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.
I really dislike posting about a paper that I don’t fully understand, but I guess I’ll have to, as this one seems pretty important. The best I can do is summarize it briefly and give a link so that those of you above my pay grade can look at the messy details. The paper, with only two authors, Le Chang and Doris Tsao of Caltech, was published in Cell (reference and free link at bottom), and involved functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electrodes that probed individual neurons in the brains of two rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta). (It’s amazing how far technology has advanced!)
The monkeys were presented with images originally derived from 200 human faces, with data taken on a set of 50 landmarks involving both shape and features like eye color and skin tone. Chang and Tsao then constructed composite faces based on various combinations of these landmarks. After identifying a small patch of the macaque brain as being involved in face recognition, they then probed the firing of individual neurons in this region when macaques saw the faces. Using various statistical analyses incorporating the correlation of each neuron’s firing with the measurements used to construct the facial images, they then figured out an algorithm that best translated the firing patterns into the multidimensionally constructed face.
Once they did that, they could “reverse engineer” the firing patterns alone into facial images; that is, they could test their algorithm by using measurements of firing alone and their model to predict the appearance of new faces seen by the macaques. The remarkable thing is that they could do this with amazing accuracy monitoring only 205 neurons!
Below are a set of reverse-engineered faces (“predicted face”) derived from neuronal firing alone and then compared to the actual image the macaques saw. You can see the remarkable fidelity. What this means is that, as far as we know, the investigators cracked the code of how a facial image is translated into patterns of neuronal firing in the brain.
What does this mean? Well, it means we’re a lot closer to understanding how the brain translates images into neuronal firing, though of course it tells us little about how that firing is reprocessed by the brain itself into an image, for that’s a matter of “qualia”, or consciousness. But it does unravel the complicated nexus by which a whole group of cells work together to create facial images, which of course are crucial for primates recognizing individuals.
One site reporting on this, ZME Science, notes two practical implications:
The researchers can translate from neuron activity in a brain to a human face; from brain activity to visual information. In addition to cracking the code of a brain in a living animal, this study also discovered how brains recognize faces. Before, it was believed that each face cell codes one specific face. However, now we know that each cell represents one piece of visual information that combines with all of the others to form a face. Perhaps human brains also have their own code that works in a similar way. In addition to crime applications, the research could help machine learning for recognizing faces, such as photo recognition on Facebook.
I’m not quite sure what the “crime applications” are unless they ask a victim to envision a perpetrator and use the neuronal firing (instead of a police artist) to get an image of that perp. But that seems impractical. The measurements of neuronal firing might be translatable into computer code, though this too is above my pay grade. Right now I’m just amazed that this was done, and how accurately the investigators could reverse engineer firing into images using so few neurons. I’ll let others speculate about the practical applications.
The fracas at The Evergreen State College (TESC), which I think has permanently ruined its reputation, continues to gain traction in the mainstream media, though most left-wing venues have resolutely ignored the story. (Exceptions are the Washington Post and the New York Times.) I still think this is some kind of turning point that will hurt the reputation of Regressive and Authoritarian Leftists on American campuses, as the videos clearly showed them for the bullying thugs they are. Before Bret Weinstein was hounded off campus as a “racist” for writing a polite email refusing to vacate the campus on the Day of Absence in favor of black students, hardly anybody knew about TESC. Now a lot more people do, and criticism of the thugs is coming from both the Right and Left, though the Right seizes on the story more readily. That’s a pity, as freedom of speech is a progressive value.
The bullying is particularly odious as Weinstein has a long history of anti-racist work, and is about as far from being a “racist” as you can imagine, But in these days of Purity Tests, a simple email has branded him for life, at least on his own campus. It is the videos more than anything that have shown the students—and the professors who have happily indoctrinated them with postmodern ideas—for what they really are: fascists.
The first of the videos featured the May 23 invasion of Weinstein’s classroom at 9:30 a.m. by about 50 angry students provoked by what they characterized as Weinstein’s racism. He had objected to a college-sponsored Day of Absence on April 10, when white students, faculty, and staff had been encouraged to make themselves scarce on campus. This video was excised from YouTube for violating the site’s “harassment and bullying” policy after protesters complained it had been selectively edited to make them look like harassers and bullies. Fortunately for the curious, the much-copied video [JAC: the link is to a shorter video I found] is available in whole elsewhere on the Internet (the website Heterodox Academy claims to offer a 12-minute “unedited” version) and in snippets on YouTube of a 6-minute interview that Weinstein gave to Fox News’s Tucker Carlson on May 25.
The 12-minute video shows the husky, bearded Weinstein, clad in an outdoorsy-biology-prof black T-shirt, trying patiently to engage the students who have shut down his classroom in a “dialectic,” as he called it. Weinstein later described himself to Carlson as a “deeply progressive person” who had supported socialist-leaning Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential primaries. But the Evergreen students captured in the May 23 video were having nothing to do with Weinstein’s attempts to lift the conversation to a high-minded, fancy-word “dialectic” plane:
“This is not a discussion—you lost that one! You said racist s—! Now apologize!”
Weinstein responded: “I did not!”
“Stop telling people of color they’re f— useless! You’re useless!”
“Yeah, resign!” screamed another student.
“Resign!” screamed yet another.
The story is accompanied by a nice cartoon of George Bridges, the invertebrate College President being both cowed and filmed by the thugs who cornered and humiliated him (see video here).
Art by Dave Malin
After 58 Evergreen professors and 23 staff signed a “statement of solidarity” with the students, demanding a “disciplinary investigation” of Weinstein, and he and his family were threatened so severely that they had to leave their home, he and his wife Heather Heying, also a biology professor, have received lots of support from outside the College. Yet only a lone professor of biology, Mike Paros, has issued a statement of support for Weinstein. The story is in the local paper, the Olympian, and you can see it by clicking the screenshot below:
Paros’s letter of support was published in full at The Heterodox Academy; here’s an excerpt from that letter. Like Weinstein, Paros is a brave man:
This is a story of how a Democrat voting veterinarian working with mostly Republican livestock owners became a “bigoted” professor at a left wing progressive liberal arts college. It is about a collection of professors that are so blinded by their advocacy, that they cannot fathom different viewpoints. It involves a newly appointed President who believes in ideological safe spaces who endorsed a strategic equity plan that will hurt the very students it is trying to help.
I recently met with a student who was angry that she was told to shut up at a student rally, based solely on the amount of pigment in her skin. She did not comply, and was called a racist. I asked her if this bothered her. She said: “No, because I am not racist.”
To the faculty, too afraid to speak out: I urge you to walk toward the fire. After all, if this brave student is a bigot, then I guess I am too. They are just words. You will not lose your job, but you might lose your dignity.
The tale is about two men trying to save Evergreen. One is an absolute coward (Bridges) and the other is an ultimate hero (Weinstein). Who should be forced to resign? Weinstein reluctantly went on Fox News, because no other news source would pick up his story. His excellent op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal followed. Videos don’t lie, Weinstein’s logic prevailed, and cognitive dissonance set in amongst Evergreen faculty. This was the first time that I found out that those who watch Tucker Carlson are the “alt-right”. I should probably tell my family. Objections were made about whether Weinstein had mischaracterized Day of Absence/Day of Presence as “forcing” white students off campus. He didn’t, but why would this detail negate everything else that Weinstein wrote? When one is confronted with truths that contradict closely held beliefs, the mind begins to make outlandish rationalizations. The faculty email response will someday be used in psychology textbooks as a case study in group thinking.
Then our college President saw his opportunity. Evergreen administrators sent out ominous notices, labeling “free speech” advocates and persons who simply do not agree with “official” campus opinion as potentially violent. It was a desperate move, using fear tactics to rally the masses and prevent students from thinking clearly. This morning was the first time that I was actually nervous coming to campus. Not because of threats of white supremacists, but because I was worried that someone on campus would think that I might be one of them. And then we got the alert on campus. I could see the fear in some of our students faces, as I helped escort a student of color to her dormitory. Then I decided to stay on campus for a while. An administrator approached, and asked: “How did we get to this point?”
I guess safe spaces can be dangerous places.
Note that he accurately calls Bridges an “absolute coward”. I wonder if he’ll leave. I’ve predicted that Weinstein and Heying will, and it’s possible that TESC’s biology department will be gutted.
A group of 17 students, referring to themselves as Concerned Students of Evergreen, posted an open letter Tuesday condemning The Evergreen State College’s administration and some protesters for their actions and responsibility “in making this campus unsafe and inaccessible.”
“We reject the McCarthy-esque witch-hunting which has taken place,” the letter stated. “Simply crying racist has become sufficient to destroy credibility and empower accusers. This has been accompanied by vigilante action against those dubiously accused of racism, and this behavior has not been reined in by the administration.”
Some students have refused to return to the campus, which has been coping with racial tension and outside threats in recent weeks. In response, several faculty members are using coffee shops, churches — even a community theater — as emergency classrooms and offices, Eltantawi said.
There are faculty and staff members who are worried about their safety too.
The Evergreen State College will move its commencement ceremony to Tacoma’s Cheney Stadium because of safety issues, college officials confirmed Tuesday.
Evergreen traditionally has an outdoor commencement ceremony in its Red Square on campus. [JAC: !!!] Cheney Stadium is about 35 miles from the Olympia campus.
In an email sent to graduating students and faculty obtained by The Olympian in a public records request, college president George Bridges wrote: “Evergreen’s commencement is a celebration of achievement, and a high point of the year for our graduates, their families, and our whole community. In consideration of recent events, and in consultation with the Evergreen Board of Trustees, I have decided we will celebrate commencement at Cheney Stadium in Tacoma, on Friday, June 16.
“The stadium is a great, central venue, which is secure and offers plenty of seating and parking to accommodate our community,” Bridges wrote. . .
I suspect this arose because he wants to tell his story to a wider audience, and of course his family’s financial future is now unclear. As of this morning, there are 180 out of 250 supporters initially envisioned, but I hope there will be more. There are rewards at various levels for contributing, including lectures on evolution. Consider supporting him. An excerpt:
Here’s what you can expect:
The Evergreen story is the tip of a very large and important iceberg. I am quickly going to move off of the details of Evergreen’s absurd descent into madness, and shift to discussing the larger implications for academic institutions, and the breakdown in discourse across civilization that it mirrors.
Many are also telling me that you want to hear deep, evolutionary analysis. My wife and I have been hearing from students for 15 years that this material must be brought into public view, because it is transformative. I don’t believe in fate, but I am a huge fan of serendipity. If you want to know why living things, including humans, are structured as they are and behave the way that they do: Stay tuned. The story is a surprising one, and many Evergreen students have found it revolutionizing of their world view.
Here’s my TEDx talk on the personal responsibility vortex.
Later today I’ll direct you to a nice Quillette piece on the causes and wider implications of the Evergreen State affair.
UPDATE: Reader Su sent an email titled “When I first subscribed to WEIT. . ” that continued this way:
. . . . …I quickly discovered you were the most pro-cat site, pro-cat person in existence.
So it made perfect sense that folks would end up naming kittens after you.
But it also produced the Spartacus Effect— all cats now claim you as their leader, the one who understands All Things Cat.
You could do worse for a legacy!
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As I’ve said repeatedly, I will leave no offspring save cats named after me. So far there are at least four of them: in Colorado Springs, London, Bangalore, India and Christchurch, New Zealand. Now, thanks to reader and photographer Stephen Barnard, there is a fourth. Stephen’s email was titled “Jerry Coyne III”, but I think he forgot all the predecessors, so this one is actually Jerry the Fifth. Here’s the story:
A stray cat with several young kittens (at least three) has shown up on the ranch. Unfortunately, my tenant’s dog killed one kitten before we noticed them. It was pretty traumatic for her because she’s an animal lover with two cats of her own. I’ve trapped one kitten and am going to trap the others, and I hope also the adult, and take them to the shelter. [JAC: I verified that this is a no-kill shelter.] It’s about three weeks old.
Isn’t he cute? If you’re near Idaho, perhaps you’d like to adopt him. Two free books if you do!
Stephan also enclosed a photo:
Mourning doves (Zenaida macroura). This is why I can’t have feral cats.
I’m very glad he’s live-trapping the cats rather than killing them; but he’s an animal lover.
And reader Elizabeth sent a photo of a new litter at Bristol’s famous cat pub, the Bag Of Nails:
Thought that you might be interested in this great news from Bristol UK. The photo was taken by my daughter on an evening out at her favourite pub.
Delightful.
Bristol readers: you know what you have to do: visit and adopt!
Reader Tara Tanaka (vimeo site here, flickr site here) has sent two—count them, two—new videos for us to see. Be sure to watch them on the vimeo site in high-definition and full screen (click on “vimeo” at lower right”).
The first is one of my favorite subjects: ducklings making the Leap of Faith from their nesting box down to the water. This video has some great slow-motion bits showing the leaps. Tara’s notes:
This morning, in a heavy mist that really made me appreciate my weather-sealed cameras, ten one-day old Black-bellied Whistling Ducks [Dendrocygna autumnalis] took that huge leap of faith to join their parents below. They would have been diving onto dry ground until yesterday, when we had over 4″ of rain, bringing our 4-day total to 7″, all much-needed by the swamp.
This is the fifth brood that this pair has hatched, including two last year. Their first jumping was almost more excitement than I could stand (see that video here).
This afternoon I was walking through the living room and looked up to see the parents bringing all ten babies halfway to the house so they could eat corn, but when they saw me they rushed them back to the water, which is much safer and filled with natural plants and yummy insects. I’m looking forward to watching them grow up this summer.
JAC: note that the ducks spread out their legs and wings when leaping, a parachute behavior that undoubtedly slows their descent:
And two duck species meet! Here’s “Two-day old Black-bellied Whistling Ducks meet two-week old Wood Ducks”:
This pair of Whistling Ducks has usually waited until their babies were at least two weeks old to bring them up into the yard, but this afternoon I was treated to some great views, even though I had to crawl on my stomach across the living room and slip up behind my camera that was already set up in the window to keep them from seeing me. Not long after they were in the yard there was a brief confrontation between the Whistling duck father and a Wood duck [Aix sponsa] mother, who quickly took her six two-week old ducklings back to the water. The father continued to chase away any duck that got close to his new family. Wood duck hens incubate and raise their ducklings alone; however, Black-bellied Whistling Ducks take turns incubating, and then raise their ducklings together, like geese.
It’s like a cross between a chocolate cake and a coconut pecan pie, and I love it. Why is it called “German” chocolate cake? That has nothing to do with Deutschland; see the answer here. It’s also Kamehameha Day, named after Kamehameha the Great, (ca. 1736-1819), the Hawaiian king who unified the archipelago.
On this day in 1509, Henry VIII married Catherine of Aragon. After she failed to produce a male heir, and her husband fell for the younger Anne Boleyn, the marriage was annulled. Catherine died at 51. On June 10, 1919, the horse Sir Barton won the Belmont Stakes, becoming America’s first Triple Crown winner. And in 1955, two cars collided at the Le Mans 24-hour race, killing 83 and injuring at least 100. It was the deadliest accident in the history of motorsports, and you can see a film here (warning: a bit gruesome). On June 10, 1963, the Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đứcimmolated himself with gasoline in Saigon to protest religious oppression; you can see a famous (and also gruesome) photo of the even here. On this day in 1963, John F. Kennedy proposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964; he died before it was passed, but LBJ, in a masterful display of political power and acumen, got it passed after the assassination. (This is all documented in Robert Caro’s masterful biography of LBJ; the best bio I’ve ever read). On June 10, 1987, Diane Abbott, Paul Boateng and Bernie Grant were elected as the first black members of Parliament in Great Britain. And on this day in 2001, Timothy McVeigh was executed by lethal injection for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing six years earlier; he and Terry Nichols killed 168 people.
Notables born on this day include Ben Jonson (1572), John Constable (1776), Richard Strauss (1864). William Styron (1925), Jackie Stewart (1939), and Hugh Laurie (1959). Those who died on this day include David Brinkley (2003) and Ornette Coleman (2015). Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Cyrus face a mystery (yes, she’s in the picture):
Hili: Something was here.
Cyrus: Indeed.
Hili: But what?
In Polish:
Hili: Tu coś było.
Cyrus: Rzeczywiście.
Hili: Ale co?
Lagniappe: A photo from yesterday’s graduation, showing an enrobed doctoral graduate with his proud friends:
And a tweet found by Matthew Cobb. Be sure to unmute it. I swear this is a Jewish croc saying “Oy!”
Matthew Cobb keeps an eye out for cases of “spot the. . ” mimicry, and here’s one:
One of the most stunning snakes of the world is the Peringuey's adder (Bitis peringueyi) and luckily enough today I saw one once again! pic.twitter.com/fDlT2tvLLS
I love the scientific name: “Bitis peninguey“, and it is indeed venomous. I like the Wikipedia note: “An ambush hunter, it buries itself just beneath the surface of the sand with only its eyes and the tip of its tail exposed (individuals with black tail-tips employ caudal luring). When prey happens by, it is seized and envenomated.” I didn’t know the word “envenomated,” but now I do.
And here it is in action, capturing a lizard in Namibia after drinking condensed water off its own skin!
Reader Paul called my attention to the first tw**t below, which took me to the “You had one job” Twitter site, which in turn I found hilarious. Seriously. go look at that place!
The Young Turks news show has become increasingly regressive as time goes on. Here’s a 13-minute video with hosts John Iadarola, Ana Kasparian, and Michael Shure discussing the recent terrorist attacks on London.
Two words are completely missing from the long discussion: “Muslim” and “Islam.” I don’t think that omission is accidental.
The tone was set in the opening statement by Iadorolo: “In terms of exactly who they are, I don’t care about that–they’re assholes who got what they deserved for an absolutely terrible attack, especially considering that the Manchester attack just happened; but even that wasn’t the first attack in the UK. That’s very rough.” Well, some of us care who they are! The U.S. and British governments, for one thing.
And so it goes on, with Shure blaming George W. Bush and Tony Blair (via the Iraq War) for the terrorost attacks and the subsequent blame the fell on “that community” (a.k.a. Muslims). At 4:29, Kasparian refuses to name the terrorists, even though their names had been released by the police. Why? Could it because they had names that sounded like Muslims? At 8:39, Kasparian mentions “this group of people” (she means Muslims), and blames “Western governments [who are] killing innocent civilians in Middle Eastern countries.” She goes on to say that the attacks are due to those people who get angered at drone strikes and enact retribution, saying that we’re “missing the mark because we let our emotions get in the way.” In other words, the terrorism is the fault of the West, and it’s understandable that an angry Muslim would want to blow up a bunch of kids in Manchester or diners in London.
The whole discussion judiciously avoids not only the topic of religion but even the name of the religion. It’s Islamist apologetics and West-blaming of the worst stripe. I was no fan of the Iraq war, but I don’t think that it somehow makes the retaliatory killing of other innocent civilians justified. Kasparian’s conclusion, given later on, is that the solution to Islamist terrorism is for the West to stop bombing other countries. Perhaps that will help, but we already know the problems with that “solution” (see also here). It’s not going to stop Muslims from attacking other Muslims, or Islamists from attacking in the West.
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In contrast, Tom Holland, identified by the Spectator as “a historian of early Islam, [and] a dinosaur enthusiast and a translator of Herodotus’s Histories,” has no problem indicting religion as a major cause of these attacks, and something essential to recognize if we want to solve the problem. His new Spectator article, “After five centuries, religious war has returned to Britain,” is a passionate defense of his view that Britain is now in a faith-against-faith (or faith-against apostasy) battle. Now you won’t be able to read his piece as it’s behind a paywall, but judicious inquiry might yield you a copy. Here are two excerpts:
But then, last Saturday night, religiously motivated killing returned to London Bridge. Three men, swerving to murder as many pedestrians as they could, drove a rented van across the very spot where severed heads had been fixed to the bridge’s southern gatepost. They crashed opposite Tooley Street. Then, brandishing long knives, they plunged into the warren of streets and passageways around Southwark Cathedral where, back in the reign of Mary, six high-ranking clergymen had been tried and convicted of heresy. For eight terrible minutes, terrorists — no less convinced than Tudor inquisitors had been that they were the agents of a stern and implacable god — visited slaughter upon Borough Market. Just four days later, another group of Islamists, equally fanatical and set on martyrdom attacked the Iranian parliament and Ayatollah Khomeini’s mausoleum in Tehran, killing at least 12 people and injuring many more.
The London Bridge attackers wanted us to be in no doubt about their motivation. ‘This is for Allah,’ they shouted, as they slashed and stabbed their victims. When they could, they slit people’s throats — just as Isis executioners in Syria, claiming obedience to a command in the Quran ‘to strike off the heads of unbelievers’, had slit the throats of western hostages. Shot by police marksmen, the three men were hailed by supporters of Isis as ‘martyrs’.
Sometimes it can be hard to recognise ghosts for what they are. Reactions to the atrocities committed on Saturday — as to the atrocities committed only a few short weeks previously in Manchester and on Westminster Bridge — have mingled despair with perplexity. We just don’t understand violent religion.
And this:
And yet, for all that, it is clear that the legacy of Islamic supremacism, deriving as it does from both the Quran and sayings of Mohammed, still has a potent and seductive appeal. Indeed, there is a sense in which it may be precisely the integration into Islam of the Western notion of human rights that is helping to fuel its recrudescence. After all, if — as Muslims believe — their religion is the last and ultimate of God’s revelations, then any dimunition of its purity, any dilution of its traditions, can all too easily be portrayed as a lethal threat to the entire future of humanity. Isis, who have pointedly reintroduced both the jizya and slavery, are merely the most extreme of those factions within Islam who insist that Muslims, far from compromising with the values of the West, should instead seek to destroy them utterly.
We are witnessing a civil war within Islam and the three men who brought carnage to Borough Market last Saturday did not see themselves as murderers, but rather as warriors. They imagined that they had been divinely summoned — just as Mohammed had been — to the overthrow of kufr: unbelief.
No laws, no increase in police numbers, no boost to the powers of the security services can adequately patrol such ideas. Only by directly confronting these beliefs do we have even the faintest prospect of diminishing their potency. To do that, though, will first require acknowledging what Isis and their cohorts in the West actually embody: a strain of Islam that has its roots deep in the past, and which, as our most careful analyst of Isis, Shiraz Maher, has put it, ‘believes in progression through regression’. To dismiss it, as Theresa May did, as ‘a perversion of Islam’ is not merely to close our eyes to the nature of the threat that it presents to Britain’s future as a free society; it actively risks making it worse.
So as we begin the inevitable discussion about what to do next, the first step ought to be a fairly basic one: recognise the problem.
And that’s what people like The Young Turks adamantly fail to do.
