Monday November 23, 2009
09:00-11:00Symposium III: Theistic Evolution
Chair: Michael Bourgeois
09:00-09:40
Bernard Lightman (York University)
Christian Evolutionists in the U.S., 1860-1900
09:40-10:20
Michael Ruse (Florida State University)
Are Science and Religion Compatible and If So, Why?
10:20-11:00
Denis O. Lamoureux (University of Alberta)
Darwinian Theological Insights: Toward an Intellectually Fulfilled Theism
11:15-12:45
Session 2.i: Acceptances and Denials
Chair: David Smillie
11:15-11:45
Fermin Fulda (University of Toronto)
Against Fodor Against Darwinism
11:45-12:15
Stefaan Blanke (Ghent University)
"A million guesses strung together:" Creationist Denial of the Science Behind Evolutionary Theory
12:15-12:45
Daniel A. Newman (University of Toronto)
The Rhetoric of Probability: How Darwin Overcame the Argument from Design
11:15-12:45
Session 2.ii: Historical Receptions
Chair: Jaipreet Virdi
11:15-11:45
John Court (University of Toronto)
Darwinian Evolution's First Fifty Years of Impact
on Botany at the University of Toronto. 1859 to 1909
11:45-12:15
David M. Steffes (Arizona State University)
Population Ecology and Evolution: Darwin's Origin and the
Modern Synthesis of the 1940s and 50s
12:15-12:45
Kevin Pent (York University)
Julian Huxley's 'Apogee of Species': Darwin's 'Man' Comes of Age
11:15-12:45
Session 2.iii: A Brave New Darwin
Chair: Chris Belanger
11:15-11:45
Peter Fedor (Comenius University)
Advances in Artificial Intelligence in Species Identification
11:45-12:15
Wybo Houkes (Edinhoven University of Technology)
Hypothesis Testing in Artefact Evolution
12:15-12:45
Laura Landen (Queen's University)
Natural Selection, The Intentional Stance, and Mirror Neuron Research
12:45-13:30 Lunch Break
13:40-15:40
Symposium IV: Species
Chair: Ronald de Sousa
13:40-1420
John Beatty (University of British Columbia)
Darwin on Species
14:20-15:00
Kevin de Queiroz (Natural Museum of National History; Smithsonian)
Charles Darwin and the Evolution of the Species Concept
15:00-15:40
Marc Ereshefsky (University of Calgary)
Mystery of Mysteries: Darwin and the Species Problem
15:45-16:45
Keynote Address: Michael Ruse (Florida State University)
Is Darwinism Past its “Sell-By” Date?
16:45-18:15
Session 3.i: Naturalism
Chair: Curtis Forbes
16:45-17:15
Jason Marsh (University of Western Ontario)
Darwinism and Divine Hiddenness
17:15-17:45
Khaldoun Sweis (Olive-Harvey College)
Philosophical Paradoxs of Darwin Evolutionary Naturalism
17:45-18:15
Maarten Boudry (Ghent University)
Methodological Naturalism as an Intrinsic Property of Science:
A Grist to the Mill of Intelligent Design Theory
16:45-18:15
Session 3.ii: Reconstructing Darwinism
Chair: Erich Weidenhammer
16:45-17:15
Peter Gildenhuys (Lafayette College)
Putting the Struggle for Existence to Work
17:15-17:45
Katharine Browne (University of Toronto)
A Darwinian theory of Games
17:45-18:15
Sarah Winter (University of Connecticut Storrs)
Species as Value: Biosemiotics in Darwin's Origin and Saussurian Linguistics
16:45-18:15
Session 3.iii: Applying Darwinism
Chair: Mike Stuart
16:45-17:15
Marion Blute (University of Toronto at Mississauga)
Darwinism in the Social Sciences Today
17:15-17:45
Howard M. Huynh (Acadia University)
In the Footsteps of Darwin: The Value of Scientific Collecting in
Biodiversity Research and Conservation
17:45-18:15
Joel Velasco (Stanford University)
The Tree of Life: From Darwin to Today
18:15-19:15
Keynote Address: Evelyn Fox Keller
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Darwin as the Newton of a Blade of Grass
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Origin of Species at 150: Day Two
Origin of Species at 150: Day One
The conference on Origin of Species at 150 was sponsored by The Institute for the History & Philosophy of Science & Technology, The Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and The Department of Philosophy at the University of Toronto.
Here's the schedule for the first day.
Here's the schedule for the first day.
Sunday November 22, 2009
08:00-09:00 Breakfast
09:00-10:00
Keynote Address: Alison Pearn (Darwin Correspondence Project)
Cast of Thousands: Charles Darwin's Life in Letters
10:00-12:00
Symposium I: Gender, Evolution, and Sexual Selection
Chair: Joan Steigerwald
10:00-10:40
Lisa Lloyd (Indiana University)
Bias in Evolutionary Explanations of the Female Orgasm
10:40-11:20
Marlene Zuk (University of California, Riverside)
Sex and the Scala Naturae
11:20-12:00
Erika Milam (University of Maryland, College Park)
Negotiating Choice: Animal Minds and Human Instincts
in the History of Sexual Selection
12:00-12:30 Lunch Break
12:45-13:45
Session 1.i: Reassessing Themes and Sources
Chair: Michael Cournoyea
12:45-13:15
Scott Sinclair (St. Louis University)
Three American Philosophers’ Response to Darwin
13:15-13:45
Fred Wilson (University of Toronto)
Replacing an Old Paradigm: Intelligent Design and Natural Selection; Hume, Mill, and Darwin
12:45-14:15
Session 1.ii: Social Perceptions
Chair: Jaipreet Virdi
12:45-13:15
Eleanor Louson (University of Toronto)
Nature, Projected: Evolutionary Theory in Wildlife Documentaries
13:15-13:45
David Smillie (University of Toronto)
Evolution and Popular Culture: Darwin on the Box
13:45-14:15
Ian Hesketh (Queen’s University)
Of Apes and Ancestors: Myth and the Cultural Memory of the Oxford Debate of 1860
12:45-14:15
Session 1.iii: Species and Sexuality
Chair: Sebastián Gil-Riaño
12:45-13:15
Masoud Hassanpour Golakani (Macquarie University)
The Spiral Valve Intestine of the Australian Lungfish, a Primitive Characteristic
13:15-13:45
Eugene S. Morton (Hemlock Hill Field Station)
Sexual Conflict and Brood Desertion in Blue-Headed Vireos: How Females Won
13:45-14:15
Jerome Goldsten (San Francisco Clinical Research Center)
The Neurobiology of Sexual Orientation: A Tribute to Charles Darwin
14:30-16:30
Symposium II: Ecology
Chair: Richard Landon
(Coffee/Tea Service Provided)
14:30-15:10
Joan Roughgarden (Stanford University)
Darwin and Ecology
15:10-15:50
Gene Cittadino (New York University)
Reflections on Darwin and Ecology: The History of a Tenuous Relationship
15:50-16:30
Gregory Cooper (Washington and Lee University)
The Darwinian Character of Evolutionary Ecology
16:40-17:40
Keynote Address: James Moore (University of Cambridge)
Darwin’s Progress and the Problem of Slavery
18:00-19:30
Special Presentation
Re: Design: A Dramatisation of the Correspondence between Charles Darwin and Asa Gray (Produced by the Menagerie Theatre Company)
150 Years Ago
Although much remains obscure, and will long remain obscure, I can entertain no doubt, after the most deliberate study and dispassionate judgment of which I am capable, that the view which most naturalists entertain, and which I formerly entertained—namely, that each species is independently created—is erroneous. I am fully convinced that species are not immutable; but that those belonging to what are called the same genera are lineal descendants of some other and generally extinct species, in the same manner as the acknowledged varieties of any one species are descendants of that species. Furthermore, I am convinced that Natural Selection has been the main but not the exclusive means of modification.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
One More Reason to Visit Canada
I stole this from Bayblab It shows why Canadians like global warming.
Canadian Tourism Federation Welcome Video from Canadian Tourism Federation on Vimeo.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Monday's Molecule #144: Winner?
The creature is the spirochete, Treponema pallidum. This bacteria causes syphilis. The Nobel Laureate is Julius Wagner-Jauregg who discovered a way to treat the lethal form of dementia that develops in the late stages of the disease.
There were only three people who got the right answer. All of them were ineligible. There is no winner this week!
This is another one of those times when there's no "molecule" that provides a clue to a Nobel Laureate. Your task is to identify this creature and the reason why it's important. There are three Nobel Laureates who might be associated with the creature but two of them have already been covered. The last name of the this week's Nobel Laureate does not begin with the letters "E" or "D". Who is it?
The first person to identify the "molecule" and name the Nobel Laureate(s) wins a free lunch. Previous winners are ineligible for six weeks from the time they first won the prize.
There are seven ineligible candidates for this week's reward: Markus-Frederik Bohn of the Lehrstuhl für Biotechnik in Erlangen, Germany, Jason Oakley a biochemistry student at the University of Toronto, Dima Klenchin of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Alex Ling of the University of Toronto, Bill Chaney of the University of Nebraska, Linda Zhang, a former student at the University of Toronto who will soon be on her way to graduate school at the University of Hong Kong and Kirill Zaslavsky, a Neuroscience student at the University of Toronto.
Dima, and Bill have agreed to donate their free lunch to an undergraduate. Consequently, I have two extra free lunches for deserving undergraduates. I'm going to award an additional prize to the first undergraduate student who can accept it. Please indicate in your email message whether you are an undergraduate and whether you can make it for lunch. If you can't make it for lunch then please consider donating it to someone who can in the next round.
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(s) and names the Nobel Laureate(s). Note that I'm not going to repeat Nobel Prizes 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.
Should Intelligent Design Creationism Be Taught in Schools?
PZ Myers and someone named Jerry Bergman debated the question; "Should Intelligent Design be Taught in The Schools?." Bergman said "yes" and PZ said "no."
You can read summaries of the debate on Greg Laden's Blog [Bergman vs. Myers Debate: Should Intelligent Design be Taught in The Schools?] and on Kittywhumpus [I thought it went really well, until he brought up Hitler]. PZ has posted a summary on Pharyngula [That Bergman-Myers debate].
By all accounts it was a rout. PZ won the day for keeping Intelligent Design Creationism out of the classroom. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.
I'd like to debate PZ on this topic. I think Intelligent Design Creationism has to be brought up in the classroom. It's the major misconception that students have and to ignore it is stupid. You have to address the issues that students are confused about or you aren't educating. It's one thing to say that Intelligent Design Creationism isn't science when you are outside of the classroom but unless the students hear it in the classroom you are wasting your time.
We are never going to make progress against scientific illiteracy unless we recognize the elephant in the room and deal with it. Study after study has shown that the misconceptions of students aren't changed when you just present them with facts. They will readily incorporate those facts into their distorted worldview and that's exactly what happens when we teach evolution to creationists.
They need to be shown why their worldview is wrong and this means bringing up in class all the problems with Intelligent Design Creationism. Like it or not, that means teaching Intelligent Design Creationism in the science classroom even if the goal is to refute it.
Astrology is a good analogy. One way to teach critical thinking is to have a lesson on astrology where you explain what's wrong with it and why it doesn't work. You don't ban it from the classroom because it's bad science—you bring it into the classroom because it's bad science and students need to hear why.
If you don't do that, many students will continue to think that astrology is real and before you know it you've created another generation of citizens who don't understand science.
The thing that Intelligent Design Creationists should fear the most is that we actually will confront it in the classroom and expose it for the nonsense it is. They're safe as long as we tip-toe around it. That leaves them free to teach their nonsense in Sunday school without fear of ever being contradicted.
(I'm well aware of the Constitutional arguments in America. If someone like PZ wants to argue that Intelligent Design Creationism should be taught in US schools but the Constitution forbids it, then I'm prepared to agree with him. The debate I want is whether it should be taught in schools that don't have such a silly law. Should it be taught in Canadian schools? I say yes.)
Genetic Load, Neutral Theory, and Junk DNA
The average human newborn has about 130 new mutations that were not found in either parent [Mutation Rates]. These mutations accumulate as a natural result of errors in DNA replication between the time that the zygote is first formed and the time that the sperm and egg cells are produced for the next generation.
A species cannot afford to accumulate deleterious mutations in the genomes of its individuals. Eventually the number of "bad" mutations will reach a level where most genes have multiple "bad" alleles and it becomes impossible to produce offspring.
This phenomenon is referred to as genetic load. It means that species can only survive if the genetic load is below some minimum value. A good rule of thumb is that there can't be more than 0.1 deleterious mutations per individual per generation but in actual populations this value can be a bit higher. [UPDATE: This should be one (1) deleterious mutation per generation.]
How do you reconcile this with the known mutation rate in humans? If there are, on average, 130 mutations per individual per generation, then hardly any of these can be deleterious if the species is to survive.
This is one of the arguments in favor of Neutral Theory. Most mutations are neither deleterious nor beneficial. They are simply neutral with respect to natural selection.
Let's think about a typical protein-encoding gene.1 The coding region is about 2,000 base pairs in length and consist of 666 codons. More than half these codons can be mutated to a new codon encoding a different amino acid without severe effects on the function of the protein.2 These are called amino acid substitutions. Of the "essential" codons, many can tolerate mutations that create synonymous codons. Putting these facts together suggests that only about 20% of mutations to protein encoding regions are detrimental. The rest are effectively neutral.
This partially explains why we can tolerate 130 mutations per individual per generation. If only 20% were detrimental then the genetic load is reduced to about 26 mutations per generation.
That's still unacceptably high. It leads to the idea that a large percentage of our genome must be unaffected by mutations. In other words, genes represent only a small percentage of our genome and mutations can freely accumulate in the rest without detrimental consequences.
In order to bring the genetic load down to acceptable levels, the number of genes has to be less than 40,000 according to the arguments made in the 1960s. We now know that we have only 20,000 genes. Most of them encode proteins and the coding regions of those genes make up about 40,000,000 bp or about 1.3% of our genome [Junk in Your Genome: Protein-Encoding Genes].
Recall that only 20% of mutations in coding regions are likely to be detrimental. That means that the effective target size for detrimental mutations is about 20% x 1.3% = 0.26% of our genome. Out of 130 mutations, only 0.3 per individual per generation will be detrimental.3
Since we are diploid organisms, the 130 mutations in the zygote are spread out over two copies of our genome but almost all of them will be in the chromosomes coming from the father. Every zygote inherits one complete set of chromosomes with hardly any mutations while the other set has less than one detrimental mutation.
Because a large percentage of gene mutations are neutral, and because most of our genome is junk, we can easily tolerate 130 mutations per individual per generation without going extinct.
Creationists will never understand this because: (a) they believe that modern evolutionary theory is all about "Darwinism" and Darwinian evolution doesn't recognize neutral mutations and random genetic drift, and (b) they can't admit to junk DNA because that's the opposite of what intelligent design would look like.
A species cannot afford to accumulate deleterious mutations in the genomes of its individuals. Eventually the number of "bad" mutations will reach a level where most genes have multiple "bad" alleles and it becomes impossible to produce offspring.
This phenomenon is referred to as genetic load. It means that species can only survive if the genetic load is below some minimum value. A good rule of thumb is that there can't be more than 0.1 deleterious mutations per individual per generation but in actual populations this value can be a bit higher. [UPDATE: This should be one (1) deleterious mutation per generation.]
How do you reconcile this with the known mutation rate in humans? If there are, on average, 130 mutations per individual per generation, then hardly any of these can be deleterious if the species is to survive.
This is one of the arguments in favor of Neutral Theory. Most mutations are neither deleterious nor beneficial. They are simply neutral with respect to natural selection.
Let's think about a typical protein-encoding gene.1 The coding region is about 2,000 base pairs in length and consist of 666 codons. More than half these codons can be mutated to a new codon encoding a different amino acid without severe effects on the function of the protein.2 These are called amino acid substitutions. Of the "essential" codons, many can tolerate mutations that create synonymous codons. Putting these facts together suggests that only about 20% of mutations to protein encoding regions are detrimental. The rest are effectively neutral.
This partially explains why we can tolerate 130 mutations per individual per generation. If only 20% were detrimental then the genetic load is reduced to about 26 mutations per generation.
That's still unacceptably high. It leads to the idea that a large percentage of our genome must be unaffected by mutations. In other words, genes represent only a small percentage of our genome and mutations can freely accumulate in the rest without detrimental consequences.
In order to bring the genetic load down to acceptable levels, the number of genes has to be less than 40,000 according to the arguments made in the 1960s. We now know that we have only 20,000 genes. Most of them encode proteins and the coding regions of those genes make up about 40,000,000 bp or about 1.3% of our genome [Junk in Your Genome: Protein-Encoding Genes].
Recall that only 20% of mutations in coding regions are likely to be detrimental. That means that the effective target size for detrimental mutations is about 20% x 1.3% = 0.26% of our genome. Out of 130 mutations, only 0.3 per individual per generation will be detrimental.3
Since we are diploid organisms, the 130 mutations in the zygote are spread out over two copies of our genome but almost all of them will be in the chromosomes coming from the father. Every zygote inherits one complete set of chromosomes with hardly any mutations while the other set has less than one detrimental mutation.
Because a large percentage of gene mutations are neutral, and because most of our genome is junk, we can easily tolerate 130 mutations per individual per generation without going extinct.
Creationists will never understand this because: (a) they believe that modern evolutionary theory is all about "Darwinism" and Darwinian evolution doesn't recognize neutral mutations and random genetic drift, and (b) they can't admit to junk DNA because that's the opposite of what intelligent design would look like.
1. Similar arguments apply to genes that make functional RNAs and not proteins.
2. Over the course of several billion years of evolution it is unusual to see more than 30% sequence similarity between homologous genes. I realize that this is a somewhat circular argument but it's still a good one.
3. There are lots of other regions of the genome where mutations can be detrimental. I don't mean to imply that only protein encoding regions can be affected by mutations. Collectively, these other regions don't make up more than a few percent of our genome and they can tolerate many mutations [Genomes & Junk DNA]
Monday, November 16, 2009
Genetic Load
If the average rate of deleterious mutations is about 1 per individual per generation then the species can't survive. It means that most offspring will carry a mutation. This is an intolerable genetic load for a species.
In fact it's worse than that. Simple calculations suggest than even a rate of 0.1 deleterious mutations per individual will spell doom for the species. This is a well-known limitation and it was widely used in developing several key components of evolutionary theory and in explaining the size and composition of eukaryotic genomes.
The average total mutation rate in humans is about 130 mutations per genome per generation. Scordova concludes that this proves Intelligent Design Creationism [Nachman’s Paradox Defeats Darwinism and Dawkins’ Weasel]. It does no such thing. It proves once again that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing—especially in the mind of an IDiot.
Monday's Molecule #144
This is another one of those times when there's no "molecule" that provides a clue to a Nobel Laureate. Your task is to identify this creature and the reason why it's important. There are three Nobel Laureates who might be associated with the creature but two of them have already been covered. The last name of the this week's Nobel Laureate does not begin with the letters "E" or "D". Who is it?
The first person to identify the "molecule" and name the Nobel Laureate(s) wins a free lunch. Previous winners are ineligible for six weeks from the time they first won the prize.
There are seven ineligible candidates for this week's reward: Markus-Frederik Bohn of the Lehrstuhl für Biotechnik in Erlangen, Germany, Jason Oakley a biochemistry student at the University of Toronto, Dima Klenchin of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Alex Ling of the University of Toronto, Bill Chaney of the University of Nebraska, Linda Zhang, a former student at the University of Toronto who will soon be on her way to graduate school at the University of Hong Kong and Kirill Zaslavsky, a Neuroscience student at the University of Toronto.
Dima, and Bill have agreed to donate their free lunch to an undergraduate. Consequently, I have two extra free lunches for deserving undergraduates. I'm going to award an additional prize to the first undergraduate student who can accept it. Please indicate in your email message whether you are an undergraduate and whether you can make it for lunch. If you can't make it for lunch then please consider donating it to someone who can in the next round.
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(s) and names the Nobel Laureate(s). Note that I'm not going to repeat Nobel Prizes 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.
The Hat Gene
Humans have always had a urge to cover their heads with various forms of headgear. There must be a hat gene in our genomes and it probably evolved in the human lineage after it split from chimpanzees. Chimps don't wear hats.If you believe this then you've probably fallen for the idea that FOXP2 is a gene for language and that there's a gene for God/religion. See The hunt for the Hat Gene for a good discussion of where you're going wrong.
Bill Maher on Vaccination
Bill Maher has attempted to clarify his position on vaccination [Vaccination: A Conversation Worth Having]. His blog is a lot like his TV show. It's a confusing, rambling, attempt at justifying an indefensible position using (attempted) humor, sarcasm and anecdote as a substitute for rationalism.The question is whether vaccinations are good or bad. It's a strictly scientific question with a well-known scientific answer.
As far as I can tell, these are Bill Maher's main reasons for opposing vaccinations.
- You wouldn't need to have vaccinations if you had a healthy immune system to begin with. (And I'm sure he has some opinions on what you should eat to ensure a healthy immune system.)
- The success of vaccinations has been exaggerated by the medical community but he's not accusing anyone of a conspiracy.
- Vaccines have bad things in them and they may be harmful to healthy people.
- Vaccinations are supported by drug companies and you need to be skeptical about anything that's supported by large for-profit corporations.
I'm just trying to represent an under-reported medical point of view in this country, I'm not telling a specific pregnant lady what to do. With unlimited air time, I would have, for example, added to my discussion with Dr. Bill Frist on October 2 that, yes, any flu or health challenge can be dangerous when you're pregnant, and if your immune system is already compromised by, for example, eating a typical American diet, then a flu shot can make sense. But someone needs to be representing the point of view that says the preferred way to handle flus is to have a strong immune system to begin with, and getting lots of vaccines might not be the best way to accomplish that over the long haul.
Now, sometimes its OK to fuck with nature -- I believe "intelligent design" is often anything but intelligent; that "God's perfect universe" is actually full of fuck ups and design flaws, like cleft lips and Down Syndrome -- so correcting nature is sometimes the right thing to do. And then, sometimes its not. For me, the flu shot is in the "not" category.
In addition, my audience is bright, they wouldn't refuse a flu shot because they heard me talk about it, but if they looked into the subject a little more, how is that a bad thing? If they went to the CDC Web site and saw what's in the vaccine -- the formaldehyde, the insect repellent, the mercury -- shouldn't they at least get to have the information for themselves?
Instead of setting up this straw man of me not understanding germs or viruses, let's have a real debate about how much we should use vaccines and antibiotics. Of course it's good that we have them in our arsenal, but isn't the real skeptic the one who asks if these powerful but toxic methods do harm to what actually is a a very good defensive system, the one you were born with?
Also, I have never said there was a medical conspiracy. In fact, when Howard Dean asked me that, my response was "I wouldn't call it a conspiracy." Any more than there's a conspiracy for the Pentagon budget to be obscenely bloated and operated largely for the corporate welfare of defense contractors. If these are conspiracies, they're mostly legal ones that happen in plain sight. (Good time here to plug the hostess' book, Pigs At the Trough, it's all in there!) I have, in fact, used the phrase "medical-pharmaceutical-food industry" complex in comparing it to Eisenhower's famous depiction of a "military-industrial complex."
I believe in science and I believe in studies to determine the truth. I also believe Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon was correct when he said recently on MSNBC: "If you've got a checkbook in this town, you can get just about any set of facts you want." So if I remind you of a conspiracy theorist, you sometimes remind me of Britney Spears when she said "we should just do whatever the president says to do, and not ask questions and just support him." The medical community can be brutal on dissent, which would hold more weight if I thought this was a terribly healthy country, which it isn't. Health care is one sixth of our economy, and we spend way more on it than any other nation. The elephant in the room of the health care debate is that we are going to have a high health care bill every year no matter what law they pass because we're sick -- we need a lot of drugs and services.This last quotation is the most revealing of all. Bill Maher listens to his naturopath doctor and feels competent to distinguish the truth when his quack doctor disagrees with evidence-based medicine (e.g. "Western" medicine).
Am I a conspiracy theorist if I suggest that since the network's nightly news broadcasts are sponsored almost entirely by prescription drug ads, that you might have to hold your breath a long time before you hear the alternative point of view to using pharmaceuticals to cure all our ailments?
Is it conspiracy theory to believe that American medicine too much treats symptoms and not root causes of disease? I always ask my friends when they go to the doctor for something, "Did your doctor ask you what you eat?" The answer is almost always 'no,' and a lot can be cured with diet and a healthier lifestyle. (And a lot can't. I also understand the role of genetics and generations of artificial selection). But Americans don't want to hear that, so doctors don't push it. It's easier and more profitable to write a prescription for Lipitor. They're not bad people, and at the end of the day, you can't make someone eat right. I like and respect all the M.D.s I've had over the years, and for the record, I have a naturopath doctor and I have a Western doctor. I would make an analogy to Republicans and Democrats: in both politics and health, I don't commit to either party because I'm on the side of the truth, whoever has it. In both cases, I'm an Independent.
In addition to falling for quackery, Bill Maher is making an elementary error in logic. Yes, it's true there are problems with modern medicine and the influence of drug companies, especially in the USA. But that's not to be confused with a rational discussion about the value of vaccinations. The scientific judgment about whether vaccinations are good or bad is independent of any opinions you might have about conspiracies, imagined or otherwise. The real question isn't about drug companies, it's whether you accept science or quackery.
The scientific evaluation of vaccination takes place in many countries throughout the world, including those with socialized medicine. They have all concluded that vaccinations are a proven technology that prevents disease.
[Hat Tip and Thank-you to esaul]
Friday, November 13, 2009
timmyme
Ms Sandwalk just got an iPhone. She's thrilled by all the things it can do and I'm happy for her. However, most of the things an iPhone does are not important to me. I already have a camera and I'm not interested in iTunes. My Samsung flip phone works just fine, thank-you very much.Up until last week, getting an iPhone was the last thing on my mind. It was a waste of money as far as I was concerned.
Then I learned about a wonderful app called timmyme [Tim Hortons coffee locator comes to the iPhone]. This little program allows you to find the nearest Tim Hortons no matter where you are in the civilized world.
I have to have an iPhone. To hell with the cost.
Where do we come from? Where are we going?
This is the runner-up in Discover magazine's "Evolution in Two Minutes" contest. It was selected by PZ Myers [The Winner: Evolution in Two Minutes].
I seem to be one of the few people who think this is a horrible way to teach the public about evolution. I guess that's why I'm a curmudgeon.
I think we can do much better. I think we should do better.
The Theory of Evolution
Here's one of the submissions to Discovery Magazine's "Evolution in Two Minutes" contest. It's the one chosen by viewers [The Winner: Evolution in Two Minutes].
I wish we could stop talking about "The" theory of evolution. There's really no such thing and the term conjurs up thoughts of evolution being only a theory. A better term is evolutionary theory.1 A short description of modern evolutionary theory would include population genetics, the major mechanisms of evolution (natural selection and random genetic drift), and the latest theories of speciation. More sophisticated versions of evolutionary theory might include punctuated equilibria, lateral gene transfer, symbiosis, neutral theory, group selection, kin selection, species sorting and molecular phylogeny.
But before you can talk about any of these things you have to define evolution so that we all know what we're talking about. The consensus scientific definition of evolution—the fact, not the theory—is: "Evolution is a process that results in heritable changes in a population spread over many generations" or some related variation of that statement [What Is Evolution?].
The makers of these videos are free to select a definition that is not the consensus scientific definition but why would they do that? Is it a good idea to use another definition to teach the general public about evolution? What purpose does that serve?
It's OK to talk about The theory of natural selection or The theory of punctuated equilbria.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Three Options
Here's a multiple choice question from Barry Arrington on Uncommon Descent [Is a Modern Myth of the Metals the Answer?].
He's concerned about the "fact" that "Darwinism" leads to immorality.
There are three and only three options.Tough choice. I guess I'll opt for #2 although I don't think that telling children the truth about where morality comes from is a lie.
1. We can continue to fill our children’s heads with standard Darwinian theory (which Dennett rightly calls “universal acid”), understanding that at least some of them are going to put two and two together and realize that the acid has eaten through all ethical principles – and act accordingly.
2. We can try to come up with a secular noble lie. “OK kids. You might have noticed that one of the implications of what I just taught you is that your lives are ultimately meaningless and all morals are arbitrary, but you must never act as if that is true because [fill in the noble lie of your choice, such as “morality is firmly grounded on societal norms or our ability to empathize with others”].
3. We can teach our children the truth – that the universe reveals a wondrous ordered complexity that can only be accounted for by the existence of a super-intelligence acting purposefully. And one of the implications of that conclusion is that God exists, and, reasoning further, He has established an objective system of morality that binds us all, and therefore the moral imperatives you feel so strongly are not just an epiphenomenon of the electro-chemical states of your brain.
Looking around I see that for the last several decades we have tried options one and two, and we have gotten what we have gotten. I vote to give option three a run.
And correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't we already tried #3? It didn't work out very well, did it?
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