Freedom to Follow the Evidence without Philosophical Restrictions.

Let's look at a recent post on Evolutin News * Views (sic): From Discovering Intelligent Design: Opposition from the Scientific Establishment. As the title suggests, this is an excerpt from one of the books being heavily promoted by the IDiots.

They have a problem. How do the IDiots explain why 99.9% of biologists oppose Intelligent Design Creationism? It's because they all have a materialistic bias that prevents them from following the evidence wherever it may lead. Read this bit ...

ID challenges a reigning scientific paradigm. But as sociologist Steve Fuller says, ID is not anti-science, but rather anti-establishment. ID theorists want more scientific investigation, not less. They simply want the freedom to follow the evidence without harassment or philosophical restrictions.

An ID-based view of science promises to open new avenues of scientific investigation. Without materialist paradigms governing science, perhaps more scientists would have sought function for structures like "junk" DNA and vestigial organs, rather than assuming they were non-functional evolutionary relics.

Let me remind you that the presence of junk DNA in our genome was not anticipated by those who believed in the importance of natural selection. What happened was that the evidence became too substantive to ignore so scientists had to accept the presence of junk DNA in spite of the fact that most of them expected selection to eliminate it.

Now if you insist on believing in an intelligent design paradigm then you simply can't follow the evidence wherever it may lead because junk DNA isn't part of your worldview. In other words, the example used by the IDiots in this post is the exact opposite of the point they are making.

Oops!

Now you know why we call them IDiots.

---

Teaching Biochemistry from a Canadian Perspective

I've always been a bit embarrassed to admit that my own department doesn't adopt my textbook in their introductory biochemistry courses. The honors course uses the 4th edition of Voet & Voet but it's only "recommended," not required. The large introductory course for non-specialists recommends several textbooks, including mine.

The arguments against having a required textbook have often focused on the idea that none of the current textbooks covers the material that's being taught—especially in the large course. Our large (1300 students) course tended to emphasize human physiology from a biochemical perspective. Many of the lectures in the metabolism section involved specific case studies.

Read more »

"The Best Science Book Ever Written"

Some economist named George Gilder has read Darwin's Doubt, the latest IDiot book. Gilder says ...

I spend my life reading science books. I've read many hundreds of them over the years, and in my judgment Darwin's Doubt is the best science book ever written. It is a magnificent work, a true masterpiece that will be read for hundreds of years.

See David Klinghoffer gloat about this at: George Gilder: Darwin's Doubt Is "Best Science Book Ever Written," "Will Be Read for Hundreds of Years".

Are you still wondering why I call them IDiots?

UPDATE: George Gilder is one of the co-founders of the Discovery Institute and the author of the book (Stephen Meyer) works for the Discovery Institute. Just saying .. I'm sure the relationship has no bearing on Gilder's review and I'm sure it's completely above board for someone like George Gilder to be quoted in a blurb on the cover. If there was anything wrong then surely David Klinghoffer would have mentioned it in his blog post. (This is one of those cases where "IDiots" might be too kind.)

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My Visit to High School Biology Classes

Last Monday I went back to my old high school (Nepean High School in Ottawa, Canada) to visit with students in various biology classes. My host was Susanne Gerards who teaches grade 11 biology and grade 12 biology. She's also the lead author on the biology textbook [Biology 12] that the students use in the grade 12 courses.

I was "guest lecturer" in two grade 12 biology classes and one grade 11 biology class. The grade 12 students had just finished the sections on biochemistry and molecular genetics (information flow) so they were up on most things that I blog about. I was surprised at the amount of information they had just leaned—it's comparable to what we teach in our introductory biochemistry course except that there's less emphasis on structures and nothing on enzyme kinetics.

The students were wonderful. Many of them are going to take science courses in university. (They all had their university acceptances.) Only a few of them are interested in medicine.¹

The grade 11 students had finished their section on evolution. Most of them thought that evolution was driven by changes in the environment but they had at least been exposed to random genetic drift. It took a little prompting to that get that out of them. (I think Susanne was a bit embarrassed!). My impression was that the students understood quite a bit about evolution and this was a pleasant surprise.

One of the classes had just finished a discussion about junk DNA when a student raised it in class. He claimed that recent evidence proved that most of our genome has a function. I think the students were still a bit confused about genomes but at least they talked about it. (We didn't talk about it much when I was there.)

I'm pretty sure that the most important thing the students learned was that you actually get paid to be a graduate student! They were also surprised about the relatively high salaries that professors earn when they're hired. I'm hoping that some of them will pursue a career in science.

Susanne Gerards and I had an excellent lunch in Westboro where the restaurants and shops are quite a bit more upscale than they were in the 1960s when I lived there. We also had a lot of fun talking about science after class. With teachers like that I'm confident that Ontario high school students are getting a good science education.

---

1. Hardly any of them were going to the University of Toronto in spite of the fact that it's the best university in Canada. I'm not sure why they were avoiding it. The most popular universities were Queen's, McGill, and Waterloo.

What Does the Bladderwort Genome Tell Us about Junk DNA?

The so-called "C-Value Paradox" was described over thirty years ago. Here's how Benjamin Lewin explained it in Genes II (1983).

The C value paradox takes its name from our inability to account for the content of the genome in terms of known function. One puzzling feature is the existence of huge variations in C values between species whose apparent complexity does not vary correspondingly. An extraordinary range of C values is found in amphibians where the smallest genomes are just below 10⁹bp while the largest are almost 10¹¹. It is hard to believe that this could reflect a 100-fold variation in the number of genes needed to specify different amphibians.

Since then we have dozens and dozens of examples of very similar looking species with vastly different genome sizes. These observations require an explanation and the best explanation by far is that most of the genomes of multicellular species is junk. In fact, it's the data on genome sizes that provide the best evidence for junk DNA.

Read more »

ZPE 186 (2013)

INHALT

Antela-Bernárdez, B. – Verdejo Manchado, J., Medeios at the Gymnasium 134 

Antonopoulos, A. P., Select Notes on the Papyrus Text of Sophocles’ Ichneutai (P.Oxy. IX. 1174) 77 

Bär, S., Der Neue Poseidipp (P. Mil. Vogl. VIII 309): Zur Ergänzung des Versschlusses in col. IX 35 = ep. 60,1 AB 105 

Behrwald, R. – Brandt, H., Tityassos und Adada 205 

Benaissa, A., Ammianus Marcellinus Res Gestae 17.4.17 and the Translator of the Obelisk in Rome’s Circus Maximus 114 

Ben Ami, D. – Tchekhanovets, Y. – Daniel, R. W., A Juridical Curse from a Roman Mansion in the City of David 227 

de Bernardo Stempel, P. – Birley, A. R. – Birley, A., A Dedication by the Cohors I Tungrorum at Vindolanda to a Hitherto Unknown Goddess 287 

Blanco-Pérez, A., C. Claudius Lucianus: an Eirenarch from Akmoneia Selected by the Proconsul M. Sulpicius Crassus. A Note on SEG 56.1493 190 

Blumell, L. H., The Date of P.Oxy. XLIII 3119, the Deputy-Prefect Lucius Mussius Aemilianus, and the Persecution of Christians by Valerian and Gallienus 111 

Brandt, H. – Behrwald, R., Tityassos und Adada 205 Bultrighini, I., “Twin Inscriptions” from the Attic Deme of Myrrhinous 141 

Casanova, A., Sui nuovi frammenti dell’atto IV degli Epitrepontes: note sulla rhesis di Panfile 94 

Christol, M., L’œuvre de Valerius Diogenes à Antioche de Pisidie: compléments au dossier épigraphique sur les interventions urbanistiques 279 

Clarysse, W., Two Ptolemaic Ostraca from the Michigan Collection Revised 244 

Clarysse, W., Dionysos, Souchos and Sarapis as Personal Names? 259 

Curchin, L. A., The Abbreviation “L. E. P. T.” in a Columbarium Inscription from Rome 307 

D’Alessio, G., The Wanderings of the Thestorids (Stesichorus fr. 193.16–22 PMGF) 36 

Elmaghrabi, M. G., Three Receipts for Beer Tax from Hibeh 237 

Ferrari, F., From Orpheus to Teiresias: Solar Issues in the Derveni Papyrus 57 

Gallé Cejudo, R. J., Note critique à propos de la Λέσβου Κτίσις attribuée à Apollonios de Rhodes (12 CA) 100 

Gnilka, Chr., Inscripta Christo pagina (Zu Prud. perist. 10,1119) 119 

Gonis, N., Semeia, Old and New 251

Gonis, N., Reconsidering Some Fiscal Documents from Early Islamic Egypt IV 270 

Grassi, G. F., Due parole semitiche nelle iscrizioni del santuario della dea siriana a Delo 171 

Grzesik, D., Abbreviated Decrees of Delphi 157 

Holder, St., Valerius Kallinikos. Ein Lesevorschlag für P.Oxy. 471, col. vi, Z. 143–144 108 

Howe, T., Shepherding the Polis: Gender, Reputation and State Finance in Hellenistic Boiotia 152 

Jennes, G., The Name Helios in Graeco-Roman Egypt 267

Jones, B. C., Two Unidentified Christian Fragments in the Michigan Collection 121 

Jones, B. C.,  A New Ptolemaic Papyrus from the Columbia University Collection 247 

Jones, B. C. – Mirończuk, A. T., An Oxyrhynchus Fragment of Homer, Iliad 23 in the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, Toronto 6 

Kuhn, C. T., Der Rangstreit der Städte im römischen Kleinasien: Anmerkungen zu Kontext
und Datierung von I.Laodikeia 10 195 

Litinas, N., A Short Note on SB XXII 15793 255 

Lulli, L. – Sbardella, L., P. Oxy. 69. 4708 fr. 1. 22–28. Una nuova proposta di integrazione 27 

Luppe, W., Ein neues Danaiden-Fragment 76 

Luppe, W.,  Zu zwei Fragmenten aus Euripides’ Κρῆτες (Fr. 472b und 472e K.) 92 

Mancuso, G., Nota a P.Oxy. 2506 (fr. 26 col. i. 21 = Stesich. PMGF 193) 38 

Meadows, A. – Thonemann, P., The Ptolemaic Administration of Pamphylia 223 

Meliadò, C., Note testuali a papiri epici 51 

Mirończuk, A. T., Homeric Papyri at Harvard University 11 

Mirończuk, A. T, An Unpublished Homeric Papyrus at Victoria University: P. Oxy. IV 753 descr. 22 

Nieto Izquierdo, E., IG IV2.1, 141: a New Interpretation 176 

Nowakowski, P., A New Fragment of the “SYLA Inscription” from Cyrene 212

 Pagani, L., Come uccidere insolitamente un guerriero. La morte di Perifete (Il. 15, 638–652)
secondo gli antichi 1 

Pala, P. – Sanciu, A. – Sanges, M., Un nuovo diploma militare dalla Sardegna 301 

Rosamilia, E., I nuovi frammenti dei rendiconti navali dall’agorà: due riletture 124 

Rossignol, B., Glanes épigraphiques à Ulpiana et Aquincum 275 

Sarrazanas, C., L’agonothète des Théséia de IG II2 961 et le «fantôme» Apolèxis I du Pirée 127

Savalli-Lestrade, I., Sculpteur parien, défunt samien. Remarques sur la stèle funéraire
de Kymè (SEG 47, 1663 A et B) 181 

Sosin, J. D., Notes on Inscriptions 163 

Stelow, A., εὐρυβίης Μενέλαος at Plataea 40 

 Ucciardello, G., Su Pind. Isthm. fr. 1a Sn.–M. (= P.Oxy. XXVI 2439, fr. 2) 49 

Worp, K. A., Five Mummy Labels from the Hilton Price Collection 258

PSI-online

Cari colleghi,

a nome di tutte le istituzioni coinvolte (Biblioteca Laurenziana, Museo del Cairo, Istituto Vitelli, Università di Cassino, Università di Messina, Accademia Fiorentina di Papirologia), è un piacere comunicarvi che da oggi è accessibile la versione 2.0 del sito PSi On Line all'indirizzo

www.psi-online.it

Il sito contiene descrizioni, informazioni bibliografiche (aggiornate fino al 2010) e riproduzioni dei PSI I-XV. La revisione e l'aggiornamento del database sono stati possibili grazie ad un contributo della regione Lazio e al conseguimento di un finanziamento PRIN del Ministero italiano dell'Istruzione e della Ricerca (progetto "Edizione ed informatizzazione dei Papiri Greci di Praga, Alessandria d'Egitto e Firenze").

Nei prossimi mesi saranno gradualmente aggiunte schede ed immagini digitali delle altre collezioni fiorentine (P. Flor.; P. Laur.).

Con i saluti più cordiali,

Lucio Del Corso, Guido Bastianini, Diletta Minutoli, Rosario Pintaudi.

COMUNICAZIONI dell'Istituto Papirologico «G. Vitelli» 11

COMUNICAZIONI dell'Istituto Papirologico «G. Vitelli» 11

a cura di G. Bastianini e S. Russo

Firenze, Istituto Papirologico «G. Vitelli» 2013

INDICE:
Premessa p. III
 Dai Papiri della Società Italiana 
 1. VT, Odae 8, 70?, 63, 74-79; 85-88 (M. Stroppa)  p. 3
 2. Preghiere per la comunità (M. Stroppa)  p. 9
 3. Orazione giudiziaria (E.A. Conti)  p. 20
 4. Frammento di petizione (S. Russo)  p. 39
 5. Lista di beni (S. Russo)  p. 43
 6. Intestazione di documento (S. Russo)  p. 49
 7. Frammento di documento matrimoniale (S. Russo)  p. 51
 8. Frammento di giornale ufficiale di uno stratego (G. Bastianini)  p. 55
 9. Lista di nomi (S. Russo)  p. 59
10. Frammento di rapporto su una morte (accidentale?) (S. Russo)  p. 62
11. Contratto di affitto di terreno (S. Russo)  p. 65
12. Contratto di deposito (S. Russo)  p. 68
13. Appunti di contenuto vario (E.A. Conti)  p. 72
14. Contratto di lavoro? (S. Russo)  p. 79
15-16. Ordini di consegna di carne (S. Russo)  p. 83
 T.M. Hickey, More from the dossier of Count John, son of Timagenes
(P.Ups. inv. 37)  p. 87
 E.A. Conti, Osservazioni paleografiche su PSI Com11 3 e lo ‘stile intermedio’   p. 91
 R. Mascellari, P.Mil.Vogl. IV 222, 11: çkuvrinoç  p. 111
 I. Vezzani, Contributo allo studio iconografico del pSAT 3663
del Museo Egizio di Firenze  p. 115
 Indici dei testi editi in questo fascicolo:
Testi letterari  p. 129
Testi documentari  p. 131
Correzioni a testi già editi  p. 137
 Tavole I-XXV

Guido Bastianini

Istituto Papirologico "G. Vitelli"
Università degli Studi di Firenze

Borgo degli Albizi 12
I-50122 Firenze




_____________________


_____________________

M. Faraguna (ed.), Archives and Archival Documents in Ancient Societies,

M. Faraguna (ed.), Archives and Archival Documents in Ancient Societies, Trieste 30 September-1 October 2011 (Legal Documents in Ancient Societies IV, Graeca Tergestina 1), Trieste, EUT, 2013, 378 p. 

ISBN 978-88-8303-460-2

ABSTRACT

This book, part of a series aiming to investigate the legal systems of ancient societies through a document-based, comparative approach, focuses on the study of archives and archival records and their interplay with the workings of administrative and political systems. 

The papers are arranged in four sections dealing with the Ancient Near East, Classical Greece, the Persian Tradition and the Hellenistic World, and the Roman Empire. The themes touched upon chronologically span from the early second millennium B.C. to the late Roman Empire and geographically range from Mesopotamia to the Western Mediterranean. The archives considered, public and private, are conspicuous for their variety and reflect diverse archival concepts and traditions but a number of common patterns also emerge in respect to their physical organization, to the classification of texts, the function of record-keeping and the role of seals. We are entitled to speak of a recurring ?archival behaviour?.

CONTENTS

Michele Faraguna (Trieste)

7 Foreword

Dennis Kehoe (New Orleans)

11 Archives and Archival Documents in Ancient Societies: Introduction

Ancient Near East

Sophie Démare-Lafont (Paris)

23 Zero and Infinity: the Archives in Mesopotamia

Klaas R. Veenhof (Leiden)

27 The Archives of Old Assyrian Traders: their Nature, Functions and Use

Antoine Jacquet (Paris)

63 Family Archives in Mesopotamia during the Old Babylonian Period

Susanne Paulus (Münster)

87 The Limits of Middle Babylonian Archives

Classical Greece

Christophe Pébarthe (Bordeaux)

107 Les archives de la cité de raison. Démocratie athénienne et pratiques documentaires à l?époque classique

Shimon Epstein (Tel-Aviv /Freiburg)

127 Attic Building Accounts from Euthynae to Stelae

Edward M. Harris (Durham)

143 The Plaint in Athenian Law and Legal Procedure

Michele Faraguna (Trieste)

163 Archives in Classical Greece: Some Observations

The Persian Tradition and the Hellenistic World

Ingo Kottsieper (Göttingen)

175 Aramäische Archive aus achämenidischer Zeit und ihre Funktion

Laura Boffo (Trieste)

201 La ?presenza? dei re negli archivi delle poleis ellenistiche

Lucia Criscuolo (Bologna)

245 Copie, malacopie, copie d'ufficio e il problema della titolarità di un archivio nell?Egitto tolemaico

Mark Depauw (Leuven)

259 Reflections on Reconstructing Private and Official Archives

The Roman Empire

Éva Jakab (Szeged)

269 Introduction: Archives in the Roman Empire

Kaja Harter-Uibopuu (Wien)

273 Epigraphische Quellen zum Archivwesen in den griechischen Poleis des ausgehenden Hellenismus und der Kaiserzeit

Thomas Kruse (Wien)

307 Bevölkerungskontrolle, Statuszugang und Archivpraxis im römischen Ägypten

Rudolf Haensch (München)

333 Die Statthalterarchive der Spätantike

Uri Yiftach-Firanko (Jerusalem)

351 Conclusions

363 Index locorum

L. Del Corso - P. Pecere (a cura di), Il libro filosofico dall'antichità al XXI secolo, "Quaestio" 11, 2012

L. Del Corso - P. Pecere (a cura di), Il libro filosofico dall'antichità al XXI secolo, "Quaestio" 11, 2012, pp. XXII + 540 (con illustrazioni),  € 80.

Tra i contributi di interesse papirologico e filologico:

L. DEL CORSO  - P. PECERE, Premessa. Storia del libro e storia della filosofia
L. DEL CORSO, Il libro e il logos. Riflessioni sulla trasmissione del pensiero filosofico da Platone a Galeno 
G. DEL MASTRO, Filosofi, scribi e glutinatores. I rotoli della Villa dei Papiri di Ercolano 
M. HAAKE, Zwischen Alexander dem Großen und Arcadius, von Anaxarchos von Abdera zu Synesios von Kyrene. Die Gattung Über das Königtum im Kontext antiker Alleinherrschaften – eine Skizze
R. CHIARADONNA,  Interpretazione filosofica e ricezione del corpus. Il caso di Aristotele (100 a.C. - 250 d.C.) 
I. PRIVITERA, Aristotle and the Papyri: the Direct Tradition
C. TORNAU, Text, Medium und publizistische Begleitung: Buchproduktion und Buchkomposition bei Augustinus
F. RONCONI, Le silence des livres. Manuscrits philosophiques et circulation des idées à l’époque byzantine moyenne
Un indice completo del volume può essere visionato all'indirizzo 
http://www.paginasc.it/quaestio.php?titolo=quaestio
con indicazioni per l'acquisto del volume

La distribuzione di Quaestio è curata inoltre da
Brepols Publishers
Begijnhof 67 – B-2300 Turnhout (Belgium)
E-mail: info@brepols.net
www.brepols.net
Tel. +32 14 44 80 20 – Fax +32 14 42 89 19

«Segno e testo», vol. 10 (2012)

 «Segno e testo», vol. 10 (2012), pp. 416, tavv. 48, € 64

Indice:

Menico Caroli, Il commercio librario nell'Egitto greco-romano
Valentina Garulli, Da Cipro a Delo: gli epigrammi di Antistene di Pafo; Francesca Romana Nocchi, Lettura di Menandro alla scuola del grammaticus
Fabio Acerbi, Commentari, scolii e annotazioni marginali ai trattati matematici greci
Lucia Castaldi, Gli scrupoli di Gregorio Magno: Scio enim quod Redemptor meus vivit
Rosella Tinaburri, Gli elementi paratestuali nel testimone cottoniano del Heliand
Filippo Ronconi, La Bibliothèque de Photius et le Marc. gr. 450. Recherches préliminaires
Bexen Campos, «Quand Dieu dit une chose et fait ensuite une autre»: la compilation de textes antijuifs et antihérétiques du Par. Coisl. 299
Margherita Losacco, «Il libro del Cristiano»: indagini sul Laur. Plut. 9.28, testimonio della Topografia cristiana di Cosma Indicopleuste
Vicente García Lobo – Alejandro Celso García Morilla, Un falso epigráfico del s. XII. La supuesta lápida de Santa María de Husillos
Nadezhda Kavrus-Hoffmann, The Scribe Gennadios af the Hodegon Monastery: a Case Study of Digraphism and Brotherly Spirit
Anatole Pierre Fuksas, Hierarchical Segmentation of Chretien's Chevalier au Lion in Ms. Princeton, University Library, Garrett 125
 Sito web della rivista: http://www.eventi.unicas.it/Segno-e-Testo
 La distribuzione di «Segno e testo» è curata da:
Brepols Publishers

Begijnhof 67 – B-2300 Turnhout (Belgium)
E-mail: info@brepols.net
www.brepols.net
Tel. +32 14 44 80 20 – Fax +32 14 42 89 19

How Do IDiots Define Evolution?

It's not difficult to find a proper definition of evolution. All you have to do is check your basic introductory textbooks on evolution. Google is not your friend in this case 'cause there's a lot of misinformation out there. If you're really interested in a scientific definition of evolution why not go right to the primary source?

Most textbooks use some version of the following for the minimal DEFINITION of evolution [see What IS Evolution?].

Evolution is a process that results in heritable changes in a population spread over many generations.

Now, we all know that Intelligent Design Creationists are keen on real science. They certainly don't want to mislead their flock. Let's see how they define evolution in the latest book they are promoting [From Discovering Intelligent Design: Define Your Terms].

Read more »

A Concept-Driven Graduate Education

Like most graduate departments, we are constantly evaluating and modifying our graduate program but rarely do we step back and look at the big picture. What are we trying to accomplish?

Graduate education, like undergraduate education, has been subjected to serious study over the past few decades. Guttlerner and Van Vactor (2013) have just published a brief review in Cell that summarizes the goals and how they are trying to achieve them at Havard.

The authors begin by pointing out the importance of a concept-driven curriculum.

The modernization of science education requires a shift from a content-driven curriculum to an interdisciplinary, concept-driven curriculum (Association of American Medical Colleges and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, 2009; American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2009; National Research Council, 2003, 2009). Such a curriculum organizes information around unifying concepts and frees educators from the insurmountable task of presenting the complete breadth of an ever-expanding scientific knowledge base (D’Avanzo, 2008). Concept-driven education is increasingly seen as fundamental for contemporary research scientists and physicians (Association of American Medical Colleges and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, 2009).

Read more »

A.T. Wilburn, Materia Magica The Archaeology of Magic in Roman Egypt, Cyprus, and Spain

Materia Magica: The Archaeology of Magic in Roman Egypt, Cyprus, and Spain
Andrew T. Wilburn
Approaches ancient magical practice through archaeology and social history


Description
Series New Texts from Ancient Cultures

This exciting new study draws on objects excavated or discovered in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century at three Mediterranean sites. Through the three case studies, Materia Magica identifies specific forms of magic that may be otherwise unknown. It isolates the practitioners of magic and examines whether magic could be used as a form of countercultural resistance. Andrew T. Wilburn discovers magic in the objects of ancient daily life, suggesting that individuals frequently turned to magic, particularly in crises. Local forms of magic may have differed, and Wilburn proposes that the only way we can find small-town sorcerers is through careful examination of the archaeological evidence.
Studying the remains of spells enacted by practitioners, Wilburn's work unites the analysis of the words written on artifacts and the physical form of these objects. He situates these items within their contexts, to study how and why they were used. Materia Magica approaches magic as a material endeavor, in which spoken spells, ritual actions, and physical objects all played vital roles in the performance of a rite.
Materia Magica develops a new method for identifying and interpreting the material remains of magical practice by assessing artifacts within their archaeological contexts. Wilburn suggests that excavations undertaken in recent centuries can yield important lessons about the past, and he articulates the ways in which we can approach problematic data.
Andrew T. Wilburn is Associate Professor of Classics at Oberlin College.

Conference: Great Landowners and the State in the Sixth Century: Revisiting the Apion Archive

Great Landowners and the State in the Sixth Century:

                                           Revisiting the Apion Archive                        

 A round-table discussion chaired by Roger Bagnall

 Monday 27 May 2013, 2.00–6.00 pm

All Souls College, Old Library

The publication of Todd Hickey’s Wine, Wealth, and the State in Late Antique Egypt (Ann Arbor 2012) offers the occasion to revisit the long-debated issues of the size and economic importance of large estates in the Justinianic period, and of their economic and political role within the empire.
The afternoon will begin with a series of short presentations by Todd Hickey, James Keenan, Jean Gascou, Andrew Wilson and Peter Sarris.
It will move on to a round-table discussion with Philip Booth, Alan Bowman, Jennifer Cromwell, Nikolaos Gonis, James Howard-Johnston, Roberta Mazza, Arietta Papaconstantinou, Bryan Ward-Perkins, Mark Whittow.
The meeting will be followed by a wine reception at 6.00 pm.
This event is organised with the generous support of the Oxford Roman Economy Project and Baron Lorne Thyssen, the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research, All Souls College, and the Department of Classics of the University of Reading.

G. Menci - L. Pesi, La Collezione archeologica dell'Isituto Papirologico "G. Vitelli"

Titel: ¬La¬ collezione archeologica dell'Istituto Papirologico G. Vitelli
Verf./Hrsg.: Menci, Giovanna [Hrsg.]   a cura di Giovanna Menci ...
Institutionen: Istituto Papirologico G. Vitelli    
Istituto Papirologico G. Vitelli
Firenze
ISBN:978-88-87829-48-8
88-87829-48-9
Jahr:2012
Umfang: 70 S.
Illustrationen: zahlr. Ill., Kt.
Format: 26 cm
Fussnoten:
Contains bibliography. - Museum catalogue
Sprache: ita
Schlagwörter:
(k)Istituto Papirologico G. Vitelli     / (g)Antinooupolis    / (s)Archäologische Stätte    / (s)Funde    / (f)Katalog   

Inside Higher Ed Weighs in on the Ball State Academic Freedom Controversy

This is getting more and more interesting. Now there's an article in Inside Higher Ed discussing the controversy over whether Eric Hedin of Ball State University should be teaching a science course that emphasizes Intelligent Design Creationism. [see Science or Religion?]

The article discusses the difference of opinion between Jerry Coyne, on the one hand, and PZ Myers and me, on the other. It's very interesting to read the comments. Jerry Coyne has posted on the Inside Higher Ed article at: Ball State agrees to investigate science course infected with Christianity. His readers have lots to say on the issue of academic freedom.

Let's be clear about one thing. I'm not an American so I'm not terribly concerned about the American Constitution. If Eric Hedin were teaching in Canada, the legal issue would never come up. The part of this that I don't like is outsiders threatening departmental chairs to get them to take action against one of their faculty members. Four Creationists have tried to get the administration of my university to shut down Sandwalk and in all cases my university simply filed the letters in the waste basket.¹ I ban people from Sandwalk if I ever hear of them trying to intimidate someone by complaining to their employer. That's unacceptable behavior in my book.

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1. After sending me a copy.

Earthquake!

Epicentre near Ottawa. Two quakes: 5.2 magnitude at 9:43 am and a 4.1 magnitude aftershock 10 minutes later. I didn't feel either of them. Earthquakes like this happen about 30,000 time a year. We feel one of them every few years in this part of Canada. They are mostly harmless, but exciting.

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[Photo credit: CBC News]

On Teaching Genetics Using Students' and Parents' ABO Blood Types

There are some schools that think it's cool to show examples of simple Mendelian inheritance by collecting and analyzing the blood types of their students and their parents. What could possibly go wrong?

Let me tell you why this is a bad idea. It's true that 99% of the time the blood type of a student is going to be consistent with that of their presumed biological parents. But what if it's not? That could mean that a child is adopted and the child may not know or not want that information to be public. It could also mean that the child's biological father (or mother) is not the same person they call "Mommy" or "Daddy." Is the trauma associated with that discovery worth the benefits of the experiment?

I have a blog post on The Genetics of ABO Blood Types. It's quite popular and every few weeks I get a letter from a distraught parent who has just discovered that the blood type of their children doesn't match the blood type of the parents. Here's the latest example (posted with permission) ...

Dear Professor Moran: I hope you don't mind my writing to you, but I just came across your blog, Sandwalk after doing some research about blood types and wondered if you might have an opinion....

My daughter, in 7th grade is working on a blood type project at school and came home quite upset yesterday after telling the teacher that she was type A+ and both her Dad and I are O+. The teacher (whom I have not yet dragged over hot, burning coals....) told her that that was impossible - that she would either have to have been adopted or have a genetic defect.... It got me thinking that perhaps I had made a mistake somewhere along the way and we spent some time last night digging through info to try to figure it out. I checked with our doctors this morning and our daughter's pediatrician and all blood types have been confirmed. Both my husband and I are O+ and our daughter is A+ She is definitely not adopted and unless she was switched at birth, then there is no doubt as to parentage -- should I be concerned? I do recall that when she was born she had mild jaundice which one doc explained was due to blood type incompatibility.

If high school teachers aren't knowledgeable enough to handle these situations then they should avoid these "experiments."

These "anomalies" are quite frequent and they have simple explanations once you know the real genotype. For example, one parent could be heterozygous for two different O alleles. One with a mutation near the beginning of the gene and the other with a mutation near the end of the gene. Any germ cell recombination event between the two alleles could generate an A allele or a B allele depending on the origin of the O allele.

I think it's also possible for one of the parents to actually be AO or BO but the functional allele is expressed at a very low level giving an O-type phenotype. The A or B allele could, by chance, be much more active in the child. There could be epistatic effects such that splicing or transcription is defective in the parent but compensated for by enhanced activity in the child due to unlinked mutations. (These are known as "suppressors" in bacterial genetics.)

There are many other possibilities. They're rare but it's certain that they will show up in some school class somewhere. It's usually not a good idea to investigate the personal genomics of students because of these problems.

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Jerry Coyne Is at it Again!

Jerry Coyne has discovered that some obscure Professor in some American college is teaching from a Christian viewpoint in his class on "The Boundaries of Science." Jerry thinks that he can stop this Professor from teaching things that he (Coyne) disagrees with by threatening the university with a lawsuit. PZ Myers and I disagreed, pointing out that academic freedom in the universities is an important principle that should not be ignored [see Is It Illegal to Teach Intelligent Design Creationism in American Universities?].

Jerry stands by his position: The Freedom from Religion Foundation to Ball State University: cease and desist your religious indoctrination. Nobody is arguing that Professors shouldn't be criticized for bad teaching and nobody is arguing that the instructor's colleagues and department can't reassign courses to keep a bad teacher away from students. That's not the situation here. The Chair of the department is aware of the situation and doesn't object.

It's dangerous for outsiders to start dictating what a Professor can and can't teach and it's especially dangerous to use legal threats to enforce your own perspective on another university. I strongly disagree with the letter that the Freedom from Religion Foundation sent to the President of Ball State University [see Coyne's blog website]. If this were my university I would expect it to fight such a demand with all the resources at their disposal and I'm certain that my union and the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) would support my university. So would I.

CAUT actively defends academic freedom as the the right to teach, learn, study and publish free of orthodoxy or threat of reprisal and discrimination. Academic freedom includes the right to criticize the university and the right to participate in its governance. Tenure provides a foundation for academic freedom by ensuring that academic staff cannot be dismissed without just cause and rigorous due process.

I have defended the academic freedom of racists and holocaust deniers in the past. I've even defended the right of an extreme free-market capitalist to indoctrinate business students. In the name of academic freedom, I will even tolerate adaptationists who teach evolution incorrectly.

The purpose of academic freedom is to protect the rights of those who disagree with the majority. Those rights must be protected for everyone, including those who you think are wrong. Otherwise it's not academic freedom.

I teach a course where I promote an atheist view of evolution and the idea that science and religion are incompatible. If the Freedom from Religion Foundation ever wrote a letter to my President demanding that I cease and desist they would be be ignored except, perhaps, for a few laughs over coffee.

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Michael Denton on Junk DNA

I was reading the latest spiel from Sal Cordova (scordova) when I noticed a reference to Michael Denton. Cordova was ranting about how Taxonomic nested hierarchies don’t support Darwinism and he began with ...

Taxonomic nested hierarchies don’t support Darwinism or common descent, actually the opposite. Michael Denton convincingly argued that nested hierarchies can be used to argue against macro evolution. If the fish are always fish, then they will never be birds, reptiles, apes, or humans.

I knew that this was a misrepresentation of Denton's views since he (Denton) supports the idea that nested hierarchies represent the true history of common descent.

Michael Denton thinks that evolution was directed and that explains why fish and mammals are so different even though they contain a common ancestor. He accepts common descent but rejects spontaneous mutation and mechanistic fixation of alleles as the explanation. I checked his latest book Nature's Destiny (1998) to confirm that I was right.

Denton supports a teleological view where God created conditions (first cause) that would lead to humans (final cause) but that the process included evolution from common ancestors. In Denton's case the "design" was inherent in the laws of physics and chemistry and the rules of mutation and gene expression.

While refreshing my memory, I came across this paragraph that I had highlighted in his book fifteen years ago.

If it is true that a vast amount of the DNA in higher organisms is in fact junk, then this would indeed pose a very serious challenge to the idea of directed evolution or any teleological model of evolution. Junk DNA and directed evolution are in the end incompatible concepts. Only if the junk DNA contained information specifying for future evolutionary events, when it would not in a strict sense be junk in any case, could the finding be reconciled with a teleological model of evolution. Indeed, if it were true that the genomes of higher organisms contained vast quantities of junk, then the whole argument of this book would collapse. Teleology would be entirely discredited. On any teleological model of evolution, most, perhaps all, the DNA in a genome of higher organisms should have some function. (pp. 289-290

I wonder what Intelligent Design Creationists think of this argument?

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The Positive Values of a Roman Catholic Education?

The Ontario government funds Roman Catholic Schools but not schools of any other religion. I've just returned from a high school reunion at one of the "public" schools (nonreligious) so I've been thinking about the education I received in an environment that was free of religious indoctrination.

My friends all seem to be pretty moral and they seem to be at least as good at practicing the Golden Rule as any other citizens. When we were students we organized contributions to charity and helped the needy. We made lifelong friends in the public schools.

Most of my high school friends are pretty secular in their outlook and a large percentage are nonbelievers. The percentages aren't much different among my friends who went to Roman Catholic schools.

Here's a bit of propaganda from one who supports government funding of Roman Catholic schools. They need all the support they can get because Roman Catholic values are coming under heavy criticism lately. Roman Catholic students have been bussed to anti-abortion protests and school clubs for gays and lesbians have been banned in the Roman Catholic schools system. "Sex education" is a joke.

What do you think? Does this make you want to continue sending your tax dollars to the Roman Catholic schools?

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Scientific Authority and the Role of Small RNAs

A few weeks ago I criticized Philip Ball for an article he published in Nature: DNA: Nature Celebrates Ignorance. Phil has responded to my comments and he has given me permission to quote from his response. I think this is going to stimulate discussion on some very interesting topics.

The role of small RNAs is one of those topics. There are four types of RNA inside cells: tRNA, ribosomal RNA (rRNA), messenger RNA (mRNA), and a broad category that I call “small RNAs.”

The small RNAs include those required for splicing and those involved in catalyzing specific reactions. Many of them play a role in regulating genes expression. These roles have been known for at least three decades so there haven’t been any conceptual advances in the big picture for at least that long.

What’s new is an emphasis on the abundance and importance of small regulatory RNAs. Some workers believe that the human genomes contains thousands of genes for small RNAs that play an important role in regulating gene expression. That’s a main theme for those interpreting the ENCODE results. Several prominent scientists have written extensively about the importance of this “new information” on the abundance of small RNAs and how it assigns function to most of our genome.

Read more »

High School Reunion

We attended the Nepean High School 90th Anniversary Celebration in Ottawa (Ontario, Canada) on the weekend. It was wonderful to see old friends, especially those I hadn't seen in almost five decades. (I graduated 49 years ago.)

Here are some friends that I have seen more recently but it was good to get together anyway. Brian (standing) is an old friend—we first met sixty years ago. Chuck (sitting) and his wife Helen (beside him) have been friends since high school. Chuck was best man at my wedding and Brian was also in the bridal party.

Two other members of my bridal party are also high schools friends. Leslie (front) was the bride and Karen (trying to hide on the left) was a bridesmaid.

Ms. Sandwalk has posted a photo of herself as a high school student and cheerleader. One of the other cheerleaders was at the reunion but nobody could convince them to do a cheer.

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[Photo Credit: Sharon took the photo.]

Monday's Molecule #205

Last week's molecule was the lipoamide swinging arm of pyruvate dehydrogenase [Monday's Molecule #204]. The winners were Alex Ling and Michael Florea.

Today's molecule is a major component of something you are all familiar with. Identify the molecule (common name only) and where it's most likely to be found. (Hint: not in humans.)

Email your answers to me at: Monday's Molecule #205. I'll hold off posting your answers for 24 hours. The first one with the correct answer wins. I will only post mostly correct answers to avoid embarrassment. The winner will be treated to a free lunch.

There could be two winners. If the first correct answer isn't from an undergraduate student then I'll select a second winner from those undergraduates who post the correct answer. You will need to identify yourself as an undergraduate in order to win. (Put "undergraduate" at the bottom of your email message.)

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Almaleea subumbellata

Jerry Coyne says he will post a picture of a plant if he can find a cute one [A vertebrate]. I decided to help him out by pointing you to the latest Botany Photo of the Day.

This is Almaleea subumbellata, or wiry bushpea, from Tasmania, Australia. You can read all about it at the UBC Botanical Garden website. They have a high resolution photo.

Prettier than cats and they don't pee on your rug or scratch your furniture.

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Andyjones Replies

Andyjones has responded to my post on failing to educate him about science. His response is: Failure to Educate? Failure to Persuade. I'm reposting his entire response ....

Larry Moran replied to my latest post with an admission of failure. He thinks he has failed to educate, but I think rather he is confusing the word ‘persuade’ with the word ‘educate’.

He thinks I am rationalising junk DNA with a pile of ‘what-ifs’. But the fact is that most of my ‘what-ifs’ are already known to have some basis in reality. I am not denying any obvious reality. Indeed, the basic machinery of life looks like design, far more than when Paley was around. Yes, there could also be a great deal of junk. That’s why I have said a number of times that ID is not committed to the idea that there is no junk.

Yet, from my point of view, I see a whole pile of Darwinian/post-Darwinian materialists who have only partly explored the genome, working from an assumption that the genome was not designed, and thus are jumping the gun on the evidence. For example, Larry still seems to think that pseudogenes are of themselves ‘solid evidence’ of broken genes despite the fact that we know that at least some pseudogenes influence the rate of translation of real genes by competing with them; a simple design reason why there should be ‘false genes’ = pseudogenes. Who has explored the rest of them?

From his emotive response to my perfectly valid, albeit speculative suggestions (though they were not plucked out of the air either), I don’t trust this guy to think clearly and calmly about the possibility of design. That’s the real problem.

This is all very frustrating. Why do IDiots who have no serious training in biochemistry and molecular biology think they know more than the experts?

And why do they refuse to learn when we attempt to educate them?

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An Example of IDiot "Civility"

Do you remember when Stephen A. Batzer listed several reason why "Darwinists" are so uncivil? [Why Darwinism and Incivility Seem to Go Together] I blogged about it at: Why Are "Darwinists" So Uncivil?. We all had a good chuckle about hypocrisy and stupidity.

You've also seen many IDiots defend their use of "Darwinism" by claiming that it's nothing more than an accurate description of the most important scientific prerspective on evolution.

Here's what David Klinghoffer wrote today in Scientific Anti-Humanism Is Being Refuted by Science Itself.

Scientific anti-humanism refers to the cheapening of human dignity and of the value of human life in the name of science. Among many other pieces of novel information on that theme, the most important point that came out of Michael Medved's discussion with John West just now on the Science and Culture Update is that this corrosive tendency is being refuted by science itself.

Darwin persuasively taught that life is the product of blind, meaningless, purposeless churning, making all life, not just human, hardly anything more special or dignified than cosmic refuse. Indeed in a Darwinian worldview, life is cosmic refuse. While accused abortion butcher Kermit Gosnell may be an outlier, he is an emblematic personality in our Darwin-tutored culture.

How civil of him to link Darwinism with Kermit Gosnell.

Remember, this is Evolution News & Views (sic), sponsored by the Discovery Institute. This is not some backwoods hack operating on his own. It's mainstream civility for the leading Intelligent Design Creationists.

UPDATE Klinghoffer posted the following a short time later in Darwinism Versus Reality: The Painful Divorce. It's just another example of how the IDiots link "Darwinism" with immorality and it puts the lie to the claim that "Darwinism" is just another word for "evolutionary biology."

I wanted to highlight what Josh Youngkin said yesterday in his very perceptive comments about the Jodi Arias verdict. Darwinian materialists like Jerry Coyne end up asserting there's no free will, therefore no such thing as moral responsibility. A murderer may be locked up for everyone else's safety, but not because we're correct to seek to impose retribution. We have no moral right to do so.

As Josh says, this casts the human being who murders as a fundamentally blameless animal, like a man-eating tiger. We would cage or even shoot such a tiger, but we could not blame it for acting as it does.

Profoundly, I thought, Josh's article suggests how remote from human experience a guy like Coyne must travel if he wants to carry his Darwinian materialism to its seemingly logical conclusions.

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Religious Affiliation in Canada

The results of the 2011 Canadian census are beginning to appear. Indi at Canadian Atheist has prepared a nifty pie chart showing that 63.7% of the population identifies themselves as Christians [2011 National Household Survey religion results].

In second place, at 23.9%, are those who say they have no religion. We know that many of the "nones" will not call themselves "atheists" but they might as well be.

The take-home lesson is that almost 24% of Canadians are not religious. That's up from 16.5% in 2001. Times they are a -changin.

The question on the census was ...

22. What is this person’s religion?

Indicate a specific denomination or religion even if this person is
not currently a practising member of that group.

For example, Roman Catholic, Ukrainian Catholic, United Church,
Anglican, Lutheran, Baptist, Greek Orthodox, Jewish, Islam, Buddhist,
Hindu, Sikh, etc.

Specify one denomination or religion only __________

No religion __________

I think you can see why nonbelievers may be somewhat higher than the numbers indicate.

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On My Failure to Educate an Intelligent Design Creationist

A few weeks ago I decided to give Intelligent Design Creationist andyjones the benefit of the doubt and assumed that he really wanted to understand enough biology to have a credible opinion about genomes and junk DNA. I published a series of posts on Educating an Intelligent Design Creationist: Introduction.

Andyjones has replied to my post with: Getting me an Education.

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My first post was: Educating an Intelligent Design Creationist: Pervasive Transcription. I refuted the misconception that nobody ever investigated pervasive transcription and I explained that we know a great deal about the parts of the genome that are being transcribed, and why they are transcribed. I did not claim that this was solid evidence for junk DNA. That wasn't the point. The point was to teach andyjones that there are explanations for pervasive transcription—we don't call it junk just because we have no idea what's going on.

I also pointed out that using pervasive transcription as an argument for function (i.e. against junk) doesn't really cut it unless you don't understand basic biochemistry. Here's how andyjones responded ...

Larry thinks this (especially the situation from the 80s on) amounts to solid evidence for junk DNA, but I honestly don’t see how it does.

Okay. So my attempt to explain the reality of the situation failed miserably.

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IDiots Make a Falsifiable Prediction

The Intelligent Design Creationists, otherwise known as IDiots, are getting desperate. They have been relentlessly promoting Stephen Meyer's upcoming book Darwin's Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design but so far they have pretty much failed to trick evolutionary biologists into trashing the book before it's published.¹ That must be a major disappointment to them.

The baiting continues with an article by David Klinghoffer on the Evolution News & Views (sic) site: What Darwin's Enforcers Will Say About Darwin's Doubt: A Prediction. Here's what he predicts ....

Among possible lines of attack against Stephen Meyer's forthcoming book, Darwin's Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design, I foresee some critics trying to argue that it's not fair game for Dr. Meyer to invite the general reading public to consider what's going on in peer-reviewed technical literature pertaining to evolution.

After all, biologists should have the opportunity to air their views in a semi-private professional setting without "creationists" barging in and telling the unwashed masses that many scientists have already given up on the Darwinian paradigm and are seeking post-Darwinian alternatives. Even though it's true, still it's wrong to publicize the fact, thereby leading the common folk astray and confirming their prejudice in favor of seeing life and the universe as reflecting some purpose.

This time I will rise to the bait if only for the purpose of preserving this prediction so we can revisit it in the future.

I'd also like to note, for the record, that the IDiots have published a number of books in the past and I don't recall anyone making the argument that Klinghoffer predicts. Can anyone out there point me to an article where scientists criticized the IDiots for pulicizing controversy within the evolutionary biology literature? It would be quite hypocritical for most bloggers to do so since criticizing the scientific literature is what we do.

Is it just my imagination or have evolutionary biologists also published books where they "expose" the controversies within evolution. If scientists do it routinely then why in the world would they criticize an IDiot for doing it? That doesn't make any sense, does it? (Oops, I inadvertently made the false assumption that IDiots are supposed to be rational.)

Finally, Udo Schüklenk alerted me to this creationist article because he is mentioned. Klinghoffer refers to a discussion about the ethics of infanticide and he thinks that his creationist² buddy Wesley Smith is being attacked for exposing a debate within the bioethics community. You should read the papers he links to along with Udo Schüklenk's paper [In defence of academic freedom: bioethics journals under siege] if you want to catch up on that discussion. As usual, the IDiots get it all wrong. Are you surprised?

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1. That's mostly because we don't care. We are not anticipating anything we haven't heard many times before although, I suppose, we could be surprised.

2. Smith is a lawyer and a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute. I don't know what kind of creationist he is.