Science and Religion: The Missing Link

Science education is not designed to destroy religious faith. Science is a different subject than religion. Science is concerned with the natural world and universe, not the supernatural or theological. Most scientists will deny that science destroys faith in a Deity or Deities.

However, the study of science introduces people to ideas that are at odds with what religious organizations promulgate as true. This occurs most often when religion intrudes into the domain of science and not vice versa. When religion states that it has the answers to scientific questions, such as when the Bible states that the Earth is flat (All quotes, KJV: Daniel 4:10-11, Matthew 4:8) and immobile (Examples: I Chronicles 16:30, Psalm 93:1,) science disproves these hypotheses by definitively showing that the Earth is neither flat nor immobile.

Thus, science contradicts many edicts of religion when religion ventures out of its territory.
Science truly undermines religious faith, however, because it teaches people to think. Science teaches people to search for testable, real-world answers to problems and questions rather than rely on superstition, magical thinking, or laziness.

When asked, "Why is the sky blue?" a person of faith can only answer that God decrees it or formulate an inaccurate scientific answer. A person with some science background understands water vapor in the air refracts incoming sunlight toward the blue end of the visible light spectrum. Scientific endeavors, such as rockets and telescopes, have shown that there is no solid firmament above the Earth, as the Bible states.

When asked, "Why did I get sick?" a person of faith can only answer that God willed it, while a microbiologist could isolate the bacteria or virus that caused the infection and provide antibiotics or antivirals to eliminate the infection.

At a magic show, a person who relies on faith to explain the world can only marvel at the wonders. A person with a scientific background notes the smoke and mirrors and the rabbit under the podium, noting that the hat must have a removable panel.

When confronted with horrors in the world, a person of faith can only say that God willed it, perhaps to give Christians something to do. They might pray for God to provide food for the starving. A scientist, however, creates fertilizers, dams, or new strains of drought-resistant crops.

Science teaches people to think of logical, physical causes for events. This makes people less gullible.

By making people less gullible and intellectually lazy, yes indeed, science undermines religious faith.

TK Kenyon, http://www.tkkenyon.com/ Author of RABID and CALLOUS: Two novels about science and religion, with some sex and murder.

A Psychopharmamusical!

And you thought Hair had a lot of drug references.

Genetic Link to Autoimmune Diseases Type 1 Diabetes and Sjogren's: Hox11 gene

This fascinating paper from the Faustman lab at Harvard links a developmental gene, Hox11, to the later development of the autoimmune diseases Type 1 Diabetes and Sjogren's syndrome.

http://www.nature.com/icb/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/icb20086a.html

Also important, it links the hearing loss often seen in Type 1 diabetes directly to the Hox11 gene malfunction, not the later autoimmune attack.

This paper suggests that treatment of Hox11 deficiency in people with mutations could prevent Type 1 diabetes, Sjorgren's syndrome, and hearing loss.

Figure from the paper showing deterioration of the ear in Hox11 genetically modified mice:

Comparison of NOD and C57BL/6 cochlear structures. (a) A schematic area of interest in the cochlea. (b–g) Histological cross-sections of the mouse cochlea were processed and cochlear structures were compared between NOD and C57BL/6 animals at 5–8 weeks of age. Structural abnormalities were found in the spiral ganglion, spiral ligament and organ of Corti in the NOD mice. (b and c) The spiral ganglion cells of the NOD mouse were greatly deteriorated (arrow, b), relative to the C57BL/6 control (arrow, c), with only the Schwann cell nuclei remaining. (d and e) There was also atrophy of the spiral ligament, as seen by the loss of cells in the NOD specimen (arrow, d), which is in sharp contrast to the fully populated spiral ligament in the control (arrow, e). (f and g) The organ of Corti of the NOD specimen appeared to be deteriorated and to have many fewer cells (arrow, f), including hair cells, compared to the control (arrow, g). Defects similar to those observed in the NOD cochlea were present in the NOD-SCID cochlea as well.

Instant Nanotech Test for Mad Cow Prions

Researchers at Cornell University have developed a nanatechnology platform to detect prions at low concentrations that, hopefully and soon, will be used to detect Mad Cow Disease prions in blood -- instantly.

That's right. Instantly.

Mad Cow disease prions are responsible for the transmission of bovine spongiform enchelalopathy to humans, causing new variant Creutzfeld-Jakob disease (nvCJD,) an incurable neurodegenerative disease, much like Alzheimer's plus Parkinson's, but kills people in just a couple years.

Right now, the "gold standard" of prion detection is to remove brain matter from an animal that is suspected to be infected (and is dead), inject that into another animal, wait for a long time, then kill the other animal and necropsy its brain. This can take years and (get this) only detects the prion infection 31% of the time.

That's a terrible assay.

The new nanotech assay technique developed by Harold Craighead and company use a "tuning fork" technique. A nano-sized tuning folk is coated with antibodies against the abnormal conformation of the prion protein.

For many other assays, the added weight of the antigen (in this case, the prion) would be enough to change the pitch of the nano-tuning fork when a vibration in the assay liquid sets the fork vibrating. However, because prions are so light, this doesn't work. The researchers used secondary antibodies and metal conjugates to increase the weight of the prions, thus the added weight changed the pitch of the vibrating fork by a detectable amount.

This assay would be invaluable to eliminate prion-infected cows from getting into our food chain, which caused the outbreak of new variant Creuzfeld-Jakob Disease in England a decade ago.

This assay could also test biomedical stocks, such as human growth hormone obtained from human cadavers (yep! that's where it comes from.) for nvCJD prions. Several doctors in France were just indicted for involuntary homicide for not being vigilant enough concerning cadaver HGH and thus infecting over 100 French children with nvCJD.

It's especially a concern when slaughterhouses are unscrupulous about slaughtering and processing "downer" cows, which are sick and possibly infected with mad cow prions.

TK

Best Scientific Images of the Year II

Wellcome has awarded their prizes for best scientific images of the year, and they are pretty.

This micrograph, taken with a laser scanning confocal microscope (see post below,) is a picture of colon cancer cells. The fluors used are not labelled, but I shall make some educated guesses.

Blue here is a nuclear stain, meaning that it stains DNA in the nucleus of the cell, such as DAPI or BOBO.

The green fluor is a cytoskeleton stain. The cytoskeleton component stained here appears to be filamentous actin, because I see some stress fibers through the cells. The stain is probably phalloidin (a toxin from death cap mushrooms) conjugated to a fluor.

The red color is more ambiguous. It seems to colocalize with the cytoskeleton in some cells (red + green = yellow) but is more diffused and cytoplasmic in others. Could be an actin binding-protein or another component of the cytoskeleton.

TK

Best Science Photos of the Year

Wellcome has named its best scientific images of the year, and several are from my own favorite microscope, a laser scanning confocal. Personally, I like Zeiss. Zeiss is nice.

This is a micrograph of an HIV virus. (This image is not from a laser scanning confocal microscope. Viruses are too small to be seen with a LSM. You need an electron microscope to see viruses, let alone viral structures.)

The core in the middle is the RNA chromosome and associated core proteins. The blue half-shell is the viral capsid. The yellow proteins are the ride-along gooey things called the tegument.

TK

White Whale (Shark): Not Quite Moby Dick, But Big and White and Fishy

This albino whale shark was spotted off the Galapagoes. Nifty video.

Expelled! Again!: "Framing Science" People Pandering to Opiated Masses

Lunge:

First, PZ Myers, noted and eminent science blogger and professor, was not admitted to a pre-screening of the film Expelled!, an ID drive-by documentary on evolution, and blogged about how he was thrown out at the whim of the producers. (Previous post: here.)

Myers's guest, Richard Dawkins, was admitted without fuss (as the producers probably did not recognize him, and when asked to show identification, he produced his British passport under his legal name, "Clinton Richard Dawkins.")

It must be noted that both Myers and Dawkins appear in the film Expelled!, for which they were interviewed under false pretenses, and the piecemeal editing of their interviews was journalistically unethical.

Parry:

After some brouhaha, Matthew Nesbit, a professor of communications, blogged:
"As long as Dawkins and PZ continue to be the representative voices from the pro-science side in this debate, it is really bad for those of us who care about promoting public trust in science and science education. Dawkins and PZ need to lay low as Expelled hits theaters. Let others play the role of communicator, most importantly the National Center for Science Education, AAAS, the National Academies or scientists such as Francis Ayala or Ken Miller. When called up by reporters or asked to comment, Dawkins and PZ should refer journalists to these organizations and individuals."
At the risk here of being arch, isn't "communications" what people who flunk out of business major in?

More to the point, Nesbit is utterly wrong. He compares the evolution vs. ID debate to politics, comparing Myers and Dawkins to, "Samantha Power, Geraldine Ferraro and so many other political operatives who through misstatements and polarizing rhetoric have ended up being liabilities to the causes and campaigns that they support."

This comparison is a fallacy.

Science is not politics, which is convincing a majority of the people that your political theory is the correct one to vote for on the day of elections in the majority of the voting districts. Politics seeks to create consensus.

Science is the truth. Myers and Dawkins should not be compared to Power and Ferraro, but to Galileo, Darwin, and Copernicus. No matter what the ID guys believe, they're wrong. Convincing more people that creationism is valid will not make it less wrong. Religionists' balking at evolution is just another example of irrational, superstitious flailing.

Nesbit's whole philosophy, "Framing Science," in which mostly non-scientists try to reconcile science with religion, which are several systems of contradictory and unsubstantiated beliefs, is a waste of time.

Yes, we should try to break it gently to religionists that they've been utterly wrong all these years, but eventually, the obvious truth of science will prevail. It's only a matter of time, another scientific concept.

I admit, when I saw Nesbit's blog and its title, "Framing Science," I thought it was a provocative anti-science blog, like when the cops "frame" someone for a crime. Perhaps that wasn't the best moniker for their movement. You would think that a communications major might have thought of that.

Another non-scientist "framing" guy, Chris Mooney, blogged that the PZ Myers controversy is giving the film loads of free publicty, is thus counter-productive, and also suggested that Myers should refrain from more discussion.

Riposte:

Nesbit's post led PZ Myers to this sputtering reply, which is perhaps less eloquent than his usual posts but heartfelt, in which he said in part, "Fuck you very much, Matt. You know where you can stick your advice."

Again, scientists are not politicians, who strive to form consensus or convince voters, or religionists, who seek to silence the opposing viewpoint.

People should go see that film and laugh at it for the dreck it is. The public should understand that Dawkins and Myers were interviewed under false presenses (the film makers told them it was a documentary about science and education, not a religion drive-by of evolution,) and with shoddy journalistic ethics (including the old trick of setting the camera and the interviewer at 90 degrees to each other, and thus the subject looks back and forth between the camera and the interviewer, producing a "shify-eyed" effect that is associated with lying or unreliability.)

Scientists seek the truth, and when we find it, we tell other people the truth. If there are contrary opinions, we debate the evidence and logically decide whose model is more accurate.

That's the problem with non-scientists like Mooney and Nesbit. They're operating in the rhelm of opinion, not truth. They're seeking to sway people with propaganda, not evidence and logic. They're using the enemy's faulty weapons against the enemy, who designed them, have the blueprints, and know where the weak points are.

Evolution is model with huge amounts of scientific evidence backing it up.

Sure, all models are wrong, but some models are useful.

Evolution is a useful model. It explains the past and, contrary to what ID guys will tell you, it accurately predicts future results.

ID and creationism in general do not accurately predict future results, except perhaps that creationists lie to themselves and others and will continue to do so.

Mooney and Nesbit are in the wrong on this issue.

Myers and Dawkins should not shut up.

Scientists tell the truth. Politicians and religionists seek create consensus or to silence the opposition. Pandering to their illogical and ignorant views will only endow them with a false sense of superiority, to go along with their false view of the universe and their false beliefs.

To PZ Myers and Richard Dawkins: Once more into the breach!

TK Kenyon

Your genes might be selfish, but your brain isn't.

Social psychologist Elizabeth Dunn of the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada, performed a series of studies on, admittedly, small groups to determine what contributes more to happiness: giving money away or spending it on yourself. She gave people money, told them to either donate it or splurge with it, and then quantified happiness levels.

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/320/2

In the spirit of Christmas cheer (even though this is Easter weekend,) either donating the money to charity or buying a gift for others produced more happiness than keeping it or spending it on oneself.

This empirically tested and quantified altruism is a lovely addition to the study of ethics. The studies should be replicated with larger sample sizes, but they are worth reading.

TK Kenyon

Creationist Movie Doesn't Have A Clue

At the new creationist movie called Expelled, eminent science blogger PZ Myers was waiting to get in for a screening.

A cop pulled him out of line and told him that he couldn't go in and that he had to leave the premises immediately, or he would be arrested.

But wait! There's more. There's so much more. I laughed so hard that I had an asthma attack. A bad one. And then I read it again.

Read THE REST OF THE STORY at Pharyngula.

Oh, man, I wish I had been there.

TK Kenyon

If we have learned one thing from the history of invention and discovery, it is that, in the long run - and often in the short one - the most daring prophecies seem laughably conservative.

--Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008), The Exploration of Space, 1951

ALL TK KENYON'S BLOGS

http://science4non-majors.blogspot.com/
http://fictionlessons.blogspot.com/
http://tkkenyon.blogspot.com/
http://celiac-maniac.blogspot.com/
http://rabidfictionreviews.blogspot.com/
http://rabidatheists.blogspot.com/
http://www.tkkenyon.com

Neuroethics: Not as rational as you think.

Marvelous new online, free, open-access journal that everyone should read: Neuroethics. The first issue includes an unflinching look at the field of neuroethics (as distinct from Bioethics,) and the way that the brain determines ethics and morality.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/120989/?p=ff72daa10e7b435fa42eb31b7bcd5e20&pi=0

In the first issue, editor Dr. Neil Levy has written an elegent overview of the field, including a neuroethicist's view of the notorious Trolley Problem, namely, if a trolley is hurtling toward five people on a track, and you hold a lever that will change the track so that the trolley is shuttled onto a track where it kills only one person, should you pull the lever. Most ethicists and ordinary folks say "yes," for the greater welfare is at stake.

However, if the problem is changed subtly so that your choice is between allowing the trolley to crush the five people or pushing a large, beefy man onto the track to obstruct and stop the trolley, most ethicists and ordinary people will say no, that this violates the man's rights, and you should allow the trolley to slaughter the five people.

Neuroethicists have identified where the real problem is: the difference between these two scenarios is not merely “action,” as the Kantian folks dissemble, but emotion. We do not want to be actively responsible for the death of a human being, and a particular human being (the large, beefy man) at that.

The real problem is: since it is emotion that informs our ethical choices, ethical choices are not rational.

The journal also has a lovely article on “The Popular New Genre of Neurosexism” by Dr. Cordelia Fine, comparing recent mommy-brain books to the painfully terrible science of the 1800’s, in which eminent scientists actually promulgated that women’s education should not be too rigorous because it would divert energy to their brains and away from their ovaries, rendering them sterile. (Testicles, apparently, had an independent energy source.)

This excellent new journal deserves bookmarking. Do it now to avoid the rush.

TK Kenyon

Author of RABID: A Novel and CALLOUS: A Novel, where neuroscience, morality, and murder intersect.
www.tkkenyon.com

http://science4non-majors.blogspot.com/

http://tkkenyon.blogspot.com/

It's News To Me: We're Scientifically Illiterate

Despite the fact that science affects us each and every day, cable news channels spend almost no time examining and reporting science. On average, five hours of cable news coverage contains 71 minutes of politics, 26 minutes of crime, 12 minutes of disasters and 10 minutes of celebrities.

Science, technology, health and the environment received just six minutes of coverage (with health and health care accounting for half of that.)

IMHO, there are three reasons why science gets little coverage.

(1) "If it bleeds, it leads." Bad news is news. Science is rarely bad news. Most of the time, science leads to good news, like cures for diseases or an expansion of our knowledge of the universe. Science rarely leads to murder or mayhem (except at the International Herpesvirus Workshop, because we're wild folks, but I digress.)

(2) A lot of people don't understand science. You can blame this on the pitiful state of science education, but part of the problem is the "Two Cultures" mentality fostered by CP Snow, et al, (http://www.bookslut.com/features/2007_10_011815.php), and the fact that science itself is compartmentalized, fractionated, and vernacular.

I have a PhD in microbiology (virology,) and I like physics and a lot of other science, but I can't read an issue of Nature or Science cover-to-cover because most of the papers in there are too far out of my field for me to understand. Sometimes, I can get the jist, but I couldn't talk about it with any alacrity. (http://science4non-majors.blogspot.com/) .

(3) Lack of celebrities. I'm not going to merely bemoan our celebrity-driven culture, but people with influence drive the memes.

Yeah, lots of people worry about the environment and global warming, but Al Gore, already a big-timer, got the best-selling book.

Admiral Richard Hawkins noted in 1662 that oranges and lemons cured scurvy, but he wasn't a celebrity. Captain Cook, who was a celebrity explorer, was credited with discovering that limes prevented scurvy in 1775, over a hundred years later, and only then was the practice of taking citrus on voyages adopted by the British navy.

Maybe if we recruited better looking scientists....

TK Kenyon
Author of RABID and CALLOUS, two novels with good-looking scientists.
www.tkkenyon.com
http://tkkenyon.blogspot.com/

New Gluten-Free Blog -- Celiac Maniac!

For those of you who are gluten-free enough to care, I've started a new blog, because what the world needs is yet one more celiac blog. Celiac disease is an autoimmune condition associated with genetic factors, specific HLA alleles, and caused by an immune reaction to a peptide in the wheat (and wheat-like) protein gluten. The antibodies to gluten then cross-react with several proteins found in the digestive tract, causing damage to the jejunum section of the small intestine. Symptoms are many, varied, and non-specific.

http://celiac-maniac.blogspot.com/

It is, however, important to me to share the word of health.

TK Kenyon
Author of RABID: A Novel and CALLOUS: A Novel

Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells: The End of the Ethical Debate

Today, two truly momentous papers were published in Science and Cell, respectively. These papers were so important that even Yahoo! News recognized their importance, and news services prefer stories about giant bugs.

These “induced pluripotent stem cells” (or iPS, as opposed to embryonic stem cells, or ES) produced by these two labs are important for a variety of reasons.

First, these cells completely end the whole debate about whether or not obtaining stem cells from the destruction of a human embryo is ethical. That’s it. It’s over. Don’t want to hear any more about it.

Assuming these cells are indeed truly pluripotent, and there is every indication they are, and if none of the caveats below are a problem, then this is it. In the papers above, researchers used several different types of human cells, ones from an adult woman’s face (a 36-year-old Caucasian woman, in Takahashi, et al,) and foreskin fibroblasts (Yu, et al,), which are cells harvested during the circumcision of newborn boys.

(You didn’t think we just threw those cells away, did you? They’re essentially fetal cells, a veritable cell culture gold mine. They’re used for many kinds of research, especially growing viruses in culture. Plus, if you grow enough of them and sew them into a wallet, and then rub the wallet, it turns into a suitcase. Sorry, old joke.)

Second, there was an additional ethical problem with ES cells, though it was considered secondary to the destruction of human life issue. To obtain human ova to perform nuclear transfer and thus produce ES cells, a woman had to undergo hormone therapy and surgery. Granted, the procedures are pretty much the same as in IVF, but ovulation-inducing fertility drugs have been linked with later ovarian cancer.

Another concern is that human ova would be come very valuable as a cure for everything from spinal cord injuries to Parkinson’s to Alzheimer’s to genetic diseases, etc. Should you pay women for this valuable resource and to chance getting ovarian cancer at a later time?

Again, these debates are now ended. These iPS cells don’t need eggs.

Third, using cells from an adult woman’s face to produce iPS cells is truly a breakthrough. This provides the proof-of-concept that an adult’s cells can be reprogrammed to pluripotency. If only fetal cells or newborn cells were possible to reprogram, this technique would be useful to correct birth defects or inborn genetic diseases but could not help diseases like Parkinson’s or cure spinal cord injuries.

Fourth, this lentivirus technique is easy. Really easy. Many, many labs use the lentivirus vectors and selection techniques described in these papers to produce stably transfected cell lines. I’ve done it. When this technique is refined and, hopefully, declared safe, labs all over the country could begin using this protocol for patients.

Nuclear transfer (the “Dolly” technique) that uses ES cells, on the other hand, is much more difficult.

There are, as always, some caveats. This technique will probably produce stem cells suitable for many kinds of research. It’s going to be a huge boon to labs.

It may not safely work for people. The four genes used are transcription factors, and their upregulation (which means when more is produced) is associated with cancer cells. Cells produced using this technique may cause cancer instead of cures. Takahashi, et al, used Oct3/4, Sox2, Klf4, and c-Myc. (As a virologist, seeing Myc in there gives me the proverbial willies, even if it is the c-Myc gene and not v-Myc.) Yu, et al, used Oct4, Sox2, Nanog, and Lin28, though Lin28 may not be necessary.

“Lentiviruses” are retroviruses. The retroviruses used to insert the four genes into the cells may damage the cells’ DNA when they integrate into the chromosomes and thus cause cancer.

Yet, the possibility of a cure may outweigh the possibility of future cancer. Women choose the increased risk of future cancer to have children by ovulation induction, and they do it often.

Think of it this way: if you had a profoundly dehabilitating disease, such as Parkinson’s, or early-onset Alzheimer’s, or a spinal cord injury, you might be given the choice between a cure (or a profound reduction in symptoms,) but the risk might be a 10% chance of cancer in the next decade.

Wouldn’t you want the choice?

TK Kenyon, author of RABID: A Novel and CALLOUS: A Novel (Apr 2008)

RABID is “[A] philosophical battle between science and religion ... with four very subtle and intriguing central characters. This is a novel quite unlike most standard commercial fare, a genre-bending story--part thriller, part literary slapdown with dialogue as the weapon of choice.” –Booklist Starred Review

Read “Why Dante Became A Priest: Communion Is A Kiss,” the prequel to RABID! You can even read it on your Amazon Kindle!

Recently, the Merck pharmaceutical company reported that its experimental HIV vaccine raised the rate of HIV infection among people who got the trial vaccine.

Yes, you read that right. It was worse than nothing. This vaccine was composed of a few HIV proteins strapped onto an adenovirus, which causes colds. Among people with good immunity to this common cold virus, about 80% of the population, it increased the chances of contracting HIV.

The saddest part is that this is not surprising.

Virologists have long been skeptical about the possibility of an effective HIV vaccine. HIV infects the very immune cells that you stimulate to defend your body against it. Stimulating these cells increases the rate at which HIV can infect those cells and the rate of HIV replication in these cells. Thus, an HIV vaccine can make it more likely that you’ll get AIDS, and you might get it sooner and worse than if you weren’t immunized.

So far, no one has found the Holy Grail of HIV vaccines: a broad, neutralizing antibody. A broad antibody is one that attaches to many variants of the virus. Protecting against a single strain of HIV is darn-near worthless because HIV mutates so fast that pretty much everyone has their own, personal strain. Neutralizing antibodies cause the virus or virally infected cells to be killed. Beyond the inability to find antibodies that broadly react with the many, many strains of fast-mutating HIV, many antibodies, including most of those produced in other HIV-vaccine studies, are not neutralizing.

Even in studies with monkeys challenged with simian immunodeficiency virus, we haven’t found a vaccine that produces neutralizing antibodies and protects well against a broad range of viral strains, and the few studies that do have promising results are confounded because the researchers often can’t explain why.

So why are we racing to human trials?

First, money. If a safe and efficacious HIV vaccine is produced, people will line up, set their names down on waiting lists, and pay beaucoup bucks to be immunized against this certain-death virus. To the pharmaceutical company, the patents will be a gold mine. Sure, they’ll throw a few vials of vaccine to the African or Thai prostitutes in the name of public heath and as thanks for dying during the testing of the really dangerous vaccines, but that won’t eat into their oil-company-like profit margins.

The pharmaceutical companies are so eager to find a vaccine that works, anything that works, that they’re willing to burn a few thousand African and Asian prostitutes to do it. Those populations are unlikely to sue for a variety of reasons, several of them being that they’re overseas, poor, and if the vaccine doesn’t works or backfires, dead.

I remember one vaccine that was up for review before going to human trials a few years ago, and the vaccine itself was expected to infect 30% of the trial participants with HIV and kill them. That’s not a failure rate, meaning that the vaccine didn’t protect them against getting HIV from someone else. That’s a side effect of the vaccine: slow death. Is it ethical? They were planning to test in and ultimately give this vaccine to destitute prostitutes, the kind who can’t afford condoms. Without the vaccine, the HIV infection rate is 100%. The other 70% may have been protected. However, the trial may have gone like the Merck trial above, and the other 70% may have been at greater risk, too.

Second, millions of lives. If anyone finds a vaccine that works, even partially, millions of lives can be saved, and the wildfire spread of infection can be slowed or stopped.

Third, the absence of a really, really good model system to study vaccines for proof of concept before going to human trials. Yes, monkeys get SIV (simian immunodeficiency virus,) but many monkeys like sooty mangabeys tolerate high titers of the virus without getting sick, and they do it with some unknown immune function. They don’t make neutralizing antibodies, either. (1) They defend some other way, and we’re not sure how.

Fourth, no better ideas. Scientists are working as hard as they can, as fast as they can, but HIV is still a highly evolved, diabolical pathogen. Its major antigens (virus bits that the immune system recognizes to figure out it’s a virus) mutate like mad, like internet viruses, to use a perfectly circular analogy.

So there you have it: Merck was trying to find a vaccine to save its bottom line and thousands of lives in the absence of good pre-phase-I model system. It backfired on them.

One other really sad thing: there are a lot of other trials out there using everything from naked DNA to canarypox vectors to the smallpox-vaccine virus. They might all have exactly the same problem: they make antibodies, but those antibodies don’t stop or slow the virus, and they might make the infection rate and disease course worse.

TK Kenyon, Author of RABID: A Novel
“[A] philosophical battle between science and religion ... with four very subtle and intriguing central characters. This is a novel quite unlike most standard commercial fare, a genre-bending story--part thriller, part literary slapdown with dialogue as the weapon of choice.” –Booklist Starred Review

The Hoax of Global Warming?

John Coleman, meteorologist and founder of the The Weather Channel, recently wrote an editorial on his KUSI (San Diego, CA) blog that stated in part, (scroll down to find the essay,)
"[Global Warming] is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming... It is a SCAM.... Environmental extremists, notable politicians among them, then teamed up with movie, media and other liberal, environmentalist journalists to create this wild "scientific" scenario of the civilization threatening environmental consequences from Global Warming unless we adhere to their radical agenda."

And what does your humble Non-Majors Science Instructor say?

Well, he has a point. The data that backs up the whole global warming theory is sketchy, at best. We’ve all seen the scary graph where the average recorded temperature line bobs along for a couple of centuries and then suddenly spikes up in the seventies.


As a scientist, that graph impresses me, but any scientist would ask: Where does that data come from? The acquisition method determines the data.

Now, most of the data points taken on that scary graph are from thermometers that are stationary and have been hanging in the same place for decades, even for over a century.

On the surface, this ensures continuity of data. You don’t want to take the official temperature one day in the middle of a grassy park and the next day, five inches above the steaming asphalt, or five inches above a frozen-over pond. You've got to control the variables. The position of the thermometer is certainly a variable you must control.

The problem with this is not day-to-day comparisons, but decade-to-decade comparisons. Many of these thermometers are now in the centers of huge cities. Urban heat island effect is well-documented and quite intuitive. The temperature in the centers of cities can be as much as twenty (20) Fahrenheit degrees warmer than surrounding rural areas.

For example, the official thermometer in Phoenix, AZ is at Sky Harbor Airport.

Three decades ago, Sky Harbor was on the edge of Phoenix and surrounded by cotton fields and empty desert. At night, the desert and raw soil cooled quickly, and the summer temperatures even in the center of Phoenix dropped into the sixties and seventies, Fahrenheit.

Now, the cities of Phoenix, Tempe, Mesa, Glendale, Chandler, Scottsdale, etc., have grown together like merging cancer tumors into one huge, sprawling, asphalt-paved ubercity. In the summer, the blacktop absorbs the heat from the blazing sun all day long and reradiates it at night, so Phoenix does not cool below ninety degrees Fahrenheit for weeks, sometimes months. In 2007, the high temperature was over 110o Fahrenheit for 32 days. Sometimes, the low is above a hundred degrees.

The official thermometer hangs in almost the very center of that hellhole, and I mean that the hot-enough-to-melt-sulfur sense.

The urban heat island effect has certainly affected the average daily temperatures in the middle of Phoenix. That's a localized climate change, however. Not a global climate change.

EPA LINK -- WISC.EDU LINK -- GOV.UK LINK -- ABOUT.COM LINK

Now let us consider: if the whole planet is warming up, we would expect to see many new records for highest daily temperature being set and fewer records for lowest temperatures.



Chart Source: http://wmo.asu.edu/

That isn't the case. Indeed, you'll notice in the above chart that the opposite is true. The records for the lowest recorded temperatures are more recent than records for the highest temperatures.

Average Year Highest Temperature Record: 1940
Average Year Lowest Temperature Record: 1954

The above data is meant as an indication, but it's not, quite honestly, anything to base a PhD thesis on. The records data can only be considered anecdotal, or a "case study," but cannot be extrapolated to disprove the global warming theory.

However, that data sure as heck does not support global warming.

So, what do we do about it?

Here's my take: whether or not global warming is occurring, it behooves us to act as if it was for a variety of reasons.

First, in the arena of unenlightened self-interest, conservation will save you money. If you use less energy, that means you buy less energy. Gas is approaching $4 a gallon, and oil costs above $95 a barrel. These prices are unlikely to go down by any appreciable amount, in the absence of new technology. "Reduce, reuse, and recycle" could be the penny-pincher's mantra.

Second, we in the Western hemisphere buy a lot of oil from people who are committed to destroying democracy, liberty, and liberal ideals. No, I'm not talking about Canada (the number one exporter of oil to the U.S.,) but the Islamic theocracies and monarchies of the Middle East. Seriously, the governments over there have said that they want to destroy democracy and liberalism and replace it with Islamic theocracies in the whole world.

Third, many resources are probably finite. Assuming that the theory that hydrocarbons, especially petroleum, are dead dinosaurs ("fossil fuels") and thus they are running out is true (and there are theories that it isn't, such as the one expounded in The Deep Hot Biosphere, and Freeman Dyson, a genius, wrote the forward to this iconoclastic book, and Thomas Gold is a highly regarded professor at Cornell) then conserving finite resources only makes sense. Scarcity drives up prices. See the first reason above.

Fourth, whatever the effect on global climate change, extravagant use of petrochemicals and other contaminants increases the air, soil, and water contamination in the local environment. That's your backyard that you're poisoning.

TK Kenyon, Author of RABID: A Novel
"A genre-bending story, part thriller, part literary slap-down." --Booklist Starred Review

James Watson: Science at its Worst

In a profile of James Watson, renowned 1962 Nobel Laureate for co-discovering the double-helical structure of DNA and chancellor of the renowned Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, the Sunday Times Magazine of London quoted him as saying that he's "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours — whereas all the testing says not really."

Furthermore, while he hopes everyone is equal, "people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true," Watson said. He also said people should not be discriminated against on the basis of color, because "there are many people of color who are very talented."

In addition, Watson in his new book "Avoid Boring People" says, "There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically… Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so."

Watson obviously needs Sherlock Holmes to explain it all for him, because he doesn't understand anything about standardized testing or how it relates to genetic inheritance of intelligence.
Granted, in many standardized testing situations, taken as a cohort, people of African heritage have had a lower median on their bell curve than people of other races. However, when you control for socioeconomic background, the race factor drops out entirely.

Entirely.

Yep. Poor, disadvantaged black people score equally with poor, disadvantaged white folks and poor, disadvantaged Asian folks. Middle-class black folks score equally well as middle-class white or Asian folks. Ditto for upper-class sons and daughters of doctors and lawyers. When you control for socioeconomic status, race is unimportant in standardized testing scores.

Let's say it again to be perfectly clear: When you control for socioeconomic status, race is unimportant in standardized testing scores.

Due to historical inequality of opportunity, a higher percentage of poor, disadvantaged black folks drag down the curve.

Two generations ago, people of African descent received worse scores than today.

Two generations from now, with rigor, more black people will be lifted out of poverty, and their kids have more tutoring and prep opportunities and better schools, and their scores will improve.

Note that: the genetic composition of the cohorts has not and will not perceptibly change, but scores have and will improve. That's not genetics. That's environment.

Such blatantly racist comments smack of eugenics and denigrate all of science by suggesting that we suppose such idiocy. Watson has since apologized for his comments, but I hope that people realize that these comments were not scientifically valid, were not supported by data, and are the worst misapplication of science.

TK Kenyon
Author of RABID: A Novel
"What begins as a riff on Peyton Place smoothly metamorphoses into a philosophical battle between science and religion. Kenyon is definitely an author to watch, she juggles all of her story's elements without dropping any of them--and, let's not forget, creates four very subtle and intriguing central characters."
–Booklist Starred Review

To all the male chauvinist idiots who bemoan Doris Lessing winning the Nobel Prize:
Doris Lessing won the Nobel Prize for Literature because she deserves it, that’s why.

The criticism of Doris Lessing recently receiving the Nobel Prize is thinly disguised misogyny, salted with a snobbish distaste for fiction marketed as science fiction.

Literary critic Harold Bloom, commenting on Lessing's Nobel, told The Associated Press. "Although Ms. Lessing at the beginning of her writing career had a few admirable qualities, I find her work for the past 15 years quite unreadable ... fourth-rate science fiction."

Let us remember that is almost the exact quote that Kirkus Reviews used to slam Kurt Vonnegut’s Player Piano before it was recognized that he was not writing “fourth-rate science fiction,” but post-modern literature worthy of every prize in the book.

Harold Bloom and the rest of the self-appointed literati have their panties in a wad that some other literati dare defy their taste.

They are angry that a woman, one who describes the rich and varied experience of being a woman, from that the angry and territorial women in The Golden Notebook to an older woman who still can love and lust (Love, Again, 1996.) Men have decried her writing as unfeminine and strident, even though depictions of such emotions in male characters would have been lauded as righteous anger or machismo.

Her most recent novel, The Cleft, has been roundly reviled because it is obviously science fiction and, as science fiction, it is not scientifically accurate, which is suspiciously like reviewing a restaurant and pronouncing the food inedible and the portions, too small. One of the definitions of post-modern fiction, as opposed to mere SF, is the inclusion of the supernatural in a scientific framwork. The Cleft is magical realism, not science fiction, and if Gabriel Garcia Marquez had written it, he would have been heralded for his bravery and seeing deeply into the natures of women because he is male.

The men who deem themselves to be the taste-makers have their over-sized noses out of joint. They will probably slam Doris Lessing’s work and the Nobel Committee’s taste again and again in the upcoming weeks because the coveted prize went to a woman instead of a man.

It’s sexism, pure and simple, just like Doris Lessing’s characters were angry about in The Golden Notebook in 1962.

TK Kenyon
Author of RABID: A Novel
“A genre-bending novel, part thriller, part literary slapdown.”
–Booklist Starred Review