Fast rational response to aforementioned creationist stupidity

It didn't take long for the Swedish scientific and skeptic community to answer the hideously misguided article I described in my previous post. Soon after I'd written my post here no less than three rebukes, by Patrick Lindenfors, Per Edman and Lars Johan Erkell, surfaced on Newsmill. Links here, here and here (in Swedish).

>>Update March 8 - There's also this summary from evolutionsteori.se (also in Swedish).

All three articles rebuke the ridiculous claim often made by creationists that it's not "allowed" to question Darwin, by rightfully pointing out that there are no holy cows in science and that Darwin, who lived more than a century ago, couldn't possibly have gotten the whole story right. Evolutionary science is a living and developing beast. Those who really "question Darwin" and bring evolutionary science forwards do so from the field, the lab bench and the pages of scientific journals, not from religious fundamentalist think tanks.

Lindenfors and Erkell also focus on the so-called "icons of evolution", Haeckel's embryos, Darwin's finches and the four-winged fruit flies, that supposedly don't confirm evolution at all according to the creationists. Well, evolution doesn't stand and fall on individual examples, and as especially Erkell is skilled at pointing out, the research behind the latter two examples was not done in order to confirm or invalidate evolutionary theory, but rather to explore particular mechanisms.

Let it be a lesson. Don't commit the foolishness of not accepting evolution simply because you cannot see it happening in front of your eyes.

Swedish blog tags: Pseudovetenskap, Kreationism, Newsmill, Claphaminstitutet
Technorati tags: Pseudoscience, Creationism

The creationist stupidity has no end, even in Sweden

Darwin's finches from Journal of researches into the natural history and geology of the countries visited during the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle round the world..." 1845.

We have our share of creationist loonies here in Sweden. I know it's not comparable to the situation in the US, and the sort of religious fundamentalism that breeds creationism is not widespread here, but they do exist and they do raise their weaselly heads from time to time. We have the Christian think-tank "Claphaminstitutet" whose director used to be a member of parliament for the christian democrat party and a candidate for the European parliament in the latest elections; the creationist association "Genesis" which also publishes a magazine; and the "RIL Network" which is behind a sort of Swedish version of Conservapaedia. These organizations are mostly tied to the diverse Swedish pentecostal/evangelical free churches, but there are ties to the old state church Church of Sweden as well.

I have on two occasions participated in the rebuttal to members of Claphaminstitutet on the "come one, come all" op-ed/social media site www.newsmill.se - Answering pseudoscientific claims against evolution, Answering pseudoscientific claims against evolution, again. It's exactly the sort of outlet you'd expect creationists to use: the process of editorial review is very poor or non-existing and they pride themselves on being "pluralistic" and "wide", meaning that they'll let almost any opinion receive prominence regardless of validity. Previously climate-change denialists as well as 9/11 conspiracy theorists have been given space without any sort of editorial critique or fact-check. It's a sort of "laissez faire" approach to journalism I guess. Luckily the comments to these articles have usually been devastatingly critical.

This bring us to yesterday when a third article by fellows from Claphaminstitutet entitled "It must be allowed to question Darwin" was published on Newsmill. The authors rant and rave that evolution is not evidence-based and that the "Darwinian dictatorship of opinion" needs to be stopped.

What then do they present as their argument? It's a doozie. They have dug up Icons of Evolution, a book published eight years ago by known creationist Jonathan Wells, and they present it as if it's somehow news. It's laughable. Icons of Evolution has been refuted times over since it was published in 2002. (Note: Wells first presented his arguments in print as far back as 2000.)

For those who are interested I can recommend this review by none other than Jerry Coyne originally published in Nature, and this review by Kevin Padian and Alan D. Gilshlick from the National Center for Science Education. For those who really want to dig into the subject there's a chapter-by-chapter rebuttal on the NCSE website, also by Alan D. Gilschlick, and another one on talkorigins.org.

Icons of Evolution is structured around ten examples, the "icons" mentioned in the title, that are commonly used in teaching to demonstrate evolutionary processes. In their article, the fellows from Claphaminstitutet select three of these examples - "Heackel's embryos", "Darwin's finches" (see image above) and "four-winged fruit flies" - to argue that evolutionary science has cheated its way into prominence, that's it's not evidence-based and that it doesn't hold up to modern standards of science. This argument is deceptive because these examples were never used as evidence for evolution. They are simply well-known and easy to understand examples of evolutionary processes.

Jerry Coyne wrote in his review:

Wells's book rests entirely on a flawed syllogism: hence, textbooks illustrate evolution with examples; these examples are sometimes presented in incorrect or misleading ways; therefore evolution is a fiction. The second premise is not generally true, and even if it were, the conclusion would not follow.

I really recommend the critical sites I linked to above if you want to learn more about the specific examples, what they really demonstrate and why they are useful when teaching evolution.

Jonathan Wells has published a number of creationist books and is active as a speaker, although obviously he's not a particularly well-received one among scientists. Wells is a fellow of the well-know creationist loony-bin the Discovery Institute and he is also, I assume, the only member of the Unification Church (aka "the moonies") with two PhD:s in Molecular and Cell Biology from UC Berkeley. Obviously some central tenets of his education didn't quite get through. This is an unsurprising but lamentable fact: people will often lack objectivity and hold contradictory views when religion is involved. I know of and I have met several creationists pursuing a higher education in science.

It seems then that Claphaminstitutet has once again drawn a blank. By bringing forward long-refuted claims as news and by ignoring the significant critique against the arguments they present, their efforts appear as nothing else but laughable and self-aggrandizing attempts at agitation, intended for those who are already "believers". Luckily that sort of thing doesn't fly very well in Sweden. They may pat their own backs and think they've dealt a crushing blow, and it's not impossible that they turn a few fence-sitters who have little grasp of the subject. In the end though, they are a pitiful little organization headed by a bunch of aged gentlemen who are not up to date with the reality of scientific findings.

Of course it's justified to rebuke their dishonest and untruthful arguments, but the real fight lies in preventing them from driving their "wedge" into the school system and influencing young students through superficially benevolent christian student organizations and youth groups, a process that is well under way also in Sweden...

Swedish blog tags: Pseudovetenskap, Kreationism, Newsmill, Claphaminstitutet
Technorati tags: Pseudoscience, Creationism

Just got vaccinated

I just went and got vaccinated for the influenza A/H1N1/swine flu here at work. They're skipping schools and universities ahead of everyone else seeing as most of us here are young people who have no previous immunity to this particular type of influenza virus. A few weeks ago I also got the seasonal flu vaccine so I'm feeling pretty well protected this flu season.

There were A LOT of people by the vaccination station. They started handing out queue numbers an hour before they opened this morning and they very quickly ran out. With all the people queuing since this morning and all the newly arriving people it got pretty hectic, but at least when I was there it was running very smoothly. This seems to be a general thing around the country. Luckily a co-worker took an extra queue number that I could have.

So far I feel pretty good. Maybe a very, very slight headache, but there's no telling if it's due to the vaccine or not. I'm expecting my arm to start hurting anytime now though. Not even nearly everyone gets flu symptoms after taking the vaccine, although those who do seem to be very vocal about it, so I'm not worried.

There really is no good reason not to take the vaccine if it's freely available to you. So no matter what kind of pseudoscientific anti-vaccination blaha you've heard, take the time to research the subject a bit before making the right decision... which is to get vaccinated. This is not a completely new vaccine that's been rushed without testing. We have many, many years of experience with influenza vaccines. We know by now that flu vaccines are safe. The only new thing with this vaccine, at least the one we're getting here, is the antigen from the virus itself, as well as one of the adjuvants.

This is as good an opportunity as any to share some of the web resources that I've liked reading regarding the new influenza.

Effect Measure - This blog is written by an epidemiologist and she's very good at updating with all the recent developments as well as at debunking myths and misconceptions. This post in particular is probably one the best things written about swine flu out there.

Swine flu: Cutting Through the Hype - This blog entry from Skepchick explains how most of the "hype" about swine flu is being generated from the pseudo-scientific "woo" side, rather than from the side of medicine and science.

An Epidemic of Fear - This is an article in Wired about the consequences for us all when parents stop vaccinating their kids. Not explicitly about swine flu, but it's relevant.

Flu Hype? - This entry from Daily Kos outlines why this flu season is extraordinarily different from anything, and how the epidemic is tracked.

Is The Swine Flu Vaccine Safe? - This entry from Urban Science Adventures goes through the vaccine itself, how flu vaccines are made and why they're perfectly safe.

This Facebook note has been circulating on FB. There's a whole list of interesting articles, including some from official sources which is great.

It's nice to see knowledgeable people are taking the time to spread the correct information around the web.

Swedish blog tags: Svininfluensan, H1N1, Vaccin
Technorati tags: Swine flu, H1N1, Vaccines, Science

Arctic root revisited

>> This post is slightly delayed since, you know, stuff gets in the way. But better late than never.

A comment on my post "lack of evidence for arctic root "natural medicine" raised a few points that I think are worthy of delving into. I wrote that post quite hastily with the only intention of just mentioning the review by Blomkvist, Taube and Larhammar published in Planta Medica, so it also gives me the opportunity to revisit the subject more in depth.

Firstly, let's state the facts as presented by the comprehensive scientific review of the most recent medical studies of arctic root/roseroot published by Blomkvist et. al.

Six of the seven recent (since 2000) studies that supposedly showed an effect of arctic root/roseroot had significant flaws, including irrelevant comparisons, inappropriate statistical methods, exaggerated conclusions, and mistakes in the presentation of the data. These mistakes go beyond simple holes in the statistics, they are of embarrassingly poor scientific quality.

Some of the problems are quite extraordinary. For instance, Spasov et al. based their final conclusion on a follow-up study that was not described in their article and remains unpublished. Darbinyan et al. claimed to have found a significant improvement over placebo despite contradictory results that they explained away with an unfounded assumption. The second study by Darbinyan et al. used irrelevant tests and an inappropriate statistical comparison. Bystritsky et al. and Fintelman and Gruenwald claim to have observed an effect but did not use a placebo control. Shevtsov et al. is riddled with misprints and mix-ups which make it difficult for the reader to interpret the text and understand the procedure. Also, the use of pulse pressure as a measure for physical fitness is incorrect, and the levels of statistical significance presented in the study appear unreasonably high.

They also reviewed four studies (and two reviews) that had not found any effects of arctic root/roseroot in the same critical way and found no errors, but commented that one of the studies had used a small number of test subjects making it of questionable value.

The Swedish Herbal Institute (SHI henceforth), makers and marketers of arctic root/roseroot preparations, were involved in four of the six flawed studies. Spasov et al. published in 2000; two studies by Darbinyan et al. published in 2000 and 2003; and Shevtsov et al. published in 2003. As exposed in the op-ed in Dagens Nyheter and summarized in my previous post, there were suspicious circumstances surrounding the publication of two of these articles, both co-authored by Georg Wikman of SHI. These circumstances certainly cast a shadow of doubt over the company as a serious research institution. It should be enough to make any reasonably skeptical person realize that there were serious faults committed in both the scientific and editorial processes.

The question is then: How much scrutiny is reasonable? Shouldn't the consumers be allowed to decide for themselves what works for them? Why attack good people and companies that just want to provide people with a product they want?

The first point raised in the comment to my previous post was that small companies, such as the SHI don't have the resources available to big pharmaceutical corporations. They are simply doing the best they can with what they have to discover and market the benefits of natural products. Furthermore they should be commended for their efforts and innovation and for having the guts to invest in this research and for giving something back even though they don't have to.

The second point is that by referring to the name of this particular company, Swedish Herbal Institute, as deceptive I'm doing the company wrong and hurting the nice folks there.

I really find little merit in SHI's supposed "efforts" to do "research". It's pretty clear to anyone that they have not gone through any sort of scientifically satisfying process in generating or publishing their data, despite the ridiculous boasts on their website.

I fail to see how their resources (or lack thereof) or their good will has anything to do with their adherence to proper scientific proceedings. Should those companies that can't afford the proper scientific procedures simply be exempt from them? As if it were optional. And why should they be exempt from critical and scientific scrutiny of their work simply because they are nice caring people who provide a service some people want?

As a minimum, they should not be permitted to promote and market their product with statements such as "clinically proven to enhance energy and improve mental clarity during stressful periods of work or studies" or "proven efficacy in clinical studies published in international scientific journals", which are clear exaggerations of the already unfounded scientific claims. Both statements appear prominently on SHI's website, as exemplified in the image below, and on many national ads.

Currently the Swedish Medical Products Agency lists this arctic root preparation as a so called "traditional herbal medicinal product" (link), meaning that it has been tested for safety but has a very limited scientific foundation, its indications being based only on traditional use for longer than 30 years. This stands in contrast to the claims presented in the marketing of the product.


Ref: www.shi.se

Even if done in good faith, this can only be qualified as deception. Especially now that the scientific faults of the studies have been exposed. The fact that SHI has a commercial interest in the product and continue to promote is under false scientific claims just gives anyone the more reason to be skeptical about their intentions.

As for the second point, the term "institute" is not protected in Sweden, but it would be naive of anyone to deny that both the words "Swedish" and "institute" are sensitive issue when it comes to the naming of companies. A parallel can be drawn to the UK where "British", "English", "Scottish" et.c. and "institute" are protected and are clearly found to "imply national or international pre-eminence" and require the support of representative and independent bodies before they can be approved in a company name (reference).

The name "Swedish Herbal Institute", or "Örtmedicinska Institutet" in Swedish, definitely suggests an official level of prominence that the company doesn't have and is therefore misleading. It deceptively mirrors the names given to national institutes, governing agencies and representative bodies such as Smittskyddsinstitutet (Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control), Konjunkturinstitutet (Swedish National Institute of Economic Research), Folkhälsoinstitutet (Swedish National Institute of Public Health) and others.

They are welcome to continue providing those that feel arctic root works for them with their product, but to do so under the false pretenses that the product has a confirmed clinical effect or that it has gone through the correct scientific testing of the purported effects in the first place is simply unacceptable and worthy of criticism. The fact that the criticism may hurt the company or the people involved in it is irrelevant. In fact, they should welcome the opportunity to defend their statements in the leading morning newspaper of the country and one of the prominent journals in their field, where the criticism has been presented. So far it's been very silent though.

Blomkvist, J., Taube, A., & Larhammar, D. (2009). Perspective on Roseroot Studies
Planta Medica DOI: 10.1055/s-0029-1185720

Swedish blog tags: Pseudovetenskap, Naturmedicin, Rosenrot
Technorati tags: Pseudoscience, Natural medicine, Roseroot, Arctic root, BPSDB

Lack of evidence for arctic root "natural medicine"

Arctic root or roseroot is one of the most common "natural medicines" in the market and it's praised and popularized all over the commercial media. Its purported effects include "giving you energy", making you more alert and awake, helping you handle stress, think faster and counter tiredness and depression. More often than not these extraordinary claims are backed by references to scientific studies, lending credence to the efficiency of the substance.

In an op-ed published today in Swedish daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter a student associated to our lab, her thesis advisor (both statisticians) and my professor review the analyses they have made of the available roseroot studies. The results are not surprising. Out of the 11 studies published in the last ten years the ones that are scientifically relevant show no effects, something that the advertisements fail to mention of course. Out of the ones that do, the vast majority are faulty in several fundamental ways. One very small study could see some significant positive results, but the study would have to be repeated with a larger number of test subjects to be considered reliable.

There are also murky circumstances surrounding some of the positive studies. In one instance several of the authors could not be found in their reported home institutions in Russia, another had left his institution many years ago and yet another institution could not be located at all. The only author that could be contacted is a Swede and the co-founder of the company that fabricates the roseroot pills, the deceptively named Swedish Herbal Institute. He had to admit he had not seen any of the original data in the study. This person is also the co-author of another study that was originally published in Russia. The first author of this original study could be contacted and he had not given his permission to re-publish the article in an English-language journal.

So peddlers of miraculous remedies will resort to dishonest and questionable tactics in order to make money; what else is new? But this does not speak for or against the efficiency of roseroot. There's a delicate distinction that needs to be made. The conclusion of the op-ed is:

We don't claim that roseroot is completely ineffective. It might have an effect in some context - but the question remains which effect and in which context. The scientific studies have shown no convincing results. The unreliable advertisements are worrying.

Quite simply, there is no scientific reason to believe that these "natural medicines" will have the effects they promise.

The statistical analyses that are summarized in the op-ed will be published in the scientific journal Planta Medica. My apologies, the article in Planta Medica has already been published. Link here.

Here are some of the more hilarious comments made on Dagens Nyheter's website. You can always count on the crazies to come running for these things.

I agree that this is just stupid. Don't biologists collect insects with nets, right? Why would a professor in insect-catching know anything about roseroot? And don't statisticians collect people's opinions about the EU-elections for example? What does this have anything to do with roseroot? It's laughable!

It's obvious that everything that comes from nature is completely harmless for us humans since we also come from nature. But chemical substances don't come from nature and are obviously dangerous to us. There are no chemicals in nature, just natural things!

Everything can't be proven right or wrong with "science". People aren't stupid. We make our own research and whatever work we continue using.

Poe's law in action?

Blomkvist, J., Taube, A., & Larhammar, D. (2009). Perspective on Roseroot Studies
Planta Medica DOI: 10.1055/s-0029-1185720

Swedish blog tags: Pseudovetenskap, Naturmedicin, Rosenrot
Technorati tags: Pseudoscience, Natural medicine, Roseroot, Arctic root

Answering peudoscientific claims against evolution, again

The chain of retorts with the Christian think-tank "Claphaminstitutet" continues. After our initial rebuke they responded a month ago with an article entitled "Open and unprejudiced discussion about evolution is needed". It's the typical fare you get from creationists - evolution cannot be observed "in real time" therefore it cannot happen; there are holes in the fossil record therefore evolution cannot happen; genomes consist of fine-tuned "intelligently designed" information therefore evolution cannot happen. They reveal many embarrassingly basic misconceptions and use results that have been either proven wrong or proven to be forgeries as examples. It's a mess. A veritable vortex of stupidity.

Of course this mustn't be. Creationists don't really have widespread popular support in Sweden and I think most people here accept evolution readily because they know and trust it's well founded. But there are religious pockets where it's very predominant - the director of "Claphaminstitutet" is was a member of parliament for the christian democrat party and is now running for the European parliament. In one way or another, the problem exists and must be countered.

So now we published yet another rebuke (in Swedish) addressing their latest claims and pointing out their errors. Right now it's the 4th 3rd most read article on Newsmill. Like our last one it's also going to be published in the magazine of the Swedish Humanist Association - "Humanisten".

I think the most important point we make is that the evidence for evolution is gathered from many different types of observations from many different fields - systematics, embryology, biogeography, paleontology, genetics, behavioral science, you name it. The consilience of the observations is what makes evolutionary theory solid. This ties back to the creationists' claim that holes in the fossil record falsifies evolutionary theory. Evolution doesn't rest on individual findings in individual fields. To falsify it would require groundbreaking findings or completely revolutionary reinterpretations in a multitude of these fields. In the end the burden of proof lies with them. So step up and do the work or shut up!

And what do you make of that preposterous title? The call for "openness" to the unknown and "humility" in the face of the mystery of nature (or whatever) is a common trick from creationists to detract from the fact that their arguments just don't hold up. I find it so puzzling that it should be considered "humble" to bypass all critical review and consider completely unfounded claims to be of the same dignity as sound scientific conclusions. How many "alternative" explanations would we have to consider then? It's dumbfounding.

We'll wait and see if there's another round.

Swedish blog tags: Pseudovetenskap, Kreationism, Newsmill, Claphaminstitutet
Technorati tags: Pseudoscience, Creationism

Answering peudoscientific claims against evolution

I've contributed to an article rebuking pseudoscientific claims on major Swedish news commentary/opinion website newsmill.se - Pseudovetenskaplig evolutionskritik (Pseudoscientific criticism of evolution). It's an answer to an article published on the same website a week ago by three fellows of the Christian think tank Claphaminstitutet - Evolutionsteorien får allt svagare stöd ju mer vi vet om universum (Evolutionary theory gets less and less support the more we know about the universe). The main author is a physician, docent in anesthesiology and intensive care medicine, and the two contributors are a physicist and a docent in numerical analysis.

It's telling that the authors, despite their advanced degrees, don't know better than to express themselves with authority in a subject that they don't master. The piece is nothing but religious fanaticism thinly veiled behind ridiculously faulty and misleading conceptions about evolution and genetics. It's the same teleological arguments and argumentum ad ignorantiam that we've come to get used to from creationists and evolution denialists. Astonishingly they also present facts that are in perfect concordance with evolutionary theory, in fact predicted by it, as if they were evidence against evolution. For instance the fact that advantageous mutations are less frequent than deleterious mutations, the fact that so called "junk DNA" is expressed even though it doesn't have a function and the fact that artificial selection (breeding) works faster than natural selection.

What makes this outburst even more noteworthy is that the first author was given space on the debate page of a nationwide evening newspaper to claim that "alternative views" to evolution are being unfairly withheld from the public and that many of evolutionary science's claims are the result of forgery and scientific fraud.

Creationism is widespread in the Swedish evangelical "free church" movement, in particular within their youth and student groups which is how they sneak their way into the educational system. But relatively speaking, Sweden is spared from the more outspoken and mass-appealing strains of creationism that you get in the US. This doesn't mean that there aren't smaller organizations that sometimes do act out and demand public attention. I've blogged before about a representative from the literalistic evangelical organization Genesis, and now then we hear from this so called "Christian think tank".

My position on the rebuke of pseudoscientific claims is generally that one should try to avoid directly countering their proponents. I don't particularly enjoy doing it or reading about it. It's simply too exasperating and often leads nowhere. I'm more interested in the dissemination of scientific information to the general public and correcting or amending the misconceptions or gaps in knowledge that might be out there. But I think that in this case both things coincided and given the potential for attention that this media outlet has, I was only happy to contribute.

Swedish blog tags: Pseudovetenskap, Kreationism, Newsmill, Claphaminstitutet
Technorati tags: Pseudoscience, Creationism

I'll tell you why

I got this (anonymous) comment to one of my recent posts countering creationist claims.

But why so terribly arrogant? If you believe you are right, some humility would make it better. The way it is now, it appears to be along the line of "when the arguments are weak, speak louder".

This is a fairly common response to vocal scientists countering any kind of pseudoscientific claims. I see it over and over and on occasion, like now, I have it aimed at myself. First of all it's really rather tiring and, just for the record, I don't think my retort was very arrogant at all. But putting that aside, it's the sort of critique from the peanut gallery that has little validity to the question at hand.

If there are two mutually incompatible views, they cannot possibly both be right. When one of them is nothing but misleading illiterate nonsense, ignorant distortion of facts or outright dismissal of them, it just doesn't merit the kind of "humble" and respectful response advocated by those who feel scientists are too arrogant. In this case, the kind of creationism I countered in my posts deserves nothing but the ridicule and severe rebuke it got. To approach it "humbly" would be to play right into the creationists' hands. It would be to concede that both views are equal and deserve equal attention and respect and that they play on an even field, which is 100% not the case. True humility is to approach questions of science unprejudiced and objectively, which creationists most certainly don't. Who are the arrogant ones?

As I wrote in my retort's concluding remarks;

This [creationism] is not about challenging science. This is not about wanting to bring science forward. This is not about one scientific view arguing with another. It's so very easy to forget that. This is about religious proselytes wanting to destroy a product of rational thought because it challenges their deeply held world-views. For all the science that is involved, for all that I have written in these entries, in the end this is about fanatics wanting to tell us all how we should lead our lives because they patronizingly feel that they have the moral authority to do so. No scientific theory pretends to do the same. The mere thought is utterly ridiculous. But by arguing like this, creationists want to take down evolutionary theory to their playing field. It's important that we don't lose sight of that.

So really, who are the arrogant ones?

Creationists thrive on the "when the arguments are weak, speak louder"-argument and they love nothing more than playing the underdog card whenever they can. Unfortunately a large portion of the general public plays along with their dishonest outcries for humility. When I said that the critique presented in the above quoted comment was not valid to the question at hand, I meant it, but that doesn't mean to say that I don't take it seriously. It is of course unfortunate if the scientific rebukes are seen as arrogant by the general public and if they only reinforce the view of creationists as underdogs. This is often coupled with the fact that scientists speak out from a position of authority, which in any situation is readily mistaken for arrogance. But the solution is definitely not to concede to their tactics and give the impression that science and creationism offer equally valid explanations. The solution is to bridge the disconnect between science and scientific thinking and the general public. It's maybe in that department that those of us who vehemently rebuke pseudoscientific claims have failed. But ultimately dreck is dreck and it needs to be called out on it, forcefully and vocally.

Swedish blog tags: Pseudovetenskap, Kreationism
Technorati tags: Pseudoscience, Creationism

Retort to a creationist lecture pt. 3

This is the third and last post in a series examining the lecture given by creationist author Anders Gärdeborn this past February 14 at Uppsala Universitet, by invitation from evangelical christian student organization Credo.

So finally I get to post the last part of my retort. Most of it has been done for quite a while, I just needed a little time to finish off the very last part. The other posts in the series have been:

First thoughts on yesterday's creationist lecture here in Uppsala
Retort to a creationist lecture pt. 1
Retort to a creationist lecture pt. 2

I'll now continue reviewing Gärdeborn's presentation of so called scientific evidence against evolution. Concluding my examination with what I think are the two most interesting fallacies creationists make - the distinction between "microevolution"/"macroevolution" and the concept of "biological information".

Evolution "within kinds"

In yet another line of misleading statements about evolution, Gärdeborn means to say that "evolutionists" have drawn conclusions from the existing biological diversity that are unreasonable. He wants to separate the "how" and the "why" in science and says that we would probably agree as far as the "how" goes, it's evolutionary theory's "why" he has a problem with. In other words he means to say that in the descriptive study of the diversity of organisms and organismal complexity we have taken too many liberties when drawing conclusions as to how the diversity and complexity have come about. He gives an example: "Bacteria become resistant, therefore we come from bacteria". Gärdeborn might think that this is a pithy point with rhetorical finesse, but I have a hard time imagining a clunkier or more confused distortion of scientific thought, much less a more willfully mean-spirited one.

Gärdeborn cannot deny that some biological change takes places, but that it happens through natural selection acting on diversity is to him "only a theory". That all life has a common ancestry he calls a "philosophy". That last remark merits a little sidetrack. All organisms on earth, that we know of, have the same nucleic acids in their DNA as well as the same orientation on their amino acids, one out of two possible. This and some other well-known properties of life makes the scenario of one common ancestor the most likely one by far.

Back to the point. It's not surprising that creationists recognize some form of evolution. After all, there are many examples of biological change through evolutionary processes that lie within the time frames that are easily manageable to our thought. These are difficult to deny, even for creationists. Examples are how bacteria become resistant to antibiotics and how we have bred different breeds of dogs. The advocates of creationism have even made up a word for these more visible processes - "microevolution" - one assumes to avoid the concession of calling it just evolution, quite simply. It's quite puzzling that somehow it's allowed for evolutionary theory to explain how a poodle and a German shepherd had a common ancestor, but not how humans and chimpanzees could have had the same. The criteria for this division have no scientific grounds whatsoever. "Microevolution" and "macroevolution" are the same thing.

What's remarkable about Gärdeborn's presentation is how far he's ready to extend "microevolution" into time frames that are well within the realms of the "macroevolution" that creationists so categorically negate. He describes an evolution "within kinds" caused by some sort of pre-programmed "genetic potential" that he fails to describe more closely. God created the "kinds" and after the deluge, when they repopulated earth, they diversified into the species we observe today. (By the way, this is his explanation of how two of every animal could fit in the ark. They were two of every original "kind", not species.) Gärdeborn affirms assuredly that in nature "animals exist within determined groups" and gives canids as an example. He says that there are "waterproof bulkheads" between the groups ("there are no half-people") but that variation can arise within the groups through "microevolution". It would be interesting to know why such a large and diverse group as the canids can be seen as a waterproof grouping while such a small one as the apes cannot. At the core of this reasoning is the fallacy of thinking that evolution has happened as transitions between the species of today.

The canids include dogs, wolves, foxes, coyotes, dingos, jackals, African wild dogs and a variety of other species. According to modern science, they arose from the miacides, a sort of dog- and bear-like carnivores, about 40 million years ago, relatively early in the evolution of mammals. This is supported with fossil, morphological, genetic and protein data. The evolution of the great apes goes back approximately 14 million years but still their (or I should say, our) evolution is regarded as an unacceptable "macroevolution" while the 40-million-year-old evolution of canids is an acceptable "variation within kinds". Of course creationists don't recognize the evolutionary time scales, but even if we just take the genetic and molecular data into account, the difference between a fox and a wolf is far greater than the difference between a human and a chimpanzee. Gärdeborn counters this as it's presented to him during the questions and answers session after his lecture. He says that evolutionary theory incorrectly assumes that likeness is due to common ancestry. But isn't this the same thing one has to assume to speak of "microevolution" within "kinds"? Where, one might ask, is the logic between this distinction between "micro-" and "macro-"?

The answer is of course that the creationist "kinds" have no scientific validity whatsoever. Fact is that all divisions into species and genera and so on are purely artificial... of course. Species don't exist in and by themselves in nature so that we might "discover" them. They are divisions we have invented in order to describe nature systematically in a way which we might find useful. Our order- and structure-obsessed brain reveals itself once more. It's important to note that this sort of division is not without its problems. Species and even larger divisions such as genera and families can be significantly blurry around the edges and difficult to determine precisely.

Biological "information"

Gärdeborn's last great argument is the one of biological "information". It refers mainly to the genetic code and how specific sequences of nucleotides are translated into specific sequences of amino acids making up proteins with different functions. "Information" is a monster of a concept, so clouded by lay interpretations, misunderstandings and alternative definitions that I sometimes question if it's even useful in biology or relevant in the creationistm vs. evolution debate. What's apparent is that the term has been adopted by creationists first hand, not by biologists.

What creationists, among them Gärdeborn, even mean when they refer to information or how they suggest it could be measured is still in the dark. Whatever it is they mean, it seems to be a vague and somewhat metaphysical quality that you somehow recognize when you see it. Gärdeborn reflects exactly such a conception in his formulations: "We need information". "Information can never be derived from energy and matter, it's something more". They might not say it straight out, but it becomes painfully clear that what they mean with information is purpose and design, nothing else. There must be a consciousness and an objective behind it, otherwise it's not information because it wouldn't be informative. Gärdeborn expresses this as - "information requires an informer and an intended receiver". Consequently the creationist conception of information has been defined from the beginning as something that necessitates a creator. This is nothing more that the argument from personal incredulity or ignorance again. Just as creationists can't comprehend how organisms can be so apparently purposeful without being designed by a higher power, they can't comprehend how the genetic code can be so well-determined without a willfully inserted information. Science understands how this is possible and evolutionary theory has provided us with the answers that we have.

That's not to say that there aren't any scientific definitions of information. Most of them lie within computer science and IT and have to do with how information is sent and received. The definition that is most applicable to the genetic code was made by mathematician Claude Shannon and outlined in the 1948 article A Mathematical Theory of Communication. According to Shannon, information can be defined through probability. A high content of information is linked to a high improbability. Our genomes could then be said to be carriers of information since it would be very improbable that they would assemble into such a precise sequence of nucleotides all on its own. It bears the mark of improbability. But this "mark" doesn't need a supernatural explanation. It's natural selection that has shaped the causal relationship between genetic sequences and function.

The question that remains to be answered is whether or not the concept of information, in the scientific sense of the word, is applicable to genetic sequences. It's undeniably very inviting to define that which is "encoded" in our genomes as information, as instructions to how our bodies should be built and function, since it's a term that is easily understood in everyday terms and that ably attempts to describe how genomes function. But it carries with it a series of problems. The information is not really there. Whatever can be "interpreted" from genetic sequences doesn't really have a "language", none of the grammar or syntax that creationists seem so eager to point out is there. Instead, it is DNA's physical and chemical structure that create the causal relation to its function. The concept of information is nothing but a projection of our brains' preference for structure and organization on a process that can best be described as a causal relation.

The concept of information is something that we more or less "force" upon genetic sequences in order to describe it, and not a property of it in itself. In the best of cases it can help us visualize the process in a readily understandable way. But it the worst of cases it very easily leads to serious misunderstandings and misinterpretations.

The creationist definition of information (that from the beginning assumes there is an all-powerful informator) and the scientific definition of information (one of them) overlap to a certain extent, but for the most part they are completely incompatible. It's unfortunate that sometimes the term is used to retort to creationist argument without defining it clearly first. This is definitely true in the case of the creationist claim that evolutionary theory can't explain how new information can arise, which Gärdeborn brings up. He is unconvinced that evolutionary theory can explain how completely new organs or structures arise. The creationist definition of information is made so that it automatically confirms this claim. Innovation, it seems, must come from god.

It's difficult to argue against such a bluntly one-sided challenge. But with a solid understanding of evolution and of genetics it's not very difficult to understand how new information arises and is passed from generation to generation if it confers advantages to its "carrier". Duplications of individual genes, larger blocks of DNA, even whole pieces of chromosomes or whole genomes, are an important motor in evolution. Whole genome duplications are very common in plants, where new variants and species may come to be very quickly, but they have also occurred several times in animals.

Duplication of a gene enables one of the copies to change over time at a faster pace that the other copy since the original function can be preserved. The copy is a "buffer" of sorts for innovation. It's been proven many times over that this has been an important contributor to the introduction of "new information" in evolution. Creationists claim that this isn't true innovation since it builds upon something that's already there. This reveals a deep ignorance on how evolution works. All innovation generated by evolutionary processes has happened through small stepwise changes, over an immensely long period of time, of something that's already there. I would be hard pressed to find evidence anywhere of a genetic sequence with a determined function that has just appeared out of nothing. In short it means that genetic sequences can be "kidnapped" into fulfilling other functions than the one it was originally adapted to. This principle has received the unfortunate term "preadaptation", with its teleological undercurrents, but it can also be called co-option. This gets a larger throughput in a scenario where a duplication has occurred and the "redundant" genetic material can be "kidnapped" into carrying out a new function.

What creationists also fail to see is that even if both copies change at the same rate and don't evolve into different directions, a duplication might still confer advantages to the organism since it increases the amount of gene product. This is also an introduction of "new information".

The demonization of evolutionary theory

I won't dedicate a lot of time to the more extraordinary claims and interpretations made during Gärdeborns more theological second half of the presentation. Suffice it to say that it was suggested that the earth is 10,000 years old, that the grand canyon was created by something like a volcanic eruption, that Neanderthals had rickets (osteomalacia) due to vitamin D sufficiency, that all animals were vegetarian until the original sin introduced death and that we conserve a "collective memory" of the deluge. The last claim was corroborated by the Chinese symbol for "boat" which apparently is made up of the symbols for "eight", "people" and "container". There were eight people in the ark. Do you feel that eerie tingle down your spine yet? Yeah, me either.

Crazyness aside, what really infuriates me to no end is creationists insistence on demonizing evolutionary theory with distasteful, inequitable and untrue claims. Gärdeborn had no qualms in explaining that his purpose was to discredit evolutionary theory because he sees it as an obstacle in humanity's way towards finding god. First of all, what nerve! What incredible condescension! He continued this despicable preachy streak by affirming that evolution undermined the notion of all people's equal worth. Since god created man to his own image, man has a special place and all human beings have equal value. So in effect Gärdeborn claimed that evolution, by "demoting" humans to mere apes, promotes death, racism and willfully undermines compassion, solidarity and morality. God on the other hand doesn't want death (he merely allows it?) but is a god of life and love and compassion.

Many people that are much more versed than me have answered to these ridiculous claims so I won't even try to. I'll leave it to you to make your own judgment. I feel I've spent too much energy and time on this already. But I wanted to conclude with the above paragraph because I think that it illuminates what this whole discussion is about. This is not about challenging science. This is not about wanting to bring science forward. This is not about one scientific view arguing with another. It's so very easy to forget that. This is about religious proselytes wanting to destroy a product of rational thought because it challenges their deeply held world-views. For all the science that is involved, for all that I have written in these entries, in the end this is about fanatics wanting to tell us all how we should lead our lives because they patronizingly feel that they have the moral authority to do so. No scientific theory pretends to do the same. The mere thought is utterly ridiculous. But by arguing like this, creationists want to take down evolutionary theory to their playing field. It's important that we don't lose sight of that.

Swedish blog tags: Vetenskap, Evolution, Biologi, Pseudovetenskap, Kreationism
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Retort to a creationist lecture pt. 2

This is the second post in a series examining the lecture given by creationist author Anders Gärdeborn this past Thursday at Uppsala Universitet, by invitation from evangelical christian student organization Credo.

Now, with the introduction out of the way, I will continue by examining what Gärdeborn presented as, in his view, solid scientific arguments against evolution. I have, as far as possible, tried to formulate my text without giving Gärdeborn too much credit for them as these are in no way new arguments, nor are they his. They have been for a long time, and they continue to be, part of the general creationist discourse.

For the sake of order, I have grouped them roughly under the headings "the structured universe", "the 'devolution' of nature", "evolution 'within kinds'" and "biological information". I had planned on examining all four of them in one post, but since I want to be quite meticulous and I'm busy working on a shorter print version of this essay in Swedish, I'm choosing to publish the first two in advance.

The structured universe

The first supposedly scientific argument is hilariously outdated. Gärdeborn formulated it something like - "the universe is finely calibrated and full of complex structure, ergo it has to have an intelligent designer behind it!" We know that this is nothing but the old fallacious argument from incredulity, but it's worth examining it a bit further with regard to this apparent "structure" he was talking about. The word "structure" in this case being used instead of the one chiefly used by creationists - design. "If there is a design, there must be a designer!"

This cognitive fallacy can be beautifully illustrated by the well-known and often quoted anecdote involving philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein:

W. and his companion are on a stroll through Cambridge.

"Tell me", says W., "why do people always say it was natural for man to assume that the Sun went round the Earth rather than that the Earth was rotating [around the sun]?"

"Why?" said his surprised interlocutor, "well, obviously, because it just looks as though the Sun is going round the Earth."

"Hmm", retorted W., "well, what would it have looked like if it had looked as though the Earth was rotating [around the sun]?"

In our particular situation Wittgenstein might just as well have asked, "what would the universe have looked like if it had looked as though it had no structure?" The answer is the same: it would have looked no different.

Some logical fallacies are errors of perspective. The way something appears to us can be regarded as a property of that something we are observing; we automatically assume this in practically everything we do. But this property, the way it appears, is also interesting in itself because it reflects an implicit property of that to which it appears, us. In other words we might say that the universe looks as though it's organized and structured simply because we are looking for organization and structure in the universe. It's the method our brains use to describe our surroundings to us in a way that we can find useful. The fact that we have a penchant for observing structures and patterns in the biological world is a reflection of us, not it. It's a bias in our thinking which is also inevitably mirrored in our language. Even the most experienced and senior scientist might express wonder at the structure of that which he or she is studying, but a scientist realizes that this structure, this purposeful organization, is only apparent. Our brains and in extension our language and preferred choice of words might deceive and mislead us more than we usually are able to acknowledge.

I can only say that it's unfortunate that Gärdeborn did not read up a little more on the basics of cognitive neuroscience before embarrassing himself by falling into such an easily avoidable fault.

The "devolution" of nature

While still on the subject of structure, Gärdeborn misrepresents evolution as a linear process through which "things with structure develop from things with less structure." This is a totally unfounded oversimplification. Deviously, creationists only use it because it serves their purpose. It's a classical straw man - they misrepresent their opponent's position so that it's easier to refute. But as it turns out, even this misrepresentation is not an easy one to counter.

While evolutionary processes have indeed increased the complexity of organisms over evolutionary time, this is in no way an intrinsic property of evolution itself. In fact, evolution has decreased complexity many times. One of the most poignant examples being parasitic organisms, many of which have lost structures and functions in comparison with their free-living counterparts. The parasitic bacteria in the genus Mycoplasma, for example, have lost their external cell walls as well as most of their metabolic pathways as a part in their adaptation to the highly specialized conditions within their hosts. This is seen in their genomes; Mycoplasmas have some of the smallest ones observed in any organism.

At the core of this misleading definition of evolution is then a serious problem. In order to affirm that evolution goes from less structure (or lower complexity) to more structure (or higher complexity) you have to suppose that evolution has a predestined goal. But not only that; as a result of this false assumption you would have to suppose that organisms which exhibit less complexity are less evolved. Of course no biologist would ever suppose this, it's not only the greatest but also the most easily avoidable fallacy you can make in evolutionary thought, as any good high-school biology textbook will tell you. Yet this is what Gärdeborn proclaims evolutionary scientists do. What poor understanding.

The reason it's so common to ascribe goal and intention to evolutionary processes is simply that we have a hard time describing or understanding evolution in other terms. This is another way in which our language misleads us. Within the world of research, we all of course know what we really mean to say.

What is Gärdeborn getting at then? What purpose does this flawed definition of evolution serve? This is the old "second-law-of-thermodynamics-argument" against evolution, maybe the silliest and most simple-minded argument creationists have ever used. The argument owes its recent revival to mathematician and intelligent design proponent Granville Sewell who, in the beginning of the decade, published a couple of articles on the matter. Articles that have subsequently been panned by serious biologists, physicists and mathematicians alike.

The second law of thermodynamics states, in one of its simplified forms, that natural processes in a system only can lead to the increase in the entropy of the system. Entropy being a sort of measure of "disorder" or lack of complexity. "But wait a minute now! How can evolution then increase the complexity of living organisms!? Wouldn't that decrease the entropy?" Believe it or not, that is the entire argument. Since nobody doubts the veracity of the second law, it must be evolution that is false.

I've already established that evolution does not necessarily lead to organisms with higher complexity than their ancestors. But even if we assumed that it always does, the second law of thermodynamics is only valid for closed systems. Earth imports energy from the sun and thus contributes to the total entropy of the universe. In the same way, organisms import energy in order to sustain themselves, decreasing their own local entropy, but at the same time contribute to the increase in the total entropy of their surroundings. Neither earth nor living organisms are closed systems.

The way creationists usually respond to this fact is by invoking the argument from incredulity again, saying that the fact that organisms can import energy, and thus supposedly "break" the second law, is so unlikely that it simply must mirror an purposeful design. This in fact makes the "second-law-of-thermodynamics-argument" a non-argument. As comically ridiculous as it is, creationists are still using it.

Aside from the fact that it negatesitself, it's a particularly bad argument because it's merely a rhetorical one, not a scientific one. By appealing to our "common sense" and our own observations of nature, and not least to our cognitive bias towards structure and purposefulness, creationists try to win us over. "Surely", they'll say, "you must notice that in nature everything has a tendency to break down, not to be built up, as evolutionists tell you. Nature devolves, it doesn't evolve." It's devious, it's misguided and it's not science. The second law is not about probabilities or common sense, it's about thermodynamics and entropy. Creationists can either produce an entropy calculation showing that evolution breaks the second law, which is impossible, or they can shut up. That's my modest advice.

Edited February 21. Thanks to SK for pointing out an error.

Swedish blog tags: Vetenskap, Evolution, Biologi, Pseudovetenskap, Kreationism
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Retort to a creationist lecture pt. 1

This is the first post in a series examining the lecture given by creationist author Anders Gärdeborn this past Thursday at Uppsala Universitet, by invitation from evangelical christian student organization Credo.

First of all, thanks to those of you who noted my last post by linking on their blogs, on www.evolutionsteori.se and on the VoF forum. Much appreciated.

Just as I questioned whether or not it was worth going to the creationist lecture in the first place, I'm now questioning whether or not it's worth taking the time to write this essay. In my experience, no active advocate of creationism is going to be persuaded by scientific evidence no matter how logically, coherently or pedagogically it's presented. They deal in ignorance, deception, incoherence and misdirection; finding so called "evidence" for their outrageously faulty claims, always made on faulty grounds, only after they've decided what it is they want evidence for. When proven wrong on one particular point, they just coolly move on to the next piece of ridiculous "evidence", unyielded and unconvinced, leaving sound arguments either unheard or unheeded. To argue against an avid creationist is a Sisyphean task if there ever was one.

Still, I've decided that it is worth countering Anders Gärdeborn's embarrassing display, not because I ever expect or even hope to convince him, those that invited him to speak, or any creationist for that matter, but because I feel it's worth informing those who can see through the creationist dreck but don't quite have all the knowledge to understand exactly why it is dreck. Gärdeborns lecture lends itself to this purpose since it brings up almost all of the misinformed creationist arguments. Besides, I love biology and hate to see it misused and misinterpreted.

As I mentioned in my first impressions of the lecture, I did take notes the whole time. But as the fusillade of unfounded pseudoscience fired at the audience was far quicker than my pen, I didn't get everything down. Therefore, and because I fear that this essay is going to be long enough already, I'm only going to focus on the most alarmingly bad misconceptions and misinterpretations. Whether or not these are honest misconceptions or deliberate lies in Anders Gärdeborn's case is a question I leave open.

I've divided this essay into three parts: a commentary on Gärdeborn's introduction, a critical review of his so called "scientific" arguments against evolution as presented in the first half of the lecture, and finally an examination of the creationist claims made in the second half of the lecture.

Let's get started then...

Evolution as a faith-based worldview

Gärdeborn started the presentation in a decidedly evangelical tone, almost preaching to the auditorium, lamenting the fact that young people had "thrown out the bible" because the belief that science has proven the bible wrong has invaded the popular thought. One of the very first slides he showed contrasted the "evolutionary worldview" with the creationist worldview, drawing direct lines from atheism to evolutionary thought and from theism to creationism. A preposterous proposition seeing as many of those of us who accept evolution also are believers. I'm not, but that's beside the point. Even though the emergence of evolutionary thought made it possible to have a conception of the world and our existence within it that didn't require the presence of a supernatural almighty being, adopting an evolutionary point of view does not automatically make you atheist.

At one point he argued that it is no less faithful to not believe in god than it is to believe in god. I think a fair number of people could agree with him on this, only that this is not an argument neither for nor against evolution. It's a complete non sequitur. But by arguing in this way early in his presentation Gärdeborn quickly established what he structures his arguments around: he aims to equalize creationism and "evolutionism", as creationists so maliciously and misleadingly call it, as worldviews with equal grounds. This is the first monumental mistake that he makes.

Evolution is not a worldview. "Evolutionism" is a devious rhetorical trick-word creationists use to make evolutionary theory appear as a collection of beliefs and opinions, or values even. Evolutionary theory is no such thing. (At this point he is not yet talking about the supposed negative moral implications of "evolutionism", but he'll get there soon enough.) Gärdeborn's definition of evolutionary theory as the "worldview evolutionists use to interpret scientific results", is telling of his ignorance, willful or not, of the stringency that underlies the scientific process. Evolutionary theory generates scientific results and allows us to make testable predictions. He talked about "creationist glasses" and "evolutionist glasses", trying to make the point that both views depend equally on faith; you interpret scientific results based on what "glasses" you're wearing. This is just another way of falsely equating evolutionary thought, which is based on observation, experimentation and logical inference, with creationism, which is not.

Revelation

What is creationism based on then? Next Gärdeborn proceeded to exalt the value of revelation as a means of acquiring knowledge. Yes, you read that right - revelation. He compared it to the knowledge that a child gets from its parents or teachers; god, of course, being the ultimate parent and teacher. A metaphor so inane it almost collapses into its own vacuum. In a logical tumble, which I'm sure he himself thinks is fully plausible but that any sensible and reasonable person finds ridiculous, he affirms that since no human being was present at the moment of creation, no human being can state anything about it, only god can, his god, the christian god, because he was the only one present. Therefore only creation can account for the origin of life, not evolution. This is a puzzling argument seeing as the matter of the origin of life is best left to biochemistry, even though evolutionary thought can inform the theories that exist.

Another problem that Gärdeborn seems to have with evolution, and with science in general it seems, is that it's changing it's damned mind all the time, making the argument that this makes science just as subjective as the interpretations of the so called revealed word. Once again he's trying to equate the scientific process to creationism using faulty grounds. I guess it's so much easier to only learn something once instead of, you know, having to be updating your knowledge as science advances. Bo-oring! He only in passing acknowledges that science is supposed to review itself as new empirical evidence is gathered while reviews of the revealed word are based solely on someone sitting down by a desk thinking really, really hard. And naturally he completely fails to observe that evolutionary thought underlies many of the advancements that have greatly improved our life quality and increased our life expectancy, while creationism has yet to come up with a any sort of testable prediction, much less one that results in direct benefits for us.

>>In my next post I will continue this essay by addressing the apparent structure in the universe, the intentionally misleading concept of "biological information" and some general creationists misconceptions about evolution.

Swedish blog tags: Vetenskap, Evolution, Biologi, Pseudovetenskap, Kreationism
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First thoughts on yesterday's creationist lecture here in Uppsala

When I first heard that Credo, an evangelical christian student organization, had invited a creationist to speak at the university on the subject of "Intelligent Creationism", I was hesitant about whether I wanted to go or not. Of course it's important to be there to counter creationist arguments, and to actually know what it is they're saying, but I suspected that it would just be the same old misconceptions and lies so I questioned if I really was going to get something out of it or if I would just get angry and frustrated for nothing.

But anyway, I decided to go, and I wasn't surprised. The speaker Anders Gärdeborn brought up little else but the same ridiculous arguments, misconceptions and misinterpretations, exaggerations, faulty logic and outright lies that you've heard over and over, just as I suspected knew. Gärdeborn comes from the fundamentalist and literalistic organization Genesis which claims to "work for a christian view of the sciences and for the biblical view to be heard in the schools and society". The biblical view being that god created earth its creatures and all of the universe in 6 days. (I won't honor them with a link, but if you really want to I'm sure you can Google them. As far as I know the organization is limited to Sweden.)

He focused a lot on "structure" and how the universe and nature was full of it, on how evolutionary theory has not been able to account for the appearance of anything new and on the intentionally misleading and biologically preposterous concept of "information", among many other things. Interestingly, and confusingly, he was prepared to accept some sort of evolution (although of course he would never call it that) "within kinds", giving rise to the variation we see for instance between races of dogs, but attributed it to "pre-programmed genetic potential". It's all terribly confusing, misleading and of course very wrong.

I did take quite extensive notes and as soon as I can take some time I'm going to go over them and write a proper and more detailed entry. But it was difficult to keep up with his sketchy logic and train of argumentation, this man was really firing out crap at an alarming speed - I just couldn't keep up, so my account of the evening is going to focus on a few of the most alarmingly bad misconceptions and lies, not only about evolution but about basic biology. I wish there would have been more physicists and geologists in the auditorium because, even though I have only very basic knowledge in those subjects, I got the nagging suspicion that there were considerable mistakes in his account of those fields as well.

It's also in its place to mention how remarkable it is that the university allows for their facilities and resources to be used for these sort of things. Certainly Credo is a student organization and as such it is affiliated to the university students' union. But the bare minimum that the university should have required was an equal presentation on modern biology and evolutionary science to refute the creationist claims. The university stands for the nurture and dissemination of knowledge, and that was certainly not upheld yesterday. A mere questions and answers session after the presentation is not enough. As my professor pointed out to me as we were talking prior to the presentation: would the university allow for an astrologer or a holocaust-denialist to come and give a lecture at the university's facilities unquestioned? Most certainly not. But under the banner of not discriminating against the christian students I guess it is entirely possible, which is telling of why we're still dealing with this particular brand of counterscientific trash at this level.

Fortunately, most of the audience seemed to be on the critical (read: sensible) side, including christians, with only a few being openly in agreement with what was being presented. The overall feeling I got was that the lecture had been arranged for the benefit of those that organized it - it was more of a statement from Credo and was never meant to add anything or shed new light on the debate. Something which makes the university's uncritical approach even more remarkable.

Ultimately, I'm glad I went. Not so much because of Anders Gärdeborn's presentation, but because during the discussion that followed I met some like-minded people, students in different fields, and started talking about getting together in a more organized way to discuss these questions. I'm always happy to make connections and if that's the least I get from yesterday's shameless display of pseudoscientific dreck, I will be very happy indeed.

Swedish blog tags: Vetenskap, Evolution, Biologi, Pseudovetenskap, Kreationism
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