February 2005 Archives

I'm catching up on some of my journal reading, and I just ran across an editorial in Nature suggesting that “scientists in these disciplines [nanotechnology, transgenic crops, and others with a high media profile] to consider setting up their own blogs...” The editorial was inspired by the launch of RealClimate, a blog started by nine climate scientists (six from the United States, three from Europe).

RealClimate is a commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists. We aim to provide a quick response to developing stories and provide the context sometimes missing in mainstream commentary.

Uncommon Ground doesn't promise anything so grand. It's just a blog written by someone who happens to be a scientist. I hope some of what you find here is interesting and maybe even enlightening. You'll also find that, in contrast to RealClimate, I tend to draw political conclusions about some issues (see, for example, my recent comment on Preble's meadow jumping mouse).

Michael Behe published an op-ed piece in The New York Times on Sunday. Others have attacked many of his claims, the claim that “intelligent design is not a religiously based idea” and the claim that “design” in nature is manifest evidence of a purposeful designer (the traditional “argument from design” that was plausible 150 years ago).

I want to focus on the fourth of his claims: “ in the absence of any convincing non-design explanation, we are justified in thinking that real intelligent design was involved in life.”

I've now read the Federal Register notice proposing to delist Preble's meadow jumping mouse, and I find the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's description of the reviews disingenuous. They received 14 peer reviews and classify 5 as supportive of the conclusions from the unpublished report, 3 leaning towards support of the study, and 6 who were generally critical of its conclusions. But by their own description, at least two of the positive reviewers agreed with the taxonomic decision (to synonymize the Preble's and Bear Lodge subspecies) but “expressed concern for the conservation status of the synonymized taxonomic unit.” In other words, these two reviewers appear to regard it as important that the populations composing what is now known as Preble's meadow jumping mouse continue to receive conservation protection.

What does the Service propose to do?

On May 13, 1998 the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service listed Preble's meadow jumping mouse (Zapus hudsonius preblei) as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. On Friday, January 28 the USFWS announced that “new research that indicates that the Preble’s meadow jumping mouse should not be classified as a separate subspecies of meadow jumping mouse.” The finding came in response to petitions for delisting filed by Wyoming's Governor and Coloradan's for Water Conservation and Development.

The first paragraph of the press release indicates that the Service “has begun the process to formally delist it,” but the fourth paragraph indicates that the Service “will analyze whether the Preble’s portion of Z. h. campestris qualifies as a Distinct Population Segment (DPS) in need of protection under the Endangered Species Act before this rule is finalized.”

In other words, the Service's official position is that it has not yet made a decision to delist Preble's meadow jumping mouse, which makes it all the more important to look at the evidence behind the decision.

George Will complained aboout academics again in a column published a couple of weeks ago. His target? The reaction to Larry Summers comments about the possibility that innate biological differences are, in part, responsible for the relatively small number of women found in tenured positions on science faculties. He argues that “In today's academy, no social solecism is as unforgivable as the expression of a hypothesis that offends someone's ‘progressive’ sensibilities,” that “[t]here is a vast and growing scientific literature on possible gender differences in cognition. Only hysterics denounce interest in those possible differences ... as ‘bias.’”

Will is right. Only hysterics denounce interest in cognitive differences between men and women as bias. He is also wrong. The “hysterics” surrounding Summers comments are not denouncing interest in the topic, they are denouncing the suggestion that innate differences play an important role in determining the relative success of women and men in academic scientific career.