Evolution and Mormonism

Evolution has been a topic of much debate in many Christian churches, including the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS or Mormon Church). Members fall into various categories: those who reject evolution outright, those that accept some principles of evolution, and those that accept the theory of evolution in its entirety thus far. I fall into the middle camp since I accept some principles of evolution such as adaptation and natural selection, but I find some parts of the theory problematic. However, I believe that the theory of evolution is currently the best scientific theory that attempts to explain how life began on Earth. I also don’t think that the theory of evolution necessarily precludes belief in God.

As an LDS biologist, I’ve taken several courses on evolution and I’ve extensively read papers on both sides of the evolution/creation debate. In this essay, I will focus mainly on the pro and cons of evolution and its place in LDS theology. The pros and cons of creationism will not be discussed here.

Natural Selection and Adaptation
First of all, I have no problem with the concepts of natural selection, adaptation, and speciation. Natural selection is basically the increase in a subset of individuals in a population of organisms based on their increased adaptability to their environment. Adaptation is the process whereby an organism’s physiological structure, function or habits change so as to allow it to survive in new surroundings. I’ve observed natural selection, adaptation, and speciation in the wild when I was working as a fish biologist in the US Forest Service. Several species of non-native trout were planted in Utah streams and lakes many years ago and over time, because of their increased adaptability to their environment, they pushed out the native trout species. I also observed the crossbreeding of farm-raised non-native rainbow trout with native cutthroat trout, resulting in a hybrid subspecies that has characteristics of both species. These are phenomenon that can be observed and documented.

Now where I start having problems is with the beginning of life on Earth and the emergence of today’s creatures from a primitive cell. This part of evolutionary biology relies many on the interpretation of the fossil record, the relatedness of genes, and experimental chemistry based on numerous assumptions about the conditions of prebiotic Earth. This type of science is more speculative because one draws conclusions about collected data without observing the actual processes that produced the data.

The RNA World Theory
The prevailing theory for the beginning of life is known as the RNA World theory. The genetic material within each of our cells is known as DNA, deoxyribonucleic acid, and forms double-stranded sequences of 4 different chemical bases. A related chemical compound also found within our cells, known as RNA or ribonucleic acid, forms single-stranded chains, and is involved in transcription and translation of our genes into the building blocks of our bodies, proteins. RNA is also the genetic material in some viruses. Typically, proteins called enzymes catalyze the chemical reactions that keep our cells running, but some unique chains of RNA have been shown to catalyze simple chemical reactions. Now because RNA is chemically simpler and can act as an enzyme in some cases, many scientists theorize that the first beginnings of life consisted of simple sequences of RNA catalyzing reactions, such as polymerization and copying of other RNA sequences, i.e. an RNA world.

The major problems with this theory are basically questions of organic chemistry and the natural selection and heritability of these molecules over time without the advantages of a full-fledged living cell. I won’t go into details of the chemistry, but I’ll outlines the basic problems that need to be solved in order for the RNA world theory to be more plausible. First, the prebiotic soup was thought to be composed of a mixture of various simple organic compounds, some possibly arriving by hitchhiking on meteorites. Assuming that all the chemical reactions occurred that are needed to form sequences of self-replicating RNA, how are the products of these reactions enriched and selected for when there are many competing reactions occurring at the same time? Second, all the chemical reactions needed for formation of self-replicating RNA sequences from simple organic compounds are highly improbable events. The prebiotic chemical reactions that are thought to have formed the basic building blocks of RNA have not been reproduced the laboratory as of yet. No known natural ribozymes can catalyze template-directed polymerization of RNA, although some have been artificially synthesized and selected for in several labs.1

In fact, the products of these hypothetical chemical reactions are so difficult to obtain (read improbable), that some scientists believe that an even simpler self-replicating system must have arisen first. Some scientists have suggested that amino acid / nucleic acid hybrids called protein nucleic acids (PNAs) or inorganic clays with self-replicating crystals as the first “living” organisms. Leslie Orgel, a prominent biochemist at the Salk institute, believes that PNAs or RNA are still too complicated.

"We want something really simple, like a polymer of aspartate and glutamate [two very similar amino acids]. Anything much more complicated than that is implausible. It's so hard to make RNA. If nothing simpler can replicate, that would be a strong argument for the existence of God."2

But the evidence for these theories is scanty and also left unexplained is how a PNA- or clay-crystal-based organism switched over to a DNA / RNA-based organism.

Another big problem for evolutionary biology is how the random organization of bases of RNA and later DNA coded for proteins that actually did something to increase the “organism’s” fitness. If you throw a jumble of amino acids together, most likely you’ll get proteins that do nothing except sit there in an aggregated mess. To put it bluntly, what we have for the beginnings of life is science’s best guess as to the chemical make-up of the prebiotic Earth and a long string of improbable events that somehow lead to an organism that was able to perform all the biochemical reactions to keep it “alive” and to be able to pass these traits onto its offspring.

Macroevolution
After the first living cells appear in the fossil record about 3.9 billion years ago, then I have fewer problems with the theory of evolution. I think it is possible, though not highly probable for modern multicellular organisms to have gradually evolved from single-celled organisms, a process called macroevolution. I have often wondered if 3.9 billion years is sufficient time for modern organisms to evolve from a single cell via natural selection. But calculating the amount of time necessary for evolution of modern humans is a herculean task that involves numerous assumptions as to the rate or rates of mutation, and the ratio of beneficial to harmful to neutral mutations, and the rate of transmittance of mutations to offspring. David A. Plaisted, a professor of computer science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, performed such a calculation3 and concludes that his study neither supports nor disproves evolution based on his many assumptions. Basically he shows that both evolutionary biologists and creationists can both come up with answers to support their theories based on their biased assumptions. This seems to be a major problem in both evolutionary biology and creationism.

Some evidences in support of macroevolution include the homology (relatedness) of certain genes between distantly related groups and the discovery of transitional fossils. Humans share a 47, 63, 15, and 20% homology (relatedness of genes) with the fruit fly, the mouse, baker’s yeast, and Arabidopsis (a model plant organism), respectively4. Transitional fossils are defined as fossils of species that have morphological features that appear to transition between an older and a younger specimen of a particular family lineage. Some persuasive evidence for evolution of whales from four-legged land mammals are the recently discovered fossilized remains of Ambulocetus natans (estimated at 50 million years old) and Rodhocetus (estimated at 46 million years old)5 Both species have strong tails for swimming, but the former has weight-bearing hind legs while the hind legs of the latter are much smaller and useless for walking on land.

Of course, creationists might argue that the homology of genes between distantly related groups and the presence of seemingly transitional fossils supports their thesis that God created life. Homology might be explained by God’s use of the same tools (DNA and proteins) to create different species of organisms. So-called transitional fossils might be the remains of unique organisms that were in no way ancestors of today’s creatures. However, since science has not been able to prove the existence of God, I would not expect that the scientific community would prefer the creationists’ theories. Proponents of macroevolution predicted that transitional fossils would be found and molecular biology has shown that organisms classified as most closely related based on morphology are also most closely related genetically.

Evolution and Mormonism
While many Christians may have a hard time reconciling the theory of evolution and their belief in God, members of the LDS Church may have an easier time based on their unique theology. Although LDS members believe the Bible to be the word of God, they also believe that errors of translation may have occurred or that parts were lost. For example, the Hebrew term for day, yowm, used in the Torah creation account can be translated as a time or an age rather then the 24-hour day as translated in the King James version.6 Furthermore, they believe that the Bible is incomplete because revelation from God to man continues up to the present. More information as to how the world was created may be forthcoming revelation. In addition, some parts of the Bible including parts of Genesis should be read figuratively, not literally. For example, the word “created” in the creation account is could be thought to denote organization of matter rather than creation ex nihilo. Brigham Young, leader of the LDS church in the late 1800’s commented on the figurative nature of Genesis :

As for the Bible account of the creation we may say that the Lord gave it to Moses, or rather Moses obtained the history and traditions of the fathers, and from these picked out what he considered necessary, and that account has been handed down from age to age, and we have got it, no matter whether it is correct or not, and whether the Lord found the earth empty and void, whether he made it out of nothing or out of the rude elements; or whether he made it in six days or in as many millions of years, is and will remain a matter of speculation in the minds of men unless he give revelation on the subject.7

In addition, the LDS church has a different view on the nature of God. Contrary to the traditional Christian doctrine of the Trinity with God being formless and one in three, LDS members view God, his son, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost as separate beings with the God and Christ having exalted bodies of flesh and bone. Joseph Smith also taught that God works in harmony with natural laws, rather than by supernatural means: “True science is a discovery of the secret, immutable and eternal laws, by which the universe is governed.”8 So it is not inconsistent for an LDS member to believe that God created the earth and everything on it, but also believe that evolution may have played some role in the creation. The theory of evolution is man’s attempt to explain the miracle of the creation in terms that are understandable to him.

Leaders of the LDS church have not really taken a stand one way or the other on theory of evolution, except with regards to the creation of man. In November of 1909, the First Presidency of the Church (President Joseph F. Smith and his counselors) released an official statement on the subject of the origin of man.

“…It is held by some that Adam was not the first man upon this earth, and that the original human being was a development from lower orders of the animal creation. These, however, are the theories of men. The word of the Lord declares that Adam was "the first man of all men" (Moses 1:34), and we are therefore in duty bound to regard him as the primal parent of our race. It was shown to the brother of Jared that all men were created in the beginning after the image of God; and whether we take this to mean the spirit or the body, or both, it commits us to the same conclusion: Man began life as a human being, in the likeness of our heavenly Father….”9

This statement seems unequivocal in its assertion that man was created by God, rather than evolving from lower organisms. Yet it does not deal directly with the question of how the other organisms arose. Many church leaders have since seemed to be content with letting scientists deal with that issue. The First Presidency under Heber J. Grant in 1931 stated, “Leave geology, biology, archaeology and anthropology, no one of which has to do with the salvation of the souls of mankind, to scientific research, while we magnify our calling in the realm of the Church.”10 So it seems that the debate between evolution and creationism is really a moot point in the LDS community. For as long as one acknowledges God’s hand in the creation, any theory is fair game.


1 Joyce, Gerald F. (2002) “The Antiquity of RNA-based Evolution.” Nature 418:214-221.

2 Koerner, David W. and Simon LeVay. Here Be Dragons: The Scientific Quest for Extra- Terrestrial Life. (Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press, 2000) pg.17.

3 Plaisted, David A. “Rates of Evolution.” A Creative Perspective. http://www.cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/ce/rates.html. (Jan. 4, 2004).

4 Lesney, Mark. (2001). “Ecce homology: A primer on comparative genomics.” Modern Drug Discovery 4(11): 26-38, 40.

5 Hunt, Kathleen. (1997) “Transitional Vertebrate Fossils FAQ.” Talk.Origins Archive. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional/part2b.html. (Jan. 4, 2004).

6 “The Days of Genesis for Those Who Can’t Read Hebrew.” Genesis Research. http://www.accuracyingenesis.com/day.html. (Jan. 6, 2004).

7 Journal of Discourses, (Liverpool Publishers, 1873) 15: 127.

8 Times and Seasons 4:46.

9 Clark, James R., ed. Messages of the First Presidency, vol. 4. Bookcraft, 1970.

10 Ludlow, Daniel H., ed. Encyclopedia of Mormonism vol. 4. (New York, NY: Macmillan, 1992), pg. 478.

Winner of the 2002 Fiskie Campaigns for His Second Fiskie in Row

Dennis Prager of Townhall.com pens a brilliant piece of satire based on former President Carter's position on the War on Terror.

Jimmy Carter: 'Compassion for Mordor'

OSLO, Norway (Prager News Service, Jan. 5, 2004) -- In a just-published interview with the Norwegian Society for Universal Neutrality (NSUN), former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said that the blockbuster trilogy "Lord of the Rings" is sending dangerous messages to the world's young people.

"For three hours in this latest installment of 'Lord of the Rings,' young people the world over watch my work in the United States and your work here in Europe -- to get nations to disarm, not to make moral judgments about any nation other than America or Israel -- undone.

"We who love peace," the Nobel Peace Prize laureate continued, "have to initiate a campaign to jolt people back to our view of the world. Let's be clear about the dangers. What if young people start identifying George W. Bush with Aragorn or Gandalf, and Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden with Saruman? Even worse, impressionable moviegoers might identify the American war against Iraq and so-called 'Islamic terror' with the war against the Orcs and Mordor.

"Who knows what might happen if enough young people start thinking that war is an option, or that some people or countries can be labeled 'evil,' or that there is something noble about a soldier who kills for a 'just' cause?"

The former president continued, "I hope that the European community, enlightened Democrats and progressives in America begin to realize the potential consequences of this film. There may even be a demand among American college students to allow the return of ROTC (Reserve Officers Training Corps) recruiters to campuses. People might start regarding war as an option.

"When I saw the audience in the movie theater cheer when Orcs were killed, I shuddered," Mr. Carter said, visibly pained. "The message of 'Lord of the Rings' is just plain bad.

"We must do something to counteract this celebration of violence," Mr. Carter said emphatically. "To see even trees fight and kill is enough to make any right-thinking person sick to his or her stomach.

"You Europeans, and we in America who identify with your beautiful values of moral neutrality and pacifism, must create a major public relations campaign against these films. We have to use our access to people's hearts and minds to counter that of Hollywood, which is almost always on our side, but for the sake of profits has produced this reactionary propaganda.

"We have to publicize our vision of what the movie should have portrayed. We have to make it clear, for example, that the proper response to Saruman and the Orcs was for Gandalf and his followers to go to the negotiating table, not the battlefield. And if only the Middle Earth had a United Nations and a World Court, no unilateral war against Mordor would ever have been waged."

Mr. Carter went on to offer suggestions about how to wage a public relations campaign to turn people against the martial messages of "Lord of the Rings."

"Let us get the academic community to sign ads in the New York Times and other journals that identify with our pro-peace vision of the world. These ads would declare Gandalf a war monger and imperialist, and emphasize that the Orcs were not evil, but rather suffered from poverty and hopelessness.

"We also need," the former American president continued, "a major bumper sticker campaign. Every progressive must get a 'War is not the answer' or 'Visualize world peace' sticker to proudly respond to 'Lord of the Rings.'

"The stakes are enormous," the distinguished former president said with great emotion. "If enough people start thinking in terms of good and evil, all our years of cultivating moral and cultural relativism, anti-military thinking, pacifism and internationalism will be jeopardized. And college students, our greatest hope, may no longer accept their professors' view of America as an imperialist war monger."

At the conclusion of the interview, Mr. Carter was asked if his campaign against "Lord of the Rings" had a name. The peace activist thought for a moment, and replied, "Compassion for Mordor."

This story is fictional, but not false.

Simply hilarious. But so close to the truth that it's scary.

Note: Vote for the recipient of the 2003 Fiskie (or Idiotarian award) at LGF.

Forget Einstein, I'm schtoopid!

Frankly I'm getting a little sick of the condescending attitude of the liberal "intelligentsia." According to this guy at the Seattle Investigator, people that voted for Bush in 2000 and that will vote for him in 2004 are either millionaires, charistmatic Christians, or schtoopid (via LGF).

It's increasingly obvious, for example, that none of the so-called theories can explain President Bush's popularity, such as it is. Even at this date in his presidency, after all that has happened, the president's popularity hovers at around 50 percent -- an astonishingly high figure, I believe, given the state of people's lives now as opposed to four years ago.

What can explain his popularity? Can that many people be enamored of what he has accomplished in Iraq? Of how he has fortified our constitutional freedoms with the USA Patriot Act? Of how he has bolstered our economy? Of how he has protected our environment? Perhaps they've been impressed with the president's personal integrity and the articulation of his grand vision for America?

Is that likely?

Um, how about yes?

Granted, there are certain subsections of the American polity that have substantially benefited from this presidency. Millionaires and charismatic Christians have accrued either material or spiritual fortification from Bush's administration. But surely these two groups are a small minority of the population. What, then, can account for so many people being so supportive of the president?

The answer, I'm afraid, is the factor that dare not speak its name. It's the factor that no one talks about. The pollsters don't ask it, the media don't report it, the voters don't discuss it.

I, however, will blare out its name so that at last people can address the issue and perhaps adopt strategies to overcome it.

It's the "Stupid factor," the S factor: Some people -- sometimes through no fault of their own -- are just not very bright.

Gee, since I'm not rich, and I'm not Pat Robertson, that must make me SCHTOOPID!

It's not merely that some people are insufficiently intelligent to grasp the nuances of foreign policy, of constitutional law, of macroeconomics or of the variegated interplay of humans and the environment. These aren't the people I'm referring to. The people I'm referring to cannot understand the phenomenon of cause and effect. They're perplexed by issues comprising more than two sides. They don't have the wherewithal to expand the sources of their information. And above all -- far above all -- they don't think.

Whoah, there buddy. You're going all Frenchy on me. "You stupeed, sillee Amer-ee-can cowboyz cannot posseebly grasp zee nuancees of foreen policee...."

All of the liberal people I know don't bother to try to see the point of view of those of us that are more conservative. They don't take into consideration our religious beliefs, our life experiences, our personalities, or our education. They just jump to the conclusion that if you are conservative and/or Republican, you must be a)evil or b)schtoopid because they don't see how a reasonable person could believe different things (unless you're a terrorist trying to kill us, then it's understandable). Talk about black and white thinking. I have many friends that are liberal and I don't believe that they are evil or stupid. They just have different points of view. Sometimes I think their ideas are dead wrong, but I don't stop being their friend because of it. Come on people, grow up already!

Update: Read iowahawk's hilarious parody of this article here.

My Votes for the New Weblog Showcase

My favorites from this week's New Webblog Showcase at The Truth Laid Bear are:

Non-political- in cyberspace no one can spit in your eye: a dog's opinion
Thomas links to a hysterical webpage called "My cat hates you" where people posts pics of their p.o.'d kitties. The origami dog relieving himself was funny too.


Political-
Self-composed: Banning Smokers
This blog has witty commentary and a nice design. I especially liked his article on Kwanzaa.

Viewing the Media with a Skeptical Eye

Here's another great speech by Michael Crichton on the problems with speculation in the media (via Instapundit).

Why Speculate?
A talk
by Michael Crichton
International Leadership Forum
La Jolla
April 26, 2002

Here's my favorite part:

Media carries with it a credibility that is totally undeserved. You have all experienced this, in what I call the Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. (I refer to it by this name because I once discussed it with Murray Gell-Mann, and by dropping a famous name I imply greater importance to myself, and to the effect, than it would otherwise have.)

Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.

In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

Who knew Michael Crichton was such a smart guy? Read the whole thing.

Viewing "Pop Science" With a Skeptical Eye

Pop science is one of my biggest pet peeves. You know what I mean. Pop science is medical studies you read about in popular magazines that tell you to eat this or avoid that for better health. It's also those Discovery Channel documentaries such as "The Real Eve," where the narrator blathers on for TWO HOURS about one study of human mitochondrial DNA. There are actors portraying ancient humans walking dramatically into a body of water as they migrate out of Africa. This is Hollywood science. What the narrator doesn't tell you is that the conclusions of this study are disputed by several other research groups. To explain it briefly, multiple but equally valid phylogenetic trees (diagrams that cluster genes based on relatedness) can be developed from the analysis of the mitochondrial DNA markers, some of which don't support the out of Africa hypothesis. The narrator never uses the words theory or possibly. All is presented as indisputable fact and is quite misleading to the average non-scientist.

I ran across this speech by writer Michael Crichton that eloquently expresses the problems that arise in scientific inquiry when theories are based on poor scientific method and consensus rather than rigourous experimental science (via Instapundit). The title is great!

Aliens Cause Global Warming
A lecture by Michael Crichton
Caltech Michelin Lecture
January 17, 2003

Here's some of my favorite excerpts:

...Even as a child I believed that science represented the best and greatest hope for mankind. Even to a child, the contrast was clear between the world of politics-a world of hate and danger, of irrational beliefs and fears, of mass manipulation and disgraceful blots on human history. In contrast, science held different values-international in scope, forging friendships and working relationships across national boundaries and political systems, encouraging a dispassionate habit of thought, and ultimately leading to fresh knowledge and technology that would benefit all mankind. The world might not be avery good place, but science would make it better. And it did. In my lifetime, science has largely fulfilled its promise. Science has been the great intellectual adventure of our age, and a great hope for our troubled and restless world.

But I did not expect science merely to extend lifespan, feed the hungry, cure disease, and shrink the world with jets and cell phones. I also expected science to banish the evils of human thought---prejudice and superstition, irrational beliefs and false fears. I expected science to be, in Carl Sagan's memorable phrase, "a candle in a demon haunted world." And here, I am not so pleased with the impact of science. Rather than serving as a cleansing force, science has in some instances been seduced by the more ancient lures of politics and publicity. Some of the demons that haunt our world in recent years are invented by scientists. The world has not benefited from permitting these demons to escape free.

Absolutely. Science and politics haveindeed become intermingled. Of course scientists are human and therefore are not free of biases. But I think scientists can do a lot better in trying to be objective. One reason why I'm interested in science and public policy is that I think we need good scientists to get involved in public policy to keep the junk science out of it. Politicians need good scientists to give the best data so they can make the best decisions regarding resource management, healthcare, ethical issues such as cloning, etc. What we don't need is a bunch of partisan hacks that practice bad science pushing their agenda on the rest of the country.

But let's look at how it came to pass.

Cast your minds back to 1960. John F. Kennedy is president, commercial jet airplanes are just appearing, the biggest university mainframes have 12K of memory. And in Green Bank, West Virginia at the new National Radio Astronomy Observatory, a young astrophysicist named Frank Drake runs a two week project called Ozma, to search for extraterrestrial signals. A signal is received, to great excitement. It turns out to be false, but the excitement remains. In 1960, Drake organizes the first SETI conference, and came up with the now-famous Drake equation:

N=N*fp ne fl fi fc fL

Where N is the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy; fp is the fraction with planets; ne is the number of planets per star capable of supporting life; fl is the fraction of planets where life evolves; fi is the fraction where intelligent life evolves; and fc is the fraction that communicates; and fL is the fraction of the planet's life during which the communicating civilizations live.

This serious-looking equation gave SETI an serious footing as a legitimate intellectual inquiry. The problem, of course, is that none of the terms can be known, and most cannot even be estimated. The only way to work the equation is to fill in with guesses. And guesses-just so we're clear-are merely expressions of prejudice. Nor can there be "informed guesses." If you need to state how many planets with life choose to communicate, there is simply no way to make an informed guess. It's simply prejudice.

As a result, the Drake equation can have any value from "billions and billions" to zero. An expression that can mean anything means nothing. Speaking precisely, the Drake equation is literally meaningless, and has nothing to do with science. I take the hard view that science involves the creation of testable hypotheses. The Drake equation cannot be tested and therefore SETI is not science. SETI is unquestionably a religion. Faith is defined as the firm belief in something for which there is no proof. The belief that the Koran is the word of God is a matter of faith. The belief that God created the universe in seven days is a matter of faith. The belief that there are other life forms in the universe is a matter of faith. There is not a single shred of evidence for any other life forms, and in forty years of searching, none has been discovered. There is absolutely no evidentiary reason to maintain this belief. SETI is a religion.

...Back in the sixties, SETI had its critics, although not among astrophysicists and astronomers. The biologists and paleontologists were harshest. George Gaylord Simpson of Harvard sneered that SETI was a "study without a subject," and it remains so to the present day.

I agree completely. The paucity of testable hypotheses is one reason why I view evolutionary biology as a weak science. It's impossible to reproduce the conditions on the prebiotic earth, so one must guess and speculate, and make a lot of assumptions.

...The fact that the Drake equation was not greeted with screams of outrage-similar to the screams of outrage that greet each Creationist new claim, for example-meant that now there was a crack in the door, a loosening of the definition of what constituted legitimate scientific procedure. And soon enough, pernicious garbage began to squeeze through the cracks.

Now let's jump ahead a decade to the 1970s, and Nuclear Winter.

In 1975, the National Academy of Sciences reported on "Long-Term Worldwide Effects of Multiple Nuclear Weapons Detonations" but the report estimated the effect of dust from nuclear blasts to be relatively minor. In 1979, the Office of Technology Assessment issued a report on "The Effects of Nuclear War" and stated that nuclear war could perhaps produce irreversible adverse consequences on the environment. However, because the scientific processes involved were poorly understood, the report stated it was not possible to estimate the probable magnitude of such damage.

Three years later, in 1982, the Swedish Academy of Sciences commissioned a report entitled "The Atmosphere after a Nuclear War: Twilight at Noon," which attempted to quantify the effect of smoke from burning forests and cities. The authors speculated that there would be so much smoke that a large cloud over the northern hemisphere would reduce incoming sunlight below the level required for photosynthesis, and that this would last for weeks or even longer.

The following year, five scientists including Richard Turco and Carl Sagan published a paper in Science called "Nuclear Winter: Global Consequences of Multiple Nuclear Explosions." This was the so-called TTAPS report, which attempted to quantify more rigorously the atmospheric effects, with the added credibility to be gained from an actual computer model of climate.

At the heart of the TTAPS undertaking was another equation, never specifically expressed, but one that could be paraphrased as follows:

Ds = Wn Ws Wh Tf Tb Pt Pr Pe etc

(The amount of tropospheric dust=# warheads x size warheads x warhead detonation height x flammability of targets x Target burn duration x Particles entering the Troposphere x Particle reflectivity x Particle enduranceand so on.)

The similarity to the Drake equation is striking. As with the Drake equation, none of the variables can be determined. None at all. The TTAPS study addressed this problem in part by mapping out different wartime scenarios and assigning numbers to some of the variables, but even so, the remaining variables were-and are-simply unknowable. Nobody knows how much smoke will be generated when cities burn, creating particles of what kind, and for how long. No one knows the effect of local weather conditions on the amount of particles that will be injected into the troposphere. No one knows how long the particles will remain in the troposphere. And so on.

And remember, this is only four years after the OTA study concluded that the underlying scientific processes were so poorly known that no estimates could be reliably made. Nevertheless, the TTAPS study not only made those estimates, but concluded they were catastrophic.

According to Sagan and his coworkers, even a limited 5,000 megaton nuclear exchange would cause a global temperature drop of more than 35 degrees Centigrade, and this change would last for three months. The greatest volcanic eruptions that we know of changed world temperatures somewhere between .5 and 2 degrees Centigrade. Ice ages changed global temperatures by 10 degrees. Here we have an estimated change three times greater than any ice age. One might expect it to be the subject of some dispute.

But Sagan and his coworkers were prepared, for nuclear winter was from the outset the subject of a well-orchestrated media campaign. The first announcement of nuclear winter appeared in an article by Sagan in the Sunday supplement, Parade. The very next day, a highly-publicized, high-profile conference on the long-term consequences of nuclear war was held in Washington, chaired by Carl Sagan and Paul Ehrlich, the most famous and media-savvy scientists of their generation. Sagan appeared on the Johnny Carson show 40 times. Ehrlich was on 25 times. Following the conference, there were press conferences, meetings with congressmen, and so on. The formal papers in Science came months later.

This is not the way science is done, it is the way products are sold(emphasis added).

...At the conference in Washington, during the question period, Ehrlich was reminded that after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, scientists were quoted as saying nothing would grow there for 75 years, but in fact melons were growing the next year. So, he was asked, how accurate were these findings now?

Ehrlich answered by saying "I think they are extremely robust. Scientists may have made statements like that, although I cannot imagine what their basis would have been, even with the state of science at that time, but scientists are always making absurd statements, individually, in various places. What we are doing here, however, is presenting a consensus of a very large group of scientists(emphasis added)"

I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet(emphasis added), because you're being had.

Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results(emphasis added). The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.

This is one reason why I am extremely skeptical of the "salesmen scientists." These are the guys (or gals) that you see commonly on T.V., in magazines, in Barnes & Noble. They often water everything down, leave out important details, and promote their pet theories as the gospel truth. Examples include Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, and Steven Jay Gould. I bet you've all heard of these guys. That's because they are good at self-promotion. My mentor is also a gifted salesman.

...Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough (emphasis added). Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.

But back to our main subject.

What I have been suggesting to you is that nuclear winter was a meaningless formula, tricked out with bad science, for policy ends. It was political from the beginning, promoted in a well-orchestrated media campaign that had to be planned weeks or months in advance.

Further evidence of the political nature of the whole project can be found in the response to criticism. Although Richard Feynman was characteristically blunt, saying, "I really don't think these guys know what they're talking about," other prominent scientists were noticeably reticent. Freeman Dyson was quoted as saying "It's an absolutely atrocious piece of science but who wants to be accused of being in favor of nuclear war?" And Victor Weisskopf said, "The science is terrible but---perhaps the psychology is good." The nuclear winter team followed up the publication of such comments with letters to the editors denying that these statements were ever made, though the scientists since then have subsequently confirmed their views.

At the time, there was a concerted desire on the part of lots of people to avoid nuclear war. If nuclear winter looked awful, why investigate too closely? Who wanted to disagree? Only people like Edward Teller, the "father of the H bomb."

Teller said, "While it is generally recognized that details are still uncertain and deserve much more study, Dr. Sagan nevertheless has taken the position that the whole scenario is so robust that there can be little doubt about its main conclusions." Yet for most people, the fact that nuclear winter was a scenario riddled with uncertainties did not seem to be relevant.

I say it is hugely relevant. Once you abandon strict adherence to what science tells us, once you start arranging the truth in a press conference, then anything is possible. In one context, maybe you will get some mobilization against nuclear war. But in another context, you get Lysenkoism. In another, you get Nazi euthanasia. The danger is always there, if you subvert science to political ends.

That is why it is so important for the future of science that the line between what science can say with certainty, and what it cannot, be drawn clearly-and defended.

What happened to Nuclear Winter? As the media glare faded, its robust scenario appeared less persuasive; John Maddox, editor of Nature, repeatedly criticized its claims; within a year, Stephen Schneider, one of the leading figures in the climate model, began to speak of "nuclear autumn." It just didn't have the same ring.

A final media embarrassment came in 1991, when Carl Sagan predicted on Nightline that Kuwaiti oil fires would produce a nuclear winter effect, causing a "year without a summer," and endangering crops around the world. Sagan stressed this outcome was so likely that "it should affect the war plans." None of it happened.

Snicker.

What, then, can we say were the lessons of Nuclear Winter? I believe the lesson was that with a catchy name, a strong policy position and an aggressive media campaign, nobody will dare to criticize the science, and in short order, a terminally weak thesis will be established as fact. After that, any criticism becomes beside the point. The war is already over without a shot being fired. That was the lesson, and we had a textbook application soon afterward, with second hand smoke.

Crichton goes on to talk about how poor science in the case of 2nd hand smoke has affected public policy via the EPA, but I'll spare you the details since you are probably aware of them since this is fairly recent. In brief, no studies support the "fact" that 2nd-hand smoke is a severe health hazard.

As the twentieth century drew to a close, the connection between hard scientific fact and public policy became increasingly elastic. In part this was possible because of the complacency of the scientific profession; in part because of the lack of good science education among the public; in part, because of the rise of specialized advocacy groups which have been enormously effective in getting publicity and shaping policy; and in great part because of the decline of the media as an independent assessor of fact. The deterioration of the American media is dire loss for our country. When distinguished institutions like the New York Times can no longer differentiate between factual content and editorial opinion, but rather mix both freely on their front page, then who will hold anyone to a higher standard?

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I love it. Someone outside the blogosphere takes the Old Gray Lady to task.

And so, in this elastic anything-goes world where science-or non-science-is the hand maiden of questionable public policy, we arrive at last at global warming. It is not my purpose here to rehash the details of this most magnificent of the demons haunting the world. I would just remind you of the now-familiar pattern by which these things are established. Evidentiary uncertainties are glossed over in the unseemly rush for an overarching policy, and for grants to support the policy by delivering findings that are desired by the patron. Next, the isolation of those scientists who won't get with the program, and the characterization of those scientists as outsiders and "skeptics" in quotation marks-suspect individuals with suspect motives, industry flunkies, reactionaries, or simply anti-environmental nutcases. In short order, debate ends, even though prominent scientists are uncomfortable about how things are being done.

When did "skeptic" become a dirty word in science? When did a skeptic require quotation marks around it?

To an outsider, the most significant innovation in the global warming controversy is the overt reliance that is being placed on models. Back in the days of nuclear winter, computer models were invoked to add weight to a conclusion: "These results are derived with the help of a computer model." But now large-scale computer models are seen as generating data in themselves. No longer are models judged by how well they reproduce data from the real world-increasingly, models provide the data. As if they were themselves a reality. And indeed they are, when we are projecting forward. There can be no observational data about the year 2100. There are only model runs.

Biophysical papers that rely mainly on computer models are generally not given much credence. You won't see them in the top science journals usually, but I have noticed that some papers in these journals seem to be there because they are "sexy" subjects and not necessarily examples of good science.

...Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we're asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future? And make financial investments based on that prediction? Has everybody lost their minds?

Stepping back, I have to say the arrogance of the modelmakers is breathtaking. There have been, in every century, scientists who say they know it all. Since climate may be a chaotic system-no one is sure-these predictions are inherently doubtful, to be polite. But more to the point, even if the models get the science spot-on, they can never get the sociology. To predict anything about the world a hundred years from now is simply absurd.

Look: If I was selling stock in a company that I told you would be profitable in 2100, would you buy it? Or would you think the idea was so crazy that it must be a scam?

...I remind you that in the lifetime of most scientists now living, we have already had an example of dire predictions set aside by new technology. I refer to the green revolution. In 1960, Paul Ehrlich said, "The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s undergod will undergoe famines-hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death." Ten years later, he predicted four billion people would die during the 1980s, including 65 million Americans. The mass starvation that was predicted never occurred, and it now seems it isn't ever going to happen. Nor is the population explosion going to reach the numbers predicted even ten years ago. In 1990, climate modelers anticipated a world population of 11 billion by 2100. Today, some people think the correct number will be 7 billion and falling. But nobody knows for sure.

But it is impossible to ignore how closely the history of global warming fits on the previous template for nuclear winter. Just as the earliest studies of nuclear winter stated that the uncertainties were probabilities that could never be known, so, too the first pronouncements on global warming argued strong limits on what could be determined with certainty about climate change. The 1995 IPCC draft report said, "Any claims of positive detection of significant climate change are likely to remain controversial until uncertainties in the total natural variability of the climate system are reduced." It also said, "No study to date has positively attributed all or part of observed climate changes to anthropogenic causes." Those statements were removed, and in their place appeared: "The balance of evidence suggests a discernable human influence on climate."

What is clear, however, is that on this issue, science and policy have become inextricably mixed to the point where it will be difficult, if not impossible, to separate them out. It is possible for an outside observer to ask serious questions about the conduct of investigations into global warming, such as whether we are taking appropriate steps to improve the quality of our observational data records, whether we are systematically obtaining the information that will clarify existing uncertainties, whether we have any organized disinterested mechanism to direct research in this contentious area.

The answer to all these questions is no. We don't.

Crichton then proposes an interesting solution to the problem of mixing policy and science. I don't know if it would work, but it's a start.

Just as we have established a tradition of double-blinded research to determine drug efficacy, we must institute double-blinded research in other policy areas as well. Certainly the increased use of computer models, such as GCMs, cries out for the separation of those who make the models from those who verify them. The fact is that the present the present structure of science is entrepeneurial, with individual investigative teams vying for funding from organizations which all too often have a clear stake in the outcome of the research-or appear to, which may be just as bad. This is not healthy for science.

Sooner or later, we must form an independent research institute in this country. It must be funded by industry, by government, and by private philanthropy, both individuals and trusts. The money must be pooled, so that investigators do not know who is paying them. The institute must fund more than one team to do research in a particular area, and the verification of results will be a foregone requirement: teams will know their results will be checked by other groups. In many cases, those who decide how to gather the data will not gather it, and those who gather the data will not analyze it. If we were to address the land temperature records with such rigor, we would be well on our way to an understanding of exactly how much faith we can place in global warming, and therefore what seriousness we must address this.

Crichton then shows how political science has become by discussing the witchhunt of a statistician, Bjorn Lomburg, who published a book questioning the validity of the studies used to support global warming.

The scientific community responded in a way that can only be described as disgraceful. In professional literature, it was complained he had no standing because he was not an earth scientist. His publisher, Cambridge University Press, was attacked with cries that the editor should be fired, and that all right-thinking scientists should shun the press. The past president of the AAAS wondered aloud how Cambridge could have ever "published a book that so clearly could never have passed peer review." )But of course the manuscript did pass peer review by three earth scientists on both sides of the Atlantic, and all recommended publication.) But what are scientists doing attacking a press? Is this the new McCarthyism-coming from scientists?

Worst of all was the behavior of the Scientific American, which seemed intent on proving the post-modernist point that it was all about power, not facts. The Scientific American attacked Lomborg for eleven pages, yet only came up with nine factual errors despite their assertion that the book was "rife with careless mistakes." It was a poor display featuring vicious ad hominem attacks, including comparing him to a Holocust denier. The issue was captioned: "Science defends itself against the Skeptical Environmentalist." Really. Science has to defend itself? Is this what we have come to?

When Lomborg asked for space to rebut his critics, he was given only a page and a half. When he said it wasn't enough, he put the critics' essays on his web page and answered them in detail. Scientific American threatened copyright infringement and made him take the pages down.

Further attacks since have made it clear what is going on. Lomborg is charged with heresy. That's why none of his critics needs to substantiate their attacks in any detail. That's why the facts don't matter. That's why they can attack him in the most vicious personal terms. He's a heretic.

Of course, any scientist can be charged as Galileo was charged. I just never thought I'd see the Scientific American in the role of mother church (emphasis added).

Ouch and double ouch.

Is this what science has become? I hope not. But it is what it will become, unless there is a concerted effort by leading scientists to aggresively separate science from policy. The late Philip Handler, former president of the National Academy of Sciences, said that "Scientists best serve public policy by living within the ethics of science, not those of politics. If the scientific community will not unfrock the charlatans, the public will not discern the difference-science and the nation will suffer." Personally, I don't worry about the nation. But I do worry about science.

This is also why religion should be left out of science and vice versa. They are two different things. Nothing irritates me more than arrogant atheist scientists that rip on others' religious beliefs or creationists that refuse to acknowledge the merits of any scientific theory other than their own. One can be a good scientist and a good Christian or Hindu or Jew or whatever.

Happy New Year Blogosphere!

In celebration of the New Year, I've made several resolutions for 2004.

1. I will not call every LLL I disagree with a commie (only some of them).
2. I will not gloat when every prediction my lefty friends have made is proven wrong e.g. Iraq's WMDs, the Iraq-Al Qaeda connection, and Bush's re-election.

BTW, this essay by iowahawk entitled Why I Am a Democrat is hilarious.

3. I will not drive my husband nuts with my obsessive newsjunkyism.
4. I will read books and view movies other than the Lord of the Rings.
5. I will finish school this year one way or another, even if I have to blackmail my mentor.
6. I will not taunt my husband when his BYU Cougars suck next year and are soundly defeated by my Utah Utes. FYI, my Utes trounced Southern Mississippi 17-0 yesterday in the Liberty Bowl. How sweet it is!

I am like so smart!

What Famous Leader Are You?

Aw shucks....

Back From Christmas Vacation

Yes, my friends, I'm finally back from Christmas vacation. I traveled about 2500 miles in total through sunshine, snow, and ice. The trip to SLC was uneventful, but traveling from SLC to Las Vega for my brother's wedding was quite an adventure. There was a huge blizzard the day after Christmas and many of the mountain passes we drove through were icy. Near Parowan (in UT) I started fishtailing on the ice, but managed to bring the truck back under control. It was pretty scary, though, and my husband decided to take over driving at that point. I was shaking for ten minutes after that. He drove the rest of the way to Las Vegas white-knuckled until we got past St. George where the roads were clear. We drove back to Dallas on Sunday and it looks like we left just in time since now there's snow in Vegas!

It was nice not to talk about science for a week. The only science-related things I remember saying was briefly explaining my thesis project to a couple family members. After that, they would nod their head and move quickly on to another topic. Feel the love.

I took quite a few pictures, but as I don't have a digital camera, the film will probably languish in my camera bag for months until my husband gets fed up and insists I develop the pictures. He's much better at stuff like that than I am. I do have one finished roll, so I'll try to develop it this week so I can post some pics on this site.

Some of you may have noticed that I went to Las Vegas for my brother's wedding. No, it was not an Elvis-chapel-o-love type wedding if that's what you're thinking. It was a traditional Mormon (LDS) wedding at the Las Vegas temple with the traditional reception at a local LDS chapel afterwards. There are actually quite a few Mormons in the Las Vegas area. They make up about 12% of the population of southern Nevada (for perspective Mormons make up 1-2% of the population nationwide). Brigham Young sent settlers to Las Vegas in 1855 to build a fort there, the first non-Native American settlement in the valley. More history of Las Vegas here.

Anyway, in an LDS marriage ceremony, you'd better make sure you're marrying the right person, because we don't marry "until death do us part," but "for time and all eternity" i.e. even after death. Really, I think this is a beautiful, romantic concept for those of us with good marriages. But if the thought of being with your spouse forever seems horrifying to you, then LDS temple marriage is not for you.

A Christmas Wish to All

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Merry Christmas Blogosphere!

I'm off to visit the family in Utah, so I won't be posting again until Dec. 29th. Everyone have a wonderful Christmas and/ or Hannukah. I'll leave you with some beautiful pictures of my "hometown" Salt Lake City, Utah. If you ever happen to be in SLC during the holidays, I recommend going downtown to see the Christmas lights at Temple Square. With the lights and the Christmas concerts every evening, this is the perfect holiday date.

This week's New Weblog Showcase

Here are my pick's for this week's The Truth Laid Bear's New Weblog Showcase:

My Word: The Politics of the Lord of the Rings
Politics plus Lord of the Rings commentary? We lovesss it, yes we do Preciousssss.

Pragmatic Conservatism by Dan K. O'Leary: Bush, Saddam, and Howard Dean
Dan is a fellow Alliance member and I also enjoyed his commentary on Howard Dean. This guy is fearless in the face of Deanbots.

Spam Town: Spam of the Week
At first I was thinking, who wants to read a blog about spam? But then I read a few of his posts, and there's quite a bit of useful info for avoiding spam. The entry post also had an amusing bit of spam where the sender was looking for stuff like a warp generator and a series time transducing capacitor. Wacky stuff!

ROTK Review

Well my friends, I stayed up all night on Tuesday, Dec. 16th to see The Return of the King at midnight. I went to sleep at 4 a.m., woke up at 11 a.m., lurched into lab around 2 p.m. and little work was done. But boy, was it worth it!

Unfortunately my husband, who has a real job, was unable to attend so that means I get to see the movie at least two more times. Yay!

Let me begin the review by saying that those that haven't read the books and even Tolkien purists (like myself) will enjoy this movie (given you've seen the first two). The acting is superb, the cinematography and special effects are stunning, and there's plenty of action for the guys and some romance for the ladies (there could have been more, see below).

MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW!!!! I WARNED YOU!!!
The movie starts out with Smeagol and Deagol fishing in a boat. Deagol finds the Ring by chance and Smeagol kills him to get it for himself. We see the physical and mental transformation of Smeagol into Gollum over th 500 years he has the ring. Gollum is twice as evil in this movie as in TTT as he leads Frodo to the gluttonous spider Shelob. I really think Andy Serkis deserves some recognition for his superb work. Sean Austin and Elijah Wood are also excellent in their depiction of Sam's fierce protectiveness and Frodo's exhausted determination to destroy the ring.

We then pick up the story with Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, and Gandalf arriving at Isengard. The fellowship splits up again after Pippin looks into Saruman's palantir, and he and Gandalf rush off to Minas Tirith. The Rohirrim gather their forces to journey to fight the armies of Sauron at Minas Tirith. Aragorn receives his sword Anduril (Narsil reforged) from Elrond and decides to follow the paths of the Dead to recruit an army of spirits that are in debt to the heir of Isildur for desertion.

I love the depiction of Eowyn's character by Miranda Otto. She goes from joy to complete despair and then the flatness of depression as she discovers that Aragorn doesn't love her. She disguises herself and rides to war with Merry. She kicks major butt in the battle of Pellenor Fields as she takes down an oliphant and the Witch King.

Unfortunately, two of my favorite scenes involving Eowyn were cut. The first is the scene where Eomer discovers that both Theoden and Eowyn are dead (he thinks). I saw this scene in the trailer and the depiction of Eomer's grief as he hold is sister is heart-rending. I don't know why it was cut because it's one of the most emotional scenes in the book.

After the battle, the scenes in the House of Healing are also cut out and we go right to the scene where Aragorn decides to take their armies to the Black Gate. It's a little disjointed because we don't know what happens to Eowyn or Faramir. We just see her at the end with Faramir, but we don't know how they get together. All I can say is that BOTH of these scenes had better be in the extended version, or I will be most seriously displeased!

The rest of the movie is pretty true to the book except the plundering of the Shire and the death of Saruman are not depicted. I expect to see more of Saruman in the extended version.

The battle at Pellenor Fields is awesome, but at times too busy to see all that's going on. Perhaps Jackson wanted to give the audience the same sense of frantic helplessness that the warriors probably felt as their comrades are falling by the hundreds around them.
I know how the book (and thus the movie) ends but at times I was wondering how are the characters going to make it through all this.

One final comment: do not drink a Mr. Pibb (don't tell my bishop) an hour or two before the movie even if you think you need it to stay awake! Towards the end, I didn't know if I would make it to the end. The ending is quite drawn out, but I think it works well.

On a scale of 1-10 (10 being the highest), I'd give ROTK a 9. I'm docking a point for leaving out my two favorite scenes. If it were up to me, I'd give ROTK the Oscar for best picture, Miranda Otto for best supporting actress, and Sean Astin or Andy Serkis best supporting actor. But it's not, so some lame artsy fartsy movie will probably get all the honors. Humph!

Geekfest - ROTK

Only 13 hrs. and 15 minutes until the 1st showing of ROTK in Dallas!

Let the geekfest begin!

For reviews, check out Rotten Tomatoes. The tomato-meter is still holding steady at 100%.

On Being a Female LDS Scientist

So where do I begin? First of all, there are not many LDS scientists to begin with and I’m not exactly sure why. There are approximately 2000 LDS scientists currently according to this link. I don’t know how many of those are women. What’s interesting is that Utah produces more scientists per capita than any other state for the last 60 yrs, 75% of whom are LDS. Of these, 83% percent classified themselves as strong believers and 90% of these felt that their religious beliefs and science theories could be harmonized. I think these statistics show that there is a great love for learning amongst LDS people and that most don’t believe that science and religion are mutually exclusive. Here’s a great paper on science & LDS scientists by Robert L. Miller.

Recently on Times & Seasons, there was an entry that posed the question of why there are few LDS women in the “hard” sciences and philosophy. I think LDS culture and theology play a large role. At an early age, it’s drilled into our heads that as women, our primary role is mother. We are told by our leaders over and over that we should stay at home with our kids and not work outside the home unless we have no other choice. So we have to plan ahead while we’re in high school for an education that will prepare us for employment that is family-friendly should we have to work.

I believe that most LDS women, if they attend college, plan for careers that involved only a 2 or 4-year degree. A woman can graduate with a bachelor’s by the time she is 21 or 22 if she attends full-time. This is the prime age for marriage and raising a family. I was almost 23 when I married, so I had a year to work after getting my degree. I was planning on going on a mission, but I met my husband before I submitted my papers. The majority of LDS women are getting married either before or right after they get their bachelor’s degree. And then most have children within a year or two of getting married. There simply is no time for graduate school.

It’s very difficult to attend school, even part-time and care for young children. I’m unique in that I had some health problems that prevented me from having children right away. I decided to use the time I had to further my education. Science is not a family-friendly (or female-friendly) career area. In order to get a position as a professor at most universities, one must have a Ph.D. and a post-doctoral fellowship or two. It can’t be done part-time either because it’s like having a full-time job plus overtime. Typically one takes classes the first two years while working the rest of the day and then one work full-time (and then some) in the lab until the thesis is complete.

The problem isn’t just that there are few LDS women in science, but there are few women in general in science (at least at professor levels). Only 10% of tenured professorships in the U.S. are held by women (link here) even though 25% of PhDs are awarded to women. Most of the women’s advocacy groups claim this is because of discrimination, but I’m not so sure. There may be some institutions where sexual discrimination is a problem, but I have never experienced it. I think the reason is that most women, when faced with choosing between family and a career in the sciences, choose family.

When looking at first year graduate students classes, there are about as many women as men, but over the years, many drop out. Some get married, some have children, and some decide they don’t want to do science anymore. When one finally gets to the post-doc level a lot of women have decided that they don’t want to go further. They might branch out into other fields such as science writing, technology transfer, patent law, etc. These are the prime childbearing years and once one steps off the academic career track, it’s hard to get back on. If a woman stops to have a child or two, then she has to choose to either stay at home with them until they are school age or shuttle them off to daycare at a young age and go back to the lab. The latter alternative is out of the question for most LDS women.

But things are getting easier. There are now day care centers on most campuses. There are more part-time post-docs available. I have met a few female professors that are able to juggle running a lab and caring for their children. But they have had to make big sacrifices. Either their research or their time with their children suffers. Mostly, the children grow up in daycare. If I were unmarried, none of these things would be an issue and I could pursue a position as a professor without any guilt.

Besides the issue of family, some LDS people wonder how one reconciles LDS theology with the theories of science, especially the theory of evolution. I’ll talk more about my ideas about evolution later. But to me science and religion, at least Mormonism, are not incompatible, but rather complementary.

Believe or not, most biological research has nothing to do with evolution directly. I could think the theory of evolution is totally bogus and finish my thesis project with no problems from my committee. Evolution is usually only an issue when relatedness of genes or fossils are being studied. For instance, biochemistry as a discipline involves taking apart a biological machine like a cell and trying to see how all the different parts work independently and then trying to reconstitute the cell. The evolutionary history of all the components is not that important. But the relatedness of an uncharacterized human protein compared to a well-studied homologous mouse protein can give insight into how the former protein functions.

I personally favor intelligent design in part because of LDS theology, and also because living things, even single-celled organisms, are incredibly complex. There are thousands of different enzymatic reactions that take place in various signaling networks that can have hundreds of different component proteins. These networks are robust to perturbations, but are also highly sensitive to targeted mutations. This is a strong indication to me that life did not evolve randomly, but was somehow organized by an outside force.

I’m fascinated by the complexity of nature. To me, science is like taking apart the little machines God has put together, and then trying to put them back together. Scientists are always trying to duplicate what God (or nature) has done. It makes me laugh when some Christians accuse LDS people of blasphemy because we believe we can be like God one day when that’s exactly what we as humans are doing every day. We are creating, organizing, and re-engineering things to make them better, to cheat death, and explore beyond our small planet. No other creatures of God do what humans do.

Yet, there seems to be a significant bias in the scientific community against those that are religious. Most scientists I know are agnostic or atheist and treat religious people as less intelligent and sophisticated. Scientists, who are supposed to be objective and deep thinking, can be just as bigoted and shallow as anyone. We all bring our unique worldviews with us. There was a time when it was unusual that a scientist did not believe in God. I hope that one day religious scientists will be the

The Butcher of Baghdad Has Been Nabbed!

American 4th infantry division forces caught up with Saddam near Tikrit (hat tip LGF).

It's an early Christmas present for the people of Iraq and freedom-loving people everywhere. Merry Christmas!

My picks for this week's New Weblog Showcase

For political blogs, I cast my votes for:

Anti anti war: The War in Iraq will be a success
I liked their style of commentary, although it had an odd layout for a blog. What really impressed me was their spanking of a competing left-leaning blog. That's pretty gutsy.

Locke, or Demosthenes?: Iraq contracts
This blog looks great and is well-written.

I didn't vote for any non-political blogs because none of them interested me and one was in German, so I couldn't read it anyway!

Cast your own votes at The Truth Laid Bear's New Weblog Showcase.

How Geeky Are You?

No biology-based blog could be complete without a Geek Test. I scored 22.87968% - Geek. I was kind of disappointed that I was only a geek as opposed to a super geek. I think I would have scored higher if there were more science-related questions. See how you do (hat tip geeklife.com).

Science Journal Round-up

Science News

Berkeley accused of biotech bias as ecologist is denied tenure
Nature 10 Dec 2003 - Apparently Dr. Ignacio Chapela, an anti-GM ecologist, is upset that he was denied tenure. He claims that it's because Berkeley is biased (towards research that generates money as opposed to research that generates zilcho dinero). Gee, could it be that he didn't get tenure because he published diddley squat?! Sorry, buddy, in science being a nice guy just doesn't cut it.

Hot Research

Molecular Memories That Survive Silicon Device Processing and Real-World Operation
Science 28 Nov 2003 - Chemists from UC Riverside and N. Carolina State have developed an organic molecular method for storing information. They show that porphyrin-based molecules fused to Si(100) can withstand the extremes of temperature (up to 400 degrees C) and ~10^12 read-write cycles. Also, multi-bit information storage is possible with these molecules since they can undergo multiple redox states.

A Protein Interaction Map of Drosophila melanogaster
Science 5 Nov 2003 - For fly biologists out there, this group has attempted to map all the protein to protein interactions in the fly proteome. The main problems I have with this paper is that the resolution of the figures in the paper is poor and that they used two-hybrid experiments to test for interaction between proteins. Two-hybrid experiments often elicit many false positives. But they did assess the reliability of the interactions based on experiments done on yeast orthologs. The results may be useful for finding novel protein-protein interactions and then lead to more extensive testing.

MICROBIOLOGY: Chemical Warfare and Mycobacterial Defense
Science 12 Dec 2003 - Researchers from Cornell University have discovered a key component of how M. tuberculosis, one of the deadliest pathogens, eludes destruction by the body's immune system. M. tuberculosis is typically inhaled into the lungs where it is taken up by macrophages, immune cells that typically engulf and kill foreign cells. M. tuberculosis avoids destruction by blocking fusion with lysosomes (organelles fill with acid and digestive enzymes) and resisting the toxic effects of nitric oxide (NO) which is produced as part of the immune response.

The proteosome of M. tuberculosis was shown to be the primary component of NO resistance. Proteosomes are macromolecular protein structures found in prokaryotes and eukaryotes. They function in the turnover of cellular proteins by degradation of misfolded or damaged proteins. In M. tuberculosis, the proteosome detects damaged proteins and is also able to repair them, conserving resources. If some proteins comprising the proteosome are mutated, M. tuberculosis is less virulent and easier for the macrophages to fight off. The M. tuberculosis proteosome may serve as an important target for development of additional tuberculosis drugs to treat drug-resistant strains.

Viewpoints: Tragedy of the Commons (a.k.a the sky is falling)This week's issue of Science has a special issue on managing world resources to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the publication of Garrett Hardin's essay, "The Tragedy of the Commons." Dr. Hardin was a zero-populationist. I'm sure what he said back in 1968 seemed radical, but now his views are eerily commonplace. I'll save a fisking of his essay for a later time, when I'm feeling particularly grumpy. Anyway, this collection of viewpoints on Hardin's theme may interest those of you that may wonder where the U.N. gets their policies on reproduction, global warming, management of global resources etc. It appears that scientists from Hardin's school of thought are making international policy and it should scare those of us that value freedom and personal responsibility.

My first Precision Guided Humor Assignment as a member of the Alliance of Free Blogs

Campaign Slogans

Well, it seems that the Alliance of Free Blogs has lots of assignments. Usually, I'd be too lazy (and supposedly busy with lab work) to do them, but this one has lots of humor potential.

Here's my campaign slogans for the 9 Democratic candidates:

Joe Lieberman Vote for me! Only the jolly Emperor Palpatine can save the Republic!

Howard Dean Vote for me, the irrationally exuberant Grumpy dwarf.

Dick Gephardt I like corn AND NASCAR, vote for me!

John Kerry Vote for me and there will be a ketchup bottle in every kitchen! (Oh, there is already?) Nevermind, I fought in 'Nam!

John Edwards Vote for me because I'm the best-looking of them all.

Al Sharpton There's actually no reason why any of you crackers should vote for me, but I DID host SNL.

Wesley Clark I couldn't lead a herd of monkeys into battle, but I'd make a great President.

Carol Moseley Braun I'm the best candidate you haven't heard of!

Dennis Kucinich Vote for me! Only I can defeat the evil brain-sucking greeyons from the planet Smee!

Oh no! What have I done!

So I joined the Alliance of Free Blogs because it seemed like the thing to do. Also, it appealed to my sense of mischief-making.

And I just learned how to do blockquotes.

Healing Iraq Posts Pics of Bagdad Demonstration Against Terrorism

Go Iraqis! Although this demo won't do much to stop the fedayeen and Al Qaida thugs, at least it shows the world that the people of Baghdad support the coalition and want to be a free nation. Read the whole article.

Healing Iraq

Science and the Middle East

I was under the impression that the science community was supposed to act as unbiased, objective observers. You know, just focus on our nerdy little projects and refrain from injecting politics into our research. Unfortunately, some scientists feel the need to mix politics and science when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Last year a group of scientists from Europe (mostly the UK) organized a boycott of Israeli researchers. One of them was Richard Dawkins, a famous evolutionary biology (and one of my least favorite people). Here's the letter they published in the Guardian. They also tried to persuade the E.U. to boycott Israel, but luckily the E.U., in the interest of invested money of course, declined to participate.

Nature magazine, published in the UK, was a primary battleground in the debate. Here's a link to the web focus page that lists all the numerous letters and articles on this subject. In the October 2 2003 edition of the magazine, the cover (seen below) featured the Israeli wall.

Hmmm... based on this cover, what side do you think Nature is on? I thought this cover was completely inappropriate because typically the cover of a science journal is reserved for the hottest research of that issue i.e. something scientific, NOT political. But in reading Nature's commentary on science policy, I've noticed a decidedly left-leaning and sometimes anti-U.S. tone in their commentary.

However, in that October 2 2003 issue, the article about the challenges facing Palestinian and Israeli scientists was surprisingly even-handed. Here's an excerpt:

Many Palestinian researchers reject the idea of boycotting Israeli science. "It's counter-productive," says Abdeen. Even among Palestinians who support the idea of an economic boycott on Israel, there is unease about the idea of extending protests into the scientific arena. In towns such as Nablus and Hebron, however, some researchers support the actions of those foreign academics who have refused to work with Israeli scientists. Despite his own willingness to work with Israelis if the collaboration strengthens Palestinian science, Khatib is among their number. "Pressure must be exerted on Israel," he says. "I support the boycott because it can enhance movements in this direction."

Such comments are distressing to Israeli academics, especially those involved in collaborations with Palestinians. There is a saying in Israel that reflects the country's love of debate: "put two Israelis in a room, and you'll get three opinions". But this definitely does not apply to discussions about the call for a scientific boycott. "You're not going to get three opinions on that," says Jonathan Gressel, a plant biologist at the Weizmann institute. "I don't think it ever helps to keep scientists out of science for political reasons." His colleague Geiger agrees: "This breaks with one of the most cherished and important features of science: that it is international and non-political (emphasis added)."

Science magazine, published in the U.S., had a more low key approach. No covers. No barrage of letters. They printed two small articles, both on efforts of Israeli and Palestinians to collaborate despite the political conflict.
ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN RESEARCH: As Mideast Peace Process Lags, Science Endures
ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN COOPERATION: Building Bridges in a Battle-Scarred Land

Now, I'm not saying that scientists shouldn't be involved in politics and state their opinions openly. I've got strong opinions myself that regularly conflict with those of my coworkers. However, these political views should be set aside when you do science and interact with scientists from other countries. To me, what Dawkins and his buddies have done is nothing less than bigotry. It smacks of the same sort of anti-semitism that infected German science during the rise of the Nazis. Also, I think boycotts do more harm than good. Look what happened in Iraq. Saddam lived like a sultan, while his people starved and non-military research ceased.

Anyway, incidents like the science boycott are what happens when smarty-pants experts in one little area, e.g. evolutionary biology, think that they are also experts in everything else, including foreign policy. Dawkins et al. should try to look at both sides of the story, write their whiney little letters to al-Guardian (not Nature), and get back to work!!!!

Axis of Weasels Gets Their Just Desserts

FOXNews.com - Politics - White House Backs Limiting Iraq Reconstruction

I just have one comment about this. Hah, hah (a la Simpsons)!

Update:
On a more serious note, it looks like Saddam and his cronies will get their just desserts.

Iraq War Crimes Tribunal Established

The tribunal has said they may try Saddam in absentia, but they have not decided on whether the death penalty will be reinstated.

Time for Some Furry, Asia Cuteness

I just realized that I haven't posted any pics of my kitty, Asia. So I give you Asia, Queen of the Pants and all she surveys.

Here she's just helping herself to some Cap'n Crunch.

While Vision of Weblogs Danced in My Head

You know you're addicted to blogging when you start having dreams about blogging. It's almost scarier than dreaming about vengeful giant fruit flies ripping your limbs off one by one, and then gouging your eyes out. Almost.

Thanks everyone!

I guess my blog was voted the best non-political blog in last week's New Weblog Showcase. I'm stunned and humbled by that honor. I thought for sure that Tiffany from Blown Fuse would win. She is really funny.

Anyway, many thanks to those that voted for me. A special thanks to Denita from Who Tends the Fires for her kind words and encouragement. I added her to my sidebar under Fly Friends. I would have posted links to everyone that voted for me as a thank-you, but I'm not savvy enough to figure how to find those links from last week's competition. I guess I should have thought about this yesterday. Drop me an email if you can help me out.

Biology Lab Primer - Of glowing green-eyed flies, calcium, and brains

So I said I'd talk about how my research on fruit flies has a practical application. The eye of a fruit fly is very different from mammalian eyes. They are basically arrays of tiny motion detectors, designed to sense movement of a predator rather than to discern the intricacies of color and form like human eyes. The electrical responses of fruit flies are 100 times faster than those of human eyes. That's what makes them so darn hard to swat with a fly swatter.

While insect vision is interesting in itself (especially if you want to be able to swat them effectively), what I'm really interested in is how nerve cells or neurons function in all animals. The photoreceptors in the fly eye are actually modified neurons. They receive an input (light) and transmit an output (histamine) at their synapses. Flies are ideal model systems to use to study neurons because they have simple nervous systems, they are easy and inexpensive to maintain, there are many mutant flies that can be tested, and you can do experiments on them that you couldn't do on humans. Yes, ripping the eyes off a human being and jabbing electrodes into the freshly dissociated eyes IS unethical and illegal in case you were wondering.

The fly photoreceptor cell signals in a way that is similar to certain types of neurons in the mammalian brain. This pathway contains a receptor, the protein rhodopsin (also found in mammalian eyes) in this case, on the surface of the cell that responds to an external stimulus, light. Once light activates rhodopsin, rhodopsin then turns on a whole cascade of other signaling proteins. The proteins in the signaling cascade had different functions. Some turn on other proteins, some turn others off. Some breakdown certain biological compounds, while other synthesize new compounds. Some proteins undergo conformational changes that allow them to transport other molecules into or out of the cell. These proteins are called ion channels. The end result of light stimulating rhodopsin results in ion channels opening and allowing high concentrations of calcium from outside to rush into the cell. High amounts of calcium are eventually toxic to cells so it is then pumped out of the cell at the end of the signaling event.

But high calcium inside of cells is needed for other signaling events that help make vision and other neuronal processes more efficient and dynamic. Adaptation, which occurs when you enter a darkened room, is a calcium-dependent process. Memory is also calcium dependent. And more and more research is showing that its not just the amount of calcium that's important for neuronal signaling, but also the location of the calcium influx. Localized calcium influxes (also called calcium microdomains) have been shown to occur in the inputs and outputs of neurons. There are billions of neurons in the human brain, and each neuron can have thousands of inputs and outputs. Now combine that with localized calcium signals and the dynamic range and computational power of the brain is enormous. Memories are probably stored by the coding of various inputs and outputs along with the localization of calcium signals.

Proteins in the inputs and outputs of neurons are organized into little signaling complexes so that they can respond to local increases in calcium. In fly photoreceptors, there are scaffolding proteins that bind together ion channels and calcium-dependent signaling proteins. If you disrupt the complex by mutations in the scaffolding protein, the ion channels still function and calcium flows into the cell, but the calcium-dependent proteins don't function properly. We think this is because they need to be close to the source of calcium, the ion channels, in order to do their job right.

So my thesis project involves testing this idea by measuring the calcium microdomains in normal flies and in flies where the protein signaling complexes have been disrupted. I've made flies that have calcium "detectors" fused to different proteins in the signaling complex. The calcium "detector" is a protein that fluoresces in the presence of calcium. I can image these "detectors" inside a fly photoreceptor cell with a microscope and a camera. The brighter the cells, the more calcium is near the "detector."

Falling asleep yet? That's your biology lab lesson for today. Here's a picture of me taking images of fly photoreceptor cells in the dark.

101 Uses for Science magazine

Use #12 - fly swatter
This is very handy in the fly room where gazillions of flies can get loose.

Use #34 - coaster
Since we don't have any real coasters in the break room, science journals work great. They're also good for placemats (use #44).

Which Founding Father Are You?

Take this quiz to find out. I am:

Which Founding Father Are You?

Support the People of Iraq in Their Fight for Freedom

Visit this site if you want to get a banner for your blog that shows your support for the people of Iraq as they fight against the Saddam loyalists and their terrorist buddies. I added one to my sidebar. Sign the petition too. My all time favorite picture that represents my hopes for the Iraqi people is below. I just love the sheer joy and hope expressed on this little girl's face.

101 Uses for Science magazine

Use #27 - doorstop
Yesterday I saw that the lab next door was using Science magazine as a doorstop. I guess their paper got rejected by the editors. Bummer. I'm sure they can put Science to a better use, such as toilet paper (use #54).

Microbes on Parade: The New Weblog Parade

So I entered my modest little blog in the New Weblog Showcase from The Truth Laid Bear's as a desperate bid for at least one or two readers to give me some useful feedback. Apparently you start out as a lowly microbe and then as you get more links, you rise higher on the evolutionary blog scale. I was at least hoping to get as high as a fruit fly, but today I'm apparently a slithering reptile. Sssssssspectacular, my precioussssssssssss!

I've been putting off voting for my favorite new weblogs so I could see all the candidates, but I know I'll forget to vote if I don't do it soon. So here are my picks:

For best political weblog, I vote for dangerous liberty: Al Franken on Book TV Anybody that bashes Al Franken so enthusiastically is ok in my book. I've never thought Franken was funny, even when he was on SNL. He's a loudmouth braggart, and I just can't stand him. I really tried to keep an open mind and vote for the blog with the best design and writing style, but I couldn't get past some of the left-leaning rhetoric without blowing a gasket. So I'm biased, sue me.

For best non-political blog, I vote for Blown Fuse: Bestiality is a no-no. This blog is highly entertaining and has a dizzying variety of topics. The title of the sample post worried me a little, but it was an amusing, if not disturbing anecdote about an oversexed cocker spaniel.

My second choice is Times & Seasons: What Power? although I thought they could have chosen a more interesting post to represent the blog. It's main focus is Mormon theology, so like the good little Mormon that I am, I'm giving them my support. However, I haven't had a lot of time to read all the articles in depth, so I'm not saying I endorse their representation of Mormonism. However, they have quite a few people that seem to be quite knowledgeable about wide variety of topics. But I would recommend that those not familiar with Mormonism start out with the basics here before diving into this blog.

Update:
Also, don't forget to vote for your favorite blogs here in the 2003 Weblog Awards.

Science Journals Round-up

BIOTERRORISM: Anthrax Powder: State of the Art?
Here's a disquieting article about the origin of the spores used in the 2001 anthrax attacks from Science magazine (subscription required, hat tip LGF). Basically, the theories on the origin of the anthrax fall into 2 categories: it's a homemade crude extract or it was made in a state-of-the-art (read state-sponsored) facility. I remember when the analysis of the spores found in the Senate offices revealed that the anthrax contained a milling agent, silica, and electrostatic charges. These results seemed to indicate it was a high-tech job because of the spores' high aerosolibility.

Then for some reason the FBI denied that the sample contained silica and seemed to think that the culprit was a "lone-wacko," Dr. Hattfill. This article discusses in more detail the analyses of the samples and the attempts of the government to reproduce the samples. Basically, Army experts were unable to reproduce the sample by using a crude, lab-in-the-garage (without silica) approach, but got really close when they used silica and a top-secret ingredient (probably a coupling agent that gave the spores electrostatic charge). So what's up with the FBI? They led a wild-goose-chase through Dr. Hatfill's home and a nearby pond. Why? What advantage would they gain by covering up the fact that the spores were produced by a highly sophicated research facility?

Personally, I never bought the "lone wacko" theory. As soon as the I heard about the anthrax, I thought "from Iraq with love." I don't have any evidence for my hunch except that we know Saddam had an anthrax weaponization program at one time. Those spores can sit around in storage for decades maybe even hundreds of years without losing potency. The spores sent through the mail were probably a test run. Fortunately, although a lot of people were freaked out, few people died, and our nation did not grind to a halt. People exposed to the spores were given antibiotics, a mail screening process was developed, and a vaccine was already available.

If I were the conviving little terrorist(s) who did this, I would say the test run was a failure. The next step would be to either develop a better method of spore dispersal (e.g. aerial release) or use a more communicable pathogen like smallpox. Both possibilities are rather frightening. So basically, this article leaves me wondering who's responsible for the anthrax attacks and will we ever catch them?

Update: Here's a website that lays out all the evidence in the anthrax case. A lot of it I haven't heard about before (via LGF).

Update: I doubt that the info from the above site is that reliable. In his profile of the anthrax sender he states, "the refiner/mailer probably watches Bill O’Reilly on the Fox News Channel." What evidence supports that assertion? Come on! At least he has an exchange with the author of the above article, Dr. Gary Matsumoto that's kind of interesting.

And now for something completely different....

Jokes activate same brain region as cocaine
A study at Stanford University showed that the same brain centers that are activated by cocaine are also stimulated by funny jokes or comic strips. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) showed that one particular brain region, the nucleus accumbens, is stimulated by the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine. Looks like laughter is the best medicine (or dope) after all.

Geek-o-rama - ROTK

Only 14 days until the release of Return of the King! If only the actor playing Aragorn, Viggo Mortensen, wasn't such a loser. Personally, I'd rather have brains than beauty. But Legolas (a.k.a. Orlando Bloom) is rather nice to look at.

Why I Hate Pop Science

Now I know I'm going to sound like one of those elitist intellectuals that I despise when I say this, but the science you read about in most popular magazines and newspapers ain't science, baby. The very worst pop science ideas are ones that try to scare you into doing or not doing something based on flimsy evidence.

Here's an example that I just made up, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it in this month's issue of Ladies's Home Journal or Reader's Digest. The headline of the article would blare something like "Twinkies Can Cause an Early Death!!!!!!" The article will open with an interview with a thoughtful young mother who says, "I never thought that something so tasty and delightful to my adorable children could cause so much damage to their fragile little bodies."

Then the article will site a study in some obscure medical journal where out a group of 50 people, those that ate a twinkie every day were 20% more likely to die of a heart attack before the age of 50 than those that did not eat a twinkie every day. Of course, some people might conclude that twinkies are harmful to your health and will cause you an early death.

However, this study would show, like most of the studies in JAMA, a correlation, not a causation. There may be a correlation between eating a twinkie every day and dying of a heart attack before age 50, but there is no evidence that twinkies actually cause heart disease. First of all, I would look at the size and composition of the sample group. If the sample size is small I wouldn't trust any conclusions the researchers came up with. Also, the sample group should accurately represent to whom the study would apply. Does the sample group contain a representative number of males, females, racial types, age groups, body types etc.? In the imaginary twinkie study for instance, I could have stacked the cards by selecting all the young, healthy, athletic people for the control group(non-twinkie-eating), and all the overweight, old people with bad hearts for the twinkie-eating group.

Also, how can one control for just the twinkie eating behavior? I think it would be nearly impossible to select a sample group that had everything in common except for the twinkie-eating behavior. The twinkie-eaters are more likely to engage in other unhealthy behaviors like not exercising, eating 3 bags of potato chips daily, and super-sizing their McDonald's combos while the non-twinkie-eaters are more likely to eat tofu and practice yoga. But that shouldn't affect my decision to have one lousy twinkie today.

And of course, there's always the possibility that the researchers or the magazine editors tweaked the statistical results to favor their position: that twinkies are bad for you. So then the food police decide cite the twinkie study and lobby for higher taxation or outright banning of twinkies and other "dangerous" foods.

Now I don't have a problem with clinical correlational studies. They are useful for showing trends in conjunction with other studies, such as combining a more representative twinkie study with studies on many different types of foods to show that in general a healthy diet is better for you. But I think that many lobbying groups and media sources use studies like my phony one to promote their own agendas.

Here's some examples:

Study shows 9/11 cause heart attacks.

Center for Science in the Public Interest Issues list of "Better and Worse" Snacks for kids

California to Sue EPA over Global Warming

All three of these article were written by Steven Milloy who runs a website called JunkScience.com. He does a great job of exposing the flaws in many of these studies and the motivations behind the groups that use these flawed studied for their pet causes.

Another webpage that might be of interest to those of you who want to be able to eat your dingdongs and twinkies in peace is The Center for Consumer Freedom. Now I'm going to get a Snickers bar. Just try and stop me, you food Nazis!

Oh No! Not again, Jimmeh!

Since I really didn't want this to be a political blog, I've been trying to refrain from bringing up politics. But alas, I am a news junkie, and with LGF and others to keep me informed of all the pols' shenanigans, I just couldn't resist. Our illustrious ex-Pres Jimmeh Carter has once again opened his mouth and inserted his muddy peanut-farming foot (via LGF).

In a interview with the NYT "Mr. Carter, defeated in his quest for re-election by Ronald Reagan in 1980, speculated that "had I been elected to a second term, with the prestige and authority and influence and reputation I had in the region, we could have moved to a final solution."

Um, I don't think Mr. Carter realized how bad that sounded. I mean, come on: Israel, Jews, final solution, Adolf Hitler. Ring a bell, Jimmeh?

Viva les comments!

Since I'm trying to get back into my work at school this week, I thought I'd start by adding a comments section to this blog instead of working. Yay! Now I'll see if anyone will have something useful to say.