Reflectorites
Below are web articles for the period 9 - 17 March, with my comments in
square brackets.
Steve
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http://www.wvgazette.com/news/Today/2000031610/ Charleston Gazette
... Creation textbook divides board ... March 17, 2000 By Eric Eyre ...
Kanawha County school board members are divided over whether to
purchase anti- evolution textbooks that a committee has recommended for
science classrooms. Scientists and teachers throughout the country have
criticized "Of Pandas and People," calling it a creationist treatise and a
plan by religious fundamentalists to undermine science education in
public schools. But a committee of Kanawha County science teachers and
the head of the school system's science curriculum have unanimously
endorsed the controversial book. "It's very unlikely it will get approved,"
school board President John Luoni said .... "I was surprised the
committee seemed to have no problem with it. It looks like they misjudged
this book." But school board members Betty Jarvis and Pete Thaw said
they will vote to purchase 47 copies of the book for teachers on April 20.
The books would be given to teachers who may distribute them to high
school students. "If teachers want it, I'm in favor of getting it to them,"
Thaw said. "If they say it will be helpful to them, I believe them." "It's very
good supplemental text," said school board member Betty Jarvis. "The
teachers who chose it ... did an excellent job." Hilary Chiz, ... of the
American Civil Liberties Union, called on school board members to reject
the textbook. "These are stealth efforts to reintroduce religion to schools,"
Chiz said. .... "This would be an expenditure of taxpayer money for non-
educational materials." School board member Bill Raglin said he planned
to examine the book and consult scientists before deciding how he'll vote
on April 20. ... The book has sparked debate in school districts throughout
the country. In one Ohio school district, parents purchased 100 copies
and donated them to the schools after board members rejected the books.
Karl Priest, a member of the Kanawha Creation Science Group, presented
the textbook to the county teacher committee that recommends science
textbooks. Seymour [science curriculum director] personally thanked
Priest for bringing the book to his attention, saying it "follows science to
the letter." But numerous national groups, including the National
Association of Biology Teachers, The Textbook League and National
Center for Science Education, have criticized the book as "bad science."
"Clearly this is a group of teachers that needs to be second-guessed,"
said Eugenia Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science
Education. "Believe me, `Of Pandas and People' is a religious view. It's
telling some students in the classroom that their religious view is wrong."
... "They're overreacting without enough information or they have an
agenda to indoctrinate children to evolutionism," Priest said ... The book
advocates "intelligent design" - the idea that life is so complex and
remarkable that it could not have happened randomly. The authors ...
argue that there had to be an intelligent, purposeful guiding hand that
created living things. ... See also: http://dailymail.com/news/News/2000031628/
Charleston Daily Mail ... Book gives alternative to evolution ... As science
curriculum director for the county, Seymour listened to teachers last
December when they told him they wanted a textbook that presents
Darwin's Theory of Evolution as theory, not fact. He watched when
community members came out to the Board of Education building in
droves to support a policy that would have allowed teachers to teach
theories for and against evolution. So when Seymour and several other
teachers and community members began considering textbooks for the
six-year science textbook adoption, Seymour was pleased to submit "Of
Pandas and People," ... that presents an "alternative" view of the theory.
"This book is not written to shun evolution," Seymour said. "It is written to
offer an alternative viewpoint." ... "I want to thank Karl Priest for bringing
the book to my attention," Seymour said to the board. Other books
"stomped" on the theory of evolution, he said. "This one doesn't." "It's the
best one I've seen that presents alternative science without getting into
religion,'' Seymour said. ... [This is a turn up. The science teachers want
evolution critiqued and the Board doesn't! Eugenie Scott should be called
dis-Ingenuie for her spin that "It's telling some students in the classroom
that their religious view is wrong" What about *her* materialist `religion'
which tells 90% of the public that their religious view is wrong? Scott has
threatened to take "Pandas" to court but she appears afraid to do so
because unlike previous Creation Science cases "Pandas": 1. does not
advocate Genesis literalism but a purely scientific paradigm of Intelligent
Design; 2. is only a supplemental text (it does not intend to replace
Biology texts); and 3. it has valid scientific criticisms of evolution (one of
its authors Dean Kenyon is a world famous origin of life researcher). A lot
of water has passed under the bridge since the last Supreme Court case,
with new defence witnesses available like Phil Johnson, Mike Behe, and
Bill Dembski (not to mention Kenyon), and Scott knows that if she lost,
then ID could be taught legally in schools. She no doubt judges it best just
to huff and puff but not to actually try to blow the house down?]
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000315/sc/science_fossils_1.html
Yahoo! ... March 15 ... Fossils Fill in Missing Branch of Primate Tree By
Patricia Reaney LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists have discovered 45
million-year-old foot bones in China from an extinct primate which fills in a
missing branch of the evolutionary tree. ... the tree-dwelling, mouse-size
animal called Eosimias could solve the hotly debated issue of the origins
of higher primates -- monkeys, apes and humans. "These fossils for the
first time actually bridge that anatomical gap between the lower primates
and the higher primates," ... Contrary to expectations the bones of
Eosimias were found in Asia, not Africa, and they are older and tinier than
scientists thought they would be. ... the creatures are somewhere
between prosimians, such as lemurs and tarsiers which leapt and clung to
trees, and anthropoids such as monkeys, apes and humans which walk
on four or two limbs. "They are half prosimians and half anthropoids. They
really do make that connection. ... scientists ... discovered the fossils in a
limestone quarry ... southeast of Beijing. ... "The most interesting aspect
of these new foot bones is that they represent a mosaic," ... "They
possess primitive lower-primate features as well as several advanced or
higher-primate characteristics." ... See also:
http://www.cnn.com/2000/NATURE/03/16/tinyprimates.ap/index.html CNN
... Anthropologists have discovered fossils from two species of "teeny, tiny
primates," thumb-sized creatures smaller than any other known primate.
"This discovery reinvents our definition of what the primate order is all
about and how it arose," ... The fossilized foot bones, each about the size
of a grain of rice .... At one-third of an ounce (nine grams) -- the weight of
a couple of pencils - - the smaller of the two is dwarfed by the 1-ounce (28
gram) Madagascar mouse lemur, the smallest known primate alive today.
... Because it would have needed to eat insects voraciously to keep up
with an overheated metabolism, it would have had higher primate
features: two eyes facing forward and soft hands without claws, all the
better to focus on and grab bugs. ... [Another `mosaic evolution' puzzle for
neo-Darwinism which cannot easily explain why one feature is changing
while the others are in stasis! Therefore more evidence that function
follows form and not the other way around (as neo-Darwinism
maintains)?]
http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/health/031400hth-behavior-evolution-2.html
March 14, 2000 Human Nature: Born or Made? ... By ERICA GOODE ...
The nature/nurture dichotomy, however, is in many ways spurious. No
evolutionary scientist would dispute that culture is a powerful influence, or
that environmental forces shape behavior. ... A more sophisticated
debate, and one central to many of the most knowledgeable critiques of
evolutionary psychology, revolves around more subtle distinctions, like
the timing of evolutionary change, the criteria used to decide whether
something is an adaptation. Then there is the question of the relative
balance of culture and genes in determining how humans behave. Dr.
Cosmides and Dr. Tooby argue that the complex mechanisms, or "design
features," that they believe make up the structure of the human mind
evolved over millions of years, as combinations of genes proved
successful at reproducing themselves, and gradually spread through the
species, eventually becoming universal. Because of this, they assert, it
makes little sense to study traits that vary from group to group, or society
to society. Humans are basically all the same, they argue, with only a
''dusting" of difference. Nor, they say, is it worthwhile to ask whether a
particular behavior is adaptive -- in the sense of producing more offspring
- in the modern world. Doing so, they say, can lead scientists wildly
astray. .... Other scientists, however, object that this view is much too
narrow, that it requires assumptions that are impossible to test and
ignores the possibility that evolution might in some cases have proceeded
at a faster pace. They also find the notion of studying only universal traits
perplexing ... The work of ...Dr. Sarah Hrdy, ... who studies primates, ...
offers an evolutionary view of male-female relations that differs sharply
from that painted by evolutionary psychologists like Dr. Buss. ... Other
critics complain that evolutionary psychologists often under-emphasize
the extent to which culture influences human behavior, and ignore equally
plausible cultural explanations for their data. Dr. Alice Eagly ... has been
critical of Dr. Buss's research ... "I wouldn't argue that there are no
differences between men and women," Dr. Eagly said. "But there remains
a big question whether things as specific as a preference for money are
built in genetically." Dr. Boyd .... also said that culture's impact on
behavior was often underplayed in evolutionary psychologists' work. ...
"From my research perspective," Dr. Boyd said, "evolutionary
psychologists place a much smaller emphasis on cultural variation than I
think is empirically going on.... I still take an evolutionary perspective, but
I don't think we have to have it all coded in the genes.".. Yet the word
"mechanism," is in itself controversial.... many researchers remain
skeptical that the same specialization that has been demonstrated for
some brain functions -vision, for example -- holds when it comes to
complex patterns of behavior. ... scientific disciplines are riddled with
internal disagreements. ... Yet the intensity of emotion that infuses any
discussion of evolutionary psychology is unusual, even among scientists.
In part, the reason may be that the star actors in this scientific drama are
human beings, and the question at issue is the nature of being human.
Dr. Tooby ... worries "that evolutionary psychology will die because of
sociological reasons." "Almost all that anyone has heard about
evolutionary psychology has to do with sex and violence," he said. "But
there is insight to be found for hundreds of really critical topics." Other
evolutionary scientists who study human behavior say they, too, are
worried: they worry that the controversy is dividing researchers who
should be working together, and that the work of a relatively small group
of scholars is inviting a hostility that the field -- just recovering from two
decades of embattled debate -- hardly needs. ... "I don't think we really
know how to do evolutionary psychology yet," said Dr. Randolph Nesse ...
"I think we have great trouble formulating our hypotheses, and even more
trouble figuring out how to test them. We know we have a powerful
principle, that will eventually provide a foundation for a deeper and richer
psychology. But we have a lot of work to do." ... [Part 2. Some good lines
of criticism of evolutionary psychology by evolutionists.]
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000314/sc/health_genome_2.html
Yahoo! ... March 14 ... Clinton, Blair Want Free Access to Genes Map ...
By Dominic Evans LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists around the world
should have free access to research on the mapping of human genes ...
President Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair said research into
the human genetic blueprint was "one of the most significant scientific
projects of all time." "To realize full promise of the research, raw
fundamental data on the human genome including the human DNA
sequence and its variations, should be made freely available to scientists
everywhere," the two leaders said in a joint statement. Their call came a
week after U.S. company Celera Genomics, racing to become the first firm
to sequence all the genes in the body, said it was concerned that if it
shared information with publicly funded research its data would be used
by rivals. ... Clinton and Blair praised the [Human Genome] project's own
policy to release "raw fundamental information" about the human DNA
sequence and its variants rapidly into the public domain. Open access to
information on the human genome would "promote discoveries that will
reduce the burden of disease, improve health around the world, and
enhance the quality of life for all humankind," ... "We commend other
scientists around the world to adopt this policy," ... the two leaders
stressed that inventions which built on that information should be
protected by law. "Intellectual property protection for gene-based
inventions will also play in important role in stimulating the development
of important new health care products," they said. Blair's spokesman said
the joint statement was intended to send a signal about how important
Clinton and Blair considered the research to be. ... He said the Human
Genome Project expects to publish a draft "map" of the human genetic
blueprint in the spring, with a full picture emerging by 2003. Celera says it
will be finished later this year. ... [A shot across Venter's and others bows
warning them not to be too greedy and cooperate with the HGP or else?
Also, is there a signal that genes themselves will not be allowed to be
patented?]
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000314/sc/health_pigs_2.html Yahoo!
... March 14 ... British Company Says Creates First Cloned Pigs ... By
Patricia Reaney LONDON (Reuters) - PPL Therapeutics Plc, the British
biopharmaceutical company that helped to clone Dolly the sheep, has
created the world's first cloned pigs. The birth of the five cloned piglets -
Millie, Christa, Alexis, Carrel and Dotcom -- on March 5 could herald a
new age in animal-to-human organ transplants, or xenotransplantation.
News of the achievement sent shares in the Edinburgh-based group
soaring ...The rise left the company with a market value of 125 million
pounds ($196 million). Up to 68,000 people in the United States and
50,000 in Europe are waiting for livers, kidney and hearts. The lists
increase by 15 percent a year while the number of organ donors are
dwindling. Scientists believe genetically engineered pigs, which can be
bred quickly and whose organs as about the same size as humans, could
solve the problem. ... The company hopes to begin clinical trials in the
next four years. To overcome the problem of organ rejection PPL plans to
breed pigs without a gene that is thought to be involved in the rejection
process. "Given enough time we will produce organs that will be
compatible with humans and that should deal with the problem of people
dying on waiting lists without getting organs," said James. ... "Dolly was a
scientific breakthrough but this is bigger. This puts them clearly up front in
doing something that no one else can do. Dolly is just a way to make
medicines cheaply. This (pig) definitely puts them in the big league," he
added. ... The five piglets were cloned from adult cells using nuclear
transfer, the same technique used to create Dolly. ... "Specifically we want
to turn off a particular pig gene which puts a particular sugar group on pig
cells which is seen by the human immune system as foreign and provokes
the attack that causes rejection," James explained. ... "We've got the
pieces of the jigsaw puzzle. Now we need to make the picture." See also:
http://www.cnn.com/2000/NATURE/03/14/cloned.pigs.ap.reut/index.html
CNN ... Independent analysis of the DNA of the five piglets verified that
they were cloned from the sow, the company said. ...The names of the
first cloned piglets each have their own significance. Millie was named for
the millennium. Christa, Alexis and Carrel were named after Dr. Christiaan
Barnard, who performed the first human heart transplant, and Dr. Alexis
Carrel, who won the Nobel prize in 1912 for his work in the field of
transplantation. As for the one named "Dotcom:" "Any association with
dotcoms right now seems to have a very positive influence on a
company's valuation," ... [This is *very* significant. Note that the these
biologists are already multi- millionaires. I like the name of the last pig but
expect some poor child to be called "Dotcom"!]
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000313/sc/japan_clone_1.html
Yahoo! ... March 13 ... Japan Scientists May Create Cloned Cat - Media
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese scientists are set to create the world's first
cloned cat as early as June ... Researchers at Yamaguchi University, in
eastern Japan, said they have succeeded in cultivating a cloned egg,
developed from the cell of a dead cat fetus, in a test tube and the egg is
ready to be implanted in the womb of a female cat, ... "I am hoping to use
this technique to preserve Iriomote wildcats, Siberian Tigers and other
felines in danger of extinction," Tatsuyuki Suzuki, a professor at the
university was quoted as saying. [It doesn't say how long dead the cat
was. It will be interesting to see if adult cell cloning works with cats as well
as sheep and pigs.]
http://www.cnn.com/2000/NATURE/03/10/dinosaur.discovery.ap/index.html
CNN ... Researchers find what may be largest known meat-eating
dinosaur ... March 10, 2000 ... Scientists have discovered the bones of
what could be the largest meat- eating dinosaur ever to walk the Earth --
a needle-nosed, razor-toothed beast that may have been more terrifying
than even the Tyrannosaurus rex ... The discovery of the predators'
graveyard challenges the theory that the largest meat-eaters were loners.
It also raises the possibility that they lived and hunted in packs ... Currie
said the newly discovered species lived about 100 million years ago, and
was heavier and had slightly shorter legs than the T-rex ... It had a tail
and short front legs that were basically useless. The dinosaur also was
characterized by a long, narrow skull and a jaw shaped like scissors. That
suggests it could have dissected its prey with an almost surgical precision
... the meat-eating giant was 45 feet long, bigger than the reigning king of
the carnivores, the 41-foot Giganotosaurus. The better-known T-rex was
about 40 feet long. ... "This guy has a long snout, long skull, incredibly
sharp teeth -- I think it would have been terrifying." Currie said the animal
is apparently related to the Giganotosaurus, but it's a new species and
genus, making the two creatures as closely related as a dog and a fox.
The dinosaur is further removed from the T-rex, at least as different as a
dog is from a cat. ... "There were lots of animals, and when they died,
there was lots of mud and sand to get buried in. And if you can get buried,
you can get fossilized," Currie said. ... the area where the bones were
found was probably a forest when the dinosaurs prowled across it during
the late Cretaceous period ... [The star of the sequel: "Cretaceous Park"?
:-) Interesting comment on the probability of fossilisation. One wonders if
they were fish-eaters with such jaws and teeth and caught in flash
floods?]
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=000920277651983&rtmo=glNGrNZu&atmo=gggggggK&pg=/et/00/3/9/ecnsun09.html
Electronic Telegraph 09.03.00 ... 'Holes in Sun cause global warming' By
Roger Highfield CHANGES in the Sun could make a significant
contribution to the recent global warming ... A study by astronomers and
climatologists has found a striking correlation between "holes" in the
outermost layer of the Sun - or the corona - and the globally averaged
temperature of the Earth. They say that this suggests the Earth's
temperature may be strongly linked to solar changes that take place over
periods of months or years. ... This could explain rising temperatures in
recent years ... [More evidence that global warming may be a natural
cycle and not caused primarily by man's burning of fossil fuels?]
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000309/sc/health_meningitis_1.html
Yahoo! ... March 9 ... Gene Map of Meningitis Bug May Spawn New
Vaccine By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Researchers have sequenced all the genes in
the bacterium that causes most cases of meningitis and can use the
information to make a vaccine, scientists said on Thursday. The team
from Chiron Corp. ... , Oxford University in England and the Institute for
Genomic Research said they identified several proteins that could make
the bacteria dangerous and have started work on a vaccine to target
them. Tests in mice suggest that the vaccines will work. The mice develop
antibodies to the bacteria, which help the immune system find and attack
the bacteria ... They targeted the B strain of the Neisseria meningitidis
bacterium, the most common form of meningitis caused by the bacteria.
Chiron has a vaccine against the C strain of meningitis but there is no
vaccine for the B strain. ... [Curiously the article doesn't say if the C strain
vaccine works.]
HIV/AIDS:
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000315/sc/health_aids_1.html Yahoo!
... March 15 ... Uganda Seeks Millions From Donors to Fight AIDS
KAMPALA, Uganda (Reuters) - Uganda is looking to donors to foot nearly
70 percent of a $182 million bill to fight AIDS over the next five years ...
The government will come up with at least $60 million while donors are
being asked to help with up to $122 million. ... the government hopes to
reduce new infections of HIV -- the virus which leads to AIDS -- by 25
percent in the next five years. Official statistics say there are 1.4 million
people in Uganda infected with HIV. Over 500,000 people are reported to
have died from AIDS since 1982. ... [The problem is that the HIV/AIDS
drug cocktails are so expensive that Third World countries can't afford
them and the drugs don't stop the patients dying anyway. Such countries
have urgent conventional public health problems that also desperately
need funding and it may well be that they will just stop using the drugs, as
some like Burma are starting to do. Over time and properly evaluated (i.e.
not by those with an axe to grind) that would provide a test of the claim
that HIV causes AIDS and also whether the drug cocktails make any
worthwhile difference.]
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000310/sc/aids_italy_1.html Yahoo!
... March 10 ... Italy Doctors Find Antibody AIDS Promise By Jude
Webber ROME (Reuters) - An antibody that some people produce
naturally in their bodies appears to "bar the door" to AIDS and could be
an important new step toward the future development of a vaccine, Italian
doctors said Friday. "This is one of the possible routes -- and it's a new
one," ... The doctors' research, which helps explain why exposure to the
HIV virus does not necessarily result in infection ... The doctors found that
when the antibody hooked up with a protein called CCR5 on the surface
of the cells of the immune system, it modified the protein to make it
impervious to HIV. ... that amounted to slamming the gate on the killer
virus... but the HIV virus is very crafty. CCR5 is not the only door into the
body," ... the Milan doctors are concentrating on how to secure the body
against infection, rather than how to how to stop the spread of the virus
itself. Medical history has documented a very small number of people
who, through a genetic mutation of the CCR5 protein, have inherent
protection from the HIV virus. ... But using the new antibody knowledge to
develop a vaccine -- considered the best hope of combating a virus that
has infected nearly 40 million people worldwide -- is still a long way off.
"These results contribute to clarifying the phenomenon of immunologic
resistance to HIV ... [Acknowledging that having HIV antibodies (ie. being
HIV positive) is not necessarily the same thing as being at risk of
contracting any of the various diseases in the syndrome known as AIDS.
One wonders therefore how many HIV positive patients would never have
gone on to develop AIDS, but led a life of nauseous misery and were
eventually killed by the toxic drug cocktails?]
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"There are a number of problems with hypothetical schemes capable of
producing rapid, large, coherent changes in phenotypes. Equally large
immediate changes in the genotype might be needed, and any large change
in genotype or phenotype must surely be sufficiently disruptive to be lethal.
And where would a large change in a phenotype or genotype come from?
Moreover, suppose an oddity were to be produced, how would a
population be established and maintained?" (Thomson K.S., "The Meanings
of Evolution," American Scientist, Vol. 70, September-October 1982,
pp.529-531, p.530)
Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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