Evolution According to Niles Eldredge

 

I've read all of the books by Niles Eldredge. He's one of my favorite science authors [Good Science Writers: Niles Eldredge]. However, I've never really understood exactly what he means when he talks about evolution. He's not a molecular biologist or a geneticist but does he understand the basics of these disciplines? Does he think of evolution as a branch of population genetics or something else? Does he know about random genetic drift?

Some of these questions have been answered in an article that he co-authors with his son in the latest issue of Evolution: Education & Outreach. This is a journal dedicated to teaching evolution correctly. The article outlines a universal evolution curriculum for all grades from kindergarten to university [Lessons from EEO: Toward a Universal Evolutionary Curriculum].

Abstract We propose a human-centered evolutionary curriculum based around the three questions: Who am I? Where do I come from? How do I fit in? We base our curriculum on our experiences as an evolutionary biologist/ paleontologist (NE) and as a secondary level special education science teacher (GE)—and not least from our joint experience as co-editors-in-chief of this journal. Our proposed curriculum starts and ends with human biology and evolution, linking these themes with topics as diverse as the “tree of life” (systematics), anthropology, Charles Darwin, cultural evolution, ecology, developmental biology, molecular evolution/genetics, paleontology, and plate tectonics. The curriculum is “universal” as it is designed to be taught at all levels, K–16. The curriculum is flexible: “modules” may be expanded and contracted, reordered, or modified to fit specific grade level needs—and the requirements and interests of local curricula and teachers. We further propose that students utilize workbooks from online or printed sources to investigate the local answers to the general questions (e.g., “Who am I?”), while classroom instruction is focused on the larger scale issues outlined in the modules of our curriculum.

I don't like the idea of teaching evolution from a human-centered perspective. Our students are certainly used to thinking of biology only in terms of themselves, but isn't it our goal as educators to teach them that this is wrong?

It's the age-old question of whether the best way of teaching is to cater to student misconceptions or confront them.

A key part of any evolution curriculum is defining evolution. I prefer a scientific definition that allows us to distinguish evolution from other process that may look like evolution. The minimal definition is derived from population genetics and it allows us to recognize that different frequencies of blood groups in different human populations is evolution [What Is Evolution?].

Eldredge prefers a different definition in his evolutionary curriculum ...

What is “evolution?” Evolution is the testable, scientific idea that all species of life on Earth are descended from a common ancestor living billions of years ago since life first began on Earth. You can think of evolution as the history of life on Earth—or even as the fate of genetic information through time.

Module 3: What Is Evolution? How Do Humans Fit into the History of Life?

I've always taught that evolution is a process and that it's distinctly different from the history of life. It's like the difference between gravity and the history of our solar system. The formation of our solar system was a unique event that relied upon, and can be explained by, gravity and other general processes. Similarly, the history of life on Earth is a unique event. It can be explained by evolution and other processes but it's not the same as "evolution."

As far as I know, there are no evolutionary biology textbooks that define evolution as the history of life. The Eldredges are proposing a curriculum that's out of sync with most pedagogical approaches to evolution. Is this a better way to teach evolution? I don't think so.

Module 3 also covers the mechanisms of evolution. Adaptation and natural selection are mentioned but the authors go on to say that natural selection is not the only evolutionary process. The others are: speciation, punctuated equilibria, and mass extinctions.

I've always suspected that Niles Eldredge discounts random genetic drift as a legitimate process of evolution. This confirms my suspicion.

I'm very concerned about the content of this article and it's publication in a journal that's devoted to evolution education. If this is what the experts on evolution education are touting as the ideal curriculum then there are only two possible conclusions: (1) they aren't experts, or (2) I'm dead wrong about everything that I've been teaching.

I'm almost afraid to open up the comments on this posting for fear that (2) is the correct answer.

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Comparison and Adaptation

 
As most of you know, Richard Dawkins is not a fan of the Spandrels paper by Gould and Lewontin [A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme]. A reader has alerted me to a comment that Richard Dawkins posted on Jerry Coyne's blog.

Dawkins said [I was there ...].

I was there (one of the speakers) at the London meeting of the Royal Society, where the Spandrels paper was first presented (by Gould; Lewontin didn’t come). Before Gould spoke, the talk by Clutton-Brock and Harvey substantially anticipated the Spandrels paper and undermined its central thesis. All of us were eager to hear how Gould would deal with Clutton-Brock and Harvey’s devastating critique of what they guessed (from previous publications) he would say. In the event, Gould totally ignored Clutton-Brock and Harvey, and gave his prepared paper, playing for horse laughs from the gallery, as if nothing had happened. It was the beginning of my disillusionment with Gould, whom I had previously respected. Please, if you read the Spandrels paper, look first at the Clutton-Brock and Harvey paper, in the same volume published by the Royal Society, 1979.

I had not heard of this paper by Clutton-Brock and Harvey and I'm not familiar with their work. Here's the reference and the abstract—it doesn't look to me like a devestating critique of Gould and Lewonton's paper.

Clutton-Brock, T.H. and Harvey, P.H. (1979) Comparison and Adaptation. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 205:547-565. [doi: 10.1098/rspb.1979.0084]

It has sometimes been suggested that the term adaptation should be reserved for differences with a known genetic basis. We argue that adaptation should be defined by its effects rather than by its causes as any difference between two phenotypic traits (or trait complexes) which increases the inclusive fitness of its carrier. This definition implies that some adaptations may arise by means other than natural selection. It is particularly important to bear this in mind when behavioural traits are considered. Critics of the 'adaptationist programme' have suggested that an important objection to many adaptive explanations is that they rely on ad-hoc arguments concerning the function of previously observed differences. We suggest that this is a less important problem (because evolutionary explanations generally claim some sort of generality and are therefore testable) than the difficulties arising from confounding variables. These are more widespread and more subtle than is generally appreciated. Not all differences between organisms are directly adapted to ecological variation. The form of particular traits usually constrains the form or value that other traits can take, presenting several obstacles to attempts to relate variation in morphological or behavioural characteristics directly to environmental differences. We describe some of the repercussions of differences in body size among vertebrates and ways in which these can be allowed for. In addition, a variety of evolutionary processes can produce non-adaptive differences between organisms. One way of distinguishing between these and adaptations is to investigate adaptive trends in phylogenetically different groups of species.

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Vegetarian Nobel Laureates

I'm sure you've all been dying to know how many Nobel Laureates were vegetarians. Well, here's the answer. It was was on the back of a flyer received by one of the Skepchicks [An Appeal to Chickens and Other Logical Fallacies]. She's asking you to review the front part of the flyer to see how many logical fallacies you can identify.

It's interesting that only one Nobel Laureate won the Noble Prize for Physiology or Medicine. I guess the "logic" behind being a vegetarian isn't as obvious to biologists as it is to writers of fiction.

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Name These Geneticists

This is a collection of "geneticists" from the latest issue of Genetics (November 2009). How many can you identify? The correct answers are here.

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What Can't You Do in the House of Commons?

 
Almost anything goes in Ontario's House of Commons and debates can be rather lively. However, tradition (and House rules) state that you cannot accuse someone of lying. Here's what happens if you break that rule.



Ted Chudleigh is the Conservative MPP for Halton—a district that includes Oakville and Milton. He's ranting about a proposal to harmonize the GST and PST taxes.

Jennifer Smith lives in Milton and she's on the case. A little digging led her to this quotation from a speech by Ted Chudleigh in the House of Commons only 14 months ago [Ted Chudleigh on the HST: What a Difference a Year Makes].

Taxing businesses for their input costs is also a negative thing to do in an economy. It would be far better if we could find a way to harmonize the PST with the GST." (October 2, 2008 - Legislative Assembly Hansard)

Oh, dear. Is it possible that Mr. Chudleigh is a liar? Or is he just a hypocrite?

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A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme

The Royal Society of Britain has opened access to a number of classic papers that have been published in Proceedings of the Royal Society. One of them is ...

Gould, S. J. and Lewontin, R.C. (1979) The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 205:581-598. [doi: 10.1098/rspb.1979.0086]

Abstract: An adaptationist programme has dominated evolutionary thought in England and the United States during the past 40 years. It is based on faith in the power of natural selection as an optimizing agent. It proceeds by breaking an organism into unitary 'traits' and proposing an adaptive story for each considered separately. Trade-offs among competing selective demands exert the only brake upon perfection; non-optimality is thereby rendered as a result of adaptation as well. We criticize this approach and attempt to reassert a competing notion (long popular in continental Europe) that organisms must be analysed as integrated wholes, with Bauplane so constrained by phyletic heritage, pathways of development and general architecture that the constraints themselves become more interesting and more important in delimiting pathways of change than the selective force that may mediate change when it occurs. We fault the adaptationist programme for its failure to distinguish current utility from reasons for origin (male tyrannosaurs may have used their diminutive front legs to titillate female partners, but this will not explain why they got so small); for its unwillingness to consider alternatives to adaptive stories; for its reliance upon plausibility alone as a criterion for accepting speculative tales; and for its failure to consider adequately such competing themes as random fixation of alleles, production of non-adaptive structures by developmental correlation with selected features (allometry, pleiotropy, material compensation, mechanically forced correlation), the separability of adaptation and selection, multiple adaptive peaks, and current utility as an epiphenomenon of non-adaptive structures. We support Darwin's own pluralistic approach to identifying the agents of evolutionary change.

If you haven't read this paper by now then download it and read it carefully. It's the most important paper to read if you are interested in evolution.

Jerry Coyne agrees, "Read the rest; it’s certainly one of the most important papers in modern evolutionary biology." [It’s a spandrel (sort of . . .)!].

He also says,

This paper is famous because the authors were famous, because it’s very well written, but most of all because it posed a direct attack on the “Panglossian paradigm”: the view that sociobiology wants to explain all traits, particularly human behaviors, as the direct products of selection. This paper has been the subject of furious discussion and at least one book. In my view, the paper made some valid points but went overboard in its criticism of the adaptationist program, which, after all, has produced lots of insights about evolution. I knew Gould, who was on my thesis committee, and it always seemed like pulling teeth to get him to admit that natural selection was even a relatively important force in evolution. If pressed, he would, but Gould always preferred (perhaps for political reasons) to emphasize the limitations of selection. Lewontin was not nearly so extreme.

It's true that the adaptationists have produced some valuable insights when the problem they are examining is actually an adaptation. However, this isn't as significant as you might imagine. Think of it like this. Everything looks like a nail when you have a large hammer in your hand. The fact that some things actually turn out to be nails is no excuse for blindly whacking at everything that sticks up.

Gould and Lewontin advocated a pluralist position where many different kinds of explanations should be considered. They note that Darwin himself was not committed to natural selection as the only possible mechanism of evolution.

Since Darwin has attained sainthood (if not divinity) among evolutionary biologists, and since all sides invoke God's allegiance, Darwin has often been depicted as a radical selectionist at heart who invoked other mechanisms only in retreat, and only as a result of his age's own lamented ignorance about the mechanisms of heredity. This view is false. Although Darwin regarded selection as the most important of evolutionary mechanisms (as do we), no argument from opponents angered him more than the common attempt to caricature and trivialize his theory by stating that it relied exclusively upon natural selection. In the last edition of the Origin, he wrote (1872, p. 395):

"As my conclusions have lately been much misrepresented, and it has been stated that I attribute the modification of species exclusively to natural selection, I may be permitted to remark that in the first edition of this work, and subsequently, I placed in a most conspicuous position-namely at the close of the introduction-the following words: "I am convinced that natural selection has been the main, but not the exclusive means of modification." This has been of no avail. Great is the power of steady misinterpretation."

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[Hat Tip: Pharyngula: Oldie moldies that are pretty darned fascinating]

On Determining the Structure of a Protein

Michael Clarkson is a biotech postdoc who blogs at Discount Thoughts. One of his recent thoughts is Don't look for "the" structure. He is referring to the fact that the crystal structure of a protein doesn't actually represent the only structure that the protein can adopt.

The figure shown here illustrates one of the problems with referring to the structure of a protein. This is a representation of an NMR structure of bovine ribonuclease A. It shows that various parts of the protein exist in several different conformations. The actual protein structure is a composite of all these structures in equilibrium with each other.

These conformation could be considered "breathing" and you may think they're not important. However, there are many cases where the conformations of a protein are quite different. We are familiar with allostery, where the conformation of a protein changes when it's bound to a ligand, but the are also examples where two very different structures exist in equilibrium in the absence of ligand.

Read his blog posting and keep in mind that proteins are dynamic structures and not static rigid crystals.

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FOX News Pie Chart

 
One of Ms. Sandwalk's ancestors was William Playfair who invented the pie chart [Bar Graphs, Pie Charts, and Darwin]. That was in 1786.

FOX News has heard of the concept but they don't quite seem to have mastered the technique.

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[Hat Tip: GrrlScientist]

The Cutest of all Invertebrates

Catalogue of Organisms features these cute little animals on "Taxon of the Week."

If you follow the link on that blog to a more detailed overview of the taxon you get a bonus—a description of why Christopher Taylor didn't make it to the International Conference of Arachnology in Brazil.

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Origin of Species at 150: Day Three

Tuesday November 24, 2009

08:00-09:00 Breakfast

09:00-11:00
Symposium V: Taxonomy
Chair: TBA

09:00-09:40
Mary Winsor (University of Toronto)
"Classification is a Census:" Huxley's Private Quarrel
with Darwin and its Public Consequences

09:40-10:20
Kevin Padian (University of California, Berkeley)
What is "Evidence for Evolution" to an Evolutionist?

10:20-11:00
Richard A. Richards (University of Alabama)
Context and Evidence in the History of Science

11:15-12:45
Session 4.i: Ancient Debates, Ancient Roots
Chair: Charissa Varma

11:15-11:45
P. William Hughes (Carleton University)
Aristotle contra Democritus: Anticipation of the Neutralist-Selectionist
Debate and a Haphazard Route Back to Darwin

11:45-12:15
Andreas Avgousti (Columbia University)
Pre-modern, Modern and Natural Understandings of Man:
Plato, Hobbes, and Evolutionary Theory

12:15-12:45
Robin Zebrowski (Beloit College)
The Evolution of Experience and the Experience of Evolution:
Revisiting Dewey's Analysis of the Influence of Darwin on Philosophy

11:15-12:45
Session 4.ii: The Devil’s Chaplain
Chair: David Smillie

11:15-11:45
Peter Sachs Collopy (University of Pennsylvania)
Naturalizing Calvinism: The Darwinism and Anti-Evolutionism
of George Frederick Wright

11:45-12:15
Stephen D. Snobelen (University of King’s College)
Theological Themes in Darwin's Origin of Species (1859)

12:15-12:45
Christopher diCarlo (University of Ontario Institute of Technology)
The Zing of Perceived Control: Memetic Equilibrium
and the Evolution of Religion

11:15-12:45
Session 4.iii: Laws of Evolutionary Economics
Chair: Mike Thicke

11:15-11:45
André Ariew (University of Missouri-Columbia)
Darwin’s Invisible Hand?

11:45-12:15
Eugene Earnshaw-Whyte (University of Toronto)
Breaking the Bonds of Biology: Natural Selection
in Nelson and Winter's Evolutionary Economics

12:15-12:45
Chris Haufe (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University)
Darwin’s “Laws”

12:45-13:30 Lunch Break

13:40-15:40
Symposium VI: Evolution and Development
Chair: Jean-Bernard Caron

13:40-14:20
Manfred Laubichler (Arizona State University)
From Boveri to Davidson and Back

14:20-15:00
Jane Maienschein (Arizona State University)
From Epigenesis to Epigenetics and Back

15:00-15:40
Michael Dietrich (Dartmouth College)
From Goldschmidt to Gould and Back

15:50-17:20 Session 5.i: It's All in the Mind
Chair: Eugene Earnshaw-Whyte

15:50-16:20
Byron Kaldis (The Hellenic Open University)
Species-Qua-Individuals and the Modularity of the Mind: The Saving Grace for Humans

16:20-16:50
Alain Ducharme & Sheldon Chow (The University of Western Ontario
Keeping Darwin in Mind

16:50-17:20
Steve DiPaola (Simon Fraser University)
Darwin, Creativity, and Evoluionary Programming

15:50-17:20
Session 5.ii: International Receptions
Chair: Ari Gross

15:50-16:20
Paranbes Nath (Calcutta University)
Darwin and India

16:20-16:50
Alex Levine & Adriana Nova (University of South Florida)
The Fate of Darwinian Analogies in Latin America:
The Reception of Darwinism in 19th Century Argentina

16:50-17:20
Nolan Heie (Queen’s University)
Albert Kalthoff, Entwicklung and the "World View of Modern Man"

15:50-16:50
Session 5.iii: Fitness
Chair: Ellie Louson

15:50-16:20
Marshall Abrams (University of Alabama at Birmingham)
Individuals have no Fitnesses if Fitness Differences Cause Evolution

16:20-16:50
Kent A. Peacock (University of Lethbridge)
The Three Faces of Fitness

15:50-16:50
Session 5.iv: Language and Logic
Chair: S.J. Patterson

15:50-16:20
Alexander G. Yushchenko (Kharkov State Polytechnic University)
Logics & Ethics of Evolution from the Point of View of Evolutionary Theology

16:20-16:50
Justin Humphreys (New School for Social Research)
Darwin on Language

17:20-18:20
Keynote Address: Brian K. Hall (Dalhousie University)
Charles Darwin, Evolutionary Embryology and Evo-Devo


18:20-19:00 Break

19:00-19:45
Keynote Address: Spencer Barrett (University of Toronto)
Charles Darwin and Current Perspectives on the Evolution and Function of Plant Sexual Diversity

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Origin of Species at 150: Day Two

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

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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.

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)

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150 Years Ago

On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life was published 150 years ago on November 24, 1859. The publisher, John Murray, had already taken orders for 1,500 copies so the initial printing of 1,250 copies was sold out immediately.

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.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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

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