jlynch | April 1, 2006A sheep ... a smart, somewhat evil, non-metrosexual sheep.
I am 5% Idiot.
I am not annoying at all. In fact most people come to me for advice. Of course they annoy the hell out of me. But what can I do? I am smarter than most people.Take theIdiot Test@ FualiDotCom
I am 45% Evil Genius.
I want to be evil. I do evil things. But given the opportunity, and a darn good reason I may turn to the good side. Besides I am probably a miserable evil genius.Take theEvil Genius Test@ FualiDotCom
And, oh, what the heck ...
I am 19% Metrosexual.
I need some advice. I need to STOP BUYING MY CLOTHS AT…
jlynch | April 1, 2006I seem to have annoyed someone by the moniker of 'dlamming', apparently a graduate student who is interested in yeast. While searching through my junk trackbacks, I discovered his response to my post on the mathematician William Hart (see here), whom he feels is more than adequately qualified to talk about evolution.
'dlamming' makes a number of claims. The first is simply that math is important to many aspects of biology. This is not terribly interesting or, for that matter, controversial and no one - certainly not me - has been claiming that math and mathematicians are not part of…
jlynch | March 31, 2006I've been quiet the past week for a number of reasons. While course & talk preparation and more general bits & pieces have kept me busy, a huge part of my spare time (such as it is) has been given away to activities related to hiring a new lecturer here at the College. That has meant lunches, dinners, meetings, teaching demonstrations and such like. On top of that, I have page proofs of an introduction to get through, and a final examination to begin drafting (or at least the study guide for same). All very busy. But I should be back on target and posting sometime this weekend.
In…
jlynch | March 26, 2006Jonathan Wells wrote a paper a while back that proposed a "ID-derived" explanation for cancer. I've written about that before (here, here , here, here, and here) as have others. Thus, this is of interest:
In a study published online today in Nature Genetics, Carlo Maley, Ph.D., a researcher at The Wistar Institute, and his colleagues report that precancerous tumors containing a population of highly diverse cells were more likely to evolve into cancer than those containing genetically similar cells. The finding suggests that, in at least some forms of cancer, the more genetically diverse a…
jlynch | March 26, 2006Since GrrlScientist asked; a mere 6.25% - ten time less than her and five times less than Janet. Confused? Don't be.
jlynch | March 24, 2006The DI is crowing that their next update to the "Dissent from Darwinism" list will feature 600 PhD's. They highlight a letter sent by William Hart, a Visiting Assistant Professor of Mathematics at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (they omit the visiting piece, I wonder why?). In any case, Hart says:
I am a PhD mathematician who has recently (in the last couple of years) examined carefully the claim that the neo-Darwinian synthesis adequately accounts for the variety of life on earth. I have read countless texts on geology, biology (and cosmology) in a multitude of sub-disciplines and…
jlynch | March 23, 2006Like PZ, I too received a copy of What We Believe but Cannot Prove: Today's Leading Thinkers on Science in the Age of Certainty [amaz] a few weeks back. Also like PZ, I was taken with Ian McEwan's entry (see PZ's post for that). I also liked this comment from Seth Lloyd:
Unlike mathematical theorems, scientific results can't be proved. They can only be tested again and again until only a fool would refuse to believe them.
Unfortunately there are a lot of fools out there, many of them supporters of ID. As Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired notes,
The Intelligent Design movement has opend…
jlynch | March 23, 2006 I recently finished a biography of Ludwig WIttgenstein and came away thinking that, while the man was probably brilliant, he was not by any means a person who was easy to know. That aside, I started to read his first work, Tractus Logio-Philosophicus (1921/2), and immediately realized I was way out of my depth, particularly as I'm not a huge fan of analytical philosophy.
Wittgenstein's basic argument is thus:
The world is everything that is the case.
What is the case, the fact, is the existence of atomic facts.
The logical picture of the facts is the thought.
The thought is the significant…
jlynch | March 23, 2006The South Carolina schools system is in a worse state than I ever expected. Carol Crooks, of Greer SC, opines:
The theory of evolution does not and cannot explain so much about the universe that we know. For instance, when and how did water evolve? How does it happen that gravity can hold us to the Earth, and at the same time allow us to step up without any trouble? How did it happen that the Earth is spinning at the exact rate that keeps us from feeling that movement?
Yikes. I guess we need to "teach the controversy" in physics class as well.
Hat tip to Steve over at the Thumb.
jlynch | March 22, 2006I have to admit to having taught students that essentialism - the belief that species have an essence and thus could not evolve - was prevalent prior to Darwin. This was something I got from reading the writings of Ernst Mayr. Now along comes John Wilkins who argues "essentialism in biology postdates Darwin, and was in fact due to the revival of Thomism among German and French speaking Catholic biologists who were reacting to the metaphysical views of people like Herbert Spencer and Ernst Haeckel." He notes that Aquinas' De ente et essentia [link] is the first example of the "argument from…
jlynch | March 20, 2006George says:
"The Afghan people are building a vibrant young democracy that is an ally in the war on terror - and America is proud to have such a determined partner in the cause of freedom."
Meanwhile, back in Kabul:
An Afghan man is being prosecuted in a Kabul court and could be sentenced to death on a charge of converting from Islam to Christianity, a crime under this country's Islamic laws, a judge said Sunday.
No comment necessary.
jlynch | March 20, 2006 Researchers have found evidence for referential gestures in wild chimps. Humans commonly use referential gestures that direct the attention of recipients to particular aspects of the environment. Because the recipient of a referential gesture must infer the signaler's meaning, the use of these gestures has been linked with cognitive capacities such as the ability to recognize another individual's mental state.
As the press release states:
The gesture studied by the researchers--a "directed scratch"--involved one chimpanzee making a relatively loud and exaggerated scratching movement on a…
jlynch | March 19, 2006Any readers in Arizona may be interested in the following upcoming public lecture that I will be giving on Tuesday, March 28:
Twenty Years A-Growing: Creationism Since Edwards v. Aguillard
Sponsored by ASU's Secular Freethought Society
In 1986 the Supreme Court effectively killed off "scientific creationism" with its decision in Edwards v Aguillard. Undaunted, supporters morphed into the "Intelligent Design Movement," a group which itself has received a significant setback in the recent Kitzmiller v Dover decision. This talk will examine the twenty-year development of ID, particularly…
jlynch | March 19, 2006The British critic and novelist, Melvyn Bragg, has chosen twelve works that changed the world for an upcoming book and TV program. Nice to see a good representation of scientific works:
Principia Mathematica (1687) by Isaac Newton
On the Origin of Species (1859) by Charles Darwin
Experimental Researches in Electricity (three volumes, 1839, 1844, 1855) by Michael Faraday
Patent Specification for Arkwright's Spinning Machine (1769) by Richard Arkwright
Married Love (1918) by Marie Stopes
Magna Carta (1215) by members of the English ruling classes
Book of Rules of Association Football (1863) by…
jlynch | March 19, 2006I'm back from Maine after having a wonderful trip to Colby College. It was cold (but I got used to it) and the people were very friendly, so thanks to one and all.
Normal blogging will resume once I get caught up, but for the moment, here's a belated random ten:
Hold On / Lou Reed / New York
World / New Order / Retro, CD4 (Live)
O Children / Nick Cave / The Lyre Of Orpheus
Barstool Blues / Neil Young / Year of the Horse
Dumb / Nirvana / Unplugged
Take Me to the River / Talking Heads / Popular Favorites
Please Mr. Please / Scud Mountain Boys / Pine Box
God Help Me / The Jesus & Mary Chain…
jlynch | March 13, 2006As I mentioned previously, I'm getting to spend the latter half of Spring Break over in Colby College, Maine - where the temperature is currently 43 degrees. That's not too bad (it's only 52 here in the desert at the moment). Problem is, they are forecasting a high of 39 and low of 20 for Wednesday (when I arrive) and then Thursday (when I talk, see below) is 39/15. Friday will be 35/14. I mean, come on, that's not a high! No snow though. (Which is kind of a pity ...).
On Thursday, I will be giving a public talk ("Darwin, Design, and Democracy") at Colby . The venue is the Olin Science Center…
jlynch | March 11, 2006If the hairy lobster wasn't your style of thing, what about a meter long Giant freshwater crayfish (Astacopsis gouldi) from Tasmania?
Yeah, I know, it's not a lobster ... but they are related.
It's Saturday evening. I'm posting on parasitic fish and large crustacea. I need to get a life.
(source)
jlynch | March 11, 2006
Catfish are a fairly diverse group of fish, familar to aquarium keepers and fans of fried food. They vary in size from the over two meter long Giant Mekong Catfish (Pangasius gigas; a record 646 pound specimen is above) to a finger-length parasitic species, the candiru (Vandellia cirrhosa, see below). Thanks to a reminder by Tara (and ultimately, PZ), it's the candiru that I want to write about today.
The candiru (as Fishbase notes) "[e]nters the gill cavity of larger fish to suck blood ... Forces itself under the gill cover of host fish to enter gill chamber during ventilation of the…