Book Review: Darwin’s Theory of Evolution

Darwin’s Theory of Evolution:
Background, Achievement, Consequences
Ashoke Mukhopadhyay
BODHODAYA MANCHA KOLKATA 700113

                                         


In the last one hundred and fifty years since the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species, sciences in general and biology in particular have changed tremendously. Not only in terms of powerful tools and new discoveries, but also in terms of the overall theoretical framework and organization of scientific knowledge. With all that, Darwin's theory of evolution remains the single most important theory in modern biology. Any attempt to understand biology can soon decay into chaos without the idea of evolutionary history. An extreme reductionist approach would want to make all biology ultimately physics and chemistry. Yet, living forms are more than a bunch of chemicals. The opposite approach would want us to believe that there is an extra "vital" spirit in living forms. Between these ludicrous extremes, if biology has to make sense, we need Darwin. As Theodosius Dobzhansky, the famous evolutionary biologist, put it, "nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution".
 

   Every true biologist, whether he or she works with molecular biology or in the organismic or population level, knows what Dobzhansky meant. They are all aware of the fundamental unity of life irrespective of its multitudes of manifestation. They see, on a daily basis, that the basic building blocks of life are very similar in structure and function across living organisms—some solutions nature found on the way was too good to be confined to a single organism. All these and much more can fall in place only in the light of organic evolution. Yet, this powerful theory remains the most slandered and misrepresented of scientific theories. Forget those who pervert it deliberately, confusion remains even among the learned or scientifically literate section of our society. How often have we heard about monkeys turning into humans being attributed to Darwin. But then this very same people who ridicule Darwin on monkeys have no qualms in using his "survival of the fittest" while justifying greed and plunder or war and destruction. Even after a century and a half of the Origin, a mere mention of Darwin's name can still divide people.

   

This shows the dismal situation of scientific literacy all over the world, even in industrially advanced countries. Theory of evolution should have been part of the upbringing of any enlightened human being; however, the sad situation is that even in the United States, right outside the great universities where the most advanced biological research is going on, where the entire human genome is being deciphered and mapped, the large section of the common public is blissfully unaware of what the theory really means. The situation is naturally much more pathetic in a less developed country like India. A couple of years ago, in the Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore, under the very noses of some of the best biologists in India, somebody had the temerity to give a talk on a "theory of devolution". Though all ideological and scientific questions had been anticipated and answered by Darwin and his successors, this level of ignorance is something he would not have fathomed.

   

The difficulty in communicating the theory of evolution is not necessarily with the complexity of ideas involved, but how those ideas come in conflict with existing prejudices. Not only the prejudices that are associated with a lack of proper education, but also the prejudices that come precisely from an education. The conflict this theory has with the existing mode of thinking in the prevailing presentation of sciences, even today, also comes in the way to a better appreciation of the theory. To communicate evolution one has to expose and address these prejudices, something often overlooked in many discussions of Darwin and evolution. It is in this context that a new book on the subject may justify its appearance. Here is such a book in which Ashoke Mukopadhyay has made an effort to address some of these limitations.

  

 This book attempts to give an introduction to the theory of evolution and Darwin in a comprehensive manner. The author traces the intellectual and social milieu in which Darwin developed the theory of evolution, discusses the theory and subsequent theory on descent of man briefly, deals with philosophical and social implication of what the theory achieved, and finally highlights some aspects of the man Darwin which is worthy of emulating.  This book brings all these diverse topics under one cover in an accessible format. The author has followed the ideological debate before and since Darwin and presented the gist for the benefit of any curious mind even if not familiar with the technical jargons of biology or philosophy.

  

 Present day confusions such as social Darwinism and intelligent design, that one hears even from learned section in our society, are traced back to its idealist or class roots. Using simple and elegant arguments, he brings forth a very profound understanding of the concepts associated with the theory of evolution. An excellent bibliography from ancient classics to modern treatises on evolution and philosophical development is given at the end for the benefit of those who want to pursue the subject further.

   

Often formal education in science ignores the evolutionary and epistemological aspects of knowledge. Even science students and practitioners of science would only benefit from Mukopadhyay’s attempts to bring such aspects in a highly accessible form, without losing their bearing in the depth of the subject. He discusses how science and logic, and the emergent world view that is called philosophy, were influenced or even shaped by Darwin and his theory. He skilfully traces the development of formal logic that hitherto ruled science, and that even today limits the thinking of many practitioners of science. The jewel on the crown of formal logic is Newtonian mechanics which as we know had been enormously successful. But from the scientific and philosophical point of view, the author argues, formal logic had exhausted itself, and a new dialectical logic that comprehends nature in motion and interconnection was needed. The history of development of changes in these outlooks is briefly narrated in this book with a great insight.

  

 A word about its author may be appropriate here. Ashoke Mukopadhyay, as I have personally known for some time past, is an indefatigable warrior for the cause of a new science movement in our country. His deep, thought provoking, and well informed essays have inspired a generation of science activists, including this present writer. He has also travelled across various districts of Bengal and outside, speaking to students—be it the research scholars of IIT, Kharagpur, or school going children in the remote villages—about the epistemological and logical aspects of science through inspiring stories of scientists and major breakthroughs in science. It is heartening to see at least some of it is now appearing in book form.

    
Darwin thought his The Origin as a long argument. Here Ashoke Mukopadhyay is also continuing that argument. I earnestly hope, many would join in a healthy debate that would eventually lead us closer to that heaven of freedom which the great poet Tagore had envisaged: "Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit; Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action—Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake."

                                  [Image from : http://www.crystalinks.com ] 

Two Cultures (again)

I want to share the following with everyone.

I am now attending a Bio Physics Conference in San Diego, in the state of California, US. It is the western coast of US, and San Diego is a beautiful city on the shores of Pacific. There is much to say about California and its wonderful people. But I would reserve that for another occasion.

The conference is organised by University of California, San Diego (UCSD). About 300 students and researchers from many countries have come here. To my surprise there are a few old friends and acquaintances; and there are also many big names in real flesh and blood sharing their most recent work. Altogether the atmosphere is friendly and enthusiastic.

People came from different areas of biological physics; those who study physics of cancer, dynamics of cellular processes, self organization and pattern formation in biology, the science of protein folding, theory of simple behavior, and so son and so forth. To accommodate these varied and wide interests, the sessions would run parallel. But in plenary sessions we would all assemble in a single hall to listen to a leader in one of the fields. The quality of the plenary speakers is attested by the fact that, out of six, three were Nobel laureates- I have to admit it is the first I came across so many good people in a single place.

Yesterday we listened to Roger Tsien, who won the Nobel prize in Chemistry in 2008. Dr. Tsien looked Chinese, but spoke impeccable English.  He looked very confident, and took the listeners with him quite easily. Tsien spoke non stop for an hour, frequently cracking jokes that made us all alert and waiting. He works on florescent proteins, and his latest attempt is to try to make cancer tumors fluoresce so that surgeons can remove them completely. All his talk was only about his darling fluorescing molecule. Even his jokes were about his molecule- after a while he started attributing human qualities to them. He cared them, scolded them, got angry, and showed how their stubborn nature could be manipulated to the best advantage of a surgeon or a neuro biologist. During the talk, Dr.  Tsien showed results that are only a few days old and narrated his difficulties obtaining that data- he wanted an ultra fast camera to collect that data, and he borrowed the camera from a manufacturer "under the pretext of doing a demo experiment". Now he will have to use that result to convince the funding agency to buy that camera for him!

After the talk we all felt he was extremely smart. He knew how to give good talks, how to ask a right  research question, and found a way to a carry out that work. This guy is indeed a big scientist. 

Today evening we had Ada Yonath. Ada is an old lady from Israel, and she spoke slowly about Ribosome structure. It was as if she was translating as she spoke, picking words one after other.  Her slides were less flashy, and style of delivery poor. Among people like Tsien around, she appeared naive and simple, like a good old grand mother. Ada spoke of ribosomes as if they were her babies; over years of painstaking work, she had unraveled their structure. And she then said how that knowledge can be used to beat drug resistant bacteria. "You cannot prevent them completely. Bacteria want to live too, and they will find a way to get around". Then as she finished she went on to show pictures of her mentors, students , and daughters. Then she showed a painting gifted to her by her grand daughter: 'Ada is the grand ma of the year'.  "This is the best award I received- and I have got it for last five years consecutively!  .... I wanted to show this, to show you that it is possible to do science and still have a loving family". She went on to show now how in Israel people imitate her hair-do and a caricature of hers by an admirer.

Then the organizers announced it was Ada's birthday. She just turned 72. A big cake was brought in, and Ada was overwhelmed, and tears started rolling through her eyes.

I could not help thinking about the contrast between two scientists, Ada and Rogers. There is an obvious difference in gender, but Ada has elsewhere said that did not matter to her (in last 45 years, she is the first woman to win a Nobel prize in Chemistry). I went on to check their biographies in Wikipedia. Tsien's biography says he is the 34th grandson of the king Quian Liu of the kingdom of Wuyue, China. His family always had very important engineers all through- his uncle started China's ballistic missile program, and his relatives are professors in the best universities around. "I am doomed by heredity to do this kind of work", he says.

Ada's family emigrated to Israel from Poland, and her father was rabbi and ran a grocery shop. Her father died prematurely and she was exposed to abject poverty and starvation. She started working to support her family and her own education at the age of eleven. Unlike Tsien, science was a luxury she could afford only later in her life. Ada said: "(simple) survival is far more complicated and much more demanding (than doing science) ... when you are hungry, you are hungry!"

I saw Ada sitting in the beach that night. She looked happy but thoughtful. I saw many young people going to her individually. They are not surrounding her to hear an inspirational speech from a great orator. She is speaking to them like a simple old woman and a mother. But otherwise she sat there alone, abandoned to wander in her world. I got the courage to go, because she did not appear like a big scientist  or a Nobel laureate. I told her that her talk was very inspiring. She blushed- and smiled heartily. "Thank you", she said,  "thanks for letting me know".

I had always ranked a scientist along with poets and writers and other great visionaries. All I saw was some smart people. Standing in front of this unpretentious woman, I felt I have seen a scientist of my imagination. I should have captured the moment, because she represents a fast vanishing tribe. But I could only stand there, feeling the breeze and the murmur of Pacific. 

Scientists Find a Way to Starve Malaria to Death

[Reported for one of the campus newspapers]

We have been losing the battle against the malaria at the rate of a million lives a year. Scientists now have found a novel way of attack that might turn the tide against this persistent disease.

An international team of researchers have unraveled the structure of digestive enzymes in malaria that would potentially lead to the creation of new drugs. The parasite has been increasingly getting resistant to traditional anti malarial drugs. Now a multidisciplinary team of researchers including McGill's own John Dalton have discovered the key enzymes that help the parasite to survive inside humans. These enzymes help the malaria to digest the proteins inside the human red blood cells, leading to the proliferation of the malaria and the destruction of the red blood cells. The new study have revealed the three dimensional structures of these enzymes thereby paving way for developing drugs that can attack these enzymes specifically. This way the malaria could literally be starved to death.

Professor John Dalton from the Institute of parasitology at McGill and his collaborators have just published their study in the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences elucidating the structure of the enzyme. Dalton has been focusing on the malaria for fifteen years, and in the last year he and his collaborators announced the structure of the first enzyme in the same journal. Within a year the team has solved the mystery of second enzyme too.

Malaria has only one copy of each of these enzymes. Other parasites usually have several copies of similar enzymes, and if any of them is disabled they switch to another. But the researchers have shown that in Malaria, if either of the digestive enzymes is knocked out the parasite cannot survive. According to Dalton this is real breakthrough in the search for an effective anti- malarial drug. They also have demonstrated some of the specific drugs that can inhibit the function of these enzymes.

The development of the drug will have to go through various stages of testing and screening. Scientists believe that if everything goes well they will start trying them in humans as early as three to five years. They are aiming for a drug that could inhibit both enzymes at a time, or a combination of drugs that would target these enzymes separately which can be later combined in treatment. By attacking both vital enzymes at a time limits the ability of the parasite to develop resistance to the drug.

Researchers have been active in developing new classes of drug against malaria. A multidisciplinary approach was requires to tackle the problem. This was what Dr Dalton and collaborators were able to achieve. Dr. Dalton's collaborators came from various backgrounds with different types of expertise that helped them to take up this challenge together. Their team includes biologists studying the life cycle of malarial parasite, bioinformatic experts analyzing the malarial genome to pinpoint the exact enzymes, chemists to isolate these enzymes, and crystallographers to determine the structure of these enzymes. His collaborators are located in Australia, UK, Poland and McGill.

They have published the structures of these enzyme along with possible drugs in a public database, which other scientists can use independently to develop the drug. "Anyone who has experience with drug design would know how important is the structure of two potential targets. These structure will be in the public database. Also in last three months we have released a whole panel of potential compounds targeting these enzymes. They were also released to the public database. We have been very keen on giving everything to the public database. We did not want to hold them to ourselves." Dalton said.

Voodoo Science

A few years back I came across an interesting book. It was titled "Voodoo science: The road from foolishness to fraud". It was written by Robert L Park, who was then the spokesperson of American Physical Society. It was a collection of Park's essays in popular media, where he responded to various pseudo-science claims by individuals (mostly inventors of perpetual motion machines), corporations, and the American law itself.

It was an interesting book to read. But there is more to it than just
reading, in the Indian context.

1. Park, a professor from Maryland University, chose to respond to pertinent
issues and he used the professional body of American physicists,
to educate the general public.

In India, we have three different association for almost the same set of scientists.
They have annual meetings, and a few inconsequential public lectures
on topics similar to 'effect of lead on a certain variety of rat found
in tropical forests of ...' . In my experience
They never challenge/dispute/contribute to any issues even when
they pertain to science policy, science education, or scientific outlook.

Indian scientists see themselves as a part of an aristocracy, well secluded
from the general public. They perhaps see it beneath their dignity to
respond to day-to-day issues, and to offer down-to-earth explanations
to the layman.
(P Balram of IISc sometimes writes on issues of general interest,
but he often write
in journals that are meant for scientists or science students.
They do not reach the general public).

This in turn has helped people and organisations, fools or frauds,
to think that they can make any type theories/assertions/claims, and
get away with it. This also has resulted in our lack
of role models for science.

2. A consequence of this is apathy of Indian media towards science.
We often hear about our own achievements when it is first reported
in Newyork times. One remembers the discovery of the algorithm to determine
the irrational numbers a few years back by students of IIT-Kanpur.
It made news in India after it was reported in US.

American and British media
regards science journalism very seriously. They place it very competent
hands, often people with doctoral degrees in science, handles science
sections in these newspapers. Simon Singh joined BBC after finishing
his PhD in particle physics from Cambridge.

In India I found only one science journalist worth reading.
R Ramachandran who
occasionally writes for Hindu and Frontline.
Ramachnadran does his own research, meets people,
before he write an article.

Most of our science writers use internet and fill their articles
with loads of freely available information. They are still better than
nothing. Many of our news papers may not even have science editors, or even if they have, they are inconsequential people.

In Malayalam there are some old professors, and some writers who had
brief stints in research institutes writing random stuff
and pseudo philosophical reflections copied from various
authors and books, and pass it as science article.
There usually are some interesting and original stuff in them,
but as someone said, what is interesting is not original,
and what is original is actually rotten.
Mathrubhumi publishes them often, with pictures of english books
and some photographs of random englishmen mentioned in the
article.

Well, everyone gets old and senile. If you have not done anything
significant in life, you end up writing such stuff for Mathrubhumi.

Apart from the above mentioned rather poor exceptions,
science journalism in India revolves around child prodigies,
incredible exaggerations, and just plain stupidity or fraud.

3. Is there hope for science in India ?

Science in India, whether it is research, science education,
science awareness, or scientific outlook, is in bad shape now.
Most of our research output is just plain trash except a few jewels once in a while.

A meaningful change will come only when scientists become ambassedors
of the pursuit they are after, and take time to communicate to
the common man- not only within the narrow limits of their research,
but in general issues related to scientific outlook.

I think that is the only way true science become more visible,
scientists become more visible, pseudo scientific nonsense
get to stop, and the best of the men get attracted to science.

Let Robert L Park be the inspiration for our scientists.

[This was my response to the following blogs: nerd, pappoos, and suchand ]