The video interviews we conducted at the Future of Science Conference in Venice, Italy are now available on the Tech Museum’s Understanding Genetics site and on iTunes as a video podcast. We discussed issues surrounding human evolution and genetics with Peter Atkins, Daniel Dennett, Marc Hauser, and Ian Tattersall.
Along with traveling to Venice, one the great pleasures of this project was preparing for the interviews. All four of these scientists are accomplished authors and I can enthusiastically recommend the following books…

Galileo’s Finger by Peter Atkins provides an introduction to the “Ten Great Ideas in Science.” (Galileo’s actual finger is at the Institute and Museum of the History of Science in Florence.) Daniel Dennett’s controversial book Breaking the Spell looks at religion as a social phenomenon. While Marc Hauser’s latest book, Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong explores the concept that we all have an innate sense of right and wrong. Finally, Becoming Human: Evolution and Human Uniqueness by Ian Tattersall explores the story of own unique development as a species.

(You can learn more about Ideum’s work with the Tech Museum in the Genetics category of the Ideum portfolio.)

We’re scheduled to interview Ian Tattersall and Daniel Dennett later this afternoon! (All of these interviews will be available in coming weeks on The Tech Museum of Innovation’s Understanding Genetics website.)

As I mentioned in my last post, Ian Tattersall is the curator of anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. He’s also the author of several books. I’ve been reading Becoming Human: Evolution and Human Uniqueness, which is fascinating. Some of the subjects covered in the book he discussed in his presentation today, Patterns in human evolution and the human biological future, although, the aspects of human “future development” were new. As Tattersall presented this morning, with a large and mobile population there is no possibility for us as humans to evolve, “Change is indeed occurring today, at unprecedented rates; but it is doing so on the technological rather than on the biological level, involving our ongoing exploration of a biological capacity that already exists.”

I’m also looking forward to speaking with Daniel Dennett. His latest book, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon has created a great deal of controversy. Dennett is the Co-Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University and a Professor of Philosophy. I’m going to ask him about Breaking the Spell and about some of the issues surrounding evolution.

If you were wondering why we are focusing so much on evolution for site on genetics (and human health), there is a great quote by Theodosius Dobzhansky, “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.”

We’ve been following the Bush Administration’s alleged attempts to censor NASA scientists and research findings for the last couple of months. Today, we learn that NASA has unveiled new rules on the release of agency information. The Washington Post has an article, NASA Sets New Rules On Media. They state…

NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin unveiled new rules yesterday that govern the release of agency information to news media and the public, his most detailed response yet to embarrassing allegations that NASA’s public affairs office had sought to suppress the release of scientific information not consistent with the views of the Bush administration.

While the new rules seem like a welcomed clarification (or change?), it does seem like they want to have both ways. The Post reports…

It calls upon all NASA employees to coordinate with public affairs officials before releasing information “that has the potential to generate significant media, or public interest or inquiry.” Employees are also encouraged “to the maximal extent practicable” to have a public affairs officer present at media interviews “to attest to the content of the interview, support the interviewee, and provide post-interview follow-up with the media as necessary.”

We’ll have to wait and see how this plays out. You may want to read the New York Times article on the same topic to learn more, New NASA Policy Backs Free Discussion by Scientists.

If anyone doubts that their is a “War on Science” in the United States just read The Missing Link article from the Arkansas Times. A teacher at a “science education institution that serves several Arkansas public school districts” explained to the author of the article…

Teachers at his facility are forbidden to use the “e-word� (evolution) with the kids. They are permitted to use the word “adaptation� but only to refer to a current characteristic of an organism, not as a product of evolutionary change via natural selection. They cannot even use the term “natural selection.�

This teacher is also a geologist. He explains…

I am instructed NOT to use hard numbers when telling kids how old rocks are. I am supposed to say that these rocks are VERY VERY OLD … but I am NOT to say that these rocks are thought to be about 300 million years old.â€?

It’s not just happening in Arkansas. This type of thinking (rejecting science for whatever reason) is alive and well in the MSM. Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” George Will gave us a bizarre “science lesson” on Global Warming. Crooks and Liars has the video. Update: Perhaps George Will should read Why global warming is not natural in the Sunday Times.

Last night 60 Minutes aired a piece entitled, “ReWriting the Science” about NASA scientist Jim Hansen and the efforts of the Bush administration to silence him. I posted about this story back in January and February with links to articles in the New York Times and Washington Post. Ironically, all of the attention has helped Dr. Hansen get the word out that Climate Change is ‘real’ and that human activity is the likely culprit…

“There’s no doubt about that,” says Hansen. “The natural changes, the speed of the natural changes is now dwarfed by the changes that humans are making to the atmosphere and to the surface.”

Crooks and Liars has the video.