Times:

In the long-running culture war between evolution and creationism, Philadelphia is firing the latest shot.

Nine academic, scientific and cultural institutions around the city are holding a Year of Evolution, a series of exhibitions, seminars and lectures to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin next February, and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his seminal work, “The Origin of Species.”

And if the Christianists are offended....

Fascinating:

But as a terrible consequence of the first whalers making landfall there 150 years ago, Gough has become the stage for one of nature's great horror shows. Mice stowed away on the whaling boats jumped ship and have since multiplied to 700,000 or more on an island of about 25 square miles.

What is horrifying ornithologists is that the British house mouse has somehow evolved, growing to up to three times the size of ordinary domestic house mice, and instead of surviving on a diet of insects and seeds, has adapted itself to become a carnivore, eating albatross, petrel and shearwater chicks alive in their nests. They are now believed to be the largest mice in the world. Yesterday Birdlife International, a global alliance of conservation groups, recognised that the mice, who are without predators themselves, are out of control and threatening to make extinct several of the world's rarest bird species.

Here's the deal: Mo Nature kills, frequently and without mercy. 99.9999999999% of species that have ever lived are extinct, the great majority of them acheived that without our help. Yes, it's a "horrorshow" to know that species are being snuffed out left and right because humans are too stupid and lazy to properly preserve delicate environments. That sucks, for a lot of reasons. The two biggest in my mind are 1) All the scientific benefit that is lost when a unique species is lost. Who knows what miracle drugs or energy solutions could've been found in them? We fuck ourselves and our future when we recklessly destroy or let a species go extinct, of any kind, great or small, flora or fauna. 2) We barely understand how ecosystems really work. Killing a single species can upset the delicate balance for all the rest of them in any given ecosystem, small scale and large. In the spirit of "the butterfly wing flap that caused a hurricane/Chaos Theory," similarly, we really shouldn't think ourselves so knowledgable such that we can choose which species "aren't important." We're just learning the truth of this now, as we attempt serious efforts of repopulation and re-naturalization of ecosystems. It's way harder than first thought.

Having said all that: do the Killer Mice have the right to live, and thrive? Why are the birds "more important" than this new breed of mouse?

This story is evolving.

++++

Orwell's definition can't be put forward too often, especially for those Conservatives who believe that "we create our own reality" (and are well-funded to do so):

The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them... To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth.

I thought of doublethink reading tristero on the tender sensibilities that Christianist loons like Huckabee display when the very word "evolution" is mentioned.

You can be sure that if a child unlucky enough to have a Christianist for a parent is in the hospital and gets an infection from a superbug, the parent will demand, and rightly so, the very latest antibiotic for treatment--even though the superbug evolved, in historical time, from an "arms race" by micro-organisms against anti-biotics, and even though anti-biotics were originally evolved by fungi or bacteria in an earlier arms race. [Apologies in advance to any scientists reading this!]

And yet that same Christianist parent who reaps the benefits of science will go home, go to the school board that night, and try to get a teaching scientist fired for espousing the very science that saved his child's life; will, in Orwell's prophetic words, "deny the existence of objective reality and all the while ... take account of the reality which one denies."

Sure, the Christianists and the latest head of their secular church, Mike Huckabee, can go Fuck themselves, right out in the public square, I hope, and with a great deal of fuss and noise, but what I want to know is this:

Is a cure for doublethink possible?

Hell, we thought we ran recipes just for fun. Fun is good. If you can't have fun during your revolution why the fuck bother?

Little did we know....from today's (Jan. 1 2008 that is) Guardian: relaying a question posed to a number of prominent scientists asking "What have you changed your mind about recently?":

What was the turning point in human evolution?

Richard Wrangham, British anthropologist who studied under Jane Goodall. Now at Harvard University, his research includes primate behaviour and human evolution.

"I used to think that human origins were explained by meat-eating. After all, the idea that meat-eating launched humanity has been the textbook evolutionary story for decades, mooted even before Darwin was born.

"But in a rethinking of conventional wisdom I now think that cooking was the major advance that turned ape into human ... Cooked food is the signature feature of human diet. It not only makes our food safe and easy to eat, but it also grants us large amounts of energy compared to a raw diet,

Garbage. I'll make three points: Once again, the Times "selects" from a group of people who already agree with this theory, and fails to ask actual evolutionary scientists who are critical of it what they think. Gotta love the "balance." Also, this piece mostly fails to apply the "logic" of the theory to non-monotheistic religions, implying that monotheistic belief is what is being "proven" here. Finally, group selection is bunk. Quoth Dawkins in this piece (and I suppose I should be grateful it got included) “sheer, wanton, head-in-bag perversity.” That's rather established in evolutionary biology, and it's irresponsible for the Times to treat it as accepted, peer-endorsed, current theory.

So I must be an elf. Of the Lost tribes of Ossiriand, and my ancestors escaped the Ruin of Beleriand and faded back to the East. See these points on my ears? I'm good with runes...

Dammit, why didn't you people tell me hobbits were real? You know I barely have time to keep up on my science reading.

It's about the time of year that Burpee and everybody else sends out their plant and seed catalogs, and people who garden or like to think about it sit around and dream through the dark cold days. Only they're not as cold as they used to be, are they?

Before ordering your plants, go look at this. The Arbor Day Foundation hardiness zone map. Chances are very good you're not in the one you think you are any more.

I'm two days late celebrating what should be a national holiday: Evolution Day, December 20, 2005, when Judge John Jones ruled againt the creationist loons in Kitzmiller et al vs. Dover Area School District.

Presumably, evolution didn't stop, oh, 10,000 or 50,000 years ago, but continues its workings even unto the present day. Now scientists have some proof. The New Scienist:

t's very difficult, if not impossible, to observe human evolution in action. But saying it isn't happening is an increasingly difficult position to defend scientifically. Recent discoveries show that we must reject the idea that human evolution stopped dead 50,000 years ago or more. In fact, there is every reason to believe that it is going on right now.

Take the discovery last year by Bruce Lahn of the University of Chicago of two genes involved in brain development that emerged in recent human history and swept quickly through the population. One, a version of a gene called microcephalin, arose between 14,000 and 60,000 years ago and is now carried by 70 per cent of people. The other, a variant of the ASPM gene, is as recent as 500 to 14,000 years old and is now carried by about a quarter of the global population.

No one yet knows the function of these genes, but Lahn's discoveries could be just the tip of the iceberg.

Of course, being science, these views are tested and challenged all the time:

It turns out evolution happens in real time (as if it would happen in any other kind of time). From the Bradenton Herald (I quote the article almost in its entirety, in case any of the Christianists from Minnesota come back for more):

A new study of lizards in the Bahamas shows that the natural selection pressures that drive evolution can flip-flop faster than previously thought--even in months.

Man, that's even faster than the neo-cons flip-flopped on Iraq!

But read on. It's a fascinating experiment:

The Complete Works of Charles Darwin online.

Get a load of this:

Evolutionary biology has vanished from the list of acceptable fields of study for recipients of a federal education grant for low-income college students.

The omission is inadvertent, said Katherine McLane, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education, which administers the grants. “There is no explanation for it being left off the list,” Ms. McLane said. “It has always been an eligible major.”

Uh-huh. I'm sure that keeping the delusions of The Base intact have nothing to do with this. Especially since it's an election year.

Timesman Ralph Blumenthal cuts loose with a beauty:

Evolution Opponents Lose Kansas Board Majority
Kansas voters on Tuesday handed power back to moderates on the State Board of Education, setting the stage for a return of science teaching that broadly accepts the theory of evolution, according to preliminary election results.

Can anyone spot the "balance blooper"?

This is so neat! They don't have a free image so you have to go watch the video; it's almost enough to make me finally install RealPlayer. Five million years is a long time, and the next time some wingnut says evolution is 'just a theory,' ask them about the blind, white shrimp. Seems they didn't need that ark-ride so much.