SCD is a genetic issue, and it’s an adaptation that has a seriously positive payoff. You see, people with only a single sickle-cell gene are much better equipped to survive malaria. Sure, your lifespan gets cut shorter and there are some serious health issues that go hand in hand with it, but it’s a hell of a lot more genetically advantageous than dying in childhood with malaria, and from a pure evolutionary perspective, people who die as children do not have the potential to be parents. If a genetic abnormality causes death in middle age and prevents death in childhood, then the odds are greater that the person in question can live long enough to pass on their genetics.

But people sincerely don’t understand genetics and evolution. There’s this notion out there that everything is an individual bit in the genome that we just need to tweak and all will be well. That’s not really how things are.

When we think about genes as laypeople, we are usually not thinking about genes. We are thinking about phenotypes. A phenotype is basically some attribute we can observe about a thing, such as whether the peas were round or wrinkled, green or yellow, big or small, etc. But these traits should not be considered independent of one another. A single gene could impact many phenotypes, and a phenotype could be the visual result of many different genes working in concert. And before we go messing around phenotypes, we really need to know what we are actually altering. For example, if we created a process to cure malaria by altering genes to ensure single sickle cell genes, which would inadvertently give rise to massive incidents of SCD. Another example comes from reading about the research of Dimitri Belyaev on the tameness of silver foxes. I’m mid-way through Dawkins’ latest book, which drew this to my attention, and according to what I’ve read (I’m no expert on this work) we see that the tameness he was breeding for had unexpected corollary impacts on fur color, ear shape, and a variety of behaviors to name but a few.

Evolution has a few billion years head start on us. We’re still new to genetics. Gregor Mendel did his experiments on peas between 1856 and 1863. In 1859, Charles Darwin published On The Origin Of Species. Walther Flemming reported his discovery of chromosomes in 1882, a mere 128 years ago. Watson and Crick proposed their double helix DNA model in 1953. We’ve only just mapped the human genome, and we don’t really know what all the bits we’ve mapped actually do yet. But we’re making progress. My point is that understanding more about the nature of genetics will only help us in understanding ourselves.

Jim

I couldn’t be happier for you two, and I look forward to meeting her. Love you guys!

Jim

The argument that it must have been God that kicked off the Big Bang has always seemed shallow to me. The question of what caused it is certainly a valid one, but in the absence of understanding, saying “I bet it was God!” is an intellectually weak cop-out. Most theists I know will gladly use that notion that the universe had to start from something in debate, but rarely ever does the conversation make any sense, and it gets more childish and insecure when I ask how God was created. It’s cool that HE always “just was, is, and ever will be”, but the universe doesn’t get accorded the same luxury.

Me? I have no idea what happened before the Big Bang. My grasp on physics is tenuous at best (which you would surely know if you read this blog often) but if I was going to take someone’s word for it, it wouldn’t be Ken Ham. Stephen Hawking has definitely earned the respect necessary for me to trust him on the subject.

There’s commentary for this on several sites, including richarddawkins.net and Pharyngula.

Jim

This Friday, we have a fundraiser for the CBC Awards Show at Verns. It’s how we cover a few of the rather significant costs of the equipment rentals, decorations, etc., and because we’re fantastic people we’re putting on a hell of a show for $10. If I understand the lineup correctly, we’ll have The Deadmen, The Oh Shit Show, and Colin Decker Freefall performing musically, as well as songs by the Knox Bank Of Burlesque. All that for $10, and it all goes to ensure that the awards show is the biggest, coolest night of the year.

The day before my birthday (September 6) I booked a show at Verns. The headliners are not someone I’m particularly fond of because I think sleaze rock stopped being funny around the time my nuts dropped, but there are those who enjoy The Mentors. However, the reason I booked the show is my buddy Mr. Plow (who now resides in the US) will be on the tour with them. I love Mr. Plow and think he’s one of the most entertaining musicians going. When he told me that he would be wanting to come through Calgary, I decided to put on the show. It’s my birthday present to myself to see Plow. Joining him will be one of my favorite local bands, The Oh Shit Show, as well as Vancouver’s The Likely Rads. Tickets are $12 or $10 if you get them from me or the venue in advance.

September 7th may be my birthday, but it’s also Skeptics in the Pub night. I’ll be down at the Joyce on 4th (the one in Mission, silly) having a pint or two and enjoying the post-work part of my big day. If you want to come down and think all skeptical-like, please join us. It’s a decidedly nerdy and fun way to spend an evening. And afterwards I’ll have to decide what I’m doing, but karaoke does seem a likely possibility.

September 10th is the day when I will truly be celebrating my birthday, though. The lovely lady in my life is also a concert promoter, and decided to throw me a birthday party at Verns. There will be cake. There will be giggling. And there will be music. Opening the show will be Me And Keith(I think we might actually be calling it that now, but it’s myself on upright bass and Keith Morrisson on acoustic guitar and vocals, and possibly Meesh on ‘lectric guitar playing folky music that is awesome), The Shillelaghs, the Press Gang, and The Rigormorticians. And all that for $5! SWEET DEAL!

Somewhere in there I might take a road trip with Plow to one of his shows in either Coaldale or Innisfail, but we’ll see what happens. Either way, I hope to see a few smiling faces wishing me a happy birthday.

Jim

Okay, it’s really just one thing. I admit it, but bullet points usually look nicer if you have three or more things in the list. In order to make that one point stick, we need to do three things:
 
1. Slap the mouth of any religious zealot who insists that condoms promote AIDS, that God hates you if you have sex, or that condoms are not a viable preventative for AIDS transmission.

Again, the bullet point list with only one bullet. It’s a sign of lazy writing, isn’t it?

The truth is, there’s a lot more at play here. First, we need to teach people the importance of family planning. This is a necessity the world over and for far more massive reasons than simple AIDS prevention. Our population continues to grow at an absolutely sickening rate, and all the talk of sustainability is foolish in the face of it. It isn’t shoveling during a blizzard, it’s like bailing water from a boat because you pulled the cork out of the bottom to stop up your bottle of wine. The population simply cannot continue to grow at the rate it is growing. This is why I’m really hesitant about the field of gerontology, I’m really not certain that ending age-related disease is a viable option until we have a handle on our ridiculous population growth.

What I’ve written here is mostly a pipe dream. There are too many agencies like the Catholic Church directly working on the ground to ensure that condoms are the enemy in poor countries where AIDS is spreading like wildfire (I can only assume this is because priests hate the reduced stimulation of condoms) and there is too little education reaching the people who need it most. And there are too many stops to the education, such as when agencies that promote condom use suddenly don’t qualify for funding from the American government out of violation of their No Sperm Left Behind policy. Until we can clamp a lid on the religious nuts, we’re stuck with the crisis.

The other side of the coin is the lack of effective medical help in developing countries. That’s not to say there are not doctors in Africa, but that the number of health care centers is impossibly few, and the quality of those centers is simply not there. In an article on Neurologica blog entitled Using Traditional Healers To Treat AIDS in Africa by Steven Novella, it is explained that the WHO is looking to attempt to use the existing network of healers. This causes me the fears. Steven puts it extremely well:
 
  Treating HIV is very challenging, and it is also a recent plague on humanity. It seems very unlikely that any traditionally used herb would be safe and effective against HIV. Despite the low probability, it is reasonable to test candidate herbs (as long as it is done ethically) but only well-controlled studies should be performed.

The trouble is, we simply don’t have a hell of a lot of options. There are, according to the Join(RED) campaign, 22 million people in Africa have HIV. That number, for want of a better term, is fucking scary. It’s no longer a question of waiting for some Daddy Warbucks to shell out the billions of dollars necessary to fix the problem. We simply do not have the resources to create enough properly staffed hospitals to deal with that kind of demand.

So I guess I agree with Steven, though it is a grudging agreement (and I get the impression, it’s a grudging agreement on his end too) that this is a necessary stopgap. We need first and foremost to use whatever resources we can to get this fire under control. But it really is a frightening prospect. HIV won’t be beaten by witch doctors and homeopaths. But perhaps the WHO can use this crisis as an opportunity to spread the importance of legitimate science-based medicine through what is ultimately a trusted network of medicine men.

Whenever I think of people networks, I think of Amway. I can’t help it, they’re just such an effective (and totally useless) people network. Imagine, however, if instead of selling soap and promising caviarre dreams, the WHO were able to implement a network of front-line health workers, people who would receive the necessary training to handle the immediate problem of treating the sick, reducing suffering, and prolonging life. Who knows where that could lead? If the traditional healers were utilized properly, we might even be able to open new doors for and through them for medical interventions. But again, this is more pipe dreaming.

There are two potentially bad outcomes to this WHO plan as I see it; it can either fail miserably through resistance by the wizards or it can succeed admirably and cloud the picture of HIV/AIDS treatment. I do consider it a terrible threat that any benefits of western medicine could be co-opted by the CAM folks and the shaman (is it shamen? shamans? shamii?) as proof of the miraculous powers of their snake oil. And I suppose the third bad outcome is the creation of a controlled economy of healing. The local medicine man doesn’t necessarily maintain the same oaths as a western doctor, and we could be creating an environment of drug trafficking and the abuse of power.

But something has to change, and until we can spread the right message to the masses, we’re stuck treating the wounded, and this might well be the best bet towards solving the problem.

Jim

But regardless of their speciality, doctors who described themselves as “extremely” or “very non-religious” were almost twice as likely to report having taken these kinds of decisions [ethically controversial decision expected or partly intended to end life] as those with a religious belief.

The most religious doctors were significantly less likely than other doctors to have discussed options at the end of life with their patient.

First off, if I was at the end of my life and was suffering, as is assumed by the article, then I would at least want to have the information about these supposedly ethically controversial decisions. If I have weeks of brutal pain ahead of me with no possibility of fixing the situation, why on earth would I not want to at least know that the option was there to end my pain? Do those two weeks matter to me? I can’t say, honestly. In that position I might cling to every single second of my life, or I might choose to throw it away to end the suffering, but at least I could make an informed decision.

Doctors aren’t supposed to let their beliefs influence their caregiving. Of course they do, but they are required to do their best to avoid this and offer us the best possible range of medical choices. I know, you’re thinking, “They’re doctors, but they’re also people and they have to let their beliefs guide them at least a little bit…” Bullshit. Let’s say that your lovely granny’s doctor is a Scientologist and you found out that his suggestion for a treatment plan was to donate everything to Scientology, cut off all valid medical interventions, and really work on getting the mind clear and the thetans beaten, you’d sue the bastard. And so you should. This is no different, it’s a doctor allowing his personal religious convictions to prevent you from making an informed decision. There may be ethical controversy around end of life care and euthanasia, but controversy doesn’t mean people shouldn’t have the right to know their options.

As the picture for this piece implies, it’s not the job of doctors to blow sunshine up our ass. It’s their job to give us the information so we can provide informed (as much as possible) consent.

Jim

There is a preview of the first episode making the rounds, and hopefully you’ll watch this and whet your appetite for more.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2010/08/27/sneak-peak-the-bad-astronomer-blows-things-up/

Interestingly, when I searched google images for appropriately-sized pictures of Bad Universe, this is one of the images that came up.

Jim

Of course, in the medical sphere we always think of viruses as bad news, but this is probably untrue as well. We know, for example, that the human genome contains things like the bornavirus, and presumably there are, were, and could be viruses that live in symbiosis with humans. Add to that the importance of viruses in genetic engineering and you have a potentially wonderful tool. And of course, we can’t forget the potential that some viruses might keep us safe from others, a novel idea that I hadn’t considered prior to reading Douglas Coupland‘s book All Families Are Psychotic, but that seems to me to be a sensible theory.

New research, however, is going a bunch of steps further. I hadn’t heard of this before reading Virus-Powered Rechargeable Clothing Could be Coming to a Store Near You on Discover Magazine’s Science Not Fiction blog. I’ll let you read the article rather than trying to summarize, but I would like to say it’s pretty fascinating stuff.

Me, I enjoy the idea of a helpful virus. It’s like a little contagious piece of altruism.

Jim

1. I can take ownership of my mistakes. I screw up. I admit it wholeheartedly. I probably do it on a more regular basis than others, largely because I also put myself out there and take risks a lot more often. I don’t mean jumping off cliffs or similar risk-seeking adventure behaviors, I’m referring to things like doing stand up comedy on a whim, marrying my roommates, and that sort of thing. Those were both extremely happy experiences, but goodness knows I’ve made my share of mistakes.

The devil did not make me do it. I am amazed to hear people in my age group who actually still believe that the mistakes they make are the results of wicked temptation from the Devil, and that God will understand that they are truly sorry and won’t do it again (maybe). When I screw up, I know it was me that screwed up. I was presented with a choice and I chose the wrong direction. It was not the will of God, more often than not it was the lack-of-will of Jim. And instead of shoving it off on the devil or God’s plan or what have you, I have the responsibility to make it right again.

2. I can get through the hard parts in life. Throughout my life, there was only one set of footprints on the sand. When things got hard, I didn’t need to be carried, I just kept on walking and made my way through. People talk about how the horrible aspects of their lives were trials by God (thanks, God!) and how God helped them through these difficulties. Really? How is that logical?

When my life has taken turns for the worse, I did not rely on anyone to help me through it. I believed that I could handle anything I needed to, that these things wouldn’t kill me, and that I would wind up a better person out the other side of the ordeal. I didn’t sit back and wait for God to make it all better, I evaluated the situation and tried to come up with ways to get through it. With these kinds of thoughts in my head, I am already turning the corner on the situation.

3. I can embrace the beauty of the world I live in and see it for what it is. It’s one thing to look at a tree and think that God does neat things, and another entirely to be able to recognize that it is a link in a chain of evolution that has been going for billions of years and has inadvertently created a pure kind of balance that enables the vast array of life on the planet. Or looking at a mountain, I can be impressed by the raw power of plate tectonics. It’s almost a cheap shot to claim that God just created everything, and diminishes the amazing processes that have taken place and continue to shape everything about this planet.

4. I can die. Yeah, you can die, but you’re expecting something out of it. When I die, I’ll be dead and I’ll know in the time leading up to it that I have done all that I can in this life to live it to it’s fullest. There will be no fear of judgement and the unknown. There’s nothing to know. There will be no false euphoria about how great things are going to be in the next life. I will simply be able to look back at my life and smile in the knowledge that I lived it my way.

5. I can be comfortable knowing that I’m not special. God doesn’t have a plan for me. God doesn’t love me and people like me more than others. I’m just as special as everyone else, and that means I’m just not that special.

6. I can have my own morality. I don’t need scripture to tell me what is right and wrong. I rule myself according to my own sense of how I should behave. It’s a highly moral code that I don’t expect others to live up to, but I believe very deeply in being a good person for the good of those around me. My deciding to be a good person is morality. Your deciding not to sin because your great afterlife reward would be jeopardized doesn’t make you a good person, nor is it morality. It’s fear of punishment.

I’m sure there’s much more that I could put here, but it’s a good start.

Jim

I figured I’d post something quick here with comments on a few topics I wanted to pass on.

PZ Myers
Yeah, I’m a fan. PZ is a fantastic prick, one of the people I can truly look up to in life. And unfortunately, he had a rather significant health scare recently in the form of heart troubles. For those of you who are interested, he has had surgery. They installed some stents and all appears to be exceptionally well. My apologies to any of the faithful who were praying for his deathbed conversion, but it appears that PZ will be back on the horse very soon, spraying his blasphemies to all corners of the known world. For details, check out his post on Pharyngula.

iTunes University
I’m not sure how well understood this service is, so I thought I’d mention it. I love iTunes University. It’s free college course material on a myriad of topics that you can download and listen (and in some cases, watch) on your iPod. I had previously downloaded an introductory biology course from MIT (the genetics portion of which was lectures by Eric Lander, which was just extremely cool for me) and am now enjoying a course called Jazz Insights.

Whatever your interests, there’s courses on the topic available for free. Who wouldn’t love this service?

At any rate, that does it for me for today. Hope you’re all well and happy.

Jim