Science in DARWIN'S RADIO
Greg Bear
Check out the informed debate on my website at gregbear.com. Also check out
Lynn Caporale's conference summary on Amazon.com for her collection of
scientific papers, "MOLECULAR STRATEGIES IN BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION."
Participants in this 1998 conference echoed, without my being aware of it
(and while the book was being written), a substantial number of the
conclusions drawn in DARWIN'S RADIO. (Lynn Caporale is a highly regarded
molecular biologist and evolutionary theorist.) DARWIN'S RADIO was given an
extremely favorable review in the Mar 2 2000 issue of NATURE, and since its
publication in Spring of 1999, there have been literally dozens of articles
in science journals on the role of HERV (human endogenous retroviruses) in
human evolution (viral genes from ancient HERV are used to help implant
human embryos in the womb, for example--something that emerged after
publication of the novel).
A major scientific publisher in Germany is issuing its first novel
soon--DARWIN'S RADIO. We're working to get the scientific translations just
right.
Right now, one of the film industry's best screenwriter/directors has teamed
up with an Oscar-award-winning actress to take the novel around Hollywood.
Details if anything happens--this sort of stuff falls apart all the time!
But there's been a buzz of film interest in DARWIN'S RADIO since a year
before it was written, believe it or not.
A major market for the novel has been biologists and evolutionary theorists,
who are reading it with keen interest and reviewing it and sending me their
papers and emails on related topics. Don't just stick with the old tried and
true experts; the theories outlined in DARWIN'S RADIO have provoked (or
echo) substantial research that has yet to make it to the popular media
stage, but which is changing the way we think about evolution. In short,
friends, experts are reading and enjoying the book, and the underlying
theory of DNA neural net activity underlying evolutionary choices is not
only interesting--it looks stronger and stronger every day.
Don't take my word for it--I'm obviously biased. But search on HERV on the
web in NEW SCIENTIST and SCIENCE and NATURE and check out the abstracts.
Pretty wonderful stuff going on.
Please feel free to ask more questions or bitch at me directly through my
website. I answer all email sent through the website.
Best wishes!
Greg Bear
Ian A. York
Greg Bear <grb...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>molecular biologist and evolutionary theorist.) DARWIN'S RADIO was given an
>extremely favorable review in the Mar 2 2000 issue of NATURE, and since its
To be fair, the review was positive, but the reviewer's comments on the
actual science were not particularly enthusiastic:
"One of Bear's wilder speculations is about the rapidity and directedness
of evolutionary change. Mobile elements "hopping around like bugs on a hot
griddle" can surely produce genetic change, but the likelihood of
beneficial genetic change would be nil. ... Darwin's Radio, no matter how
preposterous or prophetic one thinks the science, is superb 'hard' science
fiction, speculating about the connections among well-known facts."
>Don't take my word for it--I'm obviously biased. But search on HERV on the
>web in NEW SCIENTIST and SCIENCE and NATURE and check out the abstracts.
Personally, I don't bother with New Scientist, a credulous,
non-peer-reviewed magazine written by journalists rather than scientists,
which is routinely filled with wild-eyed speculation and misunderstood,
rehashed, misinterpreted hyperbole.
Searching pubmed for "HERV" in "Nature[Journal Name] OR Science[Journal
Name]" yields 1 (one) research article. I haven't read Darwin's Radio,
but the commentary on the article includes words like "niche functions"
and "minor evolutionary benefits", which doesn't seem to fit with the
rather more sweeping suggestions I've picked up on. (To be fair again,
the article itself does mention speculation that "an ancient retroviral
infection may have been a pivotal event in mammalian evolution"; to be
even more fair, they mention this speculation and add that their
observation argues as much against it as for it.)
Ian
--
Ian York (iay...@panix.com) <http://www.panix.com/~iayork/>
"-but as he was a York, I am rather inclined to suppose him a
very respectable Man." -Jane Austen, The History of England
Greg Bear
better results. As for the quoted section of the review in NATURE, here is
the next paragraph, which Ian left out:
"But there is some basis for speculating that something other than a grossly
random mess would result from a massive mobilization of transposable
elements. First, preferred sites of integration can occur, and might ensure
that a majority of elements land where they will do little harm. There is
evidence that some repetitive-sequence elements in the human genome harbour
specific regulatory elements, like retinoic-acid response elements, which
respond to developmental signals. Thus, it is possible that simple insertion
of a retroviral element in the vicinity of a gene could result in an
alteration in the timing or positioning of its expression in early
development. The result could be a different, yet perfectly viable,
organism."
What Michael Goldman is doing in the review is setting up my suppositions,
critiquing them by giving the current thinking on their possibility, and
then opening the way for other scientists to think further by providing
newer, more supportive details. Sure, he's being critical, science is not a
gushing game of promotion.
But you'll be hard pressed to find a better review of speculative science in
the scientific literature.
Ian, check out Lynn Caporale's book and get back to me. (Well, in a
library--it costs $125...) The summary on Amazon.com is well worth reading
by itself.
Greg
"Ian A. York" <iay...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:8rnv5k$c5l$1...@news.panix.com...
Greg Bear
Greg Bear
Joe Slater
>There is evidence that
>it is possible that
>could result in
>The result could be
[...]
jds
"We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and
I are going to spend rest of our lives. And remember, my friends...
Future events such as these... will affect you, in the future."
- Jerome King Criswell, _Plan 9 From Outer Space_
Ian A. York
Greg Bear <grb...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>Ian should search the online databases of the journals themselves; he'll get
>better results.
No, he won't, and neither will anyone else. Have you tried this yourself,
or are you just taking someone's word for it? The most you can do is
catch the same article twice (because of a news and views review of the
article), and you might catch articles on the risk of porcine endogenous
retroviruses in xenotransplants. Real articles remain, in spite of your
hype, at one (1).
I have nothing against the book, or against you hyping yourself, but I
always like a little reality mixed in with my hype. (And yes, I know you
have nowhere said that there's more than one article in Science or Nature,
but you've certainly heavily implied it with your protest here; weaselling
out of it would be even more annoying.)
Lucy Kemnitzer
so just don't even read this if you're handicapped by them.
On Sat, 07 Oct 2000 19:19:45 GMT, "Greg Bear"
<grb...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>Dear friends--
>
>Check out the informed debate on my website at gregbear.com.
I'll actually be doing this, but the funny thing for me is that
this _wasn't_ the part of the book that drove it: it was more or
less cargo, that's all, I am sort of interested in genetics and
evolution, but the most technical parts didn't seem to matter as
much to me as the attitude of a couple of scientists -- I liked
(oops I have a bad memory for names) the CDC guy, the field guy I
mean, quite a lot: the archeologist I was a little irritated with
at first because I grew up around anthros and archies who were on
the other side of that argument about who owns the bones: but he
grew on me, and the rapprochement between him and the Indians in
the later part of the book was delightful, and (I really wish I
had a memory for names) the protagonist biologist mommy was really
fine.
I didn't like, at all, the mechanism to account for evolutionary
leaps: but this ought to satisfy the author -- I'm still arguing
at it in my head at odd moments months later. I wanted there to
be nothing in the book I disagreed with, because I liked the book
a lot: but them's the breaks. Also I thought the social
ramifications would have been different -- but I would have to get
the book in hand and go page by page, because some of the things I
thought were right on and some I thought were wildly off, and
that's odd to find in one place, usually if it's wildly off it's
never right on.
Anyway, I'm glad to know there's all this interest in the book,
because it's fun.
Lucy Kemnitzer
Greg Bear
Greg
> In article <lHKD5.25940$TP6.7...@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net>,
Greg Bear
better results.
As for the section Ian quoted from the review in NATURE, here is
the next paragraph, which he inexplicably left out:
(I'll put them together, to give you an idea of the reviewer's
point-counterpoint style:)
> "One of Bear's wilder speculations is about the rapidity and directedness
> of evolutionary change. Mobile elements "hopping around like bugs on a hot
> griddle" can surely produce genetic change, but the likelihood of
> beneficial genetic change would be nil. ...
"But there is some basis for speculating that something other than a grossly
random mess would result from a massive mobilization of transposable
elements. First, preferred sites of integration can occur, and might ensure
that a majority of elements land where they will do little harm. There is
evidence that some repetitive-sequence elements in the human genome harbour
specific regulatory elements, like retinoic-acid response elements, which
respond to developmental signals. Thus, it is possible that simple insertion
of a retroviral element in the vicinity of a gene could result in an
alteration in the timing or positioning of its expression in early
development. The result could be a different, yet perfectly viable,
organism."
What Michael Goldman is doing in the review is setting up my suppositions,
critiquing them by giving the current thinking on their likelihood, and
then rather subversively opening the way for other scientists to think
further by providing
newer, more supportive details. Sure, he's being critical, science is not a
gushing game of promotion. And no novelist can claim to be doing real
science; the scientists do the heavy lifting.
But you'll be hard pressed to find a better review of a speculative science
novel in
the scientific literature. Also, I recommend my novel as a good entry-level
description of the coming revolution in evolutionary biology and genetics.
NEW SCIENTIST is a much better magazine than that--journalism, to be sure,
but great fun, read by a great many working scientists, and meant to provoke
thought. (DARWIN'S RADIO got a good review there, as well--and I hear it's
about to be reviewed in the online biology journal H.M.S. Beagle.)
Ian, for real details and debate, check out Lynn Caporale's book and get
back to me. (Well, in a
library--it costs $125...) The summary on Amazon.com is well worth reading
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/detail/-/books/1573311928/excerp
t/ref=pm_dp_ln_b_3/102-5172024-6608940
by itself.
A quick search on Google.com nets me a bibliography from Science News citing
all the scientific literature for a piece they did on HERV.
Here it is:
References & Sources Week of May 13, 2000; Vol. 157, No. 20
Placental Puzzle
Do captured viral genes make human pregnancies possible?
References:
Blond, J.-L. . . . F. Mallet, et al. 2000. An envelope glycoprotein of the
human endogenous retrovirus HERV-W is expressed in the human placenta and
fuses cells expressing the type D mammalian retrovirus receptor. Journal of
Virology 74(April):3321.
de Parseval, N., and T. Heidmann. 1998. Physiological knockout of the
envelope gene of the single-copy ERV-3 human endogenous retrovirus in a
fraction of the Caucasian population. Journal of Virology 72(April):3442.
Lin, L., B. Xu., and N.S. Rote. 1999. Expression of endogenous retrovirus
ERV-3 induces differentiation in BeWo, a choriocarcinoma model of human
placental trophoblast. Placenta 20(January):109.
Mi, S. . . . J.C. Keith Jr., et al. 2000. Syncytin is a captive retroviral
envelope protein involved in human placental morphogenesis. Nature 403(Feb.
17):785.
Further Readings:
Harris, J.R. 1998. Placental endogenous retrovirus (ERV): Structural,
functional, and evolutionary significance. BioEssays 20:307.
Travis, J. 1998. Do HIV-infected blobs run amok in AIDS? Science News
154(Dec. 19&26):391.
Villarreal, L.P. The viruses that make us: A role for endogenous retrovirus
in the evolution of placental species. Available at
http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/~faculty/villarreal/new1/host-virus.html.
Wu, C. 1995. Viral legacy may make pregnancy possible. Science News
148(Sept. 2):151.
Additional information about the placenta can be found at Harvey J. Kliman's
Web page at http://info.med.yale.edu/obgyn/kliman/Placenta/behind.html.
Sources:
Nathalie de Parseval
Unité des Rétrovirus Endogènes et Eléments Retroïdes des Eucaryotes
Supérieurs
CNRS UMR 1573
Institute Gustave Roussy
94805 Villejuif Cedex
France
Thierry Heidmann
Unité des Rétrovirus Endogènes et Eléments Retroïdes des Eucaryotes
Supérieurs
CNRS UMR 1573
Institute Gustave Roussy
94805 Villejuif Cedex
France
James C. Keith Jr.
Genetics Institute, Inc.
87 Cambridge Park Drive
Cambridge, MA 02140
Harvey J. Kliman
Reproductive and Placental Research Unit
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology
Yale University School of Medicine
333 Cedar Street
New Haven, CT 06520-8063
François Mallet
Unité Mixte 103 CNRS-bioMérieux
Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon
46 Allée d'Italie
69364 Lyon Cedex 07
France
John M. McCoy
Biogen, Inc.
14 Cambridge Center
Cambridge, MA 02142
Neal S. Rote
Department of Microbiology and Immunology
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology
Wright State University School of Medicine
Dayton, OH 45435
And there are a lot of other sources as well. So--try Google if all else
fails.
Best to all!
eol
>In article <lHKD5.25940$TP6.7...@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net>,
>Greg Bear <grb...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>>
>>molecular biologist and evolutionary theorist.) DARWIN'S RADIO was given an
>>extremely favorable review in the Mar 2 2000 issue of NATURE, and since its
>
>To be fair, the review was positive, but the reviewer's comments on the
>actual science were not particularly enthusiastic:
>
>"One of Bear's wilder speculations is about the rapidity and directedness
>of evolutionary change. Mobile elements "hopping around like bugs on a hot
>griddle" can surely produce genetic change, but the likelihood of
>beneficial genetic change would be nil. ... Darwin's Radio, no matter how
>preposterous or prophetic one thinks the science, is superb 'hard' science
>fiction, speculating about the connections among well-known facts."
>
>>Don't take my word for it--I'm obviously biased. But search on HERV on the
>>web in NEW SCIENTIST and SCIENCE and NATURE and check out the abstracts.
>
>Personally, I don't bother with New Scientist, a credulous,
>non-peer-reviewed magazine written by journalists rather than scientists,
>which is routinely filled with wild-eyed speculation and misunderstood,
>rehashed, misinterpreted hyperbole.
This is why it is unwise to try to reason with anyone on the internet.
Hell, when you dislike reality, 'just dont bother' with it. Then
assert the people writing the articles in the scientific journals have
no idea of what they are talking about. ANYONE who disagrees with him,
will be filled with "wild-eyed speculation and misunderstood,
rehashed, misinterpreted hyperbole." Ian doesn't require proof.
He requires unquestioning agreement.
Deann Allen
> for her collection of scientific papers, "MOLECULAR STRATEGIES
> IN BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION." Participants in this 1998 conference
> echoed, without my being aware of it (and while the book was
> being written), a substantial number of the conclusions drawn
> biologist and evolutionary theorist.) [snip]
Mr. Bear,
By an interesting coincidence(?), I am acquainted with a woman
named Kay Lang, who is a molecular biologist. She expressed her
intent to have you sign her copy of _Darwin's Radio_ at World Con.
D.
--
"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
-- Eleanor Roosevelt
-----------------------------------------
Greg Bear
Look forward to meeting her! Thanks--
Greg
"Deann Allen" <dal...@pcisys.net> wrote in message
news:39E05BE3...@pcisys.net...
Ian A. York
eol <****@****.***> wrote:
>On 7 Oct 2000 19:56:36 GMT, iay...@panix.com (Ian A. York) wrote:
>
>>Personally, I don't bother with New Scientist, a credulous,
>>non-peer-reviewed magazine written by journalists rather than scientists,
>>which is routinely filled with wild-eyed speculation and misunderstood,
>>rehashed, misinterpreted hyperbole.
>
>This is why it is unwise to try to reason with anyone on the internet.
>Hell, when you dislike reality, 'just dont bother' with it. Then
>assert the people writing the articles in the scientific journals have
New Scientist isn't a science journal; it's a magazine. And--I have no
interest in arguing about this; quite apart from anything else, my son
arrived last night at 6 pm--if you think the journalists who write for New
Scientist know more about virology than I do, that doesn't bother me at
all.
Greg Bear
A reader on this group invited me to come in and view the postings on
DARWIN'S RADIO. I saw some questions regarding whether or not the science
was sound, and decided to give a synopsis of the scientific reactions and
research that went into the book.
Now Ian York has kicked up some dust, for reasons that are not clear to me,
except that he is obviously a stickler for details and accuracy. So here is
another boring posting on this matter, the last, I hope.
Besides the listing from the SCIENCE NEWS article, posted previously, here
are more citations, and the list from NATURE that Ian demanded I post.
There's a terrific web page on HERV at
http://www.mmb.lu.se/jonas/herv/herv.html
which will tell you more than you want to know. (Searching Human Endogenous
Retroviruses on Google actually brought in quite a few sites, but this may
be the best).
Since Ian decided to pose this as a challenge, and since I am ever loath to
be thought a sniveler, I did a search on Human Endogenous Retrovirus on the
NATURE site and came across the following (the first, to be fair, is the
review of DARWIN'S RADIO, but there are two others of interest):
I do not exclude articles on other endogenous retroviruses, including
porcine, because the controversy about them is also interesting. But if Ian
wishes to exclude all the pieces I had hoped the newsgroup members might
find interesting, and pin me down to absolute specifics, and win a rather
petty little argument rather than learning something interesting, I will
concede that there is indeed only one article on Human Endogenous
Retroviruses in NATURE that is must-read material.
Ian may now once again dismiss that article, and that research, as
tentative, uninteresting, and irrelevant.
In NATURE:
1. Evolution rising from the grave
Michael A. Goldman;
Nature Volume 404 Number 6773 Page 15 - 16 (2000)
Reactivation of a dormant message signals the dawn of a new humanity. ......
Full Text | PDF
2. Reproductive biology: A provirus put to work
Jonathan P. Stoye; John M Coffin;
Nature Volume 403 Number 6771 Page 715 - 717 (2000)
Retroviruses incorporate themselves into a host genome in the form of a
provirus, and can be pass......
Full Text | PDF
3. Syncytin is a captive retroviral envelope protein involved in human
placental morphogenesis
Sha Mi; Xinhua Lee; Xiang-ping Li; Geertruida M. Veldman; Heather Finnerty;
Lisa Racie; Edward LaVal
Nature Volume 403 Number 6771 Page 785 - 789 (2000)
Many mammalian viruses have acquired genes from their hosts during their
evolution. The rationale......
Abstract | Full Text | PDF
4. Undermethylation associated with retroelement activation and chromosome
remodelling in an interspecific mammalian hybrid
Rachel J. Waugh O'Neill; Michael J. O'Neill; Jennifer A. Marshall Graves;
Nature Volume 393 Number 6680 Page 68 - 72 (1998)
Genetic models, predict that genomic rearrangement in hybrids can facilitate
reproductive isolati......
Abstract | Full Text | PDF
The syncytin article (#3 and synopsis in #2) is quite fascinating, and it's
the one that's gotten a lot of coverage recently.
To be sure, when I was writing the book, my first impulse was to make up an
ancient retrovirus buried in our genome; I was astonished to discover they
actually exist, that some of them are more than 30,000,000 years old, and
now--post-pub on my novel--that they may actually contribute to human
pregnancy.
DARWIN'S RADIO mentions that HERV come out in huge numbers in the placenta
and other tissues during pregnancy, which is true, and then gives an as-yet
undiscovered infectious HERV called SHEVA a role in spurring human
evolution; but is that any more amazing than the possibility that a viral
gene assists us in getting born? I don't think so, actually.
NATURE, JOURNAL OF VIROLOGY, CELL, SCIENCE, NATURE MOLECULAR BIOLOGY,
SCIENCE NEWS, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, SMITHSONIAN, and the aforementioned and
excoriated NEW SCIENTIST all have recently carried articles of interest
about HERV, phages, and other fascinating new viral and retroviral bits
dealt with in DARWIN'S RADIO.
I had no intention of burdening everyone on the group with a hundred more
citations. (There's also a huge Cold Spring Harbor text book on RETROVIRUSES
edited by Varmus et. al that has an extensive section on HERV.)
I'm perfectly aware my book is a novel. It's a novel that attempts to
describe an astonishing scientific revolution, one that is changing the way
we think about biology, evolution, and human nature. My main goal in writing
the book was to point out to curious people that there is a lot of
scientific reading well worth their time.
My challenge to Ian York is to now prove to this group (if anyone is still
interested, which I doubt) that the main point of my posting was wrong.
I did not go into immense detail on my initial posting, but Ian, do you
actually contend that there is no interest in HERV in the current scientific
literature, nothing of interest regarding HERV or ERV in general in NATURE
and SCIENCE, and that there are no citations on HERV (or Human Endogenous
Retrovirus) available to someone generally skilled in searching the Internet
?
And no reason for anyone to be interested in ancient viruses buried in their
genes, that they will pass on to their children, and that may be necessary
for our very existence?
No reason to be interested in ancient diseases that help us get born?
No reason to wonder how it is that humans have co-opted ancient viral genes,
in ways that other mammals have not?
Thanks, Ian, for giving me a chance to hype my book some more and spread the
word about the revolution some more.
Now enough. I have more reading and research to get done.
Sincerely,
Greg Bear
(that's Bear, not weasel)
Ian A. York <iay...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:8roc4t$f5s$1...@news.panix.com...
> In article <C5MD5.40064$cV2.3...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net>,
> Greg Bear <grb...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> >Ian should search the online databases of the journals themselves; he'll
get
> >better results.
>
> No, he won't, and neither will anyone else. Have you tried this yourself,
> or are you just taking someone's word for it? The most you can do is
> catch the same article twice (because of a news and views review of the
> article), and you might catch articles on the risk of porcine endogenous
> retroviruses in xenotransplants. Real articles remain, in spite of your
> hype, at one (1).
>
> I have nothing against the book, or against you hyping yourself, but I
> always like a little reality mixed in with my hype. (And yes, I know you
> have nowhere said that there's more than one article in Science or Nature,
> but you've certainly heavily implied it with your protest here; weaselling
> out of it would be even more annoying.)
>
Ron Henry
>Now Ian York has kicked up some dust, for reasons that are not clear to me,
>except that he is obviously a stickler for details and accuracy. So here is
>another boring posting on this matter, the last, I hope.
I think a lot of us enjoyed the insight in your posting to Usenet -- but be
forewarned there are *always* going to be some folks who will kick up dust
just to hear themselves hack. A couple people were browbeating Wil McCarthy a
couple weeks ago about his physics, if that's any consolation.
--
Ron Henry ronh...@clarityconnect.com
http://people2.clarityconnect.com/webpages6/ronhenry/
Steinn Sigurdsson
> In article <C5MD5.40064$cV2.3...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net>,
> Greg Bear <grb...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> >Ian should search the online databases of the journals themselves; he'll get
> >better results.
> No, he won't, and neither will anyone else. Have you tried this yourself,
> or are you just taking someone's word for it? The most you can do is
> catch the same article twice (because of a news and views review of the
> article), and you might catch articles on the risk of porcine endogenous
> retroviruses in xenotransplants. Real articles remain, in spite of your
> hype, at one (1).
You just tried "Nature" not "Nature X"?
There seem to be 4 articles in Nature Genetics/Structural biology etc
and another few in Science and its affiliates,
so maybe 10 or so total in just those.
MEDLINE shows a lot of papers, far more than I care to
followup on.
Ian A. York
Steinn Sigurdsson <ste...@najma.astro.psu.edu> wrote:
>
>You just tried "Nature" not "Nature X"?
>There seem to be 4 articles in Nature Genetics/Structural biology etc
>and another few in Science and its affiliates,
>so maybe 10 or so total in just those.
There are NONE in science. Don't just use the abbreviation "HREV" or
"ERV", look to see what it's talking about; HERV is an abbreviation for
more than one thing.
For example, searching Science for "HERV" will find articles authored by
Herve Phillippe, etc. I suspect that's what Bear is seeing in his
searches, because other than various "Herve"s there are no, repeat NO,
peer-reviewed articles on HERVs in Science.
There is ONE in Nature, plus (as I said) commentary on the article, plus
(as I also said) some irrelevant articles on PERV in xenotransplants (as
there are in Science). The companion journals to Nature catches one other
article I missed, in Nature Genetics 1999. I have subscriptions to
Science and Nature, but not Nature Genetics, so I don't know if that's
actually relevant.
There is also, in Science, a commentary on the Nature article; it's
possible that Bear is counting the one article three times.
It's not something I give a damn about, but it's bugging me that people
can't actually understand what they're seeing. I'd like to think that
Bear actually does understand how to do a keyword search--it should
involve more than parroting buzzwords; it certainly isn't reassuring me
that his science is actually accurate.
And yes, sure there are articles in other journals. I didn't argue
that; I've been reading about ERVs for nearly twenty years, it doesn't
come as a surprise to me.
Bear seems to be surprised that I'm a "stickler for details and accuracy".
Oddly, he seems to consider that a defect in a scientist; I take it as a
compliment, rather than the insult he seems to consider it. Of course, in
marketing, it probably is an insult.
I'm now killfiling this thread; I don't need more aggravation.
Louann Miller
>Steinn Sigurdsson <ste...@najma.astro.psu.edu> wrote:
>>You just tried "Nature" not "Nature X"?
>>There seem to be 4 articles in Nature Genetics/Structural biology etc
>>and another few in Science and its affiliates,
>>so maybe 10 or so total in just those.
>It's not something I give a damn about, but it's bugging me that people
>can't actually understand what they're seeing. I'd like to think that
>Bear actually does understand how to do a keyword search--it should
>involve more than parroting buzzwords; it certainly isn't reassuring me
>that his science is actually accurate.
Ironically, it didn't _bother_ me that the science wasn't accurate in
"Darwin's Radio" until this thread started. I just took "assume
evolution works by X, Y, and Z" as the starting conditions for the
sake of the story. But once Bear started popping up in person to
defend his material as the clear quill, it got a bit weird.
Like "Cradle of Saturn" (not implying DR isn't by far the better
book). If you just take the V*l*k*vsky stuff as the peculiar
conditions of the universe, it's no harder to take on scientific
grounds than plenty of other books. It's the disquieting sense that
Hogan _believes_ the stuff that pushes all the weirdness buttons.
Louann
phil hunt
>Ian should search the online databases of the journals themselves; he'll get
>better results.
URLs?
--
*****[ Phil Hunt ]*****
"An unforseen issue has arisen with your computer. Don't worry your
silly little head about what has gone wrong; here's a pretty animation
of a paperclip to look at instead." -- Windows2007 error message
Christopher K Davis
> Like "Cradle of Saturn" (not implying DR isn't by far the better
> book). If you just take the V*l*k*vsky stuff as the peculiar
> conditions of the universe, it's no harder to take on scientific
> grounds than plenty of other books. It's the disquieting sense that
> Hogan _believes_ the stuff that pushes all the weirdness buttons.
No, no, no, you want weirdness buttons?
Read the Baen reissue of Hogan's _Minds, Machines and Evolution_. You
get the work of the supremely rationalist 1980s Hogan, followed by 1990s
Hogan writing afterwords disavowing it all.
So you get "The Revealed Word of God", which points out the lack of
falsifiability in "scientific creationism" and the amount of evidence
for evolution, followed by an afterword saying that he'd thought about
dropping the essay and containing lines like:
"[...] I was now a lot less persuaded by the orthodox theory [...] I had
reached the conclusion that evolution didn't take place gradually [...]
natural selection wasn't adequate to explain it. Also, I thought the
creationists had some good evidence to present for the notion of the
Earth being a lot younger than conventionally thought--although not the
6,000 years that Biblical literalists insist on."
He cites Denton's _Evolution: A Theory in Crisis_ as having started him
rethinking the subject. I vaguely remember seeing it discussed here,
but can't find the discussion on the neutered Deja; there are several
rebuttals to Denton on the web, though.
The V-- bit comes in in the afterword to "Earth Models--On a Plate":
"[...] it's eye-opening to go through the accumulating findings from
space missions and recent work in all kinds of areas of science, and
see how much is consistent with V--'s claims while flatly contradicting
the assertions of the experts who maligned him. Certain astronomers,
for example, have concluded that none of the inner planets could have
formed according to the traditional accretion or tidal models." Said
astronomers remain conveniently un-named by Hogan.
For additional fun, see his _Rockets, Redheads & Revolution_. He takes
on the HIV-AIDS connection, the ozone layer, and more....
--
Christopher Davis * <ckd...@ckdhr.com> * <URL:http://www.ckdhr.com/ckd/>
Put location information in your DNS! <URL:http://www.ckdhr.com/dns-loc/>
Thomas Bagwell
> Like "Cradle of Saturn" (not implying DR isn't by far the better
> book). If you just take the V*l*k*vsky stuff as the peculiar
> conditions of the universe, it's no harder to take on scientific
> grounds than plenty of other books. It's the disquieting sense that
> Hogan _believes_ the stuff that pushes all the weirdness buttons.
You want to know something -really- scary? He does believe it, or at
least believes that Velikovsky was vastly underrated. Check out his
website and let him speak for himself...
James P. Hogan has a website at:
http://www.global.org/jphogan/index.html
Tom B.
James Teo
>>You just tried "Nature" not "Nature X"?
>>There seem to be 4 articles in Nature Genetics/Structural biology etc
>>and another few in Science and its affiliates,
>>so maybe 10 or so total in just those.
>
>"ERV", look to see what it's talking about; HERV is an abbreviation for
>more than one thing.
>
>For example, searching Science for "HERV" will find articles authored by
>Herve Phillippe, etc. I suspect that's what Bear is seeing in his
>searches, because other than various "Herve"s there are no, repeat NO,
>peer-reviewed articles on HERVs in Science.
I couldn't find any in Science either on Pubmed, but I have known the
databases to be capricious with articles. It would sometimes refuse to
acknowledge the existence of an article which has the keywords in the
title, unless I specifically request it. The medline you get on CD is
more reliable usually but they're not up-to-date.
>There is ONE in Nature, plus (as I said) commentary on the article, plus
>(as I also said) some irrelevant articles on PERV in xenotransplants (as
>there are in Science). The companion journals to Nature catches one other
>article I missed, in Nature Genetics 1999. I have subscriptions to
>Science and Nature, but not Nature Genetics, so I don't know if that's
>actually relevant.
I expect actually any discussion on ERVs would probably lie in the
companion journals since any such discussion is still mainly of
specialist interest. If you read the Nature news section sometime last
year, you will notice an article announcing that recently more papers
are submitted to Nature Genetics than to Nature for peer-review, and
it is steadily rising as well. The companion journals are overtaking
Nature as a scientist's essential reading. Most scientists' nowadays
read their specialist journals and only refer to the flagship journal
Nature when they need to.
>There is also, in Science, a commentary on the Nature article; it's
>possible that Bear is counting the one article three times.
>And yes, sure there are articles in other journals. I didn't argue
>that; I've been reading about ERVs for nearly twenty years, it doesn't
>come as a surprise to me.
So why are we discussing it? If you know that ERVs exist in other
journals then how important is a discussion on the presence of HERV
articles in Science or Nature?
Sure, Greg could be lying about his search results
Sure, Greg could be lying about Nature and Science articles re: HERVs
Sure, Greg could be plain stupid about using keyword searches
But he is still right that HERVs are a widely acknowledged entity
amongst evolutionary theorists since you do say it exists in other
journals. And he *did* give a reference to Lynn Caporale's review on
the subject. He *did* give references to articles he found on the
Nature website.
Greg tried to integrate current scientific debate into his novel,
which as far as I am concerned a worthy effort in any science fiction
novel.
>It's not something I give a damn about, but it's bugging me that people
>can't actually understand what they're seeing. I'd like to think that
>Bear actually does understand how to do a keyword search--it should
>involve more than parroting buzzwords; it certainly isn't reassuring me
>that his science is actually accurate.
>
>Bear seems to be surprised that I'm a "stickler for details and accuracy".
>Oddly, he seems to consider that a defect in a scientist; I take it as a
>compliment, rather than the insult he seems to consider it. Of course, in
>marketing, it probably is an insult.
Well it isn't an insult if what you're discussing is science, but
you're discussing science-fiction, so I would give him some leeway.
I think it is well established that Greg has already stretched the
science with single-generation beneficial mutations, but that's
science-fiction, else it would just be fiction with science in it.
But what would you know, you did say you haven't read Darwin's Radio.
Pete McCutchen
wrote:
>>Bear seems to be surprised that I'm a "stickler for details and accuracy".
>>Oddly, he seems to consider that a defect in a scientist; I take it as a
>>compliment, rather than the insult he seems to consider it. Of course, in
>>marketing, it probably is an insult.
>
>Well it isn't an insult if what you're discussing is science, but
>you're discussing science-fiction, so I would give him some leeway.
>I think it is well established that Greg has already stretched the
>science with single-generation beneficial mutations, but that's
>science-fiction, else it would just be fiction with science in it.
I agree with that. Indeed, while there may well be hard sf novels
where the hardness is "part of the fun," when the rubber hits the
road, I don't really care whether the science is a bit off, so long as
it's not so bad as to jerk me out of the novel. Most science in
science fiction is, to a greater or lesser degree, inaccurate. So
what?
--
Pete McCutchen