OMG: We have geese and goslings

April 30, 2018 • 2:30 pm

Well, the female 88K is back, and with her a new swain, 92P, and six goslings. Where did they come from? What do I do now? I know nothing of geese or how to tend them.

And of course Frank and Honey are gone, and won’t return with this crew around.

OMG. Well, I have to report 92P now, who must be a male.

88K was here a while back, and I reported her and got my Official Goose Spotter certificate. She must have been checking out the place in early April.

I’ll try to feed them now. . . .

#worldrobberflyday

April 30, 2018 • 1:15 pm

by Matthew Cobb

UPDATE: Matthew sent this computer-generated image of the robberfly’s venom system:

In case you didn’t know, today is World Robberfly Day on Twitter, so entomologists are posting pictures of these fabulous, chunky and aggressive flies, the apex predator of the Diptera. Go over and check out the photos yourself – here are just a few.

 

 

Jeremy Sherman still doesn’t understand evolution

April 30, 2018 • 12:15 pm

On March 19 I wrote a critique of decision theorist Jeremy Sherman’s view that evolution is powerless to explain why organisms “try” to do things and appear to “value” some behaviors more than others.  Well, of course, he’s wrong because, although he’s not dumb, he apparently doesn’t understand how natural selection could lead to “purposeful” behavior. Those behaviors, seemingly directed to an end, evolve because the genes that produce them leave more copies than genes producing alternative behaviors.

This isn’t rocket science. Parents who “try” to care for their offspring and behave in “purposeful” ways to foster and protect them will leave more offspring than parents who are indifferent to their offspring. Ergo the genes promoting parental-care behavior will outcompete those promoting parental indifference.

And so it goes for all of natural selection on animals. Because we are built by genes, which, unlike other molecules, replicate themselves (albeit with some errors), living things will evolve to show behaviors that promote the replication of their constituent genes. This is what gives nature the appearance of design, adaptation, and “striving.” That striving may or may not be conscious: an amoeba “tries” to find food and a Drosophila “tries” to reproduce, but it’s doubtful whether these activities involve conscious thought or even consciousness. Conscious thought, which is likely one way of fostering the replication of genes, is an evolutionary add-on that permits adaptation when the brain becomes a sufficiently complex computer.

Well, Sherman is back again, stung by my criticisms, and writing the same damn piece at Alternet (click on screenshot below; do Alternet authors even get paid?). In so doing, he gives an encomium to Intelligent Design:


What’s the “valid point”? That ID has a way of poetically explaining “agency” and the “effort” and “trying” of organisms: the Intelligent Designer. Now Sherman doesn’t buy it, as he says he’s an atheist, but still likes it because the God account is “beautiful, intuitive, evocative, and poetic”. But so what? He doesn’t believe it, so how could such an explanation be “valid”? Only because it gives an alternative to an explanation that Sherman hates even more: “we are just complex chemistry”, the explanation that happens to be true.

At any rate, Sherman says that science can’t explain the appearance of organisms “trying” to do stuff. Here’s his Big Mystery:

What do I mean by agency? Agency is the behavior of agents like you and me though not just of humans. Agency is evident in any living being, any organism making an effort for its own benefit, effort fitted to circumstances. You are an agent but so is a bug, begonia or bacterium. All organisms try to stay alive. Trying is the heart of agency.

Most organisms don’t know they’re trying, don’t feel like trying and aren’t trying to try better. Still, they try to stay alive. That’s agency.

Agency boils down to three basic attributes, absolutely essential to the life and behavioral sciences, and completely irrelevant in the physical sciences:

Effort: Trying, which is what’s meant by behavior in contrast to mere phenomena. Chemicals don’t try to do anything. Agents do.

Function: The effort is of benefit for the agent. An agent’s adaptive traits are functional because they improve the agent’s chances of succeeding at what’s of value to it, chiefly survival and reproduction. Nothing is of value to chemicals, but things are of value to agents.

Fittedness: Which is different from material conformity. Molecules may fit together physically but that’s different from fittedness, responsiveness to context.

No physical scientist could get away with saying that chemical changes try to keep going for their own sake. Down the hall, behavioral scientists can talk all they like about agents trying to keep going for their own sake. What explains this double standard? Scientists still have no answer, though they could.

What tries to stay alive, or rather persist, is DNA, the replicator that builds bodies—the “vehicles”. And the vehicles aren’t “trying” to do anything, as they’re not conscious, nor do the organisms that appear to have agency need be conscious. Some forms of DNA just leave more copies than do others. And that, over time, leads to bodies and behaviors—all the blind result of differential replication of DNA. No striving, no will. is necessary, which is the amazing and fantastic part of how natural selection creates diversity. The process is mindless, driven by differential replication of molecules that replicate.

So much is easy to understand once you know a bit about natural selection, and I think most readers here can understand that. Sherman apparently doesn’t. He doesn’t like the natural-selection explanation, even though it’s the right one and he has no alternative:

Most scientists today will tell you that agency emerges with evolution by natural selection, which they regard as a kind of blind watchmaker, without acknowledging that even a blind watchmaker is an agent trying to make watches.

Some are so desperate to explain away agency that they try to redefine the word “design.” “Nothing tries,” they’ll say. “Evolution doesn’t try to design, but it designs you. You don’t try. You’re just the product of chemical (DNA, RNA) replication, which isn’t trying either. You may try to believe that you try but you don’t” By this supposedly scientific pretzel logic, agency is nowhere but everywhere.

Here, for example, is Jerry Coyne, a big name in evolutionary theory arguing that my question “what is agency?” is the product of my muddle-headed thinking.(link is external) To him, evolution proves that we are nothing but deterministic chemistry. What distinguishes us is that we are the robot bodies of DNA copying chemically under natural selection’s “design.”

Chemicals copy in any chain reaction. What then is the difference between DNA and other chemicals? DNA has “heritable material.” What is “heritable material”? It’s equivocation, kind of a homunculus and kind of a chemical. He might just as well say that DNA has a soul.

And no, chemicals don’t copy in “any chain reaction”. But thank you, Dr. Sherman, but I’d prefer that you try to understand evolutionary biology rather than give me a backhanded compliment. If you don’t understand the difference between how DNA functions in a living organism and a chemical like benzene functions in a lab, then I can’t help you.  The fact is that the one replicates and builds bodies that often have behavior, while the other doesn’t. That makes all the difference in the world.

But at the end Sherman says he does have an explanation for value: “Here’s a new scientific explanation for the emergence of agency, developed by UC Berkeley scientist Terrence Deacon.” But the video shows not Deacon but Deacon channeled through Sherman’s gobbledy-gook, and it makes no sense to me beyond the explanation I’ve given above: DNA variants that promote their own replication, sometimes through the pursuit of what we see as “value”, are the ones that persist. Ergo, some organisms have the appearance of “valuing” reproduction and survival. Nothing new here, folks, move along.

Watch for yourself:

 

Huff post pretends that ads are articles

April 30, 2018 • 10:30 am

I hate HuffPo with the blazing heat of a million white-hot suns. Well, maybe not that much, but I really do despise its predictable Authoritarian Leftism, ascribable to a new editor and a new editorial position. It’s become the left-wing Breitbart, but in one respect perhaps even worse: it has “articles” that are really ads, for, while purporting to tell you what to eat, what to buy, and what to visit, HuffPo is getting a cut from whatever recommendations they give that you spend money on. And you don’t know it if you don’t read the fine print.

For example, here’s an article that I, as a foodie, would have clicked on (click on all article screenshots to go to article):

One of those “best food cities” is Venice, and, like the rest of them, they recommend food tours, as in the following bit.

In Venice, there’s something tasty for everyone. Wine lovers might want to chow down on the spectacular wine and unique seafood dishes at al Covo, while pasta enthusiasts might prefer tucking into a dish of hearty bolognese at Ristorante Trattoria Cherubino. TripAdvisor’s most-booked food tour in the city is the Venice food tour: cicchetti and wine.

But if you click on the food tours, you go to one that TripAdvisor recommends. Well, okay, they’re using TripAdvisor as a source. But HuffPo also gets a cut if you book using the link, for this appears—at the very bottom of the page.

Here’s the direct link to the Venice food tour via Tripadvisor: https://www.tripadvisor.com/AttractionProductReview-g187870-d11453217-Venice_Food_Tour_Cicchetti_and_Wine-Venice_Veneto.html

And the link via HuffPo, clearly identifying their cut, presumably in bold:  https://www.tripadvisor.com/AttractionProductReview-g187870-d11453217-Venice_Food_Tour_Cicchetti_and_Wine-Venice_Veneto.html&cjp=5431261&cja=10834516&cjs=38395X1559466X38b37c6c52b4c4044853d627335a3e9f  .  The prices don’t differ; HuffPo is just taking a cut.

Why don’t they just label the article “ad” at the top? It’s deceptive.

Likewise, here’s a travel ad, with a weak indication at the top that, well, there may be some money given to HuffPo by booking.com:

The description:

If London’s a bit too far away for you to travel, venture to the city of Chicago for an all-out celebration of St. Patrick’s Day. Irish taverns are bustling, joyful people are singing and dancing in the street, and even the Chicago River sparkles a brilliant shade of emerald green. Families will love the vibrant and bustling Downtown St. Patrick’s Day Parade, full of colorful floats, marching bands and Irish dancers.

Where to Stay: Staypineapple at The Alise Chicago

The exquisite Staypineapple at The Alise Chicago was designed by renowned architect Daniel Burnham, with beautiful mosaic floors and marble ceilings oozing luxury, class and style. Select suites offer stunning views of Millennium Park and Lake Michigan, and the hotel is ideally located for shopping on the famous Michigan Avenue. Guests can enjoy an onsite fitness center, yoga and a bicycle rental service to explore the beauty of Chicago. After a fun-packed day of celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, guests will love the adventurous and contemporary cuisine at the The Alise Chicago, open for breakfast, lunch and dinner and serving a selection of premium cocktails.

HuffPost Brand Forum is a paid program that allows companies to connect directly in their own words with HuffPost readers. For more information on Brand Forum, please contact BrandForum@huffpost.com.

In this case, the link doesn’t give HuffPo a cut; Booking.com just pays them to recommend hotels where Booking.com gets a cut.

Here’s an item that you might want to buy; you don’t know HuffPo gets a cut until the bottom of the page:

Number 6 of the recommendations is the Ted Baker London Tailor Wool Duffel Bag, with this description and link:

This vintage-inspired Ted Baker bag is, uniquely, made of textured wool. It’s [SIC!!!] faux leather trim adds a touch that gives it the timeless look of another decade.

The link is (my emphasis): https://shop.nordstrom.com/s/ted-baker-london-tailor-wool-duffel-bag/4725805?origin=keywordsearch-personalizedsort&fashioncolor=GREY\&cm_mmc=Linkshare-_-partner-_-10-_-1&siteId=tv2R4u9rImY-XGt3DO8GDElvQjUZR_l3oQ, which clearly tells nordstrom to give HuffPo some of the money.  And at the bottom of the page you see this:

How can such an evaluation be “objective”? Clearly they’ll choose based on the willingness of the store to refund some of the dosh to HuffPo.

Finally, there’s this from the “wellness” section. (Whose “wellness” is being promoted?)

And number 1 in water bottles with filters:

 

The description?:

For under $15, the filter inside this BPA-free bottle filters as you drink to easily rehydrate at the office, a sporting event or on a day trip.

Amazon Reviews: 1,900
Average Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

“These have changed my life. I can go anywhere and all I need is a tap and I’ve got tasty (non-gross chlorinated tasting) water. I have two and might get a third.” – Amazon Reviewer

If you click on the link above, the URL is https://www.amazon.com/Brita-Ounce-Sided-Bottle-Filter/dp/B00AB8NOPY/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?amp=&ie=UTF8&keywords=water+bottles+with+filters&psc=1&qid=1523907905&sr=8-1-spons&tag=thehuffingtop-20

And, sure enough:

I wouldn’t trust HuffPo’s articles on “the best stuff/food/places” if there’s any kind of indication that the site gets a remuneration from its recommendations. If you want Amazon recommendations, just put in a product like “water bottles” at the Amazon site and click on “highest rated” on the right. That way you can see the same evaluations without HuffPo getting your dosh. It’s also duplicitous to put the “we might get a cut of the money” notice at the bottom of the page, as you may click on—and order—a product before you see it.

I’m not sure Breitbart does anything like this, and it’s sneaky. It’s sneaky if anyone does it, but particularly sneaky, to my mind, when a left-wing site does it. You may say, “Well, everyone does it,” but to me that’s no excuse for duplicity. After all, at the top of New York Times pages that may be mistaken for news but are ads, they clearly say “ADVERTISEMENT.”

My one consolation is that traffic at HuffPo continues to drop as its contents become thinner and more predictable. I used to go there to look at food and travel posts, but now these are rarely renewed, and when they are they are often “kickback posts.”

Traffic data:

David Berlinski makes a pompous fool of himself again about science and evolution

April 30, 2018 • 9:15 am

I’m not sure how David Berlinski manages to make a living, but he does live in Paris, which ain’t cheap. Although he’s a Senior Fellow with the ID Creationist Discovery Institute, that can’t pay much, and his science books, including A Tour of the Calculus (1995), The Advent of the Algorithm (2000), Newton’s Gift (2000), and Infinite Ascent: A Short History of Mathematics (2005), can’t bring in that much dosh. (As Wikipedia notes, “Berlinski’s books have received mixed reviews.”) However, his 2009 book The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions remains at #41 on Amazon, a remarkable spot, but explained of course by those believers hungry to find problems with atheism. And he’s also written fiction, including several detective novels, so perhaps that’s what keeps him in croissants and fancy suits.

Berlinski, as he does in this video, claims he’s a secular Jew, therefore making him the only creationist I know (or anti-evolutionist, if you want to be charitable) who isn’t religious. I’ll take him at his word, but one overweening trait, which simply exudes from this 30-minute interview on Fox News with Mark Levin, is pomposity.

If you want to see just the juicy bits, where he makes the most ridiculous pronouncements with his characteristic hauteur and insouciance, just watch the first 14 minutes. During that time he makes these points:

  • Atheism has replaced a “forbearing and tolerant agnosticism” that has led to derision of religion, which is 5,000 years old and deeply revered by many. (He apparently thinks this derision is a bad thing. But of course slavery was also practiced and justified for equally as long. Duration and acceptance do not mandate respect.)
  • Science has no answers to “The Big Questions” like “why is there something instead of nothing?” (the answer that “it was an accident” is fobbed off by Berlinski as “failing to meet people’s intellectual needs”, which of course is not an answer but a statement about confirmation bias); “where did the Universe come from?”; “how did life originate?”; “what are we doing here?”, “what is our purpose?”, and so on.

Apparently Berlinski doesn’t like “we don’t know” as an answer, but as a nonbeliever I’d like to know his answer! He has none; all he does is carp about science’s ignorance.

  • Berlinski apparently agrees with Levin that there’s no substantive evidence for anthropogenic global warming. Instead, he imputes the scientific consensus to the desire of scientists to get federal money.

The evolution bit begins at 9:40, and here Berlinski says these things:

  • Darwin’s view that species can change into other species is analogous to alchemy: a form of transformation for which there’s no evidence. He uses the stretching of the giraffe’s neck, a Lamarckian principle, as one that still characterizes Darwinism. That’s just wrong.
  • Darwinism is a “secular doctrine comparable to the Book of Genesis” and an “ideology”. Darwinism, he says, “is not a scientific theory but a collection of anecdotes.”

What ignorant statements to make! Anecdotes? Has he read my book? True, Darwinism can’t answer the question, “Why don’t cats rule the world?” or “Why aren’t women born with tails like cats?” (yes, he asks these questions to denigrate evolution), but just because we can’t answer why evolution did this and didn’t do that does NOT mean that there’s no evidence for evolution or natural selection. Just read my damn book, which is not a “series of anecdotes”. Evolution can predict things that have been found (intermediate forms existing at certain times; presence of mammalian fossils on Antarctica, dead genes in the genomes, etc.)

Here Berlinski, by saying that Darwinism is a “myth” that either makes up stories or can’t answer everything, simply misunderstands the nature of the field. Is evolution an “ideology”? No more than “quantum mechanics” or “organic chemistry” are ideologies.

After the 14 minutes, he goes on to denigrate atheism, evolution, and “the academy” for its antitheistic attitudes, and then takes a whack at progressivism.  He also claims that there’s a qualitative gap between human beings on one side and “the rest of the animal kingdom on the other.” In the end, his views of human exceptionalism and the supposed inadequacies of Darwinism leave me with the question, “What is Berlinski’s own explanation for the questions he raises?” If he says, “I don’t have one,” then why does he criticize scientists for saying, “I don’t know”? He argues that he’s an agnostic because he can’t prove that God does not exist, but yet I suspect that Berlinski wouldn’t be agnostic about Santa Claus, for which there’s equally little evidence. What even makes him think there’s the possibility of a God? The fact that there’s something instead of nothing? In that case his suspicion that there could be a God simply comes from questions that science hasn’t yet answered.

Finally, at 30:24, he lumps me in with Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins as “windbags”. Well, so be it, but I maintain that I’ve expelled a lot less wind than Berlinski!

As a secular Jew, his schtick is to kvetch and kvetch, which, combined with his Buckley-ian imperious attitudes and mannerisms, are taken by ignoramuses as “wisdom.”

h/t: Dave

Readers’ wildlife photos (and video)

April 30, 2018 • 8:15 am

We have photos from a new contributor today: Neil Dawe. And it is OWLS, which are H0norary Cats™. Neil’s notes are indented, and be sure to see his pair of “spot the owl” pictures at the end.

All these photos were taken on Vancouver Island in a small wooded area in Parksville, BC.

My wife and I walk Sophie, our Golden Lab, through a wooded area that, late last year, became home to a pair of Great Horned Owls (Bubo virginianus). Usuall, we would see or hear Barred Owls (Strix varia) during our walks. But that all ended about mid-December when we heard a pair of Great Horned Owls calling to each other and haven’t heard or seen the Barred Owls since. [JAC: here’s the barred owl]:

Our first glimpse of the horned owls came in February when we found the male perched in a western redcedar (Thuja plicata). The female, who does all the incubation, was likely on eggs.

Later, in April, we would invariably find the female perched in the same area on a bigleaf maple (Acer macrophyllum) branch in the open, suggesting a nest with young was nearby.

She would keep her eye on us as we walked a trail some distance from where she was perched and where she often demonstrated her remarkable head-turning ability. Here she is looking at us with about a 220° counter-clockwise rotation of the head…

…and from the same position with about a 120° clockwise rotation.

We subsequently found the male who was usually perched in trees with more cover, such as this western red cedar (Thuja plicata).

One day, a friend spent an hour searching for the nest and found it in a cavity 8 m off the ground in a bigleaf maple close to where the female usually perched. Three young were in the nest. Here you can make out two of the young, one facing the camera and a downy head to the right of it (13 April).

A couple of days older and a little taller (15 April).

On 18 April, one young had fledged earlier in the day, suggesting eggs were laid in late January. These two, perched on the nest edge, were nearly ready to go. They left the nest on or about 23 April.

The female and one of the fledged young in the late afternoon of 24 April, some distance from the nest.

Here’s a fairly easy “find the owl” shot.

Find the owl reveal:

And Stephen Barnard in Idaho sent a movie of the two American kestrels (Falco sparverius) that have taken up residence (and apparently laid eggs) in a nestbox he made and fastened to his garage. Here’s Boris “bringing home the bacon”; according to Stephen, he’s feeding the brooding Natasha, and the eggs probably haven’t hatched yet (the food isn’t going into the box).

Be sure to enlarge this by clicking on the “vimeo” name and then the enlarging arrows:

Monday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

April 30, 2018 • 7:15 am

Professor Ceiling Cat (Emeritus) here: I’m back for a week doing the Hili dialogues, but will then repair to Paris for a week and a half. Let’s all have a round of applause for Grania, who took over this onerous duty when importuned.

Honey is still not back, though Sir Francis continues to guard the pond (and to get his daily rations). I will be bereft if my hen mallard doesn’t return; my one hope is that she’s sitting on her eggs somewhere nearby.

It’s April 30, National Raisin Day, brought to you by California Big Raisin. And it’s a UNESCO holiday: International Jazz Day! Let’s have some jazz, then, and in order not to jar you at this time in the morning, some soft jazz:

It’s the 241st birthday of Carl Friedrich Gauss, and Google has a Doodle celebrating the great German polymath. Note that the letters “oogle” each commemorate one of his contributions; can you name them?

On April 30,1492, Christopher Columbus received his “commission of exploration”, which of course led to his voyage to the Americas that year. On this day in 1789, George Washington was sworn in (on Wall Street in New York City) as the first elected President of the United States.  On April 30, 1803, the U.S. bought the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million. This “Louisiana Purchase” more than doubled the size of the country.  On this day in 1897, J. J. Thomson announced his discovery of the electron as a subatomic particle; the work was done at the Cavendish Labs and the announcement made at a lecture at London’s Royal Institution.  In 1905, the “Miracle Year” for Einstein, he finished his doctoral thesis on April 30 at the University of Zurich.  Exactly 22 years later, the first set of footprints were left in concrete in front of Hollywood’s Grauman’s Chinese Theater: they belonged to Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. It’s Hitler Death Day, too: on April 30, 1945, Hitler and his new wife Eva Braun committed suicide in the Führerbunker as Russian troops closed in.  Exactly three decades later, Saigon fell to the Communists and the Vietnam war ended as the South Vietnamese President surrendered.  On April 30, 1993, CERN announced that the protocols for the World Wide Web would be free. Finally, in 2008, skeletal remains found near Yekaterinburg, Russia, were confirmed to be those of Alexei and Anastasia, two children of the Czar. The remains of the whole family, shot by the Bolsheviks, now rest in the Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg.

Notables born on this day include Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777), Alice B. Toklas (1877), Bobby Vee (1943), Annie Dillard (1945) and Gal Gadot (1985). Those who died on April 30 include the engineer Casey Jones (1900), Adolf Hitler (1945; see above), George Balanchine and Muddy Waters (both 1983), and Nobel-winning chemist Harry Kroto (2016).

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Elzbieta, who with luck (and with Andrzej II and Leon) will soon be a neighbor of Hili and Staff, came to visit, bringing Hili a cat sausage:

Hili: How nice that you came.
Elzbieta: I can tell that you are glad to see me.
 In Polish:
Hili: Jak miło, że wpadłaś.
Elżbieta: Widzę, że się cieszysz.

The good news from Wloclawek is that Leon and his staff have at last managed to find a contractor to pour the foundations for their wooden home, previously moved from southern Poland and its pieces stored in Andrzej and Malogrzata’s garage over the winter. Soon Leon will be living only ten miles from Hili! Here’s Leon speaking from the site of his future home:

Leon: The Sunday siesta. Where shall I dig around?

In Polish: Niedzielna sjesta, co by tu pogrzebać?

And we’re lucky to have photos and videos of all three Website Cats today. Here is a video of Gus getting baked in Winnipeg. Staff Taskin reports:

I plucked a bit of last year’s dried out plant from the pot. (It was a tiny bit too.) Catnip doesn’t survive our winters, so I will have to buy a new plant this year.

From Matthew; a Christmas pine cone, over half a century old, brings new life:

Spot the spider! Matthew will answer below:

A drunken cat came home:

From Grania: George Takei seems a bit of a flake!

LOL, these ducks refused grapes, as did mine!

A lovely Calico Maine Coon cat (Grania’s favorite) with a simply fantastic tail:

https://twitter.com/Animallovers77/status/990880687816245250

And cats pwning d*gs: all is well in the world.