I've stated before that folks who peddle the DDT ban myth tend to be those who don't believe in evolution and hence don't believe that mosquitoes can evolve resistance to DDT. One or two commenters felt that I was trying to tar those folks with the creationist brush.
Jonathan Sarfati was Andrew Bolt's source for his nonsense about bedbugs and DDT and also showed up in comments to accuse greens of banning DDT to "solve" the overpopulation problem. Jonathan Sarfati is a Young Earth Creationist. Using a sockpuppet named Socrates he wrote:
In some cases, insects required resistance, and naturally this was touted as "evolution in action" as though it proved evolution from goo to you via the zoo and refuted biblical creation. The resistance was already present. When DDT was applied, only the few resistant forms survived, with a severely genetically depleted population.
More like this
I assume that mosquitos are well enough known so that there are studies to show that the pre-DDT ones did or did not in fact have resistence. Did they?
If they did, then widespread resistance would have come about very quickly, so they didn't -- it was a mutation.
Though the original resistance to DDT in mosquitos developed through mutation and took a relatively long time to appear, the mechanism that Juila asks about is still very much at work and very relevant to current DDT spraying.
Nearly all mosquito populations worldwide now contain mosquitos with the resistance (albiet at fairly low frequency in places where spraying has not occurred for some time).
As soon as DDT spraying is started, only the resistant mosquitoes survive and the entire population quickly becomes resistant (usually in a matter of months).
So, as long as the resistant gene remains in the mosquito gene pool, DDT will have only limited effectiveness against mosquitoes.
Isn't that ... y'know ... evolution?
Dan - Yep, but Sarfati & his friends at AiG call it "adaptation" or, at best, microevolution, which they say falls short of full Darwinian evolution or macroevolution. Sarfati is arguing that no new information was added to mosquito DNA, thus, no evolution.
"Sarfati is arguing that no new information was added to mosquito DNA, thus, no evolution."
The real problem, of course, is that Sarfati is having an argument with his anal sphincter.
People like that do not deserve the time of day -- other than to demonstrate what fools they are, that is.
The Q&D way to make Creationists using the "information" argument go away (or demonstrate how abysmally ignorant they are) is to ask them to give a definition of "information" that is objective, measurable and applicable. Most of these wanks bring up Shannon or K-C (usually conflating them), but fail to demonstrate the "applicable" part.
So creationists are peddling the DDT ban myth AND deny that global warming is occurring. And global warming deniers are shills for the oil industry, so oil industry shills must be creationists too. Who knew!
Transylvanian logic is powerful indeed.
as though it proved evolution from goo to you via the zoo ..
These people love this kind of snappy marketing lingo, don't they?
The interesting point here is that without producing the genome of every single mosquito that was aroudn when DDT was introduced you can't PROVE the negative that the DDT resistance gene wasnt already present.
Even if in the laboratory you started with a non-resistant strain, exposed it to mutagens and showed DDT resistance emerged when exposed to the insecticide they'd argue that the human intervention meant the situation wasn't equivalent.
and even if you did somehow prove the emergence of a wholely novel form of DDT resistance they'd simply fall bakc on the argement that this was (undefined) micro-evolution not (undefined) macro-evolution.
When it comes right down to it, one can never "prove" the absence of anything, the source of the statement that "The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."
The "time to develop resistance" argument that Tim pointed out is a very convincing one to reasoning (reasonable) people, but not for those who argue against evolution.
It's impossible to "convince" the latter group because their mind was already made up even before they knew the first thing about the subject.
What Sarfati has done here is draw upon a traditional distinction made by creationists that isn't always clear to their critics.
Broadly speaking, the many factors that drive evolution (or more to the point, speciation) can be grouped into two general categories: genetic mutation, and natural selection (including selection at the molecular level). Creationism, as we all know, is grounded in Biblical literalism--specifically, in Genesis 1 and 2. One of the bigger sticking points creationsts have with it is that, in their minds, a continuously branching evolutionary "tree" is inconsistent with the Gen. 1 statement that God created all living things "according to their kinds" (Gen. 1:21). These days many creationists are smart enough to recognize that challenging all variability is a lost cause. Even they know that new flu vaccines are needed every year.
This puts them on the horns of a dilemma. They must acknowledge some variability, but not too much lest they lose their primary argument against evolution and "according to their kinds." They get around this by separating gentic mutation and natural selection into mutually exclusive pools. Natural selection exists has free reign within the realm of "kinds." When forced to acknowledge that "kind" is hopelessly vague, they came up with the term "baramin" (from the Hebrew "bara" for create, used in Gen. 1) which they try to apply in more specific ways. Natural selection, they say, accounts for change within kinds, but selection + mutation cannot account for evolution in general.
So a rainbow trout (genus salmo) can lead to a steelhead, or even cross a species boundary and become a brook trout (genus salvelinus), as long as both are in some sense "trout." Natural selection working within a kind/baramin does this. But according to them genetic mutation must pick up where selection leaves off to get us from a trout to, say, a whale or something else radically different. This is what allows Sarfati to accept "adaptation" while regecting evolution.
The biggest fallacy in this is, or course, that genetic mutation and natural selection do not inhabit mutually exclusive realms. Both are continuously happening within the gene pool of any species. Mutation and selection get us from rainbow trout to brook trout, just as they get us from amphibian to mammal. It is on this specific point that they must be called onto the carpet.
There's also the myriad of problems in their mutilation of proper Biblical exegesis on these and other points, but that's a whole other discussion in itself.
"What Sarfati has done here is draw upon a traditional distinction made by creationists that isn't always clear to their critics."
The distinction is about as clear as mud because it is borne of an effort to "thread a camel through the eye of a needle".
Do people like Sarfati really believe their own gibberish?
Many of these creationists have one interest and one interest only: defeating the "Evil Darwinists".
http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/Coyne-IconsReview.htm
It's simply not possible to have a legtimate sceintific debate with these people because they approach the issue like lawyers, not scientists.
In other words, they adopt a basic premise (in this case that "darwinism is bunk") and then go hunting for "factoids and inventing pseudo-scientific arguments (eg, "realm of kinds") to support their case.
That's why most of what they come up with is simply unadulterated crap from a scientific standpoint. Such a modus operandi turns science on its head.
Doesn't Dr. Quiggin always say "The plural of anecdote is not data". Perhaps you've said that yourself a few times?
JB:
"Though the original resistance to DDT in mosquitos developed through mutation and took a relatively long time to appear, the mechanism that Juila asks about is still very much at work and very relevant to current DDT spraying."
One mechanism? I'm rather confused.
>Nearly all mosquito populations worldwide now contain >mosquitos with the resistance (albiet at fairly low >frequency in places where spraying has not occurred for >some time).
This is a rather vague answer to her request. When you speak only of one resistance previously, (wrt to mosquito vectors and DDT) and call it the original, I guess I'm assuming you mean KDR? (iirc that was the first noticed anyway) I suppose it's correct to say that the resistance has a high allelic frequency, but the particular resistance I'm assuming you're speaking of is not only conferred through IRS with DDT.
>As soon as DDT spraying is started, only the resistant >mosquitoes survive and the entire population quickly >becomes resistant (usually in a matter of months).
I can't see this as really being an accurate portrayal of events (temporaly, especially) in any of the regions I've been to.
>So, as long as the resistant gene remains in the mosquito >gene pool, DDT will have only limited effectiveness against >mosquitoes.
Which particular gene is this which you speak of? (I only ask that as your words would lead one to assume it's one only one long chain)
I'm also curious as to which regions you had in mind when composing your previous message.
/as far as the creationist thing, don't get me started, it's too absurd to comprehend/
DDT in Africa saves babies' lives, says WHO
By Philip Sherwell in New York and Gethin Chamberlain
(Filed: 17/09/2006)
The World Health Organisation is urging powerful environmental groups not to oppose the use of the pesticide DDT to fight malaria in Africa, after a significant reversal of policy by the agency.
"DDT in Africa saves babies' lives, says WHO By Philip Sherwell in New York and Gethin Chamberlain"
The writeup in the NYTimes goes on to discuss how Dr. Arata Kochi, the new head of the malaria program since October who backs more DDT spraying, was previously forced out of the tuberculosis program, how the previous head of the WHO malaria spraying program has now resigned, and how in fact half the WHO malaria staff has been replaced since October. Apparently, there is no "consensus" at WHO......
A Daily Telegraph editorial ("LET US SPRAY") dishes up the usual tripe:
"No book, including The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, has killed more people than The Silent Spring. It has done far more damage than DDT ever did. We hope its pernicious influence is finally at an end."
But it's too short to score high on Tim's DDT Myth Bingo.
Quote: Until now, the agency had recommended indoor spraying of insecticides in areas of seasonal or episodic transmission of malaria, but it now also advocates it where continuous, intense transmission of the disease causes the most deaths.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/16/world/africa/16malaria.html
So yet again we have evidence of the ongoing use of DDT for mosquito control used to support claims of a ban on such use.
Next thing you know the advocates of unrestricted broad-acre spraying of DDT will be citing its use for indoor spraying as support for their position.