22 messages from creationists

Buzzfeed asked creationists at the Bill Nye/Ken Ham debate to write a question or comment to people who support science. (The photos of these people, and their comments, are here.)

Some of them are just astoundingly stupid. ("If we come from monkeys then why are there still monkeys?" Really? Frankly, it's hard to believe that even a creationist is that ignorant.)

But in the above video, Steve Shives answers all of their questions, and does it in the nicest way possible.

Really, I couldn't do that. ("Does not the second law of thermodynamics disprove evolution?" What, did you think that scientists somehow forgot about that? If it were that easy to disprove evolution, don't you think someone would have pointed that out by now?)

Maybe I would have started out polite, but by the time I got to the claim that the Bible is a "theory," or that theories are "by definition... not testable, observable, nor repeatable," I'd be spitting fire. How could you be that ignorant of science, people? We live in the most technologically-advanced society on Earth! How could you know nothing about science?

But as I say, Shives is just incredibly polite about it. I don't know how he does it. Venaloid made a video about this, too, and his manner is a little more like what I'd expect from people like me. :)

I like how Jaclyn Glenn did this, too. She requested photos of questions/comments in the same format as the creationists used:



Those are ordinary people responding, and they're as diverse as you'd expect. But all in all, they do a pretty good job of asking tough questions, don't you think?

___
Edit: I'm not going to make a separate post on this, but check out these translations of the creationists' questions. It's pretty funny.

Evolution, scientific ignorance, and biblical cherry-picking

This is from episode #838 of The Atheist Experience TV show, hosted by Matt Dillahunty and John Iacoletti on November 3, 2013.

The caller is just remarkably ignorant - not just about evolution, but about the very concept of race (which is a social concept far more than a scientific one). Did whites and blacks come from the same ape? What kind of question is that? It's so stupid, you can see it even took Matt Dillahunty by surprise.

Incidentally, that stuff about Charles Darwin and the 'skull-hunters' of Australia can easily be found on the Internet, but it seems to be just Creationist crap. Europeans - Christians - were killing aborigines in Australia long before Darwin's On the Origin of Species, and racism certainly existed before that.

By modern standards, Darwin was a racist, sure,... just like everyone else in the 19th Century. But he opposed slavery, and he was actually progressive for his time. Not that that has anything to do with his theory of natural selection, of course. He could have been a serial killer or a cannibal, and that wouldn't mean that his ideas about evolution were necessarily wrong.

Creationists, though, continually try to smear Darwin with such stuff, though it's hard to imagine why they think that will accomplish anything. Modern biology owes a lot to Charles Darwin, but we've moved far beyond what Darwin ever dreamed of. After all, it's been more than 150 years. Science, unlike religion, progresses. Heck, Darwin didn't even know about DNA!

But 150 years after The Origin of Species, Americans are still this ignorant about the very foundation of modern biology. Indeed, Republicans are going backwards in their scientific illiteracy, with fewer believing in evolution all the time (despite zero controversy in science about the basic fact of evolution). It's just incredible, isn't it?

BTW, this is from Exodus 21, which Matt mentions (I picked the 'New Revised Standard Version' of the Bible this time, pretty much at random):

When a slave-owner strikes a male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies immediately, the owner shall be punished. But if the slave survives for a day or two, there is no punishment; for the slave is the owner’s property.

And here's Leviticus 25:

As for the male and female slaves whom you may have, it is from the nations around you that you may acquire male and female slaves. You may also acquire them from among the aliens residing with you, and from their families that are with you, who have been born in your land; and they may be your property. You may keep them as a possession for your children after you, for them to inherit as property. These you may treat as slaves, but as for your fellow Israelites, no one shall rule over the other with harshness.

Of course, the Old Testament doesn't count, right? Gee, I wonder why it's included in the Bible at all, then. Um,... isn't that supposed to be the same 'God'?

And if the Old Testament doesn't count, what's with all the effort of erecting Ten Commandments monuments on public property (not to mention citing it when opposing gay rights)? Or is it only the parts of the Old Testament which have become embarrassing these days, as human beings have finally advanced beyond such thinking, which don't count?

Well, you know, some of us have advanced beyond the need to believe in magic at all.

What is cancer?

PZ Myers has written a post called What are oncogenes? and I want to reblog the first part of that, because it's such a clear, easy-to-understand description of cancer:

Cancer is not a creative, original disease; it has not been honed by ages of evolution to craft novel lines of attack on your body. Instead, it’s an opportunistic thief. Cancer misuses and perverts existing processes in your cells to send them out of control. Everything cancer does is simply the same thing your cells normally do, only amplified and unconstrained, driven by damage to the genes that would normally regulate their behavior.

Here’s a metaphor, a car with a dangerous defect. It has acquired a glitch in the accelerator so that every time you start it up, it immediately roars up to full speed, as if you’d floored the pedal. The problem hasn’t created anything new in the car, it’s just taken something you normally need to do, that is, regulate the speed of the machine, and stripped you of all ability to control it. That’s what an oncogene does; it is a gene that is normally involved in controlling the rate of cell proliferation, for instance, and a mutation has broken it in such a way that it now tells the cell to divide as rapidly as possible.

Now if you were driving down the freeway and suddenly your accelerator were stuck and you couldn’t slow it down, you’d have alternative strategies to stop (and so does the cell). You could hit the brakes or shift gears or turn off the ignition key. Cancers acquire another set of mutations that destroy the ability to shut off cell processes, analogous to breaking the brake pedal or snapping off the gear shift handle. These genes that can block the effects of out-of-control cell regulators are called tumor suppressors, and I’ll write about those at another time. Today I focus on oncogenes, regulators of the cell that must be damaged by mutation to produce an excessive response.

The first concern that comes to everyone’s mind is that you don’t want to have your cells running amuck — no one wants cancer. Just as you can do your best to maintain your car, you can also live sensibly — eat in moderation, avoid carcinogens or other behaviors that expose you to radiation, and get regular checkups — to reduce the likelihood of deleterious mutations. But they can happen anyway, through no fault of your own. Every time your cells divide, there is a very small chance of an error in replication that inserts a mutation into an oncogene. Just existing, even while doing everything exactly right to maximize your health, brings with it a base chance for a mutation. Given normal rates of cell division, every single one of you reading this is going to acquire about 20,000 DNA lesions today and every day. Almost every one of them will be patched up by DNA repair mechanisms (you have no idea how important DNA repair is to your continued health), but even so, one will occasionally slip through — over your lifetime, your cells will acquire an estimated 10,000 mutations. Live long enough, playing these odds, and cancer is essentially inevitable.

So cancer is fundamentally a chance process. There is no reason people get cancer, no purpose behind it, and everyone is susceptible. Some behaviors can increase the odds — smoking, failing to use sunblock — and you can also inherit genetic predispositions that increase the likelihood of acquiring a full set of mutations that lead to cancer, but ultimately, no one is at fault for cancer.

Fascinating, isn't it? Myers continues with details about oncogenes, if you're interested. (Well, he is a biology professor.) But when I read this, all I could think was,... is it any wonder that evolution is the foundation of modern biology?

Keep in mind that he's not talking about sex cells here, not specifically. Cancer isn't hereditary (though the susceptibility to certain cancers can be), because most of these mutations are to other parts of the body.

But it's a numbers game: 20,000 DNA lesions every day! Only a tiny fraction of those slip through your body's repair mechanisms, but those add up to around 10,000 unrepaired mutations in your lifetime (obviously, depending on how long you live, among other things). Given the numbers - and the reality of 7 billion people on the planet - even long odds will give results that are relatively common (just like the fact that we see many lottery winners, even though our own odds of winning any lottery are pathetic).

Evolution occurs for similar reasons: regular mutations (but these in cells where they do affect reproduction) over long periods of time (sometimes, millions of generations). Most of those have no effect, and most of the remainder are deleterious. But given high enough numbers, even a very small chance can produce an advantageous result eventually.

Of course, results are only beneficial given the circumstances. There's a lot more to evolution than just mutations! A mutation has to be beneficial to that specific organism in those specific circumstances - and even then, it will just increase its odds of survival, its odds of successful reproduction, not guarantee anything.

But in an isolated population, such a mutation will have a chance to spread. Meanwhile, mutations continue. Evolution doesn't happen like magic, as Creationists claim (and, ironically, as their god supposedly created everything), but building on what has come before - in each separate group of each separate species.

Well, I'm getting off the subject here, aren't I? (Not too unusual, for me.) And I'm not a biologist myself, so I'm hardly qualified to explain such things. But I certainly liked this description of cancer.

And, you know, I really have to think that our susceptibility to lottery scams is based on that same difficulty with odds and large numbers which makes so many people doubt evolution, too.

Time to face reality, Darwinists

(Jesus and Mo)

Yes, Ray Comfort has a new video out which will "shatter the faith of the average believer in evolution."

Really, Banana Man? Like how you proved 'God' based on how perfect a domesticated fruit is? You see, Ray Comfort is so ignorant about science he didn't even realize that the wild banana is not what you find in your grocery stores.

But this is the guy who's going to disprove evolution? I'm sure the Nobel Prize Committee is paying close attention. :)

From the Christian News Network:

A major evangelistic ministry is preparing to launch a 30-minute documentary that Christian leaders say will offer a “devastating,” “lights out” challenge to the evolutionary worldview. ...

The main premise behind “Evolution vs. God” is that top evolutionary scientists cannot convincingly support their theory, and instead rely heavily on unfounded assumptions. Even when Comfort personally interviews influential evolutionists from major universities in the film (such as well-known atheist PZ Myers), they are unable to satisfyingly answer Comfort’s prodding questions.

“As you will see on “Evolution vs. God,”” Comfort stated, “not one of the experts could give me a whisper of evidence for Darwinian evolution. The movie is going to shatter the faith of the average believer in evolution, and strengthen the faith of every Christian.”

There's a reason why this talks about the opinions of Christian leaders, rather than biologists, because biologists actually know something about evolution.

Here, for example, is "well-known atheist" - and biology professor - PZ Myers:

I was one of those scientists. NO, I did not disagree with Dawkins about evolution or the evidence for evolution; NO, nothing I said provided any support to creationist claims; NO, there is not a lack of evidence for evolution.

What actually happened is that I briefly discussed the evidence for evolution — genetics and molecular biology of fish, transitional fossils, known phylogenies relating extant groups, and experimental work done on bacterial evolution in the lab, and Ray Comfort simply denied it all — the bacteria were still bacteria, the fish were still fish. I suspect the other scientists did likewise: we provided the evidence, Ray Comfort simply closed his eyes and denied it all.

And, of course, Comfort took those interviews, selected a few sentences out of context, and put them in his video to back up what he already believed - and has been trying to convince others his entire adult life.

Why would you listen to a religious leader about science, anyway? Why wouldn't you listen to scientists? Scientists at least know something - generally, a lot - about their own fields of expertise.

Western scientists were also overwhelmingly Christian when Darwin first proposed natural selection as the mechanism for an evolution they already could see in the fossil record. Christian churches, of course, all opposed it. Would 'God' choose such a horrible, bloodthirsty, wasteful process for his creation?

But scientists were convinced by the evidence, which has just gotten more and more overwhelming in the 150 years since then. How overwhelming? Well, overwhelming enough that most mainstream Christian denominations officially accept Darwinian evolution now, too.

Sure, they weasel around it. They claim that human evolution must have been "guided" by their god, despite the lack of evidence for that - and plenty of evidence against it.

But just as they were forced to accept that the Earth revolved around the Sun, despite what the Bible says (since arresting Galileo and threatening him with death didn't stop the progress of science), they were forced to accept the reality of evolution, too - though they don't like it much.

So you can accept science without giving up superstition, though you might have to modify your beliefs a bit. You'd also have to ignore the implications of evolution, and you'll certainly have to ignore the successes of evidence-based thinking, compared to the continuing failures of faith-based thinking, but you can do it.

But the really funny thing about all this is that, even if Ray Comfort could disprove evolution - and win a Nobel Prize, and become the most famous scientist since Einstein - that would do nothing to advance any belief in gods.

Evolution could be completely wrong, despite the abundant evidence, and it still wouldn't be evidence for a god. If evolution were proved wrong, the very best you could say is, "we don't know." In order to demonstrate that a god did it, you'd have to provide evidence backing up your claim. Disproving other claims - even if you could do it - wouldn't get you even one step closer to that.

But, despite what he says, Ray Comfort's video isn't designed to convince people who currently accept science. It's just designed to make believers feel better. And to get more donations from the faithful, no doubt.

Missouri bill redefines science

Last I heard, only 6% of American scientists now call themselves Republican. Is it any wonder? (Not that the Democratic Party is always great, when it comes to science, but they're not this bad.)

And all this is just to push Creationism! How crazy is that? After all, evolution is the foundation of modern biology. It's the bedrock on which the rest of biology stands. There is no controversy in science about that.

Everything we've learned in the past 150 years or so has just confirmed evolution. Charles Darwin didn't even know about genes, let alone about DNA. We know vastly more than we did back then, and it's just made the scientific consensus about evolution even stronger.

No, this "controversy" doesn't exist in science. It's all just a matter of religious zealots pushing a 2,000-year-old myth. It's the 21st Century, but they still want to think that 'God' made Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden - literally! Incredible, isn't it?

Science and reason under attack

(Ars Technica)

Sometimes it seems like science - and rational thinking, in general - are under attack in America, and I don't just mean in the Republican Party.

Do you wonder why you need to remain skeptical of what you hear and see in the media, why you always need to consider the source? Here are a couple of recent examples:

The Discovery Institute is a creationist think tank - using 'think' very, very loosely - which attacks evolution while pretending to be scientific. The above image (from the Ars Technica article about this) gives you the idea. It's from this video of their "senior research scientist" at the "Biologic Institute."

But as Richard B. Hoppe at the Panda's Thumb pointed out, that's not even a real laboratory behind her. It's a stock photo from a commercial website. The Discovery Institute's "senior research scientist" was just standing in front of a green screen.

These places have lots of money, because faith-based believers are still eager to attack the science of evolution. Yes, more than a hundred and fifty years after Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, when evolution has been the foundation of modern biology for more than a century, with the evidence just getting stronger and stronger with each new discovery scientists make, the true believers fight on.

But it's not a fight within science. No, they just pretend to be scientific while fighting for public opinion, for uninformed opinion, among ordinary Americans who are often embarrassingly ignorant about evolution and so easily led astray.

Yes, this might sound like science to you, but it's not. It's just designed to seem... sciency. If it were real science, they'd have real laboratories and they'd be presenting real evidence in real scientific journals. But if you don't know better, they might sound persuasive. After all, they've got a real scientist and everything...

Here's another example. It's a conversation with a TV producer who's working on a cable television show about "weird and mysterious stories - especially eyewitness stories." They're looking to hire a "respected paranormal investigator."

An excerpt:

Now we were getting to the heart of the matter; anecdote trumps evidence. I tried to be polite and diplomatic: "It seems like you don't really want the cases investigated, and certainly not solved. See, that's what I do: I investigate mysteries to solve them. If I'm going to spend time and effort on a case, maybe days or weeks or months, I'm going to do my best to understand and explain the mystery. It's kind of the opposite of what you want, so I don't really think I can help you. If you just want to get people who saw UFOs or ghosts or Bigfoot on camera telling their stories, you don't need me for that."

She seemed slightly taken aback: "But you're a respected paranormal investigator, you came recommended, and have credentials... I thought you'd be a good fit?" ...

I finally realized that what they really were looking for was an incompetent "investigator," someone who would appear on their show and pretend to use science in investigations-someone who would superficially appear smart and entertaining but who in the end would be baffled and stumped by the mysteries they faced.

I was perfectly willing to admit if I was stumped or couldn't fully explain a case, but I was not willing to pretend to be stupid or incompetent: "I see... If I can't solve a case, or if there are real unanswered questions about it, I don't mind admitting that I don't have all the answers. But I'll give it my best shot-I'm not going to pretend I don't have a clue if I have a pretty good idea of the explanation."

Producer: "Okay, I understand," she said, though I don't really think she did. "Well, do you know anyone who might be interested?"

Do you wonder that so many Americans seem hopelessly ignorant - and embarrassingly gullible - about these things? Sure, this is just 'entertainment,' but it's not a sitcom they're planning. It's not going to be labeled as fiction.

Weird and mysterious stories are apparently popular television. Rational explanations are not. People want to believe what they want to believe. And if you don't think this bleeds into news programs, too, you're rather gullible yourself. It's all about attracting viewers.

Now, skepticism doesn't mean that you disbelieve everything. You just need to have a good reason for your beliefs. And it's not about becoming an expert in everything, either, because that's impossible. One of the advantages of science is that we laymen can safely trust the scientific consensus if we just understand the scientific method (i.e. if we understand why the consensus is likely - though never guaranteed - to be true).

But we've got a lot of people doing their best to seem scientific, in order to convince you of what they want you to believe. Well, Americans tend to respect science, even when they're absolutely clueless about what science really says.

Science is under attack in America. Rational people are under attack in America. We have to be very careful what claims we believe, and from whom. And that's the case even when they claim to be 'skeptics.' The faith-based can use the language of science and skepticism, just like they can use the stock photo of a laboratory - to deceive.

The 2012 Defiance in Ignorance Prize

I must say I'm glad he decided not to name it the "Bill" prize, as appropriate as that might have been. :)

Oh, and that Tonto stuff makes me uncomfortable, but the video's creator is Australian, and he might not realize how it sounds to us Americans. I hope that's it, anyway.

Creation history

(Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal)

Teach the controversy

(Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal)

Creationist accepts evolution

Funny, isn't it? Hovind accepts everything about evolution, but the name.

Of course, he'd deny that, but... well, you watched the video, right?

The funniest thing is this whole idea of getting a five-year-old to decide what's the same "kind" of animal. I suppose that's because, if you're much older than that, you'll realize just how stupid it is.

Without a definition of "kind," it's pretty worthless as a term, isn't it? Well, Hovind had a definition, but he didn't stick with it, because it would have proven him wrong. But would a five-year-old consider a Tasmanian wolf the same "kind" as a dog? Almost certainly, especially if his other choice was a banana!

And what's with the creationist fascination with bananas, anyway? (Of course, the really hilarious thing about Ray Comfort's argument is that bananas are a domesticated fruit, with the Cavendish banana specifically selected by human beings for the traits we like. And I'm a little uncertain about that whole "point at the top for ease of entry" comment. I really don't think I want to know...)

Anyway, I thought this video clip was excellent. But I'm sure it won't convince anyone who really wants to believe what he wants to believe.

Animal morality: a sense of fairness

This is a very brief excerpt (2 minutes) of a longer talk (17 minutes), which I'll embed below the fold. If you have the time, I recommend the whole thing. But this little excerpt will give you the general idea.

As we get better at studying other animals, we learn that morality - or the basics of it, at least - isn't limited to human beings. A sense of fairness isn't morality in itself, but it's an important part of it. And the longer video clip also shows examples of cooperation, empathy, and reciprocity.

The evidence seems clear that we evolved our basic moral instincts. There's no need for a god to tell us what to do. We can figure that out for ourselves, given those feelings which other animals also feel, to some extent.

For human beings, like other social animals, it's not a dog-eat-dog world. After all, we live together. We survive and thrive in groups, not as solitary individuals. For human beings - and for chimps - cooperation is even more important than competition.

It's ironic that chimpanzees seem to understand that better than many humans.

Anyway, I thought this was neat. Check below the fold, if you want to watch the whole 17-minute talk. (Note the end, where Frans de Waal says that "philosophers need to rethink their philosophy." I'll be posting something about that soon, if I can find the time.)

Our place in history

Another great video! This one really makes you appreciate how fragile life is, doesn't it?

Each of us could die at any moment. We will die, each of us, at some point. In fact, our whole species could be wiped out by just one asteroid, just one supernova, just one gamma ray burst.

Even easier - much, much easier - our civilization could collapse. How many years would it take to struggle up out of that, especially without the easy resources we've already depleted.

None of this should make us cower in our beds, afraid to get up in the morning. Our ancestors faced the same dangers - much worse dangers, in fact - and faced them bravely. No, this isn't an excuse to fear, but a reason for resolve.

Of course, the dinosaurs didn't know they were doomed, and we do. Well, then, we must treasure every day. We must work to change what we can and face what we can't, while never forgetting to appreciate what we have.

You won a lottery, just by being born. And you won another by being born in our modern era of abundant food, effective medical care, and widespread opportunity. An asteroid could strike tomorrow,... but it probably won't.

So we do what we can to make a good life, not just for ourselves but for others - and for others not yet born. We study. We learn. Eventually, we'll want to leave this planet - some of us - so one asteroid won't take us all out. (And before then, we'll want to learn to defend ourselves.)

Eventually, we'll want to leave this solar system - some of us - so one gamma ray burst won't wipe us out. But none of us alive today will be here for that. So be it.

We've already seen more wonders than Aristotle, more wonders than Galileo, more wonders than Isaac Newton. Should we be greedy? Should we be upset that we won't see them all?

Well, you can be upset if you want, but it won't change matters. That's reality.

We live at a time when videos like this can thrill us, amaze us, inspire us. Let's do our part to make sure future humans have it even better. That's our place in history.

Tennessee's new "monkey bill"

(FunnyCrave)

Remember Inherit the Wind, that great Spencer Tracy film from 1960? It's not a documentary, more of a fictionalized version of the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial. But it's lots of fun.

The whole thing seems pretty old-fashioned these days. Heck, evolution has been the bedrock of modern biology now for more than a century. And in all that time, the evidence behind it has just gotten stronger and stronger.

But it's still 1925 in Tennessee:

Remember the Scopes Monkey trial? You know, that case from way back in the '20s where a school teacher was convicted of teaching evil monkey evolution science to the good Christian children of Tennessee?

Tennessee sure hasn't forgotten…

Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam (R) announced yesterday that he will "probably" sign a bill that attacks the teaching of "biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning" by giving broad new legal immunities to teachers who question evolution and other widely accepted scientific theories…

Although the bill is written to seem benign, as it neither specifically authorizes the teaching of creationism nor permits teachers to do more than criticize scientific theories "in an objective matter," the practical impact of this bill will be to intimidate all but the heartiest of school administrators against disciplining teachers who preach the most outlandish junk science in their classrooms.

Democrats like to make fun of the GOP candidates for being stuck in the '50s, but at least they're in the post-WWII era. Tennessee is currently reliving the '20s, but without all those fun speakeasies and flapper dresses.

Between this "monkey" law and the state's "Don't Say Gay" bill, the state is really not doing itself any favors. Ironically, although the "theory" of evolution is pretty much a scientific fact at this point,* the people of Tennessee are themselves pretty strong evidence against evolution.

Note that it's not just evolution, anymore. Tennessee doesn't like any science it doesn't want to believe. Well, that's pretty much the Republican Party platform these days, isn't it?

The funny thing is that the South was solidly Democratic back in 1925. All those old, racist "Dixiecrats" who denied evolution and pretty much everything else in the modern world they didn't like, well, they're all Republicans now.

But they haven't changed much, have they?
___
*PS. Yeah, for you sticklers out there, "theory" and "fact" aren't opposites, or even expressions of different degrees of certainty. Evolution is a fact, as much as anything can be considered a fact in science. The "theory" of evolution is the evidence-based explanation of how evolution works.

But you knew that, didn't you?

The first reptile with a placenta

(Philipp Wagner)

Excerpts from New Scientist:

In evolution, as in life, some things are easier than others. It seems to be pretty straightforward to evolve complex eyes, which have turned up dozens of times.

Similarly, for some groups of animals it's easy to stop laying eggs and start giving birth to live young. Backboned animals have evolved live birth no fewer than 132 times, and nowadays a fifth of lizards and snakes give birth. Human mothers may disagree, but live birth is clearly not that difficult.

What is difficult, however, is nourishing unborn young the way mammals do. A female mammal allows each embryo to burrow deep into the wall of her womb, where it takes nutrients straight from her blood. This intimate arrangement was long thought to have only evolved once, in mammals.

Not so. It now appears that it evolved at least twice: once in mammals, and once in an obscure African lizard called Trachylepis ivensii. ...

All live-bearing reptiles have a basic placenta, but unlike its mammalian counterpart the embryo doesn't get much food that way. It can't: although it nestles up against the oviduct wall, the embryo remains inside a remnant of eggshell that acts as a barrier. Instead, it is nourished by a large yolk.

A very few reptiles, including T. ivensii, break this rule. Their eggs are small, with little yolk, so they must get lots of food from their mothers via the placenta. But only T. ivensii allows the embryo to implant itself in the oviduct wall. "It's unprecedented," Blackburn says. ...

But the arrangement has its problems, Blackburn says. An embryo in close contact with its mother's blood risks being attacked by her immune system. Male embryos could also be "feminised" by her sex hormones. That might explain why full-scale placental feeding has evolved so rarely.

The only reptiles that come close to T. ivensii belong to a South American skink called Mabuya. Their placentas are complex and transfer plenty of nutrients, and there is some evidence of embryonic cells being able to invade the oviduct wall in a limited way. Another African species, Eumecia anchietae, also feeds its young entirely through its placenta.

Neither shows as much intimacy as T. ivensii, however, and Blackburn also says their placentas are "fundamentally different". That may mean placental feeding has evolved in skinks not once, but three times. Clearly, in evolutionary terms these reptiles have the knack.

Neat, isn't it? Clearly, science contains just as much wonder as pseudoscience. Plus, it's true. And for me, that matters.

Surviving the Creation Evidence Expo 2011

Here's a humorous post about the 7th annual "Creation Evidence Expo" in Indianapolis. It couldn't be more obvious that this isn't about science, and certainly not about evidence, but only a matter of the political and personal faith of the religious right - complete with black rubber fetuses and a replica of Noah's Ark.

I won't try to summarize it, but here's an excerpt (note that there are two separate writers here, Louise and Don):

The first speaker up was an 82 year old woman who they introduced as being up there because they realized they needed a woman speaker. She began her speech by telling us that she had no credentials and her speech was basically taken from some book. I can’t really tell you what her speech was about as they had the microphone too far from her and her mispronunciation of words became incredibly distracting. What I did gather was that the Creation Evidence Expo will help you become a “free thinker” and that you can’t have sex with other species and produce offspring.

Don says: This woman was truly baffling herself with bullshit. As Louise said, she admitted that her speech was drawn almost exclusively from some guy's book and boy did it show. She very clearly did not know the meanings of the words she was using. Large swaths of her speech were dedicated to homology and Jack Chick-style strawmen thereof ("Ignorant, evil evolutionist teachers use circular reasoning to prove homology!"), a concept with which I do not believe for a damn second she was remotely familiar. Especially since she consistently pronounced the word "homologous" as "homolojuss." She talked a lot about DNA using words that only few laypeople understand and appreciate and she, given her flat delivery (she was reading from some dude's book, remember) was not among that number. She said that being creationists made people "critical thinkers" against the "dogma" and "orthodoxy" of "Darwinism." This is an excellent example of how good the religious right is at coopting the language of the opposition and using it against them.

She talked about lifeways and world systems and oppression and freeing one's mind and overall reminded me a little bit of an idiot creationist version of bell hooks.

After she was finished the MC praised her as "Just a mother, not a scientist" who only wanted the best for our kids. Apparently being a mother confers intellectual authority over vaccinations and the origins and development of life.

In between speakers a choir sang for us. The good news is they had a nice sound; the bad news is they only knew one song and sang it twice in a row. Turns out the choir and their parents accounted for about half of the audience. After they sang they all left.

Note that the post isn't all humor (not that it's actually funny that people like this are still trying to get religion - their own, of course - taught in public schools). Louise did give credit where credit was due. These aren't evil people, just ignorant and entirely faith-based.

Why don't you believe in evolution?

(Deep Cover)

African Eve

You've probably heard the story of "African Eve" or "Mitochondrial Eve," the matrilineal most recent common ancestor of all human beings. But do you know what that actually means?

I was reading this post at Slashdot about "evangelical scientists" who are trying to adjust their faith with reality and have come face to face with the fact that it's "unlikely that we're all descended from a single pair of humans."

Here's how the original article at NPR puts it:

According to the Bible (Genesis 2:7), this is how humanity began: "The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." God then called the man Adam, and later created Eve from Adam's rib. [*]

Polls by Gallup and the Pew Research Center find that four out of 10 Americans believe this account. It's a central tenet for much of conservative Christianity, from evangelicals to confessional churches such as the Christian Reformed Church.

But now some conservative scholars are saying publicly that they can no longer believe the Genesis account. Asked how likely it is that we all descended from Adam and Eve, Dennis Venema, a biologist at Trinity Western University, replies: "That would be against all the genomic evidence that we've assembled over the last 20 years, so not likely at all."

OK, there's nothing too unusual about this. Americans who are ignorant about science - often willfully ignorant - might believe almost anything, but when people start learning more about biology and genetics, they find it increasingly hard to believe ancient myths.

But then I saw this comment at Slashdot:

>it is unlikely that we all descended from a single pair of humans.

I thought that Lucy/African Eve was the one that we're all descended from. Or was that a single pair of humans ... Lucy and multiple males.

There seems to be considerable confusion there, and I suspect that it's widespread. So let's take a look at this. (Note that I'm just a layman, no particular authority on any of this stuff. But I think I can explain the errors fairly well.)

First, there's the problem of confusing "Lucy" with "African Eve." Lucy is just a particular fossil of an Australopithecus female from 3.2 million years ago. She really has no connection with this "African Eve" idea.

African Eve, also called Mitochondial Eve, is an estimate of the matrilineal most recent common ancestor of all humans, based on mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down in the egg from your mother only.

With nuclear DNA, you get half from your mother (in the egg) and half from your father (in the sperm which fertilizes it). That mixes things up so that even siblings aren't normally identical.

But an egg is a lot bigger than sperm, and it contains a lot more. In particular, it contains mitochondria, which "power cells," more or less. Since you get it only from your mother, your mitochondrial DNA is identical to your mother's, except for any mutations. Obviously, when there is a successful mutation, that's often passed down to succeeding generations, too.

Therefore, we can follow this process in reverse, using an estimate of how frequently mutations occur, to get an idea of when our matrilineal most recent common ancestor lived. (We can do the same thing with y-chromosomes to find "Y-chromosomal Adam." It's the same basic idea.)

But what does this actually mean? First, we're all related, so it's inevitable that we would have a "most recent common ancestor." You could say the same thing about human beings and dogs, for that matter. The common ancestor of humans and dogs is much further in the past, but if you go back far enough, it's inevitable that we do have a most recent common ancestor.

So there's nothing unusual in having a most recent common ancestor. It's inevitable. And "Mitochondrial Eve" almost certainly isn't even it. She's just our most recent common ancestor entirely in the matrilineal line. We all got our mitochondrial DNA from our mothers, and they got it from their mothers, and so on - back to this so-called "Eve."

But that's not to say that there aren't more recent common ancestors, not just in the patrilineal, but in descent that wasn't entirely in one gender. In fact, that's far more likely to be the case.

So this also tells us that we have many, many common ancestors, some of whom almost certainly lived at the time of "Eve." We are not descended just from Eve and her mate(s), not at all. Most likely, we are all descended from many people in Eve's own village, and certainly many people who lived at the same time.

I think that "African Eve" has just been hyped by too many people. Yeah, that sells newspapers, no doubt. But it's led to widespread confusion about what it actually means. It's not really all that significant. In fact, it's inevitable that a "Mitochondrial Eve" would exist at some point. I think the only scientific interest in it is the estimate of dating.

And if you want an example of how inconsequential this really is, look at those dates. According to Wikipedia, Mitochondrial Eve, the matrilineal most recent common ancestor of all human beings, lived approximately 200,000 years ago. But our most recent common ancestor lived perhaps only 2,000 to 5,000 years ago.

Now that's quite remarkable, don't you think? (And no, that doesn't imply that Adam and Eve were real, not at all. We aren't descended just from that ancestor.)

* PS. I've actually known people who thought that men had fewer ribs than women, based on that old myth in Genesis about God creating Eve from one of Adam's ribs. Funny, huh? But I suppose it's a logical assumption if you actually believe that stuff.

Where do Texas governors come from?

From ABC News comes this quote of Texas Governor - and GOP presidential candidate - Rick Perry, replying to a young boy and his mom:

"Here your mom was asking about evolution, and you know it's a theory that's out there, and it's got some gaps in it. In Texas we teach both creationism and evolution in our public schools," Perry said.  "Because I figure you're smart enough to figure out which one is right."

But obviously, Perry himself isn't that smart.

So, OK, this kid might indeed be smarter than Rick Perry. But if all schoolchildren are that smart, where do Texas governors come from?

Johann Hari on free speech and religious fundamentalism

Great speech, isn't it?

There's a post on Pharyngula (where I got this video clip, too, actually) that's not directly related to this video, but it's still about "making the argument," as Hari says. If you think you've got something to say, say it.

"Fine, make the argument. If you disagree, if you don't like what someone says, argue back. Make a better case. Persuade people. Get it right. Do it better. The best way to discredit a bad argument is to let people hear it."

But don't keep other people from saying their piece. And don't huddle in secret meetings, afraid to let your ideas meet the light of day:

The Intelligent Design creationists have been having a secret meeting in Italy, where they claim to be challenging Darwinian orthodoxies. Well, semi-secret: they brought in David Berlinski's daughter to pretend to be a "journalist" and throw gentle little softballs in youtube interviews, but many of the attendees are anonymous, the meeting program is not available, and the place is stocked with devotees of religious orthodoxy who are singularly clueless about science. What it really is is a great big creationist circle jerk where everyone is free to say stupid things and not have one of those annoying evidence-based scientists in the audience asking difficult questions, and also avoid real journalists who might publicly expose their inanity. ...

Yes, their careers are in danger, because disciplines that value rigor and evidence and science are not going to be impressed at all by deluded cowards who hide in closets and whisper oft-debunked stupidities at one another. If you've got the goods, stand and deliver; show us your evidence, explain your reasoning, persuade people who disagree with you with the strength of your argument. They can't, so they scurry off to picturesque villas in Tuscany, shoo away those difficult criticisms, and sit and reassure each other that they are very clever indeed while mangling information theory and biology.

My favorite quote from Darwin's Origin is so appropriate here.

It is so easy to hide our ignorance under such expressions as the "plan of creation" or "unity of design," &c., and to think that we give an explanation when we only restate a fact. Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of a certain number of facts will certainly reject the theory. A few naturalists, endowed with much flexibility of mind, and who have already begun to doubt the immutability of species, may be influenced by this volume; but I look with confidence to the future, to young and rising naturalists, who will be able to view both sides of the question with impartiality. Whoever is led to believe that species are mutable will do good service by conscientiously expressing his conviction; for thus only can the load of prejudice by which this subject is overwhelmed be removed.

There was an orthodoxy in Darwin's time, too, and it was the dogma of creationism. Darwin's advice to young scientists was to conscientiously express their convictions, and to get out and publish, publish, publish their observations. That's how science progresses, by wrestling with disagreement and confronting it with evidence and experiment.

OK, I didn't originally intend to combine these two things, but I thought they fit. There's a culture that believes in free and open expression, a clear-eyed, courageous, stand-up face-to-face look at our ideas and our beliefs,... and then there's a culture of dogma and faith, afraid of other ideas which might prove better.

I know which culture I prefer.

Weevils evolved a screw-and-nut joint

(Science News)

From Science News:

Back when hardware meant bony plates and flesh-rending teeth, a living version of the humble screw evolved naturally in, of all places, the leg joints of weevils.

The legs of at least 15 kinds of weevils have tapering, threaded, somewhat pointed ends where their legs meet their bodies. As the leg shifts position, the threaded tip tightens or loosens along a ridge on the inside of a rounded hollow structure, researchers in Germany report in the July 1 Science. “This is the first description of a true screw and nut in an organism,”...

Neat, huh? Of course, their legs don't unscrew completely, since they've got muscles attached to them. But apparently, this screw-and-nut joint allows for some real flexibility in leg positions.

As one scientist notes, "It does confirm my notion that just about anything that is possible, insects will have evolved."

(This reminds me of the g'Keks, who are aliens with biological wheels instead of legs, in David Brin's Brightness Reef. Of course, that's science fiction. And it actually wasn't clear that they'd evolved that way naturally.)