the Final...
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Paper paths
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The Big Ideas from the papers we’ve read
Big pictures
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How hemoglobin works
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How hemoglobin & opsin evolve to ‘do new things’
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How do we draw conclusions (experimentally, logically)
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Permission to conclude
What’s a ‘scientific argument’
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NOT: two people shouting at each other
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IS: an exchange of defensible positions, backed by
evidence & logic
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core claims/conclusions must be confronted using
evidence and logic
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The myth of ‘two sides’
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Just because there exists one data-backed point of view
doesn’t mean there is a valid, compelling alternate view
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Just because you found someone with an
underrepresented point of view doesn’t mean they have
something meaningful to say
Any problems with the
logic?
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All toasters are made of gold
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All items made of gold are time-travel devices
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Therefore all toasters are time travel devices
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http://people.umass.edu/klement/100/logic.html
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Duh—we’re at the center
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IF the Earth were moving at 67,000 miles/hour* around
the Sun, we’d feel it
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We don’t
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It must be the Sun that’s moving, not the Earth
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-fast-is-the-earthmov
Sometimes logical argument
matters… or used to
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Lincoln*: I state in syllogistic form the argument:
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Nothing in the Constitution . . . can destroy a right distinctly and
expressly affirmed in the Constitution.
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The right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in
the Constitution.
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Therefore, nothing in the Constitution can destroy the right of
property in a slave.
Lincoln, in refutation:
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“There is a fault [in the argument], but the fault is not in the
reasoning; but the falsehood in fact is a fault of the premises. I
believe that the right of property in a slave is not distinctly and
expressly affirmed in the Constitution.”
*5th Lincoln-Douglas
debate
http://highered.mcgrawhill.com/sites/dl/free/0073386677/610543/Moore9e_ch02.pdf
To argue fruitfully…
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We must agree on the PREMISES
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If you think the purpose of college is to make everyone
smarter/more thoughtful
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And I think its purpose is to identify the smart &
capable
We cannot have a productive argument about who to let
in, how to grade, how to spend classroom time
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If
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If all observed instances of a phenotype arise from a
single type/identify of mutation
IF there are many other ways of achieving the phenotype
THEN it is reasonable to conclude that there was a
single origin of that mutation/phenotype
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http://www.popularmechanics.co.za/sci-technews/dna-building-blocks-can-be-made-in-space/
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Correlation v. Causation
(unexamined
linkages)
http://i.imgur.com/J6jPzNv.jp
g
Molecular clock…
Human
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Circle: large
group of people
Green:
digesters
Blue: nte, position
Red: causes LP
(chimpanzee
sequence)
# of mutations = amount of
time???
Ticking premises
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Suppose we wanted to ‘count ticks’ to find the common
ancestor of you & E. coli
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How many ways can you think of in which the passing
of genes from one generation to the other of your
species vs. E. coli would throw off our measurement of
‘clock ticks’ [mutations that differ between 2 organisms]
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