It took Ricky Gervais only one hour to become an atheist

 
Watch the full story in this clip from Inside the Actors Studio, which, incidentally, is one of my favorite shows.

The good bit comes at four and a half minutes.

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[Hat Tip: Friendly Atheist]

Explaining the New Scientist Cover

 
Yesterday I criticized the cover of the latest issue of New Scientist [Darwin Was Wrong?]. There's a good discussion going on at EvolutionBlog [The Trouble With Science Journalism].

I pointed out that the cover was, "an egregious example of journalistic hype and it's unacceptable in a magazine like New Scientist." I also mentioned that the article itself, written by Graham Lawton, contained some interesting—and mostly correct—information about the early history of life.

Graham Lawton posted a comment to my earlier posting where he critized Sandwalk readers because they (we?), "lack a fundamental understanding of how the media works." He was asked to explain. This is how Graham Lawton replied.

The way we work here is that the writer of the piece generally has almost no say over the headline, standfirst and other bits of "page furniture". These are the resonsibility of the copy editor and the sub-editors. The online version often has its own headline, which again is out of the control of the writer (in this case the magazine headline is "Uprooting Darwin's Tree").

Coverlines, similarly, are written not by the writer but by senior editors with the express purpose of selling the magazine (the line between marketing and journalism blurs a little here).

As I'm a senior editor too, however, I can't and won't claim that the coverline was entirely beyond my control. Not my ultimate decision, but I was in on the discussions. We knew we were courting controversy but the feeling was that the story was solid enough to allow us to be provocative and, in any case, the statement is true.

So I feel very strong ownership of the article itself, particularly the print version (and I totally stand by the story, which is the product of weeks of hard work, extensive interviews with scientists, a stack of journal papers and much thought, despite what some bloggers are saying). I feel some ownership of the front cover "sell", though as always I'm acutely aware that it is 50% journalism, 50% sales pitch.

I, for one, am not surprised by this "revelation." I have known for some time that decisions on titles and covers are not made by authors. I've known for some time that decisions about titles and covers can be based on "sales pitch" and "hype" and that scientific accuracy can play a minor role in those decisions.

I'd like to thank Graham Lawton for explaining the process in case there are some people who still don't understand the basics.

The fact that I knew how covers were selected does not affect my criticism of the decision in spite of what Lawton might think. As a matter of fact, now that I know how he was involved as senior editor I can put some of the blame on him. The fact that he defends the cover title ("Darwin Was Wrong") by saying that, "... in any case, the statement is true" is revealing.

It's unusual for a science journalist to be so candid about the trade-off between scientific accuracy and "sales pitch."

As for the article itself, Graham Lawton is quite proud of it. He seems to be implying that the title of the article was not his fault, thereby shifting the blame somewhat to other editors. That position is not going to stand up to close examination of the article.

The first four paragraphs talk about Darwin and what he thought in 1837 and 1859 [Why Darwin was wrong about the tree of life. It will be clear to every reader that this is not just ancient history, the strong implication is that up until recently most evolutionary biologists thought just like Darwin must have thought 150 years ago. They were stuck in the late nineteenth century Victorian mindset. That's why Lawton begins the next paragraph with, "For much of the past 150 years, biology has largely concerned itself with filling in the details of the tree."

That's nonsense, of course. There's a lot more that's been happening in evolutionary biology than just filling in the details of trees. Is it any wonder that the editors picked up on this false notion and created the headline "Darwin Was Wrong"? Graham Lawton, as author of the article, seems to be making exactly that point.

The article would have been much better if Darwin's name had never been mentioned. Darwin knew nothing about molecular evolution and he knew almost nothing about bacteria or the last common ancestor. Dragging Darwin's name into the article serves only to confuse the readers. It's probably another example of "sales pitch" designed to sell the magazine. It may not be only editors who are guilty.

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44 Presidents?

 
This video is very popular these days. The title is "44 US Presidents from George Washington to Barack Obama." There's only one small problem .... there are only 43 different Presidents shown in the video. Can you spot the "missing" President?



How many can you name without watching the video? Please indicate whether you are American or a "foreigner."

Do Americans agree on who the best President was, and on who was the worst President? It seems to me that there are several excellent choices in each category.

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Advice for Prospective Graduate Students: Letters of Recommendation

 
Mark, of Cosmic Variance has some advice about Letters of Recommendation. There's lots of useful information in the posting but here's something that bears repeating.

Perhaps the most important thing for prospective graduate students in particular to keep in mind is that admissions committees, while certainly holding great power over individuals’ futures, are in fact desperately seeking good candidates, and are willing to overlook all kinds of blemishes, indiscretions, and specific weaknesses if they feel that they’re getting a fundamentally good candidate. A single specific fact about an application is very unlikely to ruin a person’s chances (you’d be amazed at the GRE scores of some students admitted to even the top programs). Rather, the committee tries to get an overall picture of the candidate, and then to rank them relative to other candidates (also taking into account the department’s research needs at a given time). Only then are admissions decision taken.

I have certainly missed some issues and subtleties here. But the basic idea should be clear and, if my own experience is anything like typical, then it should help some of you, particularly prospective graduate students, to understand what really goes on with letters. It is quite terrifying to ask people for letters and not to know precisely what’s said in them. Hopefully it helps to know that mostly, by far, you can rely on people to do what they can for you, without being dishonest (and this is important - you can’t expect them to write that you’re one of the best students they’ve ever seen if they don’t think that is the case).

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Darwin Was Wrong?

The cover is this week's issue of New Scientist is sure to get your attention.

I happen to believe that the science of evolutionary biology has moved on since 1859, and I happen to be a proponent of evolutionary processes that Darwin new nothing about. Nevertheless, proclaiming that "Darwin was wrong" is a different story. That's an egregious example of journalistic hype and it's unacceptable in a magazine like New Scientist.

The main article is Why Darwin was wrong about the tree of life. The author is science journalist Graham Lawton.

The essence of the story is that the early history of evolution is probably characterized by a net of life and not a traditional tree. The "net" metaphor is due to many example of lateral gene transfer.

Ever since Darwin the tree has been the unifying principle for understanding the history of life on Earth. At its base is LUCA, the Last Universal Common Ancestor of all living things, and out of LUCA grows a trunk, which splits again and again to create a vast, bifurcating tree. Each branch represents a single species; branching points are where one species becomes two. Most branches eventually come to a dead end as species go extinct, but some reach right to the top - these are living species. The tree is thus a record of how every species that ever lived is related to all others right back to the origin of life.

For much of the past 150 years, biology has largely concerned itself with filling in the details of the tree. "For a long time the holy grail was to build a tree of life," says Eric Bapteste, an evolutionary biologist at the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, France. A few years ago it looked as though the grail was within reach. But today the project lies in tatters, torn to pieces by an onslaught of negative evidence. Many biologists now argue that the tree concept is obsolete and needs to be discarded. "We have no evidence at all that the tree of life is a reality," says Bapteste. That bombshell has even persuaded some that our fundamental view of biology needs to change.

As it happens, I was at a function last night with Jan Sapp of York University (Toronto, Canada). Loyal Sandwalk readers might recall a series of articles on the Three Domain Hypothesis. The articles were based on a book edited by Jan Sapp. Sapp is a supporter, as am I, of the scheme advocated by Ford Doolittle (see below).


This net, or web, of life is characteristic of the earliest stages of evolution when all organisms were single cells and the distinction between eukaryotes and prokaryotes was barely discernible. Once the main groups rose out of the web, they evolved pretty much as you light expect by binary speciation events. This gives rise to a traditional tree-like pattern.

As Jan and I discussed, for the last three billion years of evolution the tree of life is a very good metaphor for evolution. Darwin was mostly right about that. On the other hand, the New Scientist article discusses some problems with the tree of life that extend beyond the early history. It makes several valid points that should make everyone skeptical of claims about evolution that are too simple. The tree isn't perfect.

The bottom line is that it's unfair to say that Darwin was wrong. It's as unfair as saying the Newton was wrong because of Einstein. We need to recognize that modern evolutionary biology is an improvement over the view of the Victorian founder of the field, but a cover saying that Darwin was wrong conveys the wrong message. It suggests that up until recently scientists believed that Darwin was right about everything.

A better headline might be: "More evidence that Charles Darwin didn't know everything there is to be known about evolution when he published his book in 1859."

UPDATE: In a surprising development, the IDiots at Uncommon Descent have picked up on these recent (sic) developments in evolutionary theory. Paul Nelson, a Young Earth Creationist philosopher, writes: “The tree of life is being politely buried”.

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Nobel Laureates: Ulf von Euler and Julius Axelrod

 

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1970.

"for their discoveries concerning the humoral transmittors in the nerve terminals and the mechanism for their storage, release and inactivation"

Ulf von Euler (1905 - 1983) and Julius Axelrod (1912 - 2004) won the Noble Prize in 1970 for elucidating the role of noradrenaline (norepinephrine) in transmitting nerve impulses. Axelrad and von Euler shared the prize with Sir Bernard Katz who worked on the role of acetylcholine.

Here's the Press Release.

THEME:
Nobel Laureates

Professor Ulf von Euler has discovered that the substance noradrenaline serves as neurotransmitter at the nerve terminals of the sympathetic nervous system. He has also shown how this substance is stored in small nerve granules within the nerve fibres of this system.

Dr. Julius Axelrod's discoveries concern the mechanisms which regulate the formation of this important transmitter in the nerve cells and the mechanisms which are involved in the inactivation of noradrenaline, partly under the influence of an enzyme discovered by himself.

von Euler's and Axelrod's discoveries have not only increased our knowledge about the transmission in the sympathetic nervous system, they also form the basis for the understanding of the transmission in the central nervous system and its pharmacology. Thus in a very significant way, the laureates have presented basic data about the physical and chemical mechanisms of the synaptic transmission and thus given us basic information about how the messages are mediated between nerve cells. Their discoveries concerning these regulatory mechanisms in the nervous system are fundamental in neurophysiology and neuropharmacology and have greatly stimulated the search for remedies against nervous and mental disturbances.

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

Gene Genie #42

 
The 42nd edition of Gene Genie has been posted at Genetic Future [Gene Genie #42 - focus on personalised genetics].

Welcome to the 42nd edition of Gene Genie, the blog carnival of clinical genetics and personalised medicine.

Most of the entries in this edition fall under the broad umbrella of personalised genetics, with posts emphasising both the pros and cons of the emerging consumer genetic testing industry.

The beautiful logo was created by Ricardo at My Biotech Life.

The purpose of this carnival is to highlight the genetics of one particular species, Homo sapiens.

Here are all the previous editions .....

1. Scienceroll
2. Sciencesque
3. Genetics and Health
4. Sandwalk
5. Neurophilosophy
6. Scienceroll
7. Gene Sherpa
8. Eye on DNA
9. DNA Direct Talk
10. Genomicron
11. Med Journal Watch
12. My Biotech Life
13. The Genetic Genealogist
14. MicrobiologyBytes
15. Cancer Genetics
16. Neurophilosophy
17. The Gene Sherpa
18. Eye on DNA
19. Scienceroll
20. Bitesize Bio
21. BabyLab
22. Sandwalk
23. Scienceroll
24. biomarker-driven mental health 2.0
25. The Gene Sherpa
26. Sciencebase
27. DNA Direct Talk
28. Greg Laden’s Blog
29. My Biotech Life
30. Gene Expression
31. Adaptive Complexity
32. Highlight Health
33. Neurophilosophy
34. ScienceRoll
35. Microbiology Bytes
36. Human Genetic Disordrs
37. The Genetic Genealogist
38. ScienceRoll
39. Genetics & Health
40. Human Genetics Disorders
41. ScienceRoll
42. Genetic Future

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Wealthy men give women more orgasms

 
A reader directed me to this article on The Sunday Times (UK) website: Wealthy men give women more orgasms.

Scientists have found that the pleasure women get from making love is directly linked to the size of their partner’s bank balance.

They found that the wealthier a man is, the more frequently his partner has orgasms.

“Women’s orgasm frequency increases with the income of their partner,” said Dr Thomas Pollet, the Newcastle University psychologist behind the research.

He believes the phenomenon is an “evolutionary adaptation” that is hard-wired into women, driving them to select men on the basis of their perceived quality.

The study is certain to prove controversial, suggesting that women are inherently programmed to be gold-diggers.

However, it fits into a wider body of research known as evolutionary psychology which suggests that both men and women are genetically predisposed to ruthlessly exploit each other to achieve the best chances of survival for their genes.

This explains why some women like being "trophy" wives.

I wonder if very rich women ever have orgasms?

The entire field of evolutionary psychology is becoming a farce. It's about as scientific as creationism. There must be some intelligent psychologists out there. Why aren't they speaking out?

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Darwin and Gradualism

 
From DaveScot on Uncommon Descent comes this remarkable example of stupidity: Darwin’s Big Mistake - Gradualism.

The big mistake in Origin that Darwinists won’t admit is gradualism. Darwin explained that according to his theory we should expect to observe a continuum of living species each with only the slightest of variations between them. He postulated that we don’t observe this because the fittest species take over and the insensibly slight variants die off leaving species that are fully characteristic of their kind which then makes possible taxonomic classification by those characters. It’s in the full title in the latter half “The Preservation of Favored Races”.

That left Darwin with explaining the fossil record which is indisputably a record of saltation.

Bzzzzz!!!! Wrong!

Thanks for playing, DaveScot. Unfortunately, there are no consolation prizes for IDiots.

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Princeton Professor denies global warming theory

 
This is embarrassing. I'm an alumnus of Princeton (GS '74) and it pains me to read this in The Daily Princetonian: Professor denies global warming theory.

Physics professor William Happer GS ’64 has some tough words for scientists who believe that carbon dioxide is causing global warming.

“This is George Orwell. This is the ‘Germans are the master race. The Jews are the scum of the earth.’ It’s that kind of propaganda,” Happer, the Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics, said in an interview. “Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. Every time you exhale, you exhale air that has 4 percent carbon dioxide. To say that that’s a pollutant just boggles my mind. What used to be science has turned into a cult.”

Happer served as director of the Office of Energy Research in the U.S. Department of Energy under President George H.W. Bush and was subsequently fired by Vice President Al Gore, reportedly for his refusal to support Gore’s views on climate change.

More proof, if it's needed, that Al Gore is smarter than George Bush (either one).

He asked last month to be added to a list of global warming dissenters in a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee report. The list includes more than 650 experts who challenge the belief that human activity is contributing to global warming

Though Happer has promulgated his skepticism in the past, he requested to be named a skeptic in light of the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama, whose administration has, as Happer notes, “stated that carbon dioxide is a pollutant” and that humans are “poisoning the atmosphere.”

I've been watching the excitement build in Washington as the inauguration approaches. Who knew that one of the unintended consequences would be to flush out the kooks?¹

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1. For the record, I don't think it's helpful to call CO₂ a "pollutant." That doesn't mean there isn't an optimal concentration; after all, there's also an optimal concentration of N₂ (100% is too much) and O₂ (more than 50% and fires become a really serious problem. I'd also like to go on record as one of those who think that human activity is an important part of global warming but it's probably not the only cause of the current trend.

Liberals won't back tax cuts

 
The Harper government will present its budget next week. The NDP and the Bloc have announced that Stephen Harper has lost the confidence of the House and they will vote against the budget. The Liberal Party under Michael Ignatieff hasn't made up its mind about whether Harper can continue to govern even if all the other parties don't trust him. But the Liberals seem to be clear on one thing; according to today's Toronto Star, Liberals won't back tax cuts.

The Liberals are opposed to making tax cuts the centrepiece of the budget, and new leader Michael Ignatieff signalled yesterday the party is prepared to dump the Conservative minority if the budget is inadequate.

...

As they position themselves in advance of the budget, the Liberals argue that, while they generally favour income-tax cuts, it's the wrong approach during the recession.

"We don't want to see the Prime Minister come up with the kind of broad-based tax cuts that put Canada in a permanent, structural deficit once we recover from this (recession)," Liberal finance critic Scott Brison (Kings-Hants) told CTV yesterday as his party gathered in Ottawa for the caucus meeting.

Liberal MP John McCallum said such cuts are fiscally irresponsible at a time when the Tories have already put Ottawa's books in a deficit position and there's no way to ensure tax cuts benefit those who have lost their jobs or otherwise need help during the recession.

"There's a very good argument to be made that this is not the right time for across-the-board tax reductions," said McCallum, MP for Markham-Unionville and chair of a party advisory committee on the economy.

This could get interesting. I would support the Liberals if they vote against the budget because it contains significant tax cuts. Cutting taxes is typical conservative dogma so we may be headed for an election.

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Monday's Molecule #104

 
Name this molecule. We need a biochemically accurate name and the formal IUPAC name. The role of this molecule in biological systems was elucidated by one or more Nobel Laureate(s) in the second half of the 20th century.

Your task is to correctly identify the molecule and name the Nobel Laureate(s). The first one to do so 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 four ineligible candidates for this week's reward: John Bothwell of the Marine Biological Association of the UK in Plymouth, UK, Dima Klenchin of the University of Wisconsin, Bill Chaney of the University of Nebraska, and Maria Altshuler of the university of Toronto.

John, Dale, Bill, 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. Since undergraduates from the Toronto region are doing so poorly in this contest, I'm going to make a special award this week. In addition to the normal winner, the first undergraduate student who can accept a free lunch will win a second prize. Please indicate in your email message whether you are an undergraduate and whether you came make it for your free lunch (with a friend).

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 norepinephrine (noradrenaline) [4-[(1R)-2-amino-1-hydroxy-ethyl]benzene-1,2-diol]. The Nobel Laureates are Ulf von Euler and Julius Axelrod.

The first person to get it correct was Ramon, address unknown. The first undergraduate who can collect a free lunch is Jason Oakley of the University of Toronto. Jason can bring a friend.

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Like this is going to happen

 
Normally A.C. Grayling makes a lot of sense and I enjoy reading his columns in New Scientist. Today's column is an exception: Universities should flag up which websites to trust.

Graying rightly points out that the internet is a mixed bag of mostly crap interspersed with the occasional website that makes sense at a level beyond kindergarten. His solution?

The lesson is that to make best use of the internet as an educational resource, its content has to be audited for reliability, and a system of classification introduced. Given that the internet is already the main resource for students, the need is urgent. I suggest that an international consortium of universities should set up panels to audit the worth of websites, endorsing those that are reliable. They should not censor, nor comment on matters of opinion - the price we pay for the internet's open democracy is the rubbish it contains. But they should authoritatively identify worthwhile sites, and warn of factual error when it occurs. Without such expert monitoring, the internet will increasingly be a problem rather than a boon, and limited in educational value.

Can you imagine a panel of Professors from different universities agreeing on which websites are reliable and accurate?

It might work for blogs. We all know which blogs to select, don't we?

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John Hawks doesn't like random genetic drift

 
The human MYBPC3 gene encodes a muscle protein. A 25 bp deletion in that gene is associated with a large increase the risk of cardiomyopathy ("heart muscle disease"). The most severe problems appear when carriers reach the age of 40.

According to a recent paper by Dhandapany et al. (2009), the overall frequency of the deletion allele is about 4% in India but it ranges from 0% to 7% in different parts of the country. The allele is not present in most other populations outside of India.

The authors conclude that the allele has reached this frequency by random genetic drift beginning with an initial mutation about 30,000 years ago. This increase has occurred in spite of the fact that the allele is deleterious and should decrease overall fitness.

John Hawks disagrees: Could genetic drift really break your heart?.

The issue is not really whether a gene could go from 1 copy to 4 percent in 1200 generations by chance. That wouldn't be so terribly unlikely in Pleistocene humans -- in fact, the mean time for a mutation to go from 1 copy to 4 percent by drift in a population of effective size 10,000 individuals is not 30,000 years, but only around 20,000 years. On the other hand, mtDNA variation today suggests that South Asia experienced early and rapid population growth -- so we're not likely talking about a population of 10,000, but more like a minimum of 100,000 effective individuals through the past 30,000 years at least. It would take genetic drift at least 10 times longer to accomplish the requisite frequency change given that demographic history. Still, a single allele at a single gene locus might be exceptional.

But that scenario, however unlikely, is simply not the situation we have here. Here we have a deletion that must have some disadvantage, because it gives people a fatal disease. This disadvantage is apparently dominant in effect, based on the case-control study. Yet the deletion has managed to persist within the large South Asian populations of the last 10,000 years so that today it is still around 4 percent.

John is an expert on evolution within human populations but he seems to be basing all of his calculations on the idea that the mutation arose in a population of 100,000 individuals and that this population was the effective population (e.g. they all freely interbred). I don't think this is very likely.

The fact that the allele frequency varies within India suggests that there are many subpopulations. Some of them might have been as small as 1000 individuals at vary time over the course of the last 30,000 years. As I'm sure John knows, the populations dynamics of human groups is extremely complex. We only have to think about the allele frequency differences in the Pennsylvania Amish communities or French Canadians to recognize this fact.

And let's not forget that the frequency of Huntington's disease is high around Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela. Over a period of 200 years a single individual with the Huntington's disease allele has left 18,000 descendants.

When we look at modern allele frequencies we don't only think about average rates of change due to random genetic drift in panmitic populations. We also have to consider the unusual events that occur from time to time. These include founder effects, natural disasters, etc. etc. The MYBPC3 is a lottery winner. You can't dismiss evolution by accident just because the probability of any one event is low.

This is why John says that, "Still, a single allele at a single gene locus might be exceptional." But John seems to think that in this case the result is not just "exceptional" but extraordinarily exceptional. He suggests that the deleterious effects of the allele are a recent phenomenon and that explains why it survived in early populations.

I would hypothesize that the disadvantages of the deletion have actually increased over time. The average lifespan increased into the Upper Paleolithic and probably later as well. Meanwhile, as the population grew, larger completed family sizes became more important to fitness. As people became more sedentary, the accumulation and inheritance of possessions and land became an important means of investing in children. The increasing importance of later survival and investment in children should have raised the fitness cost of chronic disease. That would explain a pattern of evolution in which this deletion increased in frequency early in its history, but later remained static or declined.

So, I don't suppose I can say people are crazy for thinking genetic drift could explain this deletion's current high frequency. But considering the powerful effect of weak selection over the many generations involved here, and the very large size of the South Asian population during most of that time, genetic drift seems pretty unlikely.

This makes sense to me. It's consistent with John's idea that the rate of human evolution has changed substantially over the past 30,000 years but I don't see why he objects so much to a random genetic drift explanation. Why does he suggest the the authors of the paper are crazy to suggest drift as an explanation?

It seems to me that his explanation is consistent with an increase in allele frequency due to random genetic drift just as the authors claim.

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Dhandapany, P.S., Sadayappan, S., Xue, Y., Powell, G.T., Rani, D.S., Nallari, P., Rai, T.S., Khullar, M., Soares, P., Bahl, A., Tharkan, J.M., Vaideeswar, P., Rathinavel, A., Narasimhan, C., Ayapati, D.R., Ayub, Q., Mehdi, S.Q., Oppenheimer1, S., Richards, M.B., Price, A.L., Patterson, N., Reich, D., Singh, L., Tyler-Smith, C., and Thangaraj, K. (2009) A common MYBPC3 (cardiac myosin binding protein C) variant associated with cardiomyopathies in South Asia. Nature Genetics, Published online: 18 January 2009 [doi:10.1038/ng.309]

When TAs Go on Strike

 
York University is the "other" large university in Toronto. The university has been closed since November 5th when members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 3903 (CUPE Local 3903) went on strike.

The situation is a bit complicated because the union has three different groups and there are separate contracts for each group, even though the contracts are all part of the same negotiation package. The three groups are:

Unit 1 if they have a teaching contract (note - teaching includes demonstrating, tutoring, and marking) and they are a full-time graduate student.

Unit 2 if they have a teaching contract and are not a full-time graduate student.

Unit 3 if they have a graduate assistantship or research assistantship and are a full-time graduate student.

What I'm mostly interested in is the graduate students in Units 1 & 3.

After several months of fruitless negotiations, the university exerted its legal right to call for a ratification vote when the union negotiators turned down the latest offer. The vote will take place later this week and, as you might have guessed, the CUPE 3903 leaders are urging their members to "Kill the Rat."

What is the role of a faculty union in situations like this? It's really not complicated. Sister unions will invariably support the right to collective bargaining and demand that both sides negotiate in good faith. Faculty unions tend to tilt in favor of the TA union simply out of solidarity but also because both groups often have common grievances against the administration.

Here's where things get messy. As reported in several newspapers, a group of 300 faculty members recently signed a letter urging CUPE 3903 members to ratify the latest offer by the university administration. Here's how it was reported in the National Post.

Another group urging the union to vote yes is nearly 300 faculty members who signed their names to a letter urging CUPE to accept the current contract proposal.

The signees of the letter are also members of the York University Faculty Association (YUFA).

YUFA president Arthur Hilliker said while he does not endorse the letter, he does not condemn it or believe it to be illegal either, according to Eric Lawee, a York humanities professor and one of the letter’s signees. YUFA maintains it wants a fair and equitable offer for CUPE.

“We, the undersigned retirees and full-time faculty members of York University, urge our colleagues in CUPE 3903 who have been on strike since November 6, 2008, to end their labour action by accepting the current contract offer of the York University administration,” the letter begins.

The letter addresses specific concerns if the strike were to drag on, including the potential loss of the summer term, which not only would hurt the school’s undergraduate students, but would affect CUPE as well, with possible job losses due to the elimination of the summer term.

“In their own interest and that of the entire university community, we urge CUPE members to end their labour action and help the university resume expeditiously the provision of its full academic programs,” the letter concludes.

Mr. Lawee said that there were two main reasons behind the letter. The first was due to “a strong sense that the strike has dragged on too long and that the rights and needs of students must now take priority over all else,” he said. “And ... that this should be an easy settlement to endorse because the offer is very fair.”

Why is this a problem? Well, for one thing, it's a problem because these 300 faculty members are going against the advice of their own union.

The York University Faculty Association (YUFA) issued a press release today in which they reiterated their position.

Press Release

These are our principles with respect to the CUPE 3903 forced ratification vote. They are motions passed unanimously at the YUFA Executive meeting of 12 January 2009:

1. YUFA Executive re-affirms its support of free collective bargaining and does not endorse a ratification vote of CUPE 3903 members as forced by the Employer.


2. YUFA Executive strongly urges all YUFA members to respect individual CUPE 3903 members’ rights in the forced ratification vote to vote freely and according to their conscience. We urge all YUFA members to respect CUPE members’ rights to vote freely.


3. YUFA Executive, recognizing the power relations implicit in the roles of YUFA members and CUPE 3903 members, does not endorse any YUFA member attempting to influence how a CUPE 3903 member might vote in the forced ratification vote.

We recognize the serious problems the strike is causing for the students and for York. We also recognize that the issues of this strike need to be resolved for the future of York University.

The second and third points are very important. Faculty members are often the bosses of teaching assistants and they need to be very careful to remain neutral in situations like this. Because they are in a position of authority over graduate students they should not be urging these students to vote one way or the other. You can see why this is a problem. If Professors tell their graduate student to vote for ratification when the student wants to vote the other way, then this sets up a dangerous conflict for the student. What can be gained by doing that?

This is not a new problem. It's been around for decades and faculty unions in dozens of countries have learned to deal with it by urging individual members to avoid taking sides. I'm surprised that there are nearly 300 retired and active Professors at York University who don't get it.

Some of these faculty members have been writing letters to the editors of various newspapers in defense of their position. Here's one from Bernard Lightman, a Professor of Humanities. It appeared in today's Toronto Star.

Professor Berland has claimed that the open letter by full-time faculty and retirees to striking members of CUPE 3903 is in direct defiance of motions passed by the faculty union's executive. The signees have never claimed to speak on behalf of, or to represent, the faculty union.

Professor Berland interprets the motions of the faculty union's executive as saying that faculty are not free to express their opinions on the strike. I do not believe that that is the correct interpretation. However, if Professor Berland's interpretation were correct, then I would have to defy the faculty union.

It is not the business of a faculty union to gag its own members. One of the most important priorities of a university is to encourage free discussion and expression. That priority is not suspended during a strike, especially when the fate of more than 50,000 students hangs in the balance.

Let's be clear about one thing. YUFA was offering advice to its members based on decades of experience. The advice was to keep your mouth shut because you are in a position of authority over your graduate student TAs.

Every Professor has the right to ignore that advice and try to influence the decision of their graduate students. That's what academic freedom is all about. Whether it's a smart thing to do is another question.¹ I don't think it is.

Graduate students are smart enough, and mature enough, to make up their own minds. They don't need advice from their supervisors and bosses.

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1. It may be illegal as well, but that's another thing entirely. I doubt that any Professor would be prosecuted for pressuring their graduate students unless that Professor holds a prominent administrative position where the potential for retaliation against a student is much more likely.