I think that from all the arguments mentioned above, the believer, and especially the Christian, is on the horns of a dilemma. The one horn is that he takes his religion, including its holy book, seriously, which leads to scientific conflicts. The other horn is that he avoids all conflict with science, which reduces his creation story to myth and leads to deism or atheism. Conservative Christians often choose the first horn, with scientific untenability as consequence. Proponents of theistic evolution are forced to choose the latter horn, with philosophical and theological untenability as consequence. Besides this, the theistic conception of an omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good God is hardly compatible with the process of evolution.I agree with the main points of the article. Most versions of theistic evolution still conflict with science in one way or another and the only way to avoid conflict entirely is to adopt some form of deism.
This is a follow-up to my earlier posting about the latest issue of Discover magazine [Ascent of Darwinism]. I want to discuss another article in that issue: "Are We Still Evolving" by Kathleen McAuliffe. The title of the web version is: They Don't Make Homo Sapiens Like They Used To.For decades the consensus view—among the public as well as the world’s preeminent biologists—has been that human evolution is over. Since modern Homo sapiens emerged 50,000 years ago, “natural selection has almost become irrelevant” to us, the influential Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould proclaimed. “There have been no biological changes. Everything we’ve called culture and civilization we’ve built with the same body and brain.” This view has become so entrenched that it is practically doctrine. Even the founders of evolutionary psychology, Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, signed on to the notion that our brains were mostly sculpted during the long period when we were hunter-gatherers and have changed little since. “Our modern skulls house a Stone Age mind,” they wrote in a background piece on the Center for Evolutionary Psychology at the University of California at Santa Barbara.I think this is wrong. I do not believe that the consensus among the world's preeminent evolutionary biologists1 is that human evolution is over.
So to suggest that humans have undergone an evolutionary makeover from Stone Age times to the present is nothing short of blasphemous. Yet a team of researchers has done just that. They find an abundance of recent adaptive mutations etched in the human genome; even more shocking, these mutations seem to be piling up faster and ever faster, like an avalanche. Over the past 10,000 years, their data show, human evolution has occurred a hundred times more quickly than in any other period in our species’ history.There are two things wrong with this. First, the hype about blasphemy is a serious distortion of the truth. The scientific literature is full of examples of recent human evolution. Haven't you heard of the sickle cell gene, lactose intolerance, and blood types?
Not surprisingly, the new findings have raised hackles. Some scientists are alarmed by claims of ethnic differences in temperament and intelligence, fearing that they will inflame racial sensitivities. Other researchers point to limitations in the data. Yet even skeptics now admit that some human traits, at least, are evolving rapidly, challenging yesterday’s hallowed beliefs.What kind of balance is that? Where's the sober description of the consensus view; namely, that humans are always evolving and the evidence of Hawks and his colleagues isn't convincing?
These overriding trends are similar in many parts of the world, but other changes, especially over the past 10,000 years, are distinct to specific ethnic groups. “These variations are well known to forensic anthropologists,” Hawks says as he points them out: In Europeans, the cheekbones slant backward, the eye sockets are shaped like aviator glasses, and the nose bridge is high. Asians have cheekbones facing more forward, very round orbits, and a very low nose bridge. Australians have thicker skulls and the biggest teeth, on average, of any population today. “It beats me how leading biologists could look at the fossil record and conclude that human evolution came to a standstill 50,000 years ago,” Hawks says.Beats me how John could possibly think that "leading biologists" have ignored the data.
Paralleling the constant war against pathogens, human sperm may also be evolving at high speed, driven by the race to get to the egg before another man’s sperm. “It could be that cities create more sexual partners, which means fiercer competition among males,” Hawks says. Because sperm can fertilize an egg up to 24 hours after being ejaculated in the vagina, a woman who copulates with two or more partners in close succession is setting up the very conditions that pit one man’s sperm against another’s. Hawks infers that “sperm today is very different from sperm even 5,000 years ago.” Newly selected mutations in genes controlling sperm production show up in every ethnic group he and his team have studied; those genes may affect characteristics including abundance, motility, and viability. The selection for “super sperm,” Hawks says, provides further corroboration that our species is not particularly monogamous—a view widely shared by other anthropologists.
As agriculture became established and started creating a reliable food supply, Hawks says, more men and women would have begun living into their forties and beyond—jump-starting the selection pressure for increased life span. In support of that claim, Moyzis is currently performing a genetic analysis of men and women in their nineties who are of European ancestry. He has traced many early-onset forms of cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s to older human gene variants. “The idea is that people with more modern variants tend to have greater resistance to these chronic illnesses of old age and should be overrepresented in the age 90-plus population,” Moyzis says.
Harpending and Cochran had previously—and controversially—marshaled similar evidence to explain why Ashkenazi Jews (those of northern European descent) are overrepresented among world chess masters, Nobel laureates, and those who score above 140 on IQ tests. In a 2005 article in the Journal of Biosocial Science, the scientists attributed Ashkenazis’ intellectual distinction to a religious and cultural environment that blocked them from working as farm laborers in central and northern Europe for almost a millennium, starting around A.D. 800. As a result, these Jews took jobs as moneylenders and financial administrators of estates. To make a profit, Harpending says, “they had to be good at evaluating properties and market risks, all the while dodging persecution.” Those who prospered in these mentally demanding and hostile environments, the researchers posit, would have left behind the most offspring.The last one is accompanied by a passing reference to reality, "Critics note that the association between wealth and intelligence in this interpretation is circumstantial, however."
NOT SO FASTHmmm ... there is "broad consensus" that humans have evolved recently.
Despite all these clues that human evolution has continued and accelerated into modern times, many evolutionary biologists remain deeply skeptical of the claims. Their resistance comes from several directions.
Some independent experts caution that the tools for studying the human genome remain in their infancy, and reliably detecting genomic regions that have been actively selected is a challenging problem. The hypothesis that human evolution is accelerating “all rests on being able to identify recent areas of the genome under natural selection fairly accurately,” says human geneticist Jonathan Pritchard of the University of Chicago. And that, he warns, is tricky, involving many different assumptions (about population sizes on different continents, for instance) in the poorly documented period before recorded history.
Given such uncertainties, researchers are more likely to be persuaded that a mutation has been recently selected if they understand its function and if its rise in prevalence meshes well with known human migratory routes. Genetic variants fitting that description include those coding for lighter skin coloring, resistance to diseases such as malaria, and metabolic changes related to the digestion of novel foods. There is broad consensus that these represent genuine examples of recent adaptations.
1. I realize that McAuliffe said "biologist," not "evolutionary biologists" but surely the only biologists who count are the experts in the field? After all, you wouldn't ask ecologists their opinion about biochemistry, would you?
Hawks, J., Wang, J.T., Cochran, G., Harpending, H.C. and Moyzis, R.K. (2007) Recent acceleration of human adaptive evolution. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (USA) 104:20753-20758 [doi: 10.1073/pnas.0707650104]
[Photo Credit: MSNBC]
There was a time in the not-to-distant past when RNA didn't get no respect. Most biochemists worked with proteins or DNA and RNA was relegated to minor status as just an intermediate in the information flow pathway. 
This month's issue of Cell is devoted to RNA [Cell]. There are important reviews and essays on everything from micro RNAs to spliceosomes and transcriptional scaffolds. This is your chance to catch up on the latest work in the RNA field. [Hat Tip: Bayblab - CELL Website Gets Massive RNA Contamination]
- Theme: Transcription.
- RNA Splicing: Introns and Exons.
- Human Ribosomal RNA genes; Ribosomal RNA Genes in Eukaryotes; Ribosomal RNA Genes in Bacteria; The Composition of Ribosomes
- Transfer RNA: Structure; Transfer RNA: Synthesis; Transfer RNA Processing: RNase P.
- The Signal hypothesis; Signal Recognition Particle
A recent study reports that high school students who study fewer science topics, but study them in greater depth, have an advantage in college science classes over their peers who study more topics and spend less time on each.I have no idea if the results are reliable but it does highlight an issue that needs to be addressed. Is it better to learn a single subject in some depth than several subjects at a more superficial level? One can make a good case for both sides.
Today it is difficult to read the news without invoking Darwinian thinking. It shows up not just in the obvious places, such as stories about drug-resistant bacteria in hospitals. In dispatches from the Middle East, it is hard not to see the way that kin selection can organize people into tight-knit, warring clans. In financial news, it is difficult not to notice an evolutionary battle between self-preservation and altruistic group impulses. If anything, it is too easy to perceive the hand of natural selection everywhere and to lapse into just-so stories. On the pages that follow, we strip away the embellishments and show how the true, unvarnished Darwin remains one of the most powerful, controversial, and influential figures in science.Hmmmm ... this doesn't sound very encouraging. Let's see how Discover gets to the "true, unvarnished Darwin."
You could call Helen Fisher a Darwinian matchmaker. The acclaimed anthropologist from Rutgers University is also a best-selling author of books on love and the chief scientific adviser to an online dating service called Chemistry.com. This service utilizes a questionnaire that Fisher developed after years of research on the science of romantic attraction. It reveals which of four broad, biologically based personality types an applicant displays and helps identify partners with compatible brain chemistry. In designing the questionnaire, Fisher relied on the principles of evolutionary psychology, a field inspired by Charles Darwin’s insights. She has even used those principles to size up Darwin himself. (He is a “negotiator,” “imaginative and theoretical,” “unassuming, agreeable, and intuitive”—but also married, alas, and dead.)I don't think this is helpful. When it comes to understanding science, one of the problems most people have is appreciating that scientific knowledge helps us understand the universe and how it works. Biological sciences help us understand life.
Fisher’s work is just one of the innumerable offshoots of Darwin’s grand theory of life. In the 150 years since the publication of On the Origin of Species, it seems no sphere of human thought or activity has been left untouched by Darwinian analysis. Evolutionary theory has infiltrated the social sciences, where it has been used to explain human politics and spending habits. It has transformed computer science, inspiring problem-solving algorithms that adapt and change like living things. It is cited by a leading theoretical physicist who proposes that evolution helped shape the laws governing the cosmos. A renowned neuroscientist sees ideas of selection as describing the honing of connections among brain cells. Literary critics analyze the plots, themes, and characters of novels according to Darwinian precepts. Even religion, the sector most famously at odds with Darwin, now claims an evolutionary evangelist.
According to Helen Fisher and other proponents of evolutionary psychology, the theory of evolution helps them address questions like “What is love?” and “Why do we vote the way we do?” Many evolutionary psychologists believe that the cognitive and emotional makeup of human beings represents an adaptation to our ancestral environment. Biologist Edward O. Wilson of Harvard University launched the discipline in 1975 with one slim chapter in his book Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, suggesting that insights into animal behavior afforded by evolutionary theory could apply to human animals, too.Last week I was involved in a discussion with Chris Mooney. He was lamenting the fact that science writers were losing their jobs and I suggested that we might be better off if most of them stopped writing. I said, "Seriously, most of what passes for science journalism is so bad we will be better of without it." [The Future of Science Journalism]
Today the evolutionary worldview has expanded into analyses of economics and politics as well as of human mating behavior. It has enriched the “rational choice” model long espoused by economists to explain human behavior in the marketplace. Traditional economic models assume that people act exclusively in their self-interest, just as traditional evolutionary theory describes competition among individuals. But cooperation and altruistic tendencies also show up routinely in studies of economic behavior. People who stand to lose from progressive taxation, for example, may still vote for it. “You can’t predict how people will vote on the issue of income redistribution based on their income,” says economist Herbert Gintis of the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico.
Ray Comfort wrote a book. He's not very happy because the book isn't doing so good. This is because of an atheist conspiracy [Atheists strategize against book on God].Comfort said the strong opposition easily is explained.When I read something like this I'm (temporarily) speechless. PZ Myers has a short explanation of how evolution really works for those of you who might be confused [It's a conspiracy!].
"I simply expose atheistic evolution for the unscientific fairy tale that it is, and I do it with common logic. I ask questions about where the female came from for each species. Every male dog, cat, horse, elephant, giraffe, fish and bird had to have coincidentally evolved with a female alongside it (over billions of years) with fully evolved compatible reproductive parts and a desire to mate, otherwise the species couldn't keep going. Evolution has no explanation for the female for every species in creation," he said.
"I also show that the 'God' issue is moral rather than intellectual."Truer words were never spoken. Ray Comfort has, indeed, proven that his arguments aren't intellectual.
"No one needs to prove that God exists. Creation is clear evidence for any sane person that there's a Creator. But if I can convince myself that there is no God, it means I am not morally accountable, and evolution opens the door to a whole lot of sinful delicacies such as pornography, fornication, lying, theft, and of course writing bad reviews for a book I haven't read," he continued.Thinking of Cain and Abel reminds me that we shouldn't forget about delicacies like incest and murder.
"for the discovery of insulin"
Frederick Grant Banting (1891 - 1941) and John James Richard Macleod (1876 - 1935) won the Noble Prize in 1923 for discovering insulin and using it to relieve the symptoms of diabetes. 
Frederick Banting thought that Charles Best, and not Macleod, should have shared the Nobel Prize with him. This is one of the most famous Nobel Prize controversies. Banting shared his prize money with Best and Macleod shared his money with Collip. We must not imagine that insulin is able to cure diabetes. How could that be possible if the cause of diabetes is to be found in the fact that the cells within our organism that produce the hormone necessary for the combustion of sugar are definitively destroyed? But insulin gives us the possibility of transforming the severe form to a milder one and thereby of restoring his capacity for work and a comparative state of health to the hopeless invalid who, despite the most trying and rigorous restrictions in diet, is constantly threatened by a fatal state of poisoning. Most striking is the effect of insulin in the cases in which the state of poisoning has already passed into that of diabetic coma, against which we have hitherto been helpless and which, before the days of insulin, inevitably led to death.
It could be prophesied with a very great degree of probability that such a substance as insulin some day would be produced from the pancreatic gland, and much of the work had been done beforehand by previous investigations, several of whom very nearly reached the goal. Consequently it also has been said that its discoverer was in a preeminent degree favoured by lucky circumstances. Even if this be so, yet there would seem to be cause to remember Pasteur's words: «La chance ne favorise que l'intelligence préparée.»1
The Professorial Staff of the Caroline Institute has considered the work of Banting and Macleod to be of such importance, theoretically and practically, that it has resolved to award them the great distinction of the Nobel Prize. Doctor Banting and Professor Macleod not having the opportunity of being present today, I have the honour of asking the British Minister to accept from His Majesty the King the prize, and to transfer it to the Laureates, together with the congratulations of the Professorial Staff of the Royal Caroline Institute.
1. Chance favors the prepared mind.
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 Canadian Press is reporting that the House of Common rejected a motion to recognize Darwin's theory of evolution as the only scientific explanation for the origin of the human species [Ottawa rejects motion to favour Darwin theory over other scientific explanations]. Mr. Speaker, I seek the unanimous consent of the House to adopt the following motion: That the House acknowledge the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, which launched the theory of evolution, the only proven and recognized scientific explanation for the origin of man. I believe you will find unanimous consent for adoption of this motion.Some honourable members shouted "yes" and some shouted "no." The speaker ruled that there was no unanimous consent.
That the House acknowledge the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of "On the Origin of Species."That motion would have stood a much better chance of getting unanimous consent.
I'm one of those people who hate the taste of coriander (called cilantro in most of North America). It's mostly Chinese parsley (Coriandrum sativum L.) but there are similar American plants that taste just as bad. Coriander/cilantro completely ruins any food that it touches. 
Supporting the Fight Against Cilantro!I wonder if hating cilantro is genetic? Is there an allele that affects a particular taste receptor? If so, I wonder about the adaptive significance of the hate cilantro allele. There must be one .....
Cilantro. The most offensive food known to man.
Welcome! You are visiting the web site of a growing community of cilantro haters. We are, however, rational people. In fact, we are the most rational people on earth. No normally functioning human being would ever in a lifetime consider cilantro edible.
It's the reason you are here. Please browse the site in support of your anti-cilantro confederates and help spread the word any way you can:
[Hat Tip: Josh Rosenau]
Identify all three molecules shown here. Be as specific as possible.Q. The woman in California who gave birth to octuplets was single. Is this common?
Yes. While couples (both heterosexual and same-sex) comprise the majority of IVF patients, we see many single women using donated sperm as well. We don’t discriminate.
Q. The California woman was implanted with six embryos using in-vitro fertilization. Could something like this happen in Canada?
In Canada no reproductive infertility specialist would be putting back that many embryos.
There’s no law in Canada—it’s up to the doctor and the patient to decide. Our guidelines are to transfer up to two embryos in women under 35, up to three for women between 35 and 39 and up to five for women 40 and older. The reason that the number of embryos goes up as you get older is that there are more and more chromosomal abnormalities that accumulate in the eggs as a woman ages. By the time a woman is 40, for example, 90 per cent or more of her eggs have a chromosomal abnormality that would be incompatible with a live birth. So the idea of putting more embryos in an older patient is to try and ensure that there’s one healthy normal embryo that will actually implant.
Q. So, in a nutshell, this is pretty much unheard of?
To put six embryos in someone who is 33 is way, way outside what it is considered to be normal standard of care.
Q. Any thoughts on what the doctor was thinking?
I have no idea what was happening in that clinic. It sounded like they didn’t have much experience. They put a lot of embryos in to increase her chances—I don’t think they were counting on the fact that she was so fertile or thinking about the fact that she had six previous children.
Q. Are women counseled psychologically before receiving IVF? This woman had six other kids – should her doctor have discouraged her from trying to have more?
Psychological counseling is mandatory—a standard of care in Canada—for women using donor sperm. However, we wouldn’t turn away a woman who has six children and wants another—it’s her decision if she wants to have another child. But at 33, we would encourage that she have only one embryo put back, especially, as with the case with this woman, she has proven very high fertility.
Identify all three molecules shown here. Be as specific as possible.
A paper examining the diverstiy of human salivary bacteria has recently appeared in the journal Genome Research (Nasidze et al. 2009). 
There were 101 different types of bacteria (genera). Each person has between six and thirty different species of bacteria in their mouth. There are about 45 different genera in each location (e.g. Bolivia, Congo, China, California, Germany, etc.).
Actinomyces: Actinomyces are rod-shaped, gram positive bacteria that can survive under both aerobic (oxygen) and anaerobic conditions. Such bacteria are called facultative anaerobes. A. naeslundii forms dental placque by adhering to the surface of your teeth.
Nasidze, I., Li, J., Quinque, D., Tang, K., and Stoneking, M. (200() Global diversity in the human salivary microbiome. Genome Res. Published in Advance February 27, 2009, [doi:10.1101/gr.084616.108] [Genome Research]
I. Nasidze, J. Li, D. Quinque, K. Tang, M. Stoneking (2009). Global diversity in the human salivary microbiome Genome Research DOI: 10.1101/gr.084616.108
Gary Goodyear is Canada's Minister of State (Science and Technology). He's also a chiropractor. The screaming erupted last Wednesday afternoon, just down the street from Parliament Hill, in the offices of a Conservative cabinet minister.I don't know what could possibly have gone wrong. Perhaps it was something that Mr. Goodyear said?
Two officials with Canadian Association of University Teachers sat on one side of a boardroom table and on the other sat Gary Goodyear, Minister of Science and Technology, his policy adviser Wesley Moore and a civil servant ready to take notes.
CAUT, a lobby group that represents 65,000 staff at 121 colleges and universities, had planned to raise concerns over the government's handling of research funding. But within moments, it became clear they wouldn't get very far.
“The minister was very angry,” said David Robinson, associate executive director of CAUT. “He was raising his voice and pointing his finger … He said everyone loves their [federal budget] and we said, ‘A lot of our members don't love it'… and he said, ‘That's because you're lying to them, misleading them.'”
The talks, Mr. Robinson said, went from bad to worse. In 15 years on the job, he “never had a meeting like that.”
Mr. Goodyear agrees. “I, too, have never had a meeting like that. It was a unique experience and one I don't care to repeat.”
Mr. Goodyear said he has met university presidents, deans of research, and researchers themselves and believes government critics are few. “You're going to see that one person who didn't get what they wanted,” he said. But “eight out of 10 folks I talk to get it … they are very positive.”Or maybe it had something to with the change in science policy since the Conservatives took over in 2006?
Mr. Goodyear, a chiropractor from Cambridge, Ont., said the government has been steadily investing in science and technology since 2006, with a new emphasis on commercialization and that it has designed an overall strategy to ensure Canada remains a world leader in research.
“We have done everything right,” he said.
After years of double-digit budget increases in the early 2000s, government contributions in recent years to NSERC, SSHRC and CIHR have barely kept pace with inflation – and last year they underwent a government-mandated strategic review to reduce their spending.In any case, it ended badly ...
So while the Barack Obama administration in Washington has added $10-billion (U.S.) to finance basic research in the United States, the three agencies that back basic research in Canada must cut spending by $148-million over the next three years.
CIHR, for example, Canada's main funding body for medical research, has to find about $35-million in savings by 2012, and $28-million of that is by eliminating a program that provided grants to research teams.
CAUT, however, is less confident. It was the position of researchers fretting for the future the lobby group hoped to represent at last week's meeting with Mr. Goodyear.This meeting is more extreme than most but it confirms an impression I had when I used to go up to Ottawa for those lobbying weeks in March. When dealing with the Conservatives, the only workable strategy is to vote them out of office as quickly as possible.
They had barely begun to state their case, Mr. Robinson said, when the minister accused them of twisting facts.
When CAUT staff said the Conservatives have a spotty record on science and noted they abolished the office of the national science adviser, Mr. Robinson said, the minister's assistant screamed at them to shut up.
“Then the minister said, ‘You've burned all your bridges with us!' and they stormed out.
“In all the meetings I've been in like this, I've never been shouted at and told to shut up,” Mr. Robinson said. The civil servant who escorted them to the elevator suggested it would not even be a good idea to return to the minister's office to collect their coats, he said. Instead, she retrieved them.