A very interesting lecture by Robert Sapolsky:
A very interesting lecture by Robert Sapolsky:
Posted at 09:59 PM in Nature, Religion | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Here's another wonderful reminder to the electorate of why congress needs to create an Office of Impeachment Proceedings with a covert "Lickity Split" division: Polar Bear to Be a Protected Species.
Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne cited dramatic declines in sea ice over the last three decades and projections of continued losses. These declines, he told a news conference, mean the polar bear is a species likely to be in danger of extinction in the near future.
Kempthorne also said, though, that it would be ''inappropriate'' to use the protection of the bear to reduce greenhouse gases, or to broadly address climate change.
Reflecting views recently expressed by President Bush, Kempthorne said the Endangered Species Act was ''never meant to regulate global climate change.''
He said the decision to list the bear includes administrative actions aimed at limiting the impact of the decision on energy development and other climate related activities.
''This listing will not stop global climate change or prevent any sea ice from melting,'' said Kempthorne.
This is classic Republican Environmentalism: reluctantly put the name of a doomed animal on a list. Do nothing. Repeat. How anyone can read such an article as this and not be struck by the monumental stupidity and otherworldly callousness of this administration is beyond me. Here it's bears, there it's whales. Why are these jerks so intent on killing off the world's K-strategists?
Posted at 02:10 PM in Nature, Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
There’s a terrific essay by J. Michael Plavcan titled “The Invisible Bible: The Logic of Creation Science,” in the book Scientists Confront Creationism: Intelligent Design and Beyond. Specifically, Plavcan does a wonderful service by describing the ideational paradigms that support the idea of “creation science.” As I was reading it, I was struck by the similarities between the way creationists view science with respect to evolution (and isotopic dating) and the way conservatives view science with respect to global warming. They both seem nearly identical in the that they both do the following:
Most revealing, however, is the way in which the ‘cognitive dissonance’ model is useful in understanding the anti-science mindset of many conservatives with respect to global warming. To be sure, dogmatic positions from across the political spectrum are often accused of being associated with cognitive dissonance; usually without a great deal of merit because political convictions “do not offer … clear, absolutely falsifiable, prediction[s]” and are therefore not, strictly speaking, memes of cognitive dissonance. However, like creationists, environmental conservatives have a great deal invested in their view of the world; i.e. that market behavior, strong protections for property, and ‘enlightened self-interest’ are better suited to maintain long-term prosperity than regulation and collective responsibility. Faced with overwhelming data which supports the idea that we are collectively responsible for hastening the destruction of the biosphere, conservatives are rightly concerned that admitting as much would be a repudiation (of sorts) of their most closely held beliefs. Like the creationists, the anti-global warming conservatives have effectively been reduced to a small but vocal cadre of hard-liners that appear immune to reality-based efforts of suasion. It is the last bastion of the faithful; and there is no evidence that the light of reason will ever breach it.
UPDATE: Think Progress on Fox News and "Global Cooling".
UPDATE 2: David Keith at TED on Climate Change.
Posted at 10:41 AM in Nature, Politics, Religion, Science | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
I've been making my way through Douglas W. Mock's book, More Than Kin and Less Than Kind: The Evolution of Family Conflict. It deals primarily with the behavioral ecology of birds and the discernable patterns, causes, and manifestations of conflict within nests. Although I'm only halfway through, it reads surprisingly well – and is far more interesting than I had anticipated. Principally, the focus seems to be on uncovering the evolutionary justification for widely occurring (but little understood) phenomena like siblicide and parent-offspring conflict.
One interesting, albeit obvious, subject that he touches on is the genetic disposition (as codified by evolution) for infants to use deceit to overstate their true physiological needs. It's easy to see in infantile begging: parents are better served by reacting to certain types of false alarms because the potential cost of not doing so could prove enormous, and the children take advantage of this when competing against their nestmates for resources. Interestingly, the fight for resources – such as it is – is continuous, brutal, and often independent of the whether such resources are scarce or plentiful. As such, the preconditioned propensity toward dishonesty comes to characterize competition itself:
Field experiments with American Robins have shown that nestmates are highly attuned to on another's begging levels. The idea is that chicks solicit food with varying levels of vigor, thus can adjust their behavior in accordance with how valuable the next food item is and how high a personal cost they ware willing to pay for an enhanced likelihood of getting it. Usually the chick that begs the fastest and loudest and/or has positioned itself most favorably is the one that gets fed. So if one chick is removed from its nest and deprived of food for a while (kept warm and well cared for otherwise), it pulls out all the stops when returned home and, on average, gets more of the next few deliveries. And when one chick is thus manipulated into raising its ante, its undeprived nestmates escalate their begging also. The game is intensified.
I couldn't help but notice that there are similarities in the way American Robins and American Humans behave in this respect (see Lessons on the surge from economics 101, via eponymagain). More importantly, I think it's helpful to recognize that there are thousands of precedents in the natural world for behaviors that we routinely label as "evil" in our own species; particularly with respect to competitive conflicts. When individuals or groups act in seemingly irrational ways in response to competition from other groups, we are quick to find fault in cultural differences, an absence of competent leadership, or a flawed "moral universe." Things might make more sense if we stick with assessing one another as we really are: animals.
Posted at 10:17 AM in Nature | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Here's a doozy I read on my morning commute:
The sand tiger shark […] produces eggs that not only remain inside their mother, but actually hatch there and swim about freely. More amazingly, the youngsters cannibalize one another in utero. The inch-long embryos develop an extensive array of touch sensors that help them feel their way around in the uterine darkness and find sibling eggs to swallow. Soon, their teeth start erupting and the bigger hatchlings can gobble up the smaller ones, a process that continues until only one remains alive. Even then the mother shark continues to shed additional eggs as food, an estimated 17,000 during the nine to twelve months of gestation. On this rich diet, the survivor grows to an impressive length of more than three feet and a weight of over twenty pounds at birth, an overall prenatal increase of 1.2 million percent.
This gem of natural history was discovered quite unexpectedly, on July 27, 1947, by a biologist named Stewart Springer who was dissecting a ten-foot-long female shark. Springer reported: "Examination of the embryos began in a startling way. When I first put my hand through a slit in the oviduct I received the impression that I had been bitten. What I had encountered was an exceedingly active embryo which dashed about open-mouthed inside the oviduct."
I wonder if abortion is going to be a hot-button issue (yet again) in this election cycle.
Posted at 08:22 AM in Nature | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)