PBS Special Follow-Up

I caught the late night showing of PBS's NOVA special, Judgement Day: Intelligent Design on Trial in my hotel room last night. Both PZ and Greg Laden have "liveblogging" comments on the special that are worth looking through.

Lassen County teachers will find lots of good source material on evolution and the fallacies behind intelligent design at the PBS/NOVA website. If you haven't had a chance to see it, Judgement Day will be shown online on November 16. Lassen County school board member should watch this special as well - it's a good lesson on overstepping bounds in science education.

I thought the special provided a great perspective on the strong explanatory power that evolution has as a scientific idea, the clear weakness of intelligent design at explaining anything, and more importantly, just how fallacious both the school board and the ID "scientists" were at presenting ID as an appropriate challenge to evolution.

I was somewhat disappointed in the recreation of Scott Minnich's testimony and cross-examination. It ended with him apparently making a sound point on testing ID versus evolutionary theory that could seemed to have stumped the plaintiffs. The original transcripts of the cross examination are quite different, and suggest a man doing some serious backpeddaling when confronted with the question of whether ID is actually testable.

I found board member Buckingham's response to Judge Jones' decision infuriating. This is a man who came a breadth's hair away from being tried for perjury during the trial and yet he as the hutzpah to lay into the judge for being an "activist". Buckingham should thank his lucky stars that Judge Jones exhibited a far greater show of Christian restraint than the original Dover school board could.

A Science Cafe in Susanville?

I just received my E-newsletter from American Scientist and saw that WGBH Boston and Sigma Xi have teamed up to help promote the idea of Science Cafes:

The joint venture is the product of an ongoing partnership that began in 2004. That's when Sigma Xi chapters around the country started holding informal public discussions in restaurants, pubs, coffee shops, science museums and other venues, drawing on themes presented in the PBS television series NOVA scienceNOW, produced by WGBH.

At Science Cafés, scientists and engineers share their expertise in a relaxed, friendly setting. Topics have been wide-ranging, from bird flu, human space flight, chaos and global warming, to the Irish Potato famine, green building, the ivory-billed woodpecker, honeybees and dark energy/dark matter.

I'm thinking it might be a good idea to get one of these going here in Susanville (I'm thinking Starbucks...). More information on organizing and maintaining a science cafe can be found at the Science Cafe website.

A Lassen County Camp For Secular Kids?

I have posted several times on the issue of Virginia teachers suing the district for permission to hand out flyers and announcements on Christian bible camps, organizations, etc., but then refusing to hand out flyers promoting Camp Quest. Well, a good friend of mine in Lassen County (and a fellow LACIS member!) recently told me that he read about the camp on my post and attempted to enroll his kids in the California Camp Quest. Unfortunately California Camp Quest was overbooked (a good thing!, but...) and he couldn’t enroll his kids this year. However, that did spark a conversation on setting up a similar type of camp at Eagle Lake. I’ve been thinking about a Camp Quest/Lassen County Science Camp for a while and the two of us (plus some other folks) are going to try to pull one off next summer. This is all in the planning stages at the moment, although we’re looking into curricula, activities, etc. We also have an initial group of people to contact who we think would be interested in giving their kids and opportunity like this next year.

What I would like to know is if any Lassen County readers of Northstate Science (or anyone from surrounding areas) would be interested in having their kids attend something like this? Again, it’s still in the planning stages, but I’d like to get a sense of just how many might send their kids.

Talking To Kids About Science

I gave a talk on the interpretation of bones to the Summer Reading Session at the Lassen County Library last week and there was a nice little blurb in the Lassen County Times (for a change!). The audience was made up of about 20-30 kindergarteners through fourth graders. I had been asked to give a discussion on dinosaurs, which is not my forte; however I fortunately have a collection of fossils (including vertebrate fossils), shells, belemnoids, gastroliths, and a few other things. I think the highlight might have been the fossilized Carcharadon tooth (white shark) that all the kids thought must have come from the biggest shark in the world….until I showed them the Megalodon (extinct cousin of the white shark) tooth that was easily five times the size!

Before pulling out the fossils, however, we looked at bones of modern animals and talked about the kinds of things you can tell from bone: the species, how it might defend itself, sometimes the sex of the animal…but most importantly we talked about diet. One thing I’ve noticed about kids this age: they’re pretty smart, and most can use their reasoning skills to put two and two together. So, it became clear fairly quickly that the type of teeth an animal has is a really good indication of its diet. This is a point these early grade schoolers get but one that seems to be lost on Ken Ham and the Answers In Genesis crowd. I made it a point to talk to these kids and let them use their own reasoning to solve a problem based on an understanding of the natural world around us. Creationists like Ham won’t allow their children to reason, ask questions or explore alternative explanations – the only answers they accept are the ones they’ve contrived from biblical sources and the only science they’ll accept is that which gives them the answers they expect. (And if they get any political power, they won’t allow our children to reason and ask questions either!).

It is extremely important that those of us in science fields get out to talk to kids as often as we can. First, to insure that they understand what science and reasoning is all about, but secondly, so that they will know they’re not alone when other adults in their lives start to close the cultural blinders on their curiosity. You never, ever know the full extent to which you’ve influenced a child, even if they seem to appear bored while you’re talking about zebra teeth. I know from experience that it’s the little things that make a difference.

It’s also quite rewarding on a personal level: kids really do ask great questions and make wonderful observations. Even when they’re off the mark, they’re not off it by much. I just shiver at the thought of kids living in Ken Ham-like households where truth is a construction of their parents’ fears and reality is limited to what can be supported by a two thousand year old text written by primitives. Kids have a right to explore the world around them – those of us in professional science fields have a duty to give them that opportunity as often as we can.

A Preview Of Lassen County Science Camp

The Girl Scout trip to the Eagle Lake Field Station a couple of weekends ago proved to be a lot of fun as well as highly educational. For me it was part revelation, part confirmation. It was revelation in the fact that several of the girls who I originally thought might be more interested in boys, church or other societal distractions turned out to be quite interested in science and the process of discovery, to my surprise and amazement. It was confirmation in the fact that I have always suspected exposing students to actual science and nature might bring to the surface some inherent interest in discovery being suppressed by the cultural context of their communities. In other words, the educational system (at all levels) in Lassen County has largely failed to expose students to actual science despite claims to the contrary; when these students are actually given an opportunity to ask questions and seek answers without their pastors looking over their shoulders, they get really excited about the opportunity and want to pursue it further. We talked about all aspects of the natural history of Eagle Lake basin flora and fauna, saw examples of all the major classes of animals in the region, talked about morphological and skeletal similarities and differences between animals (an introduction to taxonomy and common descent), collected and identified skeletal remains on in the area, went to the “bat cave”, went on a night drive and all other kinds of things. Of course, we had plenty of time for swimming and fishing!

The skeletal identification proved to be a challenge, but one the girls relished – we couldn’t leave until we figured out the species to which the bones belonged. The skull was particularly difficult (I have only a superficial knowledge of specific bird anatomy, but I learned a lot in this exercise). We finally found the skull fragment to be from a western grebe (Aechmophorous occidentalis) – a common bird on Eagle Lake, and one we should have looked at first! During the night drive we encountered cottontails (Sylvilagus nuttali), black-tailed jackrabbits (Lepus californicus), pinyon mice (Peromyscus trueii), and one striped skunk (Mephitis mephitis)! A couple of girls I wouldn’t have pegged as interested in fauna were the first out of the truck with the nets, trying to catch spotlighted animals. Our only success in this regard came down by the creek that night where several of the girls successfully netted bull frogs and tadpoles (Rana catesbeiana). During the day we encountered mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) and gray foxes (Urocyon cinereoargenteus). The western pipistrelle bats (Pipistrellus hesperus) had largely abandoned their cave, except for one lone female who had several young clinging to her back. The girls really enjoyed looking at the mama and her babies through a red light (so as not to disturb her) – it was probably more exciting than seeing hundreds of the little animals hanging from the cave ceiling!

The entire experience encouraged me to discuss the possibilities of a “Lassen County Science Camp” up at the field station, and I discussed the matter with a review team from CSU that was up here this weekend exploring the possibility for other bringing other educational groups here to use the facility. I of course discussed the general lack of science exposure to students in rural northeastern California and the need for some alternative to a weakly developed Lassen County Science Fair and a high school biology field trip that was, until recently, largely run by evangelical Christians with limited science background. The problem of rural students entering the CSU or UC systems with little or no background in science is recognized and we discussed plans to pursue the project.

Science and the Susanville Church of the Nazarene

There are certainly a number of conservative Christians who have argued that the truth of evolutionary theory has no adverse implications for the Christian belief system and as such, there is nothing really unique in blogging on these individuals. However, I ran across this article on Richard Colling, a professor at a university run by the Church of the Nazarene and someone who apparently defends evolution unabashedly. One telling tidbit:

"It pains me to suggest that my religious brothers are telling falsehoods" when they say evolutionary theory is "in crisis" and claim that there is widespread skepticism about it among scientists. "Such statements are blatantly untrue," he argues. "Evolution has stood the test of time and considerable scrutiny."

Of course this is contrary to what is preached by those in the Church of the Nazarene, although Colling (and others) are clearly trying to change that. What peaked my interest is that my own town of Susanville has a local Church of the Nazarene, which I believe to be a primary source of anti-science sentiment in the community. I am wondering how many of them have heard of Richard Colling?

Some Thoughts On The Nature Of Biological Sciences

Looney left an interesting comment on my previous post regarding Wells’ pending hysteria over the fact that the PBS Evolution series was still being used in public school classrooms. The bulk of the comment was rambling incoherence and bad analogy - it was the first sentence that peaked my interest:

Last I checked, the admission scores for doctors and engineers were far in excess of biologists.

First, I have to wonder about the legitimacy of that comment - certainly the people I attended graduate school with were generally top of their class; those that weren’t were weeded out during qualifying and prelim examinations. Even if true, however, I suspect that admission scores in those fields function primarily as a tool for cutting students out of impacted majors - I have no reason to believe they reflect innate intellectual capacity. Given rampant grade inflation (the result of considerable student whining “I won’t get into med school if you don’t give me an A++”, parental pressure, cheating and I am sure the occasional pressure from academic/congressional “friends of the family“) and the fact that test scores have more to do with the ability to take tests than to actually understand and apply the information, I find admission scores largely useless measures of performance. As an employer of students, I do look for general trends - students getting a lot of C’s are put into a separate pile from those getting A’s and B’s, but the valedictorians and 4.0 students are lumped with the latter group. It’s what the students have done with that knowledge that counts for me (and a lot of professors I have talked to) - a 4.0 and high admission scores are a dime a dozen and can cover up a lot of weak ability when it comes to using the knowledge rather than simply regurgitating it. Using higher admission scores to weed students also probably says much about the character of the students entering the fields: I suspect most are in it for high salaries rather than the betterment of humanity.

Be that as it may, the sentence nonetheless reflects an commonly arrogant attitude on the part of engineers and many doctors - that those fields somehow require greater intellectual capacity than biology or anthropology. It also implies that their viewpoints should carry more weight. Looney was apparently taking exception to my dismay that creationists typically assume a professional equivalence between engineers commenting on biology and biologists commenting on biology. It is clear he thinks nothing is wrong with this as engineers and doctors have higher admission standards and are therefore qualified to speak with expertise on those disciplines. He reminded me of a discussion I have each semester with my introductory anthropology class on the nature of science.

Ernst Mayer, in The Growth of Biological Thought, has a wonderful discussion on the position of biology within the sciences. The basic theme is that biology is not physics (or for that matter, engineering) and the methodologies and epistemologies of physics are not suited for the study of living things. The efforts of physicists to reduce biology to the sum total of physical laws has not advanced our understanding of biological systems. He quotes G. G. Simpson on this matter:

It is just that living things have been affected for…billions of years by historical processes…The results of those processes are systems different in kind from any nonliving systems and incomparably more complicated. They are not for that reason necessarily any less material or less physical in nature. The point is that all known material processes and explanations apply to organisms, while only a limited number of them apply to nonliving systems…Biology, then, is the science that stands at the center of all science… [emphasis in the original].

In other words, those disciplines that deal only with nonliving systems (such as engineering and physics) ultimately deal with a very myopic view of the universe, particularly in relation to those who study living systems. I would suggest further that engineering in particular as well as most forms of medical practice, as important as they are for our daily lives, focus largely on specific application of principles but are not generally concerned with broader explanations of the world around us (which is probably why many of them can intellectually afford to be creationists). They are, in effect, glorified mechanics.

But in my class, I follow that up with Dawkins, who further explores this relationship of biology to the other sciences. With his usual flair, in The Blind Watchmaker, Dawkins suggests not only that physics and engineering are not up to the task of competing with the kind of knowledge exhibited by biologists, but the irony is that, relative to the study of nonliving things, they deal with fundamentally simple phenomena:

We think that physics is complicated because it is hard to understand and because physics books are full of difficult mathematics. But the objects that physicists study are still basically simple objects…They do not, at least by biological standards, have intricate working parts…The behavior of physical, nonbiological objects is so simple that it is feasible to use existing mathematical language to describe it, which is why physics books are full of mathematics.

The point, I tell my students, is that we often think it is easy to grasp biology (and make substantial claims about it) because it does not appear on the surface to be as difficult a subject as physics. But biology deals with systems infinitely more complicated than those in physics (or engineering) and the ability to study and explain those systems requires grasping a body of knowledge inconceivable to most lay people and to many others in different disciplines. Again, this is why it is easy for creationists to cherry pick certain data out of context a paint a picture of uncertainty and apparent falsehoods, when in fact the larger body of data tells a much different story.

But Dawkins goes further and provides us with great analogy on the differences between studying living and nonliving systems:

If you throw a dead bird into the air it will describe a graceful parabola, exactly as the physics books say it should; then come to rest on the ground and stay there. It behaves as a solid body of a particular mass and wind resistance ought to behave. But if you throw a live bird into the air it will not describe a parabola and come to rest on the ground. It will fly away and may not touch land this side of the county boundary.

We can explain the dead bird completely in relation to physics. But the live bird we must explain not only in terms of physics and chemistry, but also anatomy, physiology, zoology, ecology, ethology, paleontology, geology, and a host of additional disciplines. The explanation for living things (what they do and why, how they live and why, where they come from and why) is more complicated than any nonliving system. (I would further argue that adding the cultural complexities of human societies on top of their nature as biological organisms, the complications increase - so anthropology is actually a more complicated science than biology - but don't tell the bio-bloggers that!). The engineer and medical doctor for the most part cannot intellectually grasp the intricacies of biological systems.

So when Looney implies that the intellectual capacity of engineers and doctors allows them by definition to make meaningful statements on the subject of biology…I have to chuckle at the primitive thought process.

More On Ham's Creation Museum, Tyrannosaur Teeth And The Scientific Process

A reader, responding to my Creation Museum Carnival post on what Ken Ham’s Creation Museum won’t be telling kids about teeth, cautioned me that one argument in particular was weak and that Answers In Genesis views could not be so easily dispatched. The argument in question is that differential tooth form clearly reflects differential diet among animals today. We can use this to infer diets for extinct species by comparing their teeth with what we know of the dentition and diets in modern animals. This is contrary to the view held by Ken Ham and the AIG PhDs who maintain that all animals were vegetarian prior to the Fall of Adam, including tyrannosaurs. This aspect of natural history has to be true for Ham and fellow creationists in order for them to retain consistency with a specific verse in Genesis. So they argue that the dietary inferences paleontologists and other evolutionists make from teeth cannot be correct. As an example of this, Ham himself has pointed out that tyrannosaur teeth and bear teeth are both “sharp” and yet the bear’s diet is comprised of a significant portion of plant foods; hence there is no real reason to think tyrannosaurs couldn’t have also been vegetarians.

My response was that bear teeth and tyrannosaur teeth are not alike at all, as Ham suggests. (Of course Ham only indicated that both species possessed teeth that were “sharp”, not necessarily similar in morphology. But this is an example of deliberate subterfuge the AIG staff does best: gloss over the specifics and make the necessary generalization to prove your point. There is not doubt that in describing the teeth of tyrannosaurs and bears as “sharp” Ham is expecting that his audience will understand him to mean “the same”). If you are interested in the simple question of why bear teeth are different from tyrannosaur teeth, the observation still remains that tyrannosaurs have teeth much more in common with those of modern carnivores than plant eaters. Again, from this I would have to infer that tyrannosaurs were clearly carnivores. At this point, the only defense Ken Ham can come back with is a line from the bible[1].

However, my reader pointed out some additional issues to consider that at first glance would re-open the case for tooth morphology having anything to do with diet and at least force us to ask if AIG might have a viable alternative. He basically made three points (except for words in quotes I’m paraphrasing):
1) polar bears feed exclusively on other animals, yet their teeth are “hardly different” from other bears;
2) flat teeth are for grinding/chewing and the fact dinosaurs had gizzards would mean that scimitar-toothed species like Tyrannosaurus could have eaten plants, swallowed them whole and let their gizzards do the work;
3) “As for serrations” the pro-sauropod group of dinosaurs, thought to be herbivores, “…had them on their teeth like Tyrannosaurus”.

Certainly the responses to these observations are important, but that is not what prompted me to write this post. What really intrigued me was the process I engaged in while obtaining the information. It is the process of discovery that, as much as the answers, serves to radically distinguish science from creationism in all its forms. As I said, my reader raised several issues that, on face value, would be sufficient for most people to stop and wonder if Ham and AIG weren’t at least raising a legitimate issue. For Ham, AIG, and on a different level, the intelligent design advocates, inquiry would completely cease at this point. See, O’Brien is wrong: polar bear teeth are hardly different from other bear teeth and they exclusively eat meat…hence it is possible that tyrannosaurs ate vegetation at one time. Here, the entire goal is accomplished: raise reasonable doubt with the general populace at large.

But science follows a completely different process. Upon reading the phrase “polar bear teeth are hardly different from other bears” the first thing I did was ask myself, “is that true?” and reach for a book on mammalian anatomy; and I did it so sub-consciously and automatically that the significance of the act did not become apparent until a few hours later. Scientists constantly question whether their data (and others') are correct…it’s ingrained as part of the process. The same cannot be said for creationists.

Turns out, polar bear teeth are not “hardly different” – their back teeth are distinctly more carnassial (for ripping meat, not grinding) than those of their ursid (bear family) cousins. They are not completely like the back teeth of obligate carnivores like wolves, but it also turns out that mostly what they eat is seal fat and they are not entirely carnivorous (although clearly more so than brown or black bears). On the heels of an automatic question when being confronted with a new “observation” also came an automatic mental prediction (also an inherent part of science but not of creationism or intelligent design): IF tooth morphology is largely explained by diet, THEN another species of bear with a radically different diet should also exhibit radically different tooth morphology from other bears. Sure enough, the Panda, which subsists on bamboo, exhibits a much different tooth morphology than seen in other bears.

But the scientific process didn’t stop there. It came along with me as I read through my reader’s list of observations. The gizzard idea was interesting, but do all dinosaurs have gizzards? No, they are suspected in only a few species because of the presence of “gastroliths” or gizzard stones. And again, IF tooth morphology is a good predictor of diet, then I was betting that the only dinosaurs found to have them so far are probably those with teeth expected to be good for chewing vegetation and probably limited to sauropods and not found in carnivorous dinosaurs – sure enough, that’s the case. Finally, I wondered if the “serrated” teeth of pro-sauropods were really like tyrannosaurs. Of course I hadn’t mentioned tyrannosaurs having serrated teeth in my original post, but that’s part of the overall morphology of a tooth and they do have a serrated edge. But “serration” is not equivalent to meat eating, and in fact iguanas, which are mostly vegetarian, also have serrated teeth. Turns out pro-sauropod teeth are also a lot like iguanas, and in addition are very small, unlike the very large carnivorous teeth of tyrannosaur – i.e. much more in line with eating vegetation than meat.

But science is also about “multiple lines of evidence”…so are there other observations about diet that are consistent with the hypothesis that tooth morophology is largely explained by diet? Yes. Many readers of the Creation Museum Carnival pointed out in the comments that tyrannosaur coprolites (fossil feces) don’t contain plant materials – another observation consistent with the hypothesis. Microscopic analysis of early hominid teeth show that Paranthropus, thought to subsist almost exclusively on hard seeds, nuts and roots because of the unique structure of its teeth and skull, actually shows pitting and gouging expected of that kind of diet. And Australopithecus, suspected of having a more omnivorous diet like humans (again, because of their tooth morphology)? Microscopic analysis shows a smooth surface on the tooth as in modern humans.

So where does that put us with regard to evidence consistent with the null hypothesis that tooth morphology is a very good indicator of diet?:

- bear teeth unlike tyrannosaur teeth
- bear teeth showing variation in tooth morphology with diet;
- gizzard stones highly correlated with dinosaur species whose teeth suggest plant eating
- tooth morphology in pro-sauropods consistent with largely vegetarian ignuanas
- microscopic analysis of tooth wear consistent with dietary differences between early hominids Paranthropus and Australopithecus

And evidence that is consistent with the AIG hypothesis that tooth form has nothing to do with diet?
- a line in the bible

I may be off here, but I'm guessing it's a bit early to reject the null hypothesis in favor of helping Ken Ham maintain his belief in a literal meaning of Genesis. There is no reason to think that the diet of tyrannosaurs was vegetarian at any stage of its evolution and Ken Ham’s personal interpretation of that line is clearly in error. I would suggest he look at some alternative explanations of his own…and he can start with those I outlined in my footnote...


[1] I have to digress here a moment: If you believe the bible to be authoritative from the start, then perhaps that’s enough evidence for you and you can dismiss any observational evidence of the real world. And that’s fine…but it isn’t science. However, those who accept creationism never consider other alternatives on this matter themselves (although they expect everyone else to consider theirs): 1) the bible is not divinely inspired at all, but merely a collection of different types of writing form Bronze and Iron Age people who were trying to explain the world around them without reference to the scientific knowledge we have today; 2) the bible is not divinely inspired, but has been rewritten multiple times, other texts of the time lost or purposefully destroyed, and certain texts available at the time specifically selected, all to give the appearance that the bible was divinely inspired; 3) the bible was divinely inspired but never meant to be anything more than allegorical, metaphorical and symbolic in its broader meaning; 4) the bible is divinely inspired but humans are too evolutionary primitive to understand the complex meaning that is really behind its passages; 5) there is a god and he was responsible for creating the world, but how it was done is best captured in one of the hundreds of other creation stories around the world and not in the bible. Of course, although some alternatives have historical and scientific angles to them and can be tested (for example, we know parts of the bible were re-written to appear more consistent with theological statements from historical documents and early biblical texts themselves; there is also good evidence to suggest the bible texts were purposely selected to convey specific theological arguments as if they were prophesized or demonstrated historically), the alternatives listed are largely theological and can be accepted or rejected pretty much solely on the basis of personal preference.

Results of the 2007 Alliance For Science High School Essay Contest

Here are the winners of the 2007 Alliance for Science High School Essay contest. The essay topic was: "Why would I want my doctor to have studied evolution?". These students (9th, 10th, 11th and 12th grades) get the concept of science, evolutionary theory and what both mean in the context of our everyday lives. I am grateful that there are students more interested in an honest understanding of science than in divining biblical goat guts to solve today's problems.

Congratulations!

I wonder if any Lassen High School students participated...or if they would have known anything about evolutionary theory?

Join The National Center For Science Education

I received my renewal notice today for membership in the National Center for Science Education. This is one of the few organizations to which I have remained loyal, even in times of financial hardship - fortunately, I am passed the days of poor grad student (although I wouldn't trade them for the world!) and tend to both renew and give a donation. This is an outstanding organization and clearly the "guardian angel" of those who stay ever vigilant keeping science education about science - especially in small towns like those here in northeastern California where there are both subtle and not-so-subtle efforts to deny proper science education to students.

If you are concerned about the state of science education in your local area, the state or the nation in general, you should be a member of NCSE...

If you are a professional scientist working in academia, the private sector, or local, state or federal government, you should be a member of NCSE...

If you are a student, concerned that you are getting a proper science education or simply seeking support when you challenge fellow students spouting non-science idiocy, you should be a member of NCSE...

If you a community college or university library, county or city library or any other reading lending institution, you should be getting the NCSE journal for your constituents by becoming a member of the NCSE...

If you are a high school biology or community college biology department, you should be a member of the NCSE...

If you care about the integrity of science at all, you NEED TO JOIN THE NCSE!

So what are you waiting for?

More "Christian Conservationists"?

I have been consistent in my view that fundamentalist Christians cannot claim to be "environmentalists" in any sort of legitimate sense of the word. While Christians can change light bulbs and recycle with the best of us, these activities, although helpful, are not the root of environmental issues that face us. I come to this conclusion largely because our most critical environmental issues require science literacy in general, and specifically fluent knowledge of the evolutionary underpinnings of ecology; both of which are largely rejected by fundamentalist Christians claiming to have discovered the need to "protect" God's creation.

Two recent news stories, one noting that Jerry Falwell rejects global warming as a "tool of Satan", and the other a Catholic cardinal claiming the Antichrist will actually be an ecologist simply lends credence to my contention that we cannot trust the earth's (and humanity's) future to the adherents of the Christian religion. But it is more than just their blatant disregard for science; they don't buy into the concept of publicly managed space - it's useless unless it's owned by someone. Their political puppets in the conservative movement have unfunded land management and environmental protection agencies that are the last bastion between humanity and environmental Armageddon. They have attempted to outsource jobs from public workers, who largely maintain a measure of moral responsibility to the environment and people of the earth, to private corporations and companies who have no ethical regard for the long term survival of the human race, only their short term collection of profits. And because their profits are so high and they attend church on a regular basis to assuage their guilt, and in doing so, provide their "cut" to religious organizations, the churches themselves would not dare question the motivations of those with wealth. Economics will always trump morality.

Rightly or wrongly, Christian leaders such as these are the vocal mouthpieces for the Christian religion (or at least their version of it) and therefore "speak" for Christians on these matters. If you don't like being linked to these people then don't bitch to me...get off your ass and start to tell these jokers, loudly and in their face, that they are wrong. Not just that they don't speak for you...but that they are wrong. They are wrong about the conclusions they are drawing from a Bronze Age book; they are wrong about their beliefs; their religion is not "sacred" and in any free society should be challenged openly, even disrespectfully, if they dare bring it into the public sphere; they possess no factual knowledge about modern science; they are largely wastes of genetic material.

These religious figures are a threat to the existence of every man, woman and child on this planet.

A Stark Contrast In Education

Afarensis posts about three kids expressing their love for science with their blog, I Love Dinosaurs. These kids (and their mom!) really have a sense of wonder, curiosity and love of science and the broader world around them. It is truly refreshing to see young people engaged in an honest search for knowledge. As Afarensis says, "...the world need more of them"!

Contrast the "I Love Dinosaurs" kids with these two, who have a rather depressing view of the world around them. Their curiosity is severely handicapped by a stifling biblical literalism that prevents them from appreciating the awe and wonder of the universe. Instead of seeking knowledge, they are forced to find ways to restrain it within a preconceived worldview. As a result, what knowledge they think they have gained is seriously flawed (as their view of evolution clearly demonstrates).

Too bad...it really pains me to see the world censored for young people by adults who are themselves afraid of the world around them.

An Inconvenient Truth

One of the things I enjoy most about blogging is this developing sense of community within the blogosphere. You “meet” so many people of different walks in life, share ideas, argue and just generally expand your knowledge of the world around us. This morning I was greeted with a nice email from RangerX thanking me for the reasoned response I had to his updated post on the Grand Canyon issue. I started perusing his blog and stopped on the entry discussing global warming and Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth. I haven’t seen Gore’s movie, but after reading RangerX’s blog, I’ll be adding it to my Amazon list:

But in the new documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” directed by Davis Guggenheim and featuring Al Gore, I learned that "out of 925 recent articles in peer-review scientific journals about global warming, there was no disagreement. Zero.” I also learned that while there is a 100% agreement by scientists, 57% of non-scientific newspaper and magazine articles question the fact of global warming and 43% support it. The energy industry, much like the tobacco industry, waged a disinformation campaign to “reposition global warming as a debate” when there is no serious debate.

The last line is particularly telling. Substitute “creationism” and “intelligent design” for tobacco/energy industries and “evolution” with global warming and the same thing can be said about the war over Darwinian theory today: anti-evolutionists have created a debate where there is none. I have not spent a significant amount of time on the global warming issue, but the actual “science” that I’ve read indicates no real controversy over the issue – global warming is real its primary cause is anthropogenic (humans). One need only read Chris Mooney’s Republican War On Science to begin to comprehend the incredible distortions of science the Republicans have promoted, solely to benefit their business or fundamentalist backers.

Interestingly, RangerX also draws what I believe to be an appropriate analogy between the demise of past civilizations and our current environmental problems:

I remember a guided hike I conducted in Zion National Park called “In the Footsteps of the Ancients?”. In this program, I compared our modern society with that of the extinct Anasazi, or Ancestral Puebloans if you will, and asked if we, too, might be literal following their same path of climate change and environmental disaster. On my hike, I referred to global warming and said that while we ultimately cannot know what the results will be, we do know that we are having an impact and that our every action has a result. I stepped in the sand for effect and said that we can’t walk without leaving a footprint.

Our archaeological research increasingly demonstrates that civilization collapse is significantly linked to environmental abuse coupled with environmental change. I once remember conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh referring to what he considered to be irrelevancy of environmentalism. He stated that humans cannot possibly destroy the earth. Absolutely true, but that’s never been the issue with environmentalism. What we can do, quite easily with today’s technology, is render the planet inhabitable for humans; minimally we can shift the environment to such a degree that hunting and gathering might become more productive than industrialization.

RangerX ends his post with this comment by Roger Ebert on his review of Gore’s movie:

As Roger Ebert wrote in his review, “In 39 years, I have never written these words in a movie review, but here they are: You owe it to yourself to see this film. If you do not, and you have grandchildren, you should explain to them why you decided not to.”

Sounds like good advice.

On Wisconsin Letters About Science and Evolution

The Summer 2006 issue of my alumni magazine On Wisconsin, lead with a story about evolution and intelligent design entitled Putting Faith in Science. The following Fall issue published a large number of Letters to the Editor in response. There were many letters in support of intelligent design, all of which quoted the same mischaracterizations of evolution, the same fake evidence provided by ID advocates, and the same claims of scientific dispute over evolution that Johnson, Behe, Dembski, and others have offered time and again and which have been thoroughly corrected, demonstrated and debunked ad nauseum. I was somewhat taken aback that so many graduates of such a fine science-oriented university as Wisconsin would so blithely consider ID as valid science. I was gratified to see, however, a letter in the current Winter issue that, again, strikes to the inherint error in these responses:

Perhaps the greatest fallacy in these letters is the repeated assertion that science cannot properly support the idea of evolution, and that scientists are at odds over the question of whether evolution occurred. The reality is this. The peer-reviewed scientific literature generates approximately 1.4 million papers every year, with many of them either providing new substance to the theory of evolution or relying on that theory to provide the context for important new discoveries.

The geological record, the fossil record, the record of change in the genome of every organism, every aspect of modern biology fits together to provide evolution as one of the most compelling and exciting facts ever uncovered by science. There remain robust debates in scientific circles about new mechanisms of evolution and continued efforts to fill in gaps in the records. However, the general idea that extant living organisms evolved over billions of years with shared ancestry was settled many decades ago. To suggest that there is a scientific controversy about whether evolution occurred is simply nonsense.

We do see Intelligent Design (and whatever it evolves into after the Dover decision) as a threat to science education. The future of science in this country depends on sensible people seeing through the ID charade.

This is an abbreviated version of the letter that appeared in the current issue of On Wisconsin. You can go here to see the full version (signed by forty-three professors, scientists and faculty from the UW system).