Babel's Dawn

Fossil Evidence of Speech?

One very obvious difference between the vocalizations of all our ape cousins and humans is the presence of air sacs in all
the apes. Air sacs are essentially large bags that attach to the throat and lie atop the upper chest. Apes use them to make
great big sounds, noises that make them sound larger than they are, rather like putting a truck horn on a Volkswagen to
command respect. Humans do not have air sacs. Dutch linguist Bart de Boer has looked into the question of whether the
absence of air sacs in humans has something to do with the rise of language. If it does, we can date language to at least 800
thousand years ago he told the Evolang conference in Barcelona this evening (Friday, March 14, 2008).
The fossil evidence comes from the hyoid bone, the only bone in the vocal system, and therefore the only source of fossil
evidence for what was going on in the vocal tract’s evolution. (An earlier presentation said we cannot describe the vocal
tract on the basis of the hyoid bone; however, de Boer presented evidence that all the apes have a hyoid bone with a cup
shape in the middle while human hyoids lack the cup. So perhaps we can at least tell from the hyoid whether or not there
was an air sac. See: Stop Your Yacking.) Humans and Neanderthals have almost identical hyoids and just published data
shows that Homo heidelbergensis of 800 thousand years ago had a human-like hyoid. No erectus hyoid fossil has ever
been found, so we cannot push the loss of air sacs back to them. An Australopithecus afarensis hyoid with the
characteristic cup has been found, but as I recall that was a fossil from an infant and so is not quite definitive. The young of
a species often show traits that disappear in the adult. (See: The Selam Fossil)
But what evidence is there that the loss of air sacs might be related to the rise of speech? De Boer has modeled the sounds
that follow the addition of an air sac to the vocal system. Air sac result in lower frequency sounds and a smaller acoustic
range than humans enjoy. Air sacs shorten the articulatory range and the mouth is less able to shape the sound that comes
out from an air sac vocalization. De Boer hypothesized that when what you say becomes more important than how you
sound, air sacs give way. So the disappearance of air sacs is likely a good bit of evidence that speech of some sort has
appeared.
During the question session following the presentation, one woman asked if it was true even today for humans that what
you say is more important than how you say it. De Boer said he liked to believe it would, but the young woman seemed
unconvinced. On the other hand, if what you say doesn’t matter so much, the conference as a whole is wrongly focused.
Another questioner pointed out that there is a sexual appeal in having a big air sac and that mating strength would be a
counterbalance to the pressures from language to reduce the sac. De Boer agreed but thought that the descent of the larynx
may well have been a counterbalance to the loss of air sacs. He said this explanation is not perfect, however, because the
lowered larynx would likely only offer an alternative way of deepening the voice after the sac had already disappeared.
March 14, 2008 in evolang 2008 | Permalink

World Science

More “little people” fossils found

March 11, 2008
Courtesy Public Library of Science
and World Science staff

Re­search­ers say they have dis­cov­ered more fos­sils of min­ia­ture, is­land-dwelling peo­ple, adding a new twist to the sa­ga of so-called “hob­bit” fos­sils re­ported found in In­do­ne­sia in 2004.

A sci­en­tif­ic de­bate has raged over wheth­er those came from a spe­cies of min­ia­ture hu­ma­n­s—as their disco­verers ar­gued—or just from dis­eased, or­di­nary peo­ple.

A map indicates the relative locations of Flores, Indonesia (lower-left red arrow) and Palau (upper-right red arrow.)

If the form­er were true, this would fit in with the fact that ma­ny spe­cies of an­i­mals al­so evolve in­to small forms on is­lands. But sev­er­al stud­ies have chal­lenged the view that the In­do­ne­sian spec­i­mens rep­re­sent a new spe­cies; for ex­am­ple, a pa­per in the March 5 is­sue of the jour­nal Pro­ceed­ings of the Roy­al So­ci­e­ty B sug­gests the “hob­bits” were in real­ity mal­nour­ished cretins.

The disco­very of ad­di­tion­al, some­what si­m­i­lar fos­sils on oth­er is­lands may both re­new and com­pli­cate the de­bate.

In this week’s is­sue of the re­search jour­nal PLoS One, Lee Berger and col­leagues of the Uni­ver­s­ity of the Wit­wa­ters­rand, South Af­ri­ca, Rut­gers Uni­ver­s­ity and Duke Uni­ver­s­ity in North Car­o­li­na de­scribe new­found fos­sils of lit­tle hu­ma­ns from other is­lands.

They lived 1,400 to 3,000 years ago, ac­cord­ing to the re­search­ers, and share some fea­tures with the ear­li­er spec­i­mens, dubbed Ho­mo flo­re­sien­sis by their disco­verers. The name came from the loca­t­ion of disco­very, In­do­ne­sia’s Flo­res Is­land.

The new find­ings comes in­stead from Palau, an is­land chain in the west­ern cen­tral Pa­cif­ic. Palau con­sists of a main is­land of Ba­bel­daob, with hun­dreds of smaller rock is­lands to the south­west. These con­tain ca­ves and rock shel­ters, ma­ny of which have yielded pre­his­tor­ic hu­man re­mains.

The new spec­i­mens from two such ca­ves, Uche­li­ungs and Ome­dokel, which seem to have been used as bur­i­al sites, re­search­ers said.

Both ca­ves, they added, yielded skele­tons of in­di­vid­u­als who would have been small even rel­a­tive to oth­er such popula­t­ions and are ap­prox­i­mately the size of H. flo­re­sien­sis or small mem­bers of the ge­nus Aus­tra­lo­pith­e­cus. These fos­sils were dat­ed to be­tween 1410 and 2890 years ago. The Ome­dokel cave en­trance al­so con­tained re­mains of larg­er peo­ple dat­ed to around a mil­len­ni­um ago, the re­search­ers said.

These ca­ves have pro­vid­ed and will con­tin­ue to pro­vide a wealth of spec­i­mens, which will need deeper stu­dy, the in­ves­ti­ga­tors added. But pre­lim­i­nar­y anal­y­sis of more than a doz­en in­di­vid­u­als in­clud­ing a male who would have weighed around 43 kg (95 lb) and a female of 29 kg (64 lb) show that these peo­ple “had ma­ny cran­io­fa­cial fea­tures con­sid­ered un­ique to H. sapi­ens,” our spe­cies, re­search­ers said.

“These in­di­vid­u­als are likely to be from a hu­man popula­t­ion who ac­quired re­duced stat­ure, for some rea­son,” the re­search­ers said in an­nounc­ing the find­ing March 10.

“It is well es­tab­lished that popula­t­ions liv­ing on iso­lat­ed is­lands of­ten con­sist of in­di­vid­u­als of smaller stat­ure than their main­land cousin­s—a phe­nom­e­non known as is­land dwarf­ism. This is true not just for hu­ma­ns but for ma­ny an­i­mals in­clud­ing ex­tinct mam­moths and ele­phants from is­lands off Si­be­ria, Cal­i­for­nia and even in the Med­i­ter­ra­nean. Al­ter­na­tively, the is­land may have been col­o­nized by a few small in­di­vid­u­als, be­tween 3,000 and 4,000 years ago who, through ex­ten­sive in­breed­ing, and oth­er en­vi­ron­men­tal drivers, pro­duced a small-bodied popula­t­ion, which con­tin­ued to in­hab­it Palau un­til at least 1,400 years ago.”

As well as hav­ing char­ac­ter­is­tics of H. sapi­ens, the Palau fos­sils al­so have fea­tures seen in H. flo­re­sien­sis, the re­search­ers said.

Berger and col­leagues said they don’t in­fer from these fea­tures any di­rect rela­t­ion­ship be­tween the peo­ples of Palau and Flo­res. How­ev­er, they added, the ob­serva­t­ions do sug­gest that at least some of the fea­tures which have been tak­en as ev­i­dence that the Flo­res in­di­vid­u­als are mem­bers of a sep­a­rate spe­cies, may be a com­mon adapta­t­ion in hu­ma­ns of re­duced stat­ure.

Anal­y­sis of the Palau spec­i­mens probably won’t set­tle ar­gu­ments over the sta­tus of H. flo­re­sien­sis as there are fea­tures of Flo­res ma­n, such as small brain size, not found in the peo­ple of Palau, Berger and col­leagues added. Nev­er­the­less, they said, the find­ings sug­gest that at least some of the un­usu­al fea­tures seen in Flo­res are due to en­vi­ronment rath­er than an­ces­tral her­it­age.

“Above all, the skele­tons from Palau should greatly in­crease our un­der­stand­ing of the pro­cess of is­land dwarf­ism in hu­man popula­t­ions and of the an­cient co­lon­iz­a­tions of Ocea­nia,” the re­search­ers said in their an­nounce­ment. The study was funded by the Na­tional Ge­o­graph­ic So­ci­e­ty Mis­sion Pro­grams. A doc­u­men­ta­ry on the find­ings, “Mys­tery Skulls of Palau,” pre­mieres Mon­day, March 17 at 10 PM on the Na­tional Ge­o­graph­ic Chan­nel in the U.S.

τό είδαμε στήν WORLD SCIENCE

Estimates for peopling of Americas getting earlier

March 13, 2008
Courtesy Science
and World Science staff

Arche­ol­o­gists are pre­sent­ing what they call the lat­est ev­i­dence that a tra­di­tion­al ac­count of the peo­pling of the Amer­i­cas is wrong.

The mainstream view pre­vail­ing in the past sev­er­al dec­ades holds that hu­mans en­tered the con­ti­nent about 12,000 years ago us­ing a tem­po­rary land bridge from north­east­ern Asia to Alas­ka. These mi­grants would have giv­en rise to a cul­ture of mam­moth hunters known for their un­ique stone pro­ject­ile-points and dubbed Clo­vis, af­ter re­mains found near Clo­vis, N.M., in the 1930s.

Excavation of the Schaefer mammoth in Wisconsin, thought by archaeologists to date to about 14,500 years ago. (Image courtesy D. Joyce)

But in re­cent years ev­i­dence has turned up that the first Amer­i­cans might have been con­sid­erably old­er, some ar­chae­o­lo­gists ar­gue.

A new re­view pub­lished in the re­search jour­nal Sci­ence con­tends that that the first Amer­i­cans had their roots in south­ern Si­be­ria, ven­tured across the Ber­ing land bridge probably around 22,000 years ago, and mi­grat­ed down in­to the Amer­i­cas as early as 16,000 years ago.

In the pa­per, Ted Goebel of Tex­as A&M Uni­ver­s­ity and col­leagues ar­gue that the lat­ter date is when an ice-free cor­ri­dor in Can­a­da opened and en­abled the migra­t­ion.

The new ac­count is bol­stered by ge­net­ic ev­i­dence and the dis­cov­ery of new ar­chae­o­log­i­cal sites and more ac­cu­rate dates for old sites, ac­cord­ing to the re­search­ers.

Ge­net­ic ev­i­dence, they wrote, points to a found­ing popula­t­ion of less than 5,000 peo­ple at the be­gin­ning of the sec­ond migra­t­ion in Can­a­da.

Moreover, they added, ar­chae­o­log­i­cal ev­i­dence sug­gests the Clo­vis cul­ture may have been rel­a­tive late­com­ers to the Amer­i­cas or de­scen­dants of ear­li­er Paleo-Indian popula­t­ions rep­re­sented at ar­chae­o­log­i­cal sites such as Mon­te Verde in Chil­e. That site is thought to have been oc­cu­pied 14,600 years ago.

The re­search by Goebel and col­leagues ap­pears in the jour­nal’s March 14 is­sue.

EVE SAVORY

Science vs. creationism

Scientific community mobilizes defence of evolution
March 11, 2008

I never could understand, as a young television reporter in Saskatchewan, why scientists refused to defend evolution. It was 1980 and a controversy had erupted over creationism being taught in some science classes. I might have been asking scientists to debate the Flat Earth Society, so withering were their responses to my requests for an interview.
Paleontologist David Eberth explained to me last week that scientists used to believe debating the subject would imply creationism and evolution had equal merit.
"After they were done saying what a pile of poo this whole scientific creationism is, [they] basically wiped their hands of it and walked away," said Eberth, a senior research scientist at the Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller, Alta.
Big mistake. Being left with the ring to itself, creationism reinvented itself as
intelligent design, with the claim that life is too complex to have developed
randomly. Now, said Eberth, the science community is seeing "the negative
education, political and socio-economic fallout for not engaging."
In books, in editorials, in speeches and on the internet, scientists are now
defending evolution on any platform they can get. What's got them so
rattled? "It's the threat to science," said Daniel Fairbanks, author of the new book
Relics of Eden.
The Brigham Young University geneticist — and Christian — writes that
creationists and advocates of intelligent design "have successfully promoted
history's most sophisticated and generously funded attack on science,
claiming that evolution, human evolution in particular, is a 'theory in crisis.'"
Far from being a "theory in crisis," evolution is a fact.
In the 149 years since the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species by
Means of Natural Selection, scientists have uncovered a veritable Noah's flood
of fossil and DNA proof that species evolved.
The evidence is, oh… pick a superlative: overwhelming, irrefutable,
incontrovertible, up there with the earth is round and revolves around the sun.
Yet Christian creationism — the belief that the Bible is literally true — isn't just holding its ground in the face of all that evidence. It's seizing new territory, or so Eberth, Fairbanks and many others fear.
In Texas, Florida, Kentucky, Kansas, Arkansas and elsewhere, Fairbanks writes, a powerful Christian fundamentalist movement conducts an "ongoing assault on science … whose political objectives are to cast doubt on the reality of evolution and to restrict or dilute it in the science curricula of public schools."
Science consistently wins in the courts. The most recent triumph was the 2005 decision against the Dover, Pennsylvania school district, where the courts ruled intelligent design was religion, not science. And ruled it unconstitutional.
Yet despite winning those battles, science is losing the war, according to Eberth. "We have a whole generation of kids in the U.S. who are having this stuff pumped down their throats," he said. Evolution not in the curriculum
In Canada, the debate is less noisy. In fact, you might not be aware there is a debate.
Still, I was floored when Banff resident Scott Rowed, a member of the Centre for Inquiry, told me his daughter graduated from Grade 12 in Alberta without ever hearing the word "evolution."
"The underpinnings of our life sciences courses, our curriculum, are all based on the assumptions of evolution," said the Alberta Department of Education's Kathy Telfer. But evolution itself is not part of the core curriculum in most Canadian schools.


"It's not unheard of, in fact [it] may be quite common, for students to go through their entire public education without hearing about evolution," Jason Wiles of McGill University's Evolution Education Research Centre told me.
What else worries scientists?
Consider the ascent of Mike Huckabee, former Arkansas governor and for several startling months a serious challenger for the Republican presidential nomination. A creationist, he suggested the U.S. constitution should be amended "so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards."
And survey after survey has found roughly half of Americans believe God created humans in their present form, in a single act, within the last 10,000 years.
Only 22 % of Canadians hold that opinion, according to an Angus Reid poll published last June. Curiously, the same poll found 42 per cent of us agree with the creationist belief that we co-existed with dinosaurs.
In Europe, people used to scratch their heads over the furious evolution debate in the United States. Now they have their own alarums and excursions. The creationists have opened so many fronts that last fall a study by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe warned, "If we are not careful, the values that are the very essence of the Council of Europe will be under direct threat from creationist fundamentalists."
It's not just a blossoming Christian fundamentalism that alarms the council. It's also Islamic scientific creationism. The report describes how a Turkish book titled The Atlas of Creation had been sent to schools in France, Switzerland, Belgium and Spain. The author, Islamist preacher Harun Yahya, calls Darwinism a "ruse of Satan," which, he writes, "is collapsing and causing panic in the Darwinian global empire."
Science takes the offensive
Panic? No. Major concern? Yes.
Enough so that scientists are sending out a stream of books, lectures, and editorials explaining,
demonstrating, defending evolution, including in January alone:
The U.S. National Academy of Sciences published the book Science, Evolution, and Creationism.
The co-discoverer of the transitional fossil Tiktaalik ("the fish that does pushups") published Your Inner Fish.
The journal Nature asked the science community to "take every opportunity to promote"
evolution.
A new Journal devoted to teaching evolution was launched.
17 U.S. organizations declared evolution education a "must."
And Daniel Fairbanks published Relics of Eden. "There really is a movement going on here," he told me from his Utah office.
Fossils and DNA hold the proof
If fossils hadn't so thoroughly locked up the proof, the evidence Fairbanks presents would finish the job. For our evolutionary history is written in our DNA.
As an undergraduate exploring for fossils in his geology class, Fairbanks had already had to rethink his deeply religious upbringing. Accepting the story the fossils told "was a change in my world view," he said.
As a geneticist, he now studies a different kind of fossil. But the story they tell is the same.
These "relics" of our evolutionary past are segments of DNA, mutations, apparently redundant, which have accumulated over time and now clutter up the genomes of humans and other species.
"Each relic, we presume, was inherited from a common ancestor," Fairbanks told me. "The closer they are, then the more recent the common ancestor of that organism must be, and the more distant they are — that is, the more diverged they are — then the more distant the common ancestor must be."
The sequencing of three primate genomes — human, chimpanzee, and the rhesus macaque — was "a scientific opportunity unlike any that we have ever had before," said Fairbanks.
The chapters that demonstrate how genomes prove the evolutionary relationship may demand
concentration from those of us without a degree in biology. Be prepared to learn about transposons, retroelements and pseudogenes. The payoff is in understanding why scientists find the evidence indisputable.
Fairbanks spent a lot of time on the primates because he has found that while many people are willing to believe other species have evolved, they draw the line at humans. "They just can't get beyond the point that we share common ancestry with other animals," he said.
Evolution, atheism and God
Fairbanks is troubled by the dichotomy laid out by two extremes: creationists and atheists. Both make the claim, he said, that you must believe in either evolution or God. You can't believe in both. He himself has no trouble marrying the two in his personal life, but adds: "If one accepts that dichotomy, then the study of science is frightening. It seems to be something that is the enemy of religion when in fact it is not."
Perhaps atheists such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens have done more to damage evolution than to champion it.
In fact, rather than seeing creationists and evolutionists engaging in battle, Fairbanks has embraced the call made by one enthusiastic reviewer of his book for an "intellectual peace corps." "Say I am a member of it," he told me.
Back in 1980, I finally did find a scientist who thought defending evolution in my news story would be worth his while. Taylor Steen, a biologist and a Christian, told me then that "creationism is bad religion. And it's bad science."
Science and scientists have paid a price for assuming that that simple answer — or none at all — would suffice.

Additional links
There are thousands of other websites where one can pursue these topics. Here are three that are worth exploring:
The Talk Origins Archive takes an evolutionary perspective but links to sites that support
creationism and Intelligent Design.
One of the most active promoters of the latter point of view is the Institute for Creation Research And the Creation Information Portal gives a Canadian viewpoint.

Μετά τον Δαρβίνο, θα έρθει η σειρά και του Νεύτωνα;

πηγή http://www.e-paideia.net/news/article.asp?lngEntityID=59777&lngDtrID=102

Με την ιστορική ετυμηγορία του στην υπόθεση «Εντουαρντς εναντίον Αγκουιλαρ» το 1987, το αμερικανικό Ανώτατο Δικαστήριο αποφάνθηκε ότι η διδασκαλία των θρησκευτικών μύθων περί δημιουργίας πλάι στην επιστημονική θεωρία περί φυσικής επιλογής είναι αντισυνταγματική, καθότι προσκρούει στον διαχωρισμό εκκλησίας - κράτους. Η γραμμή άμυνας των φανατικών βρέθηκε, όπως αναφέρει η Καθημερινή (01.03.2008), με την επινόηση του «νοήμονος σχεδιασμού» (intelligent design), μιας εντελώς διαφανούς μεταμφίεσης του δόγματος περί δημιουργίας. Να όμως που, μετά τον Δαρβίνο, μπορεί να έρθει και η σειρά του Νεύτωνα και του Αϊνστάιν. Αυτό υποστήριζε τον Αύγουστο του 2005 η αμερικανική εφημερίδα Onion. Στο σχετικό ρεπορτάζ από το Κάνσας, «ειδικοί ερευνητές» από το Ευαγγελικό Κέντρο Λογικής Βασισμένης στην Πίστη (ECFR) έθεσαν υπό αμφισβήτηση την επιστημονική θεωρία της βαρύτητας, αντιπροτείνοντας τη θεωρία της «νοήμονος πτώσης» (intelligent falling). «Τα αντικείμενα δεν πέφτουν επειδή υπόκεινται στη δράση κάποιας δύναμης βαρύτητας, αλλά επειδή μια ανώτερη διάνοια, ο Θεός, αν θέλετε, τα ωθεί προς τα κάτω», δήλωσε, στη διάρκεια εκδήλωσης στο Κάνσας Σίτι, ο Γκάμπριελ Μπέρντετ, πτυχιούχος Εκπαίδευσης, Εφαρμοσμένης Αγίας Γραφής και Φυσικής από το Πανεπιστήμιο Οραλ Ρόμπερτς. Ο δρ Μπέρντετ δεν αμφισβητεί ότι τα πράγματα πέφτουν ακολουθώντας την εξίσωση του Νεύτωνα F= m.g. Μας εφιστά, ωστόσο, την προσοχή στο γεγονός ότι αυτό το F δεν είναι η «δύναμη βαρύτητας», όπως μέχρι τώρα αφελώς πιστεύαμε, αλλά η μαθηματική έκφραση της θείας βούλησης, κάτι το οποίο προδήλως ανοίγει νέα, ανεξάντλητα πεδία έρευνας. Το ECFR, που εκπροσωπεί ο κ. Μπέρντετ, είναι εντελώς αντισυμβατικό ερευνητικό κέντρο. Ιδρύθηκε το 1987 και αυτοπροσδιορίζεται ως «το πρωτοποριακό, σε παγκόσμια κλίμακα, ίδρυμα» μιας νεαρής επιστήμης, της Ευαγγελικής Φυσικής». Οπως εξηγούν οι ειδικοί του ECFR σε ερευνητική εργασία τους, η οποία δημοσιεύθηκε στο έγκριτο, επιστημονικό περιοδικό «Ο Κόσμος του Θεού για Εφήβους» (God’s World for Teens), «υπάρχουν πολλά φαινόμενα που δεν μπορούν να εξηγηθούν αποκλειστικά με βάση τις κλασικές θεωρίες της βαρύτητας». Για ποια φυσικά φαινόμενα γίνεται λόγος; Οι ερευνητές επικαλούνται για παράδειγμα «τις πτήσεις των αγγέλων, την ανάληψη του Χριστού στον ουρανό και των έκπτωση του Σατανά από τον Παράδεισο» - πασίγνωστα φυσικά φαινόμενα τα οποία όντως δεν μπόρεσε να εξηγήσει ούτε η κλασική θεωρία της βαρύτητας κατά Νεύτωνα, ούτε η γενική θεωρία της Σχετικότητας, του Αϊνστάιν. Οι συμβατικοί επιστήμονες αντιτάσσουν ότι με τη θεωρία του Νεύτωνα καταφέραμε να πάμε στο φεγγάρι, ενώ η Σχετικότητα του Αϊνστάιν βρέθηκε να έχει ακρίβεια δεκάδων δεκαδικών ψηφίων σε όλες τις αστρονομικές παρατηρήσεις, ακόμη και από τις πιο μακρινές εσχατιές του γνωστού Σύμπαντος. Οι εναλλακτικοί επιστήμονες του ΕCFR δεν θέλουν να είναι δογματικοί: «Δεν ζητάμε να εξοστρακισθεί η συμβατική θεωρία από τη σχολική ύλη, μόνο να προσφέρονται και οι δύο πλευρές στους μαθητές, ώστε να κάνουν οι ίδιοι την επιλογή τους γνωρίζοντας όλες τις όψεις», δηλώνει ο ερευνητής Μπέρντετ, για να προσθέσει: «Θέλουμε μόνο την καλύτερη δυνατή εκπαίδευση για τα παιδιά του Κάνσας». Ο,τι ακριβώς είχε πει και ο Μπους με αφορμή τη διαμάχη γύρω από τη δαρβινική θεωρία της εξέλιξης. Από την πλευρά της, μια άλλη ερευνήτρια της «νοήμονος πτώσης», η δρ Ελεν Κάρσον, δεν μπορεί να καταλάβει τη στενοκεφαλιά των δογματικά συμβατικών φυσικών: «Αυτό που οφείλουν να συνειδητοποιήσουν όλοι οι επιστήμονες που ασχολούνται με τη βαρύτητα, είναι ότι τα περίφημα “κύματα βαρύτητας” ή “βαρυτόνια” των θεωριών τους δεν είναι τίποτα άλλο από κοσμικοί όροι για να περιγράψουν τη θεμελιώδη αρχή: Ο Θεός μπορεί να κάνει ό,τι Αυτός θέλει»! Βεβαίως, το Onion είναι μια σατιρική εφημερίδα και το εν λόγω ρεπορτάζ ήταν εντελώς φανταστικό. Ωστόσο, πάρα πολύς κόσμος, εντός και εκτός Αμερικής, δυσκολεύθηκε να καταλάβει ότι επρόκειτο για φάρσα. Η φάρσα της εφημερίδας εξελίχθηκε σε διαδικτυακό φαινόμενο, καθώς άλλοι την πήραν στα σοβαρά και υπέγραψαν εκκλήσεις για την ισότιμη διδασκαλία της «νοήμονος πτώσης» και άλλοι την αναπαρήγαγαν, διασκεδάζοντας με την ψυχή τους. Δεν αποκλείεται, όμως, η ζωή να ξεπεράσει για άλλη μια φορά τη φαντασία. Στις εκλογές του 2004, ο υποψήφιος για το χρίσμα των Δημοκρατικών, Χάουαρντ Ντιν, είχε προβλέψει ότι το να κηρύξουν οι Ρεπουμπλικανοί πόλεμο και εναντίον της βαρύτητας είναι απλώς θέμα χρόνου. Ας αφήσουμε που το Πανεπιστήμιο Οραλ Ρόμπερτς, από όπου προερχόταν ο «δρ Μπέρντετ», είναι εντελώς πραγματικό, με επιδόσεις που μάλλον ξεπερνούν το εν λόγω φανταστικό «ρεπορτάζ».

Ventura County Reporter

Do the evolution

The Rev. Michael Dowd began life as a born-again evangelical believing Darwinian biology to be the work of the devil. Now, he preaches the gospel of science.

By Joan Trossman Bien 02/28/2008

The Rev. Michael Dowd is making the rounds in Ventura County this week, delivering speeches and workshops at churches in Ojai and Ventura. The topic of his considerable passion: evolution.

For Dowd, a trip through the cosmos ends at your front door. Actually, Dowd and his scientist-author wife, Connie Barlow, don’t really have their own front door. They have lived on the road for six years, preaching the excitement of science as religious inspiration. They roam North America appearing at venues both secular and sectarian, attempting to convince their audience that each individual person is the result of 14 billion years of evolution.

Dowd did not come to this intersection of science and religion in a predictable way. He says he had an epiphany when he was in the Army.

“I was on a backpacking trip, and I had a very profound mountain experience where I was confronted with a vision of my death, basically,” Dowd says. “The thought that was there was, what if I live 100 years — what difference does a person make in their lifetime? …

"I was convinced that I wanted to make a difference in the world, but, at the time, I was really addicted to drugs and alcohol and a lot of stuff, just really struggling.”

“I came off the mountain, literally, and the next Sunday went to church. They showed a Billy Graham film and asked if somebody wanted to commit their life to Christ, and I ran down to the altar.”

After leaving the Army, Dowd attended Evangel University in Springfield, Miss., where he received a B.A. in biblical studies and philosophy. But the school had a few surprises for the born-again young man. “I was unprepared that they were going to be teaching evolution there,” Dowd says. “I was blown away. At first I was freaked out.
I walked out of class, made a big scene and stuff. In fact, I told my roommate that Satan obviously had a foothold in the school. It was
the only way I could make sense out of them teaching evolution at the school, because I had come to believe that evolution was of the Devil, and here they were teaching evolution at a Bible-reading college.”

What the 49-year-old preacher now believes in is a science-based sacred understanding of the universe. “It is very far from fundamentalism,” Dowd says.

The reformed and informed Dowd has indeed traveled a long way from evangelical Christian fundamentalism. His path toward politics began in 1988 with an interest in environmentalism. As his search for knowledge continued, Dowd looked to the sciences for answers.

“I was immersing myself in the studies of biology, cosmology, anthropology and all these disciplines related to the entire universe story,” Dowd says. “Cosmology is the study of the cosmos, the study of the large-scale structures of the universe. I studied chemistry, where the elements of the periodic tables came from. We’ve known since 1957 that chemical elements came from inside stars. Joni Mitchell had it right back in the ’60s: We are stardust.”

As Dowd pursued his studies of all things scientific, he felt he was learning far more about the nature of reality than he had learned from the Bible. “I began to see science as revelatory,” Dowd said. “I began calling it ‘public revelation.’ Private revelation is an insight which comes to one individual. Public revelation is what the whole scientific community is given.”

The collision of science and politics landed squarely in Dowd’s lap in the mid-’90s. “I was the organizer for the National Environmental Trust,” Dowd says. “So my job was to organize Jewish rabbis, Catholic priests, Protestant clergy and Evangelical clergy on key environmental issues which were coming up for a vote in Congress.”

Those were the glory days of former House of Representatives leader Newt Gingrich. “The Republicans were threatening to repeal all the major environmental legislation,” Dowd says, “so there was a lot of interest and a lot of funding for organizing the religious communities around protecting some of the environmental concerns. In the United States, that was the first time that religion and religious leaders were beginning to take a public stand on environmental issues.”

Dowd’s next stop was a governmental sustainable life campaign, first in Portland, Ore., then in New York. “My job was to help neighbors come together and support one another, four to eight households at a time,” Dowd says. These neighborhood groups became eco-teams helping each other with using less water, composting, driving less and recycling.

Everything changed when Dowd met his future wife.

“We fell in love as mission partners,” Dowd said. “We both basically felt that our purpose in this world in our lifetime was to share this universe story perspective with everyone, from atheists to evangelicals.”

And that is why they have no front door of their own, only the road and other people’s houses where they stay as they travel from one speaking engagement to the next.

They have published a book discussing their evolutionary views, Thank God for Evolution, and operate a Web site, thankgodforevolution.com.

Dowd relishes sharing his enthusiasm with all types of groups. Recently, he spoke to a group of 125 evangelical ministers about evolution. He says they accept the concept the way most people accept death and taxes. “But it doesn’t inspire them, it doesn’t fire them up. It’s like, ‘OK, evolution, whatever.’ ”

The comprehensive vision Dowd preaches is based in science. “It is the story of the universe, how the galaxies evolved, how our solar system evolved, how planet Earth evolved, and life, and how human cultures have evolved over the last 2 ½ million years of human existence,” he says. “Darwinian biological evolution only accounts for an understanding of the biological aspect. We are also talking about the evolution of galaxies and stars and planets and human evolution.”

Dowd says he believes chaos, breakdowns and bad news are the catalysts for creativity and transformation. “So I begin to trust the chaos, I trust the challenges, I trust the difficulties,” he says.

Hoping to give his audiences a sense of compassion and commitment with his presentations, Dowd nevertheless also believes the world is heading down a dangerous path.

“Frankly, if we don’t find ways of cooperating across ethnic and religious differences in the next 50 to 70 years, we are in deep doo-doo.”

Dowd is not afraid to take a political stance on issues of social importance. “Think about the millions of people who are united in peace thanks to George W. Bush,” Dowd says. “He is the great unifier — not in the way he would want. So it is that chaos-vibed creativity that allows me to be less judgmental toward George Bush, even though I am profoundly committed to getting somebody like Barack [Obama] or Hilary [Clinton] in the White House.

“So rather than looking at the challenges we are now dealing with and saying, ‘Oh shit!’ we look at the challenges and say, ‘OK, what is possible now?’ ” Dowd says. “That way you have a different emotional stance.”

Dowd is realistic about the serious problems facing the world, whether political in nature or simply unavoidable disasters. He says he sees them as challenges instead as roadblocks. “I think oil is going to be a challenge,” Dowd says. “Overpopulation is obviously going to be a challenge. Most population scientists say that within the next 80 years, we will see human population decline. I think we’re going to see the growing gap between rich and poor.”

But Dowd says he views these issues as forcing civilization to come up with creative solutions. He says he can envision some terrible circumstances before we are able to rebound.

“I’m not Pollyanna,” Dowd says. “We could see some kind of nuclear exchange. I think that from an evolutionary viewpoint these problems — even catastrophes — will serve as evolutionary drivers.”

The Rev. Dowd speaks this week at the following Ventura County locations: Feb. 28, 7 p.m., at Meditation Mount, 10340 Reeves Road, Ojai, 640-8815; March 2, 10 a.m., at the Ventura Vineyard Church, 1956 Palma Dr. Suite A, Ventura, 650-2510; and March 5, 7 p.m., at the Center for Spiritual Living, 101 S. Laurel St.643-1933.

One Common Ancestor Behind Blue Eyes

By Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Staff Writer

posted: 31 January 2008 08:34 am ET

People with blue eyes have a single, common ancestor, according to new research.

A team of scientists has tracked down a genetic mutation that leads to blue eyes. The mutation occurred between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. Before then, there were no blue eyes.

"Originally, we all had brown eyes," said Hans Eiberg from the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of Copenhagen.

The mutation affected the so-called OCA2 gene, which is involved in the production of melanin, the pigment that gives color to our hair, eyes and skin.

"A genetic mutation affecting the OCA2 gene in our chromosomes resulted in the creation of a 'switch,' which literally 'turned off' the ability to produce brown eyes," Eiberg said.

The genetic switch is located in the gene adjacent to OCA2 and rather than completely turning off the gene, the switch limits its action, which reduces the production of melanin in the iris. In effect, the turned-down switch diluted brown eyes to blue.

If the OCA2 gene had been completely shut down, our hair, eyes and skin would be melanin-less, a condition known as albinism.

"It's exactly what I sort of expected to see from what we know about selection around this area," said John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, referring to the study results regarding the OCA2 gene. Hawks was not involved in the current study.

Baby blues

Eiberg and his team examined DNA from mitochondria, the cells' energy-making structures, of blue-eyed individuals in countries including Jordan, Denmark and Turkey. This genetic material comes from females, so it can trace maternal lineages.

They specifically looked at sequences of DNA on the OCA2 gene and the genetic mutation associated with turning down melanin production.

Over the course of several generations, segments of ancestral DNA get shuffled so that individuals have varying sequences. Some of these segments, however, that haven't been reshuffled are called haplotypes. If a group of individuals shares long haplotypes, that means the sequence arose relatively recently in our human ancestors. The DNA sequence didn't have enough time to get mixed up.

"What they were able to show is that the people who have blue eyes in Denmark, as far as Jordan, these people all have this same haplotype, they all have exactly the same gene changes that are all linked to this one mutation that makes eyes blue," Hawks said in a telephone interview.

Melanin switch

The mutation is what regulates the OCA2 switch for melanin production. And depending on the amount of melanin in the iris, a person can end up with eye color ranging from brown to green. Brown-eyed individuals have considerable individual variation in the area of their DNA that controls melanin production. But they found that blue-eyed individuals only have a small degree of variation in the amount of melanin in their eyes.

"Out of 800 persons we have only found one person which didn't fit — but his eye color was blue with a single brown spot," Eiberg told LiveScience, referring to the finding that blue-eyed individuals all had the same sequence of DNA linked with melanin production.

"From this we can conclude that all blue-eyed individuals are linked to the same ancestor," Eiberg said. "They have all inherited the same switch at exactly the same spot in their DNA." Eiberg and his colleagues detailed their study in the Jan. 3 online edition of the journal Human Genetics.

That genetic switch somehow spread throughout Europe and now other parts of the world.

"The question really is, 'Why did we go from having nobody on Earth with blue eyes 10,000 years ago to having 20 or 40 percent of Europeans having blue eyes now?" Hawks said. "This gene does something good for people. It makes them have more kids."