Conformity: it’s not just for high school kids
Tonight I finished the book The Lucifer Principle, and a great deal of the book is spent unintentionally debunking the popular myth that humans are radically different from animals. The fact of the matter is that while humans possess the ability to be rational and control their behavior, they often choose not to. Or they may act in a way that they feel is rational, but when looked at objectively is anything but. Anyway, I digress. Throughout the book, parrallels and comparisons are drawn between rats, chimpanzees, gorillas, and other animals. The startling truth is that humans mirror animal behavior more than we’d like to think. So it came as no surprise to me this week when I read that chimpanzees are conformists, just like humans. In fact, I was surprised that research hadn’t already discovered this.
In the case of this study, two dominant female chimpanzees were taught two different methods of getting food out of an apparatus, poking versus lifting. Then these chimps were sent back to their respective clans, where they taught others how to get the food out of the apparatus. But a funny thing happened along the way. Some chimps from the lifting group discovered that poking was more effective than lifting. But instead of continuing to poke, they conformed to the method that the others in their group used.
The conformity bias finding was an unexpected, but equally important, result of this culture study, according to Dr. Horner. A few members of each group independently discovered the alternative method for freeing food from the Pan-pipes, but this knowledge did not endanger the groups’ traditions because most of these chimpanzees reverted back to the norm set by their local expert. “Choosing the group norm over the alternative method shows a level of conformity we usually associate only with our own species,” said Dr. Horner. “By using the group’s technique rather than the alternative method, we see the conformity is based more on a social bond with other group members than the simple reward of freeing the food.”
Perhaps not so strangely, this propensity to conform is due to the power of the meme that ties the particular chimpanzee peer group together. While not as complex as, for example, a religious meme, the mere fact that a chimpanzee could be singled out as deviating from his social norm could endanger his position within the social superorganism by causing him to stick out. Standing out in a social group is an easy way to become a social outcast, and more than anything else, social creatures desire acceptance from their peer groups, even if it might be uncomfortable or unhealthy. (Bulemia is a good example of this from the human world.) Even if this new method allows the chimp to get more food out of the apparatus, he will not endanger his position within the superorganism: he will not risk losing his place in the pecking order. Now if that chimp were at the bottom, he would be more inclined to poke rather than lift, simply because he has no place to go but up in the pecking order. Similarly, if he were to be at the top of the pecking order, he might also be inclined to poke rather than lift, though less so than if he were at the bottom, because he would have something to lose by disrupting the status quo.
I would say humanity is almost a perfect mirror of this: those on the bottom generally want to elevate their station in life through one means or another, and those at the top prefer to stay at the top, and thus become more conservative so as to maintain the status quo. I think we’re not as special and different from the rest of the animal world as we would like to think.
A journey through sexual orientation research
I’ve just spent about a half an hour reading a long article from the Boston Globe magazine entitled “What makes people gay?” It’s a very interesting look at how society and medicine has progressed through the years. It’s far too long to adequately cover here, but the article starts off by looking at identical twins, Patrick and Thomas, one of whom exhibits childhood gender nonconformity (CGN). Statistically, 75% of men that exhibit CGN grow up to be gay or bisexual. This sort of throws a wrench into the theory that homosexuality is a genetic trait. But it doesn’t completely rule out a biological basis for homosexuality. It just muddies the water a bit.
The article continues on through some of the prevailing theories, including suppressed portions of the X chromosome, and ultimately looking at differences between men and women when it comes to sexual arousal. (For men it stems purely from their sexual orientation; for women, it’s quite a bit more complicated.)
Four or five theories later, the ultimate consensus seems to be that homosexuals are born that way, even though it may not be genetic, and that they don’t have a “choice” in when it comes to their sexual orientation. One prevailing motif throughout the entire article is the idea of cause versus effect, which is normally fairly cut and dried, but not when it comes ot sexual orientation research. Is the smaller clump of neurons in the anterior hypothalamus the cause of homosexuality, or is it merely an effect? Regardless, one very old theory has been finally be laid to rest by the scientific community. Most all of Sigmund Freud’s theories have been relegated to medical history rather than actual, working theories, and the same is true of his theories on homosexuality: distant fathers and overprotective mothers result in homosexual men. In fact, distant fathers are probably a result of CGN instead of a cause, which isn’t much of a stretch of the imagination.
I can relate to Neil Swidey when he says “Just when I would become swayed by the evidence supporting one discreet theory, I would stumble onto new evidence casting some doubt on it.” Such is to be expected when one is working in a field which has political and religious groups opposing it. It was, however, nice to see a conservative anti-gay advocate step up to the plate and make some concessions, which is very rare when it comes to science conflicting with religion.
Last month, the Rev. Rob Schenck, a prominent Washington, D.C., evangelical leader, told a large gathering of young evangelicals that he believes homosexuality is not a choice but rather a predisposition, something “deeply rooted” in people. Schenck told me that his conversion came about after he’d spoken extensively with genetic researchers and psychologists. He argues that evangelicals should continue to oppose homosexual behavior, but that “many evangelicals are living in a sort of state of denial about the advance of this conversation.” His message: “If it’s inevitable that this scientific evidence is coming, we have to be prepared with a loving response. If we don’t have one, we won’t have any credibility.”
I wish I could say that concessions to science have been made on other issues, but they have not. Yet. (With the exception of the Catholic church… stay tuned.) In any case, I couldn’t possibly do the article justice here, because it speaks for itself. It’s well worth the time it takes to read.
Four scientific societies oppose Bush’s intelligent design stance
Earlier this month, I reported on how President Bush wants to teach “intelligent design” alongside evolution in public schools. Now, four separate scientific societies have come out against Bush’s stance. The American Society of Agronomy (ASA), the Crop Science Society of America (CSSA), the Soil Science Society of America (SSSA), and the American Chemical Society (ACS) have each come out in favor of teaching evolution in classrooms in the US.
A position statement was unanimously passed by the first three organizations I listed. Their position echoes my sentiments expressed in my previous post on the subject. Here’s an excerpt:
Intelligent design is not a scientific discipline and should not be taught as part of the K-12 science curriculum. Intelligent design has neither the substantial research base, nor the testable hypotheses as a scientific discipline. There are at least 70 resolutions from a broad array of scientific societies and institutions that are united on this matter. As early as 2002, the Board of Directors of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) unanimously passed a resolution critical of teaching intelligent design in public schools.
The intelligent design/creationist movement has adopted the lamentable strategy of asking our science teachers to “teach the controversy” in science curriculums, as if there were a significant debate among biologists about whether evolution underpins the abundant complexity of the biological world. We believe there is no such controversy.
The fundamental tenet of evolution -– descent with modification -– is accepted by the vast majority of biologists. The current debates within the research community deal with the patterns and processes of evolution, not whether the evolutionary principles presented by Darwin in 1859 hold true. These debates are similar to those surrounding the relativistic nature of gravitational waves. No one doubts the existence of gravity just because we are still learning how it works; evolution is on an equally strong footing.
The discussion of life’s spirituality is most appropriate for philosophy or religion classes. It is a mistake to conclude that reluctance to incorporate spiritual questions in science classes runs counter to the cherished principle that vigorous challenge is vital to the scientific method.
[...]
…President Bush, by suggesting that we use intelligent design as a scientific counterpoint to the teaching of evolutionary biology, is unwittingly undermining the scientific method at its core. This is most unfortunate in an era when U.S. students are already lagging behind their international peers in science education.
(Emphasis mine.)
The fulltext of a separate statement posted by the ACS is available on the ACS website (PDF), and it expresses sentiments similar to those above.
If your science education was anything like mine, the topic of how we got here was glossed over. Vague references to “millions of years ago” and “the Jurassic period” and “the first Ice Age” were occasionally made, but we were never taught the ins and outs of evolutionary theory. Instead the school system opted to leave out this part of our education. As a result, I know next to nothing about evolutionary theory except the bits and pieces that I’ve learned from my independent reading, and journey through higher education. I went to a very good school, but they wouldn’t touch evolution with a ten-foot pole. I’m curious how many other Americans had an education like mine?
From “bugs” to drugs
Wired’s running a story called “Turning Bugs into Drugs.” Unfortunately, the article’s opening two of sentences are almost completely wrong:
The dirty secret of pharmacology is that most medicines don’t work all that well. Stomach acids erode them, the liver filters them out, and the bloodstream shunts them away.
The real dirty secret here is that this is largely incorrect information. While it is true that some drugs’ efficacy is decreased as a result of metabolic processes, the actual truth is that pharmaceutical companies take these effects into consideration while designing drugs. Systemic drugs (those which enter the bloodstream and act on the body as a whole) are often inert in the molecular form that is introduced to the body via tablet, IV, etc. Then, when the body begins metabolizing the compound, the active form of the drug “falls out” so that it can go to work. In other words, it is the byproducts of the body’s metabolic processes that are actually the active forms of their respective drugs. So while the original form might “erode,” this could very well be part of the design.
Granted, not all drugs are like this, especially antibiotics, but many are. This error aside, the article has got some cool information about new drugs in the pipeline made from bacteria.
For cancer patients (these seem pretty out there):
Listeria monocytogenes causes deadly food poisoning, and the immune system responds in force at the first sign of the bacteria’s presence in the body. Stripping the bacteria of toxic genes and substituting ones that make molecules found in tumors may retrain the immune system to go after cancerous cells.
Status: Preliminary human trials later this year
Clostridium novyi is a relative of the bacteria that causes botulism. It doesn’t grow in live tissue at the edges of tumors but thrives deep in their dead interiors (where there’s no oxygen), eventually liquefying them. When the immune system cleans up the mess, it learns to kill living cancer cells.
Status: Animal studies
This cancer-fighter seems within the realm of possibility:
Salmonella typhimurium flourishes in tumors. By adding a gene that converts a relatively innocuous chemical called a prodrug into a toxin, it can be used to fight cancer. The prodrug goes to every cell in the body but only wipes out the ones inside the tumor.
Status: Preliminary human trials
A pet topic of mine since I have Crohn’s:
Lactococcus lactis is the bacteria used to ferment milk to make cheese. Tweak it to make IL-10 [Interleukin-10], and the bug passes through the stomach and makes medicine at the intestinal wall.
Status: Preliminary human trials
Modifying bacteria to make other products in the case of the Crohn’s and the last cancer treatment above has been done for years. E. coli is used to make insulin, for example, and has been made this way for a very long time. It is relatively easy to do because the bacterial genomes are much less complex than the human genome, and making modifications to it is relatively easy. I hope some of these treatments come to fruition.
A fresh look at the stem cell debate
I came across an interesting Reason op-ed piece provocatively entitled “Is Heaven Populated Chiefly by the Souls of Embryos?” I read the whole thing in one go, and it’s quite interesting. It offers some interesting figures and points out some glaring inconsistencies of the right wing stem cell agenda. I don’t enjoy reading, writing, or talking about politics, but from a scientific perspective, this article is enlightening regarding the political issues surrounding stem cell research, and I highly recommend that you read it for yourself.
It may come as a surprise to many that most human embryos are lost by natural means. Between 60 and 80% of them, in fact. They are lost as a result of menstruation. These are not miscarriages; the woman doesn’t know that she’s been fertilized, and the embryos are washed away naturally in menstrual flows. It is estimated that 60% of embryos have been fertilized for 7 days or more, and this number jumps closer to 80% if you count eggs just barely fertilized. (It’s bunk that some women think they can feel the moment of conception.)
These embryos are completely viable, and if they had implanted into the walls of the uterus, would have developed into healthy babies. This presents a problem for right-to-lifers who often make claims that every embryo is “already a human being.” So the question for people like Robert George is whether or not we should be trying to rescue these embryos as human beings. The only answer one could realistically arrive at is “no.” To even attempt to do so is impossible, not to mention silly, and it puts into perspective the absurdity some of the moral issues raised by right-to-lifers.
“If the embryo loss that accompanies natural procreation were the moral equivalent of infant death, then pregnancy would have to be regarded as a public health crisis of epidemic proportions: Alleviating natural embryo loss would be a more urgent moral cause than abortion, in vitro fertilization, and stem-cell research combined,” declared Michael Sandel, a Harvard University government professor, also a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics.
People like Robert George and other right-to-lifers do not advocate saving these embryos. Ronald Bailey, the author of the article, reduces the issue to a simple question. (Emphasis mine.)
Of course, culturally we do not mourn the deaths of these millions of embryos as we would the death of a child—and reasonably so, because we do in fact know that these embryos are not people. Try this thought experiment. A fire breaks out in a fertility clinic and you have a choice: You can save a three-year-old child or a Petri dish containing 10 seven-day old embryos. Which do you choose to rescue?
Anyone that would save the petri dishes would be ripped to shreds, even by right-to-lifers for allowing a human being to die. To take things a step further, if one were to extend this logic, that means that Heaven would be full of people who never lived: never developed brains, had thoughts, or, indeed, ever consisted of anything more than a handful of undifferentiated cells; those bags of cells wouldn’t even be visible to the naked eye sitting on a table.
But by using their flawed logic, many conservatives are blocking life-saving medical research that could benefit millions of people. Nonetheless, two new methods have been proposed to skirt the objections of right-to-life conservatives.
The first one involves using embryos that have cells with an abnormal number of chromosomes (called aneuploidy), and some with a normal number of chromosomes. These embryos are not viable, and could never develop into a fetus. Howard Zucker and David Landry, professors of medicine at Columbia Unversity would like to have these embryos declared dead so that stem cells can be harvested from them, just as organs can be legally harvested from brain-dead organ donors. It has been shown experimentally that these harvested cells can be used to grow other tissues, but could never become fetuses or human beings.
The second method is quite a bit different, and one which Mr. Bailey says that “right-to-lifers should not find morally objectionable.” But after reading about it, I can assure you that they will. The method involves inactivating the cdx2 gene, which prevents the formation of the trophoblast — the precursor to a placenta, which in turn prevents the formation of of a fetus. This method allows the formation of stem cells, however. The method works experimentally on mice, and it is thought that a similar method might work on humans, if the trophoblast gene could be located and turned off.
Hurlbut proposed an attempt to find similar genes that could be inactivated in the nuclei of adult human cells before they are installed in enucleated human eggs to produce cloned embryonic stem cells that are a genetic match for the person who donates the adult nucleus. (Transplanted cells and tissues produced by such therapeutic cloning would not be rejected by the donor’s immune system.) Once the stem cells have been derived, the inactivated genes could be reactivated so that the stem cells could be used to produce normal transplantable cells and tissues.
“This process does not involve the creation of an embryo that is then altered to transform it into a non-embryonic entity,” explained Hurlbut. “Rather the proposed genetic alteration is accomplished ab initio, the entity is brought into existence with a genetic structure insufficient to generate a human embryo.”
I can simply imagine the responses that I would get if I were to propose the idea to a group of fundamentalists. While nothing would be directly objectionable, the whole thing would be too close to “playing God” or something equally spurious, and they would be against it. I would respond to such objections that doctors have been “playing God” since the first time someone took an herb to settle their stomach or get rid of a headache. Instead of antibiotics or asthma inhalers, we’re engineering the solution this time, rather than using allopathic therapy. Engineering medical solutions is not wrong, it is simply the next step for modern medicine.
To share my own experience, many ultra-conservative fundamentalists don’t want to cure all disease. I’ve had conversations with some very conservative people who think things like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s shouldn’t be cured. The scary thought was that one of them had ambitions to be a doctor, specifically an oncologist. I cannot reconcile such a statement with the desire to be a physician — especially an oncologist where so many risk factors are hereditary. To show how thin the veneer of sactimony often is, I have known people who opposed certain types of research, until a loved one came down with a condition where the only options available were those that are traditionally “off-limits” from the church’s point of view. It’s easy to be comfortable in self-righteous indignation when the people who will benefit from life-saving treatments are faceless statistics, but when it’s a real person that is sick, opinions and beliefs change quickly. But I should be fair and say that I’ve seen others who would rather die than do an experimental treatment that they have moral convictions against, so it goes both ways. But usually the former attitude prevails.
There is one final thought that I have on the matter. Religion and science have always clashed, and they always will. Science cannot and does not exist in a political and/or religious vacuum. There will always be squabbles over ethics, and I believe that trying to talk about science as though it exists in a political vacuum is disingenuous and does no one any favors. In the past and present, societal values — as represented by the current administration, which I would like to remind the rest of the world that not all Americans voted for — are 10-20 years behind science. The tide will change again soon, and the current stem cell debate will subside when the law is changed. (It’s only a matter of time before the laws regarding stem cells are changed simply because Americans hate to be behind the rest of the world in research and technology.) And then the debating process will begin anew, perhaps about a different issue. The important thing is that science and medicine remain fact-based so as not to muddy the moral waters that the ethicists have to sift through.
The changing ocean
The ocean has been in the news quite a bit lately. On the west coast of the United States, water temperatures have been higher than normal; catches of fish have been smaller; and the number of phytoplankton has dropped. Whether or not this is due to global warming, no one knows for sure, and no one knows if the trend will continue next year, either.
But this year, the winds have been unusually weak, failing to generate much upwelling and reducing the amount of phytoplankton.
Off Oregon, for example, the waters near the shore are 5 to 7 degrees warmer than normal and have yielded about one-fourth the usual amount of phytoplankton, said Bill Peterson, an oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Newport, Oregon.
Why the concern over phytoplankton? Well, the phytoplankton in the ocean accounts for the majority of carbon dioxide metabolism in the atmosphere. Phytoplankton take carbon dioxide up, and when they die (or are eaten), they “pump” the CO2 into the bowels of the ocean in the form of calcium carbonate (limestone). Consider that if all of the calcium carbonate were broken down into calcium ions and carbon dioxide, that the atmosphere would weigh 40 times what it does today, and the planet would look a lot more like Venus than the Earth we know today.
But on the other side of the world, phytoplanton have bloomed. (Larger image) All is not well, however, as too much phytoplankton can de-oxygenate huge swaths of the ocean and stifle normal marine life. Scientists, again, aren’t sure what’s causing the abnormalities in the Baltic Sea, and they’re not sure if it will happen again next year.
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Algal blooms and the lack thereof disrupt normal ocean life quite a bit — it’s not a good balancing act to bloom too much on one side of the world and not the other, because both disrupt normal ocean processes.
Algae that die and sink to the bottom stimulate growth of decomposers, especially bacteria. Decomposition can result in the depletion of oxygen in the deeper water layers, and these conditions may result in fish kills or replacement with less valuable species more tolerant of higher phosphorus and lower oxygen levels. Deoxygenation also may cause chemical changes in the mud on the bottom, lowering the redox value of the sediment, releasing chemicals and toxic gases.
Bush wants to teach Intelligent Design alongside Evolution
President Bush wants Intelligent Design taught alongside evolution in the classroom. Unfortunately for Mr. Bush, he doesn’t seem to grasp the concept of a theory when the word is used in the context of science. While the word “theory” is interchangable with the word “idea” in normal vocabulary, when it is used to mean a scientific theory, the meaning changes completely:
A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.
An implied element of this definition is falsifiability.
Falsifiability is an important concept in the philosophy of science that amounts to the apparently paradoxical idea that a proposition or theory cannot be scientific if it does not admit consideration of the possibility of its being false.
“Falsifiable” does not mean “false”. For a proposition to be falsifiable, it must be possible in principle to make an observation that would show the proposition to be false, even if that observation has not been made. For example, the proposition “All crows are black” would be falsified by observing one white crow.
Unfortunately, Mr. Bush does not appear to have any grasp of this concept, and as such, he should leave what should be taught in science classes to people who do have a clue. I have no problem with Intelligent Design being taught — in public schools, even — but teaching it as “science” is a discredit to scientists and the scientific method. If Intelligent Design is to be taught, it should be taught in a religion or philosophy class, because Intelligent Design is not falsifiable. No matter how far back one advances scientific understanding, it remains a simple matter for philosophers and theologians to add another layer of abstraction between a Creator and what science can explain. As such, Intelligent Design is not science, it is philosophy.