Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
…and this is a pharyngula stage embryo.
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It could be argued that the greatest confidence trick in the history of philosophy is the attempt to make the various arguments for the existence of God support each other by using the same term for the entity who existence each is supposed to establish. In fact, almost all of them bear on entities of apparently quite different kinds, ranging from a Creator to a moral Lawgiver. The proofs must, therefore, be supplemented with a further proof or set of proofs that shows these apparently different entities to be the same if the combination trick is to work. Otherwise the arguments must be taken separately, in which case they either establish or fail to establish the existence of a number of remarkable but unrelated entities.
Michael Scriven, "God and Reason" Critiques of God (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus, 1997) p. 112.
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Category: Humor
Posted on: November 23, 2007 10:06 AM, by PZ Myers
Why, all you have to do is browse the high quality research proposals submitted to the Institute of Applied Creation Science to see what a promising program they've got.
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Comments
Am I the only one who sees a quote mine in the works?
Posted by: dogmeatib | November 23, 2007 10:13 AM
What the...? "Advanced heterosexual math?" What the hell is that?
These people play in a whole different kind of ballpark, don't they, PZ?
Posted by: Dan | November 23, 2007 10:29 AM
This is, I assume, satire? Please someone confirm that it's satire.
Posted by: Jamie | November 23, 2007 10:34 AM
Ooops... hahaha. Should have read a little more closely. It's the tryptophan hangover.
However, I still stand by my assertion that the creationists still play in a whole different kind of ballpark.
Posted by: Dan | November 23, 2007 10:34 AM
www.somethingawful.com, guys. If you think this isn't satire, you truly suck at the internet.
Posted by: Patrick | November 23, 2007 10:43 AM
Oh hey guys, it's SomethingAwful.
Posted by: Nick Gardner | November 23, 2007 10:44 AM
Cool. I've found a link that will work out what your religion is so you don't have to think too hard. Apparently I'm a secular humanist, although it also says I'm 15% Jehova's Witness?
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/76/story_7665_1.html
Posted by: Scrofulum | November 23, 2007 10:47 AM
It's a spoof, but it's a highly believable spoof.
I wonder if any christians will fall for it, though?
Posted by: AJS | November 23, 2007 10:52 AM
AJS: Hook, line, and blinkers, no doubt!
Posted by: Monado | November 23, 2007 10:58 AM
Oh noes! I totally sux0r at teh internets!!oney!!1!
Posted by: Dan | November 23, 2007 11:09 AM
I almost got nailed by it too, then I saw that it was somethingawful.
I still think it would have been funnier if it HAD been real. in a sad sort of way, of course.
Posted by: Yossarian | November 23, 2007 11:23 AM
Oh, The Onion, they have really outdone themselves on this one. It's a masterpiece. But why no link from their home site to this spoof one?
Posted by: Watt de Fawke | November 23, 2007 11:56 AM
It's not linked from The Onion because it wasn't made by The Onion. Good lord, man, The Onion doesn't have a monopoly on Internet satire!
Posted by: Patrick | November 23, 2007 12:10 PM
I can't believe my proposal didn't even make the list:
DNA sequencing of all species of snake, to find which is responsible for the "Fall From Grace". If we could isolate Satan's DNA, we could perhaps clone it and...what a weapon for the Christian Reicht! No philosophy could stand against us!
Posted by: NicNicholson | November 23, 2007 12:14 PM
Sounds like PZ may have stairs in his house?
Posted by: Jamie | November 23, 2007 1:23 PM
My question is:
why didn't God create these depressed long-lived worms before we did?
This seems to me like, say, a Brian Aldiss story about depressed immortal humans, maybe titled "The Woe Is Me Galaxy."
Antidepressant Found To Extend Lifespan In C. Elegans
Roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans. (Credit: Amy Pasouinelli, Image courtesy of NIH)
ScienceDaily (Nov. 22, 2007) -- A team of scientists led by Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator Linda B. Buck has found that a drug used to treat depression can extend the lifespan of adult roundworms.
Buck and colleagues Michael Petrascheck and Xiaolan Ye report in the November 22, 2007, issue of the journal Nature, that the antidepressant drug mianserin can extend the lifespan of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans by about 30 percent.
Intriguingly, the drug may act by mimicking the effects of caloric restriction, which has been shown to retard the effects of aging in a variety of animals ranging from worms and flies to mammals.
"Our studies indicate that lifespan extension by mianserin involves mechanisms associated with lifespan extension by dietary restriction," said Buck, a member of the Basic Sciences Division of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. "We don't have an explanation for this. All we can say is that if we give the drug to caloric restricted animals, it doesn't increase their lifespan any further. That suggests the same mechanism may be involved."
Researchers don't yet understand exactly how mianserin staves off the effects of aging. But the drug appears to act the same way in both C. elegans and humans: by blocking certain receptors for the neurotransmitter serotonin. Serotonin is a chemical that cells use to communicate, helping them regulate many functions, including mood, appetite, and sensory perception.
Buck said it was a surprise to find that a drug used to treat depression in humans could extend lifespan in worms. The researchers in Buck's lab found that in addition to inhibiting certain serotonin receptors in the worm, it also blocked receptors for another neurotransmitter, octopamine.
A number of observations support the idea that serotonin and octopamine may complement one another in a physiological context, Buck explained, with serotonin signaling the presence of food and octopamine signaling its absence or a state of starvation. C. elegans, for instance, usually only lays eggs when food is on hand. But serotonin stimulates egg laying in the absence of food, while octopamine inhibits egg laying even when food is nearby. Another example of interplay between the two chemicals is that pharyngeal pumping, the mechanism by which worms ingest food, is jump-started by serotonin and thwarted by octopamine.
"In our studies, mianserin had a much greater inhibitory effect on the serotonin receptor than the octopamine receptor," she said. "One possibility is that there is a dynamic equilibrium between serotonin and octopamine signaling and the drug tips the balance in the direction of octopamine signaling, producing a perceived, though not real, state of starvation that activates aging mechanisms downstream of dietary restriction."
Buck and her colleagues chose to focus on the effects of mianserin based on the results of a search through 88,000 chemicals for agents that extended the lifespan of nematodes. They found 115 such chemicals. In follow-up studies of one chemical, they found four additional compounds, including mianserin, that extended lifespan by 20-33 percent. All four compounds inhibit certain types of serotonin receptors in humans.
"We screened a wide variety of chemicals without knowing anything about them except that they were small molecules," Buck noted. "By screening adult animals with this extremely varied panel of compounds, we hoped to identify drugs that could increase lifespan in adults, even though some might have a deleterious effect on the developing animal."
By identifying drugs that influence lifespan, Buck added, it may be possible to home in on how those drugs act and contribute to a growing body of knowledge about the genetic mechanisms of aging.
"Other researchers have done beautiful work using molecular genetic approaches to identify genes involved in aging," she said. "We decided to take a chemical approach. By finding chemicals that enhance longevity, and then finding the targets of those chemicals, it may be possible to identify additional genes important in aging. In addition, the chemical approach could point to drugs suitable for testing in mammals."
Buck said that her group has yet to identify what kinds of cells are affected by the drug, because while the serotonin receptors involved are only found on neurons, many types of cells -- not just cells of the nervous system -- have receptors for octopamine.
Adapted from materials provided by Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
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Howard Hughes Medical Institute (2007, November 22). Antidepressant Found To Extend Lifespan In C. Elegans. ScienceDaily. Retrieved November 23, 2007, from http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2007/11/071121144946.htm
Posted by: Jonathan Vos Post | November 23, 2007 1:51 PM
Neat. So this publication is showing that real scientific research is being voted out by religious "nuts." And any "condemnation" program that elects to attempt to change human behavior is voted in as substantial supported church activities.
At least they recognize their boundaries!
We only have one life, but if you tried to tell Christians that it has been scientifically calculated that there is a finite number of girasas available at any point in time for action on earth or, for instance, within one particular church group, I would not like to be there to assess the reaction.
Those people hold so tightly to the hope that they have been given at church, that it actually scares me to think that they are holding on to an actual living being - a girasas - that in limited numbers is trying to become a settlement team on earth.
Picture humans sending a colony to another planet and how those humans would choose the best activities for occupying and promoting their type of life on that planet (equipped with its own life presently).
Now try to understand the dilemma we are facing in communicating to large groups of people that in order for the girasas to effect their neighbor or the stranger down the street, it has to temporarily leave them and begin a process of "ascension" upon another human.
How are they going to deal with the loss of this asset? Does a church have one or more girasas working within it? I think we should try to contact a member of this kingdom and find out their number so we can better assess how to distribute their help.
Posted by: Brenda Tucker | November 23, 2007 1:52 PM
I'm sorry Brenda, but what the hell are you talking about?
Posted by: Brownian, OM | November 23, 2007 1:58 PM
I'm sorry Brenda, but what the hell are you talking about?
Never mind. I visited your site.
Either realise that every stray thought you have is not revealed truth, or lay off the hash brownies.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | November 23, 2007 2:07 PM
This type of research is not really within my area of expertise, but they funded 3 of 7 proposals. That is a 43% success rate, and it beats the hell out of the federal agencies. When is their next deadline for applications?
Posted by: Tex | November 23, 2007 2:14 PM
It's sad when they out crazy the christians with woo.
Girases? Have you been listening to Chopra audiobooks again?
Posted by: Steve_C | November 23, 2007 3:10 PM
I thought it sounded like some hard-core crystal-gripper woo.
Posted by: Dan | November 23, 2007 4:17 PM
Exactly. Crazy universal quantum consciousness woo.
Posted by: Steve_C | November 23, 2007 4:35 PM
Indeed. The last time I saw woo like that, it was served as a side dish to a turducken.
Posted by: Dan | November 23, 2007 5:21 PM
Laugh all you want, unbelievers, but the creationists are about to complete work on their time machine that will enable them to go back and rearrange all those fossils so that the flowering plants and the Trilobites will occupy the same stratum. Wha-hahahahaha!
Oh, and to grab some "clean money." I bribed them. They can be bribed. ;-)
Posted by: Kristine | November 23, 2007 5:35 PM
I think they'll find it a little tough sailing since they're incapable of going back more than six thousand years.
Then again, they may wind up in the Time of Legends where you can be sure of catching old boots, cans, hat racks, boxes; instead of today where it's prawns all the bloody time.
Posted by: Dan | November 23, 2007 5:54 PM
I think they'll find it a little tough sailing since they're incapable of going back more than six thousand years.
Then again, they may wind up in the Time of Legends where you can be sure of catching old boots, cans, hat racks, boxes; instead of today where it's prawns all the bloody time.
Posted by: Dan | November 23, 2007 5:59 PM
Ooops... Sorry about the double post, PZ. Please delete one, and I will punish myself accordingly.
Posted by: Dan | November 23, 2007 6:01 PM
Perhaps this is a case of Russell's Law, to wit:
It is impossible to tell a creationist from a parody of a creationist.
-DU-
Posted by: David Utidjian | November 23, 2007 8:36 PM
One of the silly things that we would do as kids was to hold our hand over our eyes and say to someone in plain sight, "You can't see me!"
Funny, I can't for the life of me figure out why that memory was just evoked. Hm.
Posted by: Crudely Wrott | November 24, 2007 7:34 AM
Meanwhile, Paul Davies opines in today's New York Times that "Until science comes up with a testable theory of the laws of the universe, its claim to be free of faith is manifestly bogus."
Posted by: Kseniya | November 24, 2007 10:53 AM
But Kristine, if they do eventually get their time machine working, wouldn't we already know about it now? Gotta love time travel paradoxes.
Posted by: Carlie | November 24, 2007 11:54 AM
Re: #27
I would have started with lasers, 8:00, day 1.
-- CV
Posted by: CortxVortx | November 27, 2007 11:50 AM