A Children's Book About Evolution

I happened to stumble upon Great Adaptations - a children's book about evolution on kickstarter and I thought it might be the kind of thing my readers would enjoy. I'm looking forward to teaching my son about all of the science stuff that I love, and this is exactly the kind of thing that will help me make it fun. It of course also reminded me of The Magic of Reality, which I am also looking forward to reading to my son (once he's moved beyond board books).

In addition to letting you guys know about this super cool upcoming book, I would like to ask you guys if you know of other books along these same lines. Please add any other suggestions to the comments and I'll edit the post.

(Also, I want to let you guys know that I have my Exodus 13 post written, I just need to record the podcast for it, but I'm sick right now and my voice is ruined. Hopefully I will be able to get it done within the week)

Edit: Additional suggestions from the comments

Steve pointed us toward a slate article which suggests Bone by Bone, Why Don't Your Eyelashes Grow?: Curious Questions Kids Ask About the Human Body, and The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

I'm looking forward to getting all of these books, please keep the suggestions coming :)

Is X-men Bad for Science Literacy?

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Comic book characters often have super powers, which come from a variety of sources. Sometimes they are just aliens powered by our sun, sometimes they were bitten by a radioactive pest, sometimes they have been bombarded with cosmic rays. To me, these explanations essentially boil down to magic, it's a way for the writers to say "don't worry about it, just enjoy the story". But with X-men it is different, they try to make the explanation a little more credible by throwing in some science. X-men are the next stage in human evolution, homo-superior. They have some gene that has mutated and now they can fly, heal really fast, use telepathy, teleport, or whatever.

The problem is that this is completely different from how evolution actually works. Evolution is the accumulation of very small changes over a large amount of time. You don't have a regular human have a random mutation that makes their kid have powerful beams shooting out of their eyes. Those big jumps just don't happen. Of course this is further confused by somewhat controversial idea of punctuated equilibrium where large jumps in evolution happen in a short period of time. Of course, this is on an evolutionary time scale, in the range of 50,000 to 100,000 years. This is a far cry from a normal human having a child who has the ability to walk through walls.

Unfortunately, many people never learn what evolution really is. This type of thing is their only real exposure, is it really a wonder that they think evolution is ridiculous? Is it a wonder that we get questions like "who did the first wolf mate with?" They expect that there are these huge jumps, what are the odds that an incredibly rare jump will happen to two individuals at the same time so that they can mate and carry on this new species? "The odds are astronomically low!" Of course the odds are low for what you are describing, and that's not even close to how it works, so don't worry about it.

Of course X-men isn't completely at fault for these kinds of misconceptions, the real problem is the giant gap in our education system and the people actively spreading disinformation. But it seems to me that X-men plays a role, it gives people who haven't been presented with the real information an excuse to dismiss it out of hand. I was in that group when I was in high school, I never learned even the absolute basics of how evolution works and was told in church that it was nonsense.

Now don't get me wrong, I love the X-men, and I often enjoy other shows that are basically just X-men by another name (this post was actually inspired by The Tomorrow People). But it irks me when they explain the powers as evolution, because it is not evolution at all. I wish they would make up an explanation that involves things that don't exist, a science experiment that went wrong, a flying saucer that somehow gave random people these powers, or hell, just say it's mysterious where these powers are coming from.

Highlights [Cross Examined, Demon Haunted World, Geeks Without God]

This one is from the cross examined blog. Brilliant stuff.

This is another quote from The Demon Haunted world (kindle location 4116). I've been reading it to my one month old son, I've been trying to decide what to read to him next, maybe hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, that's supposed to be good.

This is from the podcast Geeks without God episode 54. I've often thought that it is a shame that so many people are unwilling to believe in evolution because I find it so fascinating and cool, they are really missing out. When he succinctly said as much on the show, and included the other side of the coin (that creationism is completely uninteresting) it seemed a perfect fit for a meme. It was said at about 13 minutes in, and what followed was a discussion with PZ Myers about how theistic evolution misses the point about the role randomness plays in evolution. Interesting stuff.

I Want Video Evidence of Evolution

pic source

I was recently browsing twitter and stumbled upon a Christian who was asking for video evidence for evolution. Of course, anyone who knows anything about how evolution actually works can immediately see how ridiculous of a demand this is. It is so silly in fact that the first instinct for many people might be to simply call him an idiot and move on. It's tempting to assume they are just screwing around, making demands that are impossible just to derail the conversation. If you've thought a lot about evolution these ideas become second nature, it's easy to forget that many people don't have the slightest idea how evolution works. Add to this misinformation they are getting from Church and various bits of media, it's not terribly surprising that some pretty huge misconceptions are out there.

pic source

Evolution doesn't happen to an individual. An animal doesn't evolve into another animal. If you didn't know anything about evolution, but you watched pokemon, perhaps you might think the first picture I linked is supposed to be the evolution of an individual instead of the evolution of species. If that has happened at some point in the past, and there are still monkeys, why couldn't it happen again in the future? Why couldn't we get it on video at some point? It's interesting how a potential misconception can snowball and lead to such a ridiculous question, and yet, with this incorrect starting point, why not? It's a shame pokemon didn't use the word metamorphosis instead of evolve, it seems to match what is happening much better. Is that the mistake this person made on twitter? I don't really know, it's the only thing I could really come up with though. How else could they expect we could get evolution on video?

So the question becomes, how do you respond to these types of ridiculous requests? As I said, it can be tempting to just call them idiots and move on. I see this as a missed opportunity. It seems much more useful to explain that evolution happens to populations and not to individuals. No individual ever evolves, you have the same genes you were born with you entire life. Will they absorb this information when you tell them? Probably not, but hopefully it will sink in. And of course, there is always the possibility that someone else is watching who isn't so invested in the argument that can learn from the exchange. Once you call them an idiot it's game over.

There's No Evidence

Over the weekend I wrote about Richard Dawkins arguing with a creationist. One thing about their discussion that I found interesting was that she kept saying that there is no evidence for evolution. Dawkins kept providing evidence, but it was pretty much just dismissed out of hand. He would give her an example of some evidence for evolution, she would say that evidence is insufficient or invalid. He would then say that there is a ton of evidence out there and she would dismiss that as well.

My first reaction is that this is ludicrous, there is so much evidence out there that it is mind boggling for her to claim there is none. And yet, as I thought about it I realized how similar the things she was saying about evolution are to the things I regularly say about God. I feel like I am constantly saying variations of "I've never seen a shred of decent evidence for God". People will insist there is a ton of evidence out there, and I will say I've seen it and it doesn't hold up. When they give examples I will tell them why it isn't good enough.

To the casual or untrained observer, these two conversations will seem completely analogous. We are both having exactly the same fight over different issues. But the difference is clear when you look at how challenges are handled. If someone provides me with evidence for God, I will actually dig in to what they have to say and explain why I think it is poor. (In the vast majority of cases, the evidence that I am given is the cosmological argument). When Dawkins presented her with evidence she did not address them, she simply denied that the fossils exist and then quickly changed the subject. In fact, at one point in the video he called her on this exact thing and she just did it again. She started talking about something else.

I find it very frustrating, because we both make the claim "there is no evidence for X". In my case, I say this about evidence for God because I have looked for evidence for quite a while, and every time I am given evidence it is garbage. I ask for evidence from Christians whenever it is appropriate and whenever I'm given something I dig into it and try to see what kind of merit it has, there is just never any. In this particular creationist's case, she went as far as to claim there were not fossils of our ancestors in museums! She's either lying or she has only been to really shitty museums.

It honestly makes me wonder if this is done on purpose. Has someone in the creationist camp looked at arguments against them and molded their arguments to mirror them? Perhaps they think that if both sides have similarly structured arguments the average person listening will think they are equally valid. On the other hand, this might just be a natural place that these types of arguments tend to eventually sound.

Dawkins Interviews a Creationist

I recently watched a video where Dawkins was interviewed by a Young Earth Creationist, I also asked if anyone was aware of similar videos out there and Christian offered this one where Dawkins interviews the creationist Wendy Wright. It's totally brutal, she keeps claiming that there is no evidence for evolution, and she keeps returning to this idea that evolution leads to terrible societies. Painful to watch, but still 1000 times better than debates. Dialog is much better than two interleaved monologues that are vaguely on the same topic.

I don't know how he kept his cool

As I watched the video, I've kept track of time-stamps of things that I might want to reference later. Who knows, someone else might find them useful as well :)

0:24 RD: Why are you concerned about evolution?

WW: If we believe we have been created with a soul we are more likely to treat each other with respect and dignity.

1:10 WW: the scientific community censors info that goes against evolution. Teach the controversy

2:35 WW: there's no evidence for macro evolution.

wow, 2 minutes in and I already hate this woman. I really don't know how Dawkins keeps his cool so well.

9:30 WW again says that the scientific evidence for evolution is lacking. RD replies that any time you fill a gap creationists say there are now 2 gaps

11:00 RD lays out evolution of man and asks why she doesn't see this as evidence. WW replies that he bears the burden of proof and should provide evidence. Me screaming at my computer "he just did!"

12:11 WW you are still lacking material evidence RD the material evidence is there, go to the museum and look at it!

13:44 RD tries to get her to answer the fact that he has presented evidence. WW says she's not convinced and when RD tries to ask why she accuses him of aggression and censorship.

14:37 RD I am frustrated, not to suppress you, because I've told you about 4-5 fossils and you seem to be ignoring what I'm saying WW claims the fossils aren't there, she's looked. She keeps returning to the idea that the ideologies that come from evolution are destructive

16:30 WW Why are you so aggressive? RD Every time I ask you about these fossils you evade the question

23:00 WW We respect evolutionists, we wish you would respect us as well. RD Don't respect me, just look at the evidence, don't just believe what you have been told, that the evidence doesn't exist

29:43 RD Can you point to any positive evidence for creation?
WW DNA shows we are each individual.
RD We have to be individual for evolution to work
WW I don't think that's the case
RD I'm sorry but it is

30:30 WW Positive mutations can't be built on
RD Do you actually know what Darwin's theory of natural selection is?
WW I think I know enough

33:00 WW handicapped children is evidence against evolution because she has a spirit

39:38 RD you seem to feel persecuted against yet there is overwhelming Christian dominance in the US
WW I was sentenced to 6 months in jail for simply praying across the street from an abortion clinic
RD give me more detail
WW A judge said you can't do certain things within 100ft of the clinic, so 4 of us prayed in that range
RD asks for more detail. WW said that a few of them were quietly praying and got punished, and yet there were hundreds of pro-abortion people screaming with bullhorns and nothing happened to them.
me: this story is bullshit!

46:18 RD says she should look at the facts
WW replies that she think it is demeaning that he is implying that they don't know things
RD I don't want you to believe me, just go look at the facts
WW returns once again to "look at what that philosophy bears out

57:36 RD When I asked you about evidence you said there were no fossil intermediates, and when I told you about fossil intermediates you changed the subject.
WW insists there should be massive evidence from slime to human beings.
RD That sends me close to despair because the evidence is there, he give an example with fish bones becoming the inner ear
WW asks why he doesn't spend his time gathering evidence and making it available
RD I just did that

Genesis 1: The Reason Evolution Is Not True

Check out today's episode

The Creation of the World (v. 1-31)

Pic found here

Day 1:

God created the heavens and the earth, but it was without form and there was darkness everywhere. God was hovering over the waters and said "let there be light" and said the light was good. God separated the light and darkness, he called the light day and the darkness night.

So God created the heavens and earth, but it was all dark and without form. But there was water for God to hover over. The phrase that God separated the light from the dark doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense as darkness is simply an absence of light. But it does go on to say that he is calling this day and night, so we can be charitable and assume that God separating the light from darkness is creating the cycles of day and night.

From Guzik. 

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth: This tells us that God used no pre-existing material to create the earth. The ancient Hebrew word bara (created) is specific. It means to create out of nothing, showing that that God created the world out of nothing, not out of Himself.

In all honesty, I simply don't believe him. Does Hebrew really have a word for "created out of nothing"? No way! No human being has ever created something out of nothing in the way he is claiming God created something out of nothing. When we 'create' things, we rearrange matter and energy that is already there. We are transforming things that are already there. And we can look at the bible lexicon to see that 'bara' means "to shape, create", that sounds a lot more like what I am talking about than what he is talking about.

It is hard to know what to make of "without form and void", but Matthew Henry and Jamieson, Fausset & Brown seem to agree that it indicates some kind of chaos. 

In regard to the "darkness on the face of the deep", Guzik has this to say

Darkness was on the face of the deep: This may describe a sense of resistance to the moving of the Holy Spirit on the earth. Some speculate this was because Satan was cast down to the earth (Isaiah 14:12; Ezekiel 28:16) and resisted God’s plan, though his resistance was futile.

I don't really even know what to do but laugh here. It really seems like they are just making stuff up. It's darkness because he's about to create light, why would you interpret that as Satan? And if it was supposed to be Satan, why the hell would God make his first act to throw Satan down there?

Day 2:

God created a separation in the waters, some water above and some below. He called the expanse in the middle heaven (footnotes says this could also be translated as 'sky')

This is interesting, on the second day God created the sky, and that's it. Also, it suggests there is a body of water above and below the sky. Below makes sense, if there was no land yet there is nothing but ocean below the sky, but above? It sounds as if it is saying there is an ocean below and an ocean above the sky. It makes me wonder what their view of cosmology must have been, did they think there was an ocean in the sky that...leaked...on us when it rains or something? Also, if there was no sky yet on the first day, where exactly was God that he was hovering over the water?

From Guzik:

Here, the Bible recognizes the existence of water vapor in the sky.

From Matthew Henry:

divide the waters from the waters, that is, to distinguish between the waters that are wrapped up in the clouds and those that cover the sea, the waters in the air and those in the earth. 

From Jamieson, Fausset & Brown:

the atmosphere from its appearing to an observer to be the vault of heaven, supporting the weight of the watery clouds. By the creation of an atmosphere, the lighter parts of the waters which overspread the earth's surface were drawn up and suspended in the visible heavens, while the larger and heavier mass remained below. The air was thus "in the midst of the waters," that is, separated them

I guess the bible is so obviously wrong here they need to some up with some explanation, is it really reasonable to assume that the bible meant clouds here? It seems like quite a stretch to me.

Day 3:

God let the water gather in one place so dry land could appear. The land was called Earth and the water was called seas. God created vegetation, plants bearing fruit and seeds according to their kind.

So instead of the earth being one giant ocean, God created some land and sea, fine. He then created a bunch of fruit bearing plants. That whole "yielding seeds according to their kind", is that the basis of the bible being anti-evolution? If so I'm going to be pissed.

It appears that this is indeed the case, from Guzik:

According to its kind: This phrase appears ten times in Genesis chapter 1. It means God allows variation within a kind, but something of one kind will never develop into something of another kind.

Day 4:

God created the stars to separate the day from the night, and to be used for signs, seasons, days, and years. God made the sun to rule the day and the moon to rule the night. He put them all in the sky to separate the light from the darkness.

Here we have somewhat of a problem. God created the sun, stars, and moon to separate the day from night and the light from darkness. But we already separated light from darkness on day 1. Further, God created light on the first day, but he is creating the light sources here, on the fourth day. This clearly makes no sense, unless they didn't realize that the sun was the source of all the light. Think about the sky in the daytime, light seems to be coming from everywhere, but the sun is just in one spot. It's reasonable to think the people at the time didn't realize the sun is actually the source of the light in the rest of the sky. Obviously, God shouldn't have made this mistake though.

In regards to where the earth is in relation to the sun, Guzik says:

God knew exactly how far to set the sun from the earth. A few million miles more or less and life as we know it would be impossible.

Wrong, the orbit of earth varies by about 5 million miles at it's extremes

I would also like to note that the common complaint I hear on this point is that God created plants on the third day, but the sun on the fourth. While this is ridiculous, I think it misses the point that is more at the heart of this, that God created the light before he created the light source. If you follow what the book says here, there was light for the plants on the third day, because light was created on day one, it's just that the source of that light doesn't come until day four.

From Guzik:

Genesis tells us that light, day, and night each existed before the sun and the moon were created on the fourth day (Genesis 1:14-19). This shows us that light is more than a physical substance; it also has a supernatural aspect.

Right, light is supernatural, it couldn't just be that the people writing this didn't know what they were talking about. Also:

Those who propose these days of creation were not literal days, but successive “ages” of slow, evolutionary development have a real problem here. It is hard to explain how plants and all vegetation could grow and thrive eons before the sun and the moon. No modern evolutionist would argue plant life is older than the sun or the moon, but this is what the Genesis record tells us.

Day 5:

God created all of the creatures in the sea and all of the winged birds in the sky. He told them to be fruitful and multiply, and they multiplied according to their kind to fill up the sea and the sky.

God created the animals in the ocean and the animals that fly, fine.

Day 6:

God created livestock, creeping things, and beasts of the earth.

What a strange way to describe "all land animals"

God said "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness" and give him dominion over everything we have created. God created man and woman, then told them 2 more times that they have dominion over everything.

Who is God talking to? Who is 'us' and 'our'? I suppose Christians would argue that this is evidence of the trinity. It can't be the holy spirit, as he is just a ghost, I suppose it could be Jesus. Seems much more likely though that this is evidence of a pantheon.

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With regard to creationism/evolution. Is this seriously the reason that people can't accept evolution? Because in Genesis 1 the creation account doesn't match up properly? It's so obviously written by people who don't know anything about space or the history of our planet. I took a quick look over at Answers in Genesis, and they really do seem to be using this as their reason for not accepting evolution. For example

It is important to note that the order of events listed is not compatible with current secular thought about the origin of the universe and life and, thus, precludes any attempt to allegorize the text to fit unbiblical ideas. For example, evolutionism posits that plants did not appear until after the sun coalesced and the first life appeared. However, the biblical account is quite clear that God created plants even before He made the sun.

Are you shitting me?

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For the Verses of Note page:

--Science--

Genesis 1:3,16 God created light before he created the Sun and Stars

"3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light....16 And God made the two great lights--the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night--and the stars."

Evolution Debunked!

I don't usually check twitter in the morning, but I'm glad I did today as I was treated to the following

Excellent page on why the #evolution myth is so ridiculous:po.st/ktBGoC #science has repeatedly disproven evolution. #fact
— Evolution is a Myth (@DebunkEvolution) December 13, 2012

 That's great! I've always wondered how evolution would be proven false, now I have a reference. It's a link to conservapedia and gives 48 counterexamples to evolution. It starts with the claim that if even one of the following 48 items is correct, then evolution is wrong. It goes on to say

Moreover, even if there is merely a 5% chance that each of these counterexamples is correct (and the odds are far higher than that[2]), then the probability that the theory of evolution is true is less than 9%.

What?! I haven't even gotten to the part about evolution and I'm already laughing out loud. Where do they get 5% chance for each of these items? I assume they just pulled that number out of their ass. And why would that lead to 9%? Well it's simple, they must be assuming that each of the arguments are independent, and if each has a 5% chance of being true, then each has a 95% chance of being incorrect, now we just need to combine the probabilities 0.95^48=.0852576, which is less than 9%, the math checks out! Let's assume that this ridiculous percentage is correct, their big claim here is that evolution has almost a 9% chance of being true. Is that really something to be so proud of?

One other point here before I move on, since I am planning on posting about this, I figured I'd check the wayback machine to see if I could get an archive of this page in case it gets changed at the source. And what I find is that on July 17 2011, they had 73 counterexamples instead of 48 which results in a 2.4% chance of evolution being true. Still doesn't seem terribly convincing to me, but it sounds a hell of a lot better than 9%. It might be fun to see what has been removed from the old list, I might do that in a later post.

Oh! I actually have yet another point here before I move on. Notice in my quote from conservapedia there is a footnote. It says the following.

Many of the counterexamples are indisputable, rendering each of their probabilities of being correct nearly 100%

And I'm laughing out loud yet again. If that were true, why not just focus on those ones? Why pollute your article with other items that merely have a 5% chance of being true? Or at least start with those one. The first section of this article should be "these counterexamples are nearly 100% certain to be true"

Arguments from Ignorance

Not surprisingly, many of these are simply arguments from ignorance. I would say the best example in the first section "logical examples" is item 6

The development of feathers, which could not have conceivably "grown" from the scales of reptiles

Now, I'm not a scientist, although I am a science fan, but my understanding is that this is pretty well understood. A quick google search gets us to the following page which seems to have a lot of information about how it evolved (full disclosure, I did not read that page). This reminds me of a book I have been wanting to read (Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle) maybe this will be my Christmas reading this year. At any rate, even if we didn't know how it was done, the lack of that information doesn't prove it didn't happen. This is a perfect example of an argument from ignorance.

Lack of Understanding of Evolution

Many of these items simply show that they writer doesn't understand how evolution works. In fact, they are so silly I'm not even sure how to respond to them, for example, number 7 (again, from the section "logical examples")

For evolution to be true, every male dog, cat, horse, elephant, giraffe, fish and bird had to have coincidentally evolved with a female alongside it (over billions of years) with fully evolved compatible reproductive parts and a desire to mate, otherwise the species couldn't keep going.

Uhh, yeah, that is how it works. Assuming we are focusing on species that reproduce sexually, males and females evolve together. Evolution happens slowly on the level of populations, this isn't a problem for evolution at all. The only way I can even make sense of this complaint is to try to figure out how the writer is misunderstanding evolution. Are they claiming that according to evolution, one species randomly gives birth to another, and that one would have nobody to reproduce with? It's like they are imagining a dog giving birth to the first cat and then claiming this first cat wouldn't have anyone to reproduce with. How unlikely would it be for 2 separate dogs to give birth to 2 cats at the same time?!?

Irreducible Complexity

 There is a whole section about irreducible complexity, which is actually just an argument from ignorance itself, which is why I wasn't going to make this my last item, but scrolling through the page I saw the bacterial flagellum and I couldn't help myself. Item 3 in this section states

The flagellum of certain bacteria contain a multi-part cellular motor which fails to function if a single part is removed. This is the classic example of irreducible complexity as publicised by Professor Michael Behe.

Yup, it is also the perfect example of why irreducible complexity is bogus. If you remove a part it stops working as a motor, but it has other functions. This is perfect for evolution. A great explanation can be seen in this video.

More next time?

There is plenty more material here, but this post is already getting long. Next time I feel like shooting fish in a barrel I'll revisit this list.

No Obvious Line

(Note: for a non-colorized version of this post, click here)

I was listening to a debate on abortion recently, and it got me thinking about the whole idea that life begins at conception. As far as I can tell, the whole idea of claiming that life begins and conception is to draw a line in the sand as to where abortion is permissible. If we declare the fetus to be alive, then aborting it is tantamount to murder. On the other hand, if it is not alive, we are merely performing a medical procedure. I would argue that there are a number of spots during the pregnancy where we might consider claiming life. Perhaps it is the moment of birth, perhaps it is once nervous system can feel pain, there are probably several level of brain development that would make a certain amount of sense, perhaps it is when the heart has reached a certain level of development, maybe it is just the moment of conception. How do we choose where to draw the line?

I would argue that it is really not obvious where this line should be drawn, it seems like it should be somewhere in the middle, but I have no idea exactly where. If we think about the 
extremes it seems pretty obvious, a single cell, or just a handful of cells, no big deal, clearly not murder. You are not talking about a life, you are talking about a little lump of practically nothing. On the other hand, consider a fetus that is almost ready to be born, is aborting that baby murder? It certainly feels like it to me. Does something magical happen when it is born? Not really, it's essentially the same the day before and the day after birth, and it seems obvious that late-term abortion is a thing to be avoided. Put another way, what is the difference between a baby that was born 2 days early and another baby that is 2 days late, on the day they were expected to be born, is it moral to abort one, but immoral to kill the other? They should be treated the same right? I would argue that the point where abortion should no longer occur is somewhere in the middle, but it's not really a line, there's a sort of moral grey scale. The farther along the pregnancy gets, the 
more uneasy the idea of an abortion makes me. But my understanding is that this is reflected in how abortions are performed in practice, getting an abortion early on is no big deal, and late term abortions really don't happen unless there is something severely wrong (like if the baby didn't develop correctly). If we have to draw a line somewhere legally, it seems to make the most sense to me to put it at the point of birth.

But this is the kind of thing we should be used to, we see it all over the place. What happens the day you turn 16 that makes it reasonable for you to get a drivers license? Why is it that we are wildly irresponsible when we are 15 years and 364 days old, and yet when we turn 16 we can drive safely? Obviously nothing, but legally we have to draw the line somewhere. Some kids would probably be great drivers at 12, while other probably shouldn't be allowed to drive until they are 20, somehow the law wound up at 16. The same thing is true for drinking, the day we turn 21 we can drink ourselves into a stupor, but one day earlier a single drop touching our lips is illegal. It's kind of silly, but it's just the way we have to write the law.

It also reminded me of assigning grades for a class. Why is an 89.99% a B while a 90% is an A? To think about how fair this is, 80% is also a B, so the 80% and 89.99% students are counted as having equal mastery of the material. We can help this a bit by adding pluses and minuses, but you still have 82% and 87.99% being the same grade. For practical purposes, we have to draw these lines in the sand somewhere, but no matter what you do you get these jumps that don't seem quite fair.

Another big place this shows up is in evolution, if we say that X evolved into Y, it's not like there are a bunch of species X around, and then suddenly the next generation is a bunch of Ys. It's gradual change over time, that's really the point of the whole thing. There's no obvious point where the changeover happens, it's just that if we look at a line of descendants it's obvious that at the beginning we have a bunch of species X, and at the end we have a bunch of species Y. The organisms in the middle will look like a mixture of the two species, the closer you are to the start the more it looks like X, while the closer you are to the end it will look like Y. Unfortunately, we are used to looking for a place to draw a line and it even permeates our language, when a new species is created we call it a speciation event, this suggests there is a moment when a new species is created. Of course the reality is much more muddy than that. Abiogenesis has the same problem, we talk about the origin of life and the way people talk about it, it seems that in one moment there is just mud, and the next moment there is life. Really there are some things that we would probably call proto-life which have some properties that we would require of something we would call alive which gradually assembled into life. Pointing to a single moment where you have the first thing ever that is alive would be impossible, there is no obvious first life-form.

And of course there is the color thing. The first word of this post we can all agree is red and the last one is blue, and the middle is somewhere in between. Identifying the first blue word or the last red one is pretty difficult. We could each pick a word, and if we compared we would probably be in the same ballpark, but I'm pretty sure we would not all pick the same word. That's because there is no obvious line between red and blue here, the change is gradual and differentiating between them is messy, like so many other things in life.

Is Abiogenesis necessary to accept Evolution?

Evolution is the change over time of populations of organisms, is it how we account for the great biodiversity on our planet. Abiogenesis on the other hand, is how life came from non-life. It is not uncommon for a theist who doesn't believe in evolution to claim that it is illogical to accept the theory of evolution until we have a complete picture of abiogenesis as well. The argument being that without a beginning, it doesn't matter what else we know, we can't accept the theory. This argument is rubbish, and I aim to demonstrate this with a hypothetical. (I originally made this argument earlier this year, but I can't find it, I assume that means it was in the comments section of someone else's blog)

Suppose there was an alien race who had some scientists watching our planet since it formed. They are meticulous record keepers and are interested in how life could evolve. They were able to record every life form and all of their offspring in immense family trees. For our first exercise, let's assume that in addition to every life form, they were able to observe how the simplest life forms were able to form from non-life. Although the aliens have kept their presence secret all this time, tomorrow they decide that it is time to make contact and give us access to this database. We now have access to the complete lineage of every living thing that ever lived on this planet. If you wanted you could follow a line from yourself all the way to an original single celled life form on this planet. We could also, of course, take any particular organism in the past and look forward at all of it's descendants, you could see which lines went extinct, and which moved forward all the way to current day. Let's assume after examining this evidence, we discover that evolution happened according to the way our current scientists think it happened (naturally we will be wrong on some details here and there, but the overall picture is correct).

In this situation, we have complete information. Anyone who is even remotely reasonable must at this point accept that evolution happened. We were able to connect organisms from today all the way back in time as far as you wish to go, and we can even see how the first organisms arose out of non-life. But was the abiogenesis part of this really necessary? Let's change this up ever so slightly and see what happens.

Suppose we have the same aliens who are observing our planet, but their ridiculously awesome technology is slightly weaker than described above. It will be unable to detect abiogenesis this time, in fact, it is only able to reliably detect a life form if it is of a certain size, let's say at least 1000 cells. Other than that, the situation is exactly as previously described. You can look at the database and track your ancestors all the way back to a being that consists of 1000 cells. You can look at the gradual change, you can see how within a few generations anywhere along the chain your ancestors look about the same, but if you take a long view you can see the gradual changes produce one species after another.

In our second situation, since we have zero information about abiogenesis, would it be reasonable for us to dismiss the idea of evolution? Of course not! We have proof of change over time, we have speciation events, we have a full family tree of every life form on this planet of at least 1000 cells. To claim the lack of information about the start invalidates the rest would be dishonest in the extreme.

Of course, in reality we don't have any where near this much information about the history of organisms on the planet, but that's not really the point. The point is that I want to decouple the idea of abiogenesis and evolution. It is possible to have enough information to know that evolution happened without knowing how abiogenesis worked, this example proves this assertion. And pretty much every reputable scientist that works in an area that relates to evolution will state that evolution has been proven. If you try to counter such a statement by stating we don't know how life came from non-life, you are changing the subject. Understanding abiogenesis is not necessary to an understanding of evolution

E Coli Caught Evolving in the Lab

Today I want to write about a really cool experiment done on E Coli bacteria that managed to observe a new trait evolve. My primary reference is the wikipedia page, but I also read an article from new scientist and I looked at the web page from the actual research lab. The wikipedia page and the new scientist article seem to be saying the same thing in an understandable way. The research lab's page has a wealth of information but it was difficult for me to get through it. Also, they had links to several papers about the work, but the ones I checked were behind a pay wall so I am unable to go look at the source material. As I have said before, I'm not a scientist, but I am a science fan. If I make any mistakes or say something that isn't quite true, please feel free to correct me.

Why E Coli?

E Coli has a handful of properties that make it perfect for this type of study. It only reproduces asexually, and it isn't able to conjugate. This means that any changes over the generations must be from mutations. (I guess with a species that reproduces sexually, you would have to worry about recessive genes for example). It is also possible to freeze and preserve a sample, and revive it at any time in the future. This allows them to essentially have a "frozen fossil record" which they will always have access to.

The Experiment 

They have 12 populations of E Coli, which are initially from the same sample. Every 75 days (about 500 generations) they will freeze a sample of each population. They will analyze the samples and do fitness tests to see how the samples do as time goes on. In roughly the first 20,000 generations, all 12 samples progressed at about the same rate. They became specialized for growing on glucose, growing 70% faster in that medium but performing poorly in other environments.

That part so far didn't seem to be written up very excitedly in the wikipedia page or the article, I guess because the other part of it is so much better, but already I think this is amazing. What I see is that E Coli 'in the wild' have certain trade offs that affect it in various ways and a certain collection of traits will be ideal. In the experiment it had a constant supply of food which means different trade offs will be ideal. All 12 populations were able to get to roughly the same point by evolving through some apparently common mutations in about 20,000 generations. (although the language to use naturally implies some intention on the part of the population, we have to remember it is just random mutation and natural selection driving things)

As far as I'm concerned, what has been described is already best described with evolution. This is exactly the kind of thing that we would expect to see with evolution, and it is what is observed. If you want to try to replace evolution with something else, it would need to have at least this much explanatory power.

But then, at around generation 33,127 something really amazing happened. The experimenters noticed that one of the populations had a huge boost in its growth rate. They discovered that it has evolved the ability to use citrate (which is part of the growth medium) as a source of energy. Normally E. Coli is not able to use this material as food. It makes sense that this particular mutation would thrive once present, it adds a new food source, so the mutant with this ability would thrive compared to the others around it who all have to compete for a common energy source.

An interesting thing with the citrate eating population, is that unlike the other adaptations, there is only one population that developed this skill. The researchers interpret this as the citrate eating skill requires more than one mutation. Furthermore, the early mutation isn't beneficial by itself. It seems that it was more of a sidestep that isn't particularly selected for. They went back to their frozen fossil record and tried to see if they ran a new experiment forward from various points along the way, if the citrate eating skill would evolve again. It seems that the first mutation necessary for that skill happened somewhere around generation 20,000, because if they tried from populations before that the skill didn't develop. One thing this research shows, is that somewhat random changes in genotype, which seem to have no real effect at the time, can have profound effects into the future.

Something I will add that isn't mentioned in any of the articles, this seems to me to be a good example of a path toward speciation. We have a population where some of it's members happen to randomly evolve a way to make use of a new food source. If the old food source is heavily competed for and the new source is not, it is conceivable that the population might dine exclusively on the new source. If this happens, it is entirely possible that they will have very different selection pressures on them and they might be pushed in different directions evolutionarily, this might even happen with them staying in the same physical place.

Well, I certainly think this is an excellent example of evolution happening before our very eyes, I hope I haven't messed up very many of the details here. Hope you enjoyed reading about this as much as I did.

Cool Evolution Stuff: Ring Species

Evolution doesn't really have anything to do with religion, except that many people decide that it doesn't mesh with theirs and they deny it is real without ever learning how it works. It is really a shame because many religious people do believe in evolution. It seems totally reasonable to me to believe in both and I wish more believers would be willing to follow the evidence where it leads.

I have never studied evolution formally, but I do find in fascinating and read about it now and then. Some of the things I read about are really cool and I thought it would be fun to describe them here. Hopefully I will get all of the important details right, but as I said I have never studied this formally so I might make mistakes. If I do please point it out.

Today I want to talk about ring species. Before I get into why I think ring species are so cool, I want to talk a little bit about speciation. There are a few different ways that speciation can occur, but I want to talk about something that was described in "On the Origin of Species" (It might have been "The Selfish Gene", I read them at around the same time a few years ago).

Let's say you have some type animal who lives in one particular place, let's just say it is all the way to the west of a large land mass. This animal is doing very well and starts spreading out over new territory to the east. Even though the animal is all over the place on this land mass, the animals to the far west and the animals to the far east do not breed with one another. There is breeding all through the continent, so there is some gene transfer, but generally the animals from the west and east can have separate genes and the ones in the middle are hybrids.

Now, let's suppose there is some kind of selection pressure which is different east and west. Eventually you might get animals well suited for the east and other animals well suited for the west and the in between animals wouldn't really fit well in either setting and will eventually die off, giving you two separate species.

I remember when I first read this little hypothetical story I wasn't really sure what to make of it. It seemed to make sense well enough I guess, but I wasn't sure I completely followed why the genes from one side wouldn't just propagate to the other and it didn't really make sense why the middle species would die. For the first thing, I think I wasn't thinking of a large enough land mass, and the second, there are a huge number of reasons why a population of animals might die.

So anyway, I had this situation sitting in the back of my mind somewhere, and then I read about ring species, which seem to be this process in the middle of happening, but there is also a twist, the extremes live in the same place (or maybe just nearly the same place?). Let's say you have a species that lives in a mountain surrounded by a valley, such as this salamander. As we go along the mountain range around the valley there are different populations of the animal. Any two adjacent populations can interbreed no problem, but the populations from the beginning and end cannot interbreed.

This is really cool for a couple of reasons.
1. Are the salamanders the same species or not? They can't interbreed so we should say no. However, there are 19 populations of the things that can each interbreed. So population 1 and 2 are the same species, pop 2 and 3 are the same, etc, but then pop 1 and 19 are not the same. The point is, our definition of species is a little fuzzy.
2. Suppose a bunch of the middle populations died out before we thought to look for it (say populations 4-17). We would just see 2 separate species of salamander in the same place and not think too much about it. This is a really neat demonstration of how new species could form.

That was fun. I hope I got most of the details correct here. At the very least, I hope it is clear why I think ring species are so cool.