Science and Evolution - Books and Reviews

Current Books on Stem Cells Part 2 (January 2007)

noreply@blogger.com (Jorolat) — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 04:23:42 PST

Three more books on stem cells from the 'Evolution Research - Amazon Book Shop/Store' (links at the end of the post):

Embryonic Stem Cells: A Practical Approach
Edited by Elena Notarianni and Martin J. Evans

Book Description

The groundbreaking isolation of embryonic stem cells (or 'ES cells') of the mouse in the early 1980s triggered a sustained expansion of global research into their exploitation. This led to the routine genetic engineering of the mouse and revolutionised our understanding of biological processes in the context of the whole animal. ES cell biology remains a crucial and growing area of research with far-reaching implications for developmental and comparative biology as well as for human health.

This book serves as a primer to ES cells, their derivation and experimental manipulation. It contains a broad compendium of methods of direct relevance to both graduate students and specialist researchers. An introductory chapter by the principle originator of ES cell research outlines the fundamentals and charts the development of the field. This is followed by comprehensive coverage of state-of-the art techniques for ES cell manipulation, with the mouse as the experimental paradigm, and by recent innovations with ES cells from human and non-human primates. ES cell-based therapies for otherwise intractable diseases are now being developed with the present challenge to control ES cell growth and differentiation for application such as cell transplantation - a recurrent theme in this book. As a volume in the Practical Approach Series (Oxford University Press), the emphasis is on current methods from recognised experts.

About the Author

Dr. Elena Notarianni graduated in Biochemistry from Oxford University, and gained a PhD in Virology from Glasgow University. She then joined Professor Evans's laboratory in Cambridge University, and derived ES cells from ungulate species. This work lead to the recognition that ES cells from ungulates differ from those of the mouse in their growth and morphology, as was shown subsequently also for human ES cells. Elena Notarianni continues to work on techniques for ES cell isolation, and on mechanisms of differentiation.

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The Stem Cell Divide: The Facts, the Fiction, And the Fear Driving the Greatest Scientific, Political And Religious Debate of Our Time
By Michael Bellomo

Book Description

There has been much recent debate about the merits, dangers, and nature of stem cell research. Some see in it the answer to every debilitating disease known to man, while others see it as a step away from human cloning.

While the battle has raged, research is moving ahead, and California has already passed a measure that will give $3 billion in support to stem cell research. But as politics, religion, and the media weigh in on this complex issue, more and more of the scientific reality of stem cell research is getting lost. In the search for the truth about stem cell science, the author has interviewed the scientists whose cutting-edge research is at the very heart of this hot-button issue. The book explains what they have accomplished so far, what they're currently doing, and what they see on the horizon.

The Stem Cell Divide does not take sides, and the author debunks the distortions and exaggerations that come from every camp. This book does not tell readers what to think, but gives them the facts necessary to form their own opinions about one of the most divisive, complex, and potentially life-changing developments in history.

About the Author

Michael Bellomo (Los Angeles, CA) works in biopharmaceuticals for Baxter Bioscience, a 4,000-person company dedicated to the creation of new medical and cellular-based technologies. He is the coauthor of Microbe: Are We Ready for the Next Plague?

See "Authors fight misinformation on stem cell science" from the Harvard University Gazette

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Tissue Stem Cells
Edited by Christopher S. Potten, Robert B. Clarke, James Wilson, Andrew G. Renehan

Book Description

Tissue stem cells and their medical applications have become a major focus of research over the past decade. With 16 full-color illustrations, this reference provides a thorough and up-to-date overview of the current and emerging technologies for stem cell research and transplantation. Divided into three sections covering general issues, adult stem cells within specific tissues, and clinical applications, this source studies advances in bone marrow transplantation, cancer development modeling, tumor analysis, and gene therapy.

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"Current Books on Stem Cells Part 1 (January 2007)"

"Stem Cell Wars: Inside Stories from the Frontline (Review /Video)"

Technorati: stem cells, embryonic, practical, approach, book, description, es, cells, global, genetic, engineering, mouse, biology, human, health, primer, cell, author, biochemistry, stem, debate, disease, books, history, microbe, plague, science, harvard, cancer, gene, therapy, review, video

Current Books on Astronomy Part 1 (January 2007)

noreply@blogger.com (Jorolat) — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 14:42:49 PST

A first selection of books on Astronomy available from the 'Evolution Research - Amazon Book Shop/Store' (links at the end of the post):

State of the Universe 2007: New Images, Discoveries, and Events
By Martin Ratcliffe

Fascinating developments in the understanding of our origins, of the early beginnings of the Universe, of how planets are formed, and how stars live out their lives and die occur every month. Each new result adds a tiny piece to the jigsaw puzzle, leading the way to a fuller and more complete understanding of the Universe around us. Rarely are such details offered in one place - until now. State of the Universe 2007 fills the gap between research and everyday news.

State of the Universe 2007 by Martin Ratcliffe provides an astronomy review suitable for the popular science level reader. The first annual in a new series, this book covers all major astronomical news on topics beyond the Solar System and places them in the context of the longer term goals of astronomers and astrophysicists. The aim is to capture the excitement and vibrancy of modern astronomical research.

Ratcliffe presents a complete list of the major announcements, discoveries and news items from each year. The January meeting of the American Astronomical Society each year will be the major source of astronomical news for the following year's volume. The regular features include an annual chronological list of the latest discoveries announced during the previous twelve months, a review of the major news stories of the year with the main characters, a list of launches of major astronomical observatories/satellites during the past year, and much more. The latest from the BadAstronomy website by Dr. Phil Plait is also included.

Martin Ratcliffe is a regular contributor to Astronomy Now and Astronomy magazine and is the author of Night Sky Deck, a kit for stargazers. He has served as Planetarium Director of Buhl Planetarium, Pittsburgh, USA and is currently director of the Boeing CyberDome Theater in Wichita, USA. He writes and produces planetarium shows for general public. He has worked as a consultant for various TV series, filmed two total eclipses of the Sun, and maintains an extensive contact network with public information and press officers of all US national observatories and NASA astronomical centers. [Source: Springer Press Release]

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Astronomy Today (5th Edition)
By Eric Chaisson, Steve McMillan

Book Description

Chaisson/McMillan's writing style and pedagogically driven art program are recognized as being scientifically accurate yet accessible to non-science majors. The integrated media program contains the market's only E-book. It provides readers with innovative and interactive tools to learn and test their understanding of astronomy concepts. Topics covered include Astronomy and the Universe, Our Planetay System, Stars and Stellar Evolution, Galaxies and Cosmology, and more. For one or two-semester introductory astronomy course.

Content changes from the 4th Edition (Source: Prentice Hall):

Thoroughly updated Chapter 5 - Reflects recent discoveries and innovations, such as Telescope Design in Section 5.1

Introduction to solar system formation added to Chapter 6 - Sets the stage for the planetary chapters (p. 144-45).

Reorganized Chapter 22 - Expands the historical development of Special Relativity and General Relativity.

More contemporary coverage in Chapters 24 and 25 - Reorganizes material to emphasize the connection between normal and active galaxies, and expands the discussion of black holes in galactic nuclei.

Updates include new discoveries and data, including:

New material in Chapter 7 on the Ozone Hole and Global Warming.
Expanded coverage in Chapters 6 and 10 of the most recent missions to Mars.
Updates in Chapter 10 on Martian oppositions, gullies, oceans, and ice.
Final update on the Galileo/GEM mission in Chapter 11.
Updated discussion of solar system formation in Chapter 15; expanded coverage of competing theories, planet migration, planetesimal ejection, plutinos, and the angular momentum problem.
Latest results in Chapter 23 on Sgr A* and the Galaxy's central black hole. This chapter also includes a new discussion of the Shapley-Curtis debate giving historical context to the "Measuring the Milky Way" section.
Extensive revision of Chapters 26 and 27 to include the most recent observations of cosmic acceleration and discussion of "dark energy"
Revised discussions of the cosmological constant and the age of the universe; results from the CBI and WMAP experiments suggesting a flat universe.
Updated coverage of Europa, Mars, interstellar organic molecules, extra solar planets, and SETI in Chapter 28.

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Books on Astronomy from the Science and Evolution Bookshop: UK | US

Telescopes ('Scopes') can be found in the Electronics section of the Shop/Store

Technorati: books, book, store, shop, amazon, astronomy, evolution, research, state, universe, origins, planets, annual, science, review, solar system, news, now, magazine, planetarium, usa, nasa, today, media, stars, stellar, cosmology, telescopes, galileo, gem, mission, galaxy, seti, astrobiology, primer, europa, mars, milky way

Current Books on Stem Cells Part 1 (January 2007)

noreply@blogger.com (Jorolat) — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 04:00:59 PST

A first selection of books on stem cells available from the 'Evolution Research - Amazon Book Shop/Store' (links at the end of the post):

Essentials of Stem Cell Biology
By Robert Lanza, E. Donnall Thomas, James Thomson, and Roger Pedersen

Book Description

This abridged version of the bestselling reference Handbook of Stem Cells, Two-Volume Set (see below) attempts to incorporate all the essential subject matter of the original two-volume edition in a single volume. The material has been reworked in an accessible format suitable for students and general readers interested in following the latest advances in stem cells, including full color presentation throughout. Although some extra language and chapters have been deleted, rigorous effort has been made to retain from the original two-volume set the material pertinent to the understanding of this exciting area of biology.

The organization of the book remains largely unchanged, combining the prerequisites for a general understanding of adult and embryonic stem cells; the tools, methods, and experimental protocols needed to study and characterize stem cells and progenitor populations; as well as a presentation by the world's experts of what is currently known about each specific organ system.

* Full-color presentation througout
* Each chapter begins with 3-5 defined glossary terms, and all of the terms are collected in a comprehensive list within the book
* References have been eliminated - now there are about 10 bibliographic entries per chapter

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Handbook of Stem Cells, Two-Volume Set with CD-ROM, Volume 1-2: Volume 1-Embryonic Stem Cells; Volume 2-Adult and Fetal Stem Cells

Book Description

New discoveries in the field of stem cell research have frequently appeared in the news and in scientific literature. Research in this area promises to lead to new therapies for cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and a wide variety of other diseases.

The editors of the Handbook of Stem Cells include: Robert Lanza, Helen Blau, John Gearhart, Brigid Hogan, Douglas Melton, Malcolm Moore, Roger Pedersen, E. Donnall Thomas, James Thomson, Catherine Verfaillie, Irving Weissman, and Michael West. The Editorial Board includes: W. French Anderson, Peter Andrews, Anthony Atala, Jose Cibelli, Giulio Cossu, Robert Edwards, Martin Evans, Elaine Fuchs, Margaret Fuller, Fred Gage, Richard Gardner, Margaret Goodell, Ronald Green, William Haseltine, Joseph Itskovitz-Eldor, Rudolf Jaenisch, Ihor Lemischka, Dame Anne McLaren, Richard Mulligan, Stuart Orkin, Martin Pera, Benjamin Reubinoff, Janet Rossant, Hans Scholer, Austin Smith, Evan Snyder, Davor Solter, Alan Trounson, and Leonard Zon.

This comprehensive set should be a much-needed addition to the library of students and researchers alike.

* Provides comprehensive coverage on this highly topical subject
* Contains contributions by the foremost authorities and premiere names in the field of stem cell research
* The accompanying CD-ROM includes over 250 color figures

Amazon quote the following reviews:

"The Handbook of Stem Cells, edited by Robert Lanza and colleagues, is an ambitious new text that achieves extraordinary completeness and inclusiveness...the editors have succeeded in putting together a reference that is broad enough in scope, but sufficiently detailed and rigorous, to be of real interest to both new and seasoned investigators in the field." Steve Goldman, University of Rochester Medical Center, in Nature Cell Biology (April 2005, Volume 7, No. 4)

"I am firmly convinced this is a set every biologist and physician, whatsoever his specialty, must have on his desk." Carlo Alberto Redi, Book review editor for the European Journal Of Histochemistry (49/1)

"...a collection of definitive articles by the world's experts... the research outlined in this volume is equally certain to contribute to cures for cancer and for a large number of other less famous diseases - many of mysterious origin - that presently represent terrible afflictions for humanity." Bruce Alberts, President of the National Academy of Sciences (from the Foreword to Volume 1)

"These books make an invaluable contribution to the education of researchers and clinicians both of the present day and of the future. They should be available in libraries of all biology and medical schools as well as those of companies and research institutions." Ian Wilmut in Times Higher Education Supplement

"...the Handbook of Stem Cells is highly recommended primarily as a reference for scientists in the field of animal development...Academic medical libraries and other academic or special libraries serving researchers in cell and developmental biology will particularly benefit from having this handbook available." Susan Kendall, Health Sciences Librarian, Michigan State University Library in E-Streams (February 2005)

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A recent post:

"Stem Cell Wars: Inside Stories from the Frontline (Review /Video)"

Books on Stem Cells from the Science and Evolution Bookshop: UK | US

Technorati: selection, books, stem cells, evolution, research, amazon, book, shop, store, stem, cell, biology, embryonic, organ, system, adult, fetal, desription, handbook, national, academy, sciences, developmental, wars, video, science, bookshop, nature

Current Books on Intelligent Design Part 4 (January 2007)

noreply@blogger.com (Jorolat) — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 04:14:49 PST

The fourth selection of books on Intelligent Design/ID available from the 'Evolution Research - Amazon Book Shop/Store'. More books are available either via the "Intelligent Design" sidebar links (if you are reading this on a webpage) or by RSS links (if you are using a reader) at the end of the post:

Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds
By Phillip E. Johnson

Book Description

For decades, Christians have felt voiceless in the critical debate over evolution. Until now. Finally, ordinary Christians have the opportunity and the resources to defeat the false claims of Darwinism.With all of the complicated scientific debate swirling around the topic of evolution, Christians need an easy way to understand the basic issues without oversimplifying. Phillip Johnson has the answer: the key to defeating the false claims of Darwinism is to open our minds to good thinking habits. Here is first-rate advice on avoiding common mistakes in discussions about evolution, understanding the legacy of the Scopes trial, spotting deceptive arguments, and grasping the basic scientific issues without getting bogged down in unnecessary details.In the bestselling and critically acclaimed Darwin on Trial and Reason in the Balance, Phillip Johnson took on the academic elites and exposed the misleading claims of evolutionary naturalism. Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds provides a new and powerful treatment of these issues for high-school students, parents, teachers, pastors, youth advisors and ordinary readers. Johnson aims not just to defeat a bad theory, but to defeat it in the right way-by opening minds to the truth. (Voted one of Christianity Today's 1998 Books of the Year)

Extract from "Berkeley's Radical: An Interview with Phillip E. Johnson" (Touchstone Journal):

Phillip Johnson: ...The problem with rationalism is that it isn’t rational. It fails to give sufficient importance to the development of the choice of the right premises; it tries to justify them by circular reasoning. Once I was alert to that distinction, I was able to critique the things that previously I felt I had to take for granted.
Such as?
Phillip Johnson: Eventually, the theory of evolution. Remember that my interest was in finding out whether the Christian gospel was rational. Of course, it wasn’t rational by the standards of the academic world. One of the good things about the Christian life was that it opened up a whole world of intellectual input that previously had been closed to me. I began to understand what was actually wrong with the academic culture, and to put a name on my uneasiness. It was the seed of what would later be a full-blown critique of Darwinism. It "evolved" in a directed and purposeful manner!

The Phillip Johnson website contains biographical, book and speaking schedule information along with links to a number of articles including "What is Darwinism?":

There is a popular television game show called "Jeopardy," in which the usual order of things is reversed. Instead of being asked a question to which they must supply the answer, the contestants are given the answer and asked to provide the appropriate question. This format suggests an insight that is applicable to law, to science, and indeed to just about everything. The important thing is not necessarily to know all the answers, but rather to know what question is being asked.

That insight is the starting point for my inquiry into Darwinian evolution and its relationship to creation, because Darwinism is the answer to two very different kinds of questions. First, Darwinian theory tells us how a certain amount of diversity in life forms can develop once we have various types of complex living organisms already in existence. If a small population of birds happens to migrate to an isolated island, for example, a combination of inbreeding, mutation, and natural selection may cause this isolated population to develop different characteristics from those possessed by the ancestral population on the mainland. When the theory is understood in this limited sense, Darwinian evolution is uncontroversial, and has no important philosophical or theological implications.

Evolutionary biologists are not content merely to explain how variation occurs within limits, however. They aspire to answer a much broader question-which is how complex organisms like birds, and flowers, and human beings came into existence in the first place. The Darwinian answer to this second question is that the creative force that produced complex plants and animals from single-celled predecessors over long stretches of geological time is essentially the same as the mechanism that produces variations in flowers, insects, and domestic animals before our very eyes. In the words of Ernst Mayr, the dean of living Darwinists, "transspecific evolution [i.e., macroevolution] is nothing but an extrapolation and magnification of the events that take place within populations and species." Neo-Darwinian evolution in this broad sense is a philosophical doctrine so lacking in empirical support that Mayr's successor at Harvard, Stephen Jay Gould, once pronounced it in a reckless moment to be "effectively dead."

See "'Darwin on Trial' by Phillip E. Johnson: 1st Edition Open Access Book"

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Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design
By Barbara Forrest, Paul R. Gross

Book Description

Forrest and Gross expose the scientific failure, the religious essence, and the political ambitions of "intelligent design" creationism. They examine the movement's "Wedge Strategy," which has advanced and is succeeding through public relations rather than through scientific research. Analyzing the content and character of "intelligent design theory," they highlight its threat to public education and to the separation of church and state.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. How the Wedge Began
2. The Wedge Document: A Design for Design
3. Search for the Science
4. Paleontology Lite and Copernical Discoverie
5. A Conspiracy Hunter and a Newton
6. Everything Except Science I
7. Everything Except Science II
8. Wedging into Power Politics
9. Religion First - and Last

Amazon review info:

"This is the definitive work on modern creationism, an exhaustively detailed and compelling exposure of the attempt - by the well-known process in nature called by biologists "aggressive mimicry" - to corrupt science in the service of sectarian religion. In the process, the book explores the larger and seemingly endless struggle between religion-based tribal values and science-based universal values." - Edward O. Wilson, University Research Professor, Emeritus, Harvard University.

"Creationism's Trojan Horse documents the disturbing movement to sneak religious dogma back into science education, driven by the vague fear that Americans can't handle the truth. Educators, scientists, and politicians would do well to understand this movement and its tactics, and this book is a superb and timely analysis." - Steven Pinker, Johnston Professor, Harvard University, and author of How the Mind Works and The Blank Slate

"Intelligent Design 'theory' (ID) has been well described as Creationism in a cheap Tuxedo. One if its luminaries, we are told, has 'angrily denied that ID is stealth creationism.' He is right. There's no stealth about it. It is Creationism. Unfortunately, ID 'theorists' have a streetwise political professionalism to outweigh the amateurishness of their science, and we therefore cannot ignore them. Barbara Forrest and Paul Gross meticulously document their pretensions, destroy their arguments, and expose their true motivation. An excellent and sadly necessary book." - Richard Dawkins.

Excerpt from the Introduction:

Until a few years ago, "scientific" creationism was led by biblical literalists like Duane Gish and Henry Morris, whose Bible-thumping and logic-chopping were easy to discount, even for ordinary (nonscience) journalists, by exposing the obvious errors of fact and logic - independently of the gross errors of actual science. But those old-timers have now been eclipsed by a new brand of creationists who have absorbed a part of their following: the new boys are intelligent design promoters, mainly those associated with the Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture (now Center for Science and Culture), based in Seattle, Washington. This group operates under a detailed and ambitious plan of action: "The Wedge." Through relentlessly energetic programs of publication, conferences, and public appearances, all aimed at impressing lay audiences and political people, the Wedge is working its way into the American cultural mainstream.

Also see:

"Current Books on Intelligent Design Part 1 (January 2007)"

"Current Books on Intelligent Design Part 2 (January 2007)"

"Current Books on Intelligent Design Part 3 (January 2007)"

Technorati: intelligent design, evolution, research, amazon, book, books, shop, store, darwinism, phillip johnson, scopes, trial, darwin, christianity, interview, review, creationism, wedge, theory, scientific, science, steven pinker, richard dawkins, religion, discovery, institute, culture, center, bible, harvard, university, amazon, darwinian

Guns, Germs and Steel: A short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years

noreply@blogger.com (Jorolat) — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 14:43:00 PST

Guns, Germs and Steel: A short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years
By Jared M. Diamond - Winner of the Pulitzer Prize

Amazon Astore UK | US

Book Review

Life isn't fair - here's why: Since 1500, Europeans have, for better and worse, called the tune that the world has danced to. In Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond explains the reasons why things worked out that way. It is an elemental question, and Diamond is certainly not the first to ask it. However, he performs a singular service by relying on scientific fact rather than specious theories of European genetic superiority. Diamond, a professor of physiology at UCLA, suggests that the geography of Eurasia was best suited to farming, the domestication of animals and the free flow of information. The more populous cultures that developed as a result had more complex forms of government and communication--and increased resistance to disease. Finally, fragmented Europe harnessed the power of competitive innovation in ways that China did not. (For example, the Europeans used the Chinese invention of gunpowder to create guns and subjugate the New World.) Diamond's book is complex and a bit overwhelming. But the thesis he methodically puts forth - examining the "positive feedback loop" of farming, then domestication, then population density, then innovation, and on and on - makes sense. Written without bias, Guns, Germs, and Steel is good global history.

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Extract of an interview with Jared Diamond from the PBS Guns, Germs and Steel website:

Question: When you set out to write Guns, Germs and Steel what was it you actually wanted to prove?

Jared Diamond: When I set out to write Guns, Germs and Steel I wasn't trying to prove anything, but I was trying to answer a question; the biggest question of history - why history unfolded differently on the different continents over the last 13 thousand years and the usual answer to this question is the answer that racists come up with; they say its because some people are superior to other people. What we found is that the answer doesn't have anything to do with people and it has everything to do with people's environments.

Q: In what sense?

JD: The answer has to do with peoples' environments especially in the first place because of the differences in the availability of wild plants and animals suitable for domestication, lots of them in a few areas like the fertile crescent in China and virtually none of them in other areas like the western United States or sub equatorial Africa. Another difference had to do with the shapes and orientations of the continents - those are perhaps the two biggest factors contributing to the explanation.

Q: So we're in Africa at moment and it's basically known as the world's basket case, it has the world's worst poverty rate and all the rest of it... Is there anything in the book that can actually help Africa?

JD: Is there anything in my book that can help Africa? I think so yes; I'd say the message of my book is that understanding can help us. There are things in this story that can make a difference to the lives of Africans. We've seen that the economic relative underdevelopment of Africa has nothing to do with African people but it has to do with some very specific factors; tropical agriculture; the history of tropical crops; the tropical disease burden and the history of colonialism - and once you understand these things you can do something about them. For example, one of the messages is, a high priority is to invest in public health; there are other tropical parts of the world like Africa that recognise the public health burden and they invested massively in public health and they are the countries that have grown the most rapidly economically in the last forty years. That's a hopeful message.

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Extracts/Excerpt from Chapter 11 of Guns, Germs and Steel:

The major killers of humanity throughout our recent history - smallpox, flu, tuberculosis, malaria, plague, measles, and cholera - are infectious diseases that evolved from diseases of animals, even though most of the microbes responsible for our own epidemic illnesses are paradoxically now almost confined to humans.

Questions of the animal origins of human disease lie behind the broadest pattern of human history, and behind some of the most important issues in human health today. (Think of AIDS, an explosively spreading human disease that appears to have evolved from a virus resident in wild African monkeys.)

Microbes have evolved diverse ways of spreading from one person to another, and from animals to people ... Some microbes ... hitchhike [a ride] in the saliva of an insect that bites the host and flies off to find a new host. The free ride may be provided by mosquitoes, fleas, lice, or tsetse flies [or ticks] that spread malaria, plague, typhus, or sleeping sickness [or Lyme disease], respectively.

To sustain themselves [acute infectious diseases] need a human population that is sufficiently numerous, and sufficiently densely packed, that a numerous new crop of susceptible children is available for infection by the time the disease would otherwise be waning. Hence measles and similar diseases are also known as crowd diseases.

Crowd diseases could not sustain themselves in small bands of hunter-gatherers and slash-and-burn farmers ... [but] could have arisen only with the build-up of large, dense human populations. That build-up began with the rise of agriculture starting about 10,000 years ago and then accelerated with the rise of cities starting several thousand years ago. Among animals, too, epidemic diseases require large, dense populations and don’t afflict just any animal: they’re confined mainly to social animals providing the necessary large populations. Hence when we domesticated social animals, such as cows and pigs, they were already afflicted by epidemic diseases just waiting to be transferred to us. ... The close similarity of the measles virus to the rinderpest virus suggests that the latter transferred from cattle to humans and then evolved into the measles virus by changing its properties to adapt to us. ... Our intimacy with cattle has been going on for the 9,000 years since we domesticated them - ample time for the rinderpest virus to discover us nearby.

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Jared Diamond on The Paula Gordon Show (Audio Excerpt):

"Dr. Diamond believes that the biggest question facing us in the world today is the explosion of human population. He tells us why we have 40 years to solve the problems associated with this explosion. He describes the alternative to getting the population explosion and destructive technology under control - our own children and grandchildren inhabiting a world not worth living in. He takes hope in humans' ability to learn from mistakes, to communicate what we know, and to act. He gives examples. He describes powerful, practical implications of China's early unification versus Europe's inability to consolidate, suggesting that all levels of human endeavor profit when more than one solution is available in the face of complicated challenges."

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More book reviews by The New York Times (may require free registration), J. Bradford DeLong (Professor of Economics at the University of California at Berkeley), and Michael Levin (Department of Philosophy of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York).

See "The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal (P.S. (Paperback))" in the post "Evolution Books for Christmas (UK) [1]"

Technorati: guns, germs, steel, history, jared, m, diamond, winner, pulitzer, prize, ucla, physiology, geography, farming, domestication, animals, resistance, disease, government, communication, china, gunpowder, united states, africa, tropical, colonialism, humanity, smallpox, flu, aids, microbes, epidemic, human, population, explosion, evolution, new york times, philosophy

Current Books on 'Popular Psychology' Part 1 (January 2007)

noreply@blogger.com (Jorolat) — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 07:25:52 PST

A first selection of two 'popular' books on Psychology from the 'Evolution Research - Amazon Book Shop/Store' (links at the end of the post):

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
By Malcolm Gladwell

Book Description

"The best way to understand the dramatic transformation of unknown books into bestsellers, or the rise of teenage smoking, or the phenomena of word of mouth or any number of the other mysterious changes that mark everyday life," writes Malcolm Gladwell, "is to think of them as epidemics. Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do." Although anyone familiar with the theory of memetics will recognize this concept, Gladwell's The Tipping Point has quite a few interesting twists on the subject.

For example, Paul Revere was able to galvanize the forces of resistance so effectively in part because he was what Gladwell calls a "Connector": he knew just about everybody, particularly the revolutionary leaders in each of the towns that he rode through. But Revere "wasn't just the man with the biggest Rolodex in colonial Boston," he was also a "Maven" who gathered extensive information about the British. He knew what was going on and he knew exactly whom to tell. The phenomenon continues to this day - think of how often you've received information in an e-mail message that had been forwarded at least half a dozen times before reaching you.

Gladwell develops these and other concepts (such as the "stickiness" of ideas or the effect of population size on information dispersal) through simple, clear explanations and entertainingly illustrative anecdotes, such as comparing the pedagogical methods of Sesame Street and Blue's Clues, or explaining why it would be even easier to play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon with the actor Rod Steiger. Although some readers may find the transitional passages between chapters hold their hands a little too tightly, and Gladwell's closing invocation of the possibilities of social engineering sketchy, even chilling, The Tipping Point is one of the most effective books on science for a general audience in ages. It seems inevitable that "tipping point," like "future shock" or "chaos theory," will soon become one of those ideas that everybody knows - or at least knows by name.

Read The New York Times Book Review and Chapter 1 of The Tipping Point

See "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (Review/ Excerpt/ Audio)"

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Emotions Revealed: Understanding Faces and Feelings
By Paul Ekman* (bio)

Book Description

Psychologist and author of Emotions Revealed, Paul Ekman has been studying emotion for over 40 years specialising in the expression, and more recently on the physiology, of emotion. It shows. Emotions Revealed focuses on the universal emotions - the ones experienced by all human beings and for which there are clear universal expressions (sadness, anger, surprise, fear, disgust, contempt and enjoyment). The goal of the book is to help the reader better understand and improve their emotional lives in practical ways.

The fascinating opening chapter describes the history and development of Ekman's research and things just get more and more interesting as we get closer to the emotions themselves. He leads us to the big questions: Why do we become emotional when we do? What triggers each of our emotions and how and when we can change what we become emotional? Will emotion always, somehow (in a "micro-expression" perhaps) reveal itself? Ekman also explains how we can become more attentive to our emotions as we have them and so increase the possibility of behaving in emotionally more constructive ways.

Having prepared the territory Ekman then moves to physiological ground explaining that each emotion has unique signals, most readily identified in the face and voice, that generate a unique pattern of sensations in our body. By becoming better acquainted with those sensations we may become aware early enough in our emotional response that we have some chance to choose, if we like, whether to go along or interfere with the emotion. We are also made aware of the connection this process has to the Buddhist practice and ideal of "mindfulness" through Ekman's discussions with the Dalai Lama. The appendix contains a set of photographs designed to test our skill at spotting the subtlest signs of the various emotions which the reader is advised to take before beginning the book.

Synopsis

Using 40 years of groundbreaking research, Paul Ekman explores why and when we become emotional and what happens when we do - the external signs and facial expressions. So much of what we communicate is non-verbal. In this very practical book, Paul Ekman helps the reader to observe the underlying, concealed emotions that we can observe in those around us, and understand why our bodies react in the ways they do. Emotions Revealed also helps the reader to identify why they might feel 'overly' emotional in some situations, and why some people wear their heart on their sleeve whilst others manage to conceal their feelings, even from those close to them. Chapters include 'when do we get emotional?' 'Changing what we become emotional about' as well as 'Anger' 'Fear', 'Surpise' and 'Happiness'. Most importantly, it shows how we can apply this understanding to everyday situations to improve our quality of life.

*Paul Ekman is author of "Facial Expression and Emotion" published by American Psychologist in 1993:

"Cross-cultural research on facial expression and the developments of methods to measure facial expression are briefly summarized. What has been learned about emotion from this work on the face is then elucidated. Four questions about facial expression and emotion are discussed. What information does an expression typically convey? Can there be emotion without facial expression? Can there be a facial expression of emotion without emotion? How do individuals differ in their facial expressions of emotion?"

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See Face to Face: The Science of Reading Faces (text or video):

"Welcome to a Conversation with History. I'm Harry Kreisler of the Institute of International Studies. Our guest today is Paul Ekman, who is a professor of psychology at the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California Medical School in San Francisco. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award of the American Psychological Association. He's the author of fourteen books; most recently, Emotions Revealed."

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Stem Cell Wars: Inside Stories from the Frontline (Review /Video)

noreply@blogger.com (Jorolat) — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 02:31:34 PST

Stem Cell Wars: Inside Stories from the Frontline
By Eve Herold*

According to stem cell research expert Eve Herold, the general public have become the victims of misinformation about this essential science. Over the last few years, the stem cell debate has been intensely political, religious, global, and confusing to many people. Now, Herold explains to a general audience what this science is all about, who is for and against it, and why it must go forward. In this startling book, Herold pulls together fascinating stories to highlight every aspect of this multifaceted field. She exposes the politics of stem cell research and demonstrates how these forces will intimately affect everyone. Packed with real-life stories of the people caught up in this groundbreaking struggle, Stem Cell Wars is a call to arms that will provoke debate and discussion for years to come.

Watch Eve Herold on Comedy Central's "The Today Show with John Stewart": Part 1 | Part 2

Amazon Review info:

"Comprehensive and concise, Stem Cell Wars provides an indispensable primer for anyone interested in what promises to be the most significant medical science breakthrough in our lifetime. It should also serve as a timely antidote to the politically inspired misinformation surrounding this important issue." Ron Reagan

"Eve Herold is a latter-day Edward R. Murrow. She's everywhere at once: behind closed doors on Capitol Hill, beside the scientists and the suffering patients they hope to save, even to South Korea where a fraud of historic proportions threatened to end the great promise of regenerative medicine. Her sympathies are unwaveringly with the patients - whose stories are the warm heart of this timely and disturbing book." Daniel Perry, Past President, Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, and Executive Director, Alliance for Aging Research

"Herold is an eyewitness to history. She chronicles the battle of patients and researchers to advance the greatest medical breakthrough of our lifetimes in this highly readable account of the rancorous public policy debate that has become the #1 wedge issue in American politics. As part of the chronicle of the world stem cell debate, Herold presents the inside story of Woo Suk Hwang and the Korean cloning scandal, and supplies the shocking details about the misconduct that rocked all of medical science." Bernard Siegel, Executive Director, Genetics Policy Institute

"Herold's reporter-like style is effective as she shifts through various layers of the science and the social and religious controversies and provides an easily followed time frame of the major discoveries and events over the past decade in stem cell research, including the most recent revelation of scientific fraud in producing patient-specific embryonic stem cells. The issues with stem cell research are complex and Eve Herold is successful in presenting them in an easily understood fashion." John Gearhart, Johns Hopkins Medicine (see Institute for NanoBioTechnology)

"An outstanding science writer, Herold makes the issues clear in a fascinatingly readable style. Engaging and clearly written, a must-have book..." Don C. Reed, Chairman, Californians for Cures

Stem Cell Wars is available from Amazon Astore UK | US)

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See "Religious Right Falsehoods Slammed in Eve Herold's 'Stem Cell Wars: Inside Stories from the Frontlines'":

Stem Cell Wars reveals a number of untold stories about the stem cell policy wars, including:

The inside story of the Bush Administration and the religious right's attempt to ban stem cell research (nuclear transfer) worldwide by global treaty in the United Nations and how they almost pulled it off, but for the surprising fight waged by determined grassroots stem cell activists.

A minority of religious organizations have created the illusion that being anti-research is the only view of the religious community. Nothing could be further from the truth.

How social-conservative organizations are turning the U.S. into a second-tier nation in scientific research.

What the anti-stem cell research activists don't want you to know: that embryonic stem cell research could go forward full steam ahead without there ever being another abortion.

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Read a review of Stem Cell Wars:

"Over the eight year history of human embryonic stem cell research, many have come to realize the potential, many understand the impact, but nobody has offered a broadly based, comprehensive assembly of information, critical to patients and their families. That is until now."

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*Eve Herold is Director of Public Policy Research and Education at the Genetics Policy Institute:

"Leading the global cause of stem cell research"

The Genetics Policy Institute (GPI) is the leading nonprofit organization dedicated to establishing a positive legal framework to advance stem cell research. GPI maintains science and legal advisory boards comprised of leading stem cell researchers, disease experts, ethicists and legal experts and a dedicated full-time staff of policy experts that are available to educate the public and media on stem cell issues.

Hundreds of millions of people worldwide suffer from diseases, injuries and birth defects that could potentially be cured through stem cell treatments. These conditions include cancer, heart disease, ALS, spinal cord injury, osteoarthritis, diabetes, blindness, AIDS, brain injury, severe burns, autoimmune disease, kidney, liver and lung disease, and many others. In fact, any disease that involves the degeneration or death of some type of specialized cell could possibly benefit from stem cell transplants.

Funding restrictions in the United States and proposals to ban and criminalize aspects of the research have created major roadblocks to the advancement of potentially lifesaving treatments. GPI leads the charge to defend the rights of patients and for the preservation of scientific freedom against well-funded opposition groups.

GPI is the catalyst of the "Pro-Cures Movement," a global coalition of pro-research stakeholders. Through GPI's meetings, publications, press relations, web site, speaker's bureau and teaching initiatives, GPI educates the public, media and key decision-makers on critical issues. We analyze the law and regulations relating to all aspects of regenerative medicine with an eye to removing bottlenecks, while maintaining rigorous ethical oversight.

The Genetics Policy Institute was the principal global organizer of a coalition that successfully defended vital stem cell research against an anti-research United Nations treaty, which sought to impose a worldwide ban on somatic cell nuclear transfer. GPI convened the world's preeminent scientists for a conference at the UN to educate the delegations about stem cell issues. We organized landmark summits of scientists, bioethicists and advocacy groups at Baylor College of Medicine and Stanford University where we formulated strategies to promote the cause.

GPI's special educational project is the Student Society for Stem Cell Research (SSSCR), which started with a single university student in 2003 and has grown into a network of more than 1,500 students in 15 countries, 35 states and 20 chapters at colleges and universities. Each chapter of SSSCR creates educational programming on the promise of stem cell research.

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Current Books on Global Warming Part 2 (January 2007)

noreply@blogger.com (Jorolat) — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 13:40:51 PST

A second selection of three books on Global Warming available from the 'Evolution Research - Amazon Book Shop/Store' (links at the end of the post):

Global Warming: The Complete Briefing
By John T. Houghton

Synopsis
Global warming and the resulting climate change is one of the most serious environmental problems facing the world community. Global Warming: The Complete Briefing is the most comprehensive guide available to the subject. A world-renowned expert, Sir John Houghton explores the scientific basis of global warming and the likely impacts of climate change on human society, before addressing the action that could be taken by governments, by industry and by individuals to mitigate the effects. The first two editions received excellent reviews, and this completely updated new edition will prove to be the best briefing the student or interested general reader could wish for.

Read a lecture on Global Warming delivered by John T. Houghton in the Winstanley Lecture Theatre, Trinity College, Cambridge on Friday, 25th May 2001:

"... First of all let me explain what global warming is about. Around 1900, the French artist Claude Monet visited London and enjoyed the city enormously. He loved the light coming through the smog and if any of you went to the Monet exhibition last year you would have seen paintings with varieties of smog and lots of variations of light. He must, I think, have worn a handkerchief over his nose or had extremely good lungs because London was not a very pleasant place to be in at that time. It is still a polluted city, much more so than it need be, but a great deal better than in 1900.

The problem in London is local pollution largely arising from vehicles that affect the air around them. But we now know there are forms of pollution - global pollution - which individuals in one place may emit and which then affect the whole world. One example of this is ozone depletion by chlorine-containing chemicals. Very small quantities of these emitted into the atmosphere, for instance from leaking refrigerators or from aerosol cans, can reach the stratosphere. This may be only perhaps in parts per trillion, but free chlorine is released that catalytically destroys ozone, rapidly affecting the whole atmosphere.

Global warming is a second and a more important example of this global pollution..."

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Climate Change Begins at Home: Life on the Two-Way Street of Global Warming
By Dave Reay

Description
Climate change is one of the greatest threats that humankind faces in the 21st century. The next hundred years could see coastlines and islands submerged, and a surge in heatwaves, hurricanes, droughts, floods and therefore in pests, disease, famine and displacement. This book argues that while government and industry dither, we could all cut our personal greenhouse gas emissions by 60% - the level necessary to halt the current trend according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. After summarizing today's state of affairs, scientifically and politically, climatologist Dave Reay explores the climate impact of housing, gardening, food, money, work, transport, death even. Packed with provocative case studies, calculations, and lifestyle comparisons, this entertaining and authoritative book makes the complexities of climatology understandable and challenges readers to rethink their notions of 'doing their bit'.

Watch a video of Dave Reay's lecture "Climate Change Begins at Home" (University of Cambridge Science Festival 2006)

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Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media
By Patrick J. Michaels

Synopsis
Why is news about global warming always bad? Why do scientists so often offer dire predictions about the future of the environment? In Meltdown, climatologist Patrick Michaels says it's only natural. He argues that the way we do science today - when issues compete with each other for monopoly funding by the government - creates a culture of exaggeration and a political comunity that then takes credit for having saved us from certain doom. Michaels starts with a succinct discussion of climate-change science and then unrolls a litany of falsehood, exaggeration, and misstatement. He cited hundreds of errors and exaggerations in scientific papers, new reports, and television sound bites.

From the Back Cover (US)

"Patrick Michaels fully exploits his incomparable wit and credentialed expertise to dismantle the claim that catastrophic climate change is upon us. Using dozens of examples, this working-stiff climatologist exposes the exaggerations and outright falsehoods promoted by a media industry hungry for 'if it bleeds, it leads' stories." - John R. Christy, Director, Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama at Huntsville

"Pat Michaels has written another fascinating and useful book... I urge everyone, regardless of the extent of his science background, to read Meltdown. But be prepared to change your way of thinking. Just let go of your preconceived ideas, strap yourself in, and enjoy the ride!" - George H. Taylor, Past President, American Association of State Climatologists

"This powerful, lucid, fluent book is a triumph of science over superstition. Pat Michaels, a gifted climatologist, tells the straight truth about the hysteria and ignorance surrounding climate change and how the scientific establishment has been led astray." - James K. Glassman, Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute

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Books by John Maynard Smith Part 1 (January 2007)

noreply@blogger.com (Jorolat) — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 11:54:33 PST

Two books by John Maynard Smith from the Evolution Research - Amazon Book Shop/Store (links at the end of the post):

The Origins of Life: From the Birth of Life to the Origin of Language
By John Maynard Smith, Eors Szathmary

Description

Life is a long weird trip, and in The Origins of Life John Maynard Smith and Eors Szathmary blast you through its three-and-a-half-billion-year history at breathtaking pace.

Life, we learn, is information, transmitted in ever-more intricate ways across the generations. Self-replicating chemicals walled themselves into cells, organised themselves into regimented communities of chromosomes, swapped notes with other populations to become sexual, cloned themselves to form multi-cellular colonies called organisms, got together with other colonies to form societies, and eventually, in the case of one particular ape, developed the ability to put this whole story down on paper.

For those evolutionists brought up on the theory of "red queens" and "selfish genes", Origins provides a complementary crammer course in the practical nuts-and-bolts biology behind the headlines. The authors describe the technical problems involved in the transition from one stage to another; and explain the ingenious and often fortuitous steps that natural selection took to overcome them. For example, the rigid walls of the first cells gave way to more flexible membranes that could engulf food particles and incorporate "little organs" such as mitochondria. A "cytoskeleton" of filaments and tubules was needed to maintain the cell's integrity, and, hey presto, this structure was the perfect motorway for intracellular traffic, ideal for shearing the cell apart during cloning and provided the earliest means of locomotion, such as the tail of sperm.

With this attention to detail, the book requires careful reading. But it's worth it. Maynard Smith and Szathmary's book makes you realise just how lucky you are to be alive.

Synopsis

In this fascinating book, John Maynard Smith and Eors Szathmary present an original picture of evolution. They propose that during evolution there have been a number of major transitions in the way in which information is passed between generations. These transitions include the appearance of the first replicating molecules, the emergence of co-operative animal societies, and the unique language ability of humans. Containing many new ideas, this book is contemporary biology on the grandest scale, from the birth of life to the origin of language.

See "In conversation with John Maynard Smith FRS" (this interview was conducted in John Maynard Smith's office at Sussex University, February 2, 1999):

the evolutionist: Your new book, The Origins of Life: From the birth of life to the origin of language, is a condensed version of your earlier book, The Major Transitions in Evolution. What are you attempting to do with this new version?

John Maynard Smith: We are attempting to make the ideas in Transitions available to a general readership. Transitions would be hard work for someone without a degree in biology. You still have to do a little work for this new book, but you don't need to know any biology to begin with.

the evolutionist: Origins discusses seven 'transitions' in the development of life. What is a transition?

JMS: The basic idea was that, in a curious way, a lot of modern biology, most of the biology this century in my view, has really been about information. Genetics is about how information is stored and transmitted between generations. Developmental biology and molecular biology look at how that information is used to build an organism. And evolutionary theory is about how that information got there in the first place. Biologists have done their science surrounded by tape recorders and gramophones and television sets and telegrams and so on, and notions of information have been dominant in the way we've thought about biology. What my friend Eors Szathmary and I decided, almost ten years ago now, was that there had been a number of really rather dramatic changes in the way in which information was either stored or transmitted or translated, and each of these transitions made possible further future evolution of complexity. We also thought that there were real analogies between the different transitions and between what happened in the transitions. We wanted to present them all in one book so people could see the parallels between, say, language and the origins of the genetic code.

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Evolutionary Genetics
By John Maynard Smith

This second edition of Maynard Smith's now classic text on evolution and population genetics (first published 1989) has been updated throughout. It incorporates new research on game theory; the discussion of sex and host-parasite interactions have been extensively revised; and the author has added a new chapter on molecular genetics and the reconstruction of evolutionary history. It remains an essential textbook for advanced undergraduates wishing to understand population and quantitative genetics within the context of evolutionary biology.

Synopsis

The first edition of Maynard Smith's "Evolutionary Genetics" (first published in 1989) was welcomed as the first comprehensive introduction to the molecular and population aspects of evolutionary genetics, and has now become one of the definitive textbooks in the field. Aimed at advanced undergraduates in the biological sciences, the book covers basic population and quantitative genetics, evolutionary game theory, behavioural evolution, sexual selection and mating systems, speciation, and macroevolution. Theory and mathematics are clearly explained, with the aid of problems at the ends of the chapters, and the author takes care to place these within the context of questions central to current research in evolutionary biology. This second edition has been revised and updated throughout to reflect new findings and research interests. In the chapter on phenotypic evolution, the author incorporates new research on game theory. The discussions of sex and host-parasite interactions have been extensively revised and the author has added a new chapter on molecular genetics and the reconstruction of evolutionary history. "Evolutionary Genetics" remains the essential textbook for advanced undergraduates seeking a clear, comprehensive, and up-to-date account of the theory of evolutionary biology.

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Pascal's Fire: Scientific Faith and Religious Understanding

noreply@blogger.com (Jorolat) — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 08:41:49 PST

A book from the Evolution Research - Amazon Book Shop/Store (links at the end of the post) on "Science and Religion":

Pascal's Fire: Scientific Faith and Religious Understanding
By Keith Ward

Description:

In the midst of global resurgence of interest in religion, and especially religion's relation to modern scientific knowledge, "Pascal's Fire" offers an erudite and original perspective. Many scientists have written about religion; a few theologians have written about science. However, this is the first contemporary volume in which a theologian takes on science in its own territory. Contrary to Nietzsche's famous assertion ("God is dead"), best-selling author Keith Ward argues that God is far from dead. In fact, the rapidly expanding boundaries of scientific discovery, which many attribute to His murder, actually provide persuasive evidence for His existence. By examining how four ground-breaking changes in the history of scientific discourse (the Earth as the center of the universe, the Newtonian revolution, Darwin's Theory of Evolution and quantum physics) affect our conception of God, Ward argues that each individual challenge elicits a new updated concept of God rather than an obituary. Dealing with modern critics, such as Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion: Amazon Astore UK | US), Ward claims that the key is not to conceive of God as frequently interventionist, nor as exclusively concerned with the human experience. Rather, His role is as the creator of an exquisite and infinitely beautiful universe that depends upon a number of precise mathematical relationships for its existence. Combining cutting edge science with thought provoking discourses about morality, religion and the meaning of life, Keith Ward provides a fascinating take on the science versus religion debate, offering 'a third way' which is guaranteed to spark debate for years to come.

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Listen to, or watch a video of, Keith Ward giving a lecture on his book at Gresham College (Holborn, London UK) at its launch on the 27th June 2006:

Introduction by Lord Sutherland of Houndwood KT FBA, Provost of Gresham College:

Good evening, and welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Gresham College. This is a very important event. I know many of you have been here before, but for those that have not, a special welcome. I hope you get some sense of the range of things that we do here and the things that our lecturers and professors do for us with such excellence - give lectures and lead seminars.

The event this evening is to mark the launch of a new book, Pascal's Fire: Scientific faith and religious understanding (Amazon Astore UK | US). I have no doubt that we will get both of these from this book. The reason for having the launch here at Gresham College of course is that the book is built upon lectures given in this College by our current Professor of Divinity, Professor Keith Ward. Keith has been a professor in several different contexts and several different ways: at Kings College London, twice; of course the Regius Chair in Oxford, a great distinction; and at Gresham College, where he is still Professor of Divinity and his lectures will be running again next year.

The book is, as always with Keith, a marvellous piece of writing and, more importantly, a marvellous piece of thinking. The clarity of his mind is awe inspiring; his arguments, the way in which he gives reasons for things, are tremendously well done and convincing. I occasionally disagree with some of the conclusions, but that's an argument that Keith and I have been having over the last 30 years! The way in which he writes, however, is a message to those who wish to talk about the relationship between religion and science, because it can be done badly, both by scientists and by theologians and religious believers; they can get the thing out of context and out of kilter. Keith does not do that. This is, if you haven't already discovered, one of many books he has written, but this one particularly timely and apt, on the relationship between religion and science.

Keith is one of the few philosophers and theologians who will take on the scientists from the standpoint of religion. Not just take them on by running up a flag and uttering a few platitudes, but by discussing, by arguing, by enquiring, and by listening, and coming up always with cogent, clear suggestions, proposals and conclusions. In this I think, by and large, the religious community have failed those of us who want a good argument in this area. There have not been many who have been willing to take the scientists on on their own ground, but - and this is the proof, as well as reference to previous writings - here is a marvellous example of the way in which someone who is deeply engaged in the Christian faith can discuss with scientists about science, and about the conclusions of contemporary science.

There has not been a period, at least not for three or four hundred years, since the founding of Gresham College interestingly, in which the need to interrogate science has been so great, the reason being it has huge impact on our daily lives and on all sorts of issues, and where decisions are required that deeply affect how human beings live.

I am delighted to ask you to welcome Keith Ward, who will talk about his new book...

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An excerpt from Keith Ward's "Scientific Understanding and the Point of the Universe" from the Center for Theological Inquiry:

Most religious believers think that there is a God, a supreme being who created the universe, and whose existence does not depend upon that of the universe. Furthermore, in being a creator, God is thought of as free, conscious and active, as intentionally bringing about the universe for some consciously entertained reason. This means that such believers are committed against hard-line materialism. They are committed to the coherence of the idea of a non-embodied consciousness, which can formulate a purpose and implement it by creating a material universe.

Theists do not think that the universe somehow has a purpose inherent in itself. They think that there is a creator God, who exists independently of the universe, and who can create it for a purpose. God, for most believers, has knowledge of everything that is possible and actual. God is able to bring about, to make actual, sets of possible states. So God has knowledge and will. The primary object of God's knowledge and will is said by most classical theologians to be the divine being itself - as Aristotle put it, God's being consists in a "thinking upon thinking". God is aware of and wills or affirms the divine being as it exists in its own proper perfection. So knowledge and will do not, as such, depend upon some material substratum for their existence. Indeed, they are ontologically prior to all material existences. The primary form of being is something like what we know as non-material conscious agency. That is a basic postulate of theism, and it seems a perfectly intelligible one.

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Recent posts on "Science and Religion" include:

"Edward O. Wilson and Robert Wright on Video (66 mins)"

"God, Under a Microscope: Review of 'The language of God' (+ Audio)"

"Finding Darwin's God (Review/ Excerpt/ Audio/ Video)"

"PBS's 'Evolution'"

Technorati: book, evolution, research, amazon, book, shop, store, pascal, fire, scientific, faith, religious, understanding, keith, ward, knowledge, nietzche, god, dead, discovery, books, existence, history, earth, universe, darwin, theory, delusion, richard dawkins, creator, science, christian, theism, religion, review, audio, video, pbs

Current Books on Social Intelligence Part 1 (January 2007)

noreply@blogger.com (Jorolat) — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 13:25:53 PST

Two books on "Social Intelligence" from the 'Evolution Research - Amazon Book Shop/Store' (links at the end of this post):

1) The Inner Eye: Social Intelligence in Evolution
By Nicholas Humphrey

Book Description

Human consciousness is often regarded as the last great mystery - a riddle for those committed to a scientific understanding of the world and and our place in it. What is it for and how did it evolve? The Inner Eye provides answers. The focus of the book is the idea that 'the inner eye', or consciousness of the self, is the key to understanding the evolution of intelligence and its relation to social life. It is both a captivating account of a scientist's search for meaning in human affairs and work of considerable importance to philosophy and psychology.

Synopsis

Where does consciousness come from? What is it? Where is it taking us? In 1971 Nicholas Humphrey spent three months at Dian Fossey's gorilla research centre in Rwanda. It was there, among the mountain gorillas that he began to focus on the philosphical and scientific puzzle that has fascinated him ever since: the problem of how a human being or animal can know what it is like to be itself. The Inner Eye describes where these original speculations led: to Humphrey's now celebrated theories of the 'social function of intellect' and of human beings as natural born 'mind-readers'. Easy to read, adorned with Mel Calman's brilliant illustrations, passionately argued, yet never less than scientifically profound, this book remains the best introduction to new thinking about 'theory of mind' and its implication for human social life.

From Nicholas Humphreys' bio:

In 1972 I spent three months with Dian Fossey in Rwanda, observing mountain gorillas in the wild, and later visited Richard Leakey at his palaeo-anthropological study site on Lake Turkana. As a result, partly, of these visits to the field, I became more and more interested in questions concerning the evolution of human cognitive capacities.

In 1975 I wrote a review essay on the "Social Function of Intellect", where I outlined a theory of how cognitive skills might have evolved in response to the exigencies of social life. My idea was that human beings have evolved to be "Natural Psychologists", who use introspectively derived models of their own minds as a basis for understanding other people. This paper had a considerable impact, becoming the subject of several conferences, and being reprinted many times (notably in Bernard Dixon's 1989 anthology "Classic Writings in Science"); and its success prompted me to move away from experimental work and to concentrate instead on more theoretical research.

See "A Talk with Nicholas Humphrey":

"Unlike Daniel C. Dennett, who sees the role of philosophers as disabusing people of their "primitive" ideas about the nature of consciousness, Humphrey believes that we should take these primitive intuitions at face value. If people say that the problem is what it "feels like" to be conscious, then the problem is indeed to explain "feeling." Humphrey and Dennett are a pair of bookends."

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2) Social Intelligence: The New Science of Success
By Karl Albrecht

Karl Albrecht defines social intelligence (SI) as the ability to get along well with others while winning their cooperation. SI is a combination of sensitivity to the needs and interests of others, sometimes called your "social radar," an attitude of generosity and consideration, and a set of practical skills for interacting successfully with people in any setting. Social Intelligence provides a highly accessible and comprehensive model for describing, assessing, and developing social intelligence at a personal level. This book is filled with intriguing concepts, enlightening examples, stories, cases, situational strategies, and a self-assessment tool - all designed to help you learn to navigate social situations more successfully.

See "Social Intelligence: The New Science of Success":

...We seem well overdue to make SI a developmental priority in our early education, public schooling, adult learning processes and in business. Children and teenagers need to learn to win the fellowship and respect they crave. College students need to learn to collaborate and influence others effectively. Managers need to understand and connect with the people they're appointed to lead. High-tech professionals like Jack need to understand the social context and achieve their objectives by working from empathy. All adults, in their careers and personal lives, need to be able to present themselves effectively and earn the respect of those they deal with. Social intelligence can reduce conflict, create collaboration, replace bigotry and polarization with understanding, and mobilize people toward common goals. Indeed, it may be - in the long run - the most important ingredient in our survival as a species."

Read an excerpt from "Social Intelligence: The New Science of Success":

"This is not a "cookbook" or motivational self-help book for "getting along with people." It contains lots of stories, examples, suggestions, and self-assessment and development methods. But fundamentally its purpose is to stimulate deep reflection."

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Technorati: books, social, evolution, research, amazon, book, shop, store, inner eye, human, consciousness, mystery, evolve, review, self, intelligence, philosophy, psychology, gorillas, fossey, intellect, life, leakey, cognitive, function, dennett, humphrey, science, success, albrecht, si, learning, children, bigotry, daniel, goleman

Current Books on Intelligent Design Part 3 (January 2007)

noreply@blogger.com (Jorolat) — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 02:35:54 PST

A third selection of books on Intelligent Design available from the 'Evolution Research - Amazon Book Shop/Store'. More books can be seen either via the "Intelligent Design" sidebar links (if you are reading this on a webpage) or by RSS links (if you are using a reader):

Geology in the Bible: Earth's Evidence for Intelligent Design
By Billy R. Caldwell Ph.D

This book searches out all the Geology in the Bible and relates this information to current geological knowledge. This book is written with a creationist viewpoint by a Certified Professional Geologist who has studied the geological origin of the earth for over 50 years. His two-year extensive research for all the Geology in the Bible resulted in the writing of this book. Dr. Caldwell believes that the Bible is scientifically correct and is the inerrant Word of God. He also believes God is the creator of all things and the earth is thousands of years old instead of millions.

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The Darwin Awards 4: Intelligent Design (Darwin Awards)
By Wendy Northcutt, Christopher M. Kelly

The first new Darwin Awards book in three years, The Darwin Awards 4: Intelligent Design is the latest addition to one of the most popular and successful humor franchises on bookshelves today.

Named after Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, The Darwin Awards pays homage to those who improve our gene pool by removing themselves from it.

Most of us know instinctively that the phrase "trust me, light this fuse" is a recipe for disaster. Darwin Award winners do not. Most of us have basic sound judgment that eliminates the need for NO SMOKING signs at gas stations. Darwin Award winners do not. No warning label could have prevented evolution from creeping up on the homeowner who filled his house with natural gas to kill termites, the easy rider who decided to steer his motorcycle with his feet, or the winner who tried to weld a hand grenade onto a chain. Filled with more than one hundred new tales of evolution in action, and complete with essential science and safety discussions, The Darwin Awards 4: Intelligent Design shows that when it comes to common sense, natural selection still has a long way to go.

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Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person's Answer to Christian Fundamentalism
By David Mills

Clear, concise, and persuasive, Atheist Universe details exactly why God is unnecessary to explain the universe and life's diversity, organization, and beauty. The author thoroughly rebuts every argument that claims to "prove" God's existence - arguments based on logic, common sense, philosophy, ethics, history and science.

Atheist Universe avoids the esoteric language and logic used by philosophers and presents its scientific evidence in simple lay terms, making it a richly entertaining and easy-to-read introduction to atheism. A comprehensive primer, it addresses all the historical and scientific questions, including: Is there proof that God does not exist? What evidence is there of Jesus's resurrection? Can creation science reconcile scripture with the latest scientific discoveries?

Atheist Universe also answers ethical issues such as: What is the meaning of life without God? Do the splendor and intricacy of life on Earth reveal evidence of intelligent design by a supernatural Creator? What about Creation Science, and the popular new movement to reconcile Scripture and science?

It's a spellbinding inquiry that ultimately arrives at a controversial and well-documented conclusion.

Read an excerpt from "The Atheist Universe":

Chapter 1, "Interview with an Atheist," is a fun-filled give-and- take, in laymen's conversation, covering almost every aspect of atheism. This chapter actually represents the compilation of three separate interviews, with redundant material excised. Since these were broadcast interviews, the answers I provided were short and to the point. Not all facets of atheism, however, lend themselves to short answers. So the remainder of the book provides a meatier discussion than is presented in Chapter 1.

Chapter 2, "Origin of the Universe: Natural or Supernatural?" is certainly the most complex chapter in the book, due to the nature of the subject matter. If you can follow the material in this chapter - as I'm sure you can - the rest of the book should be easy, though it is not necessary to read Chapter 2 in order to enjoy and benefit from the chapters thereafter, which should be straightforward, pleasurable and self-explanatory when you arrive. Before we begin, I'd like to offer a few brief comments on writing in general. Mortimer Adler, the former editor-in-chief of Encyclopaedia Britannica, stated many years ago that "writing should be clear without being plain, and elevated without being obscure." In the mid-1970s, I published a pamphlet that drew a reader response. Familiar with Adler's prescription for good writing, the respondent wrote, "Contrary to Mortimer Adler's suggestions, Mr. Mills, your writing was plain without being clear, and obscure without being elevated." I'm embarrassed to admit that my critic was correct in her assessment of the ill-fated pamphlet. From that point on, I realized that clarity - above all else - is what counts in writing. You may disagree with my message; but you, as the reader, shouldn't have to struggle to discern what that message is.

Listen to an audio book of David Mills discussing a chapter from The Atheist Universe

"Atheist Universe is an admirable work" - Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, Page 44 (See "Review of 'The God Delusion' by Daniel Dennett ('Free Inquiry')"

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Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology
By William A. Dembski

"Einstein once remarked that the most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible." This statement, quoted by William Dembski, is a way of summarising intelligent design theory, which argues that it is possible to find evidence for design in the Universe. The author of The Design Inference (a scholarly exploration of this topic, published by Cambridge University Press), in this book aims to show the lay reader "how detecting design within the Universe, and especially against the backdrop of biology and biochemistry, unseats naturalism" - and, above all, Darwin's expulsion of design in his theory of evolution.

Intelligent Design is organised into three parts: the first part gives an introduction to design, and shows how modernity - science in the last two centuries - has undermined our intuition of this truth. The second and central part of the book examines "the philosophical and scientific basis for intelligent design." The final part shows how "science and theology relate coherently and how intelligent design establishes the crucial link between the two." This suggests that Dembski is not simply rejecting Darwin and Naturalism on fundamentalist or biblical grounds. While grounded in faith, he wishes to show how "God's design is accessible to scientific inquiry." As such, the book should be of interest to all questioning believers.

Book Review of Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology

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Signs of Intelligence: Understanding Intelligent Design
By William A. Dembski

Since the late nineteenth century Darwinism has reigned supreme. But in the last ten years, with the advent of books by experts like Phillip Johnson (see "'Darwin on Trial' by Phillip E. Johnson: 1st Edition Open Access Book"), Michael Behe (Darwin's Black Box), and William Dembski (The Design Inference), an opening has been wedged into the bedrock of evolutionary theory.

Signs of Intelligence: Understanding Intelligent Design presents fourteen essays by the main players (including Johnson, Behe, and Dembski) in the intelligent design movement. In clear and accessible language, with diagrams and relevant quotations, it provides an introductory overview of the argument for intelligent design. From fossil records to the irreducible complexity of biochemistry, the logical and evidential fallacies of evolutionary theory are exposed.

This brief and accessible book serves as an unsurpassed guide and introduction to the key arguments of a movement that may yet change the face and restore the soul of modern science.

Book Review of Signs of Intelligence: Understanding Intelligent Design

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Also see:

"Current Books on Intelligent Design Part 1 (January 2007)"

"Current Books on Intelligent Design Part 2 (January 2007)"

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Edward O. Wilson and Robert Wright on Video (66 mins)

noreply@blogger.com (Jorolat) — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 11:59:04 PST

Robert Wright (Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny* Amazon Astore UK | US) talks to Edward O. Wilson (The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth UK | US) in this video from meaningoflife.tv and discuss topics such as 'Being good without God', Consciousness, Death, Emergence, Free will, Intelligent Design, Passion, Science and Religion and The biology of religion:

Excerts from the transcript (not proof-read):

1) Wright: Speaking of God, you've just finished a book that I think has religion and science in the subtitle, an aliance of religion and science or something like that?

Edward O. Wilson: Well I'm just finishing it now and it's about to go off to the publisher and I'll talk a little bit about it because I think that it addresses an important issue. Actually the title of it is would be, as I have it now, "Ascending to Nature," subtitle: "An aliance of science and religion"... which may sound kind of strange coming from a scientist whose often pointed out to be an atheistic materialist secular humanist of the worst kind ... in that category I can always say I'm to the right of Richard Dawkins... anyway, how can I be talking about alliance of science and religion? Well, I do it in falling on the religious community and one long essay to join the scientist to save the creation. I point out at the beginning that here is an area where we can differ absolutely in how we think the world works and the meaning of humanity, the meaning of life...which is what the cultural war is all about. And we do differ drastically and, I think, insoluably... that is, it is not soluable... so you can take that for what it's worth and I'm not going to be one of these scientists who keep wafling and saying "oh well, science has it's role, religion has it's role... science has it's own kind or truth and religion has it's own kind of truth... somehow, as we work more and more they will somehow come together." I don't believe that for a minute. I don't think that Darwin would have believed it and...

Wright: You know, I think you used to make noises kind of like that, didn't you? Correct me if I'm wrong but this has two parts to it... first of all, I think you're among those who think that the evolution of human intelligence is not all inprobable... nuts and bolts natural selection encourages - through competetve dynamics - the growth of intelligence and so on... I thought I recall you saying in principle you can imagine a kind of deism or something... that natural selection was set in motion, is the unfolding of divine plan even though it's a surely materialistic system... did you not say that?

Edward O. Wilson: The first part of what you said was correct... Whenever I'm cornered ... ok I'll call myself a provisional deist. A provisional deist I'll strictly define as someone considers at least the possibility that the ultimate laws of the universe were set by some kind of intelligence whether it was Satanic, benevolently, Judeo-Christian or some unseen meta-intelligence... the point is that it's premature to say that becuase we can define the laws of the universe we also can define their origin. I won't go that far but I would leave open, I consider this a problem in astrophysics, but I would leave this open to the astrophysicists mainly... deism or not... but I absolutely believe that the evidence shows, I think now conclusively, that it's unrealistic, it's false reasoning to believe in a biological God... meaning a God that oversaw and directed the creation and evolution of life.

2) Wright: The theory of intelligent design... I don't really understand the sense in which it's a theory ... what is the intelligent design movement as far as you can tell?

Edward O. Wilson: That's a difficult arguement. All is says is that biologists haven't explained some of the most complex phenomenon in terms of evolution... they can't understand how evolution could create it and therefore there must be somebody who put it together. If it can't come autonomously from mutation and natural selection - which is the heart of Darwinian or modern biological thinking let's say - then there must be something else and that has to be an intelligent designer. That's it.

Wright: So it's not a testable alternative theory.

Edward O. Wilson: No, it's default argument. Default arguments are sometimes stimulating in real science for getting research started....that works as a strategy in creative science but it never becomes a theory to say that we don't understand that yet therefore God must be doing it or somebody outside and also I want to point out two things to the intelligent designers or those who have hopes of this approach. It's not science, there's not a shred of evidence for it, that's no way, no mechanism, no way it could happen that we could ever understand.. it depends almost entirely pointing to the areas that the proponents claimining to be insoluable but that is very dangerous. First of all, from their point of view, particularly from the fundamentalist point of view, and particularly the literalist point of view, one: it conceeds that evolution occurs. That's a big concession. Two: it depends, for it's authentication, on the continued existence of unsolved problems in evolution. But if you look at the history of evolutionary biology and molecular biology ... they're like shooting balloons at a state fair... if creationists state everything and make it pivotal on the default argument, then they're going to find themselves in a very poor position. Therefore, the whole religious approach... there's another issue here that needs to be dispelled.... a claim on the side of the defenders of religious orthodox in explaining or explaining away evolution and that is there is some kind of conspiracy about scientists... evolution is a religions of it's own, it's an ideology... there has to be some kind of conspiracy that calls virtually all statured biologists - people who've established themselves, who are important, influential, peer-reviewed ... some sort of conspiracy among these people... not a one of which incidentally accepts intelligent design, of my knowledge. There are no statured scientists who accepts this or takes it seriously but is there a conspiracy? Can there be a conspiracy in science, among scientists? No way and I'll tell you why ... which you personally I know you would understand it ... the entire culture of science is based on verifiable discovery. Making an original discovery is the gold and silver of science. You make an important discovery and then you are an important scientist. You can be any kind of a jerk otherwise and never make another discovery and you've made it as an important scientist. You're going into the textbooks and, if it's important enough, into the history books. You are richly rewarded with prizes with presige with all sorts of other Roman values that give you small triumph... it's what every young scientist wants. Any young scientist... any scientist any age who could be a first to demonstrate intelligent design or even show how to test it and prove it, would immediately become one of the greatest scientists in the world, you would make history. You'd get the Nobel. You'd get the Templeton prize, which is set up to encourage the getting together of religion and science and there's nothing that a young scientist would want to do more than to achieve something like that... science, it's value system is totally different from that of most processes or organizations or institutions, activities of Western civilzation...

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See the earlier post "Science And Salvation: E.O. Wilson's 'The Creation'" and read an excerpt from The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth:

"Some have suggested that scientists have formed a conspiracy to halt the search for Intelligent Design. There is no such conspiracy. There is only agreement among experts that the hypothesis has none of the defining qualities of science. To think otherwise is to misunderstand the culture of science. Discoveries and the testing of discoveries are the currency of science, its irreplaceable silver and gold. Challenges to prevailing theory on the basis of new evidence are the hallmark of science. If positive and repeatable evidence were adduced for a supernatural intelligent force that created and guided the evolution of life, it would deservedly rank as the greatest scientific discovery of all time. It would transform philosophy and change the course of history. Scientists dream of making a discovery of this magnitude!"

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*Book Description/Review of Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny (Hardcover):

One of the main layman's objections to the supposedly random process of evolution is that for all its inherent pointlessness, evolution seems to have a goal, a narrative, a conscious direction. And that direction is towards complexity. Germs become animals. Apes become humans. Blood-caked Aztec savages become liberal-minded East Coast essayists. Now Robert Wright, author of the much-praised The Moral Animal, has come along with a contentious new book to tell us that the layman has been on to something all along. Evolution does have a goal.

The title of Wright's book comes from games theory, which divides human interactions into "zero sum games", where for every winner there's a loser, and "non-zero sum games", where everyone gains. Wright's aim is to knit together this theory with anthropology, zoology, biology, and history, plus a dash of chaos theory, and thus attest that "non-zero sum altruism" is the natural inclination of humankind. To prove this he cites such disparate phenomena as the sago-swapping natives of the US Northwest, the global government-in-waiting that is the European Union, and the anarchically generous ethos that rules the Net-all of which apparently go to show that we are, deep down, caring, sharing nice guys. Wright's second aim is to show this niceness is no accident: evolution helps to make us that way.

The author's learning is lightly worn. Sometimes too lightly. After a while his chatty, hey-let's-have-a-beer style starts to grate: "When was the last time you invented a boomerang?"; "Ah, Tahiti!". There are also some minor errors, like his claiming that Britain fought the Hundred Years War (it was England), or his perception that milkmen are a thing of the past, that make you wonder whether he has finessed some of the more intractable scientific arguments. Certainly his book has already attracted some brickbats from the atheistic hardnuts of evolutionary psychology. But the case that he advocates remains as exciting as it is unsettling. Because, if evolution does have a point, if human history has a deliberate, conscious, "narrative drive", who had the idea? Who's the scriptwriter of Man, the Movie?

Also see Robert Wright's "Planet with a Purpose" in which he talks about Daniel Dennett

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A recent post on Intelligent Design: "Intelligent Design Video: 'Unlocking the Mystery of Life'"

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Current Books on Global Warming Part 1 (January 2007)

noreply@blogger.com (Jorolat) — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 02:35:26 PST

A selection of three books on Global Warming* available from the Book Shop/Store links at the end of the post:

The Atlas of Climate Change: Mapping the World's Greatest Challenge
By Kirstin Dow, Thomas E. Downing

Today's headlines and recent events reflect the seriousness of climate change. Heat waves, droughts, and flooding are causing deaths among vulnerable populations, destroying livelihoods, and driving people from their homes. Rigorous in its science and insightful in its message, this atlas examines the possible impact of climate change on our ability to feed the world's people, avoid water shortages, conserve biodiversity, improve health, and preserve cities and cultural treasures. It also reviews historical contributions to greenhouse gas levels, progress in meeting Kyoto commitments, and local efforts to meet the challenge of climate change. The atlas covers a wide range of topics, including warning signals, future scenarios, vulnerable populations, health impacts, renewable energy and emissions reduction. With more than 50 full-colour maps and graphics, this is an essential resource for policy makers, environmentalists, students, and everyone concerned with this pressing subject.

Book Review from the University of South Carolina

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The Rough Guide to Climate Change (Rough Guides Reference Titles)
By Robert Henson

"The Rough Guide to Climate Change" is a complete, unbiased guide to one of the most pressing problems facing humanity. From the current situation and back ground science to the government sceptics and possible solutions, this book covers the whole subject. The guide looks at: visible symptoms of change from a warming planet; how global warming works; the evolution of our atmosphere over the last 4.5 billion years; what computer simulations of climate reveal about our past, present, and future; the sceptics: Who are they? What are their grounds for disagreeing with the crowd? Battle of the titans: the oil industry vs. the global commons; global warming in the media: A review of the last few decades; global solutions: What governments and scientists are doing to try and solve the problem; plus much, more. The guide also includes lifestyle advice and tips for consumers who want to make a difference in tomorrow's climate, and comes complete with a glossary of websites for further information.

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Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Climate Change - Is Time Running Out?
By Elizabeth Kolbert (Interview)

In writing that is both clear and unbiased, Kolbert - an acclaimed New Yorker journalist - approaches global warming from every angle. She travels to the Arctic, the North of England, Holland and Puerto Rico, interviews researchers and environmentalists, explains the science and the studies, draws frightening parallels to lost ancient civilizations, unpacks the politics, and presents the personal tales of those who are being affected most - the people who make their homes near the poles and, in an eerie foreshadowing, are watching their worlds disappear. Scientists have been warning the world since the late 1970s that the build-up of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere threatens to melt the polar ice sheets and irreversibly change our climate. With little done since then to alter this dangerous course, now is the moment for all the countries in the world, but perhaps especially the USA, to face up to the realities of global warming and to secure our future. By the end of the century, the world will probably be hotter than it's been in the last two million years, and the sweeping consequences of this change will determine the future of life on earth for generations to come. "Field Notes from a Catastrophe" brings the environment into the consciousness of the reader and asks what, if anything, can be done, and how we can save our planet.

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*Info from the US Environmental Protection Agency:

"The EPA Climate Change Web site has four main sections on climate change issues and another section on "What You Can Do" to reduce your contribution. The Basic Information page is a good place to start for someone new to the issue, as it provides an executive summary of all the information across the site. Visitors can then go to any of the other five sections of the Web site for more detailed information."

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Books on Global Warming from the Science and Evolution Bookshop: UK | US

See the posts "'Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years' (Book + Audio Interview)"

And "The Weather Makers - NSW's 'Book of the Year' (Review, Excerpt, Audio)"

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Current Books on Intelligent Design Part 2 (January 2007)

noreply@blogger.com (Jorolat) — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 03:09:35 PST

Another selection of three books on Intelligent Design available from the 'Evolution Research - Amazon Book Shop/Store' links at the end of the post:

The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design
By Ronald L. Numbers

Synopsis/Review
In light of the embattled status of evolutionary theory, particularly as "intelligent design" makes headway against Darwinism in the schools and in the courts, this now classic account of the roots of creationism assumes new relevance. Expanded and updated to account for the appeal of intelligent design and the global spread of creationism, "The Creationists" offers a thorough, clear, and balanced overview of the arguments and figures at the heart of the debate. Praised by both creationists and evolutionists for its comprehensiveness, the book meticulously traces the dramatic shift among Christian fundamentalists from acceptance of the earth's antiquity to the insistence of present-day scientific creationists that most fossils date back to Noah's flood and its aftermath. Focusing especially on the rise of this "flood geology", Ronald L. Numbers chronicles the remarkable resurgence of anti-evolutionism since the 1960s, as well as the creationist movement's tangled religious roots in the theologies of late-19th and early 20th Century Baptists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, and Adventists, among others. His book offers valuable insight into the origins of various "creation science" think tanks and the people behind them. It also goes a long way toward explaining how creationism, until recently viewed as a "peculiarly American" phenomenon, has quietly but dynamically spread internationally - and found its expression outside Christianity in Judaism and Islam.

Audio and video clips featuring Ron Numbers are available here.

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Why Intelligent Design Fails A Scientific Critique of the New Creationism
Edited by Matt Young and Taner Edis

Synopsis
Is Darwinian evolution established fact, or a dogma ready to be overtaken by "intelligent design"? This is the debate raging in courtrooms and classrooms across the country. "Why Intelligent Design Fails" assembles a team of physicists, biologists, computer scientists, mathematicians, and archaeologists to examine intelligent design from a scientific perspective. They consistently find grandiose claims without merit. Contributors take intelligent design's two most famous claims - irreducible complexity and information-based arguments - and show that neither challenges Darwinian evolution. They also discuss thermodynamics and self-organization, the ways human design is actually identified in fields such as forensic archaeology, how research in machine intelligence indicates that intelligence itself is the product of chance and necessity, and cosmological fine tuning arguments. Intelligent design turns out to be a scientific mistake, but a mistake whose details highlight the amazing power of Darwinian thinking and the wonders of a complex world without design.

The Introduction is available as a PDF File.

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God, the Devil, and Darwin: A Critique of Intelligent Design Theory
By Niall Shanks, Richard Dawkins*

In the last fifteen years a controversial new theory of the origins of biological complexity and the nature of the universe has been fomenting bitter debates in education and science policy across North America, Europe, and Australia. Backed by intellectuals at respectable universities, Intelligent Design theory (ID) proposes an alternative to accepted accounts of evolutionary theory: that life is so complex, and that the universe is so fine-tuned for the appearance of life, that the only plausible explanation is the existence of an intelligent designer. For many ID theorists, the designer is taken to be the god of Christianity.

Niall Shanks has written the first accessible introduction to, and critique of, this controversial new intellectual movement. Shanks locates the growth of ID in the last two decades of the twentieth century in the growing influence of the American religious right. But, as he shows, its roots go back beyond Aquinas to Ancient Greece. After looking at the historical roots of ID, Shanks takes a hard look at its intellectual underpinnings, discussing modern understandings of thermodynamics, and how self-organizing processes lead to complex physical, chemical, and biological systems. He considers cosmological arguments for ID rooted in so-called "anthropic coincidences" and also tackles new biochemical arguments for ID based on "irreducible biological complexity". Throughout he shows how arguments for ID lack cohesion, rest on errors and unfounded suppositions, and generally are grossly inferior to evolutionary explanations.

While ID has been proposed as a scientific alternative to evolutionary biology, Shanks argues that ID is in fact "old creationist wine in new designer label bottles" and moreover is a serious threat to the scientific and democratic values that are our cultural and intellectual inheritance from the Enlightenment.

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*A recent post: "Review of 'The God Delusion' by Daniel Dennett ('Free Inquiry')"

Also see: "Current Books on Intelligent Design Part 1 (January 2007)"

Technorati: intelligent design, evolution, research, book, books, review, shop, store, creationists, evolutionary, theory, darwinism, creationism, scientific, christianity, earth, antiquity, noah, flood, creation, science, judaism, islam, audio, video, darwinian, irreducible, complexity, archaeology, god, devil, darwin, ancient, greece, id, delusion, dawkins

Review of 'The God Delusion' by Daniel Dennett ('Free Inquiry')

noreply@blogger.com (Jorolat) — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 03:06:02 PST

A Book Review of Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion (Amazon Astore UK | US) by Daniel Dennett (Author of Breaking the spell: Religion as natural phenomenon: UK | US) written for Free Inquiry*:

First things first: since Richard Dawkins and I are allies on several fronts, and friends, and since we have both recently published books on religion, the normal presumption of a disinterested reviewer must be cancelled. It is not that I couldn't write an objective and impersonal review if I tried but that such an effort would be misplaced. No protestations of impartiality could, or should, dislodge the ambient assumption that friendship disqualifies one from the task. Moreover, what readers of Free Inquiry presumably would like to know is how our distinct but overlapping projects developed and what I make of the results. Are we playing good cop/bad cop? We cite each other frequently; did we plan a division of labor in advance, and compare notes as we worked? No. We discussed our projects in only the most general terms. I finished my book first, in time for Dawkins to read it as he was completing his, but we didn't trade drafts until then, wanting to keep our thinking and writing as independent as possible. That's just good research practice: two paths to the same destination may tell us more about the pathfinders and their mutual influence than about the real world unless they are orthogonal in several dimensions.

...About half of his book covers topics that I also cover in Breaking the Spell: among the most important, the question of how the extravagant behaviors of religion could have evolved in the first place, the question of whether religion is essential for morality (it isn't), the question of "how 'moderation' in faith fosters fanaticism," and the dangerous role of religious education in early childhood and how to counteract it. On these topics we have no significant disagreements that I can see, but we choose different strategies and emphases. His are sometimes superior to mine.

Continued at "Review of Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion for Free Inquiry" [Atheism, Creationism]

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*Free Inquiry is published by the Council for Secular Humanism which is " North America's leading organization for non-religious people. A not-for-profit educational association, the Council supports a wide range of activities to meet the needs of people who find meaning and value in life without looking to a god. Its activities range from magazine publishing to campaigning on ethical issues, from conferences to support networks, from educational courses to conducting secular ceremonies, from local groups to international development."

The editorial for the February / March 2007 (Volume 27 Number 2) edition is titled "Religion in Conflict - Are 'Evangelical Atheists' Too Outspoken?" and begins:

The recent publication of four books - The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins; The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation, both by Sam Harris; and Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon by Daniel Dennett - has provoked great controversy and consternation. The fact that books by Dawkins and Harris have made it to The New York Times best-seller list has apparently sent chills down the spines of many commentators; not only conservative religionists but also some otherwise liberal secularists are worried about this unexpected development. We note that the people now being attacked are affiliated with Free Inquiry and the Center for Inquiry. The editors of Free Inquiry, of course, are gratified that the views espoused in these pages have received a wider forum. What disturbs us is the preposterous outcry that atheists are "evangelical" and that they have gone too far in their criticism of religion.

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Chapter 1 of The God Delusion can be read here but (free) registration may be required.

See "Evolution: Richard Dawkins on 'The Colbert Report' (Video)" and (related) "Intelligent Design: 'A War on Science' (BBC Horizon Video - 49 mins)"

Also of interest is the post "Evolution in Four Dimensions" where:

"...[Jablonka and Lamb] dispute Richard Dawkins' claim that the gene is the only biological hereditary unit, discussing other inheritance systems where his distinction between replicator and vehicle does not seem to hold. Research on bacteria seems to show that some mutation is non-random, i.e. is to some extent directed by environmental or developmental factors..."

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A post on Daniel Dennett: "'Breaking the Spell': Religion's Evolutionary Origins (On Point Audio)"

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Current Books on Intelligent Design Part 1 (January 2007)

noreply@blogger.com (Jorolat) — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 10:13:47 PST

A selection of three books on Intelligent Design available from the 'Evolution Research - Amazon Book Shop/Store' links at the end of the post:

Intelligent Thought: Science versus the Intelligent Design Movement
Edited by John Brockman

Evolutionary science lies at the heart of a modern understanding of the natural world. Darwin's theory has withstood 150 years of scientific scrutiny, and today it not only explains the origin and design of living things, but highlights the importance of a scientific understanding in our culture and in our lives.

Recently the movement known as "Intelligent Design" has attracted the attention of journalists, educators, and legislators. The scientific community is puzzled and saddened by this trend–not only because it distorts modern biology, but also because it diverts people from the truly fascinating ideas emerging from the real science of evolution. Here, join fifteen of our preeminent thinkers whose clear, accessible, and passionate essays reveal the fact and power of Charles Darwin's theory, and the beauty of the scientific quest to understand our world.

Nicholas Humphrey's contribution ("Consciousness: The Achilles Heel of Darwinism? Thank God, Not Quite") is available here

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Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design
Michael Shermer

...In Why Darwin Matters, bestselling author Michael Shermer explains how the newest brand of creationism appeals to our predisposition to look for a designer behind life’s complexity. Shermer decodes the scientific evidence to show that evolution is not "just a theory" and illustrates how it achieves the design of life through the bottom-up process of natural selection.

Shermer, once an evangelical Christian and a creationist, argues that Intelligent Design proponents are invoking a combination of bad science, political antipathy, and flawed theology. He refutes their pseudoscientific arguments and then demonstrates why conservatives and people of faith can and should embrace evolution. He then appraises the evolutionary questions that truly need to be settled, building a powerful argument for science itself...

(See "Darwin on the Right - Why Christians and conservatives should accept evolution")

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Living with Darwin: Darwin, Design, and the Future of Faith (Philosophy in Action)
Philip Kitcher

Recent debates about Intelligent Design have brought into high relief the huge schism between those who believe in Darwin and the power of science to understand the world, and those who look through the prism of religious faith. Why, asks eminent philosopher Philip Kitcher, does this debate continue to rage given that the scientific consensus in favor of Darwin is overwhelming?

This accessible and elegant essay attempts to answer this question. Kitcher first presents the compelling evidence on behalf of Darwin's evolutionary theory, bringing out with unprecedented clarity the structure of the reasoning that has convinced almost all educated people of its merits during the past century and a half. He then sets the current debate about Intelligent Design in historical context, showing that ID theory is really dead science. Explaining the scientific issues in an elegant and accessible way, Kitcher shows how crucial discoveries successively undermined the Creationist views about life on earth that were once considered scientific orthodoxy.

Finally, Kitcher goes on to analyze the recurrent opposition to Darwinian ideas, arguing that they do present a genuine threat to those forms of religion that invoke divine providence. A Darwinian understanding of the history of life makes popular forms of religious faith, including most versions of Christianity and Judaism, hard to sustain. The dispute about Intelligent Design emerges as a symptom of a much deeper problem - the clash between the deep impulses to religion and the discoveries of the natural and human sciences. Kitcher contends that we cannot resolve that clash either by denying these discoveries or by brusquely overriding the underlying impulses. Somehow, we must develop a version of secular humanism that will prove genuinely satisfying.

(See "Interview with Philip Kitcher")

Technorati: intelligent design, evolution, research, book, shop, store, science, evolutionary, natural, world, darwin, theory, origin, design, culture, biology, charles, achilles, heel, michael, shermer, christian, creationist, bad, theology, philip, kitcher, john, brockman, darwinian, christianity, judaism, creationism, books

Evolution and Learning: The Baldwin Effect Reconsidered (Book Review)

noreply@blogger.com (Jorolat) — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 11:50:40 PST

Evolution and Learning: The Baldwin Effect Reconsidered (Life and Mind: Philosophical Issues in Biology and Psychology)

by Bruce H. Weber (Editor), David J. Depew (Editor)

Amazon Book Shop/Store UK | US

Book Review: "The Baldwin effect" was proposed by J. Mark Baldwin and independently by both Henry Fairfield Osborne and C. Lloyd Morgan just about 100 years ago. In a general way, 'the Baldwin effect' refers to the notion that learning can change the environment for a species in such a way as to influence the selective environment for the learned behavior or some closely related character. In the example proposed by Terry Deacon, something like the Baldwin effect accounts for the relatively rapid evolution of language and mind. His suggestion is that once a few members of a population developed the ability to communicate symbolically, the great advantage of such an ability would in itself create intense selection pressure promoting its further evolution. This notion and Daniel Dennett's related proposal for a role of a Baldwin-like effect in cognitive evolution are together the subject of four of the chapters in this book (two by Deacon, one by Dennett, and a third recording a discussion among Godfrey-Smith, Deacon, and Dennett debating subtle differences between the Dennett and Deacon proposals).

The Baldwin effect is sometimes referred to as the simple notion that, through evolution, unlearned can replace learned behavior. What one soon learns from this book, though, is that not only have views of just what the Baldwin effect is changed over time, there is no agreed on actual example of the Baldwin effect (in any of its many senses). So is it important?

Continued at "Evolution and Learning: The Baldwin Effect Reconsidered"

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Book Description

The role of genetic inheritance dominates current evolutionary theory. At the end of the nineteenth century, however, several evolutionary theorists independently speculated that learned behaviors could also affect the direction and rate of evolutionary change. This notion was called the Baldwin effect, after the psychologist James Mark Baldwin. In recent years, philosophers and theorists of a variety of ontological and epistemological backgrounds have begun to employ the Baldwin effect in their accounts of the evolutionary emergence of mind and of how mind, through behavior, might affect evolution.

The essays in this book discuss the originally proposed Baldwin effect, how it was modified over time, and its possible contribution to contemporary empirical and theoretical evolutionary studies. The topics include the effect of the modern evolutionary synthesis on the notion of the Baldwin effect, the nature and role of niche construction in contemporary evolutionary theory, the Baldwin effect in the context of developmental systems theory, the possible role of the Baldwin effect in computational cognitive science biosemiotics, and the emergence of consciousness and language.

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*Open access online edition of J. Mark Baldwin's 1896 paper "A New Factor In Evolution"

Abstract

In several recent publications I have developed, from different points of view, some considerations which tend to bring out a certain influence at work in organic evolution which I venture to call "a new factor". I give below the list of references [1] to these publications and shall refer to them by number as this paper proceeds. The object of the present paper is to gather into one sketch an outline of the view of the process of development which these different publications have hinged upon.

The problems involved in a theory of organic development may be gathered up under three great heads: Ontogeny, Phylogeny, Heredity. The general consideration, the " factor " which I propose to bring out, is operative in the first instance, in the field of Ontogeny; I shall consequently speak first of the problem of Ontogeny, then of that of Phylogeny, in so far as the topic dealt with makes it necessary, then of that of Heredity, under the same limitation, and finally, give some definitions and conclusions.

Technorati: evolution, learning, baldwin effect, reconsidered, life, mind, philosophical, issues, biology, psychology, book, review, j, mark, environment, species, evolution, language, daniel, dennett, behavior, theory, ontogeny, phylogeny, heredity

'In Search of Memory' by Eric Kandel (Interview + Audio)

noreply@blogger.com (Jorolat) — Mon, 25 Dec 2006 04:41:09 PST

An American Scientist 'The Bookshelf' interview with Eric Kandel:

Psychiatrist and neuroscientist Eric Kandel is professor of biochemistry and biophysics at Columbia University. In 2000 he shared a Nobel Prize with Arvid Carlsson and Paul Greengard for research on the physiological basis of memory storage in neurons. His most recent book is In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind (Amazon Astore UK | US), which chronicles his life and research:

AS: Could you tell us a bit about yourself?

EK: I am a Kavli Professor and University Professor at Columbia and senior investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. I do research on the biological basis of memory. If you read In Search of Memory, it will tell you all you will ever want to know.

AS: What books are you currently reading (or have you just finished reading) for your work or for pleasure? Why did you choose them, and what do you think of them?

EK: Because I have just finished my own autobiography, I have recently been reading a number of biographies and autobiographies: For example, I read Elie Wiesel's memoir, All Rivers Run to the Sea (Knopf, 1995) - the first volume of his autobiography - and I'm about to start And the Sea Is Never Full (Knopf, 1999), the second volume. I find the Wiesel autobiography quite remarkable. I earlier had read Wiesel's Night (Hill and Wang, 1960), which is a classic, especially now in its new translation by Marion Wiesel.

I much liked Ruth Sime's Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics (University of California Press, 1996). On the other hand, I read a very well-advertised book by Barbara Goldsmith, Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie (W. W. Norton, 2005), and I found it to be rather uninteresting and uninspired. It's clear that Curie was a highly gifted, superb experimental physicist. She also was a very complex woman. But somehow the inner workings of her mind never emerged in this book.

Continued at "'In Search of Memory' by Eric Kandel "

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Listen to an On Point radio (audio) discussion with Eric Kandel:

"Nobel prize-winning neurobiologist Eric Kandel's most vivid first memories are of Kristallnacht, in Vienna, 1938 -- Nazi police banging at the door, charging into his Jewish family's little apartment; the color of the toy he was playing with as they banged.

Seven decades later, Kandel has given unique substance to the Holocaust mantra "never forget." His Nobel-winning research is at the forefront of new science unlocking the molecular biology of memory itself."

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'In Search of Memory' Book Synopsis:

This "important and marvelous book" ("The New York Times") gives Eric Kandel's account of how his personal quest to understand memory intersected with the emergence of a new science. It relates the story of how four distinct disciplines - behaviourist psychology, cognitive psychology, neuroscience and molecular biology - converged into a powerful new science of mind. Kandel's multifaceted perspective was the foundation for his path-breaking research that will continue to dominate modern thought - not only in science but in culture at large.

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American Scientist Book Review of 'In Search of Memory':

In the 1950s and early 1960s, neuroscience was not yet a coherent discipline and was not in the curriculum. Psychology was still under the strong influence of behaviorism, and the new discipline of cognitive science was just emerging. There was considerable interest in how the brain supported such fundamental processes as learning and memory, but the merger of biology and psychology that became neuroscience was still to occur. A good deal had been learned by the mid-20th century about the physiology of nerve cells and synapses, but the study of complex functions like learning and memory had not yet reached very far into biology.

It was during this period that the modern era of memory research can be said to have begun. In 1957, Brenda Milner, a neuropsychologist at McGill University, described the selective effects on memory of medial temporal lobe damage in a patient who became known as "H.M." These observations showed that acquiring new memories is a distinct cerebral function, separable from other perceptual and cognitive abilities. Following the successful development of an animal model of H.M.'s memory impairment, the structures of the medial temporal lobe important for memory were identified, including the hippocampus. Since 1957, an enormous amount has been learned about the physiology, anatomy and cell biology of these structures.

Technorati: eric, kandel, biochemistry, biophysics, nobel prize, memory, search, american scientist, research, audio, book review, interview, psychology, science, mind, biology

Charles Darwin's Beagle Diary by Charles Darwin

noreply@blogger.com (Jorolat) — Sat, 23 Dec 2006 06:54:13 PST

1) Charles Darwin's Beagle Diary* by Charles Darwin

Amazon Astore UK | US

Book Description:

On 27th December 1831, HMS Beagle set out from Plymouth under the command of Captain Robert Fitzroy** on a voyage that lasted nearly 5 years. The purpose of the trip was to complete a survey of the southern coasts of South America, and afterwards to circumnavigate the globe. The ship's geologist and naturalist was Charles Darwin. Darwin kept a diary throughout the voyage in which he recorded his daily activities, not only on board the ship but also during the several long journeys that he made on horseback in Patagonia and Chile. His entries tell the story of one of the most important scientific journeys ever made with matchless immediacy and vivid descriptiveness.

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2) The Works of Charles Darwin: Introduction; Diary of the Voyage of HMS Beagle Vol 1 by Charles Darwin

Amazon Astore UK

The Pickering Masters Darwin makes it possible for the first time to review Darwin's public literary output as a whole. Darwin's works are now presented in their definitive texts, typeset, printed and bound to modern standards. It is important to see Darwin's literary output as a whole to understand fully both his influence on the religious, philosophical and scientific upheavals of the 19th century, and the development of the theory of evolution which forms a continuous thread running through his work from first to last. This is the first volume in a 29-volume set (all 29 now available) which contain all Charles Darwin's published works. Darwin was one of the most influential figures of the 19th century. His work remains a central subject of study in the history of ideas, the history of science, zoology, botany, geology and evolution. Texts have been selected by Professor Barrett and Richard Freeman and where more than one edition of a work exists, the editors have chosen the edition which reflects Darwin's ideas most fully.

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Info on Darwin's book from Wiki (for info on the voyage itself click here):

The Voyage of the Beagle is a title commonly given to the book written by Charles Darwin published in 1839 as his Journal and Remarks, which brought him considerable fame and respect. The title refers to the second survey expedition of the ship HMS Beagle, which set out on 27 December 1831 under the command of captain Robert FitzRoy.

While the expedition was originally planned to last two years, it lasted almost five - the Beagle did not return until 2 October 1836. Darwin spent most of this time exploring on land (three years and three months on land; 18 months at sea).

The book, also known as Darwin's Journal of Researches, is a vivid and exciting travel memoir as well as a detailed scientific field journal covering biology, geology, and anthropology that demonstrates Darwin's keen powers of observation, written at a time when Western Europeans were still discovering and exploring much of the rest of the world. Although Darwin revisited some areas during the expedition, for clarity the chapters of the book are ordered by reference to places and locations rather than chronologically. With hindsight, ideas which Darwin would later develop into his theory of evolution by natural selection are hinted at in his notes and in the book.

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**Info on Captain Robert Fitzroy:

...From his first ship, the Thetis, FitzRoy was appointed in August 1828 to the Ganges as flag lieutenant to Rear Admiral Sir Robert Otway, commander in chief of the South American station. Three months later FitzRoy was given his first command, the Beagle, which was carrying out the survey of the coasts of Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego and the Straits of Magellan. After returning to London in 1830, the Beagle was assigned to continue this survey and left England in December 1831, carrying the young Charles Darwin as naturalist. On this second voyage FitzRoy visited the Cape Verde Islands, the South American Coast, the Strait of Magellan, the Galapagos Islands, Tahiti, New Zealand, Australia, the Maldives, and Mauritius before returning to England. The voyages of the Beagle established FitzRoy as an excellent navigator, a sound surveyor and a man of science. He was the first to record much of the language of the Fuegians and was partly responsible for the establishment of the first, unsuccessful, Fuegian mission.

Technorati: charles darwin, beagle, diary

The Making of the Fittest - American Scientist Book Review (+ Audio)

noreply@blogger.com (Jorolat) — Sat, 23 Dec 2006 06:53:23 PST

An American Scientist Book Review of:

The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution

By Sean B. Carroll*

Amazon Astore**: UK | US

Reviewed by Douglas H. Irwin

Garry Trudeau recently composed a Doonesbury cartoon in which a doctor asks a patient with tuberculosis whether he is a creationist - saying that his answer will determine whether the treatment will be streptomycin (effective only for the TB of yesteryear) or a more modern antibiotic (one that would work on the drug-resistant strain into which the TB bacterium had lately evolved). Despite his religious convictions, the patient shows great interest in the updated drug. Sean Carroll, an evolutionary developmental biologist at the University of Wisconsin, opens his new book with a similar conundrum: Why is it that so many Americans are willing to use DNA to convict those accused of murder while simultaneously refusing to accept the validity of the overwhelming molecular evidence for evolution? Carroll has an interesting point, for many Americans harbor creationist sentiments yet seem quite happy to reap the fruits of modern research, such as nuclear power (or nuclear weapons!), the beneficial products of agricultural genetics, or forensic DNA, without acknowledging that the science underlying these advances has revealed an abundance of information (the radiometric dating of ancient rocks and the molecular fingerprints of evolution, for example) that is contrary to their fundamental beliefs.

Popular exposition about evolution has had difficulty conveying the incredible power of natural selection. The late Stephen Jay Gould (info) perfected one approach, writing engaging essays about odd peculiarities whose only explanation can be evolution. Other approaches all too often get bogged down with such boring things as changing allele frequencies in peppered moths, and let's face it, no one, not even a population geneticist, has ever really enjoyed rehashing that argument.

As a developmental biologist, Carroll has a far more engaging set of examples to offer: the remarkable genetic and developmental evidence for the evolution of antifreeze proteins in Antarctic fish, the evolution of color vision through the duplication of opsin genes in birds and primates, and the fossil evidence preserved in our own genes for battles against malaria. In each case, he describes both the basic natural history and the genetic changes involved.

Continued at "Natural Selection for Everyone"

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*Sean Carroll's bio at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute:

For decades, scientists studying evolution have relied on fossil records and animal morphology to painstakingly piece together the puzzle of how animals evolved. Today, growing numbers of scientists are using DNA evidence collected from modern animals to look back hundreds of millions of years to a time when animals first began to evolve. One of those leading the charge is molecular biologist Sean Carroll.

Carroll's research focuses on the way new animal forms have evolved, and his studies of a wide variety of animal species have dramatically changed the face of evolutionary biology. Using genetics and the tools of molecular biology, he is looking back to the dawn of animal life some 600 to 700 million years ago. It is so long ago that there are virtually no fossils or other physical clues to indicate what Earth's earliest animals were like.

"Evolution encompasses all of biology - it is our big picture," Carroll said. "When I was a student, we had a grand picture of animal evolution from the fossil record, but no knowledge whatsoever of how new animal forms arose. That is the mystery that I want to tackle." (More)

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**Book Description: DNA evidence not only solves crimes - in Sean Carroll's hands it will now end the Evolution Wars.

DNA is the genetic material that defines us as individuals. Over the last two decades, it has emerged as a powerful tool for solving crimes and determining guilt & innocence. But, very recently, an important new aspect of DNA has been revealed - it contains a detailed record of evolution. That is, DNA is a living chronicle of how the marvelous creatures that inhabit our planet have adapted to its many environments, from the freezing waters of the Antarctic to the lush canopy of the rain forest.

In the pages of this highly readable narrative, Sean Carroll guides the general reader on a tour of the massive DNA record of three billion years of evolution to see how the fittest are made. And what a eye-opening tour it is - one featuring immortal genes, fossil genes, and genes that bear the scars of past battles with horrible diseases. This book clinches the case for evolution, beyond any reasonable doubt. 50 illustrations; 8 pages of color.

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Listen to Sean Carroll discuss his book on Scientific American's Science Talk (October 25th, 2006) [Audio Interview, Podcast]

Technorati: dna, evolution, natural selection

Mind Over Matter - A Review of 'The Emotion Machine'

noreply@blogger.com (Jorolat) — Sat, 23 Dec 2006 06:52:15 PST

A Washington Post Book Review:

Mind Over Matter
Is the human brain a beautifully calibrated computer?

Reviewed by Richard Restak (homepage)
Sunday, December 17, 2006; BW12

THE EMOTION MACHINE*

Commonsense Thinking, Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of the Human Mind

By Marvin Minsky**

Amazon Astore UK | US

Writers about the human mind generally fall into three camps: philosophers, psychologists and others who weave elaborate theories about the mind without any reference to the brain; neuroscientists who attempt to link mind matters with brain states; and, finally, members of the computer science and artificial intelligence (AI) communities who suggest that it's possible to replicate human thinking in a machine. Marvin Minsky, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an early pioneer in developing artificial intelligence, is an eminent denizen of the third camp.

In The Emotion Machine, Minsky aims to find 'more complex ways to depict mental events that seem simple at first.' He brilliantly achieves this goal when he suggests that consciousness remains unexplained because it is 'one of those suitcase-like words that we use for many types of processes, and for different kinds of purposes.' Since consciousness is not a unity but involves separate mental components, 'there is little to gain from wondering what consciousness 'is' -- because that word includes too much for us to deal with all at once.'

Minsky does a marvelous job parsing other complicated mental activities into simpler elements. He discusses such topics as common sense, thinking and the self and -- most important for this book -- emotional states, which are 'not especially different from the processes that we call 'thinking.' '

But he is less effective in relating these emotional functions to what's going on in the brain. Minsky says his book 'does not discuss most current beliefs about how our brains work' because our knowledge about the brain soon becomes outdated. But then how can one draw meaningful correlations between brains and machines?

Continued at "Mind Over Matter - A Review of 'The Emotion Machine'" [Philosophy, Psychology]

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*Excerpt: Draft Chapters of The Emotion Machine can be read via the link on Marvin Minsky's homepage

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**Bio:

Marvin Minsky was born in New York City, where he attended The Fieldston School and the Bronx High School of Science. He later attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. He served in the US Navy from 1944 to 1945. He holds a BA in Mathematics from Harvard (1950) and a PhD in the same field from Princeton (1954). He has been on the MIT faculty since 1958. He is currently Toshiba Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, and Professor of electrical engineering and computer science.

Minsky won the Turing Award in 1969, the Japan Prize in 1990, the IJCAI Award for Research Excellence in 1991, and the Benjamin Franklin Medal from the Franklin Institute in 2001.

Minsky's patents include the first head-mounted graphical display (1963) and the confocal scanning microscope (1961, a predecessor to today's widely used confocal laser scanning microscope). He developed with Seymour Papert the first Logo "turtle". Minsky also built, in 1951, the first randomly wired neural network learning machine, SNARC.

Technorati: emotion, brain, intelligence

Fifty Years with Double-Stranded RNA

noreply@blogger.com (Jorolat) — Sat, 23 Dec 2006 06:50:51 PST

Alexander Rich* - The scientist who discovered hybridization and the "other" double helix describes what it meant to biology:

Fifty-two years ago I was venturing to the basement of Cal Tech chemistry with some regularity, looking at nucleic-acid diffraction data using the school's admittedly primitive fiber X-ray facilities. My postdoctoral advisor at the time, Linus Pauling, had been interested in finding the structure of DNA, but Watson and Crick had largely eclipsed that effort. Now, collaborating with Jim Watson, who had returned from Cambridge, I was taken with a challenge put forth in his famed double-helix manuscript.

In their 1953 publication on the DNA double helix**, Watson and Crick stated: 'It is probably impossible to form this structure with ribose, instead of deoxyribose.' The reason: The 2' hydroxyl on each ribose would create a Van der Waals clash. But the question remained. Could the molecule form any kind of double helix?

Continued at "Fifty Years with Double-Stranded RNA"

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Letter from Francis Crick to Alexander Rich, 5th December 1974 (historical interest):

Dear Alex,

Shortly after your last letter arrived Max came to speak to me to discuss whether he should write a letter to New Scientist along the lines you had suggested. I had to tell him that I was strongly against such a step. Any such letter would have to be agreed by both parties, otherwise it would lead to further public exchanges. I told Max that I thought it most unlikely that any such agreement could be reached and that in any case preparing the draft would certainly lead to further acrimonious private enchanges. Finally, I am against any further publication of any sort as it only draws people’s attention again to a matter they would otherwise forget. I should point out that both sides feel that the article maligned them - see, for example, the final paragraph of the Scientist article. Sydney, who happened to be present, independently advised me I did. Max has agreed to write to you in this sense. (Continued)

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*Info on Alexander Rich:

Alexander Rich, MD (American; born c. 1925) is a biologist and biophysicist. He is the William Thompson Sedgwick Professor of Biophysics at MIT (since 1958) and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Rich earned both an A.B. (magna cum laude) and an M.D. (cum laude) from Harvard University. He was a post-doc of Linus Pauling along with James Watson. He has over 600 publications to his name.

Rich is the founder of Alkermes Inc. and has been its director since 1987. Dr. Rich is Co-Chairman of the Board of Directors of Repligen Corporation, a biopharmaceutical company. He is also a member of the Board of Directors for Profectus Biosciences, Inc. He also serves on the editorial board of Genomics and the Journal of Bimolecular Structure and Dynamics.

In 1979, Rich and co-workers at MIT accidentally grew a crystal of Z-DNA. This was the first crystal structure of any form of DNA. After 26 years of attempts, Rich et al. finally crystallised the junction box of B- and Z-DNA. Their results were published in an October 2005 Nature journal[2]. Whenever Z-DNA forms, there must be two junction boxes that allow the flip back to the canonical B-form of DNA. (Continued)

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**A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid (1953 paper)
James D. Watson and Francis H.C. Crick

We wish to suggest a structure for the salt of deoxyribose nucleic acid (D.N.A.). This structure has novel features which are of considerable biological interest.

A structure for nucleic acid has already been proposed by Pauling and Corey (1). They kindly made their manuscript available to us in advance of publication. Their model consists of three intertwined chains, with the phosphates near the fibre axis, and the bases on the outside. In our opinion, this structure is unsatisfactory for two reasons: 1) We believe that the material which gives the X-ray diagrams is the salt, not the free acid. Without the acidic hydrogen atoms it is not clear what forces would hold the structure together, especially as the negatively charged phosphates near the axis will repel each other. 2) Some of the van der Waals distances appear to be too small.

Another three-chain structure has also been suggested by Fraser (in the press). In his model the phosphates are on the outside and the bases on the inside, linked together by hydrogen bonds. This structure as described is rather ill-defined, and for this reason we shall not comment on it.

We wish to put forward a radically different structure for the salt of deoxyribose nucleic acid. (Continued)

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A New York Times book review (may require free registration):

Francis Crick, Discoverer of the Genetic Code (Amazon UK | US), by Matt Ridley

Francis Crick has never before been the subject of a significant biography. His personality, however, is the subject of one of the best-known lines in science literature. "I have never seen Francis Crick in a modest mood," James Watson declared in the first sentence of "The Double Helix" (1968), his celebrated account of how he and Crick came to identify the structure of DNA in 1953. Thus the popular image of Watson's scientific partner: a brash and boastful figure who shared responsibility for a singular breakthrough.

Now, two years after Crick's death at age 88, the science writer Matt Ridley is attempting to revise the historical record. Ridley's short biography examines the paired strands of Crick's life and work, but gives the work a further twist: in his account, the heart of Crick's career merely began in 1953, and lasted until the mid-1960's, during which time Crick, having deduced DNA's form, led the scientific charge to understand how it functions. Ridley claims this effort was "in many ways a greater scientific achievement than the double helix," and his own effort to explain it should deepen his audience's understanding of both Crick and DNA itself. (Continued)

Technorati: rna, dna, crick, biology

Gestalt Entomology: Review of 'Insects: Their Natural History and Diversity'

noreply@blogger.com (Jorolat) — Sat, 23 Dec 2006 06:49:23 PST

An American Scientist Book Review* of:

Insects: Their Natural History and Diversity: With a Photographic Guide to Insects of Eastern North America
By Stephen A. Marshall

Amazon Astore UK | US

Like most people who work with insects, I cut my teeth identifying insects on what are called 'dichotomous keys' - a series of bifurcating questions about a specimen that must be answered to ascertain the insect's family. I grew to love this system of identification in a masochistic sort of way, and I discouraged my students from 'picture-booking' insects because I wanted them to learn the critical characteristics of each family. Along the way I filled students' heads with charming trivia about the spurious vein of syrphid flies, the foot-shaped anal loop of libellulid dragonflies and the split mesopleuron (a region of the thorax) of pompilid wasps. I never wondered much about alternative methods because this was how I had been taught. Yet whenever a student asked me how I knew that the moth at the blacklight trap was a tiger moth, I stumbled with a Gestalt definition of the taxon. I certainly didn't examine the wing veins of the living specimen.

Last year I heard a lecture by Bruce Kirchoff, a biologist at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro, about a Gestalt method of recognizing taxa. What he described fit rather well with the way I identify insect families in the field. In a nutshell, the Gestalt method suggests that the way we learn taxa is that, rather than focusing on critical characteristics, we use a type of holistic processing that allows us to recognize and categorize groups based on a constellation of characteristics and how they relate to one another. Often this processing goes on without much thought. We just "know" when we are looking at, say, a pentatomid bug, but we are not quite sure why.

Continued at "Gestalt Entomology: Review of 'Insects: Their Natural History and Diversity'"
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Book Description:

Meticulously researched and illustrated with color photographs, Insects is a landmark reference book that is ideal for any naturalist or entomologist. To enhance exact identification of insects, the photographs in this encyclopedic reference were taken in the field -- and are not pinned specimens.

Insects enables readers to quickly and accurately identify most insects. The more than 50 pages of picture keys -- containing hundreds of illustrations -- lead to the appropriate chapter and specific photos to confirm identification. The keys are surprisingly comprehensive and easy for non-specialists to use.

Insects features:

* Detailed chapters covering all insect orders and the insect families of eastern North America
* Brief examination of common families of related terrestrial arthropods
* 4,000 color photographs illustrating typical behaviors and key characteristics
* 28 picture keys for quick and accurate insect identification
* Expert guidance on observing, collecting and photographing insects

Almost 80 percent of all named animal species are insects and closely related arthropods. With millions of insect species still waiting to be discovered, humans are clearly a two-legged minority in an overwhelmingly six-legged world. This book is required reading for anyone interested in entomology.
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*Reviewed by William E. Conner, a professor of biology at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina:

My laboratory studies animal communication. We are interested in how communicative signals are produced, travel through the environment, how they are detected, how the receiver responds to them, and ultimately how they have evolved. The colorful tiger moths on which we concentrate provide a diversity of interaction and allow a comparative approach to many evolutionary questions. My students and I combine high-speed infrared videography, 3D-video reconstruction of behavior, classic behavioral observation, analytical chemical methods, electrophysiological techniques, and cladistic analyses to explore communication systems that are often beyond are own sensory capabilities.

Technorati: entomology, insects, history, diversity

A Defense of Atheism - Book Review of 'The God Delusion'

noreply@blogger.com (Jorolat) — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 12:38:59 PST

An American Scientist Book Review of Richard Dawkins The God Delusion* by David Baltimore**:

These are difficult times for rational people, particularly in the United States. Those of us who believe that scientific evidence should be the bedrock of policy formation, that logic should be the basis for argument and that uncertainty should beget tolerance are not honored in the political world. Rather, scientific evidence is ignored when it leads to politically unacceptable conclusions, logic is tossed aside when faith is involved, and tolerance for minority opinions is simply out of political fashion. Why should this be? For one thing, we seem to be becoming an increasingly religious country, and because religion supplants evidence and logic with faith - and faith can mean anything you want it to - politicians can get away with appealing to faith without having to justify themselves.

Less abstractly, the consequences of religious doctrines are implicitly or explicitly generating much of the news today. Whether it be jihad, opposition to stem-cell research, or teaching of intelligent design, religion is the genesis of more of our news than at any time I can remember. Because of the central role of religious belief in U.S. political life, this is a good time for a hard look at its nature. And a number of books have recently appeared that put religion to the test of rationality and show how appallingly it fails.

One quite extensive and erudite discussion comes from evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, who is an Englishman and a facile writer about science. In a sense, you needn't read his latest book, you can just savor its title: The God Delusion. Depending on your position on religion, you may be impressed by how neatly that title announces his strongly held anti-religious beliefs, or you may be disgusted that such a deeply rooted part of the world's traditions is dismissed so curtly. Either way, you will have a pretty full appreciation for the core of the arguments he makes. However, if you don't read the book, you will miss a very wide-ranging and quite readable discussion of religion from many points of view: historical, logical and cultural.

Continued at "A Defense of Atheism - Book Review of 'The God Delusion'"
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*Book Description of The God Delusion (Amazon Astore UK | US) by Richard Dawkins:

Discover magazine recently called Richard Dawkins "Darwin's Rottweiler" for his fierce and effective defense of evolution. Prospect magazine voted him among the top three public intellectuals in the world (along with Umberto Eco and Noam Chomsky). Now Dawkins turns his considerable intellect on religion, denouncing its faulty logic and the suffering it causes. He critiques God in all his forms, from the sex-obsessed tyrant of the Old Testament to the more benign (but still illogical) Celestial Watchmaker favored by some Enlightenment thinkers. He eviscerates the major arguments for religion and demonstrates the supreme improbability of a supreme being. He shows how religion fuels war, foments bigotry, and abuses children, buttressing his points with historical and contemporary evidence. In so doing, he makes a compelling case that belief in God is not just irrational, but potentially deadly. Dawkins has fashioned an impassioned, rigorous rebuttal to religion, to be embraced by anyone who sputters at the inconsistencies and cruelties that riddle the Bible, bristles at the inanity of "intelligent design," or agonizes over fundamentalism in the Middle East - or Middle America.
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**David Baltimore won the the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1975 for his work on the genetic mechanisms of viruses. His autobiography at the Nobel Prize website (updated September 2005) can be read here
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