Cosma Shalizi posted a plug for the paper, “A Simple Model of the Evolution of Simple Models of Evolution”. Now, normally, some geek scientist posts a pdf of some paper published in a technical journal, and you think, “Ugh. I’ve got enough dense prose backed up on my desk, waiting for me to plow through it”, but in this case it’s worth reading. It’s hilarious.

It reminds me of an anecdote. A computer scientist was giving a talk on computer models of viral evolution at my university, which initially sounded very interesting. She started by justifying her work, telling us how modeling is a boon to epidemiology, and could help us predict patterns of variation in viral populations, yadda yadda yadda. Then she started on implementation details, and the first thing she talked about was...coding X and Y chromosomes in her simulated viral genomes. Ouch.^*

^*Just in case someone who has never taken a biology class reads this, I should explain that viruses do not reproduce sexually and do not have sex chromosomes, something this person could have learned by talking to a sophomore biology student for five minutes, before she wrote the grant, got the DoD money, and spent a few years working on her project.

I’m really going to try avoid saying anything about l’affaire Plame, since so many are saying it so much better than I ever could. In particular, though, I’d like to mention that Morat has expressed my opinion perfectly:

The sheer beauty of this is that Bush’s tactics resulted in the downfall of Bush’s agenda. And it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy...

I was just reading this old article in Physics Today, and it was right on the money.

Don’t assume everything is fine in your school system even if it seems free of conflict. Peace may mean that evolution, the core concept of biology, is minimized.  No region of the country is immune. Watch out for the guys in tuxedos--they don’t have violins in those cases.

This is exactly the strategy Commissioner Yecke and her underlings in the Minnesota Department of Education want to follow: damp down any conflict by any means possible, so they can quietly smuggle in Intelligent Design pseudoscience at the local level.

By way of Gullibility isn’t in the dictionary, here’s a charming news story from the Grand Forks Herald:

Young said 75 percent of students lose their faith in the first year of college, “pretty much because of evolution lies. If the Bible isn’t scientifically accurate, what good is it?"

Heh. He said it, not me. But read the rest of the article if you don’t mind witnessing a descent into religious madness. The sad thing is that there are so many people who think like this guy does.

Another source of spiritual solace and outrage for your Sunday mornings: Internet Infidels has a wonderful service, their News Wire.

The Internet Infidels News Wire is meant to be a resource for freethinkers, atheists, humanists, and even religious people—anyone concerned with current events that affect religious civil liberties and freedom of conscience. Also, we try occasionally to include interesting, humourous, or entertaining stories impinging upon secularism and/or religion, and stories which, broadly speaking, illustrate trends within religious belief and practice worldwide, and stories about personalities associated with secularist and freethought movements and communities.

They even have an XML news feed!

I attended the town hall meeting to discuss the draft Minnesota Science Standards in Willmar, MN last Wednesday. The audience (and, as it turns out, the Department of Education members on the podium) was overwhelmingly creationist and vocal. A few of us science & reason types did get up to speak, but it was to a chorus of disapproval from the audience, while the creationist speakers got a chorus of amens, instead.

Anyway, for the record, here's what I said:

I'm a biology professor at the University of Minnesota, so I should mention that I have a different perspective from many of the public school teachers here: I don't have to worry about the details of implementing these standards, but only have to think about the end product. With that in mind, there are a couple of things I have to say about the science standards.

The good news is that I think these are excellent standards, and the committee has done a great job. I would be more than pleased to have students show up in my classrooms understanding this material.

However, while I think the standards are good, I have serious concerns about how the department of education seems to be speaking about them. I have suspicions that there will be an attempt to make an end run around the work of the committee.

In particular, Commissioner Yecke is on record stating that

• she wants to avoid the controversy of the evolution creation debate,
• local school boards should have the latitude to introduce alternative theories, such as "Intelligent Design", and
• the Santorum amendment provides legal justification for that action.

I disagree strongly with all three comments.

First, there is no controversy on this subject. Let me repeat that: there is no controversy over evolution. None. The theory of evolution represents the best consensus of the scientific community. Saying that there is controversy here is like stating that there is a controversy over whether the moon is made of green cheese or not. There is no viable scientific theory of creation or intelligent design.

The Santorum amendment is not law. It was little more than an attempt to con a willing and gullible politician into inserting creationist language into an education bill. It was stripped from the final bill and cannot be used to justify opening up our schools to creationism.

Finally, intelligent design cannot be considered science. I would like to bring one of the science standards in this document to your attention. On page 22, it says, "Students will know that scientific explanations must meet criteria to be considered valid, including that they must be consistent with experimental and observational evidence about nature, logical, respect the rules of evidence, be open to criticism, and report methods and procedures." Intelligent design violates all these principles. It does not meet proper scientific criteria, it is not consistent with any experimental or observational evidence, it is illogical, it dispenses with evidence, it is not open to criticism, and it does not have any methods or procedures to report. By these standards, it cannot be taught as science.

I have to ask why Commissioner Yecke is trying to subvert this document and the good work of the committee by encouraging political action to insert garbage into the minds of my prospective students.

Yecke did not answer the questions. She reiterated that it was a controversy, she wanted to avoid the bad press of Kansas and Ohio, and that Santorum's stupid (not a word she used) amendment was published and on the record, so she could too use it, yah yah nanny boo boo (OK, she didn't say that last bit, either, but the sentiment was there).

One member of the science committee was also there, a Dave Eaton. He said that 1) microevolution was an indisputable fact, but macroevolution and origins were contentious, 2) that more and more scientists were accepting the theory of intelligent design, and 3) that intelligent design was now being taught in classes at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. Sound familiar? These are classic lines of argument from intelligent design creationists. I've since confirmed that Eaton, a member of the science standards committee, is an active promoter of ID, who has also worked to get it introduced into his local school district in Minnetonka. (Eaton's claims have been debunked on Mark Isaak's excellent "Index to Creationist Claims", a very handy resource...except for the one about it being taught at UMTC. That's just a plain, outright, dishonest distortion: there is apparently a seminar taught by a professor of engineering on the subject, but you can find a crank or three in every large university -- and it is not being taught as a serious element of the biology curriculum, as I suspect Eaton was trying to imply.)

I really have to appreciate the hard work the other members of the committee had to go through to generate a good set of science standards.

I grow old… I grow old…
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

It just seems like something worth mentioning.

Isn’t that a spectacularly ugly beastie? It’s good news: rumors of its extinction were greatly exaggerated.

A living example of an insectivore native to Cuba - but believed for years to extinct - has been found in the island’s eastern mountains, a Cuban news agency reported. 

The discovery of the male insect-eating mammal known as an almiqui (pronounced ahl-mee-KEE) raises hopes “that it will not wind up in the catalog of the irretrievable animals disappearing from the face of the Earth,” Prensa Latina said in reporting the discovery.

I just wanted to plug an up-and-coming site that looks like it could be very useful: EvoWiki. Wikis in general are such an interesting example of an evolutionary process (in some ways) that it is appropriate to see it used for this subject.

Buried deep in the comments, Charlie Wagner says:

When I was a kid, the term “evolution” automatically meant “darwinism”, which automatically meant “variation and natural selection”.  Now apparently, the definition of evolution has changed.  It is now proffered as “common descent”.
The statement that I quoted above is correct and I find no fault with it. That similar genes are used across a wide variety of applications throughout the animal kingdom is a realization of profound importance.  I must remind you, however, that many people do not distinguish the nuances as we do and when you refer to “evolution”, many will naturally think about darwinism. And I must further remind you that while there are many similarities in developmental sequences as a result of common origins, nothing in these observations in any way supports the darwinian mechanism of variation and natural selection.

That’s a peculiar thing to say. Anyone who has read Darwin’s Origin of Species would know that Darwin did not discuss “evolution” in his book, but instead called it “descent with modification”. While he certainly wrote extensively about his mechanism of natural selection, common descent was also a theme stated loudly and clearly. He was also rather more flexible than Charlie suggests. From the introduction:

I can entertain no doubt, after the most deliberate study and dispassionate judgement of which I am capable, that the view which most naturalists entertain, and which I formerly entertained - namely, that each species has been independently created - is erroneous. I am fully convinced that species are not immutable; but that those belonging to what are called the same genera are lineal descendants of some other and generally extinct species, in the same manner as the acknowledged varieties of any one species are the descendants of that species. Furthermore, I am convinced that Natural Selection has been the main but not exclusive means of modification.

Charlie is mistaken. “Darwinism” does mean something considerably more nuanced than he thinks. And the evidence I described does support a very conventional view of evolution.

Read Glenn Morton on ID. He’s making a simple point, that there is no science behind Intelligent Design, something I wish we could get through to the minds in the Department of Education.

The Intelligent Design argument really boils down to this: we’re supposed to accept that life is designed because it just “looks” that way. Usually the proponents of design are fairly blatant about admitting it, as in this transcript of one of Behe’s talks:

This is a Farside cartoon by Gary Larson showing a troop of jungle explorers, and the lead explorer has been strung up and skewered, and this fellow turns to him and says, that’s why I never walk in front.  Words to live by.  Let me tell you.  Now everyone in this room looks at this cartoon and you immediately realize that this trap was designed.  It was not an accident.  The humor of the cartoon depends on you recognizing the design.  But how do you know that?  How do you know the trap was designed?  Is it a religious conclusion?  Probably not.  You know it’s designed because you see a number of very specific parts, interacting to produce a function that the parts themselves could not produce.  You see something like irreducible complexity, or specified complexity.

(By the way, try searching for Behe and “Far Side". It ought to be a bit embarrassing when the best illustration of the data that you can trot out in a talk is a cartoon from the newspaper funny pages.)

All I can say to that kind of argument is...

We’ve been having lovely early fall weather here in Morris, and we spent some time today getting the house ready for the cooling weather. We had to check out the chimney flues and seal up a few things—we don’t have air conditioning, and instead have a giant fan built into the attic that draws air through the house and out vents on the ends of the roof. We boarded the main vent up. Somehow, it’s easy to get teenagers enthused about helping out with chores when you tell them the job involves clambering around like monkeys on the rooftop.

The view was nice, too.

This is going to be our first Fall in this house, and we’re looking forward to a few fires in the fireplaces. The flues looked extremely clean, but I am going to feel guilty about all those spiders the first time we light up. The only consolation is that if the smoke doesn’t get ‘em, Winter will.

By way of Counterspin Central, we have the most over-the-top example of hysterical political hyperbole I’ve seen in a while:

"A reader responded to the post above and pointed out that Wesley Clark has appeared on the History Channel’s “Time Machine” program to comment on the battles of Hannibal. According to the reader, Clark said that his own campaign in Kosovo was closely modeled on Hannibal’s in Italy. Of course, Hannibal lost his war, even despite all the babies he sacrificed to Moloch. You’d think a Rhodes Scholar like Clark would know that. On the other hand, maybe he figures that military defeat plus baby-burning is an unbeatable platform in a Democratic primary...."

I’ve never before seen a political candidate accused of being a Moloch-worshipping, baby-burning loser, and it’s kind of amusing. And the serious campaigning hasn’t even begun yet! I wonder if we’re going to see a lot of conservative mortality this summer, as they begin to really foam at the mouth and stroke out.

I got a request to document some of Wells’ claims from his execrable book, Icons of Evolution. Specifically, Wells chastises several textbook authors for using modified versions of Haeckel’s drawings:

Starr & Taggart, 10th ed and this was mentioned in
Well’s testimony, p. 315, “slightly simplified version of
Haekel’s original fraudulent drawings"

Raven & Johnson, Biology, 6th ed

“modified version ... exaggerates actual similarities” p. 450

I don’t have all of the textbooks he describes, but I do have the 5^th and 9^th editions of the above books, and I suspect the figures haven’t changed.

Here’s figure 20.7 from Starr & Taggert’s Biology: The Unity and Diversity of Life, 9^th edition:

Copyright © 2001 Brooks/Cole

That is clearly a reworked version of the Haeckel/Romanes diagram; the fish in particular isn’t very accurate, and there is very little detail. It’s not very good, and doesn’t do a good job of illustrating the point. 20.7b, though, salvages the figure—that is a nice illustration of the homologous layout of the aortic arches.

And here is figure 20.18 from Raven & Johnson’s Biology, 5^th edition:

Copyright © 1999 McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

I think this is very nice. These aren’t from Haeckel; these are clearly drawn from real animals. They show the variations that do exist between these animals, for instance in the degree of flexure, the presence of limb buds, and differences in relative size of various structures. There is some exaggeration—for instance, I’ve never seen a photo of a human embryo in which all of those branchial arches are as clearly delineated as that—but that’s the purpose of a drawing. The purple tint isn’t objectionable, since that’s purely to indicate where the structures are.

Another, Guttman’s Biology, 1^st edition:

Copyright © 1999 McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

This discussion earned Guttman an “F” from Wells, for using Haeckel’s drawings, and for citing the similarity of early embryos as evidence for common ancestry. Of course, what this textbook is actually doing is discussing the history of this concept, and explaining how the idea has changed from its erroneous 19^th form into its current non-recapitulationist version—which makes using Haeckel’s figure quite reasonable. It’s not perfect (I itch to change that last line to “...must resemble the larval cnidarian ancestor"), but these three short paragraphs treat the issue with more honesty and sophistication than Wells’ whole book.

Now here’s something a bit sad, from Campbell-Reece-Mitchell’s 5^th edition of Biology:

Copyright © 1999 Benjamin/Cummings

That’s the best of the four shown here! It’s a pair of good photos (although Wells doesn’t like photos, either—they are “misleading"), that accurately illustrate the point of embryonic homology.

So what’s sad about it? The photos are not present in the 6^th edition. The 5^th came out in 1999, Wells’ book is from 2000, the 6^th is copyright 2002. I hope that is just a coincidence and that Benjamin Cummings (the publisher) had some other good reason for expunging an illustration than criticism from a creationist. I notice that the third edition has even better photographs of embryos; it’s odd that the presentation of this one small subject has been given progressively less attention from Campbell over the years. Rather than creationist pressure, it may be that the increasing amount of information on homologies in vertebrate embryos has made it difficult to do it justice in an introductory textbook.

I ran across an article on Roger Ailes’ site cussing out a professor at Indiana University who has a highly repugnant weblog:

On the site—supported by the IU server and with an IU address—Eric Rasmusen, an economics professor in the Kelley School of Business, contends gays aren’t suited for certain jobs, such as teaching, preaching and elected posts, because these are “moral exemplars."

I have to agree with Ailes’ contention that Rasmusen is an intolerant bigot, and I’d even add that if I believed Rasmusen’s words had any value, he ought to be declared unsuited for his position, since he is a very poor “moral exemplar.” However, I don’t seem to share any beliefs with Rasmusen—browsing through that reactionary babble on his weblog just left me appalled.

The original article at IndyStar looks like good journalism to me. The author (Barb Berggoetz) discusses the issue of academic freedom while pointing out how strongly this subject has polarized the campus...and I’m very impressed with IU, which has supported Rasmusen’s right to free speech, no matter how deplorable it might be.

It seems to me that the best response to Rasmusen would not be to clamor to shut him down, but for someone or an organization at IU to start a weblog of their own, with the specific purpose of putting up information to rebut the shallow, specious garbage he’s pumping out. It wouldn’t be hard to do. IU’s GLBT group does have a web page (and a nice list of community support pages), but it seems to be your typical Page O’ Links, with no compelling voice and no clear expression of opinion. I think the best answer to hate speech like Rasmusen’s is to speak out with informed passion for your own side. The only IU GLBT suggestion I could find on the web was for “a T-shirt campaign, where the Kelley School of Business would pay for the shirts. An idea was for the shirt to read ‘Take it off the server,’ on the front and ‘hate speech is not free speech’ on the back.” What a terribly ineffective, useless idea. I hope they have better ones.

(I also see that this has been discussed on Crooked Timber. I fear that I disagree with Henry and agree with Volokh, which leaves me feeling a bit uncomfortable...)

Whew. I’m not the only one who gets irritated with Lileks.

I don’t get it. Lileks is so popular in the blogging world, but every time I read his site, I see crap like this stuff:

Heart and gut beat brain.

Brain beats heart if there’s no gut.

Gut beats brain if brain has no heart.

Brain and gut beans heart.


Okay, I’m just making this up as I go along. But consider: Clinton had a spectacular ability to combine heart, brain and gut into one meaty electable package. Reagan was mostly gut. Nixon was brain. Carter: heart and brain, no gut. Mondale: brain. Dukakis: brain. Dole: gut, but one that concluded in a colostomy bag. Gore: brain. Bush 2000: ran on brain-heart ticket, probably elected because people suspected he had gut. Bush 04: heart-gut. Dean: BRAINBRAINBRAIN.

I’m sorry, but that kind of political analysis is just superficial babble. Does he have Gnat write his column for him now and then, or something?

Yeah, I know. I’m being peevish. It was just too stupid to bear.

What a mess. It turns out that two versions of the Minnesota science standards were released. I grabbed the first one, which contained a number of weakened statements; they later released a second one, closer to the desires of the committee.

There’s an article in the St. Paul Pioneer Press that clears up the confusion:

Two drafts of Minnesota’s science standards circulated this week. The only difference? How they described the teaching of evolution.


The version the public didn’t see included words like “might” and “possible” at strategic points that clearly cast doubt on the certainty of biological evolution.


When members of the citizens’ panel that wrote the standards saw what was to be the final document, several saw the “mights” and “possibles” and protested that they didn’t write the document that way and that the department made critical changes without telling the panel.


In the end, the committee got the language it wanted, giving evolution the full stamp of approval of the state as the way to teach science to all students in Minnesota’s public schools.


The department said the confusion was a simple mistake caused by several versions floating around the agency, said spokesman Bill Walsh. He said it wasn’t that Education Commissioner Cheri Pierson Yecke — who has acknowledged her belief in creationism — tried quietly to place her own personal misgivings about evolution into the standards.

Of course, the words “mistake caused by several versions” doesn’t explain how or why a watered-down version of the committee’s recommendation came into existence in the first place, or who was the author. Let’s hope there aren’t any more “accidental” switches made between now and the presentation of the standards to the legislature.

The article also included a concise summary of the differences between the two versions:

A draft of the Minnesota state science standards that cast doubt on the certainty of evolution was nearly published as the final document. Members of the citizens’ panel that wrote the standards objected. State education officials say it was an honest error.

In the passages below, “rejected” shows the wording the department was preparing to publish. “Final” shows the version that had the panel’s support and which the public ultimately saw Monday. The Pioneer Press put the changes in bold for emphasis.

Rejected: “Students will use evidence such as fossils, rock layers, ice caves, radiometric dating and globally gathered data, to explain how Earth may have changed or remained constant over short and long periods of time.’’

Final: “Students will use evidence … to explain how Earth has changed or remained constant over short and long periods of time."

Rejected: “Students will be able to identify significant adaptations that might have allowed life to evolve from single-celled aquatic organisms to multicellular terrestrial organisms over a period of more than 3.5 billion years."

Final: “Students will be able to identify significant adaptations that have allowed life to evolve. …"

Rejected: “Students will be able to use scientific evidence, including the fossil record, homologous structures, embryological development, or biochemical similarities, to classify organisms showing possible evolutionary relationships and common ancestry."

Final: “Students will be able to use scientific evidence … to classify organisms showing probable evolutionary relationships and common ancestry."

Rejected: “The student will explain how evolution may provide a scientific explanation for the fossil record of ancient life forms, as well as for the striking molecular similarities observed among the diverse species of living organisms."

Final: “The student will explain how evolution provides a scientific explanation for the fossil record of ancient life forms. … “

Rejected: “Students will recognize that a great amount of time, approximately 3.5 billion years, may be necessary to explain the variation of species that has produced the great diversity of life currently present on earth and found in the fossil record."

Final: “Students will recognize that a great amount of time, approximately 3.5 billion years, is necessary to explain the variation of species. … “

The first public draft of the Minnesota state science standards is now available online. It’s pretty good, actually, although there are a few places where the administration has weakened the committee’s work by inserting a few weasel words. For example,

"The student will explain how evolution may provide a scientific explanation for the fossil record of ancient life forms, as well as for the striking molecular similarities observed among the diverse species of living organisms."

The “may” is unnecessary. Whether you agree with it or not, evolution does provide a scientific explanation. It’s clearly an attempt to introduce doubt where there is none.

"Students will recognize that a great amount of time, approximately 3.5 billion years, may be necessary to explain the variation of species that has produced the great diversity of life currently present on earth and found in the fossil record."

This “may” is even weirder. Are teachers supposed to instruct their students that maybe all that diversity arose in 6000 years? Or that there is doubt about the age of the earth or of life on earth?

I was also troubled by one assumption:

"Students will describe how natural selection, the mechanism of biological evolution, causes the differential survival of groups of organisms..."

Natural selection is a mechanism of evolution, not the mechanism. I don’t think we do ourselves a favor by minimizing the complexity of the process quite that much, although I would agree that we shouldn’t spread the instruction too thin by discussing all the different mechanisms in high school.

And then there’s one that worries me:

"Students will be able to explain how scientific innovations and new evidence can challenge accepted theories and models, including cell theory, atomic theory, theory of evolution, plate tectonic theory, germ theory of disease, Big Bang theory."

On the face of it, that’s a good and useful exercise, but I could also imagine it being distorted by an Intelligent Design proponent into an excuse to wave Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box around the room and falsely claim that the theory of evolution has been disproven. Fortunately, there is another benchmark given right after it,

"Students will know that scientific explanations must meet criteria to be considered valid, including that they must be consistent with experimental and observational evidence about nature, logical, respect the rules of evidence, be open to criticism, and report methods and procedures."

That’s a good one. I’d like to see that emphasized more strongly, and perhaps given pride of place among the benchmarks. If it’s not ignored, that’s the one that thoroughly scuttles any attempt to introduce Intelligent Design/Creationism into the classroom.

I’ve only skimmed through it quickly once, and that’s all that jumped out at me (a good sign, and the fact that I’m reduced to nitpicking about words here and there is an even better sign). I’ll be scrutinizing it more carefully over the next few days.

I very much enjoyed Al Franken’s Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right, and am rather amused by a suggestion I saw at RealityChecker.org to punish the lawyers responsible for the ridiculous lawsuit by Fox. Let’s everyone link to a page that discusses their reprehensible behavior, so that anyone doing a Google search for the lawyers responsible will get the facts of the case:

...let’s make use of the power of hypertext, the World Wide Web and sophisticated search engines like Google to spread the infamy more effectively. According to Mr. Grimaldi, Hogan & Hartson LLP was the law firm that represented Fox and the individual lawyers were Dori Ann Hanswirth, Tracey A. Tiska and Katherine M. Bolger, all from Hogan’s New York office.