EPS 106 Lecture #2

August 24^th

Evolution is a fact.

Theory of Evolution is a theory.

Global warming example.

Dropping a spoon on a table.

Don't know why volcanoes erupt.  Can't see an atom.

Scientific method:

1.      Observation

2.      Hypothesis

3.      Testing of hypothesis (experiment)

4.      Reject, modify or accept hypothesis

5.      Theory has been developed (if hypothesis is accepted)

6.      In the best case, the theory becomes law.  For example, heat always flows from hot things to cold things (Zero^th Law of Thermodynamics)

A theory is no good if it can't be tested!

Example of ants, Einstein and optimum growing conditions of plants.

The following is from “Evolution vs. Creationism: The public education controversy. 

Evolutionists use any available procedure of science to understand the origins and changes of through time of living creatures, the earth and cosmos.  All approaches (observation, experimentation) are used except the supernatural.  The latter is rejected because ‘science has absolutely no way of dealing with it.  Science is concerned with nature, so, by definition, something that is above or apart from nature eludes its grasp’

Although there are always unanswered details, continued research generally leads to a better understanding of natural processes.

In contrast, Creationists are not interested in understanding nature, but rather in promoting a selection of statements in Genesis.  Early attempts were made to outlaw the teaching of evolution in schools, but this is counter to our country’s laws.  The second effort was to teach creationism side-by-side, but this too is illegal.   Realizing that they cannot be in the position of introducing religion in the classroom, they have started calling their system of beliefs ‘creation science’.

There are two main goals of creation science:  First, to explain the notions of the origins and changes that derive solely from what is said in the book of Genesis and second:

            to find flaws in the biological theory of evolution.

According to John A. Moore (Prof. of Biology, University of California) points out the flaws of a “you’re wrong, so I must be right” philosophy.  He sites two examples:

Modern chemistry is far more than ‘what’s wrong with the Theory of Alchemy’ and

Modern astronomy is not based on ‘what’s wrong with the theory of astrology.

·        As a final illustration of the distinction between religious and scientific methods, Creation is only embrace (indeed conceived) by those familiar with the Christian bible.  Other cultures have different religions embracing different thoughts of creation. 

However, any scientific investigation would eventually lead to very similar conclusions anywhere in the world, because the observations are independent of faith.

So where is the problem?  It lies partly in our failure to educate our population in the theory of evolution.  People can honestly make the mistake that the opinions espoused by Creationists are equally likely to evolution.  They make a compelling case, and it takes a rather well versed scientist to see the flaws in the creationists arguments. 

John Morse gives the analogy to fluoride:

It was noted that certain people in certain regions of the country had discolored teeth.  Why?  It turned out to be related to fluorine content of the water.  It also gave them far lower tooth decay.  With further discovery, it was realized that slightly lower concentrations didn’t discolor teeth, but they did significantly prevent tooth decay.

Everyone seemed happy with the idea of fluoridation of water.  Saves lots of money in insurance, etc. 

But it was opposed by the         “American Academy of Nutrition”

                                                “National Health Foundation”

                                                “Association of American Physicians and Surgeons”

Their point:  Fluoride was a poison . .  a rat poison, to be exact.

The failure here is on behalf of the University educator.  To quote Morse, the responsibility is to “provide information and understanding, not just information alone”.

Origin of life and ‘spontaneous generation’.

Every child asks "Where do babies come from?"

We ask "Where do we come from?"

Spontaneous generation was accepted until modern times.  A mouse, flies, etc.

The baby mice in the grain or hay have spontaneously sprouted up out of the grain “I saw it with my own eyes” is said.

            Worms and flies come out of meat.  An acceptable observation, but not a complete one.  There are always flies first.

Even the greatest minds of the ancient world held this view.  Aristotle believed this, as he had to, for he saw evidence with his own eyes. 

1668: Francesco Redi was a poet and physician—He questioned the spontaneous generation of maggots in meat.  He saw that not only did the flies emerge from the meat, but they flew to the surface as well.  He conducted a scientific experiment (which was quite rare at the time.  He put gauze over the meat and lo and behold, no maggots.

His arguments were muted by the Dutch janitor Anton van Leeuwenhoek.  Leeuwenhoek’s hobby was grinding small lenses and he perfected the microscopes.  He looked at everything he could, from hair to blood.  In 1675 he discovered living things in ditch water.  He called them ‘animalcules’, what we now call protozoa from the greek “first animals”.  He discovered that yeast was composed of tiny living things even smaller than protozoa and in 1683 observed still tinier living things, which we now call bacteri, from the greek “little rod”.

            Van Leeuwenhoek made a broth from water and peppers, and found that protozoa appeared.  His observations ‘proved’ to some that 'spontaneous generation' occurred in a cooked and filtered broth, although whether he supported this idea is not clear (to me anyway!).  He made other observations that opposed the prevalent theory of spontaneous generation and demonstrated that granary weevils, fleas, and mussels are not created from wheat grains and sand but develop from tiny eggs. He described the life cycle of ants, showing how the larvae and pupae originate from eggs. Leeuwenhoek also observed plant and muscle tissue, and described three types of bacteria: bacilli, cocci, and spirilla. Interestingly, he kept the craft of making his lenses a secret, however, so that not until the improvement of the compound microscope in the 19th century was the next observation of bacteria made.

            The English Roman Catholic Priest John Turberville Needham conducted similar experiments to Van Leeuwenhoek, but sealed the vessels after placing the broth inside.  The broth teemed with life, proving that spontaneous generation existed.

            The concept of spontaneous generation was intact until the next blow almost 100 years later.  In 1767 Lazzaro Spallanzani ((1729-99), Italian physiologist, who was one of the founders of experimental biology.  He was educated in law at the University of Bologna, later becoming a professor in physics. 

            Spallanzani conducted many experiments.  He investigated the ability of many lower animals to regenerate parts, and in a transplant experiment he successfully grafted the head of one snail onto the body of another. He studied the circulation of blood through the lungs and experimented on digestive juices, which, he observed, were specialized for digesting different foods. Attempting to discover what part of the semen was essential for generation, he filtered samples from amphibians and discovered that the higher the filtration, the less likely was the development of an egg. Although Spallanzani was far from understanding the role of spermatozoa and believed them to be parasites, he was able to artificially inseminate a dog and several lower animals through his careful experiments. In his last experiments he tried to demonstrate how body tissues convert what is now known as oxygen to carbon dioxide.

His most famous experiment shattered Needham’s work.  He conducted an experiment where he boiled broth and then sealed the neck, like Needham but he heated the flask sufficiently to sterilize it first.  No life until the flask was opened to air. 

The spontaneous generationists had an argument against Spallanzani.  They said that the heat killed the ‘vital principle’ that was necessary for life to spontaneously generate.  Without the VP, it was impossible for life to generate.  (Note that we are looking at the ‘supernatural’ here, although there may have been something that hadn’t yet been discovered).

Louis Pasteur finally put spontaneous generation to rest.  Born in Dole in 1822, son of a tanner, he earned a doctorate from Ecole Normale de Paris in 1847 in chemistry and physics.  He discovered that light was polarized (rotated) in natural organic solutions, but not in artificial ones.  When bacteria were placed in the artificial solution, the polarization again took place.  The organic molecules could exist as one of two isomers, the same structure, but a mirror image of each other. 

In 1854 he moved to Lille as professor of chemistry , and dean of science.  He worked on fermentation, showing that yeast was necessary for wine production, but that sterilization kept the wine (or beer) from souring.  He, of course, extended his work to milk, hence ‘pasturization’.  He worked on silkworms, discovering a bacterial parasite, and through controlled breeding, saved the industry.  He came up with the germ theory, although many ridiculed it as saying that something so small couldn’t be that harmful.  And he came up with vaccines for anthrax and rabies. 

            In 1885, a young boy and his mother arrived at Pasteur’s laboratory; the boy had been bitten badly by a rabid dog, and Pasteur was urged to treat him with his new method. At the end of the treatment, which lasted ten days, the boy was being inoculated with the most potent rabies virus known; he recovered and remained healthy. Since that time, thousands of people have been saved from rabies by this treatment.

            Pasteur’s research on rabies resulted, in 1888, in the founding of a special institute in Paris for the treatment of the disease. This became known as the Institut Pasteur, and it was directed by Pasteur himself until he died. (The institute still flourishes and is one of the most important centers in the world for the study of infectious diseases and other subjects related to microorganisms, including molecular genetics.) By the time of his death in Saint-Cloud on September 28, 1895, Pasteur had long since become a national hero and had been honored in many ways. He was given a state funeral at the Cathedral of Nôtre Dame, and his body was placed in a permanent crypt in his institute.

            Fully aware of the presence of microorganisms in nature, Pasteur undertook several experiments designed to address the question of where these “germs” came from. Were they spontaneously produced in substances themselves, or were they introduced into substances from the environment? Pasteur concluded that the latter was always the case. He conducted experiments similar to Spallanzani, but left the neck open, adding a convoluted, S shaped opening.  No spontaneous generation.  His findings resulted in a fierce debate with the French biologist Félix Pouchet—and later with the noted English bacteriologist Henry Bastion—who maintained that under appropriate conditions instances of spontaneous generation could be found. These debates, which lasted well into the 1870s, although a commission of the Académie des Sciences officially accepted Pasteur’s results in 1864, gave great impetus to improving experimental techniques in microbiology.

Interestingly, the biblical writings were against spontaneous generation.  “And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.”

and “Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth”

In Genesis he saves Noah, wife and sons.  “And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female. 

Thus it is surprising that spontaneous generation would be accepted by the church as it was.  Result:  Go figure!