Floyd Glidewell, author of Settled Science, was interviewed in December 2007 to discuss his reasons for publishing the book, Settled Science, and the science behind it.

Q. Why did you choose “Settled Science” for the book’s title?

A. I borrowed the idea from the legal profession. Over the years I watched many confirmation hearings on TV of senators questioning nominees for the Supreme Court. During the hearings the term “settled law” was applied many times to certain legal principles that had become so widely accepted by the legal community they were not likely to be litigated anymore. In writing my book, I soon realized the theory of evolution, explaining how life evolved, and the Big Bang Theory, explaining how our universe formed, were just as accepted in the science community as “settled law” was in the legal community, so I refer to the body of science that supports the theory of evolution and the Big Bang Theory as “settled science.”

Q. How did you acquire the information contained in the book, and how do you know it is accurate?

A. I don’t know all of it is accurate. I believe most of it is because an overwhelming majority of research scientists think so. Scientists know that many details of both the theory of evolution and the Big Bang Theory still have not been adequately explained, and some already explained ones have been proven wrong. However, the “fact” of evolution and the “fact” of the Big Bang are not even questioned anymore by most in the scientific community. During my high school and college years I had many science courses which prepared me for reading many great books and scientific articles authored by leading scientists. I sincerely believe all the information I included in the book is accurate but acknowledge that since most of the scientific information was obtained by interpreting the works of others the reader should know that what is written in the book is my understanding of it.

Q. What event inspired you to write Settled Science?

A. In the summer of 2005, during a conversation with my daughter, the subject of evolution came up. She had become interested in how evolution works and asked if I would explain my understanding of it. Of course, I tried to explain the basics but soon realized she was not grasping it. A few days later I decided to organize my thoughts on paper so the next time the subject came up I could explain it in a more coherent way. It soon became apparent why she could not seem to understand. Each subject that I was trying to explain required explaining something preceding it. In other words, what came from what? Before I knew it, I was all the way back to the Big Bang itself. Keeping this experience in mind, I have written Settled Science in a step by step way explaining each important event in a layman’s language so the reader can easily understand.

Q. What is evolution and what causes it?

A. Evolution is a process of change. It is how all living things change over time. Everything about any living thing was determined by the genes it inherited from other living things. Sometimes when copying its genes to pass on to the next generation, mistakes occur that change these genes. If the changed genes are not harmful to the offspring receiving them, the next generation will have individuals in it with different traits whose changed genes can be passed on to the next generation and so on. In time, the population will then be composed of individuals having multiple variations of the same trait. These changes in the gene pool repeated over a 3.5 billion year period is how all living things have evolved from a single-celled bacterium that finally found a way, after trying for a billion years, to obtain nutrients, convert them to energy, and then to reproduce.

Q. What happened to the Neanderthals and the other human species that preceded modern man?

A. Neanderthals, along with other human species, disappeared rather suddenly around 30,000 years ago, but some of their genes can still be found among the 25,000 genes each of us has today. While there are still competing theories to account for their sudden demise, a growing opinion among anthropologists is that most members of other human species could not compete with modern man’s brain power for the necessary resources and space needed to survive, and quickly died out. Others survived separately for awhile but eventually became part of the new human family when some modern humans, for their own reasons, mated with them to produce offspring having traits from each separate species. As Settled Science makes clear, inherited traits that are not too harmful to the offspring receiving them remain in the population available to be inherited by others. So the next time, and there will be a next time, madmen claim to be part of a “pure” race and offer preposterous means to “save” it, readers of Settled Science will know how absurd they really are.

Q. Is homosexuality in humans genetic?

A. Partially. Overwhelmingly, most biologists agree that sexual orientation in humans is inherited but have not “settled” on exactly how it is determined. The gender of an individual is determined at the moment of fertilization. During the ordinary course of events, when a sperm cell containing X chromosomes penetrates and fertilizes an egg the developed fetus will be female. If the sperm cell contains Y chromosomes, the fetus will be male. Since there is always a 50:50 mixture of X and Y chromosome sperm cells present during fertilization, there is always a 50:50 chance for each gender in every pregnancy even if the gender of all previous ones were the same. On very rare occasions certain inherited gene variations cause the development of genitalia with both male and female features. Biologists estimate these variations occur naturally in about 1% of the world’s human population, and are not the result of disease, cellular defects, or mistakes made by irresponsible parents. Whether an individual is born biologically male or female does not preclude he or she from having an opposite sexual orientation. The sexual orientation any individual is born with can vary on a continuum between strong heterosexual tendencies and strong homosexual ones, with strong and weak bisexual ones in between. Studies of identical and fraternal twins prove that the genes one inherits are not solely responsible for these differences because many identical twins, who have identical genes, do not always have the same sexual orientation. Master (Hox) genes program the development of all human traits by timely activating the appropriate individual genes responsible for these traits. Biologists know other factors can sometimes alter the program through a process known as epigenetics. Some researchers now think variations in levels of exposure to certain hormones shortly before birth, acting on genes already programmed for sexual orientation, influence which combination of them remain active at the time of birth, and different combinations produce different orientations. Settled Science discusses how identical and fraternal twins occur and why identical quadruplets are so rare.

Q. Why are there so many more genetic disorders of the brain than other organs in the human body, and why has natural selection not gotten rid of them?

A. The reason there are so many human brain disorders is because there are so many opportunities for mutations that produce them, and natural selection’s “decisions” to tolerate some and limited opportunities to remove others. The entire human genome contains about 25,000 genes and half of them are involved with the brain. During ongoing mutations over millions of years natural selection slowly guided the development of a larger and more efficient human brain by selecting (retaining) the mutations of genes that aided this development and discarding harmful ones. At some point along this long journey, a combination of mutations produced a startling result: rudimentary cognitive thinking. Having this ability was so advantageous that any other mutations enhancing this ability were quickly selected even though some of them also produced psychological disorders. The speed of selection accelerated when humans, using their more intelligent brain, saw the advantages of living in larger groups. Living in larger groups increased competition between individuals for resources and mating partners, making intelligence even more important. These developments increased pressure on natural selection to accelerate selection, which allowed many psychological disorders to remain in the gene pool. In order for natural selection to cull any genetic disorder from a population, mental or otherwise, the disorder must be one that restricts or reduces the number of surviving offspring. Many psychological disorders are not serious enough to affect reproduction or survival rates, and some of the more serious ones only develop in individuals after child bearing age when natural selection is no longer operating. Furthermore, some of the most serious psychological problems that do inhibit reproduction or shorten lives are associated with parts of the brain that evolved so recently, in evolutionary time, that natural selection has not had enough time to do its work. When mutated genes are not immediately lethal to the offspring receiving them, the number of generations required by natural selection to remove them from the population is inversely proportional to how harmful they are on the number of surviving offspring. Settled Science explains, in detail, how natural selection chooses which of these mutations to keep and which ones to discard.

Q. How is it possible the Universe formed from “nothing” without Divine Intervention?

A. In the Universe we know there was never “nothing.” There was always “something:” energy! Physicists know energy cannot be created nor destroyed, it can only change forms. Settled Science explains how physicists think an extremely hot and compressed form of light energy suddenly burst 14 billion years ago, unfolding the dimensions of space and time to accommodate the movement of this energy and matter that was being formed in astounding quantities. Movement of anything from one location to another requires space and time, as in miles per hour or feet per second. Astounding amounts of matter was forming from energy because conditions favored the formation of electrons (matter) at a greater rate than anti-matter positrons. Whenever the number of electrons and positrons are equal matter cannot exist because the particles annihilate each other when they collide. In time, cooling conditions favored the formation of massive amounts of other sub-atomic particles such as protons and neutrons that combined with electrons to form immense quantities of hydrogen and helium that slowly built the Universe we know today. Read Settled Science and understand how.

Q. Why do some critics of the theory of evolution object so strongly to the idea that “chance” or random events play such important roles in it?

A. Many individuals believe everything in the Universe was made by an eternal supernatural spirit to play a special role in a long running movie. They insist that even though the purpose and running time for the movie is still unclear, the script is still being directed by this spirit, and nothing in the movie can happen without the spirit’s approval. The degree of confidence these individuals have in this belief is usually revealed immediately after a major accident or natural disaster. Whenever the outcome of the event is a good one, some survivors and others credit it to benevolent actions taken by this spirit and sometimes speculate at length about why the spirit favored them. However, when the opposite is true and victims suffer a gruesome and agonizing death, or extremely painful injuries, many of the same people avoid thinking and talking about why the spirit allowed this horrible incident, and quickly assert that since humans are incapable of understanding the spirit’s motives we should never speculate about them. This avoidance is psychologically necessary because they know there are only three possibilities why an all powerful spirit does not prevent these incidents. The first possibility is the spirit does not exist. The second is the spirit does exist in the supernatural world but cannot intervene in our natural world. The remaining possibility is that the spirit could have prevented the incident but instead chose to allow it for its own reasons, such as retribution for disobedient behavior by one or more of the victims, to warn and intimidate others, or to reward those who benefit from the consequences. If they were to conclude that any of these possibilities was true they would lose the psychological comfort derived from believing and trusting in the spirit, so for these individuals it’s best to avoid thinking about it. Others, however, grope to find some psychologically pleasing explanation, and usually suggest ways the spirit was helpful during the incident such as enabling and motivating rescuers and medical personnel, and preventing further deaths and injuries by directing others away from the site that otherwise would have been there when the event occurred. Recently a suicide bomber in Iraq detonated his vehicle alongside an army convoy killing several soldiers, wounding many others, and killing and wounding many civilians who were shopping in a street market. A reporter interviewing the general in charge of the convoy said he was very grateful to the spirit for spacing out the vehicles in the convoy so more of his soldiers would not be killed or wounded. The strong desire by some individuals to find benevolence from a supernatural spirit during every horrific event arises from their need to preserve their own hope for it going forward. Some non-believers in the existence of supernatural spirits label this hope a crutch, and some believers call it an anchor, but in my opinion no matter what you call it, for many it offers some hope for a better life and feel very strongly that believing life began “by chance” threatens this hope, and, therefore, must be strongly rejected.

Q. Is global warming real and, if so, are man’s activities causing it?

A. Yes, and most likely. During Earth’s long history there have been many warming and cooling periods that scientists attribute to changing atmospheric conditions and periodic increases in the activity of our sun. While there is no doubt our sun periodically produces and directs more heat and radiation towards Earth, most scientists don’t think it can account for so many ice ages and warming periods Earth has experienced in its history. Most climatologists cite strong evidence that Earth is warming at a faster rate than it has experienced in the past so, yes, they believe global warming is real and think human activities are causing most of it, so the debate has come down to what to do about it. Most atmospheric scientists believe gases, primarily carbon dioxide, in our atmosphere prevent heat from escaping into space, resulting in a warmer Earth. Throughout Earth’s history there has always been a natural battle to control the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere between volcanic activity and animals that produce carbon dioxide and photosynthetic organisms such as plants, phytoplankton, and cyanobacteria that consume it. This battle has resulted in many warming and cooling cycles. Now, however, man’s immense production of carbon dioxide by burning fossil fuels and his destruction of so much of earth’s vegetation has caused scientists to fear the natural cycle has been greatly altered. The historical production of carbon dioxide has been greatly increased and the historical consumption of it has been greatly decreased. Settled Science discusses several proposals suggested by scientists and policymakers that they think, if adopted, will slow and possibly reverse this alarming trend.

Q. Why can’t antibiotics kill viruses?

A. For anything to be killed it must first be alive. Viruses are not living things. They are extremely small strands of DNA that have two very important chemicals attached to their surfaces. One of these allow the viruses to enter the cells of living things and the other allows them to get out. After entering they just hang out until it’s time to reproduce, at which time the hosts’ cells replicate the virus’ DNA for them to pass on to the next generation. Antibiotics work by interfering with the normal biological functions of bacteria which either kills them outright or impedes their growth, allowing time for the host’s immune system to kill them. Since viruses do not conduct their own biological functions antibiotics have no effect on them. Settled Science discusses the origin of viruses, their structure and many of the diseases they cause.

Q. While writing Settled Science, did you form an opinion on the question of whether natural selection favors those humans who love and worship a supernatural spirit (IT), if IT exists, or those who fear IT and curry favor with IT?

A. People have inherited tendencies to respond to bullies in various ways. If their basic nature is similar to that of the bully and/or think it is in their own interest to promote the bully’s agenda they will generally do so. Even if they strongly dislike the bully and his or her tactics, but fear the bully’s power, they will generally “go along to get along.” However, most people love it when someone else stands up to a bully and “gets even” for all of us. I think most people don’t realize, and some don’t care, they hurt the feelings of people who lose loved ones in a horrible accident or natural disaster when they publicly declare that IT protected and saved some during the event but chose not to protect their loved ones, and then have no qualms telling mourners they should love and worship IT. So my answer to your question is, natural selection favors the alternative that gives you the most psychological comfort.