Lenski ist mein neuer Held.

Reality has a well-known liberal bias.

Stephen Colbert. White House Correspondent Dinner 2006 [Google Video]

Letzte Woche habe ich kurz einen neuen PNAS-Artikel [.pdf hier: Nr. 180] vorgestellt, der von der Evolution einer neuen Funktion, die Fähigkeit der Citrat-Aufnahme durch E. coli, im Rahmen eines schon seit 20 Jahren laufenden Langzeit-Evolutionsexperiments (LTEE) berichtet.

Dieser Fund hat IDler wie Behe oder auch die Uncommonly Dense Uncommon Descent-Leute zu Abwiegelungsreden und "Es sind aber immer noch Bakterien"-Ausrufe bewogen, nicht weiter überraschend. Die wirklich überraschende Reaktion kam diesmal von den YECs (Young Earth Creationists), oder genauer von Andrew Schlafly, Begründer von Conservapedia. Oder, wenn ich darüber nachdenke, "überraschend" allein trifft es nicht wirklich. Anmaßend und ignorant schon eher.

Zunächst ein paar Worte zu Andy Schlafly und Conservapedia [Wikipedia-Artikel zu Conservapedia; mein Beitrag: 'Conservapedia, das Wikipedia für geistig Arme'].
Andrew Schlafly ist Amerikaner, das Paradebeispiel eines Junge-Erde-Kreationisten, hat eine Ausbildung als Rechtsanwalt, gibt Online-Geschichtskurse für zu Hause unterrichtete Kinder und ist Sohn von Phyllis Schlafly, einer republikanisch-konservativen politischen Aktivistin, für die das Wort "reaktionär" noch mal neu erfunden werden müsste und die es offenbar geschafft hat, ihrem Sohn die gleiche Sichtweise einzuimpfen.
Für Andrew Schlafly (Nutzername: ASchlafly) gibt es genau zwei Typen von Menschen: Bibel-treue Republikaner und verlogene liberale Atheisten. Genau diese Einstellung ist auch vielen der Conservapedia-Artikel anzumerken; als Beispiel kann man sich die Artikel zu Atheismus, Abtreibung, Homosexualität, Gun control und – natürlich – Evolutionstheorie ansehen und vor allem auch die entsprechenden Talk pages.

Dieser Andrew Schlafly also hat eine Email an Lenski geschrieben [online bei Conservapedia], in dem er Lenski zur Veröffentlichung der Daten auffordert, die dem PNAS-Artikel zugrunde liegen.

Please post the data supporting your remarkable claims so that we can review it, and note where in the data you find justification for your conclusions.

Darauf hat Lenski sogar geantwortet, wobei er erstaunlich höflich geblieben ist, obwohl man die Schlafly-Email durchaus als Vorwurf der Fälschung von Daten interpretieren kann.

I suggest you might want to read our paper itself, which is available for download at most university libraries and is also posted as publication #180 on my website. Here's a brief summary that addresses your three points. [...]

Lenskis nicht ganz abwegiger Vorschlag, Schlafly solle gefälligst den Artikel erst mal lesen, den er kritisiert, ist nicht ganz unberechtigt. Auf der zum "Lenski-Dialog" gehörigen Talk page von Conservapedia hat Schlafly nämlich zugegeben, dass er den Artikel nicht wirklich gelesen hat (und er keine Ahnung hat, wie wissenschaftliche Artikel aussehen und auch zu blöd ist, um Diagramme zu "lesen"...).

I did skim Lenski's paper, and saw that on multiple occasions he says the data are not shown. In addition, his figures and tables are oddly uninformative. I recall that one figure is complete speculation. After skimming his paper the need for public disclosure of the data became even more apparent. [...]

Aschlafly 19:12, 17 June 2008 (EDT)

Aber anstatt sich beschämt hinzusetzen und wenigstens den Artikel zu lesen, in dem, wie Lenski in seiner Antwort ebenfalls herausstellte, die Daten veröffentlicht sind, die Schlafly einfordert – es sei denn, man unterstellte Lenski, die Citrat-verwertenden Bakterien existierten gar nicht und der gesamte Artikel wäre pure Fabrikation* – schreibt Schlafly eine zweite Email an Lenski, in der er noch impertinenter ist als in der Ersten.

This is my second request for your data underlying your recent paper, "Historical contingency and the evolution of a key innovation in an experimental population of Escherichia coli," published in PNAS (June 10, 2008) and reported in New Scientist ("Bacteria make major evolutionary shift in lab," June 9, 2008).
Your work was taxpayer-funded, and PNAS represents that its authors will make underlying data available. I'd like to review the data myself and ensure availability for others, including experts and my students. Others have expressed interest in access to the data in addition to myself, and your website seems well-suited for public release of these data.
[...]
Given that this is my second request for the data, a clear answer is requested as to whether you will make the key underlying data available for independent review. Your response, or lack thereof, will be posted due to the public interest in this issue. Thank you.

Lenski hat auch auf diese Email geantwortet.

Zucker. Einfach Zucker.

Lenski ist mein neuer Held, dafür, dass er sich die Zeit für diese Antwort genommen hat. Er macht Schlafly platt. Er schneidet ihn in dünne Scheibchen, legt ihn unter's Mikroskop und deutet auf ein paar der amüsanteren Hohlräume in Schlaflys Gehirn. Ernsthaft.

Ein paar Ausschnitte:

[...] First, it seems that reading might not be your strongest suit given your initial letter, which showed that you had not read our paper, and given subsequent conversations with your followers, in which you wrote that you still had not bothered to read our paper. You wrote: “I did skim Lenski’s paper …” If you have not even read the original paper, how do you have any basis of understanding from which to question, much less criticize, the data that are presented therein?

[...] As further evidence of your inability to keep even a few simple facts straight, you later wrote the following: “It [my reply] did clarify that his claims are not as strong as some evolutionists have insisted.” But no competent biologist would, after reading our paper with any care, insist (or even suggest) that “3 new and useful proteins appeared in the colony around generation 20,000” or any similar nonsense. It is only in your letter, and in your acolyte’s confused interpretation of our paper, that I have ever seen such a claim. Am I or the reporter for NewScientist somehow responsible for the confusion that reflects your own laziness and apparent inability to distinguish between a scientific paper, a news article, and a confused summary posted by an acolyte on your own website?

[...] It is my impression that you seem to think we have only paper and electronic records of having seen some unusual E. coli. If we made serious errors or misrepresentations, you would surely like to find them in those records. If we did not, then – as some of your acolytes have suggested – you might assert that our records are themselves untrustworthy because, well, because you said so, I guess. But perhaps because you did not bother even to read our paper, or perhaps because you aren’t very bright, you seem not to understand that we have the actual, living bacteria that exhibit the properties reported in our paper, including both the ancestral strain used to start this long-term experiment and its evolved citrate-using descendants. In other words, it’s not that we claim to have glimpsed “a unicorn in the garden” – we have a whole population of them living in my lab! [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unicorn_in_the_Garden] And lest you accuse me further of fraud, I do not literally mean that we have unicorns in the lab. Rather, I am making a literary allusion. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allusion]

[...] I noticed that you say that one of your favorite articles on your website is the one on “Deceit.” That article begins as follows: “Deceit is the deliberate distortion or denial of the truth with an intent to trick or fool another. Christianity and Judaism teach that deceit is wrong. For example, the Old Testament says, ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.’” You really should think more carefully about what that commandment means before you go around bearing false witness against others.

Oh so schön.

Wie schade nur, dass A. Schlafly, aus den gleichen Gründen, die ihn eingangs haben glauben lassen, seine Emails an Lenski wären eine gute Idee, nicht in der Lage ist, das volle Ausmaß seiner Blamage und Niederlage zu erkennen.

Seine einzige Reaktion bisher:

The comments above by defenders of withholding data have been unsatisfactory, to say the least.

Lenski says in his published paper: "Z.D.B. and R.E.L. [Lenski] analyzed data"

So where are all the data Lenski said he analyzed?

Aschlafly 00:27, 25 June 2008 (EDT)

QED.


JLT

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* Manche der weniger von solchen Dingen wie Realitätsbezug eingeschränkten Conservapedia-Kommentatoren scheinen genau das zu glauben:

Even if Prof. Lenski were to provide the public with digital versions of the data, what assurances would we have that the data wasn't doctored? If we assume his Darwinian principles were no check on his willingness to publish a falsified paper, then why would we then assume they would prevent him from falsifying data? On the other hand, it would be impossible for Prof. Lenski to falsify the physical data residing in the actual bacteria, as that would require a massive program of genetic engineering. Only by allowing unbiased conservative scientists access to samples of the bacteria colonies can we assure that we aren't witnessing another Piltdown hoax, as the Darwinian community has a reputation for perpetrating them.

Dr. Richard Paley 10:50, 19 June 2008 (EDT)

Schlafly glaubt das natürlich auch, aber als gelernter Rechtsanwalt ist er trainiert genug, keine Verleumdungen im gerichtlich belangbaren Sinne zu formulieren, auch wenn er sich auf der Diskussionsseite ein paar Ausrutscher leistet:

What we have here is the unacceptable opposite: a scientific claim without production of the data. --Aschlafly 21:12, 14 June 2008 (EDT)

Don't pretend that Lenski welcomes independent review of the data. --Aschlafly 15:15, 19 June 2008 (EDT)