Carnival of Evolution #48

This month's Carnival of Evolution (48th version) is hosted by a developmental biologist at the University of Minnesota (Morris). He blogs at Pharyngula: Carnival of Evolution 48: The Icelandic Saga

I must begin by apologizing for my tardiness, especially since John Wilkins managed to post the last one on time. I was traveling in the 2½ weeks preceding the deadline for CoE, and the combination of spotty internet access, extreme jetlag (British Columbia to Germany to Iceland, where the sun hovered around the horizon all night long, just messed me up), and of course, the incredible distractions of exotic foreign lands, meant that I was disgracefully dilatory in putting it all together.

The next Carnival of Evolution (July) has no host. If you want to volunteer, contact Bjørn Østman. Bjørn is always looking for someone to host the Carnival of Evolution. He would prefer someone who has not hosted before. Contact him at the Carnival of Evolution blog. You can send articles directly to him or you can submit your articles at Carnival of Evolution.

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Kirsty Duncan MP Objects to "Bias" in the Working Group on CIHR Funding of a Clinical Trial on "Liberation Therapy"

The previous post mentioned a recently published article on "liberation therapy" that referred to it as something akin to faith healing. It criticized the decision by Canada's CIHR to fund a clinical trial on the procedure. One of the authors of that article was Barry Rubin who served on the working group that recommended the trial.

This prompted a letter from Liberal MP Kirsty Duncan to Dr. Alain Beaudet, President of CIHR [MP lists concern with CIHR expert]. This is a blatant example of political interference and it should not be tolerated. Duncan should be reprimanded in Parliament.

Dear Alain,

Hello and warm wishes.

I am writing to you in order to bring an urgent issue to your attention. As you know, Dr. Barry Rubin is a member of CIHR's expert working group to study CCSVI. According to CIHR's website, the working group's mandate is: "The scientific expert working group will make recommendations on further studies including, if appropriate, a pan-Canadian interventional clinical trial that would evaluate the safety and efficacy of venous angioplasty in patients with MS, and will provide advice on the protocols to expedite such a trial (e.g. inclusion/exclusion criteria)."

Dr. Rubin is the fourth author on an article, 'The "Liberation Procedure" for Multiple Sclerosis: Sacrificing Science at the Altar of Consumer Demand', in the May, 2012 Journal of the American College of Radiology, Volume 9, Issue 5, Pages 305-308.

Alain, you and I have discussed conflict of interest numerous times before-both at committee and in correspondence. Surely, a member of the scientific expert working group publishing such a paper questioning clinical trials is in conflict with the group's mandate.

It is absolutely imperative that all members of the expert working group be independent, but equally important, be seen as independent, and not to have taken a position. Dr. Rubin can no longer be seen to be an independent judge of the scientific literature, as demonstrated by the conclusion of the paper.

Let me quote from the article, "Although some would agree that a randomized, blinded clinical trial is necessary to settle the issues raised in the controversy surrounding this procedure, others would agree that not all controversial procedures require such an expensive approach. Funding trials of a procedure that has minimal basis in rational, empirical knowledge seems questionable. At this point, the procedure rests in the same category of "medical" management as chelation therapy for atherosclerosis (which failed just such a trial), treatment of breast cancer with laser photodynamics, Laetrile for cancer, and other unproven therapeutics found in the retail sphere. When consumerism and patient advocacy groups pressure the scientific and political establishment, reasonable accommodation is warranted. The question is, What is reasonable? It may be that the operators believe in the therapy as much as the understandably desperate patients. The subsidiary question is, When is healing 'faith healing'?"

I will not comment on the science-or lack thereof-of the above.

It is extremely important to note that the first author of the paper, Dr. Michael Brant-Zawadzki of Hoag Memorial Hospital is being credited with prompting the FDA warning this past week.

There are important questions that need investigation. How did Dr. Brant-Zawadski and Dr. Rubin make contact? Were you apprised that Dr. Rubin was writing the article? Did you read the article pre-publication? When was the article accepted for publication? Were you or other officials at Health Canada and CIHR apprised of the FDA alert, and if so, when? Does CIHR support Dr. Rubin's behaviour? Are you concerned that the FDA alert-and this article-will prejudice/affect the ethical board reviews for CCSVI clinical trials? What action will be taken, as clearly this is a conflict of interest?

There is real concern amongst the CCSVI community that while the government fast-tracked Tysabri-a drug which was known to cause PML, and has now infected 232 people and killed 49 people-, and Gilenya, a drug which has now killed 11 people, and is currently under review in Canada (by the way, I am still waiting to hear from Paul Glover about the process for Health Canada's review of Gilenya)-, the government has been reticent about clinical trials for venous angioplasty, which is performed for Budd-Chiari syndrome, May-Thurner syndrome etc. across this country. Now a key panellist has not only come forward, but also published a paper with tremendous hyperbole, "sacrificing science at the altar", and members of the CCSVI community are concerned that a parallel process is being created-one in which the government says it will undertake clinical trials, while a key player appears to work actively to prevent this.

In closing, Dr. Haacke, Dr. McDonald, and Dr. Zamboni were not included in the August 26th, 2010 joint CIHR-MS Society meeting. The explanation given for their not being included in the meeting was that their work would be discussed, and including them might bias the discussion. Now, we have a member of CIHR's expert working group publishing and questioning clinical trials. Clearly, his position may bias the discussion.

Alain, this is extremely serious, and so, I look forward to hearing from you at the earliest time possible regarding Dr. Rubin's inclusion in the scientific expert working group.

Yours very truly,

Kirsty (Duncan)

Kirsty Duncan does not understand how science works and she does not understand that advocates of quack medicine are the ones who are "biased" against real science. It's not the scientists on the working group who caused the problem.

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Canadian Government Allocates Funds to Investigate "Liberation Treatment" for Multiple Sclerosis: Sacrificing Science at the Altar of Consumer Demand

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) is the main funding agency for health research in Canada. Most of the research in my department is funded by CIHR grants and the number and size of those grants has been shrinking, with disastrous consequences for my colleagues.

Chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency (CCSVI or CCVI) is the name of a condition invented by an Italian doctor named Paolo Zamboni. He claims that it is the cause of multiple sclerosis. He also claims to have developed a procedure called "liberation treatment" or "liberation therapy" that will alleviate the symptoms of MS. It involves opening up some of the veins in a patient's neck in order to improve blood flow. He has been treating patients from all over the world for the past few years.

As you might have guessed, the treatment at his clinic is not free.

There has been enormous pressure on the Canadian and provincial governments to fund this treatment for MS patients, who otherwise have no hope of a cure. So far, most provinces have refused to pay for the treatment. In August 2010, CIHR announced that it would not fund research into something that does not exist [CIHR makes recommendations on Canadian MS research priorities].

Ottawa (August 31, 2010) – On Thursday, August 26, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), in collaboration with the MS Society of Canada, convened a meeting of leading North American experts in multiple sclerosis (MS) to identify research priorities for Canada in this area. Today, at a press conference in Ottawa, CIHR President Dr. Alain Beaudet announced the outcomes of the discussions and shared the recommendations he has made to the Honourable Leona Aglukkaq, Minister of Health.

"There was unanimous agreement from the scientific experts that it is premature to support pan-Canadian clinical trials on the proposed "Liberation Procedure," said Dr. Beaudet. "There is an overwhelming lack of scientific evidence on the safety and efficacy of the procedure, or even that there is any link between blocked veins and MS."

This is the right decision. Money is scarce and it would be criminal to devote any of it to quackery at the expense of legitimate scientific research.

But there's a catch.

Casey Luskin "Explains" Intelligent Design Creationism

Casey Luskin is upset with a philosopher named Christopher Pynes. Paynes had the audacity to suggest that one of the key features of Intelligent Design Creationism is ... creationism. According to Paynes, "supernaturalism is a necessary component of ID: there must be a designer" [AD HOMINEM ARGUMENTS AND INTELLIGENT DESIGN: REPLY TO KOPERSKI].

Luskin wants to remind everyone that Intelligent Design Creationism has nothing to do with a creator/designer [Professor Pynes Rails Against the "Straw-Man Fallacy" while Attacking a Straw-Man Version of Intelligent Design]. According to Luskin (a lawyer), Intelligent Design Creationism is a purely scientific theory that relies on: (a) proving that evolution is wrong, (b) detecting the creator/designer by examining nature.

On the primary¹ grounds that it's always good to know your enemy, I present to you the best scientific grounds for Intelligent Design Creationism.

• Studies of physics and cosmology continue to uncover deeper and deeper levels of fine-tuning. Many examples could be given, but this one is striking: the initial entropy of the universe must have been fine-tuned to within 1 part in 10(10^123) to render the universe life-friendly. That blows other fine-tuning constants away. New cosmological theories like string theory or multiverse theories just push back questions about fine-tuning, and would, if true, simply exacerbate the need for fine-tuning. This points to high levels of complex and specified information (CSI) in the cosmid architecture of the universe--information which in our experieince only comes from intelligence.
• Mutational sensitivity tests increasingly show that DNA sequences are highly fine-tuned to generate functional proteins and perform other biological functions. Again, this is high CSI--which in our experience only comes from intelligence.
• Studies of epigenetics and systems biology are revealing more and more how integrated organisms are, from biochemistry to macrobiology, and showing incredible fine-tuned basic cellular functions. The integrated nature of organismal body plans shows CSI throughout biological systems--in our experience, only intelligence can generate tightly intregrated multi-component blueprints.
• Genetic knockout experiments are showing irreducible complexity, such as in the flagellum, or multi-mutation features where many simultaneous mutations would be necessary to gain an advantage. This is more fine-tuning--and in our experience, irreducibly complex machines arise only from intelligence.
• The fossil record shows that species often appear abruptly without similar precursors, which represents mass-explosions of high CSI--something which requires an intelligent cause.
• There have been numerous discoveries of functionality for "junk DNA." Examples include recently discovered functionality in some pseudogenes, microRNAs, introns, LINE and ALU elements. Intelligent design predicted this data.

If all of these things were true, then you'd predict that scientists would be flocking to church on Sundays. You'd also expect that the scientific literature would be full of papers proving the existence of God. It would be the most remarkable discovery in the history of humans.

A key part of Intelligent Design Creationism—the part that Casey Luskin is leaving out—is to explain why it has been so remarkably unsuccessful after 200 years of trying. That part has to do with the huge Darwinist conspiracy that forces scientists to tow the line and stick with atheistic Darwinism in spite of all the scientific evidence against it. If you read the blogs, you'll see that attacking scientists and Darwinism is the dominant theme. The "scientific" "evidence" for Intelligent Design Creationism is almost never mentioned.

Most of us scientists don't realize that we are part of such a conspiracy because we have been brainwashed into believing in evolution. However, a few god-fearing souls have seen the truth. Some of them are lawyers (Casey Luskin, Philip Johnson), some of them are philosophers, some of them claim to be mathematicians, and a few think they are scientists (Michael Behe, Jonathan Wells). The one thing they all have in common is that they are all IDiots.

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1. The secondary grounds are to keep a record of the June 2012 "facts" because they will change soon enough.

Graduation Day

June is graduation month at the University of Toronto. There are various classes graduating every morning and afternoon for several weeks. (We have more than 70,000 students on three campuses, counting undergraduates, graduates, and enrollment in professional faculties.)

Today it's the turn of medical students. About 215 students just received their M.D. degrees. I'll be glad when it's all over 'cause the lineups at Tim Horton's¹ are horrible.

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Starbucks too, but I don't care about them.

A Platypus Describes Humans

Ryan Gregory invents The Platypus Fallacy to illustrate an important concept in evolution. Here's how a platypus describes humans. See if you can spot the problem.

The lineage of which humans are a part is a very ancient offshoot of our mammalian family tree, so it was 166 million years ago that we last shared a common ancestor with humans, and that puts them somewhere between mammals and reptiles, because they lack a lot of specialized characters that we have gained but the ancestral amniote also lacked; for instance, they have no electroreception, no bills, no webbed feet, and no venom. So we can use them to trace the changes that have occurred as we went from being a reptile, to having fur to making milk to having our specialized features.

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Bruce Alberts Talks About Science Literacy

Bruce Alberts was president of the National Academy of Sciences (1993-2005), author of The Molecular Biology of the Cell, and winner of the Gairdner Award for his work on DNA replication. He was my Ph.D. supervisor. He is currently editor-in-chief of Science magazine. He has been interested in science education and science literacy for many decades so when he makes a comment about science education, it's worth listening to.

Here's a quote from a recent interview in PLoS Genetics [Scientist Citizen: An Interview with Bruce Alberts].

You look at the current political system in the US. It's incredibly depressing. These kinds of statements that “scientists only believe in climate change so that they can get a grant.” This kind of stuff couldn't be said if we actually had a population that understood what science is. We have a fantastic scientific community, and if we don't unleash them and give them credit for working on these things, then I don't think our country is going to prosper.

Every ten years the Academy publishes a booklet called “Science, Evolution and Creationism” [available online], and before the last one in 2008, the Academy hired one of the companies that put people behind a one-way mirror and interview them to see what they think about some new product. But this question was, “How do they think about science and creationism?”

And the staggering message from these college-educated adults is that they don't see any difference between science as a belief system and religion as a belief system. So basically, the preacher tells them what religious people believe, the scientists tell them what scientists believe, and [they think] “I can choose either one.” And the reason they can say that is that they don't understand what we call “science as a way of knowing”. That it is not a belief system, that it is an evidence-based community process.

This is just unbelievable, that our American public can determine our future without understanding the fundamental issues about scientific facts. If the population isn't prepared to deal with these kinds of issues, to think rationally and respect evidence, then I think the country is really in danger.

Like I say, science is a way of knowing that involves evidence and rationality. Now you know where I got that from.

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The photo was taken at Bruce's 70th birthday party. It shows him with his first three graduate students: Keith Yamamoto (left), me (second from right), and Glenn Herrick (right).

Monday's Molecule #173

This is an easy one. We talked about this molecule in our lunch time seminar just a few minutes ago. It binds to lots of proteins.

Post your answer as a comment. I'll hold off releasing any comments for 24 hours. The first one with the correct answer wins. I will only post mostly correct answers to avoid embarrassment. The winner will be treated to a free lunch with a very famous person, or me.

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.

Comments are invisible for 24 hours. Comments are now open.

UPDATE: The molecule is malonyl-ACP where ACP stands for acyl carrier protein. The winners are Bill Chaney and Matt McFarlane. One other person got it right but didn't specify what "ACP" stood for. The most common error among those who came close was to call it malonyl-CoA.

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
Jan. 9: Dima Klenchin
Jan. 23: David Schuller
Jan. 30: Peter Monaghan
Feb. 7: Thomas Ferraro, Charles Motraghi
Feb. 13: Joseph C. Somody
March 5: Albi Celaj
March 12: Bill Chaney, Raul A. Félix de Sousa
March 19: no winner
March 26: John Runnels, Raul A. Félix de Sousa
April 2: Sean Ridout
April 9: no winner
April 16: Raul A. Félix de Sousa
April 23: Dima Klenchin, Deena Allan
April 30: Sean Ridout
May 7: Matt McFarlane
May 14: no winner
May 21: no winner
May 29: Mike Hamilton, Dmitri Tchigvintsev
June 4: Bill Chaney, Matt McFarlane

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Cornelius, Meet Johnnyb

Cornelius Hunter doesn't like anything about evolution. He especially doesn't like us to say that Evolution Is a Fact.

Here's the latest from Cornelius [When I Pointed Out the Evolutionary Tree Has Failed Two Professors Gave Me Pushback ].

If you are new to the evolution debate you might wonder why evolutionists do not simply acknowledge the painfully obvious fact that evolution is not a fact. It is not as sure gravity and in fact there are significant questions and problems with evolution. Why don’t evolutionists admit to the truth of how the science bears on their theory?

The answer is that evolution is not about the science. At issue here is not merely the status of another scientific theory. Evolutionists won’t be swayed by the evidence because doing so—and confessing that evolution is not overwhelmingly supported by the evidence—would immediately expose evolutionists to all kinds of possibilities which they simply cannot accept. An evolutionist can no more change his mind than could a cultist. Evolution is underwritten by a religious worldview—it is a metaphysical theory, not at scientific theory. As such it may lose every battle, but it cannot lose the war.

Contrast this with what Johnnyb said a few weeks ago on Uncommon Descent [see All IDiots Believe in Evolution! ].

So what is one to do? Well, thankfully, our friends the evolutionists have given us a way out. In their zeal to claim consensus on the “fact of evolution,” they have had to steamroll together such a large diversity of opinion into the single term “evolution”, that the word “evolution” no longer has the grand meaning it used to. The only real meaning everyone can agree on is “change in allele frequency over time” – and that is a definition that literally everyone can agree with.

In other words, even if you are a young earth creationist, if your professor asks if you believe in evolution, the legitimate answer is “yes”. Given the common definition of “evolution,” the only thing they are really asking with that question is, “do you believe in genetics?”

Cornelius Hunter and Johnnyb really should get together and agree on the facts.

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Turn Right! Turn Left!

If you're driving on a two lane highway and a head-on collision seems imminent, you should turn right. This probably doesn't work in England.

Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy tells us that the Andromeda Galaxy is on a collision course with our Milky Way Galaxy [Hold on tight: in 4 billion years, we’re due for a galactic collision!]. What should we do? We don't know whether the Andromedons drive on the right side of the road or the left. Which way should we turn to avoid the collision?

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Why Mothers Prefer Boys

Phil Kitcher is a philosopher who is interested in the philosophy of science and he's also very interested in evolution. In his recent article on The Trouble with Scientism he gives and example of .... well, I'm not exactly sure what.

The emphasis on generality inspires scientific imperialism, conjuring a vision of a completely unified future science, encapsulated in a “theory of everything.” Organisms are aggregates of cells, cells are dynamic molecular systems, the molecules are composed of atoms, which in their turn decompose into fermions and bosons (or maybe into quarks or even strings). From these facts it is tempting to infer that all phenomena—including human actions and interaction—can “in principle” be understood ultimately in the language of physics, although for the moment we might settle for biology or neuroscience. This is a great temptation. We should resist it. Even if a process is constituted by the movements of a large number of constituent parts, this does not mean that it can be adequately explained by tracing those motions.

A tale from the history of human biology brings out the point. John Arbuthnot, an eighteenth-century British physician, noted a fact that greatly surprised him. Studying the registry of births in London between 1629 and 1710, he found that all of the years he reviewed showed a preponderance of male births: in his terms, each year was a “male year.” If you were a mad devotee of mechanistic analysis, you might think of explaining this—“in principle”—by tracing the motions of individual cells, first sperm and eggs, then parts of growing embryos, and showing how the maleness of each year was produced. But there is a better explanation, one that shows the record to be no accident. Evolutionary theory predicts that for many, but not all, species, the equilibrium sex-ratio will be 1:1 at sexual maturity. If it deviates, natural selection will favor the underrepresented sex: if boys are less common, invest in sons and you are likely to have more grandchildren. This means that if one sex is more likely to die before reaching reproductive age, more of that sex will have to be produced to start with. Since human males are the weaker sex—that is, they are more likely to die between birth and puberty—reproduction is biased in their favor.

In humans, the average sex ratio at birth is about 105 boys to every 100 girls but this ratio varies a lot from country to country and it depends on environmental conditions. There are many factors that affect fertilization and the survival of embryos and fetuses.

Is it reasonable to believe that the observed sex ratio (1.05) is the product of natural selection? You can't really answer that question until you know the mechanism of altered sex ratios. What is being selected? Is it the probability that a male sperm will reach the egg before a female sperm? If so, what kind of selective advantage would have to apply to change that probability from from 50% to 51% or 52%? How is it done? What alleles are involved?

Why does Philip Kitcher, a philosopher of science, think that a postulated adaptive explanation is a "better explanation" than a mechanistic one? Don't you actually have to "prove" your adaptive model at the level of genes, cells, and developing embryos before it can be accepted?

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The Trouble with Scientism?

Philip Kitcher is a philosopher who specializes in the philsophy of science. He is a professor at Columbia University in New York, USA. He's well known in the atheist, skeptical community and he's an outspoken critic of creationism.

He just published an article in The New Republic entitled: The Trouble with Scientism: Why history and the humanities are also a form of knowledge.

Many of the debates on the issue of "scientism" depend on how you define "science." As you can see from the subtitle of his essay, it's about the two cultures. Kitcher separate the search for knowledge in the humanities from the search for knowledge in the natural sciences. Here's what he says ...

It is so easy to underrate the impact of the humanities and of the arts. Too many people, some of whom should know better, do it all the time. But understanding why the natural sciences are regarded as the gold standard for human knowledge is not hard. When molecular biologists are able to insert fragments of DNA into bacteria and turn the organisms into factories for churning out medically valuable substances, and when fundamental physics can predict the results of experiments with a precision comparable to measuring the distance across North America to within the thickness of a human hair, their achievements compel respect, and even awe. To derive one’s notion of human knowledge from the most striking accomplishments of the natural sciences easily generates a conviction that other forms of inquiry simply do not measure up. Their accomplishments can come to seem inferior, even worthless, at least until the day when these domains are absorbed within the scope of “real science.”

It's clear the he thinks of "science" as something that only natural scientists do. This is a different definition that the one I prefer. I think of "science" as a way of knowing that involves evidence, skepticism, and rationalism. I agree with Rush Holt [Rush Holt on Science and Critical Thinking] that critical thinking is an important part of science as a way of knowing and I agree with him that the scientific approach can be used everywhere—even in philosophy departments.

Kitcher's view is different. That leads him to define scientism as ...

The problem with scientism—which is of course not the same thing as science—is owed to a number of sources, and they deserve critical scrutiny. The enthusiasm for natural scientific imperialism rests on five observations. First, there is the sense that the humanities and social sciences are doomed to deliver a seemingly directionless sequence of theories and explanations, with no promise of additive progress. Second, there is the contrasting record of extraordinary success in some areas of natural science. Third, there is the explicit articulation of technique and method in the natural sciences, which fosters the conviction that natural scientists are able to acquire and combine evidence in particularly rigorous ways. Fourth, there is the perception that humanists and social scientists are only able to reason cogently when they confine themselves to conclusions of limited generality: insofar as they aim at significant—general—conclusions, their methods and their evidence are unrigorous. Finally, there is the commonplace perception that the humanities and social sciences have been dominated, for long periods of their histories, by spectacularly false theories, grand doctrines that enjoy enormous popularity until fashion changes, as their glaring shortcomings are disclosed.

That's a really stupid definition of scientism. I don't know anyone who actually thinks like that. Do you know any "natural science imperialists" who dismiss the humanities and the social sciences?¹

I believe that people in the humanities and social sciences use the same approach as those in the natural sciences. I call that way of knowing "science" but if someone wants to come up with a better name, I'm all ears. As far as I'm concerned, science (as I define it) is the ONLY way of knowing that has actually been successful in discovering true knowledge. I guess that makes me guilty of "scientism."

It's very easy to refute scientism as I define it. All you have to do is show that there's some other way of knowing that produces universal truths or true knowledge. Perhaps philosophers have discovered truths using some other way of knowing?

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1. I criticize evolutionary psychology. The reason why I'm so critical is precisely because they don't conform to the scientific way of knowing. They are not doing "good science" by any definition of the word "science."

Rush Holt on Science and Critical Thinking

I don't know Rush Holt from Adam. I'm told that he's a US Congressman from New Jersey but I find that difficult to believe. :-)

Here's an interview he gave with The Humanist: Thinking Like a Scientist.

The Humanist: How do you define critical thinking?

Rush Holt: Let me define instead what I like to call “thinking like a scientist.” It’s asking questions that can be answered based on evidence; it’s expressing questions in a way that allows someone to check your work. If you don’t have both of those elements, it’s too easy to fool yourself or to get lazy in your thinking. I wouldn’t say that critical thinking is hard thinking, because I don’t want to discourage people from doing it, but like anything else, it’s easier if you practice.

Third graders, for example, are often very good at thinking like scientists. Like scientists, they know that if you ask how something works, what something means, or how something happens, you should do it in a way that allows for more than just pure thinking. There should be some evidence, something empirical. You should form your question so that it allows someone else to ask that same question and observe the evidence to see if they get the same answer as you do. And that’s the essential part of critical thinking. If you say, “I’ve been thinking about this deeply and, by golly, now I understand it,” but then you try to explain it to someone else and can’t, then you probably don’t understand it … or it’s not very reliable knowledge.

I keep trying to get science taught in a way that, even if you can’t remember a single Latin term or are a klutz at solving equations, you’ve learned how to frame questions and sift evidence. I talk about verification but another way of putting it is: be ready for the cross-examination. Prepare to explain yourself.

The Humanist: How valuable is critical thinking to everyday life?

Holt: It’s invaluable, whether you’re making a consumer decision like which laundry detergent to buy or whether you’re trying to decide what career you want to pursue. There are ways to ask yourself both what you’re trying to accomplish and how to measure whether you’ve accomplished it. If you’re able to express it that way, then you’re thinking critically.

This is important on every level, not just on a personal level, not just in regards to consumer decisions or life choices. I think it’s quite likely we wouldn’t have invaded Iraq if more people in the CIA or in Congress had been thinking critically and asking, “What’s the evidence? You say Saddam Hussein is doing things that will hurt our national interests. Now tell me exactly: what is he doing? Does he have chemical weapons, nuclear weapons? Where’s the evidence?” Of course, there wasn’t any.

This is important stuff. I think of "science" as a way of knowing but it can also be thought of as a way of thinking. It's intimately associated with critical thinking.

In this sense, "science" is not confined to the so-called "natural sciences" but it can be applied to everything that requires a search for reliable truth. Everybody should be thinking like a scientist and that includes politicians and philosophers. In my experience, there is no other way of knowing that has a proven track record.

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[Hat Tip: RichardDawkins.net]

Watch Jonathan Wells Screw Up

Here's Jonathan Wells attacking the concept of junk DNA during a lecture at Biola University in October 2010. It's remarkable because he repeats a false history that he knows is untrue because many people have corrected him. Pay attention to what he says about four minutes into the presentation.


Wells is talking about the history of junk DNA. He begins by falsely describing the Central Dogma of Molecular Biology, which, he says, is "DNA makes RNA, makes protein, makes us." He then quotes Jacques Monod as a supporter of this concept (4 minutes, 23 seconds).

With that, and the understanding of the random physical basis of mutation that molecular biology has provided, the mechanism of Darwinism is at last securely founded, and man has to understand that he is a mere accident.
Jacque Monod (1970) quoted in "The Eight Day of Creation" by Horace Freeland Judson (p. 192)

I looked up this passage and guess what I found? I discovered that when Monod said "with that" he was referring to the real Central Dogma—the one that Crick actually formulated. Only a few sentences earlier Monod is quoted as saying ...

This was what Francis Crick called the Central Dogma: no information goes from protein to DNA.

This is followed by a brief description of Lamarckism and why it conflicts with the Central Dogma. So Monod has it exactly right, the Central Dogma says that information can only flow from nucleic acid to protein and not vice versa. That rules out the inheritance of applied characteristics and makes "the mechanism of Darwinism ... securely founded."

Why is this important? Because Wells immediately follows this by claiming that ...

... biologists discovered that most human DNA does not code for proteins. Based on the Central Dogma that "DNA makes RNA makes protein makes us," this non-protein-coding DNA was dubbed "junk."

This is nonsense. Not only did the concept of junk DNA have nothing to do with the Central Dogma, it also had nothing to do with "non-coding DNA." By 1970, all knowledgeable molecular biologists knew that there was lots of perfectly functional DNA that did not encode protein. It's simply not true that the consensus opinion among the experts at the time was that all noncoding DNA was junk [Junk & Jonathan: Part 3—The Preface].

There are legitimate debates about the quantity of junk DNA in our genome. What I just don't understand is why IDiots feel they have to distort history in order to make their point. Wouldn't they be a lot more credible if they at least got the simple things right?

Are they pathological liars?

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Three Big Questions

Here's John West at Biola University in October 2010. He's asking three big questions.

1. Did God specifically direct the history of life?
2. Did God create humans originally good?
3. Can we see evidence of God's design in nature?

The answers, by the way, are no, no, and no. But you already knew that, didn't you?

John G. West is a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute. He is also Associate Director of Discovery's Center for Science & Culture and Vice President for Public Policy and Legal Affairs. In other words, he's one of the prime IDiots.

While watching the video, try and remember that Intelligent Design Creationism is not about God and criticism of "Darwinism" should be taught in the schools because it's part of science, not religion.

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