Hubris, gall, arrogance…inanity

Would you believe that Andy Schlafly, head kook at Conservapædia, wrote a letter to Richard Lenski, demanding release of his data to Schlafly and his crack team of home-schooled children? Schlafly is a creationist and ideologue of the worst sort; he has no qualifications in biology, and only wants the data because he doesn’t believe it, and would no doubt then use his vast powers of incomprehension to garble it.

That isn’t noteworthy, though. We expect creationists to act like indignant idiots when the facts are shown to them. What’s really cool is that Lenski wrote back.

Dear Mr. Schlafly:

I suggest you might want to read our paper itself, which is available for download at most university libraries and is also posted as publication #180 on my website. Here’s a brief summary that addresses your three points.

1) “… your claims, that E. Coli bacteria had an evolutionary beneficial mutation in your study.” We (my group and scientific collaborators) have already published several papers that document beneficial mutations in our long-term experiment. These papers provide exact details on the identity of the mutations, as well as genetic constructions where we have produced genotypes that differ by single mutations, then compete them, demonstrating that the mutations confer an advantage under the environmental conditions of the experiment. See papers # 122, 140, 155, 166, and 178 referenced on my website. In the latest paper, you will see that we make no claim to having identified the genetic basis of the mutations observed in this study. However, we have found a number of mutant clones that have heritable differences in behavior (growth on citrate), and which confer a clear advantage in the environment where they evolved, which contains citrate. Our future work will seek to identify the responsible mutations.

2. “Specifically, we wonder about the data supporting your claim that one of your colonies of E. Coli developed the ability to absorb citrate, something not found in wild E. Coli, at around 31,500 generations.” You will find all the relevant methods and data supporting this claim in our paper. We also establish in our paper, through various phenotypic and genetic markers, that the Cit+ mutant was indeed a descendant of the original strain used in our experiments.

3. “In addition, there is skepticism that 3 new and useful proteins appeared in the colony around generation 20,000.” We make no such claim anywhere in our paper, nor do I think it is correct. Proteins do not “appear out of the blue”, in any case. We do show that what we call a “potentiated” genotype had evolved by generation 20,000 that had a greater propensity to produce Cit+ mutants. We also show that the dynamics of appearance of Cit+ mutants in the potentiated genotypes are highly suggestive of the requirement for two additional mutations to yield the resulting Cit+ trait. Moreover, we found that Cit+ mutants, when they first appeared, were often rather weak at using citrate. At least the main Cit+ line that we studied underwent an additional mutation (or mutations) that refined that ability and led to a large improvement in growth on citrate. All these issues and the supporting methods and data are covered in our paper.

Sincerely,

Richard Lenski

Wow. That was far more polite than they deserve, but good for Dr Lenski. Unfortunately, Schlafly will now use the reply as an opportunity to smugly regard himself as a serious player, and he will also ignore the substance to continue to deny that evolution occurred. But maybe, just maybe, someone in the collection of deprived children subjected to Schlafly’s tutelage will notice that real scientists can give substantial replies to his usual ignorant nonsense.

Get ready to party like it’s 1859

Olivia Judson hits exactly the right note in her article about Charles Darwin and the coming centennial year of The Origin: brilliant fellow who revolutionized our thinking, but he wasn’t the only one and he definitely wasn’t the final word on evolution. So let’s party!

This is going to be a great celebratory year for biologists, and I have to confess — I’m also looking forward to the bitter gnashing of teeth by the creationists.

Not just the creationists

We’ve had a few examples here lately of crazy creationist talk, but some of the climate change denialists are just as bad. Look at this example of someone arguing that greenhouse gases can’t cause global warming:

Moreover, the actual trapping of heat cannot raise an object’s temperature in the first place. It only slows down heat loss.

It might be literally true, but it’s operationally false in this case — that argument only works if there is no internal source of heat and there is no external input. If you slow down heat loss to a point where it is less than heat gain, you will get an increase in temperature.

This kook must be one of those people who likes to wear a fur coat on a hot summer day.

John Freshwater is going to trial

Remember the case of John Freshwater, the Ohio science teacher who burned a cross into a student’s arm and decorates his desk with Christian kitsch? He’s a raving mad loon, but he’s also fun and popular with the Christian kids at school (who are, naturally, a majority).

Now John Freshwater and the school district are going to court.

Freshwater’s action and the administration’s inaction, the lawsuit states, “have the purpose and effect of endorsing religion over non-religion and Christianity over other religious beliefs, thus violating the neutrality portion of the Establishment Clause.”

In addition to asking the court to issue an injunction against the teaching of religion in the school, the plaintiffs seek compensatory damages, punitive damages, reasonable attorney fees, prejudgment interest and post judgment costs, and other relief the court deems appropriate.

Read the whole thing. It sounds open-and-shut to me, since not only is Freshwater plainly promoting sectarian religion in the public school classroom, he’s proud of it and brags about his advocacy. One wild card, though: the plaintiffs want a jury trial. That isn’t always a plus in a case that’s trying to protect a minority view.

They’re also just asking that Freshwater stop peddling his sectarian nonsense in the classroom (plus damages and costs), so I don’t think he’ll get to achieve his desired martyrdom.

Also at FCA [Fellowship of Christian Athletes] meetings, the suit alleges that Freshwater distributed Bibles for the students present to give to other students at the school who were not present, and that an invited speaker told students “they should disobey the law to further their own religion, even if it means going to jail.”

Jail isn’t at stake here, nor are they asking that he be fired. Just please stop using the classroom as a pulpit.

Freaky scents for cents

On the one hand, there is this incredibly tacky exploitation of the devout in the marketing of The Pope’s Cologne. It’s claimed to be produced according to some 19th century formula, straight from Pope Pius IX, who apparently went around dazzling the ladies with his bling and his expensive scent. On the other, there is this testimonial to the willingness of the devout to be taken. This poor woman’s husband has just died, and she’s handed a bottle labeled “The Pope’s Cologne”, so what happens?

What I experienced later will be a sight I will never forget!!! The widow used the cologne to “anoint” her husband EVERY 20 minutes. She would sprinkle it on his hands, his head, his forehead, and his neck. You could see in her eyes she had found a way of redemption through the cologne. Everyone was asking about the cologne and its origin. Everyone that came in to give her their condolences could not stop asking about the pleasant aroma they were experiencing. Everyone was quiet and in awe for hours. She also kept on rubbing the bottle as if it was some sort of amulet or charm.

I am a little bit creeped out. These poor grieving women, trying to find solace in a marketing scam.

At $26/bottle for a label, though, it’s quite the scam.

So I’m thinking…every day I put in some time working on the elliptical trainer, and I dribble out a good load of sweat. How much would you pay for a real, genuine, authentic vial of actual atheist sweat? $25.95? $25.75? $25.50? No. I’m practically giving it away for the low, low price of $25, even. And this isn’t just some smelly water cobbled up out of an old recipe, it’s actually right from my body, pungent and complex and thoroughly biological.

It’s incredibly useful. Not only will it drive away evangelical door-knockers, but you can anoint your beloved dead (anointing of the living not recommended) with it. You will get such great comments from the guests at the funeral: “Whooo-wee. He was a ripe old one, wasn’t he?” and “When’s the cremation? Soon, I hope.” And think of the money you’ll save on the reception afterwards: no one will have an appetite!

If enough of you order, it’ll also help motivate me to keep up the exercise program. “Ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching” with every step is an awfully good incentive.

I think I’ll call it…”Whiff of Mortality”.

Miller on Colbert

Here you go:

It was a good performance, but I think he tried a little too hard to cram a whole lecture into a few minutes — but then maybe that’s what you need to do on Colbert, ride hard over his attempts to derail you. I also disagree with his premise that creationism has its roots in anti-authoritarianism and rebelliousness, which he touched on briefly here but goes on at length in his book…but yeah, he’s dead on target when he points out that ID has no evidence, and is basically trying to cheat its way into the curriculum.

I get email

I just got an email listing 50 “proofs” for the existence of a god. It was also sent to a large number of skeptics, and included a plug for the dumb-as-bricks author’s book — she’s a flea who writes an imaginary scenario in which Richard Dawkins gets psychiatric counseling…from Jesus! If Debra Rufini’s imaginary dialog is as bad as this list of “proofs” — more like a collection of cliches, bad quotes, and lies — I can’t imagine wanting to slog through it.

Any one of these I’d happily rip to shreds, but 50 at once? The distilled dementia herein is overwhelming, and I’m sure she counts on that.

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Good idea, utterly horrible execution

Somebody has floated the idea of building an Evolution Museum in the same neighborhood as Ken Ham’s Creation “Museum”. Superficially, it’s a fine idea, but no, I can’t support it, for a number of reasons.

  • Every natural history museum is an evolution museum.

  • There is already a natural history museum in Cincinnati—The Cincinnati Museum Center.

  • The web page for this proposed museum is thin and unprofessional. It looks like someone had the bright idea to build a competing museum, and his first and only strategy was to scribble up some html, in the hopes that millions will come pouring in through Pay Pal.

  • You want to build a real museum? Get the support of the scientific community first. Try to integrate with existing institutions. Line up real money from investors. Then ask private individuals to put a few dollars on their Visa card. This proposal is entirely backwards.

  • Charging forward as a private citizen and making naive plans to just “build a museum” might, if they’re very lucky, produce four walls and some space, but it will be just as superficial and empty as Ken Ham’s kitschy pile of crap.

  • Their financial page just makes me cringe. They’ve got 0 donations, but they’re dreaming of donations on the order of $10 million per month. Unbelievable.

So, like, ugh. There is a right way to go about putting together the complex resources needed to build a museum, and I’m pretty darned sure this isn’t it.

Now, if somebody were working with regional universities and museums and had a real plan that tapped into investments from the state government and/or local industry, then we’d have something I could get behind. This is, however, a much bigger project than the instigator has imagined.

The trends, IF they continue, are in our favor

I just got around to reading this very nice article by Gregory Paul and Phil Zuckerman, which we godless heathen ought to find reassuring and optimistic. They describe how religion is fading, even here in the United States, and that it is a natural consequence of economic trends. In particular, the main reason atheism is growing isn’t that we’ve got lots of wild-eyed proselytizers, it’s simply that security and an absence of fear make religion irrelevant and even unattractive.

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