The ethics of sleeping at night

My last post was about one small point in the relationship of evolution to ethics. I pointed out that evolution and ethics don't even apply at the same level, so it is invalid to extrapolate from one to the other. There are many other problems with the application of evolution to ethics, and I would like to use a sinple example to show some of them here.

The public understanding of the relationship of genes to behavior and ethics is often confused, and this affects many discussions of behavior genetics, ethics, and sociobiology. I deal with college students, and probably about half of them do not initially understand what it would mean to have a genetic component to behavior. I think the example of our diurnal circadian rhythm is a familiar example that nicely clarifies these misunderstandings.

One common misperception is the belief that genes are destiny. If there is a genetic component to a behavior then you somehow lack free will. Criminals could be excused because their genes made them do it. Also, people often perceive genetic control as being specific, affecting particular behaviors rather than overall tendencies. Since most people see their behavior as being under their control and do not think of themselves as robots, they cannot see how genes could affect us.

Diurnal behavior is something everyone is familiar with. We all know that we sleep at night and are active in the day. Almost everyone recognizes that this is part of our biology. We do not choose it. We could not just as easily become a nocturnal society. Clearly, genes do affect this particular behavior (we even know a few specific genes involved in this, such as the per gene). At the same time, it is not destiny. We can stay up all night. Those that work night shifts can even become reasonably well acclimated to different hours. We still have free will.

This also shows genes do not affect specific behaviors but instead just affect tendencies. There are examples in other species of genes producing a specific stereotypical effect, such as the courtship dances of fruit flies. But genes do not seem to work this way in humans (there are a few syndromes and pathologies that produce stereotypical behaviors in humans, such as obsessive compulsive disorder and others, so it is not inconceivable in humans, but it is not the rule.).

The other misunderstanding is how genes relate to ethics. Just because we have genes to be diurnal does not mean that we should behave that way. Most people do not think it is immoral to stay up late or work the night shift. The fact that we have genes for being diurnal says nothing about the ethics of that behavior. That is obvious for being diurnal but people often are unable to extend that to other behaviors. If genes influence our sexuality or a tendency to alcoholism, the fact that it is genetic is still ethically neutral.

If the presence of the gene does not dictate how we must behave, then how the genes arose through evolution and the selective pressure for the genes says even less. Evolution can only account for genetic characteristics. All of the things that are caused by the environment or choice are not affected by evolution. And if a gene does influence a particular behavior, I do not see how it matters at all whether that gene arose by evolution or was instantly created 6000 years ago.

How my genes and I disagree

How does evolution relate to ethics? Can ethics be derived from evolutionary theory? Are creationists correct that evolving from animals means we must behave like animals? There has been much written on this topic. I think fears of the ethical implications of evolution underlie opposition to evolution more than anything else. In general, I think creationists are wrong. I don't' think we can derive much in the way of ethics from evolution, although the view of human nature derived from evolution should inform our ethical thinking. I do not want to get into a detailed discussion of evolution and ethics here. I would just like to bring up one point. This has recently occurred to me, and I am not sure if I have seen it discussed before.

Evolution occurs at the level of the gene. It is genes whose frequency increases during selection. A gene might be favored by selection, even if it is not in the best interests of the individual. The gene might favor the kin group, or it might be selfish and favor itself. However, my self interest is obviously at the level of the individual, of me. Therefore, my self interests and evolution conflict. Evolution is looking out for my genes, not for me. Therefore, any suggestion that I should somehow behave in a way to favor evolution cannot be supported (there are also many other reasons besides this).

This fundamental conflict between the levels at which evolution and ethics act shows that we cannot develop an ethics based on evolution. It even suggests that we must be careful in extrapolating from a gene for a behavior to the ethics of the behavior. The gene might exist for reasons entirely against our interests.

Indiana Jones and the pseudoscience

I saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull this weekend. I enjoyed it as an action flick, but I would have to rank it as the third of the four Indian Jones movies (better than Temple of Doom, but not up to the level of the first or third installment). I don't want to write a review here, I would just like to point out the uses of pseudoscience in the movie. I don't necessarily dislike a movie just because it uses bad science or pseudoscience: it is fiction after all. As long as the movie works within its own world and doesn't push credulity too far, it's OK. The Indiana Jones movies have all depended on magical objects. But it's still fun to dissect the science and pseudoscience in a movie.

There will be spoilers here if you haven't seen the movie. The movie opens right away with three associations with pseudoscience. The opening scene occurs at area 51, although nothing is made of that and the various mythologies about area 51 are not developed. But in the warehouse, there is the body of a Roswell alien and this is central to the story line. This has become standard fair in movies since at least Independence Day. It will be tied in with other alien mythologies later. (A scientific blunder occurs here when they imply that gunpowder is magnetic).

The other reference to pseudoscience is the paranormal research of the evil communist bad guy (played by Cate Blanchet). A quick list of a half dozen areas are listed. The scary thing is that this is completely realistic. Both the US and Russian military had programs trying to develop ESP, remote viewing, and other pseudosciences as weapons or for spying. Of course they were complete failures and they should have known better, but that is how they spent some of our tax dollars.

The central MacGuffin of the movie, the crystal skull, is based on skulls manufactured in the early twentieth century but that a few hucksters tried to pass off as relics from ancient Mesoamerica. The real crystal skulls were shaped like human skulls, not the alien skulls of the movies (which reminded me of the skull of the creature in the alien movies).

Next, we see a reference to the Nazca lines in Peru, a popular object of speculation for pseudoscientists, mostly because of Erich Von Daniken and his Chariots of the Gods. Nothing special is made of the lines in the movie except as a clue, but Von Daniken's ancient astronaut hypothesis will be central to the story.

At one point, Jones uses automatic writing to get a clue, another pseudoscience.

It is at the end where pseudoscience enters most strongly, and the only point where it started to intrude for me. In the end, the views Von Daniken are basically supported. We were visited by ancient astronauts. These astronauts had taught they Inca agriculture and other skills, and built the City of Gold. What bothered me in the movie was the use of Von Daniken's racist arguments--these primitive peoples couldn't have made something this great on their own, and they couldn't have learned the skills of civilization on their own, so they needed helpers. I suppose if I didn't have knowledge of the arguments this wouldn't have bothered me. Von Daniken had a very low opinion of all non European civilizations and there is no need to further propagate that view. An archaeologist like Jones certainly wouldn't have this view of ancient people.

Spielberg has had a long association with the alien mythology and has even helped to create it and shape it in the continual back and forth play between the alien myth and popular entertainment. One of his earlier movies was Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which helped to create the modern alien. ET continued his fascination wtih aliens. More recently he was a producer for a television show based on the alien abduction stories in Communion.

I had wondered if Spielberg just enjoyed aliens for their use in stories or actually believed them. I recently saw an interview in which he said that he did believe in some of the stories when he made his earlier movies, but now has doubts. The ubiquitous cameras and video available today seemed to have eliminated UFO reports, rather than confirmed them. It's interesting that the convincing evidence for a filmmaker comes from the lack of convincing film, rather than the scientific evidence.

I wonder if these views influenced the end of Crystal Skull. In the film, there is an alien flying saucer, but instead of flying away, it disappears into another dimension. I don't know how much Spielberg contributed to the story (I believe the basic story was conceived by Lucas), but it is possible that these more elusive aliens are a result of Spielberg's evolving views on aliens.

That's all I could find, but if there are any other instances of pseudoscience in the film, let me know. Entertainment using pseudoscience can sometimes be a problem, if it feeds on and amplifies views already out there. In this case I doubt anyone will take the ideas seriously, any more than people believed there was a magical ark of the covenant that melts the faces of Nazis after the first Indiana Jones movie.

How to close the escape clause

In my last post I discussed how people use the distinction between microevolution and macroevolution as a means to safely compartmentalize evidence for evolution that might produce cognitive dissonance. In this post, I will address how this can be addressed when teaching or discussing evolution.

It helps to be aware of some theory in education. Constructivism in education holds that learning is an active process in which the learner constructs new knowledge to account for new phenomena. People will usually try to fit new information into their existing framework. Thus their previous knowledge and suppositions influence how they learn new material. Often it is necessary to show that the previous framework is faulty in order for them to create a new framework. If the old framework is not addressed, they find ways to fit the new information into the old framework. Thus they are able to learn facts and details yet fail to learn the over riding picture.

One way to overcome the microevolution escape clause is to explicitly discuss the distinction and to point out the historical relationship of the ideas, as I did in my last post. Historically, macroevolution came first and has been more strongly supported. The mechanisms of microevolution have always been more controversial. Macroevolution is definitely not an extrapolation of microevolution.

It is also useful to know that there is one area where people never use the microevolution escape clause: human evolution. They are willing to define a lot of change as microevolution--they do not hold a strict definition as change within species. Answers in Genesis has even suggested that all whales might be one "kind" and have evolved by microevolution. But the one group that all opponents of evolution agree is a different kind and could not have evolved by natural selection is humans. It is common in the classroom, especially at the high school level, to avoid discussing human evolution, since it is more likely to bring up controversy. This avoids using the best example to force people to confront the evidence for evolution.

When discussing fossil evidence and transitional fossils, the human fossil record is as good as any. It has relatively few gaps and many great examples of transitions. When discussing the similarities of organisms and shared derived traits or similar DNA, a comparison of humans to apes and monkeys is an excellent example. Students will be more familiar with these and their similarities and differences than for example the relationships of perissodactyls and artiodactyls.

A third way to break down the distinction is to show how the kinds of evidence at one level are exactly the same as at a higher level. This could be done with several kinds of evidence, such as morphological, but it is easiest to show and most effective using molecular evidence. You can look at the nested patterns of similarity that is produced by a clear example of microevolution, for example the changes produced during an HIV infection or the relationships of different HIV strains, or other examples of short term evolution of microbes. The patterns that are produced in this microevolutionary change is exactly the same patterns produced when you compare the DNA of different orders of mammals, or kinds of primates, etc. The programs that determine evolutionary trees are exactly the same in both instances. There is simply no logical or methodological distinction that can be made between analysis at the microevolutionary and macroevolutionary levels. In fact, the programs we use to analyze microevolutionary change were originally used for studying macroevolutionary change and were based on principles of macroevolutionary analysis, not the other way around.

The distinction between microevolution and macroevolution is only one way that people are able to escape the dissonance produced by the evidence for evolution. The other most common way is to avoid seeing the forest for the trees. For each particular example of evidence for evolution, creationists have come up with sometimes laborious ways to try to explain it away. They need a completely different means to explain away another piece of evidence, and yet another way for the next. Once each piece of evidence is dealt with, they can file it away as non threatening. They avoid seeing the bigger picture, that it is not each individual piece that is proof of evolution, rather it is the cumulative affect of millions of pieces of evidence pointing in the same direction that supports evolution. The fact that their criticisms do not make a coherent whole is also not dealt with, as long as they avoid looking at the big picture. The fact that there is no single "proof" of evolution should be emphasized, and the congruence of all of the lines of evidence emphasized.

The evolution escape clause

The distinction that evolution deniers make between microevolution and macroevolution is different from other misunderstandings of evolution and I think that distinction affects how we deal with it when we are trying to teach evolution.

This distinction is different from the other misunderstandings because it isn't so much a misunderstanding as it is an escape clause for evolution denial. Other misunderstandings often occur in the general public, even those who are just ignorant of evolution but not opposed to it. The micro/macro distinction is brought up and sharpened only by those who need to actively deny evolution. They use it as a way to avoid the cognitive dissonance that comes with seeing evidence for evolution. If they can safely put the evidence into the category of microevolution, then they can compartmentalize it and feel comfortable with it. I think it is important to show the problems with this compartmentalization if people are to understand evolution.

If we show strong evidence for evolution of peppered moths or finch beaks, they can say that it is just microevolution and act as if it has no relevance at all to the main question. Once it is put in that category, they don't even have to consider whether it might be part of a larger case for evolution. If we show the evolution of new species of cichlid fish, they can say they are still just fish, or a new virus is still a virus. Their concept of kind and microevolution is very flexible, so they can fit a lot of evidence into that comfortable category of microevolution. They can say "have we ever seen a cat evolve into a dog" or similar gross distortions of evolution. I think the stronger the evidence, the bigger the macroevolutionary comparison they will use. If you show very strong evidence for evolution within a large category, they will say "it still doesn't show bacteria to humans" (as if that is what you were trying to do. Moving the goal posts is very popular).

The most basic misunderstanding about micro and macroevolution is that macroevolution as an idea arose as an extrapolation of microevolution. This is obviously not the case. The Origin of Species deals almost entirely with evidence for macroevolution. Darwin had not observed microevolution, nor did he have a good theory of population genetics. In place of microevolution, Darwin could only look at artificial selection and the variation within species. The categories of evidence for evolution--fossils, comparative development, comparative morphology, biogeography, etc., are all evidence for macroevolution.

I can understand how the lay public would think this. It is much more irresponsible when people who should be informed in the science and history make that mistake. Phillip Johnson, considered the father of intelligent design, has stated "[to Darwinists] only a modest amount of confirming evidence is needed to prove the whole system, and so they point to the peppered moth example as virutally convlusive". To suggest that evolution is accepted to any substantial extent due to a few microevolutionary examples is simply irresponsible.

Macroevolution was accepted by the scientific community by the late 19th century, but it wasn't until the modern synthesis in the 30s that there was agreement about the microevolutionary mechanism. To this day, most disputes in evolutionary biology deal with the microevolutionary mechanism. There is no dispute at all about common descent. So creationists get it completely backwards when they suggest that microevolution is better supported than macroevolution.

Although scientifically macroevolution is more strongly supported than the microevolutionary mechanisms, I think many people find the evidence for microevolution harder to deny, because it does not rely on scientific inference and it does not require the stretching of the imagination that great amounts of time involve. Most creationists do not use a careful definition of microevolution as being below the species level. Rather it is simply whatever the evidence and their imagination cannot deny. The importance thing is to put that evidence safely away behind a wall.

In my next post I will talk about ways to break down this escape clause in teaching evolution.

Show me the money

Michael Behe holds to some version of directed mutation. Here I will try to analyze directed mutation as if it was a real theory. Previously I showed that directed mutation does not require some new kind of mutation. It only requires that specific mutations occur at a higher rate than expected by chance. For all of this analysis, I will assume Behe's criticism of evolution is correct, although it has been shown to be fallacious.

Directed mutation assumes that mutations do not arise by chance but must be put in place by some designer. If this was a real theory we would then ask about how and where this happens. The first question is whether or not selection takes over from there. There are two possibilities. Either the designer simply alters the genes of one or a few organisms, and then they survive better than those he didn't design, and so natural selection favors them. Alliteratively, the designer might induce those mutations in the entire species (assuming he can define species better than us) and change the entire species at once, so there need not be a struggle for existence and selection is not used.

It is possible to test these options, although you won't find design theorists proposing these tests or debating these options. I will look at the implications of the second alternative, and argue it is easily disproven. First, it does not fit well with the polymorphism we see at most loci in a species. All organisms in a population would have the mutation, not a mixture of some with it and some without it. More conclusively, we also wouldn't see things like selective sweeps, where other closely linked genes are selected along with the desirable genes.

If a mutation arises in one particular organism, it is surrounded by a specific sequence of DNA, called a haplotype. There will be other neutral mutations nearby. If selection favors a particular mutation, the surrounding DNA will also be favored and selected along with it. The haplotype will spread, not just the individual mutation, in what's called a selective sweep. Thus we can determine how many times a particular mutation arose. For example, there is an allele for the inability to taste PTC. Every human on the planet with this allele has the exact same haplotype at that locus. Thus, the mutation arose only once. On the other hand, there are 3-4 haplotypes for the lactose tolerance allele, so that mutation arose independently several times in the human lineage. We can determine how many times a mutation arose by determining whether the surrounding DNA is the same in all versions of the gene.

If a designer induced a mutation in many individuals simultaneously, the mutation would have a different haplotype in each individual. Eventually the signal degrades, but for mutations that are recent enough and can be tested (several million years in humans) most alleles have arisen only a few times. Thus we can disprove a designer that induces mutations in an entire populations simultaneously. We can prove common descent of mutations.

The first option, in which mutations arise in only one individual, is almost exactly the same mechanism as evolutionary biology. If this were the case, it is almost trivial in it's implications. It would not change most any of the conclusions of evolution. It would just say we have a supplement to mutation. This would still be testable, at least in principle. If these induced mutations occur continuously, as seems likely in Behe's view, we should be able to occasionally detect these freak mutation events (if Behe was correct, many thousands of these mutation events would have been required in the human lineage alone). I don't see Behe designing experiments to show this.

If this was a real theory, Behe would propose which of these alternatives he supports (or perhaps an alternative, like that all mutations were present in the first organism. As absurd at this seems, Behe has suggested something like this. It could also be tested). We might expect to see some creationists who support one of these and some supporting the other, with vigorous debates among themselves as to which is correct and experiments to distinguish between these. If we actually saw this, I would respect the creationists and grant they are doing science, even if it is wrong. But they offer no theory. They do not look at the implications. They do not argue amongst themselves or try to determine which is correct.

Creationists don't get this at all. Whenever they see evolutionary biologists arguing amongst themselves, they think this shows a weakness. It is the exact opposite. It is the lack of disagreement and debate amongst creationists that proves they do not have a theory. They want to have a big tent that includes all flavors of creationists. It seems quite obvious that a theory with a designer who designed everything at once 10,000 years ago is different from a theory involving a designer who designed gradually using directed mutation over 4 billion years, and yet ID includes both of them. A real theory would involve debate about the how and why and where and how to test these alternatives (tests that don't involve Bible quotes). The big tent is proof enough there is no actual theory, just a disparate collection of negative arguments.

I have tried to show just a little bit of what would be involved in taking ID seriously as a theory, based on a few minutes of armchair thought, yet we do not see anything resembling this in ID circles. If you want to be called a theory, do the work. Show me the money.

Not all creationists agree with Behe about common descent, or the age of the earth. How would a real science deal with these debates? I will look at a few of them in future posts.

What if ID was a real theory?

In these posts, I will be showing how the negative nature of ID means that it is not an alternative theory to evolution. ID almost always consists of criticizing evolution, but offers no alternative in its place. A good example of this is Michael Behe. Behe is unusual amongst evolution deniers because of the amount of evolution he does accept. He accepts an old earth and even accepts common descent. What he doesn't accept is the mechanism of evolution, natural selection. He admits that it happens, but doesn't believe that it is adequate to account for the observed changes.

Historically, he is not alone with this. Common descent was accepted very quickly after the publication of Origin of species, but the mechanism was more contentious. Neo Lamarckism was one alternative popular at the turn of the century. But notice that Neo Lamarckism wasn't just an attack on the adequacy of selection, it offered an alternative mechanism. Other alternatives that were suggested include mutationists and the hopeful monster. More recently, the neutralists dispute the role of selection in many changes at the molecular level, and offer genetic drift as an alternative mechanism (an alternative that is widely accepted).

Behe does not do this. He just says that selection is not adequate, and therefore there is design. Even if he is completely correct and selection is not adequate, that is no more of an argument for design than it is an argument for Lamarckism or mutationism. Selection could be completely wrong and design also wrong. So the question is what does Behe offer in its place?

That is not easy to determine. As is typical of ID, he is very vague on an actual positive theory to replace evolution. The best that I can tell, based on his most recent book, The Edge of Evolution, is that he holds to some form of directed mutation. This is the idea that random mutation isn't adequate to supply the material on which selection acts, and so some designer must create the mutations. As is typical of evolution deniers, this is not a new argument. It was proposed and rejected a century ago. In fact, many genuine historical questions about evolution have revolved around the source of variation, especially before the insights of Mendelian genetics and population genetics.

Behe does not develop a theory of directed mutation. It is just implied in what he says, he does not actually propose an alternative. I would like to discuss the implications of directed mutation, as a true alternative theory of evolution.

The first important fact to notice is that there are no genetic differences between any organisms that require a kind of mutation that isn't readily observable in every generation. If we compare the genomes of any two organisms, say human and chimp, we find that in some places a single nucleotide has been altered. Of course, that happens every time a cell divides. In other cases bases are deleted or duplicated, or genes or parts of chromosomes are deleted. Sometimes chromosomes are inverted or fused or split or translocated. All of these processes occur within every single species. In the hundreds of genomes observed, there is not a single difference between organisms that could not be the product of natural processes and that does not occur almost every generation.

It could have been otherwise. It could have been that genomes are completely rearranged. It could be that there are some differences between genomes that we have never observed happening within a species. If this were the case, then maybe someone could argue that an additional mechanism is required to account for this (although that would be an argument from ignorance--we might just not have seen the process yet).

So directed mutation doesn't involve any process that couldn't have occurred naturally. The argument isn't that mutation couldn't have produced these changes, but simply that it is too unlikely to have produced this particular set. Behe argues that several mutations would have to occur simultaneously to produce an outcome. He doesn't say that the changes are of a type that couldn't occur by natural processes, just that this particular combination of mutations wouldn't happen in the same organism in the limited time available. Behe is wrong--others have shown that in fact the mutations need not occur simultaneously and he has misrepresented the math. But I would like to look at what it would mean if he were correct.

Behe admits that organisms have common descent. Therefore, he admits that one organism gave birth to another organism that had some changes in it. He admits that these changes could have occurred individually by natural mechanisms, but that it is very unlikely that they occurred at the same time. So his designer is one that uses some unexplained mechanism to cause specific mutations in an organism.

This is a strange designer. If we assume the designer is God, then he designed a mechanism of mutation that can produce lots of changes, but is not quite good enough. He could have designed the process of mutation to be efficient enough to produce simultaneous changes, but instead he made it so that he must intervene occasionally. This reminds me of Newton. Originally, his celestial mechanics couldn't account for all of the motion of the planets, so Newton thought that God would occasionally intervene to correct the orbits of the planets. God is a watchmaker, but a poor one. Instead of making a perfectly running solar system, he made one that constantly needs intervention. He designed a watch that is off by several minutes a day and has to be actively reset. Eventually, the anomalous planetary motions were explained by Peirre-Simon de Laplace, in a way that doesn't require intervention by God. Behe's God is a similar poor designer. He creates the mechanism of mutation but makes it just not quite good enough.

So theologically it is a very unsatisfying designer. But let's pursue this as science. If directed mutation were a real scientific theory, it would be developed farther. Whenever scientists develop a theory, they determine the details. They work out the mechanisms and alternative interpretations. Behe and ID in general is completely mute on the question of exactly how design works. They think it is enough to show there is design. Even if they had succeeded in doing that, it is still not a theory. Different mechanisms of design have different testable implications.

In this way, ID reminds me of psi research. The history of research into psychic phenomena is one of 150 years of just trying to show psi exists. Proponents of psi come up with a new way to detect psi every now and then. It plays itself out and then another way comes along. But the only research for over a century is just trying to show there is such a thing as psi. We do not see them coming up with competing mechanisms of psi. We do not find laws describing how psi varies with distance or the exact conditions under which it works or the neural circuits of the brain involved. There is no theory of psi at all. Trying to detect something is not a theory. ID is the same. They are interested just in showing that ID exists, and failing at it. But even if they had succeeded, there is no actual theory. We don't know if design occurs all at once or gradually, at the level of DNA or the environment, for every species or only big jumps. We do not see proponents of ID arguing amongst themselves about how design occurs. It is this lack of argument more than anything that shows that ID is not a theory. In my next post, I will dissect directed mutation in detail and show how it should be developed as a theory.

On Alternative theories.

It seems the one thing that absolutely all attacks on evolution have is that they don't pursue an alternative theory, which is ironic since they are constantly telling us that we should teach alternative theories to evolution. Instead what they do is they attack evolution and offer nothing in its place, or at best offer some vague outline of something that can't even be called a theory.

Previously, I discussed Plantinga's argument from natural selection. Plantinga argued that evolution could not account for reason, but he did not provide an alternative to demonstrate that something else can account for reason. Science is poor at proving or disproving theories in isolation. It mostly just compares theories and says one is better than another. Every theory in all of the sciences has some things it cannot yet explain. No theory is complete. So the simple observation of things that can't be explained is meaningless, unless you have an alternative theory that can explain them.

A theory is a complex structure, explaining a wide variety of observations. It incorporates many hypothesis, laws, and subtheories. Simply saying that one theory is wrong is not a theory. In the posts to follow, I will show how intelligent design simply is not a theory. I will try to show how it would proceed if it actually was a scientific enterprise and what it would really look like if it was an alternative theory.

One Cool Animal

The duck-billed platypus is cool. It's always been one of my favorite animals. How could it not be? It loudly insists on it's individuality, refusing to be like other mammals. The platypus has been in the news lately, because it's genome has just been sequenced. This is an important genome, because the platypus has a common ancestor with other mammals dating to over 150 million years ago, more distant than any other mammal. You have to go back about 300 million years to find the next ancestor we share with other living animals, when the other amniote groups (which includes snakes, lizards, birds, crocodiles, and turtles) branched off.

The platypus has always caused confusion with non biologists, and I think the confusion is instructive about how people think about evolution and classification. A biologist recognizes the platypus as being a mixture of primitive, derived, and analogous traits. But without an understanding of those terms and how they relate to classification, it seems to be an arbitrary mix of reptile, bird, and mammal.

A platypus has several primitive traits, especially in its reproductive system. By primitive, we don't mean they are more simple or "lower" in any since. We simply mean this form came first, and has been altered in other groups, or clades. So a platypus lays eggs, like the ancestor of all amniotes did. It's mammary gland isn't well developed and doesn't have a nipple. Other mammals have altered this mammary gland into the form we are more familiar with. The platypus also has several primitive, reptile-like, skeletal features.

These things make it easy to think of the platypus as a remnant of the past, lower in the chain of mammals. But evolution is not a chain. Because we share a more distant ancestor with the platypus than other mammals, there are derived traits that we have that it does not share. But there are also derived traits it has that we do not. The two most obvious are that it has venom-delivering spurs on it's hind legs, and the duck bill. The bill is the other cause of confusion. We call the animal the duck billed platypus because it has a bill that resembles the bill of a duck. However, the bill of a platypus is only superficially like that of a duck. This similarity is analogous only. (I should also point out that the eggs of the platypus are not avian features--the eggs are leathery, the primitive form, like a reptile. Birds have calcified eggs, which is a derived trait unique to their clade)

The bill of a platypus is one of the most amazing organs I know, another reason the platypus is cool. It is made of keratin--modified fur. It's developmental and anatomical origin is completely different form that of a duck. And it is not just an organ for eating. It is actually a sense organ. A platypus scientist would not speak of the five senses--they literally have a sixth sense. The bill is a very sensitive eclectic sense organ. If can "see" nerve impulses in other organisms, especially the small invertebrates that the platypus calls food.

This is a derived trait, and more highly developed than any similar structure in other mammals. The platypus is not primitive in all features. It is primitive in features that we consider important, from our biased view. Since we have placentas and nipples and big brains, we think of a platypus as somehow less developed than us. We are just paying attention to the things that happened to change in our line. But if a platypus was doing the biology, they would note that humans are very primitive in their electrical senses, although they have developed some odd specializations in their brains. They have changed as much as us, just with different features.

There is more confusion because people want to classify things according to a list of traits and don't think in terms of nested groups. They have been told that mammals have live young, and get confused by this egg laying creature. But mammals have many other traits as well, such as three bones in the middle ear, hair, milk teeth, etc. Evolutionary, each of these traits was added independently. In the past, there perhaps would have been creatures with hair yet without the bones in the ear (since fur doesn't fossilize, we don't know if it arose early or late). There could have been creatures with hair but no mammary gland at all. Mammals are a clade--a group of organisms with a common ancestor. A subclade within that clade are the placental mammals, which share a more recent common ancestor. We are related to the platypus, but more closely related to a cow.

Another example of this problem would be dolphins, which don't have hair. Does this mean they are not a mammal? It does not. Actually, whales do have fur during development, and lose it. Is that why we can still call them mammals? No. If whales or any other group of mammals completely lost any hair in any stage of its development, it would still be a mammal, because it shares a common ancestor with other mammals. In fact, if some group were to lose their mamary glands, the trait from which mammals get their name, they would still be mammals.

As I write this, it has occurred to me that the platypus is a perfect test case for understanding evolution, and perhaps I should use it as a model in teaching evolution. It seems that if a student can understand why a platypus is a mammal, how it relates to other mammals, and how it is not some chimera but rather an expected mixture of primitive and derived traits, they understand some of the most important ideas in evolution. There is a tendency to think in terms of a ladder rather than a bush and in terms of concrete categories and traits instead of a nested addition of traits. If they understand the platypus, they should also understand what a transitional form is, and that it is traits that are transitional, rather than organisms.

Plus, the platypus is just cool

On Prometheus and Playing God

In my last post, I discussed opposition to GMOs based on a mystical belief in the natural. A related reason for opposition to GMOs and all genetic technology is that we are "playing God". This is by far the most common objection that I hear from students. I think it is the most common objection in the general public. The academic debates may revolve around risks to health or the environment and gene flow and similar objections, but the real reason for much of the opposition to it and the reason it produces an emotional reaction is the belief that it is unnatural and is playing God.

This is an objection that I actively argue against in the classroom. I don't argue that it isn't necessarily valid. Instead I argue that most people who use this argument have no real idea what they mean, or it is so poorly defined that they can't defend it. Generally, when the argument is brought up, it crumbles under minimal scrutiny.

What is meant by "playing God"? I think there is an echo back to myths of humans angering the Gods. There is the story of Prometheus who stole fire for humanity, but angered the Gods. He was punished, and the Gods unleashed the evils of Pandora's box into the world. The Biblical variation of that story is the story of Adam and Eve. They dare to eat of the fruit of knowledge, anger God, who punishes mankind with evils. A more recent version, and the form that I think it takes in most people's minds is the story of Frankenstein (subtitled The Modern Prometheus). Dr. Frankenstein works with the nature of life and in so doing he creates a monster that he cannot control. The Hollywood versions played up Dr. Frankenstein's pride and the deadly consequences.

So "playing God" means something about playing with forces that we shouldn't, having too much pride, angering the Gods. But that is basically a description of all of technology. When we build a damn, we create a lake and modify the course of a river--certainly that is playing God. The old saw "if God had meant for us to fly he would have given us wings" is just a variation on saying that flight is "playing God".

The reaction is much stronger when our modifications involve living things. Frankenstein and his monster is seen as worse than Prometheus with his fire. But we modify life all of the time as well. All domesticated species have basically been created by humans. The job description of a doctor is to play God. The doctor's goal is to prevent death, to change the normal course of events.

We manipulate creation all of the time. We have genetically modified plants and animals so they no longer resemble their wild relatives and belong to different species. Blood transfusions were opposed as playing God. Certainly organ transplants are playing God--we take an organ from a dead individual and put it into a living one. We take someone who perhaps was "meant" to die, and let them live.

In what way is genetic modification different from these examples? The only way that I can see is that many people feel that genes are more of the "essence" of an individual. At one time, people felt that blood was the essence of an individual, and blood transfusions were seen as an abomination. Now the gene is seen that way. This view of genes is seen in popular fiction. In Spiderman, genes from a spider make Peter Parker take on some of the essence of spider. The truth is that there is nothing about a spider gene that is more "spidery" than human genes. In fact, we share many genes. We can transfer a gene that controls eye formation in humans into a fly, and it forms an eye--but the eye of a fly, not a human (1). Genes are no more our essence than is blood or an organ.

"Playing God" might mean something. It might mean there are some limits beyond which we shouldn't go. If that is the case, the person must make a case about what kinds of changes are OK and which are not, and be able to defend them. It cannot just be an arbitrary feeling about what seems OK and what is not, based mostly on what we grew up being comfortable with. Why is changing the genetic makeup of a plant with radiation acceptable but doing the same thing with a genetic vector not OK? Is taking insulin from a pig and injecting it into human different from using human insulin genetically engineered into a bacteria? Maybe genetic modification to cure disease is acceptable but for cosmetic reasons is not. How do you define the limits?

Playing God might mean acting without consideration of the possible consequences of our actions. Humans have often had too much pride in our technology and have failed to realize the consequences of our actions. When we built those damns, they often had unforeseen consequences on the ecosystem. An attempt to solve one problem, such as insect pests using DDT, can lead to other problems. This is a reasonable objection. If playing God simply means acting without realizing the limitations of our knowledge, it is a valid warning. But even then we must understand where to draw the line. We can never have perfect knowledge. If we need absolute certainty that our actions would have no harmful consequences, we never would have taken Prometheus's gift of fire, especially since fire is dangerous and has had harmful consequences. So I agree we should proceed with caution, but we cannot be so cautious as to be paralyzed.

What I tell students who use the "playing God" argument isn't that it is wrong. I tell them to think about what they really mean. They need to take it beyond a gut feeling. They need to define what playing God means and to apply it consistently. My goal is to get them to reflect and to refine. When that happens, generally fewer things fall within "playing God."

I also make clear I have a strong objection to one meaning of playing God. I have seen people basically say that if someone has a genetic defect, that it was meant to be. That if people are dying of hunger or disease, that is God's will and there is a reason for it and we should not do anything about it. They use that to argue against genetic technology, yet somehow I don't think they would use it to argue against taking antibiotics because the disease is God's will. Should we leave people to die because it is God's will? Or more trivially, should we not give glasses to people because it is God's will for them to have poor vision? Would they be willing to tell someone whose child is dying that we have the means to save them, but we can't do that because they were meant to die and we would be playing God? I cannot see that. It sounds a lot like Ebeneezer Scrooge saying that hunger will "decrease the surplus population." If playing God involves saving the surplus population, I am all for it.

1 G. Halder, P. Callaerts, W. J. Gehring. 1995. Induction of Ectopic Eyes by Targeted Expression of the eyeless Gene in Drosophila. Science 267:1788

The essence of opposition to GMOs

I promised in my last post that I would discuss irrational arguments against GMOs. I am not claiming that all arguments against GMOs or genetic technology are irrational, only that some are, or that some are greatly exaggerated. I am interested in the reason behind the arguments, rather than the arguments themselves. I believe many people hold even the more rational arguments for irrational reasons.

Some concerns over GMOs are real. There is a real possibility that genes could flow to weedy relatives, for example. There is a small risk that an alteration in a food could prove harmful to consumers. However, both of these, but especially the latter, apply just as well or more strongly to traditional breeding practices. We have been genetically modifying organisms for centuries. We use selection, irradiation, and hybridization, amongst other methods. Any of these changes could possibly produce changes that are harmful to consumers. There are at least a few known examples in which that has happened. Genetic technology is probably less likely to produce these effects, because only a single gene is usually changed, and we know what gene it is. Likewise, genes for herbicide tolerance produced by traditional breeding could flow to relatives.

With both of these, it is not necessary to single out the process by which they were produced. If there is a small chance that a new variety is harmful, we can look for differences in the food, regardless of how it was produced. So why are GMOs singled out? I think for a lot of people, it is because of a rather mystical notion of natural.

It is common for people to hold natural things as being superior to man made. Natural flavors are better than artificial, herbs are better than drugs, etc. I remember when I was a freshman in chemistry and I realized that a natural flavoring and a synthetic one are exactly the same molecule and there is no difference at all between them. It was a major revelation. A commercial pharmaceutical has the same active ingredient as a "natural" herb, but with a more reliable dose and none of the other possibly harmful chemicals in the herb. None of the plants we use in agriculture are natural--all of them have been drastically changed by humans over the millenia, and many very recently. Natural is a misnomer.

I think the praise of natural as being better is often based on a superstitious spiritual reverence of nature. Opposition to GMOs is common in post-religious communities, such as in Europe and the new age movement in the US. Traditional religion has lost its hold there, but has been replaced with a vague worship of nature. The organic farming movement has unfortunately fallen prey to this. Many of their goals are commendable. Less reliance on added chemicals and other ecologically harmful practices are to be promoted. But organic farming isn't focused on the end of improved ecological impact. Rather it is focused on more "natural" methods. GMOs have the potential to dramatically decrease the environmental impact of farming, but organic farmers have rejected it because it is not "natural".

Even if you grant the superstitious belief in natural versus artificial, it fails with GMOs. It is not at all clear how the use of a naturally occurring vector to change the genetic makeup of an organism is less natural than using radiation, random mutation, in vitro hybridization, or other methods.

Opposition to GMOs is related to opposition to evolution in two ways. In both, the person has an emotional reason to reject something, and then comes up with rational-sounding arguments afterwards to justify their beliefs. In both cases, they may even believe the reasons they give. But in both cases, the belief came first, and they then search for whatever reasons they can to justify them. That is why opponents of GMOs often grab onto arguments that are possible but unlikely, and exaggerate the threat, or fail to realize that the same arguments would also apply to other ways of producing crops. The opposition is not proportionate to the threat and can only be understood when we realize that the opposition is not actually based on the threat. Adding a single protein by genetic technology cannot be seen as a bigger threat than altering many proteins by traditional means. We see the same unequal response when consumers are afraid of artificial pesticides added to foods but have no concern over the many naturally occurring pesticides in food.

The second relationship between evolution denial and GMO opposition relates to thinking in terms of essentialism. Opponents of GMOs think we are changing the essence of an organism. They object more strongly if the gene came from a more distantly related organism, thus crossing more "natural" lines. They see a species as somehow being a natural, independent thing. They see organisms as having an essence that we cannot touch. Creationists also see life through an essentialist lens. They speak of "kinds". Things can change within a kind, but not between them. A kind has a Platonic essence which can't be changed.

Evolution and biology show that is not correct. Biologists know that organisms are in a constant state of change. The line between species is blurry. Distinct species today share an identical common ancestor. There is even lateral gene transfer occurring between distantly related species today. Genes even cross kingdom boundaries. Perhaps a stronger appreciation for evolution would diminish the essentialist thinking about nature.

There is one other very common objection to GMOs that is related to the one I discussed here. In fact, this is the one that I hear by far the most often from students, and it is applied to all genetic technology, not just GMOs. It is that we are "playing God". My experience is that this is usually not a well thought out position at all and people cannot really define what playing God is. It is often also based on a poorly thought out essentialism. I might discuss that in a later post.

A fuzzy line

We had a good discussion of the ethical and social issues involved in biotechnology and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in my Molecular Biology class a week or two ago. When I teach this topic, I try to remain neutral and not inject my opinions into it too much--the students should come to their own conclusions and my job is to make sure they don't misrepresent the underlying science. But that causes a problem--when does remaining neutral involve misrepresenting the science? It's a tricky line to walk.

In the science classroom, we can't fall into the same error as many journalists, and present both sides as equally valid simply because there are two sides. This produces what Jon Tourney called the pseudosymmetry of scientific authority--the suggestion that both sides of a controversy are equally valid, even if 95% of the experts are actually on one side. The obvious place in the classroom where this cannot be done is in evolution and creationism. It is dishonest to teach both evolution and creationism as if both are equally valid. The science is overwhelming, the consensus is strong, and evolution-denial relies on misrepresenting evolution and science. The only proper way to present evolution denialism is to present their arguments, and then show why the scientific community has rejected them.

A similar problem arises with global warming. If we were teaching it 20 years ago, it would have been a good exercise to look at the scientific case for and against it. However, the science has gotten much stronger, and the deniers of global warming have begun to use typical denialist arguments. We are doing students a disservice if we pretend that both views are equally valid. Furthermore, we harm their ability to recognize real controversy. Although there is no real controversy over whether warming is occurring, or that humans have contributed to it, there is controversy about how severe it will be or exactly what its affects will be, or what is the best way to deal with it. Those issues would make for a good discussion, but we are harming students if we fail to distinguish between real controversies and contrived controversy.

This issues comes up in relation to GMOs. There are many objections to GMOs. Some are real, some are unlikely, and some are ultimately superstitious. Some risks that were a real possibility 20 years ago we now realize are very unlikely. It is not always easy to decide where the line is and where we should remain neutral and where we should take an editorial stance. The point at which science goes from cutting edge to established is fuzzy. I usually err on the side of being neutral. However, there are some objections to genetic technology that I think are invalid. I think some is even a form of superstition. I did take a stand against that in class a few weeks ago. In my next post, I will discuss those objections.

I've got the time but I don't have the desire

The semester is finished. Every last grade entered. So now I should be able to devote a lot of time to blogging. I have lots of ideas of things to write. But nothing is coming today. My brain refuses to do any work at all.

When the semester is done I have lots of papers to file away and things to organize. I usually am busy putting papers away and getting to long neglected notes to myself. But I can't do any of that today. I always work better with specific tasks and specific deadlines. If I have a test to write, lecture to prepare, something to grade, I do it. It's the vague things I have a hard time with. You know, I should rework a few lectures that need some work. I should work on changing a few things for next fall, four months from now. No deadline, no definite product, just a goal to kind of improve things. It will probably be late July before I realize none of that quite got done.

I'll try to do some of that later. But not now. I think I've worked at least a little bit every single day since early January. I haven't allowed myself even a single day without at least an hour devoted to work, and usually much more, even over spring break. My brain is protesting and refuses to even think, and the prospect of organizing a pile of notes is a daunting task I cannot possibly undertake. So today I will mow the lawn and walk and not think. Tomorrow I will celebrate the graduation of my students, which is the culmination of my efforts. And maybe after that, I will think. And I will post.

Why religion should not pretend to be science

I am occasionally accused of attacking religion when I teach evolution. I try to do the exact opposite. I emphasize that many believers and religions have no problem with evolution. I emphasize that it need not be one or the other. I at least encourage them to look at the variety of views on the topic, although I do not consider it my place to discuss them at length or to endorse any one view.

However, just saying that evolution happened goes against some religions. Saying the earth is old goes against some religions, even if you just state the science and give the evidence.

Here is where the creation science/intelligent design movement has made things difficult for believers. Creation science and intelligent design claim to be science and that's why they can be taught in the science classroom. I do attack that science, because it is bad science. I make it clear that science is a process of organized skepticism and attacking each others ideas. In other classes, I strongly attack other scientific claims, such as those of alternative medicine or UFOs. There are examples of evolutionary biologists attacking other evolutionary biologists very strongly. I emphasize that science is a gauntlet of attacking each others ideas. If I take the claims of ID at face value, then attacking them is in no way attacking religion, it is attacking science. If anyone wants to make scientific claims, they must be willing to go through this process. If on the other hand, someone sees this as attacking religion, then it is admitting that creation science and ID are not what they claim to be. They are religion and not science, so at the very least they do not belong in the science classroom. The minute they stop making a claim to be science, I will stop addressing their scientific claims in a scientific manner.

An after the movie conversation.

After viewing expelled, I went out for a drink with Dr. Brian Lang and we had a fun conversation about evolution and ID. It seems I have been opposed to Dr. Lang a few times, in a debate over stem cells and a newspaper article about an anti-evolution argument from Alvin Plantinga (see here and here). But there has never been any antagonism and I find Dr. Lang very engaging and discussions with him are just that--discussions, not arguments.

Dr. Lang says that he is agnostic about evolution, and somewhat willfully ignorant. He doesn't know many of the arguments and has avoided getting into too much depth because it seems like a nasty area. He clearly leans against evolution, since he has offered several anti evolution arguments, but he seems open.

We discussed the movie. We both agreed it was very one sided and biased. He had read Expelled Exposed before the movie, so he knew how it distorted the cases of oppression. He also easily saw that ideas can be abused by Nazis and many others, and that does not affect the validity of the theory. He knew of course that religion has been abused many times as well.

He compared it to Flock of Dodos, which was shown on campus last year. He thought they were similar, both showing the other side to be bad--evil for Expelled, backwoods hicks for Dodos. I disagreed some but didn't pursue it farther. However, I don't think it holds that well. Dodos main point was to criticize biologists for their poor communication skills. Randy Olson of Dodos did allow the creationists to at least make their cases. He was open about his bias and showed where ID was wrong, but as I watched it I was very frustrated. The creationists were allowed to say many lies or misrepresentations, and very few of them were challenged. I think that he tried very hard to be fair to the other side, enough so that I thought it was unfair to my side. I know of some incriminating statements by Michael Behe that Olson left out of the final cut, because it made Behe look too bad.

Of course, I watched that film through my eyes. I know at least some students thought it didn't show both sides. I'm sure some viewers of Expelled thought it was fair. Maybe. It's hard to see how. Dr. Lang agreed that Expelled was worse. I think Dodos was fair, while obviously having a point of view.

Dr. Lang argued that ID is a philosophical debate rather than scientific, so it should be taught in philosophy classes. I disagreed with the first part and agreed with reservations about the second. Dr. Lang's admitted ignorance of the issues was evident here. He is familiar with the philosophical arguments, but is unaware of most of the arguments offered by ID. I told him that 90% of their arguments are scientific. Questions about the second law of thermodynamics, transitional fossils, the probability of selection, the limits of microevolution, the age of the earth, etc., are all scientific arguments. Dr. Lang also seemed unaware that most in the ID movement are opposed to theistic evolution.

I fully agree with Dr. Lang about the remaining part. Philosophical arguments about design can be taught in a philosophy classroom. I do not object and do not believe it would violate church-state separation. However, we have to be vigilant. A teacher in California offered a philosophy class on ID to a high school. When she showed her curriculum, it was arguments about a Noachian flood, young earth, thermodynamics, etc. It was creation science renamed as philosophy, but it's content was science, not philosophy. The philosophical arguments for design mostly predate evolution. A class in philosophy would focus on Aristotle or Aquinas or Paley vs. Hume and others. I think once it moves to any proposed mechanism of design, it has crossed into science.

Dr. Lang offered one more argument which I must admit I found weaker, and we were still discussing it as we had to leave because they were mopping around our feet. He argued that it is fine if we misteach things or students don't know things. We all teach mistakes or errors. Students are OK for it. He used relatively minor points in detail in his philosophy classes as examples, not major theories. I asked if it would be OK if we teach students that the atomic theory is wrong. He seemed to be OK with that. However, when I offered Holocaust denial, he thought it was more problematic. I'm not sure the basis for the distinction. It seemed to be that one has moral or political consequences, but I didn't pursue it.

Teaching the "scientific" form of ID is not just getting some facts wrong. It is fundamentally misrepresenting the science and failing to teach students about the single most important theory in biology. Evolution is part of every field of biology and permeates it. I could discuss here the practical effects of evolution--its use in genomics, medicine, agriculture, etc. I briefly mentioned some to Dr. Lang. But that is not the main point. If someone isn't versed in science, they might not understand the implications of misteaching, but I have a harder time understanding the view that knowingly teaching falsehoods in any field is OK.

Is it OK if students don't know the atomic theory? We didn't have time to pursue it, so I don't know if he just feels that it's just science so it doesn't matter. He said we could teach them some version of phlogiston and they would be OK. Perhaps Dr. Lang has a kind of relativism about scientific theories. I don't think we would be doing students a favor to misrepresent history, economics, science, or any other field. Education is about learning truth and the accumulated ideas of mankind.

We did not have time to finish the conversation, so I'm not exactly sure of Dr. Lang's views on this. Perhaps we will have time to pursue it some other time. I look forward to more stimulating discussion.

Finished!

I'm done with classes for the year! No more lectures, just writing and grading exams. I got to sing in class today and play cards. But they scheduled a faculty meeting the afternoon of the last day. I'll try to blog more when I have more time.