…and this is a 
Lynn Margulis blog tour
Category: Science
Posted on: March 12, 2007 8:47 AM, by PZ Myers
Lynn Margulis has sent the opening statement for her blog tour below. You should feel free to respond to it, raise other questions of any relevant sort, or say whatever you want in the comments; she'll be along later today to respond to those that interest her. I will be policing the comments, so trolls, please don't bother; serious comments only, and keep in mind that she's only going to respond to a limited subset, so make 'em good.
In addition, she'll be available later today in the Pharyngula chat room (channel #pharyngula on irc.zirc.org; if you don't have an IRC client, that link will let you use your browser to join in) from 12:00-1:30pm ET. Dive in there for a more interactive give-and-take with Dr Margulis.
What a pleasure to write openly for Pharyngula even though, in principle, I am leery, even with this blog, of any internet participation. The haste and style online by its very breezy nature generates misinterpretation and misunderstanding. Nothing online written about me is entirely accurate, except perhaps my address at the University of Massachusetts.
Although misunderstanding permeates all human communication, the internet amplifies these tendencies. Sound bite-hype is far more useful to those who assert religious truths and would banish authentic science from the public sphere than to the scholar or scientist. Science itself, and even more so, science writing, ever cautious, ever tentative and ever questioning is permeated with boring hesitancies and stuttering qualifications. Most readers simply ignore it since they find it incomprehensible. The more accurate the scientific description, the more daunting the language to any outsider. The more clear the expression of a scientific idea is, the more specialized the terminology. The clearest scientific ideas are mathematical equations opaque to all but the specialist. So, when reporters and popular writers attempt to communicate real science the plagues of distortion, misunderstanding and misrepresentation are inevitable. Any statement outside the immediate purview of the detailed science tends to be "translated" into common language. To express new ideas that challenge the paradigm in which the scientist works new language is required. If the language is too new neither the scientist nor the science popularizer is understood. Especially when one's work is heterodox to the prevailing trend -it is easy to be dismissed as a "crank" or "on the fringe." Or, even more likely, to be ignored. The convenient fiction, created by marketers and politicians, that "consensus" plays a major role in original science, helps to generate confusion in the lay public about the vast difference between established scientific fact and ideologically-driven nonsense.
Scientists seek evidence. Eclipses could not be predicted, calendars could not be distributed, tide tables could not be published, airplanes could not be built to fly, food plants not grown, bridges nor buildings built, in the absence of precise knowledge of celestial mechanics, gravity, air flow, soil nutrients, flowering plant sexuality, metal compression and tensional strengths, etc. Scientific facts, scientists know, lie in the details. Explanatory power, falsifiable prediction, reproducible experimental results underlie all scientific theory. Within the detailed framework there are no "scientific controversies". Theories explain, hypotheses make precise predictions either verifiable or not, results are either reproducible or they aren't. The most serious communication problem is that specialized knowledge, an arcane literature and years of specialized training are required for participation in any science and all science by its very nature is severely limited to its objects of study. No botanist can participate meaningfully in nuclear physics nor can physicists analyse genetic data. Science communicators, even the very best, and there many (e,g, those who write for Science News, Nature, Science and the New York Times Tuesday pages, National Public Radio and the like) can not comprehensibly describe anything without bias and oversimplification, ever. No writing, if it is to be widely understood, can be without bias. I believe that no meaningful distinction or description of anything, science included, can be made without an historical, including natural-historical, context. Yet most scientists live in the "now"; they tend to lack a long view and any knowledge outside the limits of their own specialized field. Sometimes their "field" is more a budget constraint or a whim of a dead scholar than a natural science. Some "fields", clearly are not natural science, like the field called "cancer". This implies that science writing too unavoidably displays bias, prejudice, nationalism, profound ignorance, incompleteness and other manifestations of "slanted truths".
Scientists too often know little about the cultural and historical context of their ideas. Neo-Darwinians biologists, for example, really believe that "evolution" is a subfield of biology, especially zoology. Hence they ignore the non-zoological components of evolutionary science (e.g., all of historical geology including especially paleontology; environmental science, ecology, atmospheric chemistry, microbiology, etc.) They rarely acknowledge that their theoretical frames derive from an Anglophone-capitalist model, and inevitably carry the prejudices, assumptions and philosophical orientations of our milieu. Because most people interested in evolution live in an Anglophone-capitalist culture, assumptions of neo-Darwinians are unstated. Concepts such as the validity of "cost-benefit" and "competition vs. co-operation" terminology or the superiority of mathematical analysis are uncritically assumed. Many unstated assumptions are made because of the bias of the "evolutionary biologists", the majority of whom have animal biology/zoological training who share our cultural orientation. There is, in fact, paltry evidence for the neo-Darwinian "thought-style". The staunch neo-Darwinist claims have become less and less valid as information from other fields (e.g., molecular biology and the fossil record) has increased. It is not unusual, especially in the science of evolution, that theories contradictory to the neo-Darwinian "thought-style" are ignored or rejected, not on the basis of their claims, or proof of those claims, but on the, often unconscious, grounds that they do not agree with our biases. Read Ludwik Fleck.
So here we have an opportunity for open discussion - to listen to nature, to perceive the nature of nature, to reveal scientifically-documented facts beyond prejudices. We attempt, with civil dialogue based on sound science, to achieve, in good faith, an understanding of each other and the world. Science is limited, what is known for sure is miniscule in contrast to the great unknown, but the deliberate faith-based distortion of what really is known is despicable. We will avoid the cant, rant and desperate attempt to distort so common on both sides in the so-called "religion-vs science" debate. Whiteheadian philosophers, many Unitarian and Buddhist scholars, all true scientists agree with David Bohm's sentiment that "science is the search for truth" whether or not we like that truth. And Emily Dickinson's sentiment, from her poem "Tell all the Truth but tell it Slant " is even more compelling:
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind--Lynn Margulis,
Mar 10, 2007
Comments
Posted by: SLC | March 12, 2007 8:57 AM
I would appreciate it if Prof. Margulis would clarify her position on the relationship, if any, of HIV and AIDS. There appears to be some confusion on her position relative to this issue due to a review of a book by Prof Duesberg who is a noted HIV/AIDS denier.
Posted by: SteveF | March 12, 2007 9:03 AM
Prof. Margulis,
What significance do you attatch to epigenetic processes in evolution?
Posted by: Cedric Katesby | March 12, 2007 9:06 AM
"I would appreciate it if Prof. Margulis would clarify her position on the relationship, if any, of HIV and AIDS."
Ditto!!
Posted by: Albatrossity | March 12, 2007 9:12 AM
I would appreciate a clarification about specific "staunch Neo-Darwinist claims" that are referenced in this sentence from her statement.
Posted by: Robert | March 12, 2007 9:25 AM
I would also appreciate an elaboration on what she means by Neo-Darwinisn. Is this the idea that natural selection + random mutation is the driving force behind evolution?
Also does she have specific examples of theories that have been rejected because they do not match the Neo-Darwinian "thought-style?"
Posted by: Joshua | March 12, 2007 9:28 AM
I'd quite like to know what "staunch neo-Darwinist claims" have been falsified by molecular biology, given that nearly every recent work I've read about evolution relies quite heavily on it.
Posted by: Joshua | March 12, 2007 9:30 AM
Robert: At the risk of getting too snarky too soon, presumably her endosymbiont theory falls into that category.
Posted by: suffenus | March 12, 2007 9:35 AM
Dr. Margulis, you said:
"The staunch neo-Darwinist claims have become less and less valid as information from other fields (e.g., molecular biology and the fossil record) has increased."
Could you provide an example of each case,i.e., where information from molecular biology, and also the fossil record, has lessened the validity of neo-Darwinist claims?
Even a link would suffice, if this seems too tedious.
Also (just curious) do you have any thought on the relationship between long-term memory and instinct (if this is within your purview)?
Posted by: Robert | March 12, 2007 9:45 AM
Except that her endosymbiont theory is now widely accepted. Perhaps it did face opposition simply because it deviated from the accepted theories of the time. But eventually it won out because of the evidence. Considering her choice in quoting Dickinson in saying that truth must be revealed gradually or everyone would be made blind it would seem that that can't just be the only thing she means.
Plus it doesn't make the most convincing argument to say that "Neo-Darwinists" are rejecting theories out of hand, and the only example you have is one that is now widely accepted.
It just seems like her post is very similiar to claims we often hear from the Discovery Institute (confusingly so). I suppose that may be unfair, but I think with a post like that we all deserve to hear some evidence and examples backing some of her claims up.
Posted by: djlactin | March 12, 2007 9:46 AM
Quotemine alert!
I give this 5 days to appear in ID literature!
In truth, I find the whole entry disappointing. Its defensive nature puts me off. Talk to us about biology and evolution, Dr. Margulis!
For example, explain your battle to get your heterodox ideas of the symbiotic origin of organelles published, and how they ultimately became orthodoxy. Tell us about your latest ideas (origin of eukaryotes): why you believe them and the evidence that makes you do so.
Also, I'd be interested in your opinion of an idea proposed by Fritjof Capra in "The Web of Life", that organisms are not objects (like rocks), but self-perpetuating patterns (sort of like the whirlpool that forms when you drain the bathtub).
Posted by: roy sablosky | March 12, 2007 9:47 AM
This is a strong claim, but also very broad and perhaps unfalsifiable. What concepts would you propose to replace these "Anglophone-capitalist" ones? - and how would that improve the practice of science?
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | March 12, 2007 9:51 AM
Right, I'm sure no socialist government would ever need to conduct cost-benefit analyses... [bangs head on desk]
Posted by: Jon-Mikel | March 12, 2007 9:51 AM
Prof. Margulis' publisher, Chelsea Green, has the transcript of an interview she gave to Astrobiology Magazine. It lays out some of her critique of neo-Darwinism and a lot of the basics of endosymbiosis.
http://www.chelseagreen.com/2007/items/luminousfish/Interview
Posted by: Robert | March 12, 2007 10:10 AM
http://www.chelseagreen.com/2007/items/luminousfish/Interview
"Neo-Darwinism comes from the combination of two ideas. The acceptance that Darwin is right about all organisms on Earth having common ancestry and that evolution of life has occurred. But that Gregor Mendel is also right when he shows that inheritance factors are simply recombined, they don't change through time.
For example, you cross a red flower and a white flower - a rose, say - and you get a pink rose; and then you cross the pink rose back to the parents, you get ratios of red, pink and white that are absolutely identical to the parents. You don't lose the red or lose the white - ever. That's what Mendel showed. In other words, the genetic factors are simply recombined; there's no evolution.
Now Mendel is often touted to be this backwater monk who played with his garden peas. But Mendel was in touch with the pope. He knew damn well what was going on with the concept of evolution and did not like it.
The supporters of neo-Darwinism, which is also called the modern synthesis, wanted to reconcile - they had to reconcile - Darwinian change through time with this brilliant, experimentally proven concept of Gregor Mendel.
This field they invented is called evolutionary biology by a lot of people, or sometimes population genetics. I think the whole thing's corrupt. I think it's repulsively corrupt. Because it has no reference in the real world. It was made from the beginning as a very clever generalization to combine the fact of Darwinian change through time, which seems to be based on fossils and lots of other evidence, with the evident fact that Mendel was right about genetic factors recombining. And so it developed a superstructure, a theory of which only a very small part could be verified by science. And it was called population genetics, because the word evolution, at least in this country, is a dirty word amongst a lot of people."
I would love to see what PZ has to say in regards to this quote. Hell I would like some clarification as to what is corrupt and has no reference in the real world in regards to evolution.
Posted by: Mark Hackler | March 12, 2007 10:21 AM
You know, I did read a little Fleck. But his ideas are just that, ideas. There are no studies or data. It takes an obvious situtation - we all are, to some degree, conditioned by our education and social backgrounds - and makes the case (to put it crudely) that science is nothing more than the musings of a bunch of dead white guys (or Anglophone-Capitalists). But I still stub my toe against the door jam if I'm careless...
Posted by: Margulis | March 12, 2007 10:21 AM
What is an HIV/AIDS denier? Or HIV/AIDS denialist?
Peter Duesberg is a fine scientist, I have read his book and examined some of the scientific papers upon which it is based. From the CDC (Center for Disease Control) in Atlanta I have requested the scientific papers that prove the causal relationship between the HIV retrovirus and the IMMUNODEFICIENCY SYNDROME commonly known as AIDS. They have never sent even references to the peer-reviewed primary scientific literature that establishes the causal relationship because they can't. Such papers do not exist.
I have seen all four of the films made by Coleman Jones and colleagues in Toronto. Film #3 in the series is most telling. Although no strong evidence exists for any simple causal relationship what is clear is that the HIV claim is erroneous by the standards of microbiology and virology.
When I saw the glowing review of George Miklos, a colleague and a fiercely honest scientist, of Harvey Bialy's book on the scientific life of Peter Duesberg I bought and read Harvey's book. I have also read Celia Farber's superb article in the Lewis Lapham "swansong" issue of Harper's magazine, last March, I believe. Rebecca Culshaw's paper on why she quit AIDS statistical research and Dr. Geschachter's unpublished ms about African AIDS, accepted by the editor and then rejected both substantiated my reluctance to accept the glib "HIV/AIDS" term. I found all of these readings far more convincing than any literature proported to show a HIV-AIDS causal connection.
I heard a talk by a "medical scientist" from the Harvard Medical School at a meeting at Roger Williams Univ in Rhode Island from a supposed expert who attempts to design an HIV vaccine. He claimed the HIV virus mutates a billion times in 48hours. It became clear that the HIV virus has no clear identity. The HIV tests, nearly always positive for pregnant women, that vary significantly in the US, Europe and Australia are particularly disturbing. My son-in-law, James di Properzio spent several months researching this story for the Common Review (the Great Books Foundation in Chicago). His findings were consistent with Celia Farber's and after encouragement from the editor the board reviewed and rejected his draft.
"Science is the search for truth" said David Bohm, "whether we like it [the truth] or not. From my readings, discussions with knowledgable scientists close to the story, I simply conclude, as does Kerry Mullis, the Nobel Lauriate who wrote a foreword to Duesberg's classical work that there is no evidence that "HIV causes AIDS". I have no special expertise. I simply seek the evidence for scientific claims, especially when they have dire consequences for the science itself and the treatment..not just medical..of so many people.
I have observed that the closer one comes to the study of humans the shoddier the quality of the scientific evidence. Maybe that is one of the reasons that I work with bacteria and protoctists (the eukaryotic microorganisms and their immediate descendants exclusive of plants, animals and fungi). The vast majority of these are harmless to human health.
Although I have written about the natural history of the anthrax bacterium, Beethoven's and Nietzsche's syphilis and the work of Hentry Taylor Ricketts with insect-borne pathgens (eg.g, ticks carrying Rocky Mt Spotted fever), in general I avoid the last 3 million years of evolution and any other studies thatrequire detailed knowledge of mammalian, including human, biology. Why? Because political bias, hearsay and gossip are inevitable whereas in the first part of the evolution story (from 3800 until 3 million years ago) politics intervenes far less obtrusively. In pursuit of the story of life and its effects on planet Earth one can be more honest if the earliest atages of evolution are the objects of study.
And this way I can lay low and not be "name-called" (i.e., "denialist") because I ask hard questions and require solid evidence before I embrace a particular causal hypothesis. Indeed, is not my attitude of inquiry exactly what science is about?
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | March 12, 2007 10:32 AM
Do you believe that HIV patients whose disease is in remission would find it safe to stop taking their anti-retroviral drugs? Would you encourage them to do so?
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | March 12, 2007 10:35 AM
Make that "AIDS patients", sorry.
Posted by: RavenT | March 12, 2007 10:38 AM
Do you believe that anti-retroviral medications should be made available as a priority for AIDS patients in the developing world?
Posted by: CCP | March 12, 2007 10:44 AM
As a (male Caucasian) Anglophone zoologist, I'd like to apologize for my "thought-style."
Posted by: Jon-Mikel | March 12, 2007 10:44 AM
It seems to me like requiring evidence of a causal relationship between HIV and AIDS is a far cry from making treatment or policy recommendations.
Posted by: Rick | March 12, 2007 10:45 AM
If AIDS isn't caused by HIV, then what would be the cause of AIDS?
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | March 12, 2007 10:47 AM
On what basis, then, could you ethically prescribe expensive drugs with potentially serious side effects?Posted by: Jon-Mikel | March 12, 2007 10:58 AM
Ethically, the question is one of harm and harm reduction. Even if one doesn't know how the treatment works on a molecular biological level, if it is effective in reducing the harm to or suffering of the patient, it is preferable to no treatment at all. The key to this, or the treatment of any serious illness, is that both physician and patient be fully informed.
Ultimately, though, this seems to me to be a different question than "what causes AIDS?" The search for causation, and thus a cure, should never be perceived as antithetical to the treatment of the symptoms of those who suffer from a disease. As the old saying goes, we musn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | March 12, 2007 11:00 AM
What's your explanation for the dramatic effect of anti-retroviral cocktails on HIV progression? Some of them (like the protease inhibitors" are pretty highly specific agents. Just by accident they happen to work?
Posted by: Art | March 12, 2007 11:01 AM
A couple of additional points to ponder re: AIDS and HIV. First, by every formal and rigorous virological test (including the ability to prepare infectious clones using recombinant DNA techniques), immunodeficiency is a disease caused by close relatives of HIV in simians. The cause-and-effect are beyond question. Second, anti-viral therapies for humans include agents that target the HIV protease. These therapies work, and their targets (the viral protease) cannot be mistaken for other nebulous agents of disease.
Given these (as well as thousands of other) considerations, it seems pretty far-fetched to hold to the view that HIV does not cause immune deficiency in humans.
Posted by: Unsympathetic reader | March 12, 2007 11:08 AM
My readings of Margulis' publications suggests that much of what she writes about "neo-Darwinism" and current evolutionary thought is directed toward inducing polarization. From my perspective, it appears that she does this to enhance the apparent contrast between current thought (which is really a pretty broad spectrum) with her ideas about symbiogenesis. But when the dust settles, I'm not sure the positions are necessarily as diametrically opposed as suggested.
I wish she hadn't begun her discussion here by invoking "world views". Biologists are a pretty diverse group and not as monopolistic in their approaches as alluded. Again, the decision to begin the discussion in that way is intentionally polarizing.
Posted by: TomG | March 12, 2007 11:18 AM
Dr. Marguis' statement really doesn't state anything concrete. As a geologist I agree that interpretations of evolutionary drivers and patterns too frequently neglect to consider geologic factors - tectonic factors in particular.
My question to Dr. Margulis is: How, specifically, does a newly identified transitional species such as Tiktaalik roseae render a gradualist interpretation less and less valid? Perhaps more specifically, how does its existence make any other interpretation MORE valid?
Posted by: Magpie | March 12, 2007 11:28 AM
I would argue that, unsubstantiated, the claim that evolutionary biologists have an 'anglocentric, capitalistic bias' amounts to little more than an ad hominen. I agree with Chomsky on this one (this is a rare occurence!); such a claim is analogous to the Nazi claim that much of the physics of Einstein et al was 'Jewish Science'.
Of course, no one today (and I'm sure least of all Dr. Margulis) would make such a claim, but stating that a science = western, white middle-class male science is a dubiously similar claim. Hopefully, Margulis will back up her claims of such preconceptions biasing scientific thought; otherwise such a blanket dismissal appears highly dubious to me.
Posted by: Tony Jackson | March 12, 2007 11:34 AM
"The HIV tests, nearly always positive for pregnant women, "
This claim is false. On the contrary, HIV testing in pregnancy, combined with anti-retroviral therapy has greatly cut the incidence of mother to child transmission.
http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/full/143/1/38
and
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E03E0DE153BF933A05752C0A9639C8B63&sec=health&spon=&pagewanted=1
Posted by: TheBowerbird | March 12, 2007 11:39 AM
Lynn:
Do you have any specific examples of "neo-Darwinists" "ignore(ing) the non-zoological components of evolutionary science". I can see your point that most of the people working on this are in fact biologists, but I think that you are remiss in stating that they ignore other fields. In fact, if evidence from other fields contradict biological work (say, fossils), then I doubt that it would become established as having scientific merit. Scientists work within a framework which has as its skeleton all the other branches of science. So the second part of my question is this:
You seem to be very pro-specialization in science by (to paraphrase)stating how people can only understand tiny, narrow fields, and their work is only valid within a tiny slice of specialized knowledge. However, you then criticize neo-Darwinian biologists for being too narrow in their thinking! Isn't this a good justification for scientists being less narrow in both training and focus?
Posted by: Robert | March 12, 2007 11:40 AM
Ok so according to wikipedia (yes I realize to take it with a grain of salt, and please corect me if I'm wrong): She believes that the driving force behind genetic change is the exchange of genetic material between cells and bacteria and viruses instead of random mutation.
Posted by: Bob O'H | March 12, 2007 11:49 AM
I'm curious to know how the first sentence doesn't make the second one rubbish. Actually, I think it does severe damage to the whole paragraph.
[dons lab coat]As a scientist, I think the whole essay would have been improved by the addition of some evidence for the claims of bias in evolutionary biology.[/dons lab coat]
Bob
Posted by: The Physicist | March 12, 2007 11:53 AM
Here is some new science.
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2007/03/09/science-nervessound-20070309.html
Posted by: plunge | March 12, 2007 11:54 AM
Sounds like the Professor really prefers literary theory to science.
"And this way I can lay low and not be "name-called" (i.e., "denialist") because I ask hard questions and require solid evidence before I embrace a particular causal hypothesis. Indeed, is not my attitude of inquiry exactly what science is about?"
That depends on whether those questions are really honest, solid science ones, or whether they are straw man literary theory puffery like accusations of 'anglocentric, capitalistic bias.'
"From my readings, discussions with knowledgable scientists close to the story, I simply conclude, as does Kerry Mullis, the Nobel Lauriate who wrote a foreword to Duesberg's classical work that there is no evidence that "HIV causes AIDS"."
According to his popular book (Dancing in the Mindfields), Kerry Mullis also believes strongly in astrology and that a raccoon spoke to him in his backyard, possibly serving as an agent for aliens communicating with him. Are you suggesting that just because he is a Nobel Lauriate that we should take these ideas more seriously as well?
Name dropping is not the same thing as a good argument.
Posted by: ncg | March 12, 2007 11:55 AM
Dr. Margulis,
The new buzz is about evolution having "strategy" and "plasticity" as functional tools, such as Lynn Caporale's Darwin in the Genome and your own attention on merged organisms. This imbedded tooling - tacitly leads back to thinking of Lamarckian concepts, similar to what was entertained by Darwin. Can you comment on this potential of an indirect "Lamarckian Leak" into the genome and the work of Ted Steele?
Posted by: Chip Poirot | March 12, 2007 11:59 AM
As an economist who dissents from the prevailing economic paradigm of reducing all economic questions to "cost-benefit" calculations, I'm intrigued by Professor Margulis' views of the extent to which neo-classical economics has driven evolutionary biology. I say intrigued but not entirely convinced.
It also strikes me that the problem is not so much the application of cost-benefit calculations to biology, or the calculation of optimizing strategies for bacteria-but the application of these ideas to decision making strategies of conscious, purposeful agents (human beings).
I will readily agree that our "language structure" limits us to think in certain ways, right down to currency metaphors used to describe ATP. Maybe if we lived in a different kind of society we would think of different metaphors. But we don't.
To what extent have cost-benefit models really occluded our understanding of evolutionary biology? IMO (as a mostly observer in this matter) not very much.
Posted by: windy | March 12, 2007 12:10 PM
It's very unlikely that "most people interested in evolution live in an Anglophone-capitalist culture" is true.
Posted by: Mark Hackler | March 12, 2007 12:17 PM
Dr. Margulis made her name by identifying symbiosis as a primary (if not the primary, in her mind) means by which evolution occurs.
Margulis has demonstrated that eukaryotes evolved when prokaryotes formed symbiotic systems. Instead of competition, it was a love fest.
When HIV enters a cell, the result isn't symbiotic, much less a love fest.
Looks like someone's paradigm is getting in the way...
Posted by: plunge | March 12, 2007 12:25 PM
"Margulis has demonstrated that eukaryotes evolved when prokaryotes formed symbiotic systems. Instead of competition, it was a love fest."
That isn't anthropomorphizing things a little much? Did the organisms really "love" each other and want to "help" each other? Is salmonella trying to "help" peanut-butter purchasers but just not getting things right?
Worse, everything involved in symbiosis can be translated directly into neo-Darwinian terms without even breaking a sweat (heck: treat each of the two organisms in some joining as if they were simply environmental conditions from the point of view of the other, and the story is no different than adaptation in general). Neo-Darwinian ideas can't account for "cooperation???" Pifle.
Posted by: Mark Hackler | March 12, 2007 12:26 PM
To plunge: precisely.
Posted by: Stanton | March 12, 2007 12:28 PM
I agree with windy.
After all, numerous scientists from Communist China have made numerous, tremendous contributions to Biology and Paleontology.
Posted by: Norman Doering | March 12, 2007 12:29 PM
I'm not sure I get the whole "neo-Darwinists" "ignore the non-zoological components of evolutionary science" but I can see a danger to ignoring Endosymbiotic theory and the way genes can cross into other organisms. There is a lot of genetic engineering going on today and they are finding the new genes in plants they didn't put them in.
Later I'll google and search for news stories that illustrate this.
It may be that we can't genetically engineer just a plant and that to genetically engineer anything risks genetically altering the whole biosphere.
Posted by: Monad | March 12, 2007 12:43 PM
When Darwin's work was first published it was generally acknowledged that he was influenced by Adam Smith's English capitalist economics. Even Karl Marx noticed this - interestingly he felt that such an analysis was more correct in the sphere of biology than political economy :) I see this as a historical statement of fact - not some "post modern" revisionism as some here seem to be seeing it. The only problem is when those assumptions and how they can colour how evolutionary theory (or any science) has developed are not recognised. It's the assumptions we make that are not recognised that affect us the most and often come back to haunt us - in that context it seems a bit silly to say she can't be right because "most scientists" have never noticed such things.
I have to say the attempts to lump her in with the ID/Creationist rump are rather saddening (ironic though that they do the same thing). Lynn Margulis is an evolutionary theorist and not a Creationist. She's simply developed a model that is radically different from the Neo-Darwinian one but still acknowledges the foundation of Darwin's work. In her view what Woese refers to as a "Pre-Darwinian" threshold is not a threshold at all - symbiosis, lateral exchange of information and cooperation are seen as having continued to be the central processes in the development of evolutionary change and variation - she's not completely rejected notions of competition existing on some levels of analysis but to her symbiogenetic explanations are often more significant, especially in the larger changes (such as between higher level taxa). Of course this is exactly why she argues the too often unrecognised "bourgois" subtext of much of Neo-Darwinism - which is very much based on competition and stuggle to the nth degree (even "selfish" genes if you take it as far as Dawkins does) is so important and a vital issue to debate.
Not saying I agree entirely on HIV/AIDS - I've always felt myself the connection was clear enough (but would be interested in reading some of Lynn's sources myself) but I also think Lynn is making some important points about the scientific method, not HIV/AIDS per se as far as I can see - seems to me too many people are jumping in on that one issue without recognising the context - ironically this was her first point and concern about such tendencies in internet debates.
Posted by: Norman Doering | March 12, 2007 12:45 PM
I did a google, but I haven't found the news stories I remember reading, but I found some new stuff I'm just starting to read:
http://www.gefreemaine.org/article.php?story=20060120223503466
http://www.greens.org/s-r/26/26-16.html
Look for biotech contamination, biotech pollution, or genetic trespass.
There may be a post on this on my blog in the near future:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/
I can't sum it up here today.
Posted by: stopwink | March 12, 2007 1:02 PM
I never formally studied population genetics, but the analysis of alleles in a population never rang true to me as to what evolution is really about. The neo-Darwinian synthesis is a beautiful mathematical construct, but does it truly reflect the complexity of how the world of living organisms changes over time. That is a valid question to ask.
One thing should be clear. Challenging one mechanism or another does not challenge the fact of evolution. In any dialog scientists will argue with one another and take opposing views as part of the 'search for truth". They will be rude, inflammatory, and worst at times, but in the long term, the facts eventually winnow themselves out from the arguments. That the enemies of scientific thinking, like the proponents of ID, make use of the arguments of one side or other is irrelevant to the debate itself. By all means challenge ID and like nonsense, but not at the cost of limiting the debate.
As for the Neo-Darwinian synthesis, we are no longer operating with the understanding that one gene equals one protein, which was the context of the old synthesis. What is an allele in a post-transcriptional nucleus, where different proteins are spliced from the same gene or RNA regulates what is ultimately translated in unexpected ways? Why build the story of evolution around point mutation when whole genes and parts of genes can be moved about deleted or duplicated? Evo-devo begins to look at evolution in this new light of information, but still does not include the wealth of new information or encompass what the new synthesis will look like.
So on that score, Dr. Margulis was correct, maybe. But more to the point is "The new synthesis is dead, long live the new synthesis" and her contribution is always welcome.
Posted by: Greg Laden | March 12, 2007 1:02 PM
Dr. Margulis discusses the communication of concepts in science to the non-scientist. The more specialized a concept is, the more externally incomprehensible the language about it has to be, beginning with specialized use of common words (Evolutionary Biology's "fitness" as opposed to the broader English "fitness"), moving on to esoteric terms or neologisms (methylated genes, which is not mentholated jeans..) and eventually to arrive at mathematical formulas. Precision or accuracy in description within science suffers with increased ability to communicate to the outside world. This is the basis for a widely believed explanation for why scientists can't really get their ideas out. Dr. Margulis makes this assertion and adds to it the difficulty of science writers being able to handle a diversity of fields, etc.
As an example, consider the following statements about the same thing (The formula is made up though loosely related):
In lions, the female does almost all the hunting, but the male has first access to the kill and the others will eat only after he is finished and allows them to do so.
Lionesses benefit indirectly from scavenging or scrounging by males because this keeps the males fit and healthy, and thus makes a pride takeover less likely.
A = E[sin(2Theta)-2E(sin(T)cos(T) is maximized when
cos(T) = cos(2T) + [sin(T)sin(t)]/cos(T)
The first statement could be interpreted as a statement about family values in lions. The second statement is more accurate but incomplete and includes an element of teleology and intentionality that is irrelevant to the argument, and probably wrong. It also has a funny use of the word "fitness." The thirds statement stands in for a formula used in dynamic optimization modeling that was part of the study done by Packer et al that has helped to clarify certain aspects of lion social behavior, including this one. Only the mathematical model is fully accurate and correct, but only a small number of people can appreciate it. The most accessible statement above is terribly misleading and inaccurate to the extent that maybe it is better in this case to leave the public ignorant about lion behavior and just keep our scientific mouths shut.
This - this description of the difficulties of communicating science - is an attractive model but I think it is wrong. It is not a good description of the relationship between scientific knowledge and public discourse. Not only it is wrong but it is also mainly an excuse scientists use to explain ... and avoid blame for ... the fact that they (the scientists) have not made themselves heard by, let along understood by, the public.
Dr. Margulis very significantly and I think correctly points out that there are biases in science, and she specifically mentions Anglophonia, which means mainly communicating in English. She mentions the capitalist model and important concepts such as "cost-benefit" and "competition vs. co-operation" as parts of what I assume she feels is a limited and limiting approach to doing things and describing what we are doing.
I am a scientist who is also an anthropologist, so it is not surprising that because of my training and experience, I heartily agree with this.
However, I think this second point of Margulis ... that we tend to work in a biased framework ... should be turned back onto the first point ... a kind of Heisenberg Principle of explanation (in order to really explain it to ourselves we must obscure it for others).
It is simply not true that all (or even most?) important scientific concepts can be, need to be, or are best expressed as formulas. Endosymbiosis comes to mind! There are plenty of ways to use mathematical modeling to demonstrate aspects of endosymbiosis, to make predictions, etc. But the most accurate, least wrong, "best" (however you want to put this ... in Kiswahili we would say "safi na haki," roughly clean and true, and in German there is probably a word like Komplettenexatkebeschreibungwarheit) and nontrivial description of endosymbiosis may well be verbal, even among specialists (but verbal in what language???).
There are some concepts in science that are to falsehoods what flypaper is to flies. For example, describing any kind of social behavior theory or observations (for any taxon, investigating any theoretical area) to the average person is a minefield. Indeed, it may be that the best way to describe many concepts in socioecology involve wading in and grabbing the listeners misconceptions and wrestling with them directly as a way of getting a more subtle point across.
Other concepts are virtually incomprehensible from the perspective of our size (tens of kilograms) and our environment (in terms of gravity, electromagnetic radiation flux, etc.). I'm thinking here of quantum mechanics. The best way to describe certain aspects of quantum mechanics to get even a glimmer of understanding may well be to use these biases (A photon is like a teenager .... they are constantly flitting back and forth between electrons, which are their friends houses...). Photon behavior can probably only be understood by lerning the math, perhaps leraning Feynman diagrams, etc. But a human-sociological model could work, and we do not risk the learner getting strange ideas about the family values of bosons and quarks, as they would if the subjects of the description were fellow mammals.
Other concepts are very well matched to the cost benefit model of Angophone capitalism. Why would a female red deer benefit by biasing offspring sex? "Well, suppose your rich Aunt Tillie dies and leaves you with a thousand dollars and you now need to decide to buy one thousand lottery tickets, or to invest it in a conservative mutual fund...." By the end of the Aunt Tillie parable, most people get Trivers Willard dead on, in my experience. Trivers Willard is probably a good example of a capitalistic cost benefit model that very accurately and effectively describes and predicts things in nature, and by using a finance based metaphor we can avoid too much anthropomorphism, because normal humans "get" cost benefit but they do not "understand" finance.
I assert that there is no consistent or useful correspondence between some idealized series of specialization, detail, accuracy and truth in science, and difficulty in explaining the science outside of the area of specialty. Instead, the relationship between "truth," understanding, explanation, and scientific background (or lack thereof) is complex. There are scientific concepts, I believe, that can be explained easily with good results, there are those that can be explained easily but with bad results if you do it wrong, and there are those that can perhaps only be understood by becoming a specialist, or nearly so.
Now a quick word about science journalists: I think the problem here is not so much the nature of science vs. culture, but simply of quality. I think that most science journalists suck at what they do. Others are unbelievably good at it. There are all sorts of possible reasons for that but this is not the place for that discussion.
Yes, there may be a systematic relationship between internal professional truth and understanding and external explanation (though as I say it is non-linear and complex) on one hand and science journalisms' failings on the other. But I think the overwhelming variation in quality is at present the biggest factor. We need to work past that first, then we can start to observe the relationship between how science works internally and what it looks like from the outside.
Dr. Margulis, thanks for taking the time with this blog tour!
Cheers,
Greg Laden
Posted by: plunge | March 12, 2007 1:10 PM
Monad: "Lynn Margulis is an evolutionary theorist and not a Creationist."
I think most people here know that. The problem is that she is remarkably, tone deaf about how she phrases her criticisms, making them ripe and confusing fodder for the ID movement.
Remember that intellectual conservative site PZ linked to?
http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2007/02/27/rational-evolutionary-hypothesis/
Check the comments. Why, it's Dr. Lynn Margulis, apparent champion of the idea that there isn't good evidence for evolution, and that any idea that her ideas are compatible with evolutionary theory is an "absurd rationalization." And that's certainly how it must sound, given how over the top and polerizing her rhetoric is. Which is especially odd given that plenty of "Neo-Darwinists" seem very excited by how neat both her theory and her struggle to get it recognition were.
Posted by: Pete Dunkelberg | March 12, 2007 1:37 PM
Or you could look at the literature and find out that such things are tested, not assumed.
Keep in mind that rhetorical uses of terms like 'darwinism' or 'neodarwinism' are beside the scientific point. Margulis is said to enjoy casting herself as the radical, but it can become too much of a habit. Also take the statement about Mendel with a grain of salt.
Surely symbiosis can be discussed without implying that everyone but oneself is scientifically and morally deficient.
It's ironic that the champion of cooperation in nature is such a non-exemplar :)
Posted by: Joshua | March 12, 2007 1:44 PM
I agree with Unsympathetic reader's interpretation, specifically: "My readings of Margulis' publications suggests that much of what she writes about "neo-Darwinism" and current evolutionary thought is directed toward inducing polarization."
Insofar as she has stated her ideas and criticisms, here and in the chat, I don't see much of an incompatibility with the modern evolutionary synthesis. She herself has reiterated her acceptance of the basic fundamentals of evolution, which of course is the only evidence-based scientific position to take on the matter.
However, her criticism that the modern synthesis is too focused on zoology and genetic mutation, while containing some truth, does not in any way invalidate the modern synthesis. There is not a huge paradigm shifting waiting in the wings here, but rather just another voice that has something to add to our understanding. Unfortunately, her rhetorical tone makes it sound as though her work in microbiology and symbiosis is contradictory to the good zoological and genetic work that has been done, when it's quite clear to me that her work is in fact entirely complementary. The paradigm doesn't have to shift so much as shuffle over a bit.
Posted by: Colugo | March 12, 2007 1:51 PM
"They rarely acknowledge that their theoretical frames derive from an Anglophone-capitalist model"
Lewontin also pointed this out; the assumption is that because of this (assuming it the case) Darwinism - and particular intellectual heirs like the Modern Synthesis and sociobiology/evolutionary ecology - are somehow profoundly theoretically and philosophically tainted, unless we recognize and exorcise capitalism and bourgeois individualism from our theory.
This charge against 'mechanistic,' 'reductionist' 'atomized' and adaptationist biology as opposed to 'integrated' and holist biology is the biological/natural philosophy side of the Continental vs Anglo-American intellectual divide, which carries over into politics, economics, and philosophy. Continental (often, Franco-German) thought is holistic, organicist, and collectivist, while Anglo-American thought is individualistic and bourgeois. The Continent aspires to the heroic and meaningful, while Anglo-America is supposedly money-grubbing and banal. (The 'nation of shopkeepers' charge.) It goes back to the Romantic anti-Enlightenment reaction on the part of influential figures like Rousseau, Hegel, and Goethe.
There might be something to the Continental-holistic critique of neo-Darwinism. The problem is, a lot of really noxious ideas emerged out the anti-bourgeous/individualist worldview. Haeckel's Monism, to name one example. And another, obvious, glaring example.
I have a better idea. Instead of dismissing one or another school of thought as fatally ideologically and philosophically tainted, why don't we attempt to synthesis the best of all schools of thought - a true synthesis of 'reductionist' evolutionary ecology and 'holistic' developmentalist-structuralist approaches?
Also see:
Anne Harrington, 'Reenchanted Science'
http://tinyurl.com/2ldon5
Gilbert and Sarkar 2000. Embracing Complexity: Organicism for the 21st Century
http://tinyurl.com/2ka93c
Posted by: Colugo | March 12, 2007 3:43 PM
Let me note that I am more receptive to many of Margulis' ideas than are some others on these threads - not just the widely accepted endosymbiont origin of the eukaryotic cell, but also Gaia and genome acquisition. However, Margulis posits false choices between approaches that are inappropriately characterized as mutually incompatible. And my acceptance, or least interest, in some of her heterodox ideas finds its limit in her HIV 'skepticism,' which I find saddening to say the least.
Posted by: Bryson Brown | March 12, 2007 4:00 PM
The opening of these remarks by Margulis seems to make some helpful points, especially about science's concern with details, which makes distortions and imprecision inevitable when explaining science to non-specialists. My father was very struck recently by an American Scientist article on imprinting of genes in placental mammals-- the details of how these genes are silenced, and how this undermines the usual advantages of having two copies of each gene are a fascinating correction to the usual story of inheritance. But the subsequent vague remarks about neo-Darwinism are not very illuminating-- perhaps because I just don't get the context, but I suspect that there is less here than meets the eye. There have been many attempts to tie scientific conclusions to social and cultural causes (Bloor, Barnes and the so-called 'strong programme' in sociology of science come to mind). But when it comes to the details, evidence and calculations explain a lot more of what goes on in science than ideological precommitments do. Does Dr. Margulis claim the mathematical foundations of the modern synthesis really represent scientific failure or a 'wrong path' for biology? I hope not...surely at worst they need to be supplemented with more details and ideas, rather than treated as the final word on evolution.
Posted by: Evergreen | March 12, 2007 7:49 PM
Lynn points out that the Internet amplifies miscommunications and that the use of "sound bite-hype is far more useful to those who assert religious truths and would banish authentic science from the public sphere than to the scholar or scientist." There is truth in that statement....and yet...
I opine that the use of sound bite hype can be used to further any argument on any side in the public arena if action is needed to ameliorate some illness or some misunderstanding. And if scientists of prominence such as Lynn cannot use it well, then we will be subsumed by those protagonists who do use it to their advantage...because the masses only read the headline...and hear the sound bite.
Lynn...Lyme patients still need your input into the peer reviewed literature on Bb spirochetes and their ability to persist against all odds.
Posted by: David Marjanović | March 12, 2007 8:11 PM
Strikes me as ridiculous. How did they try to measure the heat? Why do they think sound would not generate heat -- maybe even more heat? What do they think all those well-researched sodium, potassium, calcium and chloride channels are for? They have overlooked decades of research, and are arrogant enough to believe that everyone is just as ignorant as them. The hallmark of pseudoscience.
Posted by: PZ Myers | March 12, 2007 8:29 PM
Yeah, and speaking as one of many neuroscientists who has stuck an electrode in a cell and an axon and recorded electrical impulses, and who has read the biophysics literature and knows the details of channel activity and gating currents, and can derive the Nernst equation...that is a really dumb idea. Do they even have a mechanism for transducing a soliton wave into transmitter release? Or are we going to get rid of the concept of neurotransmitters, too?
Posted by: David Marjanović | March 12, 2007 8:37 PM
At least two... no, three.
Posted by: David Marjanović | March 12, 2007 8:40 PM
Oh yes, they don't mention where the measured electricity comes from, do they? (Thanks for mentioning the most obvious. It's half past 2 at night over here, I can't think anymore.)
You scare me.
Posted by: Chris Noble | March 12, 2007 8:53 PM
"The HIV tests, nearly always positive for pregnant women"
This is a claim that comes straight out of "rethinker" literature. It is not true. There is a small increase in the false positive rate in pregnant women but this amounts to only a fraction of a percent of those testing and certainly nowhere near the 100% that Lynn Margulis would have us believe.
This tells me that Lynn Margulis is getting her factoids from "rethinker" literature and not from peer reviewed science.
She certainly appears to be familiar with the "rethinker" literature but claims to be unaware of the scientific literature providing evidence that HIV causes AIDS.
Posted by: Frank Gavin | March 12, 2007 11:40 PM
Great to have Dr. Margulis here. I've always respected her work, and literally worshipped (as much as an aetheist can worship) the work of her deceased husband, Carl Sagan.
But, I am unfamiliar with the argument about AIDS. I thought this was a rock-solid issue (virus causes it). But, it seems as though a lot of right-wing homophobes seized on the issue to stigmatize gay men. Then, pharmaceutical companies (also a tool of the right-wing) seized on the issue to market and sell a lot of drugs.
I do remember when Dr. Peter Duesberg of UC Berkeley, a molecular biologist, (don't know his view on evolution) wrote a paper in Cancer Research, challenging the theory.
Unlike those jerks at DI, this was peer-reviewed work. Is this what Dr. Margulis is referring to?
Posted by: Chris Noble | March 13, 2007 12:09 AM
But, it seems as though a lot of right-wing homophobes seized on the issue to stigmatize gay men. Then, pharmaceutical companies (also a tool of the right-wing) seized on the issue to market and sell a lot of drugs.
Are you saying that all scientists involved in HIV/AIDS research are right-wing homophobes?
Duesberg's hypothesis that lifestyle factors are responsible for AIDs rather than a virus appear to be more homophobic. His idea that drug use causes AIDS firmly puts the blame on the victim.
Raphael Lombardo was featured in Duesberg's books as evidence that if you are HIV+ and don't take recreational drugs or antiretrovirals that you won't get AIDS. See this article
However, Raphael died shortly afterwards from AIDS despite not taking drugs or antiretrovirals. Duesberg's recent response was to accuse Raphael of lying about not taking drugs. According to Duesberg it is their own fault that they die from AIDS because they take drugs. If they say they don't take drugs and still die then they are lying.
I am afraid that Margulis' position on AIDS demonstrates the dangers of being a maverick on one issue and then being vindicated. If you aren't careful you can end up supporting maverick positions for which there is no evidence. Other examples are Fred Hoyle's championing of panspermia and Linus Pauling's vitamin C pseudoscience.
Posted by: George Edmunsen | March 13, 2007 1:19 AM
Mr. Noble. Perhaps you would enlighten us on the exact cause of death of the Raphael Lombardo case, as AIDS is not a cause of death. It simply defines a syndrome of immune suppression. And ONLY defines that syndrome
providing that one of the proven to be faulty HIV tests has shown as positive.
Until such time as you present us with first hand knowledge of what this individual died from in exactitude, your comment must be construed as meaningless. If you do show us a disease caused by a known pathogen, then the pathogen itself is obviously the cause of the disease. What other effectors could have contributed would only be known to those near and dear to the deceased.
I would hope you are not one of those right wing homophobes mentioned just above? There is certainly nowhere in any of Duesbergs publishings where he "blames" anyone for taking drugs.
Mr. Noble, do you happen to think illicit drug use is somehow beneficial to health and well being, for some strange reason?
Posted by: Chris Noble | March 13, 2007 2:40 AM