Creationism Attacked in the Canadian Parliament

Yesterday the Canadian government under Stephen Harper was defeated for contempt of parliament [Canadian Government Falls]. This is the first time that this has happened in the history of the British Commonwealth.

During the debate preceding the vote, the Leader of the Bloc Québécois party, Gilles Duceppe, had this to say about the government leaders, [Hansard]

This government is very transparent. When we look at the Conservatives, we know exactly what they are thinking. We can see right through them. Quite apart from the image they like to project, if you look closely, you can see right through them. The Minister of State for Science and Technology is a creationist and believes that dinosaurs walked the earth with humans. He thinks that The Flintstones was a documentary and Dino was the star. We can see their old Reform roots, which are likely what inspired the Tea Party.

This actually resonates within the House of Commons and with Canadians. Creationists don't get much respect in Canada.

I'd definitely vote for this guy if he wasn't a separatist.

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Canadian Government Falls

This is how a parliamentary system of government works.

The following motion just passed in the Canadian House of Commons by a vote of 156-145.

Mr. Ignatieff (Etobicoke—Lakeshore) — That the House agree with the finding of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs that the government is in contempt of Parliament, which is unprecedented in Canadian parliamentary history, and consequently, the House has lost confidence in the government.

This was immediately followed by a motion from the Prime Minister to adjourn the House. That motion carried.

Michael Ignatieff, who moved lack of confidence, is the Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition (Leader of the Opposition) and the leader of the Liberal Party.

The defeat of the government on this confidence motion means that the Prime Minister (Stephen Harper) must resign. He will probably go to the Governor General (the de facto Head of State¹) and seek permission to dissolve the House of Commons and call for a general election. In the absence of any party or coalition that could command the confidence of Parliament, that request will be granted.

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1. Officially, the Governor General is the Canadian representative of the Queen of Canada who lives in the United Kingdom. The Governor General will not be phoning the Queen to ask her advice. The current Governor General is His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston.

How Big Is the Human Genome?

The earliest direct estimates of the size of human genome clustered around 3,000 Mb (megabase pairs) or 3.0 ×10⁹ bp (base pairs). The textbooks settled on about 3,200 Mb based mostly on reassociation kinetics. According to those results from the 1970s, roughly 10% of the genome consists of highly repetitive DNA, 25-30% is moderately repetitive and the rest is unique sequence DNA.

A study by Morton (1991) looked at all of the estimates of genome size that had been published to date and concluded that the average size of the haploid genome in females is 3,227 Mb. This includes a complete set of autosomes and one X chromosome. The sum of autosomes plus a Y chromosome comes to 3,122 Mb. The average is about 3,200 which corresonds to 3.5 pg (picograms) and that's the value on Ryan Gregory's Animal Genome Size Database.

In the past decade or so the common assumption about the size of the human genome has dropped to about 3,000 Mb. This is because the draft sequence of the human genome came in at 2,800 Mb and the so-called "finished" sequence was still considerably less than 3,200 Mb. Most people didn't realize that there were significant gaps in the draft sequence and in the "finished" sequence.

The latest information on the human genome from the human genome consortium is 3,156,105,057 bp (3,156 Mb) (Build 37 version 2, patch 2=GRCh37.p3 (November 2010)). I believe this build still has gaps around the centromeres of the chromosomes. That region consists of highly repetitive sequences that are almost impossible to clone and sequence. These regions, also known as heterochromatin, were not targets of the original sequencing project. Their total size was estimated at 198 Mb (International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium, 2004) corresponding to about 6% of the genome.

The estimate may have been too large to begin with and, in addition, I'm pretty sure that some of these heterochromatic regions are included in the total size of Build 37 v2. That means that the total size of the human genome is very likely to be ~3,200 Mb or 3.2 ×10⁹ bp.

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[Image Credit: Wikipedia: Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license]

Morton, N.E. (1991) Parameters of the Human Genome. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (USA) 88:7474-7476 [free article on PubMed Central]

International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium (2004) Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome. Nature 431:931-945 [doi:10.1038/nature03001]

Punctuated Equilibria

This is an old video from 1991 but it does an excellent job of explaining punctuated equilibria. That's because it features Niles Eldridge and Stephen Jay Gould.

There are two important lessons for creationists in this video. Let's hope they learn them.

1. The evidence for punctuated equilibria is based on thousands and thousands of fossils covering millions of years. It required a complete fossil record. It has nothing whatsoever to do with gaps in the fossil record. It's the exact opposite of gaps!

2. Evolution is observed when a single species splits into two species and that takes place over a relatively short period of time. "Relatively short period of time" does not mean that the new species poofs into existence. It means 50,000-100,000 years.

Whenever your creationist friends start lying to you about punctuated equilibria you can ask them to watch this video. You'd think that would stop them from spreading misinformation but then you realize that this video is 20 years old.

Facts don't seem to matter to creationists.¹

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1. In the interests of fairness, I should note that there are a great many evolutionists who also don't understand punctuated equilibria. I'm really posting this video for them and not for the creationists.

[Hat Tip: Greg Laden]

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

One of the cool things about studying your genealogy is that you can find connections to almost everyone. This means you can celebrate dozens of special days. In my case it was easy to find ancestors from England, Scotland, Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain, Poland, Lithuania, Belgium, Ukraine, Russia, United States, and, of course, Ireland.

We will be celebrating St. Patrick's Day tomorrow at the pub. It's rather hectic keeping up with all the national holidays but somebody has to keep the traditions alive!

Here's my Irish connection.¹ The shortest connection is to the parents of my grandmother. My great-grandfather was Thomas (Keys) Foster, born in County Tyrone on September 5, 1852. He immigrated to Canada in 1876. Thomas married Eliza Ann Job, born in Fintona, County Tyrone on August 18, 1852. She immigrated to Canada in 1877.

Thomas and Eliza settled in Saskatchewan in 1883 and that's where my grandmother was born. Other ancestors in this line came from the adjacent counties of Donegal (surname Foster) and Fermanagh (surnames Keys, Emerson, Moore) and possibly Londonderry (surname Job).


Happy St. Patrick's Day 2010
Happy St. Patrick's Day (2009)
Happy St. Patrick's Day (2008)
Happy St. Patrick's Day (2007)
Niall Nóigiallach - Niall of the Nine Hostages

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1. You don't have to be Irish or have Irish ancestors to celebrate St. Patrick's Day.

Five Things that Cannot Be Justified by Science

Bill Dembski thinks that in this video William Lane Craig makes a very good case against science. This is from 1998. (The other two people are atheist Peter Atkins and William F. Buckley.) Posted on Uncommon Descent: Oldie but goodie: William Lane Craig vs. Peter Atkins. Craig list five things science cannot account for. Do you believe him?



I'd probably have the same look on my face as Peter Atkins. It's not that these five things are devastating arguments against the power of science, it's that each one would take at least an hour to explain. The audience isn't going to wait that long so you know you're going to have to pass and leave Craig (and Dembski) to smugly assume that he's won.

It's typical anti-science trickery and Atkins probably wasn't expecting such a cheap shot in that environment.

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Who is Omar Alghabra?

This is the Liberal candidate for Federal Parliament in my riding. I've gotten to know him over the past few years and I can affirm that he really does support education and world peace. I'm not so sure about the blind puppies ...

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The Lost Art of Wit and Sarcasm

PZ Myers on Salon reviews a book that I'm never going to read [David Brooks' dream world for the trust-fund set]. Unfortunately he uses language and style that's probably far above the heads of those who need convincing. But it's loads of fun.

I made it almost a third of the way through the arid wasteland of David Brooks' didactic novel, "The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement," before I succumbed. I had begun reading it determined to be dispassionate and analytic and fair, but I couldn't bear it for long: I learned to loathe Harold and Erica, the two upscale avatars of upper-middle-class values that Brooks marches through life in the story. And then I began to resent the omniscient narrator who narrates this exercise in unthinking consumption and privilege that is, supposedly, the ideal of happiness; it's like watching a creepy middle-aged man fuss over his Barbie and Ken dolls, posing them in their expensive accessories and cars and houses and occasionally wiggling them in simulated carnal relations (have no worries, though: Like Barbie and Ken, no genitals appear anywhere in the book), while periodically pausing to tell his audience how cool it all is, and what is going on inside his dolls' soft plastic heads.

I did manage to work my way through the whole book, however, by an expediency that I recommend to anyone else who must suffer through it. I simply chanted to myself, "Die, yuppie scum, die," when I reached the end of each page, and it made the time fly by marvelously well. In addition, there is a blissful moment of catharsis when you reach the last page and one of the characters does die, although it isn't in a tragic explosion involving a tennis racket, an overdose of organic fair-trade coffee, and an assassination squad of rogue economists at Davos, as I was hoping. That's not a spoiler, by the way; the book is supposed to be all about the happy, productive life histories of Harold and Erica, from birth to death, so it's no surprise that at least one dies. It is incomplete, in that the other one survives ... an unsatisfying ending that I could happily resolve with one more bloody page, and that represents the only case I can imagine in which I'd ever ask David Brooks to write another word.

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One School System and Abortion

Ontario has two schools systems—both publicly funded. The "public schools" are open to all comers but the "Roman Catholic" ("Separate") school system isn't.

I support the One School System Network.

The organizations represented by the One School System Network [OSSN] are united in the conviction that:

Ontario's publicly funded school system bring students of all backgrounds together in an environment that fosters mutual respect and understanding while respecting their fundamental equality and helping them to realize their full potential as citizens.

To realize that vision, OSSN seeks the establishment of a single secular school system for each official language, namely English and French public school boards.

Furthermore, OSSN seeks the elimination of costly duplication in the Ontario school system in order to minimize infrastructure costs and to maximize opportunities for student development.

Publicly funded schools in Ontario shall not discriminate on the basis of religion in any form including: school environment, enrolment of students, opportunities for all students, evaluation of students, employment and advancement of teachers and all other school board personnel, adherence to Ministry of Education curriculum guidelines including courses in World and Comparative Religions.

Publicly funded school boards may, where appropriate, permit voluntary religious programs for students provided by local faith groups outside regular instructional hours.

Here's one of the reasons why we need to merge the Roman Catholic schools into a single, secular, public school system: Students sent home.

Alexandria Szeglet added a strip of green tape to her St. Patrick High School uniform Thursday with the word “choice” written on it and was sent home for the day after refusing to take it off.

The Grade 10 student wore the green tape in response to a pro-life event at the school, where some students wore a red piece of tape with “life” written on it and didn’t talk for the day to display their belief in the injustice of abortion.

Alexandria and about 35 other students were send home for wearing the green tape. None of the students who wore red tape with the word "life" were sent home or asked to remove the tape.

Two of the comments below the article deserve more publicity.

Ann says:
Alexandria is my daughter. Her father and I are raising and guiding her and her sister into formulating independent thought and opinion. Alex went to school today wearing a green piece of tape in response to a pro-life scheduled event that she knew was already happening. It was JUST a piece of tape. Very quickly, she was informed that she wasn't allowed to imply her opinion ~ but others wearing "red" were. "Pro-choicers", like Alex, believe in simply that. If a woman chooses abortion, then Alex would support that. If a woman chooses to have the child, Alex would support that too. I know for a fact that she did this not expecting the out pouring of support she has been receiving, but to just put her opinion out there like all the rest. This IS a very touchy subject with a lot of people, and knowing that the School Board allows this in their halls ... I'm speechless. We're very proud of you, Alex.


Kerri says:
Alexandria is my niece and we are very proud of her ability to speak her own mind. This demonstration was done peacefully and without malice unlike some of the pro life demonstrations that have happened in the past. I am born and raised a Catholic woman, am well educated. Having attended a Catholic school myself, I am appaled at the ridiculousness of this situation and the stand that the school and school board have taken on this subject when Alex simply held true to her beliefs. Isn't that what we teach our children? To have independence, a mind of their own and to be secure in all the decisions they make?
Ask yourself this question: Would you want to be the person to explain who your childs dad was if you were a victim of rape or incest? OR What if your life was in mortal danger? PRO CHOICE means just that...a woman's choice. It's not a form of birth control nor is it a decision any woman would want to make. I know in my heart and in my wonderful niece's heart that she is intelligent enough to know what is right or wrong for her own self. We are proud of her if every sense and we will continue to support her throughout her life. It's a shame that the world is still stuck in the dark ages and that a woman still does not have the right to choose...This is a touchy subject that someone thought was ok for high schoolers to demonstrate...with the advent of Facebook and social media, what did they think would happen when people caught wind of today's events?

John de Faveri is the director of education for the Thunder Bay Catholic District School Board.

“On the issue, pro-life is part of the Catholic stand,” said de Faveri during a phone interview with Dougall Media Thursday afternoon. “The pro-choice students were not appropriate in the context of a Catholic school.”

That's exactly why we need to convert all these schools into secular schools.

It will be interesting to see what happens in Catholic high schools over the next few days. I expect that many Principals and Vice-Principals are in for a hard time.

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[Hat Tip: Canadian Atheist: The easiest way to get kicked out of Catholic school…]

Intelligent Design Creationism is not religious

Sometimes it's a good idea to let the other side have a say. It can be very revealing. This is from The Epistemological Deficiencies of Barbara Forrest. It's written by DonaldM.

Denyse O’Leary writes about Barbara Forrest’s fact-free attack on Frank Beckwith, which recently appeared in Synthese. While Denyse focused more on Beckwith’s response to Forrest’s scholarly article diatribe, it might be worth taking a closer look not only at Forrest’s article, but the entire issue of Synthese in which it is found. First Forrest. In the abstract for her article with the breathtaking title “The non-epistemology of intelligent design: its implications for public policy”, Bar writes:

Intelligent design creationism (ID) is a religious belief requiring a supernatural creator’s interventions in the natural order. ID thus brings with it, as does supernatural theism by its nature, intractable epistemological difficulties.

Okay, so we’re only 2 sentences into the abstract and we can already see that Bar has no clue what ID is about. I don’t know what ID books or articles she’s actually read, but claiming that ID is a “religious belief requiring a supernatural creator’s intervention” demonstrates how little she understands ID. Perhaps Bar could enlighten us as to what religion ID adheres. Since ID advocates come from a broad range of faith traditions as well as no faith tradition at all, it would seem a bit problematic for her to identify exactly which religion we’re talking about here. Further, I know of no ID advocate that makes the claim that ID “requires” a “supernatural” creator. While ID may be compatible with certain theistic beliefs, it by no means requires it. If Forrest has done even a cursory review of any ID literature she’d know that. (Actually, I suspect she does know that, but because she has a clear agenda, she fudges on the truth.)

Whenever I see the phrase “Intelligent Design creationism”, red flags go up all over the place. This traces back to Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics, a ponderous tome from 2001 edited by Robert Pennock, and in which Forrest herself had a chapter. The clever illusion of the title is to give the appearance of an unbreakable link between Intelligent Design and Creationism, no doubt because the term “creationism” carries with it the allusions to young earth creationism and all that goes with that. To Pennock and Forrest et.al., Intelligent Design is just a modifier for Creationism. But any informed reader already knows something is amiss when we see that phrase.

So now you know. The intelligent designer doesn't have to be God. It could be the Wizard of Oz or aliens from Betelgeuse.

And intelligent design does not require a creator so it isn't a form of creationism. The universe could have sprung into existence spontaneously and the intelligent designer only started meddling when life got interesting. And his meddling didn't involve any "creation," just a little tweaking here and there.

In case anyone's really interested in Barbara Forrest's expertise you can read the transcript of her testimony in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District [Trial transcript: Day 6 (October 5), AM Session, Part 2]. You'll find an interesting explanation of why she knows that Intelligent Design Creationism is about God and why it's a form of creationism.

The fun part of her testimony is when she shows that the word "creation" was replaced by "design" in the drafts of Of Pandas and People. This was in the 1980s. Maybe that's before DonaldM was born?

The surprise is not that the IDiots have dug themselves into a hole. We all know that. The real surprise is that they keep digging and digging.

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Penis Spines

Most male mammals have spines on their penis. The spines are small keratinized projections that are connected to sensory receptors. We don't need to get into a discussion of their purpose—other blogs do that. The example shown here is a cat penis from Tom.

Humans don't have penis spines even though most other primates do. Part of the regulatory region of the relevant gene (androgen receptor, AR) has been deleted from our genome at some time after our lineage split from the chimpanzee lineage.

Is the loss of penis spines in humans an adaptation or is it an evolutionary accident? John Hawks discusses this: The real "junk" DNA. Read what he has to say on the matter. If you post comments here I'm sure he will see them.

The relevant paper was just published in Nature, McLean et al. (2011). Here's what the authors say,

Our results show that humans have lost an ancestral penile spine enhancer from the AR locus. Humans also fail to form the penile spines commonly found in other animals, including chimpanzees, macaques and mice (Fig. 2l). Simplified penile morphology tends to be associated with monogamous reproductive strategies in primates. Ablation of spines decreases tactile sensitivity and increases the duration of intromission, indicating their loss in the human lineage may be associated with the longer duration of copulation in our species relative to chimpanzees. This fits with an adaptive suite, including feminization of the male canine dentition, moderate-sized testes with low sperm motility, and concealed ovulation with permanently enlarged mammary glands, that suggests our ancestors evolved numerous morphological characteristics associated with pair-bonding and increased paternal care.

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WARNING: I may be a little more selective about allowing comments in this thread. I know it violates Sandwalk policy but for this one time I'm not going to allow adolescent male humor to distract from the science. There's plenty of other opportunities for us to indulge our sense of humor in other postings.

McLean, C.Y., et al. (2011) Human-specific loss of regulatory DNA and the evolution of human-specific traits. Nature 471:216–219. [doi:10.1038/nature09774]

The Problem with Evolutionary Psychology

Jesse Bering is an evolutionary psychologist at Queen's University, Belfast, Northern Ireland (UK). He blogs at Bering in Mind on the Scientific American website. Read his latest post: Natural homophobes? Evolutionary psychology and antigay attitudes.

In that post, Bering takes seriously the idea that homophobia could be a character that evolved in our ancestors. The idea is that parents who were homophobic were more likely to be concerned about the sexual orientation of their children. If this led to more heterosexual children then the parents would have more grandchildren and the allele for homophobia would increase in the population.

To my mind this idea is so ridiculous it doesn't even merit discussion and it certainly should never be published in a "scientific" journal. Why is it that respected evolutionary psychologists think these just-so stories are an important part of their discipline? Does this mean that the entire discipline is suspect?¹

Jesse Bering is the author of The God Instinct. I haven't read this book but I'm going to order a copy. Here's what he says on his website.

Why does even the most committed atheist turn to God when a family member falls seriously ill, or they find themselves in close personal danger? Using the latest scientific evidence, Jesse Bering explores how people's everyday thoughts, behaviours and emotions betray an innate tendency to reason as though God were deeply invested in their public lives and secret affairs.

In this entertaining and thought-provoking book, he argues that this religious reflex is not an irrational aberration, and that God is not a cultural invention or an existential band-aid, but an intrinsic human trait, developed over millennia, that carries powerful evolutionary benefits.

Breaking new ground, The God Instinct uses hard science to show that God is not a delusion, but a sophisticated cognitive illusion. Bering reveals the roots of religion in our ability to think beyond our immediate surroundings, and explains why this capacity for belief sets us apart from other animals.

Jesse Bering sounds like a complicated person with interesting perspectives on evolution and religion. Here's what he says about himself on the website.

Jesse Bering is Director of the Institute of Cognition and Culture at the Queen's University, Belfast. An evolutionary psychologist, he is one of the principal investigators on the Explaining Religion Project.

The Institute's research focuses primarily on human social behaviour, and current topics range from people's belief in the afterlife to moral disgust over social offences. Funded by the EU, the John F Templeton Foundation and the US Air Force, it has projects running all over the world, including India, Mali and Cyprus.

Jesse writes a weekly column for Scientific American, ‘Bering in Mind’. The members of The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences named the column an official 2010 Webby Honoree in the “blog­cultural” category.

As well as being an acknowledged expert in his field, Jesse Bering is well known for his approachable and engaging popular writing. Born in the USA, he now lives in Northern Ireland.

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1. Perceptive readers will see a connection between evolutionary psychology and adaptationism.

[Hat Tip: Joe at Canadian Atheist]

Why Has this Bee Landed on this Flower?

This is a photo from Botany Photo of the Day. The flower is Crepis barbigera.

Why is the bee visiting this flower? What is the evolutionary advantage of attracting bees? You may think you know the answer but you will be surprised by the comment at the bottom of the posting on the Botany Photo of the Day website. Nothing in biology is simple.

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Bacteria Fossils in Meteorites

When I first heard about the discovery of fossil bacteria in meteorites I immediately read the paper in the Journal of Cosmology [Fossils of Cyanobacteria in CI1 Carbonaceous Meteorites: Implications to Life on Comets, Europa, and Enceladus]. The first thing I noticed was that this "journal" seemed to be of very low quality. A little bit of digging revealed that it was some sort of online journal that publishes just about everything.

The second thing I noticed was that the evidence of fossils in these meteorites was not convincing. It seemed like the author, Richard B. Hoover, was not being very skeptical about what he was seeing. I dismissed the paper, it was almost certainly not true.

Lot's of other people reached the same conclusion.

Ian Musgrove at The Panda's Thumb [Life from Beyond Earth on a Meteorite, or Pareidolia?] [Commentaries posted at Journal of Cosmology]

Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy [Followup thoughts on the meteorite fossils claim]

PZ Myers at Pharyngula [Did scientists discover bacteria in meteorites?]

Rosie Redfield at RRResearch [Is this claim of bacteria in a meteorite any better than the 1996 one?]

The Journal of Cosmology has now published 21 commentaries on the paper and only two of them are the least bit critical or skeptical of the results. That inspired the journal to insert this statement in the introduction to the article.

Official Statement The Journal of Cosmology,
Have the Terrorists Won?
Only a few crackpots and charlatans have denounced the Hoover study. NASA's chief scientist was charged with unprofessional conduct for lying publicly about the Journal of Cosmology and the Hoover paper. The same crackpots, self-promoters, liars, and failures, are quoted repeatedly in the media. However, where is the evidence the Hoover study is not accurate?

Few legitimate scientists have come forward to contest Hoover's findings. Why is that? Because the evidence is solid.

But why have so few scientists come forward to attest to the validity? The answer is: They are afraid. They are terrified. And for good reason.

The status quo and their "hand puppets" will stop at nothing to crush debate about important scientific issues, and this includes slander, defamation, trade libel... they will ruin you. Three hundred years ago, they would burn you for questioning orthodoxy. Has anything changed?

The scientific community must march according to the tune whistled by those who control the funding. If you don't do as you are told, if you dare to ask the wrong questions, they will destroy you.

JOC offered the scientific community a unique opportunity to debate an important paper, but for the most part they have declined.

The message is: Be afraid. Be very afraid. Or you will be destroyed.

Why is America in decline?

Maybe the terrorists have won.

Did you need convincing that this is not real science?

Now here's the tough question. Why did so many people immediately see that this paper was flawed while many others, including some journalists, were taken in? I think it's because many of us recognized this as an extraordinary claim that required extraordinary evidence. We also realized that if this was even close to being true it would be published as a front page story in Science or Nature. In addition, we have lived through many examples of exaggerated claims, including previous claims of meteorite fossils that proved to be untrue; not to mention the 3.5 billion year old fossils that weren't fossils [Did Life Arise 3.5 Billion Years Ago?].

It's a combination of skepticism and experience. Can that be taught?

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Zombie Theories

According to Greg Laden there are certain "theories of everything" that "will generally evolve into a zombie that won’t die and can’t be killed, potentially eating the brains of science geeks and graduate students for decades." The classic example is Aquatic Ape Theory but theories of bipedalism in humans are a close second. [The Aquatic Ape Theory as a Zombie Theory]

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