Flu vaccines are produced anew each year because flu strains evolve anew each year (actually that’s all they do, all the time!), sometimes into forms so virulent they kill millions of people. So the percentage of a population that pays money (and often endures a painful shot) to get vaccinated each year is a rather accurate way to measure true evolution acceptance in a country. It’s an action-based equivalent of a Gallup poll, which tends to quantify the public’s dislike of evolution.
So slapping this sticker on health cards will allow creationists to be proud of their convictions that evolution doesn’t happen, ever. And using this sticker will also help alleviate flu vaccine shortage, too, so it’s a win-win situation!
If you have full-sheet sticker paper, an inkjet printer, and a big group of willing creationists with healthcare cards, you can download a PDF that has 22 of these mini-waivers. Leave a bowl of them at the front desk of your doctor’s office, too, for extra fun. If the truly creationy citizens of the United States all slapped these on right before a pandemic, the rate of evolution denial would go down quickly, I think.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Zen Faulkes and Ted Cannon, Chris Merle. Chris Merle said: The Axis of Evo http://bit.ly/2KHh7E (has nothing to do with @evo_terra) [...]
Call me when the flu virus becomes a human…or even takes a single step in that direction. Adaptation is not evolution as described by Darwin. Be careful, Punctuated Equilibrium will surprise you with a snake or something, so keep the virus locked down while you study it. LOL
Reply to comment above:
Look out people! It’s Ray Comfort and he has a banana!
@Ray: If you don’t understand the subject, you don’t need to voice your opinion.
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This post was mentioned on Friendfeed by Alexander Kruel: The Axis of Evo http://blogs.swarthmore.edu/axisofe……
Ray – Really? When a virus becomes a human? Really? How can you refute something that you so demonstrably fail to understand? Also, “…or even takes a single step in that direction”. Evolution doesn’t have a direction, Ray.
Humans did not evolve from viruses, Ray. We share a common ancestor. Creatures do not “become” other creatures; populations change over time.
@ray- “Adaptation is not evolution as described by Darwin”
There has been over a century of genetics and evolution research since Darwin. I do not in any way intend to diminish his contributions to the field, but Darwin is not the end authority on what is and is not evolution. This is what we do in Science- we add to and modify existing bodies of knowledge with empirical methods. If we relied simply one what Darwin knew and observed, we’d be stuck in 1859.
Additionally, adaptation IS evolution- evolution is simply a change in gene frequency in a population over time. Done and done. Any evolutionary biologist will tell you this.
“Punctuated Equilibrium will surprise you with a snake or something, so keep the virus locked down while you study it.”
Throwing evolutionary terminology around incorrectly makes you look foolish. Punctuated equilibria are simply periods of rapid evolution interspersed with periods of relatively slow evolution. It’s a way to describe the fossil record, not a mechanism by which evolution occurs. I shouldn’t have to tell you that a virus (which lacks the ability to even make its own proteins) can in no way evolve into a snake, certainly not in a matter of years.
If you’re going to belittle something, at least make an effort to understand it first. Maybe you should take my class- my 9th graders could help you understand.
Don’t underestimate the number of people that either (a) dislike shots more than they worry about the flu, (b) can’t be bothered to make an appointment or stand in line even though they know it’s good for them (see, e.g., gym members who rarely go to the gym), or (c) those who look at the actual benefits of the flu shots in most years and realize that it provides a fairly modest benefit (e.g., in any given year, the seasonal flu shot may reduce an adult’s overall risk of developing the flu from around 20% to something in the range of 9%-15%; this is a significant relative reduction but doesn’t sound impressive enough to overcome points (a) and (b) above).
@Ray: http://www.sadtuba.com
Nice one.
The initial posting I meant, not Ray’s tuba thingy.
And Ray, I’d be glad to explain the basics of evolution to you if you would like.
… And Nohelp, I would add a letter: (d) People convinced that vaccines are a big pharma conspiracy to make money by injecting toxic chemicals into babies, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Ray has it right. The only flu virus was the one Noah took on the ark.
Bill, you’re wrong: Noah took two flu viruses with him on the ark.
There are equally as many documented cases of “big pharma conspiracies” as there are for evolution.
Ok, there aren’t. But, you KNOW those pharma exec’s are up to no good.
Fine… overall they are up to good but for blogs sake, never underestimate the greed, stupidity or ruthlessness of man.
[...] from here Category: Article [...]
OK stupid, 1st of all there is evolution or whatever you refer to call something changing. Flu STRAINS “evolve” as you say each year but they started out as THE FLU. Man started out as Man but just like the flu, he has gotten worse & worse over the years (as we see by you) “sometimes into forms so virulent they kill millions of people” as you commented in VACCINE WAIER FOR CREATIONIST comment. Dumb comment. Maybe you need to rethink and by the way,,,go ahead and take that chip, it’s for your own good. Put that sticker on your health card and stick it..
Um, lots of people who believe in evolution by natural selection also trust their immune systems… so not quite sure this works…
The problem is that you would NOT actually want them to take you up on it…
We wouldn’t benefit from herd resistance. The flu vaccine on an individual basis isn’t 100% effective. We benefit as a society because others are vaccinated as well.
…. if a large percentage of the population were to suddenly drop out… or REFUSE to take a VERY important vaccine, then we would all be really screwed!
@Ray – Obvious Troll is Obvious
Sara- help me here….
“Additionally, adaptation IS evolution- evolution is simply a change in gene frequency in a population over time.”
Isn’t adaptation acclimation to a new environment based on the nuts and bolts that are already there? I don’t think that it is evolution. Also, is it a change in gene frequency or allele frequency? I don’t know this stuff 100%
Brilliant post! Viral change through time is 100% evolution and creationists should not need shots. Excellent.
The tide is starting to change. At my parent’s church they actually had a meeting about teaching evolution and they decided to go with science. I guess they are still hurting from that “earth in the center of the universe” thing.
@Andy – “Also trust their immune systems” – Yes, but vaccines can prep your immune system so it can defeat the new flu with less struggle and/or without you getting sick. And some folks have beat up immune systems or other medical problems that make them more susceptible to flu so vaccines can more safely give them resistence.
@Kevin – It’s my understanding that adaptation and evolution could be thought of as synomymns in this sense. One might adapt to a new situation on an individual level by changing behavior or whatnot, but on a species level adaptation can be a little misleading because it sort of suggests intent, that the species DID something to change, which is not the case. It’s more that random genetic variations resulted in traits that somehow increased reproductive capacity so became predominent in the population in question.
I think we often put the cart before the horse when talking about or thinking about adaptation. It’s easy to get it backwards and end up with the sense that species somehow do something to adapt and this leads to evolution. It’s the other way round – evolution leads to adaptation, or they are the same thing – if evolution is change over time due to natural selection, then species eventually become better adapted to their environment as a result of evolution. Might be hair splitting, but it seems that some folks get a hazey grasp on evolution because they get thinking that critters actively adapt in a LaMarkian sense.
Sorry if all this is obvious.
@Kevin Alleles are alternative forms of a gene. Each of us has duplicate chromosomes and thus duplicate genes: the same gene on a chromosome pair may not be %100 similar but still code for the same function. These alternatives are alleles. An easy example is eye color: the same gene codes for your iris while different forms (alleles) will give you blue, brown, green, etc. You may be familiar with the idea of dominant and recessive genes: those are alleles.
Evolution is defined as a change in allele frequency in a population over time.
Adaptation is a mechanism of evolution (there are multiple mechanisms including genetic drift, mutation, sexual selection, gene flow). Adaptation is, as you said, changing to fit an environment based on the “nuts and bolts already there” but that change invloves changes in allelic frequency: the well known light/dark moth experiment (while not conducted at all correctly) can be used as a decent thought experiment.
A population of moths contains both alleles that code for light colored wings and dark colored wings. These are not present in the population at even frequencies. If the habitat contains a lot of light colored trees it is easier for the light colored moths to hide and not be eaten, therefore the frequency of the light allele will be higher, as those moths will be able to reproduce before they’re eaten.
If, however, the habitat changes (due to environmental factors like natural disaster, vegetative disease, or human involvement) and suddenly there is an invasion of dark colored trees, the dark colored moths will be better at hiding and thus more likely to survive long enough to reproduce.
After a few generations, the allelic frequency will shift and the dark allele will be more dominant. The moth population may in all other terms still be the same genetically, but that allele frequency has altered and thus the population has evolved.
It’s the same with flu: the nuts and bolts are the same (8 segements, 11 genes, HA, NA, PB1, etc) but they’re not the same genetically from year to year and that is evolution.
People also start to argue over macro- vs micro-evolution, but at the end of the day they’re exactly the same just on different time scales. The light colored moths can become dark colored in a few decades, but they could also become something completely new in a few million years.
It’s also important to note that adaptation is not the end-all-be-all of evolution, there are a lot more mechanisms at work than just that.
Variola -
Thanks for the very clear explanation.
Can you give me a thumbnail sketch of genetic drift? I think I have a decent sense of it, but am supposing you could give me a concise take on it.
@Zaque I’m glad that was clear. I typed it on my lunch break and didn’t have much time. =)
Genetic drift is random sampling, but it’s not representative of the population as a whole, if that makes sense. A popular example is marbles in a jar: 50 blue and 50. If you take a random sample you aren’t necessarily going to get a 1:1 ratio. And alleles don’t always exist in a 1:1 ratio so a random sample is less likely to give you a representative sample.
In an evolutionary example, say you have a population that lives on a fault zone. One day there is a big earthquake and it kills 90% of the individuals in the population. The remaining 10% of individuals may not have the same allelic frequencies as the population as a whole (in fact alleles may have been lost during the earthquake). However, the population of that species is going to be rejuvenated using only the genetic information contained in the survivors. Thus, a few generations from now, the population will still exist, but the allelic frequency will have changed.
This specific type of genetic drift is called bottlenecking.
Another common type is founder effect, in which if a small number of individuals leave to found a colony, they may not be taking with them a true representation of the alleles in larger population. The Pennsylvanian Amish had this problem in that two of their founders carried a rare genetic disease but because that initial colony was based on a small gene pool, the future population has a higher than normal incident of those alleles and the genetic disease.
There’s also gene flow which is the movement of alleles in and out of populations due to migration or immigration of individuals.
Mind that genetic drift and natural selection and all the other mechanisms don’t work in a vacuum: all of them are happening at the same time and working in synergy or antagonistically.
Thanks. I have heard the opinion that human racial characteristics are due to genetic drift rather than adaptation to different environments. I guess this makes the idea of different traits between races somehow less racist, if that makes sense. I’m not sure I understand why, but I recall reading about it in the context of a discussion of how the idea of “race” is sort of a fabrication, or at least based on very superficial differences rather than there being genuinely significant differences. Your explanation helps a bit. I guess if racial traits are the result of adaptation, this might imply to some people that a certain race is “better” because of adaptation to specific environmental challenges. On the other hand, if it’s more about drift, then it’s very random and arbitrary. Race is no more meaningful than eye color or hair color or height.
I guess the idea that race based on adaptation would mean any group of people is someohow better or worse than another is flawed to begin with. It makes the classic mistake of assuming that evolution is “progress”, the survival of the fittest without the context of environment, seeing it as the fastest, strongest, etc rather than the most fit to a particular set of environmental demands.
Hey, sorry for raining on your parade and stuff, but shouldn’t the goal be to get as many people as possible to vaccinate themselves over the flu viruses? Especially viruses that we have no herd immunity for, like h1n1?
I mean, let’s not get ahead of ourselves on the IRONY curve, shall we?
I don’t know where the assumption came from that creationist don’t believe in evolution. I believe there is a Creator(s) and believe in evolution….I believe that whoever or whatever Created this world (and others) is the greatest scientist of all.