Darwin Celebrations at the University of Toronto

 
The University of Toronto is hosting a celebration of Darwin next Novermber [Origin of Species at 150: a celebratory conference].

150 Years after Origin: Biological, Historical, and Philosophical Perspectives

Victoria College, University of Toronto, November 21-24, 2009
Darwin wrote in his autobiography, “In July [1837] I opened my first notebook for facts in relation to the Origin of Species, about which I had long reflected, and never ceased working for the next twenty years.” In 1842, he wrote a “very brief abstract” of his theory (35 pages), which in the summer of 1844 he expanded to 230 pages. Beginning in September 1858, after receiving an essay from Alfred Russell Wallace, “On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type,” which outlined the central mechanism of evolution on which Darwin had been working, he began work on completing the manuscript of The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. John Murray, the publisher, launched the book on November 24, 1859 by releasing 1,250 copies. The impact of The Origin of Species has equalled the impact of Newton’s Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica. It is the unifying theoretical framework for all modern biology.

November 24, 2009 marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin and The Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and the Department of Philosophy at University of Toronto are mounting a Gala Celebratory Conference. The conference will culminate in a gala dinner on November 24 at which participants will toast the tremendous achievement of Charles Robert Darwin.

Five multi-disciplinary symposia have been organized. For each symposium, the panel consists of a biologist, a historian of biology and a philosopher of biology.

The Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology is located on the elegant, historic Victoria University campus (one of the University of Toronto’s federated universities) and the conference will be held in that location

The emphasis is on history and philosophy. It would be a perfect opportunity to put Darwin into the context of the modern world. It would be a crying shame if the conference was wasted on promoting natural selection and misrepresenting modern evolutionary theory. Do the conference organizers really mean it when they say that a 150 year old book, Origin of Species, is, "the unifying theoretical framework for all modern biology?

Here's the preliminary program.

Saturday November 21, 2009

6-7 pm: Keynote Address: to be announced

7-9pm: Reception

Sunday November 22, 2009

9-10 am: Keynote Address
Evelyn Fox Keller (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

10 am-12 pm: Symposium:
Gender, Evolution, and Sexual Selection
Lisa Lloyd (Indiana University)
Marlene Zuk (University of California)
Erika Milam (Clemson University)

12-2 pm: Lunch Break

2-3 pm: Keynote Address
Michael Ruse (Florida State University)

3-4 pm: Contributed Papers Session
to be announced

4-5 pm: Contributed Papers Session
to be announced

5-6 pm: Keynote Address
James Moore (University of Cambridge)

Monday November 23, 2009

9-11 am: Symposium:
Evolution and Development
Manfred Laubichler (Arizona State University)
Jane Maienschein (Arizona State University)
Michael Dietrich (Dartmouth College)

11am-12pm: Contributed Papers Session
to be announced

12-2 pm: Lunch Break

2-4 pm: Symposium:
Species
John Beatty (University of British Columbia)
Kevin de Queiroz (National Museum of Natural History)
Marc Ereshefsky (University of Calgary)

4-5 pm: Contributed Papers Session
to be announced

5-6 pm: Keynote Address
Alison Pearn (Darwin Correspondence Project)

6-7 pm: Special Presentation
A Play: "Re: Design (A Dramatisation of the Correspondence of Charles Darwin and Asa Gray)"

Tuesday November 24, 2009

9-11 am: Symposium:
Taxonomy
Mary Winsor (University of Toronto)
Kevin Padian (Berkeley)
Richard Richards (University of Alabama)

11am-12pm

Contributed Papers Session
to be announced

12-2 pm: Lunch Break

2-4 pm: Symposium:
Ecology
Joan Roughgarden (Stanford University)
Gregg Mitman (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Gregory Cooper (Washington and Lee University)

4-5 pm: Contributed Papers Session
to be announced

5-6 pm: Keynote Address
Sean Carroll (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

6-7 pm: Break

7-8 pm: Keynote Address
Spencer Barrett (University of Toronto)

8-10:30 pm: Origin at 150 Gala Dinner

Most of the speakers are strangers to me. I have no idea where they might be coming from in terms of their understanding of evolutionary theory.

Of the ones I do know, Sean Carroll is a fan of natural selection and Spencer Barrett is a classic adaptationist. It's worrisome that the organizers invited Michael Ruse to give a keynote address. As I've mentioned before, Ruse does not seem to have a very good handle on modern evolutionary theory. I fear that the conference participants will be subjected to a particular point of view that will not be a fair description of how Darwin contributed to modern biology.

If The Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science thinks Michael Ruse is going to give a good overview of Darwin's contribution then this does not bode well for the conference. They should have learned from his appearance at the Royal Ontario Museum last June [Darwinism at the ROM].

At that symposium Ruse asked, "Is Darwin's Theory Past Its "Sell By" Date." I think Michael Ruse has passed his "best before" date. It's time for him to retire.

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Darwin Week Activity at CFI

 
I attended a lecture by Carl Zimmer last summer at the Chautauqua Institute [Carl Zimmer at Chautauqua]. He posted the text on his blog at: Darwin, Linnaeus, and One Sleepy Guy.

Here's one of the important bits ...

I’d like to thank the Chautauqua Institution for inviting me to speak during this week’s series. I’m particularly grateful that the Chautauqua Institute saw fit to make this week’s theme Darwin *and* Linnaeus. We are now descending into a frenzy of Darwin celebrations, and you’re not going to escape it until the end of 2009. We’ve got his 200th birthday in February, and the 150th anniversary of the publication of the Origin of Species in November. The spotlight is going to be on Darwin, and Darwin alone.

I think this is a mistake. Darwin deserves celebrating, but that doesn’t mean we should fall prey to a cult of personality. Darwin did not invent biology. Darwin did not even find most of the evidence that he used to back up his theory of evolution. And he certainly did not discover all there was to know about evolution. Biologists have discovered many new things about evolution since his time. In some cases, they’ve challenged some of his most important arguments. And that’s fine. That’s the great strength of science.

So today I’m going to take advantage of our dual celebration of Linnaeus and Darwin. I’m going to talk about the process of science, how great thinkers challenge the thinkers of the past, how their own great ideas are altered by future generations. I’m going to talk about why Linnaeus was so important, and how Darwin shattered some of Linnaeus’s most cherished claims. I’m also going to talk about modern biologists have done the same to Darwin.

The best way to convey how drastically biology has changed since Darwin’s day is to focus on one group of living things. It’s a group about which Darwin–and Linnaeus–had little to say. I’m going to talk about microbes.

Carl was pointing out the obvious. Science has not stood still since 1859, the year that Origin of Species was published. As we approach the celebrations in February and November it's important to keep this in mind. That's why I'm giving a talk about the modern view of evolution and how it builds upon, but differs from, the views of Charles Darwin in 1859.

Come listen ...

Darwin Week Activity: Pre and Post Darwinian Science with Larry Moran

Starts: Friday, February 13th at 7:00 pm

Ends: Friday, February 13th at 9:30 pm

Location: Centre for Inquiry Ontario, 216 Beverley St, Toronto ON (1 minute south of College St at St. George St)

What was science like before Darwin, and how did it change after Darwin?

Larry Moran will be discussing our modern scientific world in light of the impact Darwin and his theory of evolution due to natural selection has had on it.

Larry Moran is a Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Toronto.

$5, $3 for students and FREE for Friends of the Centre

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How Does Your Blood Clot?

Some of you have been following the smackdown of Casey Luskin over his attempt to revive the irreducible complexity of the blood clotting cascade. This is a complicated pathway so I wrote a bunch of postings last year to try and explain the pathway at the molecular level.

Theme

Blood Clotting
Here's the complete list in case anyone wants more information in order to follow the discussion.

March 26, 2007
Monday's Molecule #19. Warfarin—an anticoagulant and a rat poison.

March 27, 2007
Vitamin K. Vitamin K plays an important role in blood clotting.

March 28, 2007
Nobel Laureates: Dam and Doisy. Dam: "for his discovery of vitamin K" Doisy: "for his discovery of the chemical nature of vitamin K".

April 2, 2007
Monday's Molecule #20. Heparin—an anticoagulant.

April 2, 2007
Blood Clotting: The Basics. Fibrinogen and how it forms clots.

April 4, 2007
Nobel Laureate: Arne Tiselius. "for his research on electrophoresis and adsorption analysis, especially for his discoveries concerning the complex nature of the serum proteins".

April 4, 2007
Blood Clotting: Platelets. What are platelets and how do they form blood clots?

April 4, 2007
Blood Clotting: Extrinsic Activity and Platelet Activation. Description of the activity of thrombin and the activation of blood platelets.

April 5, 2007
Blood Clotting: Intrinsic Activity. The role of factors VIII and IX. Deficiencies in Factor VIII cause hemophilia A an X-linked form of hemophilia that was common in European royal families descending from Queen Victoria.

April 8, 2007
Genes for Hemophilia A & B and von Willebrand disease. Locations of the F8, F9 and vWF genes on human chromosomes X and 12.

April 12, 2007
Inhibiting Blood Clots: Anticoagulants. How does heparin inhibit blood clotting?

April 15, 2007
Human Anticoagulant Genes. Mapping the genes for anticoagulant factors.

April 16, 2007
Dicumarol and Warfarin Inhibit Blood Clotting. The role of vitamin K in blood clotting.

September 26, 2007
A Synthetic Anticoagulant Related to Heparin. Synthesis of a new anticoagulant to replace heparin.

April 26, 2008
Fibrin and Blood Clots.
What does a blog clot look like?

May 10, 2008
On the Evolution of the Blood Clotting Pathway.
Ian Musgrave explains Russel Doolittle's latest results.

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George Johnson Revists His Defense of Scienc Journalism

 
John Horgan and George Johnson are at it again. They clarify some important points in a followup to their earlier discussion about science journalism (see Who the Heck Is George Johnson?).


John Horgan asks the key question when he says, "Where do we get informed criticism of science these days?"

George Johnson points out that there's a lot of junk on the internet and this includes most science blogs. He does go out of his way to mention the best science blogs but he seems to be surprised and upset at the amount of junk masquerading as legitimate science.

He's right, of course, but that's not the point. What Johnson still seems to ignore is the criticism of traditional print science journalism. I'm not saying that science blogs are perfect—far from it—what I'm saying is that the hubris of science journalists is unjustified. They're not nearly as good as they think they are. As a matter of fact, in my opinion the quality of science on science blogs is superior to the quality of science described by science journalists in the print media.

As a general rule, science journalists are better writers but they are not necessarily better at describing the correct science. It's the content of articles by science journalists that I'm criticizing, not their literary style. I don't think George Johnson gets this. He seems to put all of his emphasis on the literary aspect of science journalism and not enough on the scientific accuracy part of science journalism. Johnson admires good writing.

John Horgan gets it. His main complaint is that it's the scientists, and not the science journalists who are hyping their discoveries and misrepresenting the importance of their work. Horgan points out that scientists are often too deeply immersed in their work to see the big picture. George Johnson is happy to agree with him. I agree too—it's scientists who are behind bad science.¹

However, both Horgan and Johnson see themselves as writers who are able to rise above this self-interest on the part of scientists and put things in proper context. According to them, the role of a science journalist is to pick out the real breakthroughs and to present an accurate view of the science, unencumbered by the prejudices and biases of those scientists who are down in the trenches.

I agree that this should be the goal of science journalism. What I expect of good science journalism is that it avoid the hype and put the science in context. In that sense, Horgan and Johnson are correct—they have identified an important role for science journalism.

So, how's it working out? Badly, I'm afraid. Most science journalists who write about the things I know are failing miserably at this important task. Their prose may be good but they are completely taken in by the scientists who exploit them. This would be unacceptable if we were talking about political reporting or the writings of an art critic. It's just as unacceptable when we're talking about science reporting. That's the issue.

While scientists are responsible for bad science in the first place, it also seems to be scientists who recognize bad science. I don't see too many examples of science journalists who recognize bad science. As a group they seem to be very gullible.

Here's the excerpt where Horgan and Johnson discuss the future of science journalism. Horgan is pessimistic and Johnson is more of an optimist. The first part of this excerpt is where Johnson defends the effort that science journalists put into their work. Science journalists may work hard but you don't get "A's" just for effort.


It's interesting to hear Johnson defend Scientific American and Discovery as good examples of science journalism. It's more evidence that he doesn't know the difference between good science and bad science.

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1. Listen to the exchange when John Horgan describes evolutionary psychology. Horgan knows that a lot of it is garbage. Johnson doesn't. I think this is part of Johnson's problem. He doesn't seem to have a good feel for the difference between good science and bad science in spite of the fact that he (Johnson) brags about the amount of work that goes into good science journalism and how important it is to have good sources. Johnson seems to think that most articles written by science journalists must be accurate because science journalists are supposed to do their homework. That's a bad assumption.

Monday's Molecule #102

 
Name this molecule. Your task is to identify the molecule and give it a biochemically accurate name (the IUPAC name would be perfect, but it's not required). A Nobel Laureate is associated with this molecule, and similar molecules, because the prize was awarded, in part, for synthesizing them in the laboratory.

The first one to correctly identify the molecule and name the Nobel Laureate wins a free lunch at the Faculty Club. Previous winners are ineligible for one month from the time they first collected the prize.

There are three ineligible candidates for this week's reward: Alex Ling of the University of Toronto, Timothy Evans of the University of Pennsylvania, and John Bothwell of the Marine Biological Association of the UK in Plymouth, UK. John, Dale, and a previous winner (Ms. Sandwalk) have offered to donate their free lunch to a deserving undergraduate so the next two undergraduates to win and collect a free lunch can also invite a friend. Alex got the first one.

THEME:

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

Correct responses will be posted tomorrow. I reserve the right to select multiple winners if several people get it right.

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

UPDATE: The molecule is gibberellin A3 (GA3), a plant hormone. The Nobel Laureate is Elias Corey. The winner is, once again, Dima Klenchin of the University of Wisconsin. Congratulations Dima.

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The Open Laboratory 2009

 
The best science postings have been selected for the 3rd edition of The Open Laboratory. See the results: The Open Laboratory 2008 - and the Winners are......

There are 50 articles. This year the number of postings from the SEED consortium is only 20% of the total, indicating that there are a lot of other science blogs out there.

Out of the eclectic mix I picked the few that discussed evolutionary biology or the molecular biological sciences. Here they are.

Important new flu paper in Cell: part I

Detecting natural selection: a pika's tale

Space Invader DNA jumped across mammalian genomes

Finches, bah! What about Darwin's tomatoes?

Biochemistry of Halloween: Installment 1

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What Does Your Genome Sequence Reveal?

 
John Hawks has some interesting comments about your DNA. What does it actually tell you about your risk of dying or inheriting some nasty symptoms? What would a third party do with your genome scan? Will newspapers publish the results of secretly obtained genetic information from politicians and other famous people?

Would that be an invasion of privacy? Of course it would.

Read Privacy, politicians, and genetic testing.

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Top Ten Evolution Articles from New Scientist

 
In my opinion, New Scientist is the best of the current crop of science magazines for the general public, although, in all honesty, the competition is not very challenging.

New Scientist has published Darwin's dangerous idea: Top 10 evolution articles. Most of them are fairly respectable. The main exception is an article on epigenetics [Rewriting Darwin: The new non-genetic inheritance]. That article is an embarrassment.

One of the best articles is Evolution: 24 myths and misconceptions. I've already posted my kudos at: Evolution: 24 myths and misconceptions. One of the nicest things about the series of articles is their description of random genetic drift as an important player in evolution; for example, Evolution myths: Natural selection is the only means of evolution.

Which brings me to the last article in the top ten list: Freedom from selection lets genes get creative. Here's what it says about random genetic drift.

Natural selection, first identified by Charles Darwin in On the Origin of Species, occurs when genetic mutations cause changes in the body and behaviour of an animal that affect its ability to survive and pass on its genes. Some mutations will have positive effects, others may kill an animal outright or somehow affect its offspring's ability to survive and reproduce. Harsh climates, sparse food and relentless predators destroy many individuals, leaving only those that survive best under exactly those pressures. As a result, the more intense the pressure of natural selection, the tighter the fit between a species and its niche.

So, what happens when the pressure is off? You might think there would be little impetus to adapt, so that species would pretty much stay the same. Not so, says Deacon. Animals still change because genes mutate all the time. The constant rewriting of DNA supplies the raw material from which natural selection picks its winners and losers, and when selection is relaxed, the process of weeding out is less ferocious. Instead, a process called genetic drift kicks in as mutations proliferate and animals with a much wider variety of traits are able to survive and reproduce. Some of the classic traits of a species may be lost, while others can arise for no reason other than that it simply doesn't matter if they do.

Close, but it doesn't quite merit a cigar. Drift does not "kick in" when selection pressure is lifted. Drift occurs all the time. It even competes with natural selection.

And while it's partially true that, "the more intense the pressure of natural selection, the tighter the fit between a species and its niche" it's also true that intense "pressure" increases the chance of extinction.

It seems strange that popular journals can publish articles about evolution that disagree with each other and nobody (editors?) seems to notice.

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Happy New Year

 
This is a year to celebrate Charles Darwin and evolution. In order to start off on the right foot here are some simple¹ thoughts from our Intelligent Design Creationist friends over at Uncommon Descent [TEN THOUGHTS DARWINISTS NEED TO PONDER BEFORE BREAKFAST].

As we head into the new year and the impending Darwin bi-centennial on February 12th, we’re sure to be regaled with story after story of the wondrous things that Darwinian evolution hath wrought. A friend e-mailed the following to me, and with his permission, I reproduce it here below the fold. Perhaps pondering some of these questions might bring some balance to what is otherwise sure to be a lopsided Darwin love-fest for the next couple of months. The original of this can be found at the University of California Santa Barbara Veritas Forum website.

1. Evolution by natural selection is more plausible in a theistic world than an atheistic world.
2. Darwin never accounted for the arrival of the fittest. Naturalism’s god-of-chance is always called upon to do the job.
3. Science rules out the possibility that natural processes might prevent major evolutionary change simply by definition because biological stability and conservation would imply that creation events had taken place since the creation of the universe.
4. Creation preceded Evolution anyway.
5. Edward Blyth described the process of natural selection well before Darwin and Wallace. He concluded that it acted as a force of conservation eliminating deterimental variations from populations.
6. Darwin admitted that based upon the data published in his Origin of Species, one could come to “directly opposite” conclusions. For example, natural selection can prevent major evolutionary change from occurring on a gradual step-by-step basis by eliminating useless transitional stages thus explaining the lack of transitional sequences leading to all of the major body plans (phyla) in the fossil record.
7. Natural selection better describes biology’s “ordinary rules of stability” than major evolutionary change.
8. Darwinian theory predicts a pervasive pattern of natural history that is upside-down from the pattern found in the fossil record.
9. Natural history is more compatible with progressive creation than Darwinian evolution.
10. The ultimate origin of Nature itself cannot be natural. Either Nature or a Natural Law Giver has always existed. Nature has not always existed. What do you conclude?

All these questions, and more, will be answered at the Darwin 2009 Festival in Cambridge, July 5-10, 2009. Speakers include Sir David Attenborough, Dr. Matt Ridley, Lord John Krebs, Professor Steve Jones, Dame Gillian Beer, Lord Robert May, Richard Dawkins, Professor Dan Dennett, Ian McEwan and AS Byatt.

Is anyone from North America interested in going?

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1. I use the term very literally.

Another Way of Knowing?

Thanks to one of our favorite IDiots, Michael Egnor, we now have an answer to an important question. The question is whether there are ways of knowing other than science (evidence + rationalism). Egnor's answer is .... wait for it .... subjective experience! [My Challenge to Dr. Novella: The Materialist Color Tutor’s Dilemma].

Imagine a tutor who specializes in teaching children about color. He’s a materialist, named…Steve. He knows all that is known about color. He knows the physics, the optics, the chemistry, the neurobiology, everything. A family retains him to teach their child, a prodigy, all that can be known about color.

Tudor Steve goes to work. He teaches the little genius about quantum mechanics with relevant application of string theory to flesh out the more subtle issues, then goes on to teach the precocious child chemistry, optics, neurobiology, all of the material and physical facts about color. The child excels in color class in school, acing all of the exams on the physics and the chemistry and the neurobiology.

Then, one day, the boy confides in tutor Steve: the child is color-blind. He has learned all of the physical facts about color, but he has no idea what color looks like. He knows that tutor Steve is a materialist, so he assumes that all there is to know about color can be explained from a materialistic standpoint, including what color looks like. That’s why the child’s parents hired Steve the materialistic color tutor.

So the boy asks tutor Steve:

"Please explain to me what color looks like."

Materialist color tutor Steve has a dilemma. Material facts about color can, of course, be taught. But can ‘what it is like to see color,’ the subjective experience of color, be taught? If it can’t, then there is knowledge of color that is not material knowledge. Therefore materialism cannot completely explain the subjective experience (the qualia) of color. Therefore subjective experience is something in addition to matter. And therefore dualism is necessary to explain the mind.

How would materialist tutor Steve explain what color looks like to a person who is color blind?

That's a tough question all right. But it's only one of many difficult questions of this type. Here are some others that Michael Egnor might want to ponder.

• How do you explain intelligence to someone who is stupid?
• How do you explain what it's like to be abducted by UFO's if you've never been kidnapped by aliens?
• How does a bat explain echolocation to a human?
• How do you explain astrology to someone who doesn't know their birthday?
• How do you explain love, or anger, to someone who has never been angry or in love?
• How do you explain homeopathy to someone who has never been cured by drinking water?
• How do you explain Canada to someone who has never been there?
• Where are the weapons of mass destruction?
• Does Michael Egnor exist?

Hands up, all those who think these questions reveal non-scientific ways of knowing about the truth? How many think that human feelings and emotions cannot be explained by science and scientific reasoning? Has Michael Egnor proved that UFOs astrology homeopathy God exists?

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Religion may have evolved because of its ability to help people exercise self-control

 
Here's an example of evolutionary thinking by a psychologist at the University of Miami. Read the press release (below) and watch the video. It's only when you watch the video that you realize where Professor McCullough is coming from on this issue. He uses the word "evolution" to talk about cultural phenomena without necessarily including genetic changes. In other words, he is not talking about biological evolution.

This can be very confusing and I recommend that evolutionary psychologists change their practice. They should refer to "cultural evolution" and distinguish it from "biological evolution" whenever possible.

Religion may have evolved because of its ability to help people exercise self-control

A study by a University of Miami psychologist reveals that religion facilitates the exercise of self-control and attainment of long-term goals

CORAL GABLES, FL (December 30, 2008)—Self-control is critical for success in life, and a new study by University of Miami professor of Psychology Michael McCullough finds that religious people have more self-control than do their less religious counterparts. These findings imply that religious people may be better at pursuing and achieving long-term goals that are important to them and their religious groups. This, in turn, might help explain why religious people tend to have lower rates of substance abuse, better school achievement, less delinquency, better health behaviors, less depression, and longer lives.

In this research project, McCullough evaluated 8 decades worth of research on religion, which has been conducted in diverse samples of people from around the world. He found persuasive evidence from a variety of domains within the social sciences, including neuroscience, economics, psychology, and sociology, that religious beliefs and religious behaviors are capable of encouraging people to exercise self-control and to more effectively regulate their emotions and behaviors, so that they can pursue valued goals. The research paper, which summarizes the results of their review of the existing science, will be published in the January 2009 issue of Psychological Bulletin.

"The importance of self-control and self-regulation for understanding human behavior are well known to social scientists, but the possibility that the links of religiosity to self-control might explain the links of religiosity to health and behavior has not received much explicit attention," said McCullough. "We hope our paper will correct this oversight in the scientific literature." Among the most interesting conclusions that the research team drew were the following:

• Religious rituals such as prayer and meditation affect the parts of the human brain that are most important for self-regulation and self-control;
• When people view their goals as "sacred," they put more energy and effort into pursuing those goals, and therefore, are probably more effective at attaining them;
• Religious lifestyles may contribute to self-control by providing people with clear standards for their behavior, by causing people to monitor their own behavior more closely, and by giving people the sense that God is watching their behavior;
• The fact that religious people tend to be higher in self-control helps explain why religious people are less likely to misuse drugs and alcohol and experience problems with crime and delinquency.

McCullough's review of the research on religion and self-control contributes to a better understanding of "how the same social force that motivates acts of charity and generosity can also motivate people to strap bomb belts around their waists and then blow themselves up in crowded city buses," he explained. "By thinking of religion as a social force that provides people with resources for controlling their impulses (including the impulse for self-preservation, in some cases) in the service of higher goals, religion can motivate people to do just about anything."

Among the study's more practical implications is that religious people may have at their disposal a set of unique psychological resources for adhering to their New Year's Resolutions in the year to come.

I leave it up to you, dear readers, to decide whether non-religious people (atheists) tend to have higher rates of substance abuse, worse school achievement, more delinquency, worse health behaviors, more depression, and shorter lives. It would imply that countries like Sweden, where half the population is non-religious, are in much worse shape than America, where more than 80% is religious. It would imply that extremely religious countries like Saudi Arabia must be near-perfect societies full of very old people.

Incidentally, the idea of "self-control" is not well explained. If you behave in a certain way because you fear punishment from your god or your priests, then this isn't exactly what I think of when I use the term "self-control."

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What Is the New Atheism?

Andrew Brown blogs at Helmintholog and also at AndrewBrown's Blog, part of the Guardian website. Andrew and I met in London a few years ago. We had an interesting discussion.

Yesterday Andrew posted a provocative article where he attempts to define the New Atheism [The New Atheism, a definition and a quiz]. He is not a fan, to put it mildly.

So, who does he rely on to construct a definition of the New Atheists?

The ideas I claim are distinctive of the new atheists have been collected from Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Jerry Coyne, the American physicist Robert L. Park, and a couple of blogging biologists, P Z Myers and Larry Moran. They have two things in common. They are none of them philosophers and, though most are scientists, none study psychology, history, the sociology of religion, or any other discipline which might cast light on the objects of their execration. All of them make claims about religion and about believers which go far beyond the mere disbelief in God which I take to be the distinguishing mark of an atheist.

That's very distinguished company. I'm flattered. I guess it means I'll have to take the quiz!

Quiz? Yes, that's right, Andrew proposes that we atheists 'fess up to six propositions that represent the New Atheist position, or at least the Andrew Brown version of New Atheism.

All of these propositions will be found in the authors I have cited as well as in the comments to religious articles here. I sometimes think that only the last two are unique to the new atheists: you can certainly find the others in earlier authors. But those are the six doctrines which I would reject when saying rude things about the new atheists.

What would be interesting in comments is if people would score themselves out of six. I expect that one of the most common forms of disagreement would be to claim that you are a three or a four, but none the less the believers are so repulsive and dangerous that the other two points just don't matter. That's how politics works, after all, and the new atheism is interesting as a political or social movement, not an intellectual one.

Challenge accepted.

Here are the six propositions and my position on each of them.

1. There is something called "Faith" which can be defined as unjustified belief held in the teeth of the evidence. Faith is primarily a matter of false propositional belief.

I agree.

2. The cure for faith is science: The existence of God is a scientific question: either he exists or he doesn't. "Science is the only way of knowing – everything else is just superstition" [Robert L. Park]

I agree, as long as we understand that science is a way of knowing that relies on evidence and rationality. The other, undefined, ways of "knowing" will reject either evidence or rationality.

The question before us is whether supernatural beings exist or not. I fail to see why a scientist isn't as competent to answer that question as those who study "psychology, history, the sociology of religion, or any other discipline which might cast light on the objects of their execration." The object of my attention (not execration) is supernatural beings. Why would a psychologist or a sociologist know more about their possible existence than I do?

3. Science is the opposite of religion, and will lead people into the clear sunlit uplands of reason. "The real war is between rationalism and superstition. Science is but one form of rationalism, while religion is the most common form of superstition" [Jerry Coyne] "I am not attacking any particular version of God or gods. I am attacking God, all gods, anything and everything supernatural, wherever and whenever they have been or will be invented." [Dawkins]

I agree, except for the minor quibble that science is not the opposite of religion. Religion is a set of beliefs based almost exclusively on the worship of supernatural beings. I think that religion is silly because these supernatural beings do not exist. Belief in such beings is not the opposite of the scientific way of knowing: it is outside of the scientific way of knowing. Such beliefs are based on some other, undefined, way of knowing that we may refer to as superstition for want of a better term.¹ The battle is between rationalism and superstition.

4. In this great struggle, religion is doomed. Enlightened common sense is gradually triumphing and at the end of the process, humanity will assume a new and better character, free from the shackles of religion. Without faith, we would be better as well as wiser. Conflict is primarily a result of misunderstanding, of which Faith is the paradigm. (Looking for links, I just came across a lovely example of this in the endnotes to the Selfish Gene, where lawyers are dismissed as "solving man-made problems that should never have existed in the first place".)

I agree.

5. Religion exists. It is essentially something like American fundamentalist protestantism, or Islam. More moderate forms are false and treacherous: if anything even more dangerous, because they conceal the raging, homicidal lunacy that is religion's true nature. [Sam Harris]

I don't agree with all of this. While it's true that even moderate forms of religion are based on the irrational belief in non-existent beings, that only makes them false—not treacherous, and certainly not homicidal. Most modern religions are trying to promote good things that I support. The mistake theists make is in assuming that you have to believe in non-existent beings in order to be good.

6. Faith, as defined above, is the most dangerous and wicked force on earth today and the struggle against it and especially against Islam will define the future of humanity. [Everyone]

Nonsense. We will be better off when people abandon their belief in supernatural beings but that's a far cry from saying that such superstitious beliefs are the most dangerous and wicked force on Earth.²

I have never singled out Islam for special attention. As a matter of fact, I am very much opposed to characterizing the current struggles as a war between Islam and Christianity. I may not be an historian but I know enough history to understand that Islam has a solid track record of tolerance and understanding. Probably a better record than Christianity.

What's my score? I agree with the first four propositions and disagree with the last two. I guess that means I'm not a true New Atheist. I should have known that those other guys were too good for me.

Oops, PZ only gives himself 2 out of 6 [Oh, no! The New Atheists are getting attacked again!]. I guess I'm more of a New Atheist than he is. Go figure.

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1. I anxiously await Andrew Brown's next essay when he defines the New Theism and reveals to us these other ways of thinking.

2. Earth, the planet, begins with an upper-case letter, just as the names of all the other planets do.

[Hat Tip: Richard Dawkins.net]

On Darwin and Atheism, by Richard Dawkins

 
Richard Dawkins posts a comment about an article written by Madeleine Bunting [Darwin shouldn't be hijacked by New Atheists - he is an ethical inspiration]. She repeats the rather boring complaint that the "New Atheists" are about to hijack the 2009 celebrations.

She says,

In particular, what would have baffled Darwin is his recruitment as standard bearer for atheism in the 21st century. Darwin kept his pronouncements on religion to a minimum, partly out of respect for his Christian wife. Despite continuing claims that he was an atheist, most scholars acknowledge that he never went further than agnosticism.

Richard Dawkins replied ...

It is true that Darwin declined to call himself an atheist. But his motive, clearly expressed to the atheist intellectual Edward Aveling (incidentally the common-law husband of Karl Marx's daughter) was that Darwin didn't want to upset people. Atheism, in Darwin's view, was all well and good for the intelligentsia, but ordinary people were not yet "ripe" for atheism. So he called himself an agnostic, largely for diplomatic reasons..

In any case, what Darwin chose to call himself, as a pillar of his local parish in the nineteenth century, is of less interest than the cogency of the arguments themselves. Before Darwin came along, it was pretty difficult to be an atheist, at least to be an atheist free of nagging doubts. Darwin triumphantly made it EASY to be an intellectually fulfilled and satisfied atheist. That doesn't mean that understanding Darwin drives you inevitably to atheism. But it certainly constitutes a giant step in that direction.

I stand with Dawkins¹ except that I would include all of the modern scientific advances as additional facts that make it easy to be an atheist and difficult to believe in supernatural beings.

Science doesn't turn you into an atheist but it sure as heck poses a severe challenge to most established religions. That's why religions fear science.

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1. On the issue of superstition vs. rationality, I'm in (almost) complete agreement with Richard Dawkins and I admire him greatly for writing The God Delusion. On the issue of evolutionary theory, I'm not in complete agreement.

An Adaptationist View of Stephen Jay Gould

In last week's issue of Nature, Steve Jones reviews Stephen Jay Gould: Reflections on His View of Life. Jones is part of the British school of Darwinism, along with Richard Dawkins, the late John Maynard Smith, and others.¹ This group shares many perspectives on evolutionary theory including an emphasis on natural selection. They are also united in their dislike of, and misunderstanding of, Stephen Jay Gould.

The misunderstanding shows up in several places in the Jones review [A wonderful life by leaps and bounds].

Being part of the anti-Gould school means that Jones is obliged to trot out the famous quotation by Maynard Smith (it's part of their oath of allegiance).

Gould held fast to Darwin's maxim that "All observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service", and was among that band who felt that those not for him must be against him — which was not much help in keeping friends. The great biologist John Maynard Smith wrote that most evolutionists saw Gould as "a man whose ideas are so confused as to be hardly worth bothering with, but as one who should not be publicly criticized because at least he is on our side against the creationists".

Gould was hurt by that acidulous statement, which was without doubt unfair.

Of course it was unfair—so why repeat it? The statement says more about the British Darwinists than about Gould. The fact that they find Gould's ideas "confusing" isn't something to be proud of.

One of Gould's major contributions to evolutionary theory was punctuated equilbiria, with Niles Eldredge. The basic idea is that the fossil record shows millions of years of stasis (no change) and when change occurs it takes place relatively quickly during speciation by cladogenesis (splitting). After that, the two species (parent and daughter) continue to exist together in the same environment.

The morphological changes that occur when a new species is formed are not dramatic. They are similar to the differences between closely related modern species. In many cases it takes an expert to even recognize the new species in the fossil record.

Punctuated equilibrium is a theory of speciation and stasis. The changes during speciation may be due to natural selection or some form of random genetic drift. That's not what's important about punctuated equilbria—what's important is that change is coupled to speciation and nothing happens for most of the life of a species.

Here's what Steve Jones has to say about it.

Whatever the importance of sudden leaps in the fossil record, his notorious idea of punctuated equilibria, nicknamed 'punk eek' and referred to as 'evolution by jerks' by some of its critics — their own views characterized by Gould as "evolution by creeps" — gave the fossilized field of palaeontology a much-needed kick in the pants. Gould saw punk eek as a "coordinating centrepiece" that "congealed into a coherent critique" of evolutionary theory. Many biologists, by contrast, insist that what look like palaeontological leaps can be explained by simple Darwinism. To them, an instant in geology may represent almost an infinity in biology, leaving plenty of time for evolution by natural selection to do its normal job.

He just doesn't get it, does he? The speciation event takes place over a period of about one hundred thousand years as Gould and Eldredge explained. That's plenty of time for selection, or drift, or founder effect, or whatever. Punctuated equilibria is not a challenge to natural selection, it's a challenge to gradualism.

Furthermore, anyone who refers to punctuated equilibria as "sudden leaps" is revealing an understanding of the theory that's no better than that of the creationists. As is anyone who thinks that "Darwinism" explains speciation.

His other great passion, contingency — the notion that evolution goes on with sudden bangs rather than protracted whimpers — has also not held up particularly well. Wonderful Life, Gould's 1989 book on the Burgess Shale, suggests that the obscure fauna of the late pre-Cambrian represents a lost universe wiped out by some unknown disaster, but now we know that they have descendants among modern animals. Even so, scientific ideas often change, and that volume, like most of his others, remains a rattling good read. The fact that nature must build on what it has, and not on what it wants, is still at the centre of evolutionary thinking.

Talk about confused thinking! When did Gould ever say that contingency is "the notion that evolution goes on with sudden bangs"?

Gould and Lewontin made great play with the parallels between the Spandrel School and the many evolutionists who say that every character in every animal is there for an adaptive reason and if you look hard enough you'll find it.

There's some truth in their argument, but to accept it as the only truth is basically to give up and walk away, to stop being an ornithologist and turn into a bird-watcher. You become somebody who observes rather than analyzes. What they're saying to lots of biologists is, "Abandon hope, go home, and become a liberal-arts graduate!" I may be overcriticizing the Lewontin and Gould view; both of them like to poke people with their sharp pitchforks. The spandrels were a particularly successful poke. But what happened as a result of the famous spandrel paper? The answer is, not much.

Steve Jones in
The Third CultureAs for Wonderful Life, it is, indeed, a book about contingency—just like the movie from which it takes its title. One wonders whether Steve Jones has actually read the book, or seen the movie.

While it's true that some of the unusual Cambrian species that Gould once thought were separate phyla have now been lumped into modern phyla, it's also true that there are many that haven't. Gould's point is that some of those enigmatic Burgess Shale species have left no descendants and, if you could have observed them back then, you would not have been able to pick out the eventual winners and losers. In other words, if you re-wind and replay the tape of life it will come out differently.

Jones is not referring to these species however. He's talking about the "pre-Cambrian" fauna—presumably the Ediacara biota. It's not an important part of Gould's book. As far as I know the relationship between Ediacaran species and modern species is still very controversial. Perhaps Jones has studied this in more detail that I have.

One of the ideas to come out of punctuated equilibria is the idea of species sorting. This makes sense when you think about it. If most speciation occurs by cladogenesis and not by gradual transformation, then over time the number of species in a clade doubles every five to ten million years. Eventually there will be hundreds of similar species. The reason this doesn't happen is that species go extinct. They die.

If species within a clade are "born" and "die" then this looks an awful lot like evolution at a different scale than the birth and death of individuals within a population. The idea of species sorting, where the species in a clade are treated like the individuals within a population, is part of Gould's hierarchical theory of evolution. He claims that it is an extension of the Modern Synthesis.

Whether he's right or wrong doesn't matter. What matters is whether his critics have the intelligence to understand hierarchical theory in general, or species sorting in particular. I don't have much respect for evolutionists who refuse make a modest attempt to understand; it's not rocket science.

Here's what Steve Jones says.

Backwards ran his sentences, and some of his ideas were equally opaque. In support of punk eek, for example, he wrote that "species are individuals ... by all vernacular criteria", which is at best obscure, and at worst obscurantist.

No, Professor Jones, it is not obscure and it is not obscurantist. Gould explains it very well to those who can read his works with an open and intelligent mind. He's talking about species sorting and treating species as "individuals" that are selected within a clade.

As Reflections portrays, its hero showed an increasing regard for style over content, and was resistant to the notion that anyone should dare to edit his writings. The pinnacle — the very summit, crown and peak — of his great Olympus of orotundity was his last voluminous volume, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, published in the year of his death. All the authors agree that this is not a book to be lightly tossed aside, but their motives for saying so vary. Its reviews are quoted with a certain relish: "an elephantine opus"; "pathological logorrhea"; "billowing clouds of verbal flatulence" — but Gould had no doubt of its value. In it he came out with the idea of life as a series of interlocking hierarchies and of a grand unification of its sciences into some post-Darwinian consilience, comprehensible only to the chosen.

The Structure of Evolutionary Theory is long and tedious but those who criticize its ideas are the ones who confuse style over content. I don't agree with many of Gould's ideas about species sorting and hierarchical theory and therefore I stand as the exception to Steve Jone's claim. It was comprehensible to this unchosen one so it must also be comprehensible to others who disagree with Gould. You just have to make the effort.

If you don't make the effort to understand Gould then you should refrain from criticizing him. It doesn't make you look good.

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1. For examples of the Steve Jones perspective on evolution see Have Humans Stopped Evolving? and Steve Jones Says Human Evolution Is Over.

[Image Credit: The Cheltenham Ladies' College]

"Monkey Girl" and False Icons

 
Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion, and the Battle for America's Soul is a book about the Dover trial. It's written by Edward Humes, an ex-newspaper journalist turned author.

The cover of the book shows one of the common, but false, icons of human evolution. This series of skeletons depicts a steady upward march of human evolution from a chimpanzee to modern humans. The image is false in two ways: (1) humans did not evolve from something that looks like modern chimpanzees, and (2) the "progress" was not a linear transformation as depicted, instead, there where many side branches and lineages that went extinct.

This is the icon that Stephen Jay Gould attacked in Wonderful Life and elsewhere in his essays. Even the Intelligent Design Creationists recognize that this is a bad way to depict evolution. Casey Luskin writes in A Partisan Affair (Part 2): False Attacks Upon Discovery Institute in Edward Humes’ Pseudo-History of Kitzmiller, "Monkey Girl".

Any book with an icon of evolution on its cover — in this case, the fanciful diagram of ape-like skeletons transitioning into a human skeleton — is bound to be unfriendly towards intelligent design (ID).

For once I agree with Casey Luskin!!!! The diagram is a fanciful "icon" and the book is unfriendly towards creationists.

I realize that trade book authors don't get much say in cover design but that has to change. I urge all authors to insert a clause in their contracts that requires approval of the cover design and title. Let's try and prevent future embarrassments of this sort.

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