Interdisciplinary research (comic)

I love PHD Comics. Because even though I say I read it to prepare me for grad school, it’s already so much like my life. For example:Let’s see…

I work in the Ecological Genetics Laboratory but get paid by Genetics (and previously Howard Hughes). My Advisor is in Forestry and Natural Resources but my other Advisor is in Ecology. Officially, I’m part of Biology in Lilly Hall…even though my office* is in Pfendler Hall. Most of my classes are on molecular & cell biology, yet technically my degree is in Genetics and Ecology, Evolution, & Environmental Biology. So basically, I belong in the Biology Borg Collective.

Okay, I guess that’s not too insane. But seriously, I’ve taken two advanced genetics classes and a tiny seminar class, and that’s good enough for a degree in Genetics. That’s kind of terrifying. Less microbiology, more genetics!

*Office = lab bench space that I have guarded dearly for three years and damnit who keeps moving my pipettemen and tiny tubes and tube opener?! *hoard hoard hoard*

I need your help!

At tomorrow’s biweekly club meeting we’re playing Creationist Bingo. It should be hilarious fun. Does anyone have suggestions for hilarious creationist youtube videos we can show of actual creationists parroting the same idiotic tripe over and over? Real creationists, not people spoofing them. I’m sure it’s not hard to find, but I’m busy with school right now. Go check out the Creationist Bingo card to get an idea of what we’re looking for (it shouldn’t be hard, though).

I’m just a stupid undergrad, apparently

I stopped by our Send an Atheist to Church event between my classes to see how it was going. A professor (I won’t say from which department, don’t want to identify him) was debating with club members working the table. He had initiated the discussion, and I wasn’t paying much attention until the topic turned to evolution.

It was a bit odd. He mostly accepted evolution, but believed that Intelligent Design was a better explanation for what guided the process. He argued that atheist philosophers and scientists outright rejected ID, and it never gets a chance to be debated or discussed.

(Not exact quotes, but fairly darn close)

Me: That’s because ID isn’t scientific.
Him: Yes it is.
Me: No it isn’t. Name one testable prediction for ID.
Him: Well there a many, but the complexity of structures like flagella.
Me: First of all, it has been explained numerous times by numerous people how the flagella could evolve in a stepwise natural fashion. Second of all, that’s not a way to support or falsify ID. It would falsify evolution, but that doesn’t mean God is the answer.
Him: Well all the great scientists were religious. Newton’s religion helped him figure out physics.
Me: …You can be religious and be a scientist. That doesn’t mean your religious beliefs are correct too.
Him: Well, how about Francis Collins? He was the head of the Human Genome Project and is the head of NIH.
Me: That’s just argument from authority. He’s brilliant at genetics, but that doesn’t mean he knows everything about evolution.
Him: Are you head of the NIH?
Me: No, but I study genetics and evolution.
Him: Do you have a PhD?
Me: I’m going to start working toward my PhD in the fall, maybe you’ll listen to me in five years.

Seriously, how demeaning. Yep, I’m just a dumb undergrad. Obviously I have no say on anything because I don’t have a PhD and I’m not the head of NIH, even though evolution is an easy enough concept for teenagers to understand.

I was pretty much done with him at that point. He may as well have said “little girl, go back to your corner and shut up.” What a disrespectful way to treat a student, especially when you are the one who has no idea what he’s talking about.

I would be sorry for anyone who was in this guy’s class. Disagree with him? Nope, you’re just dumb and immature. Come back when you have more letters after your name.

I'm just a stupid undergrad, apparently

I stopped by our Send an Atheist to Church event between my classes to see how it was going. A professor (I won’t say from which department, don’t want to identify him) was debating with club members working the table. He had initiated the discussion, and I wasn’t paying much attention until the topic turned to evolution.

It was a bit odd. He mostly accepted evolution, but believed that Intelligent Design was a better explanation for what guided the process. He argued that atheist philosophers and scientists outright rejected ID, and it never gets a chance to be debated or discussed.

(Not exact quotes, but fairly darn close)

Me: That’s because ID isn’t scientific.
Him: Yes it is.
Me: No it isn’t. Name one testable prediction for ID.
Him: Well there a many, but the complexity of structures like flagella.
Me: First of all, it has been explained numerous times by numerous people how the flagella could evolve in a stepwise natural fashion. Second of all, that’s not a way to support or falsify ID. It would falsify evolution, but that doesn’t mean God is the answer.
Him: Well all the great scientists were religious. Newton’s religion helped him figure out physics.
Me: …You can be religious and be a scientist. That doesn’t mean your religious beliefs are correct too.
Him: Well, how about Francis Collins? He was the head of the Human Genome Project and is the head of NIH.
Me: That’s just argument from authority. He’s brilliant at genetics, but that doesn’t mean he knows everything about evolution.
Him: Are you head of the NIH?
Me: No, but I study genetics and evolution.
Him: Do you have a PhD?
Me: I’m going to start working toward my PhD in the fall, maybe you’ll listen to me in five years.

Seriously, how demeaning. Yep, I’m just a dumb undergrad. Obviously I have no say on anything because I don’t have a PhD and I’m not the head of NIH, even though evolution is an easy enough concept for teenagers to understand.

I was pretty much done with him at that point. He may as well have said “little girl, go back to your corner and shut up.” What a disrespectful way to treat a student, especially when you are the one who has no idea what he’s talking about.

I would be sorry for anyone who was in this guy’s class. Disagree with him? Nope, you’re just dumb and immature. Come back when you have more letters after your name.

I literally screamed with nerdy glee

A SHIRT COMBINING DARWIN AND POKEMON?! HELLZ YES!

*ahem*

Seriously, this is freaking amazing. I just had biggest nerdgasm since I found out Dumbledore was gay or that Alan Rickman was doing the Voice for Marvin, the Paranoid Android. This is a thousand times better than my Darwin/Pokemon mash up. I’m just sad I didn’t think of it first.

There goes eighteen more dollars from my wallet.

Happy Darwin Day!

Happy Darwin Day, everyone! This year the Society of Non-Theists had a fairly simple event, since we have so much other stuff going on. We just had our annual Darwin Fish fundraiser selling cool evolution oriented merchandise.
We sold a lot throughout the day, and made about 150 dollars! Woot! Now we can spend even more money on pizza. And the club members rejoice.

Of course, I’m not too surprised that our fundraiser did well. It does well every year, especially since we hold it in the LILY, the biology building.
I mean, can’t you just tell that’s the biology building, with that artwork in the background? The hands of God coming out of clouds and creating the first cells is totally a biologically sound theory…right?

Regardless of artwork that annoys the biologists, it was a good day for evolution. I saw a random person wearing a Happy Birthday Darwin pin, which made me super happy. I also got to briefly teach my honors freshman class about evolution! We’re learning about mutations and selecting bacteria that can survive in certain environments, so it was somewhat relevant. The professor asked if I would explain evolution to them, since I like it so much.

I have to say, I was really impressed. Everyone already understood the basics of the theory without the misconceptions. I specifically wore my Darwin Athletic Club: Survival of the Fittest t-shirt and asked them why it wasn’t really correct, and they got it right: that strength and endurance doesn’t necessarily mean an individual is fit – it’s reproduction that matters. They also asked extra questions about epigenetics and kin selection. I was really impressed for freshmen! The intro biology class has been updated since I last took it, and is a lot more evolution heavy – looks like people are actually understanding it now!

Not sure anything can make Darwin Day better than teaching our future scientists about evolution.

What we can learn from ancient human DNA

What can we learn about a person just from looking at their DNA? As our knowledge of genetics continues to grow, we may even be able to figure out what they look like. Research published in Nature looked at the genome of an ancient human using 4,000 year old hair that had been preserved in Greenland’s permafrost. From looking at genes that cause known traits, we can learn a lot about his appearance.

  • Male
  • Type A+ blood
  • Brown eyes
  • Darker skin
  • Stocky body
  • Dry earwax
  • Shovel shaped teeth
  • Thick, dark hair
  • Tendency toward baldness

Okay, as an aside: Who is the lucky artist who gets to draw a reconstruction of an ancient human, or the feather patterns on dinosaurs? Is this someone’s profession, or does a grad student do it? Maybe I can finally find a way to combine my art skills with my biology skills!

Anyway, it’s pretty cool that we’re able to learn about the actual physical appearance of someone just from their genes. Think about the implications in forensics cases when all that’s left is tissue that’s beyond identification. But that’s not the thing that made this paper Nature-worthy. All of these genotypes are very similar to modern Siberians, which tweaks our current understanding of human migration. Jerry Coyne summarizes it well over at his wonderful blog, Why Evolution is True:

Oh, and the really interesting result is this: the DNA suggests that the individual had components of genes still present in East Asian and Siberian populations, but not found in modern-day Inuits or people from South and Central America. This suggests that there were two separate invasions of North America from Asia: the one that gave rise to native Americans, South Americans, and modern Inuit on the one hand, and that leading to the presence of Saqqaq in Greenland. Those latter individuals probably came across the Bering Strait, and then, hugging the Arctic, made their way eastward across North America and then to Greenland.

That conclusion is of course tentative because it’s based on only this single genome. Still, based on the sequence, and the tentative phylogeny showing that this individual’s ancestors split off from the ancestors of their closest living relatives (the Chukchis of eastern Siberia) about 5,000 years ago, anthropologists may have to revise their conclusion that there was one invasion of North America from eastern Asia around 18,000 years ago.

Very neat stuff! Though I would like to see a study using modern humans to see how accurate these sorts of predictions are. Take maybe ten individuals with various phenotypes, sequence their genomes, have the researchers try to reconstruct their appearance without previous knowledge of what they look like, send it off to an artist, and see how close we can get! I’m not sure what profound result this would show other than if this method is useful or not – just seems like a really cool thing to try out. Can’t we do science for fun every once in a while?

Ask President Obama to support Darwin Day

DarwinDay.org has a petition online asking President Obama to issue a proclamation recognizing Darwin Day.

Dear President Obama,

As an American who values scientific inquiry and integrity, I urge you to issue a presidential proclamation recognizing Darwin Day on February 12. Darwin Day is celebrated every year on the anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birthday in 1809, and is a day in which people gather together to commemorate his life and work. Charles Darwin was the first to propose the groundbreaking scientific theory of evolution by natural selection—a theory that has done more to unify and bring understanding to the life sciences than any other—and Darwin Day is a celebration of this discovery and of scientific progress.

I believe that issuing this proclamation will send a powerful message that scientific discovery and integrity in our society are top priorities—priorities that are needed now more than ever as extremists with narrow ideological agendas are attempting to undermine science in our schools.

Please stand with me and countless others who value science and discovery by issuing the following or a similar proclamation on Darwin Day.

As an evolutionary biologist and a big Darwin Day fan, I urge you to go sign it. I’m not sure what the odds are that Obama would want to go pissing off a significant amount of creationist Americans, but might as well try.

The creationist persecution complex continues

My friend Mike, who blogs over at Politics and Pucks, recently posted a little rant on the conservative and religious environment around Cincinnati, OH. Such a rant cannot be complete without mentioning the Creation Museum, which he did several times. Apparently the Creation Museum is a lot like Beetlejuice – say its name too many times, and one of their representatives will pop up crying “Persecution!” Mike, feel honored that you hurt their feelings enough to get a comment from Mark Looy, co-founder of the Creation Museum:

So the implication is that Bill Cunningham is also a bigot because he supported the Creation Museum after the Cincinnat Zoo — during the Christmas season — stopped its promotional package that offered families a discount to visit both attractions. The zoo yielded to the pressure of dozens of intolerant (often hateful) people who demanded that the zoo stop its ticket partnership with us. And somehow Mr. Cunningham is a bigot for exposing this intolerance and hate? Mark Looy, CCO, Creation Museum, Petersburg, Kentucky

Dear Mark Looy and other Creationists who Just Don’t Get It,

I am tolerant of your outright lies and delusions in the sense that I will never threaten you or your families and I support your right to freedom of speech. Shame on anyone who has done so, atheist or not. However, tolerance does not equal respect or support, which you have to earn.

Your museum (which I had the misfortune of visiting) is a complete sham and an insult to human intelligence, reason, and curiosity. Having a place that supports learning and scientific inquiry even associate itself with you is totally inappropriate. The Cincinnati Zoo should not support the Creation Museum, a World War II museum should not support Holocaust deniers, and an Astronomical Observatory should not support flat Earthers. You are absolutely no different from these wacky fringe groups. Freedom of religion does not mean we have to think you’re awesome and suck up to you.

Until you realize this, I have every right to point and laugh at you, just as you have every right to put dinosaurs munching alongside Adam and Eve. Crying about how you’re a victim and those godless scientists are the real meanies is only going to continue making you the laughing stock of America.

Sincerely,

Godless Scientist Meanie