Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
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Fall 2002 Vol.2 no. 2
BERKELEY
science FROM THE E DITOR
review
EDITOR–IN–CHIEF Dear Readers,
Eran Karmon
The BSR just grows and grows. A year and a half ago we were nothing but an idea and a few
MANAGING EDITOR
emails between like-minded graduate students. And here we are, 5000 copies strong, and
Temina Madon
for the first time ever, in dapper full color. This past semester, we were named Berkeley’s
best-designed student publication (thanks to our talented and dedicated art and layout
CURRENT BRIEFS EDITOR
Jane McGonigal staff). And two of this year’s 22 Mass Media Fellows of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science got their journalistic start at the BSR. At this rate, we will control
COPY EDITOR all world media by 2006.
Donna Sy
Domination over all that lives on this earth is only our secondary goal. Our primary aim is to
CONTENT EDITOR bring you the best of Berkeley science in a lively and comprehensive format. Turn to page 26
Jessica Palmer to read all about Berkeley’s place in the evolution vs. creationism debate (you’ll be surprised
to learn that Berkeley folk fall on both sides of the fence). Or learn all about the craft and
EDITORS science of bringing decimated coral reefs back to life (page 22). If you’ve only got a minute,
Joel Kamnitzer turn to Labscope (page 4) and Biotech Beat (page 6) for snapshots of new research on and around
Colin McCormick campus. Or you can read a crackpot’s theory about how Relativity is all wrong (page 32).
Teddy Varno
Enjoy the third issue of the Berkeley Science Review. And let us know if you think we’ve done
ART DIRECTOR
something right, or done something wrong, or if you’ve got a perspective about one of our
Una Ren
stories. Our email address is submissions@uclink.berkeley.edu.
ART
Aaron Golub And visit us on the web at sciencereview.berkeley.edu for back issues, information about our
Jessica Palmer science writing seminars, and more.
W EBMASTER
Tony Wilson All the best,
SPECIAL THANKS
Evelyn Strauss
Eran Karmon
PRINTER
UC Press
©2002 Berkeley Science Review. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form without express permission of the publishers. Published
with financial assistance from the College of Letters and Science at UC Berkeley, the UC Berkeley Graduate Assembly, the Associated Students of the University of California,
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or the ASUC. The content in this publication does not necessarily reflect the views of the University or ASUC. Letters to the editor and story proposals are encouraged
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Features
Medicine 12 Cuts Like a Knife
Doctors perfect a technique for
curing multiple-tumor brain
cancer without a single incision.
By Aubrey Lau
Courtesy/Rosemary Gillespie
Teddy Varno WEBS OF SPECIATION IN HAWAII
In the forests of the Hawaiian Islands, Rosemary Gillespie of the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management
has discovered 19 new species of spider. The spiders all belong to the genus Tetragnatha and display a wide range of shapes, colors,
and behaviors, making them ideal subjects for studies on the role of physical appearance and behavior in patterns of speciation. In
collaboration with Geoffrey Oxford of the University of York, Gillespie is also investigating the evolution of another Hawaiian
arachnid, the happy-face spider (Theridion grallator). Different populations of this species exhibit strikingly varied color patterns
on their abdomens. Since these patterns are primarily determined genetically, they can be used as visible markers to examine how
natural selection operates on genetic differences in populations.
Courtesy/Chung-Pei Ma
structures in our universe formed. Several million years after the Big Bang, small fluctuations in energy created the earliest light
and matter. Astronomers believe that, over billions of years, matter in the Universe clustered under the action of gravity, resulting
in the complex cosmic structures observed today. Ma and her colleagues have simulated the billion-year evolution of fluctuations
in dark matter, photons, and neutrinos on a sub-galactic scale, illustrating the importance of complex second-order effects on the
growth of cosmic structures. By comparing these simulations with astronomical observations, Ma hopes to unravel the past of our
early universe—showing how intricate patterns of galaxies emerged from the cosmic ether.
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science 4 science 5
review review
Biotech Beat
Emily Singer
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Current Briefs
the optic nerve, and the tumor is found
SPLITTING HEADS using MRI images for guidance. This
image-guided approach allows a great
Collaborating towards less deal of precision with very little
exposure of the brain itself. After the
invasive brain surgery.
tumor is removed, the bone is replaced
using titanium screws and plates. The
an too many doctors spoil incision is closed with stitches, and
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Current Briefs
researchers have been trying to
MICRO MACHINES determine the physical properties of
these tiny devices. But properties like
elasticity, stress, friction, hardness, and
Tiny technology can cause
density can’t be measured for a
big research problems. microscopic sample using a human-
scale apparatus. Even slight positioning
n 1983, physicist Richard
I
errors of microscopic samples in a
Feynman delivered a now-famous standard lab setup can introduce
speech challenging scientists and enormous measurement errors.
engineers to think small. Twenty Working the bugs out. Roya
Maboudian and her students are develop-
years later, Feynman’s dreams of ing techniques for testing the properties of
To overcome these challenges, the
designing and building of tiny machines micro-devices, like this tiny lock fabricated Maboudian lab uses ultra-sensitive
by the Sandia National Laboratories’ MEMS
made microscopic bearings, gears, division. A spider mite stands sentry over measurement and imaging techniques
flywheels, and motors have been brought the lock, showing scale. like electron microscopy and x-ray
(Courtesy/Sandia National Laboratories,
to fruition. Microelectronic mechanical http://www.mems.sandia.gov) diffraction. Using these methods,
systems (MEMS) are found everywhere Maboudian and her colleagues have been
today, and the future applications are able to measure the elastic modulus (the
limitless. Micro-accelerometers already great MEMS revolution. Her group in ability of a material to resist bending) of a
trigger car airbags and help steer the Department of Chemical Engineering silicon lever just 125 microns long—only
modern jet liners. And researchers are studies material properties, perfor- 2.5 times the width of a human hair.
now developing tiny wired sensors to mance-limiting phenomena, and
detect biochemical attacks, as well as performance-enhancing coatings of Ultimately, the Cal researchers hope to
microsurgical devices that can thread silicon-based microdevices. implement complex MEMS like “lab-on-
through capillaries. a-chip” analysis systems, biological
To address the problem of stiction, the implants, and micro-power generators.
But researchers face limitations in the Maboudian lab has pioneered the With a number of exciting prototypes
design and implementation of MEMS. chemical modification of MEMS surfaces already in development, they may soon
As machines get smaller, problems like using novel deposition techniques. But be able to shrink almost any problem
friction and “stiction” (the spontaneous researchers must still struggle with the down to size.
and permanent adhesion of two fact that atoms and particles interact
surfaces) arise. And technology moves differently on a small scale than on a
towards machines on an atomic scale, large scale. For example, a twelve-inch
researchers must grapple with the silicon disk is brittle, and it will
unpredictability of atomic interactions, probably fracture if you bend it too Temina Madon
which can make accurate and reliable much. But apply twice as much stress
measurements of the material properties to a twelve-micron silicon disk and it
of MEMS nearly impossible. won’t budge. Everything changes on
Learn More:
the microscale.
The Maboudian Lab
Merging the disciplines of applied
Measuring material properties on a http://www.ccherm.berkeley.edu/~rmgrp/
physics, surface chemistry, and materials
small scale is also problematic. Since The Berkeley Microfabrication Lab
engineering, UC Berkeley professor
the dawn of MEMS in the late 1980s, http://www-microlab.eecs.berkeley.edu/
Roya Maboudian is steadily advancing the
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classification. One says that you
WALK LIKE A MAN shouldn’t call it a hominid without a
whole suite of characteristics,
primarily bipedality.”
Since Haile-Selassi and
New discoveries push back
White’s finds exhibit a
the origin of bipedalism. mixture of primitive
apelike characteristics and
evolutionarily new
t has been nearly three decades
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Book Review
biology has much to offer feminism.
EVOLUTION’S FEMINIST SIDE Instead, Zuk suggests that generalizing
about human sexuality based on animal
examples is a perilous undertaking best
Teddy Varno avoided. The dissonance between Zuk’s
thesis and the development of her ideas
through the case studies gives Sexual Selections
of several different case studies that an unfortunate ambiguity; each chapter
illustrate Zuk’s point. In the first section, is an interesting account in and of itself,
Zuk discusses ecofeminism, mother- but the three parts of the book do not build
hood, and sperm competition to to a coherent conclusion. Sexual Selections
demonstrate how a feminist perspective is an entertaining read that covers many
might lead evolutionary biologists to intriguing topics and presents several
ask provocative new questions. The fertile ideas, but readers interested
Sexual Selections: What We Can second section describes how popular primarily in the relationship between
and Can’t Learn about Sex from
Animals, Marlene Zuk (Berkeley: beliefs about animals and nature often feminism and sociobiology would do
University of California Press, prevent us from objectively seeing impor- better to look elsewhere.
2002), 240 pp.
tant evolutionary relationships. Foremost
among these myths is the belief in the
eep questions lurk just be-
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Feature
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MEDICINE
Following the therapy, some of Katherine’s tumors stabilized, With the head frame secure, Katherine is brought to the
but others enlarged and spread. Her case was next brought scan room for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The scans
before the radiosurgery conference, a weekly meeting of provide detailed information about where the tumors are
neuroradiologists, radiation oncologists, neurosurgeons, and relative to the head frame. Unfortunately, these images have
medical physicists, to determine whether Gamma Knife limitations: they cannot differentiate between damage caused
would be a suitable treatment. Since Katherine’s numerous by tumors and that caused by the radiation treatment itself.
remaining tumors were small, the conference decided “Trying to sort out whether something is a residual disease,
Katherine would make a good candidate. a recurrent disease, or just a treatment-related effect on
the brain is vital,” says Nancy Fischbein, Assistant Professor
everal weeks after the conference, Katherine is ad- of Radiology at UCSF.
S mitted for treatment. The first step of the procedure is
fitting a frame to her head. The frame secures her skull To gather more specific information, physicians often order a
in place and ensures accurate targeting of brain lesions magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) scan. This twenty-
during treatment. Michael minute procedure is per-
McDermott, Co-neurosur- formed alongside routine
gical Director of the MRI scans. The MRS is
Gamma Knife radiosurgery unique because it pro-
program at UCSF, adjusts vides infor mation on
the frame to fit Katherine’s specific metabolites in
head and sets up what for the brain: c holine, a
most patients is the most component of the cell
uncomfortable part of the membrane; N-acetylaspartate
procedure—the injection (NAA), a neuronal marker;
of local anesthesia into four and creatine, a metabolic in-
points of the skull via a dicator. High levels of cho-
large needle. Katherine line indicate the breakdown
sticks a small piece of cloth of cell membranes, while
into her mouth and low levels of NAA can be a
clenches her teeth. She sign of neuronal damage.
makes a fist, closes her Both of these conditions
eyes, and shakes her body a Zapping tumors. 201 beam of gamma radiation converge onto the tumor. suggest the presence of
little as each of the injec- Each individual beam is so weak that it can shine through healthy cells cancerous tumors.
without damaging them, but the beams converge on the tumor with such
tions enters a different side high intensity that they damage its DNA. Fischbein notes that MRS
of her head. “You’re almost also has prognostic value. “I
done, it’s just like when you’re at the dentist,” consoles can easily think of plenty of examples where MRI looks stable
Jesse Merril, the nurse practitioner massaging Katherine’s but the spectroscopy shows changes,” she says, “and a few months
shoulder. Anaesthetized, Katherine is ready for the insertion later, the MRI catches up with the spectroscopy and it becomes
of pins into her skull through openings in each corner of clear that the patient did have a recurrent disease.”
the frame. This, as McDermott explains, is the only invasive
component of the procedure, as the titanium tips of the After the scans, Katherine gets a break with her family in the
pins make small divots in the skull. waiting room as neurosurgeons, medical physicists, and
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Feature
radiation oncologists discuss the most critical and laborious not high enough to harm the healthy tissues they pass through.
part of the treatment—the planning phase. The MRI images It is not until the beams converge when they are close to their
are entered into a computer program in the Gamma KnifeTreatment target that their combined energy becomes high enough to
Unit. “One of the goals in treatment planning is to make the damage tissues.
radiation dose conform to the target,” says Vernon Smith,
Adjunct Professor of Radiation Oncology at UCSF. Radiation After several hours of meticulous calculations, Katherine’s
oncologists and neurosurgeons work together to decide which treatment plan is ready. Because she has a large of number of
areas of the brain should be targeted and which critical metastases in her brain, doctors decide that only some of them
structures should be avoided. “I then use my knowledge to can be treated that day.Ten shots of radiation are prescribed to
decide where to put what we call the ‘shot’,” Smith explains. target the seven largest metastases.
Since most brain lesions are irregularly shaped, multiple shots Katherine is led to the treatment unit. As she lies down on the
of radiation are often needed for treatment. “You need to try treatment couch, her head frame is attached to a collimator, a
to fill the tumor up with spheres of radiation of different sizes— circular metal device that resembles a helmet with the top
to decide how many spheres to use and where to put them, as cut off. Evenly distributed over the collimator are 201 openings
well as what dosage to use,” says Smith. Gamma Knife is unique through which gamma rays will be delivered. The head frame
in its ability to target brain lesions for irradiation while sparing is attached to the collimator according to the three-dimensional
healthy cells. Since the gamma rays come from 201 individual coordinates set during planning. To minimize errors, the
sources, a beam of radiation from a single source contributes positioning of Katherine’s head is checked independently
only approximately half a percent of the total dose. Through by three different people. An intercom system allows her to
strategic targeting, the radiation dosage of individual beams is communicate with the personnel in the control room, who
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MEDICINE
keep her informed of the progress of the treatment. After
all staff have left the treatment room, closing the door
behind them, the radiation treatment commences. It lasts
for two hours, during which time collimators of various sizes
are switched a few times to allow radiation beams of
different size to attack the lesions.
Temina Madon
Benton says that KAP “gives you a view of the familiar from a place that you often can’t occupy.” Even conventional
aerial photographers—strapped to helicopters, holding on for dear life—can’t offer the perspective of a lightweight,
compact kite rig. KAP rigs can be remarkably simple: a kite, disposable camera, kitchen timer, and some kite line will
get you started for an outlay of less than $25. Of course, the rigs can quickly become elaborate, costing thousands of
dollars and incorporating video transmitters, receivers, monitors, and more.
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ART MEETS SCIENCE
light courts and skylights were filled in with office space. Benton
says, “It’s about time for us to rediscover these features. It’s time to turn
the lights off and start taking advantage of that borrowed light again.”
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Feature
the Campanile, using kite aerial photographs like this one to develop
at http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~debevec/Campanile/.
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ART MEETS SCIENCE
with a kite rig, Benton must first compose the image mentally,
then translate that image into the kite’s position and the timing
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Feature
All Plugged Up. Benton says that it took at least a dozen tries
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Weird Science
MAIL CALL
Colin McCormick
Here at UC Berkeley we get a lot of curious correspondence. It ranges from exorbitant requests for
information—“Please send me scientific data on quantum mechanics.”—to the oddly macabre—“I just
detected the odor of subtle error in relativity, but I’m not sure where the corpse is hidden.” Letters arrive
typewritten, handwritten, and even (according to legend) written in blood. A brief selection of the more
interesting contents of our inboxes:
Aaron Golub/BSR
totally WRONG!” In fact, “There exists NO relativity. The whole
theories of relativities are totally artificially man-made. Thank you
very much and have a nice day.”
Fiat Lux
In further relativity news, longtime Berkeley resident “Pastor Glen” recently distributed his magnum opus,
AdventuresWith Phebe The Photon, or, Having FunWith Time Dilation! at select locations on campus. It opens
with a poem, Hymn to Light: “WHO ARE YOU, LIGHT? You tourist from pinpoint galaxies! You stranger!”
We are then introduced to “that imperious PHOTON (!)—her name is PHEBE.” And as for Einstein’s
space-time diagrams? “‘Besides,’ Phebe sniffs, ‘that diagram is ALL WRONG about me!’”
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Feature
CONSTRUCTING CORAL
The world’s reefs
are disappearing.
How do we stem
the tide?
Sneha Desai
Helen Fox
world’s remaining water sprays up. In the silence that follows, a few fish
carcasses float to the surface, while many more sink to the
coral reefs will be lost ocean floor, blanketing a crater in the shattered coral reef.
Blast fishing, as this illegal practice is known, earns this
fisherman about eight dollars a day—five times the
by 2010. average daily wage in Indonesia.
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Feature
reef, a stable anchoring place for the larvae must be in Integrative Biology in 1995, hopes to
artificially created. sell his patented coral reef restoration
method to dive operators, beachfront
Fox’s experiments tested low-tech, inexpensive, and locally hotels, and local governments worldwide.
available materials as stabilizers for the shifting coral rubble
and as substrate for larval recruits. She prepared several small Coral reef restoration became a concern
rubble field sites, each with three different stabilization of Moore’s in the late 1980s, when he was
methods: rock piles, netting over the rubble, and cement slabs. conducting oceanographic research in
After revisiting the sites over two seasons, Fox found that the Indonesia and saw that reefs were being
rock piles most successfully attracted and maintained recruits, annihilated. After graduate school Moore
so she started a larger trial. Her research has attracted worked at the Scripps Institute of Ocean-
support from the Nature Conservancy and funding from the ography in San Diego, and then joined
Packard Foundation. The Nature Conservancy is currently the dot-com world in San Francisco.
undertaking a large-scale study of Fox’s rock pile substrate
over two hectares of ocean floor. While working for a dot-com company,
Moore hit upon the design of his snow-
ormer Berkeley graduate student Michael Moore is
F trying a different strategy: targeting the tourism industry.
Moore recently founded EcoReefs, a company that develops
flake-like reef restoration modules. As
a marine researcher, he had been aware
that coral scientists use ceramic tiles,
reef-restoration technologies. Fox serves as an informal which are pH neutral, to attract coral
science advisor for Ecoreefs. Moore, who received his PhD larvae and measure local coral population.
Moore’s innovation was to create a 3D
hexagonal ceramic module that could
be mass-produced and assembled at a
restoration site. Building an artificial reef. Michae
and provide habitat for adult and
In 2001, Moore patented the design and left the dot-com com-
pany to devote his time to EcoReefs. “Most of my engineer
friends took their $40,000 and bought BMWs. I took my
$40,000 and started EcoReefs,” he says. In October 2001,
Moore installed a demonstration restoration structure in a small
area of damaged reef in Bunaken National Park, which is near
Komodo. The design successfully mimicked the complex
architecture of a natural reef and provided habitat for adult
and juvenile fish—especially herbivorous fish that eat the algae
and soft coral that compete with reef-building coral larvae for
settlement space. The ceramic modules also quickly attracted
red crustose algae, an important precursor species that signals
to the larvae that substrate is available. Moore is currently show-
ing the promising results from the test site to potential clients.
Cheap fix. Integrative Biology graduate student Helen Fox hopes
that inexpensive materials like rocks or netting can help rebuild
damaged reefs. (Gideon Weisberg/BSR)
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ENVIRONMENT
industry. Kraus believes continued
conservation efforts are at least as
important as developing new resto-
ration technology. “Reefs are being
destroyed so rapidly. We need to
focus on keeping what’s there, stop-
ping this bleeding. There is a role for
restoration, but it’s very expensive,
and we choose to focus our resources
elsewhere,” she says.
Learn More:
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The University
DARWIN OR DOGMA?
Why teaching evolution
is more controversial
than ever.
Jessica Palmer
ou can find them at PTA meetings or UC
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role in the origin of life on Earth. Just like Wells’s little blue
The Alabama Disclaimer makes bookmark, they object to evidence of evolution, to the way it
evolution sound like the brainchild is taught, and to its philosophical and religious implications.
of a scientific lunatic fringe. In Kansas, and most recently in Ohio, these groups are making
themselves heard.
When it debuts in 2003, http://evolution.berkeley.edu will be a
one-stop shopping center for science teachers, says The most vocal anti-evolution movement, which calls itself
Scotchmoor. It will offer background information, lesson Intelligent Design (ID), began at UC Berkeley. Professor of
plans, and other tools to deal with the controversy surrounding Law Phillip Johnson argued in his 1991 book Darwin On Trial
evolution education, including the NCSE’s rebuttal of that evolutionary theory was “pseudoscience.” Johnson judges
Wells’s Ten Questions. natural selection to have a real, but overvalued, effect. “The
appearance of innovations like new complex organs or body
The mess in Kansas plans,” he says, “cannot be explained adequately without
allowing for intelligent causes”—that is, an intelligent
During the past few decades, evolution’s place in public design or blueprint for life.
school curricula has seemed secure. It’s difficult to teach
geology, biochemistry, or ecology without mentioning Darwin Darwin himself had been amazed by the power of natural
or the theory he founded. As renowned geneticist Theodosius selection to assemble a complex eye, not just once, but several
Dobzhansky noted in a 1973 essay, “Nothing in biology makes times in different animal lineages. Many scientists privately
sense except in the light of evolution.” reconcile religion, and the idea of a Creator, with evolution.
But Johnson’s contingent wants the debate out in the open,
Then, in 1999, the Kansas State Board of Education cut and inside the classroom, with ID presented as an alternative
evolution from the state science curriculum. Kansas didn’t theory to evolution in state science curricula.
outlaw evolution, but by ensuring students would never be
tested on it, the state withdrew support for the theory. An Science educators hold that there is no scientific alternative
outcry from the science community immediately followed. to evolution. ID, they say, is just another variation on
“We can thank the mess in Kansas for opening our eyes that creationism. But Johnson insists that the evolution camp
something had to be done,” says UCMP’s Scotchmoor. itself has a religious agenda, because it promotes a “naturalistic
worldview,” and that educators must “teach the controversy.”
At the time of the Kansas controversy, it had been several
decades since the teaching of evolution was seriously threatened “Where the big confusion lies is
in the US. Tennessee’s Butler Act of 1925, which precipitated that people don’t have the basic
the Scopes Trial, explicitly banned from the classroom “any
theory that denies the divine creation of man and teaches
knowledge of how science works.”
instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.”
In a 1968 case, the US Supreme Court ruled all bans on teaching Vocal critics like Gary Demar, president of the creationist
evolution unconstitutional. In 1987, it struck down a law organization American Vision, say evolution is also unscien-
mandating equal time for creationism in the classroom. tific: “You can’t apply the scientific method to evolution. It’s
never been observed. You can’t repeat the experiment. And
These legal decisions forced evolution’s opponents to rede- so what’s being sold as science, in terms of evolution, really
fine their goals and methods. Now, rather than arguing isn’t science in terms of the way they define it.”
for creationism, critics argue against evolution—especially its
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The University
Theory, not fact or compel student belief. Although the Alabama Disclaimer
and the Kansas standards were motivated by concern over
A few years before the Kansas controversy, Alabama legislators whether evolution is good science, they appropriately question
labeled their state’s biology textbooks with this disclaimer: “This what constitutes good science education in general. Science
textbook discusses evolution, a controversial theory some is an interrogative process of critical thinking, and if it’s not taught
scientists present as a scientific that way—in evolution or any
explanation for the origin of liv- “You can’t apply the scientific method other area—it’s a problem.
ing things, such as plants, animals, to evolution. It’s never been observed.
and humans. No one was present You can’t repeat the experiment.” Unfortunately, these aspects of
when life first appeared on Earth. science are not emphasized
Therefore any statement about life’s origins should be consid- strongly enough or often enough in the classroom or the media.
ered as theory, not fact.” The mainstream public doesn’t have a clear picture of what
scientific inquiry is. As a result, evolution’s critics get away
The Alabama Disclaimer makes evolution sound like the with battling straw men, while the science community is
brainchild of a scientific lunatic fringe. But the thrust of its either oblivious to the debate or baffled by it. “Where the big
argument, that evolution should be taught as “theory, not confusion lies is that people don’t have the basic knowledge of
fact,” is perfectly agreeable to most scientists. Evolution is a how science works. They can’t look at Intelligent Design
theory. As evolutionist Dobzhansky stated, “A theory can be or the old Creation Science or whatever they will come up
verified by a mass of facts, but it becomes a proven theory, with next, and recognize that that’s not science,” says
not a fact.” In the same vein, Wells’s bookmark asks, “Why UCMP’s Scotchmoor.
are we told that Darwin’s theory of evolution is a scientific
fact—even though many of its claims are based on misrepresen- Such attempts to confuse the issue aren’t new. In 1973,
tations of the facts?” In 2001, Kansas’s revised science standards Dobzhansky observed, “Disagreements and clashes of opinion
outlined similar concerns: “Science studies natural are rife among biologists, as they should be in a living and growing
phenomena by formulating explanations that can be tested science. Anti-evolutionists mistake, or pretend to mistake,
against the natural world. Some scientific concepts and these disagreements as indications of the dubiousness of
theories (e.g. cosmological and biological evolution, etc.) the entire doctrine of evolution.” It’s alarming that in three
may differ from the teachings of a student’s religious com- decades, the situation hasn’t gotten any better.
munity or their cultural beliefs. Compelling student belief
is inconsistent with the goal of education. Nothing in sci- True or False?
ence or any other field should be taught dogmatically.”
According to the National Science Foundation’s latest biennial
No qualified scientist or educator would teach dogmatically, report, Science and Engineering Indicators 2002, nine out of
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ten American adults are interested in learning about science of science. Eager to satiate the nation’s hunger for science-
and scientific discoveries. But apparently they haven’t learned related stories, the news media boil each new study down to
much: only 54% know it takes a year for the Earth to orbit a punchline. “We simplify everything—everyone has to have
the sun. Half the American public thinks early humans had a quick answer, we talk in sound bytes, and things are very
dinosaurs for neighbors. black and white, but that’s not at all the way science works,”
says Scotchmoor.
However, the nation’s Kansas didn’t outlaw evolution, but by ensuring
most prominent scien- students would never be tested on it, the state Reductionist language is
tific organizations may withdrew support for the theory. an alarming characteris-
be guilty of oversimpli- tic of popular science. If
fication. NSF’s surveys included 13 true/false questions. the public constantly hears evolution, global warming, or the
Along with uncontroversial statements like “All radioactivity safety of prescription drugs described in yes/no, true/false
is man-made (false),” NSF asked “The universe began with a terms, then it’s not surprising that nearly three-quarters of
huge explosion (true),” and “Human beings, as we know American adults don’t understand the scientific process.
them today, developed from earlier species of animals
(true).” Adults with a high level of science education who What did T. rex taste like?
otherwise did well (92% answered the radioactivity question
correctly) performed much worse on the latter two questions Al Janulaw, former President of the California Science Teachers
(50% and 69% correct, respectively). And 2001 was the first Association and a middle school teacher with 32 years of
year that the majority of American adults of all educational back- science teaching experience, thinks the problem can be fixed
grounds answered the evolution question correctly (53%, up in the schools. “We have a very scientifically illiterate public,
from 45% in 1999). and today’s high school students are tomorrow’s public.”
So what can we learn from the NSF survey results? NSF has Janulaw is lending his expertise to the Understanding Evolution
suggested, “Responses to these two questions may reflect reli- web project. He believes science literacy among teachers,
gious beliefs rather than actual knowledge about science.” particularly at the lower grade levels, is an essential first step.
Perhaps, but in addition, because true/false questions impose “In my experience working with non-science-major elementary
artificial dichotomies, they are arguably an inappropriate way teachers, these teachers harbor the same misconceptions
to discuss theories, which can never become facts. If theories about the history of the Earth and mechanisms of evolution
can never be facts, shouldn’t we be careful about describing that the average citizen does. It’s not going to serve the teachers
them as true or false? or their students well if they don’t understand it any better than
the kids and their parents do.”
Oversimplification is part of the problem in public education
Jessica Palmer/BSR
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The University
Berkeley Science Review: Do you think that the American public is too accepting of scientific ideas, without thinking
critically about them?
Phillip Johnson: Yes, very often. Our educators teach science as a process of learning facts, rather than applying
critical thinking skills to scientific claims, which in many cases are speculative and linked with ideology. Science
journalists have the same education, and cannot afford to lose access to the most influential scientists, so they
report what they are told with endorsements like “experts say.”
BSR: In Darwin On Trial, you state that Darwinism gives rise to a “naturalist philosophy” in which “scientists may
not consider all the possibilities, but must restrict themselves to those which are consistent with a strict philosophical
naturalism.” Isn’t that restriction necessary for science to function as the limited tool that it is?
PJ: I wish our scientific leaders really did admit that science is merely a “limited tool” rather than identifying it with
a naturalistic worldview. What I most object to is that they conceal their philosophical assumptions and claim
immense creative power for the Darwinian mechanism, for example, as if this claim were based on empirical
testing, when in fact it is based only on philosophy.
BSR: Do you think that science can be an effective analytical tool without promulgating this “naturalist philosophy?”
PJ: Yes. Scientists and science educators should be willing to consider all the evidence, and to follow the evidence
wherever it leads, even if it leads to conclusions they do not welcome. As it is, they promulgate naturalism and
Darwinism regardless of the evidence.
BSR: What would you see as the perfect policy resolution to the evolution controversy in public schools?
PJ: The "Santorum Amendment" language in the Conference Committee Report attached to the new federal education
statute states an excellent principle for science education that should be followed even if it did not have the effect
of law. It says that a good science education should teach students to distinguish between the testable theories of
science and religious or philosophical claims made in the name of science. Where controversial subjects like
biological evolution are taught, educators should teach the controversy, preparing students to be informed partici-
pants in public debates. The important question is why scientific organizations are bitterly opposed to these
sound educational principles.
BSR: In your experience, has the Berkeley community been supportive of debate on this topic?
PJ: The campus has been good to me in matters such as academic promotions, but biologists have fled from any
debate. They seem to be afraid of what will happen if the subject is not kept safely within their own professional
territory, where they control the definitions and assumptions.
Johnson recommends Signs of Intelligence by Demski & Kushiner for more essays on Intelligent Design.
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The key to teaching evolution right, says Janulaw, is teaching selection, they don’t help students learn it or help teachers
critical thinking first. “This is about thinking scientifically. Then teach it.” Wells’s 10 Questions bookmark, though strident,
when the students arrive in sixth grade and someone men- makes an excellent point—textbooks do present the same old
tions the ‘E-word,’ or the idea of evolution or the history of stories and figures over and over, often in a misleading way or
the planet, these kids are already doing critical thinking. They’re without context. Wells’s mistake lies in equating the theory of
already empiricists. The truth is, I can’t tell a seven-year-old evolution with the poor way in which it is often taught.
the history of life on Earth without telling it dogmatically. So
we don’t do it. What we try to do is build these skills, so the Janulaw concludes, “To get kids to deal with the tentativeness
kid can understand it when it comes along.” and open-endedness and need for further study—the nature
of science—first you need to get the teachers there. And I
To do this, the Understanding Evolution project builds on don’t think they are.” The American public isn’t “there” either.
the pedagogical resources of an earlier NSF/UCMP project, It’s frustrating for scientists when the media misrepresents a
“Explorations Through Time,” which provides field-tested study or when parents object to evolution in their child’s cur-
teaching exercises on topics like fossils and geologic time. riculum. But who, if not the scientific community, is ultimately
“What Did T. rex Taste Like?” is an introduction to cladistics responsible for informing the public about science? Scotchmoor
(hierarchical organization on the basis of common ancestry) says, “We, the scientists, are not very good at this, you know—
that never uses a word more technical than “lineage.” The idea we’re still learning. We need to be more proactive and realize
is to help students get in-depth experience thinking scien- that sharing research and science with the public is essential.”
tifically, rather than emphasizing details, definitions, and facts.
It may be hard to take, but scientists and science educators
Unfortunately, most K-12 science textbooks don’t do this. The have a lot to learn from evolution’s critics. We must reconsider
American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Project how science is taught in schools and explained to the public. We
2061 found in 2000 that even high school biology textbooks need to weed bad science out of textbooks, teach children to
don’t cover central concepts like the nature of science in think critically, and learn to answer those Ten Questions
sufficient depth. Scotchmoor agrees: “A lot of us teachers ourselves—one way or another.
have this pet peeve about the way the scientific method is shown
in textbooks: steps one, two, three, four, five, conclusion, job
done. When does science ever say, ‘Ok, that’s over with’?”
Project 2061 also found that all textbooks examined did a “poor”
job of addressing commonly held beliefs about evolution. Jo Ellen
Roseman, director of Project 2061, says “While most (text- Jessica Palmer is a fifth-year graduate student in the
books) contain the relevant content on heredity and natural Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at UC Berkeley.
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Perspective
BACK TO THE FUTURE
The last angry man travels through time.
Alan Moses
S
ome time ago, in the center of the Sun, two hydrogen
atoms traveling at enormous velocities were headed on
a collision course. The conditions were just right so
R It moved our view of the world away from taking place
in a fixed time and space and towards being, well, just relative.
that the atoms crashed and interacted in a very particular way, The question is no longer “Where is the photon?” but rather,
producing a high-energy photon. Through an incredible “How far away is the photon?” Instead of “What time will the
series of coincidences, the photon managed to travel on a photon hit my arm?” we should ask “How long ‘til the photon
course that brought it all the way to the Earth, until it finally hits my arm?” Instead of a law of motion, Einstein gives us a
slammed into my arm. And I didn’t even feel it. “law of distance,” which we call a “metric.” Famously, the met-
ric is defined on a four-dimensional space, where three of the
This is how we usually think of cause and effect. The collision dimensions are space and the fourth is time: the metric doesn’t
of the two particles caused the photon to be created and fly off only give us distances in space, but also in time. Further, the
in the direction that it did. My arm blocked the photon, so-called “space-time distance” to an object is dependent on
thereby prevent- the properties of
ing it from reach- Car windows would spontaneously come back together the object in ques-
ing the ground. and wallets would return to glove compartments. Of tion—its mass and
We would never course, the cash would still be gone. energy. At some
say that the re- level this seems
verse was true: that my arm caused the photon, and that its right: to figure out how far away something is in time, we’d
subsequent absorption by a particle in the Sun led to the better take into account how fast it’s going. More famously
formation of two hydrogen nuclei. Why not? After all, the still, though, it turns out that for objects traveling at the speed
laws of physics are (for the most part) time-symmetric. If a of light (like my arm-smashing photon) time stands still.
process is allowed by the laws of physics, its reverse must also Viewed in this light, the notion of cause preceding effect
be allowed. So as far as I can tell, it should be possible for my doesn’t make any sense.
arm to make light. That it doesn’t is obvious to anyone who’s
ever been in a dark room with me. Time is bunk. So why do we humans perceive time in the
wildly mistaken, but incredibly useful way that we do? One
People have appreciated this problem for a long time. In 1748, intriguing answer is that our perception—and perhaps thus
Scottish philosopher David Hume said that cause and effect our conception—of time comes from the evolutionary benefit
exist only in the minds of humans and aren’t actually a part of to having a simple way to make predictions about our
the objective world. Cause and effect are just abstractions we environment. It’s nice to know that throwing a spear at some-
use to describe events that we always see happening one after thing will probably cause it to drop dead.
the other, and never the other after one. All we need to do,
then, is explain why there are events that always occur in the But are we really ready to accept that time and causality
same temporal order. are subjective—that they arise because we view the world
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from a limited perspective? I don’t think we should give Price, however, points out the following oversight: Entropy
up so easily. All we need to do is find some process that certainly increases towards the future—the second law and
occurs in accordance with the objective laws of physics but all of our experience says so, but what about the past? Why
shows bias towards either the future or the past. It does entropy seem to decrease as we look back in time? Run
shouldn’t be that hard. the tape backwards, and disordered piles of smashed glass
turn into ordered car windows. Since the laws of physics are
Let’s consider obviously temporal processes. Let’s also forget (mostly) time-symmetric, entropy should increase no mat-
about photons for a minute just to keep us from getting fouled ter which way we play the tape. The question isn’t why entropy
up by relativity—or worse, relativism. Processes that go one will be high in the future, but rather, how did it get to be low in the
way but don’t happen the other way are called “irreversible.” past? And the answer is going to send us scrambling back to
Most irreversible processes fall under a less elegant, almost the search-for-objectivity drawing board.
practical branch of physics called thermodynamics. The sec-
ond law of thermodynamics gives processes directionality in n Order out of Chaos, Ilya Prigogine describes what he calls
time by stipulating the eventual increase of a pesky quantity
called entropy. There are several competing interpretations
I the “subjective interpretation of irreversibility.” The
reason that there are so few microscopic configurations in
of what this magic quantity is, and it has the past—in other words, that the
been loosely translated as “disorder” or entropy was low—is because we can
even “chaos.” Any of these gives the describe the past with relative certainty.
second law in its pop form: order pro- We saw it happen or there’s some sort of
ceeds to chaos. My car window can be evidence that points us in the right direc-
smashed into tiny pieces, but the tiny tion. As we try to predict the future, the
pieces will never get up and re-form into limited information we have becomes less
my car window. You can’t go from a more and less adequate. Finally, we just cut
disordered state to an ordered one— bait and concede that all the microscopic
it’s against the law. Otherwise car win- states are equally probable—the entropy
dows could spontaneously come back together and wallets is maximal. Ask me if it rained yesterday, and I can give you
would return to glove compartments. Of course, the cash a decent answer. But will it rain a week from today? A month?
would still be gone. A year? Hell, you got me. Anything could happen. So the
reason the past looks nice and tidy and the future looks
n his 1996 book, Time’s Arrow and Archimedes’ Point, Austra-
I lian philosopher Huw Price suggests we take a closer look
at what the second law actually says before jumping on the
entropic and jumbly is that our knowledge of the future
is incomplete.
second-law-gives-objective-direction-of-time bandwagon. In But hang on: my window didn’t just shatter out of the blue.
the form most widely accepted by physicists, the second law Some punk kid hit it with a crowbar! Only after they met the
says that if all the particles of the window are simply following little hooligan did my previously tidily arranged window
the laws of motion, they are much more likely to end up in an particles start spending all their time in shattered configurations!
arrangement (or configuration) that corresponds to a “shattered” OK, I’m getting a little agitated thinking about the repair
state. The argument is simply probabilistic: shattered states bill, so let’s put that smashed window out of our minds. Let’s
are the overwhelming majority of the possible configurations just think about a simple two-dimensional square that’s full
for the particles that make up the window, and the particles of particles bouncing around (but with all their motion
don’t have any preference to whether their bulk macroscopic confined to the plane). Further, let’s put the whole thing in a
state is shattered or not. So, says physics, it’s not that it’s sealed box. The particles on the plane will spread themselves
impossible for shattered windows to re-form, it’s just out evenly because there are vastly more configurations that
very unlikely.
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Perspective
correspond to spread-out distributions than clumped ones
(that’s why the air in most rooms is usually not all bunched
up in one corner). The “window” (plane) seems to be in
equilibrium, and it should remain in that state indefinitely.
particles will now spread themselves evenly over the three-
Now, let’s go ahead and replace the punk kid with a tiny winged dimensional volume of the box. Although I present no proof,
demon that’s capable of manipulating particles with extreme I claim that this is an irreversible process. The demon can’t go
care. The demon walks around for a bit and then chooses a back and put the particles back in the plane.
particle at random and gives it the tiniest, smallest, most
minute push up out of the plane. Then the demon picks In our thought experiment, the past is not low entropy.
another particle and gives that one the tiniest, smallest, most The particles were all jumbled up in the plane and entropy
minute push down out of the plane. We’ll call that tiny amount was high. But the demon, very simply, was able to present
e, so that the demon added e momentum to the first particle the particles with previously unreachable configurations.
and subtracted e momentum from the second particle, leaving Once available, the particles had no choice but to explore
the total momentum in the box completely unchanged. them. I don’t think there’s anything subjective here: the
If the box that we have the window in is small and its walls past is pulled into the future by the vast expanse of new
are perfectly bouncy, those first two particles that the demon possibilities. So maybe we humans aren’t so misled. After
set bouncing around will collide with other particles in the all, time is money.
plane and pretty soon the box is going to be full of particles
whizzing every which way. The original equilibrium—when
the particles were spread out over the plane—is disrupted Alan Moses is a third-year student in the Biophysics Graduate
and the system approaches a new equilibrium, where the Group at UC Berkeley.
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Quanta (heard on campus)
“If you’ve developed a theory of cosmology or of atomic physics that makes
sense, it’s probably wrong. I doubt that you could bring up a child in a way
so that it would feel comfortable with quantum mechanics. I think (the kid)
would be insane.”
“Physicists can read Jane Eyre and be moved to laughter and tears. An English professor
doesn’t feel that way about Maxwell’s equations—except maybe the tears.”
“Privatization misses the basic point of the dynamic of the world’s poorest people. Don’t send in the
World Bank and the IMF. Send in the epidemiologists, send in the agronomists.”
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The Back Page
Oakland resident and former Lawrence Berkeley Lab astronomer Clifford Stoll has a one-man company that specializes
in building Klein bottles. Acme Klein Bottles makes Klein wine bottles, Klein flasks to liven up the lab, and Klein steins
(perfect for that zero-volume beer). For those who prefer to wear their Klein bottles, Stoll has created a hand-
knitted Klein bottle hat.
Jane McGonigal
To learn more, visit Acme Klein Bottle’s website at http://www.kleinbottle.com.
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