On Activist Judges

The prescient comment by Judge Jones in the recent ruling in the Dover Panda Trial that "[t]hose who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge" was born out almost immediately by the Discovery Institute. In fact, it often seems that those who seek to use government to impose their will on others are the loudest complainers about so-called Judicial Activism. Timothy Sandefur has penned an excellent piece on the topic of "Judicial Activism" over on positive liberty. One of his points is that the purpose of the Constitution is not to impose a tyranny of the majority.

The Constitution does not exist to empower legislative majorities -- it exists to limit the power of legislative majorities. After all, legislative majorities don't really need anyone to give them power: they have plenty already, because they're the majority! It's the minority that needs protection of some sort.

I'd go further. In my opinion, it is the purpose of the Constitution to enumerate the powers ceded to all levels and branches of government by the people. Many of the complainers about "judicial activism" also object to what are called penumbra rights; that is rights which are not explicitly in the Constitution, but which are implied by the enumerated rights. Additionally, the current administration, whose supporters are among those who object to judicial activism and penumbra rights, seems to have no problem with penumbra executive powers. The problem with the collective view that individuals only have enumerated and limitted rights and government can have broad and unenumerated powers is that it turns the Constitution on its head. The Constitution is an enumeration of powers ceded by the people to government and it is explicitly not an enumeration of individual rights. 9th Amendment speaks directly to this last point.

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Individual rights are independent of the U.S. Constitution. Government powers are not. Unless a power is explicitly granted to a governmental authority by the U.S. Constitution, it has no authority to trespass on any individual right.

Watch out for the dreidel of doom!

Another dispatch from the War on Christmas, from Fafblog via Pharyngula.

"I hear they got Rudolph today," says me.

"No!" says Giblets. "Not Rudolph! With his unmatched dogfighting skills and his nose so bright he was invincible!"

"It's true," says me. "Zombie Judah Maccabee shot im down over the Island of Misfit Toys with his dreidel of doom."

"Damn you Hannukah!" says Giblets. "Will your eight days of madness never end!"

They never said this war was going to be easy. But damn that Zombie Judah Maccabee!

It's just a flesh wound!

The decision is out in the Dover Panda trial. The bottom line (as quoted elsewhere):

To preserve the separation of church and state mandated by the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and Art. I, §3 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, we will enter an order permanently enjoining Defendants from maintaining the ID Policy in any school within the Dover Area School District, from requiring teachers to denigrate or disparage the scientific theory of evolution, and from requiring teachers to refer to a religious, alternative theory known as ID.

Reading the transcripts, I would have been surprised if the defense had prevailed. Still, the plaintiffs got the broader of the possible rulings -- that Intelligent Design as it exists now is religious. This is exactly the ruling that the Discovery Institute asked the judge not to make[PDF], but like Monty Python's Black Night, they insist that it's just a flesh wound.

"Anyone who thinks a court ruling is going to kill off interest in intelligent design is living in another world," continued West. "Americans don't like to be told there is some idea that they aren't permitted to learn about.. It used to be said that banning a book in Boston guaranteed it would be a bestseller. Banning intelligent design in Dover will likely only fan interest in the theory."

But the ruling didn't deny anybody permission to learn about intelligent design. It merely said that intelligent design couldn't be forced into the science classrooms by government fiat. You have to do the science. Like the proponents of any other scientific theory, you have to convince the scientific community. Then your idea becomes the scientific consensus. And then your idea gets included in introductory science curricula created by the scientific community. You don't get to short-circuit that process and get into the curriculum by government mandate.

"In the larger debate over intelligent design, this decision will be of minor significance," added Discovery Institute attorney Casey Luskin. "As we've repeatedly stressed, the ultimate validity of intelligent will be determined not by the courts but by the scientific evidence pointing to design.”

Or the lack thereof. It's been nearly ten years since Michael Behe published Darwin's Black Box. It's been fifteen since Philip Johnson published Darwin On Trial. And yet there are only a handful of peer-reviewed papers that have been published by ID proponents in that time. They have got quite a long row to hoe before they can earn their way into the science curriculum.

Io, Saturnalia!

You know, I was thinking just this morning how amusing the most recent Foxified outrage against the War on Christmas is in light of the fact that it is essentially Saturnalia coopted from the pagans. I for one am sick of this millennia old War on Saturnalia and I will not stand for it any more. Any pointed greeting of "Merry Christmas" will be returned with a "Io, Saturnalia!" from now on.

On Mirecki

Gary Hurd has an excellent summary and analysis of the Mirecki mess over on The Pandas Thumb. He quotes the entire email and gives us his expert opinion on how he thinks the Mirecki assault went.

To Review

Mirecki noticed he was being tail-gated.

Mirecki pulled over to the side of the road in the dark. (Dumb move).

Two men approached him.

Mirecki got out of his car. (Very dumb move).

He was attacked, and ONLY received a bruise on his arm, black eyes from his glasses, and a few sore spots.

His chipped tooth could only be the result of being hit with his mouth open, as his lips were neither cut or swollen. This is also a strong piece of evidence that Mirecki’s injuries were not self inflicted.

From the background information provided, Mirecki is not a particularly physical man. When he said that “they beat the hell out of me,” I am certain this was from the point of view of someone who has never actually been severely beaten. He was hardly beaten at all. He does not know how to fight. (Mirecki is a sissy IMHO).

(Some relevant points of fact- I have been severely beaten, and I was not walking around 6 hours later, or even 2 days later. Second point of fact- I have examined bodies (and parts there of) of people who have died from violence including being beat to death. Third relevant point of fact- I have spent up to 38 hours on a surveillance, but always with a partner).

Based on the above presented above: Mirecki was not “spotted” on the road, he was followed, and probably from his home. He did not notice being followed until they were in a rural area. That is very hard to do in the dark with little traffic. During part of, or even most of the attack, one man held Mirecki while the other struck him.

Their attack was controlled so as not to kill or maim, hell, he did not even really need medical attention. The two assailants were obviously trained and worked together as a team. Having a partner is a critical need under the circumstance; the target might know how to fight, the target might get lucky. But the most important function of a partner is to stop you from going too far in your “lesson.” I learned while still in High School from one of my fighting instructors.

Who are the most likely people with that combination of training and conservative religious leanings in the relevant area?

It is a rather short list. Men trained in martial arts should have the technique and control to have produced Mirecki’s injuries. However, in my study, I never had a Sensei teach how to tail a suspect.

This outrage was sparked by Mirecki’s comment “a nice slap in their big fat face” refering to Intelligent Design Creationists.” It seems that egged on by political extremists including elected officials, Mirecki was physically slapped in the face. I find it notable that one religious right commenter actually referred to Mirecki being slapped ( Posted by: dcb at December 8, 2005 10:51 PM ). I have no doubt that his attackers felt quite proud of themselves.

I am not unsympathetic to the view that someone with training decided to put a scare into Mirecki.

On a sad note, Gary Hurd gives notice of his departure from PT.

This is my last post to Panda’s Thumb. There are contributors to PT whose personal politics are far closer to the rightist mob revealed above than to people with whom I will remain associated.

I am sorry that he feels that way. I think PT is a great resource and other political disagreement should not get in the way of the job that they do. But I don't have all the information and even if I did, that's not my call to make on someone else's behalf. I will miss seeing Gary's work on PT.

A net cast too broadly

I live and work near Washington DC. As I've noted before, this proximity has its benefits. I took advantage of my proximity to the Discovery Institute's DC location to listen to a presentation given there by Pamela Winnick, author of A Jealous God: Science's Crusade Against Religion, on my lunch hour this past Tuesday. I felt a bit odd being at a Discovery Institute office, since I am a fairly staunch opponent of political attacks on evolution, but Logan Gage, the DC Office Manager, was friendly and made me feel welcome. And I was able to put another face to a name I'd read in my occasional visits to the USENET newsgroup talk.origins: david ford (I'll link his site and email when I track down the card he gave me.) I am glad I went.

Now, as I've also noted before, I am a philosophical naturalist and I'm religious, so I was intrigued by the title of Ms. Winnick's book (I was fortunate enough to receive a free autographed copy at the talk, and I plan on reviewing it when I finish reading it.) She didn't talk on the evolution and creationism political controversy, but focused on a few other areas: specific cases of misbehaviour by scientists; bioethics; and poor or biased science resources for the general public and for schools. Among the motivations she assigned to bad actors were greed, racism and a general anti-religious bias.

My major objection to her talk is that these areas do not constitute what I think of when I think of science. Specific cases of misbehaviour no more damn science as a whole than specific cases of misbehaviour damn any other human endeavor, including religion. Bioethics is not science at all. Yes, there are specific bioethicists who feel that religious ethical systems that put forward moral absolutes justified by nothing more than divine command theory are harmful, but this is an ethical position, not a scientific one. And every scientist I know is extremely upset about the poor quality of science resources available to the general public, and even more upset about the resources available to schools. Even granting each point, it simply does not add up to a science crusade against religion. I'll leave detailed criticisms to my review of her book, and only present my summary of her talk in this post.

It was my impression that bioethics was at the core of her view that science is waging a crusade against religion. There were two times during her talk where she got to the heart of her complaint. At the start, she identified the premise of her book: that "the scientific community" is seeking to undermine the traditional Judeo-Christian ethical position that assigns equal value to all human life, regardless of the quality or nature of that life. And toward the end of her talk, she stated that the subject that represented the "worst assault on the Judeo-Christian tradition" was human cloning -- "creating human life with the intent to destroy it." Her fear is that scientists will start down the path to the The Island (the plot of the movie is that clones are raised to adulthood and then harvested for their organs.) Of cloning, she said "the danger is that we will created these clones and keep them alive for four or five months. ... Human clones could be a source for human organs."

My take on what she meant by the traditional Judeo-Christian view of the sanctity of all human life is inviolable and that nothing from zygote up to, but not including, a corpse can be excluded from this community of inviolable human life.

Regarding specific bad acts (this example had yet to be made public at the time of the talk, but it would have fit right in,) she talked about the U.S. Public Health Service Tuskegee Syphilis Study, and made some claims about modern practices that I expect are covered in the book. A modern case she did talk about was the gene therapy case of Jesse Gelsinger; and she noted that the head scientist, Dr. James M. Wilson (she didn't mention him by name,) had an apparent conflict of interest in that he owned a substantial amount of stock in the company that held the patents for the vector that he was testing. She said that "if [Wilson] violated protocols, then others are doing it, too." She mentioned a study by Adil Shamoo, a Professor of Medicine at the University of Maryland, that found from 1990-2000 there was a 1000% rise in adverse results in human trials.

She discussed the origin of the modern bioethics; but emphasized it's links to eugenics, noting that an early pioneer in bioethics, Joseph Fletcher, was a member of the American Eugenics Society. Several times she quoted someone at a conference on stem cell research expressing the sentiment that "we need to abolish the sanctity of human life" (I'm guessing it is Peter Singer, who does express something close to that sentiment.) She also mentioned Daniel Callahan and Willard Gaylin in connection with a BlueCross sponsored study on end of life care that I haven't been able to track down; the implication being that there was a financial conflict of interest.

Regarding popular science movements, she talked briefly about Paul Ehrlich and The Population Bomb; and about the population control movement. She strongly implied that the motivation of the movement was racist, saying something to the effect that the only population explosion was among the non-white population. She mentioned how this movement influenced public school text books, using as an example a definition of "responsible parenthood" from one; it was not to take good care of your children, but "to not have too many children." Additionally, she mentioned a textbook that talked about the evolution of skin color in an isolated population that was unrealistically rapid (again, this story had not yet broken, but could have fit in.)

Another thing that she mentioned was the patenting of genes, which she likened to slavery, but I really didn't follow her argument here. I assume she'll go into more detail in the book. I bring it up here because it ties into the greed motivation seen before with the Wilson affair and with the Blue Cross end of life study.

She spent a significant amount of time on embryonic stem cell research, saying that "the real attraction [for proponents] is that it beats down religion." She mentioned the ridiculous statement made by John Edwards during the 2004 campaign (source).

"We will do stem cell research," he vowed. "We will stop juvenile diabetes, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and other debilitating diseases. America just lost a great champion for this cause in Christopher Reeve. People like Chris Reeve will get out of their wheelchairs and walk again with stem cell research."

And this over-selling is ridiculous, but claiming that the real attraction for it is that it is anti-religious is nearly as ridiculous.

I think many of the things she brought up are legitimate complaints. But I also think that her premise, that science is on a crusade against religion, is unsupported by her examples. Specific bad acts occur in every field of human endeavor, including religion. The examples she cited do not seem to me to be motivated by any particular anti-religious bias. Bioethics is not science. The conflict she points to is between ethical systems such as utilitarianism and divine command theory. This is not an issue of science against religion, but of one ethical system against another -- and the attacks are hardly one-sided. And I agree that, to the extent that there are bad science resources, they should be corrected. If there is a misleading statement or scientifically unsupported statement in a science textbook, it absolutely should be corrected.

Toward the end of her presentation, she talked about the responsibility of journalists. She said that few journalists read medical journals, and I concur that most science reporting is superficial. I think that science reporters should have a strong science background and should be familiar, able and willing to report the caveats that are included in journal articles. She said that journalists should be skeptical of the claims of scientists, and I agree. Especially the claims of publicity seeking scientists. But I think she does a disservice by damning an entire field from the acts of a few. I think she does a disservice by equivocating between a battle of ethical systems and a battle between science and religion. And lastly, I think she does a disservice by implying that the laziness of her current profession is a problem with science.

[Update: In response to a comment from my wife, I would like to note that the purpose of this post is primarily to accurately report Ms. Winnick's presentation as I heard it, and secondarily to present my main objection and only my main objection: that the general tone of the presentation, the claim that science is waging a crusade against religion, is both unsupported by her examples and harmful in its own right. There are some exceptions I would take with Ms. Winnick's interpretation of specific events and I also have some strong opinions regarding the ethical arguments discussed, but I felt that going into those topics would both make a long post much longer and would only perpetuate the confusion of these topics with science in general.]

Intelligent Design creationism insists it's not dead yet

The New York Times provides yet another data point for The Longest Running Falsehood in Creationism. Discovery Institute's President Bruce Chapman gives us this near perfect example:

Contrary to "Intelligent Design Might Be Meeting Its Maker" (Week in Review, Dec. 4), more scientists than ever support intelligent design and criticize Darwinism.

Yep, more and more scientists have been getting ready to dump evolution for -- for what exactly? There is no theory of Intelligent Design. Chapman trots out the Prague Intelligent Design conference, which was greeted rather tepidly by actual Czech scientists:

"Yes, there are a lot of different alternatives [to Darwin's theory of evolution] but not scientific ones. In fact, Darwin's theory is still the only possibility and very satisfactory possibility to explain the origin, the changes or evolution of life on our planet. I think intelligent design is just a new strategy of the opponents of scientific explanation of the origin of life, a new and quite successful strategy but not for scientists, just for the common public."
...
"Among the scientific community, there is no support for [intelligen design.] As far as I know there is no real scientist who takes this approach seriously." [Jaroslav Flegr from Prague's Charles University and author of the book "Evolutionary Biology"]

Chapman also cites Discovery Institute's "Dissent From Darwin" list which is, as the title suggests, not a statement of support for Intelligent Design creationism, but a rather tepid statement of skepticism which could easily be signed by someone who holds the consensus view that the modern synthesis is correct (if that someone were to ignore the political motivations of the list's compilers.)

Chapman's closing is hilarious:

Yes, there is strong, organized opposition to intelligent design, but that is nothing new. To my knowledge, none of the critics quoted in your article supported the theory in the past. So their opposition now is hardly a surprise.

So the fact that the vast majority of scientists recognized the vacuity of Intelligent Design creationism without having accepted it first is somehow evidence that Intelligent Design creationism is still going strong among scientists. It's not whether or not the opponents of Intelligent Design creationism ever accepted it that determines its validity as a science; it's whether Intelligent Design creationism's proponents ever do any Intelligent Design oriented science. And there is a dearth of science done by Intelligent Design creationists.

The War on Christmas is Hell

It is utter hell.

More nonsense

In an earlier entry, I commented on a criticism of the defense of reason by Charles Krauthammer and George Will by long-time anti-evolutionist Tom Bethell. Now Paul Weyrich weighs in on the side of nonsense.

Many Americans are focused on what should be taught in the schools regarding our universe and the Earth — how life as we know it has come to be.

The question of what should be included in an introductory science curriculum is not difficult -- the current scientific consensus. Intelligent design is nowhere on the radar in that department. Weyrich pretty much admits as much when he devotes most of his effort to citing five Fellows at the pro-Intelligent Design think tank The Discovery Institute and one scientist not affiliated with the Discovery Institute about how much they doubt the efficacy of Darwinian evolution rather than citing any scientific work done on behalf of Intelligent Design. And it's no surprise why, since there has been a vanishingly small amount of scientific work done in Intelligent Design. Intelligent design in science is pretty much God an intelligent designer of the gaps dressed up in a lab coat. Weyrich's later comments on The Discovery Institute's current position makes this clear.

The Discovery Institute takes an interesting position on what should be taught in the public schools. It advised the Dover School Board, now the focus of the court case in Pennsylvania, not to push the teaching of Intelligent Design.

It is obvious to me why the Discovery Institute would rather try to poke holes in modern evolutionary theory than present their own theory. Because there is no theory of Intelligent Design. But that doesn't stop Weyrich.

It is not mixing apples and oranges to note the vituperation of the Darwinists who cannot stand having a competing theory discussed.

There is no competing theory. There a smoke-like whisp of an idea. Going back in the article, Weyrich quotes Cambell and Meyer from Darwinism, Design and Public Education.

Intelligent Design is "the theory that certain features of the physical universe and/or biological systems can be best explained by reference to an intelligent cause (that is, the conscious action of an intelligent agent), rather than an undirected natural process or a material mechanism."

That's not a theory in the scientific sense, it's a guess. It's the Thor intelligent hammerer theory of thunder. Even if there are holes in a natural explanation of a phenomenon, bringing in an intelligence ex machina has never been a useful answer.

Like Bethell, Weyrich chides Krauthammer.

Krauthammer asserted that Intelligent Design is "today's tarted up version of creationism." There is a significant difference. Creationists view the Bible's word to be the equivalent of scientific text. Believers in Intelligent Design come to their conclusion by the evidence they find in nature. They understand the complexity of the cell; they see the vastness of the universe. Belief in Intelligent Design stems from reason, not revelation.

But that's not really true. Intelligent Design is a reaction to the rulings of the 1980s that held that laws requiring the teaching of Creation Science were unconstitutional because Creation Science was inherently religious. If you try to strip out any overtly religious assumptions in Creation Science, what you're left with is Intelligent Design. As Barbara Forrest reported(PDF) in her testimony at the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial, the '80s era Creation Science textbook Creation Biology morphed into the Intelligent Design textbook Of Pandas and People.

Weyrich closes with this:

Intelligent Design can stand on its merits despite the attempt by Darwin's true believers to label it as sheer creationism. Many scientists who study the universe or cellular biology are increasingly intrigued by their complex processes. It takes more than chance to create such complex systems. Remember it was Einstein who said, "God does not play dice with the universe."

If Intelligent Design could stand on its own merits, it would. It can't, so it sits around trying vaguely to poke holes in real science. And Einstein did say that -- he was talking about Quantum Mechanics. And he was apparently wrong.

Tai Shan

After our daughter was born, we joined the Friends of the National Zoo, which has been our best investment yet for giving us easy to plan fun days with the little girl. Most recently, my wife was able to procure tickets that entitled us to 10 minutes with the Giant Panda Cub, Tai Shan. I had visions of presenting my imaginary readers with spectacular original photos of the cute little guy. Unfortunately, Tai Shan was sleeping on Sunday from 12:10 to 12:20pm, so no such luck. Lily was really disappointed, but that mostly blew over shortly as we checked out an Elephant and a Giraffe on our way out. C'est la vie. We'll have to try again when Tai Shan's exhibit is opened to the public.

A conservative ignores Augustine

The Catholic Saint Augustine once said:

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he hold to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation... .

This point can be generalized from Catholic proselyzation to pretty much any advocacy; if you see someone talking nonsense while advocating a cause with which you agree, you should seek to stop him. Charles Krauthammer and George Will, among others, have sought to do that on behalf of modern American conservatism with regards to the political anti-science Intelligent Design movement. But Tom Bethell soldiers on with the nonsense.

George Will tells us that evolution is a fact. Is it? It depends on what you mean by evolution. Add an antibiotic to a dish of bacteria, so that some die and some survive, and bacterial resistance may be seen. This is said to illustrate natural selection — Charles Darwin's great discovery and claim to fame — and, therefore, evolution in action. Charles Krauthammer is pleased to tell us that the advocates of intelligent design "admit" that natural selection "explains such things as the development of drug resistance."

But what actually happens in the Petri dish? Some of the bacteria are naturally equipped with enzymes that give them immunity to the antibiotic. So they survive, while most of the bacteria die. Nutrients remain in the dish, and the resistant strain now has an ample food supply and multiplies. Before, it could hardly compete with the far more abundant strain, now wiped out. So the (pre-existing) resistant strain becomes more numerous. There is a multiplication of something that already existed. But as the famous geneticist Thomas Hunt Morgan said about 100 years ago — he spent years studying fruit flies at Columbia University and was rewarded with the Nobel Prize — evolution means making new things, not more of what already exists.

The problem here is that Bethell takes one example that is often used because it is easy for the layman to understand and presents it as if it were the only example. It's simply not. For one, there are experiments showing improved environmental fitness in populations taken from a single individual organism. These populations are called clonal. One of several examples from the Beneficial Mutations page of Robert Williams's Evidences for Evolution website is this (details can be found in Selection: The Mechanism of Evolution by Graham Bell):

Chlamydomonas is a unicellular green algae capable of photosynthesis in light, but also somewhat capable of growth in the dark by using acetate as a carbon source. Graham Bell cultured several clonal lines of Chlamydomonas in the dark for several hundred generations. Some of the lines grew well in the dark, but other lines were almost unable to grow at all. The poor growth lines improved throughout the course of the experiment until by 600 generations they were well adapted to growth in the dark. This experiment showed that new, beneficial mutations are capable of quickly (in hundreds of generations) adapting an organism that almost required light for survival to growth in the complete absence of light.

So here is an example of a mutation that improves fitness. Bethell might object that the original organism could use acetate to grow, so we only have a mutation which improves a pre-existing function. And yet we have moved a step beyond his original objection that "the (pre-existing) resistant strain becomes more numerous." This could not have been a pre-existing strain, since we started with one individual. But is there an example of a new function being added? Courtesy of Dave Thomas over at the New Mexicans for Science and Reason, yep.

My favorite example of a mutation producing new information involves a Japanese bacterium that suffered a frame shift mutation that just happened to allow it to metabolize nylon waste. The new enzymes are very inefficient (having only 2% of the efficiency of the regular enzymes), but do afford the bacteria a whole new ecological niche. They don't work at all on the bacterium's original food - carbohydrates. And this type of mutation has even happened more than once!

Now, as Dave Thomas mentioned later in his piece, Nylon didn't exist before 1935. And the mutation produced an enzyme that could metabolize Nylon but not the bacterium's original food source. So this mutation allowed the organism to produce an enzyme that allowed the bacterium to do something that it couldn't have needed to do before -- it introduced a new function. But what about the evolution of multicellular organisms from single cells? Yep.

[Boraas, M. E. 1983. Predator induced evolution in chemostat culture. EOS. Transactions of the American Geophysical Union. 64:1102] reported the induction of multicellularity in a strain of Chlorella pyrenoidosa (since reclassified as C. vulgaris) by predation. He was growing the unicellular green alga in the first stage of a two stage continuous culture system as for food for a flagellate predator, Ochromonas sp., that was growing in the second stage. Due to the failure of a pump, flagellates washed back into the first stage. Within five days a colonial form of the Chlorella appeared. It rapidly came to dominate the culture. The colony size ranged from 4 cells to 32 cells. Eventually it stabilized at 8 cells. This colonial form has persisted in culture for about a decade. The new form has been keyed out using a number of algal taxonomic keys. They key out now as being in the genus Coelosphaerium, which is in a different family from Chlorella.

And PZ Myers recently posted on an interesting beastie that is only slightly more organized than the colonial algae above in that it has "at least four functionally distinct cell types." Can we show an example of this trait evolving in front of us from a colonial organism with only one cell type in the same way that we've shown the development of improved and new functions? I don't know, there's a lot of work done in evolutionary biology that I haven't read, but let's say no. Given what we do know about what has actually happened (and there are many more examples, some less accessable to laymen like myself than the ones I've listed -- it is science and a lot of it does require quite a bit of study to understand,) is there any barrier to this having happened? I don't see one. In fact, I think that the burden here falls squarely on a skeptic to propose an alternative mechanism. Mutation and environmental selection seems quite capable of bridging this gap.

But back to Bethell.

We are expected to believe — and I do mean believe — that evolution answers the important question: How did life, in all its abundance, appear on Earth?

No, we are not expected to believe. We are allowed to question anything in science. But answers can be long and complicated and we are expected to do some research. Above, Bethell dismisses one small subset of the many examples of short-time selection experiments in one sentence. In answer, I made a few quick references to popular sources, which represent hundreds of pages of peer-reviewed work and thousands of hours of research that answers that objection. We aren't expected to believe it, but you are expected to do some work if we have questions. Bethell didn't do his homework.

Next, he asks us to consider the argument between the scientific consensus held by the vast majority of scientists and the Intelligent Design proponents.

Whom to believe? Or maybe we should approach it more scientifically: What are the facts?

If we discount trivial examples like bacterial resistance or "change over time" or small changes in beak size among the finches of the Galapagos Islands, we don't know very much about evolution at all. We don't see it happening around us, or in the rocks.

In my book, I quote Colin Patterson, a senior paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History, telling a professional audience at the American Museum in New York that there was "not one thing" he knew about evolution. He had asked the evolutionary-morphology seminar at the University of Chicago if there was anything they knew about it, and, he said: "The only answer I got was silence."

Patterson, who died a few years ago, was an atheist and once told me that he regarded the Bible as "a pack of lies." There was no way he could be accused of Biblical primitivism. People would ask him, with a note of alarm, "Well, you do believe in evolution, don't you?" He would respond that science wasn't supposed to be a system of belief.

Whom should we believe? Whom did Colin Patterson believe? We have this to help us, which quotes Colin Patterson from Evolution:

"I see the general historical theory, common descent, as being as firmly established as just about anything else in history. We have compelling reasons to believe that Napoleon and the Roman empire existed, although we don't know every detail of what went on in Napoleon's life or in Rome and its colonies; it is much the same with evolution. There is abundant documentary evidence for Napoleon and the Roman empire; there is abundant evidence for common descent in the hierarchy of homologies at both the structural and morphological level, though those documents may not be so easy to read."

And

"Today's theory, accepting that evolution has occurred and explaining it by neo-Darwinism plus neutralism, is the best that we have. It is a fruitful theory, a stimulus to thought and research, and we should accept it until nature prompts someone to think of one that is better or more complete."

I think that is a fair answer. But let's step back a second and look at Bethell's question again: whom should we believe about what? The Intelligent Design debate is not really a scientific debate. Scientific debate occurs in journals and conferences. To my knowledge, Intelligent Design advocates have published exactly one paper (of dubious quality) on Intelligent Design.

The real Intelligent Design debate is about secondary school science education. And what should be taught in a secondary school science class is the scientific consensus. The scientific consensus is firmly with evolution and common descent; there is no debate about that.

Bethell wants to challenge the scientific validity of Evolutionary Theory, but he doesn't want to do the hard work involved in actually challenging it in peer reviewed journals. He goes on to list more objections to evolution, but each one is as empty as his objection to the evolution antibiotic resistance. And then he asserts of evolution that "it isn't real science."

Except that the vast majority of actual scientists -- even the ones that Bethell quotes to support his position -- claim that evolution is real science. Not only is it a real science, it is the current scientific consensus -- unless you accuse the scientific community of a near-universal dishonesty. And the scientific consensus is what belongs in a secondary school introductory science curriculum.

I was much amused by Bethell's closing zing at George Will's assertion that Intelligent Design was not falsifiable.

This is true; but he should have added that Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is not falsifiable either. Darwin's claim to fame was his discovery of a mechanism of evolution; he accepted "survival of the fittest" as a good summary of his natural-selection theory. But which ones are the fittest? The ones that survive. There is no criterion of fitness that is independent of survival. Whatever happens, it is the "fittest" that survive — by definition.

But Bethell is only complaining about the phrase "survival of the fittest," not about the actual mechanism of natural selection. Natural selection is simply a generalization from the type of observation that Bethell granted at the beginning of his piece with antibiotic resistance in a bacterial population. Natural selection could be falsified if there were no heritable morphological variations (such as long versus short fur) that can affect an individual's likelyhood of surviving to reproduction in a given environment (such as in Northern Alaska.)

In conclusion, Bethell provides us with an example of a conservative "talking nonsense" as Augustine put it. He is either arguing that the vast majority of scientists are involved in a conspiracy to lie to the public; or he is missing the point of the argument about what to require in a secondary school science curriculum by arguing against the science of evolution (and without doing his homework.) Reasonable people should not believe that scientists are involved in a world-wide conspiracy to deceive the public. And reasonable people should recognize that the required material for an introductory science course should be the current scientific consensus.

A man's right to decide ...

... whether or not a woman can choose to end her pregnancy. That's what Dalton Conley thinks (New York Times, registration required) ought to be our male prerogative, should we have put forth enough effort to complete the act that initiates the pregnancy. He's been there.

About a decade ago, my girlfriend became pregnant. It wasn't planned, but it wasn't exactly unplanned either, in that we obviously knew how biology worked. I desperately wanted to keep the baby, but she wasn't ready, and there were some minor medical concerns about the fetus, so she decided to terminate the pregnancy against my wishes. What right did I have to stop her? As it turned out, none. It was, indeed, a woman's right to choose.

Exactly so. My intentional contribution to my wife's pregnancy took, well, less than an hour. My wife's contribution started there. I was a witness to my wife's pregnancy. This is not to say that I washed my hands of it; I did everything I could to be supportive. But the biological fact is that it was not (and could not be) my body in which the fertilized egg started and continued the process of becoming our daughter.

I was free to drink alcohol without concern for the physical effect it might have on the growing fetus. I was never nauseous. My body stayed pretty much the same shape through the entire process. My blood pressure didn't change. My blood sugar was normal. None of this was the case for my wife.

How does Mr. Conley describe pregnancy?

... those 40 weeks of pregnancy - as intense as they may be - are merely a small fraction of a lifetime commitment to that child.

Intense. The pregnancy was intense. The birth was more than intense. I witnessed my wife give birth to a healthy 10 pound 1 ounce baby girl; though it was only thanks to Dr. Rossi's training that the umbilical chord wrapped around Lily's neck did no damage. And I believe that it was only due to that modern medical training that my wife had a reasonable chance to survive the birth of such a large baby. It was not a C-section delivery. And it was only due to the epidural that she wasn't in screaming agony during the birth.

There were times that day that I thought I had lost both the baby and my wife. My heart would clinch up as a contraction started and I heard the beeps from the fetal heart monitor drop to one second per beep. Then two seconds. Then three. "Is it going to start again?" I'd think as the contraction subsided and the beeping sped up again. Wait. Repeat.

And it's time. The doctor is frustrated and yelling "Hold her leg up! Higher! Here! Like this!" And there's lots of blood. When the baby comes, she flops out. "They all do that, no muscle tone," I think. Another team takes the baby away immediately. "As long as my wife is OK," I say to myself, "then I'll be OK." I stay with my wife. The doctor is stitching away and there's so much blood and I'm really scared. I watch the doctor as he stitches for a very long time.

"Did they say it was a girl?" my wife asked for the second time.

"Huh? I didn't hear." I go over to look and there she is staring up at me with the deep blue infant eyes perfectly awake. Perfectly alert. And I burst into tears.

It was more than intense. And yet, aside from voluntary sleep and food deprivation, I had no physical problems that day.

I know exactly how much right I have to tell my wife that she can't choose not to go through that again, even if she has agreed to do so in advance. Exactly none.

The bottom line is that if we want to make fathers relevant, they need rights, too. If a father is willing to legally commit to raising a child with no help from the mother he should be able to obtain an injunction against the abortion of the fetus he helped create.

Bullshit. We don't need the "right" to force a woman to carry a pregnancy to term against her will in order for fatherhood to be relevant. And a promise of future commitment to a future child can not buy an unwilling woman's body as an incubator. The very idea is repugnant.

Consider a similar situation. Assume a child is ill and only an organ transplant from his father will let him live. Further, lets say that the father makes a public promise to be a donor for the son and later backs out. No promise of future support by the mother can buy the unwilling father's organ. We simply don't have the right to force other people to sacrifice their bodies. The idea is repugnant.