Sins

As the year ends I thought I’d parade some sins from my 2008 posts. James Randi has an excellent piece about how when people get a PhD they lose the ability to say “I was wrong” and “I don’t know”. I don’t have a PhD so I can afford to parade some of the errata I noticed without contradicting Randi:

• I suggested humans weren’t evolving. A few months later geneticist Steve Jones said the same thing and drew heavy criticism (although what he said was very jumbled). I didn’t take into account things like genetic drift to a large enough extent. The genome could well change faster due to genetic drift if selective pressures are decreased (although it wouldn’t be in a direction of any utility).
• I said the Christian canon was decided at the Council of Nicea. For some reason this falsehood was present in at least 2 documentaries I’ve seen. The history of canonisation is much more messy and complicated.
• I referred to the broken window theory as something that might work in the Congo. Having read Freakonomics, it looks like it’s far from proven that the broken window theory worked (at least in the context of the NY crime drop). It could still be an idea to explore in the Congo but only as something tentative, to test.
• I said that elephants lose their last teeth and starve after they breed so this trait is invisible to selection, horrible as it is for the elephant. As a commenter pointed out I haven’t thought of this starvation specifically being selected for, if the old elephants being eliminated leave more food for their offspring. It may not be the case but it’s definitely possible for something like the elimination of the old (in gruesome circumstances) to give evolutionary advantage.

OK, I’m off to do some self-flaggelating penance. Of course it could have been much much worse!