Mao Zedong: a brief history.

 Mao Zedong (December 26, 1893 – September 9, 1976), also known as Chairman Mao and popularly rendered as Mao Tse-tung, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founding father of the People's Republic of China (PRC), which he ruled as the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party from the establishment of the PRC in 1949 until his death in 1976. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist, his theories, military strategies, and political policies are collectively known as Maoism.

Mao was the son of a prosperous peasant in Shaoshan, Hunan. He supported Chinese nationalism and had an anti-imperialist outlook early in his life, and was particularly influenced by the events of the Xinhai Revolution of 1911 and May Fourth Movement of 1919. He later adopted Marxism–Leninism while working at Peking University, and became a founding member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), leading the Autumn Harvest Uprising in 1927. During the Chinese Civil War between the Kuomintang (KMT) and the CCP, Mao helped to found the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, led the Jiangxi Soviet's radical land policies, and ultimately became head of the CCP during the Long March. Although the CCP temporarily allied with the KMT under the Second United Front during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), China's civil war resumed after Japan's surrender, and Mao's forces defeated the Nationalist government, which withdrew to Taiwan in 1949.

On October 1, 1949, Mao proclaimed the foundation of the PRC, a Marxist–Leninist single-party state controlled by the CCP. In the following years he solidified his control through the Chinese Land Reform against landlords, the Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries, the "Three-anti and Five-anti Campaigns", and through a psychological victory in the Korean War, which altogether resulted in the deaths of several million Chinese. From 1953 to 1958, Mao played an important role in enforcing planned economy in China, constructing the first Constitution of the PRC, launching the industrialisation program, and initiating the "Two Bombs, One Satellite" project. In 1955–1957, Mao launched the Sufan movement and the Anti-Rightist Campaign, with at least 550,000 people persecuted in the latter, most of whom were intellectuals and dissidents. In 1958, he launched the Great Leap Forward that aimed to rapidly transform China's economy from agrarian to industrial, which led to the deadliest famine in history and the deaths of 15–55 million people between 1958 and 1962. In 1963, Mao launched the Socialist Education Movement, and in 1966 he initiated the Cultural Revolution, a program to remove "counter-revolutionary" elements in Chinese society which lasted 10 years and was marked by violent class struggle, widespread destruction of cultural artifacts, and an unprecedented elevation of Mao's cult of personality. Tens of millions of people were persecuted during the Revolution, while the estimated number of deaths ranges from hundreds of thousands to millions, including Liu Shaoqi, the 2nd Chairman of the PRC. After years of ill health, Mao suffered a series of heart attacks in 1976 and died at the age of 82. During Mao's era, China's population grew from around 550 million to over 900 million while the government did not strictly enforce its family planning policy.

A controversial figure, Mao is regarded as one of the most important individuals in the twentieth century. He is also known as a political intellect, theorist, military strategist, and poet. During Mao's era, China was involved in the Korean War, the Sino-Soviet split, the Vietnam War, and the rise of Khmer Rouge. He ruled China as an autocratic and totalitarian regime responsible for mass repression as well as destruction of religious and cultural artifacts and sites. The government was responsible for vast numbers of deaths with estimates ranging from 40 to 80 million victims through starvation, persecution, prison labour, and mass executions. Supporters of Mao have credited him with transforming China from a semicolony to a powerful sovereign state, with increased literacy and life expectancy.

A stake through heart for the junk DNA zombie?

Oxford Journal: “The Days of ‘Junk DNA’ Are Over ”

Evolution News @DiscoveryCSC 

Thanks to a friend for passing along a new article at the Oxford University Press journal Genome Biology & Evolution (GBE), by several authors (from German and French universities), which opened its discussion section with the sentence “The days of junk DNA are over.” 

That by itself would be significant. Equally noteworthy, however, is the fact that GBE social media editor Casey McGrath — an evolutionary biologist employed by the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution (SMBE), the academic sponsor of GBE and its sister journal Molecular Biology and Evolution — wrote a Highlight article calling attention to the observation that “Junk DNA” is “No More.” McGrath’s article, “‘Junk DNA’ No More: Repetitive Elements as Vital Sources of Flatworm Variation,” is open access.

None of this is accidental. Since project ENCODE provoked outrage among evolutionary biologists such as Dan Graur over a decade ago, there has been a concerted campaign to defend the notion of junk DNA, often explicitly in the context of anti-intelligent design sentiments. Graur, at the University of Houston, famously argued in 2013, in a major speech in Chicago to the SMBE, that “if ENCODE is right, then evolution is wrong.” 

Younger evolutionary biologists such as Casey McGrath are watching all this. We should not assume McGrath has any ID sympathies; almost certainly, she does not. But questions about the possible functional roles of apparent “junk” DNA are just too interesting to allow oneself to be intimidated into silence by academic bullies such as Graur.