Book Review: Parasite Rex

A few of our hymns extoll the majesty of God as reflected in the natural world. When we sing songs like "How Great Thou Art," or "All Creature of our God and King," we probably aren't thinking of tapeworms, mites, or amoebaes. Although most people think of such things with nothing but disgust, these creatures are a major force in this world and far outnumber any of the more "majestic" creatures. Carl Zimmer takes a look at this unseen and underappreciated world in Parasite Rex.

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The term "parasite" is a somewhat unfortunate term--it carries negative images of laziness, insignificance, and lack of respectability. Zimmer explains:

If there hadn't been such high walls dividing scientists who study life--the zoologists, the immunologists, the mathematical biologists, the ecologists--parasites might have been recognized sooner as not disgusting, or at least not merely disgusting. If parasites were so feeble, so lazy, how was it that they could manage to live inside every free-living species and infect billions of people? How could they change with time so that medicines that could one treate them became useless?

Parasites are gaining the recognition the deserve. Many of the diseases that still plague humans are parasites. Yet they may hold the keys to future miracle drugs. The book takes us on tours of some of the bizarre and complicated life-cycles that parasites can have. It also explains the large impact parasites have on ecology, human health, and evolution in general. For example, it increasingly looks like parasites may be the reason sexual reproduction is so common. The book also describes some of mankind's efforts to fight parasites, and how the parasites fight back.

Zimmer discusses the historical context to the question of how parasites got here. If parasites were created by God,

Why did God create parasites? To keep us from being too proud, by reminding us that we were merely dust. How did parasites get into us? They must have been put there by God, since there was no apparent way for them to get in by themselves. Perhaps they were passed down through generations within our bodies to the bodies of our children. Did that mean Adam, who was created in purest innocence, came into being already loaded with parasites? Maybe the parasites were created inside him after his fall. But wouldn't this be a second creation, an eighth day added on to that first week--"and on the following Monday God created parasites?" Well, then, maybe Adam was created with parasites after all, but in Eden parasites were his helpmates...But why should Adam, created not only in innocence but in perfection, need any help at all?

Such theological debate is still relevant. As the book explains the complicated--one might even say "specified" and "complex"--aspects of parasite life-cycles, one can't help but wonder what implications Intelligent Design, if accepted, might have for theology.

You need not have a stomach of steel to read this book; it doesn't dwell extensively on the disgusting. You just need some curiosity and a willingness to look into a window of the alternate, yet co-existing and interacting, world of parasites.

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Why Did the Chicken Loose Its Teeth?

This news article describes an interesting finding--a mutant chicken growing teeth. The particular mutation is lethal to the developing chicken embryo, but it lives long enough to begin developing teeth.

"They don't make a molar," explains development biologist John Fallon, who oversaw Harris's work. "What they make is this conical, saber-shaped structure that is clearly a tooth. The other animal that has a tooth like that is an alligator."

Previous efforts to produce teeth in chickens had relied on introducing genetic information from mice, resulting in chickens growing mammalian molars. But a chicken's underlying ability to grow teeth derives from a common ancestor with alligators--archosaurs--that is more recent than the one linking birds and mammals. Nevertheless, the underlying genetic mechanism that produces teeth in mice, alligators and mutant chickens remains the same.

I think this little historical bit is also interesting:

In the early 19th century, Saint-Hillaire observed that developing parrots have tiny bumps on their beaks that resemble teeth, something he ascribed to modern animals deriving from more basic primitive forms. But due to his developing battles with Georges Cuvier over evolution, the finding was forgotten until Harris, a graduate student, re-discovered it nearly 200 years later.

The details will need to be teased out, but it appears that birds do not make teeth, not because the deveopmental pathways do not exist, but because the regulation of those pathways has been altered in a manner that prevents tooth development.

(via Pharyngula.)

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Review of At the Water's Edge

In the public debate over evolution few people argue about the occurance of microevolution--it has been so clearly demonstrated that most anti-evolutionists conceed this level of change in species. Much more contentious is the debate over macroevolution--the process that gives rise to major groups. What is the evidence for such transitions, how do they happen, and why? These questions are addressed by Carl Zimmer in his first book, At the Water's Edge.

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Zimmer, a respected science journalist, takes us on a journey from water to land, and back to water again. The first half of the book deals with the transition of water-dwelling lobe-fined fish to terrestrial tetrapods almost 400 million years ago, while the second half describes the origin of cetaceans (whales, dolphins, etc.) around 50 million years ago. There are lessons in history, anatomy, physiology, cladistics, and development that are smoothly explained and easy to take in. These mini-lessons are often set in larger narratives that explain the history and progression of scientific discovery. Sometimes Zimmer takes us out on digs where we get to watch paleontologists at work discovering dramatic examples of transitional fossils.

There are certainly questions still to be answered and this book will not be the last word on the subjects it covers. It is nevertheless a good introduction to the issues at hand. The writing is not all third person; Zimmer's interviews with scientists allow us to hear their perspective in their own words. The book also has a number of illustrations that help to convey concepts and suggest what some of the extinct transitional animals may have looked like. There is also a small glossary to help with some of the scientific terminology.

Read the book--what more can I say?

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Trouble at NASA

NASA has had a tough couple of weeks in the news. First, a NASA scientist claims that the Bush administration tried to silence him about global warming, then a 24-year old public affairs worker appointed by Bush resigns after allegations that he tried to make scientists add the word "theory" every time the Big Bang was mentioned because of a perceived conflict with religion--and it turned out that he had not graduated from college like his resume said. Then a press release was altered to remove a reference to the sun burning out in five billion years so as not to scare people. (?)

Now there are more reports of political pressure on NASA to tone down findings conflicting with administration policy. New York Times:

Top political appointees in the NASA press office exerted strong pressure during the 2004 presidential campaign to cut the flow of news releases on glaciers, climate, pollution and other earth sciences, public affairs officers at the agency say.

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Elder Oaks, DNA, and the Book of Mormon

The issue of DNA and the Book of Mormon flared up again today thanks to the LA Times. Our own Bloggernacle Times initiated some discussion on the matter. The story prompted the Church to re-release its position:

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The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ is exactly what it claims to be — a record of God’s dealings with peoples of ancient America and a second witness of the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ. The strongest witness of the Book of Mormon is to be obtained by living the Christ-centered principles contained in its pages and by praying about its truthfulness.

Recent attacks on the veracity of the Book of Mormon based on DNA evidence are ill considered. Nothing in the Book of Mormon precludes migration into the Americas by peoples of Asiatic origin. The scientific issues relating to DNA, however, are numerous and complex. Those interested in a more detailed analysis of those issues are referred to the resources below. [Links to FARMS publications follow.]

Elder Dallin H. Oaks wrote the following in his book, The Lord's Way:

[The need to develop a testimony from the Holy Ghost and have faith] helps us to understand why the methods of science are not applicable to establishing the truthfulness of the gospel, the fact of the Restoration, or the origin and truth of the Book of Mormon. President Ezra Taft Benson has declared: "It never has been the case, nor is it so now, that the studies of the learned will prove the Book of Mormon true or false. The origin, preparation, translation, and verification of the truth of the Book of Mormon have all been retained in the hands of the Lord."

Some Latter-day Saints have not accepted this reality and are preoccupied with evidences to prove the Book of Mormon...The lack of decisive scientific proofs of scriptural truths does not preclude gospel defenders from couterarguments of that nature. When opponents attack the Church or its doctrines with so-called proofs, loyal defenders will counter with material of a comparable nature to defend. As Elder Neal A. Maxwell has said, "We can be assured that enough plausible, supporting data and external evidence will come forth to prevent scoffers from having a field day with the scriptures, but not enough to remove the requirement of faith." (p. 91-92)

I appreciate the need for spiritual conversion. I distinctly remember meeting a less-active woman on my mission who apparently joined the Church because, in dealing with missionaries, all of her intellectual concerns had been neutralized--what choice did she have but to join? There was apparently no real spiritual conversion though, and she had drifted off into New Age. I doubt she has come back.

On the other hand, (intellectually) living largely in the negative space created by positive findings is not very satisfying to me--eg. recasting the Book of Mormon into a genetically untestable position. The "limited geography theory" notwithstanding, I think we're in for some tough hits for a while--at least until external evidence of a "comparable nature" comes forth (or revelation that adjusts our expectations.) In the meantime I guess we're just going to have to be patient, but let us also be careful. To quote Elder Oaks again, "...truth is better served by silence than by a bad argument."

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Darwin Day

Charles Darwin's 197th birthday is today. A lot of blogs have commented on it in one way or another--here is a good sampling. (See also the contribution at Dave's Mormon Inquiry.)

My father remembers taking a zoology class at BYU from Duane Jeffery where doughnuts were served on this day.

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Duane Jeffery on SB96

The Salt Lake Tribune published an opinion article by Duane Jeffery regrading Sen. Buttars' bill, SB96. He briefly deals with three claims. I quote the claims below; you'll have to read the article for his answers. (An additional nine Utah scientists signed on to the opinion.)

1. Claim: Since the bill itself does not mention "intelligent design," "divine design" or anything relating to "faith-based interests," the bill is therefore immune to legal challenge.

2. Claim: There are no transitional fossils.

3. Claim: Evolutionists cling to their theory because they don't wish to believe in a Creator.

In addition to his faculty status at BYU, Jeffery is a director for the National Center for Science Education, an organization that defends the teaching of evolution.

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America's Future?

An article in the Los Angeles Times describes the work of Ken Ham, the leader of Answers in Genesis.

Evangelist Ken Ham smiled at the 2,300 elementary students packed into pews, their faces rapt. With dinosaur puppets and silly cartoons, he was training them to reject much of geology, paleontology and evolutionary biology as a sinister tangle of lies.

"Boys and girls," Ham said. If a teacher so much as mentions evolution, or the Big Bang, or an era when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, "you put your hand up and you say, 'Excuse me, were you there?' Can you remember that?"

The completion of that line of argument is that God was there, and we have his account in the Bible. It is a slick argument with subtle assumptions that pits man against God.

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He urges students to offer creationist critiques of their textbooks, parents to take on science museum docents, professionals to raise the subject with colleagues. If Ham has done his job well, his acolytes will ask enough pointed questions — and set forth enough persuasive arguments — to shake the doctrine of Darwin.

Unfortunately the persuasive arguments are actually persuasive propaganda based on sound bites and distortion.

When pastors dismiss the creation account as a fable, he says, they give their flock license to disregard the Bible's moral teachings as well. He shows his audiences a graphic that places the theory of evolution at the root of all social ills: abortion, divorce, racism, gay marriage, store clerks who say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas."

Nice--it's all neat and tidy. Evolution the root of racism? Oh, I see. All those years of slavery and segregation owe their existence to a book published in 1859. If only there had been literalist fundamentalists in the South to talk some sense into people.

You can see Ham at work here.

(via Erying-L)

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Formatting and Recent Comments

I downloaded Firefox and I seem to have the formatting fixed. Please let me know if it is not fixed in your browser. I can't guarantee I'll be able to fix it, but I'll try.

As I mentioned before, I've added a "recent comments" feature to my right sidebar. I'm basically using the blogger hack, which lists the comments in each post with the most recent comment on the bottom. It's not quite how I would like it, but it seems to serve its purpose, and it's not too shabby.

I'm open to suggestions. Hate it? Like It? Alter it?

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Buttars' Bill Passes House Committee 7-6

The Salt Lake Tribune has the story.

[Buttars' illness] left Rep. Jim Ferrin, R-Orem, to carry the bill. Ferrin changed the "origins" bill to remove wording that implied more than one scientific theory on the origin of species existed. He told the committee that evolution is the only scientific explanation, but that scientists have a variety of opinions under the umbrella term "evolution."

He also said he has concerns that teachers are offering evolution as a fact when it hasn't been "indisputably proven."

Ferrin would like science teachers to "simply acknowledge what is proven and what is not proven."

It sounds like the bill is getting watered down--to the point that it seems superfluous.

(hat-tip to jcobabe.)

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Book of Mormon Historicity: Sunstone Links

Over the past year a number of articles and letters have been published in Sunstone concerning Book of Mormon historicity. For those who are interested, SunstoneBlog.com has made them available for free, along with some letters not published.

For those unfamiliar with the terrain, here's a short list of people and their basic position. Not all of the authors are represented here, and I'm splitting them into two camps even though there are gradations between them.

Pro-historical: Trent Stephens, Blake Ostler, Kevin Christensen.

Not historical: Simon Southerton, Thomas Murphy, Brent Lee Metcalfe, Dan Vogel.


A number of the articles make reference to other publications such as those from FARMS. This FAIR page has links to many of those publications.

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Geology, I Am Doing It

Do you know what a varve or a Milankovitch cycle is? If not, you should head on over to The Western Geologist, a blog run by a couple of--geologists.

Western Geologist himself is not LDS but he grew up in Utah and has LDS family. Capt. Obsidian is LDS. I see they have been hitting some of the same issues I have and read some of the same blogs. I think they've even got a celebrity endorsement by Brigham Young.

I know very little about geology so I'll be keeping an eye on them.

(For WG's benefit, the title of my post is a play on a children's church song that goes, "Genealogy, I am doing it...")

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Cain, Bigfoot, and DNA Testing

The stars are aligning or something. First there was this post which brought up the connection between race and Cain. Then there was this discussion on Cain and his posterity in the Bible. Oh, and we can't forget this poll which has fun with the folk doctrine that Cain is bigfoot.

PZ Myers has drawn my attention to an article in Trends in Ecology and Evolution (Vol. 21 No.2 Feb 2006) that investigates Sasquatch. Some fur was collected from the scene of a sighting and tested for DNA. The article pointed me to another article in Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution (31, 2004, 1-3) that tested the DNA of hair identified as belonging to yeti.

The results: Sasquatch clusters with bison; Yeti clusters with ungulates.

I suppose cryptozoologists will be undeterred. The Sasquatch researchers concluded that the hair recovered was not that of Sasquatch, so I guess they'll keep on searching.

Update: Well things have just taken a turn for the stranger. A comment on Myers' post pointed out this cryptozoology page analyzing bigfoot tracks. The analysis was done by none other than D. Jeffrey Meldrum--the same D. Jeffrey Meldrum who co-authored Evolution and Mormonism with Trent Stephens! Here is his faculty webpage--I see he has been interviewed on "Coast to Coast AM". Here is another webpage describing his interest. I'm not sure what to think about all of this.

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Judging Miracles: My Approach

I hope my last post didn't raise expectations too high for a profound analysis of miracles. I'm just going to throw out a few of my thoughts on the subject.

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As background, there are at least two great talks on miracles in Church literature. This talk by Elder Oaks, and this talk by Elder Matthew Cowley. On a more practical level, I really enjoy Michael Ash's take on miracles.

"Recognizing that miracles are harmonious with natural (although perhaps unknown) laws gives reason to suggest that some of the “miracles” of scriptural times might be understood in accordance with natural phenomenon with which we are familiar, while other “miracles” might be supported by natural laws with which we are still unfamiliar. Miracles such as the Resurrection, Jesus' walking on the water, his healing of the lame and blind, etc., appeal to natural laws that still allude us. Other miracles, such as the parting of the Red Sea, the manna from heaven, etc., might possibly be explained by phenomenon with which we are familiar – this no less makes such occurrences, “miracles.” Although an earthquake may be the result of the shifting of tectonic plates, for instance, it is no less of a miracle when the timing, location, and outcome is directed by the Lord or by the hand of the Lord's prophet."

I am perfectly comfortable with many miracles having more limited and natural explanations. In many cases I don't think it really matters. My basic philosophy is that I will not deny God the power to do anything that He or his prophets have not ruled out--but we have to deal with what we have in terms of evidence, if there is any.

Did God actually cause the whole earth to be flooded in the time of Noah and kill all land life not on the ark? I won't deny God the ability to do so in principle, but we have to deal with what we have. In order to believe that God flooded the whole earth I must also believe that he erased any trace of it and planted contrary evidence, so I favor a more limited explanation of local floods. (As an aside, imagine you had never seen the ocean before and you were washed out into the open sea. Wouldn't you think the whole earth was flooded?)

So I find myself with a mix of skepticism and faith. I am not willing to throw out miracles, but neither do I automatically accept them all at face value. I guess I could summarize my approach with several questions. For any miraculous claim, (i) how trustworthy is the source? (ii) is there a more limited or natural explanation? (iii) does it matter?

It's not an objective or unbiased approach, but it's the best I've got at the moment.

(By the way, note that Elder Oaks proposes a more natural explanation for the miracles performed by Pharaoh's magicians.)

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Judging Miracles: Background

Over the Christmas holiday I picked up my Dad's copy of Believing History: Latter Day Saint Essays, a collection of essays by Richard Bushman. One of the essays, "Joseph Smith and Skepticism," discusses some of the context that led many to reject Joseph's miraculous claims. [Disclaimer: I don't own the book, so I welcome correction if my memory errs.]

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For many, the skepticism toward miracles was rooted in the Enlightenment resulting in rejection of biblical miracles. Protestant Christians responded with apologetic arguments in defense of miracles, but they had a problem--Catholicism had a substantial tradition of miracles. Protestants had to defend biblical miracles while discrediting Catholic miracles, so they came up with a number of criteria to separate the true from the false. One fierce defender of Christian miracles was Alexander Campbell--the same man who attacked Mormonism after the conversion of Sidney Rigdon and other of his [Campbell's] movement in Ohio.

Joseph's miracles stood between two opposing enemies--those who rejected miracles in general, and those who thought miraculous claims like Joseph's had to be debunked and rejected for the sake of defending those in the Bible.

I found this historical context quite interesting. It seems to me that the whole problem of judging miracles applies to us, but also in a slightly different way. Ours is a religious tradition that encourages seeking knowledge and understanding of this earth and how it works, yet demands belief in miracles. Skepticism and belief each have a claim in our theology.

In a forthcoming post I will discuss my half-baked approach to the issue of judging miracles.

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Humanzees Are Right Out

Bush's State of the Union speech last night contained this bit:

Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research, human cloning in all its forms, creating or implanting embryos for experiments, creating human-animal hybrids, and buying, selling or patenting human embryos.

PZ Myers responds:

But guess what? Creating chimeras is legitimate and useful scientific research; it's really happening. Of course, it isn't with the intent of creating monstrous half-animal/half-human slaves or something evil like that, and scientists are well aware (or should be well aware) of the ethical concerns, and it's the topic of ongoing debate. Let's consider one recent example of such an experiment.

Referring to a mouse model of Down's syndrome, he continues:

So what scientists have been doing is inserting human genes into mice, to produce similar genetic overdoses in their development. As I reported before, there have been partial insertions, but now a team of researchers has inserted a complete human chromosome 21 into mouse embryonic stem cells, and from those generated a line of aneuploid mice that have many of the symptoms of Down syndrome, including the heart defects. They also have problems in spatial learning and memory that have been traced back to defects in long-term potentiation in the central nervous system.

These mice are a tool to help us understand a debilitating human problem.

I hope he doesn't have this kind of research in mind.

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Overview and History of the Wedge

The Seattle Weekly has a nice article that reviews the history of the Discovery Institute. It gives some background on the founders, funding, and strategy, then summarizes the recent court defeat. It tells the story of the leaking of the document, "The Wedge Strategy," and provides a copy for your reading pleasure. (While the document was leaked in 1999, Phillip Johnson was already using the wedge analogy in at least one of his previously published books.)

Here's one of my favorite parts, referring to the recent trial:

Almost as soon as Eric Rothschild [plaintiff's attorney] began his cross-examination, Behe's cultivated scientific calm began to crumble. Rothschild baited him like a picador, dashing in, planting a barb, turning away to attack from a new direction before his victim realized it. Hour by hour, Rothschild got Behe to admit:

-That no peer-reviewed scientific journal has published research supportive of intelligent design's claims.

-That Behe's own book was not, as he had claimed, peer reviewed.

-That Behe himself criticizes the science presented as supporting intelligent design in instructional material created for that purpose.

-That intelligent design seems plausible and reasonable to inquirers in direct proportion to their belief or nonbelief in God.

-And that the basic arguments for evidence of purposeful design in nature are essentially the same as those adduced by the Christian apologist Rev. William Paley (1743–1805) in his 1802 Natural Theology: or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, Collected From the Appearances of Nature, where he sums up his observations of the complexity of life in the ringing words, "The marks of design are too strong to be got over. Design must have had a designer. That designer must have been a person. That person is GOD."

(via Red State Rabble.)

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