That clever fellow John (Chris) Walken has proposed a useful idea—that we put together simple descriptions of basic concepts in our fields of interest for the edification of any newcomers to science. He picked the magic word Clade to write about first; I don’t know why he didn’t pick “Species”, since he could have just dumped his thesis into one short, simple blog post. Maybe he’ll do that next.
Larry Moran has joined in with a lovely lucid explanation of Evolution. This is very useful, because now whenever a creationist comes along here, we can just tell him or her to go to that post and argue with Larry. If they survive that, then they are worthy of further interaction.
All of my science posts are basic and simple, so I’m not sure what I could write to add to this collection. If anyone has any suggestions, chime in and let me know.
squid neurons
Hmmm. If I got the chance to ask a developmental biologist to explain a (supposedly) simple concept I would pick… hmm… phenotype. That seems to be something that could take six words or 600 pages.
you have already written one! It’s your “brief overview of Hox genes” man.
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PZ, I’ve had the same idea. Think of getting this stuff together into a book:
“What Every Elected Official Needs to Know About Basic Science.”
Print them up and have a local teacher or college professor PERSONALLY deliver them to each new school board member, city council member, water commissioner, state governor and state and federal congressman.
AND every local reporter for every newspaper, radio station and TV news team. Maybe with an appendix of questions a reporter might ask to judge the scientific literacy of public officials.
The approach should be friendly, but it should also be exacting. EXPECT them to read and understand it. For a new school board member: “I hear Penny Frost of KHOU-TV is going to ambush you about the scientific definition of the word theory. I’ve got something here that might help.”
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PZ I’m doing something similiar for the Q&A website (but aimed at 15 year olds). Might be worth putting them together somewhere.
I watch a lot of programs on both animal planet and national geographic. One recurring theme is how males fight for the right to mate with the females. I have seen very few instances where female is fighting to get the right to mate {for example a pack of Wolves which has an alpha female}. So it would be great if you could explain why females have it so easy when it comes to mating. why dont they have to prove their worth just like males for continuing their species.
There’s a book called Keywords in Evolutionary Biology edited by Evelyn Fox Keller and Lisa Lloyd (Harvard University Press). It has scholarly (but blessedly brief) chapters on about 50 words, including adaptation (2 chapters, historal and current perspectives separately), altruism (3 chapters), character, homology, neutralism, species (3 chapters). But it’s definitely not suitable for beginners.
Thanks for posting this PZ. I appreciate the evolution definition. I thight that it will come in handy in discussions with CreationBillBored.com lady from Minnetonka. The zookeeper there has a tremendous difficulty with the simplest concepts of science. We spend a lot of time chasing tails on the definition of evolution.
These would be good for Wikipedia, actually. Maybe stick the brief version at the top of the article, followed by a more in-depth and technical description.
Speciation?
The mechanisms by which species diverge, with examples?
Though I tend to agree with the previous poster onthe Hox genes subject …..
You’re kidding. For anyone who doesn’t understand the joke: what “species” means depend on whom you ask. There are at least 25 species concepts out there. The differences are drastic: depending on which species concept you pick, there are between 141 and 200 (I forgot the number) endemic bird species in Mexico. No wonder that there are people who say “species” is just as arbitrary a Linnaean rank as any other (genus, family, order, class, etc.) and should be dropped like them; instead, the argument goes, only clades of all sizes should be named. “Clade” has exactly one definition.
You’re kidding. For anyone who doesn’t understand the joke: what “species” means depend on whom you ask. There are at least 25 species concepts out there. The differences are drastic: depending on which species concept you pick, there are between 141 and 200 (I forgot the number) endemic bird species in Mexico. No wonder that there are people who say “species” is just as arbitrary a Linnaean rank as any other (genus, family, order, class, etc.) and should be dropped like them; instead, the argument goes, only clades of all sizes should be named. “Clade” has exactly one definition.
Wikipedia! Yes!!!
What speciation is depends entirely on the species concept. For example, under the Hennigian Species Concept “cladogenesis” and “speciation” are synonyms, under the Biological Species Concept “speciation” means the evolution of a barrier to interbreeding (which makes cladogeneses permanent, but is otherwise completely unrelated to cladogenesis), under the Ecological Species Concept it means entering/creating a new ecological niche (which is mostly unrelated to either of the above), and so on.
Wikipedia! Yes!!!
What speciation is depends entirely on the species concept. For example, under the Hennigian Species Concept “cladogenesis” and “speciation” are synonyms, under the Biological Species Concept “speciation” means the evolution of a barrier to interbreeding (which makes cladogeneses permanent, but is otherwise completely unrelated to cladogenesis), under the Ecological Species Concept it means entering/creating a new ecological niche (which is mostly unrelated to either of the above), and so on.
The Encyclopedia of Evolution by Richard Milner is very good for that sort of thing, but I think it’s out of print.
Yes, I was kidding. I’ve read Wilkins thesis — that would be some lengthy blog post.
PZ, you should write about development.
Does it count if I write about what number theory is all about?
Hey, PZ, any chance you could provide a simple explanation for how is it there are PYGMIES AND DWARFS?
For science, not just evolution? If so, the laws of thermodynamics are basic to all!
So, what is the beef between Mr Willikins/Walken/Wilkins and Mr Meyers/Mayers/Myers? Or is it an out in-joke?
Anyway, my feeling was exactly that, the rest of SB will now try to catch up on PeZes/PeZeds/PZ’s type of science posts.
Well, chemistry seems to use it a lot. For most of physics statistical physics is probably used instead. And for example evolution, not really AFAIK.
So, what is the beef between Mr Willikins/Walken/Wilkins and Mr Meyers/Mayers/Myers? Or is it an out in-joke?
Anyway, my feeling was exactly that, the rest of SB will now try to catch up on PeZes/PeZeds/PZ’s type of science posts.
Well, chemistry seems to use it a lot. For most of physics statistical physics is probably used instead. And for example evolution, not really AFAIK.
I agree that both Moran’s and Wilkins’ pieces are first-rate. I’m less confident that either is “simple” enough to be useful for the purpose of edifying “newcomers to science.”
Indeed, the second law of thermodynamics can help explain evolution – just the opposite of what the creationists claim. A book (‘Time’s Arrow and Evolution’) by Blum about 40 years ago (I can not readily find my copy at the moment) was on the subject and was well-received by scientists at the time. ‘Time’s Arrow,’ of course, refers to the second law. There have been many papers on the same subject since Blum. One can not fully understand energetics (or energy in general, including transformations thereof) without the thermodynamic laws.
As I teach my intro course this spring, I’ll be posting on Natural Selection, Modes of Selection, Kin Selection, R/kinship, Reciprocal Altruism, and so on.
I enjoyed Dr. Meyers seed article on the blind cave fish. An explanation of “switches” and toolkit genes I would find useful. Or how it is you can deduce the genotype of fossils organisms based on present species. The idea that I am most familiar from geology that processes that are curently shapeing the earth or evolutionary mechanisms are the same processes that occured in the past.
Uh, ah, Professor Myers, sir, what’s a “gene”?
A simple explanation, not about specific science, but about faith and reason is given in this article from The Chronicle of Higher Education.
http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=c889gbz7c430f6nk1znwtlc02drc382g
The concluding paragraph:
“The physicist Steven Weinberg, of the University of Texas at Austin, has said: “With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil, but for good people to do evil — that takes religion.” No doubt some would consider that too extreme a condemnation of religion. But while I recognize my own biases, as both an educator and a scientist — albeit one who has come to better appreciate the significance of faith in everyday life — I remain convinced that reason must be unfettered by faith if we are to truly educate our children and our students, and if we as a society are to overcome violence committed in the name of religion.”
More basics are needed.
Start with the definitions of ‘science’, ‘hypothesis’, ‘theory’, ‘observation’, and ‘experiment’. Explain how each concept is important to scientific inquiry, and how the scientific method works.
Worry about the specifics of the different fields once the common elements are taken care of. It’s those common elements that people are ignorant of.
Wikipedia – NO!!!
I’m not anti-wikipedia, in fact, I use it quite often. But, two foreseeable problems:
1) The content will then be subject to editing by just about anybody. So if the goal is to have definitions attributable to notable somebodies, that’s out. And, closely related,
2) I’ve found that the content of some Wikipedia articles is skewed toward people in the field, not general lay-people. It’s not supposed to work that way, but it happens. (This is also the case with the Tree of Life web.)
Instead, set up a dedicated wiki through seedwiki or bpwiki or some such.
Also, I vote for PZ writing about genes and development.
“Instead, set up a dedicated wiki through seedwiki or bpwiki or some such.”
I think this idea is going to a place that is both good and bad.
I’m going to skip over all the good reasons to Go Wiki (or something like that) … either THE wikipedia or a special one … because you’all are stating these reasons and you are essentially right, and skip right to the reasons to not do it.
In theory, there are a dozen or so individuals here that are being asked to provide “basics.” These are people with intensive and extensive training and expertise. In some cases, for instance the science blog bloggers, they are 1) using a resource that costs time and money to be on the web (whatever servers they are using, etc.) and putting their own time into this, etc. and 2) are credible individuals with specific credentials and abilities and subtle differences in knowledge and orientation (I’m joking when I say subtle, obviously).
A set of definitions in a common wiki or that gets wiki’ed in some other way, losses it’s payback effect. For what reason would the scienceblog bloggers spend hours and hours honeing and refining and discussing stuff (you don’t want slapdash results, believe me) in this context?
Second, we don’t want a wikipedia definiton. There probably already is one, and I promise you that if there is not, when 10 of us Giants of Science have our say about what speciation or natural selection is, those statements will get worked into the Wikipedia and properly referenced back.
What I’m saying is that we need to maintain ACCOUNTABILITY and AUTHORITY. You can’t just say “wikipedia says bla bla bla” and be done. You need to say “here’s what Myers and Moran say about ontogeny … it’s almost the same but there are two important, subtle differences…”
That is scholarship and science. Isn’t the whole idea hear to have this be higher than average quality of scholarship for the web?
No, I think the producers of this “knowedge” should not become anonomous molecules of milk and cream just yet. Let’s make statements, defend them, fight about them, put them through the process and keep them out there as a collection of loosely linked contributions.
This is the better way to do it, and I don’t think you are going to get anybody to play if you don’t keep our egos involved for a while.
A gene is a segment of DNA that codes for a peptide chain. A protein is made up of one or more peptide chains.
Zaphod,
“So it would be great if you could explain why females have it so easy when it comes to mating.”
It’s supply & demand. Let’s just consider mammals. One male can impregnate 1000’s of females, theoretically. Also, most males make no commitment to raising the young. So, there’s no advantage for males of most mammalian species to be choosy about which female to pick. Females have far fewer prospective mating opportunities that could result in offspring, so they’ll want to choose a male with ‘good’ genes, to benefit her young. So fertile females have something almost akin to scarcity value, & can hold out for the highest bidder.
We humans buck the trend somewhat, because we’re social animals with culture, & we’re fairly monogamous. Therefore it pays for human males to be a bit choosy. But, if there’s a female available for mating, any male might as well get in there, because if he doesn’t, the next Joe will.
No, for an RNA, which may (mRNA) or may not (rRNA etc. etc. etc.) be translated later.
No, for an RNA, which may (mRNA) or may not (rRNA etc. etc. etc.) be translated later.
A gene is a segment of DNA that codes for a segment of RNA that can code for a peptide chain. If a gene is expressed anywhere in the body, that is because it was translated into a peptide chain. Peptide chains are the components of proteins. (For example, the “globin” par of haemoglobin is made of two pairs of peptide chains) A gene is a segment of DNA that is can code for all or part of a protein. The point is that heredity, via inherited DNA, controls proteins’ primary structure, which is the order of amino acids in the chain.
The application of entropy to evolution doesn’t seem to have been successful. Of course energetics is important for chemistry, cells and life, but it doesn’t seem to have any bearing on evolution besides as constraints for development. (Sizes, mass vs area, et cetera.)
Blum’s book seems to have been about cosmogony and abiogenesis.
“[Blum] in his Time’s Arrow and Evolution (1951), argued that if life exists elsewhere in the Universe:
[I]t probably has taken quite a different form. And so life as we know may be a very unique thing after all, perhaps a species of some inclusive genus, but nevertheless a quite distinct species.
Pointing out the general tendency of the Universe to become more disorganized with time, in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics, he suggested that a system such as life which ran against this trend might be rare. Moreover, he adopted what would become the party line among evolutionary biologists in the era of space exploration, contrasting with the position of most astrobiologists, that (a) the appearance of life on Earth might have been due to a series of lucky accidents, and (b) that if it did evolve on other worlds it would be very unlikely to resemble any terrestrial variety.” ( http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/B/Blum.html )
So he argued that abiogenesis was difficult, but not prohibitively so, and that humans are unique. Accordingly, he seems popular among creationists and theistic evolutionists. But I can’t find any modern texts on 2LOT and evolution or abiogenesis. The consensus seems to be that 2LOT doesn’t say anything on them.
The application of entropy to evolution doesn’t seem to have been successful. Of course energetics is important for chemistry, cells and life, but it doesn’t seem to have any bearing on evolution besides as constraints for development. (Sizes, mass vs area, et cetera.)
Blum’s book seems to have been about cosmogony and abiogenesis.
“[Blum] in his Time’s Arrow and Evolution (1951), argued that if life exists elsewhere in the Universe:
[I]t probably has taken quite a different form. And so life as we know may be a very unique thing after all, perhaps a species of some inclusive genus, but nevertheless a quite distinct species.
Pointing out the general tendency of the Universe to become more disorganized with time, in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics, he suggested that a system such as life which ran against this trend might be rare. Moreover, he adopted what would become the party line among evolutionary biologists in the era of space exploration, contrasting with the position of most astrobiologists, that (a) the appearance of life on Earth might have been due to a series of lucky accidents, and (b) that if it did evolve on other worlds it would be very unlikely to resemble any terrestrial variety.” ( http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/B/Blum.html )
So he argued that abiogenesis was difficult, but not prohibitively so, and that humans are unique. Accordingly, he seems popular among creationists and theistic evolutionists. But I can’t find any modern texts on 2LOT and evolution or abiogenesis. The consensus seems to be that 2LOT doesn’t say anything on them.
PZ, how about “Evo Devo”?
I wish I’d seen this topic earlier. I hope Hank Fox is just creative problem solving hypotheticals. His suggestion has no relationship to reality. I’ve worked as a journalist and covered the public institutions he mentions, and known some people in television, and, obviously, worked in newspapers.
Nobody is gonna read a page of his book. Ever.
Assuming he’s serious, here’s a protocol to correct his thinking.
1. Go to every single school board general meeting for a year. Take notes. Stay after the meeting and take notes.
Attend every budget sub-committee meeting and every other meeting dealing with the budget.
Get the most recently passed budget in the most detailed form possible. Don’t accept the first general budget offered, find the real one. While attending all these meetings, study the budget, then when you understand it all, draw up an alternate budget. This will be, depending, 50, 100 pages or so. Your chance to do it correctly.
One catch, you must justify, in writing, every change. You’ll find the $100,000 for new lab equipment you take from the lazy-ass janitors budget won’t work, because the janitors are wasting one third of their work hours juryrigging furnaces because the facilities maintenance, durable equipment parts budget has been butchered eight years running to squeeze out money for desperately needed …..
That’s why you have to justify everything. It will force you to learn all the details. It’s called reality, and it’s a huge mess. Science education is a third or fourth tier priority. Not because it isn’t worthy. The other issues are more dire, immediate, and incorrigible. And there’s a ranting public.
School boards do this every single year. It’s the single most important thing they do.
2. Year two. Get a job as a reporter in a medium to small city. You must write 3 stories a week. 6th grade reading level. There is no science reporter. There is no education reporter. That’s all handled by political reporters, which you are. Your assignments are constantly of the pothole and economic development type.
The only local stories specifically about science will have to be generated by you, be of local interest — not what you think should be of local interest — and of course, approved by your editor. Your editor insists nothing complicated. If you can’t explain it to a line worker with a mediocre high school education and keep them awake, forget it. He will also reject anything whose total column inches aren’t at least half quotes from local people. The real science stories in your paper are all “rip and read.” You have no say about them.
Every minute you spend on your own science stories must be on top of you normal workload. You may not miss a single deadline, which can come daily. Including coming in early because you know you’ll need extra time to finish the “To Fell or not Fell the Park’s Old Trees Story”, one of the town’s current hot topics. Your interviewees are still calling you back after 3 days. Also, this includes the two nights a week you attend public meetings. So, you’re putting in 60 hours a week in your production responsibilities.
Oh, one more thing. Your networks. Being fairly new in town, and working so hard, you’ll need to devote several hours on 4 weekend days each month developing and maintaining social contacts with all sorts of people and groups so when needed, they’ll talk to you for publication. One other chore. Some guy has come along and left this insane 200-page book with all this dense, abstract science crap that will never have anything to do with a story you write, and the idiot publisher told the managing editor to have someone read it in case intelligent design comes to town. The editor apologized to you, acknowledging not a word in it is suitable for the readership, then dumped it on you. You opened it randomly and found a list of questions for reporters to ask an entire herd of officials, and realize it’s just another kook who can’t perceive an industry with highly complex, under-pressure procedures and professional knowledge and skills. “Insult the people you’re trying to influence,” you think. “Great strategy.” You file it in the very back of the very bottom file drawer and promptly forget about it.
After you take care of those responsibilities you’ve got time for family, friends, and dreaming up science stories that relate to the paper’s readers.
3. Year 3. Cheer up. One more year as a city councilman and your done. At least you won’t have to write and rewrite and rewrite to please a clueless editor.
You must maintain a home land line phone so citizens can call you at 2 a.m. so infuriated by something the newspaper misquoted you about they don’t realize what time it is. You get a cell phone whose number you must carefully manage, because it’s how you get council business done. You must spot the morons who’ll give your number to others without thinking. See land line. Your family gets a break. They get their own cell numbers.
You’re assigned to facilities, employee, and schools sub-committees. You are, more or less, at the beck and call of everyone in town who swings political influence, such as the head of the chamber of commerce, the pastors of the two biggest churches, the taxpayers association, three unions, etc. You always take their calls. You must deal with the media. You need them but as an amateur politician you can’t figure out what little thing, exactly, will create a headache if it’s in the paper.
The list goes on. Almost all of this, most of the time, gets in the way of you accomplishing things. You are, by necessity, obsessed with strategizing ways to appease power wielders or to get parties suspicious of each other to reach win-win agreements. One of your major tools for doing this is conversation. You spend 80 hours a week doing this, mostly on the phone, talking to every sort of person imaginable.
Oh, I forgot. However many, many interminable meetings take place, you must sit through every minute. Essentially, on display to the public. Getting no work done. The good news: for the first time you get a secretary.
.
After this, if Hank still PERSONALLY thinks someone is gonna open the book, I’ll have a serious talk with him to see what’s wrong with him. Because the percentage of the audience that wants to hear anything covered in such a book, even if delivered appropriately, is really low. They simple switch channels. 2% of Americans listen to NPR. [See the NSF website. 20-25% of adult Americans think the sun revolves around the earth. That’s not because no one told them otherwise.] We’ll start by totalling up every wacko that came before the board and council with some idea or book so urgent they thought the entire system should grind to a halt and deal with it. I’ll explain how it will take at least a year, at best, for a “teacher” to personally deliver a book to a “governor” and that he left the President off his list.
Concern for the scientific literacy of public officials is in no ones portfolio — neither the public officials’, nor the medias’, nor the publics’. If he’s setting out to change that, I’ll check back in 30 years to see how he’s coming along. School board members don’t give a shit about any concept, let alone that of “theory”. They’re politicians!
And a general point. Simply none of this material is “simple”. In general, newspapers are written to a 6th grade reading level. That’s a good rule of thumb for writing to the general public, and a good one for defining “simple” in that realm. There are no glossaries on television. Newspaper editors will allow nearly no science jargon not broadly understood into stories and flow and size restrictions severally limit definitions.
I am reminded of a project I considered a few years ago: Top N scientific, technological and philosophical concepts to understand. Evolution was one, of course, but also the likes of atomism, number, computability, evidence, and many others.