1. For the exception see It Happens to all of Us Eventually.
Eugenie C. Scott has been the Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) since 1987. She is a physical anthropologist who taught at several universities prior to becoming director of NCSE.
If a population at the end of a geographic range of a species is cut off from the rest of the species, through time it may become different from other populations. Perhaps natural selection is operating differently in its environment than it is in the rest of the species range, or perhaps the population has a somewhat different set of genes than other populations of the species. Just by the rules of probability, a small, peripheral population is not likely to have all the variants of genes that are present in the whole species, which might result in its future evolution taking a different turn.
No longer exchanging genes with other populations of the species, and diverging genetically through time from them, members of a peripheral, isolated population might reach the stage where, were they to have the opportunity to mate with a member of the "parent" species, they would not be able to produce offspring. Isolating mechanisms, most of which are genetic but some of which are behavioral, can arise to prevent reproduction between organisms from different populations. Some isolating mechanisms prevent two individuals from mating at all: in some insects, for example, the sexual parts of males and females of related species are so different in shape and size that copulation can't take place. Other isolating mechanisms come into effect when sperm and egg cannot fuse for biochemical or structural reasons. An isolating mechanism could take the form of the prevention of implantation of the egg or of disruption of the growth of the embryo after a few divisions. Or the isolating mechanism could kick in later: mules, which result from crossing horses and donkeys are healthy but sterile. Donkey genes thus are inhibited from entering into the horse species and vice versa. When member of two groups aren't able to share genes because of isolating mechanisms, we can say that speciation between them has occurred. (Outside of the laboratory, it may be difficult to determine whether two species that no longer live in the same environment are reproductively isolated.)
The new species would of course be very similar to the old one—in fact, it might not be possible to tell them apart. Over time, though, if the new species manages successfully to adapt to its environment, it might also expand and bud off new species, which would be yet more different from the parent—now "grandparent"—species. This branching and splitting has, through time, given us the variety of species that we see today.
... common to all ID [intelligent design] proponents is the rejection of "Darwinism." In ID literature, "Darwinism" becomes an epithet, though it is not always clear in any given passage exactly what is meant by "Darwinism." In evolutionary biology, "Darwinism" usually refers to the ideas held by Darwin in the nineteenth century. Usually the term is not used for modern evolutionary theory, which, because it goes well beyond Darwin to include subsequent discoveries and understandings, is more frequently referred to as "neo-Darwinism," or just "evolutionary theory." Evolutionary biologists hardly ever use "Darwinism" as a synonym for evolution, though it occasionally is used this way by historians and philosophers of science. In ID literature, however, "Darwinism" can mean Darwin's ideas, natural selection, neo-Darwinism, post-neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory, evolution itself, or materialist ideology inspired by "Godless evolution."
The public, on the other hand, is unlikely to make these distinctions, instead equating "Darwinism" with evolution (common descent). For decades, Creation Science proponents have cited the controversies among scientist over how evolution occured—including the specific role of natural selection—in their attempts to persuade the public that evolution itself—the thesis of common ancestry—was not accepted by scientists, or at least was in dispute. Within the scientific community, of course, there are lively controversies, including over how much of evolution is explained by natural selection and how much by additional mechanisms such as those being discovered in evolutionary developmental biology ("evo-devo"). No one says natural selection is unimportant; no one says that additional mechanisms are categorically ruled out. But these technical arguments go well beyond the understanding of laypeople and are easily used to promote confusion over whether evolution occurred. Intelligent Design proponents similarly exploit public confusion about "Darwinism" to promote doubt about evolution.
Olivia Judson is a research fellow at Imperial College in London (UK). She studies evolution. Judson is a former pupil of W.D. Hamilton. She is also the daughter of Horace Freeland Judson.1It always happens the same way. A glance around the room to make sure no one else is listening. A clearing of the throat. A lowering of the voice to a conspiratorial tone. Then, the confession.
“I’ve never read ‘On the Origin of Species.’ I tried, but I thought it was boring.”
Thus, a number of eminent scientists — biologists all — have spoken. Or rather, whispered.
1. Author of The Eighth Day of Creation, the definitive history of the early days of molecular biology.
[Hat Tip: RichardDawkins.net]
The latest issue of Tangled Bank is up at Greg Laden's Blog [The Tangled Bank #109: LOL Evolution!].Welcome to the One Hundred and Ninth Edition of The Tangled Bank, the Weblog Carnival of Evolutionary Biology. This is the LOL edition of the Tangled Bank....
If you want to submit an article to Tangled Bank send an email message to host@tangledbank.net. Be sure to include the words "Tangled Bank" in the subject line. Remember that this carnival only accepts one submission per week from each blogger. For some of you that's going to be a serious problem. You have to pick your best article on biology.
The prevalence of errors and omissions in sequence databases is one of the ugly little secrets of molecular biology [Errors in Sequence Databases]. We know how to fix the problem; it requires careful annotation by knowledgeable experts. Unfortunately, this is time-consuming and expensive since you have to hire annotators. One other possibility is to allow open access to all existing records in databases such as GenBank, RefSeq, or PDB. This ain't gonna happen because here's no way to verify the changes to make sure they are valid. The people who control these databases are very reluctant to allow open access and the authors of the database entries are uneasy about allowing others to insert annotations into their records.In principle, a comprehensive gene wiki could have naturally evolved out of the existing Wikipedia framework, and as described above, the beginnings of this process were already underway. However, we hypothesized that growth could be greatly accelerated by systematic creation of gene page stubs, each of which would contain a basal level of gene annotation harvested from authoritative sources. Here we describe an effort to automatically create such a foundation for a comprehensive gene wiki. Moreover, we demonstrate that this effort has begun the positive-feedback loop between readers, contributors, and page utility, which will promote its long-term success.Today, anyone with access to Wikipedia can contribute to annotating human genes. Two examples of well annotated genes are HSP90 and NF-κB.
Huss III, J.W., Orozco, C., Goodale, J., Wu, C., Batalov, S., Vickers, T.J., Valafar, F., and Su, A.I. (2008) A Gene Wiki for Community Annotation of Gene Function. PLoS Biol 6(7): e175 [doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0060175]
Flatfish are strange looking animals that live sideways. One of their eyes has migrated to one side of the fish so that when it lies on its "side" at the bottom of the ocean both eyes point upwards. This is an interesting example of the evolution of a change in development.[Image Credit: The drawings are by Georgi Pchelarov from The Classification of Fishes.]
G. Brent Dalrymple is a geologist at Oregon State University (now retired). He received the National Science Medal in 2005. This is the USA's highest award for scientific achievement. Rounding out the science witnesses was G. Brent Dalrymple of the U.S. Geological Survey. He gave a quite brilliant disquisition on methods of dating the earth. One would not think that such a topic could be all that intrinsically interesting, but Dalrymple gave this assumption the total lie. He held us absolutely spellbound as he talked of various dating techniques and how geologists compensate for weaknesses in one direction by strengths from another. My sense was that Dalrymple was so good and so firm that he rather broke the back of the State's case. He had checked all of the Creationist arguments and showed in devastating detail the trail of misquotations, computational errors, out-of-date references, and sheer blind stupidity which allows the Creationists to assign the earth an age of 6000 years. After Dalrymple, the State seemed far less ready to tangle with witnesses.The following except is from The Age of the Earth. It can only give a bit of the flavor of Dalrymple's writing. In my opinion this book is one of the classic science books of the 2oth century. Richard Dawkins did not include G. Brent Dalrymple in The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing.
Four and one-half billion years. That figure, which represents the current estimate of the age of the Earth, is so large, so far outside of our normal everyday experience that it is difficult to comprehend its true scope and meaning. Even scientists who deal with numbers of that magnitude on a daily basis often find it difficult to grasp the full significance of that span of time. If a piece of string 2.4 cm long (about an inch) represents one year, for example, then a 183-cm length (about 6 feet) is equivalent to the average lifetime of a person living in the United States. A string representing all of recorded human history would be fully a kilometer long, but a piece representing 4.5 billion years would be 114,280 km long! Four and one-half billion quarters would form a stack nearly 8,000 km high. Can anyone fully visualize a string that would wrap around the Earth nearly three times, or a stack of quarters that would reach from here to the center of the Earth and halfway to the other side? ...
As staggering as these numbers may seem, the evidence clearly shows that the Earth's age is, indeed, 4.5 Ga, and the universe is probably three to four times older. Yet humans are relatively recent inhabitants of our planet and have witnessed only an infinitesimally small percentage of Earth's history. No man, no creature, no plant was present when Earth, her sister planets, and the Sun condensed from a shapeless cloud of primordial matter. How then can we peer back into these seemingly infinite reaches of time and calculate an age for the Earth that requires ten digits?
Jacques Monod (1910 - 1976) received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1965) for his work on the regulation of the lac operon (with François Jacob). While best known as a biochemist, Monod was also well respected for his many articles on politics and philosophy. Various mutations have been identified as due toWe call these events accidental; we say that they are random occurrences. And since they constitute the only possible source of modification in the genetic text, itself the sole repository of the organism's hereditary structures, it necessarily follows that chance alone is at the source of every innovation, of all creation in the biosphere. Pure chance, absolutely free but blind, at the very root of the stupendous edifice of evolution: this central concept of modern biology is no longer one among other possible or even conceivable hypotheses. It is today the sole conceivable hypothesis, the only one that squares with observed and tested fact. And nothing warrants the supposition—or the hope—that on this score our position is ever likely to be revised.
- The substitution of a single pair of nucleotides for another pair;
- The deletion of addition of one or several pairs of nucleotides, and
- Various kinds of "scrambling" of the genetic text by inversion, duplication, or fusion of more or less extended segments.
I believe we can assert today that a universal theory, however completely successful in other domains, could never encompass the biosphere, its structure, and its evolution as phenomena deducible from first principles....
In a general manner the theory would anticipate the existence, the properties, the interrelations of certain classes of objects or events, but would obviously not be able to foresee the existence or the distinctive characteristics of any particular object or event.
The thesis that I shall present in this book is that the biosphere does not contain a predictable class of objects or of events but constitutes a particular occurrence, compatible indeed with first principles, but not deducible from those principles, and therefore essentially unpredictable.
Let there be no misunderstanding here. In saying that as a class living beings are not predictable upon the basis of first principles, I by no means intend to suggest that they are not explicable through these principles—that they transcend them in some way, and that other principles, applicable to living systems alone, must be invoked. In my view the biosphere is unpredictable for the very same reason—neither more nor less—that the particular configuration of atoms constituting this pebble I have in my hand is unpredictable. No one will find fault with a universal theory for not affirming and foreseeing the existence of this particular configuration of atoms; it is enough for us that this actual object, unique and real, be compatible with the theory. This object, according to the theory, is under no obligation to exist; but it has the right to.
That is enough for us as concerns the pebble, but not as concerns ourselves. We would like to think ourselves necessary, inevitable, ordained from all eternity. All religions, nearly all philosophies, and even a part of science testify to the unwearying, heroic effort of mankind desperately denying its own contingency.
Peter Agre (1949 - ) received the 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering the water channel protein known as aquaporin (AQP1). 
Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen,
In the days of Alfred Nobel, the learned academies used to entertain and educate the public by holding open demonstrations explaining the latest scientific advances. This tradition has been largely – and perhaps unfortunately – forgotten. So let us try to revive the public demonstration of science, if only for a brief moment.
The demonstration I have in mind is a simple one, and only requires that you do something that is in any case particularly fitting for a Nobel Prize ceremony: to think. But only for exactly 5 seconds!
So, please start thinking, for 5 seconds ... Thank you!
Let us now reflect briefly on what has just happened, in each and every one of us. First, a sudden increase in the activity of the brain when you started to wonder what this is all about – should I really think at this point in the ceremony? – then, cascades of nerve signals when you were actually thinking, and finally a return to the normal resting state. And all this thinking ultimately relied on one of the simplest chemical compounds you can imagine: ordinary salt – sodium, potassium and chloride ions – streaming back and forth across the walls of your nerve cells, thereby generating the signals that activated your mind. And not even very much salt – a rough estimate is that the total amount of salt spent during these five seconds in each one of us was no more than a few grains. Only a fistful of salt to set a whole Concert Hall thinking!
And while all this brain activity was occupying our minds, our kidneys worked on quietly, as they always do, reabsorbing water from the urine to the blood. But in this case, the volumes of water transported are too big, even during five seconds, to be suitable for a demonstration from the podium.
This year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry is all about salt water, and the biochemical mechanisms that control where, when, and how often ions and water are let into or out of the cells in our body. Mechanisms that the two Laureates – Peter Agre and Roderick MacKinnon – have elucidated down to the atomic level.
Agre's was a "serendipity discovery": while working on a completely different problem, he stumbled across a protein in red blood cells that he could soon show was the water channel researchers had been looking for in vain for well over a century. His unexpected discovery opened a whole new field of study.
MacKinnon, on the other hand, decided at an early stage that he should try to do what was then thought impossible: to determine the three-dimensional structure of ion channels at atomic resolution. He bet his career on this vision – and succeeded to an extent that probably surprised even himself.
THEME: Nobel Laureates
There is a lesson here, I believe: There is no one way to do science, and our support system must be sufficiently well funded and versatile to prepare the ground for both unexpected serendipity and focused, often risky, attacks on central scientific problems.
Peter Agre and Roderick MacKinnon stand for decisive contributions to the biochemistry of cell membranes, but their discoveries also have an almost tangible aesthetic component. Their work has uncovered an amazing "economy of design" in the atomic structures of the water and ion channels that is breathtaking in its simplicity and perfection. Indeed, after seeing these molecular machines, you find yourself thinking, "Of course, this is how it must be, this is how it must work!" What more could we ask of science?
Professor Agre, Professor MacKinnon, your fundamental discoveries concerning water and ion channels are singular achievements that have made it possible for us to see these exquisitely designed molecular machines in action at the atomic level. The biochemical basis for the transport of water – the most abundant and primordial substance of life – and ions – these tiny, mundane and yet absolutely essential constituents of the living world – can now be understood in unparalleled detail. On behalf of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, I wish to convey to you our warmest congratulations, and I now ask you to step forward to receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry from the hands of His Majesty the King.
Thanks to PZ Myers for finding an important new website called Darwin Conspiracy. It highlights the three faltal flaws in the Theory of evolution.You have never read about any of these fatal flaws before. Evolution scientists know about these flaws, but they have successfully covered them up with the help of a worldwide Darwin Conspiracy that actively suppresses the fact that Darwinism is not scientific but just an atheist doctrine.Wow! Scientists and doctors agree. I'll have to change my position on evolution after reading about these three fatal flaws.
We have discussed the three fatal evolution flaws with scientists and doctors we know and they have all agreed we have found real flaws in the Theory of Evolution.
Each of the three fatal flaws revealed on this website proves that Darwin was wrong.
Mathematical formulae make up the VERIFICATION LANGUAGE of science. Formulae are the only reliable way to test a theory. Every scientific theory has a formula, except the Theory of Evolution. Darwinists have never been able to derive a working Evolution Formula because Evolution theory does not work.There is No Genetic Mechanism for Darwinian Evolution
Darwinists claim we evolved from the simplest form of bacterial life to ever more complex forms of life. The most basic bacteria had less than 500 genes; man has over 22 thousand. In order for bacteria to evolve into man, organisms would have to be able to add genes. But there is no genetic mechanism that adds a gene. (Mutations change an existing gene but never add a gene.) This means there is no mechanism for Darwinian Evolution and this is a fatal flaw in the Theory of Evolution.Every Helpless Baby Born Proves Darwin Was Wrong
The Theory of Evolution in a nutshell is "Survival of the fittest." But most mammals and birds give birth to helpless babies - instead of strong and fit ones. Neither Darwinism nor Neo-Darwinism can explain infantile helplessness. Every baby that is born contradicts Evolution Theory and this is a fatal flaw.Sometimes I think the term "IDiot" is being too kind.
Steven Vogel is a Professor in the Biology Department at Duke University (N.C., USA). His main research interest is comparative biomechanics. He studies things like the design of fly wings and how organisms adapt to fluids (air and water). His secondary interest is science writing and he has published four books: Life's Devices: The Physical World of Animals and Plants (1988); Cats' Paws and Catapults: Mechanical Worlds of Nature and People (1999); Prime Mover: A Natural History of Muscle (2001); Comparative Biomechanics: Life's Physical World (2003).This book is mainly about organisms, so we will be concerned with a level of biological organization upon which the invisible hand of the selective process should incur fairly immediate consequences. It is the immediacy of operation of that unseen hand that makes organisms appear well designed—as a colleague of mine put it, "The good designs literally eat the bad designs." But it must be emphasized that we mean "design" in a somewhat unusual sense, implying only a functionally competent arrangement of parts resulting from natural selection. In its more common sense, implying anticipation, "design" is a misnomer—it connotes the teleological heresy of goal or purpose. Still, verbal simplicity is obtained by talking teleologically—teeth are for biting and ears for hearing. And the attribution of purpose isn't a bad guide to investigation—biting isn't just an amusing activity incidental to the possession of teeth. If an organism is arranged in a way that seems functionally inappropriate, the most likely explanation (by the test of experience) is that one's view of its functioning is faulty. As the late Frits Went said, "Teleology is a great mistress, but no one you'd like to be seen with in public."
We functional, organismic biologists are sometimes accused of assuming a kind of perfection in the the living world—"adaptationism" has become the pejorative term—largely because we find the presumption of a decent fit between organims and habitat a useful working hypothesis. But the designs of nature are certainly imperfect. At the very least, perfection would require an infinite number of generations in an unchanging world, and a fixed world entails not only a stable physical environment but the preposterous notion that no competing species undergoes evolutionary change. Furthermore, we're dealing with an incremental process of trial and error. In such a scheme, major innovation is not a simple matter—features that will ultimately prove useful are most unlikely to persist through stages in which they are deleterious or neutral. So-called hopeful monsters are not in good odor. Many good designs are simply not available on the evolutionary landscape because they involve unbridgeable functional discontinuities. Instead, obviously jury-rigged arrangements occur because they entail milder transitions. In addition, the constraints on what evolution can come up with must be greater in more multifunctional structures. Finally a fundamentally poorer, but established and thus well-tuned, design, may win in competition with one that is bascially better but still flawed.
I make these points with some sense of urgency since this book is incorrigibly adaptationist in its outlook and teleological in its verbiage. The limitations of this viewpoint will not insistently be repeated, so the requisite grain of salt should be in the mind of the reader as well as the author. Incidentally, the ad hoc character of many features of organisms are recounted with grace and wit in some of the essays of Stephen Jay Gould, not just as an argument against extreme adaptationism but as evidence for the blindly mechanical and thus somewhat blundering process of evolution. His collection entitled The Panda's Thumb (1980) is particularly appropriate here.
TEACH THE SCIENCE AND IGNORE STUDENTS’ PRIOR BELIEFS
This is the most common approach to teaching evolution. Students are exposed to the factual material on evolution from a strictly scientific perspective. The fact that most students may have conflicting religious beliefs is not taken into consideration and no time is spent discussing possible conflicts between religion and science. Nelson points out that this strategy is ineffective at getting students to change their minds about evolution. He adds, "However, when students make direct comparisons of their naïve misconceptions with scientifically better-founded schemes, change is frequent. These approaches can lead to greater acceptance of evolution (e.g., Ingram & Nelson, 2005; Scharmann, 2005; Scharmann et al., 2005; Verhey, 2005; Wilson, 2005, 2007; Alters, 2005 reviews earlier work). Thus, naïve views predominate publicly with regard to evolution, perhaps even more than elsewhere in science, at least partly as a predictable consequence of post-secondary pedagogical choices that ignore naïve views and are otherwise sub-optimal."
He's saying that it's better to confront creationism and intelligent design than to ignore it.
AVOIDING AN EVEN WORSE APPROACH: TWO EQUAL MODELSNelson advocates the teaching of creationism and intelligent design in school, but not as science. Instead, they should be used as examples of what science is not. It would be an excellent way of confronting the misconceptions of students head-on to show them why these false ideas are wrong. He echoes a similar call by Bruce Alberts writing in Cell [A Wakeup Call for Science Faculty].
One alternative is to teach both evolution creationism but to treat them as equivalent theories of origins. This is not appropriate.
For all those who teach college biology, the current challenge posed by the intelligent design movement presents an ideal “teachable moment.” I believe that intelligent design should be taught in college science classes but not as the alternative to Darwinism that its advocates demand. It is through the careful analysis of why intelligent design is not science that students can perhaps best come to appreciate the nature of science itself.Alberts is talking about college courses but Nelson wants to use these "teachable moments" in high school. He suggests three possible strategies.
The current issue of Christianity Today contains an article by William Lane Craig entitled God Is Not Dead Yet: How current philosophers argue for his existence. Craig is a Professor of Philosophy at the Talbot School of Theology of Biola University, an evangelical Christian college near Los Angeles. His website is Reasonable Faith.You might think from the recent spate of atheist best-sellers that belief in God has become intellectually indefensible for thinking people today. But a look at these books by Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens, among others, quickly reveals that the so-called New Atheism lacks intellectual muscle. It is blissfully ignorant of the revolution that has taken place in Anglo-American philosophy. It reflects the scientism of a bygone generation rather than the contemporary intellectual scene.Craig defends the idea that there are rational arguments for the existence of God. In other words, believers do not need to fall back on revelation as their only defense of superstitious beliefs.
The renaissance of Christian philosophy has been accompanied by a resurgence of interest in natural theology, that branch of theology that seeks to prove God's existence apart from divine revelation. The goal of natural theology is to justify a broadly theistic worldview, one that is common among Christians, Jews, Muslims, and deists. While few would call them compelling proofs, all of the traditional arguments for God's existence, not to mention some creative new arguments, find articulate defenders today.What's interesting about this claim is that the arguments (see below) are the very ones that Dawkins discusses in The God Delusion. You might recall that there are many theists who argue that there are much better, more sophisticated, arguments that Dawkins ignores.1 I thought it would be fun to list the arguments here so we can see how the modern theist justifies belief in God. You'll have to read the article to see how Craig deals with objections to each one.
The cosmological argumentThere you have it. These are the rational arguments for the existence of God from a Professor of Philosophy at a Christian college. Read 'em and weep, all you heathen atheists!The kalam cosmological argument
- Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause.
- If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.
- The universe exists.
- Therefore, the explanation of the universe's existence is God.
The teleological argument
- Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
- The universe began to exist.
- Therefore, the universe has a cause.
The moral argument
- The fine-tuning of the universe is due either to physical necessity, chance, or design.
- It is not due to physical necessity or chance.
- Therefore, it is due to design.
The ontological argument
- If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.
- Objective moral values and duties do exist.
- Therefore, God exists.
- It is possible that a maximally great being (God) exists.
- If it is possible that a maximally great being exists, then a maximally great being exists in some possible world.
- If a maximally great being exists in some possible world, then it exists in every possible world.
- If a maximally great being exists in every possible world, then it exists in the actual world.
- Therefore, a maximally great being exists in the actual world.
- Therefore, a maximally great being exists.
- Therefore, God exists.
1. We are never told what these arguments are, only that they exist somewhere.
[Hat Tip: Jason Rosenhouse]
What is this protein doing and what is its name? You don't need to identify the species.[Image Credit: Kozono D, Yasui M, King LS, Agre P. (2002)Aquaporin water channels: atomic structure molecular dynamics meet clinical medicine. J Clin Invest. 2002 Jun;109(11):1395-9. [comlete article]]
A lot more is known about the evolution of flowering plants than most people realize. Christopher Taylor over at Catalogue of Organisms1 has done the homework and posts a must-read article on the subject [The Origins of Flowers]. 1. One of the top ten biological science blogs, in my humble opinion.
