Science Literature

The Michael Reiss saga should not be quickly forgotten. His enforced resignation as the Royal Society's Director of Education in September 2008 was a blot on the history of the Royal Society (see here and here). Yet, after two years, few changes are apparent: Reiss continues to publish his "worldview" perspective on handling creationism in science education (see here) and Royal Society Fellows have continued to talk about irresolvable conflicts at the science/religion interface. It is encouraging, therefore, to find Sylvia Baker formulating a coherent analysis of the conflict and proposing a research agenda to inform future discussion of the issues.

"The controversy, resulting as it did in such serious consequences, raises many issues and concerns. This article will seek to address three of them. First will be considered the subject of the controversy, the teaching of creationism in science classes, second, the status and influence of such bodies as the Royal Society within the science community of the United Kingdom, and third, the question of to what extent the end result was obtained, not by impartial considerations, but rather by an atheistic agenda."

The Purported "NOMA Model" of Science and Religion (Source here)

Fundamental to the controversy is the question: "Is creationism science?" Both the Royal Society and Professor Reiss have declared that evolution is about science and creationism is about religion. They advocate a sphere sovereignty position, also known as NOMA (Stephen Jay Gould's Non-Overlapping MAgisteria). But Reiss recognises that creationism does not accept this position. Creationists have a different worldview, where it makes perfect sense to invoke intelligent design and to say that God's miraculous activity is a necessary part of any explanation of origins. This clash of worldviews is described by Baker in this way:

"The modern creationist movement itself takes a particular approach to the philosophy of science and the influence of world views on the question of origins, as exemplified by publications such as Nancy Pearcey's major work Total Truth: liberating Christianity from its cultural captivity. Schoolchildren who have been influenced by this approach may well have been taught in their homes and churches or mosques that both creation and evolution are essentially philosophical world-view frameworks that operate at the intersection of religion and science."

NOMA has not fared well under the scrutiny of philosophers. The main advocates today are scientists: mostly, but not exclusively, of an atheist persuasion. Baker quotes Professor Steve Fuller sympathetically:

"All theories with the grand explanatory aspirations of creationism or evolutionism are based on worldviews that people have believed for reasons other than their scientific payoff. [. . .] The problem here is one of practice, not principle. In particular, there is nothing intrinsically un- or anti-scientific about creationist ideas. On the contrary, creationist assumptions, especially when God is understood as an intelligent designer, have deeply informed the history of the science that both theists and atheists continue to promote today."

One of the worst aspects of this controversy is that the critics of Reiss failed to base their arguments on any empirical evidence. Their hostility was philosophical and dogmatic. Reiss, however, was responding to evidence drawn from the classroom. Baker refers to three surveys: one of students being taught in independent and state-maintained schools and two others in Christian schools.

"The three studies, taken together, suggest that creationist beliefs among pupils lead to 'an easing of the human spirit', exactly as Astley first predicted (2005, p. 49) when the educational setting is coherent with the religious basis of the pupil's life but that the opposite is true when the setting is hostile and debate is not permitted. In both settings the pupils had been made aware that a theory of origins exists which eliminates the need for a Creator and which is held by the majority of modern scientists. It seems to be the educational setting, not the creationist beliefs themselves, which is leading to an anguished mental state for thousands of young people."

Returning to the issue of philosophical opposition to Reiss, a survey of members of the US National Academy of Sciences shows that 85% are atheists. One of Reiss's atheist critics said that 90% of Fellows of the Royal Society would agree with the criticisms. This suggests a further research agenda to Baker:

"What exactly do [the nation's scientists] believe on this issue and are their views accurately reflected in the pronouncements of such major bodies as the Royal Society? What are their religious beliefs and how do those beliefs relate to their view of what science is?"

Happily, others are saying similar things whilst coming from a different perspective. A current example is an article by Matthew Reisz with the title The dogma delusion (The Times Higher, 23 September 2010). Based on these considerations, Baker writes:

"it is possible that Michael Reiss was sacrificed on the altar of the god of scientific atheism. Journalist Melanie Phillips has no doubt about the matter:
'Totalitarian atheism has taken another scalp. Michael Reiss has been forced out - for daring to suggest that children should be taught to discuss alternative views and subject them to the scrutiny of empirical reasoning.' "

Though regrettable, the forced resignation of Michael Reiss may yet focus attention on matters of great public concern. What is science? Do the beliefs of scientists influence the way they define science? Is NOMA a tool contrived by people with vested interests to manage the interface between science and religion? Baker summarises the issues thus:

"The controversy has been seen to depend on definitions of science and creationism. At the same time, the question of who has the power to define what science is has been raised, as has the possibility that at root the problem is a clash of ideologies, a battle between atheism and religion carried out in the context of science."

Creationism in the classroom: a controversy with serious consequences
Sylvia Baker
Research in Education, Volume 83, Number 1, May 2010, pp. 78-88

First para: On 16 September 2008 the Revd Professor Michael Reiss resigned from his position as Director of Education at the Royal Society. The immediate context of his resignation was the furore created by the media in the wake of an address that he had given on Thursday 11 September 2008 in Liverpool, at the annual Festival of Science organised by the British Association for the Advancement of Science. The story seemed to be of universal interest, with several papers next day devoting full-page spreads to it, under large, eye-catching headings. For example, the Times (12 September 2008) headlined with 'Royal Society and the case for creationism: leading scientists at odds with Government over religious education', claiming that the Royal Society was supporting Professor Reiss in his 'heretical' views, while the Guardian's banner headline on the same day was 'Teach creationism, says top scientist'.

Earlier this year, the work of Nir Goldman and colleagues was noted (here). Using sophisticated computer modeling tools, it was concluded that cometary impacts could generate C-N bonded oligomers that subsequently break apart to form a glycine-containing complex. This research has now been published in Nature Chemistry, resulting in a new flurry of discussion about the shock synthesis of life.

Topographic map of the Moon based on measurements from the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter, showing the boundary between Oceanus Procellarum, a smooth, relatively young mare region on the western nearside (upper right), and the older, more heavily cratered highlands (center and lower left). Colors indicate increasing elevation from blue to red. Both Earth and Moon experienced the effects of impactors. (Source here)

It is known from Stanley Miller's experiments that amino acids can be synthesized in a reducing atmosphere. However, the evidence for such an atmosphere has become less convincing with time - and even a neutral atmosphere means the Miller route for generating amino acids is unproductive. Cometary impacts, however, can make this point irrelevant, as is explained by John Timmer here.

"One of the problems facing origin-of-life research is that building complex organic chemicals requires a reducing environment, but the early Earth's atmosphere is now thought to have been weakly oxidizing. None of this matters as the comet hits. A typical shockwave quickly reaches conditions where the simple compounds break down, liberating hydrogen ions. These create local reducing environments no matter what the atmosphere looks like."

We should note the nature of the computing challenge for the research team. They started with a mixture of water, methanol, ammonia, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. Then, as explained by Timmer:

"they ran molecular dynamics simulations of what might happen to a typical cometary mixture as a blazing hot shockwave passed through, and was followed by a rapid decompression. These were pretty elaborate calculations, with femtosecond time resolution, and molecular interactions that considered quantum effects. Simply modeling the decompression that followed a shockwave for 50 picoseconds involved about 80,000 CPU hours. They also reran the model to simulate different speeds and angles of impact, which produce different pressure/temperature combinations within the shockwave that passes through the comet."

Somehow, the leap from glycine (and amino acids in general) to life has become instinctive rather than reasoned. Nature carried a short report with the title: "Origins of life: Shock synthesis". The research however reported a route to synthesise glycine, not life! Chemistry World was overconfident in its headline: "Comet shockwaves helped stimulate life on Earth", but more nuanced with the byline: "Comet strikes could have delivered the necessary ingredients and conditions to stimulate life on Earth". The reputation of science journalism is not helped by these headlines: the idea that it is a small step from amino acids to life is fantasy! We have had many decades of serious research by very dedicated people, and this has revealed an enormous gulf between organic molecules and organic life. For more on this, go here.

Timmer's assessment of the research is probably the best that can be said:

"Right now, most scientists think that life originated in an RNA world, where proteins didn't exist, and amino acids simply acted as co-factors for some key chemical reactions. So this doesn't necessarily help us understand how life first got started. It may, however, provide some insight into how life started using amino acids in the first place, starting it on the road towards the production of proteins. If basic amino acids were plentiful, then evolution might have simply worked with what was already around."

Everyone acknowledges that cometary impacts have more potential to destroy life than to promote it, so it is worth drawing attention to the most recent study of the lunar impact craters greater than 20 km. This research drew on data gathered by the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter, an instrument on board the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft. The researchers explain: "These data provide a view of the global distribution of impact craters without the observational uncertainties that arose from measurement of craters on images of heterogeneous illumination condition and uneven coverage and quality." Their findings validate the hypothesis that there has been an early and a later impactor population inside the asteroid belt. The authors write: "Furthermore, it places the transition between these two populations at about the time of Orientale Basin, the last large multi-ringed basin thought to have formed ~3.8 billion years ago." The significance of this for abiogenesis advocates is that their thinking about the origin of life must be temporally constrained. They cannot reasonably postulate an origin prior to 3.9 Ga. Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Matthew Moore points out:

"Any life which may have existed on Earth 3.9 billion years ago would have been wiped out in a devastating asteroid strike, new analysis of Moon craters indicates." [. . .] "Earth and its satellite were bombarded with large asteroids during the solar system's "turbulent youth", striking new topographical maps show. The impacts would have been powerful enough to evaporate any water on our planet and destroy any early organisms."

Compare this with some reports of photosynthetic life at 3.8 Ga and with the general acceptance of life by 3.5 Ga. Life was on Earth in the Early Archaean. The resultant time constraints undermine all chance-based scenarios of abiogenesis. This leaves us with law-based explanations (which are totally unable to account for biological information) or design-based explanations. The latter option is the direction where science is leading us.

Synthesis of glycine-containing complexes in impacts of comets on early Earth
Nir Goldman, Evan J. Reed, Laurence E. Fried, I.-F. William Kuo & Amitesh Maiti.
Nature Chemistry, (September 2010) | doi:10.1038/nchem.827

Delivery of prebiotic compounds to early Earth from an impacting comet is thought to be an unlikely mechanism for the origins of life because of unfavourable chemical conditions on the planet and the high heat from impact. In contrast, we find that impact-induced shock compression of cometary ices followed by expansion to ambient conditions can produce complexes that resemble the amino acid glycine. Our ab initio molecular dynamics simulations show that shock waves drive the synthesis of transient C-N bonded oligomers at extreme pressures and temperatures. On post impact quenching to lower pressures, the oligomers break apart to form a metastable glycine-containing complex. We show that impact from cometary ice could possibly yield amino acids by a synthetic route independent of the pre-existing atmospheric conditions and materials on the planet.

See also:

Mitchinson, A. Origins of life: Shock synthesis, Nature, 467, 281, (16 September 2010) | doi:10.1038/467281a

Head, J.W. et al., Global Distribution of Large Lunar Craters: Implications for Resurfacing and Impactor Populations, Science, 329, 17 September 2010: 1504-1507 | DOI: 10.1126/science.1195050

The ability of some insects to imitate the leaves and stems of plants has fascinated collectors and researchers alike. Wings, legs and other body parts can all contribute to a very effective disguise, a phenomenon known as mimesis. There has been speculation, of course, about the adaptive origins of the observed characters, but very little data is available on which to build anything robust. The fossil record is meagre. The earliest example before this year has been the Eocene leaf insect Eophyllium, already fully formed and functional (noted here). It conveyed no evidence to support a gradual transformation model. Since living examples of leaf mimesis relate to angiosperm plants, it has been inferred that leaf mimesis is a trait that post-dates the appearance of angiosperms in the Cretaceous.

"Given the phylogenetic placement of these families and genera among their respective orders, such mimicry of angiosperm models likely appeared subsequent to (rather than along with) the radiation of flowering plants. Accordingly, it has been considered that leaf mimesis is a mid-Cretaceous or younger phenomenon."

However, new research changes this perception. The findings concern lacewings - a group not known for exhibiting leaf mimesis. The fossil specimens come from the late Middle Jurassic, which is significant because this was a period of Earth history before angiosperms appeared and before they became dominant. The plants then were gymnosperms and many of them had pinnate leaves.

"Two extraordinary fossil lacewings, Bellinympha filicifolia [. . .] and Bellinympha dancei [. . .] from the Jiulongshan Formation in northeastern China, preserve wings that are dramatically modified to resemble pinnate leaves. These are the earliest evidence of leaf mimesis and predate Eophyllium by nearly 120 million years. Bellinympha demonstrates that lacewings of the late Middle Jurassic (165 million years ago) already had evolved highly specialized mimicry of pinnate leaves as a strategy for avoiding predators such as contemporaneous mammals, pterosaurs, dinosaurs, birds, spiders, and other predacious insects, suggesting a much richer biotic world in the Mesozoic Era."

The fossil lacewings have wings that resemble the feather-like leaves of mesozoic gymnosperm plants (Credit: Natl Acad. Sci. Source here)

These fossils are not the earliest lacewings, which go back to Permian times. The authors suggest similarities with Holozamites and Nilssonia, which are Cycadales, and with leaves of some cycadophytes. The finds are the earliest known witnesses to leaf mimesis.

"The numerous pinna-like markings on the wing membranes are remarkably similar to the pinnate leaves of Mesozoic Cycadales and Bennettitales: the dark posterior median region of the wing resembles the rachis of the leaf, whereas the oblique stripes resemble the pinnae. Among the two species, B. filicifolia has a more obvious pattern of pinnate leaves due to a darker and better-defined coloration, whereas B. dancei has a more pronounced central rachis-like region, with a similar zigzag shape near the apical area, but the oblique pinna-like stripes are less developed. Pinna-like markings on the forewings imitate contemporaneous pinnate leaves of Cycadales and Bennettitales that are frequently found in the Daohugou strata."

The research has the effect of emphasising the early appearance of specialisation in insects, including the association between insects and their environments. There are already indications that ecosystems were far more complex than previously thought (for example, see here). Lacewings have been lacewings since the Permian, and this example of mimesis so early in their history is suggestive both of a plasticity of form and also of a possible loss of this plasticity over geological time.

"These species reveal a unique pattern that seems to have disappeared in modern insects and adds to the growing body of evidence documenting that the evolution of insects was more complex before the radiation of angiosperms. These enigmatic scenarios of interactions between insects and gymnosperms were lost during the course of evolutionary history and show a more rich association of insects and their surrounding environment in past geological epochs than previously has been surmised."

Initial complexity followed by relative stasis characterises this group of insects. The Nature briefing on this research refers to the authors suggesting "that the biotic world of the Mesozoic period was more complex than previously thought". Darwinian gradualism gets no support from this research. Abrupt appearance, early specialisation and complex ecosystems are all confirmed.

Ancient pinnate leaf mimesis among lacewings
Yongjie Wang, Zhiqi Liu, Xin Wang, Chungkun Shih, Yunyun Zhao, Michael S. Engel, and Dong Ren.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Published online before print August 30, 2010 | doi: 10.1073/pnas.1006460107

Abstract: Insects have evolved diverse methods of predator avoidance, many of which implicate complex adaptations of their wings (e.g., Phylliidae, Nymphalidae, Notodontidae). Among these, angiosperm leaf mimicry is one of the most dramatic, although the historical origins of such modifications are unclear owing to a dearth of paleontological records. Here, we report evidence of pinnate leaf mimesis in two lacewings (Neuroptera): Bellinympha filicifolia Y. Wang, Ren, Liu & Engel gen. et sp. nov. and Bellinympha dancei Y. Wang, Ren, Shih & Engel, sp. nov., from the Middle Jurassic, representing a 165-million year-old specialization between insects and contemporaneous gymnosperms of the Cycadales or Bennettitales. Furthermore, such lacewings demonstrate a preangiosperm origin for leaf mimesis, revealing a lost evolutionary scenario of interactions between insects and gymnosperms. The current fossil record suggests that this enigmatic lineage became extinct during the Early Cretaceous, apparently closely correlated with the decline of Cycadales and Bennettitales at that time, and perhaps owing to the changing floral environment resulted from the rise of flowering plants.

In 1996, palaeontologist Mike Benton published a fascinating analysis of tetrapod evolutionary data and concluded: "Competitive replacement has probably played a minor role in the history of tetrapods. In an assessment of the origins of 840 families of amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals, fewer than 26%, and probably fewer than 13%, were identified as candidate competitive replacements (CCR's)." The alternative mechanism proposed was adaptation into new habitats. This finding was presented in the paper as bringing a different emphasis to our understanding of speciation than was brought by Darwin:

"A classic view in evolution has been that many successful radiations of plant and animal groups in the Past have been mediated by competitive interactions. Newly successful groups are said to have outcompeted and displaced the previously established organisms, and hence to have demonstrated some progressive or advantageous feature. [. . .] The pattern of radiation of tetrapods, and indeed of many other groups, suggests that it is unlikely that competitive replacement was paramount."

The pattern of evolution of the vertebrates, showing the relative importance of the major groups through time. (Source and further details here)

Moving the clock forward to the present, with the benefit of a more comprehensive database, Benton has repeated the study. The authors say: "This is the first numerical study investigating the link between tetrapod taxonomic and ecological diversity on a global scale." The findings vindicate the 1996 study and the primary driver of diversification is said to be expansion into new ecospace. Competitive pressures are considered to be of limited importance because evidence for direct competition was not been forthcoming in the study. The emphasis was all on expansion:

"The data show multiple lines of evidence for the role of expansion as the main driver of tetrapod diversification: (i) tetrapods have only explored a third of habitable modes of life; (ii) tetrapods have occupied an exponentially increasing number of modes; (iii) ecological diversification has been driven at an increasing rate by the different tetrapod classes; (iv) successively dominant tetrapod classes have increased the maximum rate of mode utilization; and (v) Tetrapoda exhibit ecological incumbency, observed by a limit at which mode utilization decreased, except at times of mass extinction."

This interpretation of the data has been widely reported because it presents a significantly different picture than is found in the textbooks. BBC News carried the tagline: "Charles Darwin may have been wrong when he argued that competition was the major driving force of evolution." The report continued:

"He imagined a world in which organisms battled for supremacy and only the fittest survived. But new research identifies the availability of "living space", rather than competition, as being of key importance for evolution. Findings question the old adage of "nature red in tooth and claw". [. . .] This concept challenges the idea that intense competition for resources in overcrowded habitats is the major driving force of evolution. Professor Mike Benton, a co-author on the study, explained that "competition did not play a big role in the overall pattern of evolution"."

In her blog, Sarda Sahney, the PhD student who conducted the study with colleagues, identified the writer of the BBC report as Howard Falcon-Lang (the significance of this is the subject of comment below). She provides a summary of the take-home message of this research:

"[T]he rich biodiversity we see on Earth today has grown out of expansion, not competition. Darwin cited competition among animals, coined 'survival of the fittest', as a driver of evolution in his book, On the Origin of Species; since then competition has been considered key to having grown Earth's biodiversity. But while competition has been observed on a small scale, (eg. between species), there is little evidence of competition guiding large-scale shifts in biodiversity, such as the dominance of mammals and birds over reptiles and amphibians in today's world. Our new research supports the idea that animals diversified by expanding into empty ecological roles rather than by direct competition with each other."

Consequently, the implication of all this is that we need to do some hard thinking about Darwin's primary mechanism of evolutionary transformation: the natural selection of hereditable variations. The evidence from the fossil record does not support this account of origins. Instead, vertebrate radiations are expansive radiations into ecospace. Die-hard Neodarwinians should sit up and take note of this! However, the reactions of some are to protest about misreading the significance of the research reported. A member of NCSE staff, Steven Newton, wrote a strongly worded piece with the title: Darwin Was Not Wrong--New Study Being Distorted. His first target is the BBC report:

"Science fares poorly in the media. [. . .] When scientific topics are reported, they are consistently misunderstood and spiced-up with such sensationalism that the original significance is contorted beyond all recognition. Such misreporting has happened again--this time involving Charles Darwin and evolution.
A recent paper in the journal Biology Letters, "Links between global taxonomic diversity, ecological diversity and the expansion of vertebrates on land," by Sarda Sahney, Michael Benton, and Paul Ferry, has caused quite a stir. The normally-staid BBC wrote of this paper, "Charles Darwin may have been wrong when he argued that competition was the major driving force of evolution.""

The significance of Howard Falcon-Lang being the writer of the BBC report can now be clarified. Falcon-Lang is a professional scientist who has widely published in peer-reviewed literature. He writes as a scientist, not as a journalist picking up a story second-hand. He knows that the public needs to read both accurate and interesting science. Did he misunderstand the paper? According to Newton: "A press release for the paper noted that when examining large-scale changes in biodiversity, the data suggest: 'Animals diversified by expanding into empty ecological roles rather than by direct competition with each other'. This paper does not argue that Darwin's conception of small-scale competition within species is incorrect. It does not argue that new species arising out of accumulating changes is a flawed concept. It does not argue Darwin was wrong." Newton is the one misreading the paper, which sets out to identify factors relevant to biodiversification (the origin of species). It claims that competition between species, whether small-scale or large-scale, is not relevant to understanding the phenomenon. Darwin was not wrong to say that "small-scale competition within species" is a real occurrence - but he was wrong to think this phenomenon helps explain the origin of species!

In a previous blog, it was noted that sometimes it is OK to say Darwin was wrong. No one minds when it is said that Darwin was wrong about the origin of the domestic chicken. But there is tremendous resistance to any questioning of his more serious errors. This new work documents one of these. No one disputes that Darwin correctly documented competition between breeding communities and between different species. However, what is the evidence that this is relevant to the origin of species? This new research presents solid data showing that other factors govern vertebrate radiations on land. The ideas have been around at least since 1996, and it is now high time for Darwinists to cool their rhetoric and take these scientific findings on board.

Links between global taxonomic diversity, ecological diversity and the expansion of vertebrates on land
Sarda Sahney, Michael J. Benton and Paul A. Ferry
Biology Letters, 2010, 23(4) 544-547 | doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2009.1024

Abstract: Tetrapod biodiversity today is great; over the past 400 Myr since vertebrates moved onto land, global tetrapod diversity has risen exponentially, punctuated by losses during major extinctions. There are links between the total global diversity of tetrapods and the diversity of their ecological roles, yet no one fully understands the interplay of these two aspects of biodiversity and a numerical analysis of this relationship has not so far been undertaken. Here we show that the global taxonomic and ecological diversity of tetrapods are closely linked. Throughout geological time, patterns of global diversity of tetrapod families show 97 per cent correlation with ecological modes. Global taxonomic and ecological diversity of this group correlates closely with the dominant classes of tetrapods (amphibians in the Palaeozoic, reptiles in the Mesozoic, birds and mammals in the Cenozoic). These groups have driven ecological diversity by expansion and contraction of occupied ecospace, rather than by direct competition within existing ecospace and each group has used ecospace at a greater rate than their predecessors.

See also:

Benton, M. J. Testing the roles of competition and expansion in tetrapod evolution. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 1996, 263, 641-646 | doi:10.1098/rspb.1996.0096