100% Un-deluded

 
One of my readers has designed a T-shirt for atheists. You can buy one at Zazzle.

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Atheism Is Going Out of Business

 
Denyse O'Leary was on the radio this morning on some religious show from Alberta. She was asked how she deals with all the abuse she gets from people who recognize that she's an IDiot. (That's not exactly the way she puts it.)

You can read all of her response on Uncommon Descent, and presumably on three or four other blogs as well [The old order changes, … amid a storm of abuse!].

Canadian Cynic says "I'm just plain running out of punchlines." That's saying a lot.

For those of you who refuse out of principle to view the IDiot's websites, here's part of her insane view of the world.

Look, the fine tuning of the universe for life and discovery has nothing to do with me. Nor am I personally responsible for the fact that the history of life is nothing like what a no-design theory like Darwin’s needs. And a huge freakout of atheist books/blasphemy campaigns won’t change any of that.

Actually, it looks to me like atheism’s Going Out of Business sale. And imagine, that happened in my lifetime …

It’s no surprise if they’re going out of business. They lost an intellectually respected atheist like Antony Flew and their best asset was Richard Dawkins, of whom even atheists tire - in droves now, apparently.

It is true that I benefit from this situation, insofar as my friends’ lives and my life are much less likely to be blighted by religious persecution. But I did not cause the situation. I didn’t fine tune a single aspect of the universe and have never created anything more worthy of note than books and articles, about whose quality critics vary rather widely.

So when anonymous people write abuse, I assume they are venting their own anxiety about a changing order of things, on which it is my job to report. Media pros call what those people do ”shooting the messenger”. Is that caused by poor coping skills and possibly, unhappy lives?

Now do you see why Canadian Cynic has run out of punchlines? What can you say about someone whose view of the world is 180° out of alignment?

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Permission Denied

 
I used to be able to read Shalini's blog Scientia Natura: Evolution And Rationality but now when I try to read a posting I get ...

This blog is open to invited readers only
http://shalinisehkar.com/

It doesn't look like you have been invited to read this blog. If you think this is a mistake, you might want to contact the blog author and request an invitation.

Does anyone else get this message or is it just me? It was one of the best blogs and it would be a real shame to restrict it to invited readers only.

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Out-of-Date Textbooks

 
Linzel of No More Walls is a Canadian high school science teacher. The latest posting is Provincial Curricula - Always behind the Times?. It begins with,

I've always found textbooks to be behind the times. Because of the amount of time it takes to write, edit, publish and distribute textbooks, by the time teachers and students have them they are years out of date. Not to mention the number of years they remain in circulation. I'm not suggesting we move entirely towards the most current thoughts on subject material. Quite often the most recent science research is plain wrong. Fact is students could not comprehend the level of writing and knowledge required.

The fact is though that the material is on the net and is available to be updated immediately. Old webpages can be identified and steered away from. Old textbooks tend to be handed off to other districts and hang around like a bad disease. [Thats overly harsh but it sounded good]

This criticism is directed at high school textbooks and not university textbooks. On another occasion we can discuss whether it applies to my book but for now let's look at the high school textbooks. I think Linzel has misidentified the problem. It's not the fact that textbooks are four or five years old by the time many students are reading them. Basic scientific principles and concepts just don't change quickly enough to make this a problem at the high school level. What we're concerned about is material that's ten or twenty years out-of-date.

There are only two Grade 12 biology textbooks that have been approved by the Province of Ontario [Trillium List]. They are McGraw-Hill Ryerson Biology 12 (2002) published by McGraw-Hill Ryerson, and Nelson Biology 12 (Student Book) (2003) published by Nelson Education Ltd.

Let's look at the first one in order to illustrate the problem. If we check the website [Biology 12] we can find the list of authors. Here they are ...

Leesa Blake
Malvern Collegiate Institute
Toronto, Ontario

Nancy Flood
University College of the Cariboo
Kamloops, British Columbia

Adrienne Mason
Science and Education Writer
Tofino, British Columbia

Meaghan Craven
Professional Writer
Calgary, Alberta

Gord Jasper
Dr. E.P. Scarlett Senior High School
Calgary, Alberta

Grace Price
L'Amoreaux Collegiate Institute
Agincourt, Ontario

Darcy Dobell
Professional Writer
Tofino, British Columbia

Catherine Little
Toronto District School Board
Toronto, Ontario

I think we've identified the problem. How can you have an up-to-date biology textbook if it's not written by biologists? Now, don't get me wrong. I agree that you need to have high school teachers involved in order to make sure the curriculum is being followed, but surely there's more to writing a good biology textbook that just hiring a bunch of high school teachers and professional writers?

Judging by the Table of Contents there's nothing wrong with the material that's covered. There are three chapters on evolution, for example. However, from my experience with university textbooks I can appreciate the complaint voiced by Linzel. It often takes years for modern concepts to reach the second tier of textbooks and the second tier unfortunately includes typical high school textbooks.

There are two obvious solutions.

1. Get more university professors on the textbook writing team, especially those who are teaching introductory university courses.


2. Offer upgrade courses for high school teachers so they can stay on top of the latest principles and concepts. Some people in my department are thinking about this. We'd like to run summer courses for high school teachers.

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Unconvincing Atheist Arguments

 
Not a Blog has a short list of arguments against God that atheists should avoid [Bad Atheist Responses to Christianity]. I've listed them below but you'll have to visit the blog for an explanation. Personally, I'm not convinced that all of them are worthless.

1. There are a lot of gods Christians don’t believe in.


2. If there is a god, He’s obviously not an intelligent designer.


3. The Bible contains numerous inconsistencies.


4. Quoting Isaiah 55:8, “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD.” [NIV] is a pretty lousy cop-out.


5. You can’t prove God exists.

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[Hat Tip: Friendly Atheist]

Use the LPC Code to Speed Up Mail Delivery

 
This is a fascinating video. Watch it and learn. Then get yourself on over to Friendly Atheist [Amazingly Helpful Tips] and participate in the discussion. This is related to a number of issues that come up on Sandwalk about how to process information.

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Bias Against Women?

 
GrrlScientist claims that women scientists publish fewer papers than men. She then goes on to offer an explanation [Women, Science and Writing].

The fact is that female scientists do not publish as often as male scientists. Why? Some people have told me that women do not produce scientific results that are of the same high quality as those produced by men (nor do they write life science blogs as well as men, apparently) and that male reviewers can readily recognize when a woman is the lead (or sole) author of an article because "women do science differently from men." Basically, science is still a very sexist community where its female practitioners publish less frequently than men at least partially because of the peer-review system that is in place. I think the commonly used single-blind peer review process is biased against papers whose lead (or sole) author is female, just as the field of science is biased against women in general.

She discusses a scientific study that supports the claim that reviewers are biased against women.

This does not sound right to me. There may be all kinds of reasons why women don't publish as much as men (if it's true) but I doubt very much that reviewers are more likely to reject a paper by a women scientist. For one thing, lots of reviewers are women. For another, why in the world would a male reviewer reject a paper just because the work is done by a female scientist? Do you think this is common practice among the scientists you know? Do you really think that in 2008 there are significant numbers of male scientists who are that biased against women? I don't.

UPDATE: Skepchick joins in with [Are women discriminated against in science?]. Let's not forget that this is the important question. There's no denying that some scientists are sexist, just as there's no denying that some are racist and homophobic. Some of them are even (gasp!) Christians! Does that justify saying that science is racist or science is religious? Of course not. What we should be trying to do is decide whether sexism is rampant among scientists or not. If it is, then we can justify saying that women are discriminated against in science even though we might hesitate to say that gays are discriminated against in science in spite of the fact that some scientists are homophobic.

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Monday's Molecule #59

 

This is an example of a very common molecule found in every cell. It's obviously not a chemical structure but a diagram of something else. You have to give us the common name of this thing and identify the species. You'll be pleased to know that I don't need the systematic IUPAC name for this one.

There's a direct connection between this molecule, the species, and Wednesday's Nobel Laureate. As a matter of fact, the diagram above is from the acceptance speech of the Nobel Laureate. Your task is to figure out the significance of today's molecule and identify the Nobel Laureate who studied it.

The reward goes to the person who correctly identifies the molecule and the Nobel Laureate. Previous winners are ineligible for one month from the time they first collected the prize. There are two ineligible candidates for this week's reward. The prize is a free lunch at the Faculty Club.

THEME:

Nobel Laureates
Send your guess to Sandwalk (sandwalk(at)bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca) and I'll pick the first email message that correctly identifies the molecule and the Nobel Laureate. Note that I'm not going to repeat Nobel Laureates so you might want to check the list of previous Sandwalk postings.

Correct responses will be posted tomorrow along with the time that the message was received on my server. I may select multiple winners if several people get it right.

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

UPDATE: We have a winner! Alex Knoll wins a free lunch at the Faculty CLub whenever he's in Toronto. The molecule is the ribosomal RNA transcription unit from Tetrahymena thermophila and the Nobel Laureate is Tom Cech who studied the self-spicing reaction of the ribosomal RNA precursor.

The good news is that every one of the people who responded got it right. The bad news is that there were only eight of you.

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ReGenesis and Scientific Literacy

 
About a year ago I posted an article about ReGenesis, a TV show based on scientific investigation into fictional events such as pandemics, crimes, etc. One of the main consultants on the show is a colleague of mine, Aled Edwards [ReGenesis].

Eva of easternblot has found an online interview with Aled Edwards about the show [ ReGenesis on LabLit]. You can read the entire interview on the LabLit website [ReGenesis guru Aled Edwards].

I like what Aled has to say. He is trying very hard not to let the TV show get dumbed down.

The scientists on this show are more like real scientists than anything else on screen. They have to publish, they make mistakes. We place caveats into the dialogue, trying to convey that on the edge of science, nothing is certain: we deal in hypotheses and uncertainty. The science in the show has real-life ambiguity – there’s no CSI-like wrap-up at the end in many episodes. And there’s an order of magnitude more science on the show than any other I’ve seen on film or TV.

As many of you know, here's a controversy between many scientists and many journalists about how to communicate science. I think Aled Edwards has the correct attitude here. What do the rest of you think? How many have watched the show?

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Predictions of Intelligent Design Creationism

 
Denyse O'Leary gives us nine "predictions" from the IDiots [ Nine predictions, if intelligent design is true]. I present them here without comment. Notice how almost all of them are predictions of what science will not discover and none of them are predictions of what an intelligent designer creationist is expected to do. That's because the essence of Intelligent Design Creationism is anti-science and not pro-designer. Several of the "predictions" are based on Denyse's latest book The Spiritual Brain.

1. No good theory will be found for a random origin of the universe, either by the Large Hadron Collider or anything else. The universe will consistently behave more like a great idea than a great machine.


2. No good theory will be found for a random origin of life, though there will be plenty of huffing and puffing in favour of bad ideas. All theories that exclude purpose and design fail because they leave out the key driver - the purpose that life should come into existence.


3. Complete series of transitional fossils will not usually be found because most proposed series have never existed. Eventually, researchers will give up on ideologically driven nonsense and address the history that IS there. They will focus on discovering the mechanisms that drive sudden bursts of creativity.


4. The environment will prove far more resilient than eco-doomsayers believe. People forget that the Permian extinction wiped out 90% of the marine life forms on this planet. Life seems to want to exist on this planet, even at the South Pole (cf March of the Penguins). Note: I have no time for environment destruction, and personally gave up keeping a car, as the simplest and most economical way to reduce my environment footprint. But I am NOT waiting for enviro-apocalypse!! - I don't believe it will happen. There will be changes. That's all. Not the end of the world or anything like it.


5. No account of human evolution will show a long slow emergence from unconsciousness to semi-consciousness to consciousness, let alone that consciousness is merely the random firing of neurons in the brain. However consciousness got started, it appeared rather suddenly and it permanently separates humans from our genetic kin, however you want to do the gene numbers and however much time researchers spend coaxing monkeys to stop relieving themselves on the keyboard and type something meaningful.


6. Claims that the human brain is full of "anachronistic junk" will be falsified, just as century old claims that there are hundreds of vestigial organs in the human body were falsified. The human body will be recognized as suitable for the purposes for which we exist. (Not in all cases perfect, to be sure, but in general suitable.)


7. No useful theory of consciousness will demonstrate that consciousness is merely the outcome of the random firing of neurons in the brain. All useful theories will accept that the mind and the brain exist in a relationship. Research will focus on delineating the relationship more clearly. That will greatly benefit medical research, especially research on difficult mental disorders such as phobias, depression, etc.


8. No useful theory of free will (human volition) will demonstrate that it does not really exist. Free will (which includes using the mind to help heal bodily injuries) will become an important tool of medicine, especially for helping aging people toward a better quality of life. For example, the fact that a drug only need perform 5% better than a placebo to be licensed for use will encourage the development of mind-based treatments for people who would otherwise be forced to take antagonistic drugs.


9. No useful theory of human psychology will be founded on claims about what happened in the caves of our ancestors (= evolutionary psychology). That is because there are no genes that simply "cause" behaviour in a clinically normal human being. The mind is real and humans create their social environment by mental effort. Information is passed on from mind to mind, not through genes or physiology.

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Gene Genie #24

 
The 24th edition of Gene Genie has been posted at origins genome resources [Gene Genie issue #24: Human genetics (Illumnia conspiracies and Eric Roberts too) provide a light in winter].

Welcome to the 24th edition of Gene Genie!! During these grey winter doldrums, it is all too easy to hunker down and withdraw from the blogosphere into the minutiae of grant writing and lab management (brrr- I haven’t posted in weeks). So it is with true delight that I present and thank our contributors for brightening the season.

The beautiful logo was created by Ricardo at My Biotech Life.

The purpose of this carnival is to highlight the genetics of one particular species, Homo sapiens.

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Changing Minds Through Science Communication

 
There are lots of things going on at the North Carolina Science Blogging Conference but the session I'd most like to have attended was on "Changing Minds Through Science Communication." The speakers were Jennifer Jacquet, Sheril Kirshenbaum, and Chris Mooney.¹

The next best thing to being there is to watch the videotape of the session (below). I must say I'm somewhat underwhelmed. Most of the presentations seemed to be mouthing the same old unsupported platitudes that we've been seeing for the past year, including a shot at Richard Dawkins.

There's was a great deal of talk about getting US Presidential candidates to engage in a science debate sometime in the next few months [Science Debate 2008]. Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum spent a lot of time talking about this. How many people think this is a worthwhile way to spend one's time? What are the chances of it happening? If it does happen, will it advance the goal of effective science communication or is there a chance that it will do the opposite? If it doesn't happen, what message will that send about the importance of science?

The goal of the science debate is to use politics and the media to teach the general public about real science (e.g., evolution, global warming, stem cell research etc.) What if the media and politicians trump the process and use the debate to promote anti-science? Going head-to-head with these groups and trying to beat them at the framing game seems a bit naive to me. Am I the only one who thinks this? Since when have candidate debates stuck to scientific facts?

What if a candidate shows up with a list of ten scientists who think that the effects of global warming have been exaggerated, and has ten scientific papers to prove it? What if a candidate says that opposition to stem cell research is based on morality and not atheistic science? What if several of the candidates advocate teaching the controversy in biology class? Aren't we just begging for trouble? Aren't we just giving the kooks an opportunity to refute science during a "science" debate?

There's a good reason why real scientists avoid public debates with creationists. Perhaps science bloggers and science journalists should think about those reasons before promoting a debate on science. They might not get what they're wishing for.

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1. Would it have been impossible to find an active full-time research scientist to participate on this panel? I find it frustrating that scientists are being criticized in a forum like this without being given a chance to present the other side of the case.

Eating Clones

 
We eat cloned organisms every day, but they're plants (e.g., bananas).

Apparently, some people have a great fear of eating cloned animals. Is this irrational fear an "ethical" problem? The underlying question is how do we define an ethical problem? Just because some people incorrectly see a problem where none exists, are we obliged to bow to their definition of "ethics."

Join the discussion on Balblab [Clonal Discrimination].

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The Cloning of Steve Steve

 
Many of our science blogger friends are having a good time in North Carolina at the second North Carolina Science Blogging Conference. I was at the last one and it was lots of fun.

Joshua Rosenau is there and he breaks the news that Steve Steve has been cloned [Scienceblogging]. It has long been suspected that Reed Cartwright had succeeded in cloning Steve Steve but this is the first photographic proof that I'm aware of. As you can see from the photo, some of the cloning attempts were not successful.

I'm waiting to hear the response from the Vatican.

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This ranks among the most morally illicit acts, ethically speaking ...

 
Researchers from Stemagen a private stem-cell research company in California, have created human clones by the same techniques used to clone other mammals. The clones only went through a few cell divisions before being discarded [Ethical storm as scientist becomes first man to clone HIMSELF].

There's nothing remarkable about the science. It's one step toward cloning humans using standard procedures that have been worked out over the past three decades. What's remarkable is the reaction to this announcement. I'm still having trouble figuring out what is the ethical problem here.

I think it's all related to abortion. If you are opposed to allowing a woman to decide what to do with her own body then you're also against stem cell research. The "ethical issue" is mostly confined to religious people (men?) who oppose abortion. At least that's how it appears to me.

Stemagen isn't doing anything wrong; they make this clear on their webpage.

All research at Stemagen is performed in strict accordance with US Federal Regulations for the ethical treatment and protection of human subjects covered in the 45 CFR Part 46 policy issued by the Office of Human Research Protection (OHRP). More specifically, this requires that all research involving human eggs, embryos or human subjects be approved and carefully monitored by an independent Institutional Review Board (IRB) composed of members of the medical and general community, with additional ethical and legal expertise sought when required.

Those who choose to donate oocytes (eggs) and embryos for this type of research do so through informed consents that follow the guidelines for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research from the National Academy of Sciences (www.nationalacademies.org).

Stemagen's mission is to maintain exemplary standards in human embryonic stem cell research in accordance with the highest ethical and research principles.

This is an important point in so-called "ethical" debates. The scientists are not being unethical and many observers, like me, don't see any ethical problem. Others see an ethical problem as described in the newspaper article.

John Smeaton, of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, said: "We have got scientists wandering around in an ethical wilderness, forgetting about matters of justice relating to our fellow human beings.

"We have people creating human beings with the intention of destroying them. That's appalling."

And the Vatican condemned the cloning of human embryos, calling it the "worst type of exploitation of the human being".

"This ranks among the most morally illicit acts, ethically speaking," said Monsignor Elio Sgreccia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, the Vatican department that helps oversee the Church's position on bioethics issues.

Here's the issue. At what point does something become an "ethical" issue for society? How many people have to be against something on "ethical" grounds" in order for it to become an ethical problem?

What if their objections are irrational? For example I imagine that US Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is against stem cell research but his reasons are likely to be as ridiculous as his reasons for opposing same-sex marriage. Does that still count as an ethical problem? It seems to me that elevating stupidity to the level of "ethics" is not the way we want to go.

Why couldn't the headline have been "No Ethical Problem, According to Most Atheists?" Why do we let religious groups define ethics for us? I don't subscribe to their version of ethics, do you?

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