O Happy Day, let us open this edition of the thread insufferably prolonged with some romance!
(Current totals: 10,731 entries with 1,072,626 comments.)
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
O Happy Day, let us open this edition of the thread insufferably prolonged with some romance!
(Current totals: 10,731 entries with 1,072,626 comments.)
We are currently suffering from a surfeit of cheesiness in the ad blocks being served up — the example to the right is just one of many horrors, including ads for $cientology, various Christian and creationist groups, and even some medical quackery. Although the “build an ideal woman” does appeal to the mad scientist in me, it’s really just a tease to get your name and various bits of information into one of those “win an ipad” scams. Don’t click on it!
Actually, don’t click on any of the despicable ads. You don’t need to; the ad space is sold on a per impression, not a per click, basis, so all you have to do is load Scienceblogs and you’ve earned us a bit of money. So just ignore them altogether.
Also, take some comfort in the fact that the bad ads are hilariously misplaced — this is not the audience for creationist hucksters. So all they are doing is transferring money from kooks and quacks to the pockets of people presenting the science that opposes them.
How can I resist? Eric Hovind does the usual trick of putting two reasonable answers on it to split the rational vote, but I think a good goal would be to simply make both of them crush the stupid creationist answer.
What do you believe about evolution?
It’s a religion. 46%
* It’s a fact! 43%
* It’s a reasonable scientific theory. 11%
Fly, my pretties! Destroy the poll!
Corruption rules: that poll was utterly demolished in yet another way. After many votes were accumulated, Hovind changed the wording of the question to “What do you believe about creation?” without changing the answers or the tally of votes. Eric is following in the dishonest footsteps of his jailbird father, I see.
Spiegel has a wonderful interview with Venter. The more I hear from Venter, the more I like him; he’s very much a no-BS sort of fellow. He’s the guy who really drove the human genome project to completion, and he’s entirely open about explaining that its medical significance was grossly overstated.
SPIEGEL: So the significance of the genome isn’t so great after all?
Venter: Not at all. I can tell you from my own experience. I put my own genome on the Internet. People had the notion this was the scariest thing out there. But what happened? Nothing.
There really was a lot of hysteria in the early days about how the insurance companies would abuse the information in the genome, and there was also the GATTACA dystopia. None of it has, and I daresay none of it will, come to pass.
Venter: That’s what you say. And what else have I learned from my genome? Very little. We couldn’t even be certain from my genome what my eye color was. Isn’t that sad? Everyone was looking for miracle ‘yes/no’ answers in the genome. “Yes, you’ll have cancer.” Or “No, you won’t have cancer.” But that’s just not the way it is.
SPIEGEL: So the Human Genome Project has had very little medical benefits so far?
Venter: Close to zero to put it precisely.
SPIEGEL: Did it at least provide us with some new knowledge?
Venter: It certainly has. Eleven years ago, we didn’t even know how many genes humans have. Many estimated that number at 100,000, and some went as high as 300,000. We made a lot of enemies when we claimed that there appeared to be considerably fewer — probably closer to the neighborhood of 40,000! And then we found out that there are only half as many. I was just in Stockholm for the 200th anniversary of the Karolinska Institute. The first presentation was about the many achievements the decoding of the genome has brought. Then I spoke and said that this century will be remembered for how little, and not how much, happened in this field.
Hmmm…I seem to recall that Venter’s company was one that was trying to patent an inflated number of genes, which contradicts what he’s claiming here. But otherwise, yes, the HGP isn’t yet a source of useful medical information, but it’s a trove of scientific information; I’d also add that the technology race put a lot of useful techniques in our hands.
Venter: Exactly. Why did people think there were so many human genes? It’s because they thought there was going to be one gene for each human trait. And if you want to cure greed, you change the greed gene, right? Or the envy gene, which is probably far more dangerous. But it turns out that we’re pretty complex. If you want to find out why someone gets Alzheimer’s or cancer, then it is not enough to look at one gene. To do so, we have to have the whole picture. It’s like saying you want to explore Valencia and the only thing you can see is this table. You see a little rust, but that tells you nothing about Valencia other than that the air is maybe salty. That’s where we are with the genome. We know nothing.
Exactly! Traits are products of overlapping networks of genes. Venter also explains that a lot of the effects of genes are developmental, so you can’t expect to be able to take a pill to correct something that went wrong in the assembly process in the embryo.
Here’s my favorite exchange from the interview.
Venter: Yes, and I find them frightening. I can read your genome, you know? Nobody’s been able to do that in history before. But that is not about God-like powers, it’s about scientific power. The real problem is that the understanding of science in our society is so shallow. In the future, if we want to have enough water, enough food and enough energy without totally destroying our planet, then we will have to be dependent on good science.
SPIEGEL: Some scientist don’t rule out a belief in God. Francis Collins, for example …
Venter: … That’s his issue to reconcile, not mine. For me, it’s either faith or science – you can’t have both.
SPIEGEL: So you don’t consider Collins to be a true scientist?
Venter: Let’s just say he’s a government administrator.
Oh, snap.
The peculiarities of dietary restrictions by the religious are always entertaining. Catholics have their own weird practices: here’s a bit of strange information from a Catholic agony aunt forum.
Do alligators count as fish?
As a Catholic who observes the custom of abstaining from meat on Fridays, I would like to know if alligator would be considered meat or fish. Recently, on a Friday, I was in a local restaurant where I was sharing a dinner of alligator. I thought upon this, and decided, as a reptile, alligator would fall into the fish category. I hope I’m not sounding too scrupulous, but if it is considered meat, I will avoid it on Fridays in the future.
Uh-oh. This woman made a judgment on Catholic theology without consulting a priest. Doesn’t she know she could be getting an eternity in hell for her plate full of alligator? Fortunately, it turns out that going meatless still allows one to eat all the reptiles, amphibians, and insects you might want.
An alligator is certainly not a fish, and it certainly does have meat. But the custom of abstaining from meat on Fridays is abstinence from the flesh of mammals and birds. Fish, reptiles, amphibians, insects, etc., are exempt from this. Since an alligator is a reptile, those who abstain from meat on Fridays are free to eat alligator if they wish.
Why?
Does anybody ever just ask why these strange eating habits are a part of the doctrine? Does god like birds and mammals so much that he doesn’t want you to eat them on one day? Would he really be that pissed if you had a cheeseburger on Friday?
MPR picked my brains about the impossible plan to eradicate mosquitoes. No, we can’t, and no, we shouldn’t. That wasn’t so hard.
The 10th anniversary of the journal Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines is being celebrated by making all of the articles in a special review issue entirely free for download…for the month of July. It’s almost over! Grab those pdfs while you can!
It’s a simple question.
Do you think Livingston Parish public schools should teach creationism?
Yes, evolution is a lie 22%
Yes, so children can hear both sides 35%
No, religion has no place in science class 29%
No, we don’t need to waste tax money on lawsuits 13%
Don’t know 1%
I think readers here might have a slightly different set of answers than are up currently, though.
Helen Thomas vacated her front row seat in the White Press (under ignominious circumstances, unfortunately), and now it’s up for grabs. The White House Correspondence Association is going to decide whether to give it to NPR, Bloomberg, or, appallingly, Fox News. Sign the petition. Slap down the right-wing propaganda organ and insist that a legitimate news organization like NPR get the seat.
