Reader kai shared this interesting story: Why Flowers have Lost their Scent (making it more difficult for bees to find them), and points out that perhaps the most interesting bit of the story is the deluge of irate comments denying global warming. Global warming denialism is of course nothing new, but it’s interesting that the denialists feel compelled to attack even a story that doesn’t even mention climate change.

People are accusing the story of being a sloppy bit of - well, either science, or science journalism, or both. They seem entirely incapable of separating the original study from the dumbed-down media version. Someone said that the stupid scientists should’ve moved away from their ivory towers universities and instead gone to the countryside to do the study, as apparently in the countryside there’s no pollution at all. Someone else snorted derisively about the scientists magical ability to sort out pollution from car exhausts from all the other kinds of pollution (planes, factories, what have you) - as if it cannot possibly have crossed the minds of the scientists to find out exactly what these different pollutants actually are and how much they contribute to average pollution.

In short, many commenters display an absolutely baffling lack of respect for these working scientists, seemingly assuming they’re paid off by liberal politicians who want to make people feel guilty about driving cars. When all the scientists have really done, as far as I can tell, is figure out that scent molecules from flowers are easily degraded by pollution. They claim there is “no separation between science and politics”, which is clearly a case of projection, as they themselves are unable to look past their denialist agenda to consider the actual science behind the story.

Pollution in various forms is affecting the world around us. One study isn’t going to tell us exactly to what extent. But to discount the effect of pollutants on flower scents entirely just because you can smell the roses (the people who said this must have missed that the flowers haven’t stopped producing scents, the scent just doesn’t reach as far as it used to - you’ll still be able to feel it if you’re standing in the damn rose garden!) … I don’t know whether to blame this on scientific illiteracy or just plain stupidity.

flowers, bees, science journalism, pollution, global warming

On reading Life - The Science of Biology I ran across the following statement:

Of course, humans are obviously much more complex than fish

We are? Which part of us, apart from the brain? I’m honestly confused. There’s no qualifying statement, no explanation as to how they measure complexity. Not only is “humans are more complex than fish” a rather drastic statement to make, but the way they do it - as if it’s a widely known and accepted fact - takes me aback.

But perhaps I’m just a dullard who missed some essential point during my education. If some enlightened reader would like to explain to me how we’re more complex than fish and how this is obvious, I would be much obliged.

biology, fish, humans, complexity

ScienceDaily reports on an interesting phylogenetic study in their imaginatively named article Tree Of Animal Life Has Branches Rearranged, By Evolutionary Biologists (who else?).

The big shocker: Comb jellyfish — common and extremely fragile jellies with well-developed tissues — appear to have diverged from other animals even before the lowly sponge, which has no tissue to speak of. This finding calls into question the very root of the animal tree of life, which traditionally placed sponges at the base.

To clarify, comb jellies (Ctenophora) are not grouped with the other jellies, corals, anemones, hydras etc. (Cnidaria), and at least on the course I very recently took on systematic zoology, we were taught that Cnidaria is most likely the sister group of Bilateria (the rest of the animals), Ctenophora is the next group down, and then Porifera (sponges) sits at the very base of the animal tree. The question was whether either Ctenophora or Cnidaria were more closely related to Bilateria, or if they were a monophyletic group that itself was the sister group of Bilateria - but Porifera’s place at the base of the tree was never in question.

Although I have the original Letter to Nature I haven’t had the energy to actually read it yet, although I did look at the pretty pictures. The figures suggest that Cnidaria and Porifera compose a taxon that is the sister group of the rest of the animals, and Ctenophora is now the basal group.

I must say I instinctively feel very skeptical of this, but since I haven’t reviewed the evidence I’ll obviously reserve judgement. Sponges have no real tissues and can only barely be considered animals. Also they share a very interesting characteristic with some colonial organisms that might very well be the sister group of animals, the Choanoflagellates. Pharyngula recently blogged about this.

I’m hoping more accomplished scientist bloggers will pick up on this story as I’m interested what they have to say - if anyone sees a post about it, please don’t hesitate to point me in the right direction!

On a sidenote, ScienceDaily has illustrated their article with a picture of Cnidarians, apparently thinking that “comb jelly” means “any ol’ jellyfish”. [They’ve now changed the illustration - I suspect I wasn’t the only one who mailed them about it.] Comb jellies don’t swim by pumping clumsily like jellyfish - they’re the ones with the combs of beating cilia that refract light like rainbows.

biology, evolution, systematics, tree of life, animals, jellyfish, sponges

Via Skepchick I found this blog on Wired about bees as a superorganism. I’m not going to comment on it really, as it pretty much speaks for itself (also, I haven’t quite made up my mind about how useful the “superorganism” idea is), but! The author refers to a scientist (a honeybee expert, it seems) saying this:

…the worker behavior of honeybees. They’re one example of the superorganism. They have a very intriguing division of labor. That’s one of the hallmarks of superorganisms: individuals do different things, like organs in the body. An organ is different from another organ in the context of the body. The division of labor in honeybee workers is between bees in the nest and those out foraging. And between foragers, there’s specialization of a bee collecting a mixture of pollen. Just as people can do different jobs, based on interest, these bees are doing very different things.

Okay, maybe I have myself to blame for the confusion, perhaps I’ve missed a few years of groundbreaking research that hasn’t yet made it into the beekeeping textbooks, but I find this outright misleading. Honeybees, as opposed to many species of ants, only have three castes; Queens, Workers and Drones (whereas ants may have more than one kind of worker). Workers are identical to one another and an individual worker, during the span of her life, carries out all or most of the tasks essential to the working of the colony. Worker labour division is sequential; specialisation depends on the age of the individual worker. Newborn bees start their life by cleaning themselves and the cell they came out of, then they start secreting royal jelly and help nurse the larvae, then they develop their wax-secreting glands and become builders, etc. There is also a certain degree of plasticity where the workers can switch to a task that is currently in demand.

I’m sure the person quoted must know this, so why use an analogy that is just so preposterously false? My lungs didn’t start out as excretory organs and won’t switch tasks to circulation in the future. They’re morphologically distinct from other organs and only carry out the tasks they’re made for. In short, worker bees are nothing like organs in a body, but more like members of a household, where small children may carry out certain tasks, teenagers other tasks and adults yet others.

Another thing that strikes me as really odd about the Wired blog post is that the picture at the top, while beautiful, cuts a queen in half (notice the large, dark and shiny abdomen at the top edge of the picture; very different from the striped, fuzzy bottoms of the workers). The photographer was obviously aiming for the queen and whomever cropped the picture completely missed out on this…

bees, honeybees, worker bees, superorganism

Hello everyone and I’m sorry about the lack of a Friday Pic last week. I’ve been having some computer/internet issues lately which sort of ruined my will to blog. But, today is Darwin Day, which means I have to post something. Unfortunately, what I have to post is, at the moment, outrage - or at least annoyance.

Kevin Padian, president of the NCSE and expert witness in the Dover trial, has written an excellent essay in Nature about Darwin’s contributions to science. PhysOrg “reports” on it, and manages to grossly misrepresent both the author and Darwin:

“Perhaps no individual has had such a sweeping influence on so many facets of social and intellectual life,” Padian wrote in an essay published in this month’s issue of the journal Nature.

Padian wrote Darwin “has been invoked as the demon responsible for a variety of heartless ills of society,” including atheism, Nazism, communism, abortion, homosexuality, stem cell research and same-sex marriage.

Among Darwin’s critics are creationists, who insist the Bible’s descriptions of the world’s beginning are literally true, and some scientists who argue that life is the product of intelligent design.

That is pretty much all of what they write that in any way reflects what the original article is about, and it completely misses the mark. Padian obviously doesn’t in any way endorse Darwin as the cause of Nazism (or atheism as an “heartless ill”). Padian does mention that Darwin has been used for various ills in the introduction to the essay, but then goes on to discuss what’s actually interesting in the context - his scientific contributions. The original quote reads:

In the past century and a half, Darwin’s ideas have inspired powerful images and insights in science, humanities and the arts. Meanwhile, countless commentators ignorant of his meaning have borrowed his eloquence to plump their own chickens — from capitalism to ‘evolutionary psychology’. Darwin has been invoked as the demon responsible for a variety of perceived heartless ills of society, including atheism, Nazism, communism, abortion, homosexuality, stem-cell research, same-sex marriage, and the abridgement of all our natural freedoms. One can scarcely imagine the horror that Darwin would feel at the misunderstanding, misappropriation and vilification of his ideas in the 125 years since his death. (emphasis added)

What the hell went wrong, PhysOrg? Are you creationists, or what? It’s one thing to neglect to mention that Padian (and the rest of us) consider it wrong to “invoke Darwin” as the cause of bad stuff, but when you also remove the very important word “perceived”, putting homosexuality, abortion and atheism on the same level as Nazism… And on Darwin Day? This is like decapitating Santa Claus in a public square on Christmas.

Towards the end of the essay, after having listed some of the many important contributions Darwin made, Padian writes:

Darwin moved intellectual thought from a paradigm of untestable wonder at special creation to an ability to examine the workings of that natural world, however ultimately formed, in terms of natural mechanisms and historical patterns. He rooted the classification of species within a single branching tree, and so gave systematics a biological, rather than purely philosophical, rationale. He framed most of the important questions that still define our understanding of evolution, from natural selection to sexual selection, and founded the main principles of the sciences of biogeography and ecology. His work is still actively read and discussed today, inspiring new students and scientists all over the world. Few authors can claim so much.

Personally, I am celebrating Darwin Day by immersing myself in Darwin’s book “The Voyage of the Beagle”. His writing is, to use his own two favourite adjectives, singularly wonderful. The awe he expresses as he explores an unfamiliar world so different from the English countryside is both inspiring and endearing, and the way he meticulously observes and notes down everything he sees is absolutely incredible. Sometimes I wish I had been born in a different era, when valuable natural science could easily be conducted just by going out into the world and writing down everything you see… Of course, I would have needed a Y chromosome to have mattered, but time travel’s a little more difficult than sex change.

darwin, biology, evolution, nature

So I just listened to the “debate” between PZ Myers and one Dr Simmons on christian talk radio, which PZ links to here. I’m not going to provide any extensive commentary nor even recommend listening to the debate - sure, it is rather hilarious to hear PZ state matter-of-factly that Simmons has just, and I quote, “made stuff up!” - but since stupid MIGHT be contagious I wouldn’t recommend assaulting your ears with the drivel of an obviously extremely ignorant man.

Really all I wanted to say here is that what I found possibly most amusing in the whole “debate” (and I put those ironic quotation marks there since only one side actually provided any factually true arguments, so it was more of an execution than anything else) was that Dr Simmons actually admitted that his whole reasoning’s based on a gigantic argumentum ad ignorantiam. On talking about the workings of the brain, he ejaculates the following pearl of wisdom:

It’s beyond my comprehension that this could come about by trial and error.

Yes, Dr Simmons, I imagine it is.

In his closing statement, he finally resorts to that which he at at least two points in the interview whined that PZ was doing - insults. To his credit he doesn’t level those insults at PZ, but instead slams Darwin with a big fat ad hominem, calling him a bigotted, misogynistic racist. As if those things (were they even true) had any bearing on the theory of evolution at all. It’s especially ironic since PZ opened the whole debate stating that Darwin’s really out of the picture by now, and Dr Simmons desperately tried to save face by claiming “Darwin” is really just a good name to put on the theory because it’s so well known, even though of course he knows that current evolutuionary theory isn’t the same as Darwin’s evolutionary theory.

Hoooo-boy. I think I’ll go read a biology textbook to purge my mind of the obtuse, infantile nonsense I was just exposed to.

science, biology, evolution, intelligent design, pseudoscience

Pharyngula regulars will already have seen this but it’s too good not to repost:

Put like this, who can argue?

Also, a warning: Posting might be a little sporadic over the next week (as it has been since the weekend) due to me being very busy right now.

science, religion, bible

The 2008 Annual Question of Edge.org:

When thinking changes your mind, that’s philosophy.
When God changes your mind, that’s faith.
When facts change your mind, that’s science.

WHAT HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR MIND ABOUT? WHY?

Science is based on evidence. What happens when the data change? How have scientific findings or arguments changed your mind?

In a refreshing display of humility, over 160 thinkers (so far?) have admitted to not always being right. Unsurprisingly I especially like Richard Dawkins’ answer - not because of the exact topic over which he’s changed his mind (Zahavi’s handicap principle of sexual selection), but because of the points he makes about science and skepticism. His opening paragraph reads (my emphasis):

When a politician changes his mind, he is a ‘flip-flopper.’ Politicians will do almost anything to disown the virtue — as some of us might see it — of flexibility. Margaret Thatcher said, “The lady is not for turning.” Tony Blair said, “I don’t have a reverse gear.” Leading Democratic Presidential candidates, whose original decision to vote in favour of invading Iraq had been based on information believed in good faith but now known to be false, still stand by their earlier error for fear of the dread accusation: ‘flip-flopper’. How very different is the world of science. Scientists actually gain kudos through changing their minds. If a scientist cannot come up with an example where he has changed his mind during his career, he is hidebound, rigid, inflexible, dogmatic! It is not really all that paradoxical, when you think about it further, that prestige in politics and science should push in opposite directions.

Of course, this point seems to be entirely lost on many followers of religious dogma. Ted Haggard’s statements in “Root of All Evil?” are a perfect example of the distrust these people feel for the scientific community because of the changing nature of science. They seem to pursue stability in the form of ever-lasting Truth ™ … regardless of whether that truth is actually true or not. Unfortunately, I think convincing someone with this mindset of the superiority of the scientific method(s) is doomed to fail. Hopefully, the results of science will speak for themselves, in the long run. After all, they don’t have much by way of competition, as the Truth ™ of various holy books have yet to save people from smallpox or construct earthquake-safe buildings.

In closing his statement, Dawkins moves on to discuss the necessity for healthy skepticism:

Nevertheless, a word of caution. Grafen’s role in this story is of the utmost importance. Zahavi advanced a wildly paradoxical and implausible idea, which — as Grafen was able to show — eventually turned out to be right. But we must not fall into the trap of thinking that, therefore, the next time somebody comes up with a wildly paradoxical and implausible idea, that one too will turn out to be right. Most implausible ideas are implausible for a good reason. Although I was wrong in my scepticism, and I have now changed my mind, I was still right to have been sceptical in the first place! We need our sceptics, and we need our Grafens to go to the trouble of proving them wrong.

This ties in with a recent discussion on Aardvarchaeology, continued on Respectful Insolence. In short, to be a skeptic means agreeing with scientific consensus when it comes to areas in which you are not an expert. If you are an expert - as could be said for Dawkins in the case of Zahavi’s handicap theory - you should be following the evidence. Dawkins did not accept Zahavi’s theory until he had seen what for him constituted sufficient evidence, in the form of Grafen’s mathematical modelling.

science, dawkins, dogma, skepticism

Greg Laden has written a good post on the recent slaughter of a tiger.

That phrase is ambiguous on purpose. Tatiana the tiger killed someone, and was killed for it. It’s a tiger-eat-man-and-gets-shot-down world, eh? As Laden says:

It should always be assumed that large carnivores are deadly…. that’s why we call them l a r g e … c a r n i v o r e s…. See? Carn - i - vores = meat eater. Large meat eater. Large meat eating beast. Look out! Why do people not get this?

He goes on to question the very existence of zoos. Zoo visitors are notoriously bad at behaving themselves, often taunting the animals, trespassing and in other ways putting themselves and others in danger.

Should there be zoos, then? A couple of years back I visited what I believe is the largest zoo in Sweden as part of a course in ethology. We got to personally meet a pack of four male wolves, which was an extremely powerful experience, as well as see the “backstage” lion cage. We were told not to go too close to the bars, because although they were quite close together, lions could still fit a claw or two through them, and these captive lions have absolutely no respect for humans. That’s what happens when you try to treat large carnivores well: They see you as a bipedal snack. Wild lions at least have marginal respect for humans, because they don’t know us as well.

Let’s just say a male lion lunging at you is one of the scariest things imaginable. Even if there are thick iron bars between you and him.

One of my coursemates made the mistake of staring into the eyes of a silverback gorilla a moment too long. That also created quite a ruckus.

Anyway, apart from the large carnivores, the zoo obviously also keeps dolphins, giraffes and other animals. We were told that apart from quite a lot of research being done on site, many of the endangered animals are used for breeding. Zoos, the keepers explained, exist for conservation purposes.

I can understand that, and I don’t really see any better way. If we need to help animals to breed, then we need to keep animals in captivity in some way. The question, I suppose, is whether zoos should really be built for visitors (other than students of biology), or whether we ought to start thinking ONLY of conservation and research. Chances are the cages would then be constructed in ways better for the animals and safer for the humans. But the educational aspect and public outreach would be completely lost. Are a few maimed visitors and mad monkeys worth it?

zoo, carnivores, tigers, lions, wolves

We need to upgrade our satellites so we can receive binary data. But that should be an easy thing to do!

My significant other is currently playing the game UFO: Afterlight. It seems alright, although it’s rather silly that humans refer to their own spacecraft as ufos. Do they build them wearing blindfolds? When they board them, do they cover their eyes? “Don’t look! If we identify it, it might not be able to fly afterwards!”

And then of course there’s the quote (or paraphrase, as I can’t recall the exact wording) above. What in the world were they receiving before? Just a long series of ones? “We are receiving data from the people still on earth. It says: Daaaaaaaaaaaaah.”

What is it with script writers and their complete inability to find a grad student or two to go through the game and look for blatant scientific blunders?

gaming, science, treknobabble