I am Pro-Test

There was a rally in LA for a group in favor of animal experimentation, Pro-Test, which also had a counter-rally by animal rights groups. You can guess which side I’m on in this debate: blocking experimentation on animals would kill biological research dead. The tactics of the anti-vivisectionists are also reprehensible and deserving of condemnation.

The Pro-Test group, an offshoot of an Oxford, England-based group founded in 2006, was organized by J. David Jentsch, a UCLA neuroscientist who was the target of a recent attack by anonymous animal-rights activists.  In the attack, Jentsch’s car was set on fire while it was parked in front of his Westside home.  (The FBI recently announced that a reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible has been increased to $75,000.)  Jentsch, who researches schizophrenia and drug addiction, conducts tests on monkeys.  While he acknowledges that some monkeys are killed as part of his research, he maintains that they do not suffer.  Jentsch was expected to speak at today’s rally.

Most importantly, we’re biologists. We’re in this business because we have a passion for the organisms we study, not because we’re some kind of sick sadists. We’re also currently swaddled up to our ears in regulations and monitors to prevent abuses of the animals in our care.

Unfortunately, the article discussing this rally has associated with it a poll. This makes me rather cranky—it’s a serious issue worth discussing, so please, don’t slap a stupid internet poll on it. It just means that advocacy groups will push at the numbers as if they mean something. So, please, go forth and destroy this pointless metric:

Can medical research on animals be conducted humanely?

Yes — and I support it if the animals are treated well 27% (1872 votes)

No — it’s inhumane by definition and I don’t support it 73% (5049 votes)

Not sure <1% (4 votes)

Right wing inanity

How did we ever let these clowns run the country for so long?

  • John Boehner. No comment from me needed, let his own words speak for him.

    Appearing on ABC’s This Week, the Ohio Republican was asked what to describe the GOP plan to dealing with greenhouse gas emissions, “which every major scientific organization said is contributing to climate change.”

    Boehner replied: “The idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical. Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide. Every cow in the world, you know when they do what they do you’ve got more carbon dioxide.”

  • We in academia are part of an insidious plot to promote Obama’s socialist agenda by teaching nothing but “community organizing” all the time. At least, that’s the impression you might get from right wing anti-academic freedom sites, as this quote might suggest.

    Google the phrase “college and university courses in community organizing” and you get 9,990,000 entries, at least as of today.

    One problem: the goon who did this search typed it into google without the quotes, which means that it returned every page where a college used the word “college” and a university used the word “university” and a community used the word “community”. Properly enclose the phrase in quotes, and the number of entries you get is…two.

The Republicans do make me despair of humanity, sometimes.

Interviewed in the Medford Mail Tribune

It’s a somewhat odd article in which I apparently attributed evolution to nothing but chance, since the only alternative is Design. This, of course, is not my view, but there’s enough other stuff in there to stir up controversy that maybe we’ll stir up a contentious audience.

There is, apparently, an intelligent design creationism proponent on the faculty of Southern Oregon University, and they got a few comments from him.

Professor Roger Christianson said there are alternative explanations of how diversity happened, and “people who believe in intelligent design feel the complexity of life is too great to come about by naturalistic forces.”

Christianson, an evangelical Christian, said he has brought up intelligent design and creation science in class to show the swing of the pendulum between the two schools of thought, and “I suggest the truth is somewhere in the middle.”

“I talk mostly about adaptation that can be seen from either point of view,” he said. “… I see the world as an evolving pot, with natural selection as the driving force, but I certainly don’t rule out that an intelligence or a creator is involved.”

Charming. Of course, my talk tonight is specifically a counter to that silly and ignorant notion that the fact that organisms are complex must imply that they were designed. And no, there aren’t two schools of thought: there are religious kooks on one side, and the scientific evidence on the other…and only in the minds of the deluded is the correct answer “somewhere in the middle”.

Experience tells me, though, that Professor Christianson will be nowhere near my talk tonight.

Puijila darwini

i-e88a953e59c2ce6c5e2ac4568c7f0c36-rb.png

It’s yet another transitional fossil, everyone! Oooh and aaah over it, and laugh when the creationists scramble to pave it over with excuses.

What we have is a 23 million year old mammal from the Canadian arctic that would have looked rather like a seal in life…with a prominent exception. No flippers, instead having very large feet that were probably webbed. This is a walking seal.

i-2e998e366fcd8b430268a2fed96002fb-pujila.jpeg
(Click for larger image)
a, Palatal view of skull; b, lateral view of skull and mandible, left side; c, occlusal view of left mandible. Stippling represents matrix, hatching represents broken bone surface. The images are of three-dimensional scans. The brain case was scanned using computed tomography, whereas all other elements were surface scanned.

What it tells us is that marine pinnipeds almost certainly had an origin in the arctic, derived from terrestrial and semi-aquatic forms — these were more otter-like animals.

You’ll want to learn more about this beautiful creature. There is a website all about Puijila (in English, French, and Inuktitut) where you can find all kinds of images…and you can also find out how to pronounce “Puijila“, something we’re all going to have to practice. Who knew paleontology was going to lead us all into learning a few words of Inuktitut?

Rybczynski N, Dawson MR, Tedford RH (2009) A semi-aquatic Arctic mammalian carnivore from the
Miocene epoch and origin of Pinnipedia. Nature 458:1021-1024.

Looking for me in Ashland?

There will be a few opportunities for informal conversation today. I’ll be on an evolution walk at Briscoe Geology Park at 2:00pm today, and for those of you who can’t bear the thought of seeing me without a beer or four in you, I’ll be popping by the Standing Stone Brewing Company sometime after 9:30…after my talk and after I’ve had some dinner with Jefferson Center folks. If I’m late, don’t panic, just have some good conversation with other godless Pharyngulistas, and I’ll get there eventually.

I’d really like to win an iPod Touch

This is terribly crass of me, I know, but I’d love to win a free iPod Touch or iPod Shuffle. All I have to do is get the most people to click through the link posted below, and if I’m one of the top 3 promoters, I win! I get all these readers here, so I figure I might as well use you for personal gain.

Here’s the link. Come back and click on it every day!

Creation Minute is an exciting series hosted by Eric Hovind that explores the creation worldview using cutting-edge visual effects and digital technology. Each episode challenges the evolution theory and gives evidence of the Bible’s historical and scientific accuracy.

Well, as you can guess, I’m not really after the gadget itself…I’m more interested in seeing Eric Hovind compelled to send it to me. Heh heh heh.

(Of course, given his family’s criminal tendencies, and their adherence to Christian immorality, there is a good chance that even if I get the most click-throughs, I won’t win.)

Please, Texas, make Don McLeroy unemployed

There is hope in Texas. Deranged creationist dentist Don McLeroy is getting grilled in confirmation hearings.

State Board of Education Chairman Don McLeroy, R-Bryan, faced searing questioning during his uncommonly long confirmation hearing Wednesday at the Senate Nominations Committee.

And Chairman Mike Jackson, R-La Porte, said McLeroy’s nomination is on shaky ground because he might not be able to get the required two-thirds vote from the Senate.

Texans, call your congresscritters and urge them to purge this embarrassment from the board of education. If you can shed McLeroy, I will celebrate and write a post fulsome in its praise of the beauty and wisdom of Texans, I promise.

Scientifical journalism done good

Over on an MSN site, there is an image of Ötzi the iceman with a very strange caption.

The iceman is believed to be the ‘missing link’ between apes and humans that roamed the mountains, encased in ice.

How many ways is that wrong? The “missing link” remark, applied to a human being let alone anything else, is bad enough…but I’m having a hard time picturing the ecology of beings encased in ice and roaming mountains.

Attempts to get MSN to correct the ignorance are going unheeded, apparently.