Vitória – No ano em que o mundo comemora o bicentenário do nascimento do biólogo e naturalista inglês Charles Darwin e os 150 anos do lançamento de seu mais famoso trabalho, o livro “A Origem das Espécies”, uma parceria entre o Governo do Estado do Espírito Santo, por meio da Secretaria Estadual da Educação (SEDU), e o Instituto Sangari possibilitará a vinda a Vitória da Exposição DARWIN, que está percorrendo vários países e já passou por São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Goiânia, Curitiba e o Distrito Federal. Nesta quarta-feira (08/07), às 9h30, em solenidade no Auditório da SEDU (Av. César Hilal, 1111), o Secretário de Educação Haroldo Rocha assina a parceria com Ben Sangari, Presidente do Instituto Sangari.
Segundo o Secretário, a exposição DARWIN, que conta a vida e a pesquisa do naturalista inglês, estará aberta ao público no Palácio Anchieta, entre 5 de agosto e 4 de outubro, com visitação gratuita:
“A educação nos dias de hoje não se resume mais a salas de aula. Atividades extracurriculares, como visitas a museus e exposições, são importantes no sentido de apoiar a atividade dos professores e melhorar o aprendizado dos alunos. Os estudantes vivem em um mundo conectado, com acesso a Internet, celular e sites de relacionamento, daí porque atividades como visita a uma exposição que reúne informações e material interativo se insere no universo das crianças e torna-se um valioso instrumento de educação”, assinala Rocha.
O acordo entre a Secretaria de Educação e o Instituto Sangari prevê que 50.000 estudantes de escolas públicas de Vitória e cidades dos arredores visitarão a exposição.
Além dos estudantes, a mostra estará aberta ao público de terça a sexta, das 8h às 18h, com entrada gratuita.
Segundo Ben Sangari, presidente do Instituto e da Sangari Brasil, o principal objetivo do instituto é a difusão de conhecimento científico, que ajuda na formação de uma sociedade com espírito crítico, raciocínio lógico e que valoriza o trabalho em equipe:
“Charles Darwin foi um exemplo de pesquisador científico, pois era um excelente observador, construía hipóteses e buscava confirmá-las por meio da investigação, atividades essenciais para a formação de uma sociedade mais criativa e empreendedora.
A exposição Darwin ajuda a difundir este exemplo, mostrando aos jovens que há todo um mundo a ser descoberto por aqueles que se dispõem a pesquisar, estudar e investigar”, assinala.
Exposição Darwin – Idealizada pelo American Museum of Natural History, de Nova York, a exposição DARWIN está percorrendo o Brasil desde 2007. Trazida e adaptada para o Brasil pelo Instituto Sangari, a exposição já recebeu mais de 400.000 visitantes nas cidades por onde passou, além de mais de 165.000 estudantes de escolas públicas e privadas.
A mostra recria a viagem do naturalista inglês, cujos resultados transformaram a maneira como a humanidade percebia a evolução das espécies. A ampla área dedicada à viagem de Darwin recria com detalhes os ambientes e as criaturas que o pesquisador conheceu durante uma jornada de cinco anos ao redor do mundo, inclusive com passagens pelo Brasil, em 1832, onde o naturalista se encantou com a exuberância da natureza, mas se chocou com a escravidão.
Uma apresentação em tela de vídeo gigante, criada a partir de 1.000 fotografias em alta resolução, leva o visitante a uma caminhada virtual com Darwin pelo caminho de areia que ele criou na área externa de sua casa, um local que ele usava com frequência para refletir sobre suas pesquisas. Também em Vitória, a exposição mostrará uma cópia fac-símile do manuscrito de Darwin sobre a Origem das Espécies, que foi publicado em 1859.
Instituto Sangari - Fundado em 2003 pelo físico e empresário Ben Sangari, o Instituto Sangari tem como objetivo difundir o conhecimento científico. O Instituto mantém parcerias nacionais e internacionais com importantes instituições como o Museu de História Natural de Nova York, a UNICAMP, Instituto Fernand Braudel de Economia Mundial, UNESCO, Rede de Informação Latino-Americana (RITLA) e a Universidade Estadual da Carolina do Norte, nos Estados Unidos.
O Instituto Sangari integra a Sangari Brasil, uma empresa do segmento de educação que criou e desenvolveu o Programa CTC - Ciência e Tecnologia com Criatividade, usado por mais de 400.000 estudantes de escolas públicas e privadas em 18 estados brasileiros.
Informações para a Imprensa:
e-Press Comunicação
Nuria Sampietro
Tel.: 55 (11) 2619-1720
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nuria@epress.com.br
epress@epress.com.br
Fonte [PDF].
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Não dá para entender como que um Secretário de Educação de Estado desconhece que esta exposição está em descompasso com a verdade histórica e é uma verdadeira 'hagiografia' de louvaminhice, beija-mão e beija-pé de Darwin. Eu destaquei aqui neste blog alguns desses erros aqui, aqui e aqui.
O Darwin que se chocou com a escravidão no Brasil é o mesmo Darwin que preconizou a destruição de raças inferiores por raças superiores (leia-se os europeus) no seu livros menos lido e pesquisado: The Descent of Man.
A afirmação de Ben Sangari, presidente do Instituto e da Sangari Brasil, de que "o principal objetivo do instituto é a difusão de conhecimento científico, que ajuda na formação de uma sociedade com espírito crítico, raciocínio lógico e que valoriza o trabalho em equipe", está em descompasso com a verdade, pois notifiquei o Instituto Sangari desses erros capciosos, e nenhuma resposta recebi. Onde o espaço para o 'espírito crítico', para o 'raciocínio lógico', para o 'trabalho em equipe'? Me engana que eu gosto! Mas enganar uma grande multidão de brasileiros e ficar quieto? Jamais, mon ami Sangari, jamais!
Aonde esta exposição for no Brasil, eu irei denunciar daqui este verdadeiro 171 em História da Ciência.
Uma pergunta indiscreta: as Secretarias de Educação de Estado estão bancando essa exposição? Há licitação???
O Espírito Santo recebe a exposição 'hagiográfica' sobre Darwin em descompasso com a verdade histórica
sexta-feira, julho 31, 2009
Exposição “Grandes Pais da Ciência”, em São Paulo
JC e-mail 3817, de 31 de Julho de 2009.
23. Exposição “Grandes Pais da Ciência”, em São Paulo
Mostra, promovida pelo Instituto Sangari, fica em cartaz até 16 de agosto no Shopping Pátio Higienópolis
A exposição apresenta um pouco da vida e obra de três grandes personalidades da ciência. Por meio de painéis, instalações interativas e jogos, os visitantes verão como Galileu Galilei, Charles Darwin e Albert Einstein transformaram a visão de mundo atual.
O horário de visitação é de segunda a sábado, das 10h às 22h, e domingos, das 12h às 20h. Grupos e escolas podem agendar a visita pelo fone 0300-7890002.
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Os historiadores de ciências e pesquisadores ficam 'arrepiados' em ouvirem a expressão 'pai' disso, 'pai' daquilo em ciência...
Por que combater a gripe suína se o mais apto é que vai sobreviver???
JC e-mail 3817, de 31 de Julho de 2009.
7. A evolução da nova gripe, artigo de David Uip
“Este novo vírus está associado à quarta geração descendente do vírus de 1918”
David Uip, médico infectologista, é diretor do hospital estadual Emílio Ribas, em São Paulo. Artigo publicado em “O Estado de SP”:
Os vírus influenza pandêmicos já causaram muitas mortes em humanos. No século 20 as ações de três tipos de vírus influenza culminaram em pandemias: 1918, vírus H1N1; 1957, vírus H2N2; e 1968, vírus H3N2. Os dados de mortalidade, incluindo os vírus influenza A e B, calculados segundo diversos métodos, não rigorosamente comparáveis, apontaram os seguintes números de mortes por 100 mil habitantes, respectivamente: 598, 40,6 e 16,9. O atual gira em torno de 0,012.
Este novo vírus está associado à quarta geração descendente do vírus de 1918. A complexa história evolutiva das características genéticas demonstra uma miscigenação do vírus influenza humano, aviário e suíno adaptado a uma possível resposta selecionada imune herdada em determinadas populações. Esse complexo entre a rápida evolução viral e a dirigida alteração na resposta imune do ser humano tem criado a "era pandêmica" dos últimos 91 anos.
Existem poucas evidências de que esta era estaria no começo ou no fim. Se existem boas notícias a respeito das sucessivas pandemias quanto à diminuição da morbimortalidade, em razão, em parte, dos avanços na medicina e na saúde pública, isso também pode ser reflexo das escolhas da evolução viral, objetivando ótima transmissibilidade com mínima patogenicidade. Um vírus que mata o seu hospedeiro ou o manda para a cama passa a ser menos transmissível.
Em 25 de abril de 2009 foi declarada a Emergência em Saúde Pública de Importância Internacional e desde 11 de junho a Organização Mundial da Saúde (OMS) estabeleceu que a pandemia está na fase seis. No momento, mais de 160 países já confirmaram casos, com aproximadamente 800 mortes.
O Brasil, em observação restrita às orientações da OMS, estabeleceu, num primeiro momento e com sucesso, um plano de contenção, com o objetivo claro de diminuir o quanto possível o número de infectados, na expectativa de que o pico da pandemia se desse o mais distante do período de inverno e o mais próximo do uso da vacina, ainda a ser disponibilizada.
A partir da caracterização da transmissão sustentada no Brasil e da determinação da OMS de não mais contabilizar o número de infectados, trocou-se o índice de letalidade (número de mortes pelo total de infectados) pela mortalidade (número de mortes por 100 mil habitantes). Entramos numa outra fase, a de redução de danos, em que se objetiva diminuir o número de complicações e de mortes.
Nas últimas semanas começamos a relatar um número crescente de mortes, o numerador, pois perdemos o denominador, representado por um número muito maior, o de infectados. O fato criou um início de pânico na população e levou à procura, muitas vezes sem motivos clínicos, de hospitais referenciados, públicos e privados. Há que entender o medo do desconhecido.
A Secretaria de Estado da Saúde de São Paulo e o Ministério da Saúde advertem sobre a importância da descentralização e hierarquização do atendimento, pois só a referência e a contrarreferência organizadas garantirão o bom atendimento à população.
Para que o sistema funcione temos de ter uma excelente integração das três esferas de governo - federal, estadual e municipal -, aliado ao envolvimento e à confiança da população. E aí se inicia a ação dos oportunistas de plantão, por meio de questionamentos pouco científicos, sem fundamento teórico-prático, muitas vezes com objetivos escusos e puramente pessoais.
A crítica construtiva ajuda. Apontar erros do sistema, que sabidamente está longe de ser perfeito, é salutar. Que o Sistema Único de Saúde (SUS) necessita de aprimoramentos e de mais recursos ninguém duvida.
Como especialista em doenças infecciosas e parasitárias há mais de 33 anos e diretor de um hospital de referência, o Instituto de Infectologia Emílio Ribas, sou testemunha do esforço ilimitado dos profissionais da área e das autoridades da saúde para fazer o melhor possível.
É suficiente? Por conta do dinamismo que o momento exige, as autoridades sanitárias estaduais e federais estão discutindo propostas, que se referem aos novos polos de dispensação de medicamentos a partir da indicação médica, ao aumento do número de laboratórios públicos e privados credenciados para a realização dos exames específicos e à implantação de equipes multiprofissionais volantes para dar suporte às Unidades Básicas de Saúde, dentre outras.
Algumas decisões são complexas e envolvem riscos. Ao atender todas as receitas médicas mais ou menos pertinentes, impõe-se o risco de aumentar a resistência aos dois únicos medicamentos disponíveis - resistência essa já descrita, em relação a um deles, em pacientes residentes em pelo menos quatro países: Dinamarca, Japão, China e Canadá. Adicionalmente, embora existam dois antivirais em fase de pesquisa, há que destacar uma das últimas publicações do Centro de Controle de Doenças e Prevenção (CDC) de Atlanta (EUA), que fez referência ao aumento de resistência do vírus da influenza sazonal ao oseltamivir em todo o mundo.
Na tentativa de otimizar recursos e dar o cunho assistencial que a situação exige, segundo o próprio CDC, as recomendações para a solicitação do exame para o diagnóstico devem-se restringir às seguintes situações: todos os pacientes internados, adultos e crianças, tidos como comprovados, prováveis ou suspeitos e pacientes considerados de risco aumentado para complicações. A realização do exame também é importante para o monitoramento das alterações genéticas e alteração da resistência do vírus aos antivirais.
Várias vacinas encontram-se em desenvolvimento. Uma delas já está em estudos clínicos na Austrália. Sem dúvida, é a principal expectativa na prevenção dessa nova doença e se encontrará disponível para o próximo inverno no Hemisfério Norte.
Há ainda muito a apreender com essa pandemia e com o vírus. Todos devemos continuar atentos, informados e vigilantes, mas não permitindo que o alarmismo provocado por poucos nos deixe entrar em pânico.
(O Estado de SP, 31/7)
7. A evolução da nova gripe, artigo de David Uip
“Este novo vírus está associado à quarta geração descendente do vírus de 1918”
David Uip, médico infectologista, é diretor do hospital estadual Emílio Ribas, em São Paulo. Artigo publicado em “O Estado de SP”:
Os vírus influenza pandêmicos já causaram muitas mortes em humanos. No século 20 as ações de três tipos de vírus influenza culminaram em pandemias: 1918, vírus H1N1; 1957, vírus H2N2; e 1968, vírus H3N2. Os dados de mortalidade, incluindo os vírus influenza A e B, calculados segundo diversos métodos, não rigorosamente comparáveis, apontaram os seguintes números de mortes por 100 mil habitantes, respectivamente: 598, 40,6 e 16,9. O atual gira em torno de 0,012.
Este novo vírus está associado à quarta geração descendente do vírus de 1918. A complexa história evolutiva das características genéticas demonstra uma miscigenação do vírus influenza humano, aviário e suíno adaptado a uma possível resposta selecionada imune herdada em determinadas populações. Esse complexo entre a rápida evolução viral e a dirigida alteração na resposta imune do ser humano tem criado a "era pandêmica" dos últimos 91 anos.
Existem poucas evidências de que esta era estaria no começo ou no fim. Se existem boas notícias a respeito das sucessivas pandemias quanto à diminuição da morbimortalidade, em razão, em parte, dos avanços na medicina e na saúde pública, isso também pode ser reflexo das escolhas da evolução viral, objetivando ótima transmissibilidade com mínima patogenicidade. Um vírus que mata o seu hospedeiro ou o manda para a cama passa a ser menos transmissível.
Em 25 de abril de 2009 foi declarada a Emergência em Saúde Pública de Importância Internacional e desde 11 de junho a Organização Mundial da Saúde (OMS) estabeleceu que a pandemia está na fase seis. No momento, mais de 160 países já confirmaram casos, com aproximadamente 800 mortes.
O Brasil, em observação restrita às orientações da OMS, estabeleceu, num primeiro momento e com sucesso, um plano de contenção, com o objetivo claro de diminuir o quanto possível o número de infectados, na expectativa de que o pico da pandemia se desse o mais distante do período de inverno e o mais próximo do uso da vacina, ainda a ser disponibilizada.
A partir da caracterização da transmissão sustentada no Brasil e da determinação da OMS de não mais contabilizar o número de infectados, trocou-se o índice de letalidade (número de mortes pelo total de infectados) pela mortalidade (número de mortes por 100 mil habitantes). Entramos numa outra fase, a de redução de danos, em que se objetiva diminuir o número de complicações e de mortes.
Nas últimas semanas começamos a relatar um número crescente de mortes, o numerador, pois perdemos o denominador, representado por um número muito maior, o de infectados. O fato criou um início de pânico na população e levou à procura, muitas vezes sem motivos clínicos, de hospitais referenciados, públicos e privados. Há que entender o medo do desconhecido.
A Secretaria de Estado da Saúde de São Paulo e o Ministério da Saúde advertem sobre a importância da descentralização e hierarquização do atendimento, pois só a referência e a contrarreferência organizadas garantirão o bom atendimento à população.
Para que o sistema funcione temos de ter uma excelente integração das três esferas de governo - federal, estadual e municipal -, aliado ao envolvimento e à confiança da população. E aí se inicia a ação dos oportunistas de plantão, por meio de questionamentos pouco científicos, sem fundamento teórico-prático, muitas vezes com objetivos escusos e puramente pessoais.
A crítica construtiva ajuda. Apontar erros do sistema, que sabidamente está longe de ser perfeito, é salutar. Que o Sistema Único de Saúde (SUS) necessita de aprimoramentos e de mais recursos ninguém duvida.
Como especialista em doenças infecciosas e parasitárias há mais de 33 anos e diretor de um hospital de referência, o Instituto de Infectologia Emílio Ribas, sou testemunha do esforço ilimitado dos profissionais da área e das autoridades da saúde para fazer o melhor possível.
É suficiente? Por conta do dinamismo que o momento exige, as autoridades sanitárias estaduais e federais estão discutindo propostas, que se referem aos novos polos de dispensação de medicamentos a partir da indicação médica, ao aumento do número de laboratórios públicos e privados credenciados para a realização dos exames específicos e à implantação de equipes multiprofissionais volantes para dar suporte às Unidades Básicas de Saúde, dentre outras.
Algumas decisões são complexas e envolvem riscos. Ao atender todas as receitas médicas mais ou menos pertinentes, impõe-se o risco de aumentar a resistência aos dois únicos medicamentos disponíveis - resistência essa já descrita, em relação a um deles, em pacientes residentes em pelo menos quatro países: Dinamarca, Japão, China e Canadá. Adicionalmente, embora existam dois antivirais em fase de pesquisa, há que destacar uma das últimas publicações do Centro de Controle de Doenças e Prevenção (CDC) de Atlanta (EUA), que fez referência ao aumento de resistência do vírus da influenza sazonal ao oseltamivir em todo o mundo.
Na tentativa de otimizar recursos e dar o cunho assistencial que a situação exige, segundo o próprio CDC, as recomendações para a solicitação do exame para o diagnóstico devem-se restringir às seguintes situações: todos os pacientes internados, adultos e crianças, tidos como comprovados, prováveis ou suspeitos e pacientes considerados de risco aumentado para complicações. A realização do exame também é importante para o monitoramento das alterações genéticas e alteração da resistência do vírus aos antivirais.
Várias vacinas encontram-se em desenvolvimento. Uma delas já está em estudos clínicos na Austrália. Sem dúvida, é a principal expectativa na prevenção dessa nova doença e se encontrará disponível para o próximo inverno no Hemisfério Norte.
Há ainda muito a apreender com essa pandemia e com o vírus. Todos devemos continuar atentos, informados e vigilantes, mas não permitindo que o alarmismo provocado por poucos nos deixe entrar em pânico.
(O Estado de SP, 31/7)
Portal torna dados sobre a Capes acessíveis na internet
JC e-mail 3817, de 31 de Julho de 2009.
2. Portal torna dados sobre a Capes acessíveis na internet
GeoCapes, base de dados com localização geográfica, está no ar, mas ainda não foi lançado oficialmente. Há dados sobre investimentos, concessão de bolsas, distribuição dos programas de pós-graduação e de docentes em todo o país
A Capes está para lançar um serviço de dados sobre investimentos, concessão de bolsas, distribuição dos programas de pós-graduação e de docentes em todo o país. O GeoCapes funciona como um portal na internet e está no ar desde sexta-feira passada, dia 24, mas ainda não foi lançado oficialmente pela agência do MEC.
O presidente da Capes, Jorge Guimarães, informou sobre o portal nesta quinta-feira, dia 30, durante participação no XIV Congresso Brasileiro de Sociologia, que termina nesta sexta-feira, dia 31, no Rio. Guimarães destacou que o serviço é uma medida em prol da transparência. Segundo ele, o portal seria lançado na segunda-feira, dia 3.
O GeoCapes é uma base de dados que consiste em referenciar informações de acordo com sua localização geográfica. O portal disponibiliza informações acerca dos mais diversos cenários em que a Capes participa ou está relacionada. A página principal da agência já mostra um “banner” com link para o portal: http://geocapes.capes.gov.br/geocapesds/.
O usuário pode montar gráficos (com opção pizza, colunas ou barras) com dados específicos. Há noves indicadores disponíveis: concessão de bolsas da pós-graduação (de 1996 a 2009), distribuição de bolsistas no exterior (de 1998 a 2008), distribuição de discentes (de 1998 a 2008), distribuição de programas de pós-graduação (de 1998 até 2008), distribuição de cursos Universidade Aberta do Brasil (2008), distribuição de docentes (de 1998 a 2008), acesso ao Portal de Periódicos (de 2001 até 2008), articulações de cursos e polos UAB (2008), e investimentos da Capes em bolsas e fomento (de 2002 a 2008).
A concessão de bolsas é o único dado referente a 2009 porque as bolsas são concedidas no início do ano.
Os dados podem ser apresentados em visão geográfica ou em visão analítica. Na geográfica, a concentração é evidente. Apenas seis estados (Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Sul, Paraná, São Paulo, Minas Gerais e Pernambuco) estão na maior faixa (1.236 a 12.060) em termos de concessão de bolsas. Na visão analítica, é possível acessar o número de bolsas por cada programa de pós-graduação.
(Vinicius Neder)
2. Portal torna dados sobre a Capes acessíveis na internet
GeoCapes, base de dados com localização geográfica, está no ar, mas ainda não foi lançado oficialmente. Há dados sobre investimentos, concessão de bolsas, distribuição dos programas de pós-graduação e de docentes em todo o país
A Capes está para lançar um serviço de dados sobre investimentos, concessão de bolsas, distribuição dos programas de pós-graduação e de docentes em todo o país. O GeoCapes funciona como um portal na internet e está no ar desde sexta-feira passada, dia 24, mas ainda não foi lançado oficialmente pela agência do MEC.
O presidente da Capes, Jorge Guimarães, informou sobre o portal nesta quinta-feira, dia 30, durante participação no XIV Congresso Brasileiro de Sociologia, que termina nesta sexta-feira, dia 31, no Rio. Guimarães destacou que o serviço é uma medida em prol da transparência. Segundo ele, o portal seria lançado na segunda-feira, dia 3.
O GeoCapes é uma base de dados que consiste em referenciar informações de acordo com sua localização geográfica. O portal disponibiliza informações acerca dos mais diversos cenários em que a Capes participa ou está relacionada. A página principal da agência já mostra um “banner” com link para o portal: http://geocapes.capes.gov.br/geocapesds/.
O usuário pode montar gráficos (com opção pizza, colunas ou barras) com dados específicos. Há noves indicadores disponíveis: concessão de bolsas da pós-graduação (de 1996 a 2009), distribuição de bolsistas no exterior (de 1998 a 2008), distribuição de discentes (de 1998 a 2008), distribuição de programas de pós-graduação (de 1998 até 2008), distribuição de cursos Universidade Aberta do Brasil (2008), distribuição de docentes (de 1998 a 2008), acesso ao Portal de Periódicos (de 2001 até 2008), articulações de cursos e polos UAB (2008), e investimentos da Capes em bolsas e fomento (de 2002 a 2008).
A concessão de bolsas é o único dado referente a 2009 porque as bolsas são concedidas no início do ano.
Os dados podem ser apresentados em visão geográfica ou em visão analítica. Na geográfica, a concentração é evidente. Apenas seis estados (Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Sul, Paraná, São Paulo, Minas Gerais e Pernambuco) estão na maior faixa (1.236 a 12.060) em termos de concessão de bolsas. Na visão analítica, é possível acessar o número de bolsas por cada programa de pós-graduação.
(Vinicius Neder)
A Explosão Cambriana: o dilema de Darwin e o silêncio dos autores de livros didáticos de Biologia
Fonte.
Este é o mais novo documentário da Illustra Media que vai ser lançado brevemente nos Estados Unidos. O que fica bem claro neste documentário:
1. Paleontólogos evolucionistas de renome científico internacional admitem livremente que a evidência encontrada na Explosão Cambriana apresenta um problema sério e fundamental contra a teoria de Darwin (Simon Conway Morris e James Valentine).
2. As animações fantásticas comunicam visualmente a complexidade das criaturas do Cambriano.
3. A complexidade dos gráficos exibidos mostram claramente que as predições de evolução lenta e gradual através de longas eras propostas por Darwin não corresponde com a evidência e, na verdade, a evidência é oposta àquelas proposições.
4. O espaço de tempo relativo do Big Bang biológico (2 minutos depois no relógio da história da Terra em 24 horas) torna virtualmente impossível para as mutações aleatórias e a seleção natural produzirem a diversidade e complexidade de vida encontrada no Cambriano numa janela geológica temporal tão posterior e pequena.
5. Alguns cientistas chineses estão se voltando contra a teoria de Darwin baseados na evidência da Explosão Cambriana encontrada no seu país (que é uma das melhores).
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NOTA IMPERTINENTE DESTE BLOGGER:
A explosão Cambriana é tratada en passant nos livros didáticos de Biologia do enisno aprovados pelo MEC/SEMTEC/PNLEM. Em alguns, a cobertura deste evento evolutivo significativo é quase uma nota de rodapé. Os alunos não ficam sabendo quais as dificuldades fundamentais que isso traz para as especulações transformistas lentas e graduais através do tempo propostas por Darwin. A quantidade de informação genética necessária para o surgimentos dessas novidades evolutivas numa pequena janela de tempo geológico não é informada. O que isso implica em termos de dificuldades para a teoria de Darwin no contexto de justificação teórica???
Alô MEC/SEMTEC/PNLEM, o nome disso é desonestidade acadêmica, oops 171 epistêmico.
Fui, nem sei por que, pensando que a Explosão Cambriana já se tornou em pesadelo kafkiano para Darwin...
Mecanismo(s) evolutivo(s): se não for X, então Y; se não for Y, então Z; se não for Z, então todo o ABC...
O fato, Fato, FATO da evolução é explicado pela seleção natural e 'n' mecanismos evolutivos. Eu ironizo aqui neste blog que, se não for X, então Y; se não for Y, então Z; se não for Z, então todo o ABC.
Leia este artigo intrigante de Susan Blackmore sobre o terceiro replicador evolutivo.
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Evolution's third replicator: Genes, memes, and now what?
31 July 2009 by Susan Blackmore
WE HUMANS have let loose something extraordinary on our planet - a third replicator - the consequences of which are unpredictable and possibly dangerous.
What do I mean by "third replicator"? The first replicator was the gene - the basis of biological evolution. The second was memes - the basis of cultural evolution. I believe that what we are now seeing, in a vast technological explosion, is the birth of a third evolutionary process. We are Earth's Pandoran species, yet we are blissfully oblivious to what we have let out of the box.
This might sound apocalyptic, but it is how the world looks when we realise that Darwin's principle of evolution by natural selection need not apply just to biology. Given some kind of copying machinery that makes lots of slightly different copies of the same information, and given that only a few of those copies survive to be copied again, an evolutionary process must occur and design will appear out of destruction. You might call it "design by death" since clever designs thrive because of the many failures that don't.
The information that is copied, varied and selected is called the replicator, and the process is well understood when applied to biology. Genes are copied, mutated and selected over and over again. Assemblages of genes are used to build vehicles that carry them around, protect them and propagate them. These vehicles - the lumbering robots, as Richard Dawkins calls them - are animals and plants, the prolific and exquisitely designed products of the first replicator.
About 4 billion years after the appearance of the first replicator, something extraordinary happened. Members of one species of lumbering robot began to imitate one another. Imitation is a kind of copying, and so a new evolutionary process was born. Instead of cellular chemistry copying the order of bases on DNA, a sociable species of bipedal ape began to use its big brain to copy gestures, sounds and other behaviours. This copying might not have been very accurate, but it was enough to start a new evolutionary process. Dawkins called the new replicators "memes". A living creature, once just a vehicle of the first replicator, was now the copying machinery for the next.
The idea of memes as a cultural analogue of genes has been much maligned, and most biologists still reject it. Yet memetics has much to offer in explaining human nature. According to meme theory, humans are radically different from all other species because we alone are meme machines. Human intelligence is not just a bit more or a bit better than other kinds of intelligence, it is something completely different, based on a new evolutionary process and a new kind of information.
The main difference between conventional theories and memetics is this: most biologists assume that culture and language evolved because they helped humans survive and pass on their genes, and that genes retain ultimate control. Memetics challenges that assumption. Although the capacity for imitation must once have been adaptive for the apes who started it, evolution has no foresight and could not have predicted the consequences of letting loose a new evolutionary process. Nor could it have retained control of memes once they began evolving in their own right.
So memes began to proliferate. What began as an adaptation soon became like a parasite - a new evolving entity that changed the apes and their world forever. Once memes were proliferating, individuals benefited from copying the latest and most successful ones, and then passed on any genes that helped them do so. This "memetic drive" forced their brains to get bigger and bigger, and to become adept at copying the most successful memes, eventually leading to language, art, music, ritual and religion - the successful designs of human culture.
This process was dangerous. Small brains are much more efficient if you don't have to copy anything, but once memes are around you cannot survive unless you do. So brains had to get bigger, and big brains are costly to produce, dangerous to give birth to and expensive to run.
There is also danger in what is copied. If you start copying anything at all then you might copy dangerous memes, like throwing yourself off a cliff or using up all your resources in pointless rituals. This creates an arms race between two selfish replicators - memes benefiting from brains that copy anything and everything; genes benefiting from brains that are smaller, more efficient and highly selective.
Either of these dangers might have finished our ancestors off, but they pulled through. The result was a compromise, with human brains being just about as big as our bodies could stand, and yet selective enough to avoid copying lethal memes. In the same way that parasites tend to co-evolve with their hosts to become less lethal, so memes co-evolved with us. Languages, religions, skills and fashions that began as parasites turned into symbionts. Not only do we get along with our memes now, we could not live without them.
There was also a cost to the rest of life on Earth. Wherever they went humans took memes with them, spreading agriculture and changing the landscape, obliterating some species, domesticating others and changing whole ecosystems. Then, much more recently, they began to build radically new kinds of technology, and the changes they effected dwarfed anything that had gone before. Was this just more of the same or something new?
In all my previous work in memetics I have used the term "meme" to apply to any information that is copied between people, including stories in books, ideas embodied in new technology, websites and so on. The reason was that there seemed no way of distinguishing between "natural" human memes, such as spoken words, habits, fashions, art and religions, and what we might call "artificial" memes, such as websites and high-tech goods. So on the grounds that a false distinction is worse than none I stuck to the term "meme". Yet an email encrypted in digital code, broken into tiny packets and beamed around the planet does seem qualitatively different from someone shaking hands and saying "Hi". Could there be a fundamental principle lurking here? If we ask what made memes different from genes, would that help us decide what would make a new replicator different from memes?
Putting it that way makes the answer easier to see. Memes are a new kind of information - behaviours rather than DNA - copied by a new kind of machinery - brains rather than chemicals inside cells. This is a new evolutionary process because all of the three critical stages - copying, varying and selection - are done by those brains. So does the same apply to new technology?
There is a new kind of information: electronically processed binary information rather than memes. There is also a new kind of copying machinery: computers and servers rather than brains. But are all three critical stages carried out by that machinery?
We're close. We may even be right on the cusp. Think of programs that write original poetry or cobble together new student essays, or programs that store information about your shopping preferences and suggest books or clothes you might like next. They may be limited in scope, dependent on human input and send their output to human brains, but they copy, select and recombine the information they handle.
Machines now copy information to other machines without human intervention
Or think of Google. It copies information, selects what it needs and puts the selections together in new variations - that's all three. The temptation is to think that since we designed search engines and other technologies for our own use they must remain subservient to us. But if a new replicator is involved we must think again. Search results go not only to screens for people to look at, but to other programs, commercial applications and even viruses - that's machines copying information to other machines without the intervention of a human brain. From there, we should expect the system to grow rapidly beyond our control and for our role in it to change. We should also expect design to appear spontaneously, and it does. Much of the content on the web is now designed automatically by machines rather than people.
Burneverything
The temptation is to think that technology we designed must remain subservient to us - but think again
Memes work differently from genes, and digital information works differently from memes, but some general principles apply to them all. The accelerating expansion, the increasing complexity, and the improving interconnectivity of all three are signs that the same fundamental design process is driving them all. Road networks look like vascular systems, and both look like computer networks, because interconnected systems outcompete isolated systems. The internet connects billions of computers in trillions of ways, just as a human brain connects billions of neurons in trillions of ways. Their uncanny resemblance is because they are doing a similar job.
So where do we go from here? We humans were vehicles for the first replicator and copying machinery for the second. What will we be for the third? For now we seem to have handed over most of the storage and copying duties to our new machines, but we still do much of the selection, which is why the web is so full of sex, drugs, food, music and entertainment. But the balance is shifting.
...
Read more here/Leia mais aqui.
Leia este artigo intrigante de Susan Blackmore sobre o terceiro replicador evolutivo.
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Evolution's third replicator: Genes, memes, and now what?
31 July 2009 by Susan Blackmore
WE HUMANS have let loose something extraordinary on our planet - a third replicator - the consequences of which are unpredictable and possibly dangerous.
What do I mean by "third replicator"? The first replicator was the gene - the basis of biological evolution. The second was memes - the basis of cultural evolution. I believe that what we are now seeing, in a vast technological explosion, is the birth of a third evolutionary process. We are Earth's Pandoran species, yet we are blissfully oblivious to what we have let out of the box.
This might sound apocalyptic, but it is how the world looks when we realise that Darwin's principle of evolution by natural selection need not apply just to biology. Given some kind of copying machinery that makes lots of slightly different copies of the same information, and given that only a few of those copies survive to be copied again, an evolutionary process must occur and design will appear out of destruction. You might call it "design by death" since clever designs thrive because of the many failures that don't.
The information that is copied, varied and selected is called the replicator, and the process is well understood when applied to biology. Genes are copied, mutated and selected over and over again. Assemblages of genes are used to build vehicles that carry them around, protect them and propagate them. These vehicles - the lumbering robots, as Richard Dawkins calls them - are animals and plants, the prolific and exquisitely designed products of the first replicator.
About 4 billion years after the appearance of the first replicator, something extraordinary happened. Members of one species of lumbering robot began to imitate one another. Imitation is a kind of copying, and so a new evolutionary process was born. Instead of cellular chemistry copying the order of bases on DNA, a sociable species of bipedal ape began to use its big brain to copy gestures, sounds and other behaviours. This copying might not have been very accurate, but it was enough to start a new evolutionary process. Dawkins called the new replicators "memes". A living creature, once just a vehicle of the first replicator, was now the copying machinery for the next.
The idea of memes as a cultural analogue of genes has been much maligned, and most biologists still reject it. Yet memetics has much to offer in explaining human nature. According to meme theory, humans are radically different from all other species because we alone are meme machines. Human intelligence is not just a bit more or a bit better than other kinds of intelligence, it is something completely different, based on a new evolutionary process and a new kind of information.
The main difference between conventional theories and memetics is this: most biologists assume that culture and language evolved because they helped humans survive and pass on their genes, and that genes retain ultimate control. Memetics challenges that assumption. Although the capacity for imitation must once have been adaptive for the apes who started it, evolution has no foresight and could not have predicted the consequences of letting loose a new evolutionary process. Nor could it have retained control of memes once they began evolving in their own right.
So memes began to proliferate. What began as an adaptation soon became like a parasite - a new evolving entity that changed the apes and their world forever. Once memes were proliferating, individuals benefited from copying the latest and most successful ones, and then passed on any genes that helped them do so. This "memetic drive" forced their brains to get bigger and bigger, and to become adept at copying the most successful memes, eventually leading to language, art, music, ritual and religion - the successful designs of human culture.
This process was dangerous. Small brains are much more efficient if you don't have to copy anything, but once memes are around you cannot survive unless you do. So brains had to get bigger, and big brains are costly to produce, dangerous to give birth to and expensive to run.
There is also danger in what is copied. If you start copying anything at all then you might copy dangerous memes, like throwing yourself off a cliff or using up all your resources in pointless rituals. This creates an arms race between two selfish replicators - memes benefiting from brains that copy anything and everything; genes benefiting from brains that are smaller, more efficient and highly selective.
Either of these dangers might have finished our ancestors off, but they pulled through. The result was a compromise, with human brains being just about as big as our bodies could stand, and yet selective enough to avoid copying lethal memes. In the same way that parasites tend to co-evolve with their hosts to become less lethal, so memes co-evolved with us. Languages, religions, skills and fashions that began as parasites turned into symbionts. Not only do we get along with our memes now, we could not live without them.
There was also a cost to the rest of life on Earth. Wherever they went humans took memes with them, spreading agriculture and changing the landscape, obliterating some species, domesticating others and changing whole ecosystems. Then, much more recently, they began to build radically new kinds of technology, and the changes they effected dwarfed anything that had gone before. Was this just more of the same or something new?
In all my previous work in memetics I have used the term "meme" to apply to any information that is copied between people, including stories in books, ideas embodied in new technology, websites and so on. The reason was that there seemed no way of distinguishing between "natural" human memes, such as spoken words, habits, fashions, art and religions, and what we might call "artificial" memes, such as websites and high-tech goods. So on the grounds that a false distinction is worse than none I stuck to the term "meme". Yet an email encrypted in digital code, broken into tiny packets and beamed around the planet does seem qualitatively different from someone shaking hands and saying "Hi". Could there be a fundamental principle lurking here? If we ask what made memes different from genes, would that help us decide what would make a new replicator different from memes?
Putting it that way makes the answer easier to see. Memes are a new kind of information - behaviours rather than DNA - copied by a new kind of machinery - brains rather than chemicals inside cells. This is a new evolutionary process because all of the three critical stages - copying, varying and selection - are done by those brains. So does the same apply to new technology?
There is a new kind of information: electronically processed binary information rather than memes. There is also a new kind of copying machinery: computers and servers rather than brains. But are all three critical stages carried out by that machinery?
We're close. We may even be right on the cusp. Think of programs that write original poetry or cobble together new student essays, or programs that store information about your shopping preferences and suggest books or clothes you might like next. They may be limited in scope, dependent on human input and send their output to human brains, but they copy, select and recombine the information they handle.
Machines now copy information to other machines without human intervention
Or think of Google. It copies information, selects what it needs and puts the selections together in new variations - that's all three. The temptation is to think that since we designed search engines and other technologies for our own use they must remain subservient to us. But if a new replicator is involved we must think again. Search results go not only to screens for people to look at, but to other programs, commercial applications and even viruses - that's machines copying information to other machines without the intervention of a human brain. From there, we should expect the system to grow rapidly beyond our control and for our role in it to change. We should also expect design to appear spontaneously, and it does. Much of the content on the web is now designed automatically by machines rather than people.
Burneverything
The temptation is to think that technology we designed must remain subservient to us - but think again
Memes work differently from genes, and digital information works differently from memes, but some general principles apply to them all. The accelerating expansion, the increasing complexity, and the improving interconnectivity of all three are signs that the same fundamental design process is driving them all. Road networks look like vascular systems, and both look like computer networks, because interconnected systems outcompete isolated systems. The internet connects billions of computers in trillions of ways, just as a human brain connects billions of neurons in trillions of ways. Their uncanny resemblance is because they are doing a similar job.
So where do we go from here? We humans were vehicles for the first replicator and copying machinery for the second. What will we be for the third? For now we seem to have handed over most of the storage and copying duties to our new machines, but we still do much of the selection, which is why the web is so full of sex, drugs, food, music and entertainment. But the balance is shifting.
...
Read more here/Leia mais aqui.
A importância relativa da mudança direcional, passos aleatórios, e estase na evolução das linhagens de fósseis
Eu não me lembro de ter lido na literatura especializada algum artigo 'melhorando' a situação...
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The relative importance of directional change, random walks, and stasis in the evolution of fossil lineages
Gene Hunt*
+Author Affiliations
Department of Paleobiology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, MRC 121, P.O. Box 37012, Washington DC 20013-7012
Edited by Michal Kucera, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany, and accepted by the Editorial Board October 18, 2007 (received for review May 3, 2007)
Abstract
The nature of evolutionary changes recorded by the fossil record has long been controversial, with particular disagreement concerning the relative frequency of gradual change versus stasis within lineages. Here, I present a large-scale, statistical survey of evolutionary mode in fossil lineages. Over 250 sequences of evolving traits were fit by using maximum likelihood to three evolutionary models: directional change, random walk, and stasis. Evolution in these traits was rarely directional; in only 5% of fossil sequences was directional evolution the most strongly supported of the three modes of change. The remaining 95% of sequences were divided nearly equally between random walks and stasis. Variables related to body size were significantly less likely than shape traits to experience stasis. This finding is in accord with previous suggestions that size may be more evolutionarily labile than shape and is consistent with some but not all of the mechanisms proposed to explain evolutionary stasis. In general, similar evolutionary patterns are observed across other variables, such as clade membership and temporal resolution, but there is some evidence that directional change in planktonic organisms is more frequent than in benthic organisms. The rarity with which directional evolution was observed in this study corroborates a key claim of punctuated equilibria and suggests that truly directional evolution is infrequent or, perhaps more importantly, of short enough duration so as to rarely register in paleontological sampling.
gradualism modes of evolution punctuated equilibria
Footnotes
*E-mail: hunte@si.edu
Author contributions: G.H. designed research, performed research, analyzed data, and wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission. M.K. is a guest editor invited by the Editorial Board.
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/0704088104/DC1.
© 2007 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA
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PDF gratuito do artigo aqui.
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The relative importance of directional change, random walks, and stasis in the evolution of fossil lineages
Gene Hunt*
+Author Affiliations
Department of Paleobiology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, MRC 121, P.O. Box 37012, Washington DC 20013-7012
Edited by Michal Kucera, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany, and accepted by the Editorial Board October 18, 2007 (received for review May 3, 2007)
Abstract
The nature of evolutionary changes recorded by the fossil record has long been controversial, with particular disagreement concerning the relative frequency of gradual change versus stasis within lineages. Here, I present a large-scale, statistical survey of evolutionary mode in fossil lineages. Over 250 sequences of evolving traits were fit by using maximum likelihood to three evolutionary models: directional change, random walk, and stasis. Evolution in these traits was rarely directional; in only 5% of fossil sequences was directional evolution the most strongly supported of the three modes of change. The remaining 95% of sequences were divided nearly equally between random walks and stasis. Variables related to body size were significantly less likely than shape traits to experience stasis. This finding is in accord with previous suggestions that size may be more evolutionarily labile than shape and is consistent with some but not all of the mechanisms proposed to explain evolutionary stasis. In general, similar evolutionary patterns are observed across other variables, such as clade membership and temporal resolution, but there is some evidence that directional change in planktonic organisms is more frequent than in benthic organisms. The rarity with which directional evolution was observed in this study corroborates a key claim of punctuated equilibria and suggests that truly directional evolution is infrequent or, perhaps more importantly, of short enough duration so as to rarely register in paleontological sampling.
gradualism modes of evolution punctuated equilibria
Footnotes
*E-mail: hunte@si.edu
Author contributions: G.H. designed research, performed research, analyzed data, and wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission. M.K. is a guest editor invited by the Editorial Board.
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/0704088104/DC1.
© 2007 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA
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PDF gratuito do artigo aqui.
EXTRA! EXTRA! Cientistas céticos do aquecimento global ser antropogenicamente provocado pedem a 'cabeça' de editor
Eu sou cético localizado do aquecimento global ser antropogenicamente provocado. Razão? A ciência não é capaz de anunciar com 100% de exatidão se vai chover lá no sertão de Seridó (RN), quanto mais 'medir' esta tal de influência antropogênica. Al 'Apocalipse' Gore et caterva, oops et al é mais chique, é que é responsável por esta histeria mundial. Para mim, um mero historiador de ciência em formação, o fenômeno é natural.
Um grupo de químicos nos Estados Unidos, céticos localizados desse fenômeno, pedem a remoção de um editor.
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Climate Revolt: World's Largest Science Group 'Startled' By Outpouring of Scientists Rejecting Man-Made Climate Fears! Clamor for Editor to Be Removed!
Scientists seek to remove climate fear promoting editor and 'trade him to New York Times or Washington Post'
Wednesday, July 29, 2009By Marc Morano – Climate Depot
Climate Depot Exclusive
An outpouring of skeptical scientists who are members of the American Chemical Society (ACS) are revolting against the group's editor-in-chief -- with some demanding he be removed -- after an editorial appeared claiming “the science of anthropogenic climate change is becoming increasingly well established.”
The editorial claimed the "consensus" view was growing "increasingly difficult to challenge, despite the efforts of diehard climate-change deniers.” The editor now admits he is "startled" by the negative reaction from the group's scientific members. The American Chemical Society bills itself as the "world's largest scientific society."
The June 22, 2009 editorial in Chemical and Engineering News by editor in chief Rudy Baum, is facing widespread blowback and condemnation from American Chemical Society member scientists. Baum concluded his editorial by stating that “deniers” are attempting to “derail meaningful efforts to respond to global climate change.”
Dozens of letters from ACS members were published on July 27, 2009 castigating Baum, with some scientists calling for his replacement as editor-in-chief.
The editorial was met with a swift, passionate and scientific rebuke from Baum's colleagues. Virtually all of the letters published on July 27 in castigated Baum's climate science views. Scientists rebuked Baum's use of the word “deniers” because of the terms “association with Holocaust deniers.” In addition, the scientists called Baum's editorial: “disgusting”; “a disgrace”; “filled with misinformation”; “unworthy of a scientific periodical” and “pap.”
One outraged ACS member wrote to Baum: "When all is said and done, and you and your kind are proven wrong (again), you will have moved on to be an unthinking urn for another rat pleading catastrophe. You will be removed. I promise."
Baum 'startled' by scientists reaction
Baum wrote on July 27, that he was "startled" and "surprised" by the "contempt" and "vehemence" of the ACS scientists to his view of the global warming "consensus."
"Some of the letters I received are not fit to print. Many of the letters we have printed are, I think it is fair to say, outraged by my position on global warming," Baum wrote.
Selected Excerpts of Skeptical Scientists:
“I think it's time to find a new editor,” ACS member Thomas E. D'Ambra wrote.
Geochemist R. Everett Langford wrote: “I am appalled at the condescending attitude of Rudy Baum, Al Gore, President Barack Obama, et al., who essentially tell us that there is no need for further research—that the matter is solved.”
ACS scientist Dennis Malpass wrote: “Your editorial was a disgrace. It was filled with misinformation, half-truths, and ad hominem attacks on those who dare disagree with you. Shameful!”
ACS member scientist Dr. Howard Hayden, a Physics Professor Emeritus from the University of Connecticut: “Baum's remarks are particularly disquieting because of his hostility toward skepticism, which is part of every scientist's soul. Let's cut to the chase with some questions for Baum: Which of the 20-odd major climate models has settled the science, such that all of the rest are now discarded? [...] Do you refer to 'climate change' instead of 'global warming' because the claim of anthropogenic global warming has become increasingly contrary to fact?"
Edward H. Gleason wrote: “Baum's attempt to close out debate goes against all my scientific training, and to hear this from my ACS is certainly alarming to me...his use of 'climate-change deniers' to pillory scientists who do not believe climate change is a crisis is disingenuous and unscientific.”
Atmospheric Chemist Roger L. Tanner: "I have very little in common with the philosophy of the Heartland Institute and other 'free-market fanatics,' and I consider myself a progressive Democrat. Nevertheless, we scientists should know better than to propound scientific truth by consensus and to excoriate skeptics with purple prose."
William Tolley: "I take great offense that Baum would use Chemical and Engineering News, for which I pay dearly each year in membership dues, to purvey his personal views and so glibly ignore contrary information and scold those of us who honestly find these views to be a hoax."
William E. Keller wrote: “However bitter you (Baum) personally may feel about CCDs (climate change deniers), it is not your place as editor to accuse them—falsely—of nonscientific behavior by using insultingly inappropriate language. [...] The growing body of scientists, whom you abuse as sowing doubt, making up statistics, and claiming to be ignored by the media, are, in the main, highly competent professionals, experts in their fields, completely honorable, and highly versed in the scientific method—characteristics that apparently do not apply to you.”
ACS member Wallace Embry: “I would like to see the American Chemical Society Board 'cap' Baum's political pen and 'trade' him to either the New York Times or Washington Post." [To read the more reactions from scientists to Baum's editorial go here and see below.]
Physicists Dr. Lubos Motl, who publishes the Reference Frame website, weighed in on the controversy as well, calling Baum's editorial an "alarmist screed."
“Now, the chemists are thinking about replacing this editor who has hijacked the ACS bulletin to promote his idiosyncratic political views," Motl wrote on July 27, 2009.
Baum cites discredited Obama Administration Climate Report
To “prove” his assertion that the science was “becoming increasingly well established,” Baum cited the Obama Administration's U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) study as evidence that the science was settled. [Climate Depot Editor's Note: Baum's grasp of the latest “science” is embarrassing. For Baum to cite the June 2009 Obama Administration report as “evidence” that science is growing stronger exposes him as having very poor research skills. See this comprehensive report on scientists rebuking that report. See: 'Scaremongering': Scientists Pan Obama Climate Report: 'This is not a work of science but an embarrassing episode for the authors and NOAA'...'Misrepresents the science' - July 8, 2009 )
Baum also touted the Congressional climate bill as “legislation with real teeth to control the emission of greenhouse gases.” [Climate Depot Editor's Note: This is truly laughable that an editor-in-chief at the American Chemical Society could say the climate bill has “real teeth.” This statement should be retracted in full for lack of evidence. The Congressional climate bill has outraged environmental groups for failing to impact global temperatures and failing to even reduce emissions! See: Climate Depot Editorial: Climate bill offers (costly) non-solutions to problems that don't even exist - No detectable climate impact: 'If we actually faced a man-made 'climate crisis', we would all be doomed' June 20, 2009 ]
The American Chemical Society's scientific revolt is the latest in a series of recent eruptions against the so-called “consensus” on man-made global warming.
On May 1 2009, the American Physical Society (APS) Council decided to review its current climate statement via a high-level subcommittee of respected senior scientists. The decision was prompted after a group of 54 prominent physicists petitioned the APS revise its global warming position. The 54 physicists wrote to APS governing board: “Measured or reconstructed temperature records indicate that 20th - 21st century changes are neither exceptional nor persistent, and the historical and geological records show many periods warmer than today.”
The petition signed by the prominent physicists, led by Princeton University's Dr. Will Happer, who has conducted 200 peer-reviewed scientific studies. The peer-reviewed journal Nature published a July 22, 2009 letter by the physicists persuading the APS to review its statement. In 2008, an American Physical Society editor conceded that a “considerable presence” of scientific skeptics exists.
In addition, in April 2009, the Polish National Academy of Science reportedly “published a document that expresses skepticism over the concept of man-made global warming.”
An abundance of new peer-reviewed scientific studies continue to be published challenging the UN IPCC climate views. (See: Climate Fears RIP...for 30 years!? - Global Warming could stop 'for up to 30 years! Warming 'On Hold?...'Could go into hiding for decades,' peer-reviewed study finds – Discovery.com – March 2, 2009 & Peer-Reviewed Study Rocks Climate Debate! 'Nature not man responsible for recent global warming...little or none of late 20th century warming and cooling can be attributed to humans' – July 23, 2009 )
A March 2009 a 255-page U. S. Senate Report detailed "More Than 700 International Scientists Dissenting Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims." 2009's continued lack of warming, further frustrated the promoters of man-made climate fears. See: Earth's 'Fever' Breaks! Global temperatures 'have plunged .74°F since Gore released An Inconvenient Truth' – July 5, 2009
In addition, the following developments further in 2008 challenged the “consensus” of global warming. India Issued a report challenging global warming fears; a canvass of more than 51,000 Canadian scientists revealed 68% disagree that global warming science is “settled”; A Japan Geoscience Union symposium survey in 2008 reportedly “showed 90 per cent of the participants do not believe the IPCC report.” Scientific meetings are now being dominated by a growing number of skeptical scientists. The prestigious International Geological Congress, dubbed the geologists' equivalent of the Olympic Games, was held in Norway in August 2008 and prominently featured the voices of scientists skeptical of man-made global warming fears. [See: Skeptical scientists overwhelm conference: '2/3 of presenters and question-askers were hostile to, even dismissive of, the UN IPCC' & see full reports here & here - Also see: UN IPCC's William Schlesinger admits in 2009 that only 20% of IPCC scientists deal with climate ]
Selected Excerpted Highlights of American Chemical Society Scientist's Reaction to Baum's Editorial: (For full letters see here.)
Instead of debate, members are constantly subjected to your arrogant self-righteousness and the left-wing practice of stifling debate by personal attacks on anyone who disagrees. I think ACS should make an effort to educate its membership about the science of climate change and let them draw their own conclusions. Although under your editorial leadership, I suspect we would be treated to a biased and skewed version of scientific debate. I think its time to find a new editor. [...] How about using your position as editor to promote a balanced scientific discussion of the theory behind the link of human activity to global warming? I am not happy that you continue to use the pulpit of your editorials to promote your left-wing opinions.
Thomas E. D'Ambra
Rexford, N.Y.
#
Baum's remarks are particularly disquieting because of his hostility toward skepticism, which is part of every scientist's soul. Let's cut to the chase with some questions for Baum: Which of the 20-odd major climate models has settled the science, such that all of the rest are now discarded? Do you refer to "climate change" instead of "global warming" because the claim of anthropogenic global warming has become increasingly contrary to fact?
Howard Hayden
Pueblo West, Colo.
#
I was a geochemist doing research on paleoclimates early in my career. I have tried to follow the papers in the scientific literature. [...] I am appalled at the condescending attitude of Rudy Baum, Al Gore, President Barack Obama, et al., who essentially tell us that there is no need for further research—that the matter is solved. The peer-reviewed literature is not unequivocal about causes and effects of global warming. We are still learning about properties of water, for goodness' sake.
There needs to be more true scientific research without politics on both sides and with all scientists being heard. To insult and denigrate those with whom you disagree is not becoming.
R. Everett Langford
The Woodlands, Texas
#
Your editorial in the June 22 issue of C&EN was a disgrace. It was filled with misinformation, half-truths, and ad hominem attacks on those who dare disagree with you. Shameful!
Are you planning to write an editorial about the Environmental Protection Agency's recent suppression of a global warming report that goes against the gospel according to NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies Director James Hansen? Or do you only editorialize on matters in keeping with your biased views on global warming?
Trying to arrest climate change is a feeble, futile endeavor and a manifestation of human arrogance. Humankind's contribution to climate change is minuscule, and trying to eliminate even that minute effect will be enormously expensive, damaging to the poorest people on the planet, and ultimately ineffective.
Dennis Malpass
Magnolia, Texas
#
I can't accept as facts the reports of federal agencies, because they have become political and are more likely to support the regime in power than not. Baum's attempt to close out debate goes against all my scientific training, and to hear this from my ACS is certainly alarming to me.
Edward H. Gleason
Ooltewah, Tenn.
#
Having worked as an atmospheric chemist for many years, I have extensive experience with environmental issues, and I usually agree with Rudy Baum's editorials. But his use of "climate-change deniers" to pillory scientists who do not believe climate change is a crisis is disingenuous and unscientific. [...] Given the climate's complexity and these and other uncertainties, are we justified in legislating major increases in our energy costs unilaterally guided only by a moral imperative to "do our part" for Earth's climate? I am among many environmentally responsible citizen-scientists who think this is stupid, both because our emissions reductions will be dwarfed by increases elsewhere (China and India, for example) and because the models have large uncertainties. [...] I have very little in common with the philosophy of the Heartland Institute and other "free-market fanatics," and I consider myself a progressive Democrat. Nevertheless, we scientists should know better than to propound scientific truth by consensus and to excoriate skeptics with purple prose.
Roger L. Tanner
Muscle Shoals, Ala.
#
I would like to see the ACS Board cap Baum's political pen and trade him to either the New York Times or Washington Post.
Wallace Embry
Columbia, Tenn.
#
In the interest of brevity, I can limit my response to the diatribe of the editor-in-chief in the June 22 edition of C&EN to one word: Disgusting.
Louis H. Rombach
Wilmington, Del.
#
I am particularly offended by the false analogy with creationists. It is easy to just dismiss anyone who dares disagree as being "unscientific."
Daniel B. Rego
Las Vegas
#
While Baum obviously has strong personal views on the subject, I take great offense that he would use C&EN, for which I pay dearly each year in membership dues, to purvey his personal views and so glibly ignore contrary information and scold those of us who honestly find these views to be a hoax.
William Tolley
San Diego
#
I appreciate it when C&EN presents information from qualified supporters of either, and preferably both, sides of an issue to help readers decide what is correct, rather than dispensing your conclusions and ridiculing people who disagree with you.
P. S. Lowell
Lakeway, Texas
#
I am a retired Ph.D. chemical engineer. During my working years, I was involved in many environmental issues concerning products and processes of the companies for which I worked. I am completely disgusted with the June 22 editorial. I do not consider it to be very scientific to castigate skeptics of man-made global warming. [...] [Global warming fears are] not of particular concern because "the ocean is a very large sink for carbon dioxide." [...] The overall problem here is that there is already an abundance of scientific illiteracy in the American public that will not be improved by Baum's stance in what should be a scientific magazine. Theories are not proven by consensus—but by data from repeatable experimentation that leaves no doubt of interpretation.
Charles M. Krutchen
Daphne, Ala.
#
Please do not keep writing C&EN editorials according to the liberal religion's credo—"Attack all climate-change deniers, creationists, conservatives, people who voted for George W. Bush, etc." It is a sign of weakness in your argument when you attack those who disagree. [...] Your choice of terminology referring to skeptical scientists who don't toe your line as CCD, climate-change deniers, and putting them in association with Holocaust deniers, is unworthy of an editorial in a scientific periodical. Who don't you go head-to-head with the critics? Please don't keep doing this. Find a scientific writer for the editorial page. We get plenty of this pap from the mainstream media and do not need it in C&EN.
Heinrich Brinks
Monterey, Calif.
#
Your utter disdain of CCDs and the accusations of improper tactics you ascribe to them cannot be dismissed. However bitter you personally may feel about CCDs, it is not your place as editor to accuse them—falsely—of nonscientific behavior by using insultingly inappropriate language. The growing body of scientists, whom you abuse as sowing doubt, making up statistics, and claiming to be ignored by the media, are, in the main, highly competent professionals, experts in their fields, completely honorable, and highly versed in the scientific method—characteristics that apparently do not apply to you. The results presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which you call the CCD's "favorite whipping boy," do indeed fall into the category of predictions that fail to match the data, requiring a return to the drawing board. Your flogging of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change is not only infantile but beggars you to contribute facts to back up your disdain. Incidentally, why do we fund climate studies by U.S. Global Change Research Program if the problem is settled?
William E. Keller
Santa Fe, N.M.
For all of the letters send in repsone to Baum's editorial see here.
Um grupo de químicos nos Estados Unidos, céticos localizados desse fenômeno, pedem a remoção de um editor.
+++++
Climate Revolt: World's Largest Science Group 'Startled' By Outpouring of Scientists Rejecting Man-Made Climate Fears! Clamor for Editor to Be Removed!
Scientists seek to remove climate fear promoting editor and 'trade him to New York Times or Washington Post'
Wednesday, July 29, 2009By Marc Morano – Climate Depot
Climate Depot Exclusive
An outpouring of skeptical scientists who are members of the American Chemical Society (ACS) are revolting against the group's editor-in-chief -- with some demanding he be removed -- after an editorial appeared claiming “the science of anthropogenic climate change is becoming increasingly well established.”
The editorial claimed the "consensus" view was growing "increasingly difficult to challenge, despite the efforts of diehard climate-change deniers.” The editor now admits he is "startled" by the negative reaction from the group's scientific members. The American Chemical Society bills itself as the "world's largest scientific society."
The June 22, 2009 editorial in Chemical and Engineering News by editor in chief Rudy Baum, is facing widespread blowback and condemnation from American Chemical Society member scientists. Baum concluded his editorial by stating that “deniers” are attempting to “derail meaningful efforts to respond to global climate change.”
Dozens of letters from ACS members were published on July 27, 2009 castigating Baum, with some scientists calling for his replacement as editor-in-chief.
The editorial was met with a swift, passionate and scientific rebuke from Baum's colleagues. Virtually all of the letters published on July 27 in castigated Baum's climate science views. Scientists rebuked Baum's use of the word “deniers” because of the terms “association with Holocaust deniers.” In addition, the scientists called Baum's editorial: “disgusting”; “a disgrace”; “filled with misinformation”; “unworthy of a scientific periodical” and “pap.”
One outraged ACS member wrote to Baum: "When all is said and done, and you and your kind are proven wrong (again), you will have moved on to be an unthinking urn for another rat pleading catastrophe. You will be removed. I promise."
Baum 'startled' by scientists reaction
Baum wrote on July 27, that he was "startled" and "surprised" by the "contempt" and "vehemence" of the ACS scientists to his view of the global warming "consensus."
"Some of the letters I received are not fit to print. Many of the letters we have printed are, I think it is fair to say, outraged by my position on global warming," Baum wrote.
Selected Excerpts of Skeptical Scientists:
“I think it's time to find a new editor,” ACS member Thomas E. D'Ambra wrote.
Geochemist R. Everett Langford wrote: “I am appalled at the condescending attitude of Rudy Baum, Al Gore, President Barack Obama, et al., who essentially tell us that there is no need for further research—that the matter is solved.”
ACS scientist Dennis Malpass wrote: “Your editorial was a disgrace. It was filled with misinformation, half-truths, and ad hominem attacks on those who dare disagree with you. Shameful!”
ACS member scientist Dr. Howard Hayden, a Physics Professor Emeritus from the University of Connecticut: “Baum's remarks are particularly disquieting because of his hostility toward skepticism, which is part of every scientist's soul. Let's cut to the chase with some questions for Baum: Which of the 20-odd major climate models has settled the science, such that all of the rest are now discarded? [...] Do you refer to 'climate change' instead of 'global warming' because the claim of anthropogenic global warming has become increasingly contrary to fact?"
Edward H. Gleason wrote: “Baum's attempt to close out debate goes against all my scientific training, and to hear this from my ACS is certainly alarming to me...his use of 'climate-change deniers' to pillory scientists who do not believe climate change is a crisis is disingenuous and unscientific.”
Atmospheric Chemist Roger L. Tanner: "I have very little in common with the philosophy of the Heartland Institute and other 'free-market fanatics,' and I consider myself a progressive Democrat. Nevertheless, we scientists should know better than to propound scientific truth by consensus and to excoriate skeptics with purple prose."
William Tolley: "I take great offense that Baum would use Chemical and Engineering News, for which I pay dearly each year in membership dues, to purvey his personal views and so glibly ignore contrary information and scold those of us who honestly find these views to be a hoax."
William E. Keller wrote: “However bitter you (Baum) personally may feel about CCDs (climate change deniers), it is not your place as editor to accuse them—falsely—of nonscientific behavior by using insultingly inappropriate language. [...] The growing body of scientists, whom you abuse as sowing doubt, making up statistics, and claiming to be ignored by the media, are, in the main, highly competent professionals, experts in their fields, completely honorable, and highly versed in the scientific method—characteristics that apparently do not apply to you.”
ACS member Wallace Embry: “I would like to see the American Chemical Society Board 'cap' Baum's political pen and 'trade' him to either the New York Times or Washington Post." [To read the more reactions from scientists to Baum's editorial go here and see below.]
Physicists Dr. Lubos Motl, who publishes the Reference Frame website, weighed in on the controversy as well, calling Baum's editorial an "alarmist screed."
“Now, the chemists are thinking about replacing this editor who has hijacked the ACS bulletin to promote his idiosyncratic political views," Motl wrote on July 27, 2009.
Baum cites discredited Obama Administration Climate Report
To “prove” his assertion that the science was “becoming increasingly well established,” Baum cited the Obama Administration's U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) study as evidence that the science was settled. [Climate Depot Editor's Note: Baum's grasp of the latest “science” is embarrassing. For Baum to cite the June 2009 Obama Administration report as “evidence” that science is growing stronger exposes him as having very poor research skills. See this comprehensive report on scientists rebuking that report. See: 'Scaremongering': Scientists Pan Obama Climate Report: 'This is not a work of science but an embarrassing episode for the authors and NOAA'...'Misrepresents the science' - July 8, 2009 )
Baum also touted the Congressional climate bill as “legislation with real teeth to control the emission of greenhouse gases.” [Climate Depot Editor's Note: This is truly laughable that an editor-in-chief at the American Chemical Society could say the climate bill has “real teeth.” This statement should be retracted in full for lack of evidence. The Congressional climate bill has outraged environmental groups for failing to impact global temperatures and failing to even reduce emissions! See: Climate Depot Editorial: Climate bill offers (costly) non-solutions to problems that don't even exist - No detectable climate impact: 'If we actually faced a man-made 'climate crisis', we would all be doomed' June 20, 2009 ]
The American Chemical Society's scientific revolt is the latest in a series of recent eruptions against the so-called “consensus” on man-made global warming.
On May 1 2009, the American Physical Society (APS) Council decided to review its current climate statement via a high-level subcommittee of respected senior scientists. The decision was prompted after a group of 54 prominent physicists petitioned the APS revise its global warming position. The 54 physicists wrote to APS governing board: “Measured or reconstructed temperature records indicate that 20th - 21st century changes are neither exceptional nor persistent, and the historical and geological records show many periods warmer than today.”
The petition signed by the prominent physicists, led by Princeton University's Dr. Will Happer, who has conducted 200 peer-reviewed scientific studies. The peer-reviewed journal Nature published a July 22, 2009 letter by the physicists persuading the APS to review its statement. In 2008, an American Physical Society editor conceded that a “considerable presence” of scientific skeptics exists.
In addition, in April 2009, the Polish National Academy of Science reportedly “published a document that expresses skepticism over the concept of man-made global warming.”
An abundance of new peer-reviewed scientific studies continue to be published challenging the UN IPCC climate views. (See: Climate Fears RIP...for 30 years!? - Global Warming could stop 'for up to 30 years! Warming 'On Hold?...'Could go into hiding for decades,' peer-reviewed study finds – Discovery.com – March 2, 2009 & Peer-Reviewed Study Rocks Climate Debate! 'Nature not man responsible for recent global warming...little or none of late 20th century warming and cooling can be attributed to humans' – July 23, 2009 )
A March 2009 a 255-page U. S. Senate Report detailed "More Than 700 International Scientists Dissenting Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims." 2009's continued lack of warming, further frustrated the promoters of man-made climate fears. See: Earth's 'Fever' Breaks! Global temperatures 'have plunged .74°F since Gore released An Inconvenient Truth' – July 5, 2009
In addition, the following developments further in 2008 challenged the “consensus” of global warming. India Issued a report challenging global warming fears; a canvass of more than 51,000 Canadian scientists revealed 68% disagree that global warming science is “settled”; A Japan Geoscience Union symposium survey in 2008 reportedly “showed 90 per cent of the participants do not believe the IPCC report.” Scientific meetings are now being dominated by a growing number of skeptical scientists. The prestigious International Geological Congress, dubbed the geologists' equivalent of the Olympic Games, was held in Norway in August 2008 and prominently featured the voices of scientists skeptical of man-made global warming fears. [See: Skeptical scientists overwhelm conference: '2/3 of presenters and question-askers were hostile to, even dismissive of, the UN IPCC' & see full reports here & here - Also see: UN IPCC's William Schlesinger admits in 2009 that only 20% of IPCC scientists deal with climate ]
Selected Excerpted Highlights of American Chemical Society Scientist's Reaction to Baum's Editorial: (For full letters see here.)
Instead of debate, members are constantly subjected to your arrogant self-righteousness and the left-wing practice of stifling debate by personal attacks on anyone who disagrees. I think ACS should make an effort to educate its membership about the science of climate change and let them draw their own conclusions. Although under your editorial leadership, I suspect we would be treated to a biased and skewed version of scientific debate. I think its time to find a new editor. [...] How about using your position as editor to promote a balanced scientific discussion of the theory behind the link of human activity to global warming? I am not happy that you continue to use the pulpit of your editorials to promote your left-wing opinions.
Thomas E. D'Ambra
Rexford, N.Y.
#
Baum's remarks are particularly disquieting because of his hostility toward skepticism, which is part of every scientist's soul. Let's cut to the chase with some questions for Baum: Which of the 20-odd major climate models has settled the science, such that all of the rest are now discarded? Do you refer to "climate change" instead of "global warming" because the claim of anthropogenic global warming has become increasingly contrary to fact?
Howard Hayden
Pueblo West, Colo.
#
I was a geochemist doing research on paleoclimates early in my career. I have tried to follow the papers in the scientific literature. [...] I am appalled at the condescending attitude of Rudy Baum, Al Gore, President Barack Obama, et al., who essentially tell us that there is no need for further research—that the matter is solved. The peer-reviewed literature is not unequivocal about causes and effects of global warming. We are still learning about properties of water, for goodness' sake.
There needs to be more true scientific research without politics on both sides and with all scientists being heard. To insult and denigrate those with whom you disagree is not becoming.
R. Everett Langford
The Woodlands, Texas
#
Your editorial in the June 22 issue of C&EN was a disgrace. It was filled with misinformation, half-truths, and ad hominem attacks on those who dare disagree with you. Shameful!
Are you planning to write an editorial about the Environmental Protection Agency's recent suppression of a global warming report that goes against the gospel according to NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies Director James Hansen? Or do you only editorialize on matters in keeping with your biased views on global warming?
Trying to arrest climate change is a feeble, futile endeavor and a manifestation of human arrogance. Humankind's contribution to climate change is minuscule, and trying to eliminate even that minute effect will be enormously expensive, damaging to the poorest people on the planet, and ultimately ineffective.
Dennis Malpass
Magnolia, Texas
#
I can't accept as facts the reports of federal agencies, because they have become political and are more likely to support the regime in power than not. Baum's attempt to close out debate goes against all my scientific training, and to hear this from my ACS is certainly alarming to me.
Edward H. Gleason
Ooltewah, Tenn.
#
Having worked as an atmospheric chemist for many years, I have extensive experience with environmental issues, and I usually agree with Rudy Baum's editorials. But his use of "climate-change deniers" to pillory scientists who do not believe climate change is a crisis is disingenuous and unscientific. [...] Given the climate's complexity and these and other uncertainties, are we justified in legislating major increases in our energy costs unilaterally guided only by a moral imperative to "do our part" for Earth's climate? I am among many environmentally responsible citizen-scientists who think this is stupid, both because our emissions reductions will be dwarfed by increases elsewhere (China and India, for example) and because the models have large uncertainties. [...] I have very little in common with the philosophy of the Heartland Institute and other "free-market fanatics," and I consider myself a progressive Democrat. Nevertheless, we scientists should know better than to propound scientific truth by consensus and to excoriate skeptics with purple prose.
Roger L. Tanner
Muscle Shoals, Ala.
#
I would like to see the ACS Board cap Baum's political pen and trade him to either the New York Times or Washington Post.
Wallace Embry
Columbia, Tenn.
#
In the interest of brevity, I can limit my response to the diatribe of the editor-in-chief in the June 22 edition of C&EN to one word: Disgusting.
Louis H. Rombach
Wilmington, Del.
#
I am particularly offended by the false analogy with creationists. It is easy to just dismiss anyone who dares disagree as being "unscientific."
Daniel B. Rego
Las Vegas
#
While Baum obviously has strong personal views on the subject, I take great offense that he would use C&EN, for which I pay dearly each year in membership dues, to purvey his personal views and so glibly ignore contrary information and scold those of us who honestly find these views to be a hoax.
William Tolley
San Diego
#
I appreciate it when C&EN presents information from qualified supporters of either, and preferably both, sides of an issue to help readers decide what is correct, rather than dispensing your conclusions and ridiculing people who disagree with you.
P. S. Lowell
Lakeway, Texas
#
I am a retired Ph.D. chemical engineer. During my working years, I was involved in many environmental issues concerning products and processes of the companies for which I worked. I am completely disgusted with the June 22 editorial. I do not consider it to be very scientific to castigate skeptics of man-made global warming. [...] [Global warming fears are] not of particular concern because "the ocean is a very large sink for carbon dioxide." [...] The overall problem here is that there is already an abundance of scientific illiteracy in the American public that will not be improved by Baum's stance in what should be a scientific magazine. Theories are not proven by consensus—but by data from repeatable experimentation that leaves no doubt of interpretation.
Charles M. Krutchen
Daphne, Ala.
#
Please do not keep writing C&EN editorials according to the liberal religion's credo—"Attack all climate-change deniers, creationists, conservatives, people who voted for George W. Bush, etc." It is a sign of weakness in your argument when you attack those who disagree. [...] Your choice of terminology referring to skeptical scientists who don't toe your line as CCD, climate-change deniers, and putting them in association with Holocaust deniers, is unworthy of an editorial in a scientific periodical. Who don't you go head-to-head with the critics? Please don't keep doing this. Find a scientific writer for the editorial page. We get plenty of this pap from the mainstream media and do not need it in C&EN.
Heinrich Brinks
Monterey, Calif.
#
Your utter disdain of CCDs and the accusations of improper tactics you ascribe to them cannot be dismissed. However bitter you personally may feel about CCDs, it is not your place as editor to accuse them—falsely—of nonscientific behavior by using insultingly inappropriate language. The growing body of scientists, whom you abuse as sowing doubt, making up statistics, and claiming to be ignored by the media, are, in the main, highly competent professionals, experts in their fields, completely honorable, and highly versed in the scientific method—characteristics that apparently do not apply to you. The results presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which you call the CCD's "favorite whipping boy," do indeed fall into the category of predictions that fail to match the data, requiring a return to the drawing board. Your flogging of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change is not only infantile but beggars you to contribute facts to back up your disdain. Incidentally, why do we fund climate studies by U.S. Global Change Research Program if the problem is settled?
William E. Keller
Santa Fe, N.M.
For all of the letters send in repsone to Baum's editorial see here.
Morreu Hercílio Rechenberg, um grande cientista
Morre Hercílio Rechenberg
31/7/2009
Agência FAPESP – O físico Hercílio Rodolfo Rechenberg, professor titular do Departamento de Física dos Materiais e Mecânica do Instituto de Física (IF) da Universidade de São Paulo (USP), do qual era vice-diretor, morreu no último dia 26 de julho, na Hungria, onde participava de um congresso científico.
Rechenberg, que tinha 68 anos, atuava na área de física da matéria condensada com ênfase em materiais magnéticos e propriedades magnéticas, trabalhando em especial com temas como espectroscopia Mössbauer, nanopartículas, ferritas, vidros de spins e sistemas frustrados.
O cientista era coordenador do Projeto Temático “Materiais Magnéticos Avançados e Novas Técnicas de Caracterização”, apoiado pela FAPESP, com conclusão prevista para 2011. Entre 2005 e 2008, foi membro pesquisador do Instituto do Milênio de Fluidos Complexos.
No IF-USP, trabalhava no Laboratório de Física do Estado Sólido e Baixas Temperaturas (LESBT), onde ingressou como bolsista em 1964, ano em que se formou em Física na USP.
O cientista concluiu seu mestrado na USP em 1968 e doutorou-se em 1973 na Université Scientifique et Médicale de Grenoble, na França. Orientado por Daniel Dautreppe, teve, em sua banca de tese, a participação de um dos nomes mais importantes da história do magnetismo: Louis Néel.
O diretor do IF-USP, Alejandro Szanto de Toledo, lamentou a morte do cientista. "O professor Hercílio teve, do ponto de vista científico, uma produção relevante na área de magnetismo e, do ponto de vista institucional, uma atuação serena, sempre valorizando a instituição", disse Toledo à Agência FAPESP.
De acordo com Nei Fernandes de Oliveira Junior , professor titular do IF-USP, coordenador do LESBT e diretor da Escola de Engenharia de Lorena da USP, a morte de Rechengerg “representa uma perda irreparável para o IF-USP e especialmente para a área de física do estado sólido e de baixas temperaturas”.
“Para mim, a perda pessoal foi grande. Tive-o como amigo desde 1964. Em 1972 fui portador do convite da USP para que retornasse para o Brasil e para o nosso grupo. Desde então, a USP contou com um grande professor, um grande cientista e, principalmente, um grande homem. Sempre sereno, equilibrado e sensato. Sempre afável e de ótimo trato. O LESBT e o Laboratório de Materiais Magnéticos, que ajudou a construir e vinha liderando ultimamente, perderam um de seus pilares”, disse Oliveira Junior em nota dirigida à Sociedade Brasileira de Física.
Atuando sempre na área de magnetismo, Rechenberg voltou ao Brasil em 1973, após o doutorado na França, sendo então contratado definitivamente pela USP para atuar no LESBT. Segundo Oliveira Junior, “implantou técnicas novas, montou laboratórios, culminando seu pioneirismo com a técnica de Mössbauer em altos campos magnéticos. Em tudo o que trabalhou, manteve-se na fronteira”.
Rechenberg tornou-se livre-docente em 1980, orientou oito mestrados e sete doutorados, publicou três livros e mais de 130 artigos científicos em revistas internacionais.
31/7/2009
Agência FAPESP – O físico Hercílio Rodolfo Rechenberg, professor titular do Departamento de Física dos Materiais e Mecânica do Instituto de Física (IF) da Universidade de São Paulo (USP), do qual era vice-diretor, morreu no último dia 26 de julho, na Hungria, onde participava de um congresso científico.Rechenberg, que tinha 68 anos, atuava na área de física da matéria condensada com ênfase em materiais magnéticos e propriedades magnéticas, trabalhando em especial com temas como espectroscopia Mössbauer, nanopartículas, ferritas, vidros de spins e sistemas frustrados.
O cientista era coordenador do Projeto Temático “Materiais Magnéticos Avançados e Novas Técnicas de Caracterização”, apoiado pela FAPESP, com conclusão prevista para 2011. Entre 2005 e 2008, foi membro pesquisador do Instituto do Milênio de Fluidos Complexos.
No IF-USP, trabalhava no Laboratório de Física do Estado Sólido e Baixas Temperaturas (LESBT), onde ingressou como bolsista em 1964, ano em que se formou em Física na USP.
O cientista concluiu seu mestrado na USP em 1968 e doutorou-se em 1973 na Université Scientifique et Médicale de Grenoble, na França. Orientado por Daniel Dautreppe, teve, em sua banca de tese, a participação de um dos nomes mais importantes da história do magnetismo: Louis Néel.
O diretor do IF-USP, Alejandro Szanto de Toledo, lamentou a morte do cientista. "O professor Hercílio teve, do ponto de vista científico, uma produção relevante na área de magnetismo e, do ponto de vista institucional, uma atuação serena, sempre valorizando a instituição", disse Toledo à Agência FAPESP.
De acordo com Nei Fernandes de Oliveira Junior , professor titular do IF-USP, coordenador do LESBT e diretor da Escola de Engenharia de Lorena da USP, a morte de Rechengerg “representa uma perda irreparável para o IF-USP e especialmente para a área de física do estado sólido e de baixas temperaturas”.
“Para mim, a perda pessoal foi grande. Tive-o como amigo desde 1964. Em 1972 fui portador do convite da USP para que retornasse para o Brasil e para o nosso grupo. Desde então, a USP contou com um grande professor, um grande cientista e, principalmente, um grande homem. Sempre sereno, equilibrado e sensato. Sempre afável e de ótimo trato. O LESBT e o Laboratório de Materiais Magnéticos, que ajudou a construir e vinha liderando ultimamente, perderam um de seus pilares”, disse Oliveira Junior em nota dirigida à Sociedade Brasileira de Física.
Atuando sempre na área de magnetismo, Rechenberg voltou ao Brasil em 1973, após o doutorado na França, sendo então contratado definitivamente pela USP para atuar no LESBT. Segundo Oliveira Junior, “implantou técnicas novas, montou laboratórios, culminando seu pioneirismo com a técnica de Mössbauer em altos campos magnéticos. Em tudo o que trabalhou, manteve-se na fronteira”.
Rechenberg tornou-se livre-docente em 1980, orientou oito mestrados e sete doutorados, publicou três livros e mais de 130 artigos científicos em revistas internacionais.
Chamada FAPESP-Microsoft Research prorroga prazo
Chamada FAPESP-Microsoft Research prorroga prazo
31/7/2009
Agência FAPESP – O Instituto Virtual de Pesquisas FAPESP-Microsoft Research prorrogou o prazo para a chamada pública (Chamada FAPESP 06/2009) lançada em 15 de junho. As propostas serão recebidas pela FAPESP até o dia 4 de setembro.
Serão apoiadas propostas de pesquisa em Tecnologia da Informação e Comunicação (TIC) com o objetivo de explorar a aplicação da ciência da computação aos desafios da pesquisa fundamental em áreas como educação, saúde e bem-estar, energia e ciências do meio ambiente, aí incluindo a ecologia, a biodiversidade e as mudanças climáticas.
Propostas para nova chamada do Instituto Virtual de Pesquisas FAPESP-Microsoft Research serão recebidas até o dia 4 de setembro (ilust.: Microsoft Research)
Os recursos disponíveis para essa chamada são de R$ 1 milhão e a expectativa é selecionar em torno de cinco propostas, com valor individual entre R$ 100 mil e R$ 300 mil.
Poderão apresentar propostas pesquisadores de instituições de ensino superior e de pesquisa, públicas ou privadas, sem fins lucrativos, no Estado de São Paulo. Os projetos poderão prever a concessão de Bolsas de Iniciação Científica, Mestrado e Pós-Doutorado.
Com a chamada, a FAPESP e a Microsoft Research pretendem apoiar projetos multidisciplinares que buscam aplicação da ciência da computação para avançar o conhecimento nessas áreas. A chamada destaca o interesse particular das duas instituições em propostas relacionadas a instrumentos e técnicas computacionais na modelagem e/ou revisão de mudança climática, incluindo, por exemplo, clima, hidrologia, oceanografia e ecologia.
O Instituto Virtual de Pesquisas FAPESP-Microsoft Research, resultado de um convênio assinado entre as duas instituições em abril de 2007, é uma iniciativa pioneira no Brasil que associa os setores público e privado de modo a estimular a geração e a aplicação de conhecimento em TIC.
A proposta do instituto é formar uma rede de pesquisadores capazes de criar novos conhecimentos que contribuam para expandir as capacidades da tecnologia de computação para atender mais e melhor questões-chave para beneficiar as pessoas, a sociedade e a sustentabilidade do mundo.
Mais informações sobre a chamada Instituto Virtual de Pesquisas FAPESP-Microsoft Research: www.fapesp.br/convenios/microsoft.
31/7/2009
Agência FAPESP – O Instituto Virtual de Pesquisas FAPESP-Microsoft Research prorrogou o prazo para a chamada pública (Chamada FAPESP 06/2009) lançada em 15 de junho. As propostas serão recebidas pela FAPESP até o dia 4 de setembro.
Serão apoiadas propostas de pesquisa em Tecnologia da Informação e Comunicação (TIC) com o objetivo de explorar a aplicação da ciência da computação aos desafios da pesquisa fundamental em áreas como educação, saúde e bem-estar, energia e ciências do meio ambiente, aí incluindo a ecologia, a biodiversidade e as mudanças climáticas.
Propostas para nova chamada do Instituto Virtual de Pesquisas FAPESP-Microsoft Research serão recebidas até o dia 4 de setembro (ilust.: Microsoft Research)
Os recursos disponíveis para essa chamada são de R$ 1 milhão e a expectativa é selecionar em torno de cinco propostas, com valor individual entre R$ 100 mil e R$ 300 mil.
Poderão apresentar propostas pesquisadores de instituições de ensino superior e de pesquisa, públicas ou privadas, sem fins lucrativos, no Estado de São Paulo. Os projetos poderão prever a concessão de Bolsas de Iniciação Científica, Mestrado e Pós-Doutorado.
Com a chamada, a FAPESP e a Microsoft Research pretendem apoiar projetos multidisciplinares que buscam aplicação da ciência da computação para avançar o conhecimento nessas áreas. A chamada destaca o interesse particular das duas instituições em propostas relacionadas a instrumentos e técnicas computacionais na modelagem e/ou revisão de mudança climática, incluindo, por exemplo, clima, hidrologia, oceanografia e ecologia.
O Instituto Virtual de Pesquisas FAPESP-Microsoft Research, resultado de um convênio assinado entre as duas instituições em abril de 2007, é uma iniciativa pioneira no Brasil que associa os setores público e privado de modo a estimular a geração e a aplicação de conhecimento em TIC.
A proposta do instituto é formar uma rede de pesquisadores capazes de criar novos conhecimentos que contribuam para expandir as capacidades da tecnologia de computação para atender mais e melhor questões-chave para beneficiar as pessoas, a sociedade e a sustentabilidade do mundo.
Mais informações sobre a chamada Instituto Virtual de Pesquisas FAPESP-Microsoft Research: www.fapesp.br/convenios/microsoft.
Coronavírus em morcegos
Coronavírus em morcegos
31/7/2009
Por Alex Sander Alcântara
Agência FAPESP – Fontes potenciais para transmissão de microrganismos que causam doenças em humanos, os morcegos são também hospedeiros de coronavírus, alerta um novo estudo. O trabalho identificou a presença desse tipo de vírus no morcego-vampiro (Desmodus rotundus).
Coronavírus são vírus de tamanho grande, que podem causar problemas intestinais, respiratórios e até mesmo cerebrais, infectando mamíferos e aves. Em humanos, representam uma entre as diversas espécies de vírus que causam resfriados comuns. Tornaram-se mais conhecidos em 2003, quando um vírus do tipo foi estabelecido como causador da síndrome respiratória aguda severa (Sars).
Fontes potenciais para transmissão de doenças para o homem, os morcegos também são hospedeiros de coronavírus, que podem causar problemas intestinais, respiratórios e até mesmo cerebrais, aponta pesquisa (Foto: Wikipedia)
Pesquisas no campo da evolução molecular dos coronavírus indicam que os morcegos foram os hospedeiros nos quais essa espécie viral surgiu pela primeira vez.
“No caso dos morcegos hematófagos, chamados de vampiros, esses só habitam a América Latina, sendo que as pesquisas em coronavírus nesses animais estão ainda no início. Pode-se esperar que a continuidade das investigações científicas levará a descobertas surpreendentes sobre os coronavírus em morcegos vampiros”, disse Paulo Eduardo Brandão, professor do Departamento de Medicina Veterinária Preventiva e Saúde Animal da Faculdade de Medicina Veterinária e Zootecnia da Universidade de São Paulo (USP) e um dos autores do estudo, à Agência FAPESP.
Ainda não há resultados sobre o tipo de doença que o novo coronavírus isolado em morcegos possa causar em outras espécies de animais. Segundo Brandão, até o momento se sabe, baseado na pequena parte do genoma desse vírus já estudada, que ele está próximo a outros coronavírus como os dos bovinos e do resfriado humano, mas um pouco distante do coronavírus da Sars.
“Ainda que não tenhamos dados sobre doenças que possam causar em animais, incluindo o homem, é bastante provável que ele seja não patogênico para os morcegos, uma vez que os morcegos são hospedeiros sadios para os outros coronavírus deles isolados”, disse o epidemiologista que coordena dois projetos de Auxílio a Pesquisa – Regular apoiados pela FAPESP.
O estudo foi realizado com alguns exemplares do morcego-vampiro e também com alguns morcegos insetívoros, com a colaboração do Instituto Pasteur de São Paulo na recepção e identificação das espécies.
De acordo com Brandão, que integra o Coronavirus Research Group, grupo de pesquisadores de diversos países, durante análise realizada em morcegos em laboratórios foram colhidos fragmentos de órgãos como pulmões e fígado e de material presente no interior dos intestinos.
“Dessas amostras, o material genético foi purificado quimicamente e utilizamos uma técnica chamada de reação em cadeia da polimerase para amplificar um fragmento do genoma dos coronavírus, o qual foi então submetido a sequenciamento”, explicou. Os resultados identificaram o vírus no morcego vampiro, classificado no grupo 2 do gênero coronavírus.
Mais pesquisas
Segundo o professor da USP, no momento o grupo está tentando isolar o vírus in vitro em cultivos de células, de modo a determinar o restante de sua sequência genômica.
“Isso para que se possa predizer com maior exatidão quem é esse coronavírus em termos evolutivos e qual seu papel na geração de doenças, além de testar um número maior de amostras de diversas espécies de morcegos”, disse.
Os morcegos são fontes de infecção para várias doenças transmissíveis aos seres humanos. A mais importante delas é a raiva. “Outra é a histoplasmose, uma doença fúngica transmitida por morcegos dentro de cavernas e abrigos similares”, disse Brandão.
“Mas, como morcegos insetívoros foram demonstrados como sendo portadores originais do vírus da Sars, ficou claro que os coronavírus, tantos os conhecidos como aqueles ainda por descobrir, devem ser adicionados a essa crescente lista de patógenos”, ressaltou.
O pesquisador destaca ainda que, dada a importância mundialmente reconhecida das doenças causadas por coronavírus, “é fundamental que pesquisas nessa área sejam realizadas no Brasil de modo continuado e colaborativo”.
Para ler o artigo A coronavirus detected in the vampire bat Desmodus rotundus, disponível na biblioteca on-line SciELO (Bireme/FAPESP), clique aqui
31/7/2009
Por Alex Sander Alcântara
Agência FAPESP – Fontes potenciais para transmissão de microrganismos que causam doenças em humanos, os morcegos são também hospedeiros de coronavírus, alerta um novo estudo. O trabalho identificou a presença desse tipo de vírus no morcego-vampiro (Desmodus rotundus).
Coronavírus são vírus de tamanho grande, que podem causar problemas intestinais, respiratórios e até mesmo cerebrais, infectando mamíferos e aves. Em humanos, representam uma entre as diversas espécies de vírus que causam resfriados comuns. Tornaram-se mais conhecidos em 2003, quando um vírus do tipo foi estabelecido como causador da síndrome respiratória aguda severa (Sars).
Fontes potenciais para transmissão de doenças para o homem, os morcegos também são hospedeiros de coronavírus, que podem causar problemas intestinais, respiratórios e até mesmo cerebrais, aponta pesquisa (Foto: Wikipedia)
Pesquisas no campo da evolução molecular dos coronavírus indicam que os morcegos foram os hospedeiros nos quais essa espécie viral surgiu pela primeira vez.
“No caso dos morcegos hematófagos, chamados de vampiros, esses só habitam a América Latina, sendo que as pesquisas em coronavírus nesses animais estão ainda no início. Pode-se esperar que a continuidade das investigações científicas levará a descobertas surpreendentes sobre os coronavírus em morcegos vampiros”, disse Paulo Eduardo Brandão, professor do Departamento de Medicina Veterinária Preventiva e Saúde Animal da Faculdade de Medicina Veterinária e Zootecnia da Universidade de São Paulo (USP) e um dos autores do estudo, à Agência FAPESP.
Ainda não há resultados sobre o tipo de doença que o novo coronavírus isolado em morcegos possa causar em outras espécies de animais. Segundo Brandão, até o momento se sabe, baseado na pequena parte do genoma desse vírus já estudada, que ele está próximo a outros coronavírus como os dos bovinos e do resfriado humano, mas um pouco distante do coronavírus da Sars.
“Ainda que não tenhamos dados sobre doenças que possam causar em animais, incluindo o homem, é bastante provável que ele seja não patogênico para os morcegos, uma vez que os morcegos são hospedeiros sadios para os outros coronavírus deles isolados”, disse o epidemiologista que coordena dois projetos de Auxílio a Pesquisa – Regular apoiados pela FAPESP.
O estudo foi realizado com alguns exemplares do morcego-vampiro e também com alguns morcegos insetívoros, com a colaboração do Instituto Pasteur de São Paulo na recepção e identificação das espécies.
De acordo com Brandão, que integra o Coronavirus Research Group, grupo de pesquisadores de diversos países, durante análise realizada em morcegos em laboratórios foram colhidos fragmentos de órgãos como pulmões e fígado e de material presente no interior dos intestinos.
“Dessas amostras, o material genético foi purificado quimicamente e utilizamos uma técnica chamada de reação em cadeia da polimerase para amplificar um fragmento do genoma dos coronavírus, o qual foi então submetido a sequenciamento”, explicou. Os resultados identificaram o vírus no morcego vampiro, classificado no grupo 2 do gênero coronavírus.
Mais pesquisas
Segundo o professor da USP, no momento o grupo está tentando isolar o vírus in vitro em cultivos de células, de modo a determinar o restante de sua sequência genômica.
“Isso para que se possa predizer com maior exatidão quem é esse coronavírus em termos evolutivos e qual seu papel na geração de doenças, além de testar um número maior de amostras de diversas espécies de morcegos”, disse.
Os morcegos são fontes de infecção para várias doenças transmissíveis aos seres humanos. A mais importante delas é a raiva. “Outra é a histoplasmose, uma doença fúngica transmitida por morcegos dentro de cavernas e abrigos similares”, disse Brandão.
“Mas, como morcegos insetívoros foram demonstrados como sendo portadores originais do vírus da Sars, ficou claro que os coronavírus, tantos os conhecidos como aqueles ainda por descobrir, devem ser adicionados a essa crescente lista de patógenos”, ressaltou.
O pesquisador destaca ainda que, dada a importância mundialmente reconhecida das doenças causadas por coronavírus, “é fundamental que pesquisas nessa área sejam realizadas no Brasil de modo continuado e colaborativo”.
Para ler o artigo A coronavirus detected in the vampire bat Desmodus rotundus, disponível na biblioteca on-line SciELO (Bireme/FAPESP), clique aqui
Um código de barras de DNA para plantas terrestrs
A DNA barcode for land plants
CBOL Plant Working Group1
+Author Affiliations
Communicated by Daniel H. Janzen, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, May 27, 2009 (received for review March 18, 2009)
Peter M. Hollingswortha,2, Laura L. Forresta, John L. Spougeb, Mehrdad Hajibabaeic, Sujeevan Ratnasinghamc, Michelle van der Bankd, Mark W. Chasee, Robyn S. Cowane, David L. Ericksonf, Aron J. Fazekasg, Sean W. Grahamh, Karen E. Jamesi, Ki-Joong Kimj, W. John Kressf, Harald Schneideri, Jonathan van AlphenStahle, Spencer C.H. Barrettk, Cassio van den Bergl, Diego Bogarinm, Kevin S. Burgessk,n, Kenneth M. Camerono, Mark Carinei, Juliana Chacónp, Alexandra Clarka, James J. Clarksone, Ferozah Conradq, Dion S. Deveye, Caroline S. Fordr, Terry A.J. Heddersons, Michelle L. Hollingswortha, Brian C. Husbandg, Laura J. Kellya,e, Prasad R. Kesanakurtig, Jung Sung Kimj, Young-Dong Kimt, Renaud Lahayed, Hae-Lim Leej, David G. Longa, Santiago Madriñánp, Olivier Maurind, Isabelle Meusnierc, Steven G. Newmasterg, Chong-Wook Parku, Diana M. Percyh, Gitte Petersenv, James E. Richardsona, Gerardo A. Salazarw, Vincent Savolainene,x, Ole Sebergv, Michael J. Wilkinsonr, Dong-Keun Yij and Damon P. Littley
+Author Affiliations
aRoyal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH3 5LR, United Kingdom;
bNational Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Computational Biology Branch, Bethesda, MD 20894;
cBiodiversity Institute of Ontario, Department of Integrative Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada N1G 2W1;
dDepartment of Botany and Plant Biotechnology, University of Johannesburg, P.O. Box 524, Auckland Park, Johannesburg 2006, South Africa;
eRoyal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond TW9 3DS, United Kingdom;
fDepartment of Botany, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, 20013-7012;
gDepartment of Integrative Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada N1G 2W1;
hUBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research, Faculty of Land and Food Systems, and Department of Botany, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z4;
iBotany Department, Natural History Museum, London SW7 5BD, United Kingdom;
jSchool of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Korea University, Seoul 136-701, Korea;
kDepartment of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada M5S 3B2;
lLaboratório de Sistemática Molecular de Plantas, Universidade Estadual de Feira de Santana, Departamento de Ciências Biológicas, 44031-460, Feira de Santana, Bahia, Brazil;
mJardín Botánico Lankester, Universidad de Costa Rica, Cartago, Costa Rica;
nDepartment of Biology, Columbus State University, Columbus, GA 31907-5645;
oDepartment of Botany, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53508;
pUniversidad de los Andes, Apartado Aéreo 4976, Bogotá, D.C., Colombia;
qLeslie Hill Molecular Systematics Laboratory, SANBI, Kirstenbosch Research Centre, Claremont 7735, Cape Town, South Africa;
rInstitute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Ceredigion SY23 3DA, United Kingdom;
sDepartment of Botany, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch 7700, South Africa;
tDepartment of Life Sciences, Hallym University, Chuncheon 200-702, Korea;
uSchool of Biological Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-742, Korea;
vNatural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, 1307 Copenhagen K, Denmark;
wInstituto de Biología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 04510 México, D.F., Mexico;
xImperial College London, Silwood Park Campus, Ascot SL5 7PY, United Kingdom; and
yCullman Program for Molecular Systematics, New York Botanical Garden, Bronx, NY, 10458-5126
Communicated by Daniel H. Janzen, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, May 27, 2009 (received for review March 18, 2009)
Abstract
DNA barcoding involves sequencing a standard region of DNA as a tool for species identification. However, there has been no agreement on which region(s) should be used for barcoding land plants. To provide a community recommendation on a standard plant barcode, we have compared the performance of 7 leading candidate plastid DNA regions (atpF–atpH spacer, matK gene, rbcL gene, rpoB gene, rpoC1 gene, psbK–psbI spacer, and trnH–psbA spacer). Based on assessments of recoverability, sequence quality, and levels of species discrimination, we recommend the 2-locus combination of rbcL+matK as the plant barcode. This core 2-locus barcode will provide a universal framework for the routine use of DNA sequence data to identify specimens and contribute toward the discovery of overlooked species of land plants.
matK rbcL species identification
Footnotes
2To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: P.Hollingsworth@rbge.org.uk
Author contributions: P.M.H., L.L.F., J.L.S., M.H., S.R., M.v.d.B., M.W.C., R.S.C., D.L.E., A.J.F., S.W.G., K.E.J., K.-J.K., W.J.K., H.S., S.C.H.B., C.v.d.B., M.C., T.A.J.H., B.C.H., G.P., J.E.R., G.A.S., V.S., O.S., M.J.W., and D.P.L. designed research; D.L.E., A.J.F., K.E.J., J.v.A.S., D.B., K.S.B., K.M.C., J.C., A.C., J.J.C., F.C., D.S.D., C.S.F., M.L.H., L.J.K., P.R.K., J.S.K., Y.D.K., R.L., H.-L.L., D.G.L., S.M., O.M., I.M., S.G.N., C.-W.P., D.M.P., and D.-K.Y. performed research; L.L.F., J.L.S., M.H., S.R., and D.P.L. analyzed data; and P.M.H., S.W.G., S.C.H.B., and D.P.L. wrote the paper.
Conflict of interest statement: Following the publication of Lahaye et al. (PNAS 105:2923, 2008), the process of filing a patent on DNA barcoding of land plants using matK was initiated by V.S., M.v.d.B., R.L., and D.B., but because of the lack of commercial interest the patent application was subsequently dropped.
Freely available online through the PNAS open access option.
+++++
PDF gratuito do artigo aqui/[OPEN ACCESS]
CBOL Plant Working Group1
+Author Affiliations
Communicated by Daniel H. Janzen, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, May 27, 2009 (received for review March 18, 2009)
Peter M. Hollingswortha,2, Laura L. Forresta, John L. Spougeb, Mehrdad Hajibabaeic, Sujeevan Ratnasinghamc, Michelle van der Bankd, Mark W. Chasee, Robyn S. Cowane, David L. Ericksonf, Aron J. Fazekasg, Sean W. Grahamh, Karen E. Jamesi, Ki-Joong Kimj, W. John Kressf, Harald Schneideri, Jonathan van AlphenStahle, Spencer C.H. Barrettk, Cassio van den Bergl, Diego Bogarinm, Kevin S. Burgessk,n, Kenneth M. Camerono, Mark Carinei, Juliana Chacónp, Alexandra Clarka, James J. Clarksone, Ferozah Conradq, Dion S. Deveye, Caroline S. Fordr, Terry A.J. Heddersons, Michelle L. Hollingswortha, Brian C. Husbandg, Laura J. Kellya,e, Prasad R. Kesanakurtig, Jung Sung Kimj, Young-Dong Kimt, Renaud Lahayed, Hae-Lim Leej, David G. Longa, Santiago Madriñánp, Olivier Maurind, Isabelle Meusnierc, Steven G. Newmasterg, Chong-Wook Parku, Diana M. Percyh, Gitte Petersenv, James E. Richardsona, Gerardo A. Salazarw, Vincent Savolainene,x, Ole Sebergv, Michael J. Wilkinsonr, Dong-Keun Yij and Damon P. Littley
+Author Affiliations
aRoyal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH3 5LR, United Kingdom;
bNational Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Computational Biology Branch, Bethesda, MD 20894;
cBiodiversity Institute of Ontario, Department of Integrative Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada N1G 2W1;
dDepartment of Botany and Plant Biotechnology, University of Johannesburg, P.O. Box 524, Auckland Park, Johannesburg 2006, South Africa;
eRoyal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond TW9 3DS, United Kingdom;
fDepartment of Botany, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, 20013-7012;
gDepartment of Integrative Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada N1G 2W1;
hUBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research, Faculty of Land and Food Systems, and Department of Botany, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z4;
iBotany Department, Natural History Museum, London SW7 5BD, United Kingdom;
jSchool of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Korea University, Seoul 136-701, Korea;
kDepartment of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada M5S 3B2;
lLaboratório de Sistemática Molecular de Plantas, Universidade Estadual de Feira de Santana, Departamento de Ciências Biológicas, 44031-460, Feira de Santana, Bahia, Brazil;
mJardín Botánico Lankester, Universidad de Costa Rica, Cartago, Costa Rica;
nDepartment of Biology, Columbus State University, Columbus, GA 31907-5645;
oDepartment of Botany, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53508;
pUniversidad de los Andes, Apartado Aéreo 4976, Bogotá, D.C., Colombia;
qLeslie Hill Molecular Systematics Laboratory, SANBI, Kirstenbosch Research Centre, Claremont 7735, Cape Town, South Africa;
rInstitute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Ceredigion SY23 3DA, United Kingdom;
sDepartment of Botany, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch 7700, South Africa;
tDepartment of Life Sciences, Hallym University, Chuncheon 200-702, Korea;
uSchool of Biological Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-742, Korea;
vNatural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, 1307 Copenhagen K, Denmark;
wInstituto de Biología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 04510 México, D.F., Mexico;
xImperial College London, Silwood Park Campus, Ascot SL5 7PY, United Kingdom; and
yCullman Program for Molecular Systematics, New York Botanical Garden, Bronx, NY, 10458-5126
Communicated by Daniel H. Janzen, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, May 27, 2009 (received for review March 18, 2009)
Abstract
DNA barcoding involves sequencing a standard region of DNA as a tool for species identification. However, there has been no agreement on which region(s) should be used for barcoding land plants. To provide a community recommendation on a standard plant barcode, we have compared the performance of 7 leading candidate plastid DNA regions (atpF–atpH spacer, matK gene, rbcL gene, rpoB gene, rpoC1 gene, psbK–psbI spacer, and trnH–psbA spacer). Based on assessments of recoverability, sequence quality, and levels of species discrimination, we recommend the 2-locus combination of rbcL+matK as the plant barcode. This core 2-locus barcode will provide a universal framework for the routine use of DNA sequence data to identify specimens and contribute toward the discovery of overlooked species of land plants.
matK rbcL species identification
Footnotes
2To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: P.Hollingsworth@rbge.org.uk
Author contributions: P.M.H., L.L.F., J.L.S., M.H., S.R., M.v.d.B., M.W.C., R.S.C., D.L.E., A.J.F., S.W.G., K.E.J., K.-J.K., W.J.K., H.S., S.C.H.B., C.v.d.B., M.C., T.A.J.H., B.C.H., G.P., J.E.R., G.A.S., V.S., O.S., M.J.W., and D.P.L. designed research; D.L.E., A.J.F., K.E.J., J.v.A.S., D.B., K.S.B., K.M.C., J.C., A.C., J.J.C., F.C., D.S.D., C.S.F., M.L.H., L.J.K., P.R.K., J.S.K., Y.D.K., R.L., H.-L.L., D.G.L., S.M., O.M., I.M., S.G.N., C.-W.P., D.M.P., and D.-K.Y. performed research; L.L.F., J.L.S., M.H., S.R., and D.P.L. analyzed data; and P.M.H., S.W.G., S.C.H.B., and D.P.L. wrote the paper.
Conflict of interest statement: Following the publication of Lahaye et al. (PNAS 105:2923, 2008), the process of filing a patent on DNA barcoding of land plants using matK was initiated by V.S., M.v.d.B., R.L., and D.B., but because of the lack of commercial interest the patent application was subsequently dropped.
Freely available online through the PNAS open access option.
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PDF gratuito do artigo aqui/[OPEN ACCESS]
Anômalo, mas ainda assim browniano
Anomalous yet Brownian
Bo Wanga, Stephen M. Anthonyb, Sung Chul Baea and Steve Granicka,b,c,d,1
+Author Affiliations
Departments of aMaterials Science and Engineering,
cChemical and Biomolecular Engineering,
bChemistry, and
dPhysics, University of Illinois at Urbana–ChampaignUrbana, IL 61801
Abstract
We describe experiments using single-particle tracking in which mean-square displacement is simply proportional to time (Fickian), yet the distribution of displacement probability is not Gaussian as should be expected of a classical random walk but, instead, is decidedly exponential for large displacements, the decay length of the exponential being proportional to the square root of time. The first example is when colloidal beads diffuse along linear phospholipid bilayer tubes whose radius is the same as that of the beads. The second is when beads diffuse through entangled F-actin networks, bead radius being less than one-fifth of the actin network mesh size. We explore the relevance to dynamic heterogeneity in trajectory space, which has been extensively discussed regarding glassy systems. Data for the second system might suggest activated diffusion between pores in the entangled F-actin networks, in the same spirit as activated diffusion and exponential tails observed in glassy systems. But the first system shows exceptionally rapid diffusion, nearly as rapid as for identical colloids in free suspension, yet still displaying an exponential probability distribution as in the second system. Thus, although the exponential tail is reminiscent of glassy systems, in fact, these dynamics are exceptionally rapid. We also compare with particle trajectories that are at first subdiffusive but Fickian at the longest measurement times, finding that displacement probability distributions fall onto the same master curve in both regimes. The need is emphasized for experiments, theory, and computer simulation to allow definitive interpretation of this simple and clean exponential probability distribution.
diffusion fluorescence imaging probability distribution actin
Footnotes
1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: sgranick@uiuc.edu
Author contributions: B.W. and S.G. designed research; B.W. and S.M.A. performed research; S.M.A. and S.C.B. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; B.W., S.M.A., S.C.B., and S.G. analyzed data; and B.W., S.M.A., and S.G. wrote the paper.
Edited by David Chandler, University of California, Berkeley, CA, and approved June 17, 2009
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
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PDF gratuito do artigo aqui.
Bo Wanga, Stephen M. Anthonyb, Sung Chul Baea and Steve Granicka,b,c,d,1
+Author Affiliations
Departments of aMaterials Science and Engineering,
cChemical and Biomolecular Engineering,
bChemistry, and
dPhysics, University of Illinois at Urbana–ChampaignUrbana, IL 61801
Abstract
We describe experiments using single-particle tracking in which mean-square displacement is simply proportional to time (Fickian), yet the distribution of displacement probability is not Gaussian as should be expected of a classical random walk but, instead, is decidedly exponential for large displacements, the decay length of the exponential being proportional to the square root of time. The first example is when colloidal beads diffuse along linear phospholipid bilayer tubes whose radius is the same as that of the beads. The second is when beads diffuse through entangled F-actin networks, bead radius being less than one-fifth of the actin network mesh size. We explore the relevance to dynamic heterogeneity in trajectory space, which has been extensively discussed regarding glassy systems. Data for the second system might suggest activated diffusion between pores in the entangled F-actin networks, in the same spirit as activated diffusion and exponential tails observed in glassy systems. But the first system shows exceptionally rapid diffusion, nearly as rapid as for identical colloids in free suspension, yet still displaying an exponential probability distribution as in the second system. Thus, although the exponential tail is reminiscent of glassy systems, in fact, these dynamics are exceptionally rapid. We also compare with particle trajectories that are at first subdiffusive but Fickian at the longest measurement times, finding that displacement probability distributions fall onto the same master curve in both regimes. The need is emphasized for experiments, theory, and computer simulation to allow definitive interpretation of this simple and clean exponential probability distribution.
diffusion fluorescence imaging probability distribution actin
Footnotes
1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: sgranick@uiuc.edu
Author contributions: B.W. and S.G. designed research; B.W. and S.M.A. performed research; S.M.A. and S.C.B. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; B.W., S.M.A., S.C.B., and S.G. analyzed data; and B.W., S.M.A., and S.G. wrote the paper.
Edited by David Chandler, University of California, Berkeley, CA, and approved June 17, 2009
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
+++++
PDF gratuito do artigo aqui.
Breslow responde a Bada: A relevância dos aminoáciodsalphametil meteoríticos para a homoquiralidade prebiótica
Ronald Breslow, do Departamento de Química da Columbia University, Nova York, responde à carta de Jeffrey Bada sobre os excessos enatioméricos no meteorito Murchison e a origem da homoquiralidade na biologia terrestre.
PDF gratuito da resposta aqui.
PDF gratuito da resposta aqui.
Bada e os excessos enantioméricos no meteorito Murchison e a origem da homoquiralidade na biologia terrestre
Comentário de Jeffrey L. Bada, um dos cientistas eminentes sobre a origem da vida.
PDF gratuito aqui.
PDF gratuito aqui.
"Atlastin", proteína chiquitita pero cumplidora:
quinta-feira, julho 30, 2009
Little-known Protein Found To Be Key Player in Building and Maintaining Healthy Cells
ScienceDaily (July 30, 2009) — Italian and U.S. biologists have report that a little-understood protein previously implicated in a rare genetic disorder plays an unexpected and critical role in building and maintaining healthy cells. Even more surprising, their report in the journal Nature shows that the protein, called "atlastin," does its work by fusing intracellular membranes in a previously undocumented way.
"If you'd asked me a year ago whether this was possible, I would have said, 'No,'" said study co-author James McNew, associate professor of biochemistry and cell biology at Rice University. "In fact, that's exactly what I told (co-author) Andrea Daga when we first spoke about the idea a year ago."
Fluorescent markers show the interconnected web of tubes and compartments in the endoplasmic reticulum, the critical part of cells that the protein atlastin helps build and maintain. (Credit: A. Daga/Medea Scientific Institute)
McNew has spent the past 15 years studying SNARE proteins, a specialized family of proteins that carries out membrane fusion. It's a vital process that happens thousands of times a second in every cell of our bodies.
"It is fitting that the discovery of a new protein capable of fusing membranes comes 10 years after the demonstration that SNAREs can fuse lipid bilayers," said Daga, a researcher at the Eugenio Medea Scientific Institute in Conegliano, Italy.
In the new study, Daga's and McNew's research teams used fruit flies to study how atlastin functions. The atlastin in fruit flies is very similar to the human version of the protein and serves the same function.
"Prior to this, there were only two defined ways in which you could take biological membranes and put them together in a specific way," said McNew, a faculty investigator at Rice's BioScience Resesarch Collaborative. "Atlastin is the third, and it's the only one that requires enzymatic activity, so it's distinctly different."
...
Read more here/Leia mais aqui.
ScienceDaily (July 30, 2009) — Italian and U.S. biologists have report that a little-understood protein previously implicated in a rare genetic disorder plays an unexpected and critical role in building and maintaining healthy cells. Even more surprising, their report in the journal Nature shows that the protein, called "atlastin," does its work by fusing intracellular membranes in a previously undocumented way.
"If you'd asked me a year ago whether this was possible, I would have said, 'No,'" said study co-author James McNew, associate professor of biochemistry and cell biology at Rice University. "In fact, that's exactly what I told (co-author) Andrea Daga when we first spoke about the idea a year ago."
Fluorescent markers show the interconnected web of tubes and compartments in the endoplasmic reticulum, the critical part of cells that the protein atlastin helps build and maintain. (Credit: A. Daga/Medea Scientific Institute)
McNew has spent the past 15 years studying SNARE proteins, a specialized family of proteins that carries out membrane fusion. It's a vital process that happens thousands of times a second in every cell of our bodies.
"It is fitting that the discovery of a new protein capable of fusing membranes comes 10 years after the demonstration that SNAREs can fuse lipid bilayers," said Daga, a researcher at the Eugenio Medea Scientific Institute in Conegliano, Italy.
In the new study, Daga's and McNew's research teams used fruit flies to study how atlastin functions. The atlastin in fruit flies is very similar to the human version of the protein and serves the same function.
"Prior to this, there were only two defined ways in which you could take biological membranes and put them together in a specific way," said McNew, a faculty investigator at Rice's BioScience Resesarch Collaborative. "Atlastin is the third, and it's the only one that requires enzymatic activity, so it's distinctly different."
...
Read more here/Leia mais aqui.
Para pensar cum granum salis: o darwinismo é ciência ou filosofia???
O darwinismo e o neodarwinismo como são geralmente defendidos e ensinados em nossa sociedade carregam consigo um compromisso a priori com o naturalismo metafísico que é essencial para apresentar um caso convincente a seu favor.
Se o darwinismo e o neodarwinismo dependem desse 'compromisso a priori' com o naturalismo metafísico, os dois não são ciência, mas filosofia.
Se o darwinismo e o neodarwinismo dependem desse 'compromisso a priori' com o naturalismo metafísico, os dois não são ciência, mas filosofia.
Darwin Football Club 10 vs Criacionistas Football Club 0
A goleada de Darwin
Autor: Sandro de Souza
ISBN: 8501086746
Gênero: Ciências
Páginas: 224
Formato: 14 X 21 cm
Editora: Record
Preço: R$ 35,00
Sinopse
No ano em que se comemoram o bicentenário de nascimento de Charles Darwin e os 150 anos da publicação de seu mais importante trabalho, A origem das espécies, o debate entre criacionismo e evolucionismo ganha novo fôlego, acendendo as discussões entre especialistas, a mídia e o meio acadêmico. Pesquisador destacado numa área de ponta da ciência contemporânea, a bioinformática, Sandro de Souza faz sua estréia na divulgação científica com A GOLEADA DE DARWIN, no qual fornece ao público brasileiro uma deliciosa introdução ao rico e controverso debate entre as duas correntes.
Logo de cara, o biólogo-escritor enfrenta o tema espinhudo das relações entre pesquisa e religião, e mostra como, se fizermos uma analogia com uma partida de futebol, Darwin está ganhando de goleada.
No último século, o tema ganhou consistência nos Estados Unidos e muito do debate vem sendo construído nas cortes judiciais daquele país. No Brasil, movimentos criacionistas começam a se organizar de forma sistemática e não coincidentemente figuras políticas públicas começam a se manifestar a favor do ensino do criacionismo nas escolas públicas brasileiras, muitas vezes substituindo o evolucionismo.
Num mundo em que as conquistas científicas e o progresso tecnológico avançam rapidamente de forma sem precedentes na história da humanidade, Sandro questiona por que grande parte da população ainda rejeita as descobertas científicas dos últimos 150 anos a respeito da evolução dos organismos vivos e acredita que o homem foi criado por Deus nos últimos 10 mil anos.
Diante desse cenário e dos resultados de uma pesquisa nacional de 2007 promovida pelo Ministério da Ciência e Tecnologia em colaboração com a Academia Brasileira de Ciências, que revelam que os brasileiros se interessam muito mais pela religião do que pela ciência, embora uma parcela significativa da população identifique nos cientistas uma fonte confiável de informação, Sandro se pergunta se a comunidade científica brasileira estaria exercendo de forma eficiente o seu papel de divulgadora de ciência e fomentadora de uma valorização da tecnologia.
O autor escreve para o público leigo e expõe de modo interessante e compreensível como funciona a ciência natural, comprovando por que os resultados e as explicações obtidos por meio do método de Darwin figuram entre os conhecimentos mais confiáveis de que podemos dispor. Em dez capítulos, ele faz uma introdução ao Darwinismo e seu impacto nas ciências, e ao criacionismo com suas vertentes; aborda a vida e trajetória de Charles Robert Darwin e o que chama de seus grandes gols, além de enfatizar alguns pontos sobre a separação entre ciência e religião.
Fonte.
Cell e a Elsevier lançam um novo design de artigos científicos
Gente, tem PDF e até uma pequena entrevista com o(s) autor(es) da pesquisa.
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Cell Press and Elsevier have launched a project called Article of the Future that is an ongoing collaboration with the scientific community to redefine how the scientific article is presented online. The project's goal is to take full advantage of online capabilities, allowing readers individualized entry points and routes through the content, while using the latest advances in visualization techniques. We have developed prototypes for two articles from Cell to demonstrate initial concepts and get feedback from the scientific community.
KEY FEATURES OF THE PROTOTYPES:
A hierarchical presentation of text and figures so that readers can elect to drill down through the layers of content based on their level of expertise and interest. This organizational structure is a significant departure from the linear-based organization of a traditional print-based article in incorporating the core text and supplemental material within a single unified structure.
A graphical abstract allows readers to quickly gain an understanding of the main take-home message of the paper. The graphical abstract is intended to encourage browsing, promote interdisciplinary scholarship and help readers identify more quickly which papers are most relevant to their research interests.
Research highlights provide a bulleted list of the key results of the article.
Author-Affiliation highlighting makes it easy to see an author’s affiliations and all authors from the same affiliation.
A figure that contains clickable areas so that it can be used as a navigation mechanism to directly access specific sub-sections of the results and figures.
Integrated audio and video let authors present the context of their article via an interview or video presentation and allow animations to be displayed more effectively.
The Experimental Procedures section contains alternate views allowing readers to see a summary or the full details necessary to replicate the experiment.
A new approach to displaying figures allows the reader to identify quickly which figures they are interested in and then drill down through related supplemental figures. All supplemental figures are displayed individually and directly linked to the main figure to which they are related.
Real-time reference analyses provide a rich environment to explore the content of the article via the list of citations.
We encourage you to explore these prototypes and then provide feedback via the online questionnaire or send your comments to survey@cell.com.
Thank you for your time.
Cell Press Content Innovation Team
Article Prototype # 1
Article Prototype # 2
+++++
Cell Press and Elsevier have launched a project called Article of the Future that is an ongoing collaboration with the scientific community to redefine how the scientific article is presented online. The project's goal is to take full advantage of online capabilities, allowing readers individualized entry points and routes through the content, while using the latest advances in visualization techniques. We have developed prototypes for two articles from Cell to demonstrate initial concepts and get feedback from the scientific community.
KEY FEATURES OF THE PROTOTYPES:
A hierarchical presentation of text and figures so that readers can elect to drill down through the layers of content based on their level of expertise and interest. This organizational structure is a significant departure from the linear-based organization of a traditional print-based article in incorporating the core text and supplemental material within a single unified structure.
A graphical abstract allows readers to quickly gain an understanding of the main take-home message of the paper. The graphical abstract is intended to encourage browsing, promote interdisciplinary scholarship and help readers identify more quickly which papers are most relevant to their research interests.
Research highlights provide a bulleted list of the key results of the article.
Author-Affiliation highlighting makes it easy to see an author’s affiliations and all authors from the same affiliation.
A figure that contains clickable areas so that it can be used as a navigation mechanism to directly access specific sub-sections of the results and figures.
Integrated audio and video let authors present the context of their article via an interview or video presentation and allow animations to be displayed more effectively.
The Experimental Procedures section contains alternate views allowing readers to see a summary or the full details necessary to replicate the experiment.
A new approach to displaying figures allows the reader to identify quickly which figures they are interested in and then drill down through related supplemental figures. All supplemental figures are displayed individually and directly linked to the main figure to which they are related.
Real-time reference analyses provide a rich environment to explore the content of the article via the list of citations.
We encourage you to explore these prototypes and then provide feedback via the online questionnaire or send your comments to survey@cell.com.
Thank you for your time.
Cell Press Content Innovation Team
Article Prototype # 1
Article Prototype # 2
Inteligência natural baseada em significado vs inteligência artificial baseada em informação
Para ler e considerar cum granum salis:
Meaning-Based Natural Intelligence Vs. Information-Based Artificial Intelligence
By
Eshel Ben Jacob and Yoash Shapira
School of Physics and Astronomy
Raymond & Beverly Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences
Tel Aviv University, 69978 Tel Aviv Israel
Abstract
In this chapter, we reflect on the concept of Meaning-Based Natural Intelligence - a fundamental trait of Life shared by all organisms, from bacteria to humans, associated with: semantic and pragmatic communication, assignment and generation of meaning, formation of self-identity and of associated identity (i.e., of the group the individual belongs to), identification of natural intelligence, intentional behavior, decision-making and intentionally designed self-alterations. These features place the Meaning-Based natural Intelligence beyond the realm of Information-based Artificial Intelligence. Hence, organisms are beyond man-made pre-designed machinery and are distinguishable from non-living systems.
Our chain of reasoning begins with the simple distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic contextual causations for acquiring intelligence. The first, associated with natural intelligence, is required for the survival of the organism (the biotic system) that generates it.
In contrast, artificial intelligence is implemented externally to fulfill a purpose for the benefit of the organism that engineered the “Intelligent Machinery”. We explicitly propose that the ability to assign contextual meaning to externally gathered information is an essential requirement for survival, as it gives the organism the freedom of contextual decision-making.
By contextual, we mean relating to the external and internal states of the organism and the internally stored ontogenetic knowledge it has generated. We present the view that contextual interpretation of information and consequent decision-making are two fundamentals of natural intelligence that any living creature must have.
A distinction between extraction of information from data vs. extraction of meaning from information is drawn while trying to avoid the traps and pitfalls of the “meaning of meaning” and the “emergence of meaning” paradoxes. The assignment of meaning (internal interpretation) is associated with identifying correlations in the information according to the internal state of the organism, its external conditions and its purpose in gathering the information. Viewed this way, the assignment of meaning implies the existence of intrinsic meaning, against which the external information can be evaluated for extraction of meaning.
This leads to the recognition that the organism has self-identity. We present the view that the essential differences between natural intelligence and artificial intelligence are a testable reality, untested and ignored since it had been wrongly
perceived as inconsistent with the foundations of physics. We propose that the inconsistency arises within the current, gene-network picture of the Neo-Darwinian paradigm (that regards organisms as equivalent to a Turing machine) and not from in principle contradiction with physical reality. Once the ontological reality of organisms’ natural intelligence is verified, a paradigm shift should be considered, where inter- and intra-cellular communication and genome plasticity (based on junk DNA” and the abundance of transposable elements) play crucial roles. In this new paradigm, communication and gene plasticity might be able to sustain the organisms with regulated freedom of choice between different available responses.
There have been many attempts to attribute the cognitive abilities of organisms (e.g., consciousness) to underlying quantum-mechanical mechanisms, which can directly affect the ”mechanical” parts of the organism (i.e., atomic and molecular excitations) despite thermal noise. Here, organisms are viewed as continuously self-organizing open systems that store past information, external and internal. These features enable the macroscopic organisms to have features analogous to some features in quantum mechanical systems. Yet, they are essentially different and should not be mistaken to be a direct reflection of quantum effects.
On the conceptual level, the analogy is very useful as it can lead to some insights from the knowledge of quantum mechanics. We show, for example, how it enables to metaphorically bridge between the Aharonov-Vaidman and Aharonov-Albert-Vaidman concepts of Protective and Weak Measurements in quantum mechanics (no destruction of the quantum state) with Ben Jacob’s concept of Weak-Stress Measurements, (e.g., exposure to non-lethal levels of antibiotic) in the study of organisms. We also reflect on the metaphoric analogy between Aharonov-Anandan-Popescue-Vaidman Quantum Time-Translation Machine and the ability of an external observer to deduce on an organism’s decision-making vs. arbitrary fluctuations. Inspired by the concept of Quantum Non-Demolition measurements we propose to use biofluoremetry (the use of bio-compatible fluorescent molecules to study intracellular spatio-temporal organization and functional correlations) as a future methodology of Intracellular Non-Demolition Measurements. We propose that the latter, performed during Weak-Stress Measurements of the organism, can provide proper schemata to test the special features associated with natural intelligence.
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PDF gratuito do artigo aqui.
Meaning-Based Natural Intelligence Vs. Information-Based Artificial Intelligence
By
Eshel Ben Jacob and Yoash Shapira
School of Physics and Astronomy
Raymond & Beverly Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences
Tel Aviv University, 69978 Tel Aviv Israel
Abstract
In this chapter, we reflect on the concept of Meaning-Based Natural Intelligence - a fundamental trait of Life shared by all organisms, from bacteria to humans, associated with: semantic and pragmatic communication, assignment and generation of meaning, formation of self-identity and of associated identity (i.e., of the group the individual belongs to), identification of natural intelligence, intentional behavior, decision-making and intentionally designed self-alterations. These features place the Meaning-Based natural Intelligence beyond the realm of Information-based Artificial Intelligence. Hence, organisms are beyond man-made pre-designed machinery and are distinguishable from non-living systems.
Our chain of reasoning begins with the simple distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic contextual causations for acquiring intelligence. The first, associated with natural intelligence, is required for the survival of the organism (the biotic system) that generates it.
In contrast, artificial intelligence is implemented externally to fulfill a purpose for the benefit of the organism that engineered the “Intelligent Machinery”. We explicitly propose that the ability to assign contextual meaning to externally gathered information is an essential requirement for survival, as it gives the organism the freedom of contextual decision-making.
By contextual, we mean relating to the external and internal states of the organism and the internally stored ontogenetic knowledge it has generated. We present the view that contextual interpretation of information and consequent decision-making are two fundamentals of natural intelligence that any living creature must have.
A distinction between extraction of information from data vs. extraction of meaning from information is drawn while trying to avoid the traps and pitfalls of the “meaning of meaning” and the “emergence of meaning” paradoxes. The assignment of meaning (internal interpretation) is associated with identifying correlations in the information according to the internal state of the organism, its external conditions and its purpose in gathering the information. Viewed this way, the assignment of meaning implies the existence of intrinsic meaning, against which the external information can be evaluated for extraction of meaning.
This leads to the recognition that the organism has self-identity. We present the view that the essential differences between natural intelligence and artificial intelligence are a testable reality, untested and ignored since it had been wrongly
perceived as inconsistent with the foundations of physics. We propose that the inconsistency arises within the current, gene-network picture of the Neo-Darwinian paradigm (that regards organisms as equivalent to a Turing machine) and not from in principle contradiction with physical reality. Once the ontological reality of organisms’ natural intelligence is verified, a paradigm shift should be considered, where inter- and intra-cellular communication and genome plasticity (based on junk DNA” and the abundance of transposable elements) play crucial roles. In this new paradigm, communication and gene plasticity might be able to sustain the organisms with regulated freedom of choice between different available responses.
There have been many attempts to attribute the cognitive abilities of organisms (e.g., consciousness) to underlying quantum-mechanical mechanisms, which can directly affect the ”mechanical” parts of the organism (i.e., atomic and molecular excitations) despite thermal noise. Here, organisms are viewed as continuously self-organizing open systems that store past information, external and internal. These features enable the macroscopic organisms to have features analogous to some features in quantum mechanical systems. Yet, they are essentially different and should not be mistaken to be a direct reflection of quantum effects.
On the conceptual level, the analogy is very useful as it can lead to some insights from the knowledge of quantum mechanics. We show, for example, how it enables to metaphorically bridge between the Aharonov-Vaidman and Aharonov-Albert-Vaidman concepts of Protective and Weak Measurements in quantum mechanics (no destruction of the quantum state) with Ben Jacob’s concept of Weak-Stress Measurements, (e.g., exposure to non-lethal levels of antibiotic) in the study of organisms. We also reflect on the metaphoric analogy between Aharonov-Anandan-Popescue-Vaidman Quantum Time-Translation Machine and the ability of an external observer to deduce on an organism’s decision-making vs. arbitrary fluctuations. Inspired by the concept of Quantum Non-Demolition measurements we propose to use biofluoremetry (the use of bio-compatible fluorescent molecules to study intracellular spatio-temporal organization and functional correlations) as a future methodology of Intracellular Non-Demolition Measurements. We propose that the latter, performed during Weak-Stress Measurements of the organism, can provide proper schemata to test the special features associated with natural intelligence.
+++++
PDF gratuito do artigo aqui.
Bradshaw Foundation: uma fundação e tanto
A Bradsahw Foundation é uma fundação e tanto. Ela abriga o INORA, um site dedicado às obras de arte nas rochas, mas a fundação tem outros assuntos científicos abordados sobre a origem e evolução humana.
Apesar de estar um pouco defasado cientificamente, vale a pena assistir "The Human Journey" [A jornada da humanidade].
A tese de Niède Guidon sobre a presença humana no Brasil ser datada em 100.000 anos não foi considerada: prevaleceu a tese de Clovis.
PDF gratuito de artigo sobre o Parque Nacional Serra da Capivara aqui.
Apesar de estar um pouco defasado cientificamente, vale a pena assistir "The Human Journey" [A jornada da humanidade].
A tese de Niède Guidon sobre a presença humana no Brasil ser datada em 100.000 anos não foi considerada: prevaleceu a tese de Clovis.
PDF gratuito de artigo sobre o Parque Nacional Serra da Capivara aqui.
Arte nas rochas
Espermatozóide de células-tronco embrionárias? Era fraude!
Você se lembra de os cientistas terem anunciado que 'criaram' espermatozóide de células-tronco embrionárias? Os resultados da pesquisas foram publicados no artigo “In Vitro Derivation of Human Sperm from Embryonic Stem Cells,” na revista científica Stem Cells and Development. Era fraude, e a publicação científica já anunciou sua retirada.PDF gratuito deste aviso aqui.
Tirando o chapéu para Wesley J. Smith.
A recepção de Darwin na Alemanha e o que veio depois
quarta-feira, julho 29, 2009
Charles Darwin's Reception in Germany and What Followed
Axel Meyer¶*
Chair in Zoology and Evolutionary Biology, Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
Citation: Meyer A (2009) Charles Darwin's Reception in Germany and What Followed. PLoS Biol 7(7): e1000162. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1000162
Published: July 28, 2009
Copyright: © 2009 Alex Meyer. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Funding: AM received funding from the Institute of Advanced Study in Berlin.
* E-mail: axel.meyer@uni-konstanz.de
¶ Axel Meyer is currently a Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study in Berlin.
In Germany, Charles Darwin's thinking was accepted very quickly after the publication of On the Origin of Species in November, 1859. This was due, in no small measure, to the fact that a translation by the noted German paleontologist Heinrich Georg Bronn appeared in April, 1860, only months after the original publication [1]. Bronn's own research led him to several insights that paralleled those of Darwin, resulting in a translation that was quite liberal and included the addition of numerous footnotes; but perhaps most importantly, Bronn added a new final chapter (chapter 15) to Darwin's book [2]. In these final notes, Bronn summarized his assessments of and conclusions on Darwin's Origin in 26 pages [2]. He outlined what he thought Darwin had meant to say, partly reinterpreted it, and critiqued it. Darwin welcomed this discussion, and 18 letters were exchanged between the two men. In subsequent editions of Origin, Darwin developed his theory further through such feedback. Bronn's critical epilogue was partly inspired by his adherence to an idealistic—even romantic—and teleological Naturphilosophie that viewed evolution as a progressive development toward perfection; this has at least been long thought, explaining why Bronn used the word, in both text and title of the translation, vervollkommnet (perfected) for Darwin's word “favored.” Bronn also freely translated Darwin's “struggle for existence” into Kampf ums Dasein, which might be best translated back into English as “fight for existence or life,” a phrase that Darwin himself was not entirely happy with. New interpretations of Bronn's work and his influence on Ernst Haeckel and evolutionary thought in Germany are presented in the new book by Sander Gliboff, H. G. Bronn, Ernst Haeckel, and the Origins of German Darwinism: A Study in Translation and Transformation [3].
Haeckel, who was the most influential don of German zoology for several decades, probably read Darwin's Origin in German during his PhD work in Jena, since his command of English was not particularly good. The main reason why all of this is of greater, even political, interest beyond issues in the history of science, is that Ernst Haeckel is widely seen—although this is disputed among historians of science—to be in an unholy intellectual line from Darwin to social Darwinism and eugenics in the early twentieth century, eventually leading to fascism in Nazi Germany. Creationist and intelligent-design advocates worldwide tirelessly perpetuate this purported but largely unsubstantiated connection between Darwin, Haeckel, and Hitler [4]. Such efforts are particularly and unnecessarily divisive in this “Darwin year,” when we celebrate not only the 150th anniversary of the publication of Origin, but also Darwin's 200th birthday. Furthermore, they do not do justice to Haeckel's understanding of Darwinian evolution by natural selection with all its unpredictability, but, more importantly, seem to aim to further undermine the acceptance of evolution by an often still surprisingly skeptical lay audience.
Haeckel was, by far, the most successful popularizer of science for more than a generation in Germany [5],[6]. His books were printed in large numbers, translated into several languages, and strongly influenced scientists and layman alike [7],[8]. Haeckel idealized Darwin. He dedicated his seminal work “Generelle Morphologie” to Darwin (as well as to his teacher Carl Gegenbaur, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck) and visited him in Down House in August of 1866. When Darwin was presented with a copy of Haeckel's book, he received it with gracious thanks and remarked (in a letter to Haeckel from 18 August 1866), “You confer on my book, the Origin of Species, the most magnificent eulogium which it has ever received.” Haeckel misunderstood many aspects of Darwin's ideas, and perhaps his typical German quest for laws of nature was ill-founded. Nonetheless, he was instrumental in propagating the principle of evolution by natural selection to the then very influential community of German biologists that had long adhered to lamarckian ideas.
Bronn died in 1862, and later editions of Darwin's seminal book were translated into German by Julius Victor Carus. A son of Friedrich Emil Suchsland, a publisher of Darwin's translations, asked Darwin for permission for a new translation of later editions of the Origin, claiming that his theory had been widely misunderstood in Germany because of shortcomings in the early translation by Bronn. This interpretation of Bronn's skewed understanding of Darwin, and its effects on Haeckel's own misunderstanding, continued in the history of science until recently [9],[10].
Gliboff's new book [3] clarifies that, although Bronn never completely accepted Darwin's idea of species transformation, he did immediately recognize that Darwin's Origin was a huge advance toward a more comprehensive science of life, which Bronn himself had long sought to establish. Gliboff's book is a very readable, concise, and an important contribution that will help to rectify some entrenched misunderstandings about the history of evolutionary thinking in Germany. It needs to be said, however, that Gliboff almost summarily ignores a large body of work from German scholars on these aspects of the history of evolutionary biology. It was Thomas Junker and others [9],[10] who clarified the historical role of Bronn's translation of Darwin on the acceptance and perception of Darwinian evolution in German. Also, other researchers from Jena (where Haeckel spent 47 years of his career as professor), such as Uwe Hoßfeld, deserve more credit than Gliboff gives them [7],[11]. The omission of the insights of these scholars detracts from the impact that this book should have.
Gliboff makes an important contribution by pointing out that Bronn's liberal translation of Darwin altered the precise meanings of Victorian English words to fit a contemporaneous German sensibility. Much of this can be attributed to Bronn's interpretations of Darwin. Bronn had been thinking along lines perhaps parallel to Darwin's, aiming to modify Darwin where he thought he knew better than Darwin himself. Bronn and Haeckel initially had difficulty dealing with Darwin's theory because it described variation, diversity, and changes that did not seem to obey predictions from “natural laws”. However, their work—just like the insights of the following generations of evolutionary biologists—extended Darwin's theory beyond that which was known to Darwin himself and led to a healthy discourse among different interpretations. One should not forget that Darwin's thoughts were only the beginning of modern evolutionary biology. A huge amount of research in evolutionary biology in the 150 years since the publication of Origin added, extended, and modified Darwin's initial thinking—as should be expected in any vibrant scientific discipline—but did not contradict the core tenets of Darwin.
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Axel Meyer¶*
Chair in Zoology and Evolutionary Biology, Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
Citation: Meyer A (2009) Charles Darwin's Reception in Germany and What Followed. PLoS Biol 7(7): e1000162. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1000162
Published: July 28, 2009
Copyright: © 2009 Alex Meyer. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Funding: AM received funding from the Institute of Advanced Study in Berlin.
* E-mail: axel.meyer@uni-konstanz.de
¶ Axel Meyer is currently a Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study in Berlin.
In Germany, Charles Darwin's thinking was accepted very quickly after the publication of On the Origin of Species in November, 1859. This was due, in no small measure, to the fact that a translation by the noted German paleontologist Heinrich Georg Bronn appeared in April, 1860, only months after the original publication [1]. Bronn's own research led him to several insights that paralleled those of Darwin, resulting in a translation that was quite liberal and included the addition of numerous footnotes; but perhaps most importantly, Bronn added a new final chapter (chapter 15) to Darwin's book [2]. In these final notes, Bronn summarized his assessments of and conclusions on Darwin's Origin in 26 pages [2]. He outlined what he thought Darwin had meant to say, partly reinterpreted it, and critiqued it. Darwin welcomed this discussion, and 18 letters were exchanged between the two men. In subsequent editions of Origin, Darwin developed his theory further through such feedback. Bronn's critical epilogue was partly inspired by his adherence to an idealistic—even romantic—and teleological Naturphilosophie that viewed evolution as a progressive development toward perfection; this has at least been long thought, explaining why Bronn used the word, in both text and title of the translation, vervollkommnet (perfected) for Darwin's word “favored.” Bronn also freely translated Darwin's “struggle for existence” into Kampf ums Dasein, which might be best translated back into English as “fight for existence or life,” a phrase that Darwin himself was not entirely happy with. New interpretations of Bronn's work and his influence on Ernst Haeckel and evolutionary thought in Germany are presented in the new book by Sander Gliboff, H. G. Bronn, Ernst Haeckel, and the Origins of German Darwinism: A Study in Translation and Transformation [3].
Haeckel, who was the most influential don of German zoology for several decades, probably read Darwin's Origin in German during his PhD work in Jena, since his command of English was not particularly good. The main reason why all of this is of greater, even political, interest beyond issues in the history of science, is that Ernst Haeckel is widely seen—although this is disputed among historians of science—to be in an unholy intellectual line from Darwin to social Darwinism and eugenics in the early twentieth century, eventually leading to fascism in Nazi Germany. Creationist and intelligent-design advocates worldwide tirelessly perpetuate this purported but largely unsubstantiated connection between Darwin, Haeckel, and Hitler [4]. Such efforts are particularly and unnecessarily divisive in this “Darwin year,” when we celebrate not only the 150th anniversary of the publication of Origin, but also Darwin's 200th birthday. Furthermore, they do not do justice to Haeckel's understanding of Darwinian evolution by natural selection with all its unpredictability, but, more importantly, seem to aim to further undermine the acceptance of evolution by an often still surprisingly skeptical lay audience.
Haeckel was, by far, the most successful popularizer of science for more than a generation in Germany [5],[6]. His books were printed in large numbers, translated into several languages, and strongly influenced scientists and layman alike [7],[8]. Haeckel idealized Darwin. He dedicated his seminal work “Generelle Morphologie” to Darwin (as well as to his teacher Carl Gegenbaur, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck) and visited him in Down House in August of 1866. When Darwin was presented with a copy of Haeckel's book, he received it with gracious thanks and remarked (in a letter to Haeckel from 18 August 1866), “You confer on my book, the Origin of Species, the most magnificent eulogium which it has ever received.” Haeckel misunderstood many aspects of Darwin's ideas, and perhaps his typical German quest for laws of nature was ill-founded. Nonetheless, he was instrumental in propagating the principle of evolution by natural selection to the then very influential community of German biologists that had long adhered to lamarckian ideas.
Bronn died in 1862, and later editions of Darwin's seminal book were translated into German by Julius Victor Carus. A son of Friedrich Emil Suchsland, a publisher of Darwin's translations, asked Darwin for permission for a new translation of later editions of the Origin, claiming that his theory had been widely misunderstood in Germany because of shortcomings in the early translation by Bronn. This interpretation of Bronn's skewed understanding of Darwin, and its effects on Haeckel's own misunderstanding, continued in the history of science until recently [9],[10].
Gliboff's new book [3] clarifies that, although Bronn never completely accepted Darwin's idea of species transformation, he did immediately recognize that Darwin's Origin was a huge advance toward a more comprehensive science of life, which Bronn himself had long sought to establish. Gliboff's book is a very readable, concise, and an important contribution that will help to rectify some entrenched misunderstandings about the history of evolutionary thinking in Germany. It needs to be said, however, that Gliboff almost summarily ignores a large body of work from German scholars on these aspects of the history of evolutionary biology. It was Thomas Junker and others [9],[10] who clarified the historical role of Bronn's translation of Darwin on the acceptance and perception of Darwinian evolution in German. Also, other researchers from Jena (where Haeckel spent 47 years of his career as professor), such as Uwe Hoßfeld, deserve more credit than Gliboff gives them [7],[11]. The omission of the insights of these scholars detracts from the impact that this book should have.
Gliboff makes an important contribution by pointing out that Bronn's liberal translation of Darwin altered the precise meanings of Victorian English words to fit a contemporaneous German sensibility. Much of this can be attributed to Bronn's interpretations of Darwin. Bronn had been thinking along lines perhaps parallel to Darwin's, aiming to modify Darwin where he thought he knew better than Darwin himself. Bronn and Haeckel initially had difficulty dealing with Darwin's theory because it described variation, diversity, and changes that did not seem to obey predictions from “natural laws”. However, their work—just like the insights of the following generations of evolutionary biologists—extended Darwin's theory beyond that which was known to Darwin himself and led to a healthy discourse among different interpretations. One should not forget that Darwin's thoughts were only the beginning of modern evolutionary biology. A huge amount of research in evolutionary biology in the 150 years since the publication of Origin added, extended, and modified Darwin's initial thinking—as should be expected in any vibrant scientific discipline—but did not contradict the core tenets of Darwin.
+++++
PDF gratuito do artigo aqui [OPEN ACCESS]
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