Framed!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Google decided not to support blogging via FTP, so I am forced to make some changes in the way that this blog is published. As such, over the next couple of weeks, this blog is going to show up as a frame inside this main window.

The Good: Hopefully I can even figure out a way to embed RSS feeds into this blog so that you all can come here for news on autism, vaccines, and evolution. And since there will be another domain associated with this site, I am hoping that it will increase traffic here.

The Bad: Sadly by doing this, it will remove the list of contributors and the direct link to archives. What I plan to do is make a link to the outside URL, and that way you can go see the full blog if you want to.

The Ugly: Yeah, this is a kluge. Frames are ugly, but my brother-in-law worked hard on the functionality of this page, and it's pretty slick on the menu system and all. This was the fastest solution that we could come up with that kept the main part of the web page intact.

Anyway, just an update to let you know what is coming down the pike as a change.

Aluminum Adjuvants in Vaccinations: How Do They Really Work?

In the ever continuing effort to explain basic chemistry to the uneducated and ignorant, one of the elements that cause a lot of consternation to people is Aluminum (Aluminium). While most laypeople can't understand that simmilar sounding compounds can have wildly different effects, it's a fact most actually depend on quite often (if you doubt it, challenge someone to a drink of Ethyl versus Methy alcohol!). So here is an article that has some details on aluminum:

Aluminum Adjuvants in Vaccinations: How Do They Really Work?

A new article in Trends in Immunology by a leading researcher in the bioinorganic chemistry of aluminum, Keele University's Dr. Christopher Exley, explains how aluminum adjuvants work in boosting the immune response to vaccination.

Adjuvants are used in vaccinations to improve the efficacy of the vaccine. They enhance the immune response to the vaccine. For almost 80 years the most common form of clinically approved adjuvant has been aluminum salts. They are used in the majority of vaccines today including vaccines against cervical cancer (HPV), hepatitis, polio, tetanus, diptheria and seasonal flu amongst many others. In spite of the widespread use of aluminum-based adjuvants there is very little understanding of how they actually work.

A recent flurry of research papers purported to explain their mode of action though it quickly became clear that the story was still significantly confused.

The opinion article by Exley -- Reader in Bioinorganic Chemistry at The Birchall Centre, Keele University in Staffordshire -- in the review journal has explained the likely mode of action of aluminum adjuvants in the context of both the bioinorganic chemistry and immunobiology of aluminum. It has helped to explain why previous suggestions as how aluminum adjuvants work are probably not applicable to the clinically approved aluminum adjuvants used in human vaccination programs.

In doing so, the article highlights the potential for aluminum and aluminum salts to stimulate the immune system and makes some reference to the possible role of aluminum adjuvants in vaccine-related diseases. The latter, though their etiologies are largely unexplained, seem often to be linked to aluminum adjuvants.

Vaccines win their day in court again!

Here is a quick update from Dr. Plait. I would like to emphasize what he says in the last part of it. Now, it is valuable to make sure that vaccines don't cause autism, and the science has been done with all the techniques and technology we have. And should new techniques and technology become available, it's not a bad thing to take another look. However, the anti-vax pro-disease nutters are diverting tremendous resources in their quixotic pursuit of this non-existent link. Not that it will stop them. Reason and reality very rarely has an effect on these people. Facts are just an obstacle to overcome for their propaganda.

Vaccines win their day in court again!

A special court set up as part of the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program

has ruled that there is no evidence that thimerosal — a preservative used in vaccines, but removed from virtually all of them years ago — causes autism.

Yay!

Last year, this same court ruled that evidence presented by families claiming their children were harmed by vaccines was insufficient to show that vaccines cause autism. In fact, one judge said that the families were misled by antivax physicians.

This new ruling is a good one. Medically and scientifically, it’s been known for some time that thimerosal does not cause autism. This graph makes it pretty clear:

Since the removal of thimerosal from most vaccines, autism rates have increased. The antivax movement has frothed and railed about this, but as usual reality is firmly against them. I suggest you read Australian skeptic Maggie’s take on this topic as well.

As a parent myself, I have sympathy for parents of autistic children, I really do: no parent could deny the strong urge to defend and protect their child against all threats. But because we are so strongly emotional in cases like this, we have to be ever-more vigilant about using logic, evidence, and rationality, lest we react to a problem that doesn’t exist. The parents who brought their cases to this court are, I suspect, well-meaning and desperate for answers. But the respite they seek will not be found in an imagined link between vaccinations and autism.

This movement is doing serious damage in two ways. One, it’s scaring parents unreasonably into not vaccinating their kids, putting these children and others at risk for contracting preventable diseases. But second, this whole debacle is distracting researchers against looking for the real causes behind autism. In other words, these people are fighting against their own cause.

We need real answers about autism, and the antivax movement is wasting tremendous resources that could be far, far better spent looking at the reality of the situation. Instead, they rail against phantoms, and the real victims are children, theirs and everybody’s.

That Sound You Hear is Jenny McCarthy Throwing a Fit

As mentioned on the main debunking page, courts are much more lax than science. And even by that lax standard, the anti-vax pro-disease nutters can't make their case. So I was happy to see this on CNN today. of course, the ill-educated and deluded are out en masse in the comments section...

Court rules parents didn't prove vaccines caused autism

The federal "special vaccine court" ruled Friday that parents who said their children's autism was caused by a preservative did not prove their case and are not entitled to compensation.

The cases, brought by the children's parents, all alleged that vaccines containing thimerosol, a mercury preservative, caused or contributed to autism spectrum disorders in their children.

Thousands of parents of children with autism have filed petitions seeking compensation from the Department of Health and Human Services' Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, a federal program intended to compensate victims of injuries caused by vaccines, since 2001.

A panel of "special masters" began hearing three test cases in 2007 brought by parents of children with autism who also had said vaccines caused the disorder in their children.

In February 2009, a special court ruled that no link between autism and certain early childhood vaccines could be proven based on evidence presented in the three cases brought in 2007.

Read full CNN.com story

Washington (CNN) -- A federal court ruled Friday that the evidence supporting an alleged causal link between autism and a mercury-containing preservative in vaccines is unpersuasive, and that the families of children diagnosed with autism are not entitled to compensation.

Special masters of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims released more than 600 pages of findings after reviewing three test cases and finding all the claims wanting.

"Petitioners' theory of vaccine-related causation is scientifically unsupportable," wrote Special Master Patricia Campbell-Smith in her conclusion about William P. Mead, whose parents, George and Victoria Mead, had brought one of the suits.

"In the absence of a sound medical theory causally connecting William's received vaccines to his autistic condition, the undersigned cannot find the proposed sequence of cause and effect to be logical or temporally appropriate. Having failed to satisfy their burden of proof under the articulated legal standard, petitioners cannot prevail on their claim of vaccine-related causation."

In the second test case, Special Master George L. Hastings Jr. wrote, "The record of this case demonstrates plainly that Jordan King and his family have been though a tragic ordeal," referring to the minor, whose parents, Fred and Mylinda King, had brought suit.

"After studying the extensive evidence in this case for many months, I am convinced that the opinions provided by the petitioners' experts in this case, advising the King family that there is a causal connection between thimerosal-containing vaccines and Jordan's autism, have been quite wrong." The special master italicized the last two words.

"Nevertheless, I can understand why Jordan's parents found such opinions to be believable under the circumstances."

"In this case, the evidence advanced by the petitioners has fallen far short of demonstrating such a link," he said.

In the final test case, Special Master Denise K. Vowell wrote of Colin R. Dwyer, a minor, that his parents, Timothy and Maria Dwyer, "have not demonstrated by a preponderance of the evidence that Colin's condition was either caused or significantly aggravated by his vaccinations. Thus, they have failed to establish entitlement to compensation and the petition for compensation is therefore denied."

Congress set up the special judicial forum, sometimes called the "vaccine court," in 1986 to address claims over vaccine safety.

Rebecca Estepp, who attended the hearings and said her 12-year-old son, Eric, has been diagnosed with autism she blames on vaccine, described herself as "devastated" with the rulings, but not surprised.

"The deck is stacked against families in vaccine court," she said in a telephone interview from her home in Poway, California, about 20 miles north of San Diego. "You have government attorneys defending a government program using government-funded science before government judges. Where's the justice in that?"

Tom Powers, a Portland, Oregon-based lawyer for the families involved, said his clients were disappointed.

"All three families are committed to following the appeals process, and pursuing that avenue to get justice and compensation for their kids," he said.

The special masters' decisions are subject to review by judges in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. Within the next 30 days, attorneys for the families will ask the claims court judges to review the decisions and rule that the children are, in fact, entitled to compensation.

After government lawyers have a chance to respond to the motions for review, the judges will schedule oral argument and hearings, probably in the summer, Powers said.

Though Friday's decisions do not end the legal battle, Dr. Paul Offit, chief of infectious diseases and the director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, was optimistic.

"Parents should take heart in this decision and continue to immunize their children with the confidence that they are the safest, most effective way to protect against dangerous diseases," the pediatrician said.

"It's time to move forward and look for the real causes of autism," said Alison Singer, president of the Autism Science Foundation. "Our children deserve real answers and at this point doing more and more studies of vaccines, when the science is so clear, would be allowing politics to triumph over science."

The three test cases represented thousands of children who have autism and whose parents contend their disorder was triggered by an early childhood vaccination.

The vaccines contained thimerosal, a mercury-derived compound the parents say helped bring on regressive autism, in which normally developing children suddenly exhibit learning disorders and behavioral problems, typically between ages 1 and 2.

The theory that vaccines or thimerosal can cause autism is rejected by most medical experts, including the Institute of Medicine, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics. Multiple scientific studies also have failed to prove a link.

Thimerosal was removed from infant vaccines in 1999.

In February 2009, the court's special masters concluded that the evidence supporting a link between measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, or MMR, combined with thimerosal-containing vaccines, was also unpersuasive.

This week, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the appeal of parents who say that a range of vaccines administered to their child caused serious health problems.

The justices on Monday agreed to decide whether drug makers can be sued outside the vaccine court.

The lawsuit was brought by the parents of Hannah Bruesewitz, a girl from the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, area. The parents said she was healthy as an infant in 1992 when given a series of DPT shots -- a combination of vaccines to prevent diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), and tetanus.

After the third series, according to court briefs, the child began having seizures and became disabled. Now a teenager, Hannah continues to suffer what is described as "residual seizure disorder."

The Bruesewitzes alleged Wyeth Laboratories failed to adequately warn them and other parents of the risks associated with the vaccine. The vaccine court rejected the initial claim, so the family tried to revive the lawsuit in other federal courts.

A federal appeals court eventually ruled for Wyeth, now owned by Pfizer Inc., concluding all design-defect claims were barred under statute. Despite that victory, the company urged the high court to hear the case, saying it seeks final resolution on the broader legal questions.

The Obama administration also urged review and is supporting the company and the federal law in question.

Wyeth and other drug manufacturers say their products are generally safe, but side effects can occur in rare cases.

Google Fail

So recently Google put out this announcement on their blog management page:

FTP publishing will no longer be available after May 1, 2010

You currently have blogs that are published using FTP. You must migrate your blogs to a new custom domain URL or a blogspot URL. To learn more, see our dedicated blog and help documentation.

Which means that I need to figure out how to update folks on what is going on and keep this going (even though I have been rather negligent of late). At least I have a couple of months to figure this out, and in the meantime I'll be letting things run as normal.

Silenced By Age of Autism

Unscrupulous behaviour seems to be a standard when science and reality doesn't support your mistaken opinion. That is why the dangerous and irresponsible site Age of Autism censors their comments. They know that they can't stand up to reality and actual science, so they silence anyone who dissents. That is why the intrepid Todd W. has taken up the banner of collecting comments on all the lies they spread that are silenced. For those of you who subscribe to reason and reality, I encourage you to support him.

“You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.” –Senator Moynihan

The Shimmering Cloak

"I have never argued with a reasonable man and did not defeat him, but I never have argued with an ignorant man who did not defeat me."

-Ali bin Abi Talib from Nahgul-Balaghah

It is hard to refute the anti-vaccination movement. It is hard the way shoveling snow is hard, the way running errands on a tight schedule is hard. It hard because work is hard. To thoroughly and completely address anti-vaccinationist rhetoric you must be a polymath, you must pore over numerous journals, look up statistics, be somewhat familiar with the basics of toxicology, chemistry, and biology. On the other hand, in order to generate anti-vaccination rhetoric, you don't need to know anything whatsoever, or prove your statements with facts in any way. It cannot be taken for granted: Attacking a non-facts-based movement with facts alone is not enough.

Arguments with people from the anti-vaccination crowd always run the same way: First the allegation is that thiomersal causes autism. Then it is revealed that thiomersal has been removed from vaccines. Suddenly all kinds of new accusations emerge, that vaccines do not cure disease, or that they cause many other adverse reactions too numerous to list. One can only imagine how the vaccinated must function from day to day- poor delicate things that they apparently are.

Suddenly we find ourselves dealing with a dancing, shimmering cloak, concealing the simple fact that the anti-vaccination movement has no case. We address thiomersal, a shimmer and shift later, and thiomersal is no longer the concern. You can address the basis vaccines have in germ theory, the studies that failed to find a link, the fact that the people who design vaccines believe in vaccination, and generate two mountains of answers for every question raised by the anti-vaccination movement. All of this effort goes to waste. There will always be something else.

For parents trying to make the decision to vaccinate, it can be daunting to see a list of reasons not to vaccinate as long as their arms, but see comparatively little in rebuttal. Rebuttals must be well researched, made carefully, qualified adequately, and are by their nature limited and single-subject. Meanwhile the anti-vaccinationists can cite any number of highly questionable sources. Sources that parents cannot divine the value of for themselves. Scientists and doctors take it for granted that parents can distinguish facts, from fantasy. To a doctor- certain statements can be untrue in obvious and clear ways, but that doesn't mean that a layperson will appreciate the physician's promise that the claimants are "talking moonshine". A knowledgeable person is always hedging, always uncertain. The argument from ignorance is strident and sure.

Take for example: the recent retraction by the Lancet of Andrew Wakefield's paper- which in many respects allowed the anti-vaccination movement to catch fire. This retraction has done little to discourage the proponents of the idea that vaccines are a net harm to society. It has also failed to slake the thirst of many a parent who is out for the blood of the pharmaceutical industry. Of course, a parent who truly believes in the existence of a tangible villain that caused their child's illness can hardly be blamed for falling for the very persuasive narrative put forth by the anti-vaccination community.

So a flash, a glimmer, and a shimmer later we're right back where we started, and claims of censorship abound. This is why I do not feel that the anti-anti-vaccination movement can in fact win a battle of facts and evidence. What brought so many into the folds of the anti-vaccination movement was so much more than evidence and so much less at the same time. Less, in that it will never be sufficient to sway the dispassionate currents of reality as they buffet us about the world. More in that they now believe that every wave carries malice and intent, and they know in their hearts they are being borne off to some deserted island to endure the cruel machinations of some sinister force. Reality is not compelling, it's not a story, and human beings think in stories.

I'm not saying that evidence is unimportant and should never be brought into the discussion. Rather that not every one is appropriately primed to receive it, to incorporate it into the narrative that they have so elaborately woven. We've all seen the courtroom drama. The brilliant young lawyer receives a message pointing to some evidence absolving his innocent client of any guilt. He quickly proceeds to get the case thrown out by interrogating the right witness, or demonstrating conclusively in a single swift Cochranesque bit of elegant logic that his client cannot possibly be the perpetrator. However if we watch enough such dramas, we see there is also a completely different archetype:

Sometimes, there is no further investigation necessary by the inquisitive lawyer, and the evidence is lying in plain sight for all to see. The lawyer's task is not to find new ways of showing the jury the evidence, the reason his or her client is on trial has nothing to do with the evidence. It's the system that put them on trial, and it's the prejudices of the jury that will convict. The task of the usually young, usually spunky, lawyer is in fact much more herculean than a simple cold assembling together of the evidence before the jury: The counselor must instead present his or her case in a way that will shatter the illusions of the jury, obstruct the clear line of sight that they have between their world-view and the matter at hand. Our hero must change their thinking about the case from top to bottom as he destroys the persuasiveness of their precious narrative- so that when they finally move to the quiet of the deliberation room, they finally look to the evidence. In this scenario, the evidence is not the means, but the irrevocable end. The jury must now construct the only narrative that now makes sense, having shed their biases, and the verdict can only be a product of the clues gathered before them.

You cannot do battle with the shimmering cloak. It is, after all- an illusion and an obstruction. Yet every illusion presents an edge to grasp and every act of chicanery has stray thread to be pulled at. We long ago established that we have the answers, it is the questions that must fly fast and furious:

Who payed Andrew Wakefield?
How can an anti-vaccination doctor patent a measles vaccine in good conscience?
What did Jonas Salk charge for his polio vaccine patent?
If it's not thiomersal- what is it?
Why are genetic markers turning up for autism?
How many children die as a result of not vaccinating?
Considering this: On the balance, even if vaccines do cause autism, are the inevitable deaths from infectious disease an acceptable price to pay?
What's in a vaccine?

This last one is asked by our opponents, but only as a hollow point of rhetoric. I think it's a legitimate question, as evidenced by the fact that one anti-vaccinationist I talked to truly believed that vaccines contain animal brain matter. Not only is this untrue, but if it were- we would see the evidence of it in the form of an intense increase of neurological symptoms resembling mad cow disease. Brain matter is a very strange thing to pack into a vaccine anyway. I think that vaccines deserve to be demystified, and the story must be told of how they are made.

Each of the questions above, when answered, raise a set of new and more provocative questions, and each of the answers to those form a brief indelible impression on the person's mind. This series of answers comes at the seeker in a flurry of pictures. The mind, being what is, tries to put the pictures together to tell a story. There, suddenly, a zoetrope unfolds and in that flickering motion our thinker spies a courtroom and a jury that is slowly coming to its senses.

Study Confirms Link between Older Maternal Age and Autism

Maternal age and autism are both on the rise--but only a small fraction of the increasing incidence can be explained by the trend toward later childbearing

By Katie Moisse

It is common knowledge: As women get older, pregnancy becomes a riskier enterprise. Advanced maternal age is linked to a number of developmental disorders in children, such as Down's syndrome. Now, a study has confirmed that older mothers are more likely to give birth to a child with autism, too.

The authors of the epidemiological study, published February 8 in Autism Research, examined the parental age of more than 12,000 children with autism and nearly five million "control" children between 1990 and 1999, all living in California. The researchers found that mothers over 40 had a 51 percent higher risk of having a child with autism than mothers 25 to 29, and a 77 percent higher risk than mothers under 25.

Autism—a developmental disorder characterized by impaired social interaction and communication—appears to be on the rise. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now estimates that as many as one in 110 children in the U.S. has an autistic spectrum disorder—a group of developmental disorders including autism, Asperger's syndrome and pervasive developmental disorder. The prevalence of autistic spectrum disorders in California in 2007 was 12 times that from 1987, representing an average annual growth of 13 percent, according to a report from the California Department of Developmental Services. Only a fraction of these extra cases can be explained by changes to diagnostic criteria and earlier diagnoses.

Maternal age is also increasing in the U.S. A California-based study reported a three-fold increase in the number of births to women aged 40 to 44 between 1982 and 2004. But this trend toward delayed childbearing accounted for less than 5 percent of the total increase in autism diagnoses in California over the decade, according to the study—a finding that surprised Janie Shelton, a doctoral student in University of California, Davis's Department of Public Health Sciences and the study's lead author. "I would have expected to see more of a contribution, because age is a risk factor and women are having kids later," she says.

Earlier work had suggested that both maternal and paternal ages are independently associated with autism risk. But the current study found that paternal age is only a risk factor when the mother is under 30. It follows similar results obtained from the same California sample, published in September 2009 in the American Journal of Public Health, which showed that pooling data artificially inflates the risk of paternal age, and that advanced maternal age likely poses the greater risk. "It's nice to see replication of prior work," says Peter Bearman, co-author of the 2009 paper. Neither research team investigated whether increasing maternal age worsened autistic symptoms, although a 2007 study published in the Journal of Autism and Development Disorders that measured autistic children's cognitive and social function failed to make that link.

Mothers over 35 are at a higher risk for prolonged labor, premature or breeched deliveries, and birth to babies with low Apgar scores (a rating index used to evaluate the condition of a newborn infant)—all factors that have been associated with autism. But they might also be more likely to seek diagnoses to explain their child's abnormal behavior. "That's definitely an important thought, and I think that there is some evidence to suggest that people with higher education and higher socioeconomic status in general are more adept at navigating the diagnostic process here in California," Shelton says. "[Parents] need to be motivated to get the diagnostic and treatment services that are granted to them by the state. There are certain cases we're missing because the parents don't know about the services that are available or they haven't worked out how to navigate the system yet." The proportion of parents of autistic children with fewer than 24 years of combined education in the study was smaller than that of "control" birth parents, (19 percent and 36 percent, respectively).

Other contributors to the increasing incidence of autism remain unclear. "We're doing a lot of research into environmental risk factors," Shelton says, describing ongoing research into possible nutritional factors and toxic chemical exposure during labor and development. It is possible that the increased risk associated with maternal age might reflect the mother's longer cumulative exposure to unknown environmental factors, the authors report.

The research team published an earlier report in the same journal describing high-incidence geographic clusters in California, another finding in line with Bearman's work that suggests environmental processes and social influences (why someone would live in a particular neighborhood) might be contributing factors. Maternal autoimmunity is another theory proposed by the researchers, who previously reported that some mothers of autistic children had antibodies to fetal brain proteins in their plasma. These antibodies (which might increase in number with age) could transfer into the fetus and interfere with early brain development, the researchers report.

Whereas biomedical studies are required to uncover the mechanisms underlying the disorder, Shelton says the present epidemiological study was important in clarifying the nuanced relationship between maternal age and autism, and defining its contribution to the rise in cases. It might have even provided biological clues. "It really is a maternally mediated biological process that's going on," Shelton says.

Although it is rising, the risk of autism is still very low and shouldn't affect the decision to have children at any age, Shelton says. "People should pursue their families whenever it's right for them," she says, adding that soon-to-be parents should "just stay as healthy as possible," and steer clear of dangerous exposures. She also encourages parents with autistic children to get involved in research. "I think parents are anxious because science hasn't figured it out yet. If they have the opportunity to be involved in supporting science and autism research, that's a great thing."

Dana McCaffery

Sometimes I get asked why I started to run this web page. I think Dr. Plait pretty much reminded us all with this post:

Dana McCaffery

Today would have been Dana McCaffery’s first birthday.

It is in her memory that we must all stand up to unreason. It is in her memory that we must never tire, and never fail.

Evolution for kids

I also wanted to post this bit from Dr. Plaits blog, since it does involve education on a subject we cover here as well.

Evolution for kids

We’re having a big problem in America these days, with the forces of antireality on the march to deceive our children. Evolution is a big target for them, of course, and I need not belabor the battle here.

But what can we do? We need to excite kids about the real world, and about evolution in particular. And we need to do it in a wonderful way, grabbing their attention, staying positive, and revealing all the beauty and majesty of the way life has self-propagated on this planet of ours.

Daniel Loxton has come to the rescue! He’s the brain behind Skeptic Magazine’s Junior Skeptic, a terrific feature designed to get young kids thinking. His experience putting that together is clear in his new book, Evolution: How We and All Living Things Came to Be. This book has everything for younger readers: excellent writing, simple yet compelling layout, and a diversity of topics in evolution and its related studies which give the reader a solid background in evolutionary biology. That’s critical, as it gives them a basis on which they can build when they read more about the topic.

And Daniel covers a lot of topics, like transitional fossils, population growth, diversity of species, how we know that life changes over time, mutations, natural selection, and more. He even deals simply and efficiently with the topic of religion at the very end, telling the reader to talk to family, friends, and religious leaders about it. While I might disagree with him a bit (really, just a bit) over the boundaries of religion and science we’ve had a few discussion on Twitter about this — I think he deals with the topic elegantly in the book. After all, the book isn’t about religion, and instead of being arrogant or dismissive, he relies on the book itself being an effective treatment of the topic. I think that was a shrewd move.

And I simply cannot praise the illustrations enough, which were done by Daniel himself. WOW! The drawings are simply magnificent; the Archeopteryx on the cover will grab any kid’s attention, as will the gorgeous T-Rex on the first page. My favorite drawing was this one, which he also uses as a banner for the book:

It shows two women of different eras, and it beautifully demonstrates our similarities and differences. And the woman on the right is an actual human — Daniel’s wife! — something of a well-known skeptic herself. I bet if you come to TAM with a copy of the book, you can find her yourself and get both her and Daniel to sign it…

I think this book is absolutely terrific, and if you’re looking for a simple statement about it, then how about this? Simply put, I would’ve loved this book when I was a kid. It would have made me want to be a scientist.

You can get buy a copy of Evolution through the Skeptics.com website, or if you donate $100 they’ll send you a copy for free. I know, it’s not really free then, but you’ll be helping out a good group of skeptics, so it’s a good thing to do. If you prefer, it’s also available on Amazon and Amazon.ca.

My suggestion: buy several copies and give them away as gifts to kids. And maybe one for your local school as well. I know they could use it there