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’ll be traveling in India from tomorrow through January 5, and will probably have only sporadic access to internet. I’ll do my best to post from time to time, and of course will take plenty of photos (I’m promised lots of good local meals, so stay tuned).
In the meantime, please refrain from emailing me more than, say, once a week or so, as I won’t be able to handle emails efficiently, and please hold onto your wildlife photos until I return.
Grania will be handling the Hili Dialogues in my absence, but as she’s busy, too, don’t expect much more than the dialogue itself each morning.
I’ll add my schedule below should you be in one of the five cities I’m speaking in (Delhi, Chandigarh, Pune, Bengalaru, and Thiruvananthapuram); times and venues aren’t added, but should be easy to find with a phone call. It seems like a punishing schedule, with ten talks in about twenty days, but I’ll be able to refuel with local delicacies.
This will probably be the last RWP post in a while, as I leave for O’Hare and India tomorrow morning. So let’s have another potpourri of photos from various readers.
Reader Tom Carrolan works with raptors, and this is the photo for his Christmas card this year. The caption is “Happy Owlidays,” and his note is: “Going shopping for a fresh & festive holiday duck…” The species is of course the snowy owl (Bubo scandiacus).
From Karen Bartelt, taken at the National Butterfly Center in Mission, Texas, we have a Red-bordered metalmark (Caria ino); “wingspan about 1″”:
Unfortunately, I lost the name and notes of the person who sent me this photo of an adult Luna moth (Actius luna), sent on August 14; please contact me if this is yours.
Continuing with Lepidoptera, reader Paul Doerder sent me a group of lovely moth pictures from Ohio; I’ll put up one today: the Ailanthus webworm moth, Atteva aurea:
From Michael Hannah, a tui (Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae) from New Zealand, photographed at the Pukaha Mt. Bruce Sanctuary—a place I visited in New Zealand. His notes say “one of my favourite birds – noisy, aggressive – but with the most beautiful feathers.” Note the white feather collar that gives it the name “parson bird”:
Here’s one of a set sent by crack arthropod photographer Mark Sturtevant. The weevils are mating en masse:
We have… we have… an inordinate fondness for weevils. I caught a lucky break in identifying this species since there are so many weevils that look like this. But the Bug Guide web sight can be searched for specific details, and a search there for ‘weevil, thistle’ produced a good candidate, Larinus planus, and its preferred host the Canadian thistle (Cirsium arvense)
And finally, some Felis catus resident at the Bristol Cat pub Bag of Nails, sent by reader David Aylesworth:
I think you’ve mentioned the Bag of Nails cat pub in Bristol (UK) on your site before [JAC: indeed: here and here] but I finally made it there (I live in Florida) and wanted to share a few pics. There were 5-6 cats lying on the bar and chairs, mostly sleeping, but would move around a bit. The one on the red stool is Wolfgang, who sat with us (and let us pet him) for about an hour. The owner, Luke (bearded guy), said that all tips go to the cats. It was the highlight of my trip!
If you’re in Bristol, be sure and stop by here. They have cats, but also real ales on tap (see the list in the top photo).
Good morning: it’s a cold Thursday, December 14 (2017) in Chicago (18°F, -8°C), and it’s National Bouillabaisse Day, celebrating a dish I’ve never had. It’s also World Monkey Day (a holiday previously unknown to me), which, according to Wikipedia, “celebrates monkeys and all things simian, including other non-human primates such as apes, tarsiers, and lemurs.” But they’re gonna throw in tarsiers and lemurs, they should have called it World Primate Day.
On this day in 1542, Princess Mary Stuart became Mary, Queen of Scots, executed at age 44. On December 14, 1782, the Montgolfier brothers of France launched their first test flight of an unmanned hot air balloon, which rose nearly 2 km. A manned flight with brother Étienne was to come a year later. On this day in 1900, Max Planck presented his theoretical derivation of the law of black body radiation; this marked the beginning of quantum mechanics. In 1911, Roald Amundsen’s team of four became the first humans to reach the South Pole. On December 14, 1940, plutonium (isotope P-238) was first isolated at Berkeley, California. And on this day in 1964, in the case of Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled that congress could overturn racial segregation on the basis of the the Constitution’s “commerce clause.” Finally it was on this day five years ago that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting occurred in Newtown, Connecticut; 27 people died, not including gunman Adam Lanza. These included 20 students, six teachers, and Lanza’s mother. Lanza killed himself when police arrived.
Notables born on this day include Tycho Brahe (1546), Jimmy Doolittle (1896), Spike Jones (1911), Don Hewitt (1922, founder of 60 Minutes), Lee Remick (1935), and Vanessa Hudgens (1988). Those whose metabolisms ceased on this day include George Washington (1799), Louis Agassiz (1873), Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1953, read her novel The Yearling, which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1939), Walter Lippmann (1974), Roger Maris (1985), Myrna Loy (1993), Orval Faubus (1994), W. G. Sebald (2001) and Peter O’Toole (2013).
If you don’t know Spike Jones, he’s shown than explained, so here he is with “Cocktails for Two.” Jones is the guy wearing the straw boater. Be sure to watch most of it: the vocal bit starting at 1:38 is great.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili’s dialogue is a bit arcane again, so I asked Malgorzata to explain:
Cyrus heard us talking about the division of labour and became interested what it was, so he asked Hili what was meant by the term. Hili, who cannot admit that there is anything she doesn’t know, came up with the answer from her own experience: she is thinking (or pretending to) while Cyrus is growling (the only labour he is capable of).
That said, here’s the dialogue:
Cyrus: What is the social division of labor?
Hili: Some are thinking and some are growling.
In Polish:
Cyrus: Co to jest społeczny podział pracy?
Hili: Jedni myślą, drudzy warczą.
Out in Winnipeg, we have a new photo of Gus with his staff’s caption:
The self satisfied look of someone who has done all his Christmas shopping….
From reader Barry. This is, of course, my Big Dream. He even kisses the lion cub!
Roy Moore’s campaign spokesman says Muslims shouldn’t be in US Congress because they have to swear on the Bible. He responds with silence, mouth agape, when @jaketapper informs him that’s not the case https://t.co/gFHyW4rzRCpic.twitter.com/1V7JI0CyWJ
I’m off to India on Friday afternoon, but, being a diligent lad, I’m already packed. Here is the stuff I’m bringing with me. Note the books (underneath Dennett are two Robertson Davies books from the Deptford Trilogy that I found in the free book box outside the local Powell’s). A water bottle (to be disinfected with my iodine tablets) is a necessity, as is toilet paper in case the former doesn’t work. I think this is still too much stuff, but it’s pretty light, as my travel clothes come largely from Rohan, and are made from easily washable and dry-able light polyamide. I’ll put a light silk sport jacket in at the end.
I’ve discovered that these nylon and mesh travel cubes are great ways to compact clothing, which can be rolled up and fitted inside: I’m bringing three: one for pants, one for shirts, and one for socks and underwear. I use the Dot & Dot versions, which come in three sizes (I get large and medium). I highly recommend these travel cubes. Indian adapters are there, and a plastic bag for toiletries (and another for my camera and connector cord). To the right of the bogroll is a mesh bag for non-liquid toiletries, containing not only the iodine tablets, aspirins, and other stuff, but also a prescription for the antibiotic Cipro in case I get an infection (I’m supposed to call or email my doctor before taking any).
Small duffel bag, which unfortunately will have to be checked, is at the bottom. My goal is to fit all the things I need for indefinite travel in my smaller Osprey suitcase/backpack. What is not shown are all the contents of my daypack: the toiletries and liquids shown above, my computer with cords, adapters, and plugs, pens, a manila folder with tickets and information and travel snacks.
Moore is still contesting the election and demanding a recount, but I think the Senate Republicans are actually breathing a sigh of relief. They may have lost a seat, but avoided some nasty hearings, and they’ll probably reclaim that seat in a few years.
Reader Gravelinspector sent this 15-minute video and the comments below; I found that listening to what the ancient Greeks may have heard as their music was fascinating. How did they get the melodies? Watch the video! Now a lot of the music is improvised, but we do have a starting point.
From Gravelinspector:
This is probably going to mean more to you in terms of the technical terms like “rhythm” and “melody”, and what the actual sounds are, but in the wider cultural sense, I would be surprised if you didn’t sense an attraction to seeing a performance of a 2000+ (sometimes nearer 2500) year-old play in a theatre where it was performed 2000+ years ago. (We went to see Oedipus Tyrannos at the Herodion in Athens – not quite hitting the 2000 year mark.)
Anyway, a combination of archaeology (preserved wooden instruments), epigraphy (interpretation of inscriptions) and the language of Greek itself has been used to try to re-create the actual music and choral singing as would have been enjoyed by the audience when the playwright was also the director.
The explanation, by Armand D’Angour, is in the video, and the piece is “aulos of ancient scores of Athenaeus Paean (127 BC) and Euripides Orestes chorus (408 BC)”.
This four-minute video on free will and responsibility, narrated by polymath Raoul Martinez, was posted by the Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce (RSA). Martinez’s point is one I’ve made here many times, and will surely get pushback from: determinism rules human behavior, and our “choices” are all predetermined by our genes and environment. To me, that means that the concept of “moral responsibility” is meaningless, for that implies an ability to choose freely. Nevertheless, we should still retain the concept of responsibility, meaning “an identifiable person did this or that good or bad action”. And, of course, we can sanction or praise people who were responsible in this sense, for such blame and praise can not only reinforce good behavior but is salubrious for society.
I have a few issues with the short video, one being that Martinez discards the idea of “responsibility” when he should be discarding “moral responsibility”, but it’s clear he means the latter. In addition, he imputes people’s life outcomes to “luck,” when what he means are deterministic but unpredictable factors that are outcomes of the laws of physics. There really isn’t any such thing as luck—save a positive outcome that’s the result of true quantum indeterminacy.
Martinez is also somewhat of a compatibilist, as he says that we do have free will if we define it as “the capacity to act in accordance with beliefs and values, to use reason and learn from our mistakes”. Well, all that is shorthand for the way our neurological computer behaves—deterministically. Whether someone behaves in accordance with their values, or flouts those values, is also determined. Where is the freedom in that? To quote Sam Harris’s comment, which pretty much shows the flaw in all forms of compatibilism:
[Compatibilism] ignores the very source of our belief in free will: the feeling of conscious agency. People feel that they are the authors of their thoughts and actions, and this is the only reason why there seems to be a problem of free will worth talking about.
There are those who say there are no implications of the determinism of human behavior that’s being increasingly borne out by scientific research. These denialists are wrong. Because surveys show that most people are dualists, and believe in genuine “could have done otherwise” free will, and predicate much of their morality, politics, and beliefs on this erroneous concept, then there are surely implications for determinism.
The video above is extracted from Martinez’s 7-minute talk, “Life is just a lottery”
