How I wish I had those squidly tentacles of doom...

So I'm just going to link to PZ at Pharyngula for this post on the age of the earth. It's too well done and too good of a take-down for me to really try to add anything to it other than "Snaps!" and, perhaps, "Boo-yah!"

Ah, science. Helping people more closely approximate reality for over 300 years.

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Plate Tectonics - A Theory in Crisis?

Let's talk a moment about the theory of Plate Tectonics.

Scientists have this new-fangled theory about the continents sitting on huge "plates" that slosh around all over the place and collide with one another. They even say that at one point, all the continents were all joined up together in one big piece! They say they have a lot of evidence, and let's be honest, we're not arguing that there are certain facts we can agree upon, it's simply the interpreation of these facts that we disagree with. I mean, we've all experienced earthquakes or tremors, and this kind of micromovement we can agree upon, but macromovement? The movement of entire continents? I think not! Were you there to see them move? Also, isn't the whole thing rather circular? Earthquakes occur along fault lines and we know where fault lines are because earthquakes happen there? I'm not saying we shouldn't teach plate tectonics in geography and geology classes, merely that we should teach the strengths and weaknesses of the theory, teach the controversy, and let the kids decide. After all, it is only a theory.

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Of course the above paragraph is mostly bullshit. Plate tectonics is indeed an accepted science, and there is a lot of evidence for it (some quite recent). The point is, the exact same argument made by creationists against evolution can in fact be used against every area of science, and this is what some of them are actually driving at. Part of the problem, for some of these people, is that science doesn't deal in proof. It deals in evidence and the most likely explanations for a series of facts.

So, to begin with, let's get a few things straight.

A fact, in science, is roughly equivalent with the idea of data (though humanity studies love to point out that data is what is "given" while a fact is "made"...thanks guys). It is an observation that can be objectively verified. For example, it is a fact that when I release an object, it falls down. It is a fact that the sun appears to rise in the east. It is a fact that earthquakes occur. It is a fact that the magnetic orientation of rocks on various continents align to a point in space as they are now, but if the continents were closer together, they would converge on the north pole. It is a fact that we have a large, though certainly incomplete, fossil record of species that seems to show transformations from one to another while preserving significant morphological, geographical, biomolecular (in some special cases), and chronological similarities. It is a fact that we have witnessed events of speciation the lab and in the wild within the past few decades. It is a fact that we have witnessed novel mutations bringing about a net increase in fitness. Several of my previous posts deal with these issues and more.

A law, in science, is a description of how certain principles operate, typically expressed in mathematics. For example, there are Newton's Laws of motion. These describe the ways that objects behave and finally pin down those really hard observations like "the harder you shove something the faster it moves." I'm not trivializing here - F=ma is a very important law, and it took us centuries to nail it down. Good going, Newton. Likewise, there is Newton's Law of Gravity - it describes to a fair degree of accuracy how two bodies of mass interact with one another in the absence of other forces. There are also laws in population genetics, a field with some notable influence in evolutionary biology. A law is not the "highest" class of scientific ideas - they are merely a subset of them. Getting a law named after you is a pretty cool thing, though.

A theory, in science, is a well-tested explanation that attempts to tie together a large set of facts and laws and explain why they are the way they are. For example, we had Newton's Law of Gravity for a long time (as well as his theory), but it failed in some important aspects, specifically with the orbit of Mercury. Also, his theory had low plausibility. It wasn't until Einstein that we understood why the planets orbit the way they do (i.e., due to the curvature of space-time), and also picked up some pretty cool new predictions, such as gravitational lensing. These predictions, a necessary component of any theory, allow for evidence supporting its veracity, but they don't "prove" a theory true. A theory never graduates into a "law" or any such thing, it either stands the test of time, or is falsified and rejected in the harsh reality of the scientific world. What works stays and gets refined over the years, what doesn't work is rejected and scorned. Sorry, them's the breaks. So, for example, we still don't say that Einstein's Theory of Relativity has been proven true - people are constantly trying to disprove it. However, so far, no one has been able to offer verifiable evidence against it. It stands thus far, but may be replaced in the future. That's one of the wonderful things about science, we go where the evidence leads us, and we're willing to change our minds. Hell, we may even win a Nobel Prize in the process. Sweet! This is also why the "just a theory" claim is so laughable. A theory is a battle-tested and hardened contentor in science. We want to teach our theories, they're the best explanations we have in the world.

Anyways, back to what this has to do with plate tectonics and evolution.

I've heard the arguments I started out with said about evolution all the time. It's really pretty trite, I must say, and five minutes with a google search or a good librarian should be able to clear up these misconcepts. Darwin proposed his theory of evolution in 1859, and within a few decades, the scientific debate over the matter was settled - Darwin was right. Now, the funny thing is, I hear people say all the time, "We have evidence for microevolution, but not macro. That's just fantasy." What makes this laughable, beyond its merely being invented by creationists, is that it comes from our rather peculiar time in history. Had we lived when Darwin first published his book, the argument would have been exactly the opposite. Darwin based his theory on evidence from palentology, biogeography, comparative anatomy, physiology, and embryology and drew a very large picture. He had no workable theory of inheritance, the "micro" of this particular scale. It wasn't until the 1950s, actually, until we had a solid model of that, which allowed for the neo-Darwinian synthesis. Since that point, Creationists have been making a huge effort to ignore or create elaborate explanations for all the evidence that had existed and continues to mount against them.

One of the more laughable comments from creationists is the "Where you there?!" question, intended to cast doubt on any scientific theory, because, as they say, it is supposed to be based entirely on "observable evidence," which for them means only which can be seen under a microscope in a lab. I'm sorry, creationists, but science is bigger and more imaginative than that. When you have a theory that allows for predictions, and can go out and test those predictions, and follow the evidence, well, that's science. For example, Neil Shubin knew that there had to have existed an intermediary between fish and amphibians. He predicted, based on the theory of evolution, when this type of creature had to have lived. He went out and found rock of that age (I may go into how geological layers are laid down, and why there is no single geological column that contains all the layers, in another post), and bam...there Tiktaalik was. More confirmation of the predictions of evolutionary theory, which goes to offer more support for evolutionary theory. Listen, if you want to say evolutionary theory is false, well, okay, you've still got to explain the facts of evolution that we've seen, as well as come up with evidence that the theory doesn't work, and supply a theory that has at least as much evidence and plausibility as evolution has going for it now.

Now, the plausibility bit is important. The old saw is "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence," and that's true. The more prior plausibility you have, the less extraordinary the evidence you must have to make a claim believable. For example, if I am known to love cookies and tell you that I had a cookie this afternoon, you'd probably believe me. If, however, I am deathly allergic to cookies, have shown you how terrible my reactions are in the past, and then saunter in and tell you that I just got done eating twenty-three pounds of cookies, you'd probably ask for some proof or just assume I'm bullshitting you. It's the same in science - the work is still based on evidence, but the more out-there your claims, or the more it directly contradicts all the evidence we have so far, or proposes new mechanisms, the more evidence you have to have to convince people. Likewise, this is why supernatural explanations don't work - they have low prior plausibility and they are utterly untestable. Science is a field in which testing is supreme. When you say you want to insert an untestable, unnatural explanation in there, you've got a contradiction of terms.

Some people say that evolution is a circular argument - the survival of the fittest really means that whatever survives is the fittest. Well, not really. Evolution predicts the differential survival of individuals dependent on the interaction of their differential genetic and behavioral characteristics and the dynamic environment. "Fit" is not a static thing, it changes from environment to environment and from species to species. Sometimes, otherwise fit organisms die in catacylsmic events. Too bad. What you end up with the differential survival of alleles in populations. That's the important thing - evolution is about populations.

Evolutionary theory takes evidence from biology, palentology, geography, geology, chemistry, and many other fields to create a comprehensive explanation for the diversity of life forms and generate new predictions. There are significant controversies in evolutionary theory, but they're not the ones that creationists tell you about. They're about things like gradualism versus punctuated equilibrium and the overall influence of genetic drift versus natural or sexual selection. If you doubt evolution, with all the evidence for it, I would argue either you haven't done your homework well enough, have been indoctrinated against it, or should also doubt that gravity exists, that the earth is roughly spherical, that modern medicine has anything going for (as so much of it is based on evolutionary theory anyway), or that atoms exist. We're talking about the same levels of evidence here.

Anyways, look up plate tectonics sometime. It's a fascinating field, and some of the lines of evidence for it are just great. Science, people!

Lastly, a guy I've had some frequent debates with, Tom Sheepandgoats, is fond of a phrase: "Why should I listen to scientists telling me that my car doesn't work when I'm driving along in it?" It's pithy, I admit. I can understand the feeling behind it - some of science is quite counterintuitive and some of it is incredibily difficult to grasp. However, my response would be that it was in fact science and technology that built the car and explain how it works in the first place - how chemical reactions release energy stored in hydrogen bonds in the hydrocarbon fuel and powers a drive train to produce rotation in the wheels, which interacts through friction with the road to propel the car foward. In fact, it seems more the creationists who want to argue that the car can't work, even though it clearly does. They continually deny evidence put before them, or argue things along the lines that because the drive train can't steer the car or because the steering wheel can't propel the car, cars are impossible, or because they haven't personally seen any tractor trailers, they deny the possibility that tractor trailers exist, even though other people have seen them.

For one example of this, I'm going to go for radioisotope dating. You get a lot of claims about radiocarbon dating being wildly inaccurate or incorrect. For example, Kent Hovind loves to talk about living mollusks being dated to millions of years old, or shrimp, or marine seals....hmm...there's something going on here. His statements are actually true - these creatures have been dated with obviously wrong dates, but they are also incredibly misleading. In one video, Hovind even cites one of the studies he's quoting from, but he doesn't give the title - which clearly states that the paper is about fraudulent dates for mollusks and marine animals and why it happens. Listen, these creatures are filter feeders that tend to live in and feed on carbon-14 depleted environments. This becomes incorporated in their shells and bodies, and then when other marine predators eat them, they likewise absorb depleted carbon. It's true, radiocarbon dating is very inaccurate for marine organisms, and this is one of the reasons that scientists don't use it for those types of creatures! See, that's the other thing. Scientists aren't stupid. They know the limits of their tools and they're careful to describe exactly what they're doing with what and why. You use radiocarbon dating for a narrow range of materials and it has a limited time period in which it is generally accurate. Luckily, we have many other kinds of radioactive dating, all of which can be independently verified by other means. Likewise, creationists often play up the "random chance" element of evolution - the mutations. They always forget the selective elements, or the evidence that mutations can increase fitness. If you need a real-world, real-time example...let's use viruses, Influenza A H1N1, for example. There you go. Thank you, done.

That's about it for now. If you want to comment or debate any of these issues, feel free to reply. Likewise, if you see any mistakes, go for it.

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Back to the fronts.

I've been gone for a little while. I know, I'm sorry. I had to take a vacation of sorts. A very good friend came up, and I've been showing her the city for the week. I also needed a break from work. Not in an "oh, I hate my job" sort of way. I love my job. It's just, I've been going pretty much non-stop this whole year, and it was nice to sit down for a week and just have some fun.

So, basically, I took a science vacation. We went to the Field Museum, the Museum of Science and Industry, the Shedd Aquarium, and the Adler Planetarium. If you're ever in Chicago, get a City Pass and visit these places. Plan on spending about a day on each. Maybe...MAYBE condense the Aquarium and the Planetarium into a single day, but definitely plan on a day (at least) for both the Museums. They're absolutely amazing. Amazing. And full of science.

I highly recommend the "Evolving Planet" exhibit at the Field...absolutely stunning. Standing among all those fossils, all those records of the past is absolutely awe-inspiring. As you hit the Cambrian and the Devonian...well, just keep in mind the accusation by Creationists that "all the major body plans and lifeforms appeared during the Cambrian explosion and haven't changed much since." Right...like...trilobites. And Anomalocaris saron. And Opabinia regalis. And Hallucigenia sparsa. Go check out anything on the Burgess Shale, or any other record from the Cambrian. I guess the question to keep in mind when viewing this, and say, anything like the placoderms of the Devonian is "Okay...well, where are the rabbits? Or the cows? Or the mammals? Or the birds? Or the amphibians (though, granted, by the Devonian, we begin to have ancestors of those), or the reptiles? Dinosaurs?" Nope. None of those. We don't even have tetrapods until the Sarcopterygii in the Devonian. Apparently, tetrapods are not a major body plan or grouping of animals to the more silly Creationists. Oh well. Good job, Discovery Institute.

One of the greatest things in the Evolving Planet display, though, is the hominid fossils. And very clearly, there is a large screen which shows the branching of the hominid tree. Take a glance at the chart on this article on human evolution. Note. It is a not a linear model with each species evolving into the next, as we so often see in cartoons like:


Wrong! The picture is a bit more like this:



The analogous argument of "Well, if we evolved from monkeys, why are their still monkeys around?" is defeated thusly: First, we did not evolve from modern monkeys. Rather, monkeys, apes, and humans all shared a common primate (or proto-primate) ancestor. Second, this is like saying, "If a lot of Americans are descended from Europeans, why are there still Europeans around?" Because we branched off into separate groups that have gone their own ways. Just because your grandparents had one child does not mean that they could not have had another. You can have cousins (trust me), and given enough time and differing environmental and genetic pressures, you can grow to be quite distinct families. If you have cousins, ask yourself if the question "which side of the family really carries on the family line?" makes any sense. It's the same basic story for human evolution, just on a much vaster time scale.

(Short side note - yes, evolution does require vast time scales. Many Creationists want to argue for much shorter time periods. Luckily for us, the evidence is completely against them. Any attempt to show that the universe is a mere 6,000 to 10,000 years old runs into inexplicable problems, unless the Creationist is willing to argue a few things: 1) God miracled away all the problems, which...fine, but it isn't science, and God doesn't spend much time talking about these miracles (which, believe me, would be much more fantastic than feeding a few thousand people) or 2) God is actively trying to deceive us, knowing that we would eventually discover science and reason. If you want to argue for a mischievous and deceiving God, then go right ahead, but please, take it to its logical conclusions.)

Anyway, Field Museum - highly recommended in my book. All the exhibits are fantastic.

As for the Museum of Science and Industry, I could go there every day. First off, their space exhibit is incredible. They also have the real re-entry pod for the Apollo 8 mission. I cannot describe to you the sense of awe and connection with human history that standing in front of it brings, or just touring the exhibit in general. It makes me sad that in the intervening years after the last moon mission (Apollo 17) we have yet to set foot on another world again. As Carl Sagan said, we have waded our toes out into the surf of the cosmic ocean, but have returned to our mother's apron strings and have yet to venture out again. This is not to say that we haven't done some spectacular science in the meantime, nor is it to say that I am not a fan of the robotic missions (each are fascinating and incredibly valuable). It's just...there's that sense of wonder that fills you every time you see these objects of our history and you know, that despite all the problems and dangers (there were many and they were substantial) that we did this. We, as humans, working together, made it to another world and returned safely. And we can do it again.

Another huge bump for the MSI is the U505. Again, words fail me to describe the feeling as you walk through the upper levels of the exhibit, slowly descending and learning about the history of the boat. Finally, you turn a corner into the exhibit hall and...well, there it is. The entire boat. The real thing. The real, smack-the-steel boat sitting in front of you. It's just...it sends shivers down your spine.

Lastly, the Adler Planetarium. The shows are amazing, and the exhibits are great and very informative. If you want to know what we're learning about space, go check it out. If nothing else, go to the "Shoot for the Moon!" exhibit, which details the history of the Gemini (and a bit about the Apollo) missions. And yes, they currently have the Gemini XII re-entry module.

So, all this to say...I've been gone, but now I'm back. I feel better, rejuvenated, and I've spent a lot of time soaking up some quite wonderful science. So, to all you pseudo-scientific and woo-woo masters out there, all I have to say is: "Bring it on."

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I'm Not Sure What You're Trying to Convince Me Of...

I was reading this...interesting...appendix on Twenty Reasons Why Genesis and Evolution Do Not Mix, by the one and only Ken Ham.

I was struck by the fact that many of his paragraphs could be taken almost word for word from the atheist's side as an argument against creationism and theism. In fact, when I first started reading, I really wasn't sure what he was trying to convince me of - the utter indefensibility of creationist and theist positions? Does ole Kenny-boy even realize this? I'm doubtful of it, but it gave me the opportunity for a good, long chuckle.

Amazingly, if we take out his several outright lies, clean it up a bit, and edit a few things, we have a good, short list of irreconcilable differences between atheists and literalist religious folks (and, conveniently, why they are wrong). Or, if we leave it as is, we have an excellent record and example of a great number of logical (and scholarly...and factual) errors, and down-right underhanded and sneaky behavior.

So, much as I may personally despise or detest the man...I guess I have to say it. Thanks, Ken Ham, for continuing to be the paragon of everything a right-minded person wants to avoid.

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This is Humanity

I've been gone for a while, mainly because of school work. But this is just too important to pass up and not comment on.

I want you to look at this picture:


H/T to the Bad Astronomer.

This is an image of the Phoenix Lander descending through the Martian atmosphere, taken by the Mars HiRISE camera. This is not a photo of the Martian surface taken by a rover - we have those, and they are wonderful and amazing. This is not a photo of the Martian surface taken by an orbiting satellite - we have those and they are likewise amazing. This is a photo of a robot descending to the surface, taken by a orbiting robot which has been going around Mars for years. This is an action shot. But it shows something incredibly important. We have gotten to the point where we can predict, from millions of kilometers away, where one of our probes will be coming through the atmosphere of another world and aim one of our cameras, which is orbiting that world, to take a snap shot at the predicted spot...and lo and behold, there the thing is, in high resolution.

This is astounding. It should take your breath away every time you see it. Just to think about it should floor you. But let's put this in perspective. Around a hundred years ago, this was the bleeding edge of technology:



Think about that. In a little over a hundred years, we have gone from a flight time of a few seconds to sending robotic probes to another planet. This, people, is the march of science. More than that, it is the march of human ingenuity. This is what we do. Humans are naturally curious and creative. We are natural inventors and creative in our use of objects. But here's the important point - with science, a rigorous method of testing and duplicating, we have gained the ability to take vast leaps in technology. And this isn't just about sending probes into the solar system. We have modern medicine, transportation, communications...literally everything that we take for granted every day, and it's thanks to natural human ingenuity focused by scientific rigor. How do we know that science proves anything at all? Well, the practical answer is simply: LOOK AROUND YOU! It works! For a more theoretical answer, check out this book, The Truth of Science by Roger Newton.

I just can't get over that photo. It represents a milestone in our history as human beings, much in the same way that the Voyager Golden Record. Go look at the things that are on that record and what it represents. This is what we, as humans, can do when we work together with reason and good will.

Of course, there are people who are absolutely opposed to science and this sort of creative enterprise. They want to return to a more primitive, irrational mode of being - ironically, most of them don't want to give up technological advances, just get rid of science and science education...or at least completely redefine science to include their notions of gods or the supernatural. I've spoken about this before, and I don't want to waste time on it now. I think this video is about all the rhetorical force you need to convince yourself of what side of the divide you should be standing on now:

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