Utah Paleontology Plea

I'm back from a week in Utah. Unfortunately my DSL is on the fritz so I'll have to wait to give a full report, and blogging might be a little light.

In the meantime, The Pandas Thumb had this plea from a Utah paleontologist with the Utah Geological Survey. I'll reproduce the text here, but go to the original post if you want to follow relevant links.

The National Park Service is requesting comments on the development of a regional paleontological repository facility in Vernal, Utah in a partnership with the Vernal Field House of Natural History (Utah State Parks). The facilty is to be constructed adjoining the newly opened Vernal Field House of Natural History in Vernal and jointly managed.

Please strongly support the development of this facility...

We need to strongly support the development of the Uintah Research and Curatorial Center in Vernal, Utah versus the alternative of No Action!

The collection facility at Dinosaur National Monument is falling apart because of substrate instability.

The Vernal Field House of Natural History does not have a collections facility in their new Museum and has basically given up their status as a federal repository until such a facilty can be constructed.

If the proposed facility is not constructed, Utah will not have a federal paleontological repository in the Uinta Basin.

Thus, many more future fossil collections from this region will leave the state, particularly those made through the mitigation of paleontological resources due to energy development.

Also the absence of a paleontological repository in the region could hinder the development of energy resources in the Uinta Basin through the slowing down the ability of local paleontological mitigation groups to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

Again, please strongly support the development of this facility.

Jim Kirkland is a State Paleontologist with the Utah Geological Survey.

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Utah Geology

I'm going to be visiting Utah soon and while I'm there I hope to teach myself some geology. A nice resource to help me is the Utah Geologic Survey. There is a wealth of information on the website for a novice like me.

There's lots of information on the geologic history of Utah (such as the formation of Lake Bonneville and the Great Salt Lake), as well as information on dinosaurs, fossils, minerals, and rocks. Another page has information on geologic sites including a walking tour of downtown Salt Lake City to see the different types of rocks used in construction, and a driving tour that starts at the bottom of Parley's Canyon, goes up over Guardsman Pass, and down Big Cottonwood Canyon.

I doubt I'll have time to see all I want to--and of course I get interested after I lived there, but I'm sure I'll have many opportunities to go back. If you are at all interested in Utah geology, you need to give the website a look.

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Review of the July 2006 Ensign

I had a look through the July Ensign last night and saw a few things I thought I would comment on.

President Hinckley
I noticed much usage of "I believe" in Pres. Hinckley's article. Its launching point is the first Article of Faith, so it makes sense. It just struck me that here I was reading what the prophet has to say about God and he's saying "I believe." In my view the debate over whether a testimony constitutes knowledge or belief is largely one of symantics--the line between knowledge and belief is fuzzy and fluid, IMO. It's not a big deal to me, but for some it might be. If you ever have to defend yourself about only saying that you believe (rather than "know"), President Hinckley's article might help you.

Pioneers
I didn't read the whole article but I did notice the little chart summarizing the handcart companies and how many people died in each one. The Willie and Martin companies lost a good number of people (~14% and 25%, respectively), but most of the rest lost 5% or fewer (even zero). I wonder how a comparable group not crossing the plains would fare. Anyway, the trek out west was certainly tough and a large undertaking that required sacrifice, but perhaps we distort it a little by emphasizing the death and misery in our stories.

The Natural Man
This article is part of a "continuing series examining doctrines unique" to the Church. There is no authorship attached, so I guess you can assume that it is fully endorsed by the Church--or not--depending on what argument you are trying to make, but I digress.

I really liked the this quote from David O. McKay:

[Man has a dual nature...] "One, related to the earthly or animal life; the other, akin to the Divine. Whether a man remains satisfied within what we designate the animal world, satisfied with what the animal world will give him, yielding without effort to the whims of his appetites and passions and slipping farther and farther into the realm of indulgence, or whether, through self-mastery, he rises toward intellectual, moral, and spiritual enjoyments depends upon the kind of choice he makes every day, nay, every hour of his life".

This statement captures part of why I think that evolution can (and ultimately will) fit into the Plan of Salvation. Evolution goes a long way toward explaining how the natural man came to be, or in Pres. McKay's words, why we have a nature "related to...animal life."

Check the Boys
A woman tells her story of waking in the middle of the night and hearing a voice tell her to check on her boys. After the third prompting (it's always three) she does so and discovers one of her sons in a life threatening situation. I like these kinds of stories because they serve to remind us that simple miracles happen.

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Joseph Smith and Phrenology

The subdivision of the brain into different functional areas is a basic concept that probably most people are familiar with. This understanding has roots that run through the discarded notion of phrenology, which was conceived in the late 1700's and made its way to America in the 1830's. The idea behind phrenology was that different functions of the brain were divided within certain areas of the brain, that the size of those areas translated into abilities, and that the shape of the skull was a reflection of the shape of the brain.

Phrenologists claimed that feeling or measuring the contours of the skull provided insight into a person's character. For example, a person might have a bump or depression in the skull indicating the presence or absence of honesty. Although there were skeptics all along, phrenology was generally discredited by the early part of the the twentieth century.(For more information, see The History of Phrenology on the Web, and The Skeptic's Dictionary.)

Davis Bitton and Gary Bunker have written about the intersection of phrenology with Mormons in their article, Phrenology Among the Mormons, in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought (Vol. 9 No. 1). It was a topic that even Joseph Smith weighed in on during the Nauvoo period. (Note: Apparently Michael Quinn's book, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, contains discussion of phrenology. I do not have the book; I would be happy to have someone summarize his discussion in the comments.)

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5 January 1841 -

Minutes: One night Joseph Smith said to D Ells [Dr. Josiah Ells] and to the congregation that he for a length of time thought on phrenology, and that he had a revelation, the Lord rebuking him sharply in crediting such a thing; and further said there was no reality in such a science, but [it] was the works of the devil. (Words of Joseph Smith, p.61)

2 July 1842 - With Joseph's permission, a phrenologist published his evaluation of Joseph in the Nauvoo Wasp. History of the Church contains the findings followed by this comment:

I give the foregoing in my history for the gratification of the curious, and not for [any] respect [I entertain for] phrenology. (HC 5:55)

6 May 1843 -

In the morning, had an interview with a lecturer on Mesmerism and Phrenology. Objected to his performing in the city. (HC 5:383)

13 and 14 October 1843 -

Dr. Turner, a phrenologist, came in. I gratified his curiosity for about an hour by allowing him to examine my head....In the morning, at home, having a long conversation with a physiologist and mesmeriser. I asked them to prove that the mind of man was seated in one part of the brain more than another. (HC 6:56)

(Note: the above quotations are collected in Encyclopedia of Joseph Smith's Teachings by Larry Dahl and Donald Cannon.)

Joseph's skepticism of phrenology was apparently prophetic, but perhaps he went too far in his dismissal. Although the practice of phrenology was discredited, some of the underlying ideas have been shown to be correct. The functions of the brain are divided into specific areas, and in at least some cases function correlates with size.

In spite of Joseph's disapproval of phrenology, some Mormons continued to take an interest in the topic. Church leaders had differing views on it, but generally refrained from either endorsing or condemning. Bitton and Bunker note that, in some respects, phrenology had little to offer Mormons. Phrenology had a component of self-improvement to it--something already contained in Mormon theology. And whereas phrenology claimed to give insight into a person's character, providing strengths and weaknesses, Mormons had patriarchal blessings that, to some extent, did the same thing. By the middle of the twentieth century, the phrenology fad was dead.

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Discovering the Fountains of Life

A little over a month ago, a commenter (BrianJ) suggested that an interesting idea for a book would be a history of people's understanding of biological reproduction. A forthcoming book may not fit the bill exactly, but comes pretty close.

The book is called Generation: The 17th Century Scientists Who Unraveled the Secrets of Human Reproduction. Here's a description from Amazon.com.

Generation is the story of the exciting, largely forgotten decade during the seventeenth century when a group of young scientists—Jan Swammerdam, the son of a Protestant apothecary, Nils Stensen (also known as Steno), a Danish anatomist who first discovered the human tear duct, Reinier de Graaf, the attractive and brilliant son of a rich and successful Catholic architect, and Antoni Leeuwenhoek, a self-taught draper—dared to challenge thousands of years of orthodox thinking about where life comes from. By meticulous experimentation, dissection, and observation with the newly invented microscope, they showed that like breeds like, that all animals come from an egg, that there is no such thing as spontaneous generation, and that there are millions of tiny, wriggling “eels” in semen. However, their ultimate inability to fully understand the evidence that was in front of them led to a fatal mistake. As a result, the final leap in describing the process of reproduction—which would ultimately give birth to the science of genetics—took nearly two centuries for humanity to achieve. Including previously untranslated documents, Generation interweaves the personal stories of these scientists against a backdrop of the Dutch “Golden Age.” It is a riveting account of the audacious men who swept away old certainties and provided the foundation for much of our current understanding of the living world.

The book received a favorable review in Nature, and there is a website dedicated to it with supplementary material. It looks like it is not available in the U.S. until August. I'll have to keep it on my list of books to read.

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Ark-eology

Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars has a post on recent claims that Noah's Ark is in Iran. The evidence is so convincing that the widow of an astronaut thinks they just might have found it. You can read Ed's commentary here, and be sure to see his subsequent uncovering of a diploma-mill degree. The original story is here. Be sure to look at the pictures that appear to show petrified wood sticking out of the ground. Perhaps the photos will convince you. But remember, some think that the ark should be in Turkey.

In fact, it was just last March that other groups got excited about a satellite image of Mt. Ararat (not to mention another group that claims to have already found the ark), as reported in this WorldNetDaily article.

Three different locations and three different "arkish" formations--how will the true one be distinguished? I guess scientists could be called in, but they are generally a skeptical bunch with a propensity to come up with unpleasant results, so presumably some other test will need to be devised.

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Coulter Criticism

The criticisms of Ann Coulter's book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism are starting to come in--specifically, the portion of the book taking on evolution. The folks at The Panda's Thumb appear to be dividing the work up and posting on their own blogs. I mentioned the book and a few of my impressions here. Below I will collect substantive criticisms and make this index available on the sidebar for a while. The links will be grouped by blog (or website).

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Pharyngula
No Evidence for Evolution?: Gives general information on how to find and read about evidence for evolution.

Dispatches from the Culture Wars
Let the Criticism Commence: General comments with some evidence for evolution. Also discusses the duplicity between what Intelligent Design proponents claim for their theory versus the arguments they make, using peppered moths as an example.

The Panda's Thumb
Clueless: Following Discovery Institute writings, Coulter accuses scientists of fraud for using peppered moths as an example of evolution.

EvolutionBlog
Is Natural Selection a Tautology?: Jason from EvolutionBlog discusses the tautology argument. Money quote: "...it has never once happened in the history of science that a theory achieves mainstream status, only to fall apart when a clever outsider notices a simple logical oversight."

The Loom
Behold, For *I* am the Giant Flatulent Raccoon!: Carl Zimmer discusses a passage that was apparently inspired by one of his articles.

Talk Reason
Secondary Addiction: Ann Coulter on Evoution, Part I: Coulter's reliance on secondary sources leads her into errors.

Secondary Addiction: Ann Coulter on Evoution, Part II: Deals with Coulter's treatment of paleontology.

Secondary Addiction: Ann Coulter on Evolution, Part III: Focuses on Archaeopteryx.

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Why Homosexuality Exists: Some Hypotheses

Homosexuality is not my favorite subject, and to the extent that I am interested in it, it's mostly on a theoretical level. But PZ Myers at Pharyngula commented on the same article I blogged about a few days ago, and I think his comments are worth reading if you are interested in why homosexuality appears in nature. He lists several reasonable hypotheses. Contrary to what you might expect, he does not favor a strict genetic connection. Rather, his view is that it is a by-product of the commonalities between men and women in the developmental process, sort of like why men have nipples.

As he notes, there may be multiple mechanisms.

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