DigitalBio RSS feedThis month's cover of The Scientist has a mistake that makes me cringe.
Can you spot what's wrong?
And they call themselves "The Scientist" humph!
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« Curious about personal genomics? | Main | Citizen Science projects on-line »
Can you spot the mistake?
Category: Biology (Macroscopic ) • Evolution • journalism mistakes
Posted on: January 7, 2010 9:24 PM, by Sandra Porter
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Comments
Is it the question about:
"Is it time for evolutionary theory to evolve?"
Because, that IS a mistake - it is evolving all the time.
Posted by: orion | January 7, 2010 10:34 PM
House finches are sort of distant from the Darwin's finches clade.
Posted by: tom | January 7, 2010 10:57 PM
Purple finches? A N. American species.
Posted by: jimspice | January 7, 2010 11:38 PM
Oooh! Oooh! Let me guess!
Umm... The little blurb on the right!:
WHY VACCINES
ARE PHARMA['S?]
BIG SH[OT? IT? ILL? AM?]
Posted by: Monimonika | January 8, 2010 12:26 AM
There's no space between "The" and "Scientist"?
I think I've got whats really annoying you.
There are two meanings to the word "evolve".
One simply means change - for instance one might speak of the evolution of the car or the mobile phone from their original types to their present types, or the evolution of galaxies or stars.
The other definition is that of biological evolution which is the change in the frequency of alleles in a population over time due to reproduction, random change and natural selection from a common ancestor (other factors such as neural theory /genetic drift clearly add to the mix).
The authors of the byline "Is it time for evolutionary theory to evolve" are using the former definition of simple change for the word "evolve".
Posted by: Sigmund | January 8, 2010 1:57 AM
Unbelievable! How could they let this through? It only takes a second to open up the Terminal in OS X, type "uname -a" to learn that we're currently on Darwin Kernel Version 10.2.0.
Posted by: Ian Tindale | January 8, 2010 4:34 AM
Umm...the female is sitting above the male bird dominating it- WRONG! (??)
Posted by: Murfomurf | January 8, 2010 8:11 AM
Erm...
Granted, I'm not an expert on finches by any means...
But if I'm not mistaken, the bird on the left is a juvenile female, and the one on the right is an adult female. Males would (I think) be somewhat more colorful. It's hard to evolve with only one set of gametes.
Of course, the rest of the cover is annoying too, so I'd give it to "Darwin 3.0" suddenly choosing to evolve after so much un-evolving, or anything with "vaccine" and "Pharma" and "Big" in the same sentence. Although I suspect it reads "Why vaccines are Pharmacies' Big Shots". That would be erroneous, since Pharmacies tend only to charge for administrative fees for vaccines, and don't really make a profit. I suppose they could make money simply from the increase traffic of customers who make end up buying other stuff while they get vaccinated.
Posted by: ENT-TT | January 8, 2010 8:12 AM
The cover (at least the portion of it you've allowed us to see!) doesn't identify the birds as Darwin's finches, it merely shows a picture of two birds, so if the "error" is that these aren't Darwin's finches, then I don't see how that's actually an error. Or are you saying there's something wrong which is far more subtle?
The fact that they've equated "Darwin" and "Theory of Evolution" is what bothers my amateur eye here. That's like using the term "Darwinism" which also makes me shudder.
Posted by: IanW | January 8, 2010 9:13 AM
I'll post the answer tonight.
Posted by: Sandra Porter | January 8, 2010 10:04 AM
Here's my offer, there's no "time" for something to evolve (i.e., make a leap); evolution is constant and gradual. Now where's my pie?
Posted by: Wes | January 8, 2010 11:55 AM
I was thinking along those lines, Wes. But it says it is time for evloution THEORY to evolve, not evolution itself. A theory certainly can and should evolve. Methinks it's something to do with the birds....
Posted by: Felicia | January 8, 2010 5:49 PM
Two females, one young and the other mature: makes it development not evolution. This metaphor is a contradiction with the byline, "Is it time for evolutionary theory to evolve?" Changing it to, "Is it time for evolutionary theory to develop?", ... yeah doesn't ring so Darwinian. But would foreshadow a more interesting article on evolution of development.
Posted by: Michal Galdzicki | January 8, 2010 6:51 PM
doh! or should it be "But would foreshadow a more interesting article on development of the theory of evolution."
Posted by: Michal Galdzicki | January 8, 2010 6:54 PM
Okay, I can't stand it anymore. Commenters 2 and 3 (tom and jimspice) are correct.
The phrase "Darwin 3.0" together with a picture of finches it implies that the finches in the picture are Darwin's famous finches, i.e. the Geospiza, which live on the Galapagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador.
But the finches in the picture are not Darwin's finches or even close from a geographical perspective. They are house finches. They do not live in Ecuador. Some of them live in my backyard.
So, this picture is a mistake because the finches are NOT Darwin's finches. They have nothing to do with Darwin or any article in the issue.
The image begs the question: do the The Scientist's publishers know that finches come in different species and that this distinction might actually might matter? At least to some biologists?
Posted by: Sandra Porter | January 8, 2010 11:06 PM
Sandra, by the way, what was the whole title for the vaccines article? Just curious.
Posted by: Monimonika | January 9, 2010 11:12 AM
The title of the article is "Nice Shot Why vaccines are pharma's Next Big Thing"
The article describes new vaccines that have been licensed since 2000 and twelve in development. There's an interesting discussion of the VLP technology (virus-like particles) and whether or not companies can make money on vaccines.
I would like to it but it doesn't seem to be on their web site yet.
Posted by: Sandra Porter | January 9, 2010 11:34 AM
Evolutionary Theory has been changing steadily since the time of Darwin. Why would any reputable science journal ask, "Is it time for evolutionary theory to evolve?"
The question strongly implies that evolutionary theory hasn't changed very much and that's rubbish.
Posted by: Larry Moran | January 9, 2010 4:49 PM
Larry: you may not have seen it but The-Scientist is a magazine, not a journal.
Posted by: Sandra Porter | January 9, 2010 7:15 PM
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that TheScientist was a scientific journal. I'm very familiar with it.
Why would any respectable science magazine ask such a stupid question?
Posted by: Larry Moran | January 10, 2010 7:05 AM