Scientific Illiteracy and the Partisan Takeover of Biology

A new article in PLoS Biology (April 18, 2006) discusses the state of scientific literacy in the United States, with especial attention to the survey research of Jon D. Miller, who directs the Center for Biomedical Communications at Northwestern University Medical School.

The "partisan takeover" of the title refers to the embrace of antievolutionism by what the article describes as "the right-wing fundamentalist faction of the Republican Party," noting, "In the 1990s, the state Republican platforms in Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, Oregon, Missouri, and Texas all included demands for teaching creation science." NCSE is currently aware of eight state Republican parties that have antievolutionism embedded in their official platforms or policies: those of Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Texas. Four of them -- those of Alaska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Texas -- call for teaching forms of creationism in addition to evolution; the remaining three call only for referring the decision whether to teach such "alternatives" to local school districts.

A sidebar to the article, entitled "Evolution under Attack," discusses the role of NCSE and its executive director Eugenie C. Scott in defending the teaching of evolution. Scott explained the current spate of antievolution activity as due in part to the rise of state science standards: "for the first time in many states, school districts are faced with the prospect of needing to teach evolution. ... If you don't want evolution to be taught, you need to attack the standards." Commenting on the decision in Kitzmiller v. Dover [Kitzmiller et al. v Dover Area School District et al.], Scott told PLoS Biology, "Intelligent design may be dead as a legal strategy but that does not mean it is dead as a popular social movement," urging and educators to continue to resist to the onslaught of the antievolution movement. "It's got legs," she quipped. "It will evolve."

Language change has some similarities to biological evolution, but there is nothing corresponding to convergent evolution: ie, there is nothing akin to the laws of hydrodynamics that make fish, ichthyosaurs, and cetaceans similar. If a similar sound has a similar meaning in two languages, it's either a coincidence, a borrowing, or an inheritance.

Very good points indeed; many thanks.

Actually, among a number of dissimularities is the matter of replication, which is influenced by environment (explained below), and the wholly unanalogus process whereby someone can choose to migrate to a different part of the world and adopt a wholly different language.

But excluding this case of migration (that is, assuming all of one line of one's ancestry had always lived in situ), I still think it a useful illustration to consider: you can speak to your mother (from whom you learned your language) and to your children (to whom you teach your language), just as your mother could speak to her mother, who could speak to her mother, who could speak to her mother &c &c. Go back 100, 500, a thousand generations, each generation speaks the 'same' language as the generation on either side, but you do not speak the same language as your more distant ancestors. And the more distant, the less recognisable that language. This seems to me very close to the subtle gradations from one generation to the next in biology. In the language instance, it is readily documented and not controversial, and occurs on a timescale we can more readily understand than the millions of years of biological evolution.

Of course there are significant differences, too. The language you pass on to your children is not identical the language you learned from your parents partly through some of your own life experiences, education, and other conscious choices.

Neither is there anything corresponding to natural selection. Language change is all drift and loan words.

Phonetic changes are indeed a matter of drift (e.g. Grimm's Laws, which show how English hound and Latin canis evolved from a common Indo-European root (using some of the same consonantal drifts as occurred in the evolution of English garden and Latin hortus from a common ancestor). But I still think there may be some analogy between shifts in semantic content and a process of natural (as opposed to conscious) selection. In my original example, disinterested, the current (and not yet completed) evolution from the meaning of 'impartial' to 'uninterested' would appear to have arisen from some speakers using the word in 'error,' but the 'error' has gained acceptance through usage (the only arbiter, ultimately) and has even gone on to develop the new adjectival form disinteresting (still highly colloquial, to mean 'boring'). No one decreed or designed this change (and many have decried it), but it appears to have succeeded as an innovation and will survive. Personally, I loathe the change and cringe every time I hear it, but my view on this appears, alas, doomed to extinction!

Similarly, a number of languages have evolved from highly-inflected to less-inflected forms--by extending the use of prepositions, rules of syntax, etc. By some means, small innovations arise, and some survive, which drives change forward, not consciously directed nor at the hand of a master designer. But you are right, it's not an analogy to push too far.

All the same, I think it remains a good example of a highly complex system, with heavily inter-related parts, which appears "designed" but which can be demonstrated to undergo undirected evolution by wholly natural means.

A very interesting difference is that whereas no biologist doubts common descent from one organism, the corresponding linguistic hypothesis ("monogenesis") is controversial and rejected by most linguists.

The problem is -- and may always remain -- that the data is just too thin. Greenberg is fascinating, all the same.

There were still a few advocates of Whorf-Sapir (different languages = different worlds) around in my undergraduate days (shows how ancient I am), but I think that particular coffin has been pretty firmly nailed shut.

One part of the analogy that does stand, I feel, around the issue of abiogensis is that neither diachronic linguistics nor biolgical evolution actually require a compelling account of first origins in order to be valid. I wish I had £5 for every time I have heard some dismiss ToE on the grounds of abiogenesis!

Perhaps I exaggerated, but not by much. Is this how a typical Evo's mind works?

I have no idea why you directed that at me. But since you ask, I've told you a million times that exaggeration is part of the human condition.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- He never did answer.... So that means YOU can fill in the blank??

No, it just means that he didn't answer the question. (despite his dishonest claim that he did, coupled with the dishonest accusation that I am a liar. If I'd wrongly accused him of not answering I'd have apologised like a shot. I won't hold my breath waiting for an apology from a creationist though, even though I have clearly documented his dishonesty. I also won't hold my breath waiting for any other creationist to criticise his manifest dishonesty)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You folks DO realize that 'medicine' is thwarthing Evolutions grand design. How can the future fight germs the good old way if we keep trying to kill them off artifically?

Evolution doesn't have a grand design.

All your points are good, thanks, but I especially liked:

One part of the analogy that does stand, I feel, around the issue of abiogensis is that neither diachronic linguistics nor biolgical evolution actually require a compelling account of first origins in order to be valid.

I read (not as part of class work) Whorf's "Language thought and reality". I wasn't really convinced that the Hopi (and other Indians) think differently, but they sure talk differently.

I remember the essay on the "The Punctual and Segmentative Aspects of Verbs in Hopi"

(I'm amazed by Google - I found an example on line)

[the segmentative aspect] Is formed by reduplication Of the CVCV verb stem And addition of the suffix –ta.

For example, ha’ri = "describing an arc"
As opposed to hari’rita = "meandering";
Ho’ci = "describing a right angle"
And hoci’cita = zigzagging"

source

I would think that almost everyone would be somewhat familiar with Dr. Stanislauw Brdzinsky's case. He wes attacked by the AMA and FDA in a criminal case and proved in court that he regularly cured cancer through diet and herbal therapy.

Stanislaw Burzynski is a quack. He claims to cure cancer, AIDS, autoimmune diseases, and neurological diseases by feeding patients substances extracted from human urine.

You have no clue whatsoever, so I'll add you to the boar tit list where you belong.

Analysis of Antineoplaston Biochemistry

Tracing the biochemistry involved in Burzynski's synthesis of antineoplastons shows that the substances are without value for cancer treatment.

By 1985, Burzynski said he was using eight antineoplastons to treat cancer patients. The first five, which were fractions from human urine, he called A-1 through A-5. From A-2 he made A-10, which was insoluble 3-N-phenylacetylamino piperidine 2,6-dione. He said A-10 was the anticancer peptide common to all his urine fractions. He then treated A-10 with alkali, which yielded a soluble product he named AS-2.5. Further treatment of AS-2.5 with alkali yielded a product he called AS-2.1. Burzynski is currently treating patients with what he calls "AS-2.1" and "A-10."

Source: Quackwatch.org

I read (not as part of class work) Whorf's "Language thought and reality".

I still have a dog-eared copy on my shelf from undergrad days; great read, very stimulating, and probably dead wrong -- but hey, that's rational enquiry for you.

A few quick thoughts (half-baked, it's been a long day) on other analogies before signing off:

The whole concept of 'a language' is a bit fuzzy, like the concept of 'species;' difficult to make a hard distinction between dialects (sub-species) because of the variations within a population of speakers, or to draw an absolute boundary between them. There are enormous differences between the speech of a man from the Hebrides and a man from Barbados (phonetically, some differences greater than between a Londoner speaking English and a Berliner speaking German)--but as long as they still communicate, we regard them as speaking the same English language. And evolution works on populations, not individuals (a point many seem to miss about biological evolution). Indeed, a principal mechanism for the creation of a new language is the isolation of a sub-population of speakers of the ancestral language.

If nothing else, maybe we should flag all this up so the hard-core Creationist crowd can go after a soft science like linguistics and leave the biologists in peace for a while. All of their dopiest but ever-recurring arguments can be raised, e.g., linguistics is contrary to a literal reading of the Bible, no one has ever observed one language suddenly becoming a different language in a laboratory, my great-great-granddaddy didn't speak no proto-Indo-European, there might be micro-evolution (changes within one language, from Chaucer to Shakespeare) but not macro-evolution (Proto-Germanic into English), something as complex as grammar had to have been 'designed' by a superior intelligence, what would be the use of half of a pluperfect tense, and of course--this is the clincher--linguistics leads inevitably to the obnoxious and dangerous politics of Noam Chomsky, quod erat demonstrandum

Jeepers, what a can of worms we may be opening here! If this catches on, I hope the biologists will thank us for gaining for them a respite!

Burzynski has never demonstrated that A-2.1 (PA) or "soluble A-10" (PA and PAG) are effective against cancer or that tumor cells from patients treated with these antineoplastons have been "normalized." Tests of antineoplastons at the National Cancer Institute have never been positive. The drug company Sigma-Tau Pharmaceuticals could not duplicate Burzynski's claims for AS-2.1 and A-10. The Japanese National Cancer Institute has reported that antineoplastons did not work in their studies. No Burzynski coauthors have endorsed his use of antineoplastons in cancer patients.

These facts indicate to me that Burzynski's claims that his "antineoplastons" are effective against cancer are not credible.

About the Author

Dr. Green is a biochemist who did cancer research at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center for 23 years. He consults on scientific methodology and has a special interest in unproven methods.

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