Covert ops in the war on science

I stumbled upon this on Richard Dawkins’ website: a collection of Evolution Outreach Projects by Colin Purrington of Swarthmore College. These are a must-see.

A lot of it is cute little stickers and temporary tattoos of Darwin, but at the heart of the effort is a push to get evolution taught to young children. Purrington advocates what every education expert should already know: children are perfectly capable of understanding evolution, and the only reason they do not learn about it is indoctrination in their early years and the delay into high school of the introduction of the concept. As Purrington says:

The notion that young kids cannot understand evolution is a myth perpetuated by those who don’t want kids to understand evolution.

I’ll be starting a unit on evolution soon in my high school biology class, and I’ll certainly be using some of these materials. (I should be right in time for Darwin Day!) Check it out; it’s wonderful, and the author’s self-effacing humor is quite charming.

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FYI: GOP VP pick is pro-ID

This will be very old news by the time this post is automatically published, but I’m frightened enough not to care. Sarah Palin, John McCain’s pick for running mate, is vocally supportive of teaching creationism alongside evolution in public schools.

This issue is unlikely to concern most Americans; Palin’s stance on energy policy and abortion will probably get a lot more press. Be that as it may, if you needed another reason not to vote for John McCain, this is it. Palin favors injecting religion into science class. She favors the manufacturing of scientific controversy where none exists. By the logic with which she defends her position on creationism, we could just as easily teach astrology and flat earth theory (as the article linked above points out.) In short, her position is in direct opposition to good science, whether she realizes it or not.

Like my mother before me, I have never voted for a successful presidential candidate. I hope the curse will be lifted this time. Obama’s my man, and not just because McCain isn’t; his position on science is very positive, and very much what we need.

Communing with your inner fish

Continuing (and concluding) my series entitled “Books I Bought in Seattle,” I will now regale the reader with my impressions of Neil Shubin’s recent book, Your Inner Fish.

The book is an exploration of the history of human evolution, in the only place available to us: the bodies of other animals, extand and ancient. Shubin points out the one-to-one correspondence between the bones in our limbs, and the limbs of all other tetrapods, to those of the Devonian fish he helped discover, Tiktaalik. He describes how the general body plan of vertebrates was in place 550 million years ago in the Cambrian, and perhaps even in the Precambrian, as evidenced by the famous Ediacaran fossils. He similarly explores the evolution of vision, of hearing, of the sense of smell, and points out how all our wonderfully complex sense organs have analogues in far more (seemingly) humble creatures.

Shubin’s lively and playful writing captures the breathless excitement that surrounds each new scientific discovery, and I delighted in his accounts of the findings that shaped our knowledge of evolution. He succeeds in portraying scientists as ordinary people, whose job happens to be probing the underlying nature of the universe. I have to thank him also for his clear explanation of the gene Sonic hedgehog. The only complaint I would level against it is that I fear he sometimes dumbs down his accounts too much; there was more than one place in the book that I felt would benefit from the actual terminology, rather than a more general explanation by analogy. But this is a minor complaint, as evidenced by the fact that I did not provide an example.

The fundamental theme of the book is that, as remarkable as we are, we are an inextricable part of the tapestry of life, no more and no less remarkable than anything else that lives. Everything that makes us what we are is derived from something that ran or flew or swam upon the Earth before. Within each of us is an inner fish, and an inner ape, and an inner reptile, and an inner bacterium (trillions of these, actually); reading Shubin’s book is an excellent way to gain acquaintance with them. (Richard Dawkins’ The Ancestor’s Tale is another.)

Some Galapagos pictures

As I think I mentioned before, I spent the better part of July in Ecuador, and the better part of that cruising among the legendary Galapagos Isles. It was a magical time, for a lot of reasons; retracing Darwin’s steps, walking among animals and plants that exist nowhere else in the world, kicking lazily through the shallow waters to find a sea lion staring into my snorkeling mask from inches away. It was one of the most memorable times of my life, and to celebrate it, I will be posting a few pictures whenever I can’t think of anything else to write about. (Note, all pictures by the author. Yes, I am precisely that awesome.)

This first image is of the iconic birds of the Galapagos: blue-footed boobies. You may recognize them from an earlier post. This picture shows a male and female pair: the females may be distinguished from the males by their pupils, which appear larger because of black coloration surrounding them. The males perform a distinctive mating dance, which involves standing on one foot, than switching to the other, and so on back and forth. This is followed by a graceful “sky salute,” in which the male points his beak, his tail, and the “elbow” joints of his wings straight upward. This can all be seen in the video I link to above. The male in this picture shows another mating behavior: even though blue-footed boobies lay eggs on the open ground without constructing nests, males still offer nest material to prospective partners. This seems to indicate nest-building behavior in an ancestor.

These are adorable! This is a Santa Fe land iguana, a member of a species endemic to Santa Fe island. They can be distinguished from the more ubiquitous Galapagos land iguana by their lighter, more yellowish coloration, and the fact that you only see them on one island, rather than several. They also loves the cactus.

This is a ghost crab. These excitable crustaceans dig deep holes in the sandy beaches, into which they retreat when they feel threatened. They are extremely jumpy. Whenever our tour party came within thirty feet of one, it first made a run into the nearest hole (not necessarily the one from which it exited earlier), then made a tentative look around, and then dropped down its hole, out of sight. In light of this behavior, I am extremely proud of this photograph. I stood about twenty feet from an individual who hovered half-heartedly half-in, half-out of his burrow, and took a picture. Then I crept almost imperceptibly slowly until I had closed to fifteen feet, and took another picture. I continued creeping and shooting pictures until I was close enough to take the above, at which instant my subject finally grew uncomfortable and retreated into its dark lair. Patience paid off!

That’s all for now. Look for more pictures from my trip to the Enchanted Isles the next time I get bored and can’t think of anything else to write about!

The seduction of compatibilism

Dr. PZ Myers writes about a New York Times article about a science teacher in Florida with the gumption to teach evolution in the face of religious opposition. It’s a fascinating story, highlighting the teacher’s uncertainty of how to teach evolution without alienating the students, and the obstinance on the part of some of the students when faced directly with the evidence. The article also exposes the horrifying degree to which community groups attempt to undermine science education. Mention is made of a pastor who handed out copies of the Answers in Genesis tract “Evolution Exposed” to graduating seniors; the pamphlets, of course, ended up circulating in biology class.

As I will begin teaching a biology class of my own for the first time in a few weeks (gasp!), this stuff is especially terrifying to me.

The Pharyngula post, however, does not deal exclusively with the obstacles thrown in the paths of science educators. Rather, it ravages what Prof. Richard Dawkins has called the “seduction approach:” avoiding any offense of students’ faith by assuring them that evolution is compatible with religion. It certainly seems like a sensible approach. One of the creationists’ most handy tricks is to convince believers that accepting evolution leads to atheism, and is therefore a one-way ticket to hellfire. The most obvious counter to this tactic, it would seem, is to contradict it: evolution does not lead necessarily to atheism. This counterattack has the added benefit of being demonstrably true, as there are numerous religious believers who have no beef with evolution, including the oft-cited biologist and Roman Catholic Ken Miller, and the Pope himself.

Dr. Myers, like Prof. Dawkins, has no time for the compatibilist approach, and for good reason. He writes of the ubiquitous call to respect people’s beliefs in this country, and how that exemption from criticism of religion allows creationists to poison the well against evolution. He calls this “the dark evil gnawing at the heart of the American public,” and continues:

It’s an effective evil, too, since most people cower before it and fear to declare it the bane of public education. Even many who don’t believe are reluctant to call it out — it will antagonize the believers, they say, they won’t accept the all-important proximate message of science if we alienate them from their precious myths and superstitions. So we continue this game of science proponents edging delicately around the central issue while the advocates of religion feel no constraint at all, and attack reason by hammering our children with unrepentant, unapologetic lunacy.

Because religion is exempt from criticism, creationists are allowed to preach their ascientific rubbish to our children without rebuke, while those trying to teach good science come under fire. Dr. Myers holds, and I emphatically agree, that it’s time for the critical curtain to fall. Religious claims must be subject to the same rigorous scrutiny that we bring to bear on all other ideas, be they scientific, economic, political, etc. Then, and only then, will creationism die its deserved death, as alchemy and geocentrism have already done.

Why Darwin Matters

On a shopping trip with my girlfriend south of the border (a common excursion for Canadians, given the recent relative strength of their dollar), I picked up two books I’ve been anxious to read: Why Darwin Matters, by Skeptic Magazine publisher Michael Shermer, and Your Inner Fish, by paleontologist Neil Shubin. I finished the former in less than 24 hours, and though I’m a couple years behind the game, I’ll be writing my impressions here.

Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design is at its heart a book of persuasion. shermer divides the world into three types of people:

True Believers, Fence Sitters, and skeptics. Religious True Believers will never change their minds no matter what evidence is presented to them, and science-embracing skeptics already accept evolution. The battleground is for the Fence Sitters – those who have heard something about a claim or controversy and wonder what the explanation for it might be.

Thus, from the start, the book is not really directed at me, as I whole-heartedly accept evolution. However, I quite enjoyed reading it, as evidenced by the fact that I could hardly put it down. Here’s why.

First, Shermer presents an entertaining history of intelligent design and creationism in the United States, and why they persist in the face of overwhelming evidence for evolution. In so doing, he provides riveting accounts of William Jennings Bryan’s boisterous prosecution of the Scopes trial, and most memorably of all a debate between he and the namesake of the Hovind Scale, the fast-talking creationist and current jailbird Kent Hovind. His account of this debate can also be found on the website of Skeptic Magazine.

In the meat of the book, Shermer systematically dismantles the arguments for Intelligent Design, finding them all unequal to rigorous standards of science. He then exposes the real agenda behind the ID movement, most memorably by recounting the words of Discovery Institute fellow William Dembski at the annual conference of the National Religious Broadcasters:

…intelligent design opens the whole possibility of us being created in the image of a benevolent God… The job of apologetics is to clear the ground, to clear obstacles that prevent people from coming to the knowledge of Christ… And if there’s anything that I think has blocked the growth of Christ as the free reign of the Spirit and people accepting the Scripture and Jesus Christ, it is the Darwinian naturalistic view.

To close as Shermer does throughout the book, Q. E. D.

Finally, and most challengingly for me, Shermer devotes a large portion of the book to explaining why evolution is perfectly compatible with both Christianity and conservativism. The reason for the first is obvious: most Americans and virtually all American creationists are Christian, and to sell evolution to doubtful Christians is to convince them that it does not contradict their faith. The need for the second is less obvious. What reason would a conservative have for doubting evolution, except that most conseratives in the United States are Christian? Still, Shermer cites poll data showing that some 60 percent of Republicans are creationists. Clearly something is at work here. To woo conservatives to the side of evolution, Shermer cites 19th century economist Adam Smith, whose posited “invisible hand” works in precisely the same way as Darwin’s natural selection. (In his review of Expelled for Scientific American, he recounts memorably his reminder of this fact to Ben Stein, during his interview for the film.)

I say that this part of the book was challenging for me because I have difficulty with the arguments for the compatibility of religion and evolution. It is certainly true that there is nothing in evolution, or in science in general, that precludes the existence of a god, but this is because nothing in science could do so; God is by definition not a part of the natural universe, and so not amenable to empirical observation. God is therefore superfluous, unnecessary, a cheap rhinestone pasted on the scientific edifice to increase its appeal to the religiously-minded. Still, as long as God is technically compatible with science, and as long as most humans believe in one god or another, the smartest tactic may be to stress the compatibility point, and confront creationists on their so-far successful ploy of equating evolution with atheism.

Having said all this, by far the most entertaining part of the book for a scientific True Believer like me is its coda, Genesis Revisited, in which Shermer rewrites the book of Genesis to fit in with creationists’ insistence on its literal truth. Here’s a representative excerpt:

And God saw that the land was barren, so He created animals bearing their own kind, declaring Thou shalt not evolve into new species, and thy equilibrium shall not be punctuated. And God placed into the rocks, fossils that appeared older than 4004 BC that were similar to but different from living creatures. And the sequence resembled descent with modification. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

Q. E. D.

I recommend the book heartily, whether you are a skeptic or a Fence Sitter; it will entertain either variety. Hell, I recommend it to the creationist True Believers as well. Shermer was such at one point, and you never know when a tendril of truth will sneak through a crack in the stone wall of denial.

On freedom of choice

There are many reasons that account for creationism’s persistence in the United States. Most of them stem from the active lobbying of former “creation science” and now “intelligent design” proponents, who today work very hard to see that Americans equate evolution with atheism, and choose God over godless science. However, to my mind, none of these reasons accounts for the fact that Americans think there ought to be an alternative to evolution in the first place. This point bears some expanding before I continue.

There are of course many examples of two or more theories competing for acceptance in the scientific community. Earlier in the last century, for example, steady state models of the universe competed with the Big Bang model, and eventually the evidence for the Big Bang won out. However, it should be obvious that every question in science will have only one answer. Given that that is so, why should Americans, or anyone else, expect there to be alternative theories to evolution, whose evidence has proven out repeatedly over 150 years?

I submit that the answer lies in our love of freedom; specifically, freedom of choice.

We’re used to choosing among 300 different kinds of ketchup in the grocery store, and we glorify in it. The availability of such choice creates competition among ketchup makers, forcing them to keep quality high and prices low. The same kind of choice, with the same results, pervades every available product. It also pervades religion, another commodity which many Americans see as a matter of choosing among available options. Nw that I set it down in words, it seems odd to me that people would feel at home choosing among positions on the nature of humanity and its place in the universe, just as they would choosing among flavors of Pop Tarts, but such is the power of freedom of choice.

Now we come to creationism. Americans are brought up to think that it is their inviolable right to have the freedom to choose among a range of options, in products, in employers, in relationships, and in religion. It is no large step to extend this way of thinking to scientific theories. If we are free to choose among religions, which after all make factual claims about the universe and our place in it, based only on our own personal preferences, why shouldn’t we be free to choose among scientific theories on the same basis? I submit that this is what creationists have done. Seeing creationism and evolution as two equally valid theories, they choose the one most pleasing to them personally.

I’m sure I have grossly simplified many matters here, not the least of which is the fact that a good number of Americans do not in fact consciously choose their religion, but receive it whole cloth from the one thing no one is free to choose: their parents. Still, I believe this deeply felt sense of entitlement to choice plays a part. In combating it, then, it falls to educators (like me) to impart on children more stringent criteria for choice, among them empirical evidence and rational argument. They will choose in any case, and it falls on us to see that they choose wisely.

Gratuitous Boobies

Enjoy!

Some quickies

It’s just busy, busy, busy this week! Yesterday I made it home from the Washington State LASER Strategic Planning Institute, and in just about an hour I’ll be on my way to West Yellowstone, Montana, to serve as a groomsman in my father’s wedding. There will be family from much of the United States there, most of whom I haven’t seen in a very long while, so I’m very excited. The downside, of course, is that I have less time to make posts.

Because I have little time, I’ll just post some links to interesting (and perhaps disturbing) things that have happened in the last 24 hours.

First, the bad, though unsurprising, news: SB 733 has been signed into law. Governor Bobby Jindal (with a name like that, how can you stay mad at him?) signed the so-called Louisiana Science Education Act into law, handing creationists a license to attack sound scientific theory in the classroom on frivolous religious bases.

Of course, the Discovery Institute, which has been instrumental in enacting these “academic freedom” bills around the country, is trying to distance itself from SB 733’s success. They’re claiming the bill isn’t about intelligent design, but simply about exposing students to the debates scientists themselves undertake. This is bullshit, because the Louisiana science standards, and those of every other state I’ve ever heard of, already hold that students should be exposed to legitimate issues in science. What the Discovery Institute really wants is for students to be opposed to illegitimate issues, such as global warming, and the perennial favorite, evolution.

In other news, Pharyngula writes on a frightening ruling in the Texas Supreme Court. A church which had been prosecuted for torturing a 17-year-old girl was found innocent by the high court, because they were conducting an exorcism. Apparently, in the great state of Texas, you’re allowed to horribly traumatize a child if you think she has demons in her head. Read the Pharyngula piece, and mourn our nation’s sanity.

After all that gloom, here’s something to cheer you up! I’ve been meaning to link to this webcomic for a long time. It’s called Kawaii Not, and I love it, because it perverts the saccharine cuteness that pervades so much of design these days. This particular comic is my favorite.

Hope that helps!

Your ancestor was a wet bag

So was mine, so don’t feel too insulted.

Dr. PZ Myers of Pharyngula has written a wonderful piece on new evidence that the most recent common ancestor of all chordates (i.e. you, me, dogs, goldfish, lancelets, and sea squirts) was a sessile, seafloor-dwelling suspension feeder. This creature’s larva were probably lancelet-like fishoids, with a springy notochord (a precursor to the vertebrate spinal cord) and a simple tentacle-ringed mouth. At some point, in one of the ancestors of the vertebrates, one of the larva accrued a mutation that prevented it from reaching adulthood, and it maintained its fishlike body plan, eventually giving rise to true fishes, and later every other vertebrate.

I will attempt no further summary of the article. Read it. Read it now!

Once you’ve read Dr. Myers’ piece, please note this excellent song lyric posted by a commenter named Becca:

It’s a long way from amphioxus, it’s a long way, to us.
It’s a long, long way from amphioxus, to the meanest human cuss
cause it’s goodbye to fins and gillslits, and welcome lungs and hair
it’s a long long way from amphioxus, but we all came from there

(To be sung to the tune of “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary,” in case you hadn’t figured it out.)