Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
As described in The Atlantic via Ed Yong and Matthew Cobb, this is a real exchange that happened today. Hadfield, as we know, is the commander of the Soyuz, heading for the International Space Station.
Now I never watched Star Trek, but I expect trekkies will understand.
As I said, the man can’t help himself. Over at his Discover blog Collide-a-Scape, Kloor interviews Daniel Sarewitz, a man we’ve met before and one who emphasized, in the pages of Nature, the failure of science to address subjective sensations and spirituality.
I promised not to go after Kloor, so I’ll just quote a bit of his interview:
KK: The thesis to that column taps into a larger, on-going debate over the question of whether science and religion are compatible. Based on your piece, I would presume that you think the two are compatible. However, some of the prominent New Atheists, such as PZ Myers and Jerry Coyne, insist that science and religion are incompatible. Why has this discussion become so binary? Why the either/or mindset exhibited by some atheists?
DS: There are lots of scientists who are also religious, so as an empirical matter science and religion are apparently not incompatible. I got many emails from scientists who really liked my column on the experience of visiting Ankor Wat. (Interestingly, those who liked the column seemed to prefer to email me directly; those who hated it preferred a public venue for airing their irritation.) We have binary arguments because they are easy and mindless and comforting–no one has to acknowledge ambiguity or complexity; everyone gets to be right. Binary arguments are a refuge for orthodoxies, and atheism can be as much an orthodoxy as religion. I say this as an atheist. I am not an agnostic. I don’t believe in god(s) and I think those that do are incorrect. But I think humans have lots of different ways of making sense of their experience of the world, and my way happens to be atheism.
I’m also trained as a scientist, by the way, and I think science offers extraordinarily powerful ways of understanding our world–but there’s a lot that it can’t tell us, and a lot that it gets wrong, and a lot of claims made on its behalf that are terribly overstated. I’m more interested in whether a person is thoughtful, kind, and open-minded than whether they’re an atheist or religious. If people want to try to come to terms with the finiteness of life in the face of the infinitude of time through religion rather cosmology, I don’t see why that should bother me.
My one comment: it’s crucial in these arguments to define “compatibility”, and it makes a big difference whether you conceive of science/faith compatibility as “the ability to do both or accept both at the same time” (the common argument), or—as I do—”the comparative ability of science and religion, using their respective philosophies and methodologies, to discern (as they claim to be able) the truth about the universe.”
This, like yesterday’s quote, is from Walter Kaufmann’s wonderful book,The Faith of a Heretic (Doubleday & Co., New York, 1961; quote from page 139):
Let those who like inspiring interpretations be no less forthright in telling us precisely where they stand on immortality, the sacraments, and hell; on the virgin birth and resurrection; on the incarnation and the miracles; on John’s theology, and Paul’s and James’; on Augustine and Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, and the various creeds. And on: “Resist not evil.” And “Let him who would sue you in court for your coat have your cloak, too.” And: “No one comes to the Father through Me.”
That would clearly be the end of theology. The theologians pay a price for perpetuating a mass movement; they are not content, as the prophets were, with a small remnant. If each spoke out boldly and unequivocally, no mass movement would be left. It would become apparent that there are almost as many different views as preachers, that such phrases as “the message of the New Testament” and “the Biblical view” and “the Christian answer” are hollow, and that the temporal and spatial continuity of Christendom depends on ambiguity.
The preacher who insists on being forthright loses at least half his audience: at best, he has the choice which portion he would like to keep. If he wants to have a congregation that does not consist solely of intellectuals, he has to speak in a manner that makes sense at which Tillich calls “the natural stage of literalism. . . in which the mythical and the literal are indistinguishable”; and he must also keep the confidence of those who have reached “the second stage of literalism, the conscious one, which is aware of the questions but represses them”; nor must he antagonize those who despise literalism.
And so theologians walk a fine line between metaphor and literalism. I see this as a form of hypocrisy, and it reminds me of something Sam Harris said in The End of Faith about the dangers of “moderate” religionists (p. 21):
By failing to live by the letter of the texts, while tolerating the irrationality of those who do, religious moderates betray faith and reason equally.
It can’t get more concise—or elegant—than that!
Before you can look at these cat pictures you have to read the biology post about pronking (just below)!
On December 1 I announced yet another cat contest in which one winner would be chosen to receive an autographed and cat-drawing-embellished book. (BTW, I am still sending out books from the DWB offer, and have about eleven to go, so please be patient.) The deadline was January 1, and the goal was to take a piece of paper or other accoutrement and modify your cat’s face in a humorous way. One example was this:
I received eleven “official” entriess and will show them all here, numbered. Now I am going to make the final decision, but will also be informed by readers’ opinions if they’re expressed eloquently and clearly. So weigh in with your favorite number below. Remember, only one opinion per customer, and no botting (that means you, Butter!). Vote by number for one of the 11 entries; the winner gets an autographed book.
#1, from Beth:
Doc Bill entered his cat Kink twice, but I’ve chosen only one as the official entry.
This is #2 from Doc Bill, the official entry:
This is another Kink picture which is not an official entry:
#3, Dayo, entered by Michelle B.
Michelle d entered two pictures; I chose one to be the official entry.
Entry #4 Michelle d:
Unofficial submission by Michelle d:
Entry #5, entered by Christopher on behalf of his daughter:
Entry #6, From Sarah (see other attempts at her photostream)
Entry #7, from Rose:
Entry #8, from Barbara:
Entry#9, Vin entered cat Newton:
#10, from Grania:
#11, from Thomas:
And of course there were failures—even some human blood was reported!
Cats are not cooperative:
Vote for one of the 11, but remember, your votes aren’t binding on me—though they could influence me.
Thanks for all the entrants who risked life and limb to humiliate their moggies but entertain the rest of us!
Biology is thin on the ground these past few weeks, so let’s look at a video of antelopes pronking. No, I didn’t say “bonking”! The behavior of this young Dama gazelle (Niger dama, a denizen of the Sahara and surrounding regions), is also called “stotting,” from the Scots word “stots,” apparently meaning to walk jauntily. When you see stotting in the video below, you’ll recognize it instantly if you have any familiarity with animal shows on television. The paper by Tim Caro at the bottom defines stotting as “vertical leaping with all four legs off the ground simultaneously, with the legs being held stiff and straight.” It also gives all the hypothesis for why stotting could have evolved (I list a few below).
Watch this three-week-old gazelle stot—and then rush about in normal running mode—at the Smithsonian (presumably the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. but perhaps at their reserve in Virginia):
Other quadrupeds do this, especially other species of gazelles. But what does it denote? We’re not sure. It seems maladaptive in an evolutionary sense, since it’s often done when fleeing from predators, and it’s not only inefficient, wasting energy when you could be running, but also makes you more visible. Yet, contra Larry Moran (who will probably weigh in here now!), I think the behavior is an adaptation. For one thing, many species show similar behavior under similar circumstances. But how could it benefit the genes that produce the behavior?
The Wikipedia article on stotting, and the two papers below, detail some of the theories and their tests. Here’s a short list:
Now all or some of these explanations might operate simultaneously, or they might all be wrong. The paper by FitGibbon and Fanshawe supports the last and the “confusion” hypotheses by showing that pursuing wild dogs were less likely to kill a gazelle when pursuing a pack in which more individuals stotted, and also that individuals who stotted for a longer proportion of the time during pursuit were less likely to be killed. But the data are scanty and the results barely significant in a statistical sense. (Of course it’s very hard to do this work in the field!) So, for right now, there’s no highly convincing explanation for stotting.
h/t: Matthew Cobb
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Caro, T. M. (1986) The functions of stotting in Thomson’s gazelles: Some tests of the predictions. Animal Behaviour 34:663-684. (free download)
FitzGibbon, C. D., and Fanshawe, J. H., (1988), Stotting in Thomson’s gazelles: an honest signal of condition. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, Volume 23, Number 2 / August, pages 69–74.