Scientists reveal driving force behind evolution

 
According to a press release from the University of Liverpool (UK), their scientists have revealed the driving force behind evolution. It's not just adaptation that drives evolution but a special form of adaptation ...

Scientists at the University of Liverpool have provided the first experimental evidence that shows that evolution is driven most powerfully by interactions between species, rather than adaptation to the environment.

The "breakthrough" has been recently published in Nature (Paterson et al., 2010). Here's the abstract.

The Red Queen hypothesis proposes that coevolution of interacting species (such as hosts and parasites) should drive molecular evolution through continual natural selection for adaptation and counter-adaptation. Although the divergence observed at some host-resistance and parasite-infectivity genes is consistent with this, the long time periods typically required to study coevolution have so far prevented any direct empirical test. Here we show, using experimental populations of the bacterium Pseudomonas fluorescens SBW25 and its viral parasite, phage Φ2, that the rate of molecular evolution in the phage was far higher when both bacterium and phage coevolved with each other than when phage evolved against a constant host genotype. Coevolution also resulted in far greater genetic divergence between replicate populations, which was correlated with the range of hosts that coevolved phage were able to infect. Consistent with this, the most rapidly evolving phage genes under coevolution were those involved in host infection. These results demonstrate, at both the genomic and phenotypic level, that antagonistic coevolution is a cause of rapid and divergent evolution, and is likely to be a major driver of evolutionary change within species.

Imagine that—phages evolve to infect bacteria and bacteria evolve to resist infection. Is that the sort of "breakthrough" that merits publication in Nature and spectacular headlines about new driving forces in evolution?

Steve Paterson seems to think so, according to the press release.

Dr Steve Paterson, from the University's School of Biosciences, explains: "Historically, it was assumed that most evolution was driven by a need to adapt to the environment or habitat. The Red Queen Hypothesis challenged this by pointing out that actually most natural selection will arise from co-evolutionary interactions with other species, not from interactions with the environment.

"This suggested that evolutionary change was created by 'tit-for-tat' adaptations by species in constant combat. This theory is widely accepted in the science community, but this is the first time we have been able to show evidence of it in an experiment with living things."

The Red Queen Hypothesis has been around for a long time and it's a perfectly reasonable explanation for arms races. I find it difficult to believe that this paper is the first demonstration of this phenomenon. I find it even more difficult to believe that "most" adaptations are the product of "co-evolutionary interactions with other species."

I have a proposal for regulating university press releases. I think every one of them should be accompanied by a short statement such as the following: The authors of this paper have been consulted and they affirm that this press release is an accurate summary of the work that has been published. They are all prepared to stand behind the statements in this press release.

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[HatTip: RichardDawkins.net]

Paterson, S., Vogwill, T., Buckling, A., Benmayor, R., Spiers, A.J., Thomson, N.R., Quail, M., Smith, F., Walker, D., Libberton, B., Fenton, A., Hall, N., Brockhurst, M.A. (2010) Antagonistic coevolution accelerates molecular evolution. Nature. 2010 Feb 24. [Epub ahead of print] [doi:10.1038/nature08798]

"Highly Evolved" and Favorite Kingdom

 
You can kill two birds with one stone by visiting Byte Size Biology and reading the posting on Highly Evolved. Hopefully you'll never use the term "highly evolved" once you understand that it reveals something about your understanding of evolution. That "something" is not complimentary.

While there, respond to the poll on your favorite kingdom of life. The results so far are very strange, I would have expected bacteria to be in the lead since bacteria are so much more diverse and interesting that the other choices.

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Fingers and Toes

 
Thanks to Ryan Gregory for alerting me to the latest issue of Carnival of Evolution [Carnival of Evolution #21: The Superstar Edition].

One of the articles that caught my attention was on the evolution of human fingers [The toe bone’s connected… errr… related to the finger bone]. It's a report on the work of Campbell Rolian on the evolution of human fingers and hands. His result suggest that bipedalism led to selection for long big toes and short little toes because this was better for running and walking. As a consequence of this selection for toes, the digits of the hand also changed since, from a developmental perspective, fingers and toes are related. Thus, early humans developed hands with larger thumbs and shorter fingers. This byproduct of selection for toes gave rise to hands that were better for tool-making and foraging.

I don't know if this is how hands and feet actually evolved but I really like the thought process. It shows that Campbell Rolian is thinking like a pluralist by not treating everything as a direct consequence of natural selection. The blogger, Peter McDougall, interviews Campbell Rolian and this is what he says ...

There’s a tendency, especially among anthropologists, to diagnose everything as an adaptation. You come up with a ‘Just So’ story that describes why a trait exists. Problem is, there’s really no basis for the story and it risks turning the trait into something that it’s not. There have to be some aspects of our development that are merely artifacts—byproducts of the evolution of other traits, or things that just came about by chance in the process of building other parts of our body. For example, there’s nothing adaptive about having white bones. Our bones are white because the calcium phosphate compound that is the main ingredient of our bones happens to reflect all wavelengths of light not because having white bones gives us a particular advantage. So I’m excited that what we’ve found offers an example of a non-adaptive trait. The initial changes in human hands that led to our improved tool use were really just a result of changes to our feet. It was a byproduct of bipedalism. Our study provides a warning out there to human anthropologists to think of alternative hypotheses to some of the ‘Just So’ stories they come up with.

Nice to see there are some smart anthropologists who understand evolution.

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Rolian, C., Lieberman, D.E., Hallgrímsson, B. (2010) THE CO-EVOLUTION OF HUMAN HANDS AND FEET. Evolution. 2009 Dec 31. [Epub ahead of print] [PubMed] [DOI: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2009.00944.x]

Canada 26 : Australia 3

 
Canada won 26 medals at the 2010 Olympics while Australia won only 3 (and one of those was won by a Canadian!). Eat your heart out John Wilkins.¹

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1. When you combine the two rounds of olympic competition (summer and winter) Australia still comes out ahead in terms of total medals. If you count gold medals, the score is Canada 17 : Australia 16. It would be interesting if John could re-calculate his table of medals per population now that the complete results are in. Australia still does better than Canada but many of the values in the table will change significantly.

Canada 3 : USA 2

 
GOLD!!!

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Fine Tuning and Design

 
There's been an upsurge in talk about the fine tuning argument for the existence of God. This is a favorite of theists since they claim that it is scientific evidence of God.

There's also been some discussion about design in nature. We're familiar with the old theistic claims that design proves God but many biologists also claim that nature looks designed—only they think that natural selection accounts for the appearance of design.

Here's Neil deGrasse Tyson poking fun at both claims and making Richard Dawkins look decidedly uncomfortable. As he says, life doesn't look terribly designed once you start paying attention.

Please, let's stop saying that life has the appearance of design. You can say that there are some features of organisms that are adaptations and these features have the appearance of design but it's silly to say that all life looks designed.

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[Hat Tip: Mike's Weekly Skeptic Rant]

Zoë's First Olympics

 
My granddaughter is cheering for Canada.

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Michael Ruse Defends Adaptationism

Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini have just published a book called What Darwin Got Wrong. I haven't read the book but from the reviews I've seen, it's not something that I'm looking forward to. However, their main thesis is that natural selection has been oversold as an explanation for evolution and I have a great deal of sympathy for that point of view. Furthermore, I think that adaptationism—the assumption that adaption is the default explanation for everything that evolves—is a scientifically bankrupt position. I'm a pluralist.

Michale Ruse has reviewed the book for boston.com and I'd like to analyze his review in order to reveal where he goes wrong.

Origin of the specious
This new critique intends to rebut Darwin’s ideas but seems largely to misunderstand evolutionary theory.

“What Darwin Got Wrong’’ is an intensely irritating book. Jerry Fodor, a well-known philosopher, with coauthor Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, a cognitive scientist, has written a whole book trashing Darwinian evolutionary theory - the theory that makes natural selection the main force of change in organisms through the ages.

Like I said, I haven't read the book so I can't really comment on the specifics. But I can comment on what Micahel Ruse says about the book.

He begins by claiming that the authors misunderstand evolutionary theory. That may be true but it will become painfully obvious that Michael Ruse is not enough of an authority to make such a claim.

Let's begin by seeing how Ruse describes evolution. He says that "Darwinian evolutionary theory" is the theory proposing that natural selection is the main force of evolution. Strictly speaking, that's correct. What we're interested in debating is whether "Darwinian evolutionary theory" is correct as defined.

The answer is clearly "no." Random genetic drift is the most common mechanism of evolution as long as you define evolution properly. Thus, as a explanation of evolution, Darwinism is not as good as a pluralistic evolutionary theory. Although Ruse isn't clear on this, it's well known from his previous writings that he thinks of Darwinism as the preferred explanation of evolution and not just of adaptation. In fact, he rarely distinguishes between the two.

I conclude, right from the beginning of the review, that Michael Ruse has a poor understanding of evolutionary theory.

You would think that somewhere in the pages there would be one - just one - discussion of the work that evolutionists are doing today to give a sense of how the field itself has evolved. Peter and Rosemary Grant on Darwin’s finches for example; Edward O. Wilson and Bert Hölldobler on ant social structures perhaps; David Reznick on Trinidadian guppies perchance? But no such luck. A whole book putting in the boot and absolutely no serious understanding of where the boot is aimed.

Aren't those interesting examples? Just what you'd expect from a myopic adaptationist. What about studies of molecular evolution which are almost entirely based on neutral changes and random genetic drift. You'd think that someone who claims to be on top of modern evolutionary theory would recognize the growing evidence of non-adaptive change, wouldn't you?

Why write such a book? The authors would respond in two ways. First, in a section that would be better described as “What Darwin Didn’t Know,” rather than “What Darwin Got Wrong,” they tell us that today’s cutting-edge biology has all sorts of explanations of organic origins that make Darwinism otiose. We learn that life is constrained by the laws of physics and chemistry, and that something like natural selection, which supposedly molds organic life into sophisticated bundles of adaptations, simply cannot get off the ground. To the contrary, evolution is all a matter of molecular development, guided by the self-organizing laws of the physical sciences.

To which Darwinians can only respond, wearily again, that they have known about constraints since “The Origin of Species.’’ Because body weight cubes as length increases, you cannot build a cat the size of an elephant. The elegant feline legs needed for jumping must be replaced by tree trunks able to carry many pounds. And examples of plausible self organization have been fitted into the Darwinian picture for many years. A favorite example is the way that many flowers and fruits (like pine cones) exhibit patterns following the Fibonacci series, made famous by “The Da Vinci Code.’’ Chauncey Wright, a 19th century pragmatist, discussed these patterns in detail, showing how formal rules of mathematics can nevertheless yield organisms that are highly adapted and that natural selection is the vital causal element. The rules give the skeleton, and then selection fills in the details. The order of a plant’s leaves may be fixed, but how those leaves stand up or lie down is selection-driven all of the way.

In their various published articles Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini have over-emphasized "constraints" and they come off sounding like some new-agers who have just discovered molecular biology.

But the fundamental point about constraints is interesting and it's true that adaptationists have been forced to recognize it every since Gould and Lewontin published the Spandrels paper back in 1977. Most adaptationist still don't get it and Ruse is no exception, although in this case he probably gets it better than Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini. Ruse admits that there are certain physical constraints on the way plant leaves evolve, for example, but he then goes on to say that everything else is an adaptation. How does he know this? How does he know for sure that the differences in the leaves of red maples, silver maples, and sugar maples are all due to natural selection?

The second half of the book is a frontal attack on natural selection itself. The main argument is very odd. It is allowed that there is differential reproduction. Some organisms have many offspring, and some have just a few. It is even allowed that the reason why some succeed and others don’t might have to do with the superior features possessed by the winners and not the losers. At which point you might think: Darwinism wins, because what else is there to natural selection?

Not so fast, however. Our authors take as gospel the argument of the late Stephen Jay Gould and the geneticist Richard Lewontin that although some features may be adaptive others may not. This argument is then used to say that if an organism succeeds in life’s struggles, you can never conclude that a particular feature was essential for this success, because there may be other features linked to it. Perhaps it was the latter features that were essential. Natural selection fails therefore as a mechanism of change.

I take it as "gospel" that random genetic drift is an important mechanism of evolutionary change. Why do I get the impression that Michael Ruse has doubts about this? Why does he use the word "gospel" to refer to the ideas of Gould and Lewontin but not Dawkins and E.O. Wilson? Isn't that strange?

Hundreds of evolutionary biologists have written about random genetic drift and other possible mechanisms of evolution (e.g., molecular drive, species sorting). They do not claim, as Ruse implies, that non-adaptive traits become fixed because they are "linked" to adaptive ones. Is this how Ruse dismisses random genetic drift—by treating it as a by-product of natural selection?

In fairness, Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini do go on about linkage in their published articles so Ruse is right to mock those silly claims. However, I wish he didn't make things worse by implying that hitchhiking is the explanation for drift.

The existence of random genetic drift does not mean that natural selection "fails. " It just means that natural selection by itself is not a sufficient explanation for evolutionary change. Perhaps Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini are confused about this—other reviews suggest that this is the case—but Michael Ruse seems to be trashing the very idea that something other than natural selection could be at play.

I read all of this stuff a couple of times. I am just not used to people giving the opposition everything for which they have asked and then plowing on regardless. But, even if you ignore the apparently shared belief that selection is at work - we may not know which features were crucial, but that hardly stops us saying that there was selection at work - the other points hardly crush the Darwinian. It has long been known that features get linked. And in any case, we can ferret out which features are most useful and which are just along for the ride. Suppose eyes, which are surely necessary, are linked to tufts of hair, which may not be. Well, experiment and see how the organisms get along without eyes and then without hair.

Non-adaptive features can arise even if they are completely unlinked to adaptive feature. Ruse doesn't seem to understand this basic concept of population genetics. And Ruse needs to take his own advice. Rather that just assume that a feature is an adaptation, you need to do the experiments. This applies to the leaves on a tree and the beaks of the finch.

Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini will not allow this, because apparently we are now ascribing conscious intentionality to the nonconscious world. We are saying the eyes were designed for seeing in a way that the tufts were not. And they stress that the whole point of a naturalistic explanation, to which the Darwinian is supposedly committed, is that the world was not designed.

In response, one can only say that this is a misunderstanding of the nature of science. The Darwinian does not want to say that the world is designed. That is what the Intelligent Design crew argues. The Darwinian is using a metaphor to understand the material nonthinking world. We treat that world as if it were an object of design, because doing so is tremendously valuable heuristically. And the use of metaphor is a commonplace in science.

Darwinist are always saying that the world has the appearance of design. Of course it's a metaphor but it's a metaphor based on the idea that natural selection, and not God, is the designer.

Ruse and his fellow adaptationists treat the world as if it were an object of design because they are psychologically committed to the idea that natural selection is responsible for almost everything. They cannot adjust to the fact that much of what we see in living things could be due to accident, or even the fixation of deleterious mutations. That's one of the reasons they have so much trouble with junk DNA and it's why they can't account for so much diversity in populations.

Here's a clue. Life doesn't actually look terribly designed. Get over it. Abandon the metaphor—it just feeds into a false notion of evolution and, incidentally, lends support to the IDiots.

Why then do we have these arguments? The clue is given at the end, when the authors start to quote - as examples of dreadful Darwinism - claims that human nature might have been fashioned by natural selection. At the beginning of their book, they proudly claim to be atheists. Perhaps so. But my suspicion is that, like those scorned Christians, Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini just cannot stomach the idea that humans might just be organisms, no better than the rest of the living world. We have to be special, superior to other denizens of Planet Earth. Christians are open in their beliefs that humans are special and explaining them lies beyond the scope of science. I just wish that our authors were a little more open that this is their view too.

This is despicable. Evolutionary psychology is a broken discipline. And it's not because there is no genetic components to behavior—of course there is. It's because the field is dominated by adaptationist explanations and crazy "just-so" stories that would make Rudyard Kipling proud.

If you accept, as I do, that humans do all kinds of silly things just because of their culture and superstitions, and not necessarily because they are adaptive, then that makes us more like the other animals and not more special. If you accept that we are products of evolution by accident and not "design" (metaphorically) then that makes us farther removed from a potential designer and not closer to God as Ruse would have you believe.

Ruse and the adaptationists are the ones who skate close to the edge when it comes to supporting Christian concepts of life. They do this by conceding that we look designed when that's simply not the full story.

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[Image Credit: The photo is from Paul Nelson on the Intelligent Design website. It refers to Ruse's idea that evolution is a form of religion. There's something to be said for this idea, especially when it's applied to confirmed Darwinists.]

The "Ayes" Have It—Science and Religion Are Compatible

 
Shocking news from England. The General Synod of the Church of England considered the question of science and religion. By an overwhelming vote (241 -2) they concluded that science and religion are perfectly compatible [General Synod says religion and science not mutually exclusive].NCSE and major scientific organizations will be grateful for this show of support.

Launching the debate, a computer scientist, Dr Peter Capon of Manchester diocese, said: "We wish to refute the perception that you have to choose between science and faith … the crude caricature of faith as being blind and irrational. We reject the 'scientism' that claims that, in principle, science can resolve all questions capable of being answered.

"Most scientists accept that philosophy, theology and the humanities are alive and well and give insights and understanding that complement but are not replaced by scientific understanding."

Science is a way of knowing characterized by the use of evidence and rational thought. Modern disciplines like philosophy and the humanities use this approach to gathering knowledge—indeed, philosophy invented it. Thus, neither philosophy or the humanities provide insights and understanding that's outside of the scientific approach to knowledge. They are part of it, as long as they are done properly.

Theology, on the other hand, is definitely not scientific in its approach to knowledge. We'd all like to know the examples that Dr. Capon is referring to. What, exactly, are the examples of insight and understanding (i.e., true knowledge) that theology has given us? Perhaps Dr. Capon and his supporters could give us a short list of these examples, choosing one or two from each of the major religions.

Several theologies promote the existence of multiple gods. Is that insightful? What about reincarnation—is that an example of insight and understanding from theology? It's difficult to claim that theology offers real insight and understanding unless you're prepared to embrace the idea that only your religion is true. This is exactly what the General Synod is doing. They condemn the "insight and understanding" of theologies based on a literal interpretation of the Bible but claim that the Church of England has it right.

That's not rational. It's much more probable that all theologies are wrong because they rely on faith and not evidence. Like it or not, faith is blind and irrational. And that makes it incompatible with science.

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Photo Credit: The Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Rowan Williams) with a friend.

The Flu Vaccine and Dystonia

 
This story has been posted on a number of blogs (Skepchick, ERV, Pharyngula) but it deserves even wider coverage.¹

Do you remember the woman who claims to have been given dystonia by the flu shot? She had these strange symptoms of uncontrolled movement that were only relieved when she ran or walked backwards. At the time this was advertised as one of the important reasons to be "skeptical" of vaccinations (using the word "skeptical" as a synonym for "gullible"). Some of the students in my class last Fall were impressed enough to quote this case as evidence that there's something wrong with vaccines.

Well, it turns out that TV crews have been secretly taping Desiree Jennings and discovered that she now walks normally and even drives a car! Isn't that amazing! She was cured by some quack who injected her with vitamins and put her in a pressure chamber.

Unfortunately there were some side effects. She now speaks with a strange accent that sounds vaguely Australian—but only if you're not from Australia. This woman needs to see a psychiatrist.

The first video is the report from last October and the second is the recent expose.

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1. Orac [Desiree Jennings & Dr. Buttar on Inside Edition] and Steve Novella [Well That Didn’t Take Long – Another Dystonia Case Follow Up] say thorough the scam from the very beginning.

Methodological Naturalism

Here's the abstract from a talk given by Maarten Boudry at the Darwin Conference in Toronto last November (see Good News from Gent).

Maarten Boudry, Ghent University
Methodological Naturalism as an Intrinsic Property of Science: A Grist to the Mill of Intelligent Design Theory

In recent rounds of debate between evolutionists and supporters of Intelligent Design, the principle of methodological naturalism (MN) has been an important battleground. Creationists and intelligent design proponents have previously claimed that the commitment of evolutionists to naturalism and materialism constitutes a philosophical prejudice on their side, because it rules out any kind of supernatural causes by fiat. In response to these charges, some philosophers and scientists have argued that science is only committed to something they call methodological naturalism: Science does not deal with supernatural causes and explanations, but that does not mean that the latter do not exist. However, there has been some philosophical discussion about the correct understanding of MN. The principle of MN is often conceived of as an intrinsic and self-imposed limitation of science, as something that is part and parcel of the scientific enterprise by definition. According to this view (Intrinsic MN or IMN) - which is defended by people like Eugenie Scott, Michael Ruse and Robert Pennock and has been adopted in the ruling of Judge John E. Jones III in the Kitzmiller vs. Dover case - science is simply not equipped to deal with the supernatural and therefore has no authority on the issue. It is clear that this depiction of science and MN offers some perspectives for reconciling science and religion. Not surprisingly, IMN is often embraced by those sympathetic to religion, or by those who wish to alleviate the sometimes heated opposition between the two.

However, we will argue that this view of MN does not offer a sound rationale for the rejection of supernatural explanations. Alternatively, we will defend MN as a provisory and empirically grounded commitment of scientists to naturalistic causes and explanations, which is in principle revocable by future scientific findings (Qualified MN or QMN). In this view, MN is justified as a methodological guideline by virtue of the dividends of naturalistic explanation and the consistent failure of supernatural explanations in the history of science.

We will discuss and reject four arguments in favour of IMN: the argument from the definition of science, the argument from lawful regularity, the science stopper argument, and the argument from procedural necessity. Moreover, we will argue that defining the supernatural out of science is a counterproductive strategy against ID creationism, and, for that matter, against any theory involving supernatural explanations. More specifically, IMN has been eagerly exploited by proponents of ID to bolster their false claims about the philosophical and metaphysical prejudices of evolutionists. As ID proponent Philip Johnson rhetorically noted, if science is about following the evidence wherever it leads, why should scientists exclude a priori the possibility of discovering evidence for the supernatural? Therefore, IMN is actually grist to the ID mill.
We conclude that IMN is philosophically artificial and that its attempt to reconcile science and religion is ill-conceived. QMN, alas, does not provide any such ready reconciliation either, but it does offer a sound rationale for the rejection of supernatural designers in modern science.

Here's the problem. You can't just arbitrarily restrict science to methodological naturalism. That's like ruling out supernatural explanations by fiat and not by logic. If God exists, then there's no reason why supernatural explanations can't be a legitimate part of science. This is one of the arguments made by Philip Johnson and it hasn't been adequately addressed by most philosophers.

But there's another problem with using methodological naturalism as a defense of accommodationism. How do draw the line between methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism? Obviously, there's no difference for an atheist; in fact, the distinction seems rather silly. If supernatural explanations are never found to be necessary in explaining the natural world then doesn't it make sense to conclude that fairies and Santa Claus don't exist?

But for theists it's important to make a distinction so that they can adhere to methodological naturalism as scientists without having to abandon their belief in supernatural beings outside of the laboratory.

Where is the boundary and how do you tell when the line has been crossed? Accommodationists are absolutely convinced that they can tell the difference between methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism but they are never very clear about explaining this difference to others.

Here's your chance. Let's see if anyone can come up with a good way of telling when the practice of methodological naturalism becomes philosophical naturalism.

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Good News from Gent

While in Gent I got a chance to meet up with some members of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Gent. Jan Verbeeren (right) is a regular reader of Sandwalk. Stefaan Blanke (below left) and Maarten Boudry (below right) are graduate students who I met at the Darwin conference in Toronto in November.

It was easy to convince Maarten to join Jan and I for a beer because Jan was buying. Unfortunately, Stefaan couldn't make it so I'll have to go back for another visit.

There are at least 500 different beers made in Belgium—or so I'm told [Belgium beers]. I doubt that I'll be able to sample all of them before I leave. The ones I had in Gent were "Delirium Tremens" and "Tripel Karmeliet." They were excellent.


We talked about adaptationism vs. pluralism. It seems to be a difficult controversy to grasp if you haven't been trained as a scientist. I think the problem is that the concept of random genetic drift as a mechanism of evolution is not widely accepted among philosophers.

We also spent an hour or so talking about methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism. This was the subject of Maarten's talk in Toronto last November and I think he's on to something (with Stefaan). I'll write a separate post on this topic.

The title of this post is from How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix by Robert Browning.

I SPRANG to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;
I gallop’d, Dirck gallop’d, we gallop’d all three;
“Good speed !” cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew;
“Speed!” echoed the wall to us galloping through;
Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,
And into the midnight we gallop’d abreast.

...

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Gravensteen

 
Gravensteen is one of the castles of the Count of Flanders. It's located in the middle of Gent (Ghent in English) and it's an excellent example of an early medieval castle (extensively restored).

Anyone descended from William the conqueror is also a descendant of the early counts of Flanders (Baldwin IV, V, VI, Arnulf II)¹ since William married Matilda of Flanders, the daughter of Baldwin VI (1030 - 1070). These early counts built a wooden fort on the site of the present castle. The present stone structure dates from about 1180 [Gravensteen].

I especially liked the back of the castle where the kitchen was located because it hasn't been completely restored and you get an idea of what Gravensteen must have looked like for most of the last five hundred years.


Even though it was a cloudy day, the view from the ramparts was spectacular. Gent is a beautiful city.



We spent a great deal of time in the torture chamber and Ms. Sandwalk took lots of pictures of the various instruments used to "persuade" the prisoners. She also got pictures of the guillotine that was used in the late 1700's and early 1800's.

Here's one of the more pleasant images.

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[Photo Credits: top [Wikipedia], all others are by Ms. Sandwalk.

1. Assuming, that is, that you are a descendant of one of his legitimate children.

Waterloo

 
Yesterday we took Zoë on her first major outing. We visited the site of the battle of Waterloo. Here's a photo of Jane, Michael, and Zoë in front of the entrance to the visitor center located on the ridge overlooking the farms of La Haye Sainte and Hougoumont. This was the location of some of the bloodiest fighting of the entire battle (Ney's cavalry charge and the attack of the Imperial Guard).

Today there's a huge artificial hill on the site. You can climb the stairs to the top and see the entire battlefield.


The last time I visited Waterloo was 35 years ago with our niece and nephew. Ever since I've wanted to take my own kids to see this famous site and yesterday was the day for Jane and my new granddaughter. My son Gordon will be so sad that he missed this battlefield () but since he'll be here in a few months I'm sure his sister will take him to Waterloo.

For more pictures, see Family Outing.

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The Difference between Truth and Framing

 
Chris Mooney is at it again. This time he address the question What Should Science Organizations Say About Religion? Answer: A Lot.

It's the accommodationist debate all over again although this time it's more focused. What should scientific organizations say about the compatibility of science and religion? It seems like an question with an obvious answer. Since there is considerable debate about whether science and religion are compatible then there can't be a definitive answer. Why would any scientific organization claim that science and religion are compatible? It's not a scientific question and it's not a true statement. The correct statement is that philosophers are debating the issue. It may be true that science and religion are compatible or it may be true that science and religion are not compatible. That's all that scientific organizations should say.

Chris Mooney thinks that scientific organizations should not tell the truth. He says that in the interest of American politics these organizations should lie about the compatibility issue. They should say that science and religion are compatible. It's called "framing."

I call it lying.

Aware of this context, groups like the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) take a stance likely to help some religious believers reject what they’ve been told from the pulpit, and move toward a more moderate stance on science and religion–in essence, from anti-science fundamentalism to middle-ground reconciliationism. To this end, NCSE states something factually true and indeed, undeniable: that not every religious person thinks science and religion are incompatible.

The veracity of this statement is not really open to debate. The issue here is simply whether such people exist, and of that there’s no doubt whatsoever. In this blunt factual sense, at least, science and religion are compatible–they are reconciled all the time by actual living, breathing human beings. You might take issue with the logical basis for such reconciliation in a particular mind, but you can’t deny that it happens regularly.

Wow! According to this kind of "framing," science is compatible with Young Earth Creationism because it's undeniable that there are YEC's who are scientists. There are actual living breathing human beings who have no problem reconciling science and Genesis. I wonder if Chris Mooney would be comfortable if NCSE and NAS declared that science is compatible with the Bible?

Of course he wouldn't. Chris Mooney only wants scientific organizations to lie according to his version of reality.

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A Philosopher's View of "Darwinism"

 
Most people think of "Darwinism" as equivalent to "evolution" but that can't be right. There are some mechanisms of evolutionary change—like random genetic drift—that clearly don't fall under the general beliefs of Darwin and his modern followers.

In today's terminology, Darwinism refers to a worldview that emphasizes natural selection as the most important mechanism of evolutionary change. Some extreme Darwinists even deny that change by random genetic drift counts as evolution.

Those of us who adhere to a broader view of evolution are called "pluralists" because we we consider several different mechanisms of evolution and several different levels of evolutionary change.

Jim Lennox is a philosopher. He has written a revised version of the "Darwinism" entry in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [Darwinism]. Now we all know that philosophers can be wordy, if it can be said by a normal person in two paragraphs then a philosopher can't possible write anything less than a small book. However, at the very least you expect to see a conclusion that makes sense. Is "Darwinism" a viable position in the 21st century? What does "pluralism" mean?

And wouldn't you expect a serious discussion of adaptationism and how it relates to Darwinism? I would.

Read the entry and see if you can decide whether "Darwinism" is a good synonym for "evolution."

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[Hat Tip: John Wilkins]

Epigenetics and the Calico Cat

This is our friendly calico cat. She lives on the farm where we are staying. Almost all calico cats are female—do you know why? It has something to do with epigenetics.

See: Calico Cats—it's one of my most popular postings.

Can anyone explain how some very rare calico cats might be male?

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[Photo by Ms. Sandwalk]

Name This Tree

 
Seriously, what kind of tree is this? It grows in Belgium.

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[Photo by Ms. Sandwalk]

Who Does This Remind You Of?

 

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[Photo by Ms. Sandwalk]

Herent Belgium

 
We're staying in a town called Herent, in Belgium. Our apartment is in a renovated manor house on a working farm (goats, chickens, ponies, cat).

Herent is a few kilometers north of Leuvan and only 20 minutes from Jane, Michael and our new granddaughter Zoë.

It's an easy drive back and forth except for the snow and Belgium drivers. Today we're off to our first babysitting job!!!!

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Critical Thinking

 
Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy posted this video from QualiaSoup. It's one of the best descriptions of critical thinking I've ever seen. Critical thinking is what we're supposed to be teaching our students in school and university.

We're not doing a very good job.

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Homeopathy and Avogadro's Number

 
Avogadro's Number, or it's more modern equivalent, Avogadro's Constant, is 6.022 × 10²³ mol^-1.

There's a new website called "Homeopathy: There's nothing in it" that explains why Avogadro's Number is important in understanding why homeopathy is a fraud.

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[Hat Tip: Phil Plait]

Zoë Jane

This is my new granddaughter, Zoë Jane. Congratulations to my daughter Jane and her husband Michael. In a few hours we'll be flying to Paris then taking a train to Brussels to visit them. Meanwhile, there are more pictures at The First Picture's on Ms. Sandwalk's blog and a video of her first bath on Jane and Michael's blog [Zoë's First Bath].

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The Key Darwin and Design Science News Stories of the Year

 
The people at Access Research Network have compiled a list of the best stories of 2009. These are stories that lend support to the idea that God exists and that he plays an important role in creation of the universe.

The stories are supposed to fall into two categories; anti-science stories that cast doubt on modern scientific explanations, and stories about evidence supporting intelligent design creationism.

Here's the list from: “The Key Darwin and Design Science News Stories of the Year”. Judge for yourselves how many fall into each of the two categories.

1. The Modern Synthesis is Gone
2. Cell Motors Work in Concert
3. Early Large Galaxies Stun Cosmologists
4. The Ida Hype and Bust
5. Walking White Blood Cells
6. Signature in the Cell
7. Cells Use Cloud Computing
8. Peppered Moths Oscillates Back to Gray
9. Reverse Engineering Biological Designs
10. Cambrian Explosion Continues to Challenge Materialistic Theories
11. The Collectivist Revolution in Biology
12. Failed Assault on Irreducible Complexity
13. Intelligent Input Required for Life
14. The Edge of Evolution Confirmed
15. The Ardi Hype and Bust

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Communicating Science

 
The primary goal of science writers and science journalists is to be effective communicators of science. However, they have had little impact on the general public over the past few decades since the level of science literacy has barely budged.

Most citizens have little idea of how science works and many reject outright the basic fundamentals of science.

Having failed to achieve their goal, and finding themselves irrelevant when it comes to making a profit (largely because of their own failure), they are now looking for someone to blame. Chris Mooney has decided to blame scientists for not being science journalists. See his latest contribution at On issues like global warming and evolution, scientists need to speak up. He doesn't really mean "speak up" as scientists, of course. What he means is that scientists should learn how to "frame" and fudge their position in order to please the general public. Making friends with theists and promoting religious scientists is supposed to help.

What's interesting about this debate is that science writers like Chris Mooney are convinced they know how to teach the general public in spite of the fact that science writers—as a profession—have not been successful in the past.

Why should scientist listen to them?

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How Long Does It Take to Recognize an IDiot?

Ken Ham is the man behind Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum. He's upset with Lawrence Krauss because Krauss has been critical of anti-science creationists in general and the Creation Museum in particular. Ken Ham is particularly upset because Krauss was critical of th Creation Museum before he had actually visited it.

Krauss himself got criticism from some in the secular press because he had not even visited the museum to see it for himself. Presumably because of this criticism, he did come some time later and walked through the Creation Museum exhibits with AiG’s CCO, Mark Looy. Mark actually timed Krauss’s visit. He took a whole 22 minutes to walk through the museum, most of the time asking Mark Looy questions and only occasionally glancing at some of the exhibits. Considering it would take a person nearly one and a half hours to watch the programs in the various theatres, including the Planetarium and SFX theatre, plus take 2 hours to watch all the 50-plus videos in the various exhibits, and a further two hours to read all the signage—it was obvious Krauss wasn’t the least bit interested in researching the content of the museum (as one would expect from a real scientist and well-known anti-creationist commentator), but only visited presumably to tell people he has seen the Creation Museum and thus could comment on it—what a farce!

Now, let's be fair to Lawrence Krauss. He's a very smart guy and I'm certain that it didn't take him 22 minutes to recognize that the museum was a farce. I'm sure he stayed an extra 21 minutes just to be polite to his host.

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Time Magazine's Top 10 Scientific Discoveries

Here's the list of Time Magazine's Top 10 Scientific Discoveries. Given all the hype about The Darwinius Affair last May it's amazing that the discovery of this fossil didn't make the list.

There were several other huge scientific breakthroughs that failed to make the list: proof that Darwin was wrong, the overthrow of evolutionary theory, exposing the fraud of climate change, and the publication of Unscientific America.

There are some real scientific stories that were ignored by Time magazine: the creation of artificial stem cells (continuing), the 150th anniversary of the publication of Origin of Species, Nobel Prizes for telomeres and ribosome structure, and rapid human genome sequencing.

1. Our Oldest Ancestor, "Ardi"
2. The Human Epigenome, Decoded
3. Gene Therapy Cures Color Blindness
4. A Robot Performs Science
5. Breeding Tuna on Land
6. Water on the Moon
7. The Fundamental Lemma, Solved
8. Teleportation!
9. The Large Hadron Collider, Revived
10. A New Planet (or Brown Dwarf?) Discovered

It looks like a bad year for science if this is the best of the best.

In case you've forgotten, here's the top 10 list from last year [2008].

1. Large Hadron Collider
2. The North Pole — of Mars
3. Creating Life
4. China Soars into Space
5. More Gorillas in the Mist
6. Brave New Worlds
7. The Power of Invisibility
8. Cenozoic Park?
9. Can You Spell Science?
10. First Family

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Does Excess Genomic DNA Protect Against Mutation?

Many eukaryotic genomes have a large amount of "excess" DNA that doesn't have any of the functions we normally assign to DNA (protein-coding, regulatory, origins of replication, centromeres, RNA genes etc.). Many of us think this is junk DNA. It has no function and could easily be dispensed with.

One of the adaptive explanations for this excess DNA is that it protects the functional DNA from mutations. Ryan Gregory thinks this is a serious scientific hypothesis even though he's skeptical. He has a wonderful post that reviews the history of the idea and how the hypothesis should be tested [Does junk DNA protect against mutation?].

The bottom line is that this hypothesis is not taken very seriously by the scientific community for some very good reasons.

First, most spontaneous mutations in the germ line seem to be due to errors in DNA replication. The overall rate of evolutionary change is consistent with the mutation rate of DNA replication + repair, suggesting that it is the dominant form of mutation. This mutation rate is based on the number of nucleotides replicated. What this means is that the rate of mutation in functional DNA is independent of how much other DNA is being replicated. Excess DNA offers no protection from the spontaneous error rate of DNA replication.

THEME

Genomes & Junk DNA
However, the protection hypothesis may be applicable to other kinds of mutation such as those caused by chemicals or ionizing radiation. In multicellular organisms such as animals, fungi, and plants, this possible protection may prolong the lifetime of somatic cells or prevent them from becoming deregulated (e.g., cancer).

The idea is that excess DNA may shield the functional DNA from the effects of these mutagens but this would only work if the excess DNA was specifically organized so that it surrounded the functional DNA and provided physical shielding. There's no evidence that this is the case and, furthermore, it doesn't make much sense. The functional DNA in a nucleus is already shielded by lots of proteins, lipids and membranes so it's unlikely that a bit more DNA is going to make a difference.

Not only that, but some kinds of DNA damage caused by these mutagens will cause strand breakage. What does that mean? It means that the larger the genome the greater the chance that damage will occur. In other words, excess DNA leads to greater rates of mutation, not lower rates of mutation, for those types of mutagens. Ryan Gregory shows results from several studies during the 1970s that establish that fact.

I sympathize with Ryan's call for experimental support of the hypothesis but I'd also like to point out that not only does it not have direct evidence to back it up but it's not even theoretically feasible. It's just a bad hypothesis based largely on a misunderstanding of mutations and how they arise.

Also, the protection hypothesis doesn't pass The Onion Test which is one of the first requirements for an adaptive explanation of junk DNA.

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On the Evolution of Homosexuality

 
A reader alerted me to a posting by Greta Christina on The Blowfish Blog.¹ She discusses Why Did Gayness Evolve?.

This is not your ordinary posting on the topic. For one thing, she acknowledges that you can only discuss the evolution of homosexuality if there's a significant genetic component. She makes the assumption that there is a genetic component but it is not proven.

From that point on, her analysis of the possible reasons for evolving homosexuality is as good as it gets. Greta Christina avoids the obvious clichés and concentrates on real biology. The words "spandrels" is used a lot.

This is someone who understands evolution. Speaking of understanding evolution, in order to discuss whether homosexuality evolved you need to have a workable definition of evolution. My definition restricts evolution to heritable changes in a population and that's why the discussion of a possible genetic component is relevant.

Some people prefer a different definition of evolution—something like "descent with modification." I wonder how you can discuss the possible evolution of homosexuality using such a definition of evolution? Would it mean that the increased prevalence (and acceptance) of homosexual behavior in ancient societies was an example of evolution?

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1. Thank-you Fred.

Why Are Americans Religious?

 
One of the major questions in 21st century sociology is why are Americans so much more religious than citizens in other industrialized nations. The answer, if there is one, will help us understand why evolution is rejected by so many Americans.

Gregory S. Paul is a writer who has long been interested in this question. His latest contribution is published in the journal Evolutionary Psychology (Paul, 2009).

Paul examined the correlation between religiosity and the Successful Societies Scale (SSS). SSS measures things like crime rates, divorces, mortality rates etc. The United States (U) seems like an outlier compared to other countries.

Does belief in God cause a society to be dysfunctional or are less successful countries more likely to encourage religiosity? Or is there no obvious cause and effect behind this correlation?

You'll have to read the paper to see how Gregory Paul address these questions and how he rules out many possible explanations. I find his conclusion quite intriguing—I never thought of it this way.

Among the prosperous democracies all but the U.S. have adopted most or all of a set of pragmatic progressive governmental policies that have elevated these nation’s societal efficiency, success and security while reducing personal levels of stress and anxiety. These include reduced socioeconomic disparity and competition via targeted tax and welfare strategies, handgun control, anti-corporal punishment and anti-bullying policies, protection for women in abusive relationships, intensive sex education that emphasizes condom use, rehabilitative incarceration, increased leisure time that can be dedicated to family needs, and perhaps most importantly job security and universal health care that make it difficult for ordinary citizens to suffer catastrophic financial failure. Social ills are correspondingly suppressed. As a member of the 1st world the U.S. is an anomalous outlier not only in its religiosity, but in social, economic and political policies as well. Provided with comparatively low levels of government support and protection in favor of less restrained capitalism, members of the middle class are at serious risk of financial and personal ruin if they lose their job or private health insurance; around a million go bankrupt in a year, about half due in part to often overwhelming medical bills. The need to acquire wealth as a protective buffer encourages an intense competitive race to the top, which contributes to income inequality. The latter leaves a large cohort mired in poverty. Levels of societal pathology are correspondingly high. The evidence indicates that the modulation of capitalism via progressive policies is producing superior overall national circumstances compared to the more laissez-faire capitalism favored in the U.S.
       The relationship of religion to these patterns appears to be both passive and active. Starting with the passive, the middle class majorities of western Europe, Canada, Austro-Zealand and Japan apparently feel sufficiently secure in their lives that increasingly few citizens feel a need to seek the aid and protection of a supernatural creator, resulting in dramatic drops in religious belief and activity (Norris and Inglehart, 2004; Paul and Zuckerman, 2007; Zuckerman, 2008). With the implosion of the general religious belief, few subscribe to a fundamentalist world-view that provides the base for creationist opinion,. That there are no major 1st world exceptions to this pattern, and that a significant religious revival has yet to occur in a secular democracy, indicate that the socioeconomic security process of democratic secularization is highly effective even though it is an accidental side effect of progressive economic policies. The universality of the effect is further supported by Asian Japan experiencing the same basic secularization process as the EuroChristian heritage secular democracies. America’s high-risk circumstances, the strong variation in economic circumstances, and chronic competitiveness help elevate rates of social pathology, and strongly contribute to high levels of personal stress and anxiety. The majority of Americans are left feeling sufficiently insecure that they perceive a need to seek the aid and protection of a supernatural creator, boosting levels of religious opinion and participation. The nation’s good ratings in life satisfaction and happiness is compatible with a large segment of the population using religion to psychologically compensate for high levels of apprehension; America’s apparently high level mental illness (Bijl, 2003) may be in accord with this suggestion. The ultimate expression of this social phenomenon is the large minority who adhere to the evangelical Prosperity Christianity and Rapture cultures whose Bible-based world-view favors belief in the Genesis creation story. The results of this study are therefore compatible with and support the socioeconomic security hypothesis of democratic secularization.

Sue Blackmore is intrigued but skeptical [Are we better off without religion?]. She thinks this may be too simplistic and of course she's right. There's no one reason why America is lagging behind other nations in evolving a better society and there's no single explanation for its religiosity.

But I still think Paul's point is worth considering.

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Paul, G.S. (2009) The Chronic Dependence of Popular Religiosity upon Dysfunctional Psychosociological Conditions. Evolutionary Psychology 7: 398-441. [PDF]

Quoting Bertrand Russell

 

Jason Rosenhouse has posted a quotation from Bertrand Russell [Quote for the Day]. Like Jason, I am a fan of the great man. Here's my quotation—it's from an essay written in 1940, shortly after Russell was declared unfit to teach at City College in New York.

A man or woman who is to hold a teaching post under the state should not be required to express majority opinions, though naturally a majority of teachers will do so. Uniformity in the opinions expressed by teachers is not only not to be sought but is, if possible, to be avoided, since diversity of opinion among preceptors is essential to any sound education. No man can pass as educated who had heard only one side on questions as to which the public is divided. One of the most important things to teach in the educational establishments of a democracy is the power of weighing arguments, and the open mind which is prepared in advance to accept whichever side appears the most reasonable. As soon as a censorship is imposed upon the opinions which teachers may avow, education ceases to serve this purpose and tends to produce, instead of a nation of men, a herd of fanatical bigots.

 

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What Do These Things Have in Common?

 
What do these two images have in common? You'll have to read Ms. Sandwalk's blog to find out [One Month to go]. Next month will be very exciting. I'll be spending all of January in Belgium.

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Defining Evolution in Anthropology Textbooks

Here's one of the most interesting articles in the current edition of Evolution: Education and Outreach.

White, J., Tollini, C.D., Collie, W.A., Strueber, M.B., Strueber, L.H., and Ward, J.W. (2009) Evolution and University-level Anthropology Textbooks: The “Missing Link”? Evo. Edu. Outreach 2:722–737 [doi: 10.1007/s12052-009-0176-6]

Abstract: Although studies analyzing the content of evolution curriculum usually focus on courses within the context of a biological sciences department or program, research must also address students and courses outside of the biological sciences. For example, using data solely from biological courses will not fully represent the scope of coverage of evolution in university education, as other fields, like anthropology, also utilize evolutionary principles. We analyzed the content of 31 university-level anthropology textbooks for the following: (1) presence of a definition of evolution in various sections of the textbooks, (2) accuracy and consistency of the definitions provided in the textbook sections, and (3) differences between textbooks for cultural and physical anthropology. Results of this study suggest that anthropology textbooks do not necessarily (1) provide a single definition of evolution or (2) provide an accurate, “baseline” definition of evolution when present. Additionally, substantive differences were observed between definitions provided in different sections within a single textbook, as well as between textbooks written for cultural anthropology and physical anthropology/archaeology courses. Given the inclusion of anthropology courses in general education curriculum at the university-level, we conclude that this situation may further exacerbate the misunderstanding of the basic tenets of evolution that university students have been repeatedly shown to demonstrate. We stress the role of the instructor in choosing textbooks that provide accurate information for students, as well as the responsibility they hold in providing a concise, accurate definition of evolution in social sciences courses.

The authors refer to an earlier study by Linhart (1997) who examined definitions of evolution in biology textbooks.

In our literature search, we were able to locate only one study that directly addressed the coverage of evolution in textbooks. Linhart (1997) focused on textbooks designed for one of the following six courses in the biological sciences: general biology (for majors and non-majors), evolution, genetics, paleontology, ecology, and systematics. He restricted his sample to 50 textbooks that had multiple editions and a sizable market share, and he located at least some of these textbooks using colleagues’ recommendations. He analyzed the content of the glossary entry for evolution in each textbook, as well as the material in any pages listed in an index entry for evolution, and compared these data against a definition of evolution he constructed after reviewing the literature:

Evolution is said to have occurred within a species, lineage, or population when measurable changes in various morphological, physiological, behavioral, or biochemical characteristics can be detected. These characteristics must be at least partly under genetic control. The genetic change(s) can occur as a
consequence of processes such as migration, mutation, genetic drift or bottleneck, natural selection, and nonrandom mating. Genetic changes within different populations of a species can lead to differences among lineages, and sometimes to the origin of new species...Evolution is not a synonym of natural selection. Nor is evolution a process that leads inevitably to increased or improved adaptation, or to greater reproductive success. Evolution does not imply a progressively closer fit between a population and its environment. Finally, evolution does not involve predictable or irrevocable changes from simple to more complex forms or toward some sort of perfection (Linhart 1997: 387).

While he found variation between the textbooks written for the six different courses in his sample, his findings indicated that the majority of all of the textbooks equated evolution with natural selection or adaptation and did not describe evolution in much detail. Linhart (1997) expressed much concern regarding the content of the definition of evolution in these textbooks, arguing that many students will have an inaccurate or incomplete view of evolution unless they are provided with additional material.

I agree with the problems that Linhart outlines and I agree that evolution needs to be defined as a process that involves genetic change and populations. It's very important that evolution should be defined in a way that allows for multiple mechanisms such as natural selection and random genetic drift.

Most of the biology textbooks I've read do an adequate job of defining evolution but I haven't covered as many textbooks as Linhart.

It's disappointing that biology textbooks and anthropology textbooks do such a poor job of defining—and presumably explaining—evolution. Is it any wonder that the general public is scientifically illiterate when we can't even get it right in the textbooks?

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Linhart, Y. (1997) The teaching of evolution: we need to do better. Bioscience 47:385–91.

Evolution According to Niles Eldredge

 

I've read all of the books by Niles Eldredge. He's one of my favorite science authors [Good Science Writers: Niles Eldredge]. However, I've never really understood exactly what he means when he talks about evolution. He's not a molecular biologist or a geneticist but does he understand the basics of these disciplines? Does he think of evolution as a branch of population genetics or something else? Does he know about random genetic drift?

Some of these questions have been answered in an article that he co-authors with his son in the latest issue of Evolution: Education & Outreach. This is a journal dedicated to teaching evolution correctly. The article outlines a universal evolution curriculum for all grades from kindergarten to university [Lessons from EEO: Toward a Universal Evolutionary Curriculum].

Abstract We propose a human-centered evolutionary curriculum based around the three questions: Who am I? Where do I come from? How do I fit in? We base our curriculum on our experiences as an evolutionary biologist/ paleontologist (NE) and as a secondary level special education science teacher (GE)—and not least from our joint experience as co-editors-in-chief of this journal. Our proposed curriculum starts and ends with human biology and evolution, linking these themes with topics as diverse as the “tree of life” (systematics), anthropology, Charles Darwin, cultural evolution, ecology, developmental biology, molecular evolution/genetics, paleontology, and plate tectonics. The curriculum is “universal” as it is designed to be taught at all levels, K–16. The curriculum is flexible: “modules” may be expanded and contracted, reordered, or modified to fit specific grade level needs—and the requirements and interests of local curricula and teachers. We further propose that students utilize workbooks from online or printed sources to investigate the local answers to the general questions (e.g., “Who am I?”), while classroom instruction is focused on the larger scale issues outlined in the modules of our curriculum.

I don't like the idea of teaching evolution from a human-centered perspective. Our students are certainly used to thinking of biology only in terms of themselves, but isn't it our goal as educators to teach them that this is wrong?

It's the age-old question of whether the best way of teaching is to cater to student misconceptions or confront them.

A key part of any evolution curriculum is defining evolution. I prefer a scientific definition that allows us to distinguish evolution from other process that may look like evolution. The minimal definition is derived from population genetics and it allows us to recognize that different frequencies of blood groups in different human populations is evolution [What Is Evolution?].

Eldredge prefers a different definition in his evolutionary curriculum ...

What is “evolution?” Evolution is the testable, scientific idea that all species of life on Earth are descended from a common ancestor living billions of years ago since life first began on Earth. You can think of evolution as the history of life on Earth—or even as the fate of genetic information through time.

Module 3: What Is Evolution? How Do Humans Fit into the History of Life?

I've always taught that evolution is a process and that it's distinctly different from the history of life. It's like the difference between gravity and the history of our solar system. The formation of our solar system was a unique event that relied upon, and can be explained by, gravity and other general processes. Similarly, the history of life on Earth is a unique event. It can be explained by evolution and other processes but it's not the same as "evolution."

As far as I know, there are no evolutionary biology textbooks that define evolution as the history of life. The Eldredges are proposing a curriculum that's out of sync with most pedagogical approaches to evolution. Is this a better way to teach evolution? I don't think so.

Module 3 also covers the mechanisms of evolution. Adaptation and natural selection are mentioned but the authors go on to say that natural selection is not the only evolutionary process. The others are: speciation, punctuated equilibria, and mass extinctions.

I've always suspected that Niles Eldredge discounts random genetic drift as a legitimate process of evolution. This confirms my suspicion.

I'm very concerned about the content of this article and it's publication in a journal that's devoted to evolution education. If this is what the experts on evolution education are touting as the ideal curriculum then there are only two possible conclusions: (1) they aren't experts, or (2) I'm dead wrong about everything that I've been teaching.

I'm almost afraid to open up the comments on this posting for fear that (2) is the correct answer.

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