Don't Leave Canada Behind

 
This is a letter sent to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Leader of the Opposition Michael Ignatieff. It is signed by hundreds of Canadian scientists. I don't expect it to have any effect on Harper but it will be interesting to see if the Liberal Party decides to support science.

March 16, 2009

The Right Honourable Stephen Harper Prime Minister of Canada The Right Honourable Michael Ignatieff, Leader of the Opposition Ottawa

Subject: Don't leave Canada behind

Dear Prime Minister, Dear Leader of the Opposition

U.S. President Barack Obama is taking advantage of the current financial crisis to push his country forward in new directions by greatly boosting funding to scientific research and education as a means to jump start innovation in a new economy. The scope of his vision is stunning, including an increase of more than $15 billion in scientific research, and a promise to double the funding for education in the next 10 years. For more details, see http://www.sciencedebate2008.com.

Our government has also tried to stimulate the research / university sector in Canada, wishing to take important initiatives. At the heart of the plan is a $2 billion dollars infrastructure fund for shovel-ready renovation projects in post-secondary institutions, a fund that was actively solicited by university presidents. There is also an additional $750 million for the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI), and $87.5 million over three years for doctoral scholarships. While these funding announcements are surely welcome, we would like to share our concerns as to the potential effect of some of these decisions, in particular in view of the bold and visionary course taken by the Obama administration south of the border.

1. When the U.S. government is proposing to boost the funding of the National Science Foundation (NSF) by 40% ($3 billion on top of its current $6.9 billion), we see Canada’s "stimulus budget" cutting NSERC's by 5%. When the U.S. administration is proposing to boost the funding of the National Institute of Health (NIH) by 30% ($8.5 billion in addition to its current $29 billion), our "stimulus budget" is cutting CIHR's by 5%, while essentially ignoring the needs of Genome Canada. When US researchers are being actively approached for ideas to use the stimulus money to think big and to hire and retain their researchers, their Canadian counterparts are now scrambling to identify budget cuts for their Labs, while worrying about the future of their graduating students. Recent Tri-council grants competitions, which were post stimulus budget, are already pointing towards sharply lower success rates (by more than 20% in some disciplines), lower start-up grants for young researchers, and negligible research funding for smaller institutions and provinces. These cuts are huge steps backward for Canadian Science and we ask the government to immediately develop a multi-year plan to significantly increase this country’s R&D investment through our granting councils.

2. The infrastructure support for Canada's post-secondary institutions is surely beneficial for their depleted budgets for deferred maintenance. However, the federal support requires 50% in matching funds which few institutions currently have. The net effect of this decision will be to dictate priorities for universities and provincial governments too eager to get the federal funds, and as such to divert further funds from teaching, training and research. We therefore ask government to drop the requirement of matching funds.

3. The CFI has provided a tremendous boost to certain aspects of Canada's research infrastructure over the last 10 years. However, the constraints of the program have left many important research disciplines out of its potential beneficial impact. Moreover, similar matching rules continue to apply to CFI projects, and as a consequence of the present lack of available support from the private sector and from provincial governments, even some of the already approved projects are being postponed and cancelled. At this point in time, we believe that removing the matching requirements for current and future CFI projects would be extremely beneficial for Canada and its research infrastructure.

4. The funding of an additional 500 doctoral scholarships is great news for a country that is committed to have ``the best educated, most skilled and most flexible workforce in the world". However, it seems this funding is coming at the expense of the highly qualified personnel (HQP’s) that could have been recruited more efficiently by our senior researchers through their Tri-Council grants. We believe that a more efficient strategy for ensuring a successful HQP policy is to give our leading researchers the flexibility to manage the selection, recruitment, and support of their own graduate students through their peer-reviewed research grants, and via well-established leveraging procedures with the universities and the private sector. We also regret that the $17.5-million assigned to SSHRC for graduate scholarships have been earmarked towards students in business and finance. As Alain Dubuc writes in La Presse: ``En boudant certains domaines de recherche, nos universités vont perdre leur pouvoir d'attraction. Et bien des jeunes talentueux iront ailleurs.
(See http://www.cyberpresse.ca/)

5. President Obama is proposing to double federal funding for education over the next 10 years, and pledging to “restore science to its rightful place” with billions in new investments. To advise his government, he has appointed leading scientists to his cabinet and as his advisors (including a Nobel laureate as energy Secretary). The Obama administration has also involved the directors of NIH and NSF in federal budget discussions about the future of research. We need a similar approach in Canada, where top research scientists and humanists can help shape directions in Ottawa for research funding.

A new economy is coming out of this crisis and research and development will be the lifeblood to that new economy. We call upon you not to let Canada be left behind.

Sincerely,

Margaret Ann Armour, Chemistry, Order of Canada (University of Alberta) Tom Archibald, Chair of Mathematics (Simon Fraser University) Alejandro Adem, Mathematics (University of British Columbia) Tom Allison (University of British Columbia) Ali Arya, Information Technology (Carleton University) Peter Abrams, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (University of Toronto) Jim Arthur, Mathematics (University of Toronto) Marshall Agueh, Mathematics (University of Victoria) John Beamish, Chair, Physics (University of Alberta) Edward Bierstone, Mathematics (University of Toronto) Yaacov Ben-David, Biophysics (University of Toronto) Herman Brunner, Mathematics (Memorial University) Margaret Beattie, Mathematics (Mount Allison University) Peter Borwein, Mathematics (Simon Fraser University) Anne Bourlioux, Mathematics (Universite de Montreal) Hans U. Boden, Chair, Math and Statistics (McMaster University) David Brydges, Mathematics (University of British Columbia) Martin Barlow, Mathematics (University of British Columbia) Michael Bennett, Mathematics (University of British Columbia) Kai Behrendt, Mathematics (University of British Columbia) Mark Bauer (University of Calgary) Vijay Bhargava, Electrical Engineering (University of British Columbia) Hichem Ben-El-Mechaiekh,Chair, Mathematics (Brock University) Sydney Bulman-Fleming, Chair, Mathematics (Wilfred Laurier University) Sandra Barr, Acting Head, Earth and Environmental Science (Acadia University) W. Kendal Bushe, Mechanical Engineering (University of British Columbia) Sherryl Bisgrove, Biological Sciences (Simon Fraser University) Mary Berbee, Botany, (University of British Columbia) Jeff Babb, Chair, Mathematics and Statistics (University of Winnipeg) Maxim R. Burke, Chair, Mathematics and Statistics (University of PEI) Susan Baldwin (University of British Columbia) Chris Bose, Mathematics (University of Victoria) Patrick Brosnan, Mathematics (University of British Columbia) Michelle Boue (Trent University) John Bowman, Mathematics (University of Alberta) Walter Craig, Mathematics (McMaster University) John Carter, Applied Science and Engineering (University of Toronto) Rustum Choksi, Mathematics (Simon Fraser University) Dan Coombs, Mathematics (University of British Columbia) Clifton Cunningham, Mathematics (University of Calgary) Mohamed Cheriet, Engineering (École de technologie supérieure, Montreal) Marilyn Chapman (University of British Columbia) Eric Cytrynbaum, Mathematics (University of British Columbia) Jingyi Chen, Mathematics (University of British Columbia) K. Carriere Cough, Statistics, (University of Alberta) Richard Craster, Mathematics (University of Alberta) Vladimir Chernousov, Mathematics (University of Alberta) James Colliander, Mathematics (University of Toronto) Christina C. Christara, Computer Science (University of Toronto) John Clague, Earth Sciences (Simon Fraser University) Laura Cowen, Mathematics (University of Victoria) Paul Deguire directeur, mathématiques et de statistique (Université de Moncton) Karl Dilcher, Chair, Math. and Stats. (Dalhousie) Lawrence M. Dill (Simon Fraser University) Henri Darmon, Mathematics (McGill University) Rob DeWreede, Botany, (University of British Columbia) Gregory Dudek, Chair, Computer Science (McGill University) Dan Dumont, Director, Molecular and Cellular Biology (University of Toronto) David Dunlop, Physics (University of Toronto) Ivar Ekeland, Math Economics (University of British Columbia) George Elliott, Mathematics (University of Toronto) Kadriye Ercikan, Education (University of British Columbia) Yousry Elsabrouty (The University of Calgary) Neil Emery, Director, Environmental & Life Sciences (Trent University) Roderick Edwards (University of Victoria) Ian Frigaard, Math and Mech. Engineering (University of British Columbia) Don Fraser, Statistics (University of Toronto) Richard Froese, Mathematics (University of British Columbia) Don Fisher (University of British Columbia) Eugene Fiume, Computer Science (University of Toronto) John Friedlander, Mathematics (University of Toronto) Jorge Filmus, Molecular and Cellular Biology (University of Toronto) Nassif Ghoussoub, Mathematics (University of British Columbia) Randy Goebel, Computing Science (University of Alberta) Dan Gibson, Earth Sciences (Simon Fraser University) Andrew Granville, Mathematics (Universite de Montreal) Pengfei Guan, Mathematics (McGill University) Ling Guan, Electrical Engineering (Ryerson) Sean Graham, Botany (University of British Columbia) Dmitri Goussev (Gusev), Chair, Chemistry (Wilfrid Laurier University) Stephen Gustafson, Mathematics (University of British Columbia) Terry Gannon, Mathematics (University of Alberta) Veronique Godin, Mathematics (University of Calgary) J. Scott Goble, Education (University of British Columbia) Charles Gale, Chair, Physics (McGill University) Ed Grant, Head,Chemistry (University of British Columbia) Ian Graham, Mathematics (University of Toronto) Jacques Hurtubise, Chair, Mathematics & Statistics (McGill University) Hedley David, Medecine (University of Toronto) Viqar Husain, Chair, Mathematics (U.New Brunswick) Stephen B. Heard Chair, Biology (University of New Brunswick, Fredericton) François Huard, Head, Mathematics (Bishop's University) Nicola J Hodges, School of Human Kinetics (University of British Columbia) Felix Herrmann, Earth and Ocean Science (University of British Columbia) Dr. Holger Hintelmann, Chair, Department of Chemistry (Trent University) Craig Heinke, Physics (University of Alberta) Anita Hubley, Education (The University of British Columbia) Alexander Holroyd, Mathematics (University of British Columbia) Reinhard Illner, Mathematics (University of Victoria) Victor Ivrii, Mathematics (University of Toronto) Andrew Irvine (University of British Columbia) Slim Ibrahim (University of Victoria) Sebastian Jaimungal, Statistics (University of Toronto) Lisa Jeffrey, Mathematics (University of Toronto) Daniel James, Physics (University of Toronto) Robert Jerrard, Mathematics (University of Toronto) Rachel Kuske, Head, Mathematics (University of British Columbia) Young-June Kim, Physics (University of Toronto) Young-Heon Kim, Mathematics (University of British Columbia) Niky Kamran, Mathematics (McGill University) Kalpdrum Passi, Chair, Mathematics & Computer Science (Laurentian University) Boualem Khouider, Mathematics ( University of Victoria) Kalle Karu, Mathematics (University of British Columbia) Maria Klawe, Computer Science (President of Harvey Mudd) Patrick Keeling, Botany, (University of British Columbia) Jennifer Klenz, Botany, (University of British Columbia) Leslie R. Kerr, Biology/Psychology (Trent University) Faqir Khanna, Physics (University of Alberta) Don Krug, Education (University of British Columbia) Raymond Kapral, Chemistry (University of Toronto) Anthony Lau, Mathematics (University of Alberta) Robert K. Logan, Physics (University of Toronto) Michael Lamoureux, Mathematics (University of Calgary) Yue Xian Li, Mathematics (University of British Columbia) Victor Leung, Electrical Engineering (University of British Columbia) Victor G. LeBlanc, Directeur, Chair, Mathematics (University of Ottawa) Wenyuan Liao (University of Calgary) Mark Lewis, Mathematics (University of Alberta) James Lewis, Mathematics (University of Alberta) Aaron Levin (University of Alberta) Alexander Litvak, Mathematics (University of Alberta) Paul Lasko, Chair, Biology (McGill University) Sheldon Lin, Statistics (University of Toronto) Hoi-Kwong Lo, Electrical and Computer Engineering (University of Toronto) Wendy Lou, Biostatistics (University of Toronto) Ben Liang, Electrical and Computer Engineering (University of Toronto) Bill Langford, Mathematics (Guelph University) Marcelo Laca (University of Victoria) Alan Mackworth, Computer Science (University of British Columbia) Bojan Mohar, Mathematics (Simon Fraser University) Richard G. Miller, Biophysics and Immunology (University of Toronto) Greg Martin, Mathematics (University of British Columbia) Robert McCann, Mathematics (University of Toronto) Franklin Mendivil (Acadia University) Akos Magyar, Mathematics (University of British Columbia) Brian Marcus, Mathematics (University of British Columbia) Barrie McCullough (University of British Columbia, Okanagan) Robert Moody, Mathematics (University of Alberta) Patrick Martone, Botany, (University of British Columbia) Peter Minev, Mathematics (University of Alberta) Amy Metcalfe, Education (University of British Columbia) Jim Mattsson (Simon Fraser University) Bill Milsom, Head, Zoology (University of British Columbia) Eckhard Meinrenken, Mathematics (University of Toronto) Sharon Morsink, Physics (University of Alberta) Bonny Norton, Education (University of British Columbia) Raymond Ng, Computer sc. (University of British Columbia) Adrian Nachman, Electrical and Computer Engineering (University of Toronto) Carl Ollivier-Gooch, P.Eng. (University of British Columbia) Fergal O'Hagan (Trent University) Peter Ottensmeyer, Medical Biophysics (University of Toronto) Don Page, Physics (University of Alberta) Anthony Peirce, Mathematics (University of British Columbia),Ed Perkins, Mathematics (University of British Columbia), Marion Porath (University of British Columbia) Roger Pierre, Directeur, Mathematiques et de statistique (Universite Laval) Cindy Prescott, Forestry (University of British Columbia) Arturo Pianzola, Mathematics (University of Alberta) Royann Petrell (University of British Columbia) Peter Pivovarov (University of Alberta) Daniel D. Pratt, Education (University of British Columbia) Erich Poppitz, Physics (University of Toronto) Ue-Li Pen, Astrophysics (University of Toronto) Toniann Pitassi, Computer Science (University of Toronto) Ian Putnam, Mathematics (University of Victoria) Jeremy Quastel, Mathematics and Statistics (University of Toronto) Christiane Rousseau (Universite de Montreal) David J. Rowe, Physics (University of Toronto) Andrew Rechnitzer, Mathematics (University of British Columbia) Cristian Rios, Mathematics (University of Calgary) Chris Radford, Head Mathematics and Statistics (Memorial University) Loren Rieseberg, Botany (University of British Columbia), Dale Rolfsen, Mathematics (University of British Columbia), Reinhard Jetter, Botany (University of British Columbia) Volker Runde, Mathematics (University of Alberta) Omar Rivasplata (University of Alberta) Peter C. Ruben, Director Kinesiology (Simon Fraser University) Steven Rogak, Mech. Eng. (University of British Columbia) Jeffrey Rosenthal, Mathematics (University of Toronto) Jonathan Rose, Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering (University of Toronto) Nancy Reid, Statistics (University of Toronto) Joe Repka, Mathematics (University of Toronto) William Reed, Mathematics (University of Victoria) Gordon Slade, Mathematics (University of British Columbia) Stephen Strother, Medical Biophysics (University of Toronto) Gordon Semenoff, Physics (University of British Columbia) Mohamad Sawan, Engineering (Polytechnique, University of Montreal) Viena Stastna (University of Calgary) Fred Sack, Head of Botany (University of British Columbia) Paul Stephenson, Head, Mathematics and Statistics (Acadia University) Raj Srinivasan, Chair, Mathematics (University of Saskatchewan),Brian Seymour, Mathematics (University of British Columbia),Anne Scholefield, Education (University of British Columbia) Jedrzej Sniatycki, Mathematics (University of Calgary) K D Srivastava, Engineering (University of British Columbia) Philip Stamp, Physics (University of British Columbia) Dominik Schoetzau, Mathematics (University of British Columbia) Paul L. Smith, Head, Earth and Ocean Sciences (University of British Columbia) Sudarshan Sehgal, Mathematics (University of Alberta) Catherine Sulem, Mathematics (University of Toronto) Theodore Shepherd, Physics (University of Toronto) Vuk Stambolic, Medical Biophysics (University of Toronto) Nicole Tomczak-Jaegermann (University of Alberta) Peter Tiidus, Acting Dean, Science (Wilfrid Laurier University) Phillippe Tortell, Botany, (University of British Columbia) John R. Topic (Trent University) Elisabeth Tillier, Genomics (University of Toronto) Tai-Peng Tsai, Mathematics (University of British Columbia) Derek J. Thorkelson, Chair, Earth Sciences (Simon Fraser University) Mak Trifkovic (University of Victoria) Bill Unruh, Physics (University of British Columbia) Jennifer A. Vadeboncoeur, Education (University of British Columbia) Stephanie van Willigenburg, , Mathematics (University of British Columbia) Andrew Vreugdenhil, Director, Materials Science (Trent University) Frank Weichman, Physics (University of Alberta) Rabab Ward, Electrical Engineering (University of British Columbia) Brent Ward, Earth Sciences (Simon Fraser University) Michael Ward, Mathematics (University of British Columbia) Jason Waywitka (University of Alberta) Doug Wiens (University of Alberta) Eric Woolgar, Physics (University of Alberta) Tony Ware, Mathematics (University of Calgary) Shoshana Wodak, Biochemistry, and Molecular Genetics (University of Toronto) Margaret Wyeth (University of Victoria) Glyn Williams-Jones, Earth Sciences (Simon Fraser University) Reem Yassawi, Head, Math (Trent University) Vlad Yaskin (university of Alberta) Janet Ye, Mathematics (University of Victoria) Nora Znotinas, Chair, Physics & Computer Science (Wilfrid Laurier University) Richard Zemel, Computer Science (University of Toronto) Julie Zhou, Mathematics (University of Victoria)

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[Hat Tip: Genomicron]

John Moore Gets It Right

 
Believe it or not, there are columnists at The National Post who actually understand the issue concerning Gary Goodyear's beliefs. John Moore tells it like it is when he says, ignorance is not a civil right.

Of course it matters whether the Science Minister acknowledges or contests evolution. This isn't a case of a politician who likes to read the Bible and pray -- it's a Cabinet Minister who holds philosophical beliefs that are antithetical to his portfolio. Jonathan Kay insists Christian-hating lefties would never raise similar alarm over a Cabinet minister of another faith. Well this leftie, who holds faith in considerably high regard, would have very serious concerns about an aboriginal justice minister who declined to comment on the efficacy of Western legal systems, and would be even more up in arms if a Scientologist health minister refused to discuss mental illness. And I'm pretty sure the National Post editorial board would have some pretty pointed questions for a Muslim MP given the status of women portfolio.

The first problem with Goodyear is that he fronts the science portfolio in a government that has demonstrated through its most recent budget that it doesn't value the sector. The man delegated to argue the vital importance of science at the Cabinet table doesn't actually know what it is. More significantly, Goodyear's insistence that religion should come to bear on science provides comfort to those who teach their children the falsehood that to follow God you must reject science.

This is the willful dissemination of scientific illiteracy. More frankly put, it is the promotion of stupidity.

I wish I'd written that!

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Gary Goodyear "Clarifies" Some More

 
Minister of State for Science and Technology, Gary Goodyear, is being asked of clarify his position on science. Is he, or is he not, anti-science? Specifically, does he reject the scientific fact of evolution? Yesterday, newspapers reported on his wishy-washy definition of evolution. Most people concluded that he is, indeed, a creationist of the sort that rejects science.

Today's National Post documents the evolving strategy of the Conservative Party and their friends. They are trying to make this into an issue about freedom of religion rather than a simple question of scientific literacy [My beliefs not relevant: Goodyear].

In light of those responses, critics were still wondering yesterday whether someone who believes the Earth is just thousands of years old is heading Canada's science and technology sector.

Mr. Goodyear bucked at requests to clarify his point of view yesterday, cutting short a question into whether he defined evolution in the popular Darwinian sense.

"My entire background has been in science, and my personal beliefs are not important," Mr. Goodyear repeated. "What I'm doing and what the government is doing to move this country forward -- that's important."

When pressed, Mr. Goodyear added that there would be no conflict of interest for a minister heading the science and technology industry to hold a belief in creationism.

"Absolutely not. How ridiculous. It's absolutely ridiculous. That's why I didn't answer the question, because it has no relevance," he said.

Hmmm ... let's think about this for a minute. How many people think it's relevant that a Minister of Science and Technology is anti-science?

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David Asper Doesn't Get It

 
David Asper¹ writes about The Liberal War on Faith in today's issue of The National Post.

Throughout the growth of the current Conservative party, starting with the establishment of Reform, the Alliance and then the merger with the Progressive Conservatives, there has been a festering undercurrent of anti-religious bigotry in the methods of attack used by left-wing critics.

Now, we have a reporter from the Globe following the same script. The essence of the newspaper's front-page slag on Tuesday was that if you have a religious faith that includes the idea of a God who created the heavens and the earth billions of years ago, it must mean you entirely reject the evolutionary process that shaped the life forms that subsequently developed -- and are therefore unfit to be the Minister of Science and Technology.

We need to put a stop to this moving of goalposts. The issue is NOT religious faith. Nobody objects to a Minister of Science who accepts the basic tenets of science and is religious. As Asper points out in his article, it's almost certain that previous ministers of science believed in a God that created the Earth billions of years ago. They also accepted the scientific fact of evolution.

What we can't accept is a Minister of Science who is anti-science. If your religion forces you to reject fundamental facts of science in order to cling to the idea that the Earth in only 10,000 years old then that's a problem. If you believe in such nonsense then you can be a newspaper columnist—or maybe even the owner of a major newspaper—but you can't be in charge of science policy in Canada. It makes us the laughing stock of civilized nations. Even the USA is laughing at us this time, and that's saying a lot.

David Asper is trying to make this into an attack on all religious beliefs but it's not. He should be ashamed of himself for distorting the truth and avoiding the real issue.

On the other hand, anyone who writes this (below) isn't going to listen to reason.

It's also worth noting that the Charter of Rights -- created under a Liberal government --begins with an acknowledgement of the supremacy of God. Our national anthem also calls on God to keep our land glorious and free. So please, enough with the facade of outing people who believe in a higher power.

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1. David Asper is the Chairman of the National Post newspaper and Executive Vice President of CanWest Global Communications Corp. He is a former trustee of the Fraser Institute, a conservative propaganda machine that masquerades as a research institute. He is a supporter of Conservative Party candidates.

[Photo Credit: University of Toronto]

Goodyear's Bad Day

 
Here's a link to Chris Selley's article on The National Post website [Chris Selley's Full Pundit: Goodyear's bad day].

The article has links to several Canadian journalists. I'm pleased to see that many of them recognize the problem. We can't have a creationist Minister in charge of science.

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The Future of Science Blogging

 
Daniel Brown of Biochemical Soul is looking for feedback on the future of science blogging [Science Blogging: The Future of Science Communication & Why You Should be a Part of it].

Personally I don't think the science blogosphere is going to attract more than a few percent of scientists and science students. Most of them don't have the time or the interest. Most of my colleagues are completely turned off by blogs. They see blogs as a negative influence on science.

The science blogosphere is a fun and interesting playground for those of us who have eclectic interests and are willing to invest the time and effort to read a few dozen blogs a day, but that's not going to appeal to the average scientist. Daniel does a good job of listing all the benefits of blogging and reading blogs but, in my experience, none of these benefits are convincing for the average scientist.

Frankly I think that's a good thing. My experience with newsgroups over the past twenty years indicates that it's much better to have a small number of really dedicated and interested participants than to try and expand to cover everyone. Besides, the more science blogs there are out there, the most difficult it is to read them all.

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Four Solar Eclipses on Saturn

 
The inhabitants of Saturn were recently treated to four solar eclipses on the same day. In the video below you can see the four moons and their shadows crossing Saturn. The photos were taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and the video was prepared by National Geographic.

It's exciting to be living at a time when such images are quickly available to the general public. This video would have seemed like magic only a century ago. A century from now it might seem trivial since we may have our own satellites orbiting Saturn.

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Liberal Science Critic Marc Garneau Says that Believing in Evolution Is not a Job Requirement for the Science Minister

 
Marc Garneau (right) is the Liberal science critic in Canada's House of Commons. The same Globe and Mail article that mentioned Goodyear's "clarification" of his position on evolution has the following quotation from Marc Garneau [Minister clarifies stand on evolution].

On Tuesday, Liberal science critic Marc Garneau said that believing in evolution is not a job requirement for the science minister.

“It is a personal matter. It is a matter of faith.… I don't think it prevents someone from being a good minister,” said the former astronaut, who has been a vocal critic of the government for its cuts to the three granting councils that fund university-based research in Canada.

But Jim Maloway, the New Democratic Party science critic, said that if the minister did not believe in evolution that could influence government policy. “I don't see a commitment to a really broad approach if you are encumbered by the denial of evolution,” he said.

Garneau is dead wrong. If you reject evolution you are anti-science. There's no two ways about it. You cannot deny evolution without attacking the very core of scientific reasoning and evidence-based conclusions. What Garneau is saying is that it's OK for a science minister to be anti-science.

That would be like putting a witch doctor (or a chiropractor) in charge of health care, or a soothsayer in charge of finances.

There may be a place for anti-science creationists in the Federal Cabinet but not in charge of science. Acceptance of the core principles of science is a job requirement because part of the job is gaining the confidence of the scientific community. You can't have a science minister who questions the honesty and integrity of Canadian scientists. Make no mistake about it, that's exactly what creationists do.

We need a new minister of science and we need a new Liberal science critic.¹

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1. What do other scientists think about this? See Science minister's coyness on evolution worries researchers. Note that the scientists are worried about a creationist in charge of science while the non-scientists don't see it as a big problem.

Gary Goodyear "Clarifies" His Stance on Evolution

 
Today's Globe and Mail reports that Canada's Minister of State (Science and Technology) has "clarified" his position on the validity of evolution [Minister clarifies stand on evolution].

OTTAWA — Science minister Gary Goodyear now says he believes in evolution.

“Of course I do,” he told guest host Jane Taber during an appearance on the CTV program Power Play. “But it is an irrelevant question.”

....

On Tuesday, Mr. Goodyear said twice during the CTV interview that he did believe in evolution.

“We are evolving every year, every decade. That's a fact, whether it is to the intensity of the sun, whether it is to, as a chiropractor, walking on cement versus anything else, whether it is running shoes or high heels, of course we are evolving to our environment. But that's not relevant and that is why I refused to answer the question. The interview was about our science and tech strategy, which is strong.”

Those of us who have been dealing with creationists for several decades will recognize those words. That's a creationist speaking. They're willing to admit to microevolution within kinds but unwilling to admit to common descent.

Goodyear could have easily said that he accepts common descent and the idea that modern species, including humans, evolved over billions of years from more primitive organisms. That's what "believing" in evolution means to most people. He did not say that.

That pretty much settles it for me. Goodyear is a creationist. He rejects one of the fundamental concepts of biology. That makes him anti-science.

The man in charge of science in Canada is anti-science. Heaven help us.

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Monday's Molecule #112: Winners

 
UPDATE:The equation shows beta decay of ¹⁴C from Wikipedia. The Nobel Prize went to Willard Libby for developing ¹⁴C dating technology.

This week's winner is Dima Klenchin from the university of Wisconsin (again) by two minutes over Ollie Nanyes. The undergraduate winner is Alex Ling of the University of Toronto.

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You may have noticed that today's molecule isn't a molecule. Your task is to identify what this equation is describing.

There's only one Nobel Laureate whose discovery is relevant.

The first person to identify the equation and the Nobel Laureate wins a free lunch at the Faculty Club. Previous winners are ineligible for one month from the time they first won the prize.

There are six ineligible candidates for this week's reward: James Fraser of the University of California, Berkeley, Guy Plunket III from the University of Wisconsin, Deb McKay of Toronto, Maria Altshuler of the University of Toronto, David Schuller of Cornell University and Adam Santoro of the University of Toronto

A previous winner has offered to donate a free lunch to a deserving undergraduate so I'm going to continue to award an additional free lunch to the first undergraduate student who can accept it. Please indicate in your email message whether you are an undergraduate and whether you can make it for lunch.

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 Prizes 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.

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Happy St. Patrick's Day!

 

Niall Nóigiallach is a very famous man (Nóigiallach is Gaelic for "having Nine Hostages"). He was an Irish King who lived from about 350 to 405 AD. The "nine hostages" refers to hostages that he kept from each of the places that owed him allegiance.

Niall was fond of raiding the coast of Roman Britain and on one of those raids he captured a man named Maewyn Succat, who became a slave in Ireland. Succat eventually escaped, returned to Britain, and became a Christian missionary. He then went back to Ireland to convert the Irish heathens to Christianity. We know Maewyn Succat by his Christian name, Patrick, or Saint Patrick.

Aside from converting the Irish heathens to Christianity, St. Patrick is famous for his skill as a magician. One of his most famous tricks was removing all the snakes from Ireland. At least that's what the legend says.

Connie Barlow describes A St. Patrick's Day Parable.(This is the same Connie Barlow I met last summer—the one who edited Evolution Extended.)

Ireland is a land of no snakes. It has no slithering serpents. There are no rat snakes in Ireland; there are no rattlesnakes; there are no garter snakes. There are no snakes at all.

The absence of snakes in Ireland seems to cry out for an explanation — but only if one regards or ventures to the island from outside: from England, say, or from continental Europe. To the indigenous Celts, there would, of course, have been nothing to explain. The Gaelic peoples no more needed to explain an absence of snakes on their island home than they needed to explain an absence of kangaroos. To those who came to Ireland from abroad, however, a dearth of serpents was a striking anomaly in need of an answer.

We humans must have answers. And so arose the legend of St. Patrick and the snakes. The reason Ireland has no snakes, the story goes, is that Patrick charmed all snakes on the island to come down to the seashore, slither into the water, and drown. So Ireland did once have snakes, but it has them no more. Patrick charmed them all into the sea.

She goes on to explain why there are no snakes in Ireland but I prefer to swtich to the website of the Smithsonian National Zoological Park for their explanation of Why Ireland Has No Snakes.

Now snakes are found in deserts, grasslands, forests, mountains, and even oceans virtually everywhere around the world. Everywhere except Ireland, New Zealand, Iceland, Greenland, and Antarctica, that is.

One thing these few snake-less parts of the world have in common is that they are surrounded by water. New Zealand, for instance, split off from Australia and Asia before snakes ever evolved. So far, no serpent has successfully migrated across the open ocean to a new terrestrial home. As the world's oceans have risen and fallen over the millennia, land bridges have come and gone between Ireland, other parts of Great Britain, and the European mainland, allowing animals and early humans to cross. However, any snake that may have slithered it's way to Ireland would have turned into a popsicle when the ice ages hit.

The most recent ice age began about three million years ago and continues into the present. Between warm periods like the current climate, glaciers have advanced and retreated more than 20 times, often completely blanketing Ireland with ice. Snakes, being cold-blooded animals, simply aren't able to survive in areas where the ground is frozen year round. Ireland thawed out for the last time only 15,000 years ago. Since then, 12 miles of icy-cold water in the Northern Channel have separated Ireland from neighboring Scotland, which does harbor a few species of snakes. There are no snakes in Ireland for the simple reason that they can't get there.

[The book cover is from a book by Sheila MacGill Callahan (Author) and Will Hillenbrand (Illustrator). You can buy it on Amazon.com.]

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Reposted from St. Patrick Banished Snakes from Ireland with a snippet from Niall Nóigiallach - Niall of the Nine Hostages. You find out how Irish I am by clicking here.

You Can Be Good Without God

 
I spotted this ad at the Queen's Park subway station in Toronto.

Kudos to the Humanist Association of Canada.

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NSERC President Praises Gary Goodyear

 
Gary Goodyear is Canada's Minister of State (Science and Technology). His government has just cut funding of basic research grants by $148 million over the next three years. Gary Goodyear is a chiropractor and he may be a creationist.

So, what does the President of NSERC think of this? See the [press release].

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper ventured into the lion's den Monday, defending his government's record on science funding before some of the country's top researchers.

He emerged without a scratch.

Indeed, he actually basked in praise for Gary Goodyear, his minister of state for science and technology.

Goodyear has been much maligned by some scientists who maintain research was shortchanged in the Jan. 27 federal budget. But there was no criticism Monday at an awards ceremony for the winners of prestigious research prizes handed out by the federally funded Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council.

"It has been a real pleasure for us to work with the Hon. Gary Goodyear," said NSERC president Suzanne Fortier.

"He has already proven himself a champion of the science and technology community."

I know some people who would disagree with Suzanne Fortier. Two representatives of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) didn't have such a favorable impression [When Chiropractors Get Angry ....].

Some people would argue that. as a kind of public servant, the President of NSERC should not criticize government policy. Perhaps, but that doesn't mean she has to suck up to the executioner.

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[Photo Credit: NSERC]

Does Canada's Science Minister Accept Evolution?

You might think that's a silly question. How could anyone in Canada become Minister of State (Science and Technology) and not accept the most important scientific fact in biology? Yes, it's true that Gary Goodyear is a chiropractor but he can't also be a creationist, can he?

Apparently he can, according to The Globe and Mail [Minister won't confirm belief in evolution].

Researchers aghast that key figure in funding controversy invokes religion in science discussion

Canada's science minister, the man at the centre of the controversy over federal funding cuts to researchers, won't say if he believes in evolution.

“I'm not going to answer that question. I am a Christian, and I don't think anybody asking a question about my religion is appropriate,” Gary Goodyear, the federal Minister of State for Science and Technology, said in an interview with The Globe and Mail.

A funding crunch, exacerbated by cuts in the January budget, has left many senior researchers across the county scrambling to find the money to continue their experiments.

Some have expressed concern that Mr. Goodyear, a chiropractor from Cambridge, Ont., is suspicious of science, perhaps because he is a creationist.

We are in far worse trouble than I thought. No wonder the Stephen Harper party is cutting back on basic research. They must think most researchers are really stupid for believing in all those silly theories like evolution.

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Monday's Molecule #112

 
You may have noticed that today's molecule isn't a molecule. Your task is to identify what this equation is describing.

There's only one Nobel Laureate whose discovery is relevant.

The first person to identify the equation and the Nobel Laureate wins a free lunch at the Faculty Club. Previous winners are ineligible for one month from the time they first won the prize.

There are six ineligible candidates for this week's reward: James Fraser of the University of California, Berkeley, Guy Plunket III from the University of Wisconsin, Deb McKay of Toronto, Maria Altshuler of the University of Toronto, David Schuller of Cornell University and Adam Santoro of the University of Toronto

A previous winner has offered to donate a free lunch to a deserving undergraduate so I'm going to continue to award an additional free lunch to the first undergraduate student who can accept it. Please indicate in your email message whether you are an undergraduate and whether you can make it for lunch.

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 Prizes 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.

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Casey Luskin on Junk DNA and Junk RNA

 
Intelligent Design Creationists can't abide junk DNA. Its very existence refutes the idea that living things are designed by some intelligent being. This is why the IDiots go out of their way to make up stories "disproving" junk DNA.

The latest attempt is by Casey Luskin [Nature Paper Shows "Junk-RNA" Going the Same Direction as "Junk-DNA"]. Having failed to explain why half of the human genome is composed of defective transposons, he now pins his hope on the idea that most of the genome is transcribed. Luskin seems particularly upset by my statement that most of these transcripts are junk [Junk RNA].

Luskin thinks that a recent paper in Nature supports his view that a large fraction of the genome isn't junk. The paper by Guttman et al. (2009) says no such thing. Here's the important part ...

Genomic projects over the past decade have used shotgun sequencing and microarray hybridization1, 2, 3, 4 to obtain evidence for many thousands of additional non-coding transcripts in mammals. Although the number of transcripts has grown, so too have the doubts as to whether most are biologically functional5, 6, 13. The main concern was raised by the observation that most of the intergenic transcripts show little to no evolutionary conservation5, 13. Strictly speaking, the absence of evolutionary conservation cannot prove the absence of function. But, the markedly low rate of conservation seen in the current catalogues of large non-coding transcripts (<5% of cases) is unprecedented and would require that each mammalian clade evolves its own distinct repertoire of non-coding transcripts. Instead, the data suggest that the current catalogues may consist largely of transcriptional noise, with a minority of bona fide functional lincRNAs hidden amid this background. Thus, to expand our understanding of functional lincRNAs, we are faced with two important challenges: (1) identifying lincRNAs that are most likely to be functional; and (2) inferring putative functions for these lincRNAs that can be tested in hypothesis-driven experiments.

In other words, most of the transcripts are probably transcriptional noise, or junk, just as I said. This is the consensus opinion among informed¹ molecular biologists.

Guttman et al. wanted to identify the small subset that might be functional. They identified 1,675 transcripts that show evidence of conservation. The average transcript has six exons averaging 250 bp. Thus, each transcript has about 1500 bp. of conserved exon sequence.

Even if every single one of these lincRNAs have a biological function they will only account for 1675 × 1500 = 2.5 million bp. This represents less than 0.1% of the genome. Casey Luskin ain't gonna disprove junk DNA using this paper.

Luskin ends his article with ...

As an ID proponent, I'm still waiting for Darwinists to let go of their precious "junk" arguments for blind evolution and common descent and learn the lesson that you can't assume that if we don't yet see function for a biomolecule, then it's probably just "junk."

This is a point of view that creationists share with many scientists who haven't studied the subject. They assume that the only reason for labeling most of our DNA junk is because we don't know what it does. That's just not true. There's plenty of good evidence that most of our genome can't be functional. We know a lot about the part that consists of transposons and defective transposons, for example [Junk in Your Genome: SINES and Junk in your Genome: LINEs]. That's 44% of our genome.

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1. I added the qualifier "informed" after a commenter pointed out that most molecular biologists probably don't know enough about the topic to have an opinion. Thus, according to this commenter, the consensus opinion would be "I don't know."

Science Cannot Fully Describe Reality, Says Templeton Prize Winner

 
Shocking news: the winner of this year's Templeton Prize says that science isn't everything. He proposes a way to reconcile science and religion [Science Cannot Fully Describe Reality, Says Templeton Prize Winner].

The only shocking thing about this is that Science magazine treats it seriously. Don't they know what the Templeton Prize is for? It's for people who advocate reconciliation between science and religion.

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Censorship at Uncommon Descent

 
Barry Arrington posted this message on Uncommon Descent.

The moderation policy does not apply to you; you are held to a higher standard. I expect your posts to have at least some tangential relationship to Darwinism, ID, or the metaphysical or moral implications of each. The purpose of this site is not to provide a place for you to jump up and rant on one of your pet peeves. DaveScot will no longer be posting at UD.

What in the world did DaveScot do to deserve this?

He posted an article pointing out that religious people were often racist. He challenged the current dogma on Uncommon Descent that was trying to link Darwin to racism. You can read it here but you won't find it at Racism Sans Darwin - other inspirations on Uncommon Descent. Here's an excerpt ...

Since we now seem to be focused on racism instead of design detection and my motto is “When in Rome do as the Romans do” in order to balance the picture of the theory of evolution’s role in racist movements let’s look at some of the other modern history where evolution isn’t the banner around which racists rally.

Selected bits from Religious Tolerance on Christian Identity Movements . Timothy McVeigh, for instance, was a card carrying CIM member.

History:

The Christian Identity movement is a movement of many extremely conservative Christian churches and religious organizations, extreme right wing political groups and survival groups. Some are independent; others are loosely interconnected. According to Professor Michael Barkun, one of the leading experts in the Christian Identity movement, “This virulent racist and anti-Semitic theology, which is practiced by over 50,000 people in the United States alone, is prevalent among many right wing extremist groups and has been called the ‘glue’ of the racist right.”

The largest Christian Identity movement has traditionally been the Ku Klux Klan which was reorganized in 1915 by William Simmons, a Christian pastor. He had been inspired by the film The Birth of a Nation which portrayed the KKK as a champion of white civilization. The KKK slid into obscurity by the second World War, but was revitalized in the mid 1950’s as a reaction to enforced racial integration in the southern US.

I guess the IDiots at Uncommon Descent don't want anyone to distract from their "Darwin was a racist" campaign.

DaveScot was a big fan of Expelled I wonder if he'll complain to Ben Stein?

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[Hat Tip: Afarensis]

What's Up with New Scientist?

 
Amanda Gefter wrote a nice article in New Scientist pointing out the sneaky tricks that creationists use to discredit science. You can read the article here.

As a book reviews editor at New Scientist, I often come across so-called science books which after a few pages reveal themselves to be harbouring ulterior motives. I have learned to recognise clues that the author is pushing a religious agenda. As creationists in the US continue to lose court battles over attempts to have intelligent design taught as science in federally funded schools, their strategy has been forced to... well, evolve. That means ensuring that references to pseudoscientific concepts like ID are more heavily veiled. So I thought I'd share a few tips for spotting what may be religion in science's clothing.

Red flag number one: the term "scientific materialism". "Materialism" is most often used in contrast to something else - something non-material, or supernatural. Proponents of ID frequently lament the scientific claim that humans are the product of purely material forces. At the same time, they never define how non-material forces might work. I have yet to find a definition that characterises non-materialism by what it is, rather than by what it is not.

Unfortunately, you can't read this article on the New Scientist website because it has been removed. If you click on How to spot a hidden religious agenda you'll find the following message ....

New Scientist has received a complaint about the contents of this story. It has temporarily been removed while we investigate. Apologies for any inconvenience.

I can't imagine a complaint that would cause a respectable magazine to withdraw that article. It sounds like New Scientist isn't standing behind its writers.

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[Hat Tip: PZ Myers]

Shepherd's Pie

 
John Wilkins knows about Real Meat Pies.

Janet Stemwedel has a recipe for Vegetarian Shepherd's Pie.

VEGETARIAN SHEPHERD'S PIE!!!! Gimme a break.

Janet, what do you think those sheps are herding out there in the fields? Tofu?

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The Profzi Scheme

 
This cartoon is making the rounds. It's from PHD Comics.

I've been associated with four universities in my career and I've never seen anything that even remotely resembles this. In my experience, departments recruit outstanding junior faculty who may, or may not, work in a field similar to current faculty members. Usually not. No single Professor makes the decision to recruit new scholars to the department.

In my experience, when funding gets tight it is often the senior faculty members who lose and the productive junior faculty survive. Is my experience that unusual?

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Is the Media Being Responsible about Health Issues?

 
Ben Goldacre is a physician and he doesn't think the media is being responsible. In fact, he thinks they may be complicit in the needless deaths of children. Visit his blog Bad Science and read why he says ... Christ I need a haircut. Then watch this video.

We have a problem with health literacy and science literacy. Professional health journalists and professional science journalists have a choice. They can continue to do nothing and blame the marketplace—in which case they become part of the problem—or they can speak out on behalf of good science—in which case they can become part of the solution.

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[Thanks to Chris Nedin for the link.]

The Taste of Gouda

 
Dutch Gouda cheese has a unique taste (pronounced HOW-dah in the Netherlands but Goo-dah everywhere else). Most of the chemicals that make up this unique taste have been identified. The bitter taste is due to CaCl₂ and MgCl₂ plus various peptides derived from incomplete digestion of milk protein. The sour taste is due to lactic acid and phosphates. The salty taste comes from sodium chloride, sodium phosphate and the amino acid L-arginine. Monosodium l-glutamate and sodium lactate contribute the umami taste. (The five tastes are sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami.)

Combinations of all these compounds at the appropriate concentrations mimicked the taste of Gouda cheese but something was missing. The "mouthfulness," and the complexity of the mature cheese was not present in the artificial concoctions. The missing taste is called the kokumi sensation.

Theme
A Sense of Smell
Toelstede et al. (2009) have found the missing chemicals. They mostly consist of various γ-L-glutamyl dipetides such as γ-Glu-Glu, γ-Glu-Gly, γ-Glu-Gln, γ-Glu-Met, γ-Glu-Leu, and γ-Glu-His. The structure of γ-Glu-Glu is shown below.

Most people don't realize that peptides and amino acids can impart very powerful tastes. Monosodiun glutamate (MSG) is an obvious example. So is aspartame, a powerful sweetener that's a modified tripeptide (Asp-Phe-Ala methyl ester).

Isn't biochemistry wonderful?


Here's a tough question. Let's say you could identify, with absolute certainty, all the chemicals that make up the taste of Gouda cheese. Let's say you make them in a lab and mix them with tofu and get something that tastes exactly like Gouda cheese. Would there be some people who want to ban that artificial Gouda cheese because it has chemicals? Would those same people be happy to eat the "natural" cheese because it doesn't have chemicals?

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Toelstede, S., Dunkel, A., and Hofmann. T. (2009) A Series of Kokumi Peptides Impart the Long-Lasting Mouthfulness of Matured Gouda Cheese. J. Agric. Food Chem., 2009, 57 (4), pp 1440–1448. [DOI: 10.1021/jf803376d]

Mitotic Recombination

 
It is widely believed that recombination, or crossing over, only occurs at meiosis in diploid eukaryotes. Most textbooks reinforce this belief by associating crossovers with chiasmata, which are only seen at meiosis.

In spite of the textbook claims, most people are well aware of the fact that recombination takes place in somatic cells. After all, it's the basis of most recombinant DNA technology and underlies many of the mechanisms that cause cancer. Furthermore, some developmental processes, such as immunoglobulin gene rearrangements require recombination in somatic cells.

Mitotic recombination has been known to occur since the 1930s when it was used for fate mapping in Drosophila so it's somewhat surprising that crossing over is so intimately connected with meiosis in the textbooks. The frequency of mitotic crossing over may be lower than that seen during meiosis, although the differences may not be great in most species.

In yeast, the frequency of recombination during meiosis can be 10,000 times greater than the frequency of crossing over in somatic cells but that's partly because meiotic recombination is very high in yeast cells. Perhaps they have been selected in vitro for high rates of recombination.

Why does recombination occur in mitotic cells? Probably for the same reason it occurs during meiosis—it's a form of DNA repair.

There's a short review of mitotic recombination in the lastest issue of PLoS Genetics [Mitotic Recombination: Why? When? How? Where?]. Let's try and put an end to the false idea that recombination and crossing over only takes place during meiosis.

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Levels of Selection

 
There's an interesting article in the latest issue of New Scientist. Bob Holmes writes about The selfless gene: Rethinking Dawkins's doctrine.

Evolutionary success is all about looking out for number one - or so most biologists would tell you. The genes that do the best job of passing themselves along to the next generation, whether by brute selfishness or canny cooperation, are the ones that flourish - a view most memorably championed by Richard Dawkins more than 30 years ago in his bestselling book The Selfish Gene.

This relentless focus on the gene may not tell the whole story, however. A small but growing coterie of evolutionary biologists argue that it leaves us blind to crucial evolutionary processes at higher scales - among groups, species and even whole ecosystem. If they are right, the popular view of evolution and the biological world needs a radical shake-up.

Almost everyone agrees that the gene's-eye view works perfectly well most of the time. "It's dominated the field, and dominated for a long time," says Michael Ruse, a philosopher of science at Florida State University in Tallahassee. Indeed, many biologists think the selfish-gene concept can explain all the intricacies thrown up by evolution, and not just the obviously selfish ones.

The article is better than most. It gives an adequate overview of group selection and species selection (sorting).

However, before reading on you should be aware of two false notions that are being perpetuated. First, there's more to evolution than adaptation and selfish genes. Not all genes are selfish and even at higher levels species sorting may occur in the absence of species selection.

Second, the concept of the selfish gene has been very important in evolutionary theory. Far more important, I think, than most people realize. But it is not correct to say that it has dominated the field, or that it's the current dogma. If you consult any evolutionary biology textbook you'll find that "selfish gene" barely gets mentioned. Almost everything is explained by considering the individual organism as the unit of selection. Dawkins has failed to convince any but a handful of evolutionary biologists that the gene perspective is a better way of looking at evolution.

The article closes with ....

It is still too early to know whether group, species and ecosystem-level selection are major evolutionary forces or merely minor curiosities - baroque ornaments on the central edifice of individual or gene-level selection. But the dominance of the "selfish gene" in evolutionary thought is facing its strongest challenge in many years.

This is a good way of putting it. Hierarchical theory is an interesting development and it is making some headway but it's fair to say that most evolutionary biologists don't think of group selection and species selection as major players.

However, the dominant thinking is that it's the individual and not the gene that forms the proper unit of selection. And the greatest challenge to the dominance of selection at the level of the either the gene or the individual is neither group selection or species selection, it's random genetic drift.

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Note: People get confused about the meaning of The Selfish Gene. Just because we talk about population genetics and changing frequencies of alleles does not mean that we are adopting Dawkins' perspective. He explains what he means by "selfish gene" in the opening chapter of The Extended Phenotype.

The thesis that I shall support is this. It is legitimate to speak of adaptations as being "for the benefit of" something, but that something is best not seen as the individual organism. It is a smaller unit which I call the active germ-line replicator. The most important kind of replicator is the "gene" or small genetic fragment. Replicators are not, of course, selected directly, but by proxy; they are judged by their phenotypic effects. Although for some purposes it is convenient to think of those phenotypic effects as being packaged together in discrete "vehicles" such as individual organisms, this is not fundamentally necessary. Rather, the replicator should be thought of as having extended phenotypic effects, consisting of all its effects on the world at large, not just its effects on the individual body in which it happens to be sitting.

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Examples of Accelerated Human Evolution

Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending claim that human evolution has accelerated in the last 10,000 years. In one sense this has to be correct since the number of humans is increasing exponentially and that means far more mutations are occurring every generation. Many of those new mutations are contributing to a significant increase in variation.

But that's not what they mean. They claim that adaptations have increased. When they talk about accelerated human evolution they are mostly talking about an increase in natural selection.

For those of you who have not read the book, I thought I'd give you some of the examples that feature prominently in the opening chapter.

... when humans hunted big game 100,000 years ago, they relied on close-in attacks with thrusting spears. Such attacks were highly dangerous and physically taxing, so in those days, hunters had to be heavily muscled and have thick bones. That kind of body had its disadvantages—if nothing else, it required more food—but on the whole, it was the best solution in that situation. But new weapons like the atlatl (a spearthrower) and the bow effectively stored muscle-generated energy, which meant that hunters could kill big game without big biceps and robust skeletons. Once that happened, lightly built people, who were better runners and did not need as much food, became competitively superior. A heavy build was yesterday's solution: expensive, but no longer necessary. (p. 3)

With the invention of nets and harpoons, fish became a more important part of the diet in many parts of the world., and metabolic changes that better suited humans to that diet were favored. (p. 4)

Close-fitting clothing provided better protection against cold, allowing people to venture farther north. In cool areas, people needed fewer physiological defenses against low temperatures, while in the newly settled colder regions they needed more such defenses, such as shorter arms and legs, higher basal metabolism, and smaller noses. (p. 4)

With the advent of new methods of food preparation, such as the use of fire for cooking, teeth began to shrink, and they continued to do so over many generations. Pottery, which allowed storage of liquid foods, accelerated that shrinkage. (p. 4)

As the complexity of human speech approached modern levels, there must have been selection for changes in hearing (both changes in the ear and in how the brain processes sounds) that allowed better discrimination of speech sounds. Think of the potential advantages in being just a bit better at deciphering a hard-to-understand verbal message than other people: Eavesdropping can be a life-or-death affair. (p. 4)

... we believe that the obvious difference between racial groups are linked to gene variants that have recently increased in fitness and had major fitness effects. Blue eyes, found only in Europeans and their near neighbors, are a result of a new version of the DNA that controls the expression of OCA2 that has undergone strong selection, at least in Europe. (p. 18)

Dry earwax is common in China and Korea, rare in Europe, unknown in Africa: The gene variant underlying dry earwax is the product of strong recent selection. (p. 18)

We can confidently predict that many (perhaps most) as yet unexplained racial differences are also the product of recent selection. For example, we argue that the epicanthic eyelid found in the populations of northern Asia is most likely the product of strong and recent selection. (p. 18)

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Atheist Buses Will Run in Ottawa

 
Ottawa city council voted last month to ban the atheist ads from OC Transpo buses.¹ Last night they voted 13-7 to allow the ads after city solicitor Rick O'Connor told them the ban is an unreasonable infringement of free speech [City blesses atheist ads].

Transit officials made the decision after receiving four complaints from the public, but O'Connor said in the end the city's argument may not hold up in court.

"Based on the information available at this time, it appears that the city may not be able to justify its refusal of the proposed advertising on the basis that it is offensive, and consequently, it may be found to be an unreasonable infringement of the association's freedom of expression under Section 2(b) of the Charter," the memo says.

"If the decision to refuse the ads was based solely on the four complaints received from the public, it is likely that this decision will be found to be unreasonable and lacking in proportionality, and therefore not justifiable under Section 1 of the Charter."

Thanks to the Humanist Association of Ottawa for standing up for freedom of expression.

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1. Technically, they did not ban the ads. Instead, they failed, in a tie vote, to overturn the decision of OC Transpo. That decision has now been overturned in a second vote and the ads will run.

Teach Your Children Well

 
Chelsea Juman is one of the Intel Baby Nobelist Finalists on the Scientific American website.

According to her study, if you drank underage as a teenager you should never tell your children 'cause, if you do, they'll think it's OK.

Well, it's too late for me but all you young people out there better pay attention. You need to start lying to your children from a very young age. Whatever you do, pretend you never touched a glass of wine or a bottle of beer before you were 21 years old.¹ Don't even think about drugs. Lie through your teeth. That'll make 'em respect you.

As soon as they turn 21 you can take them out to a bar and have a long talk about responsible drinking.

Better not tell them about sex either. Abstinence is the only answer.

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1. If you're an American. If you live in any other country you can tell them you drank when you were much younger—16 in Italy, Germany, or France, for example.

In the Quality of Heatlh Care Journalism

 
A survey of members of the Association of Health Care Journalists (AHCJ) reaches the following conclusions [U of Minnesota professor authors report the state of health care journalism] ....

• Ninety-four percent of survey respondents say the bottom line pressure in media organizations is seriously hurting the quality of news coverage of health care issues
• Forty percent of staff reporters in the survey say the number of health reporters at their organization has gone down since they've been there, and 11 percent say they personally have been laid off over the past few years due to downsizing.
• Thirty-nine percent of respondents who are still in the business believe it is at least somewhat likely that their position will be eliminated in the next few years
• Nearly nine in ten (88 percent) survey respondents think health care coverage leans too much toward short "quick hit" stories, and two-thirds (64 percent) say the trend toward shorter stories has gotten worse in the past few years
• A majority of respondents (52 percent) say there is too much coverage of consumer or lifestyle health, and too little of health policy (70 percent), health care quality (70 percent) and health disparities (69 percent)

So, the quality of health care journalism has declined. This isn't earth shattering news.

I bet that 100% of health care journalists will say that it's not their fault.¹

"Real" science journalists are different. Most of them say they are doing a terrific job and the bad science reporting is all due to other journalists writing about science.

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1. Of course it's not all their fault but when a bad health care article gets published you can't blame it all on the editors.

On the Demise of Religion

 
Michael Spencer writes about The coming evangelical collapse in The Christian Science Monitor.

We are on the verge – within 10 years – of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West.

Within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants. (Between 25 and 35 percent of Americans today are Evangelicals.) In the "Protestant" 20th century, Evangelicals flourished. But they will soon be living in a very secular and religiously antagonistic 21st century.

This collapse will herald the arrival of an anti-Christian chapter of the post-Christian West. Intolerance of Christianity will rise to levels many of us have not believed possible in our lifetimes, and public policy will become hostile toward evangelical Christianity, seeing it as the opponent of the common good.

Millions of Evangelicals will quit. Thousands of ministries will end. Christian media will be reduced, if not eliminated. Many Christian schools will go into rapid decline. I'm convinced the grace and mission of God will reach to the ends of the earth. But the end of evangelicalism as we know it is close.

I agree with him but I think he's mistaken if he thinks that belief in God will survive the collapse of the evangelical right.

Evangelical Christianity is in trouble because its very core is being challenged, not because of its association with old-fashioned morality.

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[Hat Tip: RichardDawkins.net]

Darwin First Day Cover

 
Heather sent me a package of stuff from the Royal Mail, including a complete set of Darwin stamps and various brochures. She included a magazine on Darwin and a first day cover (see below).

I bet there aren't any other bloggers who have a first day cover. Eat your hearts out.

Thanks Heather, I owe you one.

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Nobel Laureate: Fred Sanger

 

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1958.

"for his work on the structure of proteins, especially that of insulin"


Frederick Sanger (1918 - ) won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing techniques to sequence proteins and for determining the amino acid sequence of insulin. This was Sanger's first Nobel Prize. The second was for developing the chain termination method of DNA sequencing.

From today's perspective it's difficult to appreciate the importance of Sanger's work on protein sequencing. His work confirmed that the functions of proteins depended on the sequence of amino acid residues in a polypeptide chain and it confirmed that every molecule of a protein had the same amino acid sequence. Recall that in 1958 the relationship between the nucleotide sequence of a gene and the amino acid sequence of a protein was still being worked out and the genetic code had not been discovered.

Sanger's work led to the widespread use of sequencing technology which, in turn, led to the discovery of differences between species. It wasn't long before phylogenetic trees based on amino acid sequences were being published.

Some Nobel Prizes are given for quick discoveries but this isn't one of those. Sanger worked on his project for ten years making only small advances each year. The presentation speech specifically mentions this.
THEME:
Nobel Laureates

Doctor Frederick Sanger. It sometimes happens that an important scientific discovery is made so to say "overnight" - if the time is ripe and the necessary background is there. Yours is not of that kind. The first successful determination of the structure of a protein is the result of many years of persistent and zealous work, in which the final solution of the problem has been approached step by step. You knew when you began to look into the structure of the insulin molecule 15 years ago that the problem was a formidable one. So did the whole scientific world. Those who knew you, were confident, however, that you would ultimately succeed, and each successive publication from your laboratory strengthened our confidence. Intelligence, knowledge and skill in the mastering of the methods required - we know you have them all - but in such a venture these are not enough. Without your wholehearted devotion to the task you had set before you, many obstacles on your way would have appeared insurmountable. Now that many years of work have been crowned with success you may look back and rejoice. You can also enjoy the satisfaction of seeing the roads you have broken and paved being used by many in their search for the building principles of the key substances of Life. However, very likely you are more apt to look ahead. It was Alfred Nobel's intention that his prizes should not only be considered as awards for achievements done but that they should also serve as encouragement for future work. We are confident that you are a worthy recipient of the Nobel award also in this sense.

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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.

Why Is Science Important?

 
The short answer is that science is important because knowledge is always better than ignorance and science teaches you how to distinguish between them.

The long answer is ... [Why Is Science Important?]


Why is Science Important? from Alom Shaha on Vimeo

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[Hat Tip: Bad Astronomy]

Putting the Atheist Bus Campaign in Context

 
You can skip to the two minute mark after watching for one minute.

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[Hat Tip: Friendly Atheist]

Shopping Is a Throwback to the Days of Cavewomen

 
David Holmes is a Fellow in the Division of Psychology and Social Change at Manchester Metropolitan University in Manchester (UK). His latest "research" results were reported in the Telegraph: Shopping is 'throwback to days of cavewomen'.

Shoppers are using instincts they learnt from their Neanderthal ancestors, researchers have found.¹

Dr David Holmes, of Manchester Metropolitan University, said skills that were learnt as cavemen and women were now being used in shops.

He said: "Gatherers sifted the useful from things that offered them no sustenance, warmth or comfort with a skill that would eventually lead to comfortable shopping malls and credit cards.

"In our evolutionary past, we gathered in caves with fires at the entrance.

"We repeat this in warm shopping centres where we can flit from store to store without braving the icy winds."

The study was commissioned by Manchester Arndale shopping centre in response to a rise in January visitors, according to the Daily Express.

Now, assuming that women did all the gathering (they probably didn't), and assuming everyone lived in caves (they didn't), it still seems improbable that you could gather much food by strolling around the inside of a cave.

Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon hits the nail on the head [The next evolutionary step for evo psych].

I’m curious to know what kind of study they commissioned with what kind of data collection, because right now it appears that they just paid someone with a PhD to make shit up. Of course, evo psych has been on about that for forever, so it was just a matter of time before marketers saw the potential---if you can make something up and call it science because of the sexist content and the thin veneer of authority granted by doctorate degrees, why not go whole hog?

Making shit up is NOT science. It's closer to stand-up comedy.

Here's an example of comedy/satire by MissPrism.

When cave-ladies ground up roots and seeds to make pies for their cave-husbands, a white colour indicated the food was free of toxic contaminants. Cave-ladies accordingly evolved to value white above all other colours, which is why women today all long for a white wedding dress!

However, cave-ladies also needed to be able to tell when their cave-pie was cooked to a delicious golden brown. Women's visual systems therefore make a far more acute distinction between white and brown than those of men, who in our evolutionary past only saw the pies in their cooked state. For this reason, men can't see dirt and should never do laundry.

In spite of the fact that I like the conclusion, this isn't science. MissPrism's story is just as credible as the stories made up by evolutionary psychologists and that's a damning conclusion. It suggests that the entire field of evolutionary psychology is practically worthless as a science—maybe when we kick all the the evolutionary psychologists out of the universities, they can make a living by writing comedy.

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1. All available scientific evidence indicates that Neanderthals were not our ancestors.

[Hat Tip: Hopeful Monster at Chance and Necessity: Malls, caves, and evolutionary psychology]

Salmon with Peas on Toast

 
When my kids were growing up I used to make them one of my favorite meals—Mom's Creamed Salmon on Toast. We usually enjoyed it when Ms. Sandwalk was away from home.

Now that they are adults, my children never lose an opportunity to make fun of Dad's cooking and how they were forced to eat salmon when Mom was away.

Now the joke's on them ... or at least on my son, because ...

Teenage boys who eat fish at least once a week achieve higher intelligence scores. Looks like boys get smart by eating salmon. It explains why my son is so smart. It also explains why my daughter never appreciated salmon and peas on toast. It doesn't work on girls.¹

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1. I don't believe the study. It's ridiculous to think that eating fish is all it takes to make you smarter. If that were true then Newfoundlanders would be smarter than cowboys or vegetarians ... hmmmmm, come to think of it ....

P.S. Just in case there is someone out there who doesn't get my sense of humor, here's a link to a posting about my daughter [Another Dr. Moran]. And just so he doesn't feel left out, here's a link to my son's website [Gordon Moran].