Double Molly opportunity!

I was bad. I completely forgot to have Molly nominations for July, and here it is August. So let’s catch up: name your fave commenter for either month right here, or just your favorite for any time, and I’ll tally ’em up when I get back from New York — we’ll have a super-duper double induction ceremony, with both cake and pie.

A day spent traveling

If it’s been a bit dead here today, it’s because I’ve been on an aeroplane most of the afternoon, and am now holed up in the lovely little village of New York for a few days of urban thrills.

While I was cruising through the skies, Vox Day has responded to my rebuke of his pathetic anti-scientific efforts. He’s now claiming that if evolution were capable of rates of 200,000 darwins, then we could turn a mouse into an elephant in 20 years, and since we haven’t, then evolution is bogus.

I trust Pharyngula readers are smart enough to see the obvious logical hole. That evolution does not proceed at an extravagant rate dictated by a creationist does not call evolution into question in the slightest. As I mentioned, those extreme rates are observed in extreme experimental situations and involve changes in size of a few percent over short intervals in small and prolific invertebrates. No biologist claims elephants shot up over the span of decades, and it is entirely inappropriate to pretend that those kinds of rapid transformations should apply to the situation Day invented.

Trying too hard

Jonathan Eisen dresses down university press departments that oversell science, and also hits on one of my pet peeves: the attempt to portray all scientific research as addressing human ills. In this case, it’s claiming that research on shark gene expression will help treat birth defects.

In my own research, I look at the effects of alcohol (among other things) on embryonic development in zebrafish, and it is a kind of animal model of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. People always jump to the assumption that I’m trying to find a cure for FAS, and I have to correct them: I definitely am not. FAS is a developmental disorder, and is not curable … and we already have a solution in the form of public policy and maternal education that can prevent the problem. I use teratogens as a simple tool to perturb the process of development so I can view the interactions involved; I also see development as an event involving both genes and the environment, and just about everyone mucks around with genes, so I’m looking at it from the other side.

So my work with teratogens is much more directly applicable to research on birth defects, and I deny the association; most of the work out there on gene expression in fins is going to even more remote from applied medical uses, not that that will stop PR departments.

The Holy Eggplant of Boothwyn

i-faa8fd9d6844ae5400470c4363b21606-god_eggplant.jpg

If Pastor Drake’s curses are fizzling, I know exactly what he needs: a blessed medallion made from an eggplant to potentiate his jebus-power. It’s true: this miracle occurred spontaneously, and is exactly the holy artifact any righteous smiter would want on his side.

I will also call your attention to an important and obvious fact: this eggplant did not say “Gott” or “Dieu” or “Dios” or “Бог” or “Deus” or “Dio” or “神” or “الله” — no, it says “God”. Therefore, God chooses to speak in English.

Either that, or it’s the natural language of eggplants.