Morality

Posted on April 14, 2009 by Michael

On morality.

There exists for those willing to see a new perspective a deeply satisfying purpose and meaning to life free from any divine influence. To glimpse this world, imagine for a moment that there is no invisible man in the sky using magical powers in “mysterious ways” to control our fate. Imagine that we can toss away the crutch of false hope and bad myth to walk unhindered down the path of personal responsibility. Without the burden of a wrathful god, we have the power to create our own meaning, our own sense of purpose, our own destiny. By rejecting the false premises of religion we are free to move beyond the random hand we are dealt at birth to pave our own road to a better life.

With freedom of course comes the obligation to act wisely and responsibly. We fulfill this duty first by taking a more modest view of our place in the world. When we see that humans are a natural part of the ecosystem, not above or separate from the environment, we will protect the resources that sustain us. When we reject the hubris and conceit of religion, we will redefine our relationship with each other without calling upon god to smite our enemies. When we understand that true morality is independent of religious doctrine, we will create a path toward a just society. We each have the power to create a life in which we no longer accept the arbitrary and destructive constraints of divine interference.

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Why do creationists lie?

Posted on February 25, 2009 by Michael

Here’s an old example of lying creationists:

Basically, some creationists lied to get an interview with Dawkins. They later edited together some footage to make it appear like Dawkins couldn’t answer a simple question: “Can you give an example of a genetic mutation or an evolutionary process which can be seen to increase the information in the genome?” After a long pause (which was unrelated to the overdubbed question), the dishonest creationists paste in some footage of Dawkins answering an unrelated question. It’s patently silly.

So what’s the answer? Dawkins explains the situation and answers the question here. But I’m going to simplify the answer.

An example of a genetic mutation or an evolutionary process which can be seen to increase the information is Down’s Syndrome. Here’s a karyotype for the genetic defect. Look at chromosome 21. It should have two copies but it actually has three. Bam. That’s more information. That is precisely the question creationists want answered: how can information increase in the genome? Mutation.

Of course, the way the question is worded is stupid. Evolution is all about increasing (and sometimes decreasing) information. Duplications do this: one gene is copied twice, one copy diverges to participate in some other function, and bam, we not only have more information, but we have more useful, advantageous information. We see this all the time, all the way down to minute differences in snails.

Let me put in another way. DNA is composed of 4 letters: A, C, T, G. These are in triplet form. That means it takes three letters to make an amino acid. For example, GGC is the amino acid glycine (so is GGA and GGG). A change in one of these letters is a mutation. In most instances, a mutation will change an amino acid. Let’s say the first G in GGC is changed to a C. That makes CGC, which codes for arginine. The gene in which this mutation occurred will now have one amino acid replaced. It is possible that it was have the same basic function as the previous amino acid, but often enough it has a different function. It may make a more ideal protein or an entirely new one. This is a change in information. In order for this information to be maintained, natural selection must act on the organism (or gene, depending on your view). That is the evolutionary process which maintains, increases, and decreases information in the genome. It happens every single day.

I should apologize to my non-creationist readers who didn’t need me to be so basic, but these creationists keep asking questions that are answered in the first weeks of every spring and fall in any intro to bio course.

Anyway, here’s a video of Dawkins talking about dishonest creationists.

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Playing with language

Posted on January 13, 2009 by Michael

It’s become quite popular, especially since the release of The God Delusion, for the proponents of religion to throw certain terms on to their secular counterparts. Take for example this excerpt from a recent interview with Richard Dawkins.

So, ironically, you have an evangelistic zeal about this.

As a science teacher, it is an important thing. “Evangelistic” would be an unfortunate word, if it suggested loyalty to some sort of book. It’s loyalty in my case to scientific evidence.

“Zeal” I’m happy to live with.

The zest with which those of religious persuasions thrust terms on to atheists that are generally reserved for their own world views is getting out of hand. The above excerpt is just one example. Pay attention and you’ll see far more. Atheists and humanists are “devoted” and evolution is a “religion”.

These terms can generally be discarded because 1) they tend to just be rhetoric, 2) they tend to come from people who believe in dinosaurs around the time of the agricultural revolution, and 3) they’re blatantly wrong and ill-thought. We should, however, pay some attention because they’re also delightfully ironic.

Evolution is called religious belief. People say “I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist”. Blah, blah, blah. That’s fine rhetoric, but it’s also fine humor. What is the point in calling evolution “religious” or using terms related to faith when speaking of atheism? It’s to indicate that these things have little to no basis; those who use these terms are being derisive – that’s the whole point. Faith in evolution is a bad thing because it is merely faith. It has no substance behind it. Of course, that’s patently stupid. Evolution is nothing but evidenced. But these creationists/less-honest-creationists-who-hide-behind-the-lie-of-intelligent-design are correct about one thing: faith is a bad thing. It should be derided. It serves little purpose but to delude people.

I suppose I’m fine with Bible-thumpers calling me a man of faith. I just hope they begin to realize that by doing so they are undermining the very basis for their beliefs in magic and skyfairies.

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This would change everything

Posted on January 11, 2009 by Michael

Edge asked its readers what would change everything. Richard Dawkins has responded.

But such ‘essentialism’ is deeply un-evolutionary. If there were a heaven in which all the animals who ever lived could frolic, we would find an interbreeding continuum between every species and every other. For example I could interbreed with a female who could interbreed with a male who could … fill in a few gaps, probably not very many in this case … who could interbreed with a chimpanzee.

We could construct longer, but still unbroken chains of interbreeding individuals to connect a human with a warthog, a kangaroo, a catfish. This is not a matter of speculative conjecture; it necessarily follows from the fact of evolution.

People often fail to realize this. Of course, humans were magically given souls at some point, so there’s no need to worry about this continuum. A god simply decided, at some arbitrary point, that a mother and father were not human but their offspring were. While the mother and father were clearly underserving of such a gift, the children, being full-fledged humans, were given a pass into an afterlife.

1. The discovery of relict populations of extinct hominins such Homo erectus and Australopithecus. Yeti enthusiasts notwithstanding, I don’t think this is going to happen. The world is now too well explored for us to have overlooked a large, savannah-dwelling primate. Even Homo floresiensis has been extinct 17,000 years. But if it did happen, it would change everything.

But I thought dinosaurs still existed? Oh, wait. He means the real world, not Ken Ham’s world. Indeed, this discovery would be wonderful. How would humans treat this new species? We’ve grown out of the old world notion of slavery, so would grant the species some rights, at least insofar as freedom is concerned. But would we allow them a part of our society? Would they not meet our arbitrary cut for being granted human rights?

4. The human genome and the chimpanzee genome are now known in full. Intermediate genomes of varying proportions can be interpolated on paper. Moving from paper to flesh and blood would require embryological technologies that will probably come on stream during the lifetime of some of my readers. I think it will be done, and an approximate reconstruction of the common ancestor of ourselves and chimpanzees will be brought to life. The intermediate genome between this reconstituted ‘ancestor’ and modern humans would, if implanted in an embryo, grow into something like a reborn Australopithecus: Lucy the Second. And that would (dare I say will?) change everything.

Between this, the discovery of how molecules can replicate and evolve new information on their own, and the discovery of exolife, the future is very exciting, indeed. It’ll hopefully also be very damning to religious zealots who base their lives on prose and poetry rather than reality. No longer will they be able to hide behind the veil of special privilege

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Coy Creationists

Posted on December 22, 2008 by Michael

Have you ever noticed that creationists are getting more and more coy and more and more dishonest? From repeating claims about evolution that are blatantly false even after the real answer has been explained to them to coming up with the hooey that is intelligent design (as if it isn’t a repackaging of creationism), so many have turned to flat out lying. They’re liars. They’re immoral charlatans and mountebanks, peddling lies to society, especially children. Why they are given even a modicum of respect is beyond me.

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The irony

Posted on December 10, 2008 by Michael

The atheist sign in Washington state is still causing discussion. Unfortunately, some of that discussion is ironic.

But upon further review, we also feel that some of those protesting the sign make a good point about the message. Rather than just being a statement for atheism or observing the Winter Solstice, it steps over the line and attacks religion. The sign sponsored by the atheistic Freedom from Religion Foundation calls religion “myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.”

A key aspect of the message being sent out by humanists and atheists is that religion has a privileged position in our society and it is precisely unworthy of that position. To say this group was over the line is to undermine the notion of free and open discussion.

So, while we’ll defend the right of the atheist group to hold its views, we do think the message itself should have been monitored and disapproved. In this holiday season when people of certain religions are celebrating peace, as is their right, a mean-spirited message is out of place on public property.

So if a religious group puts out a message which says something to the effect of “May we defeat the evil that is Satan” then that is a “mean-spirited message [that] is out of place” during this season of celebrating peace, right?

The more pertinent point here, actually, is that certain religions aren’t actually celebrating peace. They’re celebrating their belief in myths and the sense of community these myths tend to harbor. That’s part of the reason the likes of Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers have Christmas trees in their homes during the season. They obviously aren’t celebrating any myths, but they are celebrating their love of family and community.

As I’ve said in the past, religion clearly brings a sense of community with it and that can be a good thing (and may be a contributing reason to its existence in our evolutionary history). What this atheist group is doing is celebrating what brings them together – reason and rationality. That is, a lack of belief in devils and angels are other fabrications of the mind are one common thread which strings these people together. For that, we all, too, should embrace the unharmful, open discourse that threads us together as a nation based upon liberties and freedoms.

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Discussing science

Posted on December 9, 2008 by Michael

I find I often subject myself to a surprising amount of anti-science misery, otherwise known as the Crosswalk forums (with alternative names such as ibelieve.com). If you dare to read that rubbish, you’ll actually find a thread linking to one of my posts. I was banned long ago (it’s lifelong; I’m so flattered!), so it was actually a friend who made the thread. Anyway, it has generated a good deal of traffic for me, as well as quite a few responses, even if a large number of them are wholly devoid of any education. One reason it has generated traffic is because this blog (and science) tends to be a tad abrasive toward creationism and I guess there’s a whole slew of other people who like subjecting themselves to material which disagrees with what they believe, too.

Here’s a sample of the rubbish which is put on these forums.

NS [natural selection] is just a filter. It doesn’t create anything, it just weeds out stuff. Contrary to Darwinism, it doesn’t necessarily keep stuff either. There is nothing that stops deleterious mutations from undoing neutral and/or good ones.

Natural selection is a filter, but it does not exist, apparently.

Well, just speculating here, but if the tooth of a little dinosaur was made into a necklace, would anyone necessarily think of it being a dinosaur? A lot of what we see in the museums are people’s ideas of what they may have looked like, so I’m not entirely sure that what we see in the pictures are what they really even looked like.

Those silly misleading fossils. Scientists just guess how they go together.

So the pattern, rather than gradual changes through incremental and incidental modification of ongoing mutation, appears to be a rapid appearance of various groups [of horseshoe crabs] followed by extreme stasis, presumably comprising in some cases hundreds of millions.

This would seem to directly contradict the fundamental notion of Neo-Darwinian evolution.

Please see Gould.

Ok so here are some of the major reasons why I believe Darwinism will collapse.
Darwinism will ultimately collapse as a valid theory of life origins because :

It fails to explain the origin of complex coded information contained in all living organisms
It fails to explain the origin of nano bio-machinery contained in all living organisms
It fails to account for irreducibly complex systems contained in all living organisms
It fails to account for the human moral sense and altruism
It fails to explain the general lack of transitional forms in the fossil record which should number in the multiple millions but don’t
Natural selection (originally a creationist concept) has failed as a sufficient explanatory mechanism for the level of complexity and diversity in nature
Random mutations can never account for the sophisticated, factory-like organization within the cell
It fails to account for how, in the midst of greater numbers nefarious mutations, any of the rare beneficial mutations could dominate bio history = see 1st quote below
… IDists and creationists are invited to add to this list if you have more reasons

My head hurts.

Okay, I’m sorry for posting this, but I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t have a redeeming link, I promise. For actual discussion on evolution where people have [i]actual[/i] educations, the Richard Dawkins forums are excellent. I don’t personally post very much, but simply reading good discussions about science is refreshing and wonderful. And it isn’t necessary that you be an atheist to post or enjoy the read.

Filed under: Creationism, Evolution, Misc | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Darwin Wasn’t Right

Posted on November 22, 2008 by Michael

Darwin Was Right About How Evolution Can Affect Whole Group

Evolutionary biologists at McGill University have discovered molecular signals that can maintain social harmony in ants by putting constraints on their fertility. Dr. Ehab Abouheif, of McGill’s Department of Biology, and post-doctoral researcher, Dr. Abderrahman Khila, have discovered how evolution has tinkered with the genes of colonizing insects like ants to keep them from fighting amongst themselves over who gets to reproduce.

“We’ve discovered a really elegant developmental mechanism, which we call ‘reproductive constraint,’ that challenges the classic paradigm that behaviour, such as policing, is the only way to enforce harmony and squash selfish behaviour in ant societies,” said Abouheif, McGill’s Canada Research Chair in Evolutionary Developmental Biology.

It’s unfortunate that group selectionism is gaining some traction once again. It almost never makes any sense and simply acts as a way of taking the easy explanation over the difficult answer.

This study found that evolution has changed the genetic make-up of ants to the point where social harmony is achieved through “reproductive constraint”. In other words, some worker ants have less or no fertility level relative to others because of particular gene regulations. Big deal. This doesn’t point to any group selectionism.

What makes far more sense is that ants which promote social harmony are more successful on average. Instead of looking toward the goal-oriented ideas of group selectionism, it’s more reasonably to view this as individual genes promoting their own fitness. That is, most ants in a colony, if not all, are going to share a high degree of genes. It isn’t that the vehicle for these genes – the organism, in this case, the ant – is important. The survival of the gene itself is important. With more harmony comes, perhaps, more reproduction and more success. And what’s being reproduced are a high number of shared genes.

Think of it this way. My brother and I share 50% of our genes. If I help him to reproduce, I have roughly 25% of my genes surviving to the next generation. Of course, if I simply reproduce on my own, that’s 50% of my genes that will be passed on. But if I’m fighting with my brother over the same woman, we decrease our reproduction odds. It may just benefit me on the level of the gene to help him reproduce at my own expense. Having assistance will help his odds (even if this assistance is passive, as in not fighting him). This will give 25% of my genes a better chance of surviving than the 50% of genes I ‘own’ have when there is conflict.

Rather than showing the notion of group selectionism to be valid (though it remains plausible), this research offers some interesting evidence which favors natural selection occurring at the level of the gene

Filed under: Evolution, News | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments »

Darwin Wasn't Right

Posted on November 22, 2008 by Michael

Darwin Was Right About How Evolution Can Affect Whole Group

Evolutionary biologists at McGill University have discovered molecular signals that can maintain social harmony in ants by putting constraints on their fertility. Dr. Ehab Abouheif, of McGill’s Department of Biology, and post-doctoral researcher, Dr. Abderrahman Khila, have discovered how evolution has tinkered with the genes of colonizing insects like ants to keep them from fighting amongst themselves over who gets to reproduce.

“We’ve discovered a really elegant developmental mechanism, which we call ‘reproductive constraint,’ that challenges the classic paradigm that behaviour, such as policing, is the only way to enforce harmony and squash selfish behaviour in ant societies,” said Abouheif, McGill’s Canada Research Chair in Evolutionary Developmental Biology.

It’s unfortunate that group selectionism is gaining some traction once again. It almost never makes any sense and simply acts as a way of taking the easy explanation over the difficult answer.

This study found that evolution has changed the genetic make-up of ants to the point where social harmony is achieved through “reproductive constraint”. In other words, some worker ants have less or no fertility level relative to others because of particular gene regulations. Big deal. This doesn’t point to any group selectionism.

What makes far more sense is that ants which promote social harmony are more successful on average. Instead of looking toward the goal-oriented ideas of group selectionism, it’s more reasonably to view this as individual genes promoting their own fitness. That is, most ants in a colony, if not all, are going to share a high degree of genes. It isn’t that the vehicle for these genes – the organism, in this case, the ant – is important. The survival of the gene itself is important. With more harmony comes, perhaps, more reproduction and more success. And what’s being reproduced are a high number of shared genes.

Think of it this way. My brother and I share 50% of our genes. If I help him to reproduce, I have roughly 25% of my genes surviving to the next generation. Of course, if I simply reproduce on my own, that’s 50% of my genes that will be passed on. But if I’m fighting with my brother over the same woman, we decrease our reproduction odds. It may just benefit me on the level of the gene to help him reproduce at my own expense. Having assistance will help his odds (even if this assistance is passive, as in not fighting him). This will give 25% of my genes a better chance of surviving than the 50% of genes I ‘own’ have when there is conflict.

Rather than showing the notion of group selectionism to be valid (though it remains plausible), this research offers some interesting evidence which favors natural selection occurring at the level of the gene

Filed under: Evolution, News | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments »

Einsteinian Religion

Posted on November 18, 2008 by Michael

There are these perverse notions floating around about what Einstein believed or didn’t believe regarding religion and god(s). The page at Conservapedia – which deserves no link – will give the impression that Einstein believed in some sort of conscious, higher power. Any research will show this is highly unlikely. Einstein believed in ordering physical principles to the Universe which are ultimately far beyond the understanding of humans. This is not a god at all, which is why it’s somewhat unfortunate that he used the term “god” to describe these ordering principles. On the one hand, it’s misleading and it tends to invite people to attempt to associate a brilliant thinker with their own positions, as if appeals to authority confer truth to a statement or thought or idea. On the other hand, there’s a certain poetry to his language; we should all appreciate personification in our literature.

Ultimately, Einstein was an agnostic. Precisely where he stood on, say, Richard Dawkins’ Scale of Religiosity is unclear. I suspect he may be slightly to the left of someone like Carl Sagan (physically assuming “1” is left and “7” is right – see scale video). That may place him as a 4, as I would place Sagan as a 5. Unfortunately, neither man can clarify at this point. However, it is quite clear that neither one believed in any personal god – the seeming indifference of Nature to our plights, our planet, our solar system, our galaxy, it all indicates a lack of personality, of personalization, no matter how much poetic personification we like to use.

Filed under: Misc | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 17 Comments »

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