Brian Switek of Laelaps has posted a wonderful essay on Homo sapiens: The Evolution of What We Think About Who We Are. Read it.
That's astronaut Dave Williams on the right. He's a University of Toronto adjunct professor of surgery. According the the University of Toronto press release,Williams was a Professor here in emergency medicine until he was selected for the astronaut training program in 1992 [U of T professor to walk in space].
Today we're off to the Chautauqua Institution for an entire week of learning and fun. I'm really looking forward to hearing Judy Collins on Tuesday.
Chautauqua is one of my favorite places in the USA. If you've never been there, you are missing some of the best that America has to offer. See the Wikipedia entry [Chautauqua Institution] for a brief description.
In the June 30th issue of New Scientist Paul Davies discussed the anthropic principle [The flexi-laws of physics]. He says,If the universe came with any old rag-bag of laws, life would almost certainly be ruled out. Indeed, changing the existing laws by even a scintilla could have lethal consequences. For example, if protons were 0.1 per cent heavier than neutrons, rather than the other way about, all the protons coughed out of the big bang would soon have decayed into neutrons. Without protons and their crucial electric charge, atoms could not exist and chemistry would be impossible.As far as we know, life exists on one small planet orbiting an insignificant star in an unremarkable galaxy off in one small corner of the known universe. This reminds me of a famous Mark Twain quotation [Mark Twain and the Eiffel Tower].
Physicists and cosmologists know many such examples of uncanny bio-friendly "coincidences" and fortuitous fine-tuned properties in the laws of physics. Like Baby Bear's porridge in the story of Goldilocks, our universe seems "just right" for life. It looks, to use astronomer Fred Hoyle's dramatic description, as if "a super-intellect has been monkeying with physics". So what is going on?
If Paul Davies says that the universe is bio-friendly, then I say he hasn't taken a good look at it (30 June, p 30). The universe is bio-tolerant, maybe, or better yet bio-indifferent. Looking at the night sky, I do not see a cosmos optimised for producing life. It appears to be optimised for producing vacuum.
Even if the universe somehow "needs" life, it evidently doesn't need very much of it. Perhaps, from the cosmic point of view, life is a necessary evil, to be tolerated and limited.
I call this the misanthropic principle - it certainly fits the facts better than the anthropic principle does.
Monday's Molecule #35 from last month was ethidium. The salt, ethidium bromide, is used as a dye to stain DNA [Ethidium Bromide Binds to DNA]. In September 1997, I allowed an Australian film crew into my house in Oxford without realising that their purpose was creationist propaganda. In the course of a suspiciously amateurish interview, they issued a truculent challenge to me to "give an example of a genetic mutation or an evolutionary process which can be seen to increase the information in the genome." It is the kind of question only a creationist would ask in that way, and it was at this point I tumbled to the fact that I had been duped into granting an interview to creationists - a thing I normally don't do, for good reasons. In my anger I refused to discuss the question further, and told them to stop the camera. However, I eventually withdrew my peremptory termination of the interview as a whole. This was solely because they pleaded with me that they had come all the way from Australia specifically in order to interview me. Even if this was a considerable exaggeration, it seemed, on reflection, ungenerous to tear up the legal release form and throw them out. I therefore relented.Now that I've provided the link, I'm certain all the IDiots over on Uncommon Descent will read the Dawkins article and learn how new information gets into the genome. That should be the end of this little episode, right?
My generosity was rewarded in a fashion that anyone familiar with fundamentalist tactics might have predicted. When I eventually saw the film a year later, I found that it had been edited to give the false impression that I was incapable of answering the question about information content. In fairness, this may not have been quite as intentionally deceitful as it sounds. You have to understand that these people really believe that their question cannot be answered! Pathetic as it sounds, their entire journey from Australia seems to have been a quest to film an evolutionist failing to answer it.
With hindsight - given that I had been suckered into admitting them into my house in the first place - it might have been wiser simply to answer the question. But I like to be understood whenever I open my mouth - I have a horror of blinding people with science - and this was not a question that could be answered in a soundbite. First you first have to explain the technical meaning of "information". Then the relevance to evolution, too, is complicated - not really difficult but it takes time. Rather than engage now in further recriminations and disputes about exactly what happened at the time of the interview (for, to be fair, I should say that the Australian producer's memory of events seems to differ from mine), I shall try to redress the matter now in constructive fashion by answering the original question, the "Information Challenge", at adequate length - the sort of length you can achieve in a proper article.
Somebody else has walked the walk [90% True]. They took a picture of Dawkins' book but if they have pictures of themselves on the Sandwalk I'd be happy to post them.
The posting prompted considerable discussion about the meaning of the word "creationism." There are many commentators who insist that Creationism means only one thing—a belief in Special Creation as described in the Bible. Jonathan Badger of T. TAXUS (photo on left) expressed his disapproval of my definition by writing,I am not "choosing" a definition of creationism, Larry -- you are. Or perhaps it would be truer to say that you are trying to *invent* a new definition. Please show a dictionary definition of "creationism" that doesn't mention the bible if you disagree with me. Both Old Earth Creationists and Young Earth Creationists believe that the events of Genesis literally happened -- the only difference between the two is the Old Earth types think their god defines "days" differently than people do, and so 7 "days" could be millions of human years.This deserves a more extensive response than my comments on the earlier thread. There are several different points that I'd like to address so here goes.
I understand what you are trying to do -- most sane people (even mainstream theists) agree that creationists are nut cases, and so redefining "creationist" to mean "theist" is a cute rhetorical trick, much like how some right-wingers want to redefine "socialist" to mean anyone who wants a government providing social services. But such word games are pretty childish on any side.
Creationism: Belief in the literal interpretation of the account of the creation of the universe and of all living things related in the Bible.Nobody denies that this is one of the definitions in common usage. That's not the point. The point is rather that it's not the only definition and if you choose this one, as Denyse O'Leary and the some of the IDiots do, then you are obligated to make that clear. Jonathan disagrees because he claims that this is the only legitimate definition. He is wrong.
...American Heritage Dictionary
I am not interested in any claims that are based on a literal reading of the Bible, nor do I understand the concept of creation as narrowly as Duane Gish does. If an omnipotent Creator exists He might have created things instantaneously in a single week or through gradual evolution over billions of years. He might have employed means wholly inaccessible to science, or mechanisms that are at least in part understandable through scientific investigation.Johnson is attempting to draw a line between religion and science and between creationism and naturalism, where naturalism is defined as the belief that supernatural beings play no role in creating or maintaining the universe. In addition, Johnson maintains that evolution, properly understood, is entirely naturalistic and therefore inconsistent with a Creator. Thus, according to Johnson there is a shape line between creationism and evolutionism. If you believe in a Creator, as all Christians do, then you cannot believe in evolution.
The essential point of creation has nothing to do with the timing or the mechanism the Creator chose to employ, but with the element of design or purpose. In the broadest sense, a "creationist" is simply a person who believes that the world (and especially mankind) was designed and exists for a purpose. With the issue defined that way, the question becomes: Is mainstream science opposed to the possibility that the natural world was designed by a Creator for a purpose? Is so, on what basis?
Phillip Johnson (1993)
All Christians are authentic "creationists" in the full theological sense of that term. We are all committed to the biblically-informed and historic Christian doctrine of creation that affirms that everything that is not God is part of a creation that has being only because God has given it being and continues to sustain it. As a creation, the universe is neither a divine being nor a self-existent entity that has its being independent of divine creative action. This theological core of the doctrine of creation sets Judeo-Christian theism in bold distinction from both pantheism (all is God) and naturalism (all is nature).Now, as it turns out, most of these theologians and scientists are perfectly aware of conflicting definitions of "creationism," which is why they take pains to define their terms. They don't want to cede to the religious right a perfectly good word that describes their belief in a Creator God. That's why Theodosius Dobzhansky says the following in his famous article Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution (1973).
Howard J. Van Till (1998)
I am a creationist and an evolutionist. Evolution is God's, or Nature's method of creation. Creation is not an event that happened in 4004 BC; it is a process that began some 10 billion years ago and is still under way.
In some cases, the stigma of Young Earth Creationism is too much to bear and scientists go out of their way to avoid the creationist label. This is explained by Francis Collins in his book The Language of God.Few religious of scientific views can be neatly summed up in a single word. The application of misleading labels for particular perspectives has regularly muddied the debate between science and faith throughout the modern era. Nowhere is this more true than in the case of the "creationist" label, which has featured so prominently in the science-and-faith debates over the past century. Taken at face value, the term "creationist" would seem to imply the general perspective of one who argues for the existence of a God who was directly involved in the creation of the universe, In that broad sense. many deists and nearly all theists, including me, would need to count themselves as creationists.I still maintain that there are at least two definitions of creationism. The narrow definition, often referred to as Creationism with a capital "C" or Special Creationism, is widely accepted in American society. A recent survey reveals that 53% of Americans had heard of the term and, of those, 59% believed the narrow definition [Evolution and Creationism in Public Education].
Over the past century, however, the term "Creationist" has been hijacked (and capitalized) to apply to a very specific subset of such believers, specifically those who insist on a literal reading of Genesis 1 and 2 to describe the creation of the universe and the formation of life on earth.
Francis Collins (2006)
Many would disagree and that's why you often hear people refer to Intelligent Design as Intelligent Design Creationism. There seems to be little doubt that the intelligent design movement grew out of the (capital C) Creationist movement in the 1980's. This has been well-documented by Barbara Forrest (left), most prominently at the Dover trial in 2005 and in a lengthy article in Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics (Forrest, 2001). In that article she examines the strategy of the Discovery Institute's Center for Renewal of Science and Culture (CRSC) and concludes that it is stealth creationism in spite of what its proponents might claim. The goal of Intelligent Design Creationists is make creationism more acceptable by introducing it on university campuses. This is part of the wedge strategy.The accomplishment of these goals is especially important to the CRSC's strategy to advance theri brand of creationism; indeed, it is critical because they are the only creationists who stand a chance of pulling it off. The old-style creationism represented by Henry Morris, Duane Gish, and others is unlikely to be tolerated on mainstream campuses, even religious ones like Baylor. The CRSC creationists have taken the time and trouble to acquire legitimate degrees, providing them a degree of cover both while they are students and after they join the university faculties.Whether you agree with the very broad definition of creationism or not, you are being incredibly naive if you think that Intelligent Design isn't creationism. There's more to creationism than just YEC's and OEC's.
Before starting, let me say that the distinction between "creationism" on the one hand and "evolution" on the other seems strained to me. It has led to much confusion—I have contributed to some of it. It would be far better to make the extremes "creationism" and "naturalism" since what we are usually looking at it is a continuum representing the strength of belief in God.
Dembski chides me for never using the term "intelligent design" without conjoining it to "creationism." He implies (though never explicitly asserts) that he and others in the movement are not creationists and that it is incorrect to discuss them in such terms, suggesting that doing so is merely a rhetorical ploy to "rally the troops."Pennock goes on to demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that Dembski is a creationist by the broad definition.
Using words like "definition" for one's preference is a bit political. So you want to put down theists by calling them creationists. But those are different words for good reason.I hope I've demonstrated to your satisfaction that there is a legitimate second definition of "creationism" that's used by people who call themselves creationists. I didn't make it up and it's not political.
The main characteristic of creationists is that they claim scientific arguments against geology and or biology. Sometimes this has been called (by creationists) scientific creationism, abbreviated SciCre (not by creationists). Lately the term ID has been used for SciCre.
As a scientist, I know very well that the earth is billions of years old and that the appearance of living organisms was not sudden, but gradual. As a Christian, I believe that Genesis is a true account of the way in which God's relationship with the world was formed. And as a human being, I find value in both descriptions. In order to reveal Himself to a desert tribe six thousand years ago, a Creator could hardly have lectured them about DNA and RNA, about gene duplication and allopatric speciation, He spoke to them in the direct and lyrical language of Genesis.Wouldn't it be fun if God came back to visit us in 2007 and gave us a lecture about gene duplication and allopatric speciation? I'd pay to hear that although I'd probably wonder if he(?) wasn't just pulling our legs in the same way he did with the desert tribe 3000 years ago. Was Genesis the ultimate example of framing?
Collins, F. (2006) The Language of God. Free Press, New York (USA).
Dawkins, R. (1996) Reply to Phillip Johnson. Biology & Philosophy 11:539-540. reprinted in Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics Robert T. Pennock ed. MIT Press, Cambridge MA (USA) (2001).
Johnson, Phillip (1993) Darwin on Trial Regnery Gateway, Washington DC (USA).
Johnson, P. (1996) Response to Pennock. Biology & Philosophy 11:561-563. reprinted in Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics Robert T. Pennock ed. MIT Press, Cambridge MA (USA) (2001).
Scott, E. (2004) Evolution vs. Creationism. University of California Press, Berkeley CA (USA).
Van Till, H. J. (1998) The Creation: Intelligently Designed or Optimally Equipped? Theology Today 55:344-364. reprinted in Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics Robert T. Pennock ed. MIT Press, Cambridge MA (USA) (2001).
Today's National Post had a comment about Barak Obama [Presidential hopeful Obama ‘promotes’ PM to president].U.S. presidential hopeful Barack Obama, already under fire from fellow Democratic candidates for his supposed inexperience and unguarded comments on American foreign policy issues, is raising eyebrows again after vowing to telephone the "president of Canada" if elected to the White House to begin renegotiating terms of the NAFTA trade deal.Most of the fuss is about the fact that Obama doesn't know we have a parliamentary system of government with a Queen, but no President. That's pretty bad for a Senator from a northern state but it's not the only thing that troubles me.
The titular miscue came Tuesday night during a discussion of trade and labour issues at a Democratic debate in the Illinois senator's home base of Chicago.
"I would immediately call the president of Mexico, the president of Canada, to try to amend NAFTA, because I think that we can get labour agreements in that agreement right now," Mr. Obama said. "And it should reflect the basic principle that our trade agreements should not just be good for Wall Street; it should also be good for Main Street."
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1903.
Svante August Arrhenius (1859-1927) won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for working out the theory of dissociation. Monday's Molecule #38 illustrates the fundamental concept. Some compounds like NaCl can dissociate in water to form separate charged ions (Na+ and Cl-.Your Majesty, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen.Does anyone know the meaning for the last two words? I think it means something like "it will be done."
During the first year of the last century Volta made the first electric pile. By studying the chemical actions of the electric current thus obtained Davy in Britain and Berzelius and Hisinger in Sweden arrived at the conclusion that the relationship between electrical and chemical phenomena was one of cause and effect. On the basis of this idea Berzelius established his well-known electrochemical theory, which reigned supreme until the middle of the century; however, new discoveries showed that this theory would not stand up to examination, and chemical phenomena ceased to be explained as being due to electricity. It was generally accepted that chemical changes of matter were due to a certain affinity, though the origin of this affinity was absolutely unknown. Then came the heyday of thermochemistry, when it was believed that the explanation of the transformation of chemical energy during chemical reactions lay in the heat phenomena occurring during chemical processes.
Around 1880 Svante Arrhenius - then studying for a doctorate in science - arrived, as a result of his researches into the movement of electric current through solutions, at a new explanation of the causes of chemical phenomena, i.e. he attributed them to electrical charges contained in the constituents of reacting substances. Electricity was thus introduced as a decisive factor into the theory of chemistry, in other words the basic notion of the theory of Berzelius had come back into favour, although in a greatly modified form.
In the time of Berzelius this notion rested on a qualitative basis only, whereas Arrhenius's theory determined it quantitatively, thus allowing it to be treated mathematically. In his doctor's thesis, twenty years ago, Arrhenius had deduced from this principle all known laws governing chemical changes, but despite this the new theory was very little understood. It so conflicted with current ideas as to disprove them. According to this theory, for instance, common salt, sodium chloride, when dissolved in water splits up to a varying extent, in other words it is dissociated into its constituent parts which are diametrically opposed but charged with electricity, i.e. into ions of chlorine and of sodium, the only chemically effective substances in a solution of common salt. The theory also claimed that when an acid and a base react upon one another, water is the primary product and salt the secondary, and not reversely, as was then generally believed. Ideas so contrary to those current at that time could not be accepted immediately. A struggle lasting more than ten years and an enormous number of new experiments were required before the new theory was accepted by everyone. During this long battle over Arrhenius's theory of dissociation tremendous advances were made in chemistry and ever closer links were established between chemistry and physics - to the great benefit of both sciences.
One of the most important consequences of Arrhenius's theory was the completion of the great generalizations for which the first Nobel Prize for Chemistry was awarded to Van't Hoff. Without the support of Arrhenius's theory that of Van't Hoff would never have gained general recognition. The names of Arrhenius and Van't Hoff will go down in history of chemistry as marking the modern period of this science and it is for this reason that the Academy, despite the fact that the experimental basis of the theory of dissociation belongs to physics, did not hesitate to award the Nobel Prize for Chemistry to Arrhenius.
The Academy of Sciences counts itself fortunate in being able to award the Nobel Prize for Chemistry this year to the compatriot of Berzelius who rehabilitated the fundamental notion of his theory, and its task is made even more pleasant by the fact that its choice is supported by the most outstanding scientific authorities of our day.
Doctor. The world of science already recognizes the importance and value of your theory, but its lustre will continue to increase in the days to come, as you yourself and others use it to advance the science of chemistry. Physical research has contributed to your discovery and this fact throws new light on the relationship - more sensed than proved - between the different natural sciences, the common objective of which is to solve the riddles of life.
Success spurs us on to new endeavours - a fact realized by the generous Maecenas, whose name is now linked with your own. May your future work bear ever more abundant fruit and, when champions of the spirit and of learning advance along the trail that you have blazed, may your name be remembered in the proud words: Ille fecit.
An important paper has just been published in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology. The work examines the in vivo kinetics and dynamics of transcription in mammalian cells and it confirms some important parameters derived from in vitro studies (Darzacq et al., 2007).Transcription — the transfer of DNA’s genetic information through the synthesis of complementary molecules of messenger RNA — forms the basis of all cellular activities. Yet little is known about the dynamics of the process — how efficient it is or how long it takes. Now, researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have measured the stages of transcription in real time. Their unexpected and surprising findings have fundamentally changed the way transcription is understood.Actually, a great deal is known about the dynamics of transcription including how efficient it is and how long it takes. There's nothing in the paper that's particularly unexpected or surprising. The results do not fundamentally change the way transcription is understood.
