Theory vs Theory

This is the third in a series of postings by guest blogger, Arlin Stoltzfus. You can read the introduction to the series at: Introduction to "The Curious Disconnect". The first part is at: The "Mutationism" Myth I. The Monk's Lost Code and the Great Confusion. Arlin is challenging the status quo in modern evolutionary theory. He's not alone in this challenge but it's important to distinguish between kooks who don't know what they're talking about and serious thinkers who have something to say. Arlin is going to explain to you why everything you thought you knew about mutationism is wrong. In this article we learn about theories.

Please pay attention.

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The Curious Disconnect

Our journey to map out the Curious Disconnect-- the gap between how we think about evolution and how we might think if we were freed from historical baggage-- began last time with part 1 of The Mutationism Myth.

Before continuing with part 2, I would like to take a detour. Issues surrounding "evolutionary theory", and evolutionary theories, are going to be coming up again and again. In fact, I can see these issues emerging already in The Mutationism Myth. So, before we get bogged down in confusion and disagreement, I would like to begin a discussion of "theory" and "theories". We'll return to the Mutationism Myth next time.

An updated version of the post below will be maintained at www.molevol.org/cdblog/theory_vs_theory (Arlin Stoltzfus, ©2010)

Theory1 vs theory2

What does it mean to invoke "evolutionary theory"? Is "neo-Darwinism" (or "Darwinism") a theory, a school of thought, or something else? What gives a theory structure and meaning (e.g., axioms, themes, formulae)? What is the relationship between mathematical formalisms and other statements of "theory" (e.g., what does it mean for a lecturer to show a key equation of quantitative evolutionary genetics and assert "this is neo-Darwinism")? Who decides how a theory is defined, or redefined (e.g., is Ohta's "nearly neutral" theory an alternative to, or a variant of, Kimura's Neutral Theory of Molecular Evolution)?

Confusion regarding "theory" and "theories" is going to be an ongoing topic of attention in The Curious Disconnect. As noted in the Introduction, we're in an enormous muddle. The way to get out of this muddle is to take some time to build common understanding, learn some useful terms, and establish ground rules.

In this post, we'll begin the process of developing a shared framework for productively discussing "theory" and "theories". We will begin by addressing an ambiguity in the use of the word "theory", partly because this particular ambiguity is important, and partly as an exercise in addressing semantics. ⁰

Definitions

Dictionaries provide definitions that can be helpful to clarify the meanings of words and the complications of their usage. Definitions can be descriptive, telling us how a word is used, or prescriptive, telling us how it ought to be used. But, as most of us don't like to be told what we ought to do, I suspect that you share my belief in studying how words are used, in order to determine their denotations (what the word says) and connotations (what the word hints or implies). The English dictionaries used in America typically agree: the definitions that they provide reflect patterns of common usage, not the decrees of authorities.

A difficulty with dictionaries arises given that, within an isolated community, e.g., a scientific discipline, words can take on special meanings. So, dictionaries can be helpful, with the proviso that we need to be sensitive to the special use of terms within a discipline.

The discipline-specific use of a term can be nailed down by looking at examples of usage. For evolutionary biology, the discipline-specific use of a term is to be found in the research literature, and also in the secondary literature of monographs, textbooks, and other disciplinary writings.

Two meanings of "theory"

A good dictionary will distinguish several different senses of the word "theory", including the following two that I believe are the most relevant for our discourse:

1) a major conjecture or systematic hypothesis to account for observed phenomena, as in "prion theory of disease" or "Lamarck's theory of evolution";

2) the body of abstract principles relevant to some discipline, methodology or problem area, as in "music theory" or "population genetics theory"

That is, a theory₁ is a grand hypothesis, a conjecture about the actual world, while a theory₂ is a collection of principles or models or other formalisms that might apply only in an imagined world. Fisher (1930) famously said that "No practical biologist interested in sexual reproduction would be led to work out the detailed consequences experienced by organisms having three or more sexes; yet what else should he do if he wishes to understand why the sexes are, in fact, always two?" Theoreticians aren't necessarily good with facts, so we'll ignore that the sexes (in the sense of mating types) are not, in fact, always two. Fisher clearly encourages us to work out formalisms for imagined or hypothetical cases. The collection of all these models or formalisms about sexes would constitute the theory₂ of sexes. A theory₁ of sexes might propose a causal explanation for the actual historic phenomenon of the origin and maintenance of sexual reproduction in animals, addressing such issues as the heterogametic basis of sex determination. ¹

These two meanings are not just recognized in dictionaries, but are established in scientific usage. Gilbert's "Exon Theory of Genes" (Gilbert 1987) is the conjecture that genes evolved from exons (i.e., large protein-coding genes emerged by joining primordial exon-minigenes). The prion theory₁ of disease clearly revolves around a conjecture that there are actual diseases caused by actual prions. By contrast, population genetics theory₂ is not the conjecture that populations have genetics; likewise, the theory₂ of stochastic processes is not a conjecture that stochastic processes occur, but consists of a body of abstract principles that might be applicable to such stochastic processes as might occur in some actual or imagined universe.

The use of the abstract noun, as in "let's talk about theory" as opposed to "let's talk about { a | the | this } theory", often signals the use of theory₂. For instance, the title of a report by the National Academy of Sciences on "The Role of Theory in Advancing 21st Century Biology" signals a likely emphasis on theory₂, and indeed, the report emphasizes the development of formalisms more than conjectures, and says that "a useful way to define theory in biology is as a collection of models", clearly a reference to theory₂. The report also mixes in some references to theories₁.

Obviously, there is a connection between scientific theories₁ and scientific theory₂. One way of thinking about the connection is that the abstract principles of theory₂, when suitably limited by measurable or observable quantities from the actual world, can provide the basis of a theory₁, and conversely, theories₁ draw on theory₂ for logical structure. Kimura's Neutral Theory (Kimura 1983) provides a clear example because the theory₁ and theory₂ were developed separately: Kimura combined pre-existing theory₂ (of stochastic population genetics) with the concrete assertion that the values of certain quantities (relating to population sizes and mutant effects) were such that, for DNA and protein sequences, neutral evolution by mutation and random fixation would be far more common than anyone had imagined previously. The definition of effectively neutral alleles (perpetually misunderstood by critics) and the probability of fixation under pure drift were known to the canonical founders of population genetics ((Wright 1931); ch. IV of (Fisher 1930); appendix of (Haldane 1932)). Another indication of the distinctness of theory₁ and theory₂ is that opponents of the Neutral Theory₁, who deny the truth of the theory₁, are nonetheless quite happy to make use of its theoretical₂ infrastructure (Kreitman 1996).

Development and application of theory₁ and theory₂

We treat the two kinds of "theory" differently, and rightly so.

A theory₁ contains a major supposition or unproved conjecture about the world. Kimura's Neutral Theory is the conjecture that most changes at the "molecular level" represent the random fixation of effectively neutral alleles. Darwin proposed, but could not prove, that all large-scale evolutionary changes were built from infinitesimal increments of change that emerged by a process of hereditary "fluctuation". A theory₁ takes risks: in Popperian terms, its subject to empirical refutation; in the words of Huxley, a beautiful theory₁ can be "killed by an ugly fact."

The relevant standard of validity for theory₂ is not verisimilitude (trueness to life), but consistency: the principles derived in the theory are consistent with its assumptions. Importantly, new principles added to a body of theory₂ are consistent with previous principles, except in the sense that a body of theory₂ may be subdivided into branches that cover non-overlapping universes. If they are not, a logical error has occurred.

While new theory₂ is consistent with existing theory₂, theories₁ often stimulate interest precisely because they conflict with previous theories₁. Of course theories₁ strive to be internally consistent, but in biology at least, theories₁ are not axiomatic, and often encompass ambiguities that make rigorous analysis difficult. A theory₁ can be brought down by a contradiction that arises internally, e.g., one part can be found to contradict another part.

While a theory₁ is about the actual world, and thus is judged by verisimilitude, principles of theory₂ need not apply to the real world. Indeed, no amount of conflicting data will cause us to discard a principle of theory₂ that is properly derived: a beautiful piece of theory₂ cannot be killed by an ugly fact. Fisher's fundamental theorem either is logically valid or is not logically valid, independent of any facts.

Digressions

The distinction between theory₁ and theory₂ is hidden in the ambiguous word "theory", but I think it comes out more clearly in specific word-derivatives and grammatical usages that seem to favor one meaning more than the other. I mentioned above that the abstract noun typically signals theory₂. I'm also convinced that when we refer to a "theoretician", we typically do not mean someone like Tom Cavalier-Smith whose scientific output consists of bold conjectures or systematic hypotheses (we might call such people "theorizers"), but instead someone like Joe Felsenstein whose work focuses on mathematical or algorithmic foundations, i.e., theory₂. Its a rare scientist, it seems to me, who is productive both as a theoretician and as a theorizer (e.g., Kimura, Hamilton).

Neither meaning of theory would cause us to relinquish the label "theory" for a proposition that lacks verisimilitude. Clearly the propositions of theory₂ do not have to apply to the real world. And a theory₁ is a conjecture, not necessarily a true conjecture. Thus, even opponents of the Neutral Theory₁, who believe that the theory does not fit the actual world, still refer to it as The Neutral Theory (Kreitman 1996).

I mention this because there is an absurd tendency in the literature of evolution advocacy, e.g., NCSE's screeds, to say that, because scientists reserve the word "theory" only for constructions that have been extensively verified and are accepted as true, the use of "theory of evolution" among scientists means that evolution is well supported.

This argument clearly is false, and the proof does not depend on the theory₁ vs. theory₂ distinction, but only on the fact that scientists habitually choose to refer to Kimura's theory or Lamarck's theory or Gilbert's theory as a "theory", even if its known to be wrong or is considered deeply suspect. This pattern holds, not just in biology, but in other disciplines. In astronomy, the geocentric theory remains a theory though it has been abandoned; in physics, the phlogiston theory, or the aether theory of light propagation (roughly, the theory that space must be substantive in order for waves to propagate in it) remain theories even though they were abandoned. So, write to the NCSE and tell them to stop using this lame argument. Really, we can do better than that.

The NCSE fallacy seems to arise from mixing together the proposed explanation of phenomena aspect of theory₁ and the accepted as valid aspect of theory₂. This is suggested from the way that NCSE's screed cites the NAS report on theory₂ (the same one that I quoted above) as though it provided a definition of theory qua "well substantiated explanation", which definitely is not the same as "collection of models".

Lets try to sort this out in terms of the distinction between theory₁ and theory₂. Evolutionists have recourse to a body of theory₂ (formalisms or models or principles), ranging from purely phenomenological models of branching and character-state change used in phylogenetics, to the breeder's equation used in quantitative genetics, to detailed formulas for population-genetics processes, and so on. We accept the validity of these abstractions in the theory₂ sense of validity, i.e., we accept that they are derived without error, so as to be logically consistent with their assumptions. This body of abstractions, principles, or formalisms (in NAS parlance, this collection of models) is evolutionary theory₂.

But saying that this theory₂ is valid is not at all the same thing as claiming that its true in the sense of verisimilitude; and claiming that it has verisimilitude is not the same as saying that its complete, in the sense of sufficiently accounting for the phenomena of evolution. For instance, the theory₂ of quantitative evolutionary genetics is based on the assumption of infinitesimal variation, but the theory₂ itself does not claim that all traits, nor even any single trait, evolved in this manner-- that would be a theory₁ issue. Kimura's diffusion equations are a part of population genetics theory₂ that provides a way to work out the probability of fixation of alleles under ideal conditions, but it doesn't assert that the results are applicable to any particular case. Got it?

Homework

The wikipedia entry on theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory) has a "List of Notable Theories" that clearly mixes up theories₁ or grand conjectures (the cell theory, the phlogiston theory) with theories₂ or bodies of abstract principles (music theory, extreme value theory). What are some other clear examples of theory₁ and theory₂ in this list? Which examples are difficult to classify (and what does one learn from those)?

Who, besides Kimura and Hamilton, was productive as both a theoretician and as a theorizer?

Think of a few theories in science, ideally in life sciences. I'm going to assert that they are not axiomatic, i.e., they are not completely encompassed by precisely stated propositions. Given this, how do we really know what defines the theory? If we know a theory from the verbal statements in a body of literature (i.e., "things people say"), what is the relationship of an individual expression (e.g., a paper, a monograph, a quotation) to the theory? Is it the instantiation of a platonic form or essence? How do we get to the essence? Is the distribution of expressions of a theory its "reaction norm", representing environmental noise in the expression of an underly structure (the theory's "genotype")?

The Modern Synthesis as theory₁: into the memory hole

The folks at NCSE and wikipedia are not the only ones blurring the issues. The Modern Synthesis or modern neo-Darwinism ² was put forth originally as a falsifiable theory₁ of evolution, but evolutionists themselves don't treat it that way anymore. For instance, in Maynard Smith's defense of "neo-Darwinism" (Maynard Smith 1969), the only kinds of falsifying observations he can imagine are cases that seem to introduce supernatural forces, e.g., if the spots on a fish always appeared in prime numbers, he says this would contradict neo-Darwinism. He does not imagine variation-induced trends, discontinuous jumps based on individual mutations, or extensive neutral evolution as contradictions of "neo-Darwinism", though these ideas were rejected by the architects of modern neo-Darwinism. Maynard Smith makes the claim in regard to the Neutral Theory that "I have never seen any reason why, as a naive Darwinist, I should reject this theory" (Maynard Smith 1995). It seems that, for Maynard Smith, "neo-Darwinism" is not a theory₁ at all, but merely indicates a commitment to scientific materialism, i.e., seeking natural causes through observation and experiment.

Other authoritative sources suggest that the Modern Synthesis is no longer viewed as a falsifiable conjecture. In Hull's Encyclopedia of Evolution article on the history of evolutionary thought (Hull 2002), the Modern Synthesis is presented as an open-ended "theory" that merely assumes the principle of selection and the rules of genetics, and which has swallowed up the neutral theory along with all other useful ideas:

"Any criticism of the synthetic theory that turned out to have some substance was subsumed in a modified version of this theory. Instead of being a weakness, this ability to change is one of the chief strengths of the synthetic theory of evolution. As in the case of species, scientific theories evolve" (p. E16)

Hull's conception of the Modern Synthesis sounds more like an extensible set of principles, theory₂, than the theory₁ of Mayr, Simpson, Ayala, etc (which is extensible in some ways but closed and falsifiable in others). I'm not necessarily going to say its wrong for scientists to decide that the Modern Synthesis is no longer a theory₁, but can someone please tell me when, and on what basis, did we make this decision? Is there a citation for that? And who decided that we wouldn't tell Richard Dawkins, leaving the poor fellow stuck in a time warp defending the original Modern Synthesis? ³

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I started The Curious Disconnect with the The Mutationism Myth because 1) most evolutionists don't understand how the Modern Synthesis came into existence as a theory₁ that entails risky conjectures, and 2) the mutationist challenge provides the definitive historical proof that the Modern Synthesis is a theory₁ and not just a commitment to selection and the rules of genetics. The historical record will show clearly that the mutationists or "Mendelians" presented a workable synthesis of selection and the rules of genetics, and that their view was rejected by the architects of the Modern Synthesis. Once we find out why, we will understand what makes the Modern Synthesis a theory₁.

Literature cited

Dawkins, R. 2007. Review: The Edge of Evolution. Pp. 2. International Herald Tribune, Paris.

Fisher, R. A. 1930. The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection. Oxford University Press, London.

Gilbert, W. 1987. The exon theory of genes. Cold Spring Harbor Symp. Quant. Biol. 52:901-905.

Haldane, J. B. S. 1932. The Causes of Evolution. Longmans, Green and Co., New York.

Hull, D. L. 2002. History of Evolutionary Thought. Pp. E7-E16 in M. Pagel, ed. Encyclopedia of Evolution. Oxford University Press, New York.

Kimura, M. 1983. The Neutral Theory of Molecular Evolution. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Kreitman, M. 1996. The neutral theory is dead. Long live the neutral theory. Bioessays 18:678-683.

Maynard Smith, J. 1969. The Status of Neo-Darwinism. Pp. 82-89 in C. H. Waddington, ed. Towards a Theoretical Biology 2. Sketches. Edinburgh Universeity Press, Edinburgh.

Maynard Smith, J. 1995. Life at the Edge of Chaos? Pp. 28-30. New York Review of Books, New York.

Wright, S. 1931. Evolution in Mendelian populations. Genetics 16:97.

Notes

⁰ I thank Dr. Mike Coulthart for originally drawing my attention to the importance of this distinction.

¹ If we were to propose just that the sexes are always 2 in number, simply because that is what we have seen in the past, I would call this an empirical generalization or "law". Sometimes "theory" is used for such a generalization, but that usage does not correspond to either meaning of "theory" addressed here.

² I'm using "modern neo-Darwinism" as a synonym for "Modern Synthesis". Neo-Darwinism (for our purposes, Darwinism 1.2) is the pre-Mendelian theory of Weissman and Wallace emphasizing the supreme power of selection and infinitesimal variation to build adaptation (and rejecting Darwin's reliance on Lamarckism). The Modern Synthesis (Darwinism 2.0) comes from this tradition and is often called "neo-Darwinism", though "modern neo-Darwinism" is clearer.

³ Kidding aside, its quite useful to have a scholar still defending the actual Modern Synthesis. For instance, in his attempt to rebut Behe (Dawkins 2007), Dawkins claims that mathematical geneticists "have repeatedly shown that evolutionary rates are not limited by mutation" and that Behe's critique based on the idea that evolution depends on specific mutations would mean that "the entire corpus of mathematical genetics, from 1930 to today, is flat wrong". In making this claim, Dawkins is correctly representing the Modern Synthesis view that (due to the buffering effect of the "gene pool") evolution does not depend on the rate of new mutations, a principle that he believes to be an infallible theoretical result.

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Chris Mooney vs Atheists: Part XXXIV

 
Chris Mooney is at it again. His latest posting sounds ominous: Are Top Scientists Really So Atheistic? Look at the Data.

Elaine Howard Ecklund is a sociologist at Rice University; we cited her work on the topic of science and religion in Unscientific America. Now, she is out with a book that is going to seriously undercut some widespread assumptions out there concerning the science religion relationship.

Unfortunately, Chris doesn't present any data because he's not a scientist. Data really isn't his thing.

I don't have a copy of the book so I can't check it myself. Fortunately, Razib Khan, one of Chris Mooney's fellow bloggers on the Discover website, was able to find some of the data [Scientists as “spiritual atheists”].

Let's be clear about one thing. This is not a poll of scientists. It's a poll of American scientists. The title of Ecklund's book, Science vs Religion: What Scientists Really Think, is somewhat misleading.¹ Here's two charts from the book.

Hmmm ... none of my assumptions have been undercut. How about yours?

I guess what Chris Mooney means is that some of his assumptions will have to be re-evaluated. It's about time.

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1. Unless you're an American. Then you probably believe that all scientists live in the USA.

Is Evolution Guided or Unguided?

Michael Ruse has criticized Alvin Plantinga for being critical of evolution. Plantinga defends himself in a letter published in The Chronicle of Higher Eduaction: Evolution, Shibboleths, and Philosophers.

I want to address one particular point that Plantinga makes because it's relevant to the issues that come up in the accommodationist wars.

"Why," asks Ruse, "does Plantinga feel this way?" Because, he says, "In his view, Darwinism implies that there is and can be no direction in life's history." Still another missed distinction. As far as I can see, God certainly could have used Darwinian processes to create the living world and direct it as he wanted to go; hence evolution as such does not imply that there is no direction in the history of life. What does have that implication is not evolutionary theory itself, but unguided evolution, the idea that neither God nor any other person has taken a hand in guiding, directing or orchestrating the course of evolution. But the scientific theory of evolution, sensibly enough, says nothing one way or the other about divine guidance. It doesn't say that evolution is divinely guided; it also doesn't say that it isn't. Like almost any theist, I reject unguided evolution; but the contemporary scientific theory of evolution just as such—apart from philosophical or theological add-ons—doesn't say that evolution is unguided. Like science in general, it makes no pronouncements on the existence or activity of God.

Plantinga is allying himself with Eugenie Scott and other accommodationists who fiercely defend the idea that science can't address issues such as purpose. In fact, Genie fought hard to remove references to "unsupervised, impersonal, unpredictable and natural process" from a statement on evolution by the National Association of Biology Teachers back in 1995 [NCSE v National Association of Biology Teachers].

I disagree with Plantinga, and with the National Center for Science Education. The idea that evolution might be guided by God is a legitimate question for scientists to address. After all, if it's true then parts of evolutionary theory might have to be revised. I do not accept the claim that scientists must avoid this question because it comes from religion.

When you are thinking like a scientist there's only one possible conclusion. There is no scientific evidence to support the hypothesis that the history of life on Earth was guided by God. Everything we know about the history of life is consistent with an entirely natural process—one that's characterized by chance and contingency. It is perfectly reasonable as a scientist to state this position clearly. This is not stepping outside of the boundaries of science.

Let me explain my position by using an analogy. Imagine the claim that aliens visited the Earth 3.5 billion years ago and seeded our planet with cyanobacteria. After much investigation scientists find no support for such a claim. Is it legitimate for them to conclude that aliens are not responsible for life on Earth? Of course it is. All scientists know that you can't prove a negative but that doesn't mean you can't assign probabilities and behave accordingly.

Philosophers aren't likely to get upset if scientists make statements denying that aliens are responsible for life as we know it. That's because belief in alien visitors isn't one of those kooky ideas that demands special status. However, if scientists make the more general claim that life appears to have evolved by purely natural processes then this gets their dander up. All of a sudden science is threatening religion and this is not allowed. It's "philosophical naturalism" and not "methodological naturalism." It's not science according to Plantinga and many accommodationists, including Michael Ruse. Bollocks, I say.

Scientists call it as they see it. If that upsets the theists then they had better learn to deal with it instead of whining about the science being illegitimate.

Science says that evolution is not divinely guided, based on what we know today.

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Teaching the Controversy About Homeopathy

 
I've got a confession to make. I've been posting about homeopathy this week but everything I've said has been negative. You know there must be another side to this "controversy" so in the interest of fairness, here it is. These homeopaths are putting forward the best possible case for taking homeopathic "remedies."¹

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1. If you pay attention, you'll notice that there's no scientific evidence presented. You already know why.

[Hat Tip: Tony Burns]

More Homeopathic Woo: Super-Memory

 
This gets better and better as the week goes on. PZ Myers has discovered a company that markets fragments of DNA to promote good health. You don't actually eat the DNA, instead you drink water that has been exposed to the DNA [More Magic Snake Oil].

The company is called Homeovitality® and one of their products is Super Memory/IQ. I'm showing a picture of the product taken from their website in order to prove to you that it actually exists. This is part of the discussion concerning its scientific/medical efficacy—an important part of science education and social responsibility.

How does it work? Before I explain it to you, you'd better be sitting down. Try and remain calm.

There are two genes in your genome called CRM2 and SNAP-25. CHRM2 encodes a muscarinic receptors and various alleles of this gene have been associated with alcohol dependence and drug dependance, according to the Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM) database [CHOLINERGIC RECEPTOR, MUSCARINIC, 2; CHRM2]. SNAP-25 encodes a synaptosomal-associate protein of 25kDa molecular weight. There have been reports that alleles of SNAP-25 are associated with hyperactivity but a separate study did not confirm this association according to OMIN [SYNAPTOSOMAL-ASSOCIATED PROTEIN, 25-KD; SNAP25].

Homeovitality® had some DNA sequences made for each of these genes: a 164 bp fragment in the case of CRM2 and a 144 bp fragment in the case of SNAP-25 [What is Homeovitality®?]. They used these pieces of DNA to make the Super Memory/IQ product.

Homeovitality® products have also been succussed at each dilution stage so they will also help to promote desirable forms of hybrid vigour in a “like promotes like” mode of action involving some of the mechanisms (4) described by Dr. Kratz, (http://kulisz.com/how_does_homeopathy_work.htm).

Homeovitality® products are safe because firstly, they are used at similar dilutions to classical homeopathic disease remedies and secondly, hybrid vigour is a completely natural biological process that has been developed by nature over millions of years to enable all creatures to enjoy “super health” and disease resistance.

"Succussed refers to the practice of forcefully striking the various dilution solutions in order to help "potentize" the effect. "Hybrid vigor" refers to the belief that these DNA sequences—or, more appropriately, the memory of these sequences—will produce heterozygosity in patients and that's a good thing.

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Lance Corporal Robert Alexander Hood (1895 - 1917)

Robert Alexander Hood¹ was born in 1895 in a small village north-west of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. He went to France in 1916 when he was only 21 years old. Robert fought with the 73rd Battalion and he was killed in action at Vimy Ridge on this day, April 12, in 1917.

Canadians "celebrate" the battle of Vimy Ridge as a great Canadian victory. It was part of the larger Battle of Arras, which in turn was a diversionary attack in support of the larger Nivelle Offensive carried out by the French Army. About 3,600 young Canadian men were killed during the four day battle and 7,000 more were wounded. This is just a small fraction of the casualties on both sides during World War I.

We need to be very careful not to glorify war while remembering all those young mean and women who died in a war that never should have been fought. I will eventually go to Arras and visit the large memorial erected by the Canadian government (see below) but I will do it in order to reinforce my view that war is folly and the deaths of soldiers like Robert Alexander Hood should never have happened.

There is never any glory in war and it's nothing we should ever be proud of.

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1. He was a cousin of Ms. Sandwalk's grandfather.

The "Science" Behind Homeopathy

 
Are all homeopaths and their supporters complete idiots? Do they all think they're practicing some form of black magic? No, they usually don't think that at all. Many of them honestly believe that there's scientific evidence supporting homeopathy. They actually believe that water can retain some magical properties after it has been exposed to certain chemicals. How is this possible? It's because of "nanobubbles."

Here's John Benneth explaining the "science" behind homeopathy. This is woo of the highest order. Read Orac's take-down at Your Friday Dose of Woo: The physics of homeopathy and "nanocrystalloids". There are no reputable scientists who believe what John Benneth claims. If he's implying that there's scientific support for homeopathy, then what he's saying is not true.

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Homeopathy Kills

 
Here's what can happen if a homeopath treats his own daughter. He ends up in jail, she ends up dead.

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Atheist Barbie

 
Here's the ideal present for all of you with young sons and daughters, or young grandchildren. It's atheist Barbie from Blag Hag.



I'm ordering one today for Zoë ... and two others for Jane and Gordon.

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[Hat Tip: Friendly Atheist]

Too Many Gods

 

Me and my Christian friends have a lot in common but I didn't realize how much until I found this site: Gods You Don't Believe In. It lists about 2,800 gods of various sorts. I don't believe in any of them and most Christians reject all but a handful¹. That makes about 2,795 gods whose nonexistence we agree on.

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1. I'm not sure how to count up the gods of Christianity. If you assume that the big guy, Jesus, and the ghost are all the same person then what about Satan and some of the senior angels like Gabriel and Michael? Do they count as gods? And what about the other gods mentioned in the ten commandments? The god of the Bible says not to worship them because he is jealous but he doesn't deny that they exist. Who are they?

A Message for Hillary Clinton from Canadians

 
From CBCNews [Don't extend Afghan mission, Canadians say: poll].

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If Water Has a Memory ....

Homeopathy

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Yes, I'm aware of the fact there's another, possibly better, version of this poster using another word for "crap."

What Is Homeopathy?

 
Homeopathy awareness week is coming up and scientists from all around the world are gearing up to explain why homeopathy doesn't work—that's why it's called "alternative" medicine. It's a part of quack medicine that's not "real" medicine. Real medicine is based on scientific evidence.

Many people don't know what homeopathy is all about. They confuse homeopathy with a host of other forms of non evidence-based medicine like naturopathy and herbalism. That's a big mistake. Homeopathy is a form of treatment where you drink water that supposed to contain the magical imprint of some chemical. The chemical is often quite dangerous but, don't be worried, it's not really present in the treatment you pay for.

Here's the Wikipedia description of homeopathy.

Homeopathy (also spelled homoeopathy or homœopathy) is a form of alternative medicine, first proposed by German physician Samuel Hahnemann in 1796, that attempts to treat patients with heavily diluted preparations. Based on an ipse dixit[1] axiom[2] formulated by Hahnemann which he called the "law of similars", preparations which cause certain symptoms in healthy individuals are given as the treatment for patients exhibiting similar symptoms. Homeopathic remedies are prepared by serial dilution with shaking by forceful striking, which homeopaths term "succussion," after each dilution under the assumption that this increases the effect of the treatment. Homeopaths call this process "potentization". Dilution often continues until none of the original substance remains.

Don't confuse it with anything else. There's absolutely no evidence that homeopathy works. The scientific data, taken as a whole, is conclusive. Be wary of those who believe in homeopathy because their advice on other forms of treatment may not be based on evidence either. Homeopathy is bad enough but it often keeps even worse company.

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Should creationism be taught in British classrooms?

 
As most of you know, the citizens of the United Kingdom do not obsess over the separation of church and state and they do not use their constitution to keep creationism out of their schools. That's why the question posed by Michael Reiss in New Statesman is a valid one in that country, "Should creationism be taught in British classrooms?". The answer might surprise many people in other countries.

Why schools and universities should encourage debate on evolution -- and how this could benefit science.
.... When teaching evolution, there is much to be said for allowing students to raise any doubts they have in order to shape and provoke a genuine discussion. The word "genuine" doesn't mean that creationism and intelligent design deserve equal time with evolution. They don't. However, in certain classes, depending on the teacher's comfort with talking about such issues, his or her ability to deal with them, and the make-up of the student body, it can and should be appropriate to address them.

Having said that, I don't pretend to think that this kind of teaching is easy. Some students become very heated; others remain silent even if they disagree profoundly with what is said. But I believe in taking seriously the concerns of students who do not accept the theory of evolution while still introducing them to it. Although it is unlikely that this will help them resolve any conflict they experience between science and their beliefs, good teaching can help students to manage it - and to learn more science.

My hope is simply to enable students to understand the scientific perspective with respect to our origins, but not necessarily to accept it. We can help students to find their science lessons interesting and intellectually challenging without their being a threat. Effective teaching in this area can help students not only learn about the theory of evolution, but also better appreciate the way science is done, the procedures by which scientific knowledge accumulates, the limitations of science and the ways in which scientific knowledge differs from other forms of knowledge.

I agree with this point of view. I think the main arguments for creationism, and against evolution, should be discussed in science class. It's an excellent way of showing what real science is and how it should be practiced.

The problem with ignoring the main criticisms of evolution is that students are going to hear about them from other sources and they won't know what to think about those points of view unless we teach them how to reason. The goal of science education is to teach students how to think, not just fill them with facts. It's our responsibility as teachers to teach critical thinking. One of the best ways to do that is to give them some popular examples to discuss and debate.

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[Hat Tip: RichardDawkins.net]

Advertising 23andMe

 
Some bloggers are huge fans of genetic testing. They frequently post articles promoting one of the private companies that charge you for doing these tests. ScienceRoll recently posted this video of Anne Wojcicki making a pitch for her company. Wojcicki is one of the co-founders of 23andMe. It's interesting to see how she mixes various rationales for genetic testing with a pitch for 23andMe.

Imagine this was a talk by the CEO of a major pharmaceutical company about the importance of their drugs and why you should buy them. We would probably be more skeptical than we seem to be about Ann Wojcicki. Why is that?

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World Homeopathy Awareness Week

 
World Homeopathy Awareness Week takes place next week (April 10-16). This is a week devoted to making people aware of homeopathy and our local Centre for Inquiry and the Committee for Advancement of Scientific Skepticism (CASS) is planning to take full advantage of the opportunity. We'd like everyone to know there's no scientific evidence that supports homeopathic "cures" and, furthermore, the fundamental principle behind homeopathy conflicts with everything we know about modern science.

I urge all bloggers to post something next week in order to let the public know about this scam.

The Canadian Society of Homeopaths also has a number of events planned but I don't think they're talking about the same kind of "awareness."

HOMEOPATHY AND MENTAL WELL-BEING:
BODY AND MIND IN BALANCE
The theme of the 2010 Homeopathy Awareness Month is Homeopathy and Mental Well-being: Body and Mind in Balance. As in previous Awareness celebrations, Registered and Associate members of the Canadian Society of Homeopaths will sponsor events, displays, and special promotions in their communities across Canada.

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[Photo Credit: The Guardian: MPs criticise science adviser for defending government on homeopathy]

Time to Leave

 
Canadian troops and support personal have been in Afghanistan for the better part of ten years. The goal was to create a stable democratic state that could offer security to its citizens and promote the rights and values that we cherish in Western democracies.

We aren't any closer to achieving that goal than we were ten years ago. Should Canadian forces remain in Afghanistan after 2011?

There are two main options ....

1. cut and run (withdraw all military forces)
2. soldier on, perhaps with no combat troops

I favor option #1. We've given it our best shot and it's time to admit defeat. Afghanistan is not going to become a respectable member of the world's democratic community.

My resolve was strengthened by a hard-hitting article in last week's issue of Newsweek [The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight].

America has spent more than $6 billion since 2002 in an effort to create an effective Afghan police force, buying weapons, building police academies, and hiring defense contractors to train the recruits—but the program has been a disaster. More than $322 million worth of invoices for police training were approved even though the funds were poorly accounted for, according to a government audit, and fewer than 12 percent of the country's police units are capable of operating on their own. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, the State Department's top representative in the region, has publicly called the Afghan police "an inadequate organization, riddled with corruption." During the Obama administration's review of Afghanistan policy last year, "this issue received more attention than any other except for the question of U.S. troop levels," Holbrooke later told NEWSWEEK. "We drilled down deep into this."

The worst of it is that the police are central to Washington's plans for getting out of Afghanistan. The U.S.-backed government in Kabul will never have popular support if it can't keep people safe in their own homes and streets. Yet in a United Nations poll last fall, more than half the Afghan respondents said the police are corrupt. Police commanders have been implicated in drug trafficking, and when U.S. Marines moved into the town of Aynak last summer, villagers accused the local police force of extortion, assault, and rape.

It's time to leave—the sooner the better. The people of Afghanistan have to want change bad enough to fight for it and that's ain't happening.

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[Photo Credit: Defense Industry Daily]

[Hat Tip: Canadian Cynic]

Here We Go Again

 
You've been following the battles in the Accommodationist Wars for several years. If you've been paying attention you will by now have acquired a good understanding of the main arguments on both sides. You should be able to recognize which arguments are valid and which ones are false—in terms of their logic.

Now it's time for the test.

Read the following passage by Michael Zimmerman¹ on The Huffington Post. He is defending the proposition that the evolution/creation controversy is not a conflict between science and religion [Redefining The Creation/Evolution Controversy]. Your task is to identify the logical flaw(s) in this argument. For the purposes of this test, we're not interested in who's right and who's wrong in the Accommodationist Wars. I'm just interested in knowing whether you can recognize a good argument and a bad one.

The mere existence of the Clergy Letter Project, an international organization I founded that is comprised of thousands of clergy members and scientists, demonstrates that religious leaders and scientists are not inherently at odds. After all, more than 12,400 Christian clergy members from all across the United States have signed the Christian Clergy Letter, a powerful, two-paragraph statement promoting a shared understanding and acceptance of evolution and Christianity.

What could be clearer than these sentences from that Letter? "Religious truth is of a different order from scientific truth. Its purpose is not to convey scientific information but to transform hearts[...]. We urge school board members to preserve the integrity of the science curriculum by affirming the teaching of the theory of evolution as a core component of human knowledge. We ask that science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth."

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1. Michael Zimmerman is an ecologist at Butler University in Indiana (USA). He started The Clergy Letter Project.

Happy Easter

 
... from my granddaughter Zoë in Brussels, Belgium.

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Saturday Comics

 
This is the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Denyse O'Leary—your favorite Toronto science writer—tries to lighten your day with a very funny posting on Post-Darwinist and Uncommon Descent [Coffee!! Evolution in action! Check with your local humane society!].

She's responding to the idea that Lenski’s long-term experiment with E. coli has led to bacteria that have "changed shape, changed size, changed metabolism and changed food source."

Denyse replies ...

So the claim is, “changed shape, changed size, changed metabolism and changed food source. How much more MACRO do you expect an organism to evolve?”

Hmmmm. Kittens do this all the time.

Change size? You bet. Goes from a couple of ounces to five lbs in half a year.

Change shape? Sure. The average newborn kitten is just a little bag of mewing metabolism, blind and probably deaf, whose only real talent is using its sense of smell to get control of a teat.

Changed metabolism? Sort of. Kittens must be weaned onto something other than cat milk after about six or seven weeks. I am not a vet, but surely some changes in metabolism accompany this transition.

Changed food source? Yes! From mom cat to local rodents, birds, frogs, and eggs that can be cracked by being pushed off the branch or table. Or, if the cat is under human management, a science-based diet for growing felines. Or otherwise, scavenging a local dumpster. Or whatever an obligate carnivore* like the cat can stomach.

Okay, so where are we now? We have explained how a kitten gets transformed into … a cat.

And this is “evolution”?

Thanks for the comic relief, Denyse. But aren't you worried that someone might think you're serious?

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[Image Credit: PTET]

Why Do We Call Them IDiots?

 
Over at Uncommon Descent GilDodgen has A Modest Proposal. It consists mostly of telling scientists what they think about evolution.

“Evolution” is an ill-defined term. It can mean:

1) Change over time.
2) Common ancestry.
3) Random genetic errors filtered by natural selection as the purely materialistic mechanism that explains all of life’s complexity, information content, and information-processing machinery, not to mention human consciousness and its demonstrable creative intelligence.

Change over time is obvious and undeniable. Common ancestry seems reasonable to me, although universal common ancestry appears to be in big trouble with mounting evidence that Darwin’s unidirectional “tree of life” never existed. It might have been something more akin to a hologram than a tree, as far as I can tell.

What Darwinists really want us to accept — without question, dissent, annoying logical/evidential challenges, or apostasy — is definition 3), so let me make a modest proposal to substitute it for “evolution,” and reveal the Darwinian bait-and-switch scam.

This is unbelievable! The standard definition of evolution is in any evolutionary biology textbook and all it takes is a little effort to find it. (If you know how to read.)

What I'd like to know is whether there's any evolutionary biologist who accepts definition #3. Not even the most ardent adaptationist would accept such a silly definition of evolution.

Does Intelligent Design Creationism select for people with very low IQ's or does accepting Intelligent Design Creationism just make you stupid?

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Bruce Alberts Wins Vannevar Bush Award

 
Bruce M. Alberts is the winner of the 2010 Vannevar Bush Award for "lifetime contributions to the United States in science and technology" [Biochemist and science education advocate honored for distinguished service in science and technology].

Alberts is a prominent biochemist with a strong commitment to the improvement of science education, and currently serves as editor-in-chief of the journal Science and as a United States science envoy. Alberts is also professor emeritus in the department of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco, to which he returned in 2005 after serving two six-year terms as the president of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C.

During his tenure at the National Academies, Alberts was instrumental in developing landmark National Science Education Standards that have been implemented in school systems nationwide. "The type of science as inquiry teaching we need," said Alberts, "emphasizes logical, hands-on problem solving, and it insists on having evidence for claims that can be confirmed by others. It requires work in cooperative groups, where those with different types of talents can discover them--developing self-confidence and an ability to communicate effectively with others."

Alberts is also one of the original authors of The Molecular Biology of the Cell, a preeminent textbook now in its fifth edition. For the period 2000 to 2009, he served as the co-chair of the InterAcademy Council, a new organization in Amsterdam governed by the presidents of 15 national academies of sciences and established to provide scientific advice to the world.

That's Bruce seated front right in a photo from 2007 when he was here to receive an honorary degree. The citation for the Vannevar Bush Award doesn't mention that he was my thesis advisor—it's an unfortunate oversight.

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Things You Didn't Know

Patricia J. Wittkopp is a Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She got her Ph.D. in 2002 with Sean Carroll.

Anything found to be true of E. coli must also be true of elephants.

-Jacques Monod (1954)Wittkopp has just published a paper in PLoS Biology: Variable Transcription Factor Binding: A Mechanism of Evolutionary Change. The second paragraph tells you something you didn't know.

During the last decade, researchers have discovered that the collection of proteins found in different animals is remarkably similar. In fact, many proteins are found not only in animals, but also in fungi and plants; some are even shared with bacteria. This unexpected—and truly astounding—finding has changed scientists' thinking about how biological diversity evolved ...

Isn't that cool? Before 1990, researchers didn't know that many animal proteins had homologs in fungi, plants, and even (gasp!) bacteria.

I presume she means that she didn't know this because she was still in high school.

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Cornelius Hunter Says Evolution Is Not a Fact

 
Cornelius Hunter blogs at Darwin's God. He has a Ph.D. in Biophysics and Computational Biology and currently teaches at Biola University. He is a Fellow of the Discovery Institute and the author of several books that I have not read.

Hunter has devoted most of his blogging efforts to attacks on science. This seems to be the most popular strategy of the Intelligent Design Creationists in spite of their claims to the contrary.

His latest posting is Why Evolutionists Say Evolution is a Fact.

Evolutionists say evolution is a fact, every bit as much as gravity is a fact. That is remarkable. We see and even feel gravity everyday. Evolution, on the other hand, entails rather dramatic, one-time, events that were supposed to have occurred long ago, when no one was around to witness them. How could we be sure of such a theory? There must be some extremely powerful and compelling scientific evidence for evolution to make it a fact as gravity is a fact. That is what one would think. But, surprisingly, there is no such evidence. When evolutionists try to explain why evolution is a fact, it is a tremendous anticlimax.

Hunter has not been paying attention. Many of us have written on the subject of evolution as a fact [Evolution Is a Fact and a Theory]. Evidence for the "factness" of evolution is overwhelming. It ranges from evidence that chimps and humans descend from a common ancestor to evidence that the frequencies of alleles are changing in populations as we speak.

That last point is important. Evolution is defined as a change in the frequency of alleles in a population over time and as long as we can demonstrate that change, the fact of evolution can't be disputed. I wonder how Cornelius Hunter explains the differences between the Japanese and the Masai of Kenya and Tanzania? I wonder how he explains the fact that native North Americans are practically homogeneous for O blood type? I wonder how he explains the many studies that have directly tracked heritable change over many generations?

Why are the IDiots so stubborn and so ignorant? Why couldn't Cornelius Hunter demonstrate that he understands why evolution is a fact while disputing some forms of macroevolution? That would be a sensible position. Instead, he comes off looking like an IDiot.

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The "Mutationism" Myth I. The Monk's Lost Code and the Great Confusion

This is the second in a series of postings by a guest blogger, Arlin Stoltzfus. You can read the first part at: Introduction to "The Curious Disconnect". Arlin is challenging the status quo in modern evolutionary theory. He's not alone in this challenge but it's important to distinguish between kooks who don't know what they're talking about and serious thinkers who have something to say. Arlin is going to explain to you why everything you thought you knew about mutationism is wrong. I'm happy to give him a chance to post on Sandwalk.

This will be on the exam.

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The Curious Disconnect

The Curious Disconnect is the blog of evolutionary biologist Arlin Stoltzfus, available at www.molevol.org/cdblog. An updated version of the post below will be maintained at www.molevol.org/cdblog/mutationism_myth1 (Arlin Stoltzfus, ©2010)

The "Mutationism" Myth I. The Monk's Lost Code and the Great Confusion

The mutationism myth tells the story of how, just over a century ago, the scientific community responded to the discovery of Mendelian genetics by discarding Darwinism, and how Darwinism subsequently was restored.Our journey to explore The Curious Disconnect-- the gap between how we think about evolution and how we might think if we were freed from historical baggage-- begins with the Mutationism Myth. In this, the first of four parts, we are not going to confront any tough scientific or conceptual issues. Instead, we are just going to review an odd story about our intellectual history.

The Mutationism Story

While "myth" has the connotation of falsehood, the story that a myth tells isn't necessarily a false one. The mutationism myth, at least, is anchored in historical events.¹

The mutationism myth tells the story of how, just over a century ago, the scientific community responded to the discovery of Mendelian genetics by discarding Darwinism, and how Darwinism subsequently was restored. The villains of the story are the influential early geneticists or "Mendelians" who saw genetics as a refutation of Darwinism; the heroes are first, the founders of population genetics, theoreticians who sorted everything out in favor of Darwinism by about 1930, and second, the architects of the Modern Synthesis, activists who popularized and institutionalized what we're calling "Darwinism 2.0".

This story has been re-told in secondary sources for nearly 50 years, though I sense that the frequency is decreasing as this episode passes into ancient history. To find examples, try looking up "mutationism" (sometimes "Mendelism" or even "saltationism") in the index of a book about evolution.

I encourage you to consult whatever sources you have and to share the stories that you find. Note that you won't always be successful. A quick survey of several dozen contemporary books on my shelf reveals that most don't address this episode specifically (a notable absence, in some cases ²); some tell the mutationism myth with varying degrees of panache; and a few provide a historical account rather than a myth. The few historical accounts that I found were in Gould's 2002 The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, Strickberger's 1990 textbook Evolution, and the Wikipedia entry on "Mutationism".

Sample stories

Lets look at a few examples of the mutationism story. Readers who want to check out a freely available online source from the scholarly literature may refer to Ayala and Fitch, 1997 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9223250?dopt=Citation). One example that really caught my eye is not from scientific literature, but from the 2005 obituary for Ernst Mayr in The Economist:

It was not that biologists had given up on evolution by the 1940s-quite the contrary. But they had got very confused about its mechanism. . . . The geneticists of the early 20th century did not help. They rediscovered the laws of inheritance first developed 40 years earlier by Gregor Mendel, an unsung Moravian monk. They also discovered the idea of genetic mutation. But instead of linking these things to natural selection, they came up with the idea of "saltation"-in other words, sudden mutational shifts from one well-adapted species to another. Nor, the geneticists complained, had there been enough time for natural selection to do its work, given what they had discovered about the rate at which mutations occur, and the fact that most mutations are deleterious. It was all a bit of a mess. . .Mr Mayr's advantage over the laboratory-bound biologists who had hijacked and diluted Darwin's legacy was that, like Darwin, he was a naturalist-and a good one. (anonymous, 2005)

Of course, this is a magazine article, written by anonymous staff writers-- typically one doesn't see such florid language in the scholarly literature. But did the staff writers of the Economist (representing elite opinion) really originate this story, based on their own personal recollections of the 1930's? Of course not. Mayr himself popularized the image of geneticists as laboratory-bound geeks lacking the organic insight of "naturalists". This disdain for the geneticists who "hijacked" Darwin's legacy is readily apparent when evolutionary writers depict geneticists as fools holding "beliefs" that have "obvious inadequacies", unable to understand or "grasp" their own scientific findings:

"It is hard for us to comprehend but, in the early years of this century when the phenomenon of mutation was first named, it was regarded not as a necessary part of Darwinian theory but as an alternative theory of evolution! There was a school of geneticists called the mutationists, which included such famous names as Hugo de Vries and William Bateson among the early rediscoverers of Mendel's principles of heredity, Wilhelm Johannsen the inventor of the word gene, and Thomas Hunt Morgan the father of the chromosome theory of heredity. . . Mendelian genetics was thought of, not as the central plank of Darwinism that it is today, but as antithetical to Darwinism. . . It is extremely hard for the modern mind to respond to this idea with anything but mirth" (Dawkins, 1987, p. 305)

"According to mutationism, random changes in the hereditary material are sufficient for adaptation without much, or any, selection at all. Mutations just somehow happen to be adaptive, the right changes simply manage to occur. The inadequacies of this view are obvious" (Cronin, 1991, p. 47).

"Darwin knew nothing of this [i.e., genetics] but as it turned out, his ignorance was sublimely irrelevant to the problem he was really interested in tackling: evolution. This point was not fully grasped by biologists. Many early geneticists at the dawn of the 20th century, thought their discoveries of the fundamental principles of genetics somehow cast doubt [on], or rendered obsolete, the concept of natural selection. It took several decades of experimentation and theoretical (including mathematical) analysis to show not only that there was no conflict inherent between the emerging results of genetics and the older Darwinian notion of natural selection, but that the two operate in different domains." (Eldredge, 2001, p. 67)

"Mendelian particulate inheritance (today, we call the "particles" genes) was originally identified with De Vries's "mutation theory", according to which new variations or species originated in large jumps, or macromutations, and evolution was exclusively explained by mutation pressure. Darwinian naturalists, believing that Mendelism was synonymous with mutation theory, held on to theories of soft inheritance, while they considered selection a weak force at best. They did not know of the new findings in genetics that would have supported Darwinism. (SegerstrŒle, 2002)

Notice how, in every version of the story above, the position taken by early geneticists just doesn't make sense. This isn't a story of theory versus theory, its a story of confusion ultimately yielding to reason.

If de Vries and the other geneticists are playing the role of the pied piper in this story, the "naturalists" are like the children lured away from their Darwinian home. Ultimately the innocents are returned, and order restored, by (oddly enough) mathematicians:

"Between 1918 and 1932 Fisher, Haldane, and Wright showed that Mendelian genetics is consistent with natural selection. Only then, more than 60 years after the publication of The Origin of Species, was the genetic objection to natural selection finally removed. Modern molecular and developmental genetics have confirmed in exquisite chemical detail the key aspects of genetics necessary for Darwin's ideas to work: that the genetic material is DNA, that DNA has a sequence, . . . mutates . . . contains information . . " (p. 16 of Stearns and Hoekstra, 2005)

Anatomy of a Myth

In a subsequent post, we will look at original sources to see what the "mutationists" actually believed, and why. And eventually we will integrate this into the bigger picture of how evolutionary theory developed. But for now, lets just summarize the pattern that is apparent in the literature.

First, the mutationism story is clearly a story or myth, and not an ordinary scientific truth claim. We can see this because the story-tellers are not using ordinary scientific conventions to convince us that the story is true. If you or I were making an ordinary scientific argument (for instance) for an effect of "translational selection" on codon usage, we would mention a correlation between codon frequencies and the abundance of corresponding tRNAs, citing the classic work of Ikemura (1981), and we might even repeat a figure showing this correlation, to impress this point upon the minds of readers (e.g., just as in Ch. 7 of Freeman & Herron, 1998).

When I see instances of the mutationism story, typically I don't find quotations illustrating what the mutationists believed, nor facts & figures to refute their views, but only vague attributions and generalized claims. Apropos, the following quotation from Ernst Mayr never fails to make me laugh:

The genetic work of the last four decades has refuted mutationism (saltationism) so thoroughly that it is not necessary to repeat once more all the genetic evidence against it. (Mayr, 1960)

And the puissant Dr. Mayr proceeds on, not boring the reader with any tiresome "genetic evidence", nor citing sources that might allow the reader to evaluate the truth of his statement. Its a story, after all.

By contrast, the 3 sources that I mentioned above as providing scientific history, rather than myth, all make reference to specific experimental and theoretical results, and reveal knowledge of specific historically important scientific works. For instance, Strickberger's reference list includes Johannsen, 1903, as well as the 1902 paper by Yule that reconciled Mendelian genetics with quantitative variation (in neo-Darwinian mythology, credit for Yule's work is given to little Ronny Fisher, who was 11 at the time).

Second, every story has a plot or "action", and the main action of the mutationism story is a turn of fate in which power is temporarily in the hands of the wrong people or ideas. In archetypal terms, its a story of usurpation and restoration: the throne is usurped, and the kingdom falls into darkness and confusion until the throne is restored to the king's rightful heirs. The mutationism episode didn't have to be told that way: it might have been presented as a period of reform (in which old ideas were abandoned) or discovery (when new territory was mapped out). Instead, its presented as a mistake, an interlude of confusion, a collective delusion.

Indeed, another way to look at the mythic action is that the Mendelians are wizards or false prophets who place the kingdom under a spell, leading folks astray and causing them to believe things that they just shouldn't have believed.

What delusional spell did the Mendelians cast? In the story by Eldredge, or by Stearns & Hoekstra above, the spell is that Mendelian genetics is inconsistent with "the concept of natural selection" (Eldredge). In the story told by SegerstrŒle, Cronin, Mayr and The Economist, the delusional spell is a bit different: the principle of selection is irrelevant because mutational jumps alone explain evolution.

Third, the key to restoring Darwin's kingdom was to add the missing piece of genetics. Ultimately, after the period of darkness ended, the discovery of genetics "provided the missing link in Darwin's theory" (SegerstrŒle, 2002), or "The missing link in Darwin's argument was provided by Mendelian genetics" (Ayala & Fitch, 1997). Darwinism was restored, not by taking away the power of genetics, but by redirecting it to support Darwinism. Clearly, genetics is the key to ruling the kingdom, like the One Ring that Rules them All in Tolkien's world. The ones who have the ring have the power.

The story is made more fascinating by the fact that the key to power is literally a code of rules developed by a monk that remained lost for nearly half a century. The usurpers who discover The Monk's Code misinterpret it, and use it to overthrow the true king, establishing a reign of error. But when The Founders decipher the true meaning of the Monk's Code, The Architects campaign throughout the kingdom, spreading the news: the Monk's Code proves that Darwin is the true king. Darwin's rule is re-established, all opposition ceases, and the kingdom is unified.

Homework

If you would like to contribute a mutationism story, I would be happy to start a collection if you make it easy for me by providing a complete and well formed text item. Be sure to provide a quoted passage with a source, citing exact page numbers. If we get enough stories, lets try to recruit a sociologist or historian to study this further.

Summary

To summarize, the mutationism story is a myth that is retold in secondary sources. The basic story is simple: the discoverers of genetics misinterpreted their discovery, thinking it incompatible with Darwinism; Darwinism went into disfavor; population geneticists came along and showed that genetics was the missing key to Darwinism; Darwinism was restored and once again reigned supreme.

Next time on the The Curious Disconnect, we'll start pulling on some of the loose threads of this story.

For now, note how the writers quoted above are genuinely baffled by our scientific history. It just doesn't make sense to them. A century ago, most of an entire generation of scientists thought of genetics as a contradiction of Darwinism. This is a historical fact, and presumably it has an explanation that rational folks can understand by examining what scientists of the time wrote. But this historical fact mystifies Dawkins, Eldredge, Cronin, and others.

References

Anonymous. 2005. Ernst Mayr, evolutionary biologist, died on February 3rd, aged 100. The Economist, February.

Ayala, F. J., and W. M. Fitch. 1997. Genetics and the origin of species: an introduction. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 94:7691-7697.

Cronin, H. 1991. The Ant and the Peacock. Cambridge University Presss, Cambridge.

Dawkins, R. 1987. The Blind Watchmaker. W.W. Norton and Company, New York.

Eldredge, N. 2001. The Triumph of Evolution and the Failure of Creationism. W H Freeman & Co.

Freeman, S., and J. C. Herron. 1998. Evolutionary Analysis. Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

Gould, S. J. 2002. The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Ikemura, T. 1981. Correlation between the abundance of Escherichia coli transfer RNAs and the occurrence of the respective codons in its protein genes: a proposal for a synonymous codon choice that is optimal for the E. coli translational system. J Mol Biol 151:389-409.

Mayr, E. 1960. The Emergence of Evolutionary Novelties. Pp. 349-380 in S. Tax, and C. Callender, eds. Evolution After Darwin: The University of Chicago Centennial. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

SegerstrŒle, U. 2002. Neo-Darwinism. Pp. 807-810 inM. Pagel, ed. Encyclopedia of Evolution. Oxford University Press, New York.

Stearns, S. C., and R. F. Hoekstra. 2005. Evolution: an introduction. Oxford University Press, New York.

Strickberger, M.W. 1990. Evolution (1st edition).

Notes
¹ The defining characteristic of a myth is not that it isn't literally true, but that it isn't told for reason of being literally true, but for reason of being meaningful or poignant: a myth is a story with a cultural value, not necessarily a literal-truth value. The connection between myths and untruths, then, has to do with discoverability: when we find a pattern P = { X people are repeating story Y }, where X is a large number, this pattern by itself does not prove that Y is a myth because X people might have all discovered or verified Y independently; but if Y has diverse elements that are untrue (or unverifiable), then we can conclude that its repetition does not signify independent verification, suggesting that its a myth.



²The Oxford Encyclopedia of Evolution does not have an article on mutationism; the article on Morgan says nothing of his views on evolution; there is no article on Bateson; mutationism is only addressed peripherally in Hull's article on the history of evolutionary theory; it is mainly addressed in SegerstrŒle's article on neo-Darwinism.

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Paul Nelson Is Confused

 
Paul Nelson is a Young Earth Creationist. He believes the Earth is less than 10,000 years old and all modern species were created separately. Nelson is also a Fellow of the Discovery Institute. Given these two facts you might wonder if anything he says is worth listening to. The answer is "yes"—lots of his writings are very (unintentionally) amusing.

Paul Nelson's latest posting on Uncommon Dissent falls into a different category. It ain't particularly funny but it does perpetuate a false impression that's very common among the IDiots, and, unfortunately, some others who should know better.

Here's what he says in Massimo Says It’s Become a Religion

What has changed within the past couple of years, however, is the rapid growth in the overtly religious (anti-religious, but that anti doesn’t really matter) content of the writings of prominent neo-Darwinian biologists, such as Jerry Coyne and Richard Dawkins. The Accomodationist Wars, which show no signs of slacking, illustrate that for many, the whole point of evolutionary theory is Getting Rid of God. A biologist who nonetheless professes his theism (Ken Miller, Simon Conway Morris, Francis Collins, et al.) — well, those people are, at best, confused. Evolution properly understood is irreligious. Not “irreligious” in the sense of indifferent or neutral. Hostile. Read the traffic at Pharyngula, Why Evolution is True, Dawkins’s site, Sandwalk, or dozens of other blogs and discussion boards. [Just to be clear: I (PN) don't think the theory of evolution is irreligious, in the sense of hostile to theism. Philosophical naturalism, however, is. But evolution and naturalism are typically conflated by their advocates.]

The accommodationist wars are about the conflict between science and religion and not "evolutionary theory" and religion. People like Paul Nelson would like to change the topic because they want to be seen as anti-evolution but not necessarily anti-science.

And it's not just "neo-Darwinians"¹ who declare that science and religion are incompatible. All kinds of scientists share this opinion. For example, there are more than a few astronomers and geologists who think the Earth is slightly more than 10,000 years old. They are firmly convinced that science is totally incompatible with Young Earth Creationism.

I guess Paul Nelson doesn't know that.

He also doesn't know that the big battle is between rationalism and superstition. In this fight atheists are trying to convince theists that their gods are delusions and they should abandon them. Some of these atheists are scientists but many are not. Don't confuse the two fights. "Science vs. religion" overlaps with "rationalism vs. superstition" but "evolution vs. creationism" is often a very separate battle. People like Ken Miller can be mostly with the good guys in "evolution vs creationism" while being on the wrong side of "rationalism vs superstition."

Paul Nelson isn't the only one who doesn't get this.

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1. I don't know who these "neo-Darwinians" are but I'm not one of them [Why I'm Not a Darwinist].

La Presse Goes Woo-woo

 
La Presse is a large circulation daily newspaper in Montreal (Canada). Today's issue has front page coverage of the "battle" between real doctors and phoney ones. Coverage begins on the front page with "Herbs or Vaccines?" [Médecine: des herbes ou une piqûre?].

The collection of articles inside presents a very favorable case for non-evidence based medicine (i.e. alternative medicine), although it does toss a few bones toward skepticism by quoting some "traditional" doctors (i.e. doctors who rely on evidence in making decisions about the well-being of their patients).

This is "science" reporting at its worst. The lead reporter is Pascal Breton who graduated form l'Université du Québec à Montréal with a degree in journalism, She used to write about provincial politics but she has been covering health issues at La Presse for the past four years.

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NCSE Lauds Templeton Prize Winner

 
As most of us know, the Templeton Prize goes to, "outstanding individuals who have devoted their talents to expanding our vision of human purpose and ultimate reality. The Prize celebrates no particular faith tradition or notion of God, but rather the quest for progress in humanity’s efforts to comprehend the many and diverse manifestations of the Divine." In other words, it's a prize of £1,000,000 sterling for the best accommodationist. The National Center for Science Education has just posted an official press release praising the winner of this religious prize [Ayala wins the Templeton Prize.]

What's up with that? What does tying to understand God have to do with science education? I don't know if NCSE makes a habit of issuing press releases for this sort of thing. Does anyone know if they've posted official press releases for the winners of the Richard Dawkins Award given out by Atheist Alliance International?

In case there was ever any doubt, NCSE publicity supports the position that science and religion are compatible.

Here's the full press release ...

NCSE congratulates Francisco J. Ayala on winning the Templeton Prize. The prize, worth about $1.5 million, is awarded annually by the John Templeton Foundation to "a living person who has made exceptional contributions to affirming life's spiritual dimension." A March 25, 2010, press release from the Foundation highlighted Ayala's vigorous opposition to "the entanglement of science and religion while also calling for mutual respect between the two," saying, "Even as he has warned against religion’s intrusion into science, Ayala, a former Dominican priest, also champions faith as a unique and important window to understanding matters of purpose, values and the meaning of life." Ayala told the Los Angeles Times (March 25, 2010) that he regarded the award as honoring his scientific work and its "very important consequence of making people accept science, and making people accept evolution in particular."

In his essay "Science and religion: Conflict or dialogue?" posted on the Washington Post's On Faith blog (March 25, 2010), Ayala sketched his views on science and religion, writing, "Science and religious beliefs need not be in contradiction. If they are properly understood, they cannot be in contradiction, because science and religion concern different matters. ... The proper relationship between science and religion can be, for people of faith, mutually motivating and inspiring. ... As I see it, scientific knowledge is consistent with a religious belief in God. More so than the 'creationists[']' assertion that everything in the world has been precisely designed by the Creator. Because, then, how to account for human crimes and sins (including the Biblical Fall) and for all the catastrophes that pervade the natural world?" His Darwin's Gift to Science and Religion (Joseph Henry Press, 2009) presents his views in greater detail.

A Supporter of NCSE since its founding, Ayala is University Professor, the Donald Bren Professor of Biological Sciences, and Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Irvine; he received the National Medal for Science, the nation's highest award for lifetime achievement in scientific research, in 2002. Among his contributions to the defense of the integrity of science education was his testimony for the plaintiffs in McLean v. Arkansas and his coordination of support for evolution education at the National Academy of Sciences, including his lead authorship of the publication Science, Evolution, and Creationism (National Academies Press, 2008). NCSE's executive director Eugenie C. Scott commented, "Ayala's contributions to NCSE and its goal of defending the teaching of evolution in the public schools are comparable to his contributions to biology in general: immense."

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