We’re working through Carroll’s book(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll) in my developmental biology class, and today we discussed a couple of chapters that included an amusing piece of fan mail Sean Carroll received. I thought I’d include it here because something about it sounds awfully familiar.
The context: Sean Carroll has done some beautiful work on the genes involved in regulating pattern formation in the wings of Lepidoptera—trying to answer the question of how butterflies get their spots. He’s even gotten some media attention for it, which prompted one person to write this angry letter.
“Who Cares?!” summarizes it all.
I can answer one part, though: “figure out why people can’t live together in peace—even I’ve figured this one out”. Obviously, then, this is a problem with a known solution, and so is not particularly interesting scientifically. Rather than yelling at a developmental biologist that he ought to be studying human social behavior in a field which the interlocutor already has all the answers, maybe the “fan” ought to be working harder to publish his revolutionary research.
Isn’t it odd how studying butterfly wings must mean you’ve forgotten about God?
PZ, you had me going there for a minute. You mean, the OTHER Sean Carroll, not the
one who got Feynman’s desk.
…and besides, how the heck could anybody who’s ever actually seen a butterfly not think Carroll must have just about the coolest. job. ever!?
Carroll’s newest, The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution, is now out. While the general trend of the science won’t come as any dramatic surprise to most of those who follow PZ, it’s still an excellently-organized and highly-readable summary of (what ought to be) the “conclusive” impact of the flood of Evo-Devo and genomics results of the past decade or two.
It’s very readable, entertaining, and topical–much of the research relied upon bears journal dates with “00” in them, and both the Kitzmiller and Atlanta “textbook sticker” decisions are discussed.
Better yet, it’s edgy. Carroll is in take-no-prisoners mode here: in light of the mass of forensic DNA evidence of common descent–and of mutation and selection building new capabilities and eroding “old” capabilities that are no longer under selection pressure–no “reasonable” argument against evolution remains tenable, even for those doubtful lay people who lack detailed knowledge of the science and who may have been previously misled by the forces of ignorance, fear, and fundamentalism.
This, of course, does not mean that the endlessly-recycled “unreasonable” arguments will cease, but Carroll lays out a pretty devastating case for anyone still within haling distance of the shores of reason.
With the recent publications by Dennett, Dawkins, Harris, and now Carroll, I’m seeing a distinct trend of scientists switching into up-in-arms mode. That won’t stem the flood of pig-ignorant baloney from the anti-science miscreants, but at least the evolution proponents are increasingly dropping the gloves and swarming out of the Science corner with fire in their eyes.
Got to love the ‘scientists are destroying the world by not saving it’ argument. By the same note religion is destroying the world by not saving it and has been doing so for much longer.
The anonymous author does seem to have published his/her solution to the world’s evils; in the closing graf s/he suggests that having “forgotten god” is the reason for the perceived impending doom of either the US or the entire planet.
Therefore there really is no reason to hassle a lepidopterist.
Unless the Clozaril scrip has run out.
“Forget about God and he’ll forget about us.”
The letter writer appears to believe in a God who is vindictive or jealous of attention or just plain bored.
What’s God going to do if we don’t pay attention to him? Smite us? Go play tiddly winks in some other universe? Take a million-year nap?
Idiot.
“Forget about God and he’ll forget about us.”
Truer words were never writ.
Yeah, but you’re working through the wrong one: to deal with this sort of logic, only the works of Lewis Carroll are going to help.
Steviepinhead – a new Sean Carroll book has been published? I had no idea. You just made my day!
Sounds like a good book. I just finished Dawkins’s book (Pilgrimage…). Fasinating stuff. I learned a lot. Nothing relevant to my job, but who cares.
My niece once forwarded me a creepy (and long) e-mail about our neglect of God. It featured Billy Graham’s daughter making the “forgetting God” argument in the context of 9/11:
I wrote back to tell my niece it was all a pack of nonsense. She no longer sends me inspirational mail. Yay!
I read “even I’ve figured that one out” as saying that the letter’s author has figured out that the important thing to focus on is how to get people to live together in peace, not as a claim that they know how to achieve that end.
Entertaining, though.
As if being right all the time in the ID/EVO argument isn’t enough, we have to keep selflessly giving all of our advancements and discoveries to those who disbelieve the science behind them, yet use them on a regular basis- oh, the humanity. What a drag it must be to know that the things which make their modern life possible were discovered not using their religious text, but the same science which backs up the Theory of Evolution*.
It’s funny, this suddenly makes me think of the short humor piece- “A Day in the Life of Joe Middle-Class Republican”, which goes on to illustrate how the safe drinking water, regulated electricity, safe drugs and food, safe roads and cars, safe workplace, etc, which he enjoyed throughout his day, were all fought for tooth and nail by godless left-wing liberal Mmmerikuh haters, and shared with all.
*yeah, I know, they just believe god works in mysterious ways. crud. dullards.
The context: Sean Carroll has done some beautiful work on the genes involved in regulating pattern formation in the wings of Lepidoptera–trying to answer the question of how butterflies get their spots.
has he ventured a guess as to why they have the particular patterns they do (from an evolutionary standpoint)? do the particular mechanisms suggest any directions or constraints?
the evolution of color patterns is a bit of an interest for me (it having been my thesis topic, ages ago), and am always curious about new speculations wrt the topic.
The irony of how this craphead thinks that studying how butterflies make their spots makes a person forget about God, nevermind that God, according to the Bible, made the entire Universe, from stars to starfish, is vomit-inducing.
Maybe he’s just a Leonard Cohen fan: “I forget to pray for the angels / and then the angels forget to pray for us”
Today’s philosophical questions.
Is an omniscient being capable of forgetting anything?
What about an omnipotent, omniscient being?
What a great phrase!
And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out.
There’s not a damn thing that guy can do wrong, is there? Neglects us because he’s a “gentleman,” abuses us because he knows better than we do what’s good for us, lets children die because they’re better off that way. How does this delusion provide comfort to anyone but the most comfortably self-righteous?