Student Evaluations

Yesterday we had a departmental retreat where we discussed a number of things, including undergraduate education. The Biochemistry Undergraduate Student Society (BUSS) made a presentation and sent along eight students who joined the various discussion groups that we set up to talk about undergraduate teaching. It was lots of fun and very informative.

One of the issues that was raised was student evaluations. The main student group for all arts students and science students has a standard student evaluation form that they distribute in most classes. The results are published in the Anti-Calendar.

The Department of Biochemistry does not participate in this exercise and, consequently, none of our courses are in the Anti-calendar. We use our own evaluation forms with very different questions and the results are summarized for internal use within the department.

Some students suspect that the department has blocked the publication of student evaluations in the Anti-Calendar. They suspect that the reason for doing this is all of our courses have very bad ratings and we don't want students to find out how bad we are. (That kind of reasoning may actually work in our favor. Students who think like that stay out of our courses.)

The truth is that we have been doing our own evaluations for 40 years and we have different questions, and a different scale, than the ones used by the student union. That's the only reason why we're not in the Anti-Calendar.

However, even if we switched to using the standard students forms, I would remain opposed to collecting and publishing student evaluations for another reason. (The following opinion is not departmental policy, unfortunately.)

I've blogged about this is the past [Student Evaluations] [Student Evaluations Don't Mean Much]. The facts are that student evaluations don't evaluate what students think they're evaluating. Many scientific studies have been done and the evidence strongly suggests that students evaluations are based mostly on whether students like the personality of the Professor.

I teach science and scientific reasoning. I think it's important to ask whether the collecting and publication of student evaluations is a worthwhile and valid exercise. If student evaluations are scientifically justified then they should be published. If the evidence doesn't back up the claims then they are worthless. This isn't hard to follow, is it?

Publication of worthless student evaluations may actually be counter-productive. The result may turn students away from courses they should be taking and encourage them to take easy bird courses they should be avoiding.

Until it can be demonstrated that student evaluations are useful and scientifially valid, I will continue to exercise my right to block publication of my evaluations, regardless of any decision by the Department of Biochemistry. And I will continue to argue against using flawed student evaluations in tenure and promotion decisions. I will also oppose all attempts to reward faculty members for excellence in teaching based entirely—or mostly—on student evaluations. Any other position is anti-scientific, in my opinion. No competent scientist can ever justify relying on standard undergraduate student evaluations to evaluate teaching ability.

Let's hear what everyone else thinks of student evaluations.

Here are a few interesting links to stimulate discussion.

Part of the discussion requires that you understand the "Sandbox Experiment" as described in [Of What Value are Student Evaluations?].

... true believers (who too often seem to have a stake in selling institutions a workshop or an evaluation form) proclaim that student evaluations cannot be manipulated or subverted. Anyone who believes such claims needs to read the first part of Generation X Goes to College by Peter Sacks. This part is an autobiography of a tenure track experience by the author in an unnamed community college in the Northwest. Sacks, an accomplished journalist who is not a very accomplished teacher, soon finds himself in trouble with student evaluations. Sacks exploits affective factors to deliberately obtain higher evaluations, and describes in detail how he did it in Part 1 called "The Sandbox Experiment." Sacks obtains higher evaluations through a deliberate pandering, but not through promotion of any learning outcomes. For years, he manages not only to deceive students, but also peers and administrators and eventually gets tenure based on higher student evaluations. This is a brutal case study that many could find offensive, but it proves clearly that (1) student evaluations can indeed be manipulated, and (2) that faculty peer reviewers and administrators who should know better than to place such blind faith in student evaluations sometimes do not.

Read Student Evaluations: A Critical Review for a description of the Dr. Fox Effect, another one of those standard examples that every one should be aware of if they want to debate the issue of student evaluations.

This article also has a pretty good discussion of the "academic freedom" issue—which I prefer to call the "controversy conundrum." It is a very real problem. The more controversial your lectures, the more likely you are to receive lower student evaluations of faculty (SEF). Yet, teaching controversial issues is the essence of a university education.

There exist simple and well-known ways for a professor to avoid giving offense. One technique, when a class ostensibly focuses on a controversial subject matter, is to focus one's lectures on what other people have said. For example, a professor may, without raising any eyebrows, teach an entire course of lectures on ethics without ever making an ethical statement, since he confines himself to making reports of what other people have said about ethics. This ensures that no one can take offense towards him. During classroom discussions, he may simply nod and make non-committal remarks such as "Interesting" and "What do the rest of you think about that?", regardless of what the students say. (This provides the added "advantage" of reducing the need both for preparation before class and for effort during class, on the part of the professor.) Although pedagogic goals may often require correcting students or challenging their logic, SEF-based performance evaluations provide no incentive to do so, while the risk of reducing student happiness provides a strong incentive not to do so. Some students may take offense, or merely experience negative feelings, upon being corrected, whereas it is unlikely that students would experience such negative feelings as a result of a professor's failure to correct them. Overall, SEF reward professors who tell their students what they want to hear.

As far as I'm concerned, it's much more fun to tell students what they don't want to hear!

The article also makes a comment on the perception of students as consumers; and universities as businesses whose goal is to please the customer. Nothing could be further from the truth.

A fourth reason why SEF are widely used may be the belief that the university is a business and that the responsibility of any business is to satisfy the customer. Whether they measure teaching effectiveness or not, SEF are probably a highly accurate measure of student satisfaction (and the customer is always right, isn't he?). However, even if we agree to view the university as a business, the preceding line of thought rests upon a confusion about the product the university provides. Regardless of what they may themselves think at times, students do not come to college for entertainment; if they did, they might just as well watch MTV for four years and put that on their resumes. Students come to college for a diploma. A diploma is a certification by the institution that one has completed a course of study and thereby been college-educated. But that will mean nothing unless the college or university can maintain intellectual standards. A particular student may be happy to receive an easy A without having to work or learn much, but a college that makes a policy of providing such a product will find its diplomas decreasing in value.

Part of a university's responsibility may be to satisfy its students. But it is also a university's responsibility to educate those individuals whom it is certifying as educated. Unfortunately, those goals are often in conflict.

Here are some interesting comments from Professor Fich at the University of Toronto [Are Student Evaluations of Teaching Fair?].

Finally, I'd like to hear from you on the following point. Why are student evaluations anonymous? Shouldn't we be encouraging students to stand up and take responsibility for their opinions rather than hiding behind anonymity? Yes, I'm well aware of the fact that students think they will be punished for a negative evaluation. This is an unreasonable and illogical fear in most cases (i.e., at a respectable university). The point of a university education is to engage in debate and discussion. Trust me, most Professors can take it. Most students should start learning how to do the same.

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[Image Credit: The cartoon is from the ASSU Anti-Calendar]

Nobel Laureate: Richard Willstätter

 

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1915.

"for his researches on plant pigments, especially chlorophyll"



Richard Martin Willstätter (1872 - 1942) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1915 for solving part of the structure of chlorophyll and the structures of some other plant pigments.

The presentation speech was delivered by Professor O. Hammarsten, Chairman of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
THEME:

Nobel Laureates

By its property of making possible the assimilation of carbon dioxide under the influence of sunlight and hence introducing the synthesis of organic substances in the green parts of the plant, chlorophyll - as is well known possesses extraordinarily great biological significance and has an extremely important task to fulfil in the economy of Nature. The elucidation of the nature and the mode of operation of this substance is therefore a task which is of the highest degree of importance. The difficulties, however, which confront research scientists in this field have been so great that until very recently they have prevented a successful study of the problem of chlorophyll. Willstätter is the first, jointly with several of his students, to have been successful in overcoming these difficulties by working out new and very valuable methods and by extensive investigations carried out with masterly experimental skill. By the new and important discoveries resulting from these investigations he has been able to elucidate in all its essential parts the question of the chemical nature of chlorophyll.

It is true that earlier investigators had observed that chlorophyll contains magnesium, besides other mineral substances. Willstätter, however, has the merit of having been the first to recognize and to prove with complete evidence the fact that magnesium is not an impurity, but is an integral part of the native, pure chlorophyll - a fact of high importance from the biological point of view. He has shown that magnesium is held within the chlorophyll molecule in a manner which is very similar to the way in which iron is held in haemoglobin; this bond is so firm that the magnesium is not liberated even by the action of a strong alkali. On the other hand, it can be removed by an acid without injury to the remainder of the chlorophyll molecule, and the magnesium-free chlorophyll which can be obtained in this way is well suited to certain investigations. Willstätter has made use of this circumstance to test to what extent chlorophyll can be the same in different kinds of plants. Investigations carried out on more than 200 different plants, both phanerogamia and cryptogamia, showed that the chlorophyll was the same in all the kinds so far examined. This chlorophyll is, nevertheless, not a chemically homogeneous substance. It is a mixture of two somewhat different but yet closely related chlorophylls, one of them being blue-green, the other yellowgreen, and the former occurring more richly in the leaves than the latter.

The fact that chlorophyll in the ordinary sense is a mixture of two green pigments had, it is true, already been shown to be probable by Stokes in 1864, and both Tsvett and Marchlevski had brought forward important support for this view. It is Willstätter, however, who has here produced the certain and conclusive proof.

To prepare chlorophyll in an unchanged, pure state and in such large quantities that it can be the subject of complete chemical analysis has of course been one of the most important tasks of chlorophyll research; at the same time, it was one of the most difficult of all. By the successful solution of this task Willstätter has also been able to prepare the two above-mentioned different types of chlorophyll in a pure state and so supply exact proof of their existence. In doing so he has been able to carry out a thorough investigation of the large amount of the various derivatives which can be produced from these two different chlorophylls, and as a result of this means he has brought a desirable clarity and lucidity into a field of chlorophyll chemistry, which was previously very complicated and confused. By elaborating methods for the preparation of pure chlorophyll in rather large quantities he has also created new and rich possibilities for further fruitful research in this field.

The most important part of Willstätter's investigations is, nevertheless, that relating to the detection of the chemical structure of chlorophyll. He has shown that chlorophyll is an ester, which on saponification with alkali can be split up into a previously unknown alcohol called "phytol", which represents about one third of the molecule, and a colour component called "chlorophyllin", containing magnesium, which forms the remaining part. He has more closely investigated these two components both individually and for their transformation and decomposition products. Furthermore, he has found that this splitting-up of chlorophyll into the two mentioned main components can also take place as a result of the action of an enzyme occurring in the leaves, which he has called "chlorophyllase", and hence he has been able to elucidate the nature of the crystallized chlorophyll. He has established that this is not, as some investigators have assumed, the pure, unchanged natural pigment in the leaves. The crystallized chlorophyll is a laboratory product, an alkyl ester, which lacks phytol. The amorphous chlorophyll, containing phytol, is the unchanged natural pigment in the green parts of the plant.

A very important section of Willstätter's work on the chemical structure of chlorophyll is represented by his investigations into the colour components, the "chlorophyllin", and other "phyllins" and derivatives formed from it. These investigations are of particular interest with regard to the question of the relationship between blood pigment and chlorophyll.

From the iron-containing red blood pigment, haemoglobin, substances can be prepared, purple in colour and free from iron, which are known as porphyrins, and the one which has been known longest of these is haematoporphyrin. A substance very closely related to this, with regard to optical properties, has been prepared from a chlorophyll derivative by Hoppe-Seyler, who called this chlorophyll pigment phylloporphyrin on account of the similarity between the two substances. Schunck and Marchlevski have shown later that a chemical relationship does exist between blood pigment and chlorophyll, but in this case, too, it is Willstätter who has conducted the completely conclusive investigations.

In these investigations, which concerned the pigment nucleus both in chlorophyll and in haemoglobin, he has made several new and important observations regarding the pyrroles and their position in this nucleus; in particular, however, he has shown that from these two pigments the same parent porphyrin, "aetioporphyrin", can be prepared, whose molecule has retained the essential characteristics of the pigment nucleus. By doing this he has produced the most interesting and decisive proof of the relationship between the two most biologically important pigments in Nature - haemoglobin and chlorophyll.

He has also prepared in a pure state and studied exhaustively the yellow pigments, the so-called carotenoids, which occur together with chlorophyll in the leaves of plants. By means of the results obtained regarding both these yellow pigments and the chlorophylls he has paved the way for new biological researches into the part played by the different leaf pigments in the assimilation of carbonic acid.

He has also studied with great success another group of plant pigments, namely: the blue and red pigments of flowers, the so-called "anthocyanins". He has isolated the characteristic pigment and investigated its chemical nature from a rather large number of flowers, such as cornflower, roses, pelargonia, larkspur, hollyhock, etc., as well as from some fruits, such as bilberries, black grapes and cranberries. As a result, the anthocyanins have been shown to be glycosides, which can be split up into a kind of sugar - in most cases glucose - and a colour component, a "cyanidin". Willstätter has elucidated the chemical structure of these cyanidins; he has proved in what their difference consists in the various flowers or fruits, and has also proved their close relationship with the yellow pigments, occurring in Nature, of the flavone or flavonol group. By the reduction of one such yellow pigment, quercetin, he has obtained the cyanidin which occurs in roses and cornflowers, and by chemical synthesis he has succeeded in preparing the cyanidin of the pelargonia, pelargonidin. He has shown the dependence of the flower pigments upon the reaction of the plant sap and has thus explained how one and the same anthocyanin can have a different colour in different flowers, as is the case with roses and cornflowers. The anthocyanin is in both cases the same, but in the rose it is bound to a plant acid and is therefore red, whereas in the cornflower it is bound to an alkali and is therefore blue.

By extending his investigations to the yellow pigments of flowers as well, and by quantitative determination of the anthocyanins in certain kinds he has shown that the difference in the colour which the flowers assume in Nature or under the care of the grower depend upon several different circumstances, such as the appearance of several different anthocyanins in the same kind, great variations in anthocyanin content, different reaction of the cell sap and the simultaneous presence of different quantities of yellow pigments, which latter can again differ from one another in types.

In this field of plant-pigment chemistry, Willstätter's investigations can also be regarded as pioneering; the most comprehensive and the most important are, however, his investigations on chlorophyll, by which he has not only succeeded in unravelling the chemical structure of this substance, but also laid the sound scientific foundation for continued successful research into this extremely important field of plant chemistry.

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Tangled Bank #96

 
Martin Rundkvist is hosting the 96th edition of Tangled Bank at Aardvarchaeology [Tangled Bank 96 - Toadally].

Hey everyone, and welcome to the 96th Tangled Bank blog carnival! This is where you can toadally catch up with the best recent blog writing on the life sciences.

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"Ways of Knowing" According to the Union of Concerned Scientists

 
The Union of Concerned Scientists is based in Cambridge MA (USA). The group has released a short Statement on Science, Evolution, and Intelligent Design. The statement is supported by a pamphlet on Science, Evolution, and Intelligent Design.

Most of you have heard about other ways of knowing beside science. UCS has provided a list of those other ways of knowing for our edification. Here it is ...

Ways of knowing used in society include the following:

• Authority: Parents, teachers, community leaders, and physicians are all figures of authority. The level of trust we have in them depends on our personal experiences and access to knowledge about them.
• Belief: God or gods, or other external or internal supernatural powers can impart or support beliefs. There are numerous deities and levels and types of belief within any society.
• Logic: Logic includes tests and rules that help to identify what is true and false. It is an important element of scientific inquiry but is limited by its lack of reference to the natural world.
• Scientific Inquiry: Science provides knowledge based on empirical evidence from the natural world. Science is the only way of knowing that provides explanations that are testable and verifiable. Ideas in science accumulate over time and are subject to revision and change.

You're probably wondering whether the Union of Concerned Scientists have a position on the possible conflict between science and religion.

They do.

For many scientists there is no conflict between science and religion (2)—science explores how things work while religion and philosophy ask why. They can coexist as separate areas of inquiry and even lead to enlightening discussions. Indeed, some mainstream religions (3)—such as the Roman Catholic Church—support the theory of evolution as an explanation of how humans and other organisms arose on Earth. Recent attempts to incorporate religion-based alternatives to evolution in the science classroom have elicited strong reactions by many of these groups.

Our policy makers rely on independent scientific information to make informed decisions that protect our health, safety, and the environment. Unfortunately, a growing level of political and ideological interference threatens the integrity of science (4) in public decision making, with wide-ranging repercussions for our social, economic, and environmental future.

This is a bit confusing. Apparently, some religious beliefs conflict with science and threaten the integrity of science but other religious beliefs do not conflict. I guess it depends on which scientists you talk to.

In footnote (2) they refer to a poll ...

A poll of 460 college and university science professors in Ohio found that 84% thought there was no conflict between accepting the theory of evolution and a belief in God. Science is based on what is termed “methodological naturalism,” a rule of science that limits an explanation of natural phenomenon to natural causes. It has no opinion on the role of spirituality, only that it is not part of science. A related but philosophical view called “materialist or philosophical naturalist,” goes beyond methodological naturalism to say that only natural causes exist (i.e. there is no God). This is an important distinction as accusations that scientists and especially evolutionists are by definition materialist naturalists, and therefore atheists, is common in the intelligent design literature and should be countered.

This isn't very helpful. It's just another version of The Doctrine of Joint Belief. Just because 84% of professors in Ohio don't see a conflict doesn't mean there is no conflict.

The difference between methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism is interesting but not relevant. Besides, their definition is ridiculous. When they say, "'methodological naturalism' [is] a rule of science that limits an explanation of natural phenomenon to natural causes" that leaves the door wide open. All you have to do is declare that something has a supernatural cause and it is automatically outside of science and, therefore, compatible with science. Intelligent Design Creationism not in conflict with science because all the intelligent designing is out of bounds to scientific investigation.

What we really want to know is how many of those 386 science professors believe in things that conflict with scientific explanations of the natural world as most of us understand them.

Do some of them believe in a Jesus who was born of a virgin, walked on water, brought dead people back to life, rose from the dead after being executed by the Romans, and ascended into something called heaven? If so, do they believe that none of those things conflict with science? If those things don't conflict with science then what about the miracle of God creating the universe in six days and making it look old to deceive us? Is that also compatible with science?

Inquiring minds want to know ...

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Matt Nisbet Asks an Embarrassing Question

 
Matt Nisbet asks the following question over on his blog.

If race is a biological fiction, what are the reasons for persistent belief in this social myth?

He answers the question by linking to the opinion of his colleague, Tim Caulfield, a lawyer at the University of Alberta [Why the Biological Fiction of Race Persists].

Now I ask you, dear readers, would you rely on a lawyer to decide whether there was such a thing as races in the species Homo sapiens? The only thing lawyers are good at is framing .... hmmmm.

Personally, I rather ask a biologist [Changing Your Mind: Maybe Human Races Do Exist After All] [Is Race a Biological Concept?] [Genetically Speaking All Races Are Equal].

The title of Matt's posting, "Why the Biological Fiction of Race Persists," leaves no doubt about where his bias lies. Matt has fallen hook line and sinker for the false frame about biological race. Those framers wanted to convince everyone that there was no such thing as biological races in humans in order to advance their political agenda; namely, opposition to racism directed mainly against Africans. Matt is so gullible, here's how he ends his posting ...

What do readers think? Is race a biological fiction? If so, what strategies can we pursue to re-frame the nature of genetic differences in news coverage and public discourse?

That's right, Matt. It's just a framing problem to you isn't it? Do you even give a damn about scientific truth?

Biological races in humans exist, Matt, whether you like it or not. Frame that.

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P.S. Guess whose photo Matt uses to illustrate his point about the biological "fiction" of races?

[Photo Credit: Matthew Nisbet]

Matt Nisbet Endorses Francis Collins for Presidential Science Advisor - The Kiss of Death

 
Some people have suggested that E.O. Wilson or Neil deGrasse Tyson might be good candidates for the next Presidential science advisor. Matt Nisbet doesn't agree [An Endorsement for Francis Collins as Pres. Science Advisor].

Just one problem: Most science popularizers such as Wilson or Tyson don't have the years of government experience to understand the machinations of Federal science policy. Moreover, they have a paper trail of strong opinions on issues that might make appointment politically tough.

Yet there is one person that scores high on all of these dimensions, plus one other major attribute. And that person is Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Project. Not only does Collins have top government experience but he is also a successful popularizer. And perhaps even more importantly, based on his background and writings, he would make a perfect science ambassador to religious America.

Just one problem. Francis Collins may be an evangelical Christian and a good framer of science but does he understand science well enough to be a good science advisor? RPM says "no" and I agree with him [Francis Collins Should not be Pres. Science Advisor].

Not being a scientist, Nisbet thinks it's more important to be a science ambassador to the religious American public than to have the respect of the scientific community. That's "inside the beltway" thinking. Collins does not have strong support from fellow scientists because of his flawed views about biology, as RPM points out, and because of his silly attempt to make science compatible with his evangelical Christianity [Theistic Evolution According to Francis Collins] [A Deluded Scientist].

The last thing we want is a science advisor who doesn't speak for scientists.

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[Photo Credit: Francis Collins discusses “The Language of God”]

Gene Genie #23

 
The 23rd edition of Gene Genie has been posted at ScienceRoll [Gene Genie #23: Paradise of Genomics].

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

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

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Abolish the Grade Point Average

One of the things I'd like to do at my university is abolish the grade point system and just use percentages. We already give percentage grades for each course on our transcripts but these get converted to grade points for the purpose of calculating grade point averages.

The method of conversion is shown in the table below.

What do you think? Is there any good reason to use grade points and grade point averages in university? Do any of you go to schools where the GPA has been abolished?

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Monday's Molecule #57

 
This is one particular form of a very common molecule. You have to name the specific molecule. The common name is sufficient. There will be bonus points to anyone who finds the correct systematic IUPAC name.

There's a direct connection between this type of molecule and Wednesday's Nobel Laureate(s). Your task is to figure out the significance of today's molecule and identify the Nobel Laureate(s) who worked out the preliminary structure of the molecule over half a century ago.

The reward goes to the person who correctly identifies the molecule and the Nobel Laureate(s). Previous winners are ineligible for one month from the time they first collected the prize. There are no ineligible candidates for this week's reward because Sandwalk readers were not very successful in December. The prize is a free lunch at the Faculty Club.

Send your guess to Sandwalk (sandwalk(at)bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca) and I'll pick the first email message that correctly identifies the molecule and the Nobel Laureate(s). Correct responses will be posted tomorrow along with the time that the message was received on my server. I may select multiple winners if several people get it right.

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

UPDATE: There were quite a few responses to this one but most people didn't guess the right molecule. The anticipated correct response was bacteriochlorphyll b. Alex Ling got it, and he also guessed the correct Noble Laureate—the one "who worked out the preliminary structure of the molecule over half a century ago."

THEME:

Nobel Laureates
Note that I'm not going to repeat Nobel Laureates and I already did Hans Fisher. In future editions of Monday's Molecule I'll post a link to all the Nobel Laureates that have been featured on Sandwalk.

More importantly, Bill Chaney noticed that my structure was incorrect. I've made the change above. The structure is wrong in my book so I can't penalize Alex Ling for not knowing that. He is invited to a free lunch on Thursday, January 17th. Bill Chaney will be treated to a free lunch and dinner when he visits Toronto.

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Listen to the Scientists

 
The video below is a short presentation from a website called Listen to the Scientists.

The video is very patriotic (American patriotism) but I guess that's necessary when presenting science to high school students in America. Unfortunately, it means that the videos are worse than useless in other countries.

The video is very good. I highly recommend it for any high school biology class in America. It clearly shows that creationism is a pack of lies.

However, there's one little thing that troubles me. I'm a little annoyed by one of the opening statements (above left). I don't see why it was necessary to make such a strong claim, especially when the truth of the claim is debatable. The people who are interviewed are very knowledgeable about the evolution/creation controversy but it might be a bit of a stretch to say that they are all recognized as scientists who are experts in the field of evolutionary science. Here's the list ...

• Francisco Ayala, Professor of Biological Sciences, UC Irvine (an expert in evolutionary biology)
• David Deamer, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, US Santa Cruz (I don't know him)
• Barbara Forrest, Professor of Philosophy, South Eastern Louisiana University (an expect in the evolution/creation controversy)
• James Hofmann, Professor of History & Philosophy of Science, California State University (probably not a recognized expert in evolutionary biology)
• Kenneth Miller, Professor of Cell Biology, Brown University (an expert in the evolution/creation controversy)
• Kevin Padian, Professor of Integrative Biology, UC Berkeley (an expert in evolutionary biology)
• James L. Powell, Geologist (I don't know if he's an expert in evolutionary biology)
• Eugenie C. Scott, Director NCSE (an expert in the evolution/creation controversy)

We often challenge the credentials of the creationists so we should be very, very careful not to misrepresent the areas of expertise on our side. It wouldn't make any difference if the opening statement in the video referred to "knowledgeable experts in the evolution/creation controversy" instead of "scientists" who are "recognized as experts by the scientific community, in their fields of evolutionary science."

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The Q-Ray Bracelet Optimizes Your Bio-Energy

 
Friday's Urban Legend: FALSE and FRAUDULENT

You've seen it on TV and you've heard the impressive testimonials from people like Ramsay Pang of Mississauga, Ontario (Canada) [Q-Ray Bracelet].

Q-Ray is really wonderful and the most interesting thing is you can tell the difference after you wear it. You can feel it. You can actually feel the difference.

Now I know, dear readers, that you aren't stupid. You never would have fallen for a scam like the Q-Ray bracelet. (The titanium version shown here costs $265.97 (US).) I bet you wish those fradulent scam artists would get their rear ends sued.

Good news! They have been sued and they just lost their appeal in a decision released yesterday by United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. The decision was written by Chief Judge Easterbrook and it's a hoot of a decision [FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION v. QT, INC., Q-RAY COMPANY, BIO-METAL, INC., and QUE TE PARK].

WIRED Magazine recently put the Q-Ray Ionized Bracelet on its list of the top ten Snake-Oil Gadgets. See [10 Great Snake-Oil Gadgets].

The Federal Trade Commission has an even less honorable title for the bracelet’s promotional campaign: fraud. In this action under 15 U.S.C. §§ 45(a), 52, 53, a magistrate judge, presiding by the parties’ consent, concluded after a bench trial that the bracelet’s promotion has been thoroughly dishonest. The court enjoined the promotional claims and required defendants to disgorge some $16 million (plus interest) for the FTC to distribute to consumers who have been taken in. 448 F. Supp. 2d 908 (N.D. Ill. 2006), modified in part by 472 F. Supp. 2d 990 (N.D. Ill. 2007).

And that's just the opening paragraph!

Here's more gems of wisdom from Chief Judge Easterbrook. The defendants said it was unreasonable to be forced to conduct rigorous scientific tests to verify their claims. The Judge agrees that in some cases such tests aren't necessary because the claims are quite reasonable and based on sound science. He gives the example of claiming that a bandage with iodine will prevent infection.

But how could this conclusion assist defendants? In our example the therapeutic claim is based on scientific principles. For the Q-Ray Ionized Bracelet, by contrast, all statements about how the product works—Q-Rays, ionization, enhancing the flow of bio-energy, and the like—are blather. Defendants might as well have said: “Beneficent creatures from the 17th Dimension use this bracelet as a beacon to locate people who need pain relief, and whisk them off to their homeworld every night to provide help in ways unknown to our science.”

Although it is true, as Arthur C. Clarke said, that “[a]ny sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” by those who don’t understand its principles (“Profiles of the Future” (1961)), a person who promotes a product that contemporary technology does not understand must establish that this “magic” actually works. Proof is what separates an effect new to science from a swindle. Defendants themselves told customers that the bracelet’s efficacy had been “test-proven”; that statement was misleading unless a reliable test had been used and statistically significant results achieved. A placebocontrolled, double-blind study is the best test; something less may do (for there is no point in spending $1 million to verify a claim worth only $10,000 if true); but defendants have no proof of the Q-Ray Ionized Bracelet’s efficacy. The “tests” on which they relied were bunk. (We need not repeat the magistrate judge’s exhaustive evaluation of this subject.) What remain are testimonials, which are not a form of proof because most testimonials represent a logical fallacy: post hoc ergo propter hoc. (A person who experiences a reduction in pain after donning the bracelet may have enjoyed the same reduction without it. That’s why the “testimonial” of someone who keeps elephants off the streets of a large city by snapping his fingers is the basis of a joke rather than proof of cause and effect.)

Apparently there was one study suggesting that people who wore the bracelet felt better. This is an example of the placebo effect, as the court notes. Is that good enough to overturn the conviction?

Defendants insist that the placebo effect vindicates their claims, even though they are false—indeed, especially because they are false, as the placebo effect depends on deceit. Tell the patient that the pill contains nothing but sugar, and there is no pain relief; tell him (falsely) that it contains a powerful analgesic, and the perceived level of pain falls. A product that confers this benefit cannot be excluded from the market, defendants insist, just because they told the lies necessary to bring the effect about.

Isn't this a clever argument? The placebo effect is beneficial to the patient and in order for the placebo to be effective you have to lie about the benefits of the Q-Ray bracelet. Therefore, this isn't fraud.

The court didn't buy that argument.

We appreciate the possibility that a vague claim—along the lines of “this bracelet will reduce your pain without the side effects of drugs”—could be rendered true by the placebo effect. To this extent we are skeptical about language in FTC v. Pantron I Corp., 33 F.3d 1088 (9th Cir. 1994), suggesting that placebo effects always are worthless to consumers. But our defendants advanced claims beyond those that could be supported by a placebo effect. They made statements about Q-Rays, ionization, and bio-energy that they knew to be poppycock; they stated that the bracelet remembers its first owner and won’t work for anyone else; the list is extensive.

One important reason for requiring truth is so that competition in the market will lead to appropriate prices. Selling brass as gold harms consumers independent of any
effect on pain. Since the placebo effect can be obtained from sugar pills, charging $200 for a device that is represented as a miracle cure but works no better than a dummy pill is a form of fraud. That’s not all. A placebo is necessary when scientists are searching for the marginal effect of a new drug or device, but once the study is over a reputable professional will recommend whatever works best.

Medicine aims to do better than the placebo effect, which any medieval physician could achieve by draining off a little of the patient’s blood. If no one knows how to cure or ameliorate a given condition, then a placebo is the best thing going. Far better a placebo that causes no harm (the Q-Ray Ionized Bracelet is inert) than the sort of nostrums peddled from the back of a wagon 100 years ago and based on alcohol, opium, and wormwood. But if a condition responds to treatment, then selling a placebo as if it had therapeutic effect directly injures the consumer. See Kraft, Inc. v. FTC, 970 F.2d 311, 314 (7th Cir. 1992) (a statement violates the FTC Act “if it is likely to mislead consumers, acting reasonably under the circumstances, in a material respect”).

Physicians know how to treat pain. Why pay $200 for a Q-Ray Ionized Bracelet when you can get relief from an aspirin tablet that costs 1¢? Some painful conditions do not respond to analgesics (or the stronger drugs in the pharmacopeia) or to surgery, but it does not follow that a placebo at any price is better. Deceit such as the tall tales that defendants told about the Q-Ray Ionized Bracelet will lead some consumers to avoid treatments that cost less and do more; the lies will lead others to pay too much for pain relief or otherwise interfere with the matching of remedies to medical conditions. That’s why the placebo effect cannot justify fraud in promoting a product. Doctor Dulcamara was a charlatan who harmed most of his customers even though Nemorino gets the girl at the end of Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore.

We need more judges like this.

CBC's Marketplace exposed the latest Q-Ray scam where they moved to Canada and backed off some of the more outrageous claims of health benefits.

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[Hat Tip: Rebecca at Memoirs of a Skepchick (The Q-Ray gets ionized!)]

National Academies: Science, Evolution and Creationism

The National Academies (Science, Engineering, Medicine) (USA) have just published their latest book on the evolution/creationism controversy. You can download it for free on their website [Science, Evolution and Creationism].

Like the previous versions, this one is quite well done. It explains evolutionary concepts correctly and gives clear examples of the evidence supporting the fact of evolution. The book—actually a large pamphlet—describes the various forms of creationism and why they are rejected by science.

I was troubled by one part of the book describing the compatibility of science and religion. It's only two paragraphs plus three pages of quotations but it promotes the fallacy of the Doctrine of Joint Belief. This fallacy makes a virtue out of compartmentalization. It says that because scientist X is religious, it follows that religion and science are compatible. Similarly, because religious leader Y, accepts evolution, it follows that science and religion are not in conflict.

While preparing to blog about this fallacy, my daughter Jane alerted me to a piece in today's New York Times [Evolution Book Sees No Science-Religion Gap]. The article in the New York Times is written by Cornelia Dean who has previously written about the compatibility of science and religion [Scientists Speak Up on Mix of God and Science].

In today's article, Cornelia Dean briefly reviews Science, Evolution and Creationism. She says,

But this volume is unusual, people who worked on it say, because it is intended specifically for the lay public and because it devotes much of its space to explaining the differences between science and religion, and asserting that acceptance of evolution does not require abandoning belief in God.

...

The 70-page book, “Science, Evolution and Creationism,” says, among other things, that “attempts to pit science and religion against each other create controversy where none needs to exist.” And it offers statements from several eminent biologists and members of the clergy to support the view.

I think it's unfortunate that the New York Times article places so much emphasis on this part of the book but the authors of the book¹ must have known what they were doing. Too bad they were misguided.

Here's what they wrote in Science, Evolution and Creationism,

Acceptance of the evidence for evolution
can be compatible with religious faith.

Today, many religious denominations accept that biological evolution has produced the diversity of living things over billions of years of Earth’s history. Many have issued statements observing that evolution and the tenets of their faiths are compatible. Scientists and theologians have written eloquently about their awe and wonder at the history of the universe and of life on this planet, explaining that they see no conflict between their faith in God and the evidence for evolution. Religious denominations that do not accept the occurrence of evolution tend to be those that believe in strictly literal interpretations of religious texts.

Science and religion are based on different aspects of human experience. In science, explanations must be based on evidence drawn from examining the natural world. Scientifically based observations or experiments that conflict with an explanation eventually must lead to modification or even abandonment of that explanation. Religious faith, in contrast, does not depend only on empirical evidence, is not necessarily modified in the face of conflicting evidence, and typically involves supernatural forces or entities. Because they are not a part of nature, supernatural entities cannot be investigated by science. In this sense, science and religion are separate and address aspects of human understanding in different ways. Attempts to pit science and religion against each other create controversy where none needs to exist.

There are two fallacies here. The first one is the one I already alluded to (the Doctrine of Joint Belief). Just because you can find scientists and theologians who proclaim that evolution is compatible with religious faith doesn't make it so. You need to examine their understanding of evolution and also what they mean by "religious faith."

As you might have guessed, the book trots out quotations from the usual suspects, Francis Collins and Kenneth Miller². Their words of wisdom appear on a page with the title "Excerpts of Statements by Scientists Who See No Conflict Between Their Faith and Science." The book makes some amends, in my opinion, by including the following statement on that page.

Scientists, like people in other professions, hold a wide range of positions about religion and the role of supernatural forces or entities in the universe. Some adhere to a position known as scientism, which holds that the methods of science alone are sufficient for discovering everything there is to know about the universe. Others ascribe to an idea known as deism, which posits that God created all things and set the universe in motion but no longer actively directs physical phenomena. Others are theists, who believe that God actively intervenes in the world. Many scientists who believe in God, either as a prime mover or as an active force in the universe, have written eloquently about their beliefs.

The good part about that statement is that it mentions deism, which is a form of religion where the conflict between science and religion really is minimized. The bad parts are that theists who promote interventionist Gods are touted as examples of those who see no conflict between science and religion. (The reason why Theistic Evolutionists don't "see" a conflict is because they choose to look the other way [Theistic Evolution: The Fallacy of the Middle Ground].)

The other bad part is that atheists are equated with the philosophical position of scientism. That's an unnecessary complication. It would have been sufficient, and preferable, to state that many scientists do not believe in supernatural beings. They could have gone on to state that many of those non-believers see a conflict between science and the supernatural.

The second fallacy in the two paragraphs quoted above is something I call the Fallacy of the Undetectable Supernatural. The authors of Science, Evolution and Creationism repeat the silly argument that "supernatural entities cannot be investigated by science." Why not? The only kind of supernatural beings that could never be investigated by science are those that exist entirely as figments of the imagination and have absolutely no effect on the real world as we know it. As soon as your God intervenes in the real world his actions become amenable to scientific investigation.

In this, I agree with Stephen Jay Gould's description of Non-Overlapping Magisteria (NOMA). He states very clearly that religion violates NOMA as soon as it makes a claim for an interventionist God (Gould, 1999). In that case religion is no longer compatible with science.

The first commandment for all versions of NOMA might be summarized by stating: "Thou shalt not mix the magisteria by claiming that God directly ordains important events in the history of nature by special interference knowable only through revelation and not accessible to science." In common parlance, we refer to such special interference as "miracle"—operationally defined as a unique and temporary suspension of natural law to reorder the facts of nature by divine fiat.

                                    Stephen Jay Gould (1999) pp. 85-85

The National Academies are violating NOMA unless they specifically refer to belief in Gods that do not perform miracles of any kind. There are very few religions that believe in non-interventionist Gods who never perform miracles. Therefore, it is much more scientifically accurate to say that science conflicts directly with almost all religious beliefs, including those of Ken Miller and Francis Collins.

This is an important error in Science, Evolution and Creationism since Americans have a right to expect that the National Academies can define the proper magisterium of science. Instead, the National Academies, like NCSE, has taken the easy way out by redefining science as that field of study that is not in conflict with the religious views of Francis Collins and Ken Miller.

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1. The book was produced by a committee headed by Fancisco Ayala.

2. Who appointed Collins and Miller to be the flame carriers for evolution?

Gould, S.J. (1999) Rock of Ages: Science and Religion in the fullness of Life The Ballantine Publishing Group, New York (USA).

Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing

 
A growing number of for-profit companies are selling genetic testing services directly to customers who pay anywhere from $100 t0 $1000 for their personal genetic profile.

Several blogs have been actively promoting these private companies and encouraging people to sign up for their services. The cheerleader bloggers have been among the first to submit thier DNA for testing. In general, there has been little discussion about the ethical implications of direct to consumer, for-profit, genetic testing and little discussion about scientific issues such as accuracy. There has been a bit of talk about misleading advertising [23andMe - More Hype from Genetic Testing Services].

One of the more responsible bloggers has been Hsien-Hsien Lei. She is very open about her employment with DNA Direct. She recently posted an article outlining the concerns of the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) [American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) Statement on Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing].

The ASHG, like many of us, is worried about this trend to commercialization of genetic testing. They've issued some guidelines on direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing (Hudson et al. 2007).

DTC testing has emerged during a period of rapid growth in the number of genetic tests. Today, there are more than 1,100 genetic tests available clinically, and several hundred more are available in research settings. Although most genetic testing is currently available only through a health care provider, an increasing variety of tests are being offered DTC, often without any health care provider involvement or counseling. The range of tests available DTC is broad, from tests for single-gene disorders, such as cystic fibrosis, to tests for predisposition to complex, multifactorial diseases, such as depression and cardiovascular disease. In addition to providing test results DTC, some companies also make recommendations regarding lifestyle changes on the basis of these results, such as changes in diet or use of nutritional supplements.

....

Recommendations

I. Transparency

To promote transparency and to permit providers and consumers to make informed decisions about DTC genetic testing, companies must provide all relevant information about offered tests in a readily accessible and understandable manner.

• Companies offering DTC genetic testing should disclose the sensitivity, specificity, and predictive value of the test, and the populations for which this information is known, in a readily understandable and accessible fashion.
• Companies offering DTC testing should disclose the strength of scientific evidence on which any claims of benefit are based, as well as any limitations to the claimed benefits. For example, if a disease or condition may be caused by many factors, including the presence of a particular genetic variant, the company should disclose that other factors may cause the condition and that absence of the variant does not mean the patient is not at risk for the disease.
• Companies offering DTC testing should clearly disclose all risks associated with testing, including psychological risks and risks to family members.
• Companies offering DTC testing should disclose the CLIA certification status of the laboratory
  performing the genetic testing.
• Companies offering DTC testing should maintain the privacy of all genetic information and disclose their privacy policies,
  including whether they comply with HIPAA.
• Companies offering DTC testing and making lifestyle, nutritional, pharmacologic, or other treatment recommendations on the basis of the results of those tests should disclose the clinical evidence for and against the efficacy of such interventions, with respect to those specific recommendations and indications.

II. Provider Education

To ensure that providers are aware that genetic tests are being provided DTC and that some of these tests may lack analytic or clinical validity, professional organizations should educate their members regarding the types of genetic tests offered DTC, so that providers can counsel their patients about the potential value and limitations of DTC testing.

• Professional organizations should disseminate information to their members explaining what DTC testing is, what tests are offered DTC, and the potential benefits and limitations of such testing for patients.

III. Test and Laboratory Quality

To ensure the analytic and clinical validity of genetic tests offered DTC and to ensure that claims made about these tests are truthful and not misleading, the relevant agencies of the federal government should take appropriate and targeted regulatory action.

• CMS should create a genetic testing specialty under CLIA, to ensure the analytic validity of tests and the quality of genetic-testing laboratories.
• CMS should ensure that all DTC genetic-testing laboratories are certified under CLIA and should maintain a publicly accessible list containing the certification status of laboratories.
• The federal government should take steps to ensure the clinical validity of DTC tests that make health-related or health care-affecting claims.
• The FTC should take action against companies that make false or misleading claims about DTC tests.
• The FDA and the FTC should work together to develop guidelines for DTC testing companies to follow, to ensure that their claims are truthful and not misleading and that they adequately convey the scientific limitations for particular tests.
• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) should conduct a study on the impact of DTC testing on consumers, to assess whether and to what extent consumers are experiencing benefit and/or harm from this method of test delivery. The CDC should also conduct a systematic comparison between the claims made in DTC advertising and the scientific evidence available to support these claims.

Similar controls need to be put in place in other countries since these testing services are marketed on the internet where they are not restricted to American citizens.

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Hudson, K., Javitt, G., Burke, W., Byers, P., with the ASHG Social Issues Committee (2007) ASHG Statement on Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing in the United States. Obstetricians and Gynecology 110:1392-1395. [PubMed]

Why biology is harder than physics

 
Rosie Redfield says [Why biology is harder than physics].

Beginning university students in the sciences usually consider biology to be much easier than physics or chemistry. From their experience in high school, physics has math and formulae that must be understood to be applied correctly, but the study of biology relies mainly on memorization. But in reality biology is much more complex than the physical sciences, and understanding it requires more, not less, brain work.

Read the rest over at RRTeaching. Rosie makes a point that I've also tried to make, but she does a better job.

Rosie is a Professor at the second best (in my opinion) university in Canada.

For another perspective, check out the views of a physics-trained graduate student (Philip Johnson) who works here at the best university in Canada [Biology is harder than physics?]. After expressing some skepticism, Philip closes with ...

I hope someone in the social sciences gets wind of this and belittles biologists. Sociology is obviously more complex than biology, so it clearly requires more brainpower to be a social scientist than a biologist, right?

Uh, no Philip. Sociology is the study of the behavior of one particular biological species (Homo sapiens). It's a teeny, tiny subset of biology.

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Changing Your Mind: Are Science and Religion Compatible?

 
Clay Shirky used to think that science and religion were compatible. That doesn't mean all religious beliefs, of course, because some of them like Young Earth Creationism are not compatible with science. He has changed his mind ... [Religion and Science].

Since we couldn't rely on the literal truth of the Bible, we needed a fallback position to guide our views on religion and science. That position was what I'll call the Doctrine of Joint Belief: "Noted Scientist X has accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior. Therefore, religion and science are compatible." (Substitute deity to taste.) You can still see this argument today, where the beliefs of Francis Collins or Freeman Dyson, both accomplished scientists, are held up as evidence of such compatibility.

Belief in compatibility is different from belief in God. Even after I stopped believing, I thought religious dogma, though incorrect, was not directly incompatible with science (a view sketched out by Stephen Gould as "non-overlapping magisteria".) I've now changed my mind, for the obvious reason: I was wrong. The idea that religious scientists prove that religion and science are compatible is ridiculous, and I'm embarrassed that I ever believed it. Having believed for so long, however, I understand its attraction, and its fatal weaknesses.

Read the rest of the article to find out why the "Doctrine of Joint Belief" is not based on logic.

In the war between "arrogant" atheists and accommodationist atheists (formerly called "appeasers"), Clay Shirky has shifted sides.

Saying that the mental lives of a Francis Collins or a Freeman Dyson prove that religion and science are compatible is like saying that the sex lives of Bill Clinton or Ted Haggard prove that marriage and adultery are compatible. The people we need to watch out for in this part of the debate aren't the fundamentalists, they're the moderates, the ones who think that if religious belief is made metaphorical enough, incompatibility with science can be waved away. It can't be, and we need to say so, especially to the people like me, before I changed my mind.

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Changing Your Mind: Are Scientific Theories Falsifiable?

 
Rebecca Goldstein is a philosopher at Havard University (USA). She used to think that Karl Popper's view of how science is done was correct. Now she's changed her mind ... [Falsifiability]

Said Popper: The criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability.

For most scientists, this is all they need to know about the philosophy of science. It was bracing to come upon such a clear and precise criterion for identifying scientific theories. And it was gratifying to see how Popper used it to discredit the claims that psychoanalysis and Marxism are scientific theories. It had long seemed to me that the falsifiability test was basically right and enormously useful.

But then I started to read Popper’s work carefully, to teach him in my philosophy of science classes, and to look to scientific practice to see whether his theory survives the test of falsifiability (at least as a description of how successful science gets done). And I’ve changed my mind.

....

...scientists don’t, and shouldn’t, jettison a theory as soon as a disconfirming datum comes in. As Francis Crick once said, “Any theory that can account for all of the facts is wrong, because some of the facts are always wrong.” Scientists rightly question a datum that appears to falsify an elegant and well-supported theory, and they rightly add assumptions and qualifications and complications to a theory as they learn more about the world. As Imre Lakatos, a less-cited (but more subtle) philosopher of science points out, all scientific theories are unfalsifiable. The ones we take seriously are those that lead to “progressive” research programs, where a small change accommodates a large swath of past and future data. And the ones we abandon are those that lead to “degenerate” ones, where the theory gets patched and re-patched at the same rate as new facts come in.

Many people agree with Rebecca Goldstein but I still hear from lots of Popperians. It's very annoying to see my fellow scientists attack Intelligent Design Creationism on the grounds that it doesn't conform to Popper's idea of science—it's not falsifiable. That's true but irrelevant. Much of the best kinds of science also don't conform to Popper's ideas.

Much of evolutionary theory is not falsifiable in the true Popperian sense.

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Changing Your Mind: Are Humans Evolving?

Steven Pinker, a psychologist at Harvard University (USA) used to think that humans had stopped evolving. Now he's changed his mind ... [Have Humans Stopped Evolving?]

Ten years ago, I wrote:

For ninety-nine percent of human existence, people lived as foragers in small nomadic bands. Our brains are adapted to that long-vanished way of life, not to brand-new agricultural and industrial civilizations. They are not wired to cope with anonymous crowds, schooling, written language, government, police, courts, armies, modern medicine, formal social institutions, high technology, and other newcomers to the human experience.

And:

Are we still evolving? Biologically, probably not much. Evolution has no momentum, so we will not turn into the creepy bloat-heads of science fiction. The modern human condition is not conducive to real evolution either. We infest the whole habitable and not-so-habitable earth, migrate at will, and zigzag from lifestyle to lifestyle. This makes us a nebulous, moving target for natural selection. If the species is evolving at all, it is happening too slowly and unpredictably for us to know the direction. (How the Mind Works)

...

New results from the labs of Jonathan Pritchard, Robert Moyzis, Pardis Sabeti, and others have suggested that thousands of genes, perhaps as much as ten percent of the human genome, have been under strong recent selection, and the selection may even have accelerated during the past several thousand years. The numbers are comparable to those for maize, which has been artificially selected beyond recognition during the past few millennia.

If these results hold up, and apply to psychologically relevant brain function (as opposed to disease resistance, skin color, and digestion, which we already know have evolved in recent millennia), then the field of evolutionary psychology might have to reconsider the simplifying assumption that biological evolution was pretty much over and done with 10-000 — 50,000 years ago.

I'm glad he's changed his mind but it's for the wrong reasons.

Evolution, human or otherwise, cannot ever be stopped. Pinker, like the true adaptationist he is, cannot conceive of any evolution mechanism other than natural selection. Even if his original writings were correct, all he said is that natural selection may have stopped. Evolution by random genetic drift—the most frequent form of evolution—never stops.

It's interesting to see Pinker make the connection between the presumed stoppage of human evolution after the shift from hunter-gatherer mode, and evolutionary psychology. I never really thought about it before but that connection is a basic assumption in most of the the just-so stories promoted by evolutionary psychologists. If there has been lots of recent selection in human populations then it becomes more difficult to attribute our current "primitive" behavior to old adaptations that took place 100,000 years ago.

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[Photo Credit: CivilBrights]

Changing Your Mind: Alan Alda Converts from Atheism to Agnosticism

 
Alan Alda has changed his mind. He used to be an atheist but now he prefers to call himself an agnostic [ So far, I've changed my mind twice about God].

But, slowly I realized that in the popular mind the word atheist was coming to mean something more: a statement that there couldn't be a God. God was, in this formulation, not possible, and this was something that could be proved. But I had been changed by eleven years of interviewing six or seven hundred scientists around the world on the television program Scientific American Frontiers. And that change was reflected in how I would now identify myself.

The most striking thing about the scientists I met was their complete dedication to evidence. It reminded me of the wonderfully plainspoken words of Richard Feynman who felt it was better not to know than to know something that was wrong. The problem for me was that just as I couldn't find any evidence that there was a god, I couldn't find any that there wasn't a god. I would have to call myself an agnostic. At first, this seemed a little wimpy, but after a while I began to hope it might be an example of Feynman's heroic willingness to accept, even glory in, uncertainty.

I think he's dead wrong about the meaning of the word atheism. I think it means that you have not accepted theism and therefore you are "without a belief in God." I see the word atheism as similar to words like "a-toothfairyism" or "a-SantaClausism." You don't believe in Santa Claus so you are an "a-SantaClausist." It does not mean you are committed to the concept that there could not possibly be a Santa Claus.

It would be silly to label yourself an agnostic with respect to belief in Santa Claus. Nobody, especially Christians, goes around announcing that they are agnostic about the existence of the Greek Gods. You don't believe in them, full stop.

There is a version of agnosticism that's perfectly acceptable. John Wilkins, among others, promotes this definition of agnosticism. True agnostics claim that it is impossible to prove one way or the other whether God exists, just as it's impossible to prove one way or the other whether the tooth fairly exists. All rational people are agnostics in this sense. Some of them are also atheists. Alan Alda appears to be both an atheist and an agnostic, just like Richard Dawkins. Alan Alda is a wimp for letting non-atheists redefine atheism and then abandoning his position because of that incorrect definition.

It's not an either/or situation, in my opinion (Wilkins disagrees). You can, and should, be both an atheist and an agnostic.

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[Photo Credit: M*A*S*H]

Changing Your Mind: The Limits Of Darwinian Reasoning

 
Marc D. Hauser is a biologist and psychologist at Harvard University (USA). He is beginning to see the error of his adaptationist ways [The Limits Of Darwinian Reasoning].

Let me be clear about the claim here. I am not rejecting Darwin’s emphasis on comparative approaches, that is, the use of phylogenetic or historical data. I still practice this approach, contrasting the abilities of humans and animals in the service of understanding what is uniquely human and what is shared. And I still think our cognitive prowess evolved, and that the human brain and mind can be studied in some of the same ways that we study other bits of anatomy and behavior. But where I have lost the faith, so to speak, is in the power of the adaptive program to explain or predict particular design features of human thought.

Although it is certainly reasonable to say that language, morality and music have design features that are adaptive, that would enhance reproduction and survival, evidence for such claims is sorely missing. Further, for those who wish to argue that the evidence comes from the complexity of the behavior itself, and the absurdly low odds of constructing such complexity by chance, these arguments just don’t cut it with respect to explaining or predicting the intricacies of language, morality, music or many other domains of knowledge.

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Changing Your Mind: The Obligations and Responsibilities of The Scientist

 
Leon Lederman is a physicist and a Nobel Laureate. He has changed his mind about the The Obligations and Responsibilities of The Scientist.

The role of the Professor, reflecting the mission of the University, is research and dissemination of the knowledge gained. However, the Professor has many citizenship obligations: to his community, State and Nation, to his University, to his field of research, e.g. physics, to his students. In the latter case, one must add to the content knowledge transferred, the moral and ethical concerns that science brings to society. So scientists have an obligation to communicate their knowledge, popularize, and whenever relevant, bring his knowledge to bear on the issues of the time. However, additionally, scientists play a large role in advisory boards and systems from the President's Advisory system all the way to local school boards and PTAs. I have always believed that the above menu more or less covered all the obligations and responsibilities of the scientist. His most sacred obligation is to continue to do science. Now I know that I was dead wrong.

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Changing Your Mind: Maybe Human Races Do Exist After All

 
Mark Pagel is an evolutionary biologist who used to buy into the idea that human races did not exist [We Differ More Than We Thought].

The last thirty to forty years of social science has brought an overbearing censorship to the way we are allowed to think and talk about the diversity of people on Earth. People of Siberian descent, New Guinean Highlanders, those from the Indian sub-continent, Caucasians, Australian aborigines, Polynesians, Africans — we are, officially, all the same: there are no races.

Now, in 2007, he changed his mind ...

What this all means is that, like it or not, there may be many genetic differences among human populations — including differences that may even correspond to old categories of 'race' — that are real differences in the sense of making one group better than another at responding to some particular environmental problem. This in no way says one group is in general 'superior' to another, or that one group should be preferred over another. But it warns us that we must be prepared to discuss genetic differences among human populations.

Good for him. Better late than never, I say.

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Changing Your Mind: The Fallacy of Hypothesis Testing

 
The Edge has asked people to describe whether they have changed their mind about anything and if so, why? It's the Annual Question for 2008.

Some of the replies are worth discussing. For example, Irene Pepperbreg has changed her mind about the meaning of the scientific method [The Fallacy of Hypothesis Testing]. I think she makes some good points, notably ....

Third, I've learned that the scientific community's emphasis on hypothesis-based research leads too many scientists to devise experiments to prove, rather than test, their hypotheses. Many journal submissions lack any discussion of alternative competing hypotheses: Researchers don't seem to realize that collecting data that are consistent with their original hypothesis doesn't mean that it is unconditionally true. Alternatively, they buy into the fallacy that absence of evidence for something is always evidence of its absence.

I'm all for rigor in scientific research — but let's emphasize the gathering of knowledge rather than the proving of a point.

I think this is a serious problem in science today. There are too many papers being published without any serious discussion of competing explanations. There are too many papers that fail to critically examine their own basic assumptions or the possible flaws in their experiments.

There may be a reason for this behavior—scientists don't want to draw attention to possible flaws in their work for fear that the granting agency will find out—but that doesn't excuse it. Scientific rigor demands that you present both sides of a scientific debate in a fair and unbiased manner. The failure to address the arguments of your opponents is nothing less than failing to be a good scientist.

Similarly, the failure to recognize the possible flaws in one's own explanation is the mark of a bad scientist.

While Irene Pepperbreg may be right about the flaws in today's method of doing science, I'm not prepared to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Hypothesis-based science is still important. You just have to form the right hypotheses and put your work in context. The problem, in my opinion, isn't that hypothesis testing is a fallacy: the problem is that it's not being done properly.

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Open Lab 2007

 
Open Lab 2007 is about to be published. The book contains the best articles from science blogs in 2007.

There were 486 articles nominated and the judges selected 53 for publication [Open Lab 2007 - the winning entries for you to see!]. The winners come from a wide selection of science blogs; 20 of them are part of the SEED group (ScienceBlogs^TM) and 33 are from other science blogs.

For the second year in a row there won't be any of my Sandwalk postings in the Open Lab anthology.

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Oops! The Rapture Didn't Happen

 
There was supposed to be a rapture last month but the prediction didn't come true. Either that or it did come true and only a small number of people were raptured, not including the prophet.

In case anyone is interested, here's how our prophet explains his little mistake [Are You Rapture Ready]. I assume he's apologizing to all those people who gave away everything in the expectation that they would soon be in heaven.

I offered to take some of those worldly goods off their hands but I couldn't find anyone who was expecting to be raptured. I guess I don't hang out with the right kinds of people.

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Iowa Caucuses

 
In a few days about 100,000 people will get together in Iowa to elect the next President of the United States. At least I think that's what the caucuses are all about. It's all very confusing. Apparently there are some other states like New Hampshire and South Carolina that have to confirm the Iowa result before it becomes official.

American politics is so confusing. None of this stuff is in the Constitution so I can't check the rules.

Anyway, since those few Iowa citizens are going to have such an important role in choosing the new leader of the free world (sic) I thought you might be interested in seeing how one of them is struggling to make up his mind. John Logsdon of Sex, genes & evolution has written about his quandary [Caucus Conundrum: Considering Compelling Candidates]. Why not pay him a visit and help him decide?

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You Think *You* Have a Tough Job? ....

 

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[Hat Tip: Canadian Cynic]