Relatively new blogger Marshall Art had gotten off to a rip-roaring start a few weeks ago when he suddenly had to go on hiatus due to surgery. Last night, in lieu of anything seriously productive (like sleep), I scrolled through old posts, and found out that this wildly successful and free-ranging thread had spun completely out of control. From a rather interesting, occasionally heated, but never dull discussion centering around abortion, with pit stops discussing the relevance of God, 114 comments later the comments' thread descended to - evolution.
Whoa, Nelly.
Now, I could play along with this particular game, if I chose to do so. I don't however, because I learned a while back that, if one accepts one's opponents terms of debate in public discussions - especially when those terms are factually inaccurate - you have already lost. By accepting the possibility that there is something to discuss concerning biological evolution is already to have lost because it creates the false impression that such a position has a certain intellectual legitimacy. It doesn't. I refuse to get in to a phony debate on a non-issue, shedding more heat than light, and giving an intellectually vacuous position the false legitimacy of being a debatable option.
That's the short statement of my position. I wish to flesh it out with just a couple examples. Before I do, however, I want to go back to March, when I posted herethe abstract of a paper co-written by, among others, my sister, who is associate professor of biology at Lincoln University, and a researcher at the University of Delaware. I will be highlighting some of that, but you can click and go back and see how the abstract was used then. I will be calling upon it soon enough.
The foray in to the issue of evolution began this way, with commenter mom2 writing the following:
These people that refuse to believe that human life begins at conception are probably the same ones that believe in the "big bang" theory of creation. It takes a whole lot more imagination (I refuse to call it faith) to think that something as intricate and beautiful as this world came about by some kind of explosion. All of the different species of animals, insects, birds and humans as well are much too complicated to have just happened by some kind of mysterious accident. In the beginning was God.
It seems to me like human stubbornness or desire to be like a god to try to explain away the awesomeness and greatness of God. Evolution makes no sense to me either.
One marvels at the simplicity of such a statement. At one level, there is an abiding faith at the awesome power of a god who can whip up a Universe as complex, intriguing, frightening, and wonderful as this in six days a few thousand years ago. At another level, however, is the ignorance of someone who insists that they understand things better than, say, actual scientists. At a third level is the effrontery of someone presuming to make ignorance a virtue and integral part of belief in the Christian God.
One commenter, les, took up the gauntlet, and offered a standard rebuttal (more power to ya, dude!):
Actually, mom2, I'm a creationist, yet I have no problem accepting evolution as a solid scientific theory. Furthermore, I don't think the two necessarily have to be mutually exclusive - even biblically. Who's to say the heavens and earth being "finished", as read in Genesis 2:1, excludes the principle of evolution? Namely, why couldn't God's finished product include the capability to adapt?
Pretty good stuff. A nice rejoinder, and one I have used myself back when I thought such things as "debates" over evolution made some kind of sense. Mom2, however, was having none of it, however, and responded with the following rejoinder:
Where are all the fossils and evidence to prove the evolution and progression of the species?
One possible response would be "museums of natural history". Another would be "the ground". Interpretations of these fossils can be found in a host of scholarly publications, and popularizations such as the old columns by the late Stephen Jay Gould in Natural History magazine. Responding in this way, however, still gives the question an acceptability that it doesn't warrant. While not particularly polite or conducive to the kind of comity I prefer (even in the midst of heated discussions), a much more honest response to such a question would be: "How stupid are you?"
In point of fact, despite massive gaps in the fossil record (to be expected on a planet as geologically active as ours over the course of hundreds of millions of years), there are wonderful reconstructions of the evolutionary path of species such as horses, camels, whales (the subject of one of Gould's columns that I remember well), and, of course, Darwin's finches, not to mention human beings. There is even all sorts of evidence that takes on that old creationist bugaboo, the evolution of the eye. It's all there, and more, and its been written about, discussed, debated (by scientists) with the conclusions pretty much accepted - except by those who don't want to be convinced, of course.
Marshall gets in to the act, as well. In response to my own comment at the end of the thread, Marshall writes the following:
Geoff,
I can't be sure, but I believe Mom2 was referring to the lack of fossils of transition creatures, or, the animal that bridges one distinct species to another distinct species. Similarities are one thing. There are similarities amongst every different animal group, which isn't surprising, coming as we all do from the same planet. But no half-bird/half-dog or some such thing.
But anyway, the thread goes on as long as someone has something new to offer. I'd prefer it stay on topic, especially since I'm still breathlessly awaiting opposing data to counter my argument. For now, I'd be satisfied with a good reason as to why my argument is not yet made. Either should be entertaining.
"No half-bird/half-dog or some such thing . . ."
Wow.
I mean it. Wow.
Just one point I would like to make here. While its relevance is questionable, I suppose, it is something to ponder. In the course of the discussion within the comments on this post, Marshall attempts to garner support for a particular moral position by arguing from the scientific evidence of DNA that a zygote is a full human being. This same DNA, which Marshall presents as evidence so incontrovertible as to be unanswerable, also presents the evidence that we share more DNA with chimpanzees than do most other related species. This, however, is evidence of evolution, and is either ignored or discounted. One might hope that those who wish to marshal science to their aid (no pun intended) would at least be consistent.
More to the point, a statement such as the one quoted above shows a remarkable ignorance of the way species are determined, and the physical similarity between some species that are quite distant within the evolutionary web on the one hand, and the bio-chemical basis for determining species differentiation on the other. My sister, whose paper I will be quoting from momentarily, did her dissertation on the subject, and I learned from her that very often the distinction between species is one not pf physiology, but chemistry. The reason there aren't "half-bird/half-dog"'s (bird-dogs, one supposes, like the German short-haired pointer) is because, while there are occasional leaps in the evolutionary ladder (the Cambrian Explosion is one such, part of a theory expounded by the aforementioned Gould known as "punctuated equilibrium, a topic for another occasion), most of the time, evolution works its way in a statistically predictable way.
Finally, I think it is important to see the distinction in both style and substance between the kind of statements given to create the illusion fo doubt and controversy on the subject, and the way scientists actually write about their subject. I present this to ask the following question: Who are you going to trust, those who say they don't accept evolution because it just doesn't seem to track with their own perceptions or people who are educated and trained to do actual science? The gap, always huge, and widening all the time, should become obvious from the following:
Regulation of Expression of 1,25D3 –MARRS/ERp57/PDIA3 in Rat IEC-6 Cells by TGFβ and 1,25(OH)2D3
Benjamin Rohe1, Susan E. Safford2, Ilka Nemere3, and Mary C. Farach-Carson1*
1Department of Biological Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, 19716; 2 Department of Biology, Lincoln University, Lincoln University, PA; 3Department of Nutrition and Food Sciences, Utah State University, Logan, UT
* Corresponding author
Tel: 302 831 2277
Fax: 302 831 2281
Email: farachca@udel.edu
Running title: 1,25D3 –MARRS Expression in Rat IEC-6 Cells Abstract
We examined the transcriptional regulation of expression of the redox-sensitive Membrane-Associated Rapid Response, Steroid-binding (1,25D3-MARRS) protein specific for 1,25(OH)2D3 in a rat small intestinal cell line, IEC-6, that demonstrates rapid responses to 1,25(OH)2D3. 1,25D3-MARRS binds and is activated by 1,25(OH)2D3, but is not itself up-regulated by treatment with 1,25(OH)2D3, nor is there a vitamin D response element (VDRE) in its proximal promoter. We previously reported that transforming growth factor β (TGFβ) increased steady state levels of 1,25D3-MARRS transcript and protein approximately two-fold (Rohe et al, 2005). To determine if this up-regulation could be attributed to the function of a highly conserved consensus smad 3 binding element present in the proximal promoter of the 1,25D3-MARRS gene, we created a promoter-reporter [SEAP] construct that was responsive to TGFβ (200 pM). Deletion or mutation of the smad 3 element greatly reduced the response of the 1,25D3-MARRS promoter to TGFβ. Subsequent studies found that the smad 3 response element is bound by a protein found in the IEC-6 nuclear extract, most likely smad 2/3. Interestingly, although 1,25(OH)2D3 alone did not increase expression of the 1,25D3-MARRS promoter-reporter, co-treatment of transfected IEC-6 cells with 1,25(OH)2D3 and TGFβ shifted the dose response for the response to a lower concentration (100 pM). We conclude that TGFβ is a transcriptional regulator of 1,25D3-MARRS expression via a functional smad 3 element and that cross-talk with non-classical 1,25(OH)2D3-stimulated pathways occurs. The findings have broad implications for redox sensitive signaling phenomenon including those that regulate phosphate transport in the intestine.
The technical exactness and complexity of real scientific work and its detailed expression, while confusing to the non-scientist, should be considered against the backdrop of questions about "half-bird/half-dog"'s. In the end, this is why I really don't like to venture in to the territory of false debates. Those who attempt to raise questions are, to be blunt, ignorant of the reality of science. It might be nice if scientific literature were accessible to the uninitiated, but technical expertise doesn't invalidate the reality that real science is light-years away from the truly ignorant questions of the creationists.
