You can skip to the two minute mark after watching for one minute.
[Hat Tip: Friendly Atheist]
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Shopping Is a Throwback to the Days of Cavewomen
David Holmes is a Fellow in the Division of Psychology and Social Change at Manchester Metropolitan University in Manchester (UK). His latest "research" results were reported in the Telegraph: Shopping is 'throwback to days of cavewomen'.Shoppers are using instincts they learnt from their Neanderthal ancestors, researchers have found.1Now, assuming that women did all the gathering (they probably didn't), and assuming everyone lived in caves (they didn't), it still seems improbable that you could gather much food by strolling around the inside of a cave.
Dr David Holmes, of Manchester Metropolitan University, said skills that were learnt as cavemen and women were now being used in shops.
He said: "Gatherers sifted the useful from things that offered them no sustenance, warmth or comfort with a skill that would eventually lead to comfortable shopping malls and credit cards.
"In our evolutionary past, we gathered in caves with fires at the entrance.
"We repeat this in warm shopping centres where we can flit from store to store without braving the icy winds."
The study was commissioned by Manchester Arndale shopping centre in response to a rise in January visitors, according to the Daily Express.
Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon hits the nail on the head [The next evolutionary step for evo psych].
I’m curious to know what kind of study they commissioned with what kind of data collection, because right now it appears that they just paid someone with a PhD to make shit up. Of course, evo psych has been on about that for forever, so it was just a matter of time before marketers saw the potential---if you can make something up and call it science because of the sexist content and the thin veneer of authority granted by doctorate degrees, why not go whole hog?Making shit up is NOT science. It's closer to stand-up comedy.
Here's an example of comedy/satire by MissPrism.
When cave-ladies ground up roots and seeds to make pies for their cave-husbands, a white colour indicated the food was free of toxic contaminants. Cave-ladies accordingly evolved to value white above all other colours, which is why women today all long for a white wedding dress!In spite of the fact that I like the conclusion, this isn't science. MissPrism's story is just as credible as the stories made up by evolutionary psychologists and that's a damning conclusion. It suggests that the entire field of evolutionary psychology is practically worthless as a science—maybe when we kick all the the evolutionary psychologists out of the universities, they can make a living by writing comedy.
However, cave-ladies also needed to be able to tell when their cave-pie was cooked to a delicious golden brown. Women's visual systems therefore make a far more acute distinction between white and brown than those of men, who in our evolutionary past only saw the pies in their cooked state. For this reason, men can't see dirt and should never do laundry.
1. All available scientific evidence indicates that Neanderthals were not our ancestors.
[Hat Tip: Hopeful Monster at Chance and Necessity: Malls, caves, and evolutionary psychology]
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Salmon with Peas on Toast
When my kids were growing up I used to make them one of my favorite meals—Mom's Creamed Salmon on Toast. We usually enjoyed it when Ms. Sandwalk was away from home.Now that they are adults, my children never lose an opportunity to make fun of Dad's cooking and how they were forced to eat salmon when Mom was away.
Now the joke's on them ... or at least on my son, because ...
Teenage boys who eat fish at least once a week achieve higher intelligence scores. Looks like boys get smart by eating salmon. It explains why my son is so smart. It also explains why my daughter never appreciated salmon and peas on toast. It doesn't work on girls.1
1. I don't believe the study. It's ridiculous to think that eating fish is all it takes to make you smarter. If that were true then Newfoundlanders would be smarter than cowboys or vegetarians ... hmmmmm, come to think of it ....
P.S. Just in case there is someone out there who doesn't get my sense of humor, here's a link to a posting about my daughter [Another Dr. Moran]. And just so he doesn't feel left out, here's a link to my son's website [Gordon Moran].
Richard Dawkins on "Purpose"
One of the most astonishing discoveries of modern science is that the universe does not exhibit any signs of "purpose" or "goals." This single conclusion is probably more responsible for the profound conflict between science and religion than any other. The attractiveness of religion was that it seemed to answer the "why" questions that science, presumably, could not answer. Now, modern science tells us that the question was meaningless.
That evolution is a blind, purposeless process is difficult to grasp, yet it is a fundamental part of understanding biology. The concept is explicitly mentioned in college level textbooks, although some introductory biology textbooks place less emphasis on it than you will find in more advanced courses.
Here's how Douglas Futuyma describes purpose in Evolution (2005) (p. 12).
The concept of purposeless, or accidental, evolution comes naturally to those evolutionary biologists who are used to thinking about random genetic drift. Those biologists tend to be comfortable with the idea that the tape of life will never be replayed.
But, as Richard Dawkins notes at the end of his reading, there are other biologists for whom "the illusion of purpose is so powerful that [they] use the assumption of good design as a working tool." Many of these biologists are not completely comfortable with the idea that the tape of life may not play out the same. They tend to see convergence, and other things, as evidence of some sort of inevitable purpose (design) in the history of life. This is, of course, materialistic design, not supernatural design.
This point of view crops up in terms such as "the evolution of evolvability," "facilitated variation," and even "self-organization."
In addition to this subtle form of "purpose" we see clear evidence of true purpose in animals with sophisticated brains. Those animals clearly develop goal-oriented behaviors.
Dawkins addresses these points in his current lecture tour by making a distinction between different definitions of purpose.
That evolution is a blind, purposeless process is difficult to grasp, yet it is a fundamental part of understanding biology. The concept is explicitly mentioned in college level textbooks, although some introductory biology textbooks place less emphasis on it than you will find in more advanced courses.
Here's how Douglas Futuyma describes purpose in Evolution (2005) (p. 12).
Above all, Darwin's theory of random, purposeless variation acted on by blind, purposeless natural selection provided a revolutionary new kind of answer to almost all questions that begin with "Why?" Before Darwin, both philosophers and people in general answered "Why?" questions by citing purpose. Since only an intelligent mind, with the capacity for forethought, can have purpose, questions such as "Why do plants have flowers?" or "Why are there apple trees?"—or diseases, or earthquakes—were answered by imagining the possible purpose that God could have had in creating them. This kind of explanation was made completely superfluous by Darwin's theory of natural selection. The adaptations of organisms—long cited as the most conspicuous evidence of intelligent design in the universe—could be explained by purely mechanistic causes. For evolutionary biologists, the flower of the magnolia has a function but not a purpose. It was not designed in order to propagate the species, much less to delight us with its beauty, but instead came into existence because magnolias with brightly colored flowers reproduced more prolifically than magnolias with less brightly colored flowers. The unsettling implication of this purely material explanation is that, except in the case of human behavior, we need not invoke, nor can we find any evidence for, any design, goal, or purpose anywhere in the natural world.Richard Dawkins made the same point in his book River Out of Eden (1995) (pp. 96-98). Here he is reading those pages.
It must be emphasized that all of science has come to adopt the way of thought that Darwin applied to biology. Astronomers do not seek the purpose of comets or supernovas, not chemists the purpose of hydrogen bonds. The concept of purpose plays no part in scientific explanations.
The concept of purposeless, or accidental, evolution comes naturally to those evolutionary biologists who are used to thinking about random genetic drift. Those biologists tend to be comfortable with the idea that the tape of life will never be replayed.
But, as Richard Dawkins notes at the end of his reading, there are other biologists for whom "the illusion of purpose is so powerful that [they] use the assumption of good design as a working tool." Many of these biologists are not completely comfortable with the idea that the tape of life may not play out the same. They tend to see convergence, and other things, as evidence of some sort of inevitable purpose (design) in the history of life. This is, of course, materialistic design, not supernatural design.
This point of view crops up in terms such as "the evolution of evolvability," "facilitated variation," and even "self-organization."
In addition to this subtle form of "purpose" we see clear evidence of true purpose in animals with sophisticated brains. Those animals clearly develop goal-oriented behaviors.
Dawkins addresses these points in his current lecture tour by making a distinction between different definitions of purpose.
The Purpose of PurposeWesley Elsberry was at the Dawkins lecture in Michigan on March 2nd and he has posted a lengthy summary on The Panda's Thumb: Richard Dawkins and “The Purpose of Purpose”. It's very helpful for those of us who couldn't attend one of these lectures.
"We humans are obsessed with purpose. The question, “What is it for?” comes naturally to a species surrounded by tools, utensils and machines. For such artifacts it is appropriate, but then we go too far. We apply the “What is it for?” question to rocks, mountains, stars or the universe, where it has no place.
How about living things? Unlike rocks and mountains, animals and plants, wings and eyes, webbed feet and leaves, all present a powerful illusion of design. Since Darwin, we have understood that this, too, is an illusion. Nevertheless, it is such a powerful illusion that the language of purpose is almost irresistible. Huge numbers of people are seriously misled by it, and biologists in practice use it as a shorthand.I shall develop two meanings of “purpose”. Archi-purpose is the ancient illusion of purpose, a pseudo-purpose fashioned by natural selection over billions of years. Neo-purpose is true, deliberate, intentional purpose, which is a product of brains. My thesis is that neo-purpose, or the capacity to set up deliberate purposes or goals, is itself a Darwinian adaptation with an archi-purpose.
Neo-purpose really comes into its own in the human brain, but brains capable of neo-purposes have been evolving for a long time. Rudiments of neo-purpose can even be seen in insects. In humans, the capacity to set up neo-purposes has evolved to such an extent that the original archi-purpose can be eclipsed and even reversed. The subversion of purpose can be a curse, but there is some reason to hope that it might become a blessing."
Monday's Molecule #111: Winners
UPDATE: I guess the hint was too much of a giveaway. The molecule is insulin from pig (Sus scrofa). Pig pancreas was the major source of insulin for diabetics before recombinant DNA. It is very similar to human insulin.
The Nobel Laureate is Fred Sanger who won in 1958 for determining the sequence of insulin. It was his first of two Noble Prizes.
The winners are David Schuller of Cornell University by one minute over Dima Klenchin, and Adam Santoro of the University of Toronto.
Identify this molecule. Be as specific as possible, including the species. Explain why that species was chosen. Here's a hint: 1b17.
There's are several possible Noble Prizes associated with this molecule. I'm looking for the prize that was awarded for determining the primary structure.
The first person to identify the molecule and the Nobel Laureate wins a free lunch at the Faculty Club. Previous winners are ineligible for one month from the time they first won the prize.
There are six ineligible candidates for this week's reward: Dima Klenchin of the University of Wisconsin. Alex Ling of the University of Toronto, James Fraser of the University of California, Berkeley, Guy Plunket III from the University of Wisconsin, Deb McKay of Toronto and Maria Altshuler of the University of Toronto.
Dima has offered to donate a free lunch to a deserving undergraduate so I'm going to continue to award an additional free lunch to the first undergraduate student who can accept it. Please indicate in your email message whether you are an undergraduate and whether you can make it for lunch.
THEME:
Nobel Laureates
Send your guess to Sandwalk (sandwalk (at) bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca) and I'll pick the first email message that correctly identifies the molecule and names the Nobel Laureate(s). Note that I'm not going to repeat Nobel Prizes so you might want to check the list of previous Sandwalk postings by clicking on the link in the theme box.
Correct responses will be posted tomorrow. I reserve the right to select multiple winners if several people get it right.
A Letter from the President of CIHR
There's a crisis in science funding in Canada. The budgets of the main granting councils are being cut by $148 million over the next three years.
Laura Frost is the President of the Canadian Society of Biochemistry, Molecular & Cellular Biology (CSBMCB). She recently wrote to Prime Minister Harper to draw his attention to the seriousness of this decision.
Dear Mr. Harper;CSBMCB has also published a letter from the President of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). Read this letter ... comments below.
On behalf of the Canadian Society of Biochemistry, Molecular & Cellular Biology (CSBMCB), I would like to congratulate the Government of Canada for a number of measures in the 2009 Budget, including the more than $1.5 billion investment in science and technology. The CSBMCB is pleased to see in the budget $750 million for the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) in support of research infrastructure and $87.5 million for the temporary expansion of the Canada Graduate Scholarship Program as well as continued funding for Genome Canada.
However, the lack of additional new investment in Canada’s granting agencies Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), NSERC and SSHRC is of great concern. Without increased investments in operating funds to support doing research, Canada could lose the competitive edge that previous investments in students, scientists and infrastructure have achieved. Operating monies are the funds that allow our gifted students and other trainees to become competitive at an international level and leaders in the next generation of scientists. Without these crucial increases, fewer labs will be funded and fewer students, scholarships notwithstanding, will be trained in the diverse areas of science that define “interdisciplinary research”. Targeted research is one essential component of the funding process, but as a country, we need a strong background in basic research that feeds into technological development and planning for crises ranging from SARS to mountain pine beetles to environmental concerns in the oil sands.
Over the past several years, many leaders and national and provincial partners dedicated to advancing research in Canada have advocated for increased investments in discovery research through the granting councils to match the growth in infrastructure and research capacity through the CFI and the Canada Research Chairs Program respectively. Failure to align these funding streams at the federal level has created a serious imbalance in the supply and demand in health research and research generally, which will, in turn, increasingly affect our capacity to retain and recruit the best scientists.
The biotechnology sector is also suffering from a lack of investment capital. This industry serves as a primary receptor for much of Canadian research related to health, agriculture, manufacturing, environmental and resource-based emerging technologies. Fifty percent of Canadian companies indicate they will be closing or selling off their operations to international partners by the end of this year. Canada cannot afford to ignore the competitive environment other nationals will be adopting to help grow and stimulate their knowledge-based industries.
The economic impact of Canadian health research is significant. On an annual basis our industry generates $12 billion in economic activity and provides employment and training for over 10,000 people across Canada. The sector also supports more than 20,000 scientists, clinical investigators and other researchers and staff.
Canada has many of the right ingredients to succeed in the knowledge-based economy including a highly skilled workforce and some of the best research facilities in the world. The CSBMCB looks forward to working with the Government of Canada in laying the foundation for a stronger and more sustainable economy of the future in which research and development in the health and life sciences are a top national priority.
Sincerely,
Laura Frost, Ph.D.
President, CSBMCB
MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT OF CIHRThis is unacceptable. It sounds like a letter from a political lackey and not from someone who is really concerned about scientific research in Canada. Why can't Alain Beaudet mention that he is fighting on behalf of all Canadian scientists to increase CIHR funding in order to better support basic research? Is it because he isn't fighting?
Following the January 26, 2009 Speech from the Throne, the Government of Canada tabled its 2009 Budget, Canada’s Economic Action Plan in the House of Commons on January 27. The Budget outlined the Government’s economic stimulus package designed to bolster the Canadian economy and provide support for Canadians as the world’s economies work through the current economic crisis. The Budget 2009 speech and documents can be found on the Finance Canada website at: http://www.fin.gc.ca.
Research plays a key role in improving the health of Canadians. That’s why, over the past three years, the Government has increased the annual base budget of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) by over $142 million. This year CIHR plans to spend approximately $917 million on peer-reviewed health research projects conducted at universities, hospitals and research centres across Canada.
I have summarized below the details of Budget 2009 as it relates to CIHR.
First, CIHR will receive $35M over the next three years for Canada Graduate Scholarships (CGS) to fund an additional 200 doctoral scholarships, valued at $35, 000 each per year for three years beginning in 2009-10, and an additional 400 master’s scholarships, valued at $17, 500 each for one year, in both 2009-10 and 2010-11.
Second, Budget 2009 also provided the results of the Government’s Strategic Review process. CIHR was one of the 21 Government Departments and Agencies that undertook a Strategic Review of its programs and services. The objective of the process was to assess whether programs:
• are effective and efficient;
• meet the priorities of Canadians; and
• are aligned with federal responsibilities.
The results of the process are as follows:
• CIHR funding of the Open Team Grant program will be discontinued. To respect current commitments, reductions will be phased in over the next three years with $1.5M in 2009-10, $5.5M in 2010-11, and $27.6M in 2011-12 and thereafter; and
• Funding for the Intellectual Property Mobilization (IPM) program will be discontinued. To respect CIHR’s current commitments, the annual reductions of $2M will commence in 2010-11 and end in 2011-12.
In addition, funding under the Indirect Costs Program will be reduced in proportion to reductions in the above direct cost programs. The relative ratio of funding for the direct and indirect costs will therefore remain essentially the same as prior to the Strategic Review.
In summary, taking into account the new investments for the Canada Graduate Scholarships and the strategic reallocations, CIHR’s budget for 2009-10 will increase by $12.5M, bringing our total budget to $978.8M.
Sincerely,
Alain Beaudet, MD, PhD
President
Canadian Institutes of Health Research
We need someone who will stand up and oppose government underfunding, not someone who will make excuses for it. If the current President does not have the confidence of the scientists who are supported by CIHR then perhaps we should find a new CIHR President who does have their confidence.
Monday, March 09, 2009
Happy Birthday PZ!
Today is PZ Meirirz birthday. So far he's not having a good one [No More Birthday] so don't bother to send him an email message.
Wait until tomorrow.
Monday's Molecule #111
Identify this molecule. Be as specific as possible, including the species. Explain why that species was chosen. Here's a hint: 1b17.
There's are several possible Noble Prizes associated with this molecule. I'm looking for the prize that was awarded for determining the primary structure.
The first person to identify the molecule and the Nobel Laureate wins a free lunch at the Faculty Club. Previous winners are ineligible for one month from the time they first won the prize.
There are six ineligible candidates for this week's reward: Dima Klenchin of the University of Wisconsin. Alex Ling of the University of Toronto, James Fraser of the University of California, Berkeley, Guy Plunket III from the University of Wisconsin, Deb McKay of Toronto and Maria Altshuler of the University of Toronto.
Dima has offered to donate a free lunch to a deserving undergraduate so I'm going to continue to award an additional free lunch to the first undergraduate student who can accept it. Please indicate in your email message whether you are an undergraduate and whether you can make it for lunch.
THEME:
Nobel Laureates
Send your guess to Sandwalk (sandwalk (at) bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca) and I'll pick the first email message that correctly identifies the molecule and names the Nobel Laureate(s). Note that I'm not going to repeat Nobel Prizes so you might want to check the list of previous Sandwalk postings by clicking on the link in the theme box.
Correct responses will be posted tomorrow. I reserve the right to select multiple winners if several people get it right.
Comments will be blocked for 24 hours.
Good Quality Journalism Sells Newspapers
On Saturday night we celebrated my nephew's birthday at Pic Nic on Queen St. East. I won't tell you how many years we were celebrating ... let's just say that I remember babysitting Mark when I was 18 years old. He's old enough to fend for himself (on most days).We got to discussing science journalism—he reads my blog. Mark was defending (poorly
) the idea that newspapers, TV, etc. are profit-making companies and, consequently, it is unreasonable to expect them to be truthful and accurate. Sensationalism sells. I was defending the idea that telling the truth about science isn't necessarily going to hurt profits. Accurate science can be just as exciting as gross distortions of the truth. Maybe even more exciting.We had a really fun time discussing the topic, aided, perhaps, by the excellent wine list at the restaurant. I wish I could remember all the points I made. I think some of them were brilliant.
Along comes André Picard of The Globe and Mail to back up my case better than I was able to do on Saturday night. (You lose again, Mark!
) Here's his bio.André Picard is the public health reporter at The Globe and Mail, where he has been a staff writer since 1987.I think we can assume he's an expert on health journalism in the same way that we have experts in science writing.
He has received much acclaim for his writing, including the Michener Award for Meritorious Public Service Journalism, the Canadian Policy Research Award, the Atkinson Fellowship for Public Policy Research and the Award for Excellence in Women’s Health Reporting. In 2002, he received the Centennial Prize of the Pan-American Health Organization as the top public health reporter in the Americas.
Does André Picard try and sell papers by sensationalizing topics like vaccination, prescription drugs, complementary medicines and "health" foods?
Let's check out his article in last Thursday's paper: The Internet has changed the nature of scientific debate.
If you read scientific literature and health research with an open mind and still conclude that vaccines are not poisons, that chelation therapy will not cure heart disease, that realigning someone's chakra is not going to clear up a bladder infection, or that strange concoctions of vitamins and minerals cannot cure bipolar disorder - all theories that have pretty broad followings on the Web - then you are dismissed as an agent of an evil empire.This is an example of honest, skeptical reporting and I think the general public will be just as interested in reading about the exposure of quacks as in reading articles that promote their claims.
Those who promote these bogus therapies - and often profit from them - will, paradoxically, dismiss you as a paid shill for Big Pharma, oppressive government or some other branch of the devilish military-industrial complex.
Doctors, nurses, pharmacists, pharmacologists, biochemists, immunologists, geneticists and journalists are not to be trusted. They are all on the take.
Medical journals that publish peer-reviews research: They are nothing but promotional tools for Big Pharma and researchers are their puppets and profiteers.
So who do you trust?
Well, you depend on chiropractors and Hollywood stars to give you advice about vaccinating your baby; you trust the guy at the health-food store to offer up a sure-fire cure for arthritis; and you take as gospel the e-mail that warns ominously that if new food safety rules are adopted by government, storm troopers will soon be busting down your front door to seize the chamomile tea.
In the world of cyberspace science, the best evidence is anecdote and the more fantastical the claims, the larger the following they seem to garner.
In other words, accuracy and the truth can sell newspapers. And the public benefits.
Let's have more of it in the science section.
[Photo Credit: Dr. Louise Nadeau and Mr. André Picard as masters of ceremonies at the 2006 Fifth Annual Canadian Health Research Awards celebration.]
[Hat Tip: Propter hoc: The most sensible thing I’ve read in months and RichardDawkins.net]
Did biologists really think that human evolution stopped?
John Hawks has responded to my posting on the Discover article. In that posting [Are Humans Still Evolving?] I criticized Hawks and his colleagues for claiming that the consensus view among scientists is that human evolution is over.
Recall that the opening sentence of the article is ...
My position is that the consensus view is often that found in the leading textbooks. The textbooks on evolution always discuss recent examples of human evolution; such as lactose tolerance, skin color, and shifts in the frequency of blood type alleles. Most of them spend time discussing races and diversity—usually with the goal of dispelling false concepts of race, but always with the assumption that humans have, and are, evolving.
Take Evolution by Barton et al. (2007), for example. They have sections on the evolution of humans by random genetic drift and natural selection. One section on page 775 is headed: Natural Selection Has Shaped, and Is Shaping, Human Evolution. The standard examples are explained.
Barton et al. discuss what happens when negative selection is relaxed due to medical advances and they point out, correctly, that this will lead to the accumulation of formerly deleterious alleles by drift. They even address the very issue that Hawks writes about (p. 775).
I guess we can conclude that the author of the Discover article didn't get her straw man version of human evolution from John Hawks. Where, then, did she get it? Maybe it was from Henry Harpending, John's former postdoc advisor and collaborator.
Harpending has just published a book with Gregory Cochran, another collaborator on the "acceleration" paper. The opening chapter of The 10,000 Year Explosion is Overview: Conventional Wisdom.
My own view is that humans are evolving (duh!) and that the evidence for accelerated evolution is unconvincing at this time, but intriguing. I think this is the consensus view among evolutionary biologists. If I were trying to educate the general public that's what I would tell them.
I would not tell them that a revolution in our thinking about human evolution is in progress.
Recall that the opening sentence of the article is ...
For decades the consensus view—among the public as well as the world’s preeminent biologists—has been that human evolution is over.John replies with: Did biologists really think that human evolution stopped?.
Yet despite the abundant evidence that human biologists have opposed the idea of recent human evolution, I still think that McAuliffe's opening sentence does construct a "straw man" argument. Many prominent examples don't prove that there has been a decades-long consensus that human evolution stopped. And our research is not about human evolution merely continuing -- we think it actually accelerated. Evidence that some biologists thought that human evolution stopped is interesting. But the reality is that almost no one has thought that human evolution accelerated.So, John and I agree that McAuliffe's article was misleading when she suggested that the consensus view was that human evolution had stopped. It was misleading in spite of the fact that one can find quotations from some prominent scientists who might have held this view.
My position is that the consensus view is often that found in the leading textbooks. The textbooks on evolution always discuss recent examples of human evolution; such as lactose tolerance, skin color, and shifts in the frequency of blood type alleles. Most of them spend time discussing races and diversity—usually with the goal of dispelling false concepts of race, but always with the assumption that humans have, and are, evolving.
Take Evolution by Barton et al. (2007), for example. They have sections on the evolution of humans by random genetic drift and natural selection. One section on page 775 is headed: Natural Selection Has Shaped, and Is Shaping, Human Evolution. The standard examples are explained. Barton et al. discuss what happens when negative selection is relaxed due to medical advances and they point out, correctly, that this will lead to the accumulation of formerly deleterious alleles by drift. They even address the very issue that Hawks writes about (p. 775).
It is unclear how effective natural selection has been in our recent history. On the one hand, our relatively low effective population size (Ne ~ 104) makes it impossible for us to avoid accumulating mildly deleterious mutations, and there is evidence that more such mutations have accumulated along our lineage than along that of our sister species, the chimpanzee. However, it could be that our low effective population size actually reflects the effects of a large number of selective sweeps, and therefore the success of natural selection. (Recall that Ne is really a measure of the inverse rate of genetic drift. It can be reduced by both low population size and selective sweeps.) When a favorable mutation is swept to fixation, it may carry with it more weakly deleterious alleles that happen to be tightly linked to the original mutation. Thus, we can make two radically different interpretations of the observed low genetic diversity within our species: on the one hand, that it reflects a low population size in the past, implying inefficient selection, or on the other, that it is a side effect of intense adaptive selection.Since this is what evolutionary biologists are teaching undergraduates, I think it's fair to say that the consensus among evolutionary biologists is that humans are evolving. Indeed, most evolutionary biologists know that it is impossible to stop evolution.
I guess we can conclude that the author of the Discover article didn't get her straw man version of human evolution from John Hawks. Where, then, did she get it? Maybe it was from Henry Harpending, John's former postdoc advisor and collaborator.
Harpending has just published a book with Gregory Cochran, another collaborator on the "acceleration" paper. The opening chapter of The 10,000 Year Explosion is Overview: Conventional Wisdom.Scientists have long believed that the "great leap forward," some 40,000 t0 50,000 years ago in Europe, marked the advent of cultural evolution and the end of significant biological evolution in humans. At this time, the theory goes, humans developed culture, as shown by the sophisticated new tools, art, and forms of personal decoration that emerged in the Upper Paleolithic. Culture then freed the human race from the pressures of natural selection: We made clothes rather than growing fur and built better weapons rather than becoming stronger.I assume John Hawks will agree that this "conventional wisdom" is a straw man. Perhaps Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending are referring to a subset of scientists when they talk about arrested human evolution. Perhaps they are only referring to adaptationists, or maybe just adaptationist anthropologists?
The argument that the advent of behavioral modernity somehow froze human evolution is dependent on the notion of a static environment. In other words, if a population—of humans, wolves, crabgrass, you name it—experiences a stable environment for a long time, it will eventually become genetically well matched to that environment. Simple genetic changes then do little to improve individual fitness, because the species is close to an optimum.
My own view is that humans are evolving (duh!) and that the evidence for accelerated evolution is unconvincing at this time, but intriguing. I think this is the consensus view among evolutionary biologists. If I were trying to educate the general public that's what I would tell them.
I would not tell them that a revolution in our thinking about human evolution is in progress.
Epigenetics, Lamarck, and Darwin.
Ryan Gregory at Genomicron educates us about Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de la Marck and Charles Darwin [Lamarck didn't say it, Darwin did.What people insist on dubbing "Lamarckian inheritance" in the context of epigenetics is actually closer to the view held by Darwin than by Lamarck....
International Women's Day
Yesterday (Sunday) was International Women's Day.Ms. Sandwalk and I celebrated by buying a new monitor for her computer. The monitor was designed and marketed by an American company and assembled in Asia (probably by women) using parts that were produced in five or six other countries.
Hey, don't knock it! What did you do to celebrate international women yesterday?
Apparently men in Russia celebrate a little differently.
The Value of Science in Canada
Canadian Girl Postdoc in America writes about The Value of Science in Canada. Here's a teaser ... read it all.Stephen Harper (the Prime Minister of Canada) is, as far as I'm concerned, has an underlying ideology that he weasels into every policy. While I may be a granola eating birkie-wearing tree hugger, Harper is a neo-con who lives and dies by the market. He won't listen to hard-done-by stories of the 'little people' and his natural inclination is toward rigid conservative policies. Stephen Harper's closest advisor (Tom Flanagan) believes in the teachings of Leo Strauss, a man who taught that people "are too stupid to make informed decisions about their political affairs. Elite philosophers must decide on affairs of state for us." Strauss also believed that the ruling elite should hide the truth from the public -- Strauss's "noble lie" -- in order to protect the citizens from themselves.
The comparison between Harper and Bush is stark and explains why Canadian scientists are fearful about the future of science.
[Hat Tip: Canadian Cynic: Chicks with brains]
Saturday, March 07, 2009
The Streetcar We Desire
Last night we rode the atheist streetcar for about an hour and a half through downtown Toronto. Nobody reacted to the sign. That's probably a good thing.
Thanks to Chris, the Freethought Association of Canada, and The Centre for Inquiry for organizing the event and the bus campaign.
The Untenability of Theistic Evolution
A reader has alerted me to an essay by Bart Klink, a Dutch atheist [The Untenability of Theistic Evolution].
I think that from all the arguments mentioned above, the believer, and especially the Christian, is on the horns of a dilemma. The one horn is that he takes his religion, including its holy book, seriously, which leads to scientific conflicts. The other horn is that he avoids all conflict with science, which reduces his creation story to myth and leads to deism or atheism. Conservative Christians often choose the first horn, with scientific untenability as consequence. Proponents of theistic evolution are forced to choose the latter horn, with philosophical and theological untenability as consequence. Besides this, the theistic conception of an omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good God is hardly compatible with the process of evolution.I agree with the main points of the article. Most versions of theistic evolution still conflict with science in one way or another and the only way to avoid conflict entirely is to adopt some form of deism.
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