The 2012 Edge Question

 

John Brockman is, among other things, a literary agent with a large stable of famous scientists. He runs a website called The Edge and every year he asks a question and solicits responses from his clients and admirers. This year's question is WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE DEEP, ELEGANT, OR BEAUTIFUL EXPLANATION?

Scientists' greatest pleasure comes from theories that derive the solution to some deep puzzle from a small set of simple principles in a surprising way. These explanations are called "beautiful" or "elegant". Historical examples are Kepler's explanation of complex planetary motions as simple ellipses, Bohr's explanation of the periodic table of the elements in terms of electron shells, and Watson and Crick's double helix. Einstein famously said that he did not need experimental confirmation of his general theory of relativity because it "was so beautiful it had to be true."

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE DEEP, ELEGANT, OR BEAUTIFUL EXPLANATION?
Since this question is about explanation, answers may embrace scientific thinking in the broadest sense: as the most reliable way of gaining knowledge about anything, including other fields of inquiry such as philosophy, mathematics, economics, history, political theory, literary theory, or the human spirit. The only requirement is that some simple and non-obvious idea explain some diverse and complicated set of phenomena.

Here are some of my favorites ....

My Favorite Annoying Elegant Explanation: Quantum Theory by Raphael Bousso
Life Is a Digital Code by Matt Ridley
Plate Tectonics Elegantly Validates Continental Drift by Paul Saffo
Watson and Crick Explain How DNA Carries Genetic Information by Gary Klein
Atomism: Reconciling Change with No-Change by Marcelo Gleiser
The 19th Century Explanation of the Remarkable Connection Between Electricity And Magnetism by Lawrence M. Krauss
We Are Stardust by Kevin Kelly
The Principle of Empiricism, or See For Yourself by Michael Shermer

Here are some of my not-so-favorites ....

Fitness Landscapes by Stewart Brand
Sexual Conflict Theory by David M. Buss
Pascal's Wager Tim O'Reilly
Epigenetics by Helen Fisher
Evolutionarily Stable Strategies by S. Abbas Raza
The Destructive Wrath of the General Purpose Computer by Jordan Pollack
Subverting Biology by Patrick Bateson
Sex At Your Fingertips by Simon Baron-Cohen
The Epidemic of Obesity, Diabetes and "Metabolic Syndrome:" Cell Energy Adaptations in a Toxic World? by Beatrice Golomb
Why We Feel Pressed for Time by Elizabeth Dunn
Why Some Sea Turtles Migrate by Daniel C. Dennett
Evolutionary Genetics Explains The Conflicts of Human Social Life by Steven Pinker
The Faurie-Raymond Hypothesis by Jonathan Gottschall
The Gaia Hypothesis by Scott Sampson
The Elegant Robert Zajonc by Richard Nisbett

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Scientists vs. Science Writers

 
Follow the discussion on Ed Yong's blog Not Exactly Rocket Science [Every scientists-versus-journalists debate ever, in one diagram].

The main problem isn't represented on the diagram. It's when good/bad journalists write articles in praise of bad science.

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What Does a Secular Society Look Like?

 

Casey Luskin wonders What Would the World Look Like if the New Atheists Won the Day?. He's just read Penn Jillette's new book, God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales, and he's "discovered" by selective quote mining that Penn would persecute Christians if the atheists ever gained power in America.

This leads Casey to speculate on what the secular world would look like if people abandoned their religion. He imagines that it won't be a nice place.

Back to the Secular Decade. If there's one thing to admire about Penn Jillette, it's that he's transparent about what he really thinks. If only more "new atheists" were so transparent, then the public might get a more realistic picture of what Faircloth's "Secular Decade" would really look like.

If Casey had been paying attention, he wouldn't have to look very far. Many European countries are well on their way to being truly secular societies. In the Netherlands, for example, only 34% of the population believes in God [Demographics of atheism]. If the New Atheists were to succeed in America then most people would abandon religion and life would go on pretty much as usual except that the society would become more rational, more understanding, and more tolerant. Creationism would become a joke, gays could marry, and women would have the right to choose. That's what's happened in the Netherlands and many other civilized countries.

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Photo Credit: Amsterdam Tourism & Convention Board

The Mind of James Shapiro

I recently read Evolution: a View from the 21st Century by James Shapiro. It was a very annoying and frustrating experience. I do not recommend this book. I've already posted a rebuttal of his silly claim that the Central Dogma of Molecular Biology needs to be revised [Revisiting the Central Dogma in the 21st Century ]

The really frustrating part was trying to figure out Shapiro's agenda. He clearly has one. Is it just that he's against "conventional evolutionary theory"—whatever that is? Or, is he laying the groundwork for introducing God and intelligent design?

Shapiro denies that he's a supporter of intelligent design yet he published several papers with Richard Sternberg, one of the darlings of Intelligent Design Creationism. Furthermore, he (Shapiro) uses many of the same anti-evolution arguments used by Intelligent Design Creationists.

This prompted Bill Dembski to accuse James Shapiro of "dancing in the DMZ between Darwin and design" [Is James Shapiro a Design Theorist?].

For proponents of intelligent design, James Shapiro's constant dancing in the DMZ between Darwin and design can be frustrating. On the one hand, Shapiro is as dismissive of Darwinism as any ID proponent. On the other, he constantly gives public notice that he is not on the side of ID. And yet, methinks he protests too much.

This got a response from Shapiro that has now been posted on Evolution News & Views ["Is James Shapiro a Design Theorist?": James Shapiro Replies]. Here's what Shapiro says ...

What is wrong with "dancing in the DMZ" between intelligent design (as articulated by Michael Behe and others) and neo-Darwinism? Are these two positions the only alternatives? I doubt it. That is why my 1997 article in Boston Review on evolution debates was called "A Third Way." What Dembski calls the "DMZ" (i.e. a zone free of futile conflict) is the place where the real evolutionary science is taking place. I am proud to be there, and I see that an increasing number of people are joining me when they realize that natural genetic engineering, horizontal DNA transfer, interspecific hybridization, genome doubling and symbiogenesis provide solutions to problems recognized to be intractable under the limitations of conventional evolutionary thinking.

Clear as mud. There's one thing I know for sure: horizontal DNA transfer etc. are perfectly compatible with today's evolutionary thinking. If Shapiro is wrong about this—and he is— then maybe he's also misleading us about his belief in intelligent design creationism.

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Phytoplankton Blooms

 

This is a spectacular view of a phytoplanton bloom in the South Atlantic. It was taken by the Envisat satellite on Dec. 2, 2011 [A Southern Summer Bloom].

These phytoplankton blooms usually consist of a single species of microorganism. The fact that they can be seen from space gives you an idea of just how abundant they are. The blooms in the oceans can be due to diatoms or algae but by far the most common large blooms are due to cyanobacteria.

Prochlorococcus sp. and Synechococcus sp. have the largest population sizes of any species on the planet. About 30% of all oxygen production on the planet is due to marine phytoplankton and these two species account for a significant proportion.

A third genus of cyanobacteria, Trichodesmium, is mostly found off the coast of Australia. In addition to producing oxygen by photosynthesis, it is responsible for a considerable proportion of nitrogen fixation in the oceans.

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[Hat Tip: Bad Astronomy]

Turn Off Your Irony Meters Before Reading This!!!

Back in the days of newsgroups (last century) the howlers in talk.origins developed a running joke about irony meters. They were always being fried by outrageous comments from the anti-science creationists. New, more powerful, irony meters were needed every few months.

The following post appeared on Uncommon Descent today: Is this where science fraud begins?. You are about to read an excerpt but I caution you to turn off your irony meter unless it's a Mark IX (beta) version. Even then, I'm not sure it will survive.

Denyse O'Leary quotes from an article published on Defining Ideas: The Death of Honesty by William Damon.

In July 2011, a widely-reported cheating scandal erupted in school systems in and around Atlanta, Georgia. State investigators found a pattern of “organized and systemic misconduct” dating back for over ten years. One-hundred-and-seventy-eight teachers, and the principals of half of the system’s schools, aided and abetted students who were cheating on their tests. Top administrators ignored news reports of this cheating: a New York Times story described “a culture of fear and intimidation that prevented many teachers from speaking out.”

Nor was this an isolated incident. In a feature on school testing, CBS News reported the following: “New York education officials found 21 proven cases of teacher cheating. Teachers have read off answers during a test, sent students back to correct wrong answers, photocopied secure tests for use in class, inflated scores, and peeked at questions then drilled those topics in class before the test.”

With such prominent and recent instances of cheating among students and teachers today, one would expect a concerted effort to articulate and promote the value of honesty in our schools. Yet school programs regarding academic integrity consist of little more than a patchwork of vaguely-stated prohibitions and half-hearted responses. Our schools vacillate between routine neglect and a circle-the wagons reaction if the problem boils over into a public media scandal. There is little consistency, coherence, or transparency in many school policies.

Let's think about the 178 teachers in schools around Atlanta, Georgia. It's pretty safe to assume that the vast majority of those teachers are god-fearing Christians and most of them don't accept evolution.

So, how does Denyse O'Leary explain why unethical behavior among teachers is so rampant?

The most likely reason is that the educators involved do not believe that anyone has made a free choice to cheat or that cheating is an ethical issue.

Chalk another one up to the high cost of evolutionary psychology and related trends.

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Life: You Know It When You See It

 

Carl Zimmer, who blogs at The Loom, is interested in definitions of life. His latest essay highlights a definition proposed by Edward Trifonov who says that life is: "self-reproduction with variations" [Can A Scientist Define “Life”?].

It didn't take Sean Carroll (the physicist) very long to see one of the main problems with this definition; namely that Sean isn't alive! [Do I Not Live!].

It's true that we should not restrict our definition of life to things that can self-reproduce. It's also true that we should not restrict our definition to things that reproduce badly (e.g. mutation/variation). I can easily imagine living things that could reproduce perfectly—they just wouldn't evolve by any mechanism we currently recognize.

Life is like pornography [I know it when I see it]. In the words of US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart,

I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["hard-core pornography"]; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.

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Weep for the Poor Persecuted IDiots

 

The Intelligent Design Creationists at Evolution News & Views and Uncommon Descent have been pushing the idea that acceptance of evolution is associated with moral decay and the rise of Adolph Hitler. Recently, an IDiot going by the pseudonym of "kairosfocus" posted a similar attack on his blog: Visually exposing the Anti-Christ spirit of Nazism (and correcting the New Atheist "Hitler was a Christian" smear often used in retort to exposing* the Social Darwinist history of ideas roots of Hitler's thought.

The goal, obviously, is to link the scientific fact of evolution to the evils of social Darwinism and eugenics.

Somebody posted as comment on that blog (or a related blog) saying ...

xxx, the religious wacko who owns and runs this site, blames all the world’s ills, including Hitler and the nazis, on Darwin, atheists, and material evolutionists.

To see the truth about Hitler and the nazis, see these XXXXXXX:

XXXXXX is a LYING, arrogant, bloviating, sanctimonious, ignorant, uneducated, abusive, delusional god zombie.

See this site for a lot more about XXXXX:

The comment has been removed.

Now "kairosfocus" has complained on Uncommon Descent that such "vandalism" is outrageous and misguided [FOR RECORD: What we are dealing with . . . an example of web stalking and vandalism].

Now, this vandalism of a site wholly unrelated to the matters debated at UD (and tied onwards to a hate site that exploits Google’s freedom of comment policies), was evidently in response to my having posted here at UD, matters linked to the well-known history of ideas roots of Hitler’s thought. I therefore suggest that onlookers examine the Weikart lecture and a discussion of a key clip from Mein Kampf that demonstrated the Darwinist-Haeckelian frame of thought, that beyond reasonable doubt strongly shaped Hitler’s thinking, speech and behaviour. (Those needing documentation on Hitler’s actual attitude to and intentions for the Christian Churches, can look at the recently released Nuremberg investigatory documents here. If after seeing these documents and the like, someone still insists on trying to claim Hitler was a Christian etc etc, s/he is delusional and/or willfully deceitful.)

Furthermore, the behavior of this "vandal" is exactly what "kairosfocus" expects.

As they say, a tree is known by its fruits, and draws sustenance from its roots . . .

(In addition, a note on “blaming the world’s ills.” The likes of this hate-driven commenter will not appreciate or accept that a Bible-believing Christian will hold that much of what ails our world traces to our common challenge of being finite, fallible, morally fallen and too often ill-willed. Hence, our common need for recognition of our moral plight, repentance, forgiveness and moral-spiritual transformation through the gospel. Slander-laced strawmen and scapegoats are ever so much more easy to set up and ignite through irresponsible rhetoric that then clouds, polarises and poisons the atmosphere.)

That refusal to be responsible over a moral hazard closely tied to the Darwinist, evolutionary materialist frame of thought, and that refusal to acknowledge well-established historical facts that are inconvenient to the new atheist agenda are tellingly informative.

The pattern of obsessive, self-justifying, nihilistic hate, stalking, slander, Internet vandalism and abuse is even more informative about an unfortunately significant subset of the New Atheist movement and the danger its patent extremism poses. (After this sort of web vandalism, and worse, can any reasonable person doubt why moderation is necessary to maintain a reasonable tone at UD and elsewhere?)

Ironically, the very conscience benumbed self-justifying by smearing scapegoats that this sort of behaviour demonstrates on the small scale, is what — when such attitudes attained state power — led to the utter breakdown of morality on the grand scale that over 100 million ghosts from the past century tell us never to forget.

Can any reasonable person doubt that had a commentator like the above the power to do as he wished and get away with it, he would do me and my family further harm?

It is time for the New Atheist advocates of evolutionary materialism to take a serious look at what they have been enabling by their intemperate writings and attitudes.

Every atheist blogger gets far worse comments from Christians on a regular basis. Most of us get harassing emails every single day and the authors usually identify themselves as devout Christians doing God's work. These same Christians don't hesitate to send threatening messages to our colleagues and family members in an effort to silence us. Some of the Christian kooks are so dangerous that they have been arrested by police and are currently under forcible confinement in a mental health institution.

Don't weep for the IDiots. They need to examine their own beliefs since it's the creationists who are the biggest threat on these blogs. There must be something wrong with Christianity if that's the kind of activity it promotes. It is time for the Christian opponents of science to take a serious look at what they have been enabling by their intemperate writings and attitudes.

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Monday's Molecule #155

 

We're going to talk about the evolution of this molecule in my class tomorrow. It's a good examples for illustrating some basic principles of molecular evolution.

You need to identify the exact molecule, including the species. Here's a hint: ANKSKGIVWN.

Post your answer in the comments. I'll hold off releasing any comments for 24 hours. The first one with the correct answer wins. I will only post correct answers to avoid embarrassment.

There could be two winners. If the first correct answer isn't from an undergraduate student then I'll select a second winner from those undergraduates who post the correct answer. You will need to identify yourself as an undergraduate in order to win. (Put "undergraduate" at the bottom of your comment.)

Some past winners are from distant lands so their chances of taking up my offer of a free lunch are slim. (That's why I can afford to do this!)

In order to win you must post your correct name. Anonymous and pseudoanonymous commenters can't win the free lunch.

Winners will have to contact me by email to arrange a lunch date.

UPDATE: The winner is Dima Klenchin who was the first to identify the molecule as cytochrome c from tuna (Thunnus alalunga). The figure is from the PDB file 3CYT. This PDB file supercedes 1CYT which was reportedly from another species of tuna.

Winners
Nov. 2009: Jason Oakley, Alex Ling
Oct. 17: Bill Chaney, Roger Fan
Oct. 24: DK
Oct. 31: Joseph C. Somody
Nov. 7: Jason Oakley
Nov. 15: Thomas Ferraro, Vipulan Vigneswaran
Nov. 21: Vipulan Vigneswaran (honorary mention to Raul A. Félix de Sousa)
Nov. 28: Philip Rodger
Dec. 5: 凌嘉誠 (Alex Ling)
Dec. 12: Bill Chaney
Dec. 19: Joseph C. Somody

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Recent Advances in Intelligent Design Creationism

 

In case you missed it, 2011 was a wonderful year for the IDiots. There were many "scientific" breakthroughs supporting the existence of god an intelligent designer. Access research network provides a list of the top ten "Darwin and Design" news stories for 2011.

I'll just give you the titles. Most of you have already read these very important science papers. The rest of you can access more information at: Top Ten Darwin and Design
Science News Stories for 2011.

1. 50th Peer-Reviewed Pro-ID Scientific Paper Published
2. The Design of the Butterfly Continues to Inspire and Amaze
3. Woodpecker Drumming Inspires Shock-Absorbing System
4. Stylus Aims to Bridge Gap Between Real World and Artificial Evolutionary Simulation
5. Explosive Radiation of Flowering Plants Confirmed
6. Golden Orb-Weaver Fossil Spider Provides New Evidence for Stasis
7. Complexity in the Universe Appears Earlier Than Thought
8. An Identity Crises for Human Ancestors
9. DNA Repair Mechanisms Reveal a Contradiction in Evolutionary Theory
10. The Limits to Self-Organization Identified

The nice thing about this list is that it gives us a very good view of the quality of data supporting Intelligent Design Creationism. This is the best they have.

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The God helmet is used by Michael Persinger in his neuroscience "research." When you put on the helmet it makes you see God. It's just one of many illusions that supposedly reveal the presence of a supernatural being. Of course it has nothing to do with the content of this post.

The Santorum Amendment

 

Rick Santorum is a potential candidate for President of the United States. He is currently seeking the nomination of the Republican party and so far he seems to be a leading candidate in spite of his bizarre views on many issues. The process involves things called state "primaries" which seems to be a way of generating free publicity for the two sanctioned parties.

Back in 2001, Santorum was a Senator from Pennsylvania. He was a leading proponent of Intelligent Design Creationism and he proposed an amendment to a major education bill that was being considered by the United States Senate.¹ The original Santorum Amendment was described by Santorum in a brief speech ...

This is an amendment that is a sense of the Senate. It is a sense of the Senate that deals with the subject of intellectual freedom with respect to the teaching of science in the classroom, in primary and secondary education. It is a sense of the Senate that does not try to dictate curriculum to anybody; quite the contrary, it says there should be freedom to discuss and air good scientific debate within the classroom. In fact, students will do better and will learn more if there is this intellectual freedom to discuss. I will read this sense of the Senate. It is simply two sentences—frankly, two rather innocuous sentences—that hopefully this Senate will embrace: "It is the sense of the Senate that—

(1) good science education should prepare students to distinguish the data or testable theories of science from philosophical or religious claims that are made in the name of science; and
(2) where biological evolution is taught, the curriculum should help students to understand why this subject generates so much continuing controversy, and should prepare the students to be informed participants in public discussions regarding the subject.

It simply says there are disagreements in scientific theories out there that are continually tested.

The original amendment was drafted by Philip Johnson in consultation with other fellows of the Discovery Institute.

This amendment did not make it into law but a similar version was included in something called a "Conference Report" where it is often cited by Intelligent Design Creationists.

The Conferees recognize that a quality science education should prepare students to distinguish the data and testable theories of science from religious or philosophical claims that are made in the name of science. Where topics are taught that may generate controversy (such as biological evolution), the curriculum should help students to understand the full range of scientific views that exist, why such topics may generate controversy, and how scientific discoveries can profoundly affect society.

Taken at face value, these statements seem to provide an excellent opportunity for science teachers to explain how religion distorts science. They would provide legal justification for teachers who want to describe how religious views conflict with science and why scientific facts, such as evolution, generate so much controversy among religious Americans.

But that's not how the amendments are interpreted by most people. Here's Rick Santorum explaining in 2009 what the amendment really meant. It's clear that many Senators, including Ted Kennedy, were duped.

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1. In American legislatures, it's normal that completely irrelevant material is inserted into bills.

Should Undergraduates Study the Primary Scientific Literature?

 
The short answer to the question posed in the title is "yes" but there are many caveats. One of them is that it depends on what level you are teaching. In my opinion, the value of exposing science students to the primary scientific literature (papers) increases as students progress from first year to the year they graduate. Students in their final year of a science program will gain a lot from being exposed correctly to the scientific literature but students in introductory course will hardly benefit at all—and may, in fact, be harmed if it takes time away from learning basic principles and concepts.

It is important to teach critical thinking and it's important to focus education on basic principles and concepts. Most of the basic principles and concepts in a discipline have been developed over several decades. The work that led to those ideas is (usually) in the primary scientific literature but you can't learn the concept by just reading a few key papers. Evolution is a good example but so is our understanding of how cells generate energy from proton gradients, how enzymes work, and how the information in messenger RNA gets translated into proteins.

I find it helpful to remind myself from time to time that the vast majority of the students I teach will never be scientists and many of them aren't really interested in how to do scientific experiments. They will become average citizens in all kinds of careers that have nothing to do with the basic sciences. Our goal is to make them scientifically literate so they will understand why evolution is true, why homeopathy is bunkum, why they should vaccinate their children, and why humans are behind global climate change. I don't think we can achieve that goal by focusing on the primary scientific literature, especially in the early years of undergraduate education.

C.R.E.A.T.E. is a education project funded by the United States National Science Foundation (Grant No. 1021443). It's goal is "transform understanding of science" by using the primary scientific literature as a teaching tool. Here's how they describe their approach ...

The C.R.E.A.T.E. (Consider, Read, Elucidate the hypotheses, Analyze and interpret the data, and Think of the next Experiment) method is a new teaching approach that uses intensive analysis of primary literature to demystify and humanize research science for undergraduates. Our goal is to use the real language of science—the journal article—as an inroad to understanding “who does science, how, and why?” At the same time, we wish to help students (1) experience authentic processes of science, in particular discussion/debate about experimental data and their interpretation (including ‘grey areas’), (2) recognize the creativity and open-ended nature of research, and (3) see the diversity of people who undertake research careers (i.e. not just the genius/geeks of popular culture). As a complement to teaching based on textbooks, which tend to oversimplify the research process, C.R.E.A.T.E. teaching focuses on on authentic published work--peer reviewed journal articles—with students reading either series of papers produced sequentially from individual labs or series of papers from different labs focused on a single line of research.

By reading/analyzing a set of papers published in series from a single lab, students experience the evolution of research projects over a period of years. Using newly-developed C.R.E.A.T.E. pedagogical tools, that encourage multiple approaches to the material (concept mapping, sketching, visualization, transformation of data, creative experimental design) students gain deep understanding of the methods (and biological content/principles) that underlie each individual experiment of the paper. In class, we emphasize scientific thinking--focusing on understanding both why and how each part of the study was done, by examining the hypotheses underlying each aspect of the study, and analyzing/discussing the data represented in each figure and table. Students learn to interpret complex data, draw conclusions, debate interpretations, and re-represent data (e.g. represent tabled data in graphic form) to aid understanding. Content knowledge is reviewed as students consider the principles underlying the techniques used, as well as the overall context of the scientific question being addressed (e.g. a module focused on regeneration would likely include review multiple aspects of cell division, cell differentiation, gene expression and stem cells, drawing on information students learned in other classes and helping them to apply it in a real-world research situation). C.R.E.A.T.E. students thus learn a variety of transferable learning skills that can be applied to complex scientific reading they do in the future. Students design their own proposed followup experiments at several points in the semester, and debate each other’s proposed studies in a classroom exercise modeled on activities of bona fide scientific grant panels. Such discussions reveal the research process to be openended, with multiple branch points or possible “next directions to go;” thus much less linear and predictable than many students expect. Late in the process, students generate a short list of questions for paper authors that are sent as an email survey to each author (not simply the PI). Responses from multiple authors provide unique behind-the-scenes insight into “the people behind the papers,” humanizing the research experience and showing researchers to be complex individuals much like the students themselves.

Here's an example based on Pattern formation during regeneration in planaria.

This is an approach that views experiment as the primary focus of science whereas I tend to see science as a much broader way of knowing. The C.R.E.A.T.E. approach to undergraduate education emphasizes the doing of science rather than the understanding of the results and how they fit into a bigger picture. It probably does a good job of looking at "trees" but not so good a job when it comes to seeing the "forest."

I don't know the correct balance between teaching principles, ideas, and concepts and teaching the experimental approach taken by actual research scientists in their day-to-day activities. There's no question that lab courses are extremely important but I'm quite skeptical about bringing the study of experimental techniques into the lecture courses if it take time away from the conceptual understanding of the discipline.

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[Hat Tip: Sandra Porter at Discovering Biology in a Digital World: Learn how to use scientific articles in education at the C.R.E.A.T.E. June workshop]

Chris Hogue on Complexity and Evolution

 

Chris Hogue is a Canadian biochemist/bioinformatician who works on protein folding (among other things) at the National University of Singapore. He used to be a professor in my department here at the University of Toronto. I miss him, and wish he were still here.

Chris blogs at BioImplement and he has just started a new series of posts on Complexity and Evolution. His goal is to explain how human design can inform us about evolution. The idea is to refute the arguments of Intelligent Design Creationists who treat intelligent design as something mystical that's1 beyond naturalism.

Here's how Chris explains what's coming ...

The thread connecting these examples of human design is that each one is an analogy to biological evolution, from which evolution may be better understood by laypersons. Now by posting new examples like this, I realize that they may all be stolen by the “intelligent design” (ID) creationists to argue against evolution. My view on ID follows that most clearly expressed in the 2005 court judgment from the Pennsylvania Kitzmiller v. Dover case: “The overwhelming evidence at trial established that ID is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory.” Of course a few scientists have written in defense of evolution and against ID nonsense in the classroom, the most strident of whom is Richard Dawkins. I now add my voice in support, as in his final interview with Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens lamented “It’s the shame of your colleagues that they don’t form ranks and say, ‘Listen, we’re going to defend our colleagues from these appalling and obfuscating elements.’”

So into the breach, I add my voice with some new arguments, after this small bit of throat-clearing. I will try to avoid being derivative as I come armed with my own capacity for inquiry, insight, and argument. My examples will show how ID concepts force the gerrymandering of human design history, and surround it with mystical borders to make their claims. The individual steps in human design are small, slow and absolutely require the intellectual imprinting of lessons by trial and error. Students who are led to think falsely about human design, or any complexity as having mystical origins are harmed by the diminishment of their own aspirations of creativity. We all need to understand how small steps and tools lead to human creativity and any object of complexity. I will reveal these small steps and show, where I can, the failures that led to success.

I know Chris and I can assure you that his upcoming posts will be provocative and informative.

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Plant microRNAs in Your Blood?

 

Last month the science magazines and websites were all talking about a paper by Zhang et al. (2012) published in Cell Research. These workers discovered plant micoRNAs in the serum of mice and humans. The microRNAs seem to come from ingested rice. Presumably the micoRNAs are taken up in the intestine and secreted into the blood in small vesicles. The concentration of the major rice miRNAs in serum is about 10 fM or 10×10^-15 moles per liter.¹

The authors have shown that microRNA MI168a binds to the mRNA of low-density lipoprotein receptor adapter protein 1, inhibiting translation. This leads to the idea that ingested plant microRNAs can regulate the expression of human genes. That's the story that generated the most press [What You Eat Affects Your Genes: RNA from Rice Can Survive Digestion and Alter Gene Expression, Food We Eat Might Control Our Genes].

This is one of those findings where the explanation doesn't make a lot of sense but the data seem sound. It seems very unlikely that small plant RNAs could survive the processing and digestion of rice or any other food and even less likely that they would find their way into the bloodstream where they could play a role in regulating mammalian gene expression. I think I'll wait for confirmation.

It's a shame that none of the articles in the popular press expressed any sort of skepticism. That's one of the problems with science journalism. How do you convey the idea that all scientific results are preliminary until they have been confirmed by others?

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1. That concentration is far below the concentration where effective binding can occur but the idea seems to be that the micoRNAs are contained in small vesicles that subsequently fuse with liver cells and deliver the rice microRNA to the cytoplasm where it can inhibit translation of specific mammalian RNAs. It's difficult to see how one could get an effective concentration of plant microRNA in one of these mammalian cells.

Zhang, L., Hou, D., Chen, X., Li, D., Zhu, L., Zhang, Y., Li, J., Bian, Z., Liang, X., Cai, X., Yin, Y., Wang, C., Zhang, T., Zhu, D., Zhang, D., Xu, J., Chen, Q., Ba, Y., Liu, J., Wang, Q., Chen, J., Wang, J., Wang, M., Zhang, Q., Zhang, J., Zen, K., and Zhang, CY. (2012) Exogenous plant MIR168a specifically targets mammalian LDLRAP1: evidence of cross-kingdom regulation by microRNA. Cell Research 22:107–126 [PubMed] [doi:10.1038/cr.2011.158]

An important correction to several of the figures in this paper has also been published.

Zhang et al. (2012) Corrigendum [doi:10.1038/cr.2011.174]

Carnival of Evolution #43

 
This month's Carnival of Evolution (43rd version) is hosted by The EEB & Flow, a blog written by a large group of people interested in evolution and ecology [Carnival of Evolution #43]. The post was written by Marc Cadotte [Cadotte Lab], a professor in the Department of Evolution & Ecology right here at the University of Toronto.

You no longer need to ponder the mysteries of life, travel the globe making observations, or running complex experiments to test hypotheses; everything you want to know about evolution today can be found by reading the monthly installments of the Carnival of Evolution!

The first installment of 2012 (or is this the last of 2011?) offers a great smattering of many different aspects of current evolutionary understanding. These 26 posts cover many of the major areas of research that define current evolutionary biology.

The next Carnival of Evolution (February) needs a host. Contact Bjørn Østman at Carnival of Evolution if you want to volunteer. Meanwhile, you can submit your articles for next month's carnival at Carnival of Evolution.

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