Professor Dumped Over Evolution Beliefs

http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/3/112003a.asp ^ | March 11, 2003 | Jim Brown and Ed Vitagliano

[Remedy]

A university professor said she was asked to resign for introducing elite students to flaws in Darwinian thought, and she now says academic freedom at her school is just a charade.

During a recent honors forum at Mississippi University for Women (MUW), Dr. Nancy Bryson gave a presentation titled "Critical Thinking on Evolution" -- which covered alternate views to evolution such as intelligent design. Bryson said that following the presentation, a senior professor of biology told her she was unqualified and not a professional biologist, and said her presentation was "religion masquerading as science."

The next day, Vice President of Academic Affairs, Dr. Vagn Hansen asked Bryson to resign from her position as head of the school's Division of Science and Mathematics.

"The academy is all about free thought and academic freedom. He hadn't even heard my talk," Bryson told American Family Radio News. "[W]ithout knowing anything about my talk, he makes that decision. I think it's just really an outrage."

Bryson believes she was punished for challenging evolutionary thought and said she hopes her dismissal will smooth the way for more campus debate on the theory of evolution. University counsel Perry Sansing said MUW will not comment on why Bryson was asked to resign because it is a personnel matter.

"The best reaction," Bryson says, "and the most encouraging reaction I have received has been from the students." She added that the students who have heard the talk, "They have been so enthusiastically supportive of me."

Bryson has contacted the American Family Association Center for Law and Policy and is considering taking legal action against the school.

[Right Wing Professor]

One correction: I said they didn't look at the Ciona ADH3 gene; looking over the paper again, they did; they did an analysis of the introns (which we've been ignoring) and showed a very clear and apparently convincing alignment between C. intestinalis (on the one hand) and Branchiostoma and Vertebrates, on the other. Furthermore, the intron alignment is exactly what you would expect if Ciona branched off shortly before or about the same time as the cephalochordate/vertebrate branch point. Of the 11 introns in C. intestinalis, intron 3 is missing in the cephalochordates, and introns 5 and 8 in the vertebrates. All the vertebrate ADHs have the same intron pattern. Similarities to protostomes like Drosophila and Caenorhabdis are much weaker.

Why they didn't include the Ciona ADH3 protein sequence in the analysis isn't clear to me.

[gomaaa]

Creatures with similarities have them for different reasons. Sometimes it's because these speicies shared a common anscestor, sometimes because of parallel evolution.

You are quite right that it is ludicrous to think of, say, humans as evolving from chimpanzes. Good thing that has never been suggested by evolution. Humans did not evolve from chimps, both humans AND chimps evolved from a common ancestor. That ancestor probably looked more like a chimp than humans do, but that doesn't mean that modern species are in the process of evolving into each other. Similarities in anatomy between humans and chimps are due to this common ancestry, not a direct transition between the two species.

Parallel evolution, as I'm sure you are aware, is when two species have similar traits because of common enviornmental conditions. Sharks and dolphins have similar sleek shapes because that is ideal for moving through water quickly. It is a desirable trait in an animal of that size that lives in water. Bats and birds both have wings because it is an amazing advantage to be able to fly. There is considerable debate (I think) as to whether they actually came to the solution of wings by the same means. I think that birds are thought to have evolved wings to help them run faster and jump higher on the ground (the ground-up method) and bats grew from something that glided to help it jump like a flying squirrel (top-down). The result-a creature that can fly-was the same either way.

These similarities show remarkable evidence for evolution. Yes, the theories I have presented to you are INTERPRETATIONS not FACTS. But that is precisely what theories are. As more facts are available the theories will modified or discarded as need be, but they are not pulled from thin air.

[Nataku X]

You were nonetheless asking for them from VadeRetro as if they were any proof of one's authoritity regarding science.

Sigh... you can have the final word; I'll not continue this any more.

[Youngblood]

Bats have always been bats, but if they did not exist today, you would surely be offering them as a transition to birds, flying squirrels, or maybe F-16's.

Why would someone be offerring them as transitions to birds? Just because they have wings. Maybe in your strawman version of what passes for evolutionary science that would be the case. The bird wing and the wing wing are totally analogous. They have the same function and they're derived from tetrapod forelimbs, but that's it. The structures of the two wing types are totally different.

If there were no actual platypuses and you found one in the fossil record, you know you would herald it as a transition and evidence for evolution.

Let me guess. Transition between a duck and an otter or a beaver. More strawmanning. Even without living specimens, the platypus would be classified as a mammal based on its skeletal features.

Snakes have scales, fish have scales. Is one evolving into the other?

Octopi have eight legs, spiders have eight legs. Will we see an octupus spinning a web in a few kazillion years?

Horses have manes, lions have manes. Is it moving up the neck or down?

So if some dinos have feathers, then some dinos have feathers. Some mammals have wings, that doesn't make them transitional.

All strawman examples. Biologists do not take species and class them as related or transitional due to one character without taking into account everything else about them. Creationists might do that when they insist that the platypus "bill" is actually a duck-beak that has been stuck onto a mammal body just because it is superficially similar, but biologists judge transitional species by taking into account their combinations of derived and ancestral characters. The platypus "bill" is totally mammalian in structure. The lower jaw is made up of the same dentary-squamosal system possessed by all other mammals. If those feathered dinosaur species were actually feathered mammals, they wouldn't be classified as transitional between dinos and birds because the rest of the skeletons wouldn't support such a hypothesis. The confusion over which pigeonhole in which to place Archaeopteryx shows that your analogies are totally false.

[Youngblood]

wing wing

Oops! "Bat wing" (obviously)!

[VadeRetro]

Say other than birds there are no other known feathered reptiles correct?

You forgot Quetzalcoatl, but he's from a religion other than the true religion and thus a myth, right?

[AndrewC]

I would strongly recommend looking at the data by hand, aligning the sequences, and then counting substitutions before drawing conclusions from BLAST; if you get about the same number it does, you're on safe ground.

Thanks, I did that and the data are confirmed. Later, I noticed that when I submitted the query I had left the low complexity filter on. I then resubmitted the query with the filter off and got updated results. In general the sequence is the same with the corresponding change in the e-value(the sequences become more "significant"). I have also looked at fumarase and 40S ribosomal protein S4. These do not change much. The ribosomal protein shows that the chicken is closer to human than mammals outside of primates.(in terms of that protein)

Query = gi|16307477|gb|AAH10286.1|AAH10286 ribosomal protein S4, Y-linked [Homo sapiens] (263 letters)

I also ran the X-linked ribosomal protein. In that analysis the chicken is closer to human than the primates. Go figure.

Query = gi|12653405|gb|AAH00472.1|AAH00472 ribosomal protein S4, X-linked [Homo sapiens] (263 letters)

[f.Christian]

To: f.Christian

fC...

Originally the word liberal meant social conservatives(no govt religion--none) who advocated growth and progress---mostly technological(knowledge being absolute/unchanging)based on law--reality... UNDER GOD---the nature of GOD/man/govt. does not change.

LC...

Now I follow, thank you. Actually, I don't disagree with this at all since I see the left as abandoning the uncertianty of democracy and majority rule (( constitutional // law ))** for the assurance technocracy and expert rule (( dictatorship // tyranny ))**.

152 posted on 9/10/02 12:17 PM Pacific by Liberal Classic

** .. .. .. my additions !


Main Entry: tech·no·crat
Pronunciation: 'tek-n&-"krat
Function: noun
Date: 1932
1 : an adherent of technocracy
2 : a technical expert; especially : one exercising managerial authority

Main Entry: tech·noc·ra·cy
Pronunciation: tek-'nä-kr&-sE
Function: noun
Date: circa 1919
: government by technicians; specifically : management of society by technical experts

[AndrewC]

One solution might be to pick a more conserved protein. I started with cytochrome b5 last night

Hmm, this protein seems to change a lot.

Sequence 1	gi 11177032	cytochrome b5 [Ciona savignyi]	Length	132	(1 .. 132)
Sequence 2	gi 25282551	ascidian cytochrome b5, Pmb5 - sea squirt (Polyandrocarpa misakiensis)	Length	135	(1 .. 135)

NOTE:The statistics (bitscore and expect value) is calculated based on the size of nr database

Score =  174 bits (442), Expect = 2e-43
Identities = 81/130 (62%), Positives = 107/130 (82%), Gaps = 1/130 (0%)

Query:  3   ECEEKKIYRLEEVKKHNNVQSAWIIIHNKVYDLTKFLEEHPGGEEVLLEQAGQDATESFE 62
            E  EK+I R EEVK+HN+++SAW +IHNKVYD+TKFLE+HPGGEEVLLEQAG++ATE+FE
Sbjct:  7   EQTEKRIIRYEEVKQHNSIKSAWNVIHNKVYDVTKFLEDHPGGEEVLLEQAGKNATEAFE 66
binding 46                                         *
region  7   ************************************************************

Query:  63  DVGHSTDAREMQKDYYIGELHPDDQFTQNPRSKYVTLGSDQAQGSGLSNWLIPGLVALGV 122
            DVGHS+DAR + +++ IGELHPDD F Q  + ++VT     A+ S  SNW+IP +VAL V
Sbjct:  67  DVGHSSDARSLAEEHLIGELHPDDHF-QEEQPQFVTTHESMAETSSWSNWVIPAIVALAV 125
binding 70     *
region  67  ************************** ****

Query:  123 ALIYRFYMSS 132
            AL+YR+Y+S+
Sbjct:  126 ALVYRYYISN 135

[AndrewC]

Say other than birds there are no other known feathered reptiles correct?

[Boiler Plate]

I think you forgot Quetzalcoatl, seeing as I asked you the question.

[Right Wing Professor]

I have also looked at fumarase and 40S ribosomal protein S4. These do not change much. The ribosomal protein shows that the chicken is closer to human than mammals outside of primates.(in terms of that protein)

Well, I warned you about canned programs. The human protein has an extra N-terminal and C-terminal that most mammals lack (you can count each deletion as a single mutation, if you like), but if you focus on the common sequence, I get 4 differences between Sus scrofa (pig; go figure) and H. sapiens; and 12 between Gallus gallus and H. sapiens. Bos taurus is almost identical to S. scrofa (1 change)

My chicken is the chicken rps4 (P47836); human is the Y-linked rps4 (AAH10286) and the pig is BAA21081; pigs only have one sex-chromosome linked rps4. Cow is BAA21078.

I can post the aligned sequences on a web page., if anyone wants to see for himself.

[f.Christian]

How does (( evolution )) ...

spontaneous (( magic )) -- morphing (( flux )) ...

matter and life ... constitution (( living )) become SCIENCE (( law )) ---

silly isn't it !

Liberal social engineering (( revisionism // fantasy )) ! !

[Dataman]

<When they [evos] are losing, that's what they do [get juvenile]

Which is most of the time.

[js1138]

chicken placemarker

[Dataman]

Gee balrog, talking to yourself again while looking in the mirror?????

[Dataman]

A theory is garbage if it is not scientifically supported by the facts.

[Right Wing Professor]

Cow and chicken placemarker.

[Dataman]

you'll just end up like Anti-Pope GoreMMM, skull-full-of-mush, lacking-Data-man, or weasel-wording-AC.

More insults from a plastic toy.