Neil Shubin, author of “Your Inner Fish” can be heard discussing the fascinating story of evolution.
Shubin discusses a variety of strong evidences that support our common ancestry, one in particular caught my eye/ear.
Hiccups…
Richard Dawkins’ site has an article (reposted form The University of Chicago Magazine which explains the link between hiccups and our ‘inner fish’.
First of all, hiccups are shared amongst mammals
If there is any consolation for getting hiccups, it is that our misery is shared with many other mammals. Cats can be stimulated to hiccup by sending an electrical impulse to a small patch of tissue in their brain stem. This area of the brain stem is thought to be the center that controls the complicated reflex that we call a hiccup. The hiccup reflex is a stereotyped twitch involving a number of muscles in our body wall, diaphragm, neck, and throat. A spasm in one or two of the major nerves that control breathing causes these muscles to contract. This results in a very sharp inspiration of air. Then, about 35 milliseconds later, a flap of tissue in the back of our throat (the glottis) closes the top of our airway. The fast inhalation followed by a brief closure of the tube produces the “hic.”
So how does the hiccup links us to our common ancestor? The story is fascinating
Our tendency to develop hiccups is another influence of our past. There are two issues to think about. The first is what causes the spasm of nerves that initiates the hiccup. The second is what controls that distinctive hic, the abrupt inhalation–glottis closure. The nerve spasm is a product of our fish history, while the hic is an outcome of the history we share with animals such as tadpoles.
Nerves and our inner fish
Shubin points out how the arrangement of the nerves which stimulate breathing in fish, cause an unfortunate side effect in mammals.
The problem is that the brain stem originally controlled breathing in fish; it has been jerry-rigged to work in mammals. Sharks and bony fish all have a portion of the brain stem that regulates the rhythmic firing of muscles in the throat and around the gills. The nerves that control these areas all originate in a well-defined portion of the brain stem. We can even see this nerve arrangement in some of the most primitive fish in the fossil record. Ancient ostracoderms, from rocks over 400 million years old, preserve casts of the brain and cranial nerves. Just as in living fish, the nerves that control breathing extend from the brain stem.
However, the nerves leave the brain at the same place as they do in fish but they have to travel further down to our diaphragm.
This convoluted path creates problems; a rational design would have the nerves traveling not from the neck but from somewhere nearer the diaphragm. Unfortunately, anything that interferes with one of these nerves can block their function or cause a spasm.
Pattern generators and amphibians
As Shubin pointed out earlier, the hiccup itself is an outcome of a history we share with amphibians. While in humans, the hiccup is mostly an annoyance (vestigial?), in tad poles, which have both lungs and gills, the hiccup is used to breathe with their gills. What a wonderful example of a living ‘transitional fossil’.
It turns out that the pattern generator responsible for hiccups is virtually identical to one in amphibians. And not in just any amphibians—in tadpoles, which use both lungs and gills to breathe. Tadpoles use this pattern generator when they breathe with gills. In that circumstance, they want to pump water into their mouth and throat and across the gills, but they do not want the water to enter their lungs. To prevent it from doing so, they close the glottis, the flap that closes off the breathing tube. And to close the glottis, tadpoles have a central pattern generator in their brain stem so that an inspiration is followed immediately by a closing glottis. They can breathe with their gills thanks to an extended form of hiccup.
The parallels between our hiccups and gill breathing in tadpoles are so extensive that many have proposed that the two phenomena are one and the same. Gill breathing in tadpoles can be blocked by carbon dioxide, just like our hiccups. We can also block gill breathing by stretching the wall of the chest, just as we can stop hiccups by inhaling deeply and holding our breath. Perhaps we could even block gill breathing in tadpoles by having them drink a glass of water upside down.
As just a slight sidetrack from this interesting update, some folks might recall that I sent a copy of Shubin’s book to Beverly Slough, one of the members of the St. Johns County, FL school board who spoke out against the new evolution standard on the basis that there was no evidence of a transition of fish to humans.
I’ve since gotten a couple of emails from Ms. Slough, the last one just last night. She’s just gotten back from a family vacation and has started reading Your Inner Fish. She has been quite courteous and has said that she is willing share her thoughts on the book with me when she’s done reading it.
Who knows; when all is said and done, there may just be some documented evidence that Shubin’s work has induced the intellectual evolution of at least one Creationist. I’ll update with any developments when and if there are some to talk about.
I picked up the tip to take a deep breath and hold it to stop hiccups ages ago in some magazine. I can personally vouch for the efficacy of the method. It works very very well. At most I get one or two more when I am holding the breath and it stops. On very rare occasions I had to repeat holding the breath. But never knew there was a scientific explanation for it. Very interesting.
Now waiting for the reason why air flows out of the inner ears through the Eustachian tubes easily, (but as the airplane lands,) it refuses to let the air back in to equalize the pressure. Very painful, till I can finally walk out of the airplane. Then these jarring created by walking somehow lets the air in, and with an audible woosh sound, the pain goes away. Tugging the ear lobes,chewing gum, trying to blow the nostrils while keeping them closed… nothing helps me.
Mike,
Well done! If only most antievolutionists were that willing to engage in dialogue like that.
Nothing like a ‘teachable moment’. At least once each year a student has ‘the hiccups’ during class. They almost always want to know how to stop them; and many students chime in with the predictable and mostly effective solutions “drink a glass of water”, “hold your breath and count to 30”, “breath into a bag”. Often students will ask “what causes the hiccups”? The usual answer: “a spasm in the diaphragm and chest wall”. With no objection from Paul Harvey, “and now, the rest of the story”.
I wouldn’t expect too much honest response from Ms. Slough. In fact I would predict that her responses will very closely match that of the DI.
Wow. I just got the book for my birthday. Can’t wait to read it!
While we think of creationists as those that deny science, there are also those that accept science but also believe in gods actions.
Perhaps this lady will come to understand St. Augustine’s warning. for today most creationists look silly and stupid.
Wow, another story. If only it were illustrated with moths glued to tree trunks or embryos. Opps just checked, it is illustrated. Nice art work.
Sound like a variation of Haeckel’s embryo arguments for evolution.
Adapting a story to fit newly discovered and admittedly misunderstood coincidences is not scientific theory; it is conspiracy theory–not even a very good one. And using the hiccups as an excuse to teach about religion should not be allowed–especially if you introduce snarks against what you believe to be an imaginary “perfect designer”.
And, love this:
What passes for reasoning in the world of evolutionists boggles the mind. Cars are not designed because they rust and allow themselves to collide. Photocopiers that distort images were not designed since they introduce noise.
So William Wallace admits that inferior design in humans and other organisms is evidence for an inferior Creator, not the infallible one despicted in traditional Biblical dogma? Nice to see that!
The rest of his post is just B.S.
Correction, Dale, the rest of his post is mean-spirited B.S.
Wow Mr. Wallace.
Shubin’s example is a case of a complex suite of characters that on the surface are mysteriously intertwined, but can be easily and elegantly understood in the context of evolution – especially when considering the details of comparative anatomy, neuroanatomy, physiology and even the fossil record. Obviously, though, you have studied this issue in great depth. So before you cast any more aspersions, perhaps you would like to expound on how your model provides greater understanding, or is more consistent with the evidence?
While we are at it, could you also explain what you personally would have done given the task of illustrating how the variable coloration of peppered moths impacts their visibility against different natural backgrounds? Then, having done that, please explain how the use of an illustration of moth coloration impacts the results of the multitudinous studies on the moths? And please, instead of citing Johnston and Wells’ stuff, refer to the actual studies themselves.
Fascinating!
This explains something I never understood. I knew about stretching the muscles in the chest walls, but I didn’t know carbon dioxide had anything to do with it.
When I was on a diesel-electric sub in the Navy (before the nuclear subs took over the load), I would often get the hiccups after bolting a meal before going on watch or eating on the run during intense operations. The stretching worked.
During those times we were hiding submerged and running ultra-quiet for extended periods, carbon dioxide would build up to where we had to spread a CO2 absorbent (lithium hydroxide) to prevent too large a build-up. One could always tell when the CO2 level was high because you could feel your heart pounding in your chest, and a match wouldn’t stay lit.
However, during those times, I never once experienced hiccups. Now I know why.
So Dale Husband resorts to inventing admissions as well as words (despicted). Yawn.
So, then, Mr Wallace, can you address and answer mplavcan’s questions, too, or are you going to conveniently ignore them because you are physically incapable of comprehending them?
In other words, the designer of life was a shoddy designer at best?
What’s your problem with the peppered moth story which has recently been found to be correct after taking into consideration the various objections to Kettlewell’s excellent studies. As far as embryos, I guess you are still being fooled by the ignorance of the Discovery Institute’s assertions.
How sad
Furthermore, Dale Husband did not make anything up: because of your mean-spirited strawman fallacies and ignorant ridicule, you infer that God either is capable of producing flawless organisms, but deliberately created flawed organisms or is only capable of producing flawed organisms.
Unless, of course, you can give a scientific explanation for why there are flaws in biological systems… Can you, or are you only capable of ridiculing people who do not deign to share your dim and narrow view of the world?
You troll :-)
But just for those interested in the science involved, the hiccup shows two excellent links between a present day nuissance and the evolutionary history, as evidenced in fishes and amphibians. Of course ID proponents should really have no problem with the fact of common descent which most seem to accept. And for good reasons, it is an extremely well supported fact. As for calling teaching about science, a religion, I am sure that you are confusing science with the nonsense proposed by ID creationists.
Mr Wallace was taught that flaunting one’s ignorance apparently makes God happy, especially since he didn’t get the numerous memos concerning how the reason why the peppered moths were deliberately pinned to various treetrunks in the first place was to give people a visual demonstration of the moths’ camouflage.
PS, William Wallace commented on the Cambrian thread in which O’Leary made her usual ill informed claims about Charles Walcott. I assume that he believes what O’Leary stated in the thread? Would he be interested in pursuing the real story?
Consider it a challenge to see if ID proponents are really interested in teaching the truth.
What inventing? I just took your line of reasoning and followed it. Too bad you don’t dare follow it yourself. It outright denies the perfection and absolute foresight required of the traditional Creator of the Bible, and instead results in one that is no better than us. Even if there is an Intelligent Designer, he is really an idiot, if we take the designs of most life forms as proof of his work. The forces of natural selection, which have no foresight and is prone to doing what happens to work regardless of the actual best possible design, explain life on Earth. Cars and photocopiers cannot reproduce themselves, and thus cannot be subject to natural selection like life forms can. Thus it is pointless to compare inventions of man to anything living.
(ignoring Willy Wally the BTI):
Maybe that explains the “breath into a bag” strategy, too: increase local CO2 levels by rebreathing.
Those are the only two choices I have?
See false dilemma under logical fallacies.
Sure. I presume you know how to contact me.
William Wallace
For the amusement of my fellow supporters of evolution, I submit this rediculous statement by Creationist Kurt Wise:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/doc[…]asp?vPrint=1
(((The evidence from Scripture is by far the best evidence for creation. No better evidence can be imagined than that provided from Him who is not only the only eyewitness observer, but who also is the embodiment of all truth. All Christians should be content in His claims for creation. There are those, however, who reject the authority of the Scriptures.
I believe that the best extra-biblical evidence for creation would come from the design of organisms past and present. The schizochroal compound eye of the trilobite (a horseshoe crab-like organism of the past), for example, contains the only known lens in the biological world which corrects for focusing problems that result from using non-flexible lenses. The designs of the schizochroal lenses, in fact, are the very same designs that man himself has developed to correct for the same problems. Furthermore, the design of the schizochroal eye combines this optimum focusing capability with the optimum sensitivity to motion provided by the compound eye as well as the stereoscopic (3-D) vision provided by closely spaced eyes.
The design of the schizochroal eye makes it unique among eyes; perhaps even to the point of being the best optical system known in the biological world. This design, in fact, seems to far exceed the needs of the trilobite. The origin of the design of the schizochroal eye is not understood by means of any known natural cause. Rather, it is best understood as being due to an intelligent (design-creating) cause, through a process involving remarkably high manipulative ability. Among available hypotheses, creation by God is the most reasonable hypothesis for the origin of the complexity of the trilobite’s schizochroal eye.)))
I tore him apart here: http://www.care2.com/c2c/groups/dis[…]amp;posts=11
It’s amazing how someone could earn a Ph.D, even study under Stephen Jay Gould, and still be an absolute idiot!
Good point, WW! One could also infer that there is no Creator at all!
Want to go there? LOL!!!!
Excellent. I am just about working my way through the various relevant manuscripts.
O’Leary suggests, based on the claims by another author, that Walcott somehow burried the fossils from the Burgess Shale because they disagreed with Darwinian theory.
Do you agree with her position?
and
Time to expose the truth. Ready?
and while you’re at it, would you like to correct your story about sternberg?
Did you read the emails in question? Care to support your claims?
You are obviously a fellow Christian who seems to believe the nonsense spouted by the Discovery Institute and its ‘fellows’. Would it concern you if you were to find out that the real story is often quite a bit different?
Check this out:
http://blog.coincidencetheories.com/?p=27
Here William Wallace repeats the old Creationist lie that teaching evolution was somehow responsible for what the Nazis did.
Imagine that! “We evolved from apelike creatures via natural selection, therefore we must exterminate Jews, make war on our neighbors, and live under absolute tyranny!”
Nope! That’s nonsense, like the things WW posted right here!
Pretty sad to see how my fellow Christians make fools of themselves so easily.
I’m putting forth the hypothesis of why William Wallace chose not to answer my question,
is because he is physically incapable of answering it.
I’m also guessing that Mr Wallace’s sole purpose here is to ridicule everyone who does not support his dim and narrow world view in order to stroke his own ego, as with all the other creationist trolls who visit here.
Seeing the rage and hatred coming out of trolls like Wallace makes me think that theocrats like him would be far worse than Hitler if they ever got control of secular power. This character is really psycho.
You know, for an outsider it is really interesting to see the creotards kicking and screaming against every new evidence of evolution in biology, then inevitably do a back flip when the evidence is accepted to point out that a new line of traits means there are even more “gaps” to consider.
I think the back flip too is an evolutionary remain from social herding - it should be called “follow the leader” or possibly “appeal to the mob”.
So you are saying that carbon dioxide blocked hiccups is an example of old sub standard design?
[/ducks]
Well, WGIII certainly claimed that 640 kB Random Access Memory would be quite enough for anybody, ever. The latest version of “his” OS, hastalavista, will hardly even start with one thousand times that (if it were even available in such granularity). He is also on record (video) stating: “And that is why I believe, OS/2 will be the platform for the nineties” – only to stab it dead in the back a couple of years later using pretty dirty tricks.
Sorry about the rant. You are right, innovation is indeed necessary, always. That was just not a very good example of an innovative or investigating person. Fortunately, there are many others who are.
Stacy, I was going to ignore the error, but since you have highlighted it…
Jerry-built: built sloppily or carelessly.
Jury-rigged: built or repaired with whatever materials were available to hand (typically applies in an emergency).
My paraphrase from Bill Bryson’s Troublesome Words.
WW writes:
“A point I deem worthy of consideration in the Ptolemy/Copernicus/Tycho/Kepler progression is that it took centuries to get from a Ptolemaic epicyclic/geocentric theory to Copernican heliostatic/heliocentric/epicyclic/constant-velocity model, and even after that, the venerated (as an observational astronomer) Tycho Brahe asserted that the data better matched a Ptolemaic model over the falsified Copernican model.”
This isn’t so strange as it seems in hindsight. Although the epicylcic method was based on an incorrect theory, it did offer an alogorithm that could be used to compute orbital phenomenon of arbitrary precision limited by the number of “cycles” that could be determined and used.
I believe (someone correct me if I am wrong) that Copernicus claimed that the orbits of the planets were circular (now I think old Nic knew better, but circular orbits may have been a nod to certain religious authorities). It could be that Tycho could see from his detailed observations that circular orbits couldn’t cut it. Hence, although a Copernican paradigm was ultimately a better picture of the solar system, epicycles allowed one to compute more precise timing of astronomical phenomena. So from a 16th century perspective, I would argue that epicylces were the better model.
With Kepler’s laws came a more precise view of the nature of planetary orbits, and a more concise alogorithm for computing orbits. At that point, epicycles were doomed to a footnote in history.
“By falsified, I mean, from a sixteenth century perspective: No 1000+ mph wind at equator due to Earth’s axial spin; no observed parallactic displacement of stars. Subsequently, Kepler seems to have simultaneously recognized the scientific value of Tycho’s data as well as the harm in Tycho’s dogmatism, and decided that the ends justified the means. Kepler deceived Tycho and his heirs. But Kepler ultimately produced the heliocentric/elliptical/changing velocity planetary orbit model we so clearly recognize as “true” today
Assuming this progression and regression is not unique, where in this drama is evolution?
I think sometime before Kepler; that is, we currently have a Ptolemaic/dogmatic theory of evolution.”
Not a chance. At worst it may be between classical mechanics and QM.
“The truth is mighty, and will prevail (eventually).”
The “truth” has already prevailed. What we are trying to do is get a more precise descrition of the “truth”
Nah - that’s only used in reference to the Bush Administration:)
D’oh! Seems I run into a memory mine!
And I really, really shouldn’t make that mistake, IIRC I have had to correct others on it… a long time ago.
Um, I have assumed that it refers to a medium, who are supposed to do this for a spirit guide. In any case, if this is a preexisting use, it is arguable to call it’s appropriation as analogy a slang term IMHO.
[O’Leary is btw so vacuous that “spirit guide” seems appropriate. :-P]
Ehrm, that should be “ran” into a mine. Nap time.
Ya, me too. May your subconscious give you sweet dreams.
Do reptiles and/or birds get hiccups too?
(If a T-Rex hiccuped, how loud would it be? Eek.)
I hope to go swimming again once the weather warms up, and would be most grateful if someone here could inform me how to open up gill breathing before I get back in the water. Chest compression by itself doesn’t seem to be doing the trick.
Pierce, Would water even have enough oxygen content for a mammal to manage on it even with a way of extracting it?
Henry
Would water even have enough oxygen content for a mammal to manage on it even with a way of extracting it
breathe faster!
I think we would have to ditch the lungs, though. not efficient enough for gas exchange in liquid without increasing the partial pressures.
I think something like an axolotl might work:
http://www.ithaca.edu/faculty/jhard[…]/axolotl.jpg
I suspect not. All animals that breathe using gills are also poikilothermic, i.e. their body temperature is determined by their environment. Thus, even a tropical sea with water at about 25 - 30 °C would not allow fish (e.g. sharks) to achieve a body temperature equivalent to that of a mammal (typically 37 °C). Therefore, the homeothermic mammal’s metabolism will be operating significantly faster than that of a fish and thus have a higher oxygen demand.
It is worth noting that air breathing and lungs evolved before homeothermy. Perhaps the one was necessary for the development of the other.
I generally liked the book and found it very interesting, however, I found the following passage deeply troubling on moral grounds:
“Imagine trying to jerry-rig a Volkswagen Beetle to travel at speeds of 150 miles per hour. In 1933 Adolf Hitler commissioned Dr. Ferdinand Porsche to develop a cheap car that could get 40 miles per gallon of gas and provide a reliable form of transportation for the average German family. The result was the VW Beetle. This history, Hitler’s plan, places constraints on the ways we can modify the Beetle today; the engineering can be tweaked only so far before major problems arise and the car reaches its limit.
“In many ways, we humans are the fish equivalent of a hot-rod Beetle. Take the body plan of a fish, dress it up to be a mammal, then tweak and twist that mammal until it walks on two legs, talks, thinks, and has superfine control of its fingers—and you have a recipe for problems. We can dress up a fish only so much without paying a price. In a perfectly designed world—one with no history—we would not have to suffer everything from hemorrhoids to cancer.
“Nowhere is this history more visible than in the detours, twists, and turns of our arteries, nerves, and veins. Follow some nerves and you’ll find that they make strange loops around other organs, apparently going in one direction only to twist and end up in an unexpected place. The detours are fascinating products of our past that, as we’ll see, often create problems—hiccups and hernias, for example. And this is only one way our past comes back to plague us.
“Our deep history was spent, at different times, in ancient oceans, small streams, and savannahs, not office buildings, ski slopes, and tennis courts. We were not designed to live past the age of 80, sit on our keisters for ten hours a day, and eat Hostess Twinkies, nor were we designed to play football. This disconnect between our past and our human present means that our bodies fall apart in certain predictable ways.
“Virtually every illness we suffer has some historical component. The examples that follow reflect how different branches of the tree of life inside us—from ancient humans, to amphibians and fish, and finally to microbes—come back to pester us today. Each of these examples show that we were not designed rationally but are products of a convoluted history.”
_______________________________________________
The author has apparently indicated that he was not intending to make an analogy with the very dark implication that Hitler is to Porsche is to VW Bug is to Hot Rod VW Bug as the Creator (or Designer) is to nature is to primordial fish is to human beings; however, the analogy comes in an argument against design which is clearly an argument against belief in a Designer and by implication ID and Creationism. One reader of the text, not me, has suggested there is a plausible attack on those who believe in a Designer or Creator as it would seem that they are as blind as Hitler’s followers. I take this suggestion very seriously. There is also nothing in the text that mitigates the use of the analogy, that is, Shubin expresses no regret in the text that Hitler, the most infamous person in history, is the designer and first cause of the particular technological example which he uses as an analogy for primordial life or the primordial fish. There is in the text not so much as an “alas.” For good maesure I will add that the analogy comes in a chapter with the title: “The Meaning of It All” which clearly suggests that the author is pointing to or thinking of higher things in this particular chapter. I do not think the analogy is an accident and I deem it a very dark and nasty joke on the author’s part.
Timothy E. Kennelly
Going by the quoted portion, the reference to Hitler pertained only to the influence on the design of the VW beetle, not to Hitler’s better known actions.
Ergo, carping (pun intended) about the Hitler connection does not address the principle argument in the quoted material, which is that humans (and I presume mammals in general) have lots of suboptimal features that would get a human engineer fired (if not blacklisted) if he did anything comparable.
Henry
I am not arguing against evolution or the evidence for evolution discovered in the similarities between humans and other animals, but against an analogy which is morally offensive. I do not think it is at all reasonable to suggest that one might use Hitler as an innocuous example of anything. Of course, this is not formally possible as Hitler probably brushed his teeth, but it would be a very odd thing indeed to motivate children to brush their teeth with the admonition, “Brush carefully, Hitler always did.” Any reasonable person would ask, “What, can you think of no one else who brushed his teeth?” I have done the same thing here. There is no need for the use of Hitler as the designer of a car which is like primordial life or the primordial fish which in turn makes Hitler like God for Creationist and IDers. The analogy is unnecessary and morally indefensible. Hitler was a mass-murderer and in particular he was the murderer of the Jews. This analogy makes the murderer of the Jews into the Creator G-d who chose the Jews. It is in exceedingly poor taste.
Timothy E. Kennelly
I will add that nothing in the text indicates that Hitler is only the designer of the VW Bug. The analogy is put on the table, VW Bug is to Hot Rod VW Bug as primordial fish is to human and design, in a cosmic sense, is argued against thereby. Only marked stupidity could lead one to use Hitler as an example in such a case without a clear understanding that the analogy implies that Hitler is in the place of the Creator. Whatever else Shubin is, well, he is not stupid.
Timothy E. Kennelly
Yeah, that was a really bad choice of analogy for the argument, since it pulls in things that 1) have nothing to do with the argument, and 2) produce strong emotional reactions that 3) lead to people to talk about those other things rather than the stated topic.
Henry J: Yeah, that was a really bad choice of analogy for the argument, since it pulls in things that 1) have nothing to do with the argument, and 2) produce strong emotional reactions that 3) lead to people to talk about those other things rather than the stated topic.
_______________________________________________________________________________________
I can not argue with that at all. Of course the comment comes in a very good book, an excellent popular book on science. It is interesting and well-written. It is a very easy read and there is a good bit of interesting material in the book, but the Hilter analogy really shocked. It comes very close to the end of the book and it hit me like a bolt from the blue. I almost did not finish the book because of it. I was so angry when I read it that I sent Shubin a long scolding e-mail, a regular howler, which he has thus far chosen to ignore.
Timothy E. Kennelly
Henry J: Yeah, that was a really bad choice of analogy for the argument, since it pulls in things that 1) have nothing to do with the argument, and 2) produce strong emotional reactions that 3) lead to people to talk about those other things rather than the stated topic.
_______________________________________________________________________________________
I can not argue with that at all. Of course the comment comes in a very good book, an excellent popular book on science. It is interesting and well-written. It is a very easy read and there is a good bit of interesting material in the book, but the Hilter analogy really shocked. It comes very close to the end of the book and it hit me like a bolt from the blue. I almost did not finish the book because of it. I was so angry when I read it that I sent Shubin a long scolding e-mail, a regular howler, which he has thus far chosen to ignore.
Timothny E. Kennelly
It is tenous to suggest that Shubin choose an analogy in a biology text because of any moral context. Why would he do that? And why would one want to argue anything besides the biology here; that Shubin doesn’t answer only tells us that he thinks so too, which is as much a given fact as you can get.
The Beetle example is famous for how politics constrained engineering, and it is a basic historical fact mentioned whenever the Bug history is told. Without the emotional subtext, as far as I have seen. Poor biology, no one is willing to give it the slack cut other sciences.
Now, if I was interested in conspiracies I would start to wonder why there are so many interested in conspiracies out there …
Torbjörn Larsson: It is tenous to suggest that Shubin choose an analogy in a biology text because of any moral context. Why would he do that? And why would one want to argue anything besides the biology here; that Shubin doesn’t answer only tells us that he thinks so too, which is as much a given fact as you can get.
“Your Inner Fish” is a popular book on science, and it is a polemic book. It includes a lengthy attack on design which is beyond the scope of biology as such and include a number of unstated assumptions which have nothing to with modern empirical science let alone biology as such.
Timothy E. Kennelly
Hmm. I should read it to judge and give a supportable response.
But in as much as “design” attacks biology and other sciences by way of pseudoscience and apologetics, it can’t be outside science’s (or Shubin’s) interests to respond to it.
[As for unstated assumptions, the one you have already exemplified is one you make yourself. So I’m tentatively skeptic on the existence of those.]
That was my thought too. If I.D. pushers continuously claim that biologists are all wrong about the basic principles of their subject, that makes it their business to respond to the claims.
Henry
And then these ID Creationist use the response by the scientist as ‘evidence’ that ID is scientific.
What foolishness
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