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.
If you’re a regular, you know that all the biologists who post here love mimicry. I’ve tried to explain why: it shows the power of natural selection and the degree of perfection that natural selection can attain (i.e., how closely something can come to mimic the background or another animal—the “target”), and the very remarkable and unpredictable ways that evolution can go. But one of the main reasons is simple aesthetics: it’s remarkable to see how natural selection, sculpting an animal or plant gene by gene, can get it to look like something it’s not. Animals can look like plants, like other animals, or the background; and plants can look like plants (seed morphology mimics in weeds), rocks (Lithops) or animals (bee-mimicking orchids). And so when we see nice cases, we put them up here
Here’s a particularly nice one brought to my attention by Matthew Cobb and Erica McAlister. As described in some detail in a paper in the Journal of Arachnology (reference below; access free) and a National Geographic piece by Carrie Arnold, it’s an orb-spider from Yunnan, China that’s probably a new species. We’ve seen spiders mimic all sorts of things (including snake heads), but here’s one that apparently mimics a leaf. It is in fact the first observation of a spider mimicking a leaf.
Here’s the undescribed spider that, say the authors, is probably found in rainforests throughout SE Asia judging from photographs taken by others. The authors found only one female and one juvenile in two weeks of searching, so it’s not common (or else it’s a hell of a mimic!).
Notice the weird body shape and the tapered abdomen (the photos, from the National Geographic site, are all by Matjaz Kuntner, the paper’s first author).
Note the leaf “veination” on the abdomen as well and its “pedicel”-like extension
As the paper reports, and as you can see above and below, the females are green and brown, and their abdomen looks like a pedicel (a stalk bearing a flower). The spider further mimics leaves by pulling dead leaves into its web alongside the live ones it uses to anchor its web. And those dead leaves have to be hauled up to the web from the forest floor!
When the web is disturbed (below), the female moves higher up her twig to mingle with the leaves. Note how she draws her legs in to hide the appendages:
The selection pressures producing this mimicry probably involve either hiding from predators or hiding from prey—or both.
As you see from the title below, the paper calls this a case of “leaf masquerade,” which they define as “avoiding predation by being misidentified.” They distinguish this from “crypsis”, which they define as “blending in with background not to be detected at all.” I find this distinction not that interesting, as both cases involve mimicry of the background. To differentiate masquerade from crypsis one would have to know whether the predator (or prey) actually notices the leaf-mimicking spider. That would be very hard to do, and, at any rate, the selective pressures operating in both cases seem identical.
Matthew also sent me a tw**t by Matt Simon, which shows all the color pictures in the paper.
As you can see from the many posts I’ve written about Rice University sociologist Elaine Ecklund, she’s made a career out of showing that scientists are far more religious—or friendly to religion—than commonly assumed. But her methodology is often suspect, so that her data are cooked or twisted to meet her agenda: to show comity between science and faith. I hardly need to mention that behind this perverse and misguided agenda stands the swollen coffers of the Templeton organization, which has funded Ecklund’s “research” for years.
And now we have the most bizarre publication of all from the Ecklund/Templeton Enterprise, a paper consisting solely of statements by scientists who, by and large, don’t like the way Richard Dawkins popularizes science. It’s just a hit job on Dawkins, and the bizarre thing is that it’s a byproduct of a survey of scientists not on Dawkins himself, but on their religiosity and attitude toward science and religion. Ecklund’s team took the scientists who mentioned Dawkins, and showed that most of them didn’t like his style. From that she managed to squeeze out an entire publication! She and her coauthors conclude that the opinion of UK scientists is that Dawkins “misrepresents science” and that British scientists “reject his approach to public engagement”.
As part of a study of “the social context of science” in Italy, India, France, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the UK and the US, Johnson et al. interviewed 609 biologists and physicists, 137 of them in the UK. Of these, 48 mentioned Richard Dawkins, 35 without prompting and another 13 when asked about “influences on their perception of the science-faith interface.” (23 scientists outside the UK also mentioned him but “had relatively little to say about him”, so the conclusions are limited to UK scientists).
The Big Result: of the 48 scientists who brought up Dawkins, 10 were favorable to his science popularization and his view of the incompatibility of science and religion.
BUT 38 of them (80%) had bad stuff to say about Richard as a “celebrity scientist”. These critics were both religious (15) and nonreligious (23). When you read their comments, though, most of them seem ticked off by Richard’s comments on religion, his “stridency”, and his atheist “fundamentalism”. Here are all the quotes given in the paper by Dawkins’s detractors (each is a separate comment):
Some people like Richard Dawkins … He’s a fundamental atheist. He feels compelled to take the evidence way beyond that which other scientists would regard as possible … I want [students] to develop [science] in their own lives. And I think it’s necessary to understand what science does address directly.
You can understand someone like Richard Dawkins being particularly hacked off by it and retaliating, but … people on both sides … [are] overly dogmatic … [and go] beyond perhaps what the state of the agenda is. The agenda of the scientist is to ask how, but it’s not because I want to prove that God doesn’t exist.
He’s much too strong about the way he denies religion … As a scientist you’ve got to be very open, and I’m open to people’s belief in religion … I don’t think we’re in a position to deny anything unless it’s something which is within the scope of science to deny … I think as a scientist you should be open to it … It doesn’t end up encroaching for me because I think there’s quite a space between the two.
I mean I haven’t read any of his recent books … The impression I get from the newspaper reports … I just kind of feel that … he’s kind of trying to be sort of a perfect, rational person somewhere but you know he’s … kind of portraying that that’s how scientists kind of think, that’s what scientists say and so on and that kind of does … create the wrong impression.
Well, he has gone on a crusade, basically … I think that it’s an easy target, and I think that he’s rather insensitive and hectoring … [A]lthough there is a lot of truth behind what he says … he does it in a way that I think is deliberately designed to alienate religious people.
He picked quite an easy target I would say … If you say they have these extreme atheists and extreme radical religious persons, when they meet they will not be able to talk, they won’t be able to understand … But if you talk beliefs to people which are next to each other, probably they have more in common there … [T]hey will be able to talk even though they have slightly different beliefs.
I think you have to be very careful about stripping away people’s beliefs without offering anything in return…If I talked to people, I talk to them [about] how I view things and how I understand things and I will ask questions of them…But just sort of shouting at people, “You’re wrong and stupid” is not very productive.
If you’re talking to somebody who is indoctrinated and has a hundred percent belief in their belief system, then you’re getting absolutely nowhere by saying [God doesn’t exist] … [To] break them down, by far the easiest way is to actually study what their faith is.
There are other snippets as well, for example someone calling Dawkins “Mr. Anti-God Europe” and others calling him “extremely arrogant” and “overly aggressive.”
Note that in none of these quotes does someone say that Dawkins “misrepresents science”—one of the major conclusions of the study that appears in the abstract and conclusion. Rather, the common theme of the comments is that Dawkins is too strident in denying religion, is on a crusade, is attacking peoples’ beliefs without replacing them, and is ineffective in dispelling religious belief. As is typical of Ecklund’s approach, she simply distorts what she finds in the service of her agenda (and that of Templeton). Given the data, the center does not hold.
Again, here’s the abstract, which is not qualified:
The “misrepresentation of science” trope is repeated throughout this paper, but is not at all supported by the quotes themselves. Indeed, where are the quotes showing how Dawkins distorts evolutionary biology—his primary scientific subject? People could have said that his gene-centered approach misrepresents the opinion of evolutionary geneticists (it doesn’t), but nobody said anything close to that. No, it’s all about religion. You could, I suppose, say that Dawkins misrepresents science by saying that it’s in opposition to religion, but you don’t find that, either. Instead, you find comments about his style, his stridency, etc. Where, oh where, is the “misrepresentation of science?” Nowhere. It’s in Ecklund’s mind and agenda.
The only comments that come close to a “misrepresentation of science” are these. First:
He’s much too strong about the way he denies religion … As a scientist you’ve got to be very open, and I’m open to people’s belief in religion … I don’t think we’re in a position to deny anything unless it’s something which is within the scope of science to deny … I think as a scientist you should be open to it … It doesn’t end up encroaching for me because I think there’s quite a space between the two.
But that’s bizarre. Should we be open to the possibility of Santa Claus or fairies? And, in fact, Dawkins doesn’t absolutely deny the existence of God: he says that, based on the absence of evidence when there should be evidence, he puts himself as either a 6 or a 6.9 on the 7-point “spectrum of theistic probability,” where 0 represents a strong theist (“I know there is a God”) and 7 represents a strong atheist (“I know there is no God”). So his position is that he finds very little evidence for God, but leaves open the possibility. That is not complete denial of God, and of course not a “denial of religion”—whatever that means.
and this:
You can understand someone like Richard Dawkins being particularly hacked off by it and retaliating, but … people on both sides … [are] overly dogmatic … [and go] beyond perhaps what the state of the agenda is. The agenda of the scientist is to ask how, but it’s not because I want to prove that God doesn’t exist.
That’s a bit confusing, yet Johnson et al say that this quote instantiates “the public impression that scientists practice organized dogmatism.”
Johnson et al.’s conclusions are also suspect for several reasons:
The authors don’t consider the obvious: that those UK scientists who disliked Dawkins were more likely to bring up his name unprompted.
Religious scientists despise Dawkins for having written The God Delusion, and so would be likely to denigrate him.
As with Carl Sagan, many scientists are jealous of Dawkins’s popular success, and so would have a motivation to criticize him besides his supposed misrepresentation of science.
Most scientists don’t like criticism of religion because it “rocks the boat”—even if they themselves are atheists. I’ve experienced this with Faith Versus Fact, which accrued many of the same criticisms although nobody I know of has said that I’ve “misrepresented science”.
Johnson et al. ignore the many laypeople who have been converted to both evolution AND atheism by Dawkins’s efforts. You can see examples of those in the old “Converts Corner” website that was once part of the Dawkins Foundation site. Note that there are 159 pages of testimony on this site! We see that many people have been convinced by Dawkins’ messages about both religion and evolution, and, as I often say in my talks, there’s a salubrious synergy between these areas, so that people who get converted to accepting evolution often give up their faith, and those who lose their faith often subsequently accept evolution. In contrast, there is no person I’ve ever seen who has said, “You know, I’d accept evolution if only Dawkins stopped banging on about atheism.”
As senior author of this paper and of many other papers on science and religion, Elaine Ecklund has proven herself an execrable scholar, constantly distorting her findings in the service of her agenda, which just happens to be one that attracts Templeton money like dung attracts scarabid beetles. This “paper” is not scholarship, but a simple hit piece on Dawkins, and the conclusions—that British scientists think Dawkins misrepresents science—are worthless in view of the paper’s methods. It may well be that most British scientists don’t like Dawkins, or think he’s too hard on religion, but that isn’t shown in the paper either, for this is not a random sample of scientists. It’s a summary of what people said who brought up Dawkins without asking. Here’s one more distorting quote from the paper (my emphasis), with a next-to-last sentence that’s nothing other than a gratuitous slur:
To be clear, none of the scientists we interviewed questioned Dawkins’ identity or integrity as a scientist. The critique is aimed at his representation of science to the public. What makes this critique so ironic is the fact that Dawkins held a pre-eminent endowed chair in public understanding of science at Oxford from 1995 until 2008. It is also noteworthy that many of his critics are, like Dawkins, atheists.
What are her (and possibly her team’s) motivations and conclusions? To show that Dawkins is disturbing the Force Field of comity between science and religion. Here are two quotes from Johnson et al.:
To be sure, diverse publics are intelligent enough to make their own judgments about science and scientists, but for those who are interested in a more nuanced perspective than can be offered by specific celebrity scientists, dialogue and social exchange between scientists and non-scientist publics could be a valuable mechanism for change. Implicit in these narratives of understanding the public and foster- ing dialogue is a view that even in a socially contentious debate, scientists can promote public understanding of science by focusing on areas where scientists and skeptical groups can agree.
(Always run for the hills when you hear the word “more nuanced” in a discussion of science and religion. They’ll always be uttered by the religionists!)
Although the empirical context is scientists’ perceptions of Dawkins, Dawkins is simply an analytic case through which the role of the celebrity scientist in socially contentious debates can be analyzed. This study is important because it is the first of its kind to empirically assess whether scientists perceive celebrity scientists as ideal representatives of science. The study of Dawkins’ role in debates about the relationship between science and religion in the United Kingdom, his home nation, is an interesting case as well; while he argues that there is an intrinsic conflict between science and religion, many scientists—even most nonreligious scientists—do not perceive a conflict between being religious and being a scientist in the abstract sense (Ecklund, 2010; Ecklund et al., 2016; Ecklund and Park, 2009). Analyzing how scientists perceive Dawkins thus represents an important case from which recommendations can be made for improving dialogue in debates related to conflict between science and social values.
There’s no mystery about what’s going on here. Ecklund’s agenda is not a secret: her constant theme, reinforced by collecting data and then twisting it in any way she can to support her agenda (and get her Templeton grant renewed), is that science and religion are compatible, and that scientists are far more spiritual and religious than most people think. Just search for her name on this site and you’ll find many critiques of the work of her and her colleagues. I find the whole enterprise reprehensible: a caricature of what sociology should be. But of course, follow the money, in this case in the acknowledgments of the paper:
Data collection for this study was funded by the Templeton World Charity Foundation; Elaine Howard Ecklund, PI; and Kirstin R.W. Matthews and Steven W. Lewis, Co-PIs (grant no. 0033/AB14).
Reader Mike Hannah send some photos from the Land of Kiwis and notes (indented):
I understand that you are visiting New Zealand next year – so I have attached three photos of endemic species to whet your appetite. All the pictures were taken in an urban sanctuary called Zealandia situated in the suburbs of Wellington. It’s a great place to visit and people whose homes back onto the predator-proof fence that surrounds the park are treated to the calls of wild Kiwi at night.
Kereru, the New Zealand Pigeon (Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae)– a big bird with an unfortunately small head. But its plumage is beautiful.
Kakariki, a New Zealand parakeet – this species is the red-crowned parakeet (Cyanoramphus novaezelandiae):
Tuatara, the famous non lizard – the last ryncocephalian, Sphenodon punctatus . I was told that this is a young one about 7 years old. I understand (but I may be wrong) that the Tuatara in the sanctuary are all the result of the breeding program at Victoria University where I work.
As an aside, Tuatara is the also the name of an excellent craft beer brewery in Wellington.
Reader Christopher Moss documents the continuing efforts of squirrels to get access to his bird feeder. He says this:
The birds are getting to much food, so they are attempting a little redistribution of wealth. Perhaps that’s why they are red squirrels!
And one beautiful moth photo from reader Simon Lawson:
I was taken with the post by Greg on the snake mimicking spider and posted a comment here.
Attached is the photo of the Atlas Moth (Archaeoattacus staudingeri) I referenced in that comment as another potential snake mimic. Not sure what the model candidate would be, but there may be herpetologist readers of the site who could have a stab.
JAC: Simon is presumably referring to the pattern of the round curved tips of the forewings (see photos at bottom):
That impeachable fount of biology information, The Daily Mail, suggests that the Atlas moth is mimicking a cobra:
(From the Daily Mail): When threatened, the insect drops to the ground and slowly fans its wings (pictured) in a movement that also looks similar to that of the snake’s head. The rare insect is typically found in the forests of South East Asia.
Good morning! PCC(E) is still feeling the effects of timezone-hopping so I am with you again today.
Today in 1928 Disney released Steamboat Willie which was the first the studio had released with fully synchronized sound. The Jazz Singer had appeared in cinemas the previous year which had pretty much sealed the fate of sound in movies, prompting Disney to produce this short.
In 1978 in rather more grim news, Jim Jones convinced members of his cult to commit suicide – and murder in some cases – in Jonestown, Guyana. Whatever grandiose legacy the madman wished to leave behind him, his legacy appears to be the phrase “drinking the Kool-Aid” which is fitting if nothing else.
It’s Kirk Hammett‘s birthday (1962) today as well. He’s the lead guitarist with Metallica. Here he is on a guitar solo strutting his stuff.
Over in Poland, Hili is still scheming, although I suspect the plans now included maximum comfort as a prerequisite. And he’s still chatting with the lovely actress Gaia Weiss, the daughter of Andrzej’s niece:
Hili: We have to reach as far as possible.
Gaia: And beyond.
(Photo: Gaia)
In Polish:
Hili: Musimy sięgać tak daleko jak to możliwe.
Gaia: Albo jeszcze dalej.
(Zdjęcie: Gaia)
Here’s a new Leon:
Leon: And they are not trimming its claws!
And in keeping with the solemn tone, here is a lagniappe from Twitter. I did not know this was a thing. Apparently it is.
It’s Friday. We’re all tired. So here’s some photos of cats wearing hats made from their own hair. Enjoy. pic.twitter.com/iKUIzto9k0
Here we have a prime example of Crybaby Liberals who will do anything to impugn the man who is now president-elect. The sad thing is that Trump has impugned himself so many times with his own behavior that we really don’t need to examine his tastes in steak. But behold the effluence of PuffHo (click on screenshot to go to the piece), from a piece published in March:
And we’re told that we’re supposed to hate Trump for this:
You may hate him for his lies or for his racism, but now you can hate him for how he takes his filet mignon. It’s almost as if he’s threatened by any possible life remaining in the meat. Trump wants everything he eats to be really, really, really dead.
Trump’s steak preference is considered offensive by most people who have an ounce of appreciation for food.
It’s one of the biggest crimes a person can commit while dining out. Steaks ordered “well-done” have been known to crinkle the noses of talented chefs.
. . . .When you cast your vote for president this year, think about how the candidates interact with the world on a more intimate level. What would they do if they saw a stray dog on the side of the road? Would they be willing to let someone else take the last spot in the elevator, and wait for the next? How would they navigate a menu at a nice meal out?
This is the kind of over-the-top demonization that should embarrass all of us. The stray dog/elevator/steak analogy at the end is simply asinine. I happen to believe that a rare steak tastes better, but tastes differ, and I’d never try to say that anybody who wanted a well done steak (like my Dad used to, for instance) was a bad person.
At the end of this article, which appeared in the “Taste” section of PuffHo (the food section), we find the usual editor’s note appended to every PuffHo piece on Trump (it was clearly added after he was nominated). I’ve added the final bit.
Editor’s note: Donald Trump is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist, birther and bully who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S. And, he eats his steak in the worst possible way: well done!!!! That makes him even more of a bad person.
For some reason, respectable intellectual venues are constantly and loudly proclaiming the comity between science and religion. I don’t quite know why this is so—we’ll have another example tomorrow from Smithsonian Magazine, of all places—but here we see the well known science popularizer and theoretical physicist Michio Kaku touting God in a June piece in Intellectual Takeout: “World-famous scientist: God created the Universe.” Kaku, who specializes in string theory, holds a professorship in physics at the City University of New York. And the title clearly plays into the hands of those with an Abrahamic bent.
But seriously? God created the Universe? Well, let’s ask Dr. Kaku for his evidence—”evidence” that he initially gave in CNS News. And here, as far as I can see, is the entirety of his evidence: there are laws of physics.
Here’s the CNS piece in its entirety:
Dr. Michio Kaku, a theoretical physicist at the City College of New York (CUNY) and co-founder of String Field Theory, says theoretical particles known as “primitive semi-radius tachyons” are physical evidence that the universe was created by a higher intelligence.
After analyzing the behavior of these sub-atomic particles – which can move faster than the speed of light and have the ability to “unstick” space and matter – using technology created in 2005, Kaku concluded that the universe is a “Matrix” governed by laws and principles that could only have been designed by an intelligent being.
“I have concluded that we are in a world made by rules created by an intelligence. Believe me, everything that we call chance today won’t make sense anymore,” Kaku said, according to an article published in the Geophilosophical Association of Anthropological and Cultural Studies.
“To me it is clear that we exist in a plan which is governed by rules that were created, shaped by a universal intelligence and not by chance.”
“The final solution resolution could be that God is a mathematician,” Kaku, author of The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind, said in a 2013 Big Think video posted on YouTube. [JAC: see video below.]
“The mind of God, we believe, is cosmic music, the music of strings resonating through 11-dimensional hyperspace.”
But which physical laws are simply the brute facts of physics, like the inverse-square law, or the constancy of the speed of light in a vacuum, and which rules are evidence for “an intelligence”? Can Dr. Kaku tell us the difference? Or does he think that all physical laws are evidence for a higher intelligence? And why? What could there possibly be there about any law of physics that instantiates a higher intelligence? (I’m ignoring the mushbrained “Matrix” allusion here.)
Now, you can say that the combination of all physical laws and parameters as part of a Universe that harbors intelligent life is itself evidence for a god (that’s the Strong Anthropic Principle), but you can’t make that argument for individual laws. As Sean Carroll and others have observed, at bottom the answer of why laws are what they are, or that they’re often simple and often remarkable, could be just “That’s the way it is”
Since Kaku is a scientist and a popularizer, it should be his responsibility, when addressing the nature of unexplained physical laws, to say, “We don’t know” or “We don’t understand.” Instead, he says that “God is a mathematician.” Well, you might as well say “The Universe is a mathematician.” And that simply means that the laws of physics can be expressed mathematically. But of course any regularity can be expressed mathematically, so that’s just saying that physical laws show regularities. One might as well say that the laws of fluid mechanics evince the mind of God.
If you want to make those regularities into a God, as did Einstein did, then you’re a pantheist. (I don’t think Kaku is one, since he mentions “an intelligence”, which surely isn’t pantheism!) But it’s intellectually dishonest to use the word “God”—which is freighted with all sorts of religious meanings for most folks—to do that. I think that Kaku is in fact pandering to the religious in an effort to make himself more popular. He’s certainly not behaving as a scientist—one who is satisfied saying, “I don’t know.” Nor could I find any record of Kaku believing in a personal God.
Below is the 2013 video in which Kaku, at the end, expresses a belief in God, or at least uses the word “God” three times (start at 4:22). The rest of the video has nothing to do with God, but is a simple explication of the history of physics. Here’s the delusional bit:
All of a sudden we had super symmetric theories coming out of physics that then revolutionized mathematics, and so the goal of physics we believe is to find an equation perhaps no more than one inch long which will allow us to unify all the forces of nature and allow us to read the mind of God. And what is the key to that one inch equation? Super symmetry, a symmetry that comes out of physics, not mathematics, and has shocked the world of mathematics. But you see, all this is pure mathematics and so the final resolution could be that God is a mathematician. And when you read the mind of God, we actually have a candidate for the mind of God. The mind of God we believe is cosmic music, the music of strings resonating through 11 dimensional hyperspace. That is the mind of God.
What the hell does Kaku think he’s doing when he’s talking about “the mind of God”? The “cosmic music” that is controversial string theory?
It’s time for us scientists, and for those who think the road to understanding reality is the road of naturalism, to start calling out the kind of nonsense espoused by Kaku. There is no comity between science and religion, and there is no place for accommodationism in any venue that purports to advance science and reason. It’s arrantly irresponsible to describe the wonders of reality—or, in the case of disputed string theory, the tenets of an unevidenced hypothesis—as evincing “the mind of God.”
Kaku knows what kind of country the U.S. is, and he knows full well that people will see his little lecture and his interview as science giving evidence for the Bearded Man in the Sky. I’m surprised that Kaku hasn’t been snapped up by the Templeton Foundation!
This is science popularization at its worst: an “aren’t I a nice guy” pandering to religion, and an abandoment of our overriding tenet of doubt. This kind of bunk is happening all over, and it’s time we fought back.
We’ve seen recent examples of God-osculation in the journal Nature (shame on them!), in National Geographic, and tomorrow we’ll see one in Smithsonian Magazine.
I’m back from SE Asia, but am horribly jet-lagged. It will take me a few days to recover and resume posting as usual. In the meantime, enjoy this comic.
The new Jesus and Mo strip, called “furry”, shows Mo raising a few dumb creationists questions about evolution, although the “Why aren’t there furry Eskimos?” issue is new to me. (The word is “Inuit,” now, and they didn’t need fur because they had clothes.)
The good news is that, after a five-year effort, Why Evolution is True will, I’m told, soon appear in Arabic. I’ve long wished for this, for the Arab-speaking world is largely creationist, and I’m pretty sure there are no books in Arabic laying out the evidence for evolution. At any rate, the Egyptian National Center for Translation has done the job (it was interrupted during Arab Spring), and we’ll have an edition in that language within a month or two.
