Evolution video wins 1 minute student film prize

March 22, 2013 • 2:04 am

by Matthew Cobb

The Guardian has just run a competition for brief films on science made by students. The winner was Sally Le Page, a final year biology student at Oxford. She won £9000! Here’s a link to the video, which includes another minute of her chatting about asking her to vote (don’t bother, she won!)

Sally says:

 “I wanted to make my film about evolution because life is the most interesting thing in the universe – and we can’t understand life without understanding evolution. Most people know what evolution is, but not how important it is. And that’s what I wanted to get across in my video…. When I was little I spent all my time in the garden playing around with frogs or watching David Attenborough programmes on TV. Increasingly, evolution is being threatened by creationism – and that’s threatening biology. So it’s important that we have an understanding of what it is.”

Here’s another video she made, about the selfish gene and chocolates…

A Venn diagram of woo and bollocks

March 22, 2013 • 1:57 am

by Matthew Cobb

Crispian Jago has a blog (not a website) called The Reason Stick. The other day he posted this excellent Venn Diagram of Irrational Nonsense., with four fields: Religious Bollocks, Quackery Bollocks, Pseudoscientific Bollocks and Paranormal Bollocks. At its heart, like a malevolent spider (sorry, spiders!) sits Scientology… Click to enbiggen and find your favourite woo!

woo

h/t @SLSingh

A. R. Wallace show on BBC tonight

March 21, 2013 • 11:45 am

Remember that 2013 is Wallace Year—the centenary of Alfred Russel Wallace’s death. If you don’t know who he is—and you must—read the Wikipedia article.  We’ll be featuring Wallaceiana throughout the year.

At the moment (it’s early!) I’m listening to a show on the man, the co-discoverer of natural selection, live on BBC Radio 4. It’s very good, and my pal Steve Jones, who is featured, is quite eloquent. It’s too late to announce the program now, but it will be repeated on BBC4 tonight (FM only) at 21:30 London time (5:30 p.m. EST US), presumably at the link above, and then later as a podcast.

It’s a nice show that I recommend; I’ll post the link to the podcast when it’s up.

The BBC blurb:

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the work of Alfred Russel Wallace, a pioneer of evolutionary theory. Born in 1823, Wallace travelled extensively, charting the distribution of animal species throughout the world. This fieldwork in the Amazon and later the Malay Archipelago led him to formulate a theory of evolution through natural selection. In 1858 he sent the paper he wrote on the subject to Charles Darwin, who was spurred into the writing and publication of his own masterpiece On the Origin of Species. Wallace was also the founder of the science of biogeography and made important discoveries about the nature of animal coloration. But despite his visionary work, Wallace has been overshadowed by the greater fame of his contemporary Darwin.

With:

Steve Jones
Emeritus Professor of Genetics at University College London

George Beccaloni
Curator of Cockroaches and Related Insects and Director of the Wallace Correspondence Project at the Natural History Museum

Ted Benton
Professor of Sociology at the University of Essex

Producer: Thomas Morri

A. R. Wallace
A. R. Wallace

h/t: Dom

Turtle-Crunching Crocs and Cretaceous Wildfires at the Dinosaur Discovery Museum

March 21, 2013 • 10:12 am

by Greg Mayer

I wasn’t able to make Chris Noto’s talk on Cretaceous coastal swamps last night, so I asked him to send me a summary of what he had to say and how the event went.

Turtle-Crunching Crocs and Cretaceous Wildfires at the Dinosaur Discovery Museum

by Chris Noto

First of all, I’d like to start by saying what a wonderful place the Dinosaur Discovery Museum is in Kenosha, Wisconsin. It is an important scientific and educational resource not only for the community, but the region as well. If you have not had a chance to visit the DDM yet, I highly recommend it. Best of all, it’s free to the public!

The evening provided a great turnout for the talk, about 20 or so in all, including university students (some were my students but, I should add, were not given credit for attending!), members of the community, teenagers, and younger children. Dr. Thomas Carr, a fellow paleontologist and director of the Carthage Institute of Paleontology (housed in the DDM), was also there.

Chris Noto shows bone models to attendees at his lecture.
Chris Noto shows bone models to attendees at his lecture.

The content of my talk surrounded work I have been doing with others at the Arlington Archosaur Site in Dallas, Texas. This site contains the remains of a diverse fossil assemblage, including the remains of turtles, crocodilians, dinosaurs, mammals, amphibians, lizards, sharks, bony fish, plants, and invertebrates. All of these lived approximately 96-97 million years ago in a coastal delta system on what was once a peninsula jutting westward into the Western Interior Seaway. One of the most interesting things about the AAS is that it preserves multiple sedimentary layers with charcoal and burned root fragments, evidence of intense, widespread wildfires that may have had an impact on the biodiversity of the ecosystem. The star of the show though is a new species of large crocodyliform. These monsters grew upwards of 7 meters (23 feet) long, with a 1 meter (3 foot) long head alone. Last year my colleagues Derek Main, Stephanie Drumheller, and I published a paper detailing the various tooth marks and feeding traces of the crocodyliform, which exhibited feeding behavior similar to that of living crocodiles and alligators. I described in detail how we built the case that the crocodyliform, and not a theropod dinosaur or other carnivore, made the tooth marks. I also showed the audience the process of how I am using laser scanning to produce 3D models of the fossils to reconstruct the skeleton of the new croc virtually, with the eventual aim of making a full 3D replica for display and research. I brought along with me some 3D printed models of bones and teeth to show. The talented digital artist Dave Killpack used my 3D model of the skull to create a fully-fleshed version of the croc’s head – with more reconstructions on the way. The potential applications of this technology are very exciting.

Chris Noto speaking at the Dinosaur Discovery Museum.
Chris Noto speaking at the Dinosaur Discovery Museum.

Afterwards I entertained a wide array of intelligent questions from the audience. I was particularly impressed by the questions the children asked me, including why the AAS croc had a big overhanging, bulbous snout and if any other crocs have one; how do we know that theropod dinosaurs weren’t rare, but we just haven’t found them yet; and one of my favorites, how do we know the oxygen content of the atmosphere in the past (I had shown a graph of atmospheric O2 over time). Many folks came up afterwards to look at the 3D-printed bones up close. All in all a good time sharing science with the public and I look forward to doing it again soon.

BioLogos and Templeton waste more money on accommodationism

March 21, 2013 • 7:34 am

Here’s an equation: BioLogos + Templeton = Apologetics funded by a ton of money.

That’s precisely what’s happened with BioLogos’s “Evolution and Christian Faith” program.  The Templeton Foundation has anted up nearly two million bucks for this, handing it to BioLogos in their futile attempt to bring evangelical Christians to an acceptance of evolution. The problem is that BioLogos is no longer devoted to that mission; they’ve devolved to sucking up to Christians and soft-pedaling the science. And they’ve gotten rid of people, like Karl Giberson and Pete Enns, who take a hard line on questions like the non-existence of Adam and Eve.

Here’s part of the the Templeton blurb for that program:

Many Christians believe evolution is inherently atheistic and therefore incompatible with their faith. This mistaken belief is frequently reinforced by militant atheists like Richard Dawkins and repeated by fundamentalist Christians like Ken Ham. In addition, the media repeatedly frame science/religion stories as though the two are at war. The BioLogos Foundation exists to turn the tide. In just two years BioLogos has made remarkable inroads into the evangelical community and broader culture by influencing key opinion leaders, scholars, pastors, and educators, and by reaching out to the general public.

Four misstatements, right off the bat: Richard Dawkins is not militant; he hasn’t said that evolution is inherently atheistic, but rather that it has led people like him to atheism because it displaces a creator God; there is indeed a war between science and all forms of faith that are theistic (if not, why are religious people constantly trying to sneak creationism into the public schools, and why do only 16% of Americans accept naturalistic evolution?); and BioLogos hasn’t turned any tide, nor made “remarkable inroads into the evangelical community”.

And if you want to see what Templeton is funding, have a look at how the money is being handed out by BioLogos. Here are excerpts from just a few project descriptions:

Original Sin Redux: A Study in Analytic Theology

Fuller Theological Seminary
Profesor Oliver Crisp

A major issue in contemporary Christian theology concerns the relationship between an evolutionary account of human origins and the doctrine of original sin. To what extent does a theological account ofthe origin of human sin depend upon the evolution of modern humans from one and only one ancestral pair – especially if that pair does not appear to correspond to what we would think of as modern human beings? How would that complicate our theological stories of human development in light of Scripture? A related issue turns on the extent to which we can we reconstruct a doctrine of original sin wherenature has always been “red in tooth and claw.”. . .

*****

Beyond Galileo – to Chalcedon: Re-imagining the Intersection of Evolution and the Fall

The Colossian Forum
Pastor Michael Gulker, Dr. James Smith, and Dr. William Cavanaugh

This project gathers a multidisciplinary team of leading scholars to pursue communal, research on evolution, the Fall, and original sin, asking a pressing question: If humanity emerged from non-human primates—as genetic, biological, and archaeological evidence seems to suggest—then what are the implications for Christian theology’s traditional account of origins, including both the origin of humanityand the origin of sin?The integrity of the church’s witness requires that we constructively address thisdifficult question. We believe that cultivating an orthodox theological imagination can enable us to engage these tensions without giving up on confessional orthodoxy.

*****

This project has the objective of producing a scholarly monograph tentatively entitled Creaturehood Ascendant: Sin and Science in Theological Anthropology as well as several scholarly articles. This research will lay out a theological anthropology that builds on specific emphases of Catholic and evangelical theology in order to respond to the theory of evolution. heological and philosophical commitments that investigate and account for human personhood.

*****

My emphasis in this next one to show that such projects begin with a presupposition (God and Jesus) and then try to twist the science to fit it. In other words, apologetics:

Divine Hiddenness and Constraints on Creation: Should We Expect God to Create Gradually?

Bethany College
Dr. John Mullen

Many Christians attempt to deny evolutionary biology, thereby creating an intellectual obstacle for biologically-informed non-Christians who might otherwise consider Christianity favorably.  Denials of evolution foster the perception that Christianity requires us to believe something that is demonstrably false, but most of us reasonably believe that God never requires that of anyone.  Accordingly, the ultimate goal of this project is to remove the perception that evolution is a threat to Christianity, and to do so in such a way that non-specialists find it relatively easy to understand.  This ultimate goal is broadly evangelistic, though it also eliminates a source of division among Christians.  The proximate goal is to show that evolutionary biology lends very little evidential support to Philosophical Naturalism over Classical Theism.  To do this, it must be shown that a gradual creation is an expected consequence of Theism.  We may reasonably suppose that God, to accomplish His purposes as we can reasonably perceive them, must remain hidden to us to the point of leaving Naturalism as a “live-option” for us given our publically-accessible evidence.  If so, God has good reasons to create gradually and can reasonably be expected to do so.  This conflicts with a tendency most of us have to think that God would want to make His presence obvious to us.  This project will be carried out through a series of academic papers, a popular-level book, and possible speaking engagements.  The latter are intended to disseminate the philosophical ideas argued in the papers to a wider audience.

These projects, but especially the one above, are an insult to rationality.  How can these scholars look in the mirror each day knowing that they’re taking money for such ludicrous projects? I can imagine Dr. Muller, while shaving, telling himself, “Okay, today I’m going to make up more reasons why God is hidden.”

The translation of the above is that God should create gradually (i.e., through evolution) so that we can still remain naturalists about most stuff while the shy deity remains hidden. But God could still have done that by creating everything instantly and then leaving it unchanged.  After all, we don’t have to have evolution to remain naturalists. And if God works miracles with Jesus, virgin births, and so on, doesn’t that dispel naturalism, too?

It’s amazing to me that, rather than interpret the “hiddenness of God” as evidence against God, theologians twist their brains into knots trying to explain why God would actually want to remain hidden.

As Delos McKown said, “The invisible and the nonexistent look very much alike.”  Much as projects like this anger me, they make me even sadder, for it shows an irremediable credulity of some humans, who waste their valuable time on this planet trying to explain why an interventionist deity can’t show Himself too obviously.

*****

One more for your delectation:

Building Bridges Between Scientists and Evangelicals: Let the Conversation Evolve

Vineyard Church of Ann Arbor
Pastor Ken Wilson, Pastor Emily Swan, and David Paladino

The primary goal of our project is to assist a mission-driven, science-friendly change process within Vineyard churches and InterVarsity areas and chapters that are open to this shift; assist leaders in these organizations to accept theistic evolution as one of the legitimate approaches to integrating science and evangelical faith; and to help them become effective change agents within their organizations.  Our secondary goal is to assist scientists and science educators to communicate with evangelicals more effectively regarding evolution.

Remember that the Vineyard Church is the one studied (and to some extent praised) by Tanya Luhrmann in her new book, When God Talks Back.

This project isn’t as invidious as the others, but note that what it aims to do is promote theistic evolution—that is, a form of teleological evolution resting on the discredited idea that evolution is driven by a form of vitalism. As I’ve said endlessly, those who accept theistic evolution, or promote it, are not our allies, nor should we court them in a misguided attempt to get friends for court battles against creationism. If evolution is to be promoted, let it be promoted on its own merits and evidence, not by saying that, after all, God is behind it or directs it.  After all, we don’t have “theistic chemistry” (God moves the molecules) or “theistic physiology” (God regulates glucose metabolism).

Religious people who deny evolution are not, by and large, stupid.  They know that telling them that religion and evolution are compatible isn’t going to settle the queasiness in their stomach when they realize that, in the end, evolution implies to many that humans are a contingent result of a purely materialistic process.  It’s easier for them to simply reject evolution and accept the view that humans are the special product of God’s creation and morals were instilled into us by that god.

The battle to keep creationism out of schools is one battle in a war, but the war is not between evolution and creationism, but between superstition and rationality. By caving in to the theistic evolutionists, we may gain support for the battle, but only at the expense of losing the war.

Royal Institution rescued!

March 21, 2013 • 3:30 am

A while back I wrote about the imminent demise of Britain’s Royal Institution, a historic venue for research and the dissemination of science to the public. Because of financial difficulties, the Royal’s building in Mayfair was up for sale. Seeing what a disaster this would be, I urged readers to sign a petitions and spread the word.

I take no credit at all for the favorable outcome, which is due almost entirely to the campaigns of bigwigs like Nobel Laureate Harry Kroto, but I’m still enormously chuffed to report that, according to The Guardian, the royal has been saved—for the nonce:

The Royal Institution has been bailed out of a cash crisis that threatened to force the organisation from its Mayfair home. Sir Richard Sykes, chairman of the 200-year-old institution, said it had received a donation of £4.4m that would clear its debts and give the board time to develop a fresh strategy to finance the charity.

The cash from an anonymous foundation will pay off the RI’s immediate loan and overdraft which had to be settled by March. The loan was secured against the RI’s premises, an imposing £60m grade I-listed building in Mayfair.

I don’t know who the anonymous donors were, but thank Ceiling Cat they appeared! There still remain formidable financial problems, but I’m heartened by the group of people the Royal has assembled to give it new direction.  Check it out:

The task of defining a fresh vision for the RI falls to the new “future direction committee”, chaired by Lord Winston. Also members are: Sir Paul Nurse, president of the Royal Society; Professor Colin Blakemore, an Oxford neuroscientist; and physicists Brian Cox and Jim Al Khalili.

h/t: Michael

Another intrusive cheetah

March 21, 2013 • 3:20 am

Judging by the previous video and now this one, cheetahs seem remarkably acclimated to human presence, at least in safari caravans.  Here’s a video of a cheetah encounter in Kenya, and there’s a not-too-graceful moment around a minute in.

BTW, I understand that cheetahs are the only cats with claws that can’t retract. You can see them in this clip:

Oh, and for langniappe, here’s a cat that sounds like a goat.