Nuts and Bolts Study Group

Here is another blog called the Nuts and Bolts Study Group that deals with the same kind of issues that this one does. I believe they come at things from a pro-ID perspective but I need to read more. The boiler plate is considerably more well-thought out than mine:

Welcome to this forum where you can join our journey through the intersection of faith and science. We want to explore the state of current human knowledge and examine how it impacts traditional theology, and build a framework of belief that maintains intellectual integrity and theological consistency.

There are four contributors, at least one of which has read The Meaning of Creation by Conrad Hyers, a book that EVERY CHRISTIAN should read. Read up.

A Francisco Ayala Plug for Michael Dowd's Book

Michael Dowd, who has been nothing but gracious since I questioned his Christology a few posts back, sent me this little blurb by Francisco Ayala about his book Thank God for Evolution:

"Thank God for Michael Dowd! That was my reaction as I finished reading Thank GOD for EVOLUTION. How wonderful that a Christian pastor takes the time to understand evolution and discovers that evolution and religion need not be in conflict. Rather, much religious inspiration can be drawn from contemplating the immensity of the universe and the magnificent beauty and diversity of the living world. More yet, Michael Dowd is dedicating his life to preaching that the dialogue between evolution and religion can be fulfilling, surely for people of faith, but also for scientists." —FRANCISCO J. AYALA, PROFESSOR OF EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE, AND AUTHOR OF DARWIN'S GIFT TO SCIENCE AND RELIGION

High praise indeed.

Homo floresiensis: More Evidence for Speciation in East Asia

According to a story out of Biology News Net, Kieran McNulty and Karen Baab of SUNY Stony Brook have demystified some of the fog surrounding the "hobbit" species (I hate that term) that was discovered in the Indonesian island of Flores.

Comparing the simulation to the original Flores skull discovered in 2003, McNulty and Baab were able to demonstrate conclusively that the original "hobbit" skull fits the expectations for a small fossil hominin species and not a modern human. Their study was published online this month in the Journal of Human Evolution.

The cranial structure of the fossilized skull, says the study, clearly places it in humanity's genus Homo, even though it would be smaller in both body and brain size than any other member. The results of the study suggest that the theorized "hobbit" species may have undergone a process of size reduction after branching off from Homo erectus (one of modern day humanity's distant ancestors) or even something more primitive.

Here is the conclusion from the Journal of Human Evolution article that is currently in press:

The numerous primitive features of the mandible (Brown, in this issue) and postcranial skeleton (Brown et al., 2004; Morwood et al., 2005; Argue et al., 2006; Larson et al., 2007; Tocheri et al., 2007; Jungers et al., 2008), combined with the shape of the cranium, suggest that the ancestor of H. floresiensis was more primitive than the majority of Asian H. erectus specimens, perhaps resembling the oldest Sangiran dome fossils (Kaifu et al., 2005). Here, the overall shape of the LB1 cranial vault was most similar to the East Turkana hominins and D2280 from Dmanisi (see also Brown et al., 2004; Argue et al., 2006). These results concur with the hypothesis that the Liang Bua fossils may have descended from a hominin population more primitive than Asian H. erectus that underwent a process of size reduction.

Any way you shake it, the evidence is adding up that this does indeed represent a species of hominin/hominid that is separate from what else is going on in Wallacea at this point in time and further supports this "bush" notion of hominid evolution. As modern humans, we have grown accustomed to the idea of being the only species of Homo running around. As far as fauna are concerned, that is the exception to the rule. I think we also cling to this unilineal notion of human evolution in East Asia that is turning out to be unwarranted. There was, evidently, a bit of experimentation going on. What is stunning is the sheer primitiveness of the H. floresiensis fossils.

Citation:

Baab, K and McNulty, K (2009) Size, shape, and assymetry in fossil hominis: The status of the LB1 cranium based on 3D morphometric analyses. Journal of Human Evolution. (in press)

Donald Prothero Reviews A Flock of Dodos

Donald Prothero, the author of the top-flight book Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters, has written a review of the book A Flock of Dodos by Barrett Brown and John Alston for Skeptic Magazine. This is not the same as Randy Olson's film of the same name. He (and they) are very forthright and caustic in their analysis:

Brown and Alston are frank about their approach from the first chapter, where they warn that they will not only step on toes, but cut them off. “This will not be a polite book. Politeness is wasted on the dishonest, who always take advantage of any well-intentioned concession, and the leaders of the so-called “Intelligent Design” movement, as we shall see, are so incredibly dishonest that they could cause a veteran heroin addict to blush — not out of any moral objection on the part of the addict, but rather out of the embarrassment that anyone could be so darned bad at lying. And, as we shall see, the Intelligent Design folks are bad liars indeed”.

They are not the first people to say so. Read the whole thing.

Scientific American on Creationism

There is an article in the December issue of Scientific American that is available to everyone. Written by Glenn Branch and Eugenie Scott, it is titled The Latest Face of Creationism in the Classroom. The focus of the article is how creationism has changed over the years in terms of the tactics used by its supporters. They start with the Scientific Education Act, signed by Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, and its repercussions:

On June 26, 2008, the governor’s office announced that Jindal had signed the Louisiana Science Education Act into law. Why all the fuss? On its face, the law looks innocuous: it directs the state board of education to “allow and assist teachers, principals, and other school administrators to create and foster an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that promotes critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied,” which includes providing “support and guidance for teachers regarding effective ways to help students understand, analyze, critique, and objectively review scientific theories being studied.” What’s not to like? Aren’t critical thinking, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion exactly what science education aims to promote?

As always in the contentious history of evolution education in the U.S., the devil is in the details. The law explicitly targets evolution, which is unsurprising—for lurking in the background of the law is creationism, the rejection of a scientific explanation of the history of life in favor of a supernatural account involving a personal creator. Indeed, to mutate Dobzhansky’s dictum, nothing about the Louisiana law makes sense except in the light of creationism.

The problem, of course, is that this kind of bill is far-reaching:

Vast areas of evolutionary science are for all intents and purposes scientifically settled; textbooks and curricula used in the public schools present precisely such basic, uncomplicated, uncontroversial material. Telling students that evolution is a theory in crisis is—to be blunt—a lie.

Moreover, it is a dangerous lie, because Dobzhansky was right to say that nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution: without evolution, it would be impossible to explain why the living world is the way it is rather than otherwise. Students who are not given the chance to acquire a proper understanding of evolution will not achieve a basic level of scientific literacy. And scientific literacy will be indispensable for workers, consumers and policymakers in a future dominated by medical, biotechnological and environmental concerns.

If you are familiar with Scott's work in this area than very little of this is new but it is nice to have it boiled down in one place.

"Is it Right to Ask Questions About Evolution?"

Ken Mercer asks this question in the San Antonio Express-News. Mercer is an "elected member of the State Board of Education" in Texas. He asks:

Is evolution a fact? Most people of faith agree with what is commonly referred to as “micro” evolution,” small changes that are clearly visible. We see this in new vaccines and new strains of flu. You can witness evidence of microevolution downtown in any city via the thousands of varieties of stray dogs and cats.

The controversial “macro” evolution was commonly understood as those major changes that could occur if one species jumped to another. For example, have you ever seen a dog-cat, or a cat-rat? The most famous example of macroevolution is the Darwinian “man from an ancestral primate.”

Realizing the weakness in macroevolution, Darwinists changed the meaning. Whatever their new definition, where is the evidence for one species changing to another?

Here was my comment to the article: "Well, Ken, here's the problem. Macroevolution is only controversial to those not familiar with evolutionary theory. Nowhere does is postulate a "dog-cat" or "cat-rat." Those sorts of things only spring from the mind of creationism. Dogs clearly show a close relationship to wolves and evidence exists to show that they came from a common ancestor. Microevolutionary changes lead to macroevolutionary changes. The discovery of Hox genes which control entire regulatory complexes shows that large-scale changes can occur in short periods of time. This is evolution at work. Evolutionary biologists haven't changed the meaning of macroevolution. It has always meant change at the species level. Creationists don't ever seem to get this one right. There is a huge amount of evidence for transitional forms. Go to the local bookstore and pick up Donald Prothero's Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters for this evidence. "

Hopefully not too snooty. I am just getting tired of the same tired arguments put forth by people who won't get off their butts to see if they are actually correct, especially since they are school board members who ought to know better.

Scanning Archaeopteryx

Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC), one of ORNL's sister organizations has taken an Archaeopteryx fossil and will scan it. As the article in the Mercury News relates:

At SLAC's Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource in Menlo Park, the scientists are using the beams to scan one of the world's most valuable fossils, delicately transported by pickup truck from its home in a Wyoming dinosaur museum.

The X-rays, generated by a particle accelerator, cause tiny amounts of a dozen chemicals to glow without harming the ancient fossil, believed to be the earliest representation of a bird.

It is likely that Archaeopteryx was not on the line that gave rise to birds but was rather one of many different saurischians that had feathers. It is further likely that dinosaurs originally developed feathers for insulation rather than flight but that was a practical application later on. The article mentions one terrifying aspect of the account:

Last weekend, scientists packed the creature into a small wooden box, loaded it into the cab of a white Chevy Silverado truck and drove the 850 miles to SLAC. Upon its arrival Monday night, it was moved into a helium-filled tray for analysis.

Holy cow! A Chevy Silverado. Hat tip to Little Green Footballs.

Somehow Appropriately Named...

My wife is part of a home schooling network that gets offers and emails from various organizations, one of which is, evidently, Behemoth.com. The reference in the Bible to this animal is Job 40:15:

"Look at the behemoth, ^[a]
which I made along with you
and which feeds on grass like an ox.

Anyhoo, the in line advertisement, aimed squarely at home schoolers, has, front and center, guess who?



I find it absolutely astounding how entrenched the young earth position is in home schooling curricula and private Christian schools. It is practically the only perspective. If we continue to homeschool our children, or put them in a private Christian school (which we are considering) this will become a problem later. In the early grades, the general scientific theoretical perspective is secondary to learning how things work. Eventually, it will become apparent to other home schoolers that we know that, charitably, we don't share the scientific perspective they hold. Hopefully, they will be understanding about this. My experience is that this will not be the case.

Neandertal Genome: Halfway There!

New Kerala is reporting out of London that the Neandertal genome has been halfway sequenced. The team, from the Max Planck Insitute in Leipzig, has some preliminary findings:

Preliminary results suggest that Neanderthals were lactose intolerant, hardly surprising since the ability to digest dairy products in adulthood only became common in humans after the domestication of cows, 10,000 years ago.

Neanderthals also seem to lack a mutation associated with increased fertility, identified in Icelanders. A 2005 paper suggested that this mutation had entered humans through inbreeding with Neanderthals.

They are quick to state that this is nothing more than a first draft, though. Still, it is great to have this kind of information. Cherished theories may fall by the wayside.

Harris Poll on Religion

The Harris Poll organization interviewed 2, 126 individuals about their religious beliefs. The results were not surprising if you follow these things:

- 80% of adult Americans believe in God - unchanged since the last time we asked the question in 2005. Large majorities of the public believe in miracles (75%), heaven (73%), angels (71%), that Jesus is God or the Son of God (71%), the resurrection of Jesus (70%), the survival of the soul after death (68%), hell (62%), the Virgin birth (Jesus born of Mary (61%) and the devil (59%).

-- Slightly more people - but both are minorities - believe in Darwin's theory of evolution (47%) than in creationism (40%).

-- Sizeable minorities believe in ghosts (44%), UFOs (36%), witches (31%), astrology (31%), and reincarnation (24%).

There was one amusing finding:

Slender majorities of all adults believe that all or most of the Old Testament (55%) and the New Testament (54%) are the "Word of God." However, only about a third of all adults (37% and 36%) believe that all of these texts are the word of God.

Interestingly, only 26% of all adults believe that the Torah is the word of God, even though it is the same as the first five books of the Old Testament. Presumably many people do not know this.

Yup, that 's today's educated, clear-thinking American.

George Bush on Nightline

Little Green Footballs has unearthed a video of George W. Bush on Nightline in which he mentions his relationship with God, his beliefs and the dreaded "evolution." He comments that his relationship with God is on a personal level and that he has a lot of problems that he needs help with. He also says "The call is to live out your life and better understand the will of God" and also to "have a thoughtful prayer life."

Then he says about evolution: "I think you can have both." The problem here is, as Todd Rundgren puts it: "The last thing you said is the last thing I heard." The biblical literalists won't hear that he has a personal relationship with God, that He sent his son to die for us, that we are called to live our lives according to the will of God. No, they will hear that he supports evolution and that will be enough for them to condemn him.

Is Bush a bit of a universalist? Yes, he appears to be, and, yes that is troubling but during the interview with Charles Gibson, he clearly says:

But I will, I, I want you to understand, I want your listeners to understand, I don't get to decide who goes to heaven. The almighty God decides who goes to heaven. And I am on my personal walk.

So, rather than pray that he gets it right and understands the importance of the salvation of Jesus, the evangelical community will likely just throw him under the bus. See, for example, the comments at this site. No wonder evangelicals are getting a bad reputation.

Salman Hameed on Islamic Creationism

The New Scientist has an interview with professor Salman Hameed of Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, on the spectre of creationism in predominantly Islamic countries. To the question of how evolution is perceived in these countries, he replies:

If you ask the question of whether you accept evolution or not, we find that a large portion of people, vast majorities, reject evolution. Compared to the US, where 40% are comfortable with evolution, in the Muslim countries that would go down to 10, 15, or 20%. In Turkey, one of the more secular Muslim countries, the level is between 22 and 25%.

As to why this is the case, he says:

In some instances, evolution becomes a symbol for Western dominance and a sign of modernity. Evolution can act as a lighting rod, as a symbol of the West and everything that is bad about the West - usually translated as material culture or materialism.

He also points out something that seems to be missing in this country:

There is tremendous respect for scientists in the Muslim world, and I think biologists and other scientists should write in newspapers and magazines for Muslim audiences - write why we accept evolution, what is the evidence for evolution. I think this will be a great service.

As he and others have also noted, Harun Yahya is EVERYWHERE! Read the whole thing. Hat tip to Little Green Footballs.

Evolutionary Control Systems

Work out of Princeton suggests that there may be control mechanisms that control how much evolution occurs in some organisms. The report, from News at Princeton by Kitta MacPherson, states in part:

The researchers -- Raj Chakrabarti, Herschel Rabitz, Stacey Springs and George McLendon -- made the discovery while carrying out experiments on proteins constituting the electron transport chain (ETC), a biochemical network essential for metabolism. A mathematical analysis of the experiments showed that the proteins themselves acted to correct any imbalance imposed on them through artificial mutations and restored the chain to working order.

"The discovery answers an age-old question that has puzzled biologists since the time of Darwin: How can organisms be so exquisitely complex, if evolution is completely random, operating like a 'blind watchmaker'?" said Chakrabarti, an associate research scholar in the Department of Chemistry at Princeton. "Our new theory extends Darwin's model, demonstrating how organisms can subtly direct aspects of their own evolution to create order out of randomness."

The story mentions that this was an idea first proposed by Alfred Russel Wallace who thought that evolutionary mechanisms acted like a governor on a steam engine, ensuring that it operates optimally. If this kind of mechanism can be found in the flagellar motor, would that be the nail in the coffin for ID? Is it built-in design? The article also notes:

Chakrabarti said that one of the aims of modern evolutionary theory is to identify principles of self-organization that can accelerate the generation of complex biological structures. "Such principles are fully consistent with the principles of natural selection. Biological change is always driven by random mutation and selection, but at certain pivotal junctures in evolutionary history, such random processes can create structures capable of steering subsequent evolution toward greater sophistication and complexity."

Read the whole thing.

An interview with Judge Jones

The Public Library of Science—Genetics has an interview with Judge John E. Jones, III, the judge responsible for the Dover-Kitzmiller ruling against Intelligent Design in Pennsylvania. It is an interesting interview and along the way, he sheds light on how our rule of law works:

Gitschier: So now it's on your docket, and you must have been curious. Did you Google intelligent design?

Jones: No. I got what I needed in the context of the case. And it was the monster on my docket.

To your question: I think laypersons apprehend that when we get a case, it's incumbent upon us to go into an intensive study mode to learn everything about it. Actually that is the wrong thing to do. The analogy is that when I have a jury trial in front of me, I always instruct jurors, particularly in this day and age when you can Google anything, not to do that. I don't want you to do any research or investigation. Everything you need to decide this case you'll get within the corners of this courtroom.

So it is with me. And I knew that by the time the case went to trial and during the trial, that I would get expert reports.

Gitschier: From whom?

Jones: Everybody. The way expert opinion works is that I get a summary of their testimony first, and that I can read in advance. So I have a flavor for it. So then the question is, why also have them testify? That is because they are subject to cross examination and everything they say may not hold up that well. And, as it turned out, some of it didn't during the trial.

In any event, I was taken to school. From the earliest point in the litigation to the time the briefs were filed, it was the equivalent of a degree in this area. Folks who disagree with my opinion will tell you I never got it right, but I'm confident that I did.

Go back to your last question. It's very critical. I have to decide cases on the facts that are before me. I can't decide a case based on my own opinion, gleaned from outside the courtroom. That's why I don't engage in my own independent investigation. If you look at other systems in other countries throughout the world, they do that. But in our system of justice in the US, we let the parties try their cases and we find the facts from what is presented to us in the courtroom. And the law, presumably we know and we apply the law. That's our job. But the facts that we apply the law to are covered at that time.

He also says something absolutely damning about the witnesses for ID:

In the realm of the lay witnesses, if you will, some of the school board witnesses were dreadful witnesses and hence the description “breathtaking inanity” and “mendacity.” In my view, they clearly lied under oath. They made a very poor account of themselves. They could not explain why they did what they did. They really didn't even know what intelligent design was. It was quite clear to me that they viewed intelligent design as a method to get creationism into the public school classroom. They were unfortunate and troublesome witnesses. Simply remarkable, in that sense.

That seems to be clear with regard to the "academic freedom" bills as well. As I have noted in other posts, the people promoting those bills don't give a dang about other theoretical science disciplines. They focus only on evolution. The fact that they come about it from a creationist perspective was badly disguised during the "cdesignproponentsists" error in the drafts of Of Pandas and People, the truly dreadful ID textbook. About the effect the decision had on the nation as a whole, he states:

Kansas at that time was having [state-wide] school board elections. And this became an issue in Kansas, and Kansans did not elect proponents of ID, utilizing my decision I think, saying that it was improvident to do this. In Ohio, they had begun steps that would have allowed the teaching of ID, and the school board ruled the policy back because of my decision, not because they had to, but they thought it was persuasive. Florida had a debate last year, into this year about changing some of their standards or adopting new standards of science, again citing my decision.

A finger in the dike, I sometimes think. Read the whole interview. It is very enlightening. Hat tip to Little Green Footballs.

A Growing Intelligence

IndiaBlitz and the Hindustan Times are reporting on a re-dating of the Ethiopian Gademotta site, which contains Middle Stone Age tools, containing blades and scrapers. The story states:

In the 1990s, for example, archaeologists dated a Middle Stone Age site in Ethiopia called Gademotta to 235,000 years ago, implying that the technology had been maturing for a while before the arrival of modern humans, although the accuracy of that dating has been questioned.

A second site, Kapthurin in Kenya, was more reliably dated in 2002 to 285,000 years ago, but researchers have been very reluctant to accept just one site as evidence that the Middle Stone Age started so early.

Both sites are in Africa's volcanic Rift Valley, the birthplace of many hominid species.

Now, according to a report in Science Now, two geochronologists from the University of California, Berkeley, Leah Morgan and Paul Renne, have redated Gademotta using the argon-argon method, an improved technique for dating volcanic rock that is considered more accurate than the potassium-argon method previously employed at the site.

The new results push the artifacts at Gademotta back to at least 280,000 years ago, essentially the same age as those at Kapthurin.

These two sites suggest that stone tool technology evolved continuously from Homo erectus/ergaster through early Homo sapiens to later archaic Homo sapiens, rather than in fits and spurts. It also suggests that there was more of a subtle transition between the different species of hominid.

Cincinnati Zoo/Creation Museum Deal: An Opposing View

Steve Goble writes in the Mansfield News Journal that people overreacted with regard to the Zoo/Museum deal:

News reports portrayed it as a short-term deal centered around Christmas displays. The zoo's Festival of Lights isn't a science thing, and Bethlehem's Blessings isn't a science thing, either. It doesn't seem so horrible to me to promote the two jointly for a few weeks, and families looking for things to do no doubt would appreciate saving some money.

I imagine a lot of people who might enjoy seeing the zoo all lit up for the holidays would also like to see a live Nativity like the one at the Creation Museum. Bethlehem's Blessings is billed as a re-creation depicting the city of 2,000 years ago. Considering the money the Creation Museum spends on its exhibits, Blessings probably will be an impressive display. It might be the kind of thing even a scientifically minded Christian, or a non-believer who simply adores Christmas displays, would like to see.

Likely this is true, but the mission of the Creation Museum is to teach young-earth creationism. That is its goal in life. It has the Christmas display to bring more people around to that way of thinking, either overtly or covertly. It is kind of like reading "Days of Praise," a daily Bible reading guide that is put out by the Institute for Creation Research. Most of the time, it is good, straight biblical teaching, but every so often, a dig at the evolutionary, old-earth crowd pops up, jarring you from your reverie. It is their central perspective. Biblical teaching is almost secondary to it. That is the case with the Creation Museum as well. Mr. Goble continues:

The Creation Museum and the Ham-sponsored Web site Answers in Genesis are key weapons in an all-out assault on scientific thought, so much so that science people are outraged, and they're operating on a hair-trigger to the point of missing the nuances of what might have been a brief joint holiday venture.

These aren't nuances. Science education is already in dire straits in this country. Places like the Creation Museum are at the forefront of that decline. A better venture would have been between the Cincinnati Zoo and Amazon.com with a 10%-off coupon for Francis Collins' The Language of God. That wouldn't have helped with the Christmas displays but it would have opened up people with a scientific bent to the possibility of believing in God. The Creation Museum just makes Christians look silly.

Bush: Evolution is Okay

George Bush rattled the ID world yesterday when he said, in an interview, that evolution was not at odds with religion. According to a story in Breaking News, he said:

“I think you can have both. I think evolution can – you’re getting me way out of my lane here. I’m just a simple president. But it’s, I think that God created the earth, created the world; I think the creation of the world is so mysterious it requires something as large as an almighty and I don’t think it’s incompatible with the scientific proof that there is evolution.”

Asked if the Bible was literal, he replied:

You know. Probably not. ... No, I’m not a literalist, but I think you can learn a lot from it, but I do think that the New Testament for example is ... has got ... You know, the important lesson is ’God sent a son.'

The debate is clearly not something he thinks about much, which is fine—I am not sure I would want my president giving it much thought. This is sort of on a par with Ronald Reagan saying of evolution "well, its just a theory." Yes, it is, and a dang good one, at that.

A Review of Evolutionary Creation

Gordon Glover over at Beyond the Firmament has written a review of Dennis Lamoureux's new book Evolutionary Creation. Here is some of what he has to say:

I don’t typically do a lot of book reviews or make many book recommendations, but I just finished Dennis Lamoureux’s Evolutionary Creation and I feel compelled to promote it to my readership. In fact, the whole time I was reading EC, I felt as though I were reading an expanded scholarly edition of Beyond the Firmament. While I make no apologies for the conversational, non-academic, non-scholarly tone of BTF, many advanced readers will prefer something more meaty; something that dives much deeper into some the theological and hermeneutical implications that I could only barely familiarize my readers with; something like Evolutionary Creation: A Christian Approach to Evolution by Dennis Lamoureux.

Glowing words indeed. Go grab it. I intend to. Go get Gordon's book too.

Zoo Deal: A Case of Bigotry?

Barry Cox writes for the "Other Voices" section of the Cincinnati Enquirer and argues that the criticisms of the deal between the Cincinnati Zoo and the Creationism Museum are an example of intolerance and bigotry. He writes:

The debate, on the surface, seems to focus on creationists vs. evolutionists, but that, my friends, is a smoke screen created by the false "tolerance" of the left.

The creationist philosophy espouses that man and dinosaur walked together, and that all things are created via divine intervention. Evolutionists, on the other hand, maintain Darwin's theory of natural selection contradicts the creationist beliefs.

It really doesn't matter. The Cincinnati Zoo and the Creation Museum were collaborating only to draw attention to their respective attractions. Period.

The zoo caved in due to "dozens of angry calls and e-mails." Huh? Neither institution endorsed the other. The zoo gave in to bigots who cannot stand anyone who professes a faith in anything remotely divine in nature.

Here's the problem: a large part of the zoo's mission is a scientific one. All zoos house animals, but a good zoo (and I have heard that the Cincinnati Zoo is one of the better ones) also teaches about the animals, including their ranges, their habitats and, in some cases their histories. The creationist viewpoint specifically states that all animals over the earth are direct descendants of a pair of animals that traveled aboard an ark during a world wide flood a scant 4500 years ago and subsequently dispersed over the entire planet in that time. This is plainly at odds with modern science, especially modern zoology and biology, which teach an evolutionary history of modern animals from palaeoancestors. Unless the zoo endorses this viewpoint, it cannot be a party to it. I stand by my earlier post that if you enter into a joint agreement with someone else, you are tacitly endorsing the viewpoints of the other party.

As far as bigots who cannot stand anyone who profess a faith in anything remotely divine in nature, this has little to do with that either. The creation museum promotes a particular reading of the Old Testament that I and many other Christians do not share. I don't support it and, due to its reading of modern science, I do not think the Cincinnati Zoo should either.

God and the Multiverse

New Scientist has a column by Amanda Gefter on the hypothesis that the fine tuning that we find in the universe is either the result of a designer or a multiverse, called Why it is not as simple as God vs the multiverse. The article notes:

"Short of invoking a benevolent creator, many physicists see only one possible explanation," writes journalist Tim Folger. "Our universe may be but one of perhaps infinitely many universes in an inconceivably vast multiverse." Folger quotes cosmologist Bernard Carr: "If you don't want God, you'd better have a multiverse."

There are plenty of reasons to take the multiverse seriously. Three key theories - quantum mechanics, cosmic inflation and string theory - all converge on the idea. But the reason physicists talk about the multiverse as an alternative to God is because it helps explain why the universe is so bio-friendly. From the strength of gravity to the mass of a proton, it's as if the universe were designed just for us. If, however, there are an infinite number of universes - with physical constants that vary from one to the next - our cosy neighbourhood isn't only possible, it's inevitable.

But to suggest that if this theory doesn't pan out our only other option is a supernatural one is to abandon science itself. Not only is it an unfounded leap of logic, it suggests intelligent design offers as valid an explanation as a cosmological theory does, and lends credence to creationists' mistaken claim that the multiverse was invented to serve as science's get-out-of-God-free card. Indeed, Folger's article was immediately referenced on creationist websites, including the Access Research Network, an intelligent-design hub, and Uncommon Descent, the blog of the Seattle-based Discovery Institute's William Dembski.

There is an elephant in the room that she is trying very hard not to see. Multiverse hypotheses are untestable—just like Intelligent Design. This is in a true sense, a Mexican Stand-off. Both sides recognize fine tuning and both sides have untestable hypotheses to explain it. Gefter continues by arguing that it is not an "either-or" problem but that there may be other explanations to the problem. She suggests a third hypothesis—that we create the universe we see. This is a hypothesis that Stephen Hawking has warmed to. He has called this "top-down" cosmology. Same problem. There is simply no way to test this. If we hypothesize that we are influencing what we see, then the very observations are being influenced by our test, whatever that would be. A gentleman by the name of Steven Pederson wrote a masters thesis on this topic called Flawed Nature Cosmology. It is long but it is here. Gefter finishes, remarking about Hawking's ideas:

That's speculative, but at least it's science.

Uh, no its not. Its speculation, based on no evidence whatsoever. Is this where modern astrophysics is going? I hope not, or else they are going to find themselves in creationist territory pretty soon.

Roger Ebert on Ben Stein

Roger Ebert has written a column on Ben Stein. He once wrote a column on creationism that was so subtle that most people (including myself) probably would have taken it seriously, had there not been some advance warning. That post is here. This new column is not subtle:

Ben Stein, you hosted a TV show on which you gave away money. Imagine that I have created a special edition of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" just for you. Ben, you've answered all the earlier questions correctly, and now you're up for the $1 million prize. It involves an explanation for the evolution of life on this planet. You have already exercised your option to throw away two of the wrong answers. Now you are faced with two choices: (A) Darwin's Theory of Evolution, or (B) Intelligent Design.

Because this is a special edition of the program, you can use a Hotline to telephone every scientist on Earth who has an opinion on this question. You discover that 99.975 of them agree on the answer (A). A million bucks hangs in the balance. The clock is ticking. You could use the money. Which do you choose? You, a firm believer in the Constitution, are not intimidated and exercise your freedom of speech. You choose (B).

Squaaawk!!! The klaxon horn sounds. You have lost

He is not exaggerating on the percentage of scientists who agree on it. Biologists and geologists at any rate. Ebert spends the rest of the column taking apart Ben Stein's approach to making the picture but ends with a haunting paragraph that strikes at the heart of those of us who have accepted evolution and are Christians:

He takes a field trip to visit one "result" of Darwinism: Nazi concentration camps. "As a Jew," he says, "I wanted to see for myself." We see footage of gaunt, skeletal prisoners. Pathetic children. A mound of naked Jewish corpses. "It's difficult to describe how it felt to walk through such a haunting place," he says. Oh, go ahead, Ben Stein. Describe. It filled you with hatred for Charles Darwin and his followers, who represent the overwhelming majority of educated people in every nation on earth. It is not difficult for me to describe how you made me feel by exploiting the deaths of millions of Jews in support of your argument for a peripheral Christian belief. It fills me with contempt.

I have stated that I want to see this film. With a review like this, I am not so sure, anymore. Those that have taken the Hitler=Darwin meme do not wish to correct their information. It is easier to hate Darwin when you think he was responsible for one of the largest genocides in history. Why bother to get it right? Hat tip to Little Green Footballs.

A Position Paper by Barbara Forrest

Here is a paper called Understanding the Intelligent Design Creationist Movement. It is an expansion on her speeches and an abridged version of her book Creationism's Trojan Horse.

Pleistocene Park

Margaret Munro of Canwest is reporting that the entire DNA of a Woolly Mammoth has been sequenced and that this could mean a resurrection of this animal. According to the article:

The team, led by Stephan Schuster and Webb Miller at the Pennsylvania State University, describe the feat -- which makes the mammoth the first extinct creature to be sequenced -- in today's issue of the journal Nature.

Resurrecting the iconic creature would not be easy, but scientists say genetic and reproductive technology is advancing so quickly that the idea of bringing the mammoth back to life is not as implausible as it sounds.

As a first step, they say mammoth look-alikes could be genetically engineered by adding genes for giant tusks and shaggy coats to modern-day elephants.

Not dead sure why you would want to do this since you are basically bringing back to life an animal in isolation, without the environment in which it thrived (or didn't) and displacing current animals that have evolved from that population or sympatrically with it. I guess science marches on.

Evolution Gone in Romania

Macedonia Online reports that the theory of evolution is being removed from the school curriculum in Romania. The article notes:

The theory of the Origin of Species and the evolution of humans is no longer present in the compulsory curriculum, through a nationwide decision made under the previous Government in 2006. Before the change, Darwin's theory was taught to pupils aged 18 or 19 years old. This was also in the curriculum during the Communist period of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.

Information on natural selection, how fish turned into lizards and, more or less, a summary of the first 4.5 billion years of the world until man walked the earth is now optional.

"We don't teach the theory of evolution anymore," said one 38 year-old Bucharest-based biology teacher.

This is the first instance of this that I am aware of from behind the old Iron Curtain and, one hopes, only temporary. Teaching basic geology, biology and physics should never be optional.


Hat tip to Little Green Footballs

No Cincinnati Zoo/Creation Museum Deal

According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, a reported deal between the Cincinnati Zoo and the Creation Museum has fallen through. The deal, which would have given people discounts on tickets if they went to Christmas Celebrations at both places, came under extraordinarily heavy fire:

The zoo pulled out of the deal Monday after receiving dozens of angry calls and e-mails about the partnership, which offered reduced prices to anyone who bought tickets to the zoo's Festival of Lights and the museum's Christmas celebration, Bethlehem's Blessing.

Most of the protests echoed the same theme: The Creation Museum promotes a religious point of view that conflicts with the zoo's scientific mission.

Some complained that the zoo, which receives public support through a tax levy, should not become involved with a private museum dedicated to the teachings of the Bible's Book of Genesis. Others said a scientific institution shouldn't link itself to a place that argues man once lived side by side with dinosaurs.

"They seem like diametrically opposed institutions," said Dr. James Leach, a Cincinnati radiologist who e-mailed zoo officials about his concerns. "The Cincinnati Zoo is one of this city's treasures. The Creation Museum is an international laughingstock."

The zoo claimed that this sort of promotion had no religious underpinnings but was just a promotional gimmick to raise money.

It is difficult to believe that there was no awareness on the part of zoo officials of the lightning rod that is the Creation Museum. They must have, on some level, known that such a deal would surely not go unnoticed. The article also quotes another amazing statement from the zoo, itself:

"It's not about us endorsing them or them endorsing us," Chad Yelton, a zoo spokesman, said. "That wasn't the intention of anything we were doing."

That is patently ridiculous. If I own a business and have a promotional tie-in with the American Nazi Party, who is not going to associate my business with that organization or think that I implicitly or explicitly endorse them? Ken Ham's response is also somewhat less than genuine:

Ham said he was "personally saddened" by the negative response.

"It's a pity that intolerant people have pushed for our expulsion simply because of our Christian faith," Ham said in a statement. "Some of their comments ... reveal great intolerance for anything having to do with Christianity."

This is also patently ridiculous and borders on dishonest. Ken Ham promotes a particular reading of the Old Testament and he knows it. This has very little to do with Christianity and everything to do with science education. I am a Christian and have absolutely no intention of supporting the Creation Museum. Bad business all around.

How to Teach Genesis by "Fabulously Observant"

David Benkof of Fabulously Observant over at the Jerusalem Post has some intriguing ideas about how to teach Genesis in the classroom and makes some pithy observations along the way, the first being:

Not very helpfully, Christian conservatives in America have responded to the US Supreme Court rulings against creationism by promoting a fake scientific doctrine ("intelligent design") that even they don't believe in - or it would be taught, instead of creationism, in the schools their children attend.

This is one of those points that is so glaringly obvious that nobody has thought of it up to now. Hat tip, Mr. Benkof. Come to think of it, I can't think of any of my fundamentalist Christian friends who say "Oh, no, we don't teach recent earth creationism but we do teach intelligent design." This is why ID occupies that nether region belonging to those that have eschewed the young earth interpretation and those who cannot wrap their heads around evolution, although Michael Behe seems to have made his peace with it. A small group, indeed. He continues:

School districts that want to fix the imbalance in which only some parents have their views represented in the curriculum can declare, for example, that the origin of man should not be taught at all except in specially designed, interdisciplinary units for 4th, 8th, and 12th graders. During these units, students will study age-appropriate scientific, literary, anthropological, philosophical, and religious ideas about the origin of the universe, the nature of life, and where human beings come from. Subjects studied may include: the ideas of Charles Darwin, creation myths of the Maya, Lakota, Yoruba, and Norse peoples, the Genesis story and its literary and religious echoes through the centuries, the evidence for species change, and controversial aspects of the theory of evolution.

While I like the idea, in principle, advocates of science will be quick to point out that evolutionary principles that apply to other species also apply to humans and that the evolution of humans is an extension of primate evolution in general, which began in the Eocene period. How would this be treated? It would be hard to do so without conflating the purposes for which each kind of literature was written. Darwin wrote The Origin of Species to propose a scientifically testable method of explaining biodiversity and palaeobiodiversity, while most creation myths are not meant to convey scientific truth but rather religious truth. BTW, "myth" in this sense is, as WordNet defines it: "a traditional story accepted as history; serves to explain the world view of a people."

Interestingly, he writes:

Doubtless, the forces on the secular Left who have had a monopoly on how the origin of man is taught in public schools for nearly a generation will never cooperate without a fight. They think their ideas are objectively true. But secularism is a minority in America, and its rivals think their own ideas are just as true.

Science is what it is. If the data leads you a particular direction, you go there. You don't vote on whether or not you should because it might offend someone's sensibilities. If evolution can be shown to happen and that it has occurred in the past and that it extends to humans, then it should be taught in science class. It is not a matter of objectivity. Science explains how things work. Nothing more, nothing less.

Neandertals Couldn't Adapt to the Cold?

Yahoo News India is reporting on research that indicates that harmful mutations rendered Neandertals more susceptible to the cold weather in Europe. The article notes:

In all cells, from yeast to human, a mitochondrion's main job is to produce the energy that powers cells. This takes the form of a chemical called ATP.

In the case of modern humans, the mitochondria do this quite efficiently under ideal conditions, making 36 ATP molecules with the energy stored in a single molecule of glucose sugar.

Mutations that sap this efficiency would generate heat instead, which is a potentially useful trick for Neanderthals who are known to have had adaptations to cold weather, according to Chinnery.

However, a warmer and less climatically stable habitat could have spelled trouble for Neanderthals with such mutations.

Perhaps the Neanderthals' mitochondrial DNA adapted them to the cold, and they couldn't cope when the climate started to change, hypothesized [Patrick] Chinnery.

The authors are quick to point out that all we have is one Neandertal sequence so it is simply not known how wide-spread the mutations are. The article also doesn't say which Neandertal was sequenced. As it turns out, it is the type specimen from the Neander Valley, discovered in 1856 by Fulrott. The authors also point out that more sequences are coming soon. It is an intriguing hypothesis but unless similar selection can be found in modern day cold-adapted populations, it remains extremely provisional. I would also be curious to see whether or not the Levantine Neandertals have positive selection for this adaptation.

Why doesn't Yahoo news in the United States pick up on any of these stories?

I have changed the title of the Harun Yahya post upon correction by a regular reader. Sorry for any offense created. Unintentional.

Barbara Forrest at SMU

Little Green Footballs has a video of Barbara Forrest's talk at Southern Methodist University, where she talks off of her book Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design. If you've not heard her speak about this, you need to do so.

The Moral Ape?

The Gazette has an article by Margaret Somerville on research into whether or not apes have ethics. This is her perspective:

Ethics can, however, be linked to a metaphysical base without needing to invoke religious or supernatural features or beliefs - it could be of a secular "human spirit" nature or, as German philosopher Jurgen Habermas describes it, an "ethics of the human species." I propose that ethics necessarily involve some transcendent experience, one that humans can have and animals cannot.

I am not sure I agree. I know some people that are very ethically-driven and yet have no belief in God or any "spirit", whatever. This is more of a "do unto others" sort of ethic and the notion that a community is more important than self. Here, the intellect takes the transcendent role. Those of us that are Christians are convinced that a higher power does, indeed, exist and that we as humans are incapable of acting in the best interest of all and need that higher power to guide us. Clumsily put, but basically "if you believe in me, do as I say." This is, oddly, where I think that the Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens arguments do not hold water. Can you point to religious violence and intolerance? Yes, but you can also point to the Pol Pots of the world. Humans are, at heart, animals. I think that it is a matter of degrees but that, at one point, God made himself aware to us. It is our souls that make us unique. Can't show it empirically but that is where my faith in God leads me. She also says:

And I want to make clear that we can believe in evolution and also believe in God. The dichotomy often made in the media between being "atheist-anti-religion/pro-evolution," on the one hand, and "believer-pro-religion/anti-evolution," on the other, does not reflect reality. Evolution and a belief in God are not, as Richard Dawkins argues, incompatible.

True enough. Read the whole thing.

Whew. Long Thanksgiving break. Let's get back to it.

Harun Yahya: Leader of the Turkish World

Arab News has their own take on Harun Yahya, otherwise known as Adnan Oktar, in a recent article. He has some "interesting" ideas. On Israel:

“The real problem in Israel lies in the fact that it is governed by atheist Zionists from behind the scenes. We have to get rid of these Masonic forces so that Muslims and Jews can govern it. Judaism is an old version of Islam. With the passage of time, it underwent a lot of distortions and changes. The true believers of Judaism are not the ones governing Israel now,” he pointed out.

Uh huh, right. On evolution:

A fierce opponent of Darwinism, Yahya takes the credit for defeating the theory of evolution. “First, we offered Darwinists around the world 100 million fossils, which prove that this world came into being as a result of God’s creationism and not because of evolution. Second, Darwin wrote in his books that people have to find transitional forms to prove the theory of evolution, but nobody has been able to find a single transitional form. Third, Darwinists claim that the first cell came into being as a coincidence. But it is impossible for even a single protein to be formed by chance. Fourth, we have proved that the skulls that were displayed as evidence of evolution are fake. Darwinism cannot explain how we can see or hear or sense with the support of our brain.”

Not sure what "defeat" he is talking about. Seems alive and well to me. The bit about transitional fossils is demonstrably false and the rest can be categorized as "rambling." There is also this nugget, apparently written by the author:

Polls conducted by newspapers in Germany, France, Switzerland and Denmark showed that 85-90 percent of Europeans no longer believed in the theory of evolution.

What polls is he talking about? Support for evolution is far more entrenched in these countries than in the United States even. I find it amazing when I read statements like these. It is as if they are walking through life with blinders on. Incredible!

The Reluctant Charles Darwin

The Star has a story on the Charles Darwin exhibit at the Natural History Museum. Written by Mitch Potter, the story begins:

LONDON–Wandering through this biggest-ever reappraisal of Charles Darwin, you do not get a sense that here lies the enemy of God. A doubter? Unquestionably. A man born to the clergy, yet one who lived in quiet agony as the evidence of science and the articles of faith did battle for decades between his ears? That too. And finally, a man so wary of societal outrage that he held his silence a full 22 years before reluctantly publishing the revolutionary theory that upended our understanding of the world.

Charles Darwin has been much maligned in creationist circles, all the way from claims that he was an atheist who reveled in upending religion to the "deathbed confession" to ties of his work to Hitler. Most of Darwin's work had nothing to do with humans and is almost pedestrian compared to the reputation he has garnered.

Honoring F. Clark Howell

UC Berkeley has put up a display honoring the work of F. Clark Howell, the "dean of African paleoanthropologists," who passed away last year. The article in Paleontology News notes:

"The most critical element to me in doing the project was to honor the memory of Clark Howell for inspiring generations of Berkeley students and for his lasting impact on the field of paleoanthropology," [Tim] White said. In 1970, Howell founded a laboratory that became the Human Evolution Research Center, which White now directs.

Neat.

Increased Evolutionary Fitness by Throwing Stones?

The Hindustan Times reports on a study out of Bryn Mawr that suggests that Neandertals were out competed by early modern humans because they did not have the necessary anatomical specializations to throw heavy rocks or spears at prey. They write:

"If we're trying to understand whether anatomically modern humans had projectiles, then why not read the signature that it can imprint in the skeleton," Rhodes said.

Studies of elite handball and baseball players suggest that frequent overhand throwing from an early age permanently rotates the shoulder-end of the humerus toward an athlete's back, compared to people who haven't spent much time hurling.

This bone rotation only occurs in the throwing arm, so a difference between the right and left arm in fossils could be a sign of projectile use, according to Rhodes.

I would posit that pitchers are probably not the best model for this sort of analysis. They throw 90-mile an hour fastballs at a frequency (and speed) that far outstrips that of your average hunter-gatherer. Why not go after actual hunters and gatherers to see what sort of adaptations are present there? Further, there might be other factors that contribute to the anatomical discrepancies. Time to go read the article.

Rev. Michael Dowd: On the Road for God...and Evolution?

The Reverend Michael Dowd, who has a background as being a pastor for the United Church of Christ was interviewed in the Knoxville News Sentinel over the weekend. Dowd, who is on the road with his wife Connie to preach the cause of understanding God through science, wrote a book last year called Thank God for Evolution. He has this perspective:

"The primary way that reality is revealed is in facts - facts are God's native tongue. Now, when I see a new Hubble space photo or learn of a new fossil form, I don't think to myself as I used to, 'Oh no, how does this fit with Genesis?' I instead think, 'Look, how cool - look what God is revealing to us today."

Something rather striking is left out of the article on Rev. Dowd: he is a former young earth creationist. Something else has been left out: He has wandered rather far afield from that. From his book:

I cannot agree that “Jesus as God’s way, truth, and life” means that only those Christians who believe certain things about Jesus or the Bible get to go to a special otherworldly place called heaven when they die. I used to believe that, but I don’t anymore. In hindsight, I see that my old belief cheapened, belittled, and impoverished the universal glory of the Gospel. What Jesus’ life and ministry were actually about is far larger and more meaningful, and offers more this-world relevance, than my old clannish, contracted “we win, you lose” understanding. More, one need not be a Christian, nor ever have read the Bible, in order to walk what is, effectively, the same path we Christians aspire to—the same “one way”to a realized, redemptive life of fulfillment and service in this world, here and now, while simultaneously blessing future generations.

Funny, I don't remember reading that in the New Testament. Understanding and accepting evolution at the expense of your faith in Christ is no compromise. It is an abdication of one of the key principles of the Christian faith. Being inspired about science is great. Being uninspired about Jesus if you call yourself a Christian isn't. As Jonathan Dodson writes on his blog:

An essential claim of Christ is that the man and the world are broken because of sin, rebellion against God. Jesus seeks to redeem humanity and the world through his death and world-renewing return. However, he does not minimize his own sacrifice or teachings as optional. They are essential and joy-giving to those who embrace him.

Just because the biosphere has evolved over the course of the last 4.5 billion years does not mean that Jesus' teachings are not what they were or that He isn't what he is—the way, the truth and the life.

Jewish Leaders: No ID in Texas!

The Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism has gotten in the game in Texas, arguing that ID should not be taught. Rabbi Ana Bonnheim had this to say:

“For me as a rabbi, science and religion are not at odds … Moses Maimonides … who is perhaps the greatest philosopher of our tradition, was also a physician. He taught that scientific inquiry can lead to more thoughtful religious questions and better educated religious individuals. The place for the quiet discussions about spirituality in science is not in public schools but around the kitchen table, in religious school classrooms, or in a clergy member’s office.

“Sadly and painfully, my Jewish ancestors had a long history of persecution in places where there was no separation of church and state. When we permit religious beliefs to be taught in our state schools, we begin to blur the line that keeps religion and government separate. We are so fortunate to live in a country that respects individuals of all faiths. It is essential to maintain the boundaries that will protect religious groups of every faith.”

This won't help the board.

Another Christian/Scientist Speaks Out

TES Connect has a story on a theoretical astrophysicist by the name of David Wilkinson, who is also a Christian minister. He has this to say:

“I’m not a creationist,” he said.

“There are certain things about the universe - that the universe is intelligible to us through mathematics, or that the laws of physics are so beautiful - that raise philosophical and theological questions.

“Creationism says that Genesis is supposed to be read as a scientific textbook. But it’s primarily a theological text, explaining that God exists.

“If science has a gap in it, the temptation is to use God to fill that gap. But I see God working through the science of the Big Bang and the science of evolutionary biology, rather than through the gaps.”

Read the whole thing. Let our voices be heard!!!

"Evolution proponents descend on state education panel"

Support for the faculty and biology teachers certainly does not seem be wanting:

AUSTIN — Texas became the latest stage for the debate about evolution and creationism Wednesday, as more than 80 witnesses trooped before the State Board of Education to weigh in on proposed changes in the public school science curriculum.

With few exceptions, the speakers — scientists, teachers, clergy and grassroots activists — took the side of evolution, saying they feared that the proposed changes will open the door to the teaching of creationism or intelligent design.

Game on.

Americans United: Use Science Curriculum

As could be expected, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State has weighed in on the Texas Science Standards. Barry Lynn also makes their position clear:

In its letter to the board, Americans United makes it clear that litigation may result if religious beliefs are introduced into public school science classrooms.

The board’s decision, which is expected to be made in March, could influence science instruction across the country. Texas is the second largest purchaser of textbooks, after California. To meet Texas standards, textbook producers may include creationist concepts in books that would circulate nationally.

This is, perhaps, true. We have certainly seen this in Louisiana and Pennsylvania. Furthermore, in Pennsylvania, the adoption of that ghastly textbook Of Pandas and People, clearly revealed the creationist bent of the DI. That lingers in many people's minds.

The New Texas Science Standards

Capitol Annex has gotten a hold of the November Draft of the new Texas science standards. As Eugenie Scott noted in her interview, the new standards are not as good as the ones written in September by the science community. Their analysis of the deleted paragraphs is very thorough, if a tad reactionary and there is not much to add here. In his despondency, though, the writer, Vince Leibowitz, gets several things wrong. The new standard for the nature of science states this:

NATURE OF SCIENCE
Science is a way of describing and making testable predictions about the natural world. Scientific hypotheses are tentative and testable statements that must be capable of being supported or not supported by observational evidence. Hypotheses of durable explanatory power that have been tested over a wide variety of conditions become theories. Scientific theories must be based on natural and physical phenomena and be capable of being tested by multiple, independent researchers. Students should know that scientific theories, unlike hypotheses, are well-established and highly reliable, but that they may still be subject to change as new information and new technologies are developed. This vast body of changing and increasing knowledge is described by physical, mathematical, and conceptual models. Students should know that some questions are outside the realm of science because they deal with phenomena that are not scientifically testable.

(emphasis in original)

To this, he comments:

In other words, Jesus turned water in to wine, and God created the earth in six days and you can’t test that because it is not scientifically testable. Great.

The catch is that the last phrase about questions outside the realm of science was in the September standards and was part of the deleted paragraph. It seems to me that this new paragraph is no friend of creationism or ID, neither of which are testable. In some senses, this provides the "out" for science teachers—they can claim that ID is not testable and dispense with it forthwith. This can be done even before you get to the "strengths and weaknesses" language which, unfortunately, did get added. He also notes:

SCIENCE AND SOCIAL ETHICS
Scientific decision-making is a way of answering questions about the natural world. Students should understand that the nature of science is to seek patterns in nature through deliberate, objective collection and analysis of empirical data. Students should be able to distinguish between scientific decision-making methods (scientific methods) and ethical/social decisions that involve science (the application of scientific information).

“A way” of answering questions, but not “the way.” In other words, “The Bible,” is “the way,” but they can’t put that in “the standards,” so they leave the door open to make teaching the theory of evolution totally optional.

The original standards also clearly state, in section 2 that:

"Science is a way of learning about the natural world. Students should know how science has built a vast body of changing and increasing knowledge described by physical, mathematical, and conceptual models, and also should know that science may not answer all questions."

This does not represent a change in the standards, merely a condensation. I did not go through the rest of the standards to compare them in detail but it seems that if we want to criticize the education community, we need to get basic things right.

An Interview with Eugenie Scott

Capitol Annex has an interview with Dr. Eugenie Scott, executive director of the NCSE about the new Texas science standards. She has this to say about "strengths and weaknesses:"

You don’t hear scientists talking about the strength and weaknesses of cell theory. ‘Strength and weakness’ are words that the public understands and it communicates that you are really being fair. But, if you go to a scientist, and say, ‘tell me about the weaknesses of evolution,’ they will look at you blankly. Go to McLeroy and say it, and he’ll haul out a list of very familiar creationist arguments. So, it is an old line in a new battle.

Questions about whether or not Homo habilis gave rise to Homo erectus/ergaster do not reflect a weakness in evolutionary theory. They reflect gaps in our knowledge about how it proceeded. About publishing standards, she has this to say:

...there is much more opportunity in the publishing industry because of digital layout for modular publications. In other words, it is possible to produce a textbook for the Texas market that nobody else would want to have because it is bad science. That is serious for you guys because if the [state] board says to the publishers, ‘you’ve got to put in a lot of bad science to sell books in Texas,’ the publishers might say, ‘well, we have to sell books in Texas,’ and put out a book with a lot of crappy science and that is the Texas edition. They’ll sell it here and nobody else will want it because it is crappy science.

That puts Texas students at a competitive disadvantage. The Texas science community–science professors–are unified, as we saw [with the study released yesterday]. We don’t argue over whether evolution took place, but this is what McLeroy wants to pretend to students is going on in the scientific community. He wants teachers to pretend to students that scientists argue over whether evolution happened. We argue how evolution happened–that’s good science–and that is not a weakness to us. To McLeroy, if scientists argue over whether dinosaurs are warm blooded or cold blooded, that is a weakness. That is just good, healthy science.

It is only that way because McLeroy knows nothing about science and how it works. As I said in an earlier post, it is amazing that someone so ignorant of basic science can have assumed so high a position in an education board, let alone be on it. His arguments, as well as those by Rob Crowther are, once again, examples of this "teach the controversy" strategy. They want to make it seem as though there are "weaknesses" (neither McLeroy or Crowther care about the "strengths" of the theory) and that students should know about them, whether they exist or not.

P.S. does Crowther really know what Michael Behe thinks about evolution? I Bet not.

ID in Australia

There is now fear that the new science curriculum being proposed in Australia may ban the teaching of ID altogether. A report in the Age states:

THE body representing Christian schools has expressed fears the unfinished national curriculum — which private schools will have to adopt as a condition of their Commonwealth funding — may ban the teaching of intelligent design.

The executive officer of the Australian Association of Christian Schools, Robert Johnston, said children should be encouraged to critique the science of evolution and he was worried the national curriculum could prevent schools from exploring alternative theories for the development of the universe.

Not sure what kind of evolution is being referred to here. ID doesn't address Big Bang cosmology directly, and biological evolution doesn't deal with origin of the universe questions. This may just be general unease. Won't know until more comes out.

Editorial: Board Should Listen to Scientists

The Corpus Christi Caller has an article here on the debate. Their perspective:

Members of the state Board of Education, as they prepare to establish a new science curriculum, should certainly heed the advice of the state's top science teachers: Teaching the "weaknesses" of the theory of evolution raises questions about its validity, questions that are not shared by established science. Public schools should teach evolution. Period. Texas students will have to compete in the real world, not the flat earth of the past.

Texas Responds to the Survey

The Houston Chronicle has released a story on the survey (see post below) and how it has affected Texans in general.

Texas Survey Draws Fire From Discovery Institute

The Discovery Institute has released a post in response to a survey that was done by the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund. The press release on the survey can be found here. It says in part:

The TFN Education Fund conducted the survey in conjunction with Dr. Raymond Eve, a sociologist at the University of Texas at Arlington in early 2008. The survey went to the 1,019 biologists and biological anthropologists on the faculty of all 35 public and the 15 largest private colleges and universities in Texas. An astonishing 45 percent of science faculty from 49 of those institutions responded to the survey, said Prof. Eve.

“Many of these science faculty members almost certainly help determine who gets into our state’s colleges and universities,” Eve said. “Their responses should send parents a clear message that those who want to play politics with science education are putting our kids at risk.”

The survey, which can be found here, revealed the following:

1. Texas scientists (97.7 percent) overwhelmingly reject “intelligent design” as valid science.

2. Texas science faculty (95 percent) want only evolution taught in science classrooms.

3. Scientists reject teaching the so-called “weaknesses” of evolution, with 94 percent saying that those arguments are not valid scientific objections to evolution.

4. Science faculty believe that emphasizing “weaknesses” of evolution would substantially harm students’ college readiness (79.6 percent) and ability to compete for 21st-century jobs (72 percent).

5. Scientists (91 percent) strongly believe that support for evolution is compatible with religious faith.

The results from the respondents was reasonably clear: they don't want to teach ID because they don't think that it is science. Rob Crowther of The Discovery Institute, which lives and dies with Intelligent Design, took issue with this and released a rather blustery response:

The liberal Darwin lobby group Texas Freedom Network has just published a push-poll of scientists titled, "Survey of Texas Faculty: Overwhelming Opposition to Watering Down Evolution in School Science Curriculum." You might think this is good news, that there are a majority of scientists and professors who support the current TEKS which require students to learn about the strengths and weaknesses of scientific theories.

Firstly, as Josh Rosenau of Thoughts From Kansas runs down, it is not a push-poll. Those are very different kinds of things that often take place over the telephone. Instead, this was a very methodically constructed poll involving faculty. Secondly, as far as learning about the strengths and weaknesses of scientific theories, a bit of honesty is required here. The Discovery Institute could care less about the strengths and weaknesses of quantum gravitational theory, newtonian gravitational theory, continental drift theory or germ theory. They care about evolutionary theory, period. That is all they are focused on. Mr. Crowther continues:

Instead, TFN means exactly the opposite. Let me point out that THEY are the ones who want gut the state's science standards and water down the teaching of evolution. They want to remove the strengths and weaknesses language, language that has been in the TEKS for over a decade.

What is stunning is the TFN's jackbooted thuggery of threatening parents! Parents reading this should be enraged that liberal anti-science censors are now making veiled threats against any student that doesn't toe the Darwin party line.

What is unclear is how not including ID in the teaching of evolution waters down the teaching of evolution. The "jackbooted thuggery" is badly explained (if at all) but may be a veiled reference to this ruling in California a few months ago, in which a judge ruled that universities and colleges could reject the applications of students who did not receive adequate instruction in modern science. How would Mr. Crowther feel if students were being instructed that the earth was flat or in the center of the universe? He continues:

1. Texas scientists (97.7 percent) overwhelmingly reject "intelligent design" as valid science.

Misleading: Intelligent design has nothing to do with the current discussion of proposed science standards.

2. Texas science faculty (95 percent) want only evolution taught in science classrooms

Misrepresentative: Actually, they only want half of evolution taught. They are seeking to limit the free flow of information and censor science.

Point 1: How does ID not have anything to do with the standards? The strengths and weaknesses language was implemented with the expressed purpose of opening the door to ID and creationism. That is a smokescreen. Point 2: what is the other half of evolution? ID supporters specifically suggest that evolution does not explain certain aspects of descent.

Call me old-fashioned but it seems to me that the burden of proof is on the ID supporters to demonstrate the ID is science. Until they can do that, Texas educators have every right to state that they don't want to teach it. I wouldn't either. Hat Tip to Josh Rosenau.

Cradle of Humankind in Danger?

The South African Star has reported on a problem affecting the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site, which includes the Sterkfontein hominid cave site:

As gold mines on the West Rand have stopped operating, the water table has returned to pre-mining levels, but since 2002 more than 15 megalitres of contaminated water has been flowing out, or decanting, onto the surface daily, into rivers and karst systems.

This mine drainage, which is highly acidic, highly saline and contains raised levels of toxic heavy metals, has found its way into the Tweelopies Spruit flowing through the Krugersdorp Game Reserve and towards the Cradle of Humankind.

But the expert maintains there has been little or no intervention from authorities despite warnings issued more than a decade ago.

"Many millions of rands of rare cave minerals and fossils are being destroyed as a result of the ongoing unchecked pollution.

That is sad.

As I was Saying...

More information on the Gona discovery from the Case Western Reserve News Center:

Making obstetrical measurements and comparing them to prior published specimens, Simpson determined that the birth canal in the pelvis had adapted to deliver a baby with a brain almost comparable to a modern-day baby at about 36 weeks and weighing approximately four pounds.

The H. erectus brain would have been up to 315 cubic centimeters (cc) at birth based on measurements of the width of the inlet and outlet of the pelvic fossils, making it slightly smaller than today’s babies born with brain sizes averaging about 380 cc.

Working at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, he also made comparisons with the reconstructed pelvis of "Lucy," an Australopithecus afarensis specimen, which is about 3.2 million years old, to see how the pelvis was evolving as means to deliver offspring with larger brains.

Can you say "transitional fossil?"

More on the Gona Woman

A story from the Salt Lake Tribune sheds more light on the discovery of the Gona pelvis:

A skull might say much about an ancient hominid's brain, but no skeletal structure reveals more than the pelvis. That's why a complete specimen from an estimated 1.3-million-year-old female Homo erectus - the first known to science - has paleo-archeologists rethinking what they know about this early human ancestor.
University of Utah geologist Naomi Levin helped date the early Pleistocene fossil, whose large girth indicates H. erectus gave birth to babies with brains not much smaller than those of modern human babies, according to a study published today in the journal Science. Their brains were nearly 40 percent the size of an adult brain, indicating a greater maturity at birth. (Modern newborns' brains are 27 percent their adult size.)

This suggests a more "hit the ground running" evolutionary pattern with less neonatal and adolescent child-rearing and it is possible that Homo erectus brains reached their maximum size earlier than modern human brains do.

Homo erectus: Bigger Babies Than We Thought?

A story out of Indiana University is likely to overturn some cherished ideas in Palaeoanthropology. Sileshi Semaw of IU has excavated the remains of a Homo erectus pelvis that came with a few surprises:

Reconstructing pelvis bone fragments from the 1.2 million-year-old adult female, Semaw and his co-workers determined the early ancestor's birth canal was more than 30 percent larger than earlier estimates based on a 1.5-million-year-old juvenile male pelvis found in Kenya. The new female fragments were discovered in the Gona Study Area in Afar, Ethiopia, in 2001 and excavation was completed in 2003.

This is contrary to what was previously thought and represents a sharp break with preceding hominids, suggesting that there was rapid evolution for larger brains and the corresponding evolution of the pelvis to accomodate them. This find is estimated to be c. 1.3 million years old.

A Trip to the "The Anti-Museum"

Charles Johnson over at Little Green Footballs has a link to a "highly entertaining account of a trip" to the Petersburg, Kentucky creationism museum by Ken Phelps, president of the Kentucky Paleontological Society. It is priceless. Along the way, he has some interesting comments:

The creationist version of "catastrophic" plate tectonics was most amusing. Apparently the continents moved really rapidly during the Flood. The creationists apparently think the Precambrian supercontinent of Rodinia was the pre-Flood world. The Late Paleozoic supercontinent of Pangea then forms under water early in the Flood. After the "fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened" Pangea breaks up under water. Somehow the earth and life survived the enormous amount of energy released during this one-year planetary resurfacing.

This is amazing if nothing else for the fact that there is zero geological evidence to support this model—Zero! Furthermore, there is no scriptural evidence to support it either. The Genesis account says nothing about shifting plates and changing land masses. Ludicrous!

He concludes by saying the following:

The absurd claims made in the Anti-Museum are no threat to science. However, I'm not sure how much of a threat the Anti-Museum is to science education. It might have an effect on local public schools where supporters of the "museum" may be sending their children. Teachers may start avoiding evolution and geology in this part of the state, but they probably are already doing this. Most homeschoolers are already teaching their children creationism, so the museum may at worst strengthen the message the kids are getting at home. Some of the claims, such as the vegetarian Tyrannosaurus and other carnivores are so absurd one wonders how many of the children (or adults) are really going to accept it. There is a lot of scientifically valid information available on dinosaurs in books and on the Internet. Creationists are really going to have to go to great lengths to shelter their children from this information.

According to reports, the effect on public schools has been limited. How to address home schoolers is another matter. Read the whole thing.

Quote of the Day

From Denis Lamoureaux's essay Challenging and Reshaping Responses to Original Sin, written in response to George Murphy's paper:

Worrying about where Adam fits in the paleontological record makes about as much sense as trying to figure out where in the firmament NASA sends its spacecraft.

Pithy and wise.

Society of Vertebrate Paleontology: "Repeal Louisiana Law."

The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology has joined the chorus of voices asking that Louisiana legislature repeal the "academic freedom" legislation passed this last year. According to the story in Flesh and Stone:

The SVP states that the law was passed “under the guise of ‘academic freedom’” but that its real intention is to “garner support and legal protection for the introduction of religious, creationist concepts, including intelligent design, in public school science curricula. By permitting instructional materials that are not reviewed by the state’s science standards committees, the Louisiana Act and those like it encourage teachers and administrators to work outside these standards. This makes it possible for local school boards to define science and science education to suit their own agendas, thereby compromising the quality of science education for students, and allowing religious discrimination in America’s public school science classrooms.”

Perhaps if enough pressure is placed on the legislature, they might reverse the laws but I would not hold my breath. These ideas are very deeply, often irrationally, entrenched.