The evolution of the immune system

May 1, 2009 • 10:02 am

The evolution of the vertebrate immune system has always been a puzzle that excited both evolutionists and molecular biologists.  How could a system evolve in which one’s body could produce many copies of a specific antibody, of which there are thousands of possible forms?  There simply couldn’t be as many genes are there are antibodies we are capable of making!  In a concise, three-page review in this week’s Science,  John Travis does a superb job of tying together the history of work on the immune system with the recent excitement that its evolution hinged critically on a moveable genetic element (containing two important genes) acquired from another species — perhaps a virus.  Travis also discussed the evolution of innate immunity — that immunity not produced by genetic recombination among existing genes.

The clear, engaging prose of this piece, combined with its evolutionary perspective, makes it a must-read for those of us who aren’t familiar with the latest work on this most enigmatic of molecular adaptations.

phatgocytosis

A cell eating invading bacteria (phagocytosis).  From the Science article.

Accommodationism and the nature of our world

April 30, 2009 • 3:57 pm

Earlier I posted about dancing birds and centenarian Nobelists, but accommodationism still dogs my heels.  It comes at me today in two forms: Francis’s Collins’s  execrable Biologos website, funded by our old friends the Templeton Foundation, and an article in the Guardian by Kenneth Miller about transitional fossils.   Both of these items offer a faith/science accommodationist viewpoint, either explicitly (Collins) or implicitly (Miller).  And both suffer from the big problem inherent in that viewpoint: when one makes pronouncements about faith that involve assertions about science, the science always suffers.  (As a working scientist and a naturalist, I’m not all that concerned with what it does to faith.)

The more I peruse Collins’s site, the more embarrassed I am for him and his cronies.  On the first page, with the “Mission Statement,” appears the following proclamation (see comments below):


Faith and science both lead us to truth about God and creation.

Oh, really?  In what ways does science lead us to truth about God and creation?  This sounds not like the statement of a scientist, but of a religious person with an a priori and unfalsifiable belief that learning about the universe will affirm the existence of God and tell us how He/She/It worked.  I’ve never heard a scientist assert this so blatantly.  It is, of course, a completely unscientific statement.

And, P. Z. Myers pointed out yesterday, BioLogos repeatedly and erroneously suggests that a sense of morality that can resolve ethical dilemmas can come only from religion:

Furthermore, religion has not only served to advance scientific discovery, but it also exerts a positive and significant influence on the practical application of scientific discoveries. With the constant advance of technology and medicine, new questions are continually raised as to what applications should be deemed ethically acceptable.6 (See Collins’s Appendix in The Language of God.) The scientific method alone does not provide a way of answering these ethical questions but can only help in mapping out the possible alternatives. Such ethical concerns are only resolved by standards of morality that find grounding and authority through faith in a higher being.

As anybody with two neurons to rub together knows, this statement is simply wrong.  Even the ancient Greeks realized that our morality is innate and not derivable from God.  I won’t belabor this elementary error, for all of us know about it.  Except, apparently, Collins and his collaborators.   But on to the naturalism.  I can mention only a few ways in which science is debased on this website.  First, it asserts that although God can and does affect the world in tangible ways (a scientific claim), this intervention is scientifically undetectable:

It is thus perfectly possible that God might influence the creation in subtle ways that are unrecognizable to scientific observation. In this way, modern science opens the door to divine action without the need for law breaking miracles. Given the impossibility of absolute prediction or explanation, the laws of nature no longer preclude God’s action in the world. Our perception of the world opens once again to the possibility of divine interaction. . . . Regardless of the irregularity of tiny,quantum mechanical, or complex, chaos theoretical, systems, the sun stills rises and sets, the tides ebb and flow, and objects fall to the ground. Nature is reliable enough to reflect God’s faithfulness yet flexible enough to permit God’s involvement.

We’re not told what this “flexibility” is, except that it’s not detectable (perhaps through revelation?).  And then we come to teleology.  Evolution is not, we learn, a naturalistic process, but has been planned by God to cough up Homo sapiens with all its godly characteristics:

Question 18: At what point in the evolutionary process did humans attain the “Image of God?”

In order to answer this question, “image of God” must be defined.1 In the account of man’s creation, found in Genesis 1, God declares, “Let Us make man in Our image” (Genesis 1:26). The multifaceted debate over the meaning of the image of God has gone on for centuries in the Christian community. Most theologians argue that the image of God is not reflected upon humans as a physical image, related to the way we look. Rather, the fundamental qualities of the image of God are characteristics of the mind and soul, however we understand those: the ability to love selflessly; engage in meaningful relationships; exercise rationality; maintain dominion over the Earth; and embrace moral responsibility.

From the BioLogos perspective, God planned for humans to evolve to the point of attaining these characteristics. (See Question 30 about the Evolution of Religion.) For example, in order to reflect God’s Image by engaging in meaningful relationships, the human brain had to evolve to the point where an understanding of love and relationship could be grasped and lived out. God’s intention for humans to have relationships is illustrated in the opening chapters of Genesis, where many fundamental truths about God and humankind are communicated through the imagery of a creation story.

And, predictably, the “fine-tuning of physical constants” argument appears, with the more-than-strong suggestion that this is a “pointer to God”:

Fine-tuning refers to the surprising precision of nature’s physical constants and the beginning state of the universe. Both of these features come together as potential pointers to God. To explain the present state of the universe, even the best scientific theories require that the physical constants of nature — like the strength of gravity — and the beginning state of the Universe — like its density — have extremely precise values. The slightest variation from their actual values results in a lifeless universe. For this reason, the universe seems finely-tuned for life. This observation is referred to as the anthropic principle, a term whose definition has taken many variations over the years.3 Dr. Francis Collins has addressed both aspects of fine-tuning in the third chapter of his book, The Language of God.

This is creationism, pure and simple:  it is a “God of the gaps” argument.  Because physicists haven’t yet told us why these laws are as they are, they must reflect God’s miraculous handiwork.  Here Collins, as did Kenneth Miller in his book Only a Theory, approaches creationism, or what A. C. Grayling prefers to call “supernaturalism.”

I  wrote yesterday about Collins’s unscientific assertion that humans were an inevitable outcome of evolution.  I’ve taken this argument apart in an article in The New Republic, and won’t repeat it here.  The reason why people like Collins (and Miller) see the appearance of humans as inevitable is, of course, that their theology requires it.  Any honest scientist, faced with the question, “Was the appearance of humans or humanlike creatures inevitable?”, would have to answer “I don’t know.” (And I would add: “Considering how evolution works, it does seem somewhat unlikely”.)

I won’t go on: the BioLogos website provides hours of fun (and frustration!) for the bored naturalist.  But Collins should consider the effect of giving his scientific imprimatur to this kind of nonsense.  It confuses people about what science really knows, using creationist God-of-the-Gaps arguments (“I guess God must have made the laws of the universe, since physicists don’t have an explanation for them”). And it employs a nonscientific teleology by stating that physical and biological evolution are not contingent processes, but were designed by God to achieve a completely predictable end: that one species of mammal would arise on one of the gazillion existing planets 14 billion years after He set His plan in motion.

**************

On the “comment is free” section of The Guardian, biologist Kenneth Miller has a piece on the implications of the “missing link to seals,” Puijila darwini, that I discussed in an earlier post.  It’s all pretty good, but then the accommodationism begins to emerge when he talks about why evolution is anathema to many people in the US and UK:

What bugs them is that evolution carries with it a message they just don’t want to hear. That message is that we not only live in a natural world, but we are part of it, we emerged from it. Or more accurately, we emerged with it.

To them, that means we are just animals. Our lives are an accident, and our existence is without purpose, meaning or value.

My concern for those who hold that view isn’t just that they are wrong on science, wrong about the nature of the evidence, and mistaken on a fundamental point of biology. It’s that they are missing something grand and beautiful and personally enriching.

Evolution isn’t just a take-it-or-leave-it story about where we came from. It’s an epic at the centre of life itself. It tells us we are part of nature in every respect. Far from robbing our lives of meaning, it instils an appreciation for the beautiful, enduring, and ultimately triumphant phenomenon of life.

Seen in this light, the human presence is not a mistake of nature or a random accident, but a direct consequence of the characteristics of the universe. What evolution tells us is that we are part of a grand, dynamic, and ever-changing fabric of life that covers our planet. Even to a person of faith, in fact especially to a person of faith, an understanding of the evolutionary process should only deepen their appreciation of the scope and wisdom of the creator’s work.

Let me get this straight: a biologist, speaking ex cathedra on an issue of biology, says that the idea we are “just animals” and “our lives are an accident” is “wrong on science, wrong about the nature of the evidence, and mistaken on a fundamental point of biology.”  Yes, anti-evolutionists are missing the beauty and wonder of evolution, but the last time I looked we were still primates, descended from apelike ancestors.  And to say that our lives are anything other than an accident (including, of course, the accidents of meiosis and of which sperm makes it to the egg), buys into the idea — one that Miller has promulgated –that the appearance of humans or something like us was inevitable.   Indeed, he explicitly stresses this inevitability when he says our lives are “a direct consequence of the characteristics of the universe.”  Well, yes, and so are the lives of squirrels and redwoods.  But what Miller really means here –and we can have no doubt about this given the content of his talks and writings –is that the laws of the universe are fine-tuned for the appearance of humans, and that, given the nature of evolution and Earth, the appearance of higher intellectual capabilities (ones that could apprehend and worship their Creator) is inevitable.

What bothers me is that Miller can’t resist slipping in, under the guise of his expertise as a biologist, the idea that it is scientific to assert that the laws of physics are fine-tuned for our appearance, as is the nature of the evolutionary process itself.  But those are NOT scientific statements; they are philosophy born of religion.  That’s why I don’t think people who represent the public face of evolution should mix their magisteria.   It gives the authority of science to statements for which we have either no evidence, or counterevidence.

Of these two items, Collins’s website is by far the most injurious to science.  After all, most of Miller’s post is on the mark, interesting, and scientific.  But somehow he simply can’t keep himself from sliding into theology, either in this article or in the talk I heard him give on Darwin Day in Philadelphia.  This may reflect his view, which is also that of the NCSE, AAAS, and NAS, that you can’t effectively sell evolution without bringing in God.

* * * * * * * * * *

Miller and Collins have raised a question in my mind.  Both of them assert that the world — indeed, the Universe –clearly reflects God’s handiwork.  And both affirm that accepting the truth of evolution only deepens our understanding and appreciation of the divine.  Isn’t it curious that every scientific finding that at first appears injurious to faith (a heliocentric solar system, evolution, the 14-billion-year age of the universe) always manages, after the theologians put it through their sausage grinder, ending up as supportive of faith?  But what else can they do?  Indeed, one could define the task of theology as making virtues of necessities. It is a superfluous field, if, indeed, it’s a field at all.  The same goes for the problem of evil, such as the Holocaust, and of natural catastrophes, such as the tsunamis that killed thousands in southeast Asia.  No problem for theology — they have many answers. (BioLogos has a whole page of possible explanations.)  But any rational person looking at the world would conclude, as did Darwin, that it was not designed by a beneficent God.

It will repay us to consider the words of Epicurus written 2300 years ago:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.

Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

I have never seen a satisfactory theological answer to this question, despite centuries of theodicy.  Any proposed answer always smacks of rationalization.  (I know somebody’s going to tell me that I’m neglecting some “sophisticated” theological lucubrations here.)

As Richard Dawkins has noted, the world and universe look precisely as if they reflect not a caring designer, but “blind, pitiless, indifference.”  So I pose these questions to those who find signs of a celestial designer in our universe:

If our universe simply reflected the action of pure naturalistic laws rather than the intentions of God, how would it differ from the universe we have today?

In other words, what conceivable observation about the universe could convince you that God does not exist?

I can think of plenty of observations that would convince me that God does exist. (I mention several of them in my New Republic piece. For example, only bad people might get cancer.  Or prayers might be answered in a scientifically verifiable way.)  But I’ve never heard a religious person –at least not one on the verge of defecting to apostasy — tell me what evidence would make him/her give up their belief.  This asymmetry tells us something about the difference between scientific truth and religious “truth.”

Remarkable dancing birds: a cure for Parkinson’s?

April 30, 2009 • 12:13 pm

In his various works, Darwin always thought that the roots of many human behaviors and emotions lay in our relatives.  So, for example, the rudiments of human morality could be seen in the social behaviors of our primate relatives.  But until now nobody has seen any animal with behavior indicating a predisposition to produce or respond to music.  Until now.  The newest issue of Current Biology has an article on two species in which individuals are able to move to a musical beat.  This behavior appears unique in the animal kingdom.  One bird is a sulfur-crested cockatoo,  “Snowball” (seen below), who really shakes a leg, and the other is Alex, an African grey parrot who moves his head to a beat. You can also see videos of both behaviors on the BBC Science page that reports on this phenomenon.

the authors conclude:

The discovery of synchronization to music in a nonhuman animal shows that a fundamental aspect of music cognition is shared with other species and provides valuable clues about the neurological substrates of this aspect of music. The finding also suggests the utility of developing animal models of movement to music. Such models could have relevance to the study of human movement disorders (including Parkinson’s disease), symptoms of which have been shown to be alleviated by moving with a musical beat.  More generally, it appears that comparative studies of other species can be a powerful approach for gaining insight into the neurobiological and evolutionary foundations of our own musical abilities.

Title, authors, and summary below.   Thanks to Matthew Cobb for calling this to my attention.

___________________________

Experimental Evidence for Synchronization to a Musical Beat in a Nonhuman Animal

Aniruddh D. Patel1,,,John R. Iversen1,Micah R. Bregman1,2andIrena Schulz3

1 The Neurosciences Institute, 10640 John Jay Hopkins Drive, San Diego, CA 92121, USA
2 Department of Cognitive Science, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA
3 Bird Lovers Only Rescue Service, P.O. Box 552, Dyer, IN 46311, USA

The tendency to move in rhythmic synchrony with a musical beat (e.g., via head bobbing, foot tapping, or dance) is a human universal [1] yet is not commonly observed in other species [2]. Does this ability reflect a brain specialization for music cognition, or does it build on neural circuitry that ordinarily serves other functions? According to the vocal learning and rhythmic synchronization hypothesis [3], entrainment to a musical beat relies on the neural circuitry for complex vocal learning, an ability that requires a tight link between auditory and motor circuits in the brain [4,5]. This hypothesis predicts that only vocal learning species (such as humans and some birds, cetaceans, and pinnipeds, but not nonhuman primates) are capable of synchronizing movements to a musical beat. Here we report experimental evidence for synchronization to a beat in a sulphur-crested cockatoo (Cacatua galerita eleonora). By manipulating the tempo of a musical excerpt across a wide range, we show that the animal spontaneously adjusts the tempo of its rhythmic movements to stay synchronized with the beat. These findings indicate that synchronization to a musical beat is not uniquely human and suggest that animal models can provide insights into the neurobiology and evolution of human music [6].


Summary

First Nobel Laureate to reach 100

April 30, 2009 • 5:18 am

According to the latest issue of Nature,  Rita Levi-Montalcini, an Italian neurochemist, has reached the age of 100 — the first Nobel Laureate to ever become a centenarian.  Surprisingly, Nature doesn’t mention what she got the Nobel Prize for.  In 1986, she and Stanley Cohen were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology for their work on factors that promote the growth of nerves; this work was done at Washington University in St. Louis.  She is one  of the many foreign academics who enriched the United States when they fled from fascism before World War II (she comes from a Jewish family; her Nobel autobiography is here).  In the comments to the Nature piece, one person notes:

. . .she attributes both her longevity and acute mental abilities, at the age of 100, to regular doses of this supplement [see first comment below], which she has been taking for several decades. She claims in fact that her mental capacity now is greater than when she was 20 (and she is still doing brain research).

Just as an interesting fact — no aspersion on Dr. Levi-Montalcini — at least one Nobel Prize was awarded for work that was later found to be dubious and unrepeatable.   This was the 1926 Medicine and Physiology prize to Johannes Fibiger for claiming that a nematode worm could cause cancer.

rita-levi-montalcini1

Rita Levi-Montalcini at her birthday fete

Shoot me now: Francis Collins’s new supernaturalist website

April 29, 2009 • 10:24 am

I guess I can’t stay away from this issue.  P. Z. has called my attention to Francis Collins’s latest endeavor to forcibly marry science and faith:  The BioLogos Foundation.   The Templeton Foundation, of course, has its sticky fingers in this pie:

The BioLogos Mission

The BioLogos Foundation promotes the search for truth in both the natural and spiritual realms, and seeks to harmonize these different perspectives.

Dr. Francis Collins established The BioLogos Foundation to engage America’s escalating culture war between science and faith. On one side of the conversation, the “new atheists” argue that science removes the need for God. On the other side, religious fundamentalists argue that the Bible requires us to reject much of modern science. Many scientists, believers, and members of the general public do not find these options attractive.

There is therefore a great need to contribute to the public voice that represents the harmony of science and faith. BioLogos addresses the core themes of science and religion, and emphasizes the compatibility of Christian faith with what science has discovered about the origins of the universe and life.  In order to communicate this message to the general public, The BioLogos Foundation has created BioLogos.org.

Funded by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation, the website articulates the compatibility of modern science with traditional Christian belief. Among other resources, this website posts responses to many of the questions received by Collins, Giberson, and Falk since the publication of their books, including: The Language of God; Saving Darwin; and Coming to Peace With Science. By providing trustworthy insight, BioLogos.org stands as a reliable source of scholarly thought on contemporary issues in science and faith.

If you have a strong stomach, browse the site. You’ll find lots of interesting ideas, like this one:

4. What is the proper relationship between science and religion?

Science and religion are sometimes thought to offer entirely separate bodies of knowledge. However, science is not the only source of factual statements, and religion does reach beyond the realm of values and morals.

I guess he’s proposing that religion can provide factual statements. We all know what that means, I think.   And, of course,  the “inevitability-of-human-evolution” argument rears its hydra-like head:

22. Did evolution have to result in human beings?

Because evolution involves seemingly “random” mutations, it seems that the Earth could have been the home of a different assortment of creatures.  But belief in a supernatural creator leaves the possibility that human beings were fully intended.  An omniscient creator could also have created the Universe’s natural laws so as to inevitably result in human beings.

And the “Books on Science and Faith” site shows only  books that push the reconciliation of the two magisteria.  One of the “team” who runs the site (besides Collins and a few others), is Karl Giberson, whose reconciliationist book I criticized in The New Republic.

Oh, and then there’s this:

New Atheist Denies Harmony Between Science and Faith

April 27, 2009

In a recent blog post, New Atheist Jerry Coyne lashes out against “scientific organizations that sell evolution by insisting that it’s perfectly consistent with religion.”  According to Coyne, by accepting a harmony between science and religion organization like the National Center for Science and Education and the National Academy of Sciences alienate some evolutionary biologists who, like Dawkins, Meyers, and others, believe religion and science are competing world views.  The editorial has already drawn a response from Discover, who call his post “a counterproductive attack” and state that the conflict between evolution and creation will not be resolved without the help of religious groups.

Pity they couldn’t spell P. Z.’s last name right, or cite a number of places where my “editorial” has drawn approbation.  And I am not a “new atheist”: I’m what Anthony Grayling calls a naturalist.  Collins and his ilk are supernaturalists.*

This site is, I’m afraid, the logical extension of the type of accommodationism that plagues the NCSE, AAAS, and NAS.   It is embarrassing in its single-minded fervor to prove that conservative Christianity and evolution are really good buddies.

________

*In his book Against All Gods, Grayling says this:  ‘no atheist should call himself or herself one… A more appropriate term is “naturalist”, denoting one who takes it that the universe is a natural realm, governed by nature’s laws. This properly implies that there is nothing supernatural in the universe. . . ‘people with theistic beliefs should be called supernaturalists, and it can be left to them to attempt to refute the findings of physics, chemistry and the biological sciences in an effort to justify their alternative claim that the universe was created, and is run, by supernatural beings.’

Wednesday relief cat

April 29, 2009 • 7:41 am

In view of all the heat emanating from the debate about religious accommodationism, including the new statements on Panda’s Thumb that P. Z. Myers, I, and now Richard Hoppe are making the lot of young earth creationists much easier by telling the truth about the number of atheistic scientists, I think it’s time for a break.  But I can’t resist one more question about accommodationism:  where is the evidence that showing people how their faith comports with evolution makes them more likely to accept evolution? I’m not talking about anecdotes here, but systematic data. After all, the AAAS, NCSE, and NCSE predicate their entire strategy on accepting this principle.  Would it have been much easier for Christians to accept the heliocentric solar system has the Pope shown them that it could be seen as consistent with the Bible?  I don’t think so.  I think that in the end  scientific truth is always accepted by the public (albeit sometimes slowly), and that its acceptance is not accelerated by stroking people with religious platitudes.

Whoops, I’m on a tirade. Enough.  Here, for your delectation, is non-accommodationist philosopher Russell Blackford (a party to this debate) and his atheist cat Mystical Prince Felix (“Felix” for short).  Felix is a blue point ragdoll.

russfee

The dust settles (a little) at Panda’s Thumb

April 28, 2009 • 6:33 am

Over at Panda’s Thumb, Richard Hoppe has had second thoughts about his rather strong post attacking P. Z. Myers and myself for criticizing scientific organiations like the AAAS and NCSE for their accommodationist stance toward faith and science.  (See also P. Z.’s reply.)  Hoppe still asserts that the NCSE is acting appropriately when pointing out that many religious people and ministers see no conflict between the two magisteria:

That is, NCSE is not an association of scientists, but of an array of people with different professions and beliefs. Moreover, it is not a science advocacy group as such, but rather is a group that has as its goal the defense of the teaching of evolution in the public schools. And that defense is necessarily heavily political.

That means that its tactics are in part determined by those of the opposition, the creationists who would turn public school science classes into an opportunity to teach religiously-based creation stories. As a consequence, it has to take into account that opposition and its main arguments, so as to appropriately arm those “parents and concerned citizens.”

The creationist assault on public education has two main prongs. One is to attack, misrepresent, and distort the science, and NCSE has a wealth of resources for blunting that attack. To give but one example, it has an excellent counter to Jonathan Wells’ “Ten questions to ask your biology teacher about evolution.” The responses are brief, to the point, and effective: I’ve used them.

The second main prong of the creationist assault is to equate evolution with atheism. That is a ubiquitous theme from the whole range of creationists, from Kent Hovind’s ravings to the Disco ‘Tute’s anti-naturalism Wedge document. I hear it, every one of us working with local and state boards of education hears it. It’s in the creationist mailers, it’s in their pamphlets, and it’s in their public statements to school boards.

And NCSE completely appropriately provides information to “parents and concerned citizens” about that issue. It completely appropriately points out that there are believers – self identified Christians – who accept that evolution has occurred (it’s a fact) and that the modern theory of evolution is the best available naturalistic explanation of that fact. Moreover, NCSE completely appropriately points to religious organizations that have stated that they accept that.

One cannot argue that pointing to the existence of people and organizations that contradict a main prong of the creationist attack on public school education constitutes an “endorsement.” It’s merely pointing to a fact. This is what NCSE says about it in the introduction to its Science and Religion section:

Can I both accept what science teaches and engage in religious belief and practice? This is a complex issue, but theologians, clergy, and members of many religious traditions have concluded that the answer is, unequivocally, yes.

That’s true, a plain fact, and useful for folks in the field to be able to support via the religious organizations and individuals identified by NCSE.

Agreed, but it’s also a plain fact that many “theologians, clergy, and members of many religious traditions have concluded that the answer is, unequivocally, NO.”  But you won’t find this “plain fact” anywhere in the NCSE’s literature.  And although evolution doesn’t lead straight to atheism for everybody, we ALL know that many people have lost their faith after studying evolutionary biology. And there are good reasons for this.  It is simply disingenuous, in my opinion, to pretend that this isn’t true.  I get emails from people every day telling me how they lost their faith after studying evolution (and it doesn’t bother them).  What a breath of fresh air it would be to have somebody admit this hidden truth!

Anyway, Hoppe, after rumination, decides that P. Z. and I were right on one issue:

NOMA is a mistake

Coyne is right in one respect, and I withdraw my wholesale rejection of his argument. I think (writing now as a Life Member) that NCSE has recently made a mistake in going beyond simply pointing to individuals and organizations who have somehow reconciled their science and religious beliefs to counter the creationist equation of evolution with atheism. In the essays by Peter M. J. Hess that apparently are the basis of the NCSE Faith Project, there is an endorsement of a particular view of the relationship, an adaptation of Gould’s Nonoverlapping magisteria with a dose of complementarian thinking. Hess writes

Theologians from many traditions hold that science and religion occupy different spheres of knowledge. Science asks questions such as “What is it?” “How does it happen?” “By what processes?” In contrast, religion asks questions such as “What is life’s meaning?” “What is my purpose?” “Is the world of value?” These are complementary       rather than conflicting perspectives.

And later, in a linked section titled “God and Religion,” he writes

The question “Do you believe in creation or evolution?” has the same problem. Like color and shape, “creation” and “evolution” do not occupy competing categories, but are complementary ways of looking at the universe.

And later in that same section:

Can I accept evolution as the most compelling explanation for biological diversity, and yet also accept the idea that God works through evolution? Certainly.

Hess has here argued for a complementarian view of the relation between religious belief and evolution that is very similar to Gould’s NOMA, which is also a view that is clearly visible in the writings of people like Denis Lamoureax, a self-identified evangelical Christian and “evolutionary creationist.” Lamoureax writes

In understanding origins, evolutionary creation proposes a mutually exclusive yet complementary relationship between science and Scripture. This position asserts that God reveals through both nature and the Bible, and it respects the limits and differences of each revelation. Science discovers how the Creator made the world, while    Scripture offers the ultimate meaning of the creation. Together these revelations from God’s Works and Words complement each other in providing a complete view of origins.

NOMA redux.

In its Faith Project, then, I think that NCSE has gone beyond its remit and past where it can be effective. I now think – in agreement with Coyne, PZ, and others – that it should back off from describing particular ways of reconciling science and religion. Pointing to religious people and organizations who have made their peace with science and evolution is appropriate, but going past that to describing particular ways of making that peace is a mistake. NCSE ought not wade into theological swamps.

So yeah, I was wrong to overstate my case. Sorry, folks. 🙂

Well, Mr. Hoppe, you are a gentleman and a scholar.  Thanks for the clarification.

My view on the NCSE, AAAS, and NAS remains the same:  leave all religion, atheism, and issues of compatibility out of it (except to show how the facts of evolution are incompatible with creationism).  When dealing with issues of compatibility, this simple statement should suffice:

If you want to know how to reconcile the fact of evolution with your religious faith (or the faith of others), please consult your minister, rabbi, or spiritual counselor.


News from the “hobbit conference” in New York

April 28, 2009 • 5:56 am

The hobbit continues to be a mystery: perhaps the deepest mystery about human evolution. Today’s New York Times has a longish and interesting report on the status of the “hobbit,” Homo floresiensis, that I’ve posted about several times.  This is a diminutive (3-foot-tall) human skeleton found on the island of Flores, in Indonesia, that has a brain case not much larger than those of modern chimps.  It is, however, modern in time, going back only about 18,000 years ago (see chapter 8 of WEIT).  Based on its wrist bones and other skeletal characteristics, scientists are now beginning to think it was not an aberrant or diseased individual, but a representative of a distinct species, perhaps an earlier species of hominin that became isolated on Flores hundreds of thousands or even millions of years ago:

Scientists who reviewed hobbit research at a symposium here last week said that a consensus had emerged among experts in support of the initial interpretation that H. floresiensis is a distinct hominid species much more primitive than H. sapiens. On display for the first time at the meeting was a cast of the skull and bones of a H. floresiensis, probably an adult female. . . . .

. . . Some prominent paleoanthropologists are reserving judgment, among them Richard Leakey, the noted hominid fossil hunter who is chairman of the Turkana Basin Institute at Stony Brook University. Like other undecided scientists, he cited the need to find more skeletons at other sites, especially a few more skulls. Mr. Leakey conceded, however, that the recent research “greatly strengthened the possibility” that the Flores specimens represented a new species.

It’s possible that hobbits represented a much earlier migration out of Africa than previously thought, earlier than the migration that gave rise to the widespread Homo erectus.  It could even represent a migration of the very early australopithecines!   As John Noble Wilford, the writer, says, lots of puzzles remain:

Indeed, the more scientists study the specimens and their implications, the more they are drawn to heretical speculation.

¶Were these primitive survivors of even earlier hominid migrations out of Africa, before Homo erectus migrated about 1.8 million years ago? Could some of the earliest African toolmakers, around 2.5 million years ago, have made their way across Asia?

¶Did some of these migrants evolve into new species in Asia, which moved back to Africa? Two-way traffic is not unheard of in other mammals.

¶Or could the hobbits be an example of reverse evolution? That would seem even more bizarre; there are no known cases in primate evolution of a wholesale reversion to some ancestor in its lineage.

Stay tuned; I’ll provide further information on this strange branch of our family tree as more research is published.  Be sure to listen to the 20-minute podcast on the Times website.  Meanwhile, courtesy of the NYT, here is the hobbit’s tiny foot (notice that the ruler is 5 cm long: about 2 in., which makes the foot about 6 inches long).

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