New Noah's Ark Theme Park in Kentucky

Great Googlymoogly! It seems that the Creation Museum was not enough to draw tourism, now the Governor of Kentucky has announced that a huge park will be built by 2014 around the theme of Noah's Ark. The article, in the New York Daily News, by Nina Mandell, has this to say:

The park, which Kentucky expects to draw more than a million visitors each year, is projected to cost $150 million, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported.

"Make no mistake about it," Beshear said, according to the paper. "This is a huge deal."

The amusement park will include a 500-foot-long wooden replica of Noah’s Ark complete with live animals, according to the project's website.

"We are constructing a full-scale, all-wood ark based on the dimensions provided in the Bible (Genesis 6), using the long cubit, and in accordance with sound established nautical engineering practices of the era," wrote Ark Encounters, one of the groups behind the project.

The ark is a collaboration between Ark Encounters LLC, a for-profit company, and a non-profit company, Answers in Genesis, which runs the Creation Museum — a museum that educates children about the Bible through interactive exhibits in Petersburg, KY.

Interestingly, the endorsement by Steve Beshear, the governor of Kentucky gives the reader yet another opportunity to play "Name that Party." Ordinarily, if you look at stories involving Republicans and creationism, the "R" is featured very prominently. After I read this story, I had to go hunt up Steve Beshear's party affiliation. It is not often that a Democrat supports an initiative like this in such a high-profile way. And, lest you thought that it was a completely done deal, the article adds this:

While Beshear and other local politicians are convinced the park will float through any regulatory battles, some are questioning whether the millions in tax breaks that the group will receive for tourism violates the separation between church and state.

Beshear took an active part in that request, as well, pushing the positive economic impact for Northern Kentucky. If it is awarded tax breaks, expect the lawsuits to fly. Once again, the scientific world looks curiously at Kentucky and scratches its collective head.
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Life, Maybe Not So Alien

I should stick to palaeontology. The story about alien life below this was written on the strength of one article, and, as Steve Matheson correctly put it, I should have gone to some other sources. This passage from a Discovery News article puts things into perspective:

The discovery is amazing, but it’s easy to go overboard with it. For example, this breathlessly hyperbolic piece, published last year, suggests that finding such bacteria would be “one of the most significant scientific discoveries of all time”. It would imply that “Mono Lake was home to a form of life biologically distinct from all other known life on Earth” and “strongly suggest that life got started on our planet not once, but at least twice”.
The results do nothing of the sort. For a start, the bacteria – a strain known as GFAJ-1 – don’t depend on arsenic. They still contain detectable levels of phosphorus in their molecules and they actually grow better on phosphorus if given the chance. It’s just that they might be able to do without this typically essential element – an extreme and impressive ability in itself.

This puts it into better perspective. This is big news because it does provide us with a glimpse into some different evolutionary pathways that are unexpected. In a sense, this is like the microbes that can survive in hyperthermophilic environments in that it is just not something that would be expected. Sorry for jumping on the bandwagon. I should have known better.

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Alien Life Discovered

Well, this will rewrite a few books. Gizmodo is reporting that NASA is about to release findings of a new bacteria that was discovered at Mono Lake in California. They write:

NASA has discovered a new life form—called GFAJ-1—that doesn't share the biological building blocks of anything currently living in planet Earth. It's capable of using arsenic to build its DNA, RNA, proteins, and cell membranes. This changes everything. Updated.

NASA is saying that this is "life as we do not know it". The reason is that all life on Earth is made of six components: Carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur. Every being, from the smallest amoeba to the largest whale, share the same life stream. Our DNA blocks are all the same.

In a surprising discovery, NASA scientist Felisa Wolfe Simon and her team have found a bacteria whose DNA is completely alien to what we know today. Instead of using phosphorus, the newly discovered microorganism—called GFAJ-1 and found in Mono Lake, California—uses the poisonous arsenic for its building blocks.

This is huge. It is alien life that either developed in isolation from the rest of life on this planet for the last 3.8 BILLION years (unlikely) or it is literally alien in origin. Here is the NASA story by Dwayne Browne and Cathy Weselby. They write:

"The idea of alternative biochemistries for life is common in science fiction," said Carl Pilcher, director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute at the agency's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "Until now a life form using arsenic as a building block was only theoretical, but now we know such life exists in Mono Lake."

We will see how this gets picked up by different organizations in the next few weeks. It has amazing implications for exobiology.

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Evolutionary Christianity

There will be a free online discussion over at Michael Dowd's site on “Evolutionary Christianity” on December 4, with some big wigs in the field, including one of my favorites, Kenneth Miller. People can sign up at the site here. Matt Young of Panda's Thumb writes that he received a letter from Michael Zimmerman with some additional information:

This tele-series (telephone & computer, not television) will feature Michael Dowd and 30 other leaders in the nexus of science and religion (a number of whom who are Clergy Letter Project members), including two Nobel laureates, three Templeton Prize-winners, and more than two dozen others who exemplify by word and deed that religious faith can be positively strengthened and enriched by a science-honoring, evolutionary view of the world.

Some of the things that will be discussed include:

• How scientific and historical evidence, interpreted meaningfully, can enhance our lives and faith;

• Compassionate responses to both those who reject science and those who reject religion;

• How an evolutionary view of human nature can validate and deepen our appreciation of scriptural and traditional wisdom;

• And much more . … [ellipsis in original]

I have signed up, although with four small kids and many time commitments, I am not sure I will be able to participate. It was gratifying to hear from Michael that he is doing much better and is cancer-free. Matt also notes that this is being co-sponsored by the Clergy Letter Project. I wonder how many of the people from the DI and RTB will weigh in.

Hat tip to Panda's Thumb.

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Slacktivist Has an Interesting Point

Slacktivist has a post on the Genesis “Account.” He writes that it is no such thing:

An account is testimony, witnesses telling what they have seen. The speaker or writer -- the one giving the account -- does not need to be a direct witness herself. She may be a journalist or a historian compiling the testimony of others. But without some basis in such testimony from actual witnesses we haven't got what we can call an account.

When I point this out -- that the story in Genesis 1 is not an "account" -- the creation-ists get upset with me, as though I were attacking the book of Genesis. But I'm not attacking it, I'm defending it. Genesis 1 does not itself claim to be an account. It does not present itself as such and it does not willingly comply with those who would treat it as such. To read the story as it is, in the way that it presents itself, cannot be an attack. It's far more hostile to the text to declare, with no basis from the text itself, that it must be read as something it does not and cannot claim to be.

He also notes that other examples of accounts in the Bible have eye witnesses, especially the acts of Jesus, while the creation story does not. Is this semantic? Perhaps not since it goes to the heart of the “Were you there?” argument of Ken Ham's, who then states that we have God's account. In point of fact, no one was. While I have no doubt that the book of Genesis is what God handed down to Moses, in a sense, we are taking Moses' word for it.

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John Freshwater Case Settled

The Mount Vernon News reports that the John Freshwater "branding" case has been settled. Pamela Schehl reports:

The lawsuit was originally filed in the U.S District Court on June 13, 2008, and included as defendants the Mount Vernon City Schools Board of Education and various school employees. The suit alleged that Freshwater violated the constitutional rights of Zachary Dennis and those of his parents, Stephen and Jennifer Dennis, by, among other things, displaying religious items in his classroom, by teaching intelligent design and by expressing his own religious beliefs to students in the classroom.

The board’s portion of the lawsuit was resolved on or about Aug. 26, 2009, and Freshwater was the sole remaining defendant.

With Judge Hoover’s ruling last Tuesday, the suit against Freshwater was officially settled. The settlement of $475,000 to the Dennis family includes $25,000 for attorney fees, $150,000 each to Stephen and Jennifer, and $150,000 to be used for an annuity for Zachary.

What effect this will have on the curriculum in Mount Vernon is anybody's guess. Creationism always manages to find its way in, somehow.

Hat Tip to the NCSE.

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New Post for CFSI is up

My most recent post for the Center for Faith and Science International is up. It, and the next two will cover different kinds of evidence for evolution.

Wow, that was a long break. I am working on my third post for CFSI and revising my second BioLogos post, which I hope will be up later this week or next. Sorry for the absence.

New Issue of Journal of Evolution: Education and Outreach Deals with Human Evolution

The new issue of Journal of Evolution: Education and Outreach deals specifically with human evolution and contains several general review articles about the australopithecines and the emergence of Homo. It is part of the Springer Verlag package to which most large universities have access. The University of Tennessee has this.

Education Week: Evolution Education Working

According to an article in Education Week, the fallout from the Dover trial in 2005 has been bad for creationism and intelligent design. Sarah Sparks writes:

The National Science Foundation, the National Academy of Sciences, and other groups have increased research investment on identifying essential concepts for teaching evolution, including creating the Evolution Education Research Centre, a partnership of Harvard, McGill, and Chapman universities, and launching the first peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the subject, Journal of Evolution: Education and Outreach.

The journal was free for its first two years but now is behind a subscription wall. It is a top notch journal, though and worth seeking out. Sparks goes on to describe the different programs that are being implemented throughout the country but cautions that there are still problems:

Teacher education also has opened up as a new front in the battle over evolution in the classroom, according to Mr. Eberle. The Institute for Creation Research, which promotes creation-based science teaching, recently moved from California to Texas to fight for state accreditation to establish a master’s degree program in science education. Also, Louisiana has passed an “academic freedom” law protecting teachers who supplement their standard science textbooks with other materials; a state committee explicitly rejected a move to bar creationist or intelligent design materials from those supplements.

“If you take this term of ‘academic freedom’ more broadly, does it mean a teacher can teach anything?” Mr. Eberle asked. “It’s been narrowly applied to evolution, and I think it’s another term to accomplish the same goal” to undermine the scientific validity of evolution.

It should be noted that the ICR failed miserably in its bid to get accredited in Texas and has closed their "graduate program" in science. Interestingly, while there are many teachers that are skittish about teaching evolution, if you asked them if they were going to teach transmutation of gold or that the earth is flat, they would respond negatively. Why people feel different about evolution lies mostly in their lack of understanding of what the theory does and does not explain and deep-seated fears that it will upend their faith. The problem is that, if you are a young earth creationist, it will.

Modern Humans Have Slower Developmental Timing than Neandertals

ScienceDaily has a story in which a synchrotron x-ray machine has revealed that Neandertals had faster developmental timing patterns than modern humans and that this may have given modern human an advantage. They write:

A remarkable finding of this five-year study is that Neanderthals grow their teeth significantly faster than members of our own species, including some of the earliest groups of modern humans to leave Africa between 90-100,000 years ago. The Neanderthal pattern appears to be intermediate between early members of our genus (e.g., Homo erectus) and living people, suggesting that the characteristically slow development and long childhood is a recent condition unique to our own species. This extended period of maturation may facilitate additional learning and complex cognition, possibly giving early Homo sapiens a competitive advantage over their contemporaneous Neanderthal cousins.

Or it may just be an evolutionary adaptation to a warmer climate and less of a need to maintain selection for a quicker development. This is especially true in light of the fact that there is no evidence that modern humans were any more intelligent than their Neandertal precursors. As I have said before, if you lived in a world in which the tundra line was at Vienna, you'd have a hard time adapting, too.

Steve Matheson: More on BioLogos and Chrisian Unity

Steve Matheson over at Quintessence of Dust has a follow-up post to his original musings about the Vibrant Dance conference, in which the Discovery Institute revealed itself to be nothing more than a hack organization, interested not in open dialogue but bitter debate. Steve clarifies some things:

What I'm trying to do here is make it clear that I don't think that Darrel Falk and Dennis Venema and Deb Haarsma were mistaken to participate in the Vibrant Dance or to call for respectful engagement with those there who disagree with them. I'm saying that they must make it clear that the DI and RTB regularly violate standards of intellectual integrity. Both the DI and RTB promulgate falsehoods, and they do it knowingly. It should go without saying that such behavior is unacceptable among self-described scholars; that the scholars in question are Christians, functioning as public Christian apologists who seek to influence the thought and actions of millions of fellow Christians, only amplifies this concern.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the Discovery Institute has no intention of treating the data in an honest fashion. The first hints of that came with the Wedge Document and were on startling display at the Dover trial in 2005. Steve has stated in the past that he still holds out hope for RTB, although even here there seem to be problems of integrity.

Perhaps the odd thing about Reasons to Believe is that they treat the astrophysical data in an honest fashion and yet make a complete hash of the biological data and evolutionary theory. It is as if, when it comes to anything involving humans directly, the blinders go on. The Discovery Institute is a one-trick pony. Anything not dealing with evolution is ignored and then the evidence for evolution is twisted and misinterpreted.

It is not clear that there will a change anytime soon regarding any interactions between groups like BioLogos, which seeks to actually honestly interpret the data in a way that is in keeping with the integrity demanded by both science and a Christian walk and groups like RTB and the Discovery Institute, which do not seem to.

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The 2010 Elections and Science

Alasdair Wilkins over at io9 has been wondering the same thing that I have: how will the Republican takeover of congress and the local statehouses affect science policy. Here is what he writes:

The Republican platform, "The Pledge to America", never mentions the words "science", "technology", "NASA", "research and development", "evolution" or "intelligent design", "climate change", and certainly not "global warming."

That isn't, in and of itself, a bad thing. It just means the 2010 election cycle wasn't predicated on scientific issues. It does, however, make it rather more challenging to predict how government and science are going to interact over the next two years. And while it would be easy to say the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives is bad for science, the truth is a bit more complicated than that.

Wilkins agrees with most other pundits that, in so much as the Republicans turn their thoughts to science, they will focus on climate change and that this area of research will be hit hard. Here, the attempts to link attacks on climate change skepticism with attacks on ID will fall flat. The brouhaha from the emails at East Anglia last year still has legs and will be front and center in any deliberations involving climate change and funding. It doesn't help that many of the detractors of anthropogenic global warming are, themselves, climate scientists. But what about evolution?

Republicans have taken a stand that is certainly non-scientific and arguably anti-scientific. And it doesn't help that other planks of the Republican platform, such as their opposition to evolution, fall so ridiculously far outside the scientific mainstream. (Thankfully, evolution almost certainly won't come up in the next two years. That's the sort of thing that only gets aired out when Republicans have complete control of Congress, and even then it's tough to say what they could actually do about it.)

It is not from congress that the problems for evolution will come. Congress has rarely said anything about evolution and that is not likely to change. The problems will come from the local statehouses—where Republicans have taken 680 seats from Democrats. Even under a Democratic house and president, we still had attacks on evolution education in Louisiana, Utah, Tennessee, Ohio, Kentucky, Mississippi, Pennsylvania. Given that there is much data linking anti-evolutionism with being a member of the Republican party, these will not only continue, their proponents will be bolder. Even as the Republican Congress debates climate change on the national level, I suspect that their supporters will be debating evolution at a local level.

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Laetoli Footprints To Be Visible Again

AllAfrica.com is reporting that the Laetoli footprint tracks, produced by two side-by-side hominids some 3.6 million years ago, will be visible again and open for tourists. The author writes:

The state's announcement to open the site may see the beginning of the end for stirring debate over how to best protect the 3.6-millionyear- old tracks. In recent years, experts have been expressing fear for oldest human footprints fossilized tracks preservation, saying weathering has begun to undermine those protections, raising concerns that the prints preserved in a volcanic ash bed could be harmed by erosion, livestock or humans. It has prompted Tanzanian anthropologist Charles Musiba to call for the creation of a new museum to reveal and display the historic prints. But foreign anthropologists question this idea ... as they did when the tracks were covered ... because Laetoli is several hours' drive into Ngorongoro Conservation Area, making guarding and maintaining any facility extremely difficult.

A file photo of the tracks is above. It would be a shame if they cannot be saved. Even though we have casts of them, the original is priceless.

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More Trouble in Louisiana

2The Advocate is reporting that textbooks approved last month by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education in Louisiana are being criticized for putting too much emphasis on evolution. Will Sentell writes:

Critics contend some biology I, biology II and other school books under scrutiny for public classrooms put too much credence in Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.

Gee, wonder why that could be? Sentell continues:

“It is like Charles Darwin and his theory is a saint,” said Winston White, of Baton Rouge, who filed a comment with state officials reviewing the textbooks.

“You can’t touch it,” White said.

But others said the textbook criticism is being led by the Louisiana Family Forum, which touts itself as a group that promotes traditional values.

“They had their people going through the books, writing up complaints and sending them,” said Barbara Forrest, a professor at Southeastern Louisiana University and co-founder of the LA Coalition for Science.

It is a bit scary to think of folks at the Louisiana Family Forum going through textbooks to find problems with evolution, when it has become clear that, given their reliance on the ICR and AiG, they have little understanding of the subject in the first place.

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The Fountains of the Deep?

“11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. 12 And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.” (Genesis 7: 11-12, NIV)

A story from the Washington Post reports that scientists have seriously underestimated the amount of water underneath the surface of the earth. How did it get there? Here is one idea:

When our solar system began to take shape, roughly 4.5 billion years ago, it was a disk-shaped cloud of gas and dust spinning around a dense core, which became the sun. Close to this core, the cloud was very hot - too hot for compounds such as H2O to condense, so they got blown outward by a powerful solar wind. When they got far enough from the nascent sun, they condensed into water and ice. This happened beyond the orbits of the inner planets, including Earth, which coalesced out of heavier dust particles.

Okay, so how did it get under the earth's surface? The original theory involved cometary impacts, but that left too many unanswered questions. The story continues:

Michael Drake of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona in Tucson, thinks there's a better explanation. The majority of Earth's water, Drake believes, was there from the beginning, despite Earth's having formed inside the solar system's snow line. He and his colleagues have speculated that individual molecules of water vapor could have glommed onto dust particles inside the snow line, much as dew forms on grass. Then, when the dust particles drifted together into larger and larger objects, eventually growing to become the inner planets, the moisture stayed with them. Eventually, there was enough to form Earth's oceans.

So are these the “Fountains of the Deep?” Well, if flood geology hinged on only this one hypothesis, that might be reasonable. But it doesn't. The source of the flood's water is only one problem that flood geologists have to overcome out of hundreds that they cannot. Besides which, the amount of water necessary to flood the entire planet up to fifteen cubits above the tallest mountain would be vastly greater than the largest estimates of the present amount of subsurface water. One would have to employ a model out of the movie “2012” to make it work. How good was the science in that film? NASA felt compelled to put up a web page dispelling the sheer inanities in the film. Interestingly, there is a Christian review of the film that came out at the time by Sheri McMurray of Christian Spotlight which deals largely with the ideas of the end of the earth and the ultimate survival of humankind. Oddly enough, she does not touch on a particular aspect of the film that leaped out at me: that the cataclysmic events on the screen must have been very like that which are purported to have happened in Genesis 7 and 8, complete with sinking and rising continents, if the flood geology model is correct. As of now, there is no evidence that it is.

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Election 2010: Did Creationism Help Sink GOP Candidate?

Bernard Schoenburg, writing for the Springfield Journal Register opines that it may have been creationism that helped to sink GOP candidate Bill Brady. He writes:

Less than a month before Election Day, Brady appeared before the Chicago Sun-Times editorial board, where some of his conservative social views were discussed. The lead sentence on that newspaper’s story about the meeting mentioned that Brady told the board “he would not stand in the way of a public school board should it want to teach creationism.”

That was reminiscent of late 2005, when Brady started an unsuccessful run for his party’s nomination for governor in 2006.

“I think we should teach the Bible in our schools,” he said then on WMAY-AM. “One of the basic, fundamental voids we have in our school system is bringing God into the system.” Brady told me later he thought local school boards shouldn’t be prohibited from having the “historical significance of the Bible or any religion” taught.

Despite the spin, Brady’s startling talk of the need for God in public schools was part of what formed the impression that Brady was more conservative than many Illinois voters are comfortable with. The horrific economy and state budget this year pushed such issues into the background, but it’s easy to believe Brady’s creationism comments in the Sun-Times story pushed some possible Brady voters into Quinn’s camp.

This is, admittedly, speculation and it is the first such story I have heard about this issue in the election. I have maintained that if the Democrats had hammered this point to the electorate, that the GOP, in general, suffers from a science gap, more races might have gone Democrat. In reflection, how true that is in the heartland is debatable. Explaining that the opponent is a young earth creationist is one thing. Explaining that being one is bad for science education is another. This is especially true when a sizable segment of the population doesn't think young earth creationism is half bad.

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Dan Margoliss on Glenn Beck and Evolution

Dan Margoliss of the Morning Star UK has an issue with Glen Beck, who took a pot shot at evolution the other day:

"I think [evolution's] ridiculous," Beck said recently on his radio show. He went on to make a number of statements to bolster his claim that Darwinian natural selection is nonsense - but his claims showed only how little he knows of the subject.

Well, he wouldn't be the first conservative talk show host that completely botched evolutionary theory. Fox news regularly has on people like Kirk Cameron who doesn't know the first thing about the subject. Along the way, though, Margoliss writes something involving the human fossil record that, I will venture, is completely unknown to this group of evolution-haters:

We are Homo sapiens. The species before us was Homo erectus. If you were to revive a Homo erectus and put him next to a modern human being, it would be easy to tell the difference which was which.

However, if you were to revive all of our preceding generations and put one member of each in line, until it reached the generation of our recently revived ancestor Homo erectus, you'd have a problem of classification.

It would be virtually impossible to mark where Homo erectus ended and where Homo sapiens began. Each generation would be slightly more like the next species than the previous one.

Evolution is a process of gradual change - very gradual - over thousands of generations. It's not as if a Homo erectus gave birth to a Homo sapiens. Every single generation is, in a sense, intermediate.

It's precisely because whole generations are missing that we are able to label the different species. Otherwise we'd have no idea where to draw the line between humans and our ancestors.

Some would argue that Homo erectus did not give rise to Homo sapiens and that Homo sapiens neandertalensis is a separate species, but I will follow Wolpoff on this lead.

When Kirk Cameron stood there in front of the cameras and said he couldn't possibly believe in evolution because he had never seen "one of these, a crockaduck," I thought he was joking. Then I realized that this level of knowledge about evolutionary theory is commonplace.

The human fossil record is so good and there are so many transitions that we have trouble telling one species apart from another. Is the Bodo cranium (shown here on the left) late Homo erectus or is it archaic Homo sapiens? I have seen it classified as both. The point is that evolution happens in mosaic fashion, regardless of whether you employ a systematics model or a phenetic one. The fossil record is what it is and for humans and their precursors, it is quite good.



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Sandwalk

I have added Sandwalk to my list of blogs on the right hand side. This is a good blog by a biochemist at the University of Toronto by the name of Laurence Moran, that addresses themes in evolution and science in daily life. He might be a bit religiously skeptical for my tastes but has concise commentary on the science.

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Dembski/Hitchens Debate

Christopher Hitchens, who is battling esophageal cancer, and William Dembski will debate whether or not God is good at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, TX on November 18. Here is the blurb in the campus newspaper from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. It reads, in part:

Dembski and Hitchens will debate the existence of a good God during a conference for the Biblical Worldview Institute at Prestonwood Christian Academy in Plano, Texas. The debate will be hosted in the worship center at Prestonwood Baptist Church from 8:40 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. It will also be webcast on www.pcawebcast.com.

I hope that Dembski can go toe to toe with Hitchens but given his reluctance to defend his own research from criticisms, I fear the worst.

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Our Cheatin' Ancestors?

A new study suggests that modern humans are considerably less promiscuous than their forbears. In a story that appeared in the University of Oxford site, the culprit seems to be androgen levels:

Previous studies by the research team have shown that promiscuous species have low index to ring finger ratios while monogamous species have high finger ratios. High levels of androgens, such as testosterone, increase the length of the fourth finger in comparison to the second finger. It is thought that prenatal androgens affect finger length during development in the womb, which in turn is linked to adult behaviour. High levels of prenatal androgens are linked with competitiveness and promiscuity.

I would love to know what the r² on that analysis is. I am always extremely suspicious of a study that links a single process to a complex social behavior, especially something like this. Later, the article has this:

Dr Susanne Shultz, from the University of Oxford, said: ‘Social behaviours are notoriously difficult to identify in the fossil record. Developing novel approaches, such as finger ratios, can help inform the current debate surrounding the social systems of the earliest human ancestors.

They are notoriously difficult because they often leave few to no clues. This analysis also sidesteps the problems involved in trying to ascertain what other selective forces might have been at work in early hominid development. For example, in Ardipithecus, given that they exhibited incipient bipedality and were, at least in part, arboreal as well, there may have been selective pressures on metacarpal and phalanx length. Also, is finger length one trait dictated by pleiotropy? Or is it polygenic? Is there linkage disequilibrium going on? These sorts of questions could be extrapolated to other hominid species as well and need to be addressed before arriving at the conclusion that is stated in this study.

Update on "Nifty Videos" Post

I have been informed that AronRa is the author of the 12 Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism series.

Nifty Video on Transitional Fossils

Karl, writing from the blog Athens and Jerusalem, has posted a long series on the "foundational falsehoods of creationism." Here is his video on transitional fossils.



He has a very good explanation of what a transitional fossil is as well as how many we actually have. The slides go past pretty quickly so you will probably need to pause the video to read them. The best line, regarding extinction: "practically everything that ever was, ain't no more."

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Post-Election Wednesday

Well, the Republicans won 58 seats in the house that they didn't have and now have a 239-185 majority and they gained five seats in the senate resulting in a 49-46 minority. The media is painting the tea party as extremist and, to be sure, there are some extreme elements in it, but the same can be said for the "Rally for Sanity," (about which Mary Katherine Ham demonstrates that there is idiocy on both sides of the electorate). In any event, the next two years ought to be interesting. Here are some predictions:

Good things:

• more fiscal responsibility
• a thorough reading of Obamacare (which even many Democrats admit they hadn't read) to see just what exactly is in it.
• a relaxation of the stranglehold that the unions have over jobs and businesses
• less willingness to bail out entities that do not deserve it (e.g. California)
• more accountability in spending (The WaPo discovered that the TARP money went from the taxpayers to the companies to the politicians who voted for TARP. Neat circle there.)
  

Bad things:

• the introduction of more "academic freedom" bills in statehouses across the land
• more attempts by emboldened young earth creationists, under the cover of "a mandate from the people," to introduce creationism in public schools all across the country
• less science funding in areas of biology and genetics—anything that can be connected to evolution.

I hope I am wrong about the bad things but I am betting not.

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Its Tuesday

Go out there and vote. If you are like me and follow the science education question "religiously," I cannot advise you on how to vote. It seems as though the candidates that agree with fiscal conservatism also tend to be creationists, or lean that way. So do we live in a country that has great science education but is due for imminent financial collapse? I don't know. For those of you who read this are Christians or believers in a higher power, I would suggest that you pray before you pull the lever. I did.

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The Discovery Institute Wastes a Golden Opportunity and Shows Its True Colors

Steve Matheson, in response to the news that BioLogos and the Discovery Institute would be part of a larger symposium on the nature of science and religion called "The Vibrant Dance," wrote a blistering column on his blog on the cost of Christian unity. In it, he wrote:

In short, I take the following to be evident: unity is not an end in itself, and is not achieved by wishful thinking or gushy happy talk. I'll look at those two points in two posts on BioLogos and Christian unity.

So, I'm occasionally frustrated by the stance of my friends at BioLogos when it comes to Christian unity. Consider a recent and widely-discussed piece by Darrel Falk, on the question of why BioLogos is co-sponsoring a conference (called The Vibrant Dance) with two organizations known to regularly misrepresent science: Reasons To Believe (RTB) and the Discovery Institute (DI). Falk notes that this choice has been criticized by believers and skeptics alike. In my opinion, his defense of that choice misses the most important criticisms. His defense amounts to a claim that Christian unity matters more than just about anything else.

The focus behind Matheson's apprehension is his complete distrust of all things Discovery Institute and he has written extensively on this topic. I have also addressed their propensity for twisting language out of its original meaning.

Well, as Steve might say "I told you so." The majority of the conference apparently went according to plan and Darrel Falk writes that, as a whole, it was very well organized. Then the Discovery Institute pulled off its mask. Panda's Thumb refers to this as a classic case of bait and switch. As Darrel Falk writes:

Five days before the meeting, the Discovery Institute posted a statement about the upcoming event:

“Next week the Vibrant Dance of Faith and Science becomes the God and evolution showdown in Austin…”

The posting then went on to state:

Attendees have three days of speakers and sessions but should prepare for a rumble on Thursday, October 28, when Stephen Meyer and Doug Axe will go up against Darrel Falk and Randy Isaac in a debate on the origin of life…

The way this was described by the Discovery Institute was exactly what had concerned me most about this meeting. Knowing that this may have been inadvertently put up by someone who was not aware of the intention of the meeting, I immediately contacted the organizers and asked that the statement be taken down and that it be replaced with a statement which indicated an assurance that the Discovery Institute was committed to enter into our breakout session, not in the spirit of a “God and evolution showdown” or a “rumble” but within the Spirit of Christian unity. I felt the task was difficult enough as it was that unless we both clarified our mutual commitment from the start it had the potential to harm the Church.

The organizers asked the Discovery Institute to take the statement down; it was not granted. I was told that it was an Associate Director of the Discovery Institute who had denied the request. I felt strongly that there was a need to publically acknowledge that the tone of the post was not consistent with the nature of the meeting. I also felt that it was important to make a public statement about our commitment to work together in the Spirit of Christ. Because an Associate Director of the Institute acknowledged that he knew about it and wouldn’t grant the request, I pulled out.

I have often wondered if the Discovery Institute has a split personality with the researchers working on problems involving the nature of biocomplexity and the PR wing of the institute engaged in hucksterism and propaganda. Now we find that I am wrong. The rot goes all the way to the top, with the higher eschelons engaged in this intentional antagonism.

Bravo to Darrel for pulling out of the session involving the DI. This is yet another reason why other organizations refuse to take them seriously or to entreat with them. They had a golden opportunity to engage BioLogos on the legitimacy of evolutionary creationism and intelligent design and, because of their juvenile, immature approach to this complex question, they wasted it. Darrel ends his post with this:

BioLogos remains more concerned than ever about ensuring that we all—together as Christians—can come to peace with mainstream science, including biology. We do not think it is fundamentally flawed even though we know there are those who have misused it for their own philosophical agendas. We look forward to ongoing discussions with those who see things differently---but not where it has been announced to be a showdown and not where it has been presented as a rumble.

It is clear that the Discovery Institute, like the ICR and AiG, is not interested in honest debate on the topic of origins and evolution and, like those organizations, should be avoided in future endeavors like the Vibrant Dance. Steve, you were right. Good riddance and bad rubbish!
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Ramping Up to Tuesday

There are races all over the country and one of the topics on everyone's minds seems to be evolution. From the Kansas City Star we have this:

The Kansas Board of Education 1st District race features newcomer Willie Dove against incumbent Janet Waugh...Waugh believes science “should be taught as recommended by the mainstream science community, which includes evolution.” But she supports creationism being taught in other classes, including comparative religion, history or government.

Dove supports teaching alternatives to evolution but didn’t clarify if he supports teaching alternatives like creationism as part of the science curriculum.

From the Fort Collins Coloradoan, we have this:

Anyone who reads the Coloradoan's endorsement of [Ken] Buck on Oct. 22 should read all the newspaper. The front-page story is about Buck's claim that climate change is a "hoax." Buck is now retreating from that statement, but he asserted that James Inhofe of Oklahoma was the "first person to stand up and say this global warming is the greatest hoax that has been perpetrated." He added, "The evidence just keeps supporting his view and more and more people's views of what's going on."

Inhofe is the point man for the right-wing fringe. He wants a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage and another to make English the official language of the United States. Inhofe also thinks evolution is a hoax and that creationism should be taught in public schools. If Buck views Inhofe as a leader whose ideas are worth repeating, it says a lot about Buck.

On the Alaska race, from the Daily Caller:

Alaska Senate hopeful Joe Miller focused on GOP rival Sen. Lisa Murkowski during the last debate before next week’s election, seeking to shore up his conservative base and win over voters following a series of high-profile campaign stumbles...
The debate touched on topics such as whether creationism should be taught in schools: Miller said yes, along with science; Democrat Scott McAdams and GOP write-in candidate Sen. Lisa Murkowski both said it shouldn’t be.

I suspect that this is playing out all over the country, with the Democrat candidates forcing the issue. I would if I were them.

Christine O'Donnell and Teaching Creationism

Delaware Online has a story about the Christine O’Donnell/Chris Coons debate that has gotten the blogosphere so riled up on both sides of the aisle. Common consensus is that the law students treated her abysmally and that she was correct in some assertions. I will deal with one of them in which she was not.

The discussion about the separation of church and state started when Coons asked O'Donnell whether she believes in evolution, a question she repeatedly skirted during two debates last week.

"What I think about the theory is irrelevant," O'Donnell said.
Coons went on to say that schools should not be permitted to teach creationism. O'Donnell replied that his view violated the Constitution and imposed his beliefs on local school districts.

"You have just stated that you will impose your will over the local school district and that is a blatant violation of our Constitution," O'Donnell said.

Not in this case. The freedom to teach creationism would only stand if creationism was accepted science. It is not. O'Donnell is correct in that the "separation of church and state" is not in constitution. The problem is that what the constitution does say is that congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion. That means not promoting state-sanctioned religion. Creationism is patently religiously based and, as such, is a clear violation of the First Amendment. This has been shown in numerous court cases dating back thirty years.

A further problem is this notion that one’s beliefs are being imposed upon by the teaching of accepted science. One only takes this perspective if they are completely ignorant of mainstream science and view it adversarially. This is not confidence-inspiring. We will see on Tuesday.

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Stand Up for Science Asks: Are God and Keplerism Compatible?

The Panda’s Thumb points us to a hilarious story from the blog “Stand Up for Real Science.” It is a parody of the recent Discovery Institute article on “Can you be a Darwinist and a theist?” by Jay Richards, on which I posted here. Titled: “Are God and Keplerism Compatible? Some Catholic, Jewish and Protestant Authors Say No”, it reads in part:

“Too few people have carefully teased out the various scientific, philosophical, and theological claims at stake in believing that the earth revolves around the sun,” says Ray Hitchens, director of research for Stationary Institute’s Center for the Renewal of Culture & Science, and editor of God and Revolution. “As a result, the whole subject of God and revolution has been an enigma wrapped in a shroud of fuzz and surrounded by a blanket of fog. To help clear the air, we are no longer denying that our motivations for rejecting it are completely religious.”

God and Revolution includes chapters by Willard Rembski, author of The Decline of Revolution; Steve Meyerson, author of Signature in the Solar System: Epicycles and the Evidence for Intelligent Design; Denise O’Lambert, co-author of The Spiraling Drain; Davis Hoffenkling, editor of Signature of Controversy: Responses to Critics of Signature in the Solar System; John Wellington, author of Icons of Revolution; and Jonathan East, author of Kepler Day in America;

The book is a response to growing efforts by some Keplerists to enlist the support of the faith community by downplaying Keplerism’s core principles. Chapters of the book detail the failures of theistic revolution, address the problem of retrograde motion, and explain how intelligent design is consonant with orthodox belief in the fixity of the earth.

This is sort of along the lines of NCSE’s “Project Steve,” that wonderful spoof of the DI’s Dissent from Darwin. Parody of the highest order.

NPR: Feckless, Gutless and Intolerant

The story posted below was the last NPR story that I will post. The firing of Juan Williams, one of the most fair and even correspondents I have heard in recent years made me sick to my stomach. I will never post a story from NPR again, nor will I ever consider donating money to them. If a letter is circulated asking congress to defund them, I will sign it. They are not even liberal in outlook. They are politically correct and intolerant of free speech.

NPR Tackles Linneaus

Linnaeus, if you remember your biological history, is the man responsible for the binomial classification scheme that we now use to taxonomically place animals and plants. As Robert Krulwich writes, on NPR:

"It is difficult to overstate the importance of this," write biologists Sandra Knapp and Quentin Wheeler in their 2008 book Letters to Linnaeus. The great Swede's classifications, they say, rank with the invention of the internet.

And yet the very people who should take Linnaeus most seriously — the research scientists who discover and name new species of life — have all kinds of fun playing with Linneaus' system.

As Krulwich notes, however, there has been some fun at Linnaeus' expense:

But recently my collection of names has been updated by Professor Chris Impey in his new book How It Ends. Here’s Chris’ list of favorites:

He found a beetle named Agra vation and another one called Agra phobia. (These are their real scientific names.)

There is a pine tree called Pinus rigidus.

There is a mollusk named Abra cadabra.

He found an extinct rat-kangaroo called Wakie wakie.

I once heard a story about a man who discovered a new species of snail and, to spite his major professor, who's name was Hodgekiss, called it Hodgekisseanus.

John Freshwater Update

Panda's Thumb has an update on the John Freshwater case titled The Defense Goes Fishing. Richard Hoppe writes:

The defense in Freshwater v. Mount Vernon Board of Education, the federal suit John Freshwater brought against the Board of Education, several administrators, and several Board members, recently issued a series of subpoenas to people ranging from Nancy Freshwater’s physicians to a couple of private citizens. While the former is arguably relevant to the case, the latter are not. Part of Freshwater’s claim in his suit is the adverse effect on his wife and loss of consortium, so her medical records are potentially pertinent. However, in at least two cases, the defense is clearly on a fishing expedition that among other things has chilling implications for the First Amendment rights of the recipients.

The whole post is interesting. There are apparently two local residents who have a web site devoted to the trial. The defense subpoenaed everything that the two had ever written about the case, whether it made the web or not. Given the history of the defense in this case, this is not promising. Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee plunk! Wonder what will end up on the hook.

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The Friendly Atheist on “The Whole Truth”

Since this seems to be the theme of the week, I noticed that the Friendly Atheist has a piece on how pushy atheists should be when confronting Christians or others who believe in a higher power. Referring to the atheism of PZ Myers and Chris Mooney, he writes:

Here’s the difference between the two sides: You know that courtroom phrase, “tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”?

Both Mooney and PZ want to tell the truth about science and evolution.

Only PZ is willing to tell the whole truth — that the logical conclusion of accepting science fully is that you must dismiss any notion of gods, miracles, and the supernatural.

Mooney thinks it’s bad PR for us to admit that — and he may be right — but it’s wrong to let Christians keep thinking science and religion are perfectly compatible when they really aren’t.

There are two striking assumptions here that Mehta expects us to take at face value: that PZ Myers’ perspective is “the whole truth” and that the logical conclusion of accepting science is that you must reject any notion of the existence of the supernatural.

This odd conflation of methodology with worldview, is known as philosophical naturalism. It means that in my scientific endeavors, I must believe that a supernatural entity does not and cannot exist. In this case, my worldview may or may not be divorced from reality. Performing science with the assumption that there is no interference from a higher power does not mean that there is not one. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

I would also make the case that it is intellectually dishonest. I contend that science cannot address the existence of God one way or the other. It simply is not equipped to do so. Astrophysicist Hugh Ross, who wrote The Fingerprint of God, which deals with the level of “tweaking” that the universe exhibits in order to sustain life on this third rock from the sun, believes that this points to the existence of God. As far as he and other progressive creationists and intelligent design supporters are concerned, while not a smoking gun, this level of inferential evidence is enough. Maybe, but it is a post hoc argument. It only looks tweaked because we are here to observe it. One of the main complaints about ID is that it has no theoretical construct to test for the existence of God. Michael Behe suggests that evolution cannot explain the flagellar motor or the blood-clotting cascade in humans. Even if, by some chance that is true, it still presents no support that God produced either in ex nihilo fashion.

By the same token, the statement that there is no god is a statement of faith. It is only the whole truth if you subscribe to the reductionistic view that all we can see is all that exists. Once again, science cannot address that question. To be completely honest, we must be scientifically agnostic. What we believe to be true is a matter of faith. PZ Myers and Herment Mehta believe in their hearts that there is no god. I believe that there is.

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Jerry Coyne On Why Science and Religion Cannot Be Friends

Jerry Coyne, author of Why Evolution is True, has written a column for USA Today, in which he opines that science and religion cannot coexist. He begins:

Atheist books such as The God Delusion and The End of Faith have, by exposing the dangers of faith and the lack of evidence for the God of Abraham, become best-sellers. Science nibbles at religion from the other end, relentlessly consuming divine explanations and replacing them with material ones.

Gee, Jerry. Don't hesitate to tell us what you think. He is, of course, focusing on the "God of the Gaps" model of the universe, assuming that this is a valid picture of Christianity. For some, it might be. It is not for most. He continues:

But faith will not go gentle. For each book by a "New Atheist," there are many others attacking the "movement" and demonizing atheists as arrogant, theologically ignorant, and strident.

Can't imagine why that would be. I remember having a conversation with my pastor after "the talk." He had gone out and picked up something by Richard Dawkins. While he did not have the background to understand the arguments on evolution, what came out clear as a bell was the "strident" (he used that word) and arrogant wording of Dawkins in all things religious. Unlike the NCSE, of whom Eugenie Scott at least held religious belief in respect, if not something she believed herself, Coyne is insulting and disdainful in his view of religion. A bit later, he tips his hand, though:

Science and faith are fundamentally incompatible, and for precisely the same reason that irrationality and rationality are incompatible. They are different forms of inquiry, with only one, science, equipped to find real truth. And while they may have a dialogue, it's not a constructive one. Science helps religion only by disproving its claims, while religion has nothing to add to science.

He is correct. They are different forms of inquiry. The thing is that while others regard religious inquiry as valid, he does not. That is not a failing of religious inquiry, it is a reductionistic view on his part. That he does not find this level of inquiry does not mean, nor should it mean that others do not.
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The Charles Darwin Two Pound Coin

Great Britain has released a coin that has Charles Darwin's head and that of a chimpanzee looking at each other. It is in honor of his 200th birthday. Here is an image of it.



Unless you live in a large city, my guess is you will have to order it online. I know I will have to.


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Jay Richards Asks "Can You Be a Darwinist and a Theist?"

Jay Richards, editor of the new book God and Evolution, has given us a short taste of what the book is about in a video posted on the DI website. In it, he hopes to strike a logical blow against the idea of theistic evolution (or evolutionary creationism, if you prefer). In it, he states:

When English speakers use the word “evolution” they usually mean neo-Darwinian evolution which means that all the adaptive complexity you see is the result of random genetic mutation acted on by natural selection and they mean that as an impersonal and purposeless process. But when they say “random,” that’s not just some mathematical term that’s perfectly compatible with a view of God’s providence. They mean “purposeless” and that’s the problem. Not even God can direct an “undirected” process.

This is classic Discovery Institute sleight-of-hand. Mr. Richards focuses on the idea that mutations are random and then extrapolates this idea to the entire evolutionary process, which he argues cannot logically be incorporated into a view of a providential God.

But by equating mutation with selection, he glosses completely over the fact that selection is not random. It is directional and depends on the kind of environment in which the organism lives. Environments change over time and are different depending on where they are on the planet. Selection acts in populations based on these different biomes. If evolution is random, then the appearance of these biomes in different areas and at different times is random as well.

Oddly, he also fails to address the validity of incorporating the randomness of mutations into the view of a providential God. If mutations drive evolution, as Richards states, and evolution is random, then mutations must be random as well.

I plan to rent this as soon as it is available and it is possible I will arrive at a different conclusion once I have seen it. Given the DI's track record, however, I suspect that the four minute video is representative of the whole.

Richards argues that “neo-Darwinian” evolution is incompatible with belief in a providential God and that this is something that theistic evolutionists don’t want to face. This is only true if evolution works the way that Richards thinks it does. It does not. Evolution, properly understood, does not address the existence of God, no matter how much the Discovery Institute would wish otherwise.

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Richard Dawkins Interview in the Houston Chronicle

On Sunday, Eric Berger of the Houston Chronicle sat down with Richard Dawkins. Given the stridency with which Dawkins has attacked religious belief and championed evolutionary theory, the results were a bit surprising (to me at least). First the non-surprising part:

Q. Are you surprised that, in the 21st century, we're still debating evolution in the public square?

A. Yes, I'm very surprised. I'm not quite sure why of all the sciences, it is evolution that should be singled out for this remarkable treatment. Amateurs who know nothing of science don't attempt to dictate what goes into chemistry or physics textbooks, as far as I am aware. But in the case of my own subject, biology, it's a free-for-all where anyone can say what they think as a personal opinion. These are not matters of personal opinion, these are matters of fact. And matters of fact are determined by the evidence. And it is the evidence that should define what goes into textbooks.

I had this discussion with my pastor way back when. I asked him, “Don't you think it is odd that every other major science discipline has figured out how the world works but biologists have gotten it completely wrong?” He admitted that this was puzzling and worthy of consideration. Unfortunately, it is also behind the many “academic freedom” bills that have littered state legislatures in the past few years, since the Dover decision. While there is lip service to the idea that all scientific disciplines should be examined for their strengths and weaknesses, no one seriously doubts that the entire thrust of these bills is aimed solely at evolution.

Dawkins does say something somewhat startling, though. When asked:

Q. From your perspective is there any credible evidence for the existence of a God?

He replies:

A. No, not to my mind. But I think it's a respectable thing to have an argument about. It's something we can have an intelligent argument in which intelligent people can make points on both sides.

This strikes me as being a bit of a lurch from his “Age of Reason” program in which he castigated parents for imparting religious values to their children. If the religious people are “intelligent” people, why can they not pass on these values to their children?

A bit later, however, Dawkins reminds us that a good evolutionary biologist can be a very bad sociologist. The question posed is this:

Q. Do you fear the United States is on its way to becoming a theocracy?

Unaccountably, Dawkins answers the question thus:

A. I think that when George W. Bush was president it was starting to look that way. I was of course hugely encouraged by the election of Barack Obama, so I don't think the United States is on its way to becoming a theocracy. But it's something we need to watch. I think there are countries in the world that are theocracies, and they're terrible, terrible examples. Looking at Saudi Arabia, we really, really don't want my part of the world or your part of the world to go anywhere near that.

This is patent nonsense. The United States has never even come close to a theocracy, nor will it ever come close. He comments that during George Bush, it was "starting to look that way." No it wasn't. It was during the presidency of George Bush, for example, that anti-Christmas campaigns got going in earnest. There were no freedoms curtailed, there was no religious dictate from on high. There was nothing. One of the people who commented on the story also wrote:

It's hard to take seriously anything else the guy says when he says something that dumb. I'd love to know what Bush policy he's referring to. Is he talking about Bush's faith based initiative program? If so, he doesn't know his facts since Obama has continued the program.

Like I said, great evolutionary biologist, mediocre theologian and sociologist at best. Read both the interview and the comments, if you have time.

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The Future Evolution of Humans

Futurepundit has an article on "How Will Humans Evolve?" Much of this sort of thing is pure speculation, although there are some trajectories can be plotted. He (Randall Parker) writes:

Starting some time in the next 10 years genetic testing will enable embryo selection that will start off the trend toward healthier, sexier, and smarter offspring. That trend will accelerate in the 2020s and 2030s. Therefore in the 2040s and beyond we (at least those of us who live long enough to get rejuvenation therapies that make us young again) will witness a trend toward higher attractiveness. People will become more perfect-looking and more able. Parents will generally want children capable of achieving more success. This will tend to select for intelligence, looks, height, stamina, and motivation. The choices made to get these desired traits will select against genetic diversity in the humans species.

It is safe to say that this sort of speculation has been around since the 1960s, when the progress of DNA modification was first thought to have potential. I even remember encountering it in an Archie comic once.There are problems, of course, with this simplistic assessment of future evolution. First, traits such as "intelligence" are polygenic, and much is unknown about how intelligence forms. It has been, after all, only a short time since the Forkhead Box P2 gene was discovered that seems to help drive language capabilities. Other genes are pleiotropic, affecting a range of traits. How do you influence one and not others? Even sophisticated gene therapy has a hard time homing in on one trait, and that is if it is not pleiotropic or polygenic. Second, people are remarkably funny about what they want. In many polls, it has been found that the women that men find most attractive usually winds up not being the one they will marry.

It is possible that we might be able to decrease the genetic load of the population but even this will be slow. Many diseases, such as MS and Parkinsons, are post-reproductive and their genetic basis is still largely a mystery. All of these factors (and others I am sure) have largely been responsible for the fact that humans don't look appreciably sexier, aren't healthier and don't have more motivation than their precursors 50-60 years ago.

Textbook Trouble in Florida

In the first of three articles on the subject, the Orlando Sentinel reported on some trouble that a science textbook publisher has found itself in. In the September 30 paper, Leslie Postal wrote:

The publishers of a marine-science textbook that critics say contains pro-creationism material has agreed to remove two offending pages from editions sold to Florida schools, state officials said.

An advisory group, made up mostly of educators, that reviewed the book on CD-ROM last week recommended that "Life on an Ocean Planet" be approved only if the pages were cut, a participant said.

The Florida Department of Education said the publisher has agreed. Current Publishing, in California, did not respond to a request for comment.

The second article, which ran later the same day, also by Postal, had a bit more information about the controversy:

The book, Life on an Ocean Planet, was one of 22 reviewed by a group (made up mostly of educators) asked to recommend high school life sciences materials. The two participants I spoke with said the book stood out because of those two pages, which seemed intent on misinforming students or rehashing discredited ideas.

Both said that book was in stark contract to the others they reviewed –most for various high school biology courses . The other textss [sic], they said, were top-notch and dealt with evolution head on, as required under Florida’s new science standards. The Florida Department of Education said last week that the book’s publisher had agreed to remove the pages that raised red flags, but I never heard back from Current Publishing to confirm that.

In the third article, which ran October 4,the textbook company, Current Publishing, defended their position. Postal writes:

The criticized “sidebar” passages in a marine science textbook proposed for Florida high schools were meant to be a “critical thinking exercise for students” and not a way to undermine the teaching of evolution, said a vice president with Current Publishing, the text’s publisher.

The textbook Life on an Ocean Planet was developed for Florida’s marine science courses in 2005 and revised recently to meet the state’s new science standards, said Dean Allen, the company’s vice president and general manager.

The book doesn’t attempt to mislead or undermine the teaching of evolution, he insisted.

The odd thing about all three stories in the Sentinel is that no part of the sidebar information is either extracted or referenced. Those reading the story have no idea what was in the sidebar that was offensive. For that we have to go to the NCSE, which replicates the sidebars. They write:

The sidebar makes a variety of historical and scientific errors. For example, it claims that in the Origin of Species "Darwin proposed that life arose from nonliving matter"; it equates microevolution with genetic drift; and it contends that selective breeding demonstrates genetic drift. Moreover, although the sidebar acknowledges that "the vast majority of biologists (probably more than 95%)" accept evolution, it also airs, without attempting to debunk, a variety of creationist claims (which are attributed to unnamed "skeptics"). Among these claims: that the fossil record "does not contain the many transitional species one would expect," that "evolution doesn't adequately explain how a complex structure ... could come to exist through infrequent random mutations," that transitional features could not be favored by natural selection, and that "the hypotheses that ... chemicals can lead to abiogenesis are highly debatable."

It is difficult to believe that some of the committee that wrote the textbook did not put these passages in on purpose in the hopes that they would not be noticed. The bullet points in the sidebar are ID "talking points" and are straight out of the "academic freedom" playbook championed so heavily by the Discovery Institute. It would also be naive to think that this is not the only place they will show up. The bad thing here is that the writers of the textbook should have known better. The good thing is that the misinformation was caught.

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Ah, the Life!

The Tribune Newspaper of Swartkrans has an article about a former factory manager who is now hunting for fossils in South Africa. According to the story by Robyn Dixon:

[Morris] Sutton, 47, an archaeologist, was a Memphis, Tenn., factory manager who grew tired of the flat horizon of commerce and manufacturing and of laying off fellow employees. So he quit to pursue his hobby: hunting for fossils and Stone Age tools. He went back to college to study archaeology and later moved to South Africa, where he is a postdoctoral researcher with the Institute for Human Evolution at the University of the Witwatersrand.

Now that would be fun! Swartkrans is a site that was first excavated by Robert Broom in the 1930s and revealed Australopithecus robustus remains, including some almost complete skulls, such as the one on the left, and a complete vertebral column, showing without a shadow of a doubt that these creatures with small, ape-like skulls were walking upright like modern humans.



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Stone Tool Use on Flores Was Earlier Than Previously Thought

Mike Morwood and Adam Brumm, who have working on the island of Flores have discovered tools that are around one million years old. According to a story by Anna Salleh on ABC Science:

The tools came from an entirely new site in the Soa basin, to the east of Liang Bua cave, where the 18,000-year-old 'hobbit', Homo floresiensis was found. The tools, which could only have been made by early humans, were in the very bottom sediment layers of the site, just above the bedrock.

Back in 1994, I was shown a cast of a hominid that had been found in Indonesia, by the late Grover Kranz, in which he argued that the placement of some very primitive crests on the base of the skull placed it either in late Australopithecus or early Homo habilis. This is similar to an argument that has been made by Don Tyler at the University of Idaho, who posits that there was a hominid form in Indonesia he dubs Meganthropus that was more primitive than the later Homo erectus forms. If it does turn out that the tools were made by a hominid form other than Homo erectus, it would add credence to these arguments. We do know that a very primitive form of Homo erectus/ergaster was knocking at the gates of Europe around 1.8 million years. It is not out of the question that such a form would made its way to Indonesia between 500 and 800 k years later.

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