THE LIGHTER SIDE OF
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Kansas Outlaws Practice Of EvolutionThe Onion: "America's Finest News Source" ~ November 28, 2006
TOPEKA, KS—In response to a Nov. 7 referendum, Kansas lawmakers passed emergency legislation outlawing evolution, the highly controversial process responsible for the development and diversity of species and the continued survival of all life. "From now on, the streets, forests, plains, and rivers of Kansas will be safe from the godless practice of evolution, and species will be able to procreate without deviating from God's intended design," said Bob Bethell, a member of the state House of Representatives. "This is about protecting the integrity of all creation."The sweeping new law prohibits all living beings within state borders from being born with random genetic mutations that could make them better suited to evade predators, secure a mate, or, adapt to a changing environment. In addition, it bars any sexual reproduction, battles for survival, or instances of pure happenstance that might lead, after several generations, to a more well-adapted species or subspecies. Violators of the new law may face punishments that include jail time, stiff fines, and rehabilitative education and training to rid organisms suspected of evolutionary tendencies. Repeat offenders could face chemical sterilization.
To enforce the law, Kansas state police will be trained to investigate and apprehend organisms who exhibit suspected signs of evolutionary behavior, such as natural selection or speciation. Plans are underway to track and monitor DNA strands in every Kansan life form for even the slightest change in allele frequencies. "Barn swallows that develop lighter, more streamlined builds to enable faster migration, for example, could live out the rest of their brief lives in prison," said Indiana University chemist and pro-intelligent-design author Robert Hellenbaum, who helped compose the language of the law. "And butterflies who mimic the wing patterns and colors of other butterflies for an adaptive advantage, well, their days of flaunting God's will are over."
Human beings may be the species most deeply affected by the new legislation. Those whose cytochrome-c molecules vary less than 2 percent from those of chimpanzees will be in direct violation of the law. Under particular scrutiny are single-cell microorganisms, with thousands of field labs being installed across the state to ensure that these self-replicating molecules, notorious for mutation, do not do so in a fashion benefitting their long-term survival.
Anti-evolutionists such as Hellenbaum have long accused microorganisms of popularizing "an otherwise obscure, agonizingly slow, and hard-to-understand" biological process. "These repeat offenders are at the root of the problem," Hellenbaum said. "We have the fossil records to prove it." Although the full impact of the new law will likely not be felt for approximately 10 million years, most Kansans say they are relieved that the ban went into effect this week, claiming that evolution may have gone too far already.
"If Earth's species were meant to change over successive generations through physical modifications resulting from the adaptation to environmental challenges, then God would have given them the genetic predisposition to select mates and reproduce based on their favorable heritable traits and their ability to thrive under changing conditions so that these advantageous qualities would be passed down and eventually encoded into the DNA of each generation of offspring," Olathe public school teacher and creationist Joyce Eckhardt said. "It's just not natural."
Some warn that the strict wording of the law could have a deleterious effect on Kansas' mostly agricultural economy, since it also prohibits all forms of man-made artificial selection, such as plant hybridization, genetic engineering, and animal husbandry. A police raid on an alleged artificial-insemination facility outside McPherson, KS on Friday resulted in the arrest of a farmer, a veterinarian, four assistants, one bull, and several dozen cows. Agribusiness leaders, who rely on evolution science to genetically modify crops, have voiced concerns about doing business with Kansas farmers. "If Kansans want to ban evolution, that is their right, but they must understand that we rely on a certain flexibility in the natural order of things to be able to deliver healthy food products to millions of Americans," said Carl Casale, a vice president with the agricultural giant Monsanto. "We're not talking about playing God here. We are talking about succeeding in the competitive veggie-burger market."
© Copyright 2006, Onion, Inc. All rights reserved.
Teen repellent is Ig Nobel winner
BBC News ~ October 6, 2006
A device that repels teenagers has won the peace prize at this year's Ig Nobels - the spoof alternative to the rather more sober Nobel prizes. Welshman Howard Stapleton's device makes a high-pitched noise inaudible to adults but annoying to teenagers. Other winners included a US-Israeli study into how a finger up the rectum cures hiccups and a report into why woodpeckers do not get headaches. All the research is real and published in often prestigious journals.Unlike the recipients of the more illustrious awards, Ig Nobel winners get no cash reward. Nevertheless eight of the 10 winners this year paid their own way to receive their prizes in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Marc Abrahams, editor of science humour magazine Annals of Improbable Research, which co-sponsors the awards, said: "The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honour the imaginative - and spur people's interest in science, medicine and technology." The winners are given a one-minute acceptance speech, the time policed by a loud eight-year-old girl.
This year's winners included:
- Maths: How many photos must be taken to almost ensure no-one in a group shot has their eyes closed, by Nic Svenson and Piers Barnes
- Ornithology: Why woodpeckers do not get headaches, by Ivan Schwab and the late Philip RA May
- Nutrition: Why dung beetles are fussy eaters, by Wasmia al-Houty and Faten al-Mussalam
- Acoustics: Why the sound of fingernails scraping on blackboards is so annoying, by D Lynn Halpern, Randolph Blake and James Hillenbrand
- Medicine: The Termination of Intractable Hiccups with Digital Rectal Massage, by Francis Fesmire, Majed Odeh, Harry Bassan and Arie Oliven.
A RESEARCH PRIMER
#1) Research: The practice of reading three books that nobody has ever read before in order to write a fourth book that nobody will ever read.
#2) Steal from one – that’s plagiarism; Steal from many – that’s research!
#3) Even under the most rigid set of controlled conditions, the lab animal will do what it damn well pleases!
#4) Research Glossary [of Incompetence]: What is written… vs. [what is meant]
It has long been known that…
[I haven’t bothered to look up the original reference]A survey of the earlier literature…
[I even read through some of last year’s journals]Of great theoretical and practical importance…
[Interesting to me]While it has not been possible to provide definite answers to these questions…
[The experiments didn’t work out, but I figured I could at least get a publication out of it]We are excited by this finding…
[It looks publishable]The W-Pb system was chosen as especially suitable to show the predicted behaviour…
[The fellow in the lab next door had some already made up]High purity… Very high purity… Extremely high purity… Super-purity… Spectroscopically pure…
[Composition unknown except for the exaggerated claims of the supplier]A fiducial reference line…
[A scratch]Three of the samples were chosen for detailed study…
[The results on the others didn’t make sense and were ignored]Preliminary experiments have shown…
[We did it once but couldn’t repeat it]We have a tentative explanation…
[I picked this up in a bull session last night.]Accidentally strained during mounting…
[Dropped on the floor]Handled with extreme care throughout the experiments…
[Not dropped on the floor]Typical results are shown…
[The best results are shown]Although some detail has been lost in reproduction, it is clear from the original photograph that…
[It is impossible to tell from the photograph]A surprising finding…
[We barely had time to revise the abstract. Of course we fired the technician]Presumably at longer times…
[I didn’t take the time to find out]We didn’t carry out the long term study…
[We like to go home at 5 pm. What do you think we are, slaves?]The agreement with the predicted curve is excellent
[Fair]Good…
[Poor]Satisfactory…
[doubtful]Fair…
[Imaginary]As good as could be expected…
[Non-existent]These results will be reported at a later date…
[I might possibly get around to this sometime]The most reliable values are those of Jones…
[He was a student of mine…]It is suggested that… It is believed that… It may be that…
[I think]It is generally believed that…
[A couple of other guys think so too]It might be argued that…
[I have such a good answer to this objection that I shall now raise it]It is clear that much additional work will be required before a complete understanding…
[I don’t understand it]Unfortunately, a quantitative theory to account for these effects has not been formulated…
[Neither does anybody else]Correct to within an order of magnitude…
[Wrong]It is to be hoped that this work will stimulate further work in the field…
[This paper isn’t very good, but neither are any of the others in this miserable subject]Thanks are due to Joe Bloggs for assistance with the experiments and to John Doe for valuable discussions…
[Bloggs did the work and Doe explained what it meant]
