August 30, 2006 at 5:23 am · Filed under Uncategorized
The Yes Men performed an identity correction maneuver yet again, this time in New Orleans.
The federal government is detroying affordable housing for low-income residents, perpetuating what essentially amounts to ethnic cleansing- as reported by some. This, just as reports indicate the proportion of radically poor individuals has increased in the United States.
I feel ashamed.
See the Wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/HUD_hoaxer_calls_attention_to_lack_of_affordable_housing
Andy Bichlbaum spoke last April at the Penny W. Stamps Lecture series here at Michigan.
August 26, 2006 at 10:37 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Betsy Stirratt
Director SoFA Gallery, IU Bloomington
Wednesday, November 8, 3pm
“Nature, Bioart, and Creative Autonomy”
Basile Auditorium
As research scientists continue to expand the potential uses of human and animal tissues, bioartists have explored themes of natural limits, human reinvention and creative autonomy in their own work with these materials. This talk explores the boundary-crossings in research science and bioart and the ethical issues raised by the ever-expanding reach of our autonomy. The work of recent bioartists will be displayed. The lecture is co-sponsored by the Religious Studies Department, IU School of Liberal Arts, IUPUI.
August 22, 2006 at 9:13 am · Filed under Uncategorized
This is the second in a series about why evolutionary biology needs to develop better visual communication and discourse practices.
8/22/2006
EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY IS MISSING from a list of majors that
the U.S. Department of Education has deemed eligible for a
new federal grant program designed to reward students
majoring in engineering, mathematics, science, or certain
foreign languages.
–> SEE http://chronicle.com/daily/2006/08/2006082201n.htm
It seems like there is a new challenge for evolutionary biology in the news each day, pointing to the need for a comprehensive strategy for public outreach and communication.
I’m currently doing research into what a rebranding strategy would entail for evolution and evolutionary biology. It’s not a straightforward problem; few are. For one thing, evolution is not a material product; it’s a series of explanations and processes that account for natural patterns. It can also be a way of thinking- a cognitive tool let’s say. I’m sure marketers and brand strategists have solutiions for these things, but I’m doing this largely by myself for the moment.
I came across the “short” web version of a report that was developed starting in 1995 and published some years later entitled Evolution, Science, and Society: Evolutionary Biology and the National Research Agenda. It’s at least the third time I’ve seen it, but something caught my eye this time in the kinds of comparisons and examples used.
This was a section that made suggestions for how evolutionary biologists ought to interface with the rest of society:
We urge the following roles for evolutionary biologists:
- communicating to federal agencies, and to other institutions that support basic or applied research,
- the relevance of evolutionary biology to the missions of these organizations
- training the next generation of evolutionary biologists to be aware of the relevance of their field to societal needs
- informing the public about the nature, progress, and implications of evolutionary biology.
At the end is a link for “more”…
What pops up is a historical account of “The [Tragic] Fate of Evolutionary Genetics in the Soviet Union” (i.e. Lysenkoism).
To me, this is odd because it recalls cold war era “do like us” or “end up like them” discourse. Maybe ten years ago, this kind of approach was still appropriate, but perhaps we can do better. What if we turned the focus on our own society since the topic referred to our national research agenda and because polarization over evolution in Western nations occurs largely in the U.S.? Take the eugenics movement of the mid 20th century that “Darwin’s Dark Legacy” propagandizes into an anti-evolution rally. That controversies and social engineering happens in our own backyard is a good reason to advocate for increased dialogue among “society” and expert biologists. What about biotechnology debates including cloning, the “start” of life, and genetic engineering? Aren’t these areas that biologists should be involved in? Perhaps the moral line is less clear than the one in which an enemy is as clearly defined as it was for Soviet Russia.
The are a few other sections in the whitepaper and associated website that point to how evolution is socially relevant because in enhances our producttion of new technologies. I think it’s questionable for us to at once promote the development of biotechnologies alongside our ability to do risk assessment. Isn’t this similar to what Haliburton does for the military in Iraq- help runs wars AND do the cleanup? I guess diversification is a good strategy for relevance…
In any case, the document or message that comes from scientists about a discipline’s relevance to society ought to include non-experts and/or experts with cross-domain knowledge. The current document does not include the stakeholders, but it ought to if it claims authority in evolution’s relvance to society.
Visit Evolution, Science, and Society: Evolutionary Biology and the National Research Agenda
August 22, 2006 at 1:46 am · Filed under Uncategorized
Organelle View was the invention of four very different people: Anuj Kumar, Gabriel Harp, Jamie Cope, and Chris Landau. Anuj Kumar is an Assistant Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at the University of Michigan. His lab is responsible for compiling the Organelle DB. Anuj is well known in his field for a multi-tiered approach to functional genomics in yeast, including large-scale studies of protein function and localization.
The latest version of Organelle View was implemented by Chris Landau and Jamie Cope of N Formation Design.
The interactive database is here:
http://organelledb.lsi.umich.edu/other-sites/orgview/TestIndex2.php
August 21, 2006 at 10:57 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
:: Inauguration of the DANUBE TELE LECTURES at Danube University Krems ::
The Center for Image Science at Danube University Krems starts a new international lecture series in early September with prominent scientists of our time. The lectures will be presented by live online streaming technology. The series is realized in co-operation with the sterreichische Filmgalerie and the ORF Niedersterreich (Austrian Broadcast Corporation), and will be held in the Filmgalerie Cinema at Danube University Krems. For the inaugural Tele Lecture, internationally renowned scholars deal with key topics of Image Science and Media Art:
www.donau-uni.ac.at/cis
Upcoming:
September 6, 2006 19:30-22:00
PYGMALION TENDENCIES: Bioart and Its Precursors
Lectures and debate with Gunalan NADARAJAN and Jens HAUSER
Art and the natural sciences are forming a new interconnection that is closer than in past centuries. Recent developments in art such as Bioart, Techno-art, Genetic or Transgenic Art bring artists into the scientific laboratories and carry their visions to the general public. Not only do artists work cross-pollinated, they also create new creatures, frequently revealing spectacular spaces of reflection on new possibilities. International experts discuss these tensions oscillating between body and nature on one hand and artificial life and illusion on the other – none the least, in their historical contexts.
August 21, 2006 at 8:33 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
First of all you might be curious about why I used the term “market share” to describe the competition of evolutionary and religious explanations for life. There is a competition for hearts and minds going on, and according to Miller et al. (Science Vol. 313, 11 Aug 2006), the proportion of U.S. adults that are unsure about which explanation is true has risen to 21%, leaving equal proportions of those that accept creation and those that accept evolutionary explanations.
Meanwhile, among scientific reports that the “human brain gene” has been discovered, there is the latest in a long effort by those that believe the study and teaching of evolution is contrary to religious belief. Performing a google news search for “evolution” (8/21/2006) revealed a series of articles that linked to a homepage for an upcoming television documentary that suggests explicit, causal links between the act of subcribing to evolutionary processes and the holocaust and Columbine shootings in Colorado. While this can’t be the first time this strategy has been used, it does again point to the extent to which creationists are using the news media as an outlet for propaganda. Make no mistake; this is part of a sophisticated public outreach campaign designed to keep creationism at the forefront of people’s thoughts and subsequent actions. How often does the Society for the Study of Evolution produce a news release touting progress in our understanding of selection gradients or g-matrix evolution?
FORT LAUDERDALE, Aug. 18 /Christian Newswire/ — Author and Christian broadcaster Dr. D. James Kennedy connects the dots between Charles Darwin and Adolf Hitler in Darwin’s Deadly Legacy, a groundbreaking inquiry into Darwin’s chilling social impact. The new television documentary airs nationwide on August 26 and 27 on The Coral Ridge Hour. For station listings, go to www.coralridge.org/darwin.
What: New TV documentary, Darwin’s Deadly Legacy
When: August 26, 27, 2006
Where: Nationwide; details at www.coralridge.org/darwin
The program features 14 scholars, scientists, and authors who outline the grim consequences of Darwin’s theory of evolution and show how his theory fueled Hitler’s ovens.
“To put it simply, no Darwin, no Hitler,” said Dr. Kennedy, the host of Darwin’s Deadly Legacy. “Hitler tried to speed up evolution, to help it along, and millions suffered and died in unspeakable ways because of it.”
The one-hour program features Ann Coulter, author of Godless; Richard Weikart, author of From Darwin to Hitler; Lee Strobel, author of The Case for a Creator; Jonathan Wells, author of Icons of Evolution; Phillip Johnson, author of Darwin on Trial; Michael Behe, author of Darwin’s Black Box; Ian Taylor, author of In the Minds of Men, and Francis Collins, Director of the Human Genome Project.
“Among German historians, there’s really not much debate about whether or not Hitler was a social Darwinist. He clearly was drawing on Darwinian ideas,” said Weikart, a professor of modern European history at California State University, Stanislaus.
Ann Coulter, a bestselling author and popular conservative columnist, said Hitler “was applying Darwinism. He thought the Aryans were the fittest and he was just hurrying natural selection along.”
The new program explains that the social fallout from evolution is not limited to Hitler. Eugenics is also part of Darwin’s legacy. Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton, founded the eugenics movement and campaigned for “judicious marriages” in order to breed a superior race of humanity.
“The legacy of Charles Darwin,” said Dr. Kennedy, is “millions of deaths, the destruction of those deemed ‘inferior,’ the devaluing of human life, and increasing hopelessness. Darwin’s legacy has been deadly indeed.”
“The time has come,” he said, “to recognize that evolution is a bad idea and should be, frankly, discarded into the dustbin of history.”
Coral Ridge Ministries has also published a companion book to the television special, Evolution’s Fatal Fruit: How Darwin’s Tree of Life Brought Death to Millions, which examines the social consequences of Darwin’s theory. Written by Tom DeRosa, Executive Director of the Creation Studies Institute (an outreach of Coral Ridge Ministries), the book explains how Hitler tried to use genocide to speed up evolution and reveals how the American eugenics movement is likewise indebted to Darwin.
The statements made by those in the documentary preview are, well, pretty much lies. It’s irresponsible to connect murder with natural selection. Let’s all be clear, scientific study and critical thought about evolutionary processes are not in themselves precursors to murderous behaviors. Natural selection is just the opposite; it’s about life reproducing, not death.
Darwin’s Deadly Legacy glaringly promotes common misconceptons about evolution. DAVID P. BARASH in his article, The Case for Evolution, in Real Life (THE CHRONICLE REVIEW April 7, 2006; Pg. 10 Vol. 52 No. 31), provides some eloquent clarifications:
[misconception:] “Evolutionary logic is circular: The fittest are those that survive, and those that survive are the fittest. So it doesn’t say anything.”
[clarification]: First, natural selection is not about survival, but reproduction: specifically, individuals’ and genes’ reproducing themselves. Survival is evolutionarily important because and only because it contributes to reproduction. Second, “fitness” does not determine natural selection; rather, natural selection is the unavoidable result of how “fit” something is, which is to say, how successful it is in promoting its genes. Fitness leads to the important prediction that natural selection favoring a particular type should result in a larger proportion of that type in future populations. This prediction has been repeatedly tested and confirmed.
[misconception:] “Natural selection is just a negative process; it cannot create anything new.”
[clarification:] Natural selection is only “negative” in that certain individuals and their genes fall by the evolutionary wayside in preference to others, which prosper. But evolution is not merely a question of deleting those organisms that are less fit; because of mutation (which provides genetic novelty) and sexual reproduction (which combines DNA in unique ways), new genetic material is constantly being produced. And much depends on this regular generation of genetic diversity, on the world being, as the poet Louis MacNeice put it, “incorrigibly plural.” In his poem “Snow,” MacNeice went on to feel “the drunkenness of things being various,” a variousness that is essential as the building blocks from which evolution constructs those things that we identify as highly adapted organisms, including ourselves.
Nonetheless, the video does bring up evolution’s image as a long-heralded relationship with Darwin. It speaks to a point in history when social “selection” carried a premium in popular culture. What images do you have of evolution and evolutionary biology? It’s unfortunate that social “Darwinism” is linked to evolution processes in nature. This is not to say that we aren’t a part of nature, but the points of view expressed in the documentary seems to exclude every other organism except us. The show is also disingenuous because the actors use “survival of the fittest”, a social metaphor, as an unscientific description of evolution. Having seen only the preview, I still think it is safe to say that Darwin’s Deadly Legacy mischaracterizes and distorts evolution and evolutionary biology to serve their marketing goals- which are, clearly, to position Protestant religion as the “market leader” for explanations of living systems and origins.
Creationist propaganda video Darwin’s Deadly Legacy
wikipedia entry for “survival of the fittest”
wikipedia entry describing evolutionary theory
Public Acceptance of Evolution: Science magazine article
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/313/5788/765
August 21, 2006 at 3:58 am · Filed under Uncategorized
Here is a story about the challenges and benefits of teaching evolution. Note how the intro to the story emphasizes visual and pursuasive culture. The associated article following the story is all about using visual appeal to attract students to the content.
Teaching Teaching Evolution in the Era of Biology
August 20, 2006 at 11:02 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
iBiology.net “… allows users to reflect on and perforate the low visibility of patents which draw on recent biotechnological practice.”
visit iBiology.net
I believe Tactical Advisor: Ricardo Dominguez will also be at UM this fall…
see also Google Maps: Genome Edition
August 20, 2006 at 10:58 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
I just found out gabrielharp.com is linked to Stephen Wilson’s: Conceptual Design/Info Arts Links
It’s tagged as “reflections on evolution.” nice.
There’s a huge list there of biology-infused art on the web. Take a look. You have to scroll down some to find the listings, but it’s very complete- a great index.
