Casey Luskin is The Wedge

There's a multimedia element to my post this time around. Well, an annotated YouTube video. Trust me, the stupid isn't nearly as compelling until you watch it.

Discovery Institute front-man Casey Luskin appeared on Fox News' rather conservative "Fox and Friends" show recently to warn us all that we're being hoodwinked by them mainstream science types. Biology textbooks, Luskin claims, neglect to incoproporate any scientific evidence which "contradicts Darwin". Apparently, the teaching of evolution in American schools (and perhaps elsewhere) is plagued with inaccuracies. This quite modest plague apparently consists of two items which, if you can believe it of a God-fearing institution, are total bullshit. Isn't it strange how the people raising this most important issue also happen to be peddling Intelligent Design, a crudely-disguised version of Creationism. The presenter correctly identifies that the teaching of evolution is a "white hot" issue. I guess the failure of the show to bring on someone from say, the other side of the debate, to speak on the show may have something to do with that "and Friends" bit of the show title.

First up in the non-torrent of non-issues is the apparent inclusion of the debunked "Haeckel's Embryos" illustrations in biology texts, which I have to admit I have never seen presented as factual. Of course, what Luskin does not mention is that the point that Haeckel's admittedly fabricated drawings of vertebrate embryos compared side-by-side has in fact been fully validated by genuine embryology work. This work has shown that we can find common combinations of morphological traits between the embryos of the vertebrate species. We gain an insight that we don't always get from comparing adult organisms. It is this modern and well researched take on Haeckel's work is what we typically find in biology texts. And it is that science which actually upsets Luskin and company who, it is repeated so many times as to be suspicious, do not want to teach your kids creationism. For definite. Okay?

Second, the ghost of a recent New Scientist article (which screamed Darwin Was Wrong from the front cover before going on to essentially admit that he... wasn't wrong) is summoned to frighten us. The article discussed the phenomenon of horizontal gene transfer (HGT), whereby genetic material can pass from one species to another without descent. HGT makes a mess out of the lineage of the bacteria because they make such transfers quite frequently. However, Casey Luskin would like us to believe that this has proven wrong the concept of the tree of life entirely. But HGT is quite remarkably rare amongst species bigger than the single-celled organisms that live in in the humid forests of Luskin's substantial eyebrows. The awkward truth that Luskin and other ID proponents need to explain is why when we arrange bigger, multicellular species by the combinations of common traits they posses, we get a tree shape. That's just how their traits are distributed, the tree is not a human fabrication and it is certainly not under threat. It's taught as a part of evolution because when it comes to the animals and plants we see around us, it's very much real and relevant.

Luskin's entirely unchallenged arguments are aired here, with some added annotations from yours truly.

Happy Darwin Day

Happy Darwin Day! Today we celebrate the 200th birthday of a scientific revolutionary. Like Pasteur, Mendel, Newton and Einstein, Darwin ushered in a shift in our perception of the evidence. In Darwin's lifetime the nature of life and its place in the world was explained by a mixture of assumption and religion. The science that existed was disparate. Biologists were just starting to understand heredity and variation. That variation displayed such great diversity at times, and yet such curious similarities. The distribution seemed to make little sense. Geologists were pointing to the massively stratified nature of their favourite medium (rock) as evidence that the world was far older than they had expected and wondered at the curious sequence of petrified organic structures they found within. Layer upon layer, that same progression across every strata and every geological discontinuity, across the world. The evidence was all there, merely waiting for someone to bring it together into one clear picture.

In November, we'll celebrate the 150th anniversary of the publication of that clear picture. Darwin's most prominent work, On the Origin of Species. Just as Newton's world was superceded, but not destroyed, by Einstein's; so too has Darwin's work found itself but a small part of a grander theory. His Laws of Natural Selection remain intact, his notions on heredity and genetics superceded by his contemporary Mendel. Both now standing along side the molecular genetics of Watson, Crick and Franklin.

There are those who say that scientists hold Darwin sacred. That his theory has become dogma. But it is likely that if Darwin read a modern biology textbook today, he would certainly disagree. He might even be a little annoyed at the absence of some of his hypotheses. But he would be delighted that natural selection has endured so well. And delighted that humanity has cast aside the notions of racial species divides which he loathed so much.

He gave us a part of the picture. We have accepted those ideas of his which have been borne out in experimentation, and discarded those which did not. Concepts that brought the evidence together in a revolutionary way. He was the first to understand our true nature and our place in the world. For that, we celebrate a great man and a scientist who stands as an example of dedication and remarkable insight.

Happy Birthday Charlie.

Accept Evolution, Eat People

During the weekend Donna Garner, a former language arts teacher in Central Texas and a conservative activist, circulated an email in response to the recent move by the Texas State Board of Education to close a long-standing loophole in their policy on the teaching of science. Previously, it was a requirement to debate the "strengths and weaknesses" of the theory of Evolution (or any scientific theory). A requirement, even if the matter was not prompted by students. In practise, this has been used as a back door to introduce creationist and intelligent design arguments into the classroom. Not actual scientific weaknesses, but religious criticisms. Science is not debated in terms of strengths and weaknesses, but in terms of evidence. But I'll return to that point.

She begins:

Dear Friends of Students:

This year, 2009, is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin (born in 1809), author of Origin of the Species. Atheist groups across America are using this anniversary to move aggressively to force all 50 million public school students to be taught that macro-evolution (life spontaneously springing from a chemical reaction with all life stemming from that common chemical reaction and becoming different species through mutations) is a fact–without allowing the teaching or discussion of the scientific “weaknesses” increasingly being discovered concerning the theory of evolution. Texas, with its 4.7 million students, was selected as the first state to conquer. And, so far, the atheists are winning in Texas.

Let's just take a look at what has been said and left unsaid in her opening statements.

Garner immediately puts a suggestion into our minds without backing it up. "Atheist groups are using this...", "the atheists are winning". Immediately the subject is not education, but religion. In her mind (and she wants us to join her there), this is not about science, but faith. No names are named, no figures cited. We are to assume that science advocacy groups such as Texas Citizens for Science, The Texas Freedom Network and countless others are atheistic in nature. The atheists are doing this, and presumably it's part of a grand plan. A war to be won at terrible cost to you the reader, a cost to be outlined later.

Next she both introduces and defines "macro-evolution" and states that everyone will be forced to learn this thing that she has defined as fact. Macro-evolution is a term not used in the scientific literature or in text books, so it is good that Garner defines it for us. But her definition does not actually match up with anything taught in US schools. Her target, Evolution, does not attempt to explain the origins of life itself (which are not conclusively known) but merely the origin of the great variety of life that we now see. That origin is indeed a common ancestor, but for now at least, Garner's "spontaneous springing [of life] from a chemical reaction" remains within the realms of hypothesis. If it is taught at all, it is taught in that context. Macro evolution then, is something of a Straw Man.

Finally, she implies that Evolution has "scientific weaknesses" that are, she says "increasingly being discovered". Well I'm quite sure that evolution does have flaws, but with what relevance to high school students? With what support within the expert community? If a fringe group of historians contend that Abraham Lincoln's murder was motivated by Wilkes-Booth's phobia of beards (or something more plausible perhaps) we're not going to open up the floor for students to specifically "debate the weaknesses" in the theory that the assassination was politically motivated. This is not an end to questions about the motive or the politics which formed it, but the dishonest notion that a meaningful debate exists in the field is not entertained. And of course, the curriculum for a given subject should reflect the consensus of the relevant experts.

As for weaknesses "increasingly being discovered", well there's certainly nothing new in the pseudoscience that Ms. Garner will shortly inflict on us.

Let's move on.

For more than 20 years, the rule in Texas has been to teach both the “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution. Last week, by a margin of 1 vote, the Texas State Board of Education voted to remove the word “weaknesses” so that only the strengths of evolution could be “analyzed and evaluated” in all Texas public schools. The final vote is in March, so there is time to make a difference.

As I indicated previously, the "strengths-versus-weakness" model of debate or analysis is a curious idea, and it is not really one which applies to science, assuming we are seeking to invite serious debate in a classroom. If evolution is open to being "analysed and evaluated" (and of course it is), it stands to reason that this should be on the basis of evidence.

Some evidence will support evolution and some, if evolution is incorrect, will contradict it. The thing about scientific theories is that we do not weigh-up the "pros and cons" of a theory when deciding if it is legitimate. If one piece of evidence contradicts the predictions of a theory (and it can be shown that the evidence is real and reproducible), then the theory is dead. Totally dead. No balancing of strengths or weaknesses. The theory is in the bin and we have to build a new one. One piece of falsifying evidence automatically outweighs all the "strengths" we could care to present.

The strengths and weaknesses method of debating science is perhaps a reflection of a science curriculum that does not address how hypotheses, evidence and theories are constructed in science. Or perhaps it is a back door designed to allow spurious attack upon theories which are seen to contradict an agenda.

Garner then lists who voted on the new wording and how, providing contact details for each so that we can phone up and demand that somebody think of the children. I'll cut this on the basis of it also being really boring.

*Snip*

Garner continues with an attempt to make "the atheists" look like hypocrites. After all, everyone knows that if you're a hypocrite, you're wrong about everything, right? Ad hominem much?

Charles Darwin, in Origin of the Species said the following concerning the proper evaluation of his theory: “A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts on both sides of each question.” Too bad Darwin wasn’t on the State Board of Education to vote to keep “weaknesses” in.

Darwin, of course, was stating the obvious. That we must consider all the evidence before making a decision about something. Ms. Garner won't like to admit it, but Evolution was accepted by scientific consensus by this very means a very long time ago. Debate over the course of some decades by the finest minds in science.

In a pedantic point, Darwin's book was not called "Origin of the Species" but "On the Origin of Species", being as it is a work explaining the emergence of species plural. You'll also note that it is not called "On the Origin of Life", and thus must not have anything to do with Garner's proposed "macro-evolution".

At least, he was intellectually honest about his theory.

Ah, "at least". Suggestion once again. He wasn't honest about everything. This casts doubt on evolution. Painful.

He recognized that science advances by constantly probing and questioning, not by censorship, intimidation, or indoctrination.

Are we talking about the advancement of science? I'm quite sure that Darwin would also have recognised that continuing to debate a scientific theory 100 years after it has come to be considered accurate by scientists is rather counter-productive. But that is not even the issue here. Whilst we should certainly teach our children about gravity, it wouldn't exactly be "scientific" to perpetuate a debate on the matter on the basis that we should never stop questioning. We never do stop questioning these theories, but what Ms. Garner has failed to grasp is the nature of that questioning. Scientific research. Experimentation. Not debate in a room full of teenagers. How would such a debate advance science or some other subject such as history?

We have debate in the public between creationists and evolutionists, although that debate is painted as a scientific one, the matter has already been resolved in the scientific community for some 100 years or more. Finally, we have debates like these. The reader can see Ms. Garner's side, and the side of people such as me. So it doesn't really look like anyone is pulling off the censorship routine. Or at least not doing it well. So I'm sure Darwin would be more than satisfied (well of course I'm not sure, I never knew the guy and neither did Ms. Garner). The question that remains is whether that debate has any place in the class room.

The 3 Republicans don’t seem to get it. They want to water down the current standard to eliminate any airing of “weaknesses” by eliminating the word “weaknesses.” The battle is over that one word. It needs to be there. As a lawyer, I know more than most that words are important. So don’t be fooled, the retention of the word is worth all of us fighting for.

Again, the "strengths versus weaknesses" model of assessment does not really work for science and really should be scrapped entirely in favour of teaching kids how to assess scientific evidence, form and test hypotheses and build theories.

Garner then decides to elaborate further on her definition of Evolution. In doing so, she describes a theory that only appears in one kind of text book or scholarly publication anywhere: creationist ones.

Short primer on evolution: In describing evolution, there are 2 catagories: (1) Micro-evolution, and (2) Macro-evolution. Micro-evolution (small changes over time within the same species) is something we can observe today (bugs become resistant to drugs; birds beaks grow longer, moths change colors).

Biologists make no such distinction, and for a very good reason. There are no differences in the underlying mechanisms that drive the micro or the macro. Evolution is driven by replication, mutation, genetic drift, natural selection, gene transfer. Ask creationists what micro-evolution is driven by and they'll give the same answer. So it's rather like making a distinction between taking a walk in your garden (by using the easily provable micro-walking) versus going down to the shops (which would require the obviously impossible macro-walking).

If we're agreed that some evolution can generate some variation, then why can we not agree that more evolution can generate more variation?

But Garner has evidence that there's a difference between the macro and the mirco.

I personally think it makes perfect sense that a good Designer would design each creature with built-in abilities to adapt to survive. But the debate before the Board is not over micro-evolution, but over the teaching of macro-evolution. We have never observed one species becoming a different species (macro-evolution).

In fact, we have observed species become a different species quite a number of times both in the lab and in the wild. Some nice (but not at all exhaustive) examples of these are detailed at the following links:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/speciation.html

But on to more "evidence". Am I using sarcastic quotes too much?

And we have never observed how life began.

Indeed we have not, but then we don't teach highschool kids how life began. We don't teach abiogenesis as fact to anyone at all. It's not a part of the theory of evolution at this time and won't be until that evidence is in. At this time, the origin of life is rather irrelevant to the debate.

This is where we need to examine the scientific strengths and weaknesses. And with respect to macro-evolution there are numerous scientific weaknesses, to name a few: (1) the Cambrian explosion of life; (2) gaps in the fossil record; (3) the intractable origin of life chemistry problems; (4) the origin of information in the DNA molecule; and (5) irreducibly complex features. Honest scientists acknowledge these and other weaknesses—but atheists don’t want these weaknesses highlighted—particularly not to our children. This is the Scopes Monkey Trial in reverse.

It would take another blog post in itself to fully refute the five points outlined here. They are classic cliches, and nothing new at all. But briefly, number 1 is something of a mystery. That is to say, I have little idea what Garner is getting at and it's unlikely that she does either (I have seen one argument regarding the Cambrian Explosion used by creationists, but that argument was dropped some years ago when it was mysteriously removed from the creationist website that had hosted it). Number 2 represents limitations to our knowledge. I think we can safely say that were there no gaps in our observations, we would have little need for theory (or religion) and science itself would become a job dedicated to teaching rather than research. If the reader has been following closely, we can of course immediately dismiss number 3 as having exactly nothing to do with how evolution is taught. Number 4 is in a similar vein since it deals with events prior to the origins of life and with concepts of "information" that are perhaps rather beyond a high school class. Number 5 is a topic I've already made a nonsense of here.

She concludes her list of "weaknesses" by claiming that "honest scientists" acknowledge these issues. Certainly, mainstream biologists don't assume that abiogenesis is an answered question, but they also don't consider it a part of theory. The vast majority of biologists, and the scientific community at large, consider evolution accurate. Just as consensus determined by historians informs the history syllabus, so too does the scientific consensus inform the scientific syllabus. What Garner of course means by "honest scientists" is creationists and intelligent design proponents. What "atheists" refers to here is not clear, but is presumably "everyone else" including the scientific community and all of the science advocacy groups. And the Catholic Church. Hmm...

Because their fields are a pseudoscience (as distinct from a fringe science), these people are considered to be scientists only by themselves. But what if we decided to include creationists and intelligent design proponents in our definition of the scientific community? Would evolution remain accepted by consensus? Are scientists redrawing the lines of the definition of "scientist" so that they can maintain an artificial consensus?

In terms of raw numbers of people, it's hard to assess just how many creationists are active in research. Newsweek puts the figure at approximately 700 in the United States. There are 480,000 life scientists in the United States, and evolution also is accepted by the overwhelming majority of scientists in the physical sciences, an even larger group. Not to mention almost universal support in scientific communities across the world. Let us generously suppose then that we are talking about 2000 creation scientists in a worldwide community of just 1 million biologists and geologists. 0.2% of a community does not break a consensus. So even if we include creationists in the scientific community the consensus, unsurprisingly, remains that evolution is valid and thus it should be taught as valid.

The "scientific debate" is a fabrication. To the scientific community, it is a (scientifically) small and illogical tantrum. It is only in the public eye that the debate has any validity or support at all. And the bulk of creationist efforts are bent towards increasing that validity. We need only look at the publication patterns of the creationists to see evidence of this. They produce little original research, preferring instead to publish essays and glossy text books. In 2008 alone, biologists published over 3000 research papers with the word "evolution" in the title (plus over 400 reviews, an unknown number of essays and textbooks). We can assume that there were many more on the topic of course, since most papers would not mention such a broad topic as evolution in their titles. It would greatly surprise me if the various creationist communities combined have managed to publish 3000 research papers in the last 20 years. Or even an output of research comparable to their small size. This is not reflection of general poor output or funding,creation advocacy groups generate plenty of essays and command tens of millions of dollars annually. Propaganda is the priority, not science.

Ms. Garner has one more shot to fire. The cost. The terrible danger that exists if we do not allow the Creation Tantrum to be given the validity of discussion in the classroom. The cost of accepting that evolution is both a valid theory and a reflection of fact.

Thus she concludes:

Jeffrey Dahmer, one of America’s most infamous serial killers who cannibalized more than 17 boys before being captured, gave an last interview with Dateline NBC nine months before his death, and he said the following about why he acted as he did: “If a person doesn’t think that there is a God to be accountable to, then what’s the point of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges? That’s how I thought anyway. I always believed the theory of evolution as truth, that we all just came from the slime. When we died, you know, that was it, there was nothing….” (Dateline NBC, The Final Interview, Nov. 29, 1994).

The implication is clear. Evolution is part of a nihilistic and atheistic attack on religion. It leads to more atheism. And atheism leads to cannibalism (oh okay, at least to immorality). And the moral expert she cites to both imply and support this? A serial killer and cannibal. It makes my mind sore.

Will evolution kill faith? The Catholic Church seems to think not. The 1 billion Christians who follow that church seem to have no issue accepting evolution and their faith side by side. Evolution only poses a threat to Christian faiths which consider the book of Genesis to be a literal account of Creation. And that by no means assures that those who lose their faith in that literal truth are destined to become atheists. And what if they do become atheists? It is, of course, utterly unsurprising that someone like Dahmer could only build morality on the basis of personal consequence meted out by authority. He was a psychopath. He did not value human life in itself.

If the punishment of God is all that keeps Ms. Garner from killing and eating people, then I do hope she retains her faith. But I suspect that this is not the case. There is, in truth, no evidence at all that atheists are less moral on average than Christians. But we're rather getting away from the point, which is that the path from evolution to people-eating is a fantasy. One dreamed up by people who seem to think that morality is a very thin veil, a tenuous construction drawn over the amoral animal that is man. And held in place only by the ten commandments. I do wonder how strong the faith of the Creationists must be if they really see science, the simple observation of nature, as this manner of threat. But certainly, a little more faith in people is sorely needed.

Why You’re Awesome: Part 1

I thought I'd finish 2008 with the first in what I intend to be a semi-regular series on some of the random cool stuff that's going on with your biology and how evolution got you there.

The first time single-celled organisms decided to switch to communism (i.e. stick together to become multi-cellular organisms like cabbages, hamsters and us), they immediately faced a compromise. Sure, sticking together meant more food and more safety, but reproduction was now a more complicated matter. And as life became more complex, reproduction just got slower and slower. And because the rate that we can evolve is strongly influenced by our reproduction rate, this means that the bacteria and other little blighters that like to infect us have a massive evolutionary edge. We measure the time it takes for organisms to reproduce in terms of generation times, the average time it takes between a new organism being born and it getting around to reproducing for itself. After millions of years of evolution, the differences between the generation times of single-celled organisms such as bacteria and us humans is massive. The average human takes some 25-30 years to reproduce. Bacteria can divide and then divide again in 20 minutes. And so, bacteria and viruses evolve at a simply astounding rate by comparison to us big old lumbering animal types. Although we’ve had immune systems since those earliest days of multi-cellular life, the mutation rate problem was still there. Our immune cells work by recognising patterns- bits of bacteria, the surfaces of viruses, maybe some of the proteins from a parasite. But what good is it having cells that see what’s on the outside of a bacterium when a bacterium can change its outfit a million times before your cells can get their pants on in the morning? Our immune cells had to work in terms of broad patterns, and if one of those patterns changed due to mutation, things invariably got ugly.

Of course, if that had been the end of the story, we wouldn’t be here to talk about it. There’d just be a load of bacteria hanging around wondering where all the easy food went. Evolution, in its elegant non-wisdom, provided a solution. The key was to fight fire with fire. We vertebrates evolved a special group of cells that, when first made by our bodies (and we make loads of them every day), undergo their own randomised mutations. These special mutations occur only within a set part of our genetic code- right in the part which recognises those nasty bugs and parasites. Just by allowing chaotic re-arrangements of that little part of our DNA in a select set of cells, we we’re suddenly back in the game. With enough of these cells, we can now recognise some 10e12 patterns (that’s one thousand billion). In effect, we harnessed the driving force of evolution itself. Tightly controlled chaos. And it worked. Every animal with a spine has those precious cells. The lymphocytes, also called T cells and B cells. They’re awesome really.

Flu virus image from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Public Health Image Library (Public Domain). Lymphocyte image from the National Cancer Institute (Public Domain).

What's the Storey?

This week, due to finding myself very busy, I haven't had a chance to write my usual (vaguely) weekly blog. I did manage to write a letter to the Irish Times newspaper after being rather incensed by the comments of Northern Irish politician Cllr. Mervyn Storey. Since it has been a week and I'm very impatient, I decided to post it here. Cllr. Storey, it seems, would like to bring creationism to European shores. He would also prefer to see the theory of evolution removed from sylabbuses in Northern Ireland, but seems to have a fairly hazey notion of what it is he wants rid of. His poorly-researched thoughts on the matter may be read here. My general thoughts on evolution and creationism can be read elsewhere on this blog.

Madam,

Mervyn Storey (Opinion and Analysis, November 3rd) describes a scientific theory called "naturalistic evolution" in his argument for the teaching of creationism in Northern Irish schools. "The central, core belief of naturalistic evolution", Storey claims, "is that somewhere in the universe at some time in the far distant past, non-living matter of itself, with no outside influence or mind to guide it, gave rise to living creatures." As a biology research student, I must confess to having never heard of the theory of naturalistic evolution. However, on examination of Storey's description, I find that it summarises the hypotheses on a process called abiogenesis, the emergence of life from non-living matter. A hypothesis is a candidate theory, not yet accepted by the scientific community as a model or representation of reality. With regard to abiogenesis, there are several of these hypotheses, but no accepted theory. Biochemists know of many plausible means by which simple life might emerge by materialistic means, but whether any of these actually occurred is very much an open question. Mr. Storey might well delight at such an admission from a biologist, however I should point out that abiogenesis is not in fact an element of the theory of evolution. Rather, evolution is a theory which explains the emergence of the many varied species from a single common ancestor species, and does not address the first emergence of the first life from lifelessness. This is why Darwin's 1859 work describing evolution was entitled "The Origin of Species" and not "The Origin of Life". Whether that single-celled Adam or Eve emerged by abiogenesis, fell from the sky or was sculpted from clay by the hands of the Creator is largely irrelevant to the veracity of the theory of evolution.

It is troubling that Mr. Storey is either ignorant of the theory he is attacking, or has knowingly constructed a straw man in this "naturalistic evolution" concept that no scientist accepts as fact or teaches as fact. Such ignorance and misrepresentation are common tools of the American creationist movement, and it is most saddening to see such stock anti-scientific rhetoric finding receptive minds on our shores. It is also very worrying that such a flimsy argument is being used to promote what Mr. Storey must consider to be the automatic alternative to evolution. He is presenting us with the same old false dichotomy; that if evolution is false, creationism is true. The veracity of evolution relies on evidence; creationism, to judge from Mr. Storey's argument, on the falseness of evolution.

Moronic Design

November of next year brings to us biology-types, and to all of the scientifically-minded, a very special anniversary. It will mark the 150th year since the publication of what is certainly the most significant scientific work in the field of biology and one which would easily make the top three across the entirety of science. The publication in question is of course Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species”. In it, Darwin laid out his case for his hypothesis on, as the title suggests, the origins of the variety (and similarity) we see between the many species of our planet.

The theory states the following. A common ancestor species once existed which produced offspring. As new generations of offspring were produced, inheritable differences (variations) began to appear in them. Some variations produced a benefit, others did not. Those variations that were beneficial enhanced the survival of the altered offspring and so those new traits were more likely to be passed on. The detrimental variations, whilst not always fatal, were less likely to be passed on simply because they reduced the carriers’ chances of survival and reproduction. Thus we have three simple mechanisms; reproduction, variation and selection. Add enough time, changing environments, migrations, separations and countless other influences and you get groups of organisms that have changed so much that they can no longer interbreed. These are broadly called species. So when you have these mechanisms working across an entire planet for over 3 billion years, you get a whole lot of species. I covered this whole process in a whimsical little story, posted a couple of months ago.

The scientific crisis and revolution that followed lasted decades, and was mostly heralded by Darwin’s supporters, rather than the man himself. His book and the works which confirmed his observations made a compelling case, and 150 years later his theory of evolution is accepted as the standing model of how life on Earth derived from a common ancestor. It is a theory that is so simple to explain that it is often described by scientists of all fields as “elegant” or even “beautiful”.

You may recall my explanation of how scientists develop a hypothesis, a testable idea, and then make observations and measurements that have the potential to disprove the hypothesis. If the hypothesis survives many observations, can be shown to predict bits we haven’t looked at yet, and can be confirmed independently, it becomes theory. A theory is the currently accepted model. That’s an important definition, because in common language “theory” generally has a meaning more like what scientists call a “hypothesis”. So when say, a creationist calls evolution “just a theory”, they are being rather misleading. Evolution (the process) is a fact and the model of that fact (the theory of evolution) is accepted by the vast majority of scientists as being entirely valid. So, more accurately, the theory of evolution is “just a (robust) theory (that has been re-tested and confirmed countless times over the course of 150 years and is now accepted as entirely valid by greater than 95% of scientists and greater than 99% of biologists”. Phew. I can see why they shorten it.

The metaphor-free zone

What I’m trying to get across is that evolution is a theory, in other words a model of reality, which is as well-accepted by scientists as Einstein’s theories of relativity. It’s important to remember that when considering the arguments of those who would tell you that evolution did not happen. I will generically refer to these movements as creationism, though that will certainly annoy them. Their common element is that they ascribe the creation of the Earth and of all life to a supernatural intelligence. In most variants this is the Christian God, and the basis of their “theory” is a fully literal interpretation of the book of Genesis. No, symbolism, no metaphor. A literal six day creation of the universe and all life in it.

There’s insufficient space here (and I have insufficient time) to fully explore the evolution versus creationism debate, but I would invite readers to visit TalkOrigins or explore various internet debates on the matter to get a feel for how in-depth the row has become over the past few decades. Leave your sanity at the door, it will only hinder you. Rather than delve into that whole mess, I will instead focus on the core issue that is used by one branch of creationists; the “intelligent design” (ID) proponents. ID proponents believe that life was designed by a great intelligence. They are unspecific as to the age of the Earth (traditional creationists put the limit at around 10,000 years) but believe that life was created in a single creation event and has varied only within tight boundaries since then. They also contend, as do most creationists, that mutation (the process that causes the variation in evolution) cannot create new function, but rather can only break the function of a gene or restore its previous function. Officially, they do not identify the intelligent designer as “God”, but internal documents leaked from the ID inner circle reveal that they are in fact Christian creationists with a secular gloss over them. This is apparently to make their ideas appear more palatable to institutions such as the secular US education system into which they would like to insert their “science”. So we can quite confidently label intelligent design as creationism.

If ID constitutes science then it must have a testable hypothesis at its core. Evolution states as its core hypothesis that all life derived from a common ancestor by variation and selection. That statement has many implications which we may test. We should, for example, be able to find evidence of organisms, perhaps extinct, which show a transition between known species. Evolution thus makes a prediction that we ought to be able to find such species in the fossil record. And we do. What does ID predict? Not much. If life is entirely designed by a creator with only one specified trait (intelligence), it could look like almost anything at any level. It could even be made to look entirely as though it evolved. It’s thus rather unsurprising that creationists in generally spend most of their time trying to discredit evolution rather than testing things such as ID. They propose a false dichotomy (a made-up two way choice); if evolution is false, creationism must be true. All other imaginable or unimaginable options are somehow off the table.

Scientism

In their flailing attempt to make ID into a science, its proponents latched onto the work of ID defender Michael Behe who suggested in his 1996 book Darwin’s Black Box that intelligent design was proven plausible by the existence of what he termed “irreducible complexity” in biological systems. Irreducible complexity, according to Behe, is a property of any system which performs a function but which is disabled entirely if we remove any critical part of that system. Thus, a clockwork pocket watch would be considered irreducibly complex, as removing a cog will cause the watch to stop functioning as intended. Behe firstly contends that this is a property we expect to see in any intelligently designed system and secondly that the property is observable in life forms. He also claims that such systems cannot arise by evolution, since the various parts would have to evolve at the very same time and this is improbable. I will now attack all three assertions.

In the first instance, Behe is essentially claiming that irreducible complexity is a testable implication of the ID hypothesis, much as we can say that transitional fossils and genetic similarity (we share common DNA with all known life forms discovered to date) are testable implications of the evolution hypothesis. This is logically flawed in many respects. Firstly, in the design of various mechanisms, a human designer must consider a number of factors that will determine the amount of redundancy (or back-up systems, if you like) that a mechanism will have. The intended life time of the mechanism, the replacement cost of it and the practicality of repairing the object will all feed into that decision. A pocket watch can be repaired, as can a car. We’ll certainly build in some backup systems here and there, but where that isn’t practical, or essential, we’ll leave a number of critical systems in our design. Thus the pocket watch and the car become, “irreducibly complex”. By assuming that this feature is something we expect to see in designed life, we are making a rather significant assumption about the intention of the designer. We are assuming that the design considerations for an organism are in some manner similar to those for a mechanism such as a car or pocket watch. However, in a system that is difficult to repair (without modern medicine; a recent development), intended to last decades without maintenance and prone to replication errors (DNA mutation), do we really want to have critical systems with no backup? More to the point, if we assume that we do want such dangerous breaking points built into an organism, wouldn’t it make sense to build redundancy into the most important systems? Let’s consider some of the systems that Behe claims display this lack of redundancy in humans; the blood clotting cascade and the sight cascade. A biochemical cascade is a system in which a protein is affected by something (for example, light from our eye) and reacts by signalling another protein, which signals another and so forth until that signal is propagated to our brains. So we can see in the clotting cascade and the sight cascade that non-redundant points exist. Mutate specific proteins and the cascade breaks like the pocket watch. The sight and clotting cascades are extremely important systems for our survival and yet for some reason, redundancy exists in other, less (or equally) important biochemical systems. The chemokine system that controls the communication between our immune cells has multiple backup levels built into it, for example. We are thus forced to conclude that whether irreducible complexity is an expected feature of designed life depends heavily on the capabilities, level of intelligence, desires and intentions of the designer. If we assume that humans were directly designed, we are also forced to conclude that the designer is either technically limited, rather dim, malevolent or disinterested in individual human survival. Or a combinations of these traits. If we assume that our designer is actually fully “omnipotent”, we actually cannot make any assertion at all about what features we’d expect to see in designed life, since that designer could make life appear any way it chose without consequence.

The remaining two of Behe’s assertions can be refuted together. Whether we actually observe irreducible complexity in organisms and whether such systems could have arisen by a process of evolution go hand in hand. By definition, if we can imagine a means by which an irreducibly complex system could have arisen by evolution, then it is not in fact irreducibly complex. This is actually quite easy to show, and gives me a chance to crack the flow charts again! Let us imagine a simple “reducibly complex” protein cascade, in other words one which has redundancy. A “signal”, such as light, enters the system and can be picked up by protein A or B. These proteins can then interact with either of another two proteins C and D, which all may interact with more proteins further along the signal chain. Here then, is a fully redundant system which could easily have evolved by totally conventional means. We need to make only one change in order to create one of Behe’s “irreducibly complex” cascades. We delete A, B, C or D. So let’s take D out of the cascade. In nature, this could easily occur as a result of a mutation resulting in either a loss of function or a change of function. If we get the second case, a change in function (and one that is beneficial in its own respect) then successive mutations will make it difficult for us to connect the new protein to its historical role in the old cascade. Behe will see that cascade as being irreducibly complex, but that is an illusion created by evolution. The cascade is merely “complex”.



Such plausible evolutionary histories have now been demonstrated for most of Behe’s major examples of irreducible complexity, including both the sight cascade and the clotting cascade. Indeed, in the latter case, proteins that Behe claimed to be critical to certain cascades have been demonstrated to be absent in other species, with no ill effect. We can even see backup systems in these species which are related to systems in humans that have now been diverted towards alternate functions. Whilst the evolution of many cascades has not been fully explored, this does not for a moment suggest that irreducible complexity exists in organisms, since at the very least the simple method I’ve outlined allows the illusion of these to emerge by evolution. So, do we see irreducibly complex systems in organism? Nope, just the illusion of them.

Triplethink

So where does this leave ID creationism? In an awkward position really. Irreducible complexity, if we assume it to be real (and deliberate), represents a significant set of design flaws. These flaws are compounded by the Designer’s perplexing choice of a DNA-based inheritance system that is so very prone to replication errors. This then, gives us not an intelligent designer, but a being who is, frankly, a bit of a moron. I’m not saying I could do better, but nor am I claiming to be an intelligent designer. In some debates with creationists, I have seen this argument countered with the suggestion that the lack of redundancy in some systems is the result of the “degeneration” of the creator’s perfect design, due to the Fall of Man. By that logic, all life must have been created fully redundant, or at least with key systems featuring back-ups. These were then lost due to mutation, resulting in the very same systems that creationists now claim represent evidence of design. So this thinking would force creationists to abandon irreducible complexity as evidence of design. In reaction to that annoying point, others still contend that life was created “perfect”, in an entirely different way, in that it was entirely irreducibly complex throughout and that the redundancies which exist are some manner of reaction to the expulsion of life from that “perfect” first environment. By this of course they are referring once again to the expulsion of life from Eden. This though, demands that the creator must either have intervened to modify his creation (which is not supported by their literal interpretations of Genesis) or, and this is the part which really upsets creationists, we must have gained some functional back-ups by mutation; a process they need to claim is impossible in order to discredit evolution.

By bringing irreducible complexity to the table in the great creation versus evolution debate, the ID proponents actually force themselves into trap. If they will not accept evolution (or at least some other alternative to creationism) then they must accept one of three things; that the Designer is fallible, that irreducible complexity is not evidence of design, or that mutation can generate new functionality. Oops.


Image credits: DNA double helix by Michael Ströck. Released under the GFDL. Flow chart by the author. Creation of Adam by Michaelangelo. Public domain.

It's Revolution, Baby

Science is usually portrayed and imagined as one of two clichés. The scientific establishment is a vast panel of crusty old sceptics, dismissive of innovative thinking and ever willing to attack upstarts. On the flip side of this, “revolutionary” science is so frequently fanfared to the front pages of newspapers that we could almost believe that scientists are as excitable and credulous as the tabloids appear to be. Everyone loves a David and Goliath story, so it is hardly surprising that every controversial finding is pounced upon. Miracle cures and perpetual motion machines are all the more exciting when it appears that they show up those stuffy old boffins. Strange how the rebels and their miracles most often vanish without further updates. With so many contradictory findings being touted each week, it’s easy to see why so many people become disillusioned with science. Going by the newspapers, I’m still not sure if my coffee addiction is going to give me a stroke or save me from a heart attack. In my previous blog (Science Says) I talked about why I think this happens, and why it’s not actually a reflection on proper science at all. True scientific revolution is another story and an exciting one. Maybe not “tabloid exciting” though.

The best explanation as to How Breakthroughs Happen goes like this. A couple of years ago I was fortunate enough to work with a rare kind of scientist. The man, who we shall simply call Oz, is to my mind one of an elite subset of scientists who dedicate their careers to answering a single, if profound question. Oz is also something of a philosophy buff and introduced me to the scientific philosophies of Thomas Kuhn, a man who had a lot to say on the matter of scientific revolutions. On the small scale, science is a cyclical process, as I outlined in First Assumptions. Hypothesise, test, refine, repeat. In time, hypothesis becomes theory or a new part of an existing theory. We can call the prevailing set of theories the “standing model” as they represent a human modelling of reality as we see it. Conferences and the peer review process serves as a rigorous test of the output of the scientific cycle. Scientists are a competitive, aggressive bunch. Attack, until only the truth remains. This constitutes what Kuhn called “normal science”. An overall model, the standing theory is in place, and scientists are filling in the blanks. It is tough work and worthy work. But, as the normal science phase drags on, discrepancies begin to arise.

When Isaac Newton published his theory of universal gravitation in 1687, it represented a fundamental change in the scientific understanding of the universe. It was a true piece of revolutionary science that dismissed theories as old as Aristotle. Once it was put forward and accepted by the community, normal science proceeded. Newton’s theory remained the standing model for over 200 years as the universe was measured and scrutinized using newer and better technologies. The cracks began to show. The movements of some of the planets didn’t fit the theory. The effects of gravity on light didn’t seem to either. And there was more. As always happens, a few contradictory measurements will tend to be dismissed as errors. But as they mount up, efforts will be made to explain them away within the context of the current model. This may well resolve the situation, but for Newton’s legacy this did not suffice. The physics community had entered what Kuhn called a “crisis phase”. The standing theory was clearly inaccurate, yet no theory existed to replace it. New hypotheses were put forward, amongst them the notion that the universe was filled with some manner of “aether”.

In 1905, almost unnoticed, a patent office clerk called Albert Einstein suggested a few things that might help explain how light worked. He demonstrated his ideas via some nice publications which were pretty much entirely dismissed as being a bit strange. A few years later, with a PhD under his belt, Einstein went the whole hog and published General Relativity, a new model that explained pretty much everything that was inconsistent in the Newtonian model and blew the aether out the window. The new thinking was so fundamentally different to Newton’s view of the universe that there was considerable resistance to his new model. As with all new science, revolutionary or otherwise, it had to face the purifying fire of skepticism, particularly from the aether heads. It wasn’t until 1919 that the experimental confirmations finally started to emerge. Einstein’s hypothesis prevailed and within a few years the scientific crisis was resolved. Kuhn called this sort of changeover a “paradigm shift”. The information, the observations, they’re still the same. The understanding has changed. Although the more recent notions of the aether-filled universe was now dismissed, Newton’s theories were not abolished. Instead they became merely a small part of a much bigger picture. Used for simple calculations where Einstein’s equations would be overkill. And so, the task of filling in the blanks in the new model began. Normal science was resumed.

Whilst scientists are often painted as inflexible types sticking to their established knowledge and rejecting change, the reality is that this resistance to change is as valuable as the change itself. It ensures that only the most robust hypotheses become theory. We stuffy boffins are always aware that one day the theories that we hold to may be superseded just as Newton was or may be overturned completely. Almost 100 years later, General Relativity, with additions, is still the accepted model. Yet at the extreme ends of physics the cracks are showing once again. It is perhaps ironic that it was Einstein’s ideas regarding the nature of light that would lead to the birth of Quantum Theory, a model which may one day lead to the next great paradigm shift in physics. For those interested, read up on the Large Hadron Collider. This year it may just prove or disprove a huge chunk of Quantum Theory. I have only a vague idea how, mind you. Physics is witchcraft in my books.

Normal science, crisis, paradigm shift, repeat. It’s a pattern that gave birth to giants of science such as Theory of Evolution and the Galilean model, or such field-specific shifts as the discovery of adaptive immunity. Don’t worry, I’ll probably write about those ones some day. My point is that paradigm shifts may change an entire arm of science, such as Biology, or just a small corner of that arm. Dr. Oz is, to my mind, on his way to heralding a paradigm shift in Biology. He’s in one of those small corners of the field, but the implications of his work speak for themselves. He’s convinced me, at least. The information hasn’t changed, but the way I understand it will never be the same. Let the crisis begin.

Horsey

Author's note: Analogy is wonderful thing. Let's do some analogy about allergy. Oh man I'm sorry. Really the main point is to do with how context is important in evolution.

Current speculative thinking is that the immune systems of many individuals co-evolved in the presence of persistent parasitic infestation. The immune system therefore evolved to over-compensate along the anti-parasite axis. It needed to be able to deal with new parasitic infection on top of the un-clearable persistent infection. We call this parasite killing axis the Th2 response. We can imagine our immune system as a sort of see-saw, but with many sides. As one side, or axis of our immune response raises, it pushes the others down. Some infections require a broad, balanced response. Others need a strong, single axis attack. Our persistent parasites evolved, adapting to evade our Th2 response. Some would push our immune response along other axes, perhaps towards our anti-bacterial response. The upshot of this was that we required further Th2 over-compensation. This co-evolution has probably been ongoing since our pre-mammalian ancestors. This is evolution over a time on the order of hundreds of millions of years.

Suddenly, in the space of a mere 200 years, the western world eliminated normal everyday parasitic infection. From an evolutionary point of view, an advantageous trait had become redundant in the blink of an eye. Individuals who previously had an evolutionary edge suddenly had a disadvantage. The asthamtic, the hayfever sufferer and the general sneezy snot bag has an immune system that resembles a race horse suddenly lacking its burden. The jockey, that nasty little parasite, has fallen off. The horse is gleefully running for the finish line, thinking he is about to win.

This stands as a wonderful example of the importance of context in evolutionary traits and in the emergence of new mutations. Allergy is today seen as some sort of genetic "defect". In African countries where the parasitic trypanosome and schistosome problems are finally starting to be reduced, allergy is starting to emerge. Perhaps this is mere coincidence, but if our thinking is correct, allergy and asthma will increase considerably there over the coming years. That is of course assuming that the western world gets off its arse to help do something about health in Africa.

The Great Wormtown Spade Disaster (Part 2)

Wormtown is about to face a natural disaster of sorts, although of course the reader will know better than the worms do! A huge shovel crashes through Wormtown, scoops a huge chunk out of it, and throws the chunk into a neighbouring field. Quite a sight, if one had eyes. The surprised Worms within this temporarily-airborne piece of home are fairly resilient creatures and survive the unceremonious landing with only a few fatalities. They quickly abandon the collapsed ruins of their part of Wormtown (it has now become aerated and quite uncomfortably cold) and burrow into the new field to found the community of Farland. Back in the old field, the survivors of the Great Wormtown Spade Disaster proceed to put their lives, such as they are, back together.
The day that Farland is founded, the populations of Farland and Wormtown are quite similar in size and composition. Although the Sharpies have a harder time escaping underground during the foundation of Farland, none-the-less roughly one in ten worms is still a Sharpie. This state of affairs won’t last for long though, because things in Farland are different. The Worms aren’t in Kansas anymore (or Wormtown for that matter).
Farland is a hostile land. Foods are in short supply, and a strange local kind of Foods called Fast Foods are more common but are often too quick to catch. Fast foods make life a lot tougher for the Farland Sharpies. Also, Eaters are more numerous here, and more aggressive, something which makes life very very difficult for the Farland Smoothies, who quickly find themselves being gobbled up by the hundreds. Within a few years it becomes clear that one of these two great pressures of life outweighs the other. The Smoothies of Farland are extinct because of the Eaters. The Sharpies struggle on, though their numbers are limited from generation to generation. It’s not the Eaters that are making life difficult for the Sharpies though, as the Eaters find the Farland Sharpies rather unpleasant to consume due to their pointy texture. No, what troubles the Sharpies is the shortage of Foods. Just as it seems the new community will never reach the heights of the long-forgotten and now mythical Wormtown, a child is born to an unassuming Sharpie.
The child is called Flash, because the muscles around his sharp graspers are larger and stronger than most Sharpies, allowing him to get over the Sharpie movement impediment and move quickly. Flash does very well in Farland. He finds that his speed allows him to eat the elusive Fast Foods. He still has his Sharpie features too and so Eaters avoid him. Flash easily finds several mates and has plenty of kids. Just like his distant ancestor Sharpie, Flash’s kids are a mixture of normal Sharpies and a smaller number of little Flashes. As the years pass, the Sharpies and Flashes mate with each other, but with each generation, the numbers of purebred Sharpies becomes less and less as the Flashes as Foods tend to get snapped up by the quicker Worms. The purebred Sharpies, who once struggled but survived in Farland, become extinct just as the Farland Smoothies before them.
The Flashes of Farland thrive. Their kingdom spreads widely. Just like Sharpie and Flash before them, special kids are sometimes born. Not all of them do so well. Some die before they can have kids. Others have kids who find themselves beaten in the race for food or gobbled by Eaters. But some survive to bring great changes to the Farlanders.
The Farlander civilisation spreads so far that they one day encounter a strange new kind of animal in a distant land. Not small like Foods or big like Eaters, they have found the Fast Smoothies. The Fast Smoothies are descendants of the Smoothies who stayed behind in Wormtown. In the great many years since the Shovel came they spread out into the lands between Wormtown and Farland. Just like the Flashes, they became faster to catch the local Fast Foods they encountered and now they have found their long lost brethren. The Fast Smoothies have long since out bred the old Wormtown Sharpies and Smoothies because they could eat even more of the Foods of Wormtown. So much has changed that the Farlanders and Wormtowners wouldn’t recognise each other any longer. The bulky, spiky Flashes of Farland only vaguely resemble the lithe Fast Smoothies of Wormtown. And the more adventurous of them find that interbreeding produces no young.
And so the lands between Farland and Wormtown (which the locals would call Fencepost, if they were able) come to support a mixture of both communities, a balance which prevails for many years. But the Flashes and the Fast Smoothies never successfully interbreed. They have become different species, all thanks to strange Worms like Sharpie and Flash, and an even stranger phenomenon called The Shovel.

To learn more: Google these terms: Introduction to Evolution, Speciation, Mutation, Genetic Drift, Natural Selection, Habitat Fragmentation, Peripatric Speciation.

The Great Wormtown Spade Disaster (Part 1)

Author's note: The story below is my attempt to put some of the core concepts of Evolution into terms that are accessible to a wide audience. I'd hope it could be read and understood by anyone from the age of 10 without patronising anyone over the age of 12... a tall order maybe. For anyone interested in what it all means, I've listed some of the concepts touched on in their scientific terms at the end.

Wormtown isn’t much to look at. Given that its inhabitants lack eyes, perhaps that does not matter. It consists of little more than some earth in a field Somewhere. It is inhabited of course by some Worms, who would have given Wormtown its name, if they had a language or indeed any means to speak it. The soil is warm, rarely disturbed and the general conditions are mild. The worms themselves are a simple bunch. They are microscopic and quite smooth. They have just three small grasping stubs on each side of their long bodies to aid their movement through the soil. And of course they also have the bits needed for eating and reproducing. Although the reader might have difficulty telling the difference, there are both male and female worms. The females lay eggs in large communal nurseries and their chosen male partners fertilise them. The process is a little messy though, and sometimes the wrong eggs get fertilized by accident (or on purpose if a male worm in question is a bit of a creep). Other inhabitants of the area include smaller animals called Foods and bigger ones called Eaters. The Worms, called Smoothies because of their appearance, eat the Foods when they can catch them and sometimes fall prey themselves to the Eaters. Aside from eating and mating, the Smoothies do little more than move around through the soil. Sometimes the Smoothies burrow to the surface and feel the Sun, which is rather painful and makes them burrow back down again. This state of affairs persists for a Very Long Time.
Every now and again a Special Child is born. Sometimes they have brightly a short body or coloured skin (the Smoothies can’t see this but the Foods and Eaters sure can). Sometimes they have no graspers or a stomach that won’t work. Special Children almost always die early. The ones that do survive pass on their dangerous characteristics to some of their children who themselves, sadly, die early.
One day, a worm is born with strange graspers. Instead of short and blunt graspers made toughened skin, this strange child has longer, sharper graspers. Of course, Worms have previously been born with bigger or smaller graspers than usual, but these differences never seem to help much. This sharpness is new and strange and the child is named Sharpie. Being simple souls (and also blind), the worms don’t hold this peculiar look against Sharpie, not that they could do much about her if they did. Still though, Sharpie finds her life a bit more awkward than the other worms. Her pointy horns make movement more difficult, which makes Foods harder to catch. Luckily, Foods are quite plentiful in Wormtown and so Sharpie survives, albeit struggling somewhat, and even lives to find a free-thinking mate and have children of her own.
Most of Sharpie’s kids are quite normal-looking Smoothies. But a few, males and females alike, have the same strange horns as their mother. Sharpie herself dies rather young as a result of her impaired movement, but having had a number of children, the reader can feel satisfied that Sharpie has made her mark on the world. So it is that a generation of Sharpies goes out into Wormtown. And they fair reasonably well. Sharpies still struggle to catch Foods when compared to Smoothies, just has their mother did, but their sharp horns give them a new edge that only now becomes clear; Eaters are less afraid to eat them! Sharpies and Smoothies mate frequently, producing litters that are a mixture of Sharpies and Smoothies. As the generations pass, this means that Sharpies are born that are distantly related enough to mate with each other without making the reader feel vaguely uncomfortable.
The years pass and the population of Wormtown settles into an equilibrium, a balance of sorts. So long as there are plenty of Foods, both the Smoothies and Sharpies can survive, though at different success rates. As long as there are predators attacking both, the Sharpies can partially overcome their disadvantage when it comes to getting Foods. And so at any one time, about one in ten citizens of Wormtown is a Sharpie. They form a sort of racial minority who thankfully don’t suffer from much by way of discrimination, if only because the Worms are rather lacking in the brains required for one to be properly ignorant.
The idyllic, peaceful and now quite diverse community of Wormtown is about to face disaster.

Part 2: In Which Disaster Happens

To learn more: Google these terms: Introduction to Evolution, Speciation, Mutation, Genetic Drift, Natural Selection, Habitat Fragmentation, Peripatric Speciation.