c0nc0rdance Profile picture
Sep 5 6 tweets 3 min read
If I could put forward a single argument in favor of #evolution, it's this: It works.

Set the truth of it aside: it predicts how cancer responds to chemotherapy, it tells us how to find new genes, steer conservation efforts, and which genetic variations associate with disease.
No alternatives to evolution have this kind of utility: you can argue that "intelligent design" makes retroactive predictions, but evolution is the predictive algorithm that explains the specific mechanisms of change over time.

All of population genetics is built on it.
Ultimately, whether evolution is "true" or not, living systems behave as though it were completely accurate. It's the same type of predictive science that can tell us when eclipses happen, or what chemicals will form from reacting two compounds.

We *use* evolution.
My own work involves detecting the emergence of resistance in cancer in response to chemotherapy; previous work was on how viruses evolve in response to host immune systems. It's the shifting landscape of genetics: change in response to selection and drift.
Maybe you think this is "microevolution", but you doubt "macroevolution"... but on these scales, the process works with the same high precision.

Even if there's actually some supernatural mechanism at work, it's mimicking the natural process without exceptions.
In the end, I don't especially care if you accept evolution, or if it clashes with your religious dogma. Not teaching it means doctors that don't understand chemotherapy response, and conservationists that can't rescue species, and biologists denied access to useful algorithms.

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More from @c0nc0rdance

Sep 6
Let's talk about one of my favorite research questions:
How does HIV keep from mutating itself into oblivion?

Because it seems to be constantly teetering on the edge of genomic chaos, balancing between oblivion by mutation and moving at an evolutionary light speed. Image
Two really important facts about HIV:
1. It has the lowest accuracy of copying of any virus so far discovered. It makes an error as often as every 70 bases, compared to the human norm of every ~100,000 bases, or a viral median of every ~30,000 bases. Image
2. Only about 5% of the viral genomes found in patients on antiretroviral drugs are able to produce more virus. The other 95% are too damaged to replicate.
It's churning out defective copies with 5% success rate, at least in the presence of therapy.
pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn…
Read 12 tweets
Jun 1
Let's talk about Richard Dawkins' "Tyranny of the Discontinuous Mind".

He explains the concept here:
newstatesman.com/politics/2011/…

It's the very human tendency to reduce real complexity into ideal, discrete categories, then, over time, to believe that the categories ARE the reality.
At what age does a child become an adult?
What year did the Renaissance begin?
When does a fetus become a baby?
When was the first human born?
How many races are there?

We can formulate satisfying answers to all of these that ignore the continuous nature of underlying reality.
It's easy to forget that labels like "old" and "young", while they're conveniently simple, are REDUCTIVE. It's plainly obvious in some comparisons which of two categories to place people into, but it's when we attach greater significance to the idea of binaries that we err.
Read 9 tweets
Jun 1
"The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us - there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation as if distant memory.

We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries."
- Carl Sagan.
I wish for all of you the realization that we live in a time when it's possible to comprehend the vastness of space & time and our tiny place in a Cosmos in which our concerns are no more than a speck of dust in a rainbow. A pale blue dot.

There is meaning in this humility.
If you are seeking meaning in your place in the Cosmos: You are stardust. You are the Universe contemplating itself. You have the uniquely good fortune to be able to learn, grow, realize, seek.

Revel in your specialness. Seek understanding.
Read 5 tweets
May 25
Let's talk about the Dickey Amendment:
In 1993, CDC's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC) published a study in New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) showing gun ownership was positively correlated with homicide.

The NRA lobbied to get them eliminated.
They spent their dark money on Jay Dickey (R-AR) who sponsored a bill cutting the exact budget of the NCIPC from CDC's budget.

The message was clear to CDC: Congress wouldn't forbid research on firearms, but it would defund, permanently, any spending on firearm research
This led to an effective moratorium on firearms research that lasted 22 years (1996-2018). No federal agency: NIH, CDC or NSF would issue grants supporting research into anything related to firearm violence.

It was a taboo topic. Forbidden. 96% reduction in funding.
Read 5 tweets
May 24
The bumblebee of the microscopic world, Tetrahymena is a protozoan found swimming in lakes, streams.

It has 7 different sexes that can mate in 21 different combos.

Research on it resulted in two Nobel prizes: the discovery of telomere function & catalytic RNA (ribozymes).
They're covered with a network of cilia that beat to swim after bacterial prey, making them an excellent model for how cellular motors & microtubules work.

They're capable of "learning": when cultured in a drop of water, they emulate the same swim pattern in other vessels.
They have two nuclei (micro- and macronuclei), and only the micronuclei is germline. This partitioning of genetic material essentially creates a 'backup' (micro) and 'active' set of genetic material.
Read 5 tweets
May 21
Let's talk about belly buttons & why some people have 'innies' while others have 'outies' & some people have NO belly button (hint: because reptiloids are hatched!).

It has nothing to do with where the obstetrician cuts the cord.
Your umbilicus (navel) is essentially your 1st scar: it's the location of an opening in your abdomen for the umbilical cord to connect fetus to placenta. Within 2-4 weeks after birth, remaining cord tissue dries up & fall off, leaving the underlying tissue (umbilicus) as a scar.
So why do some people have "outies"? In 20% of births, theres a minor umbilical herniation: a bit of intestine protrudes just under the scar through the weak point in the abdominal wall. In 90% of cases, this resolves by the time the child turns 5.
Read 7 tweets

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