Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
Hump Day! Meanwhile, in Dobrzyn, Hili has forgotten about Spinoza and is, as always, obsessed with noms.
A: You are too late for your meal.
Hili: please, don’t make jokes like that.
Ja: Spóźniłaś się na posiłek.
Hili: Proszę, nie rób takich żartów.
Here a group of Texas Tech students (a decent school in Lubbock, Texas, birthplace of Buddy Holly) are asked five sets of questions:
1. Who won the Civil War?
2. Who is the Vice-President of the United States?
3. Who did we (the U.S.) gain our independence from? And in what year?
4. What (television) show is Snooki on?
5. Who is Brad Pitt married to? And who was he married to before that?
They got two of these groups of questions uniformly right and largely tanked on the rest. Guess which ones. See the video below:
Now, instead of feeling superior, let’s wonder at an educational system in which students can’t answer the easiest questions about history and politics but know a lot about celebrities.
h/t: Merilee
Skeptical Briefs is a newsletter that goes, four times yearly, to the Associate Members of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, which also publishes the well known periodical Skeptical Inquirer. In the latest issue I have a two-page interview conducted by Brazilian writer Felipe Nogueira, who was clearly well read about my stuff before me interviewed me. Anyway, you can’t read the whole thing online, so I’ve put a screenshot below and will mail anyone a pdf of the full interview if asked.
But the full interview is also on Felipe’s website, Skepticism & Science, and you can also see it as a video on YouTube (it was conducted on Skype). I’d recommend the written version, since I hate seeing myself on video.
The case of Emerson T. McMullen—an associate professor of history at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, Georgia—just gets weirder and weirder. He’s a diehard creationist and apparently has been foisting his creationism on his history-of-science and science-related classes for years. (Georgia Southern is a state institution, not a private school.) And the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) has just found out that McMullen, canceling something called a “D-Day talk,” offered students instead extra credit for commenting on a creationist essay that he (McMullen) wrote! This happened just a few days ago
Here’s the offer of extra credit sent to his class:
You can find the essay here; it’s called “No evidence for evolution” and it’s full of the worst creationist pap you can imagine. Here are just two paragraphs from its opening:
These examples show just how poorly science handles history. The beginning of life and the origin of living things are historical events. They are not happening now and scientists cannot observe them. We have no time machine to ascertain what really occurred. Yet we find evolutionists claiming to have the correct insights into these important historical events. Many assert that we came from chemicals and evolved from a common ancestor. Are these assertions based on science, or a naturalistic worldview?
For a list of well-known scientists who dissent from Darwinism, click here: 100 dissenting scientists. Scientists on this list include Russell W. Carlson, Prof. of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, U. of Georgia; Jonathan Wells, PhD Molecular & Cell Biology-U.C. Berkeley; Dean Kenyon, Prof. Emeritus of Biology, San Francisco State; Marko Horb, Researcher, Dept. of Biology & Biochemistry, U. of Bath; Tony Jelsma, Prof. of Biology, Dordt College; Siegfried Scherer, Prof. of Microbial Ecology, Technische Universität München; Marvin Fritzler, Prof. of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, U. of Calgary, Medical School; Lennart Moller, Prof. of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Inst., U. of Stockholm; Matti Leisola, Prof., Laboratory of Bioprocess Engineering, Helsinki U. of Technology; Richard Sternberg, Invertebrate Zoology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institute (2002).
Imagine those poor students who want or need extra credit. They don’t have to even discuss or analyze this piece of garbage written by McMullen; all they have to do is summarize it. That is, he’s making students raise their grades by regurgitating his creationist ideas. I’d say that’s a pretty clear case of religious indoctrination.
McMullen’s espousal of blatant creationism has to be curtailed; he’s conducting his career by lying to his students, and making them repeat his lies. This is unconscionable, and a clear violation of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The man is a fool, and a danger to science education in Georgia. I have of course called the attention of Georgia Southern’s biology department to McMullen’s foolishness, which, I’m sure, the department would firmly decry.
At any rate, Andrew Seidel, an attorney for the FFRF, sent the following letter to Marcia Copeland, the General Counsel in the Office of Legal Affairs at Georgia Southern. I reproduce it with permission.
Dear Ms. Copeland,Please find attached additional evidence for the investigation into Prof. McMullen’s preaching/teaching. Attached is a screenshot of an email Prof. McMullen sent to his students on October 16, 2014 granting them extra credit for summarizing an essay he wrote entitled, “NO EVIDENCE FOR EVOLUTION: Scientists’ Research and Darwinism.” That paper can be found here: https://sites.google.com/a/georgiasouthern.edu/etmcmull/no-evidence-for-evolution-scientists-research-and-darwinism I’ve also attached a screenshot of this link, which clearly shows the GSU masthead above the anti-evolution essay.I trust you will forward this information to the investigators. We look forward to hearing how the investigation is progressing (as confidentiality concerns permit).Warmest,
Andrew L. Seidel
Attorney
Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc.
PO Box 750
Madison, WI 53701
by Matthew Cobb
Female moths are well known to produce pheromones that attract potential mates, sometimes from miles away. Male moths generally have much larger or more feather-like antennae than females, in order to catch a whiff of their partner on the air. But some males also produce pheromones, using structures called coremata or ‘hair-pencils’. Imagine have a rubber glove in your mouth, then blowing out so it suddenly appeared. Sexy, eh? Well here’s a male moth being helped to do exactly that. Wake up and smell the pheromones, ladies!
Whoever wrote the Wikipedia entry on hair-pencils has done a pretty good job, and there’s some nice references there, although none of the key ones are open access, sadly. As you’ll see, the compounds released by these structures can also be used to warn off competing males.
If you’re not a “Free Willy,” you can skip this, for I have at least one more post this week on the topic. But for crying out loud, let’s hear no protestations that I should stop posting on things that intrigue me. You’re always free to skip posts.
I’m now used to the fact that most readers on this site don’t agree with me that compatibilism (the idea that physical determinism is still compatible with the idea of “free will”) is a largely useless philosophical exercise: an exercise in semantics that accomplishes nothing of substance. That’s fine with me; I’m comfortable in my opinion. But that leaves me with a question for those readers who do endorse compatibilism. The question is this:
What do you think that the efforts of compatibilist philosophers have accomplished? And by “accomplished,” I mean accomplished for both academic scholarship and the welfare of humanity? And how do any social advantages of compatibilism differ from those that inhere in incompatibilism?
Now I can see what incompatibilism has to offer: the explicit dispelling of dualism (something that some compatibilists do, but not often enough), which kicks the props from beneath religion. More important, incompatibilism, by arguing that our decisions are the products of the laws of physics, and are “decisions” over which we have no control, has explicit lessons for how we deal with reward and, especially, punishment. By emphasizing determinism over semantics, I think, incompatibilism leads us naturally to a reconsideration of how we treat social offenders.
Now compatibilists could make the same arguments—for punishment as deterrence, sequestration, and rehabilitation but not retribution, and for a more empathic treatment of offenders—but most of these arguments have come from incompatibilists, who simply dismiss the semantic bafflegab and get on to the determinism. I believe that’s because even though most compatibilists are determinists, their efforts still leave the average person with the idea that we have some kind of real choice about our actions; and this obstructs reform in, say, the criminal justice system.
At any rate, there are many compatibilist readers, and I’d like to hear what advantages, both practical and intellectual, that view has over incompatibilism. Needless to say, I see none, but that is my own opinion.
This is a good example of how scientists and science-lovers should deal with creationists. And that is not to deal with them, at least in debates and meetings.
A while back, religious students at Michigan State University announced that they would hold a one-day “Origin Summit,” a meeting about creationism at a public university. That was legal because the summit was actually organized by a student religious group (The Baptist Collegiate Ministry), which has the right to book rooms on campus for its own activities. According to a piece by Mark Joseph Stern in Slate, though, the students didn’t have much to do with the conference, which was organized by Outside Influences. (Could it be. . . . Satan?)
“The Origin Summit“‘s speakers and program are shown below; note the distinguished lineup. Sadly, I have never heard of any of these scientists or science educators.
That’s a rather pugnacious program, and includes attacks on the Big Bang (really?) and on Rich Lenski’s well-known experiments on bacterial evolution. They also played the Hitler Card, i.e., Hitler’s genocides were strongly influenced by Darwin’s theory of evolution. (For the definitive refutation of that ridiculous canard, see my colleague Bob Richards’s essay, “Was Hitler a Darwinian?“, free online. Hint: the answer is “no.”)
What the creationists really wanted was a debate, in particular a debate with MSU philosophy professor Rob Pennock, a well-known opponent of intelligent design and author of what I think is the best anti-ID book, Tower of Babel. Pennock also testified for the prosecution in the famous Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District et al. case, a case in which ID was resoundingly trounced as “not science.”
Pennock wouldn’t bite, and good for him. As Slate reports:
The summit’s website asks whether Pennock’s arguments can “withstand the scrutiny of debate” and suggests that he’s too cowardly to stand up for evolution.
The summit had one thing right: Pennock refused to respond to its request. But it wasn’t out of timorousness.
“Scientists have already shown that there is no substance worth debating in these old creationist challenges to evolution,” he told me. Evolution is fact, creation is fiction, and there’s just no point in pretending like there’s a real scientific debate between reality and fantasy. I asked Pennock whether he was alarmed by the conference.
“It’s a sign of how desperate creationists have become,” he said. “[T]hey have to make schoolyard bully taunts, blame evolution for Hitler, and raffle a free iPad (‘Must be present to win’) to try to create a controversy and draw an audience.”
The rest of the Michigan State scientists also refused to engage, though of course they were peeved that such a stupid event could take place on a respectable campus. But it’s the Baptists, Jake!
Thwarted in their attempt to validate the conference with a debate, the summit leaders might at least have hoped for an attention-grabbing outcry among scientists at the school. There, too, they were foiled. Once MSU’s science professors caught wind of the event, they collectively decided to ignore the conference and refuse requests for comment. (Indeed, no professor would speak to me until I promised not to publish a story before the summit occurred.) The summit leaders were counting on the school’s scientists to criticize the conference and give them free publicity. So the scientists kept their mouths shut.
Kudos to my colleagues at MSU! The only pushback by Team Science was a pro-evolution table at the conference organized by some students. But faculty resolutely refused to either engage or attend. In the end, it wasn’t much of a win for the creationists:
The summit’s leaders were expecting an uproar, but MSU’s scientists, unlike Bill Nye, refused to take the bait. To debate creationism and evolution, they realized, was to imply that evolution is plausibly disputable. To ignore creationist calls for debate, on the other hand, relegates the theory to lowest rung of evangelical pseudoscience, where it so obviously belongs.
Ultimately, thanks to the university’s emphatic silence, the conference drew fewer than 100 attendees, according to Baskett—only about one-third of whom appeared to be younger than 30. There were no debates or shouting matches, and the creationists were, by all accounts, gracious and civil. A handful of MSU students sat in out of pure curiosity, Pennock told me, including a resolutely pro-science graduate student who studies evolutionary microbiology. At the end of the event, the student won the iPad raffle.
“Chance?” Pennock asked, “or a sign from above? You be the judge.”
My advice to all, and that included Bill Nye, who I think erred in debating Ken Ham, is to not engage creationists on a public platform, and that means in conferences or debates. Issues like the worthlessness of creationism are not decided by rhetoric, but by thoughtful contemplation. I fight creationism not by talking to its advocates in public, which only gives them credibility, but by criticizing their ideas in articles and book reviews, which can be read at leisure. But I do this as little as possible, and only when they’ve said something that, I think, needs rebutting. My strongest critique of creationism was not in fact a critique, but an exposition of the massive and irrefutable evidence for evolution, laid out in WEIT.
As this country becomes more secular, creationism will disappear of its own accord, for its umbilical cord is religion. There are virtually no creationists who aren’t motivated by religious origin tales, and when those tales lose credibility (granted, it will take a long time), creationism will no longer be with us. The IDers and creation-mongers know this, so they try to pump life into their movement by seeking the credibility and visibility of debates with scientists.
Don’t engage them, at least in person.
h/t: Alexander and others