Meet the world's newest lifeform: Syn 3.0

Every now and then, a piece of science is done that is truly ground-breaking and world changing. One such piece is:

Hutchison III CA et al. (2016) Design and synthesis of a minimal bacterial genome. Science 351(6280): aad6253-1. DOI: 10.1126/science.aad6253

Science has a summary here but it’s worth reading the whole paper. Syn 3.0 itself is pretty impressive, but what’s even more impressive is the approach taken to make it. In addition to using current knowledge of fundamental biological machinery, the Venter group used large-scale transposon mutagenesis and selection to identify additional genes that were either essential (i.e. no growth without them) or “quasi-essential”, where removal resulted in a major growth deficit.

They also had to overcome the problem of redundancy: even in a genome as reduced as the Mycoplasma species, there can sometimes be multiple genes that do the same thing. Removing one makes little difference but removing both is lethal - something hard to identify when knocking out single genes at a time. Whatever the Intelligent Design crowd would like to believe, biology is messy.

Of course, Syn 3.0 is just the start, as the goal was making a “minimal cell”:

“A minimal cell is usually defined as a cell in which all genes are essential. This definition is incomplete, because the genetic requirements for survival, and therefore the minimal genome size, depend on the environment in which the cell is grown. The work described here has been conducted in medium that supplies virtually all the small molecules required for life. A minimal genome determined under such permissive conditions should reveal a core set of environment-independent functions that are necessary and sufficient for life. Under less permissive conditions, we expect that additional genes will be required.”

Robust life will therefore need a lot more genes. It will be interesting to see how many are required for autotrophy - life that needs only inorganic chemicals and an energy source.

Even within the “minimal cell” concept, Syn 3.0 represents a somewhat arbitrary end-point. In identifying the “quasi-essential” genes, a judgement had to be made regarding what constitutes an acceptable growth rate*. Whittling down to 473 genes is impressive, but this number could no doubt be even smaller if slower growth rates were accepted. (Modern life is in competition with lots of other highly evolved organisms. Early life would have been able to get by with much lower growth rates, so this is not a “minimal cell” in that context.)

There is also a lot of exciting potential ahead for manually reducing the number of genes by true intelligent design. Fusing interacting gene products together, for example, might eliminate the need for so many genes contributing to core processes. (Looking for apparent protein fusion/fission events in evolution is a reasonably successful method for predicting protein-protein interactions.) With time, we might be able to “wind back the clock” and remove some of the unnecessary complexity that has probably crept into the system due to the underlying evolutionary process.

I also wonder how many of the current crop of genes of unknown function - a surprising 149 genes - can be replaced over time with genes of known function. (In other words, how many of them represent convergent evolution of functions we already know about but are not recognisable.) And how many of the rest are genome-/condition-specific?

Like all of the best science, this work opens the door to more questions than it answers! Some exciting times ahead, I think.

[*The important but oft-overlooked concept that any assessment of life is context- and environment-dependent exposes another flaw with Intelligent Design as a testable hypothesis: designed to do what? To assess how well-designed something is, one needs to know its purpose and/or the acceptable design traits. To hide from the fact that Intelligent Design is Creationism, supporters often make the argument that the identity of the designer (Creator) is not important - but without knowledge of the designer, how can one predict the motivation behind the design?]

The argument from fine-tuning, destroyed

I'm a big fan of coelsblog. The frequency of posts is pretty low but the quality is high. (I've posted before about previous posts on religious tolerance versus respect and his destruction of the myth that Hitler was an atheist Darwinist.)

In a post from November last year, A fine-tuned universe argues for atheism, Coel goes after a classic argument made by Intelligent Design advocates and the like:

"A favourite and fashionable argument for God is the argument from a fine-tuned universe. The argument is that, were it not for many aspects of our universe being “just right” for us to exist, then we wouldn’t be here, therefore [and that "therefore" is the big leap] the universe must have been fine-tuned to produce us."

His response is devastating and draws attention to six major flaws in that argument.I've touched on bits of this before (although with considerable less eloquence) but I recommend reading the coelsblog post for the full six. (It's not that long.) Coel's 3b is my new favourite, though:

"The occurrence of things for which their environment was NOT “just right” would be a far better indicator of intelligent intervention. For example, an animal in a zoo is indicative of intelligent intervention; an animal that fits perfectly into its ecological niche is not an indication of intelligent design, but instead is amply explained by non-intelligent processes such as evolution. Thus, if we found ourselves in a universe that was not suited to creating us then that would be far better evidence for intelligent intervention!"

As he points out in another great post from Jan 2, Science can indeed answer “why” questions, it's not "that science cannot give answers involving gods", it's just "that science does not give such answers". Science also remains open to the possibility that, ultimately, there is no "why" at all. It is not that science has decided up-front that there are no gods, it is just that it currently has "no need for that hypothesis". Many atheists, myself included, are the same.

Artificial Selection versus Natural Selection

One of things you will probably encounter quite quickly if you ever discuss evolution with a Young Earth or Intelligent Design Creationist is a deep confusion about Natural Selection. Often this is as simple as claiming that it doesn't exist and explains nothing, which is clearly and demonstrably utter nonsense. Recently, I experiences a more unusual extension of this claim:

"Natural Selection does not exist. It is all Artificial Selection."

This is usually an attempt to discredit experimental evidence for Natural Selection that comes from direct laboratory manipulations, such as the long-term experimental evolution of bacteria in the lab of Richard Lenski and colleagues.

A less extreme position is to claim that lessons learnt from artificial selection, generating different breeds of dogs, for example, are cannot be extrapolated to nature because Natural Selection is fundamentally different. Both variants of the argument are utterly wrong.
[Image credit: Science Museum.]

So, what is the difference between Artificial Selection and Natural Selection?

Philosophically, I think it is the difference between being directed or undirected. This is different to it being a case of directional versus undirectional. All selection is directional - that's the point. Evolution without any direction happens - neutral evolution and Random Genetic Drift - but this does not give rise to adaptations. Selection, on the other hand, imparts directional constraints to the evolutionary trajectory because some variants do better or worse than others.

This is most clear with "Negative" or "Purifying" selection, in which certain directions are closed because carriers of those variants are less competitive. This is what produces a signal of evolutionary conservation. More dramatic are the cases of "Positive" selection, in which particular variants have increased "fitness" compared to the population (i.e. the genetic material for that variant is more likely to be passed on to the next generation than a random bit of DNA in an individual without that variant) and thus it "sweeps" through the population. (Contingent on the strength of the effect and the population size.)

The point is, though, that while Natural Selection has direction it is not directed - it has no goal it is striving towards. The direction is imposed by the environment that a particular variant finds itself in at the time. This environment includes all the other variants in the population: fitness is always relative.

The direction of selection can also change from generation to generation, even within a generation. (Think of adaptations to hot or cold weather and consider climate variability, for example.) This means that populations can evolve themselves into an evolutionary dead-end, or lose a gene/trait that could prove useful in the future. Evolution by Natural Selection reacts to the now, it does not predict the future. The bills of Darwin's finches are specialised for certain foods they have encountered during their radiation - they have not all remained versatile generalists, ready to adapt quickly to changing food availability.

I think this is the real reason that many religious people have a problem with evolution by Natural Selection: there is no goal, no target, so humanity cannot be the goal. We are not the pinnacle that evolution has been working towards, we are just a by-product of past selection and chance events. (There are, of course, ongoing discussions about the predictability of evolution but this is really a question as to whether, if evolution were re-run, something like us (i.e. intelligent life) would inevitably appear. I can't imagine that any evolutionary biologist would seriously entertain the notion that we would re-appear if life were restarted.) The root of the argument against Natural Selection (but accepting Artificial Selection) is born of the belief that all evolution is directly governed and directed by some kind of deity. (Even if this deity is dressed up as an "Intelligent Designer".) Often, this is coupled with claims along the lines of "there is no such thing as random mutation" and other such arguments, which simply do not account for observations of the world around us. (Not unless, for reasons unclear to me, you postulate a deity who is deliberately out to deceive and make things look random and undirected. I'll save this one, and the randomness of mutation, for another post!)

The directed/directional distinction is just one aspect of the difference, however. To really qualify as Artificial Selection, I think that the directing agent has to be directly choosing (selecting) who reproduces and who does not. This is distinct from Natural Selection, in which the differential breeding success is just a consequence of reactions to the environment. This is why claims that experimental evolution in the lab are Artificial Selection are normally wrong. Laboratory evolution is normally directly studying Natural Selection, albeit with a tightly controlled environment. (One of the key approaches in science is to try and remove as much random variability and simplify the system as much as possible.)

In some ways, it is easy to see this by examining the spectrum of selective regimes used in the lab. Some can be quite complex in terms of responses, such as changes in temperature or the addition (or removal) of certain common or key nutrients. Others are much more defined, such as the addition of an antibiotic resistance, in which a very specific trait - resistance - is being sought. This is still Natural Selection: the environment being controlled and the organisms are surviving differentially based on their genotypes in response to this environment.

It could be - and sometimes is - argued that this is actually Artificial Selection and that the specific antibiotic regime is merely the mechanism by which the human is artificially selecting. It could be argued - blurring the boundaries between the two, which I'll get back to - but it shouldn't be argued, for I think it is a wrong (if forgivable) position to take. Even antibiotic resistance experiments are not purely selecting one trait. There will also be more subtle selection pressures due to the choice of media or growth conditions. As well as resistance, there will still be pressure to grow fast. There may even be complex biotic interactions where a subpopulation protects the rest of the population, such as biofilm formation. Even though the desired outcome might be antibiotic resistance, the experimenter is not (normally) actively selecting individuals. (S)he is not manually screening individuals and picking which ones to propagate.

This is quite different to selective breeding in dogs, for example. Here, a breeder is picking a particular trait - such as the ridge in a Rhodesian Ridgeback and selecting specific individuals with that trait to breed from. This is so powerful as a selective force that it can over-ride normal fitness considerations and evolve a trait that is otherwise downright detrimental to the individuals concerned. A number of pedigree dogs have severe health problems, for example.

This distinction of active versus passive selection of individuals with specific traits is certainly one way to view the Artificial Selection versus Natural Selection issue. There is another way, however, which I tend to err towards and makes the statement that there is no Natural Selection and only Artificial Selection even more erroneous: Artificial Selection is actually just a special case of the more general process of Natural Selection: one end of the continuum. Far from there being no Natural Selection, it is all Natural Selection!

The fact is, philosophy aside, there is no real biological difference between the two. Yes, it's easier to spot and define the selection when it's directed and tightly controlled - which is why it is so useful in the lab - but the basic mechanism of differential reproduction of heritable variants holds true for both. Furthermore, there is a direct analogy for Artificial Selection in nature, in which decision-making agents actively choose which individuals get to reproduce based on specific traits - Sexual Selection. (Intersexual selection, specifically, in which mate choice (as opposed to direct intrasexual competition) is a determining factor in reproductive success.) Sexual selection and mate choice abound in nature and can produce some quite absurd phenotypes that, like the products of artificial selection, are not necessarily healthy. From the perspective of the organisms experiencing the selection, a human imposing Artificial Selection is just part of the environment in just the same way as a choosy mate might be.

One possible example of this is the antlers of the (now extinct) Irish Elk. The photo above (from WEIT) shows male (right) and female (left) Irish Elk skeletons from the Museum Building in Trinity College Dublin. The sexual dimorphism - only the males have the monstrous antlers - is a clear sign of sexual selection and the antlers of male Irish Elk are so massive that it is thought they probably contributed to their extinction.

It's not actually the best example, to be honest, because the initial sexual selection on antlers was almost certainly intrasexual selection between fighting males and even though the Irish Elk antlers are too big for such behaviour, their monstrous size could be linked to increases in body size rather than intersexual selection for big antlers. That said, there must have been some force maintaining such impractical ornamentation and female mate choice is a prime contender. I mainly picked it because my brother works in the Museum Building and I used to see these elk quite regularly when I lived in Dublin. There's also an alternative YEC explanation for their extinction (right, also from WEIT; cartoon by Chris Madden)! If you don't like the elk as an example, there is always the peacock. (Whole books have been written about it if you want to know more.)

So, in conclusion: not only do Artificial Selection and directed evolution provide good tools for investigating aspects of Natural Selection, in very real terms they are Natural Selection. Anyone who claims that Natural Selection does not exist and everything is Artificial Selection has got the situation entirely backwards.

Intelligent Design is Creationism, just not Biblical (or Young Earth) Creationism

In their FAQ, the Discovery Institute write in response to the question "Is intelligent design theory the same as creationism?":

"No. Intelligent design theory is simply an effort to empirically detect whether the "apparent design" in nature acknowledged by virtually all biologists is genuine design (the product of an intelligent cause) or is simply the product of an undirected process such as natural selection acting on random variations. Creationism is focused on defending a literal reading of the Genesis account, usually including the creation of the earth by the Biblical God a few thousand years ago. Unlike creationism, the scientific theory of intelligent design is agnostic regarding the source of design and has no commitment to defending Genesis, the Bible or any other sacred text. Honest critics of intelligent design acknowledge the difference between intelligent design and creationism."

Well, I am an "honest critic" and I will acknowledge the difference between ID and the restrictive definition of Creationism that they choose to use but I will not acknowledge the difference between ID and Creationism in general. Creationism is the belief that some being outside nature (as we know it) created everything, as opposed to everything arising naturally without any causal agent or intervention. This totally encompasses ID.

The fact that they try to make claims that their designer need not be a deity - and, in particular, is not necessarily the god of the Bible - is irrelevant and demonstrates their intellectual paucity and/or dishonesty. The only ultimate conclusion that can be drawn from the ID "hypothesis" is that the Universe was created by a non-physical intelligence. That sounds a lot like a deity (and Creationism) to me. If "aliens did it" then ID also predicts that those aliens must be the product of ID and the problem is moved but not removed.

The only thing that could part ID from Creationism would be if they came out and stated in pure black and white that they are willing to accept that the proposed Designer of this Universe and/or life on Earth was itself the product of purely natural processes and devoid of input from an external Intelligence. In other words, state clearly that their extrapolation of design ONLY applies to the observed Universe. It wouldn't help their "scientific" claims at all but at least they could honestly cut the ties to their clear and documented Creationist ancestry. (I predict that they will not because I think that even they can see that making this statement would be tantamount to admitting that ID is a wholly unnecessary hypothesis - the only thing that keeps it alive is a stubborn refusal to let go of certain key (flawed) assumptions.)

Even should they take this extra step, the DI and their ID friends have a serious problem that cannot be ignored. The reason that so many critics make the link between ID and Creationism is that, when it comes to the scientific observations and interpretations, ID has the same core ideas as certain flavours of "Theistic evolution" Creationism, and thus all the same criticisms and problems apply.

Creationism is a spectrum with Young Earth Creationism at one end and an almost entirely naturalistic Theistic Evolution at the other. In the former, the Designer ("God") did essentially everything. In the latter, the Designer just kicked things off at the start - designing the Universe to be able to support life - and did nothing else. ID, as described, is indeed incompatible and different to both of these. (They do accept evolution - ruling out YEC - but do not accept that it was a purely naturalistic, unguided process - ruling out naturalistic Theistic Evolution.)

BUT...

There is a whole spectrum of Theistic Evolution Creationism in between that invokes an on-going intervention of the deity to a greater or lesser extent.

Possibilites include:
☛ intervening to start life by making the first replicators (abiogenesis). Note that this (and designing the Universe) is a wholly separate question as to whether evolution could occur by purely natural (unguided) means
☛ intervening for the "major transitions" in evolution. (The first cell, multicellularity, eukaryotes etc.)
☛ intervening at key points throughout to drive the evolution of complexity
☛ intervening to drive all "macroevolutionary" events but staying out of "microevolution". (A false dichotomy in itself but that's one for another post.)
☛ intervening to drive all evolution by directing all mutations

ID sits at some fuzzy point along this spectrum, as do Creationists. The fact that, for a Biblical Creationist, the Designer was God is largely irrelevant - unless they go the whole hog and deny evolution entirely as a Young Earth Creationist. (A much more intellectually honest position than ID but also so demonstrably wrong position that even the DI appears to disown it on their homepage.)

In fact, ID has a bigger problem than Theistic Evolution Creationism - the motives of the Designer. As ID advocates will be free to point out when critics point out the numerous apparent design flaws in nature, one can only really talk about "good" versus "bad" design if one knows what the design is for. Natural Selection provides an inherent discriminator for things that work better than others - that is how Natural Selection is able to facilitate the evolution of complex adaptations. Theists can argue from their holy books that the end-point was mankind (or whatever) and although I suspect they cannot really get a good handle on their Designer's objectives (why, for example, the inordinate fondness for beetles?), they can probably rule some things out. The ID crowd do not even have that.

Instead, ID is just "God of the gaps" rebranded as "Designer of the gaps". They refuse (but not refute, for their rebuttals are all flawed) possible natural explanations for certain observed phenomena - a Universe "fine-tuned" for life, complex macromolecular machines in biology, and life itself - and make an alternative proposal that is based on unproven and erroneous extrapolations combined with a woeful ignorance of information theory and biology - all cloaked in pseudoscientific language. (Another post for another day.) They then try to find examples of where the theoretical natural explanations for specific phenomena (such as a specific protein complex or specific past evolutionary event) have not been demonstrably proven (despite having a sound theoretical explanation) and insert their Designer with no clue as to its motives or rationale for intervening at that particular point in time and space.

That certainly sounds a lot like traditional Creationism to me. (And whatever it is, it sure ain't science.)

[Edit note: although most YEC and ID leaders are clearly at odds, it should be noted that ID does not actually rule out a Young Earth, it just does not promote it. Given the overwhelming scientific evidence for an old Earth and lack of Biblical Flood, the fact that the ID movement does not explicitly reject these is another indication of its utter lack of scientific motivation. Then, of course, there is Of Pandas and People, a Creationist text that similarly neither accepts nor rejects YEC and is famous for doing a find and replace for "Creationism" (and similar words), replacing them with "Intelligent Design". How can you have a coherent view of biological origins if you can't even decide on something of such fundamental importance?]

No place for Creationism in state-funded UK schools

It's been a pretty good couple of weeks for a Rationalist Geek. Nerds all over the world have enhanced enjoyment of the Olympics with the Nerdlympics. Human potential, ingenuity and achievement has been promoted by the BHA and embodied by the bold landing of the Curiosity Rover. Homeopathy is on the back foot in Britain. Continuing the theme, I am happy to (somewhat optimistically) report that the British government have confirmed that the Creationism has no place in a state-funded science class.

I'm far from convinced that there is any merit in the government plans for "free schools" and "academies" - indeed, there seems to be a lot of well-founded opposition to the plans - but there is at least one bit of good news that has come out of the recent concerns over approval for Free Schools to be run by Creationist groups. In a Guardian article from a couple of weeks ago, a Dept for Education spokeswoman is quoted as saying:

"It is absolutely not true that this free school will be able to teach creationism as scientific fact. No state school is permitted to do this. We have clear guidelines about what schools can and cannot teach. Any free school found to be contravening the guidelines will be in breach of their contract and will be subject to action by the department, including prohibiting them from operating."

Happily, this position has been confirmed and strengthened in a letter from Michael Gove (Secretary of State for Education) posted on the Glasgow Skeptics Facebook page in which he states (my emphasis):

There is no place for the teaching of creationism in Free Schools. The Free School application guidance is clear: creationism, intelligent design and similar ideas cannot be taught as valid scientific theories. Furthermore, teaching creationism in science lessons is forbidden by the legal agreement that sets out the conditions by which all Free Schools receive their funding. Should there be evidence of a breach of this clause we would take swift action which would be likely to result in the termination of that funding agreement. This would mean that the organisation no longer had any role in running the school with state funding.

Now, we just need to make sure that we hold him (and his successors) to that.

What I am not so sure about is what the situation is for "Independent schools". The implication is that schools without state funding are not bound by these conditions. If this is the case then perhaps state-funded Faith schools are not such a bad thing after all - if the alternative is Independent Faith schools, that is.

Why Evolution Is True

"Why Evolution Is True" is a book by Jerry Coyne, which gives (in my opinion) a fantastic summary of the evidence for evolution and certainly the best book of its kind that I have read. (Although somewhat of a fan, "The Greatest Show on Earth" by Richard Dawkins was quite disappointing in this respect. Dawkins may be the master at explaining how evolution probably happens but Coyne is the master of explaining the evidence that it happened.)

WEIT is also the blog/website of Jerry Coyne on which, like Dawkins, he fights the fight for rationalism and scientific accuracy against the misunderstandings and misinformation of the religious. There's a bit too much religion-bashing for my tastes but then I don't live in a country where 46% of people believe that "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time in the last 10,000 years or so" and, as an evolutionary biologist, I can see how that could get tiring and depressing in equal measure.

The WEIT website also has a fair smattering of science, including this recent post that, like the book, gives a clear summary of some of Jerry Coyne's own area of specialisation, speciation - and goes after some ID "intelligence" with characteristic bluntness at the same time. A good one to bookmark in case of future need. Evolution: it happened.

Intelligent Falling

My last post reminded me of a classic article from The Onion, Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New 'Intelligent Falling' Theory. (In case it's not obvious, The Onion is satire!)

The Origin of Life - interesting but not a problem

I've just read an article by a Rabbi Moshe Averick attacking Dawkins for focusing on evolution rather than the origin of life and, essentially, having no evidence against "Intelligent Design" as a result. The original ancestor of all extant (evolved) life is itself incredibly unlikely, therefore needs an explanation, for which a deity (an "Intelligent Designer") is the best, or so the argument goes.

Rabbi Averick is entirely right that the issue of the origin of life is different from that of evolution. Dawkins and others argue about evolution because Creationists and IDers attack evolution, though, not because they are trying to create a smoke-screen. Dawkins acknowledges that we do not know how life arose, only that it did. Throw in a few chemists who calculate the probability of self-replicating molecules arising to be vanishingly small and the Rabbi considers his position solid enough to proclaim as if it is some new and revolutionary truth that will have atheists ducking for cover and/or converting to ID in their masses. It isn't and it won't.

We have no scientific explanation for the origin of life. (Yet?) True. This does not make ID right, though. Any derivation of probabilities are hand-waving in the extreme – this is a one-off (as far as we know) event that happened over 3 billion years ago in conditions very different from our own. It may well be that we never know how it happened. Does this mean it could not have happened? No. Does this mean that I need faith to believe that it did happen? No. It is simple extrapolation from current experience. No life that we have encountered needed divine intervention as an explanation. Nothing in the modern world makes more sense with a deity than without. Why should the past be any different?

By the way, the Bayesian probability of life spontaneously arising is 1.0 because we know that life exists, so all scrabble-board arguments are pointless. They only work if you are outside the system. (The fact that we are here taking about it alters the probability that it happened in our Universe/timeline to be a certainty.) Unless you know how many planets, galaxies and universes there are, it is impossible to say that a one-off event is so unlikely that it could not have happened by chance. In fact, as the number of planets and universes tends towards infinity, so does the probability of anything happening.

You also have to ask yourself the question: so what if a deity kicked everything off 4 billion years ago and then watched? This is fundamentally different to a deity-free universe how, exactly? There is no need to invoke such a being in the first place and, if you do, their existence is pointless. (And then there is the boring old chestnut of where did THEY come from and what is the probability of THEM spontaneously arising?) Is an ageless ever-existing deity REALLY more likely than an infinite number of universes? Not to me.

Hopefully, Creationists and IDers will read the Rabbi's article and leave evolution alone. (They won't - Young Earth Creationists need evolution to be wrong too.) Until they do, he cannot expect Dawkins and others to stop writing books about why evolution is a fact, irrespective of life's origins.

Location:Southampton, UK

Intelligent Design in a Nutshell

Pre-Darwin biologist: "I can see that lots of animals (and fossils) are clearly similar to each other, and share anatomical features across even very distant taxa. Life certainly looks like it's evolved. The problem is, I just don't understand how a random process could have led to such exquisite adaptation: there must have been a Designer."

Darwin: "Hang on, I have an idea. If there are more offspring born each generation than survive to reproduce, then there must be a struggle between individuals for survival. And, if there is variation between individuals such that some individuals are inherently better equipped to survive and/or reproduce, then the result of this competition will be (to some extent) non-random and those individuals who are better adapted will have more offspring than those that are not. And, if there is inheritance of characteristics from parent to offspring, the next generation will be better adapted, on average, than the previous generation as a result. Aaaand, if variation is something that enters the population at each generation, this cycle will continue, resulting in more and more adapted individuals. Over many, many generations, exquisite adaptations can evolve."

Post-Darwin biologist: "Competition: check. Variation: check. Inheritance: check. Mutation: check. Genius! Not only is adaptation from random variation explained, it is hard to see how it could not happen! Well done, Darwin - an elegant solution to a tricky problem. All those oddities in nature make so much more sense, now."

Intelligent Design: "The problem is, I just don't understand how a random process could have led to such exquisite adaptation: there must have been a Designer."

Well done guys... Your big "problem" with Darwin is precisely the problem he elegantly solved 150 years ago. Bravo.

Location:Mostly America but other places too (sadly)

No Intelligence Allowed

A review of the Ben Stein DVD - "Expelled: No intelligence allowed"

I watched this film with a "theistic evolutionsist" friend of mine (i.e. a committed Christian who agrees with the scientific fact of evolution) and we were both thoroughly disappointed with the total lack of content. To save you the bother of wasting money and an hour or so of your valuable lives, I will now summarise the DVD for you. It can be broadly divided into three sections: (1) An "expose" on the scientific gagging of ID supporters; (2) A demonstration of the extent and all round good-eggness of the ID community, and (3) The evil of evolution.

~ The Expose ~
The cleverest thing of the whole film is are the propaganda techniques the editor uses to equate the scientific establishment with Communist East Berlin (building a wall to keep dangerous democratic ideas out) and, worse, equating support of evolution with support for Hitler's genocide of the jews. (More on that later.)

The film starts with Ben Stein addressing an audience in a very "Inconvenient Truth" fashion but, unlike Al Gore, he presents no data to support his arguments. Instead, we are treated to a small number of anecdotes of academics who failed to secure tenure in American Universities (in itself not uncommon) and their belief that this was because they had entertained the notion of Intelligent Design (ID) as science. The institutions themselves deny these reasons and no actual evidence (or successful legal action) other than speculation was provided in support. If any of these did turn out to be true then it is very sad - and wrong - but is certainly not indicative of some major conspiracy. The fact remains that ID is simply not science and explains nothing, which bring us to...

~ The ID position ~
The most disappointing (but not upsetting) aspect of the whole film is the total lack of information of what the ID argument actually is. Basically, the argument Ben Stein makes is... "Look, here is an intelligent person. They think ID is right. Therefore it should be taken seriously." Wrong. Lots of intelligent people believe nonsense. Worse, lots of intelligent people take advantage of other people beliefs in proven nonsense to make money out of them. (E.g. Homeopathy.) Is ID an "intelligent" endeavour? Well, on commercial grounds, yes! There are lots of people who would like to be true and can be convinced to part with their money on books and DVDs, like this one. Is ID a "scientific" endeavour? No. At least, not as presented in this DVD, which presents no arguments against evolution (except the sickening one below) nor arguments for ID.

The closest there was to an argument for ID was a statement that (a) biological information has increased with time, and (b) evolution cannot add information, therefore there must have been an intelligent designer to add this information. This is just plain wrong. While *random* evolution cannot add information (which, in this context (information theory) basically means a deviation from random (similar to entropy)), the process of *natural selection* can. In fact, it is this very observation (in different words) that made Darwin so famous. In other word, ID is trying to argue that Darwin was wrong using an argument that Darwin himself revealed to be rubbish.

I should point out at this point that I am an evolutionary biologist, so I know something about evolutionary theory and encounter supporting evidence on a daily basis. I also know that, far from blindly accepting evolution without argument, any scientist worth his salt would *love* to disprove something as big as evolution. Look at Darwin's legacy. Does Ben Stein really think that there are no scientists with egos who would love to replace Darwin as the number one biologist of all time? Now who's being naive? Let's be clear about this - there is no cover-up and no controversy because there is no scientific evidence for ID. I was hoping this DVD might present some - it would have given me some interesting things to research - but it did not. As the opening sequence makes clear, this DVD is pure propaganda. Which brings us to...

~ The evil of evolution ~
The icing on the cake - and the true revelation of the weakness of the ID position - was the last third or so of the DVD. Rather than presenting a cogent scientific argument for ID, Ben Stein instead focuses on the fact that Hitler was essentially a Darwinist and used ideas of "Survival of the fittest" as an excuse for some of his horrendous activities during the Nazi rule of Germany, including the holocaust. Apart from being deeply insulting to me as an atheist, this argument is totally irrelevant to the issue of whether evolution is scientifically supported. It's a bit like saying that we shouldn't believe Atomic Physics because people have abused it and made nuclear weapons. Whilst it is true that some people use evolutionary theory to support their own radical agendas, that argument is equally true of religious ideas; it is a matter for society to deal with, not science. You could argue equally strongly that an atheist who does not believe in life after death is going to cherish life on this planet more than a theist, and concentrate on making *this* world a better place (rather than the next one) because this is all we have. Still doesn't make evolution more or less true.

In short, there is only one reason to buy this DVD - because you want to support the *political* ID/creationism machine. But in this case you might as well just send them some money directly and spend the hour or two you would have wasted doing something more useful to humanity, like sitting in a dark room with the TV firmly off. (It would also make Al Gore happy.) Or, better still, visit a website that contains some actual factual content (e.g. http://www.oeaw.ac.at/klivv/evolution/) and make up your own mind rather than letting some ignoramus spout lies and hate at you.