Unintelligent design, redux

Last Thursday I went along to hear Robyn Williams promote his new book, Unintelligent Design. (I can't stop myself from feeling pleased with myself for having a post of the same title almost a year ago [I know, it's pretty obvious].)

It's a pretty good gamble, going to hear a radio presenter speak. You know he's not likely to be dry and boring. (Well, unless he was a dry and boring presenter.) And I do love a good English accent.

Superficialities aside, Robyn's talk was excellent. Like the book itself, he's very chatty and entertaining. His talk touched on the main points of the book, which goes through the history of the science vs creationism/intelligent design (ID) debate, and unpicks the ID side.

It was interesting to hear the questions at the end. Some of the questions were really comments in disguise, but people did have interesting ideas. There wasn't as much heckling as I expected. Just one polite, reasonable question from a young man who was most likely part of the campus Bible study group. He asked about whether Robyn thought that believing in evolution precluded one from believing in Jesus, and Robyn gave a suitably (for an atheist) vague, diplomatic answer.

I bought the book afterwards. Robyn was signing them, which was cool. And we had a chance to chat with Mike Archer about the future of science education, which was fun. I think Mike Archer is great and UNSW is lucky to have him.

As for the book itself...

It's a slim little book and he does rush through topics, but it's an easy read nonetheless, and not designed (haha) to be comprehensive.

Still, the main arguments are all there, from the flaws in our design (poorly draining sinuses and bad backs are two that I suffer from), to the non-scientific agenda of ID, as detailed in the Wedge document. From the use of religion to justify injustice to the flaws in the statistics that ID proponents put forward (it might be unlikely that we're here, but we are).

It's full of references to popular culture and his famous friends, like Richard Dawkins and Douglas Adams. And his rather interesting life. Which is probably what makes it such an enjoyable read. He is a little too harsh with his atheism (nothing like Dawkins, of course) but with the fundamentalists around these days, I can forgive him for that. He does acknowledge that science deals with the "how" and religion tackles the "why", but is overly critical, in my opinion, of religion in general. Yes, religion has been the root of many terrible things, but it also has a lot of good to offer.

However, that doesn't mean that religion, Judeo-Christian or otherwise, should be distorted, presented as science, and forced down people's throats. Which is really the point.

No nonsense science

Elizabeth Finkel is a writer I particularly admire. She's thorough, clear and logical. I also like it when people rip into pseudoscience, or otherwise faulty science. So this article (linked above) was a particular treat for me.

It's about biologist James Sherley, who opposes embryonic stem cell research because he "has a belief that the cloned embryos under discussion are human beings". Finkel goes through his defective logic and tears it up, which is great.

One thing she doesn't spell out (although it was immediately obvious to me) is that Sherley has a conflict of interest. His area of research is adult stem cells. So he has a lot to gain by lobbying for embryonic stem cell research to be shut down.

And I don't like to see people pushing their religious views into politics or science. A quick search on Google didn't tell me definitively that Sherley is Christian, but I'd put money on it. And like our extremely unbiased, balanced and reasonable federal Minister for Health, he's allowing his personal beliefs to interfere with things that affect people's personal lives.

The embryonic stem cell debate and the abortion debate boil pretty much the same question: Is an embryo, whether several days or several weeks old, a human being? The answer to this question has far-reaching implications. In the case of abortion, it affects women who have been raped; or whose babies will be born with debilitating abnormalities; or who will not be fit mothers (for example, in cases of drug abuse. In the case of embryonic stem cells, every effort to stymie research delays treatments that may help people with brain damage, spinal cord damage, muscular dystrophy, and many other conditions.

Such decisions should not be made based on a minority, or even majority, religious opinion. They should be made using science, which can give a definite answer as to when an embryo gains consciousness and can therefore suffer or be considered even remotely like a human being. I think that an uneducated person may imagine a baby-like fetus being murdered for a few cells. But embryonic stem cell research uses embryos that look roughly like this:



Because the embryos used are so undeveloped, to me it's an even clearer issue than abortion, which I think should be safely available to all women.

But don't listen to me. Let the science do the talking.

Thought-provoking laughter

I love the Ig Nobel Prize. How could you not love an event whose website is sub-titled "Research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK"? Like the Darwin Awards ("We salute the improvement of the human genome by honoring those who remove themselves from it. Of necessity, this honor is generally bestowed posthumously."), the Ig Nobels draw people into science in a fun and engaging way. The Darwin Awards provide the best lesson on evolution for the lay person -- that I know of, anyway.

The Ig Nobels, by nature, are much broader. They give great insight into how wacky one's brain needs to be in order to be a research scientist. You really need to think outside the square. The stereotype of a scientist is a stuffy, boring, middle-aged or elderly man (of course it's a man) with nothing interesting to offer. The Ig Nobel scientist is a much closer representation of the scientists I know. For an idea, look at the picture on the link above. And add a few more women, dressed in punk band T-shirts or other funky clothes. (This is not to say that I think the Ig Nobels under-represent women, just that that photo does.)

Interestingly, the Ig Nobels (more than cancer research) illustrates to regular people how much science is a part of their lives, whether they're aware of it or not. Winners included research on why fingernails scratching a blackboard irritate people; why woodpeckers don't get headaches; the invention of the now-infamous "Mosquito" ringtone; and an Aussie team who calculated how many photos you need to take of a group before getting one where no one is blinking.

It's fun science at its best. When I was involved with OnSET, a student online science journal, we often struggled with how to present ourselves in an engaging way. I think that ventures like the Ig Nobels, the Darwin Awards, and even Dr Karl, have the answer. They're all firmly grounded in reality but slightly oddball and lots of fun.

Memory loss

A couple of weeks ago I participated in an experiment over at ScienceBlogs. Basically, they wanted to see how bloggers compared to high school students in an SAT essay. I didn't write a very good essay and I have lots of excuses, but that's another story.

What I can't believe right now is that I have absolutely no recollection of what I wrote. I'm pretty sure my essay counted and got graded, but I can't find it. I'm not sure whether it's getting "older" (I'm 25, for goodness' sake) or the chronic, extreme exhaustion that comes along with being a mother. Or maybe it's the fact that my whole focus has shifted to the minutae of my baby's growth and development. On the whole it happens slowly, with occasional leaps. It's fascinating while you're in it, and (potentially) boring when you're removed from that world. It's like watching a time lapse video of a flower growing; you can only appreciate it at the right speed.