The Fascist Fantasy World View of Republicans

The fascistic Republican ideology is best illustrated in how far they will go to deny objective reality and to try to deny that there is such a thing. Add their attack on science to the Orwellian attack on language, and their Big Lie politics.


Science Friday: From Darwin to Dobson

by Plutonium Page
Fri Apr 29th, 2005 at 20:01:57 PDT

We find ourselves in a bewildering world. We want to make sense of what we see around us and to ask: What is the nature of the universe? What is our place in it and where did it and we come from? Why is it the way it is?

-- Dr. Stephen Hawking, Ph.D., from A Brief History of Time

Great questions... questions that a number of influential rightwingers would like to answer for you.

The Republican war on science is not always obvious. There is a subtle and disturbing trend toward the propagation of what I call "GOP pseudoscience". One example is the claim that global warming is a hoax. Another example is the push toward teaching "intelligent design" as an alternative to evolution. Rick Santorum says that evolution is one of the "big social issues of our time," along with abortion and gay marriage (as quoted in Newsweek).

What would Charles Darwin think? And what would Watson, Crick, and Rosalind Franklin (the folks responsible for the discovery of the structure of DNA) have to say?

It was 52 years ago this month that Watson and Crick published their findings... but the history of DNA really began with Charles Darwin, way back in 1859.

Look below the fold for more.

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Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species"

In 1859, Charles Darwin published his famous work, "The Origin of Species", in which he presented his observation that the organisms that are the best adapted to their environment are the ones that survive. They do so by passing their genetic information on to future generations. The species that aren't adapted as well tend to die off. This process is known as "natural selection", or "survival of the fittest".

However, Darwin couldn't explain exactly how the "fittest" organisms passed their genetic traits along, since he didn't know about genetic material as such (i.e. he didn't know about DNA).

A great example of "survival of the fittest" is the natural selection of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The bacteria that aren't killed by a certain (or multiple) antibiotics survive. They multiply, infect new hosts, and the process continues, much to our disadvantage. They pass their genetic traits on to successive generations (they can also exchange genetic information with other bacteria, but for the sake of brevity, we won't go into that here. Ew. Bacteria sex).

Fast-forward to the 20th century: the discovery of DNA

1928: Frederick Griffith

In 1928, Frederick Griffith performed what is now known as Griffith's experiment. He was able to show that bacteria can acquire exogenous DNA (DNA from outside the cell), and thus acquire new genetic traits. This is actually a type of "horizontal evolution" (or "bacteria sex", as Beavis and Butthead yours truly mentioned above. No, that is not the best way to describe it, but it's one way to remember it). Griffith knew that the genetic traits were conferred by a molecule, but he didn't know which molecule.

1929: Phoebus Levene

Phoebus Levine figured out that the acids in the nuclei of cells are partly composed of a molecule called deoxyribose, as well as phosphate groups and molecules referred to as bases.

1944: Oswald Avery and Colin Macleod

Avery and Macleod were able to show that Griffith's genetic transforming molecule was the nucleic acid described by Levene. It was previously thought that the transforming material was a protein. In 1952 Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase used viruses to prove the same thing.

1951: Rosalind Franklin

Note: Without Rosalind Franklin's work, Watson and Crick would have had a pretty hard time deducing that DNA was not only a helical molecule, but a double helix.

Rosalind Franklin used X-ray diffraction to determine that DNA has a helical structure. The image to the right is her famous X-ray diffraction image known as "photo 51". Click it for a flash presentation of "the anatomy of photo 51".

1953: Watson and Crick

In 1953, James Watson and Frances Crick took Rosalind Franklin's X-ray diffraction data and made an important deduction: not only was DNA a helical molecule, but it was a double helix (two helical molecules together, one running opposite to the other). In other words, they discovered that DNA is sort of like a twisted ladder. Rosalind Franklin did not share their Nobel Prize in 1962, as she died of ovarian cancer in 1958, at the age of 37.

Click here for a simple drawing of the structure of DNA.

Franklin, Watson, and Crick changed history. They made history. So many things in biology suddenly made sense.

Fast forward to the present: Intelligent Design

From a recent Nature article:

The intelligent-design movement is a small but growing force on US university campuses. For some it bridges the gap between science and faith, for others it goes beyond the pale. Geoff Brumfiel meets the movement's vanguard.

For a cold Tuesday night in March, the turnout is surprisingly good. Twenty or so fresh-faced college students are gathered together in a room in the student union at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, the state's largest public university. They are there for the first meeting of Salvador Cordova's Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness (IDEA) club.

"I have a great deal of respect for the scientific method," Cordova tells his attentive audience as he outlines the case for intelligent design. Broadly speaking, he says, the concept is that a divine hand has shaped the course of evolution. The arguments are familiar ones to both advocates and opponents of the idea: some biological systems are too complex, periodic explosions in the fossil record too large, and differences between species too great to be explained by natural selection alone.

[snip]

But despite researchers' apparent lack of interest, or perhaps because of it, the movement is catching on among students on US university campuses. Much of the interest can be traced to US teenagers, more than three-quarters of whom believe, before they reach university, that God played some part in the origin of humans.

(click the image to the right to see the results of more polls)

(Emphasis mine).

The article goes on to mention that many scientists "feel that the very presence of intelligent design in universities is legitimizing the movement and eroding the public's perception of science." The article continues:

It is that distinction that has helped propel the small community of intelligent-design proponents to the forefront of US politics. In 1987, the US Supreme Court struck down a Louisiana law that mandated teaching 'creation science' in schools because the premise of the research was based on biblical texts. As intelligent design does not draw directly from biblical sources, Christian fundamentalist groups have seized on it as a possible way to force creationism back into the classroom. Last October, a school board in Dover, Pennsylvania,voted to include intelligent design in its local curriculum. And similar plans are now being considered in at least six states including Kansas, Mississippi and Arkansas. These plans include giving teachers new guidelines, and placing stickers on biology textbooks that question the scientific status of evolutionary theory.

So, despite mountains of evidence, they are proposing not only that Darwin's work be questioned, but that "creation science" be taught in public school classrooms. Isn't that a violation of that Constitution thing, you know, separation of church and state?

The Christian right and "intelligent design"

Emphasis on the word "right": Here at dKos, we're the left, and many Kossacks are Christian. So, please don't think I'm attacking Christianity. Just wanted to make that clear.

Focus on the Family

That image to the right is a Focus on the Family publication. I mean, we all know that Dobson is an esteemed scientist, right? Sorry about the sarcasm, but their so-called "science" is heinous stuff, and I'm sure most of you would agree, whether or not you're a scientist.

Here's the text to go with The Evolution Set, two DVDs sold by Focus on the Family:

The theory of evolution is just that -- a theory -- but most students learn it as scientific fact. These fascinating documentary films give an unbiased, scientific look into the emerging theory of intelligent design and the debate over Darwin's theory.

And, as we all know, Frist and Dobson are really tight.

I'm sure Dr. "I can diagnose a patient by watching a videotape" Frist thinks evolution is just a "theory".

Well, that's it for Science Friday. You also might want to check out some excellent diaries on evolution:

• SeattleLiberal's Not Another %$#!@%# Diary on EVOLUTION!! (Part I) is an excellent primer on evolution. Where's Part II? Get on it, SeattleLiberal!
  
• DarkSyde's series on Creationism and Geology is fantastic as well.