thinkevolution.net

Odile Crick in 2003, at a dinner celebrating the 50th anniversary of the historical discovery, and her sketch that appeared in the 1953 paper. Images from the New York Times.

Odile Crick, who drew the double helix diagram in the 1953 Nature paper that announced the structure of DNA, died this month at 86. She was the wife of Francis Crick, the co-author of the paper with James Watson. They asked her to draw the image because “Francis can’t draw, and I can’t draw, and we need something done quick,” said James Watson. Her sketch, which was a “purely diagrammatic” representation of the 3-D structure of DNA, became iconic. The New York Times article that reported her death reveals Crick to have been a pretty extraordinary lady. She relocated to Britain in 1938 when the Nazis occupied Austria, where she was an art student in Vienna. She joined the Women’s Royal Naval Service and because she was fluent in German, became a code-breaker and translater of secret documents during the war.

The blog malcolmxpark.org describes a dubious upcoming event in the Philadelphia Free Library’s Summer Reading program. Author Jacob Schwartz, PhD has written books, magazine articles and computer software on asteroid symbolism and “maintains an active astrological practice in a Philadelphia suburb.” He will be speaking at the Lucien E. Blackwell West Philadelphia Regional Library on August 8 at 4 PM, where participants can learn about astrology and create their own birth chart.

Schwartz makes some peculiar claims about his Asteroid Signatures software package, purchase price $350:

Strangely, the names of asteroids relate to Earthly events and persons with the names! For openers, when Bill Clinton was born, the asteroids Monica, Paula, and Williams formed a stellium opposite asteroids Hillary and Gingerich! When George W Bush was elected president in 2000 and 2004, the asteroid Busch conjoined asteroid Washingtonia!

Where are the asteroids relevant to you at significant dates in your life? The collective names in your life are as unique as your signature! That’s why we call this program Asteroid Signatures! Type in your name, or any other name, and the program provides the positions of those asteroids at any time you select, the discovery dates and discoverers are listed, along with the keywords used in their original citation by the Minor Planet Center.

You’ll discover an awesome level of personal connection between asteroid names important to you and important dates in your life when those names connected.

Schwartz and his associates at astrosoftware.com reject accusations of pseudoscience and make detailed claims to scientific legitimacy. In fact, Schwartz runs fairly far afield from his degree in communications with this claim:

Asteroids point to an evolutionary breakthrough for humanity. If we accept the premise that the naming of new planetary bodies correlates with new centers of consciousness within us, then suddenly there are thousands of new centers of consciousness lighting up in the cosmos and in our minds. If we are on the precipice of a quantum leap of consciousness where a greater proportion of the brain will be utilized, then the awareness of asteroid relevance can stimulate those newly utilized brain cells. Is asteroid symbolism the next step in our evolution?

There’s a comprehensive collection of expensive products for sale through astrosoftware.com and, presumably, Dr. Schwartz himself. I hope the Free Library does not end up enabling a scam artist.

According to a May 2007 Gallup poll, 49% of Americans believe in evolution, 48% do not and 2% have no opinion. Still, I find it startling every time I hear about another person who doesn’t. Evidently I’m wrestling with my own issues of mulish blockheadedness. Anyway, although hearing about ordinary people who don’t believe in evolution makes me die inside, finding out about famous people who don’t believe in evolution is entertaining. So let’s start a list.

Got a tip? Leave a comment!

Chuck Norris, action hero

“On Chuck Norris ‘mania’ sweeping the net,” article by Chuck Norris, World Net Daily, October 23, 2006

Kirk Cameron, actor

The Way of the Master video

Jeffrey Dahmer, serial killer

MSNBC television interview, July 11, 2007

Deepak Chopra, guru

“Intelligent Design Without the Bible,” blog post by Deepak Chopra, The Huffington Post, August 23, 2005

Mel Gibson, actor

Interview in Playboy, July 1995

George W. Bush, president

“For Bush, His Toughest Call Was the Choice to Run at All,” New York Times, October 29, 2000

Elisabeth Hasselbeck, The View co-host

Interview in Today’s Christian, July/August 2006

Charlton Heston, actor

The Mysterious Origins of Man video (read Skeptical Inquirer review here)

Pope Benedict XVI

“Pope Weighs in on Creationism Controversy,” MSNBC.com, November 11, 2005

Sam Brownback, senator (R, Kansas) and 2008 presidential candidate

Mike Huckabee, governor of Arkansas and 2008 presidential candidate

Tom Tancredo, representative (R, Colorado) and 2008 presidential candidate

The May 3, 2007 GOP presidential candidates debate

John Thune, senator (R, South Dakota)

“The Gay War Rolls On,” Newsweek, July 26, 2004

Ann Coulter, maniac

Godless: The Church of Liberalism by Ann Coulter, published by Crown Forum

Apparently, images described earlier as depicting a baby jackalope and signifying the demise of modern scientific thought are actually of a Patagonian cavy, a mammal native to South America and a recognized member of the Caviidae family since forever.

Picture of the Patagonian cavy sign at the Southwick’s Zoo. Photograph by Mary Schwalm.

The “befuddled” graduate student who first failed to identify this non-controversial species, which has not shared a common ancestor with rabbits for 83 million years or with antelopes for 100 million years, is an idiot. “She’s an idiot,” her advisor said. “This is going in your file,” said the graduate chair, “and expect to revisit this issue at your next committee meeting.” Another faculty member passing by in the hallway declared, “graduate students are as dumb as a sack of hammers,” though it is not clear if the comment was addressing the subject at hand. The correction came three days after the initial misidentification, when the photographer, who is not a biologist but who did read the plaque at the zoo exhibit, contacted the student. “It’s a Patagonian cavy,” she wrote in an email.

In better news, the return of the jackalope to mythical status means that science is safe again. Champions of Intelligent Design, who had heralded the baby jackalope as irrefutable evidence for their theory, have returned to their think tanks. At the present time, the scientific establishment faces no real threats from the anti-science camps.

Check out the newest installment of the Tangled Bank over at The Voltage Gate!

A statue in Wyoming constructed back when jackalopes were revered as majestic but mythical animals.

Shocking photos of an unusual hybrid-type animal confounded biologists today. Images of what zoo-goers agree look an awful lot like a baby jackalope were posted on the internet today, making evidence against the canonical view of evolution by common descent—which thoroughly rejects the existence of jackalopes, which would require the mating of two phylogenetically divergent and anatomically dissimilar organisms—available worldwide. Jackalopes, also known as “antelabbits” or “stagbunnies” according to Wikipedia, had long been rejected as imaginary joke animals that people from the southwest described to gullible roommates when they went away to college in the east. But the late-breaking images challenge all that. Intelligent design advocates are claiming victory, explaining that the existence of the baby jackalope violates all known biological laws and that the empire of scientific theory has been toppled. Admittedly, a graduate student in biology shown these pictures was befuddled.

Images of the baby jackalope with its mother, taken at the Southwick’s Zoo in Massachusetts. Female jackalopes don’t have antlers.

In the mad scramble to challenge this new challenge to evolution and possibly rewrite the laws of nature, an interesting ancillary fact has emerged. Apparently most evolution deniers and supporters of Intelligent Design also believe in the jackalope. “Of course I’ve always believed in jackalopes,” said one 17-year-old girl who rejects evolution as a materialistic conspiracy perpetrated by godless academics. “We know antelabbits are real, because full-size antelopes could never forage in narrow crevices or really dense underbrush and the circle of life depends on balance in nature. It’s simple logic,” explained her father, misconstruing the ecological niche concept. It’s unclear how the scientific establishment will weather this assault. In the past, major revisions to scientific theory have led to an ultimately more robust understanding of the natural world, like when Einstein dropped the cosmological constant from his field equations for general relativity after facing undeniable evidence that the universe is indeed expanding. But these findings may destroy science altogether, and lead to a total deterioration of knowledge and pursuit of rational thought.