Massimo Pigliucci Fights Back

Dr. Massimo Pigliucci is an esteemed advocate of evolution. He is a professor of bioology at Stony Brook University. Massimo smarts at the idea of biology, and specifically evolutionary biology, being considered a “soft science”. Frequently accused of “physics envy”, biology needs a new defense, and Massimo puts one together. He takes on the “soft inference” charge by looking at a publication in Science magazine, 1964, of an article by John Platt, who describes a “proper scientific method”, and calls it “strong inference”. What Platt describes is empiricism, which is difficult to apply to biology for reasons Massimo describes.

From the article in Science:

John R. Platt, 1964: “Science Strong Inference – Proper Scientific Method (The New Baconians)”, Science Magazine, 16 Oct 1964, Volume 146, Number 3642.

http://256.com/gray/docs/strong_inference.html
“In its separate elements, strong inference is just the simple and old-fashioned method of inductive inference that goes back to Francis Bacon. The steps are familiar to every college student and are practiced, off and on, by every scientist. The difference comes in their systematic application. Strong inference consists of applying the following steps to every problem in science, formally and explicitly and regularly:
1. Devising alternative hypotheses;
2. Devising a crucial experiment (or several of them), with alternative possible outcomes, each of which will, as nearly is possible, exclude one or more of the hypotheses;
3. Carrying out the experiment so as to get a clean result;
4. Recycling the procedure, making subhypotheses or sequential hypotheses to refine the possibilities that remain, and so on. “

Massimo protests that “strong” actually refers to an “easy” science (physics), one with only a few variables and that has it easy in testing the hypotheses. Comparatively, he argues, biology is much more complex, has more data and more variables, and thus relies on different metrics: probabilities.

The complexities of reproductive biology are not to be denied:

1. Sheer volume of data needed to be examined.

2. Variable: number of different entities such as species (not to mention defining “species”);

3. variable: individual differences within species.
4. Variable: molecular considerations within the cell, its nucleus, its DNA behaviors;

5. Variables: mutations, viral introgressions, lateral gene translations.

6. Variable: unknown variables, epigenetic and other, yet to be discovered.

So, are stochastic inferences warranted out of such a morass of variability? Ordinarily, one variable is chosen to be examined experimentally while all others are held constant. Is this possible in the current state of biology? Is it possible when other, new variables are being discovered all the time?

If it is not possible, then what are we to make of pronouncements of probabilities of certain inferences being “true”?

How is a purely inferential science to keep its integrity and to avoid charges of metaphysical claims?

Answer: By not claiming to know more than it really knows.

For example, Massimo is not just an objective scientist, he is actually an activist, Philosophical Materialist who needs the aura of scientific integrity for the support of his metaphysical philosophy. This biased perspective is what decreases the respectability of the associated science – in this case, evolution – in the eyes of outsiders wishing to obtain empirical validity for understanding the science, rather than its religious (or antireligious) overtones.

The obvious metaphysical filtering of evolution produces a strong suspicion of the validity of its underpinnings, and a subsequent search for objective, “strong inferential” evidence shows this suspicion to be warranted, so far.

Massimo’s claim of a high degree of complexity in biology is valid. Massimo has essentially made the case for “Weak Inference” being the standard for evolutionary biology. I probably agree with that. But at that point one should not also make truth-statements about it. Because that makes it a metaphysic.

Absurdity In Argumentation

In an article in Time on-line, the exploits of Douglas Melton are examined. As a died-in-the-wool embryonic stem cell supporter, Melton decries the Bush restrictions on embryonic stem cells. Yet he acknowledges and apparently pursues the non-embryonic stem cells as well. The article most frequently refers to the embryonic type as "stem cells", and non-embryonic type as adult or iPS cells. So the ethical lapse is palpable throughout the article.

Here is an example of the "logic" that impressed these embryonic enthusiasts:

"When the class discussed the morality of embryonic-stem-cell research, Melton invited Richard Doerflinger of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to present arguments against the field. Melton asked Doerflinger if he considered a day-old embryo and a 6-year-old to be moral equivalents; when Doerflinger responded yes, Melton countered by asking why society accepts the freezing of embryos but not the freezing of 6-year-olds."

The blatant Category Error is unnoticed, and Doerflinger's answer is omitted. The obvious answer is that there is a PHYSICAL difference between embryos and 6-year-olds, which allows embryos to be frozen without damage. Freezability has no bearing whatsoever on the "moral equivalency" of the two categories of human existence.

When one subscribes to the relativistic ethic, logic is no longer necessary or even recognized, it appears. To think that the exchange above is meaningful reveals a total lack of logical ability in the speaker, the author and the editors. And the built-in bias of the article toward embryonic stem cells is another clue.

Directives for Human Experimentation; Neuremburg Code

The following is copied from the U.S. N.I.H. website. It is a reprint of the Neuremburg Code:

Reprinted from Trials of War Criminals before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals under Control Council Law No. 10, Vol. 2, pp. 181-182.. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949.

Here it is in its entirety [emphasis added by me].

NUREMBERG CODE
1. The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision. This latter element requires that before the acceptance of an affirmative decision by the experimental subject there should be made known to him the nature, duration, and purpose of the experiment; the method and means by which it is to be conducted; all inconveniences and hazards reasonable to be expected; and the effects upon his health or person which may possibly come from his participation in the experiment.

The duty and responsibility for ascertaining the quality of the consent rests upon each individual who initiates, directs or engages in the experiment. It is a personal duty and responsibility which may not be delegated to another with impunity.

2. The experiment should be such as to yield fruitful results for the good of society, unprocurable by other methods or means of study, and not random and unnecessary in nature.

3. The experiment should be so designed and based on the results of animal experimentation and a knowledge of the natural history of the disease or other problem under study that the anticipated results will justify the performance of the experiment.

4. The experiment should be so conducted as to avoid all unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injury.

5. No experiment should be conducted where there is an a priori reason to believe that death or disabling injury will occur; except, perhaps, in those experiments where the experimental physicians also serve as subjects.

6. The degree of risk to be taken should never exceed that determined by the humanitarian importance of the problem to be solved by the experiment.

7. Proper preparations should be made and adequate facilities provided to protect the experimental subject against even remote possibilities of injury, disability, or death.

8. The experiment should be conducted only by scientifically qualified persons. The highest degree of skill and care should be required through all stages of the experiment of those who conduct or engage in the experiment.

9. During the course of the experiment the human subject should be at liberty to bring the experiment to an end if he has reached the physical or mental state where continuation of the experiment seems to him to be impossible.

10. During the course of the experiment the scientist in charge must be prepared to terminate the experiment at any stage, if he has probable cause to believe, in the exercise of the good faith, superior skill and careful judgment required of him that a continuation of the experiment is likely to result in injury, disability, or death to the experimental subject.

My comments follow.

The only way to get around this code is to declare that certain stages of human life or certain types of human groupings are not, in fact, human. By adopting this position, one arrogates to himself the power over other humans to decide their "humanity". The entire thrust of the "ethic" outlined in the Neuremburg Code is to remove that elitist decision-making position, and to place the human subject in the position of making such a decision.

Clearly, preadolescents, babies, foeti, and blastocysts, while human stages of development, do not "have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision".

So in order to destroy any of these, it is necessary to use another criterion than "being human", or to declare them non-human.

The relativism and ethical denialism is - or should be - obvious.

Adult Stem Cells at Work

After the media blitz on embryonic stem cells this week it is interesting to see more real results of non-embryonic stem cells. The following was reported in Lancet, according to Brietbart.com:

In clinical trials, a team of scientists led by Richard Burt of Northwestern University in Chicago essentially rebuilt the immune system of 21 adults -- 11 women and 10 men -- who had failed to respond to standard drug treatments.

First they removed defective white blood cells that, rather than protecting the body, attacks the fatty sheath, called myelin, that protects the nervous system.

The immune systems were then replenished with so-called haemopoeitic stem cells -- extracted from the patient's bone marrow -- capable of giving rise to any form of mature blood cell.

The technique is not new. But this was the first time it had been applied to young and relatively health individuals in the early, so-called "relapsing-remitting" phase of the disease. Participants had had MS for roughly five years.

After an average follow-up period of three years, 17 of the 21 patients improved by at least one point on a standard disability scale, and none had a final score lower than before the stem cell transplant.

The procedure "not only seems to prevent neurological progression, but also appears to reverse neurological disability," concluded the study, published in the British medical journal The Lancet.

Cognitive functions and quality of life were improved, and the treatment had a low level of toxicity compared to other drug therapies.

Five of the patients did relapse, but achieved remission after receiving other immunosuppressive therapy, the study noted.

[Emphasis added]

It is especially a pleasure to see such reports after the biased media attention to embryonic stem cells this week.

Stem Cells and PBS

If you were watching the PBS evening news tonight, you were shown a segment on embryonic stem cells. The occasion was the FDA approval for Geron Corp. to proceed with human testing of embryonic stem cell therapy on spinal cord injuries. But the segment waxed into a wide ranging discussion of embryonic stem cell science and the funding problems it has encountered. You might well have come away thinking that stem cell science is being strangled and cures are being prevented from being found, and this is due to political and ethical interference. You would be justified in thinking that, based on the bias of the report.

What was not included in the report was any mention of adult stem cells and the spectacular advances being made there. Not a single mention that adult stem cells even exist, much less the striking advantages that they have over embryonic stem cells. The term "stem cell science" was taken to mean that all stem cell science is embryonic. But the real cures already in progress using adult stem cells were completely and entirely ignored as if non-existant. The bias was palpable.

When science intersects with ethics, there is every reason NOT to believe anything the mainstream media has to say about it. At least not without first researching the issue in depth for oneself.

Too Funny... Al Gore's Carbon Footprint, Day 680

On March 21, 2007, Al Gore testified before Congress, where he was met with some data and a challenge. Senator Inhofe pointed out the huge disparity between Gore's household energy use and the energy use of an average household.
Senator Inhofe then told Gore,

“There are hundreds of thousands of people who adore you and would follow your example by reducing their energy usage if you did. Don’t give us the run-around on carbon offsets or the gimmicks the wealthy do.”

Sen. Inhofe then asked Gore to take the following pledge:


In Gore's award winning movie, "Inconvenient Truth" he asked the question,

“Are you ready to change the way you live?”

Apparently Al is not ready. He declined. 680 days ago, today.

Is AGW Melting Down?

In 1988, James Hansen testified before Congress concerning the rate of global warming. Hansen spoke as a NASA climatology expert. The projections of disaster were exacerbated by claims of human causation, and were correlated to the infamous “hockey stick” curve showing a dramatic increase in temperature over the last century.

Hansen’s hockey stick graph has been refuted but will not go away. The rise in temperature shown on Hansen’s graph was added by Hansen himself, and did not show up in the actual data. In other words, the rise in global temperature was an “adjustment” which Hansen added to the data.

And the cause has become politicized at an international level. The U.N.’s International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) got on board, but not until purging itself of scientists with dissenting opinions. The cause became radicalized at the Kyoto conference where a treaty was brandished that would create a global taxing and punishment power to force individual nations into compliance with more stringent emission controls.

Dissenters have been treated harshly for the past 20 years. Hansen himself has called for jailing industrial leaders that disagree with his data. And he has also attacked members of Congress who are skeptical of his increasingly hysterical warnings. He has claimed that NASA tried to muzzle him.

Now there is a message from Hansen’s supervisor at NASA (now retired). The letter, which is posted at the U.S. Senate Minority web page, is from

“Retired senior NASA atmospheric scientist Dr. John S. Theon, the former supervisor of James Hansen, NASA’s vocal man-made global warming fears soothsayer, [who] has now publicly declared himself a skeptic and declared that Hansen “embarrassed NASA” with his alarming climate claims and said Hansen was “was never muzzled.” [1400 on-the-job interviews attest to that].

“Hansen was never muzzled even though he violated NASA's official agency position on climate forecasting (i.e., we did not know enough to forecast climate change or mankind's effect on it). Hansen thus embarrassed NASA by coming out with his claims of global warming in 1988 in his testimony before Congress,” Theon wrote.

Theon declared “climate models are useless.” “My own belief concerning anthropogenic climate change is that the models do not realistically simulate the climate system because there are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models either replicate poorly or completely omit,” Theon explained. “Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. In doing so, they neither explain what they have modified in the observations, nor explain how they did it. They have resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists. This is clearly contrary to how science should be done. Thus there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy,” he added.

“As Chief of several of NASA Headquarters’ programs (1982-94), an SES position, I was responsible for all weather and climate research in the entire agency, including the research work by James Hansen, Roy Spencer, Joanne Simpson, and several hundred other scientists at NASA field centers, in academia, and in the private sector who worked on climate research,” Theon wrote of his career. “This required a thorough understanding of the state of the science.

[emphasis added]

Regarding Hansen’s statement that denial of AGW is tantamount to denying the landing on the moon, astronaut Cunningham responded:

“Award-winning NASA Astronaut and Physicist Walter Cunningham of NASA’s Apollo 7 also recently chastised Hansen. “Hansen is a political activist who spreads fear even when NASA’s own data contradict him,” Cunningham wrote in an essay in the July/August 2008 issue of Launch Magazine. “NASA should be at the forefront in the collection of scientific evidence and debunking the current hysteria over human-caused, or Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). Unfortunately, it is becoming just another agency caught up in the politics of global warming, or worse, politicized science,” Cunningham wrote. “

One individual has actually looked at the temperature measuring stations.

"Anthony Watts, former meteorologist for KHSL-TV, a CBS-TV affiliate in Redding, California, has examined 460 of the 1221 official climatic weather stations in the 48 lower states, and discovered multiple irregularities that are causing temperature data to skew higher than it should."

"I believe we will be able to demonstrate that some of the global warming increase is not from CO2 but from localized changes in the temperature-measurement environment," Watts told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on June 17, 2007. Watts examined temperature stations that the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) uses as part of its National Climatic Data Center. The NCDC has about 1,221 mostly rural weather observation stations around the country. Watts, who founded the web site surfacestations.org, has made it his mission to quality check weather stations to see if the data is being accurately captured. Watts noted one such weather station in California was "surrounded by asphalt and concrete, its also within 10 feet of buildings, and within 8 feet of a large metal cell tower that could be felt reflecting sunlight/heat. And worst of all, air conditioning units on the cell tower electronics buildings vent warm air within 10 feet of the sensor." Watts concluded, "I can tell you with certainty, the temperature data from this station is useless."

Watt's extensive data research was noted by Meteorologist Joseph Conklin on August 10, 2007: "The (U.S.) National Climate Data Center (NCDC) is in the middle of a scandal. Their global observing network, the heart and soul of surface weather measurement, is a disaster. Urbanization has placed many sites in unsuitable locations - on hot black asphalt, next to trash burn barrels, beside heat exhaust vents, even attached to hot chimneys and above outdoor grills! The data and approach taken by many global warming alarmists is seriously flawed. If the global data were properly adjusted for urbanization and station siting, and land use change issues were addressed, what would emerge is a cyclical pattern of rises and falls with much less of any background trend."

With bad starting data, unchecked modifications to the data, obvious activist hysteria demonstrated by the originating scientist, there is no telling what the actual story concerning warming might be. With the interference of ameliorating factors such as magnetic pole shifting, solar flare cycles and so on, anything can happen, it would appear.

One thing should definitely happen. Hansen should be removed from a position of influence, and solid transparent science should take over at NASA. There is no reason that this should have become the huge issue that it has. It is even more embarrassing that NASA has not squelched Hansen after 20 years of data abuse and political hysteria.

Robert Koch, Premier Scientist

I submit the name of Robert Koch (1843-1910) as a true scientist who has influenced the lives of most of the population of the earth. He pioneered methodology in microbiology and his principles for "identifying the etiologic agent of a disease"(1) are used to this day. Koch's Postulates are emblematic of the scientific principle, and have been not just verified, but were useful from the start, when Koch used these steps to positively identify the anthrax bacilli as the cause of the disease. These principles have produced countless identifications of bacterial disease resulting in the possibility for cures. Within this framework, Alexander Fleming discovered that Penicillium notatum killed the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus, and antibiotics were born. The effect on the world's population is unmeasurable, and it is hugely, if not totally, positive. It is scientific and without philosophical undercurrents. Because of that, Koch is little known outside the arena of microbiology.

Koch's lab also discovered antitoxins and antibodies, and Koch's student, Paul Ehrlich developed theories of active and passive immune response.

This was true science. And it required no input from Darwin or evolutionary hypotheses in any manner. Nor did Pasteur's demonstration of the ability of vaccination to produce immunization, or Avery, MacLeod and McCarty's discovery of DNA as the carrier of genetic information, or Watson and Crick's double helical model for the structure of DNA.

It should not go unnoticed that none of these, or many other advances, carry the philosophical implications that Darwin's hypothesis did. Darwin is famous not for the import of the science (which compared to the above is marginal), but for the implications of the philosophy accompanying evolution, that of philosphical materialism. This was siezed upon immediately by radical activists and revolutionary philosophers around the world, and was carried into horrible consequences in the 20th century.

Darwin a science superstar? Compared to the likes of Koch, Lister, Pasteur, and others, I personally think it is an overstatement.

(1)Principles of Microbiology; R.M.Atlas, 1995.