Science, Religion, Politics, and American Law

 
Here's part of an interview with Richard Dawkins on the Salon website [The flying spaghetti monster]. I stand solidly with Dawkins on this particular issue. He is absolutely correct that the war between rationalism and superstition trumps the local fight with American creationists.

I have to ask you about a letter that I've come across from the intelligent design advocate William Dembski. He thanked you for your outspoken atheism. His letter to you said, "I want to thank you for being such a wonderful foil for theism and for intelligent design more generally. In fact, I regularly tell my colleagues that you and your work are one of God's greatest gifts to the intelligent design movement. So, please, keep at it!" What do you make of that?

Yeah, I get that quite a lot. It is a very difficult political dilemma that we face. In the United States of America at the moment, there's a big battle going on, educationally, over teaching evolution in public schools. Science is definitely under attack. And evolution is in the front-line trench of that battle. So a science defense lobby has sprung up, which in practice largely means an evolution defense lobby. Now, it is true that if you want to win a court case in the United States where it's specifically on the narrow issue of should evolution be taught in the public schools, if somebody like me is called as a witness and the lawyer for the other side says, "Professor Dawkins, is it true that you were led to atheism through the study of Darwinian evolution?" I would have to answer, "Yes." That of course plays into their hands because any jury is likely to have been brought up to believe that atheists are the devil incarnate. And therefore, if Darwin leads to atheism, then obviously we've got to throw out Darwinism. Well, that is exactly what Dembski is getting at. He claims to like the things that I say because I am playing into his hands by allowing people like him to make the equation between Darwinism and atheism.

But it's not just Dembski. I've heard this from various scientists -- hardcore evolutionists -- who wish you would tone down your rhetoric, quite frankly.

That is absolutely true.

They say this hurts the cause of teaching evolution. It just gives fire to the creationists.

Exactly right. And they could be right, in a political sense. It depends on whether you think the real war is over the teaching of evolution, as they do, or whether, as I do, think the real war is between supernaturalism and naturalism, between science and religion. If you think the war is between supernaturalism and naturalism, then the war over the teaching of evolution is just one skirmish, just one battle, in the war. So what the scientists you've been talking to are asking me to do is to shut my mouth. Because for the sake of what I see as the war, I'm in danger of losing this particular battle. And that's a worthwhile political point for them to make.

Well, I think a lot of these scientists really do accept Stephen Jay Gould's idea of non-overlapping magisteria. These are hardcore evolutionists, but they say religion is an entirely different realm. So you, with your inflammatory rhetoric, just muddy the waters and make life more difficult for them.

That is exactly what they say. And I believe that actually is the political reason for Steve Gould to put forward the non-overlapping magisteria in the first place. I think it's nonsense. And I'll continue to say that I think it's nonsense. But I can easily see, politically, why he said that and why other scientists follow it. The politics is very straightforward. The science lobby, which is very important in the United States, wants those sensible religious people -- the theologians, the bishops, the clergymen who believe in evolution -- on their side. And the way to get those sensible religious people on your side is to say there is no conflict between science and religion. We all believe in evolution, whether we're religious or not. Therefore, because we need to get the mainstream orthodox religious people on our side, we've got to concede to them their fundamental belief in God, thereby -- in my view -- losing the war in order to win the battle for evolution. If you're prepared to compromise the war for the sake of the battle, then it's a sensible political strategy.

Throughout the ages, one has resorted to that kind of political compromise. And maybe it would be a good thing for me to do as well. But as it happens, I think the war is more important. I actually do care about the existence of a supreme being. And therefore, I don't think I should say something which I believe to be false, which is that the question of whether God exists is a non-scientific question, and science and religion have no contact with each other, so we can all get along cozily and keep out those lunatic creationists.

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Right On!

 

sandwalk.blogspot.com is probably written by a male somewhere between 66-100 years old. The writing style is academic and happy most of the time.

Except that I'm only 64. See UrlAi.com.


I was so impressed by the accuracy of this analysis that I decided to check out some other blogs. Here's the result for Post-Darwinist.

post-darwinist.blogspot.com is probably written by a male somewhere between 26-35 years old. The writing style is academic and upset most of the time.

I don't think Denyse O'Leary is going to be happy about this! Three of the four conclusions are wrong. The only one they got right is that she is upset most of the time.

On the other hand, John Wilkins will probably be pleased with,

evolvingthoughts.net is probably written by a male somewhere between 66-100 years old. The writing style is academic and upset most of the time.

It's always flattering to come across as being older and wiser than you really are!

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Hat Tip: Friendly Atheist: This is Why You Can’t Trust Blog-Analyzing Websites

Mutations and Complex Adaptations

Michael Lynch is one of those rare scientists who not only think outside the box but successfully stimulate others to do so. I read all of his papers and I'm always very impressed, even though I don't always agree with everything he says.

I recently attended the 18th Annual Meeting of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution in Lyons, France, where I met Michael Lynch for the first time. He gave a talk on Evolution of Mutation Rates, a topic many of us treat with a large degree of skepticism—until we're confronted by Michael Lynch. He makes a convincing case for variable rates of mutation in different species and he challenged us (me) to defend the idea that there was a linkage between DNA replication rates and mutation rates. That's a linkage I've always assumed would constrain mutation rates to a narrow range. Now I'm not so sure.

I've been putting off posts about the many exciting things I heard in Lyon because I'm busy with the 5th edition of my textbook but SteveF provoked me into saying something about Michael Lynch by posting a comment on my blog [Larry, you might find this shiny new paper by Michael Lynch in PNAS interesting]. Damn you, SteveF, and thanks.

We had been discussing how the IDiots view mutation and I mentioned that Michael Behe was mostly, but not entirely, correct when he said that if two mutations are required for a complex adaptation then it is very unlikely to happen [Bated Breath].

In a paper just published in PNAS, Michael Lynch explains why it's "not entirely correct" (Lynch, 2010).

The development of theory in this area is rendered difficult by the multidimensional nature of the problem. One strategy has been to ignore all deleterious mutations and to assume that selection is strong enough and mutation weak enough relative to the power of random genetic drift and recombination that evolution always proceeds by the sequential fixation of single mutations (e.g., refs. 6–11). Such an approach provides a useful entree into the evolutionary dynamics of rare adaptive mutations with large effects. Under these conditions, the expectations are clear—with larger numbers of mutational targets and a reduced power of random genetic drift, the rate of adaptation will increase with population size, although more slowly than expected under the assumption of sequential fixation (12, 13). The motivation for these models, which are specifically focused on total organismal fitness, derives from case studies of adaptations with apparently simple genetic bases, e.g., some aspects of insecticide resistance (14), skin pigmentation (15), and skeletal morphology in vertebrates (16).

Nevertheless, a broad subset of adaptations cannot be accommodated by the sequential model, most notably those in which multiple mutations must be acquired to confer a benefit. Such traits, here referred to as complex adaptations, include the origin of new protein functions involving multiresidue interactions, the emergence of multimeric enzymes, the assembly of molecular machines, the colonization and refinement of introns, and the establishment of interactions between transcription factors and their binding sites, etc. The routes by which such evolutionary novelties can be procured include sojourns through one or more deleterious intermediate states. Because such intermediate haplotypes are expected to be kept at low frequencies by selection, evolutionary progress would be impeded in large populations were sequential fixation the only path to adaptation. However, in all but very small populations, complex adaptations appear to be achieved by the fortuitous appearance of combinations of mutations within single individuals before fixation of any intermediate steps at the population level (e.g., refs. 17–26).

Read the paper. You'll find an interesting discussion of recombination—a discussion that does not assume most of the standard myths about recombination. Lynch points out that when it comes to fixing two independent mutation the effect of recombination is just as likely to break up linkage as enhance it. Recombination cannot make much of a contribution to the fixation of two mutations that are required for a complex adaptation unless the mutations are closely linked (e.g. same gene).

However, there are some circumstances where large population sizes can overcome the problem of fixing multiple mutations even if there's a negative correlation between mutation rate and population size. This is the "scaling" parameter mentioned in the title of Lynch's paper.

This is not unlike what Behe's says in The Edge of Evolution where he points out that in malaria parasites (e.g. Plasmodium falciparum) the probability of a double mutation is significant because there are trillions of organisms. In large mammals, however, the probability is much lower because the population size in much smaller.

Changing multiple amino acids of a protein at the same time requires a population size of an enormous number of organisms. In the case of the malaria parasite, these numbers are available. In the case of larger creatures, they aren't.

Behe concludes that this is the "edge" of evolution. Since these kinds of mutations are required for complex adaptations, it follows that evolution can't account for complex adaptations. You'll have to read Behe's book to find out who can design such complex adaptations.

So far, this is pretty much standard orthodoxy. Given that multiple, independent, mutations might be required simultaneously it's very unlikely that evolution will ever see them in some species. It's one of the reasons why Behe's book is so unexciting. There are other ways to account for the adaptive value of multiple mutations, including the fact that many of the individual mutations may be slightly deletersious but, nevertheless, fixed by random genetic drift.

What Lynch's paper shows is that the standard orthodoxy might be wrong! His models suggest that fixation of multiple mutations in small population may be well within the range of probability required for evolution of complex adaptations.

In summary, the preceding results suggest that some general scaling properties may exist for the rapidity with which various types of adaptations can be assimilated in different populationgenetic contexts. In particular, prokaryotes appear to be much more efficient than eukaryotes at promoting simple to moderately complex molecular adaptations, and substantially so for those involving joint changes at different genetic loci. In contrast, adaptations requiring three or more novel mutations may arise more frequently in small populations, regardless of the level of recombination between selected sites. In the absence of comprehensive information on the molecular basis of adaptation in multiple lineages (i.e., the typical number of sites involved and their degree of epistatic interactions), these general predictions are currently difficult to test. Nevertheless, the ideas presented herein are likely to bear significantly on a number of ongoing controversies regarding the nature of adaptation, including the barriers imposed by adaptive valleys in a fitness landscape (22, 40), the role of compensatory mutation in evolution (41), and the relative rates of incorporation of adaptive and nonadaptive mutations in various lineages (42–44).(my emphasis-LAM)

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Lynch, M. (2010) Scaling expectations for the time to establishment of complex adaptations. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (USA) publishe online, Sept. 7, 2010 [doi: 10.1073/pnas.1010836107]

World University Rankings

The World University Rankings 2010 are out. The rankings are based on factual information, such as number of papers published, but also on personal opinions. 40% of the score is determined by a survey of academics that asks about "academic reputation." Another major component is based on a survey of employers who are asked to evaluate the quality of undergraduates they hire.

All types of university are including in the ranking but certain adjustments are made for size—for example, the faculty at smaller universities publish fewer papers. The various categories are identified in the list.


I don't agree with these rankings. It's going to be extremely difficult to complete against the Ivy League schools in the USA and Oxbridge in the UK because of their enormous reputations from the past. Who knows whether these schools are as good as they think they are? You aren't going to find out by giving such a high score to reputation surveys.

Having said that, there are a few things we can learn from the World University Rankings. Here's the top ten.

1. University of Cambridge UK (L,VH,FC)
2. Harvard University USA (L,VH,FC)
3. Yale University USA (M,VH,FC)
4. University College London UK (L,VH,FC)
5. Massachusetts Institute of Technology USA (M,VH,CO)
6. University of Oxford UK (L,VH,FC)
7. Imperial College London UK (L,VH,FC)
8. University of Chicago USA (M,VH,FC)
9. California Institute of Technology USA (S,VH,CO)
10. Princeton University USA (M,VH,CO)

Four of the top ten universities in the world are in the United Kingdom. No matter what you might think of the way these schools are ranked, it's time we stopped propagating the myth that American universities are by far the best in the world. The UK has about 62 million people or about one-fifth the population of the United States. By any reasonable criterion, it is the country that's created and maintained the best universities in the world. If you won't go that far, at least you'll have to concede that America is not the slam-dunk winner, as so often assumed (mostly by Americans).

The top Canadian university is McGill University at number 19. The University of Toronto comes in at 29th, just behind the University of California, Berkeley. Toronto and UC Berkeley are both XL, VH, FC. The only other Very Large university ahead of them is the University of Michigan at number 15.

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DM Helene Loebenstein

Frau Loebenstein, ausgebildete Ägyptologin und Arabistin, leitete als Direktorin von 1962 bis 1984 die Papyrussammlung der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek.


Bernhard Palme

Papyrussammlung und Papyrusmuseum
Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek

H. BAUMANN, Digitale Bildmanipulation beim Artemidor-Papyrus?

Digitale Bildmanipulation beim Artemidor-Papyrus? Überprüfung des Fälschungsverdachts bei der Dokumentation des teuersten Papyrus der Welt.

Die umfangreichen Reste einer antiken Buchrolle aus dem ersten Jahrhundert n.C. beeindrucken nicht nur durch ihr einzigartiges Ensemble von geographischen Texten, einer unidentifizierten Landkarte und Zeichnungen menschlicher Körperteile sowie von exotischen Tieren, sondern auch durch ihren ungewöhnlichen hohen Ankaufspreis (2.750.000 Euro).

Um so höheres Aufsehen, auch in der intenationalen Presse, riefen Versuche hervor, nicht nur den Papyrus selbst als eine raffinierte Fälschung des 19. Jahrhunderts hinzustellen, sondern auch ein 2008 publiziertes Bilddokument vom Restaurierungsvorgang, das die Papyrusstücke noch als unaufgelöstes Konvolut zusammen mit anderen Dokumenten aus derselben antiken Epoche zeigte, als Ergebnis einer bildtechnischen Manipulation aufzuweisen.

Diesen Verdacht legte jedenfalls eine 2009 veröffentlichte kriminaltechnische Untersuchung durch eine von Silio Bozzi geleiteten Polizeigruppe nahe, zu dessen Stützung kürzlich weitere Beobachtungen des Digitalisierungsexperten Salvatore Granata bekanntgegeben wurden.

Wurde hier digitale Bildbearbeitung zur Täuschung von Papyrologen eingesetzt? Welche kriminologischen Beweisführungen ermöglicht die Bildtechnologie?

Nach kurzer Einführung in den Artemidor-Papyrus durch den Klassischen Philologen und Papyrologen Prof. Dr. Jürgen Hammerstaedt (Universität zu Köln) widmet sich dieser Frage Dr. Hans D. Baumann (Rabenau) in einem Vortrag mit anschließender Demostration im Rahmen eines Workshops. Baumann ist Herausgeber von DOCMA, einer Spezialzeitschrift für digitale Bildbearbeitung, und kooperiert gelegentlich bei der Problematik krimineller Bildmanipulation mit dem Bundeskriminalamt.

Alle Interessenten sind herzlich eingeladen am Donnerstag, den 23. September 2010, 9.00-12.00 Uhr im Vortragsraum der Morphomata-Kollegs Weyerthal 59 (Rückgebäude). Wegbeschreibung: http://www.ik-morphomata.uni-koeln.de/?q=de/node/202

Prof. Dr. Dietrich Boschung Prof. Dr. Jürgen Hammerstaedt Prof. Dr. Manfred Thaller

Für nähere Auskünfte: J. Hammerstaedt, Tel.: 0221-4702242, Fax 470-5931, Mail: ala19@uni-koeln.de

Julian Baggini on Science vs. Religion

 
Here's a free-lance philosopher I agree with, sometimes [Julian Baggini]. He's writing for The Independent about Stephen Hawking's new book [Julian Baggini: If science has not actually killed God, it has rendered Him unrecognisable].

This reflects an inconvenient truth about science that religion would prefer to ignore. For although it is true that science doesn't rule out a role for religion in providing meaning, or a God who kick-started the whole universe off in the first place, it does leave presumed dead in the water anything like the God most people over history have believed in: one who is closely involved in his creation, who intervenes in our lives, and with whom we can have a personal relationship. In short, there is no room in the universe of Hawking or most other scientists for the activist God of the Bible. That's why so few leading scientists are religious in any traditional sense.

This point is often overlooked by apologists who grasp at any straw science will hold out for them. Such desperate clinging happened, disgracefully, in the last years of the philosopher Antony Flew's life. A famous atheist, Flew was said to have changed his mind, persuaded that the best explanation for the "fine-tuning"of the universe – very precise way that its conditions make life possible – was some kind of intentional design. But what was glossed over was that he was very clear that this designer was nothing like the traditional God of the Abrahamic faiths. It was, he clearly said, rather the Deist God, or the God of Aristotle, one who might set the ball rolling but then did no more than watch it trundle off over the horizon. This is no mere quibble. The deist God does not occupy some halfway house between atheism and theism. Replace Yaweh with the deist God and the Bible would make less sense than if you'd substituted Brian for Jesus.

So it is not true that science challenges only the most primitive, literal forms of religion. It is probably going too far to say that science makes the God of Christianity, Judaism and Islam impossible, but it certainly makes him very unlikely indeed.

The last sentence is technically correct in the same sense that this sentence is technically correct: "It is impossible to prove that the tooth fairy doesn't exist but science makes her existence very unlikely indeed."

Julian Baggini might be right about this but he's dead wrong about some other things. For example, in The New Atheist Movement is destructive, he writes,

“What do you think about the four horsemen?” It's a question I often get asked, quite understandably, since I wrote the Very Short Introduction to atheism. That book provides no answer, because it came out before Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens unleashed their apocalypse. But surely I must have an opinion on the biggest phenomenon in popular atheism since Bertrand Russell?

Well I do, but it comes with one huge caveat: I have not read any of their books. That does not, however, disqualify me from having an opinion about them. Let me defend both apparently intellectually disreputable confessions.

I'm sorry but the fact that he hasn't read the books does, indeed, disqualify him from having an "informed" opinion about them. He may have another kind of opinion but why should I listen to it?

Baggini also says,

For me, atheism’s roots are in a sober and modest assessment of where reason and evidence lead us. That means the real enemy is not religion as such, but any kind of system of belief that does not respect these limits on our thinking. For that reason, I want to engage with thoughtful, intelligent believers, and isolate extremists. But if we demonise all religion, such coalitions of the reasonable are not possible. Instead, we are likely to see moderate religious believers join ranks with fundamentalists, the enemies of their enemy, to resist what they see as an attempt to wipe out all forms of religious belief.

Well, he's just said that science makes the Judeo-Christian-Islamic god "highly unlikely indeed." That doesn't leave very many "thoughtful, intelligent believers" to accommodate, does it? Having just demonized Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, what moderate religions does he think atheists should form coalitions with? Are there any deists out there?

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