The evolution of Hedgehog

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PLoS has recently published a highly speculative but very interesting paper on how a particular signaling pathway, the Hedgehog pathway, might have evolved. It’s at a fairly early stage in hypothesis testing, which is one of the things that makes it interesting — usually all you see published is the product of a great deal of data collection and experiment and testing, which means the scientific literature gives a somewhat skewed view of the process of science, letting the outsider mainly see work that has been hammered and polished, while hiding the rougher drafts that would better allow us to see how the story started and was built. It’s informative in particular for those who follow the creationist “literature”, which often crudely apes the products of actual working science, but lacks the sound methodological underpinnings. In particular, creationism completely misses the process of poking at the real world to develop ideas, since they begin with their conclusion.

So take this description as a work in progress — we’re seeing the dynamic of building up a good working model. As usual, it starts on a sound foundation of confirmed, known evidence, makes a reasonably hypothesis on the basis of the facts, and then proposes a series of research avenues with predicted results that would confirm the idea.

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Oh, no! I’ll never be able to mock Texas again!

I confess. One of the staple sources of creationist lunacy I document here has always been Texas (with Florida as a close runner-up), which seems to be thickly infested with ignoramuses who get elected to high office. It’s the kind of place that inspires the Molly Ivins of the world. Lately, we’ve been appalled at the idiots the Texas government wants to put in charge of science education, but there’s another victim in the gunsights, too: history and social studies. The same abysmal talents that can muck up biology also want to turn social studies into patriotic mulch.

Alas, they can’t get crazy enough in Texas, apparently, so the local ideologues had to go looking for greater loons, a national search for loons when the homegrown flavor just isn’t piquant enough. And where does he go shopping?

Minnesota. Oh, the shame.

Don McLeroy wanted to bring in Alan Quist to join their social studies team. Quist is a former wanna-be governor of Minnesota (who got clobbered in a landslide defeat) with minimal education qualifications. He has a bachelor’s in psychology and a masters in speech; he teaches (minimally) at a local bible college, and most damningly, his wife runs EdWatch, one of those awful anti-education advocacy sites that promotes the destruction of public schools so everyone can go off and be homeschooled. His pet obsessions are the usual, gays and abortions. He’s ag’in ’em both. He will rant for food.

For an idea of the quality of his mind, you should read his disproof of global warming. He builds on an old map, the Oronteus Finaeus map of 1532, which shows the outlines of a southern continent, Antarctica (with many of the details wrong). From this, he draws the conclusion that Antarctica had been thoroughly explored in the 16th century, that it had been free of ice with flowing rivers, and therefore, the world had been much, much warmer than it is now 500 years ago, and therefore, global warming is a myth. The ice sheet in Antarctica is only half a millennium old, which discovery would rather radically mess up our understanding of climatology, geology, and physics…pretty impressive for a know-nothing wingnut.

‘Siegel’ sort of rhymes with ‘Evil’, too

Ethan Siegel wants you to compel him to go bald. He claims he is going to shear off all of his hair to raise money for charity, but I’ve seen this act before. It’s so familiar.

First, he goes completely bald.

Then, he gets a monocle.

A dueling scar would be a nice touch.

Then, to complete his transformation to the dark side, he gets a cat. Persian. A cat whose cold, expressionless stare reflects the imperious, implacable privilege of his nature.

Next thing you know, he’s posing in front of death rays and sending ultimata to world leaders. I hope he’s been working on his evil laugh; if he’s got a girlish giggle or some kind of nasal snicker this just isn’t going to work, and he’ll have to settle for a position as an Igor somewhere. It’s still a good gig, of course, so I encourage you all to go over there and help him on his way down this career path.

P.S. As long as he’s shaving, that carpet on his chest has to go, too. Hirsute is for henchmen; masterminds have to be fully depilated. Unless he’s going for the 19th century Captain Nemo look, which you don’t get by going completely bald.

The problem with writing by committee

Mr Deity is wrestling with the various versions of his story. Much is explained by his choice of a script doctor.

By the way, if you’ve ever wanted to actually meet Mr Deity, you’ve got a shot: he’ll be speaking at the Atheist Alliance International 2009 Convention in LA this October. And it’s not just him, look at this phenomenal lineup of speakers.

I’m going to be in there somewhere, too — I’m a late addition. It will be a wonderful assemblage of the godless. Plus one deity.

101 atheists!

The current total of registered attendees for our Invasion of the Creationist “Museum” is now at 101 — and you’ve only got a few more days to pre-register. You’re also welcome to just show up, of course.

This is an official Outing — not only are we going on a trip, but you should be a loud and proud atheist, too. I suggested armbands before; if you don’t like that, pick up one of these snazzy t-shirts, or wear something from the Out Campaign. Anything that looks respectable, but still makes clear that you are one of those atheists.

Atheist bus signs in Austria

I await the day when someone proposes to put a sign advocating godlessness on a bus, and the Christians and Muslims are so accustomed to it that they regard it with complete nonchalance. That day isn’t here yet, as we can see by all the ongoing perturbation at very simple, innocuous statements. Now Vienna is joining in, and of course we get a poll. We can see that even in secular Europe there are people who are disturbed by mere signage. Go say hello from America (and Australia and Europe and all the other places you’re from) and give some worldwide input to this silly poll.

Was ist Ihre Meinung zu der Atheismus-Kampagne? (What do you think of the atheist bus campaign?)

39,76 % Ich finde sie sehr gut. (very good!)
47,1 % Sie stört mich. (it bothers me)
13,14 % Sie ist mir egal. (I don’t care)

Mary’s Monday Metazoan: in our backyard

This is not a very good picture, but it’s because the subject is very, very shy. We have a, shall we say, rather untamed yard, very weedy, and we keep finding new little pals moving in. We’ve got rabbits everywhere, and lately, to our annoyance, pocket gophers are burrowing in our front yard, and we’ve been reluctant to murder them despite the gopher mounds. And this week, this guy moved in to a nice spot under our deck. He or she is good sized, almost knee-high as he stands like that, and he’s out rummaging around in the yard fairly often, although he scurries back to his nest as soon as he spots us.

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I have named our woodchuck Yuri.

I half-expect to wake up some morning and find a herd of bison has taken residence, which will be very nice…but when the wolf pack moves in, we may have to move.

That inhuman monolith

Several months ago, we witnessed a tragic spectacle in the news: a nine-year old Brazilian girl was raped, became pregnant, and got an abortion…and the Brazilian Catholic church responded by excommunicating all the participants. One cleric in Rome, Monsignor Rino Fisichella, said the church had been insensitive, but no one in the hierarchy stepped forward to outright condemn the heartlessness of the church’s stance and the unfairness of the policy.

We now have an official document from the Catholic church clearly stating their position. Anyone involved in an abortion for any reason is to be automatically excommunicated, no exceptions. They’ve actually hardened their position.

That includes nine-year old children raped by their stepfather. It includes any doctors who act on sympathy for a maltreated child. Of course, all the rapist has to do is demand that his victim bear his child, and he will be welcomed in the bosom of the holy church. The church is standing firm on principle.

…there is a more important principle at stake. “We have laws, we have a discipline, we have a doctrine of the faith,” the official says. “This is not just theory. And you can’t start backpedaling just because the real-life situation carries a certain human weight.” Benedict makes it ever more clear that his strict approach to doctrine will remain a central pillar to his papacy, bad publicity be damned.

I see. Dogma is more important than reality, and most surprisingly for representatives of a religion that claims the moral high ground, it is more important than human needs.

Everyone should simply leave that evil institution — tell them they can keep their bricks and their real estate, their gold chalices and their gilt robes, their layered assemblage of celibate perverts, meddling old men, and fearful brides of Christ, and let that human element walk away, free of their superstitions. The church doesn’t want that human weight, anyway.

So, what is lunacy compatible with? Everything?

An Oxford research fellow, Andrew Parker, has written a bizarre little book claiming that the book of Genesis is entirely compatible with science and evolution…by simply redefining most of the terms in the Bible after the fact to fit. You know the sort of thing I’m talking about: “Let there be light” is a perfect description of the big bang, by “grass” god really meant “cyanobacteria”, the appearance of lights in the sky refers to the evolution of animal vision, etc., etc., etc., yadda yadda yadda. It’s ridiculous, of course, mere post hoc retrofitting of valid interpretations to a pile of bronze age bogosity. This is what happens when scientists try to combine old superstitions with real science.

I know of Parker from another connection, too: he’s the author of the Light-Switch Hypothesis, described in his book, In the Blink of an Eye. That was the idea that the trigger for the Cambrian explosion was the evolution of vision, which I’d thought might have been an interesting component, but was burdened with far too heavy a load of speculation and a suspicious reliance on single causes. This does explain some of the pseudo-biblical rhapsodies in that book, though.