Bill 44: About sensitivity to beliefs or legitimizing ignorance?

NDP leader Brian Mason had this to say about Bill 44, legislation tabled yesterday which allows parents to pull their children from class on the basis of belief:

All they’ve done is make Alberta look like Northumberland and sound like Arkansas.

Testify! 

Bill 44 is

[a] controversial Alberta bill will enshrine into law the rights of parents to pull their children out of classes discussing the topics of evolution and homosexuality.

The new rules, which would require schools to notify parents in advance of “subject-matter that deals explicitly with religion, sexuality or sexual orientation,” is buried in a bill that extends human rights to homosexuals. Parents can ask for their child to be excluded from the discussion.

Education minister Dave Hancock:

“With respect to values, religion and sex education have always been areas of concern for parents, and they’ve always been areas parents have had the right to be notified about and to exempt their students from.” 

Why Evolution Is True – A Book Review

I have just finished Jerry Coyne’s book on the fact of evolution entitled Why Evolution Is True. I say fact, of course, since there is no longer any discussion of whether evolution happened in biology. Not because evolution is dogmatically unquestionable, as evolution deniers will say, but because such a discussion is utterly pointless. 

He begins the book by describing what evolution is (itself often misunderstood) and a bit about systematics. It’s a good basic description of how phylogenetic trees are built from a comparative morphology point of view. He moves on to some interesting examples of visible evolution in the fossil record, discussing the near-continuous changes in radiolarians and foraminiferans, some of the recent fossil evidences for various transitions such as the aquatic-terrestrial tetrapod transition, dinosaur to bird, and (with good reason, as Jerry demonstrates, the darling of modern paleontology) land-sea mammalian transition.

Jerry continues with some of the earliest evidences of evolution that was discussed in The Origin, such as vestigial organs and atavisms, as well as something somewhat more modern – evidence from pseudogenes. Embryology is also strong in this chapter and he clearly describes what “phylogeny begets ontogeny” means, with examples. This easily leads into, of course, how bad design occurs. I’ve always enjoyed examples of clearly inept design, and here Jerry gives some of the more famous ones like the tortuous path of the aortic arches in humans and how such a ridiculous ‘design’ arose from contingency dictated by our evolutionary past. 

Hemoglobin: A Molecule Connecting Us All

Every molecule in your body has a story to tell. This tale is about hemoglobin, the class of oxygen-binding molecules that make oxygen transport in complex creatures such as us possible. Hemoglobins are proteins that contain the heme moiety, a planar molecule binding iron (Fe) and maintaining it in the +2 oxidataion state (denoted Fe(II)).

Hemoglogins in the Animal Kingdom
Hemoglobins in almost all vertebrates is a heterotetramer (that is, four (‘tetra’) individual of different (‘hetero’) proteins) composed of two α-globin and two β-globin polypeptides (a fancy word for proteins). The heme part is bound in a pocket formed by structure of each globin unit. The movement and interactions between the subunits increases hemoglobin’s ability to bind oxygen.

Hemoglobin structure

Kent Hovind Bears a Striking Resemblance to a Bag O’ Hammers….

I’ve grown up believing that you should not speak ill of anyone, but then, I don’t lie, either. The subject of this blog is Kent Hovind, or ‘Dr. Dino’; a man that, without ever having met, I completely loathe. No, it goes beyond that, and I will now tell you why.

Yesterday, I downloaded a debate that was made available on the Infidel Guy website between Mr. Kent Hovind and Dr. Massimo Pigliucci which originally aired in 2001. Dr. Pigliucci most ably defended evolution with a great deal more patience than I would have had. I have little patience for stupidity (which is why I never found ‘Friends’ funny at all) and have to fight the urge to stop my hand from smacking topside of the head anyone suffering from this all too common affliction. Mr. Hovind would receive a great deal less gentle attention in my presence.

It is apparent that Mr. Hovind is unhappy at being called ‘Mr.’ and feels that his ‘degree’ from an unaccredited university demands that the title ‘Dr.’ be used when addressing him:

‘… I have a doctor’s degree also, though it’s not from an accredited university but I don’t think that matters…’ 

A Search for Life’s Origins – The Work of Jack Szostak

The origin of life problem is perhaps the most important question to ever have been the focus of scientific scrutiny. The only other question that I think rates of similar importance is the origin of the universe. Both questions have special obstacles to overcome before any answers are within sight.

The Miller-Urey experiment of the 50s was a lightningrod for research into this question, but the euphoria caused by the viewpoint that the answers were near quickly receded once the scope of the problem was realized and it was decades before the excitement was rekindled in the scientific world. It’s no surprise that the search is a difficult one. Remember, researchers are trying to compress the millions of years that undoubtedly were required for nature to give life a kick start into the lifespan of humans. Couple this with only a limited knowledge of what the conditions were at the time life started except in the grossest terms with the possibility that trace elements may be essential for the synthesis of life greatly compounds the issue. Anyone thinking that if life arose through naturalistic processes means it should be both easy, and that a mere 50 years of research should have resulted in the creation of protolife really doesn’t have a good grasp of the scope of the problem.