HMS Beagle Replica (and this one's not lego)

Reading Darwin’s Beagle blog on Friday, I was struck by a thought as I saw the picture that the author had posted and read Darwin’s first sentence (having arrived back at the Beagle after several days exploring in-land):

“We arrived on board a little after noon; found the Beagle with her masts up, fresh painted & as gay as a frigate.”

That thought was: wouldn’t it be cool if someone reconstructed a replica of the Beagle.

Well, they are! At the Museo Nao Victoria in Chile. You can track progress at the official HMS Beagle Replica website. It’s slow going (having started a couple of years ago) but coming along:

In fact, the Flickr is showing more progress:

I can’t quite tell what the plans are once it’s built, and whether it will sail around the world or stay in Chile. A Google Translate of the “Inicio” page says:

Replica 1: 1 HMS Beagle under construction in the city of Punta Arenas - Chile adds a range of activities, is a powerful attraction for the city and the region of Magallanes and can become a landmark worldwide for being the first time you rebuild this legendary ship. The project was established as a multidisciplinary dynamic platform covering tourism, science, education and training The scale replica of HMS Beagle will have navigation capability and this replica reproduces the characteristics that had the HMS Beagle along his second voyage (1831 - 1836), is a private project, so far, no state resources and counts as one form of financing with the resources generated by ticket sales museum admission. The project employs eight people directly, will occupy 240 tons of local wood, and has an estimated 24 months to complete term.

I think that means that it will be seaworthy but whether we’ll have to go to Chile to visit it, time will tell.

A lego HMS Beagle for Darwin Day

It’s Darwin Day again, and what better way to celebrate than to support the awesome work of LuisPG by voting for his outstanding rendering of “HMS Beagle: A Voyage of Researches”:

The eight minifigures include some all-time favourites for fans of The Voyage of the Beagle, or anyone following Darwin’s tweets/blog of his travels. (He’s around Cape Horn at the moment.)

The Charles Darwin’s Beagle Diary blog features extracts from the diaries of Darwin, Fitzroy and Syms Covington, as well as artwork from Conrad Martens, so it’s good to see them all feature!

There’s more pictures and info at the “Lego ideas - HMS Beagle” page, and in the designer’s flickr album. So go, register (if you need to) and give the Beagle a vote: it’s what a 206 year old Darwin would have wanted.

Belated Happy Darwin Day!

It’s still (just) Darwin Day in some places but I must confess that it came upon me too fast this year. Still, it’s a good excuse to revisit some of the previous Darwin posts about Darwin and Wallace, Darwin the gentleman scientist and last year's Darwin quotes for Darwin Day.

Better still, check out some Darwin Day posts from elsewhere: How Darwin took on Intelligent Design at the Rationalist Association, or a suite of posts at Why Evolution is True, including Darwin’s pet tortoise!

Goodbye Darwin, hello Echidna

Darwin is soon to disappear from the Bank of England £10 note but he’ll be found in British wallets, pockets and purses for some time to come - not just on tenners but also the special release £2 coins from 2009 to mark 200 years since Darwin’s birth. For obvious reasons, it was one of my favourite coins to get in change. Since moving to Australia, the chances of getting a Darwin coin in my change have susbtantially diminished. Instead, however, there is a fair chance of getting one of my favourite animals, the Echidna, which graces the 5c coin.

Echidnas are one of the iconic animals of Australia. Neither a placental mammal nor a marsupial, the Echidna is a monotreme like the playtpus. Monotremes lay eggs like reptiles and produce milk for their young like mammals but have no nipples. Today, we paid another visit to the Australian Museum (for their Tyrannosaurs: Meet the family exhibit), which uses the Echidna for their main logo. As you would expect, they also have a few specimens in the museum. The one below really looks like the one on the coin - I wonder if it was the inspiration!

I have been lucky enough to see an echidna in the wild once. When on holiday in 2004, I was out for a walk in Mission Beach, Queensland, and I chanced upon the guy below who snuffled across my path. One of the highlights of the trip! Hopefully, it won’t be my last wild encounter.

Alfred Russel Wallace unveiled

I’m still not sure why Alfred Russel Wallace always has his middle name used, like the assassin of a an American president, but his statue has just been unveiled at the Natural History Museum. Wallace was not forgotten and Darwin did not cheat him out of due credit for Natural Selection. Nevertheless, his contributions to biology were numerous and important and his independent realisation of the mechanism Natural Selection should be no less applauded just because he was second. It is therefore great that he now has a statue at the Natural History museum.

You can watch a video of the unveiling below (unless it gets pulled - the source is unclear). It is great (and somewhat refreshing) to hear David Attenborough emphasise the comradery and friendship of Darwin and Wallace, rather than (as others are prone to do) spouting conspiracy theories that diminish both men.

Darwin and Wallace at Burlington House

For more on Darwin and Wallace, have a read of today’s guest post on Why Evolution is True by Greg Mayer, Darwin and Wallace at Burlington House. With extensive references and direct quotes from Wallace himself, it makes an interesting read.

The accusations against Darwin are that he ‘stole’ one or more ideas from Wallace, and that the circumstances of the reading and publication of the Linnean Society papers were somehow unethical. Although ostensibly arguing on Wallace’s behalf, these authors must dismiss Wallace’s own accounts (e.g. 1870, 1889, 1905, 1908) of the contributions made by Darwin and himself, and paint Wallace as a victim. But, as his biographer Raby (2001:291) says, “Wallace was not a victim, and he did not see himself as a victim”; to do so “diminishes both Darwin and Wallace.”

Hopefully the conspiracy theorists will now stop diminishing both of these great Victorian scientists and celebrate them both.

Wallace was not forgotten and Darwin did not cheat him

A while ago, I watched - and really enjoyed - Bill Bailey’s Jungle Hero about Alfred Russell Wallace, the “co-discover of Natural Selection”. (I’m not sure why, like assassins of American Presidents, Wallace always has his middle name used.) It was an excellent two-part documentary in which Bailey retraces some of the steps of Wallace in his epic and life-changing - in fact, world-changing - expeditions through Borneo and Idonesia that resulted in the publication of his joint paper with Dariwn in 1858, On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection.

What annoyed me a little, however, was the degree to which the show seemed to buy into two legends about Wallace and his relationship with Darwin: (1) Wallace was forgotten whilst Darwin took all the credit, and (2) Darwin somehow cheated Wallace out his due recognition. As far as I can tell, neither is really the case.

Perhaps I have a twisted view of things as an evolutionary biologist but, even before this year’s activities in honour of the hundred years since his death, Wallace has not been forgotten. He is still lauded as a scientific hero among evolutionary biologists, with several key insights attributed to him. As well as a bunch of species, he has had geographical features named after him, including the Wallace Line and adjoining Wallacea, and is known as “the father of Biogeography”. There is a reason that Darwin is given more credit when it comes to evolution - he did come up with Natural Selection first and as it was the theory was largely ignored until On the Origin of Species was published. (It’s worth reading an interesting and informative post at Why Evolution is True by Greg Mayer, Why is Darwin more famous than Wallace?) But more credit to one does not equate to no credit to the other.

I’ve also never really understood the big deal about the chain of events that resulted in the 1858 joint publication. If, the story goes, if Wallace had only sent his idea direct to publication when he first had it rather than sending it to Darwin then it would have been just the Wallace theory of Natural Selection. (Except that Wallace did not use that term, so it probably would have been called something else.) Perhaps. But, equally, if Darwin had sent his theory for publication when he first had it, Wallace would never have thought of it because it would have already been a solved problem before he even went to Asia. It seems that Wallace is more lucky than unlucky to be heralded the "co-discoverer".

Then there is the even stronger claim that Wallace was not just unlucky, but that Darwin actively did the dirty and cheated him. Apart from the fact that this does not seem to fit with all the evidence that Darwin was an honorable and kind gentleman (included the friendship between Wallace and Darwin), I always thought that if he really wanted to do the dirty on Wallace then some “accident” could easily have befallen the letter.

Having said all that, I’ve not looked into it deeply and have often wondered whether it really was just anti-establishment conspiracy theories or whether there was more to it. I was therefore very interested to read John van Wyhe’s Guardian piece last Friday, Darwin did not cheat Wallace out of his rightful place in history. The title says it all really and you can (and should!) read the article if you are interested to know more - it’s not very long.

The reason why John van Wyhe’s viewpoint is so notable is that he is the founder and chief editor of the both the Darwin Online and Wallace Online websites and has studied the source material in depth. He has also just written a new book about Wallace, “Dispelling the Darkness:Voyage in the Malay Archipelago and the Discovery of Evolution by Wallace and Darwin” - you can read a review in another WEIT post. It looks interesting.

Charles Darwin, the gentleman scientist

Yesterday, we went to Down House, the home of Charles Darwin, with a friend from the US. I've been meaning to go for a while and, as an evolutionary biologist, I guess it is something of a Pilgrimage. (Somehow fitting, therefore, that my Tom Tom Sat Nav decided to direct via all the country backroads, including Pilgrim's Way.) The house is now looked after by English Heritage and features some great exhibits and insights into the great man's life.

As I am reading the blog of Darwin's Beagle diaries, I was initially most interested in the material from that time of his life, including the reconstruction of his cabin on the Beagle. Perhaps what struck me most, though, was Darwin the man, not Darwin the scientist.

Darwin was a gentleman in every sense. It is true that he was independently wealthy and never had to work for his money, being the son of a very successful doctor and financier. Although he did not eschew this inheritance (honestly, who would?!) it is clear that he did not take his fortune for granted. I have already seen glimpses of his opposition to slavery in his journal comments but it was clear from Darwin House that he was also a kind employer to those paid to serve on his staff. His butler, Joseph Parslow, for example was described on his headstone as "Faithful servant and friend of Charles Darwin" and used to play billiards with Darwin. One of Charles Darwin's sons, Frances, wrote (quote taken from TwoJays):

"“As a master of servants he was much loved and respected; he always spoke to them with politeness, using the expression "would you be so good" in asking for anything. And he was considerate in giving them trouble, one little thing I remember, how he used to reprove one for using a useless number of spoons because it gave so much more trouble in cleaning."

On the subject of Darwin's children, the other thing that really came across from the house and the quotes taken from letters etc. was how much he cared for his family. Not only was Darwin a keen lover of nature, he was a loving husband and a doting father. It is not hard to imagine Down House and its gardens as the site of happiness and fun as well as some of the most influential science of the modern age.

Critics of Darwin often try to make him out as some kind of monster, as if discrediting the man can discredit the science. Of course, this is nonsense on many levels. Newton, it seems, was a pretty nasty piece of work but his scientific genius remains. In Darwin's case, not only has the science stood the test of time but the character of the man himself deserves respect, whether you accept the scientific truth of evolution by Natural Selection or not.

Young Darwin at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

Observant folks will have noticed a statue of a young Darwin outside the Luke Building in my earlier post about Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. I like it. Normally, Darwin statues (such as at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History) are of the old Darwin, balding and beardy. I have been reading Darwin's Beagle Diary blog and so it's great to see a statue of the young Darwin striding forward into the unknown. (The 2nd voyage of HMS Beagle die not go via North America, so it's not commemorating an actual visit to Cold Spring Harbor.)

In reading the diaries, I've been captured by the enthusiasm for nature that Darwin exhibits. A few quotes from his time in Bahia, Brazil in February/March 1832 give good examples.

29th February 1832:

"The day has passed delightfully: delight is however a weak term for such transports of pleasure: I have been wandering by myself in a Brazilian forest: amongst the multitude it is hard to say what set of objects is most striking; the general luxuriance of the vegetation bears the victory, the elegance of the grasses, the novelty of the parasitical plants, the beauty of the flowers — the glossy green of the foliage, all tend to this end. — A most paradoxical mixture of sound and silence pervades the shady parts of the wood, the noise from the insects is so loud that in the evening it can be heard even in a vessel anchored several hundred yards from the shore. Yet within the recesses of the forest when in the midst of it a universal stillness appears to reign. To a person fond of natural history such a day as this brings with it pleasure more acute than he ever may again experience."

1st March 1832:

"I can only add raptures to the former raptures. I walked with the two Mids a few miles into the interior. The country is composed of small hills & each new valley is more beautiful than the last. — I collected a great number of brilliantly coloured flowers, enough to make a florist go wild. — Brazilian scenery is nothing more nor less than a view in the Arabian Nights, with the advantage of reality. — The air is deliriously cool & soft; full of enjoyment one fervently desires to live in retirement in this new & grander world."

5th Mar 1832:

"It is a new & pleasant thing for me to be conscious that naturalizing is doing my duty, & that if I neglected that duty I should at same time neglect what has for some years given me so much pleasure."

This is a side of Darwin's character that often seems to be forgotten when discussing his accomplishments with regards to evolution and it's good to have reminders from time to time. He was not just a great Scientist, he was a lover of Nature.

Some Darwin quotes for Darwin Day

Today is Darwin Day, so why not visit DarwinDay.org and see if there are any activities in your area? Alternatively, you can follow Darwin's adventures on HMS Beagle in blog or tweet form. I've been reading the blog of his diary but I think he was too seasick to mention his birthday in the entry for 12th Feb 1832:

There has been a little swell on the sea to day, and I have been very uncomfortable: this has tried and quite overcome the small stock of patience that the early parts of the voyage left me. Here I have spent three days in painful indolence, whilst animals are staring me in the face, without labels and scientific epitaphs.

Of course, another great Darwin Day activity is to read/browse On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life? As well as the PDF linked there, you can also get it free on the Kindle. I've not read it for some time but whenever I dip into it I am struck by how much he seemed to understand the process of Natural Selection despite no one having a clue at that stage about the biology underlying heredity.

The term "Natural Selection" comes in for some criticism because, it is argued, there is no real selection taking place. Nature is not actively picking and choosing - it is a passive selection process. Such criticisms are, I think, ill-founded and usually just a semantic ploy born out of desperation when faced with the inescapable reality that Natural Selection is very real. When you read the Origin, it seems clear to me why Darwin chose the term "Natural Selection":

"From these considerations, I shall devote the first chapter of this Abstract to Variation under Domestication. We shall thus see that a large amount of hereditary modification is at least possible, and, what is equally or more important, we shall see how great is the power of man in accumulating by his Selection successive slight variations. I will then pass on to the variability of species in a state of nature ... As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form." [Introduction]

This is still a good summary of the general principle and process of Natural Selection even in 2013. Darwin recognised that Artificial Selection and Natural Selection are essentially the same thing. We have filled in a lot of the details but Darwin really did get the basics largely right, which is one of the reasons he is still honored by evolutionary biologists. It is re-stated more clearly in Chapter XIV, Recapitulation and Conclusion, in a way that I like because it really lays out the challenge that stands before Creationists to this day - how could Natural Selection not happen?:

"If then we have under nature variability and a powerful agent always ready to act and select, why should we doubt that variations in any way useful to beings, under their excessively complex relations of life, would be preserved, accumulated, and inherited? Why, if man can by patience select variations most useful to himself, should nature fail in selecting variations useful, under changing conditions of life, to her living products? What limit can be put to this power, acting during long ages and rigidly scrutinising the whole constitution, structure, and habits of each creature,--favouring the good and rejecting the bad? I can see no limit to this power, in slowly and beautifully adapting each form to the most complex relations of life. The theory of natural selection, even if we looked no further than this, seems to me to be in itself probable."

And similarly in Chapter IV, Natural Selection:

"Can the principle of selection, which we have seen is so potent in the hands of man, apply in nature? I think we shall see that it can act most effectually. Let it be borne in mind in what an endless number of strange peculiarities our domestic productions, and, in a lesser degree, those under nature, vary; and how strong the hereditary tendency is. ... Let it be borne in mind how infinitely complex and close-fitting are the mutual relations of all organic beings to each other and to their physical conditions of life. Can it, then, be thought improbable, seeing that variations useful to man have undoubtedly occurred, that other variations useful in some way to each being in the great and complex battle of life, should sometimes occur in the course of thousands of generations? If such do occur, can we doubt (remembering that many more individuals are born than can possibly survive) that individuals having any advantage, however slight, over others, would have the best chance of surviving and of procreating their kind? On the other hand, we may feel sure that any variation in the least degree injurious would be rigidly destroyed. This preservation of favourable variations and the rejection of injurious variations, I call Natural Selection. Variations neither useful nor injurious would not be affected by natural selection, and would be left a fluctuating element, as perhaps we see in the species called polymorphic."

The other great thing about this paragraph is the last line. Another unfair criticism leveled at "Darwinists" is the idea that we think that Natural Selection explains everything. It never has and never will. Right from the outset, Darwin alluded to what we now know as Random Genetic Drift - the "fluctuating" evolution of neutral variants in traits that are "neither useful nor injurious".

Another thing that stands out is how little Creationist arguments against Natural Selection have progressed in the last 150 years. Like the good scientist that he was, Darwin outlined a number of potential difficulties to his theory. In the final chapter, however, he summarises the objections thus (my emphasis):

"Such is the sum of the several chief objections and difficulties which may justly be urged against my theory; and I have now briefly recapitulated the answers and explanations which can be given to them. I have felt these difficulties far too heavily during many years to doubt their weight. But it deserves especial notice that the more important objections relate to questions on which we are confessedly ignorant; nor do we know how ignorant we are. We do not know all the possible transitional gradations between the simplest and the most perfect organs; it cannot be pretended that we know all the varied means of Distribution during the long lapse of years, or that we know how imperfect the Geological Record is. Grave as these several difficulties are, in my judgment they do not overthrow the theory of descent with modification."

Creationists and Intelligent Design Creationists still go after these zones of ignorance. The big difference is that we often now have a very good idea of "how ignorant we are" and can say with great confidence that the remaining objections "do not overthrow the theory of descent with modification" and are, indeed, wholly consistent with it.

All aboard The Beagle! (Again!)

Back in October, I posted about Darwin tweeting his adventures on the second voyage of HMS Beagle. (His first.) Well, it seems that I was a bit premature as, although scheduled to depart on 24th October 1931, it did not actually leave until December. Well, if you got bored waiting for the departure, and/or find the tweets tantalising but too short, I am happy to report that Darwin's Diary of the whole journey has also been released in blog form and the first entry is today! (Well, it was six years ago today, but if you want to follow it again in "real time", you can start again today.)

Is evolution random?

In a recent perusal of The Blogosphere, my eye was caught by a post at A Tippling Philosopher entitled Far from random, evolution follows a predictable genetic pattern, Princeton researchers find. As I suspect most evolutionary biologists would, I got rather annoyed by this title. I should point out, however, that the Tippling Philosopher is not to blame - this is the title of the original Princeton press release.

Unfortunately, my VPN is playing up so I cannot access the original article (Zhen Y, Aardema ML, Medina EM, Schumer M & Andolfatto P (2012). Parallel molecular evolution in an herbivore community. Science 37(6102):1634-7) but I am a bit short of time anyway and don't want to do an in depth study. I suspect the press release actually does a fairly good job of summarising the main points as does the abstract:

Numerous insects have independently evolved the ability to feed on plants that produce toxic secondary compounds called cardenolides and can sequester these compounds for use in their defense. We surveyed the protein target for cardenolides, the alpha subunit of the sodium pump, Na+,K+-ATPase (ATPα), in 14 species that feed on cardenolide-producing plants and 15 outgroups spanning three insect orders. Despite the large number of potential targets for modulating cardenolide sensitivity, amino acid substitutions associated with host-plant specialization are highly clustered, with many parallel substitutions. Additionally, we document four independent duplications of ATPα with convergent tissue-specific expression patterns. We find that unique substitutions are disproportionately associated with recent duplications relative to parallel substitutions. Together, these findings support the hypothesis that adaptation tends to take evolutionary paths that minimize negative pleiotropy.

This is all very interesting and very cool - the power of evolution by Natural Selection demonstrated in replicate. The thing that irked me, though - and the focus of this (probably too hasty) post - is the title and the first paragraph of the Princeton press release:

Far from random, evolution follows a predictable genetic pattern, Princeton researchers find

Evolution, often perceived as a series of random changes, might in fact be driven by a simple and repeated genetic solution to an environmental pressure that a broad range of species happen to share, according to new research.

Evolution is not a series of random changes. At least, adaptive evolution, which is the subject of this paper, is not. Neutral evolution largely is random but that's only one part of evolution as a whole and to imply otherwise is rather misleading. The raw material for evolution is indeed random mutation but this is not the full picture. There was a clever chap who realised that heritable random variation in a trait, if it produced differential survival and/or reproduction, could result in the non-random change of that trait. Good ("fit") traits would increase in frequency and eventually dominate the population, while bad traits would be removed. He realised this over 150 years ago and called it Natural Selection. His name was Charles Darwin and his book is free on Kindle if you want to read it. (Yes, I know, this is a gross simplification of history!)

This is compounded by the title: "Far from being random, evolution follows a predictable genetic pattern, Princeton researchers find". Well, yes, sometimes it does (and in this case) but we've also known that for years. The argument about the predictability of evolution is one that has been going on for a long time. (Read Gould's "A Wonderful Life", for example.) If you were to rewind the clock and let evolution run again, how much would history repeat itself? We know the answer is not "always" and we know the answer is not "never" but we do not know where on the continuum between "always" and "never" reality lies. (Major catastrophic events notwithstanding. These are another role of chance but somewhat different to the one determining evolutionary trajectory.)

In evolution, the opposite of "predictable" is not completely "random". One has to be clear that even if we cannot predict a precise evolutionary trajectory due to the complexity (and, yes, randomness) in the system, trajectories that give rise to exquisite adaptations always have a large non-random component (selection). This may seem like a trivial thing but it's not, for this is the kind of language that feeds the misconceptions spread my advocates of Intelligent Design and other forms of Creationism. (Of course, this study also nicely blows such nonsense out of the water.) If it is "often perceived as a series of random changes", it is only because of misconceptions like this being repeated.

For me, it is the last line of the abstract that is most intriguing and possibly the big discovery:

"Together, these findings support the hypothesis that adaptation tends to take evolutionary paths that minimize negative pleiotropy."

The authors cite "the large number of potential targets for modulating cardenolide sensitivity". It seems that they think that the other possible target genes are more prone to affect other systems as well in a bad way. (I am not sure how they rule out the possibility that the selective advantage of changes in this particular pump are just much, much greater than the other genes and its just driven by the probability and rates of positive selection.) If this turns out to be a widespread phenomenon, it could indeed have implications for the predictability of future adaptation, which could be useful in our changing world!

This is just one example, of course. Another recent paper on parallel and convergent evolution in Proc. R. Soc. B (free this time), "The probability of genetic parallelism and convergence in natural populations" by Gina Conte, Matthew Arnegard, Catherine Peichel and Dolph Schluter, looked at a bunch of studies and concluded that "estimates [of the probability of gene reuse in parallel and convergent phenotypic evolution in nature] using data from published studies. The estimates are surprisingly high, with mean probabilities of 0.32 for genetic mapping studies and 0.55 for candidate gene studies".

I'm sure there's a bit of ascertainment bias towards traits under strong selection (as these are more obvious and thus more studied) but it confirms the Andolfatto study that in the right circumstances convergent evolution can make use of the same gene(s). (They also cite counter-examples, so be quite clear that this is not universal.) It's not a surprise that it happens but given the amount of diversity between genomes - and numbers of genes affecting many traits - the level is possibly surprising. To be honest, I can't decide if I am surprised or not as it is so hard to generate a reasonable a priori expectation.

I still don't think that all this means that evolution in general is predictable (we still need more studies) but it certainly does hammer yet another nail in the coffin of the old Creationist chestnut about evolution being random. Natural Selection is NOT random - that's the whole point!

Footnote: I must concede that in writing this post I realised that explaining the role (and meaning) of "random" in the context of evolution is not quite as simple as I thought. "Random" commonly does mean a lack of predictability but I maintain that it is not helpful to use this language for evolution without some serious explanation of what you mean by random. Random mutation plus Selection means that we are talking about a lack of determinism, not a lack of direction. (This was also supposed to be a quick/short post!)

h/t: A Tippling Philosopher and WEIT

All aboard the Beagle with Darwin

If you've not already seen it, you can follow the adventures of Charles Darwin, who is posting updates of his voyage as @cdarwin on Twitter. (Delayed by 181 years, naturally):

  Geologist, naturalist and gentleman. On board The
  Beagle with Capt Fitzroy on a voyage around the world.

It's a five year voyage (near enough) and comes highly recommended. He's only just on board, so plenty of time to catch up.

h/t: WEIT

Putting Greenwich at the centre of the World

If, whilst watching the Equestrian events at Greenwich Park, you wonder how Greenwich got to be home to the Prime Meridian Line - and thereby determine both world time and world longitude - you could do much worse than Episode 91 of A History of the World in 100 Objects, which features the ship's chronometer from HMS Beagle.

It represents technological advancement that didn't get a mention in the opening ceremonies but was arguably much more important than putting men on the moon (as Steve Jones did argue) or robots on Mars. (As undeniably cool as those things are!)

I've been slowly working my way through the episodes of this great series over the past few months - there are a lot of them! - and was particularly pleased to listen to this one yesterday as Darwin and Deep Time both get a mention. (I'd just been updating the MapTime Organic Evolution TimeLine and Keywords.)

So, if you are in London and looking to kill some time between events, download the podcast (or read the transcript) and then visit the British Museum!

The Oxford University Museum of Natural History

Earlier this week, we visited Oxford and went to the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. (I blogged earlier about on one of their beetle exhibits.) The original plan had been to visit this Museum and the attached Pitt Rivers Museum and then visit the Ashmolean Museum of Art & Archaeology. We never made it to the Ashmolean.

There are so many great things about this museum that I will have to spread them over several posts (and save the Pitt Rivers for one of its own). The thing that struck me above and beyond everything else, though, is how it managed to be a pretty comprehensive Natural History museum looking at the global scale but, at the same time, managed to be all about Oxford and have a real local flavour. I guess it helps that Oxford is a world-renowned seat of learning and that many of the scientists making the big world-changing discoveries were at Oxford. Even so, it was great to see fossils etc. from nearby and see how the local geology helped shaped thoughts about geological time etc.

For a start, the building itself has historical significance as it was the site of the famous 1860 debate about evolution featuring Thomas Huxley and Samuel Wilberforce. There are lot of legends associated with that debate and, not having been there, I don't know what actually happened but it is certainly clear that evolution and its supporters have subsequently been thoroughly and (scientifically at least) entirely vindicated. This, perhaps, explains why the statue of Darwin inside is leaning against the pillar so nonchalantly!

The inside of the building is also pretty impressive and really beautiful. Many of the pillars are constructed from different rocks (more on that another day) and have different, distinctive patterns. The displays are also really well laid out and manage to cram a lot in to the building without feeling cramped or crowded.

You get welcomed with the impressive dinosaurs upon entry. The Iguanodon and Tyrannosaurus are not from Oxford but many of the other dinosaur bones and footprints features in the exhibit are local or feature identifications by local Oxford-based scientists. The centre of the room is dominated by these and other animal skeletons etc. and lots of the displays also have interesting regular history along with the natural history. I also like the way that you are able to touch some of the animals and minerals - although obviously nothing too fragile.

Natural History is not just about biology/evolution and there is also a bunch of great stuff on geology - something that I find increasingly interesting the older I get. I am always struck by how much sense the scientific geological explanation makes of different rock formations, strata and fossil patterns. You have to be pretty determined not to accept it.

I won't waffle on here as you can find out lots more at the the museum website. I will post a couple more of my favourite exhibits over the coming days, though. Having browsed the website, however, I do realise that I will have to go back as I managed to miss one of the most famous exhibits - the Oxford Dodo. Given that their logo is a dodo, I'm not sure how I missed this other than the obvious distraction of having so many other interesting things to look at!

Natural Selection: a mechanism, a theory AND a fact

There are a bunch of science/research social/professional networking sites these days, vying to become the Facebook or LinkedIn of Academia. One of these is ResearchGate, which looks like it might be one of the better ones. (One day, I might do a proper comparison.)

One of the features of ResearchGate is the ability to pose questions to the community. Occasionally, when it's an interesting topic or I think I can help, I chip in. Unfortunately, ResearchGate is not devoid of Creationist trolls it seems, and in a discussion about random mutation as the source of biological innovation I responded to comments that

"Natural selection does not explain anything. It is not a scientific theory."

and

"Darwinism is an ad hoc narrative that lacks both quantization and predictive power."

Responding was possible ill-advised (don't poke the crazy!) but, as evolutionary biologist, it saddens and offends me to see such nonsense in what is supposedly a scientific forum. I responded thus:

Natural Selection is a well documented fact of nature. It is an inevitability given a certain set of circumstances (heritability, variation, competition and non-random differential survival) and those circumstances are all individually and collectively documented both in the lab and in nature. (Read "Why Evolution is True" for some examples of both.) It is not the only, or even necessarily the main, driving force of evolution as most change at the genetic level is neutral. However, it remains as the primary mechanism of ADAPTIVE evolutionary change. It explains in general terms how exquisite adaptations can be ultimately caused by random events (mutations) through non-random survival. To call it an "ad hoc narrative" is just plain wrong unless you are trying to applying it to specific PAST events, in which case there is usually a great deal of speculation (and lack of certainty) involved. When used in laboratory (and field) experiments using fruit flies or bacteria, it is most certainly NOT an ad hoc narrative and has great predictive power. I am not sure that it can be "quantized" but it can certainly be quantified, as population geneticists have been doing for years.

This then elicited a very strange response and a complaint about the term "Natural Selection" that I have seen before but did not expect to find in a supposedly serious discussion:

OK, Richard, Natural Selection is a well documented fact of nature. It may be so.

Then also i agree that " It remains as the primary mechanism of ADAPTIVE evolutionary change.". It may be too.

The problem then is that Natural Selection does not explain anything. A fact does not explain,. Neither does a mechanism.

You need to decide whether Natural Selection is a fact, a mechanism or a theory. Theories are not facts, nor mechanisms. Using the same word for a fact, a mechanism and a theory is just creating confussion.

For me, the only thing confusing here is how anyone can seriously claim that "Natural Selection does not explain anything". "Natural Selection does not explain everything" would be fair enough but "anything"? Really‽ Even Creationists seem to be happy that Natural Selection can account for "microevolution" (ewww!) and antibiotic resistance! In case anyone else out there is also confused, I thought I would re-post my reply here:

Natural Selection is a mechanism by which random heritable variation is shaped through time through non-random survival to produce non-random evolutionary change. That the mechanism of Natural Selection is responsible for adaptive evolutionary change is a fact. (The big unanswered question is how much observed evolutionary change is actually adaptive.) It is also a scientific theory as it has been subject to scientific scrutiny and repeatedly confirmed through experiments and observation. I do not understand how this can be confusing. It explains how you can get non-random evolutionary change (adaptation) from random heritable variation. This is a BIG explanation and rightly rates among one of the top scientific theories/discoveries of all time. If you think it explains nothing, then try SCIENTIFICALLY explaining adaptation without it.

Natural selection is one of the most beautiful and elegant explanations/mechanisms/theories/facts in all of science. There is a reason that Darwin is so famous!

Kindling some Darwin love

Today is Darwin Day, marking the 203rd anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin. I had intended to write a blog post about Natural Selection but reviewing duties and lecture preparations mean that I might have to leave that for another day. Instead, I will just point out that you can get a FREE kindle edition of "Origin of Species", if you've not yet read it. (You don't need a kindle to read this eBook - there are many free Kindle reader Apps available.)

The book itself is over 150 years old but is still worth a read to see what all the fuss is about. It's interesting not just from a science perspective but also from a history perspective. They don't really write them like that any more!

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed - No Integrity either.

Some time ago, I saw (and blogged) the terrible, terrible film "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed". At the time, I thought its main failing was simply that it was vacuous crap, with all the intellectual content of the Jeremy Kyle show. The coverage of Intelligent Design - supposedly the focus of the "film" - was woeful and uninformative, for example. Instead, the filmmaker, Ben Stein, decided to spend a lot of time attacking evolutionary theory, and atheistic Darwinism in particular, as naturally leading to such atrocities as Nazi Germany and the holocaust. (A classic Godwin's Law violation, if only he had restricted such crap to an Internet forum.)

Whilst in many ways it really makes no difference whether Hitler was an atheist or not, or subscribed to "social Darwinism" - any idea can be corrupted and abused, after all - the fact is that there is no good evidence to support Stein's position. Worse, if one actually researched the source material - as presumably a reputable and honest journalist surely would? - one would actually find a great deal to support the opposite view.

In a great piece, "Nazi racial ideology was religious, creationist and opposed to Darwinism", Coel Hillier at coelsblog dispels this particular myth in no uncertain terms by doing exactly that and going to the source. With quotes from original sources throughout, the author neatly knocks down the lies that Hitler was an atheist or a Darwinist and, instead, reveals him as a(n albeit twisted) Creationist and Christian.

Does this in itself mean that Christianity or Creationism are bad? Of course not - no more than arguments about Hitler being an atheist or Darwinist would make atheism or Darwinism inherently bad if they were true. Let's face it, it was obviously plausible enough for people to believe it. Nevertheless, this is one myth I would love to see the back of. It would certainly be good to remove this particular attack strategy from the playbook of certain atheist-haters and anti-evolution lie-mongers; even if you don't understand the science well enough to appreciate the lies they tell on that front, this is a clear-cut integrity failure for all to see. (I think Godwin's Law is still safe, though!)

Dawkins & Darwin - a missed opportunity

I've just watched the first part of Channel 4's "The Genius of Charles Darwin", presented by Richard Dawkins, with decidedly mixed feelings. It had a lot going for it but I can't help thinking that it was a missed opportunity.

Although he doesn't spend much time saying how religion is no longer necessary, Dawkins still wastes a few minutes that would be much better spent, in my view, demonstrating the evidence for evolution. As an evolutionary biologist, I am well aware of the overwhelming evidence for evolution - I deal with it every day at work - and Dawkins mentions it several times but I feel that he dumbs it down too much and refers to it in general terms rather than really giving good examples, of which there are many. I wish he had removed a few interviews with people - trying to get school children to think for themselves, for example, - and shown a few more examples of anatomical, developmental and genetic similarities between organisms and evolutionary transitions.

There is nothing in biology that we have yet discovered that makes more sense in the light of some "design" theory than in the light of evolutionary theory, and there are plenty of things that we have discovered for which the "design" theories flounder while evolution makes perfect sense, but this does not really come across in the program. He talks about DNA but does not show any actual alignments of sequences and explain how they fit the family-tree structure
predicted by evolution but not the independent-origin structure predicted by independent creation - the competing hypothesis of the time. He talks about fossils but doesn't actually show any of the classic examples of form changing through time. He shows animal limbs and a few embryos in a few seconds but could have gone so much further with far more examples of anatomical similarities that simply make no sense without evolution. Ditto developmental genes. And the genetic code. And biochemical pathways. Etc. etc.

Oh well. Maybe the next episode will hit the mark.