Harper Slashes Research in Canada

 
The Conservative Party under Stephen Harper has proposed drastic cuts in research funding. The new budget suggests that the major research councils will be able to "save" 87 million dollars over the next four years due to increased efficiency.

Read it at: Budget 2009 under "Granting Councils."

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada are streamlining operations and aligning programs with the objectives of the Government’s Science and Technology Strategy and national research priorities. Through closer coordination, these agencies are improving the effectiveness of existing programs, aligning their programs with their core roles and fostering the development of innovative new programs.

These savings will be used in this budget to support repairs at post-secondary institutions, to upgrade key Arctic research facilities, to expand the Canada Graduate Scholarships program and graduate internships, and to support new world-class research facilities. This budget also sets aside $750 million to support the current and future activities of the Canada Foundation for Innovation.

Most enlightened countries are increasing funding for basic research but that's not what Conservatives have in mind in order to help Canada adjust to the 21st century. Instead, my government is going to reduce research grants at the same time they want to increase the number of graduate students. Where the heck are these graduate students going to carry out their studies? In the USA?

Genome Canada, a separate agency, isn't getting any money at all. But one thing the Conservative Party has learned from our neighbor to the south is that political parties can give money directly to their favorite causes. Even if it comes at the expense of all other scientists. In this case, the Institute for Quantum Computing gets $50 million in a special non-peer reviewed grant.

Canada adopts earmarks.

Disgusting.

The Liberal Party's Industry, Science & Technology Critic is Marc Garneau (Westmount-Ville Marie). You can send him a message here. Tell him that the Liberal Party should not support this budget.

Here's what Marc Garneau said today as reported by CBC: Critics question lack of new funding for Genome Canada.

Liberal party science and technology critic Marc Garneau told CBC News the funding of Genome Canada would be an issue the party would address with the government when it discusses amendments to the budget.

It will also raise cuts in the budget to Canada's three research councils. The cuts total close to $150 million and peak in 2011-12 at $87.2 million, Garneau said.

But he stopped short of saying these issues would be deal-breakers in ongoing budget talks.

"What we're going to do is continue to remind the government that they are not doing enough in that particular area," said Garneau. "I won't tell you whether or not this is a show-stopper because I'm not making those decisions, but I think our party will continue to point out the lack of real support in science by this government."

If the Liberals don't think this is a "show-stopper" then maybe it's time to vote NDP.

---

Nobel Laureate: Osamu Shimomura

 

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2008.

"for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP"




Osamu Shimomura (1928 - ) was awarded the Nobel Prize for isolating and characterizing green fluorescent protein (GFP) from the jellyfish Aequorea victoria. Here's the Press Release describing his achievements.

Glowing proteins – a guiding star for biochemistry

The remarkable brightly glowing green fluorescent protein, GFP, was first observed in the beautiful jellyfish, Aequorea victoria in 1962. Since then, this protein has become one of the most important tools used in contemporary bioscience. With the aid of GFP, researchers have developed ways to watch processes that were previously invisible, such as the development of nerve cells in the brain or how cancer cells spread.

Osamu Shimomura first isolated GFP from the jellyfish Aequorea victoria, which drifts with the currents off the west coast of North America. He discovered that this protein glowed bright green under ultraviolet light.

---

The images of the Nobel Prize medals are registered trademarks of the Nobel Foundation (© The Nobel Foundation). They are used here, with permission, for educational purposes only.

Monday's Molecule #105: The winners

 
 
Monday's molecule is on Tuesday this week. Sorry for the delay, I've been busy with a mid-term test in my introductory biochemistry course.

You have to identify this molecule. The role of this molecule in a particular species was elucidated by a Nobel Laureate in the second half of the 20th century. We need the name of the Nobel Laureate who first isolated and characterized the protein.

Your task is to correctly identify the molecule and the species from which it was purified. You also need to name the Nobel Laureate. The first one to do so wins a free lunch at the Faculty Club. Previous winners are ineligible for one month from the time they first collected the prize.

There are five ineligible candidates for this week's reward: Dima Klenchin of the University of Wisconsin, Bill Chaney of the University of Nebraska, Maria Altshuler of the university of Toronto, Ramon, address unknown, and Jason Oakley of the University of Toronto.

Dima and Bill have offered to donate their free lunch to a deserving undergraduate so the next two undergraduates to win and collect a free lunch can also invite a friend. Since undergraduates from the Toronto region are doing better in this contest, I'm going to continue to award an additional free lunch to the first undergraduate student who can accept a free lunch. Please indicate in your email message whether you are an undergraduate and whether you came make it for your free lunch (with a friend).

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 names the Nobel Laureate(s). Note that I'm not going to repeat Nobel Laureate(s) so you might want to check the list of previous Sandwalk postings by clicking on the link in the theme box.

Correct responses will be posted tomorrow. I reserve the right to select multiple winners if several people get it right.

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

UPDATE:The molecule is green fluorescent protein from the jellyfish Aequorea victoria. The Nobel Laureate is Osamu Shimomura (2008).

The winner is John Bothwell (again) from the Marine Biological Association of the UK, in Plymouth (UK). The local winner is Wesley Butt of the University of Toronto.

---

Praise Darwin

 

This is a billboard that the Freedom from Religion Foundation is planning to put up in several American cities.

I'm totally opposed to this billboard for the same reason I objected to the New Scientist cover saying "Darwin Was Wrong."

Charles Darwin published his famous book in 1859. That's 150 years ago. Since then we have moved far beyond anything Darwin could have imagined while strolling on the Sandwalk. Modern scientists do not worship Darwin and they haven't been wedded to his ideas for over a century.

The editors of New Scientist don't get this, and neither does the Freedom from Religion Foundation.

John Pieret allerted me to this billboard [Praise Hymn]. His take is slightly different. He's more concerned with how the creationists will take advantage of these errors. I'm more worried about how the errors contribute to misunderstanding among sensible people.

---

Mathematical Proof of God

 
Here's Kirk Durston explaining how mathematics can show that evolution is impossible and Intelligent Design Creationism is probable. Durston is a graduate student at the University of Guelph (Guelph Ontario, Canada). At some point he will have to describe his ideas to a group of scientists who will determine whether he should get a Ph.D. Good luck Kirk, you will need it. Unless, of course, if the committee is stacked with IDiots people who don't understand biology.

If this explanation forms any part of Durston's thesis then it would be extremely embarrassing if the University of Guelph awards him a Ph.D. But what if all this is left out of the thesis? Is it still fair game for the Ph.D. oral committee?

---

Science Journalists and Junk DNA

The latest issue of SEED magazine concentrates on the idea that "Science Is Culture"—whatever that means.

One of the things it seems to mean is that good, accurate science reporting is not a high priority.

Junk DNA is one of those subjects that seem to bamboozle science journalists. They just can't seem to accept the possibility that much of our genome serves no purpose. One of the most extreme examples of this bias can be found in an article by Veronique Greenwood titled What We Lose.

The point of the article is that scientific models aren't perfect. They often over-simplify and, even more dangerous, they can exclude the very information required to refute the model. The example she uses is the software that will select what data to look at when the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) starts working. Greenwood's point is that the software might ignore the most interesting collisions because they aren't what scientists expect.

Here's how she explains the danger.

It wouldn't be the first time a standing model has excluded data that could revise it. In the 1980's, NASA analyses of the ozone layer flagged a great many data points as errors—values that seemed too low to be real, values that indicated a huge hole in the planet's protective layer. NASA scientists overlooked the possibility until an outside group published its discovery of the ozone hole in 1985. ....

Something similar happened in the 1990's when DNA that didn't code for proteins was labeled "junk." Noncoding DNA, biologist have since found, regulates protein-coding DNA.

THEME

Genomes & Junk DNA
No, Ms. Greenwood, that's not what happened. Junk DNA has been around for 35 years and it is well-established that much of our genome is composed of degenerate transposons and pseudogenes. There's good evidence that up to 90% of our genome may be junk, perhaps more.

Regulatory sequences have been known for over forty years. They cannot account for more than a small fraction of noncoding DNA. You are dead wrong when you claim that a function has been found for most junk DNA.

---

Kirk Durston vs PZ Myers

 
PZ Myers has a brief account of his encounter with Kirk Durston in Edmonton (Alberta, Canada) last weekend [An ugly debate in Edmonton].

PZ discovered what many of us already knew about Kirk ...

He's a good debater, because he relies on a powerful tactic: he'll willingly make stuff up and mangle his sources to make his arguments. I'm at a disadvantage because I won't do that.

Exactly. It's hard to debate someone who lies with a straight face, especially if they act like a Christian while doing it.

Here's what I had to say last year about my encounter with Kirk Durston [Kirk Durston's Proof of God].

It was a very frustrating experience. Like most Intelligent Design Creationists, Durston was all over the map in terms of spreading lies and misconceptions about science. This scattergun approach seems to be very successful for them. I assume it's because no one person can address all of the problems with their presentation. Most people will catch one or two flaws but they'll assume that everything else has to be correct.

Sounds like nothing has changed.

---

Does God Exist? A Debate

 
It's almost too late but here's an event you should attend it you live in Toronto.¹ Jim Brown is an atheist philosopher and a very, very smart man. I almost feel sorry for William Lane Craig.

This event is co-sponsored by the University of Toronto Secular Alliance and the Campus for Christ at U of T.

Does God Exist? A Debate

Time: Tues Jan 27, 6:00pm
Location: Isabel Bader Theatre (BT), Victoria College, 93 Charles Street West
Tickets: $2 (Student) at the door (Tues) $10 (Non-Student)
Theist: Dr. William Lane Craig
Atheist: Dr. James Robert Brown

This will prove to be an exciting debate between two world-renowned philosophers, including a professor from here at U of T. After a formal debate structure, both debaters will take questions from the audience. We anticipate a full auditorium for this broad topic that appeals to many students, regardless of where they stand on the debate.

This event is co-sponsored by Campus for Christ at U of T and University of Toronto Secular Alliance.

We expect this debate to be full and will prioritize seating for university students. If you are not a student at this university, please attend the Thursday debate at York University as there will be more room there. Cost is $10 for non-students.

---

1. I can't make it. My mid-term is tonight. Please post a message telling us how it went.

The Power of Darwin

 
Richard Dawkins has published an article in Free Enquiry titled The Power of Darwin. Here are the opening paragraphs.

Charles Darwin had a big idea, arguably the most powerful idea ever. A powerful idea assumes little to explain much. It does a lot of explanatory “heavy lifting” while expending little in the way of assumption or postulation. It gives you plenty of bang for your explanatory buck. Its Explanation Ratio—what it explains divided by what it needs to assume in order to do the explaining—is large.

Power of a theory = That which it explains/That which it needs to assume in order to do the explaining

If any reader knows of an idea that has a larger explanation ratio than Darwin’s, let’s hear it. Darwin’s big idea explains all of life and its consequences, and that means everything that possesses more than minimal complexity. That’s the numerator of the Explanation Ratio, and it is huge. Yet the denominator is spectacularly small and simple: natural selection, the non-random survival of genes in gene pools (to put it in neo-Darwinian terms rather than Darwin’s own).

Power of Darwin’s theory = The diverse complexity of life/Non-random survival

Natural selection is an improbability pump—a process that generates statistical improbability. It systematically seizes the minority of random changes that have what it takes to survive and accumulates them, step by tiny step over unimaginable timescales, until evolution eventually scales mountains of improbability and diversity whose height and range seem to know no limit.

Natural selection does NOT explain all of life and its consequences. A great deal of what we see in modern species is a consequence of accident and happenstance where contingency rules over natural selection. Natural selection does NOT explain diversity.

Darwin's big idea was to convince us that life has evolved rather than being created. That's a simple concept that explains a lot.

Natural selection explains adaptation. That's extremely important and extremely interesting but it's only a small part of evolution. Random genetic drift, which Darwin does not get credit for, explains much more because more of evolution is due to drift than to adaptation.

The contributions of Charles Darwin are enormous. That's why he gets credit for being the greatest scientist who ever lived. It does a disservice to his achievements to exaggerate them in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the publication of Origin of Species.

---

Lower Animals and Higher Animals

 
Here's an article from ScienceDaily.

New Tree Of Life Divides All Lower Metazoans From Higher Animals, Molecular Research Confirms

ScienceDaily (Jan. 27, 2009) — A new and comprehensive analysis confirms that the evolutionary relationships among animals are not as simple as previously thought. The traditional idea that animal evolution has followed a trajectory from simple to complex—from sponge to chordate—meets a dramatic exception in the metazoan tree of life.

New work suggests that the so-called "lower" metazoans (including Placozoa, corals, and jellyfish) evolved in parallel to "higher" animals (all other metazoans, from flatworms to chordates). It also appears that Placozoans—large amoeba-shaped, multi-cellular animals—have passed over sponges and other organisms as an animal that most closely mirrors the root of this tree of life.

There's so much wrong with this description that one hardly knows where to begin. Ryan Gregory highlighted the worst parts at Lower and basal.

Do NOT use the words "higher" and "lower" to describe biological species. This is a mistake that many scientists make so we can't blame the journalists¹ for this one.

---

1. I wonder what Graham Lawton thinks about this tree of life?

Monday's Molecule #105

 
Monday's molecule is on Tuesday this week. Sorry for the delay, I've been busy with a mid-term test in my introductory biochemistry course.

You have to identify this molecule. The role of this molecule in a particular species was elucidated by a Nobel Laureate in the second half of the 20th century. We need the name of the Nobel Laureate who first isolated and characterized the protein.

Your task is to correctly identify the molecule and the species from which it was purified. You also need to name the Nobel Laureate. The first one to do so wins a free lunch at the Faculty Club. Previous winners are ineligible for one month from the time they first collected the prize.

There are five ineligible candidates for this week's reward: Dima Klenchin of the University of Wisconsin, Bill Chaney of the University of Nebraska, Maria Altshuler of the university of Toronto, Ramon, address unknown, and Jason Oakley of the University of Toronto.

Dima and Bill have offered to donate their free lunch to a deserving undergraduate so the next two undergraduates to win and collect a free lunch can also invite a friend. Since undergraduates from the Toronto region are doing better in this contest, I'm going to continue to award an additional free lunch to the first undergraduate student who can accept a free lunch. Please indicate in your email message whether you are an undergraduate and whether you came make it for your free lunch (with a friend).

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 names the Nobel Laureate(s). Note that I'm not going to repeat Nobel Laureate(s) so you might want to check the list of previous Sandwalk postings by clicking on the link in the theme box.

Correct responses will be posted tomorrow. I reserve the right to select multiple winners if several people get it right.

Comments will be blocked for 24 hours.

---

Good Science Writing

 

Good Science Writing
David Suzuki
Helena Curtis
David Raup
Niles Eldredge
Richard Lewontin
Steven Vogel
Jacques Monod
G. Brent Dalrymple
Eugenie Scott
Sean B. Carroll
Richard Dawkins
Albert Lehninger
Stephen J. Gould
Douglas Futuyma
Just to remind everyone that there is such a thing as a good science writer, here's a list.

---

Saturday Morning Music

 
Ms. Sandwalk and I have facing desks in our basement study. Many of her blog postings involve music. For the past hour I've been listening to her singing along to all kinds of songs. Some good, and some not so good.

Here's the result. The best ones made it to her blog [Music this week].

---

Jerry Coyne on Science vs. Religion

 
Many people have written about the conflict between science and religion but most get it wrong, especially the apologists for religion. Jerry Coyne is an exception. I don't always agree with his views about evolution but when it comes to the conflict between science and religion he has hit the nail on the head.

Read his article in The New Republic—it's disguised as a review of Ken Miller's book Only a Theory and Karl Giberson's book Saving Darwin: How to be a Christian and Believe in Evolution [Seeing and Believing].

Coyne exposes the fallacy of theistic evolution, a theme close to my own views [Theistic Evolution: The Fallacy of the Middle Ground], ... only Coyne says it so much better ...

True, there are religious scientists and Darwinian churchgoers. But this does not mean that faith and science are compatible, except in the trivial sense that both attitudes can be simultaneously embraced by a single human mind. (It is like saying that marriage and adultery are compatible because some married people are adulterers. ) It is also true that some of the tensions disappear when the literal reading of the Bible is renounced, as it is by all but the most primitive of JudeoChristian sensibilities. But tension remains. The real question is whether there is a philosophical incompatibility between religion and science. Does the empirical nature of science contradict the revelatory nature of faith? Are the gaps between them so great that the two institutions must be considered essentially antagonistic? The incessant stream of books dealing with this question suggests that the answer is not straightforward.

The easiest way to harmonize science and religion is simply to re-define one so that it includes the other. We may claim, for example, that "God" is simply the name we give to the order and harmony of the universe, the laws of physics and chemistry, the beauty of nature, and so on. This is the naturalistic pantheism of Spinoza. Its most famous advocate was Einstein, often (and wrongly) described as believing in a personal God ...

But the big problem with this "reconciliation," in which science does not marry religion so much as digest it, is that it leaves out God completely--or at least the God of the monotheistic faiths, who has an interest in the universe. And this is unacceptable to most religious people. Look at the numbers: 90 percent of Americans believe in a personal God who interacts with the world, 79 percent believe in miracles, 75 percent in heaven, and 72 percent in the divinity of Jesus. In his first popular book, Finding Darwin's God, Kenneth Miller attacked pantheism because it "dilutes religion to the point of meaninglessness." He was right.

A meaningful effort to reconcile science and faith must start by recognizing them as they are actually understood and practiced by human beings. You cannot re-define science so that it includes the supernatural, as Kansas's board of education did in 2005. Nor can you take "religion" to be the philosophy of liberal theologians, which, frowning on a personal God, is often just a hairsbreadth away from pantheism. After all, the goal is not to turn the faithful into liberal theologians, but to show them a way to align their actual beliefs with scientific truths. Theologians sometimes suggest a reconciliation by means of naturalistic deism, the idea that the creation of the universe--and perhaps the laws of physics--was the direct handiwork of a deity who then left things alone as they unfolded, never interfering in nature or history again. For the faithful, this has been even more problematic than pantheism: it not only denies miracles, virgin births, answered prayers, and the entire cosmological apparatus of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and much of Buddhism, but also raises the question of where God came from in the first place

I've met many "liberal theologians" who claim to believe in some version of "process theology"— a wishy-washy concept that, as Coyne correctly points out, is just a hairsbreadth away from pantheism. The catch is that when you follow these so-called "liberal theologians" back to the safety of their church you'll find that they quickly revert to another form of religion altogether. The "sophisticated" version of Christianity that they proclaim in public is just a sham designed to make them look as though they accept science and all its implications.

The real value of Coyne's review is the dismantling of Ken Miller's version of theistic evolution. Miller, like most theists, wants to have his cake and eat it too. He wants to accept science and evolution but, at the same time, he wants to sneak God into the picture so that humans are special. This is a recognition of the fundamental conflict between science and religion; namely, that according to what we know about the natural world, humans are not special in any way and life does not have a purpose. There are very few believers who can stomach those ideas, hence their science and their religion are in conflict.

Miller opts for theology. Although his new book does not say how God ensured the arrival of Homo sapiens, Miller was more explicit in Finding Darwin's God. There he suggested that the indeterminacy of quantum mechanics allows God to intervene at the level of atoms, influencing events on a larger scale:

"The indeterminate nature of quantum events would allow a clever and subtle God to influence events in ways that are profound, but scientifically undetectable to us. Those events could include the appearance of mutations, the activation of individual neurons in the brain, and even the survival of individual cells and organisms affected by the chance processes of radioactive decay."

In other words, God is a Mover of Electrons, deliberately keeping his incursions into nature so subtle that they're invisible. It is baffling that Miller, who comes up with the most technically astute arguments against irreducible complexity, can in the end wind up touting God's micro-editing of DNA. This argument is in fact identical to that of Michael Behe, the ID advocate against whom Miller testified in the Harrisburg trial. It is another God-of-the-gaps argument, except that this time the gaps are tiny.

Exactly. The difference between Ken Miller and Michael Behe is trivial compared to the difference between Ken Miller and Richard Dawkins. Coyne is not the only one who has trouble seeing why Behe isn't a theistic evolutionist and Miller isn't an intelligent design creationist.

Coyne has written a great article and you must read all of it. Here are two more teasers that I hope will entice you to learn more ...

Giberson and Miller are thoughtful men of good will. Reading them, you get a sense of conviction and sincerity absent from the writings of many creationists, who blatantly deny the most obvious facts about nature in the cause of their faith. Both of their books are worth reading: Giberson for the history of the creation/ evolution debate, and Miller for his lucid arguments against intelligent design. Yet in the end they fail to achieve their longed-for union between faith and evolution. And they fail for the same reason that people always fail: a true harmony between science and religion requires either doing away with most people's religion and replacing it with a watered-down deism, or polluting science with unnecessary, untestable, and unreasonable spiritual claims.

Although Giberson and Miller see themselves as opponents of creationism, in devising a compatibility between science and religion they finally converge with their opponents. In fact, they exhibit at least three of the four distinguishing traits of creationists: belief in God, the intervention of God in nature, and a special role for God in the evolution of humans. They may even show the fourth trait, a belief in irreducible complexity, by proposing that a soul could not have evolved, but was inserted by God.

This disharmony is a dirty little secret in scientific circles. It is in our personal and professional interest to proclaim that science and religion are perfectly harmonious. After all, we want our grants funded by the government, and our schoolchildren exposed to real science instead of creationism. Liberal religious people have been important allies in our struggle against creationism, and it is not pleasant to alienate them by declaring how we feel. This is why, as a tactical matter, groups such as the National Academy of Sciences claim that religion and science do not conflict. But their main evidence--the existence of religious scientists--is wearing thin as scientists grow ever more vociferous about their lack of faith. Now Darwin Year is upon us, and we can expect more books like those by Kenneth Miller and Karl Giberson. Attempts to reconcile God and evolution keep rolling off the intellectual assembly line. It never stops, because the reconciliation never works.

Visit The Edge to see how otherwise intelligent men and women respond to Coyne's argument. Some of them make the kindergarten error of confusing disagreement with intolerance.

---

It took Ricky Gervais only one hour to become an atheist

 
Watch the full story in this clip from Inside the Actors Studio, which, incidentally, is one of my favorite shows.

The good bit comes at four and a half minutes.

---

[Hat Tip: Friendly Atheist]

Explaining the New Scientist Cover

 
Yesterday I criticized the cover of the latest issue of New Scientist [Darwin Was Wrong?]. There's a good discussion going on at EvolutionBlog [The Trouble With Science Journalism].

I pointed out that the cover was, "an egregious example of journalistic hype and it's unacceptable in a magazine like New Scientist." I also mentioned that the article itself, written by Graham Lawton, contained some interesting—and mostly correct—information about the early history of life.

Graham Lawton posted a comment to my earlier posting where he critized Sandwalk readers because they (we?), "lack a fundamental understanding of how the media works." He was asked to explain. This is how Graham Lawton replied.

The way we work here is that the writer of the piece generally has almost no say over the headline, standfirst and other bits of "page furniture". These are the resonsibility of the copy editor and the sub-editors. The online version often has its own headline, which again is out of the control of the writer (in this case the magazine headline is "Uprooting Darwin's Tree").

Coverlines, similarly, are written not by the writer but by senior editors with the express purpose of selling the magazine (the line between marketing and journalism blurs a little here).

As I'm a senior editor too, however, I can't and won't claim that the coverline was entirely beyond my control. Not my ultimate decision, but I was in on the discussions. We knew we were courting controversy but the feeling was that the story was solid enough to allow us to be provocative and, in any case, the statement is true.

So I feel very strong ownership of the article itself, particularly the print version (and I totally stand by the story, which is the product of weeks of hard work, extensive interviews with scientists, a stack of journal papers and much thought, despite what some bloggers are saying). I feel some ownership of the front cover "sell", though as always I'm acutely aware that it is 50% journalism, 50% sales pitch.

I, for one, am not surprised by this "revelation." I have known for some time that decisions on titles and covers are not made by authors. I've known for some time that decisions about titles and covers can be based on "sales pitch" and "hype" and that scientific accuracy can play a minor role in those decisions.

I'd like to thank Graham Lawton for explaining the process in case there are some people who still don't understand the basics.

The fact that I knew how covers were selected does not affect my criticism of the decision in spite of what Lawton might think. As a matter of fact, now that I know how he was involved as senior editor I can put some of the blame on him. The fact that he defends the cover title ("Darwin Was Wrong") by saying that, "... in any case, the statement is true" is revealing.

It's unusual for a science journalist to be so candid about the trade-off between scientific accuracy and "sales pitch."

As for the article itself, Graham Lawton is quite proud of it. He seems to be implying that the title of the article was not his fault, thereby shifting the blame somewhat to other editors. That position is not going to stand up to close examination of the article.

The first four paragraphs talk about Darwin and what he thought in 1837 and 1859 [Why Darwin was wrong about the tree of life. It will be clear to every reader that this is not just ancient history, the strong implication is that up until recently most evolutionary biologists thought just like Darwin must have thought 150 years ago. They were stuck in the late nineteenth century Victorian mindset. That's why Lawton begins the next paragraph with, "For much of the past 150 years, biology has largely concerned itself with filling in the details of the tree."

That's nonsense, of course. There's a lot more that's been happening in evolutionary biology than just filling in the details of trees. Is it any wonder that the editors picked up on this false notion and created the headline "Darwin Was Wrong"? Graham Lawton, as author of the article, seems to be making exactly that point.

The article would have been much better if Darwin's name had never been mentioned. Darwin knew nothing about molecular evolution and he knew almost nothing about bacteria or the last common ancestor. Dragging Darwin's name into the article serves only to confuse the readers. It's probably another example of "sales pitch" designed to sell the magazine. It may not be only editors who are guilty.

---

44 Presidents?

 
This video is very popular these days. The title is "44 US Presidents from George Washington to Barack Obama." There's only one small problem .... there are only 43 different Presidents shown in the video. Can you spot the "missing" President?



How many can you name without watching the video? Please indicate whether you are American or a "foreigner."

Do Americans agree on who the best President was, and on who was the worst President? It seems to me that there are several excellent choices in each category.

---

Advice for Prospective Graduate Students: Letters of Recommendation

 
Mark, of Cosmic Variance has some advice about Letters of Recommendation. There's lots of useful information in the posting but here's something that bears repeating.

Perhaps the most important thing for prospective graduate students in particular to keep in mind is that admissions committees, while certainly holding great power over individuals’ futures, are in fact desperately seeking good candidates, and are willing to overlook all kinds of blemishes, indiscretions, and specific weaknesses if they feel that they’re getting a fundamentally good candidate. A single specific fact about an application is very unlikely to ruin a person’s chances (you’d be amazed at the GRE scores of some students admitted to even the top programs). Rather, the committee tries to get an overall picture of the candidate, and then to rank them relative to other candidates (also taking into account the department’s research needs at a given time). Only then are admissions decision taken.

I have certainly missed some issues and subtleties here. But the basic idea should be clear and, if my own experience is anything like typical, then it should help some of you, particularly prospective graduate students, to understand what really goes on with letters. It is quite terrifying to ask people for letters and not to know precisely what’s said in them. Hopefully it helps to know that mostly, by far, you can rely on people to do what they can for you, without being dishonest (and this is important - you can’t expect them to write that you’re one of the best students they’ve ever seen if they don’t think that is the case).

---

Darwin Was Wrong?

The cover is this week's issue of New Scientist is sure to get your attention.

I happen to believe that the science of evolutionary biology has moved on since 1859, and I happen to be a proponent of evolutionary processes that Darwin new nothing about. Nevertheless, proclaiming that "Darwin was wrong" is a different story. That's an egregious example of journalistic hype and it's unacceptable in a magazine like New Scientist.

The main article is Why Darwin was wrong about the tree of life. The author is science journalist Graham Lawton.

The essence of the story is that the early history of evolution is probably characterized by a net of life and not a traditional tree. The "net" metaphor is due to many example of lateral gene transfer.

Ever since Darwin the tree has been the unifying principle for understanding the history of life on Earth. At its base is LUCA, the Last Universal Common Ancestor of all living things, and out of LUCA grows a trunk, which splits again and again to create a vast, bifurcating tree. Each branch represents a single species; branching points are where one species becomes two. Most branches eventually come to a dead end as species go extinct, but some reach right to the top - these are living species. The tree is thus a record of how every species that ever lived is related to all others right back to the origin of life.

For much of the past 150 years, biology has largely concerned itself with filling in the details of the tree. "For a long time the holy grail was to build a tree of life," says Eric Bapteste, an evolutionary biologist at the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, France. A few years ago it looked as though the grail was within reach. But today the project lies in tatters, torn to pieces by an onslaught of negative evidence. Many biologists now argue that the tree concept is obsolete and needs to be discarded. "We have no evidence at all that the tree of life is a reality," says Bapteste. That bombshell has even persuaded some that our fundamental view of biology needs to change.

As it happens, I was at a function last night with Jan Sapp of York University (Toronto, Canada). Loyal Sandwalk readers might recall a series of articles on the Three Domain Hypothesis. The articles were based on a book edited by Jan Sapp. Sapp is a supporter, as am I, of the scheme advocated by Ford Doolittle (see below).


This net, or web, of life is characteristic of the earliest stages of evolution when all organisms were single cells and the distinction between eukaryotes and prokaryotes was barely discernible. Once the main groups rose out of the web, they evolved pretty much as you light expect by binary speciation events. This gives rise to a traditional tree-like pattern.

As Jan and I discussed, for the last three billion years of evolution the tree of life is a very good metaphor for evolution. Darwin was mostly right about that. On the other hand, the New Scientist article discusses some problems with the tree of life that extend beyond the early history. It makes several valid points that should make everyone skeptical of claims about evolution that are too simple. The tree isn't perfect.

The bottom line is that it's unfair to say that Darwin was wrong. It's as unfair as saying the Newton was wrong because of Einstein. We need to recognize that modern evolutionary biology is an improvement over the view of the Victorian founder of the field, but a cover saying that Darwin was wrong conveys the wrong message. It suggests that up until recently scientists believed that Darwin was right about everything.

A better headline might be: "More evidence that Charles Darwin didn't know everything there is to be known about evolution when he published his book in 1859."

UPDATE: In a surprising development, the IDiots at Uncommon Descent have picked up on these recent (sic) developments in evolutionary theory. Paul Nelson, a Young Earth Creationist philosopher, writes: “The tree of life is being politely buried”.

---

Nobel Laureates: Ulf von Euler and Julius Axelrod

 

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1970.

"for their discoveries concerning the humoral transmittors in the nerve terminals and the mechanism for their storage, release and inactivation"

Ulf von Euler (1905 - 1983) and Julius Axelrod (1912 - 2004) won the Noble Prize in 1970 for elucidating the role of noradrenaline (norepinephrine) in transmitting nerve impulses. Axelrad and von Euler shared the prize with Sir Bernard Katz who worked on the role of acetylcholine.

Here's the Press Release.

THEME:
Nobel Laureates

Professor Ulf von Euler has discovered that the substance noradrenaline serves as neurotransmitter at the nerve terminals of the sympathetic nervous system. He has also shown how this substance is stored in small nerve granules within the nerve fibres of this system.

Dr. Julius Axelrod's discoveries concern the mechanisms which regulate the formation of this important transmitter in the nerve cells and the mechanisms which are involved in the inactivation of noradrenaline, partly under the influence of an enzyme discovered by himself.

von Euler's and Axelrod's discoveries have not only increased our knowledge about the transmission in the sympathetic nervous system, they also form the basis for the understanding of the transmission in the central nervous system and its pharmacology. Thus in a very significant way, the laureates have presented basic data about the physical and chemical mechanisms of the synaptic transmission and thus given us basic information about how the messages are mediated between nerve cells. Their discoveries concerning these regulatory mechanisms in the nervous system are fundamental in neurophysiology and neuropharmacology and have greatly stimulated the search for remedies against nervous and mental disturbances.

---

The images of the Nobel Prize medals are registered trademarks of the Nobel Foundation (© The Nobel Foundation). They are used here, with permission, for educational purposes only.

Gene Genie #42

 
The 42nd edition of Gene Genie has been posted at Genetic Future [Gene Genie #42 - focus on personalised genetics].

Welcome to the 42nd edition of Gene Genie, the blog carnival of clinical genetics and personalised medicine.

Most of the entries in this edition fall under the broad umbrella of personalised genetics, with posts emphasising both the pros and cons of the emerging consumer genetic testing industry.

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.

Here are all the previous editions .....

1. Scienceroll
2. Sciencesque
3. Genetics and Health
4. Sandwalk
5. Neurophilosophy
6. Scienceroll
7. Gene Sherpa
8. Eye on DNA
9. DNA Direct Talk
10. Genomicron
11. Med Journal Watch
12. My Biotech Life
13. The Genetic Genealogist
14. MicrobiologyBytes
15. Cancer Genetics
16. Neurophilosophy
17. The Gene Sherpa
18. Eye on DNA
19. Scienceroll
20. Bitesize Bio
21. BabyLab
22. Sandwalk
23. Scienceroll
24. biomarker-driven mental health 2.0
25. The Gene Sherpa
26. Sciencebase
27. DNA Direct Talk
28. Greg Laden’s Blog
29. My Biotech Life
30. Gene Expression
31. Adaptive Complexity
32. Highlight Health
33. Neurophilosophy
34. ScienceRoll
35. Microbiology Bytes
36. Human Genetic Disordrs
37. The Genetic Genealogist
38. ScienceRoll
39. Genetics & Health
40. Human Genetics Disorders
41. ScienceRoll
42. Genetic Future

---

Wealthy men give women more orgasms

 
A reader directed me to this article on The Sunday Times (UK) website: Wealthy men give women more orgasms.

Scientists have found that the pleasure women get from making love is directly linked to the size of their partner’s bank balance.

They found that the wealthier a man is, the more frequently his partner has orgasms.

“Women’s orgasm frequency increases with the income of their partner,” said Dr Thomas Pollet, the Newcastle University psychologist behind the research.

He believes the phenomenon is an “evolutionary adaptation” that is hard-wired into women, driving them to select men on the basis of their perceived quality.

The study is certain to prove controversial, suggesting that women are inherently programmed to be gold-diggers.

However, it fits into a wider body of research known as evolutionary psychology which suggests that both men and women are genetically predisposed to ruthlessly exploit each other to achieve the best chances of survival for their genes.

This explains why some women like being "trophy" wives.

I wonder if very rich women ever have orgasms?

The entire field of evolutionary psychology is becoming a farce. It's about as scientific as creationism. There must be some intelligent psychologists out there. Why aren't they speaking out?

---

Darwin and Gradualism

 
From DaveScot on Uncommon Descent comes this remarkable example of stupidity: Darwin’s Big Mistake - Gradualism.

The big mistake in Origin that Darwinists won’t admit is gradualism. Darwin explained that according to his theory we should expect to observe a continuum of living species each with only the slightest of variations between them. He postulated that we don’t observe this because the fittest species take over and the insensibly slight variants die off leaving species that are fully characteristic of their kind which then makes possible taxonomic classification by those characters. It’s in the full title in the latter half “The Preservation of Favored Races”.

That left Darwin with explaining the fossil record which is indisputably a record of saltation.

Bzzzzz!!!! Wrong!

Thanks for playing, DaveScot. Unfortunately, there are no consolation prizes for IDiots.

---

Princeton Professor denies global warming theory

 
This is embarrassing. I'm an alumnus of Princeton (GS '74) and it pains me to read this in The Daily Princetonian: Professor denies global warming theory.

Physics professor William Happer GS ’64 has some tough words for scientists who believe that carbon dioxide is causing global warming.

“This is George Orwell. This is the ‘Germans are the master race. The Jews are the scum of the earth.’ It’s that kind of propaganda,” Happer, the Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics, said in an interview. “Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. Every time you exhale, you exhale air that has 4 percent carbon dioxide. To say that that’s a pollutant just boggles my mind. What used to be science has turned into a cult.”

Happer served as director of the Office of Energy Research in the U.S. Department of Energy under President George H.W. Bush and was subsequently fired by Vice President Al Gore, reportedly for his refusal to support Gore’s views on climate change.

More proof, if it's needed, that Al Gore is smarter than George Bush (either one).

He asked last month to be added to a list of global warming dissenters in a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee report. The list includes more than 650 experts who challenge the belief that human activity is contributing to global warming

Though Happer has promulgated his skepticism in the past, he requested to be named a skeptic in light of the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama, whose administration has, as Happer notes, “stated that carbon dioxide is a pollutant” and that humans are “poisoning the atmosphere.”

I've been watching the excitement build in Washington as the inauguration approaches. Who knew that one of the unintended consequences would be to flush out the kooks?¹

---

1. For the record, I don't think it's helpful to call CO₂ a "pollutant." That doesn't mean there isn't an optimal concentration; after all, there's also an optimal concentration of N₂ (100% is too much) and O₂ (more than 50% and fires become a really serious problem. I'd also like to go on record as one of those who think that human activity is an important part of global warming but it's probably not the only cause of the current trend.

Liberals won't back tax cuts

 
The Harper government will present its budget next week. The NDP and the Bloc have announced that Stephen Harper has lost the confidence of the House and they will vote against the budget. The Liberal Party under Michael Ignatieff hasn't made up its mind about whether Harper can continue to govern even if all the other parties don't trust him. But the Liberals seem to be clear on one thing; according to today's Toronto Star, Liberals won't back tax cuts.

The Liberals are opposed to making tax cuts the centrepiece of the budget, and new leader Michael Ignatieff signalled yesterday the party is prepared to dump the Conservative minority if the budget is inadequate.

...

As they position themselves in advance of the budget, the Liberals argue that, while they generally favour income-tax cuts, it's the wrong approach during the recession.

"We don't want to see the Prime Minister come up with the kind of broad-based tax cuts that put Canada in a permanent, structural deficit once we recover from this (recession)," Liberal finance critic Scott Brison (Kings-Hants) told CTV yesterday as his party gathered in Ottawa for the caucus meeting.

Liberal MP John McCallum said such cuts are fiscally irresponsible at a time when the Tories have already put Ottawa's books in a deficit position and there's no way to ensure tax cuts benefit those who have lost their jobs or otherwise need help during the recession.

"There's a very good argument to be made that this is not the right time for across-the-board tax reductions," said McCallum, MP for Markham-Unionville and chair of a party advisory committee on the economy.

This could get interesting. I would support the Liberals if they vote against the budget because it contains significant tax cuts. Cutting taxes is typical conservative dogma so we may be headed for an election.

---

Monday's Molecule #104

 
Name this molecule. We need a biochemically accurate name and the formal IUPAC name. The role of this molecule in biological systems was elucidated by one or more Nobel Laureate(s) in the second half of the 20th century.

Your task is to correctly identify the molecule and name the Nobel Laureate(s). The first one to do so wins a free lunch at the Faculty Club. Previous winners are ineligible for one month from the time they first collected the prize.

There are four ineligible candidates for this week's reward: John Bothwell of the Marine Biological Association of the UK in Plymouth, UK, Dima Klenchin of the University of Wisconsin, Bill Chaney of the University of Nebraska, and Maria Altshuler of the university of Toronto.

John, Dale, Bill, and a previous winner (Ms. Sandwalk) have offered to donate their free lunch to a deserving undergraduate so the next two undergraduates to win and collect a free lunch can also invite a friend. Since undergraduates from the Toronto region are doing so poorly in this contest, I'm going to make a special award this week. In addition to the normal winner, the first undergraduate student who can accept a free lunch will win a second prize. Please indicate in your email message whether you are an undergraduate and whether you came make it for your free lunch (with a friend).

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 names the Nobel Laureate(s). Note that I'm not going to repeat Nobel Laureate(s) so you might want to check the list of previous Sandwalk postings by clicking on the link in the theme box.

Correct responses will be posted tomorrow. I reserve the right to select multiple winners if several people get it right.

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


UPDATE: The molecule is norepinephrine (noradrenaline) [4-[(1R)-2-amino-1-hydroxy-ethyl]benzene-1,2-diol]. The Nobel Laureates are Ulf von Euler and Julius Axelrod.

The first person to get it correct was Ramon, address unknown. The first undergraduate who can collect a free lunch is Jason Oakley of the University of Toronto. Jason can bring a friend.

---

Like this is going to happen

 
Normally A.C. Grayling makes a lot of sense and I enjoy reading his columns in New Scientist. Today's column is an exception: Universities should flag up which websites to trust.

Graying rightly points out that the internet is a mixed bag of mostly crap interspersed with the occasional website that makes sense at a level beyond kindergarten. His solution?

The lesson is that to make best use of the internet as an educational resource, its content has to be audited for reliability, and a system of classification introduced. Given that the internet is already the main resource for students, the need is urgent. I suggest that an international consortium of universities should set up panels to audit the worth of websites, endorsing those that are reliable. They should not censor, nor comment on matters of opinion - the price we pay for the internet's open democracy is the rubbish it contains. But they should authoritatively identify worthwhile sites, and warn of factual error when it occurs. Without such expert monitoring, the internet will increasingly be a problem rather than a boon, and limited in educational value.

Can you imagine a panel of Professors from different universities agreeing on which websites are reliable and accurate?

It might work for blogs. We all know which blogs to select, don't we?

---

John Hawks doesn't like random genetic drift

 
The human MYBPC3 gene encodes a muscle protein. A 25 bp deletion in that gene is associated with a large increase the risk of cardiomyopathy ("heart muscle disease"). The most severe problems appear when carriers reach the age of 40.

According to a recent paper by Dhandapany et al. (2009), the overall frequency of the deletion allele is about 4% in India but it ranges from 0% to 7% in different parts of the country. The allele is not present in most other populations outside of India.

The authors conclude that the allele has reached this frequency by random genetic drift beginning with an initial mutation about 30,000 years ago. This increase has occurred in spite of the fact that the allele is deleterious and should decrease overall fitness.

John Hawks disagrees: Could genetic drift really break your heart?.

The issue is not really whether a gene could go from 1 copy to 4 percent in 1200 generations by chance. That wouldn't be so terribly unlikely in Pleistocene humans -- in fact, the mean time for a mutation to go from 1 copy to 4 percent by drift in a population of effective size 10,000 individuals is not 30,000 years, but only around 20,000 years. On the other hand, mtDNA variation today suggests that South Asia experienced early and rapid population growth -- so we're not likely talking about a population of 10,000, but more like a minimum of 100,000 effective individuals through the past 30,000 years at least. It would take genetic drift at least 10 times longer to accomplish the requisite frequency change given that demographic history. Still, a single allele at a single gene locus might be exceptional.

But that scenario, however unlikely, is simply not the situation we have here. Here we have a deletion that must have some disadvantage, because it gives people a fatal disease. This disadvantage is apparently dominant in effect, based on the case-control study. Yet the deletion has managed to persist within the large South Asian populations of the last 10,000 years so that today it is still around 4 percent.

John is an expert on evolution within human populations but he seems to be basing all of his calculations on the idea that the mutation arose in a population of 100,000 individuals and that this population was the effective population (e.g. they all freely interbred). I don't think this is very likely.

The fact that the allele frequency varies within India suggests that there are many subpopulations. Some of them might have been as small as 1000 individuals at vary time over the course of the last 30,000 years. As I'm sure John knows, the populations dynamics of human groups is extremely complex. We only have to think about the allele frequency differences in the Pennsylvania Amish communities or French Canadians to recognize this fact.

And let's not forget that the frequency of Huntington's disease is high around Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela. Over a period of 200 years a single individual with the Huntington's disease allele has left 18,000 descendants.

When we look at modern allele frequencies we don't only think about average rates of change due to random genetic drift in panmitic populations. We also have to consider the unusual events that occur from time to time. These include founder effects, natural disasters, etc. etc. The MYBPC3 is a lottery winner. You can't dismiss evolution by accident just because the probability of any one event is low.

This is why John says that, "Still, a single allele at a single gene locus might be exceptional." But John seems to think that in this case the result is not just "exceptional" but extraordinarily exceptional. He suggests that the deleterious effects of the allele are a recent phenomenon and that explains why it survived in early populations.

I would hypothesize that the disadvantages of the deletion have actually increased over time. The average lifespan increased into the Upper Paleolithic and probably later as well. Meanwhile, as the population grew, larger completed family sizes became more important to fitness. As people became more sedentary, the accumulation and inheritance of possessions and land became an important means of investing in children. The increasing importance of later survival and investment in children should have raised the fitness cost of chronic disease. That would explain a pattern of evolution in which this deletion increased in frequency early in its history, but later remained static or declined.

So, I don't suppose I can say people are crazy for thinking genetic drift could explain this deletion's current high frequency. But considering the powerful effect of weak selection over the many generations involved here, and the very large size of the South Asian population during most of that time, genetic drift seems pretty unlikely.

This makes sense to me. It's consistent with John's idea that the rate of human evolution has changed substantially over the past 30,000 years but I don't see why he objects so much to a random genetic drift explanation. Why does he suggest the the authors of the paper are crazy to suggest drift as an explanation?

It seems to me that his explanation is consistent with an increase in allele frequency due to random genetic drift just as the authors claim.

---

Dhandapany, P.S., Sadayappan, S., Xue, Y., Powell, G.T., Rani, D.S., Nallari, P., Rai, T.S., Khullar, M., Soares, P., Bahl, A., Tharkan, J.M., Vaideeswar, P., Rathinavel, A., Narasimhan, C., Ayapati, D.R., Ayub, Q., Mehdi, S.Q., Oppenheimer1, S., Richards, M.B., Price, A.L., Patterson, N., Reich, D., Singh, L., Tyler-Smith, C., and Thangaraj, K. (2009) A common MYBPC3 (cardiac myosin binding protein C) variant associated with cardiomyopathies in South Asia. Nature Genetics, Published online: 18 January 2009 [doi:10.1038/ng.309]

When TAs Go on Strike

 
York University is the "other" large university in Toronto. The university has been closed since November 5th when members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 3903 (CUPE Local 3903) went on strike.

The situation is a bit complicated because the union has three different groups and there are separate contracts for each group, even though the contracts are all part of the same negotiation package. The three groups are:

Unit 1 if they have a teaching contract (note - teaching includes demonstrating, tutoring, and marking) and they are a full-time graduate student.

Unit 2 if they have a teaching contract and are not a full-time graduate student.

Unit 3 if they have a graduate assistantship or research assistantship and are a full-time graduate student.

What I'm mostly interested in is the graduate students in Units 1 & 3.

After several months of fruitless negotiations, the university exerted its legal right to call for a ratification vote when the union negotiators turned down the latest offer. The vote will take place later this week and, as you might have guessed, the CUPE 3903 leaders are urging their members to "Kill the Rat."

What is the role of a faculty union in situations like this? It's really not complicated. Sister unions will invariably support the right to collective bargaining and demand that both sides negotiate in good faith. Faculty unions tend to tilt in favor of the TA union simply out of solidarity but also because both groups often have common grievances against the administration.

Here's where things get messy. As reported in several newspapers, a group of 300 faculty members recently signed a letter urging CUPE 3903 members to ratify the latest offer by the university administration. Here's how it was reported in the National Post.

Another group urging the union to vote yes is nearly 300 faculty members who signed their names to a letter urging CUPE to accept the current contract proposal.

The signees of the letter are also members of the York University Faculty Association (YUFA).

YUFA president Arthur Hilliker said while he does not endorse the letter, he does not condemn it or believe it to be illegal either, according to Eric Lawee, a York humanities professor and one of the letter’s signees. YUFA maintains it wants a fair and equitable offer for CUPE.

“We, the undersigned retirees and full-time faculty members of York University, urge our colleagues in CUPE 3903 who have been on strike since November 6, 2008, to end their labour action by accepting the current contract offer of the York University administration,” the letter begins.

The letter addresses specific concerns if the strike were to drag on, including the potential loss of the summer term, which not only would hurt the school’s undergraduate students, but would affect CUPE as well, with possible job losses due to the elimination of the summer term.

“In their own interest and that of the entire university community, we urge CUPE members to end their labour action and help the university resume expeditiously the provision of its full academic programs,” the letter concludes.

Mr. Lawee said that there were two main reasons behind the letter. The first was due to “a strong sense that the strike has dragged on too long and that the rights and needs of students must now take priority over all else,” he said. “And ... that this should be an easy settlement to endorse because the offer is very fair.”

Why is this a problem? Well, for one thing, it's a problem because these 300 faculty members are going against the advice of their own union.

The York University Faculty Association (YUFA) issued a press release today in which they reiterated their position.

Press Release

These are our principles with respect to the CUPE 3903 forced ratification vote. They are motions passed unanimously at the YUFA Executive meeting of 12 January 2009:

1. YUFA Executive re-affirms its support of free collective bargaining and does not endorse a ratification vote of CUPE 3903 members as forced by the Employer.


2. YUFA Executive strongly urges all YUFA members to respect individual CUPE 3903 members’ rights in the forced ratification vote to vote freely and according to their conscience. We urge all YUFA members to respect CUPE members’ rights to vote freely.


3. YUFA Executive, recognizing the power relations implicit in the roles of YUFA members and CUPE 3903 members, does not endorse any YUFA member attempting to influence how a CUPE 3903 member might vote in the forced ratification vote.

We recognize the serious problems the strike is causing for the students and for York. We also recognize that the issues of this strike need to be resolved for the future of York University.

The second and third points are very important. Faculty members are often the bosses of teaching assistants and they need to be very careful to remain neutral in situations like this. Because they are in a position of authority over graduate students they should not be urging these students to vote one way or the other. You can see why this is a problem. If Professors tell their graduate student to vote for ratification when the student wants to vote the other way, then this sets up a dangerous conflict for the student. What can be gained by doing that?

This is not a new problem. It's been around for decades and faculty unions in dozens of countries have learned to deal with it by urging individual members to avoid taking sides. I'm surprised that there are nearly 300 retired and active Professors at York University who don't get it.

Some of these faculty members have been writing letters to the editors of various newspapers in defense of their position. Here's one from Bernard Lightman, a Professor of Humanities. It appeared in today's Toronto Star.

Professor Berland has claimed that the open letter by full-time faculty and retirees to striking members of CUPE 3903 is in direct defiance of motions passed by the faculty union's executive. The signees have never claimed to speak on behalf of, or to represent, the faculty union.

Professor Berland interprets the motions of the faculty union's executive as saying that faculty are not free to express their opinions on the strike. I do not believe that that is the correct interpretation. However, if Professor Berland's interpretation were correct, then I would have to defy the faculty union.

It is not the business of a faculty union to gag its own members. One of the most important priorities of a university is to encourage free discussion and expression. That priority is not suspended during a strike, especially when the fate of more than 50,000 students hangs in the balance.

Let's be clear about one thing. YUFA was offering advice to its members based on decades of experience. The advice was to keep your mouth shut because you are in a position of authority over your graduate student TAs.

Every Professor has the right to ignore that advice and try to influence the decision of their graduate students. That's what academic freedom is all about. Whether it's a smart thing to do is another question.¹ I don't think it is.

Graduate students are smart enough, and mature enough, to make up their own minds. They don't need advice from their supervisors and bosses.

---

1. It may be illegal as well, but that's another thing entirely. I doubt that any Professor would be prosecuted for pressuring their graduate students unless that Professor holds a prominent administrative position where the potential for retaliation against a student is much more likely.

Evolution News & Views

 
From time to time I mention the Disco site called Evolution News & Views. It has a lofty purpose that's prominently displayed on every posting.

The misreporting of the evolution issue is one key reason for this site. Unfortunately, much of the news coverage has been sloppy, inaccurate, and in some cases, overtly biased. Evolution News & Views presents analysis of that coverage, as well as original reporting that accurately delivers information about the current state of the debate over Darwinian evolution.

Here's a posting from Robert Crowther dated yesterday afternoon.

So, Darwinists are admitting that up until Friday, Jan. 16 2009 @ 4:10PM, evolution was “mostly theory.” Interesting. I am now certain that dogs adapt to their environment, too. Last night my dog kept barking and I shook my finger and spoke very firmly to her and made her sit on her bed. She stopped barking. So, at 7:10 pm I had a perfect example of evolution. Or was it adaptation? Or was it bad parenting? Whatever, we now see that dogs evolve, which previously had been believed to be “mostly theory.” My peers, who were there reviewing the moment, are skeptical because they think my dog is asexual. Regardless, this is all speculation — except for poor Kali. She still lacks an opposable thumb.

We may need a better word than IDiot to describe these people.

Is there an atheist bus campaign in Seattle? I'd like to donate.

---

Canadian Atheist Bus Campaign

 

Donate to The Canadian Atheist Bus Campaign and get those atheists signs on Toronto buses and subways.

The campaign is sponsored by the Freethought Association of Canada. They've raised over $10,000 in just a few days.

---