In Indiana, it’s not just the lawmakers who are idiots — it’s the media, too!

The miseducation committee of the Indiana legislature recently approved a bill to allow the teaching of creationism in the schools, and now the Indianapolis newspaper approves, with the usual tepid and illegitimate arguments.

Much would depend on how teachers handle the origins of life in a biology or science class.

No, it doesn’t. A bill that inserts garbage into the curriculum is a bill that inserts garbage; it doesn’t matter if you think it could be used to make a lovely collage, or as an exercise in recycling, it’s still garbage. And if you trust teachers to do their job, let them do it without boneheaded cretins in the legislature telling them how.

And there is no provision in the bill that states creationism must be taught as a science subject.

Let me guess: it would be OK to teach it as “philosophy”. How much disrespect are you willing to give to that field? It’s bad philosophy, too. What disciplines is Indiana willing to poison with nonsense? Be specific. English? History? I know — how about relegating creationism to the football team.

Courts have ruled that using the Bible as an educational tool is permissible. We see nothing that would change that here, and note the bill stresses “theories” on the origins of life.

Uh-oh. I know what’s coming next. I cringe in anticipation.

The march down the slippery slope occurs when theories are presented as facts.

YEEEAAARGH. HULK SMASH!

Scientific theories are explanatory frameworks for integrating a body of facts. Evolutionary theory, cell theory, germ theory, quantum theory, electromagnetic theory, transition state theory, the theory of relativity — these are all theories, and they also represent accurate and useful descriptions of how the universe works. They should be and are taught as facts, provisional explanations that have been tested and evaluated and found successful. “Theory” means something very specific and powerful to a scientist — there is no creation theory to be taught or used, and especially, no creation story that has survived any scientific test.

This bill could act as a safeguard against an educator mentioning creationism, and then possibly getting sued for promoting religion in the classroom. The American Civil Liberties Union has jumped into the fray and says this bill is unconstitutional, and that courts have overturned similar bills from other states.

This makes no sense. Yes, if a teacher peddles creationism in the classroom, they are using a state-supported, public facility to promote a purely religious idea. If a legislator peddles creationism in a bill, they are using the resources of goverment to promote a sectarian religious idea. This is wrong whether it’s a teacher or a state rep doing it, it is unconstitutional, and most importantly, it is bad science being used to corrupt education.

Certainly, there is much empirical scientific evidence to support evolution, and some pretty good philosophical arguments to support creationism. It’s unfortunate, though, that the latter has to be tagged as a science.

“Pretty good philosophical arguments for creationism”? Name one. Most philosophers are cleverer than that.

We think a thorough education exposes students to different theories, and if schools have done a good job of developing a student’s critical thinking skills, there is no harm done.

Oh, great. This is going to be fun. So if they’ve learned how to fall safely in gym class, I can punch little kids in the nose, and no harm done. If they’ve learned basic logic in grade school, we can do a crappy job teaching them trigonometry and calculus — they’ll be able to derive them for themselves, and no harm will be done. If they’ve learned playground safety rules, we can turn them loose with random chemicals in the chemistry lab, and no harm done.

This moron is basically saying that if most of the kids’ education is decently done, then they can afford to throw a few state-mandated lies at them. Once upon a time, I thought the goal was to excel and provide the best education possible; in Indiana, the dream is a school system that is less than half shitty.

(Also on Sb)

The comparison to jabberwocky is inevitable

Lots of people have been sending me this paper by Erik Andrulis, and most of you have done so with eyebrows raised, pointing out that it’s bizarre and unbelievable; some of you wrote asking whether it was believable, at which point my eyebrows went up. Come on people: when you see one grand cosmic explanation that is summarized with cartoons, which the author claims explains everything from the behavior of subatomic particles to the formation of the moon, shouldn’t you immediately sense crankery?

It’s also getting cited all over the place, from World of Warcraft fan sites to the Discovery Institute (those two have roughly equal credibility in matters of science), so I had to skim through it. I read it with rising concern: Erik Andrulis is a young assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University, and he’s published entirely sensible papers on RNA processing. This paper is so weird and out there that it is either an attempt to Sokal the field of origins of life research, or the man is seriously mentally ill. Either way, this is not going to help his career in the slightest.

The paper is titled Theory of the Origin, Evolution, and Nature of Life, and just the sweeping grandiosity of that title should set off alarm bells. Here is the abstract:

Life is an inordinately complex unsolved puzzle. Despite significant theoretical progress, experimental anomalies, paradoxes, and enigmas have revealed paradigmatic limitations. Thus, the advancement of scientific understanding requires new models that resolve fundamental problems. Here, I present a theoretical framework that economically fits evidence accumulated from examinations of life. This theory is based upon a straightforward and non-mathematical core model and proposes unique yet empirically consistent explanations for major phenomena including, but not limited to, quantum gravity, phase transitions of water, why living systems are predominantly CHNOPS (carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur), homochirality of sugars and amino acids, homeoviscous adaptation, triplet code, and DNA mutations. The theoretical framework unifies the macrocosmic and microcosmic realms, validates predicted laws of nature, and solves the puzzle of the origin and evolution of cellular life in the universe.

Having skimmed through all 105 pages of this thing, I can tell you with confidence that it answers none of those questions. Just the fact that it is entirely non-mathematical and non-empirical (there aren’t any observations or experiments described at all), and that the entirety of the theory is built around diagrams sketched out by the author, should also tell you that this is not a useful or predictive theory.

It does not have an auspicious beginning. In addition to being constructed around cartoons and being a non-mathematical Theory of Everything, it has to introduce an elaborate collection of neologisms that make the whole paper painful to read.

In the theory proposed herein, I use the heterodox yet simple gyre—a spiral, vortex, whorl, or similar circular pattern—as a core model for understanding life. Because many elements of the gyre model (gyromodel) are alien, I introduce neologisms and important terms in bold italics to identify them; a theoretical lexicon is presented in Table 1. The central idea of this theory is that all physical reality, stretching from the so-called inanimate into the animate realm and from micro- to meso- to macrocosmic scales, can be interpreted and modeled as manifestations of a single geometric entity, the gyre. This entity is attractive because it has life-like characteristics, undergoes morphogenesis, and is responsive to environmental conditions. The gyromodel depicts the spatiotemporal behavior and properties of elementary particles, celestial bodies, atoms, chemicals, molecules, and systems as quantized packets of information, energy, and/or matter that oscillate between excited and ground states around a singularity. The singularity, in turn, modulates these states by alternating attractive and repulsive forces. The singularity itself is modeled as a gyre, thus evincing a thermodynamic, fractal, and nested organization of the gyromodel. In fitting the scientific evidence from quantum gravity to cell division, this theory arrives at an understanding of life that questions traditional beliefs and definitions.

Here’s a partial copy of his lexicon. It goes on quite a bit longer than what I’ve copied here.

Table 1. Gyromodel Lexicon

Alternagyre A gyrosystem whose gyrapex is not triquantal
Dextragyre A right-handed gyre or gyromodel
Focagyre A gyre that is the focal point of analysis or discussion
Gyradaptor The gyre singularity—a quantum—that exerts all forces on the gyrosystem
Gyrapex The relativistically high potential, excited, unstable, learning state of a particle
Gyraxiom A fact, condition, principle, or rule that constrains and defines the theoretical framework

Gyre The spacetime shape or path of a particle or group of particles; a quantum
Gyrequation Shorthand notation for analysis, discussion, and understanding gyromodels
Gyrobase The relativistically low potential, ground, stable, memory state of a particle
Gyrognosis The thermodynamically demanding process of learning and integrating IEM
Gyrolink The mIEM particle that links two gyromodules in a gyronexus
Gyromnemesis The thermodynamically conserving process of remembering and recovering IEM
Gyromodel The core model undergirding the theoretical framework
Gyromodule A dIEM particle in a gyronexus
Gyronexus A polymer of dIEM particles linked by mIEM particles
Gyrostate The potential and/or kinetic state that a particle occupies in its gyratory path
Gyrosystem A gyromodel with specific IEM composition, organization, and purpose
IEM Information, energy, and/or matter

I can’t help myself. You knew this was coming.

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Now I know that you are in lexical shock right now, but I’m about to make it worse. Witness the use of these terms in figure 1 of the paper, which will also reveal the kinds of diagrams he’s using.

“The levorafocagyre, in turn, is antichiral to the dextrasupragyre” is a nice sentence that about sums up the experience of reading this thing. Don’t believe me? Here are more excerpts that illustrate the grand, cosmic, and entirely uninformative nature of gyroexplanatory gyrobabble. Andrulis purports to explain everything from learning and memory (learning and memory by gyres, not the poor people trying to understand his paper):

The ultimate state of gyromnemesis is the stably adapted particle or gyronexus in the gyrobase. A particle thus adapts through learning and memory by completing one full cycle—a revolution— around the singularity. Taken together, gyrognosis defines IEM integration and assessment whereas gyromnemesis defines IEM storage and recovery. Finally, although a diquantal IEM (X”) undergoes gyrognosis as the gyrobase of a primary majorgyre, it undergoes gyromnemesis as the gyrapex of an alternagyre. Thus, gyre learning and memory are relative to the gyradaptive singularity.

To the formation of Earth’s moon:

Lunar Formation. The favored hypothesis for the formation of Earth’s Moon is from planetesimal impact on a proto-Earth proceeded by matter ejection, accretion, and gravitational capture [189,190]. However, the question of lunar origin has not been settled since there are competing, albeit antiquated hypotheses [191,192]. I also discovered the stunning admission that, “…shamefacedly, [astronomers] have little idea as to where [the Moon] came from. This is particularly embarrassing… [193].” The oxygyre models the Moon as a macroxyon that has a macroelectron within itself; this simple gyrosystem accounts for the known chemical composition of the Moon surface, oxides [194]. Regarding lunar origin, the macroxyon that is the Moon emerges from the macroelectron that is the Earth, concomitant with the emergence of Earth’s macroxyon [195,196].

Several additional points can be derived from this gyrosystem. First, the oxygyre explains water on and in the Moon [197-199]. Second, the gyrating effects of the macroxygyre model the rotation of the Moon on its axis. Third, the path of a less exergic macroxyon (Moon) around more exergic one (Earth) follows an ohiogyre path, or lunar orbit. Fourth, this oxygyre provides insight into how tidal cycling is linked to lunar orbit and axial rotation [200] since the Earth’s oceans (macroxymatrix) and Moon itself (a macroxyon) exert complementary attractorepulsive forces. Fifth, this theoretical union also helps clarify short-term chronobiological ([201]; see 3.8) and long-term geophysical [202] relationships. Sixth, the craters that cover planetary, lunar, and satellite surfaces [203-205]—most if not all of which are near-perfect circles—bear the signature of the macroelectron singularity and its strong thermodynamic force on the oxygyre [206].

You know what? That doesn’t explain anything!

While the strange terminology and nonsensical claims could be clues that this is an elaborate Poe of some sort, the story I’ve heard from some other sources is that Andrulis is not getting tenure and will be leaving Case next year, and that he seems to have a history of tuning in and out — so what this most likely is is a developing personal tragedy. I hope he gets the care he clearly needs; his other work suggests that this is an intelligent mind that is currently going off the rails.

Setting Andrulis aside, though, there are other problems here. How did this paper get published? It’s terrible: unreadable, incoherent, bizarre, and completely lacking in evidence or mathematical support. This is from the very first issue of a new journal, Life, which also contains a perfectly reasonable general summary of origins of life research by Stuart Kauffman alongside Andrulis’s ghastly dreck. There seems to be a complete lack of editorial discrimination at the journal; this is not the way to build a reputation. Or rather, it is, but not a desirable one.

And then there is Science Daily, which seems to be the source where most of my correspondents found this paper. Science Daily is an incredibly annoying source: all they do is republish, without any kind of intelligent assessment, press releases. They suck. What good is mindless regurgitation?

And finally, there’s Case Western Reserve University, which must bear a share of the blame. Where did the press release come from? Why, from the Media Relations office at CWRU. Somebody wrote the press release that begins like this:

The earth is alive, asserts a revolutionary scientific theory of life emerging from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. The trans-disciplinary theory demonstrates that purportedly inanimate, non-living objects—for example, planets, water, proteins, and DNA—are animate, that is, alive. With its broad explanatory power, applicable to all areas of science and medicine, this novel paradigm aims to catalyze a veritable renaissance.

It’s madness stamped with the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine seal of approval. If Andrulis did Sokal the journal, he also Sokal’ed the institution that employs him. Who wrote that bullshit? Do they have anyone competent review their press releases before they mail them out to the whole wide world? Was there anyone thinking in all the steps from crank professor to PR department to journal editor to reviewers? There were so many points where this crackpottery should have been detected and rejected, and it didn’t happen.

(Also on Sb)

Science Daily has informed me that they have removed the press release from their site, and that it should never have made it through in the first place.

Also, apparently Case Western has removed the press release from their listings.

Indiana fails

Indiana is preparing to promote creationism in their science classrooms. A legislative committee has advanced a bill that endorses creationism and “alternative theories” to the vote of the full senate. So it’s not a law yet, but it’s advancing down the path.

Here’s the horrifying part: it was approved 8:2 by the Republican-controlled Senate Education Committee. This is a group that is supposed to be the gatekeeper for good educational practices; you’d think their job was to screen out the random wacky garbage that individual, ideologically motivated members of the senate might poop out. But in the state of Indiana, they’ve handed that job over to goddamned Republicans in a calculated effort driven by their Republican governor, Mitch Daniels, to overhaul the state’s educational system.

It’s practically Republican gospel to destroy the system of public education in the US. It’s always going to lead to tears when you put those bastards in charge.

(Also on Sb)

Today is Shawn Otto day at UMM

We’re having a visit today from Shawn Lawrence Otto, a fellow who has been fighting against the un-American war on science on the web and in a book, Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America. He’s speaking on campus tonight at 7:30 Central, in the HFA Recital Hall — I urge local community members to show up, he has important things to say about education and climate change — and that talk is going to be streamed live, so all you distant strangers can also watch the show.

It was a little strange, though, to get messages from the university administration telling me I’m expected to go to dinner with him. It turns out, I’m in his book — there’s actually a substantial 4 or 5 page section in there where he discusses an interview he had with me (I’m getting old, and I’ve done so many interviews that they all bleed together), so I had to run out and get a copy of the book to find out what I was getting into. It all sounded a bit Chris Mooney-like.

Fortunately, the book is good — if the topic is a bit Mooneyish, it’s the Mooney of The Republican War on Science, and not the batty, Nisbet-bespelled Mooney of Unscientific America, and his stuff on me isn’t a hatchet job. Otto doesn’t come out and declare me the absolutely correct master of all I pontificate on (I’ll have to bend his ear and make suggestions for the second edition), but at least he recognizes that there are many different angles to take in fighting ignorance. You are allowed to read the book and listen to the talk without feeling outraged.

(Also on Sb)

For shame, London School of Economics

The London School of Economics has decided to replace critical thinking as a common element of a university education with simpering, po-faced homilies that ban satire and ridicule. It’s a sad situation; their student union is stamping their collective feet and demanding that the local atheists remove a cartoon that portrays Jesus and Mohammed at a bar. To their credit, the atheists seem to be the only ones standing up for principle.

The London School of Economics Student Union (LSESU) has instructed the London School of Economics Student Union Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society (LSESU ASH) to remove cartoons featuring Jesus and Mohammed from their Facebook page. LSESU ASH is not complying with the instruction and has appealed to LSESU to withdraw it.

The reactions have been amazing. Would you believe the student union called an emergency meeting, and are now tarring the portrayal of Jesus and Mo as “racist” and “bullying”? It’s absurd. This is a university, for dog’s sake — it’s precisely the place where ideas of all sorts get openly criticized, with far more ferocity than an innocuous caricature of two religious figures at the pub. And yet these pompous wankers who claim to defend religious freedom are all about silencing criticism.

Are there any grown-ups at the LSE? Any of them going to stand up and slap the ridiculous edicts of the student union down?

How many football games do you have to win to make up for one broken child?

Joe Paterno is dead. He won a bunch of games, and that’s the best thing he’ll be remembered for, which is awfully trivial, if you think about it. The worst thing he’ll be known for? He closed his eyes and kept silent when children were raped.

I’m imagining a scale. In the right pan are heaped all the great accomplishments of Joe Paterno — and it’s all inconsequential fluff, balls thrown across lines on the ground, numbers on scoreboards long since forgotten. In the left pan…well, we start by throwing on one child’s tears, and the balance tips with a leaden thud, the beam crashes to the ground, the whole assembly splinters and falls apart.

We’re done. The man’s life has been weighed and found wanting.

Why, Charlie Brown, Why?

Mondays are my long, long days — this is the day I get to spend 3 hours talking to students in small groups about cancer (they’re young and invincible, so so far it hasn’t been as depressing as I feared.) And they teach me stuff! Among the things I learned today is that there was a Peanuts special from the 1990s about cancer, titled “Why, Charlie Brown, Why“. I was incredulous — it doesn’t sound like the kind of thing I’d expect on Peanuts — but I looked it up, and there it was on YouTube. So I’ll share. It’s not bad.



The class is operating on a much higher level than this special — it doesn’t mention oncogenes even once! — but the session today was a conversation about everyone’s personal experiences with cancer, and yes, we did talk about television and movies and how they deal with the disease.

(Also on Sb)

Today is the first day of classes for the spring term

All you professors out there know the existential dread associated with the start of a new term — you’ve only just now cleared away most of the accumulated drudgery of the last term, and now here comes a new one, with all of the work associated with that. And you’re sitting there now with your sets of syllabi, each with dates locked in that represent fresh inundations of exams to grade and papers to read. You’re standing on the shore looking out at the maelstrom, bracing yourself to swim into the heart of it, where you will be buffeted and swirled about and at the end of it, spat out onto another shore to face another in the next term.

And my special horror is that I’m teaching a brand new course this term: 3 new lectures to develop each week, mad scrambling in between to grasp the new ideas in the scientific literature. It’s madness. What was I thinking when I agreed to this? Was I strung out on reefer? Blasé in decadent insolence, my mind half-lost in absinthe-fueled dreams? Or manic on meth, so confident in my drug-induced megalomania that I casually agreed to conquer everything? I’m going to be a gibbering wreck come May and sweet relief.

Oh, well. I’ve survived 37 semesters like this one so far; I’ll make it through another one.

Probably.

I think. It could be the psychosis talking.