Congratulations Steve Darwin!

 
Steve Darwin is Steve #1000. Find out who he is (no relation to Charles) and why he is #1000 by visiting the website of the National Center for Science Education [Steve Darwin is Steve #1000].

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You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think

 
Here's a video of Pat Robertson and Ray Comfort—two of the best secret weapons on the atheism side. Just watch this video to see why.

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[Hat Tip: Friendly Atheist]

Jerry Coyne Meets Ken Miller

 
Read about it on Coyne's blog [Darwin Day, Philadelphia. 1. I meet Ken Miller].

At any rate, after dinner I met Ken and we chatted about things. The first thing he said to me was that one of his friends advised him to break a beer bottle over my head, which was more than a little intimidating when imparted to me by a guy well over six feet tall looking down on my puny five-foot-eight self! But we discussed our differences, tried to iron out misunderstandings on both of our parts, and amiably shook hands. We will never agree on the science-versus-faith thing, but on most issues we are on the same side, and I admire him in many ways. I was glad that we met.

I'd love to have been there.

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Can You Guess Who Wrote This?

 

Yet how the former led to the latter, how it was that complexity emerged and is sustained even in that near-miracle of a chemical factory we call the cell is still largely enigmatic. Self-organisation is certainly involved, but one of the puzzles of evolution is the sheer versatility of many molecules, being employed in a myriad of different capacities. Indeed it is now legitimate to talk of a logic to biology, not a term you will hear on the lips of many neo-Darwinians. Nevertheless, evolution is evidently following more fundamental rules. Scientific certainly, but ones that transcend Darwinism. What! Darwinism not a total explanation? Why should it be? It is after all only a mechanism, but if evolution is predictive, indeed possesses a logic, then evidently it is being governed by deeper principles. Come to think about it so are all sciences; why should Darwinism be any exception?

But there is more. How to explain mind? Darwin fumbled it. Could he trust his thoughts any more than those of a dog? Or worse, perhaps here was one point (along, as it happens, with the origin of life) that his apparently all-embracing theory ran into the buffers? In some ways the former possibility, the woof-woof hypothesis, is the more entertaining. After all, being a product of evolution gives no warrant at all that what we perceive as rationality, and indeed one that science and mathematics employ with almost dizzying success, has as its basis anything more than sheer whimsy. If, however, the universe is actually the product of a rational Mind and evolution is simply the search engine that in leading to sentience and consciousness allows us to discover the fundamental architecture of the universe – a point many mathematicians intuitively sense when they speak of the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics – then things not only start to make much better sense, but they are also much more interesting. Farewell bleak nihilism; the cold assurances that all is meaningless. Of course, Darwin told us how to get there and by what mechanism, but neither why it is in the first place, nor how on earth we actually understand it.

To reiterate: when physicists speak of not only a strange universe, but one even stranger than we can possibly imagine, they articulate a sense of unfinished business that most neo-Darwinians don't even want to think about. Of course our brains are a product of evolution, but does anybody seriously believe consciousness itself is material? Well, yes, some argue just as much, but their explanations seem to have made no headway. We are indeed dealing with unfinished business. God's funeral? I don't think so. Please join me beside the coffin marked Atheism. I fear, however, there will be very few mourners.

The answer is at ... Darwin was right. Up to a point.

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[Hat Tip: RichardDawkins.net]

Moving Darwin

A statue of Charles Darwin was sculpted by Sir Joseph Boehm in 1885. It cost £2200. The money was raised by soliciting individual contributions from individuals around the world and so much money flowed in that there was enough left over to fund research in evolution.

The statue was unveiled on June 9, 1885. Charles Darwin was hugely popular, as you can see by the crowd of people outside the Natural History Museum. The statue was placed in a prominent position at the top of the main staircase in the Central Hall.

In 1927, Darwin wasn't as popular and his statue was moved to make way for an elephant display. The place of honor was soon taken up by a statue of Richard Owen, founder of the museum, and not a huge fan of Darwin [The North Hall Statues].

Darwin, and his friend Huxley, sat in the North Hall, under the main stairs in what became the museum cafeteria. This is not a place of honor and when I saw it there in 2006 I thought it looked very much like the museum was trying to hide Darwin from its visitors.



The Natural History Museum decided that they had better take steps to rehabilitate Darwin in preparation for the 2009 celebrations. So last Spring they moved Darwin back to the original position at the top of the stairs in the Central Hall.

You can watch a video of the statue on the move on the Natural History Museum website [Darwin's statue on the move].

I'm glad they decided to move the statue. While there's a danger of reading too much into the traveling statue, I think it reflects a time in the early 20th century when Darwin's reputation was somewhat eclipsed. At that time, there were many scientists who didn't think that natural selection could explain evolution.

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Quotable Quotes

 
From PZ Myers [I get email].

One frequent motif recurs in creationist email: they may believe in god, but they don't believe in paragraphs.

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On Re-reading the Origin of Species

 
It's been a great pleasure to read the Origin of Species in preparation for my talk tonight and for our book club meeting last Monday. I had forgotten how clever Darwin was and how he carefully weighs his arguments for evolution.

I had also fallen prey to several myths about the book. For example, I didn't realize that Origin of Species is all about speciation and the difference between species and varieties.

The editors of Current Biology asked several scientists to re-read Origin of Species in honor of Darwin's 200th birthday. The results are published on the journal's website [(Re)Reading The Origin].

I've already mentioned Jerry Coyne's defense of the term "Darwinism" [Jerry Coyne on Darwinism. The contribution from Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard is excellent—she points out one of Dawin's most important arguments and reminds us that it has been largely forgotten because it now seems so obvious.

Many of the scientists comment on the wonderful prose in Origin and on Darwin's delightful style of writing. I agree with them. Mark Ptashne doesn't. He couldn't read the book when he was younger and even today he had to read a condensed version because the original is too difficult! ("Who has the patience to dig through the convoluted sentences, extracting the buried nuggets?")¹

At my book club meeting, and in many discussions with non-scientific friends, the dominant impression is that Darwin is a very humble man who almost apologizes for having a good idea. That's not the Darwin I see. Simon Conway Morris isn't fooled either ....

But what suddenly became clear is that this is a book haunted by the ghost of William Paley the grandfather of creationist thinking and exponent of seemingly irrefutable arguments for organic design. The Origin is Darwin's riposte. Its metaphorical power depends on suspense and a scattering of clues, but significantly Paley himself is mentioned only once. And cleverly not in the context of his ideas on organic design but in an oblique dig at the question of natural evil. First and foremost, The Origin is an exorcism of the doctrine of special creation, and conducted by one of the most skilled exorcists science has ever seen. The brief crescendo in the last chapter is preceded by repeated and sudden flashes of disdain, a quick insertion of the knife before the narrative calmly continues in its ostensibly more objective purpose of piling up the evidence. Darwin knew his enemy intimately, but was far too astute to engage in a head-on clash.

Darwin was right, and he knew it. His expressions of doubt are largely rhetorical and how seamless—at least from a distance—is the edifice upon which he constructs his theory. Yet, it is equally intriguing how he conceals his intellect: the carefully marshalled facts are allowed to speak for themselves and the implications introduced with restraint and circumspection—a sotto voce naturalist. Darwin never doubted his abilities.

Why are so many people not able to see this? I think it's because they aren't familiar with the typical English style of understatement and well-disguised sarcasm.

Darwin's contemporaries weren't fooled. You should read Brian Switek's posting on Darwin's Heartache to see how Darwin's friends responded to the book in November 1859. His old Cambridge mentor, Adam Sedgwick, was not happy.

Andrew Berry and Hopi Hoekstra didn't comment on their own reading of Origin of Species; instead they listed the comments of their students in the course evaluations! The good news is that some students actually liked the book.

My favorite review is by Peter Lawrence who, I must confess, is one of my favorite scientists. Peter noticed something that I also noticed; namely, that Darwin's style of argument is very much a lost art. Here's how Peter puts it ...

I had only dipped into this wonderful book in my student days. But what a revelation for a somewhat jaded scientist to read it now! It is not only the brilliance, farsighted and original nature of the ideas, there is the sheer diversity of knowledge, the pervading presence of thought, of simple direct experiments, of debate, of argument, the consideration of other views and the style. In writing and reading scientific articles nowadays, we become imprisoned, constrained in what is considered appropriate and our vocabulary is reduced. Also our sentences are stifled by fashion and by journals that kill invention and independence with their strict word limits and their 'house style.' Just one example: punctuation. Darwin used everything, even the long dash and the exclamation mark. In my scientific writing I have been frequently told that these are not allowed—OK for great literature, but banned from scientific usage. I don't know why, but dulling down our scientific writing is not in our best interest. By contrast, in Darwin's time, Victorian fashion encouraged a flowery style as well as intellectual freedom; he took full advantage of both. He could write explorative and educative prose. He could spend many pages explaining narrow but important distinctions between different viewpoints and, time and again, one can see the outcome of careful reading and deep reflection. Our data-dominated publications, pared down to fit them into limited space, would be much more comprehensible if there were more argument, more explanation and more justification; indeed, if we reflected more, I think we could make big reductions in our published pages by making sure they carry and convey at least one message of note.

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1. I suspect he hasn't read The Structure of Evolutionary Theory , either.

YouTube Birthday Card

 

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Happy Birthday Charles Darwin

 
Charles Darwin was born on this day in 1809.

Here are the opening paragraphs of Janet Browne's wonderful biography of Charles Darwin.

He was born into Jane Austen's England. Indeed, the Darwins could have stepped straight out of the pages of Emma, the four girls sharply intelligent about the foibles of others, their father as perceptive as Mr. Knightly. The boys had several equally distinctive qualities. Charles Darwin and his older brother, Erasmus, were obliging and sympathetic young men full of the gentle humour, domestic attachments, and modest traits that made Austin's characters stand out in the drawing rooms of local notables, with a good range of idiosyncratic failings to match. These natural attributes were enhanced by a substantial family fortune. Like sensible Mr Weston with his warm heart and easy financial circumstances, the two were general favourites: "always acceptable," as Emma Woodhouse said of Weston. Behind the scenes presided Mrs. Darwin, a clever, well-educated woman, at one time a friend of the novelist Maria Edgeworth, who now led a retired life, the female counter part to Mr. Woodhouse, "never quite well & never quite ill," according to her sister Kitty.

The Darwins like Austen's fictional families, lived in a sleepy market town in the countryside, in their case in Shrewsbury, the county capital of Shropshire, standing on the River Severn halfway between the manufacturing Midlands and Wales. Further downstream in the Severn Gorge smouldered William Hazledine's ironworks, the driving force of the Industrial Revolution. North-east sat the smoking chimneys of the Potteries. But Shrewsbury itself was untouched by any signs of industrial change.

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Dawkins on Chance

 
I know I'm going to be accused of beating a dead horse but as Emile Zucherkandl and Linus Pauling said in 1965 ...

Some beating of dead horses may be ethical, when here and there they display unexpected twitches that look like life.

It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I’d rather not consider that).

Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins has reviewed Jerry Coyne's new book Why Evolution is True in The Times Literary Supplement. The text of the review is posted on RichardDawkins.net [Heat the Hornet].

As you might have guessed, when an adaptationist reviews a book by a fellow adapationist you can expect heaps of praise. Dawkins does not disappoint.

One particular claim caught my eye since Dawkins has made it in the past. I know for a fact that others have pointed out to Dawkins the flaws in this claim. Here's what he says,

Coyne is right to identify the most widespread misunderstanding about Darwinism as the idea that, in evolution, “everything happens by chance”. This common claim is flat wrong – obviously wrong, transparently wrong, even to the meanest intelligence (a phrase that has me actively restraining myself). If evolution worked by chance, it obviously couldn’t work at all.

It's true that to say everything happens by chance is wrong. However, it is not true to say that, "If evolution worked by chance, it obviously couldn’t work at all."

Here's a quotation from the most popular textbook on evolution, Evolution by Douglas J. Futuyma. It's in Chapter 10—a chapter titled Random Genetic Drift: Evolution at Random.

Almost all factors are affected simultaneously by both chance (unpredictable) and nonrandom, or deterministic (predictable), factors.... So it is with evolution. As we will see in the next chapter, natural selection is a deterministic, nonrandom process. But at the same time, there are important random processes in evolution, including mutation and random fluctuations in the frequencies of alleles or haplotypes: the process of random genetic drift.

Genetic drift and natural selection are the two most important causes of allele substitution—that is of evolutionary change—in populations

Futuyma closes the chapter with a summary of the important points. The first two are ...

1. The frequencies of alleles that differ little or not at all in their effect on organisms' fitness (neutral alleles) fluctuate at random. This process, called random genetic drift, reduces genetic variation and leads eventually to the random fixation of one allele and the loss of the other., unless it is countered by other processes, such as gene flow or mutation.
2. Different alleles are fixed by chance in different populations.

Thus, according to the textbook, evolution by chance occurs in spite of the fact that Dawkins says, "If evolution worked by chance, it obviously couldn’t work at all."

Now, the only way to reconcile his statement is to assume that either Dawkins doesn't know about random genetic drift, or he uses a non-standard definition of "evolution" (or he is wicked, but I’d rather not consider that ).

I know that Dawkins has written about random genetic drift so I have to assume that he uses a definition of the word "evolution" that excludes it. Since he is using a non-standard definition of evolution, I think it would be wise of him to make this clear in his writing. He should have written something like ...

In my opinion, the only valid mechanism of evolution is evolution by natural selection and that is definitely not a chance process. If natural selection worked by chance it obviously couldn't work at all.

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Nobel Laureate: Christian de Duve

 

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1974

"for their discoveries concerning the structural and functional organization of the cell"

Christian de Duve (1917 - ) won the Noble Prize in 1974 for discovering lysosomes and peroxisomes. He shared the prize with two other cell biologists; Albert Claude and George Palade.

Here's the Press Release.

THEME:
Nobel Laureates

Whereas Palade is in the first hand the morphologist searching the chemical correlate of the structures he has observed Christian de Duve is the biochemist who through his work can make predictions about new structural entities. Also the work of de Duve was a direct consequence of Claude's contributions in the area of chemical fractionation of cell components. de Duve started his work using differential centrifugation and he looked for the distribution of different enzymes among the four fractions resulting from Claude's procedure. These were nuclei, mitochondria (energy producers of the cell), microsomes (fragmented endoplasmic reticulum) and cell sap. He then found that certain enzymes sedimented such that they could not belong to any of the known morphological components. He discovered that they would sediment with a special class of particles, a fifth fraction. Interestingly all the enzymes were of a kind attacking protoplasmic components and de Duve therefore postulated that they had to be confined to membrane limited particles in order not to damage the cell. In accordance with this he found that agents dissolving membranes liberated the enzymes. It was soon possible for de Duve in collaboration with electron microscopists to make a morphological identification of the isolated components which were named lysosomes.

Lysosomes have now been shown, by de Duve and others, to be engaged in a series of cellular activities during which biological material must be degraded. The lysosomes are used in defense mechanisms, against bacteria, during resorption and secretion. They can also be used for a controlled degradation of the cell in which they are contained, e.g. to remove worn out components. Normally the cell is protected from the aggressive enzymes by protecting membranes but during certain conditions the lysosomal membranes may break down and the lysosomes are then real suicide pills for the cell. In medicine the lysosomes are of interest in many areas. There are a number of hereditary diseases with lysosomal enzyme deficiencies. This leads to accumulation of undigestible material in the lysosomes which swell and engorge the cell so as to prevent its proper functioning.

de Duve has not only a highly dominating role in lysosome research, he is also the discoverer of another cell component, the peroxisome, the function of which is still enigmatic but which may very well offer a story as fascinating as that of the lysosomes in the future.

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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.

The Ottawa Citizen Should Be Ashamed of David Warren

 
David Warren writes for the Ottawa Citizen—an otherwise respectable newspaper. Denyse O'Leary is one of Warren's biggest fans. Today's column in the Citizen is about The doctrine of Darwin.

Here are some things that David Warren has to say. Trust me, I'm not making them up; you can check for yourself by following the link to the newspaper.

Darwin's contribution was the mechanism of natural (and later, sexual) selection. This mechanism was simultaneously proposed by Alfred Russel Wallace, a true genius who made many other signal observations and discoveries; but Darwin alone became obsessed with this one, and insisted that it could carry us beyond adaptation within a species, across natural barriers to the creation of entirely new forms, over eons of time. Wallace was not so sure, and to this day, Darwin's notion exists merely as a surmise. It has never been proven.

Which is its great strength. For what cannot be proven can never be disproven, either. The Darwinian account is merely belied by the fossil record, which has provided none of the inter-species "missing links" that Darwin anticipated, and which instead yields only sudden radical changes.

You have to wonder about the intelligence of someone who can write as an authority on Darwin while remaining completely ignorant of the entire field of paleontology. Does Warren go out of his way to avoid reading anything by any science writers, who have been documenting all kinds of transitional fossils, even in the past year?

The man himself was very much a product of his age: a bourgeois Victorian adapted to an intellectual environment in which such fatuities as Utilitarianism and Malthusianism were in the air. In retrospect, he is a redundant character, for Wallace already had the theory, and many others could have drudged out Darwin’s specific points.

You don't have to read a biography of Darwin to recognize the stupidity of this assertion—although reading a book or two is probably a good idea before shooting off your mouth. No, you don't have to read a whole book to learn that Darwin developed the essence of his theory of natural selection more than 15 years before Wallace ever thought of such a thing. Furthermore, Darwin was far, far, ahead of Wallace in his thinking about evolution. Darwin's genius lay in presenting the case for evolution in a way that Wallace—and no one else that we know of—ever could.

All you have to do to find this out is read some rather short articles, or Wikipedia. Is that too much to ask?

As if that's not bad enough, Denyse O'Leary quotes a birthday greeting from David Warren on her blog [Darwinism: Well then, no birthday cake for you, David!].

I oppose Darwinism because it is an intellectual & scientific fraud. I have opposed it all my adult life on that account alone; as I've told you before, I opposed it as crap science when I was an atheist. But I oppose it today with greater & greater passion, because I see that it provides the cosmological groundwork for real evil.

Is that the sort of person who should be writing 200th birthday greetings for the Ottawa Citizen?

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Not Saint Darwin

 
John Wilkins has posted a link to his essay in Resonance. Go to his blog (Evolving Thoughts), click on the link, read, and enjoy.

I can't think of an essay/article that better captures the essential reason why Darwin made such an important contribution to science. It takes a philosopher to make the case.¹

Here's a teaser ... there's much more were this comes from ....

What we remember Darwin for is a synthesis and the empirical support he brought in its defense. He brought together many ideas that were `in the air', so to speak, reading more widely than almost anyone else as well as doing his experimental and anatomical work, and more importantly, managed to filter out most of the bad ideas.

Darwin's achievement was to identify crucial questions and offer a coherent theoretical account that answered them . For instance, in the first half of the nineteenth century, the reasons for the systematic arrangements of plants and animals, why they were arranged 'group with in group' as he put it, was being explored by idealists like William Swainson [12] and William Macleay [13], who offered Pythagorean accounts based on similarities and magic numbers. Darwin offered a general account—which we call common descent—that explained why this was a fact, but also why it was not regular (for example, extinction is not evenly distributed across all groups).

The broader point I want to make here is about the nature of science. Often as not, it is the synthesizers who reorganize how we view things, and as David Hull [14] and others (e.g., Ellegard [15]) have shown, within ten years of the publication of the Origin, nearly all specialists in the sciences concerned had adopted common descent and transmutation (descent with modification). It was the closest any science has ever come to an actual Kuhnian paradigm shift.

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1. Perhaps I should say a "good" philosopher since there are others (Dennett, Ruse) who seem to have missed the point.

Evolution is not "survival of the fittest"

 
By the 6th edition of Origin of Species Darwin had begun to adopt the term "survival of the fittest" and a synonym for "natural selection." His decision was prompted by several colleagues, notably Alfred Russel Wallace. The term "survival of the fittest had recently been coined by Herbert Spencer.

Unfortunately, modern society interprets "survival of the fittest" to mean that only the strong survive. They think of evolution in terms of a winner take all competition between the weak and the strong.

I was reminded of this misconception a few nights ago at our book club meeting. We were discussing Origin of Species and every single member of the group viewed evolution in these terms. Much of the discussion was about the future of human evolution and the book club members were fixated on what kind of mutations would make us stronger and better. What would happen to the poor individuals who couldn't compete?

Michael Shermer has written a nice article in the latest issue of Scientific American: A Skeptic's Take on the Public Misunderstanding of Darwin. His main point deserves to be widely publicized.

Natural selection simply means that those individuals with variations better suited to their environment leave behind more offspring than individuals that are less well adapted. This outcome is known as “differential reproductive success.” It may be, as the second myth holds, that organisms that are bigger, stronger, faster and brutishly competitive will reproduce more successfully, but it is just as likely that organisms that are smaller, weaker, slower and socially cooperative will do so as well.

This second notion in particular makes evolution unpalatable for many people, because it covers the theory with a darkened patina reminiscent of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “nature, red in tooth and claw.” Thomas Henry Huxley, Darwin’s “bulldog” defender, promoted this “gladiatorial” view of life in a series of popular essays on nature “whereby the strongest, the swiftest, and the cunningest live to fight another day.” The myth persists. In his recent documentary film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, Ben Stein linked Darwinism to Communism, Fascism and the Holocaust.

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Jerry Coyne on Darwinism

Jerry Coyne is an adaptationist. Thus, it comes as no great surprise that he is comfortable with equating evolutionary biology and Darwinism. Here's what he writes in defense of Carl Safina's New York Times article [Darwinism must die????].

Well, how much confusion has really been caused by using the term “Darwinism”? How many people have been made to think that we biologists adhere to an ideology rather than a strongly supported theory?

That's a tough question. I'd estimate it at about 3 billion but I could be off by a factor of two.

Would creationism and its country cousin, intelligent design, suddenly vanish if we started using the terms “modern evolutionary theory” (ugh!) or the insidious-sounding “neoDarwinism”? I don’t think so.

Nope. The problem isn't so much how the IDiots interpret the term "Darwinism," it's how the average evolution supporter interprets it. The average person seems to be completely unaware of the fact that natural selection doesn't explain everything about common descent. They are surprised to learn that many modern scientist are not adaptationists or confirmed traditional Darwinists.

“Darwinism” is a compact, four-syllable term for “modern evolutionary theory,” which is ten syllables long.

No it is not. Nobody in their right mind would claim that random genetic drift—the dominant mechanism of evolution—is Darwinian. Nobody in their right mind would suggest that it is just a slight modification of natural selection.

Today we know that new beneficial mutations have only a slight chance of becoming fixed in a population. We know that deleterious mutations can become fixed. And we know that a large percentage of mutations are completely invisible to natural selection but they can, nevertheless, become fixed.

Ryan Gregory made the same point in his posting: Jerry Coyne on Darwinism. So did Eugenie C. Scott and Glenn Branch in Don't Call it "Darwinism".

Jerry Coyne is not stupid. He's well aware of the fact that Darwin didn't know everything. But according to Coyne, the expansion of evolutionary theory hasn't amounted to anything more than simple "refinement" and the term "Darwinism" still encompasses the essence of modern evolutionary theory.

Apparently Coyne has an article about to appear in Current Biology where he says ....

Still, these advances amount to refinements of Darwinism rather than its Kuhnian overthrow. Evolutionary biology hasn’t suffered the equivalent of quantum mechanics. But some biologists, chafing in their Darwinian straitjacket, periodically announce new worldviews that, they claim, will overturn our view of evolution, or at least force its drastic revision. During my career I have heard this said about punctuated equilibrium, molecular drive, the idea of symbiosis as an evolutionary force, evo-devo, and the notion that evolution is driven by the self-organization of molecules. Some of these ideas are worthwhile, others simply silly; but none do more than add a room or two to the Darwinian manse. Often declared dead, Darwinism still refuses to lie down. So by all means let’s retain the term. It is less of a jawbreaker than “modern evolutionary biology,” and has not, as was feared, misled people into thinking that our field has remained static since 1859. What better honorific than “Darwinism” to fête the greatest biologist in history?

This is a remarkable bit of writing. Every modern textbook on evolution has a large section devoted to random genetic drift as a fundamental mechanism of evolution and yet Coyne doesn't even mention it. He also doesn't mention population genetics. Isn't that strange?

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