like I do. I’ll have more on all of this soon as I respond to Coyne.

This is the heart of the issue. Mooney admits that he is not interested in the debate over the truth of religion. In other words, the compatibility of science and religion is just not an issue that concerns him. Fine. Stay out of it. Don't try and argue that others should think like you. Some of us are interested in whether God exists.

Oh, and by the way, Chris, the words "liberal tolerance" don't mean what you think they mean. They are not synonyms for "don't ever discuss the existence of God because it might upset believers."

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The law has no place in scientific disputes

 
Simon Singh has decided to appeal the decision of a British court. That court ruled that his article on chiropractic in The Guardian contained "the plainest allegation of dishonesty and indeed it accuses them (the BCA) of thoroughly disreputable conduct." The British Chiropractic Association (BCA) brought the libel action because Singh's article pointed out the truth; namely, that there is no evidence to support the claim that most chiropractic procedures actually work.

You can read Sing's summary of the events, including his decision to appeal the judge's ruling at BCA v Singh The Story So Far 3 June 2009.

Many prominent scientists and journalist have rallied to Singh's side. Read about this development on Sense About Science and The Independent: Silenced, the writer who dared to say chiropractice is bogus.

Here's the statement. You can sign it on Sense About Science.

We the undersigned believe that it is inappropriate to use the English libel laws to silence critical discussion of medical practice and scientific evidence.

The British Chiropractic Association has sued Simon Singh for libel. The scientific community would have preferred that it had defended its position about chiropractic for various children's ailments through an open discussion of the peer reviewed medical literature or through debate in the mainstream media.

Singh holds that chiropractic treatments for asthma, ear infections and other infant conditions are not evidence-based. Where medical claims to cure or treat do not appear to be supported by evidence, we should be able to criticise assertions robustly and the public should have access to these views.

English libel law, though, can serve to punish this kind of scrutiny and can severely curtail the right to free speech on a matter of public interest. It is already widely recognised that the law is weighted heavily against writers: among other things, the costs are so high that few defendants can afford to make their case. The ease and success of bringing cases under the English law, including against overseas writers, has led to London being viewed as the "libel capital" of the world.

Freedom to criticise and question in strong terms and without malice is the cornerstone of scientific argument and debate, whether in peer-reviewed journals, on websites or in newspapers, which have a right of reply for complainants. However, the libel laws and cases such as BCA v Singh have a chilling effect, which deters scientists, journalists and science writers from engaging in important disputes about the evidential base supporting products and practices. The libel laws discourage argument and debate and merely encourage the use of the courts to silence critics.

The English law of libel has no place in scientific disputes about evidence; the BCA should discuss the evidence outside of a courtroom. Moreover, the BCA v Singh case shows a wider problem: we urgently need a full review of the way that English libel law affects discussions about scientific and medical evidence.

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[Photo Credit: Rex Features]

Plants Are not Alive, Says PETA

 

From The Wichita Eagle Kansas (USA): George Tiller shooting prompts PETA ad campaign in Wichita.

A national animal rights group plans to erect billboards in Wichita urging people on both sides of the abortion debate to go vegetarian.

One version of the billboard says, "Pro-Life? Go Vegetarian." The other says, "Pro-Choice? Choose Vegetarian." Both feature a photo of three baby chicks.

Lindsay Rajt, campaign manager for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said the billboards were prompted by the recent shooting death of abortion doctor George Tiller, who was killed Sunday at his church.

"The discussion of the value of life is front and center right now in the public conversation," Rajt said.

"We think we would be irresponsible if we don't talk about how we're all guilty of extreme cruelty to animals every time we sit down to a meal that includes meat."

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[Hat Tip: Pharyngula]

No Competing Interests

 
The Darwinius affair continues. Let's recap the events.

As Atlantic Productions puts it on their website ..

THE LINK is a major multi-platform event including a landmark documentary, book, and interactive website to coincide with the publication of scientific paper describing one of the most significant discoveries ever made.

The scientific paper was published in PLoS ONE at the same time the book went on sale and the TV showed was hyped. Here's the paper.

Franzen, J.L., Gingerich, P.D., Habersetzer, J., Hurum, J.H., von Koenigswald, W., and Smith, B.H. (2009) Complete Primate Skeleton from the Middle Eocene of Messel in Germany: Morphology and Paleobiology. PLoS ONE 4(5): e5723. [doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0005723]

Here's the TV show produced by Atlantic Productions. The book is on sale. The flashy website is active.

The first page of the article has the standard disclaimer ...

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Read what Earle Holland has to say about the definition of "competing interest." Carl Zimmer is on the case, waiting to hear back from PLoS ONE.

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Monday's Molecule #124: Winners

 
This week's winner is Mike Fraser of the University of Toronto. (Yeah, Canada!) Here's what he wrote,

The molecule is the Na+/K+ ATPase ('sodium-potassium pump'). The stoichiometry is 3Na+ out for 2K+ into the cell. In the process, ATP is converted to ADP + Pi (inorganic phosphate).

The Nobelist is Jens Skou, Chemistry 1997.

The Undergraduate winner is Jason Oakley of the University of Toronto.

The fastest correct answer was from an ineligible American but the next four correct answers were from Canadians. Maybe I should extend the ineligible delay even more!!!

Europeans and the rest of the world weren't even in the top ten.

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Name this molecule. Be as specific as possible. You must also identify the missing products and reactants. Be sure to get the stoichiometry correct or it doesn't count!

Identify the Nobel Laureate who discovered this molecule.

The first person to identify the molecule plus its reactants and products and identify the Nobel Laureate, wins a free lunch at the Faculty Club. Previous winners are ineligible for six weeks from the time they first won the prize. Please note the change in the length of time you are ineligible. The idea is to give more more people a chance to win.

There are seven ineligible candidates for this week's reward: Laura Gerth of the University of Notre Dame, Stefan Tarnawsky of the University of Toronto, Dima Klenchin of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Adam Santoro of the University of Toronto., Michael Clarkson of Waltham MA (USA), Òscar Reig of Barcelona, and Maria Altshuler of the University of Toronto.

The rest of the world has pulled ahead of the Canadians. If it wasn't for the special free lunch for people who can actually collect it, there would be no Canadian winners at all!! What's happened?

I still have one extra free lunch donated by a previous winner to a deserving undergraduate so I'm going to continue to award an additional free lunch to the first undergraduate student who can accept it. Please indicate in your email message whether you are an undergraduate and whether you can make it for lunch.

THEME:

Nobel Laureates
Send your guess to Sandwalk (sandwalk (at) bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca) and I'll pick the first email message that correctly identifies the molecule and names the Nobel Laureate(s). Note that I'm not going to repeat Nobel Prizes so you might want to check the list of previous Sandwalk postings by clicking on the link in the theme box.

Correct responses will be posted tomorrow.

Comments will be blocked for 24 hours. Comments are now open.

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The Debut of Science Nation

 

Science Nation is an online magazine produced by the National Science Foundation (USA). The first "issue" was published yesterday.

Before looking at it, let's see why this is happening.

In the National Science Foundation's Science Nation online magazine, we examine the breakthroughs, and the possibilities for new discoveries about our planet, our universe and ourselves: An artifical retina that can help the blind to see; new materials to build things bigger, better, lighter, and stronger; new ways to make our lives better without making the environment worse; and what we can learn from organisms that can live and thrive in frozen deserts or steaming-hot volcanic vents. Each week, Science Nation takes a dynamic, entertaining look at the research--and the researchers-- that will change our lives.

That's not very helpful. The motivation seems to be to promote NSF by reaching out directly to the general public—"The online magazine that's all about science for the people." I guess NSF wants to publicize work that it's funding. Maybe it wants to contribute to science education?

The first video is called Extremophile Hunter. It highlights the work of Richard Hoover who looks for bacteria that live in extremely cold environments. Hoover also believes that life may have originated in other planets and was brought to Earth on meteorites.

To test that theory, he cracks open so-called carbonaceous meteorites, which are the remains of cometary debris or water-bearing asteroids that have hit the Earth. Being careful to avoid contamination, he examines their insides with an electron microscope.

"They are older than the planet Earth, which is accepted at being 4.5 billion years old," said Hoover. "So I like to say these carbonaceous meteorites are actually older than dirt!"

Some of the structures he has imaged from these meteorites are intriguing, bearing striking similarities to bacteria here on Earth. Could these be the fossilized remains of extraterrestial life?

"I am convinced that what I am finding in the carbonaceous meteorites are in many cases biological in nature, and I think they are indigenous and not terrestrial contaminants," said Hoover.

It is a highly controversial interpretation.

"We have for a long time thought that all life, as we know it, originated on Earth. And there isn't any life anywhere else," he said. "That's an idea, it's a hypothesis, it's a totally unproven hypothesis."

Hoover hopes his work will help get at the truth, whatever that may be. And as interplanetary probes become more sophisticated, scientists may eventually turn up a biological sample for examination. Then we'll know if life out there looks anything like it does here.

The National Science Foundation goes on record supporting the idea that traces of extraterrestrial life have been detected in "so-called carbonaceous" meteorites that are older than the Earth. Yes, they admit that the idea is "controversial" but what message is being conveyed to the general public? Is it the message that the vast majority of scientists dismiss these "imaged structures" as artifacts?

I've been critical of science journalism for not doing a good job of reporting science. I've also been critical of scientists for not doing a good job of doing science properly—making the job of science journalists that much harder. Now we have a scientific funding agency taking on the role of science journalism. One might expect that the number one criterion of science journalism; namely, scientific accuracy, would be ensured. It's disappointing to see that scientific accuracy is the first casualty in the first episode of Science Nation. It was sacrificed on the alter of media hype.

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The Truth About Chiropractic

 
Fifteen years ago, my faculty association (union) negotiated some increased coverage to our health plan. They added visits to the chiropractor and increased the rates that we all pay for this extra coverage. At the meeting where this addition was ratified, every single scientist on our Governing Council opposed the extension on the grounds that most visits to the chiropractor were ineffective. What this means is that we are paying for our non-scientific colleagues to support quacks.

The general public seems completely unaware of the fact that chiropractic is "alternative medicine." In other words it is not evidence-based medicine.

Read "What you should know about chiropractic" in this week's issue of New Scientist to learn more.

FOR many people, chiropractic appears almost mainstream. Some chiropractors even call themselves "doctor". In the UK, chiropractors are regulated by statute, and in the US they like to be seen as primary care physicians. It is therefore understandable if people hardly ever question the evidential basis on which this profession rests.

The origins of chiropractic are surprising and rather spectacular. On 18 September 1895 Daniel Palmer, a "magnetic healer" practising in the American Midwest, manipulated the spine of Harvey Lillard, a janitor who had been partially deaf since feeling "something give in his back". The manipulation apparently cured Lillard of his deafness. Palmer's second patient suffered from heart disease, and again spinal manipulation is said to have effected a cure. Within a year or so, Palmer had opened a school, the first of many, and the term he coined, "chiropractic", was well on its way to becoming a household name.

The only true cure

Palmer convinced himself he had discovered something fundamental about human illness and its treatment. According to Palmer, a vital force - he called it the "Innate" - enables our body to heal itself. If our vertebrae are not perfectly aligned, the flow of the Innate is blocked and we fall ill. Chiropractors speak of these misalignments as "subluxations" (in conventional medicine, a subluxation means merely a partial dislocation). The only true cure is to realign the vertebrae by manipulating the spine, and in the logic of chiropractic it follows that all human illness must be treated with spinal manipulations. Many chiropractors also assert that we need regular "maintenance care" even when we are not ill so that subluxations can be realigned before they cause a disease. In the words of Palmer "95 per cent of all diseases are caused by displaced vertebrae, the remainder by luxations of other joints".

It's true that there are some chiropractors who don't believe all this nonsense. They concentrate on relieving back pain and stay away from all the quackery associated with most chiropractic. Those chiropractors exist, but you'll have a hard time finding them.

So, the key question is whether chiropractic works. Is there any evidence to support the claims of chiropractors? The short answer is no. There's some evidence that chiropractic helps relieve back pain but that's it. Here's how Edzard Ernst describes it in his New Scientist article.

In the book I co-wrote with Simon Singh, Trick or Treatment? Alternative medicine on trial, we dedicate a chapter to chiropractic. After weighing all the evidence, our conclusions were not flattering: "Warning: this treatment carries the risk of stroke and death if spinal manipulation is applied to the neck. Elsewhere on the spine, therapy is relatively safe. It has shown some evidence of benefit in the treatment of back pain, but conventional treatments are usually equally effective and much cheaper. In the treatment of all other conditions chiropractic therapy is ineffective except that it might act as a placebo."

It's nice to hear a voice of reason from time to time.

As you might expect, the chiropractors aren't happy. In fact, they are so unhappy that they're using the British legal system to silence their critics.

Simon later wrote an article in The Guardian newspaper about chiropractic. In it, he quoted from the website of the British Chiropractic Association which, at the time, made fairly clear claims that chiropractors can effectively treat a whole range of childhood diseases, including asthma. The evidence for treatment of this condition is less than weak: no fewer than three controlled trials have found that chiropractic spinal manipulation has no beneficial effect. The best of these studies, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, concluded that "the addition of chiropractic spinal manipulation to usual medical care provided no benefit".

Not supported

For alerting the public to all of this, and possibly preventing harm to unsuspecting children, Simon deserves much credit. Instead, he is being sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association. I think this is a serious issue that raises two crucial questions. Is it acceptable that scientists and journalists are restricted in their criticism by the legal muscle of those who are being criticised? And is it acceptable that professional bodies, such as the British Chiropractic Association - or indeed any other organisation - are able to make therapeutic claims that are not supported by scientific data? I leave it to the reader to decide.

The preliminary judgment has gone against Singh as reported in New Scientist a few weeks ago [Chiropractic critic loses first round in libel fight].

IF YOU have ever been tempted to call alternative medicine "bogus", choose your words with care. You could be sued for defamation. That's the message from a ruling in the High Court in London that censured science writer Simon Singh for claiming that the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) promoted "bogus" treatments.

Chiropractic is a system of alternative and complementary medicine that treats illnesses by manipulating the spine. Singh made the comment in an article in London newspaper The Guardian in April 2008. The BCA asked him to retract the statement, which it said was wrong and damaging to its reputation. Singh refused, so the BCA sued him for libel.

In a pre-trial hearing last week, the judge ruled that Singh was saying the BCA had knowingly made false claims. He rejected Singh's defence that it was fair comment. "The judge has given us a meaning [of bogus] that is very extreme and that I never intended," Singh told New Scientist.

You know we're in trouble when the courts stifle science in favor of quackery.

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What Should Scientific Organizations Say about Religion?

 
The poll has closed and here are the results.


A slight majority say that organizations like AAAS (amd NAS) should say nothing about the compatibility of science and religion. I think that's the correct choice.

What's surprising (to me) is that 31% of you said these organizations should say that science and religion are incompatible. I believe this is true but I still think that scientific organizations should not say anything. They don't speak for their members on this topic.

I'm glad to see that only 14% of Sandwalk readers support the unsupportable statement that science and religion are compatible.

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Monday's Molecule #124

 
Name this molecule. Be as specific as possible. You must also identify the missing products and reactants. Be sure to get the stoichiometry correct or it doesn't count!

Identify the Nobel Laureate who discovered this molecule.

The first person to identify the molecule plus its reactants and products and identify the Nobel Laureate, wins a free lunch at the Faculty Club. Previous winners are ineligible for six weeks from the time they first won the prize. Please note the change in the length of time you are ineligible. The idea is to give more more people a chance to win.

There are seven ineligible candidates for this week's reward: Laura Gerth of the University of Notre Dame, Stefan Tarnawsky of the University of Toronto, Dima Klenchin of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Adam Santoro of the University of Toronto., Michael Clarkson of Waltham MA (USA), Òscar Reig of Barcelona, and Maria Altshuler of the University of Toronto.

The rest of the world has pulled ahead of the Canadians. If it wasn't for the special free lunch for people who can actually collect it, there would be no Canadian winners at all!! What's happened?

I still have one extra free lunch donated by a previous winner to a deserving undergraduate so I'm going to continue to award an additional free lunch to the first undergraduate student who can accept it. Please indicate in your email message whether you are an undergraduate and whether you can make it for lunch.

THEME:

Nobel Laureates
Send your guess to Sandwalk (sandwalk (at) bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca) and I'll pick the first email message that correctly identifies the molecule and names the Nobel Laureate(s). Note that I'm not going to repeat Nobel Prizes so you might want to check the list of previous Sandwalk postings by clicking on the link in the theme box.

Correct responses will be posted tomorrow.

Comments will be blocked for 24 hours.

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Vaccinate Your Children

 
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (USA) post videos on YouTube under CDCStreamingHealth. Here's part of their blurb ...

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (or CDC) is an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services based in Atlanta, Georgia. Recognized as the leading United States government agency for protecting the public health and safety of people, the CDC provides credible information to enhance health decisions and promotes health through strong partnerships with state health departments and other organizations. The CDC focuses national attention on developing and applying disease prevention and control (especially infectious diseases), environmental health, health promotion and education activities designed to improve the health of the people of the United States.

Who better to give advice about childhood vaccinations. Here's the video that every mother and father needs to see to counter the anti-vaccination crowd who are threatening the health of everyone. [See the anti-vaccine body count icon in the sidebar.]

Watch it all the way through, including the outtakes at the end.

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Hardening the Border

 
Want to know how to win friends and influence your allies? Shut down the border and turn your country into a fortress. That's one way to send a message.

Today's the day that new regulations go into effect at border crossings between Canada and the USA. Now Canadians need a passport to get into the USA—so do Americans who are returning from Canada. This hardening of the border is a direct response to American "national security" issues. The American government believes that it will be more secure if shuts down the open border that has existed for so long between Canada and the USA.

Canadians are upset for two reasons. First, it will have an economic impact because Americans, who by and large don't carry passports, will not visit Canada. Second, it makes Canadians feel like they are terrorist suspects instead of friendly neighbors.

Canadians, and presumably Americans, have been proud of the fact that our border was the longest undefended border in the world.

The newspapers are full of stories about the new rules. Nobody in Canada thinks it's a good idea [Passports please: Need for papers kicks in at Canada-U.S. border]. Janet Napolitano, the U.S. Homeland Security secretary with the Obama administration, made headlines in April when she suggested that the Sept. 11 terrorists entered the USA from Canada. That's patently false, as any number of studies have shown.¹ If that's the sort of thinking that's led to increased security at the border then shame on Janet Napolitano and the American government.

I suppose that one of the benefits of a restricted border is that Canada will be protected from American terrorists like the one who just killed George Tiller in Kansas. In spite of this, I oppose the new restrictions at the border. The negative psychological effect on Canadians and Americans is likely to cause problems and this isn't outweighed by the possibility that an American terrorist might come into Canada.

America is paranoid about terrorism and this paranoia is causing the American government to treat every foreigner as a potential enemy. In the long run, that's not how you make friends and allies.

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[Photo Credit: Panoramio]

1. Napolitano, a former Governor of Arizona, subsequently apologized for her mistake.

Another Blogger Leaves the SEED Blogs (ScienceBlogs.con)

 
Dr. Joan Bushwell's Chimpanzee Refuge is the latest blog to jump ship. That makes three or four blogs that have left the SEED group in the past few weeks. Most of them have been fairly cryptic about their reasons for leaving but Kevin Beck hints at something sinister happening behind the scenes [Bon(obo) voyage: the chimps are loping away from ScienceBlogs.com].

I also want to be open about what I say without fear of being castigated as a misogynist (a term often used inaccurately - try "sexist," folks), a tremendously ironic notion given that I harbor genuine ovaries (although going dormant) and had some pretty hair-raising experiences during my fairly long scientific career which allow me to speak from a solid platform of experience and credibility.

The latter sniping derives from my stumbling upon some very shoddy behavior in the back rooms of Science Blogs, stuff that removed any doubt that leaving Science Blogs for an independent venue was the thing to do. The majority of the folks that blog here do not participate in this -- uh -- "community" forum, but the ones who do are fairly heavy hitters and like it or not, they set a tone.

Does anyone out there want to explain this? What's going on n the back rooms of ScienceBlogs?

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John Hawks on "Adaptationists vs Pluralists"

 
John Hawks recently posted a comment about adaptationists [see Richard Lewontin: "[T]oo rapid for genetic adaptation"].

Hawks said ...

I don't really find the "pluralist versus adaptationist" debate very interesting. Despite the vocal complaints of some, I can't ever seem to locate the mythical "adaptationists" who deny that non-adaptive evolution ever happens. So the "debate" always comes down to whether particular adaptive hypotheses are true. Since no scientific hypothesis is true a priori, and since "those adaptationists are always saying stupid things" is not a scientific argument, I don't see the point.

I'm astonished that, after all these years, the adaptationists still don't get it.

First, the mythical adaptationist is a straw man that only exists in the minds of the adaptionists. This particular straw man was easily disposed of in the original Spandrel's paper. It is only resurrected by those who haven't been paying attention

Second, the debate does not come down to "whether adaptive hypotheses are true." It comes down to whether any adaptive hypothesis is true. When speculating on mechanisms, adaptationists tend to ignore any mechanism of evolution other than natural selection That's the problem. As a general rule, they don't seriously consider the possibility that the correct explanation may not be adaptation.

It's a difference in worldviews. Pluralists tend to look at an evolutionary outcome and ask, "What mechanism of evolution caused this?" Adaptationists tend to look at the same outcome and ask, "How can this be explained by natural selection?" Adaptationists know about random genetic drift—they just don't think it's an important player when it comes to the parts of evolution that they're interested in. I think that's a bad assumption.

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The Mouse Genome is "Finished"

 
The first draft of the mouse genome was published by the Mouse Genome Sequencing Consortium back in 2002. At the time it was the only available non-human genome sequence. Since then several dozen other draft sequences have been published and many more are in progress. You can view a complete list at NCBI: Mammalian Genomes.

A finished version of the human genome sequence was published a few years ago and up until this month it was the only one listed as "complete." Now you can add the Mus musculus (mouse) genome to the list of complete publicly available genome sequences (Church et al. 2009).

When scientists say that a genome is complete or "finished" they don't really mean it. What they mean is that the effort has reached the point of diminishing returns. They are confident that they have found almost all of the genes and most of the important bits but they're well aware of the fact that some parts of the genome are missing.

This figure from the Church et al. paper illustrates the extent of a "finished" sequence. The green chromosomes represent the original draft sequence. Unsequenced regions are shown in black. As you can see, there were many gaps in the original sequence—176,000 to be exact.

The blue chromosomes represent the "finished" genome sequence. There are a lot fewer black regions and they are mostly confined to the centromeres/telomeres at the top ends of the chromsomes. As is the case with the human genome, these regions are mostly repetitive DNA that resists assembly into large blocks [The Human Genome Sequence Is not Complete].

The reason why the Y chromosome is missing is because it was a female genome that was sequenced.

Mice have 19 autosomes (non-sex chromosomes, see karyotype above). When you compare the mouse and human genomes you can see right away that the sequences of chromosomes aren't conserved. What is conserved are large blocks of sequence that may be found on one particular mouse chromosome but on a completely different human chromosome.

The mapping of these conserved synteny relationships reveals a great deal about the evolution of human and mouse chromosomes from a common ancestor. For example, the yellow block of sequence at the tip of human chromosome 1 (below) is found on mouse chromosome 4. The other parts of mouse chromosome 4 are found on human chromosome 6, 8, and 9.


What this means is that there are large blocks of genes that have been preserved since the time of the common ancestor. There are 334 chromosomal breakpoints that define the blocks of homologous sequence between human and mouse. The rearrangements took place in both lineages and the frequency of such rearrangements seems to be similar in most mammalian lineages.

The current "build" of the mouse genome has 20,210 protein-encoding genes. This is a substantial reduction from the 22,011 genes predicted in the initial draft sequence. As a general rule, the number of confirmed genes declines with each improvement in the sequence. This is mostly due to the joining together of gene fragments that were misidentified in the first draft. The authors note that 30% of the genes in the "finished" sequence were disrupted by errors and gaps in the first draft. Some new genes are added because of the addition of new sequence data but this doesn't compensate for the genes that are removed.

A total of 2,185 new genes were added. Most of them are duplicates of genes previously identified in the original draft sequence. In fact, the biggest change in the "finished" sequence is the identification of 126,000 Kb (126Mb) of duplicated sequences that were not detected in the first draft. This makes the mouse genome—with about 5% of segmentally duplicaed sequence—similar to the human genome. Initially there were hardly any duplicated regions in the mouse genome leading to speculation that duplications were much more common in primates.

Almost half of the duplicated regions exhibit different copy numbers in various strains of mice. Since the sequenced genome comes from a highly inbred line of laboratory mice (C57BL/6J), it is possible that the o0bserved copy number differs substantially from wild-type mice.

The human genome has 19,042 protein-encoding genes. Of these 15,187 (80%) have clear orthologs in the mouse genome. (Orthologs are homologous genes in the same location. They are related by descent from a common ancestor.) The orthologous genes represent 75% of the mouse genes. Most of the remaining genes are not novel genes but duplicates of the orthologs.

Surprisingly, there were only 12,845 orthologous genes in the first draft sequence. The difference is due to the identification of mistakes in the earlier data where sequence and assembly errors led to the misidentification of conserved genes. What this means is that a substantial number of papers comparing humans and mouse genomes will need to be re-evaluated. Here's how the authors put it ...

The shortcomings of the initial draft assembly are readily apparent now that a more-complete genome assembly is available. Undoubtedly these have led to incomplete or inaccurate understanding of some aspects of mouse biology. The availability of high quality genome sequence for the mouse will lead the way in dismissing some commonly held misconceptions and, more importantly, in revealing many previously hidden secrets of mouse biology.

The total length of protein-encoding exons in the mouse genome is 33,500 Kb (33.5 Mb). The revised genome size is 2,660,000 Kb (2.66 Gb). Thus, protein-encoding regions represent only 1.3% of the genome. This is similar to the value in the human genome (1.1% or 32.6 Mb out of 3.08 Gb).

There are many important non-coding sequences including centromeres, telomeres, origins of replication, scaffold attachment regions etc. All genes have substantial regulatory regions that aren't counted in the 1.3% of the genome that encodes protein. In addition, there are hundreds of tRNA genes, ribosomal RNA genes, and genes for essential small RNAs.

Nevertheless, a substantial proportion of the mouse genome (>90%) appears to be junk DNA with no known function. Most of it (~50%) consist of active and degenerate transposons similar to the LINES and SINES found in all other mammalian genomes.

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[Photo Credit: Oak Ridge National Laboratory]

Church, D.M., Goodstadt, L., Hillier, L.W., Zody, M.C., Goldstein, S., et al. (2009) Lineage-Specific Biology Revealed by a Finished Genome Assembly of the Mouse. PLoS Biol 7(5): e1000112. [doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1000112 ]

A Nomination Meeting

 
Last Fall I joined the Liberal Party of Canada in order to have a say in electing a new leader and a new candidate in my riding. My riding is Mississauge-Erindale in the city of Mississauga, just west of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

The candidate in the last election was Omar Alghabra, who at the time was the sitting member of the House of Commons in Ottawa. He lost the election by 400 votes.

Well, as it turns out, I didn't get a chance to vote for a new leader. The new leader, Michael Ingatieff, was acclaimed when when eveyone else dropped out of the race last December.

I looked forward to a healthy debate on choosing a candidate in my riding.

I received a notice in the mail on May 12th stating that there would be a nomination meeting in two weeks. All nomination forms must be received by the Liberal Party office in Toronto on May 18th at the latest. That left six days, counting Saturday and Sunday, to fill out a raft of forms [Nomination Rules].

The meeting was last night and the only candidate was Omar Alghabra. I took a picture of him on my cell phone at the meeting. I was told by the riding Chair that no other candidates would have been permitted but it was a moot point since the system was set up in such a way that it would have been almost impossible to get another nomination in on time.

This doesn't seem very democratic and it seems inconsistent with the openness that the Liberal Party desires. I don't know if Omar would have been nominated anyway but what I do know is that I would have been a lot happier if there had been some debate and discussion about choosing a person who could win the next election.

I feel that I've been manipulated. I wasn't the only one at the meeting who felt that way.

It's going to be hard to get excited about working for Omar during the upcoming campaign. The whole idea behind openness and democracy is to let everyone have their say. When that happens, people feel they're part of the process and they're willing to work with the system no matter which candidate is chosen to run in a riding. Competition and debate are healthy. Secrecy and manipulation are not.

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Nobel Laureate: Willem Einthoven

 

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1924

"for his discovery of the mechanism of the electrocardiogram"

Willem Einthoven (1860 - 1927) won the Noble Prize in 1924 for discovering a practical machine for detecting the electrical actions of the heart. He discovered the electrocardiogram and identified its characteristic features.

Einthoven's apparatus was based on the string galvanometer, which he had developed a number of years earlier. The importance of an accurate electrocardiogram in diagnosing various heart conditions was instantly recognized. But first, the actions of a normal heart had to be carefully recorded and explained. The explanation put forth by Einthoven proved to be substantially correct.

Here's how the standard electrocardiogram is described in the Presentation Speech.
THEME:
Nobel Laureates

However, in his work in 1908 Einthoven gave an interpretation of the electrocardiogram. He starts from the fact that the stimulus (of the contraction process, the «negativity») is propagated as a wave in the muscular system of the heart. The string of the galvanometer, connected with the heart in a closed circuit in one of the usual ways, remains in the original position not only when the heart is at rest, but also when the «negativity» of the assemblage of points of the heart wall show the same value. A deflection is therefore in the first place to be expected at the beginning and at the end of a systole, and it presupposes that the condition of activity does not occur, respectively cease, simultaneously in all elements of the muscle. Further: if the contraction process (the stimulus) is propagated symmetrically in relation to the points connected to the galvanometer, then no deflection would take place either. Under such circumstances the electrocardiogram must be determined partly by the starting-point of the stimulus to the heart beat, partly by the conduction system within the heart. The point of departure for the normal heart beat has been sufficiently well known since the middle of the 1890's, the bundle of His also since that time, and Tawara's description of the ramification of the conduction system inside the ventricles known since 1906. According to Einthoven the P-peak is an expression of the propagation of the stimulus wave in the muscular system of the auricle. The negativity wave, corresponding to the stimulus wave in the His-Tawara system, is considered too weak by Einthoven to cause any deflection in the galvanometer. The QRS-complex is determined by the propagation of the stimulus wave in the muscular system of the two ventricles, proceeding in unsymmetrical fashion to the points of lead, starting at different moments at the transition of the tree-like ramified Purkinje's fibres into the various parts of the proper muscular system of the heart. When the contraction process has reached its maximum in all the points of the ventricular wall, the string returns to its original position. When the contraction ceases in the various parts at different moments, a T-peak is obtained.


It is unnecessary in this connection to consider the interpretations proposed by other investigators, as Einthoven's concept is the only one which has proved to be tenable. The interpretation that the P-peak belongs to the auricular systole is mainly based on his observation of electrocardiograms in cases of heart block in patients or during vagus stimulation in dogs. With regard to the interpretation of the QRS-complex Einthoven was evidently the first who has clearly recognized the significance of the conduction system in this connection. The train of thought in the interpretation of the T-peak can already be detected in Burdon-Sanderson's previously mentioned work.

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The images of the Nobel Prize medals are registered trademarks of the Nobel Foundation (© The Nobel Foundation). They are used here, with permission, for educational purposes only.

Mixing Science, Religion, and Politics

 
The first draft of the human genome sequence was announced on June 26, 2000. There was a huge press conference in the East Room of the White House with Craig Venter, President Bill Clinton, and Francis Collins. British Prime Minister Tony Blair appeared via videolink from London.

The event is recounted on pages 2 & 3 of Francis Collins' book The Language of God. It's worth recalling because it reminds Americans of what they can expect if Collins were to become head of NIH.

But the most important part of his speech that most attracted public attention jumped from the scientific perspective to the spiritual. "Today," [Clinton] said, "we are learning the language in which God created life. We are gaining ever more awe for the complexity, the beauty, and the wonder of God's most divine and sacred gift."

Was I, a rigorously trained scientist, taken aback at such a blatantly religious reference by the leader of the free world at a moment such as this? Was I tempted to scowl or look at the floor in embarrassment? No, not at all. In fact I had worked closely with the president's speechwriter in the frantic days just prior to this announcement, and had strongly endorsed the inclusion of this paragraph. When it came time for me to add a few words of my own, I echoed this sentiment: "It's a happy day for the world. It is humbling for me, and awe-inspiring, to realize that we have caught the first glimpse of our own instruction book, previously known only to God."

What was going on here? Why would a president and a scientist, charged with announcing a milestone in biology and medicine, feel compelled to invoke a connection with God? Aren't the scientific and spiritual worldviews antithetical, or shouldn't they at lest avoid appearing in the East Room together? What were the reasons for invoking God in those two speeches? Was this poetry? Hypocrisy? A cynical attempt to curry favor from believers, or to disarm those who might criticize this study of the human genome as reducing humankind to machinery? No. Not for me. Quite the contrary, for me the experience of sequencing the human genome, and uncovering this most remarkable of all texts, was both a stunning scientific achievement and an occasion of worship.

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Faith and Evolution at the Discovery Institute

The Discovery Institute has a new website called Faith + Evolution. It's designed to explore the relationship, if any, between the Christian faith and science.

Prominently featured on the home page is an article by Jonathan Wells.

Is Francis Collins Right about Evolution?

Francis Collins feels that intelligent design poses a serious problem to Christian belief because it rejects Darwinian evolution, which he feels is supported by overwhelming evidence. But the only evidence Collins cites for Darwin’s mechanism of variation and selection is microevolution—minor changes within existing species. And the principal evidence he cites for Darwin’s claim of common ancestry is DNA sequences that he says have no function—though genome researchers are discovering that many of them do have functions.

Collins’s defense of Darwinian theory turns out to be largely an argument from ignorance that must retreat as we learn more about the genome—in effect, a Darwin of the gaps.

Wells is referring to the evidence of shared pseudogenes and other genomic signatures of common descent. This won't do, according to Wells. Collins is not one of the good guys.

I wonder if Jonathan Wells has read a book called The Edge of Evolution? It was published in 2007. The author is Michael Behe—a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute.

Behe also describes the evidence from pseudogenes. Here's an excerpt from pages 70-71.

When two lineages share what appears to be an arbitrary genetic accident, the case for common descent becomes compelling, just as the case for plagiarism becomes overpowering when one writer makes the same unusual misspellings of another, within a copy of the same words. That sort of evidence is seen in the genomes of chimps and chimpanzees. For example, both humans and chimps have a broken copy of a gene that in other mammals helps make vitamin C. As a result, neither humans nor chimps can make their own vitamin C. If an ancestor of the two species originally sustained the mutation and then passed it to both descendant species, that would neatly explain the situation.

More compelling evidence for the shared ancestry of humans and other primates comes from their hemoglobin—not just their working hemoglobin, but a broken hemoglobin gene, too. .... In the region between the two gamma genes and a gene that works after birth, human DNA contains a broken gene (called a "psedugoene") that closely resembles a working gene for a beta chain, but has features in its sequence that preclude it from coding successfully for a protein.

Chimp DNA has a very similar pseudogene at the same position. The beginning of the human pseudogene has two particular changes in two nucleotides that seem to deactivate the gene. The chimp pseudogene has the exact same changes. A bit further down in the human pseudogene is a deletion mutation, where one particular letter is missing. For technical reasons, the deletion irrevocably messes up the gene's coding. The very same letter is missing in the chimp gene. Toward the end of the human pseduogene another letter is missing. The chimp pseudogene is missing it, too.

The same mistakes in the same gene in the same positions of both human and chimp DNA. If a common ancestor first sustained the mutational mistakes and subsequently gave rise to those two modern species, that would very readily account for why both species have them now. It's hard to imagine how there could be stronger evidence for common ancestry of chimps and humans.

That strong evidence from the pseudogene points well beyond the ancestry of humans. Despite some remaining puzzles, there's no reason to doubt that Darwin had this point right, that all creatures on earth are biological relatives.

Behe and Collins are on the same page. They both recognize the powerful genetic evidence of common descent (macroevolution).

I wonder if Jonathan Wells and Michael Behe talk to each other? I'd love to be a fly on the wall.

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Francis Collins and the National Institutes of Health (USA)

 
After many years of service as director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), Francis Collins resigned from NIH last year. His reasons for quitting were widely reported in the media. Here's the press release from NIH [Francis S. Collins to Step Down as Director of National Human Genome Research Institute].

Dr. Collins explained that his decision to step down as leader of NHGRI came after much personal deliberation. "My decision was driven by a desire for an interval of time dedicated to writing, reflection and exploration of other professional opportunities in the public or private sectors," he said. "The demands and responsibilities of directing an NIH institute do not allow the time commitment necessary for this. In addition, I may need greater latitude than my current position allows to pursue other potential positions of service without encountering any possible conflicts of interest, whether real or perceived."

We now know that the "real or perceived" conflict of interest relates to the creation of The BioLogos Foundation. Here's the mission statement.

Dr. Francis Collins established The BioLogos Foundation to address the escalating culture war between science and faith in the United States. On one end of the spectrum, “new atheists” argue that science removes the need for God. On the other end, religious fundamentalists argue that the Bible requires us to reject much of modern science. Many people - including scientists and believers in God - do not find these extreme options attractive.

BioLogos represents the harmony of science and faith. It addresses the central themes of science and religion and emphasizes the compatibility of Christian faith with scientific discoveries about the origins of the universe and life. To communicate this message to the general public and add to the ongoing dialog, The BioLogos Foundation created BioLogos.org.

Funded by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation, the Web site is a reliable source of scholarly thought on contemporary issues in science and faith that highlights the compatibility of modern science with traditional Christian beliefs. BioLogos.org features responses to a myriad of questions received by Collins, author of The Language of God, Karl Giberson, author of Saving Darwin, and Darrel Falk, author of Coming to Peace With Science since the publication of their books.

It's pretty obvious why running such a foundation is not compatible with a leadership role at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

That's what makes this report in Scientific American so disturbing [Former Human Genome Project leader Francis Collins likely next NIH director].

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) will likely bring on geneticist Francis Collins, leader of the Human Genome Project, as its new director, Bloomberg News reported on Saturday.

The agency, which has been run by acting director Raynard Kington since October 2008 after Elias Zerhouni stepped down, is in late stages of screening Collins, noted Bloomberg.

Fortunately, we can be confident that the rumor isn't true. With Barack Obama as President of the United States, the appointment of someone like Francis Collins should never happen. Things are going to change in Washington.

Wouldn't it be ironic if the rumor were true and the new head of NIH did not have the enthusiastic support of most scientists? That's the sort of thing that happened under the previous President.

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Lies, Damn Lies, etc

 
Thomas Baekdal advises his clients on how to communicate in the 21st Century. He has posted an analysis of current sources of information and his predictions for the future on his blog baekdal.com: Market of Information: Where Is Everybody?.

Here's the graph that everyone's raving about ...


According to Thomas Baekdal, our society is already getting almost 75% of its information from the internet. By 2020 it will be 90%, according to Baekdal.

The surprising thing about this nonsense is the number of people who believe it.¹ The Web 2.0 cult and its various sects have grown into a kind of social movement populated mainly by people under thirty years old, as far as I can tell. These people are predicting that the world will be radically changed in just a few years as newspapers, books, television, and radio die off. They believe that most citizens will be getting all their information from social networks, social news, blogs and websites.

It's reasonable to ask how such predictions are made and, to their credit, some of the people commenting on baekdal.com have asked. Tom Baekdal replies in comment #30.

The graph was based on combination of a lot of things, a number of interviews, general study, general trend movements, my experience etc. I cannot give you a specific source though, because I used none specifically.

The graphs before 1990 are all based on interviews, and a large number of Google searches to learn about the history of Newspaper, TV and Radio - and more specifically, what people uses in the past. The graphs from 1998 and up to today, is based on all the things that have happened in the past 11 years, of which I have probably seen 1000 surveys ( it is what I do for a living). And the graph from 2009 and forward is based on what I, and many other people predict will happen in the years to come.

One very important thing though, this is not a reflection of my opinion. This is the result a careful analysis. There are always variations, and different types of people. But I believe that this graph accurately reflects consumer focus.

That's it folks. This "careful analysis" is what he does for a living and it is NOT just a reflection of his personal opinion.

It sounds to me a lot like the Oprah Winfrey sort of reasoning that we all respect so highly (not!). This is a dangerous trend. What we're seeing here is the abandonment of rational thought in favor of personal experience, wishful thinking, and pseudo-intellectual, scientific-looking analyses.

Nobody doubts that the internet plays an important role in the lives of many people—this is a blog, after all, and it's really, really important.

Nobody doubts that the internet will take up a larger percentage of people's time in the future. But the change will be incremental and supplemental, just as radio, television, email, and cell phones, became part of our lives without transforming them. Newspapers, magazines, and books did not disappear when every home acquired a radio in the 1930s or a television set in the 1960s and they won't disappear when every home has a personal computer.

I tell by students to look at those big boxes hanging from the ceiling in their classroom. They're from 1969 when everyone predicted that television would take over the classroom. My building was even designed with a television studio on the main floor. It's now offices for research administration.

If it's true that in a few short years we will get 90% of our information from the internet then we need to be afraid, very afraid.

The business world will adapt to incremental changes in the way we communicate and gather information. But the proper response is to base business decisions on real scientific analysis of current trends and behaviors and not on the wishful thinking of someone who makes a living by promoting the death of traditional media.

One of the advantages of being an old foggy is that I've lived through several cycles of so-called "futurists" who are convinced they are the prophets of change (e.g. Alvin Toffler, author of Future Shock, 1970; and George Gilder, co-founder of the Discovery Institute). It gets a bit boring after the first fifty years.

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1. That means you, Bertalan Meskó of ScienceRoll

Happy Towel Day!

 
Yesterday was Towel Day in honor of Douglas Adams.

The photograph is from the streets of Innsbruck, Austria, in 2005. That's where Adams got the idea to write The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife.
                              Douglas Adams

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