Congratulations Vip!

 

Here's Vipulan Vigneswaran with his fabulous Biochemistry textbook that he won by contributing to Monday's Molecule [And the Winner Is ...]. Vip is studying Chemistry at the University of Toronto.

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Alain de Botton Tells Us the Good Things About Religion

 
Here's a TED talk by Alain de Botton. He claims to be an atheist but he's promoting Atheism 2.0. That's a version of atheism that incorporates all the good parts of religion like how they can brainwash children and con people out of lots of money. And pilgrimage. Let's not forget the value of pilgrimage and the importance of travel. (Think Canterbury Tales!)

There's a certain mysticism about TED talks that I deplore. In order to be a successful TED talker you need to be articulate and clever. You need to be engaging and just a little bit radical—though not too radical. That's just about all it takes to get an enthusiastic standing ovation from the people who comes to listen to these 18 talks. What you're actually saying doesn't really count for anything as this example plainly shows.

The mantra of TED talks is "Ideas Worth Spreading" but if you think about it there aren't very many important new ideas that can be explained in 18 minutes. On the other hand, if you want to spread ideas that your audience already agrees with then TED talks are just the thing for you.

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[Hat Tip: PZ Myers: Alain de Botton is right about one thing.]

James Shapiro Publishes on Evolution News & Views

James A. Shapiro, author of Evolution: a View from the 21st Century has been criticized for being an Intelligent Design Creationist, or at least a sympathizer. He denies it but his denials sound very much like someone who protests too much.

Shapiro has now been allowed to post an article on the main IDiot blog, Evolution News & Views [A Response to Ann Gauger's and Douglas Axe's Comments. I don't agree with his response but that's not the point. Do you know any respectable evolution supporter who would post on a creationist blog?

Can you imagine his University of Chicago Colleague, Jerry Coyne, posting an article on the flagship blog of the Discovery Institute?

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Physicians Can Be IDiots

 

Joseph A. Kuhn is a physician at the Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas. This is a Christian medical center associated with Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Joseph Kuhn published an article in a recent issue of Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings: Dissectring Darwinism.

Kuhn has an M.D. degree. He is not a scientist and he has no obvious expertise in biology and/or evolution. He is a Roman Catholic. He is definitely an Intelligent Design Creationist.

Let's look as what this IDiot has to say ...

The primary conflicts or anomalies with neo-Darwinian evolution lie in the failure of mutation and natural selection to account for the formation of DNA, the information of DNA, or the complexity of the human cell. In all fairness, many physicians, medical students, and college students have not been shown the weakness of Darwinian evolution. They haven’t been shown the failure of the Miller-Urey experiments to explain DNA, RNA, or protein formation; the paucity of fossil data; or the refutations of transitional species based on a growing biochemical understanding of complex systems and the limits of DNA mutation to account for the formation of new DNA, new chromosomes, and therefore new species.

In contrast, how is it possible that the majority of National Academy of Science members (who should know the above weaknesses) fully believe that random mutation and natural selection can explain the origin of DNA and the subsequent generation of a vast array of protein systems within complex cells? It is possible that the biologist, the paleontologist, and the anthropologist are each studying a small portion of the picture and do not have the education and training to see the full picture. More likely, their previous research relies on the established paradigm of Darwinian evolution to provide structure for their work. As the limitations of existing paradigms become apparent, adoption of a new paradigm typically requires at least a full generation, since existing practitioners and scientists often hold on to the old paradigm.

There's so much wrong here that I hardly know where to begin. First, biological evolution, whether it be the outmoded neo-Darwinian model or a more modern version, was never intended to explain the origin of life. We don't know how life originated but that has nothing to do with the truth and power of evolution as an explanatory mechanism.

Second, members of the National Academy of Science—and all other scientists in the USA and many other countries—are not stupid. The idea that they would all fail to see the truth about evolution because they "do not have the education and training to see the full picture" is silly beyond belief. The idea that they might be blind to the truth because they adhere to an incorrect Darwinian paradigm is ridiculous. The idea that a physician at a Christian university might be in a better position to recognize the truth about evolution is something that only a true IDiot could believe.

The standard IDiot talking point these days is that students and the general public are being misled because scientists won't teach all the problems and controversies concerning biological evolution. This is an attitude that completely ignores all the debate and discussion that has been taking place on the internet and in popular books, magazines, and journals over the past four decades. None of the problems and controversies have stood up to close analysis in spite of the fact they have been dogmatically defended by dozens of leading IDiots.

Of course Joseph Kuhn, the physician, knows nothing about this. That's why he writes ...

When the Texas State Board of Education voted to recognize the weaknesses of Darwinian evolution in explaining the origin of the species, it was a result of 3 full days of intense debate and scientific dispute. In 2011, when new textbooks were presented to the State Board of Education, 9 out of 10 failed to provide the mandated supplementary curricula, which would include both positive and negative aspects of evolution (44). Moreover, several of the textbooks continued to incorrectly promote the debunked Miller-Urey origin of life experiment, the long-discredited claims about nonfunctional appendix and tonsils, and the fraudulent embryo drawings from Ernst Haeckel. In essence, current biology students, aspiring medical students, and future scientists are not being taught the whole story. Rather, evidence suggests that they continue to receive incorrect and incomplete material that exaggerates the effect of random mutation and natural selection to account for DNA, the cell, or the transition from species to species.

The Texas State Board of Education guidelines do not propose teaching any other alternatives to Darwinian evolution. Rather, the students of tomorrow and teachers of today should appropriately recognize that there are weaknesses that have been pointed out by reasonable scientists. In this dissection of Darwinism, we have cut into the weaknesses of the fossil evidence for human evolution, the failure of the fossil data to demonstrate substantial transition species, and the awareness of the sudden formation of most species in a short window of time, with no significant subsequent variation. More importantly, this physician-perspective article emphasizes the extreme impossibility of the natural formation or self-formation of billions of nucleotides in a specific sequence, allowing for the coding of RNA and proteins in a complex cell with thousands of interrelated and irreducibly complex functions. The article also enlightens the reader regarding the conflicts and difficulty of using natural selection and mutation to explain the simultaneous or sequential changes in cellular DNA, involving entirely new strands of DNA and thousands of new proteins, which are necessary for the formation of new species.

It's hard to imagine what must be going on inside the head of someone who could write such drivel. Let's say that the Texas Board of Education succeeds in brainwashing students about the "weaknesses" of evolution. Is that going to change the minds of any expert who studies biological evolution for a living? Is that going to lead to a new generation of scientists who accept Intelligent Design Creationism? No, not even in Texas.

Only an IDiot could believe that forcing Intelligent Design Creationism down the throats of students in some parts of southern USA will eventually lead to a "paradigm shift" in thinking about evolution. Only an IDiot physician could believe that he knows more about evolution than the experts. In fairness, you've got to give the creationists some credit for convincing some, otherwise intelligent, people that 99.9% of all scientists are really, really stupid.

UPDATE:Jonathan Wells defends Joseph A. Kuhn, MD ["Shut up," Coyne Explained].

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[Hat Tip: Jerry Coyne in Creationist paper in a medical journal.]

Canadian Blog Awards: Science and Technology

 

Voting for The Canadian Blog Awards ends tomorrow so this is your last chance to pick the best of the best(?).

Most of you will be interested in the science blogs. The category is Best Science and Technology Blog. Here are the finalists ...

Sync.ca

Here at Sync, we strive to bring you the latest in news, reviews and opinions from the tech universe. It′s our way of helping to keep Canadians in sync with tech and gadgets that surround us in our daily lives. Never miss a beat: stay in Sync.

iPhoneinCanada.ca

iPhoneinCanada.ca was started in late 2007 in Vancouver, BC. The site was created to document using the first generation iPhone in Canada. The blog has evolved along with the iPhone and we are now the leading Canadian iPhone authority for news, reviews, tips, tricks and anything else iPhone-related. We are powered by a fantastic iPhone community.

Jon Arnold's Analyst 2.0 Blog

Independent analysis of the IP communications sector - VoIP, Mobile Broadband, IPTV, Unified Communications, Telepresence, Mashups, Web 2.0, Social Media, etc. Plus, my thoughts on all the other things I enjoy during the rest of the day like the Red Sox and great music. And more recently, Smart Grid too!

Hi-Sci-Fi

Creator, producer, writer and host of HiSciFi is Irma Arkus. Over the years, she noticed that the idea of sitting by herself in a studio is unappealing, and potentially dangerously unfunny too. So, Irma had quite a few lovely co-hosts over the years: Andrew Yang, Jevon Ryan, Gregory Milne, and Tarek Suliman. Irma is evidently a man-eater.

BROADCASTING OF HISCIFI

HiSciFi is taped and broadcast live, every Friday at 5:00-6:00 p.m. on CJSF 90.1FM in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. Currently, HiSciFi is evaluated for syndication.

www.HiSciFi.com is the place where the show gets a second life as a podcast, and as such can be found at numerous podcast distribution sites, as well as distributed by Mininova.org, PirateBay.com and BTJunkie.org via bit-torrent.

Mark Evens Tech

My company, ME Consulting, creates digital strategies and does tactical execution for startups and entrepreneurs that want to take their marketing efforts to the next level. Having worked for startups, covered them a reporter and consulted with them for the past three years, I understand their goals, and what they need to be successful.

Hmmm ....

There seems to be a slight problem. There are no "science" blogs in the running for best science and technology blog! This is one of my pet peeves. Why can't people understand the difference between science and technology?

When's the last time you saw an actual science project win a Science Fair?

If you really want to cast a vote then go to Best Religion and Philosophy Blog and vote for Canadian Athiest.

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False Dichotomy

 

A false dichotomy is when you are presented with two choices and told that if one is wrong then the other must be correct but there are actually other choices.

Intelligent Design Creationists are very fond of this argument. They tell you that there are only two choices when it comes to explaining biology: either Darwinism or Intelligent Design Creationism. If a given feature of the biological world cannot possibly be explained by Darwinism, then God must exist and he must have designed the feature.

Here's Douglas Axe illustrating the false dichotomy on Evolution News & views [Let Science Be the Arbiter: A Reply to James Shapiro].

As an ID proponent, I've put forward the scientific case for thinking that the thousands of distinct structures that enable protein molecules to perform their specific tasks inside cells cannot have arisen in a Darwinian way. Moreover, the facts of this problem seem to preclude any naturalistic solution, Darwinian or not.

There is no crutch here. The aspects of protein structure that appear to preclude a naturalistic origin have been described in detail. If Shapiro or anyone else were to show in detail how these are overcome by a naturalistic mechanism, then my argument would fall and I would let it fall. But the reverse needs to be true as well. Scientists who personally side with naturalism have to be willing to let naturalism fall, as otherwise they would be guilty of using a crutch to prop it up.

This is actually an attempt to get around the charge of false dichotomy by extrapolating from a rejection of Darwinian explanations to any naturalistic explanation. If Axe is truly able to demonstrate that his "data" cannot possibly be explained by any naturalistic means then it follows logically that the only other type of explanation has to be supernatural. But what Axe is really arguing against is a Darwinian explanation and it's only his lack of imagination and arrogance that allows him to claim that no other naturalistic explanation is possible.

As we have seen time after time, the Intelligent Design Creationists do not have a scientific theory or any kind of scientific explanation for biological phenomena. All they have is criticisms of science—criticisms that are usually based on a lack of knowledge. When will we see an ID explanation of protein folding and function?

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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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