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.
Hili’s incursion into intellectual territory was short lived: she’s back to noms again—or rather, noms among the noms:
Hili: Look, the grapes are ripening
A: Yes, but they are sour.
Hili: Even among sour grapes a bird may be hiding.
Hili: Patrz, winogrona dojrzewają.
Ja: Tak, ale są kwaśne.
Hili: Nawet wśród kwaśnych winogron ukrywają się czasem ptaszki.
This is all I know from reader Amy, who found it on Facebook:
Kangaroo Joey was rescued from a forest fire. He’s learning to hop, hunt, and color co-ordinate his underwear.
I was shocked to hear the news today: at the meeting someone asked me, “Did you hear about Victor Stenger?”, and my heart sank. And what I feared was true: he died (on August 27) at his home in Hawaii.
I didn’t know Vic personally, but we exchanged a fair number of emails over the years, and I always enjoyed his books about physics and about religion, even when I didn’t agree with him. But we did see eye to eye on the incompatibility of science and religion, and so we were compadres in that area. Vic was always he was a nice guy to me, and a tireless soldier in the battle for science and reason. In the end, you can’t do much better than that in this world.
I’m in a rush, and can’t do justice to the man, so go read Hemant Mehta’s memorial to Vic (with some video clips) over at The Friendly Atheist.
Here is a list of his popular books from Wikipedia. I hadn’t realized he was this prolific.
This was inspired, I think, by my recent post about whether there was a historical person around whom the Jesus myth accreted. There was surprising interest in the question, and I’ve learned nothing to convince me that there was more evidence for a historical Jesus than there was before. But on to the social medium tempest:
At least Richard doesn’t try to whitewash evolutionary biology to pretend that it says something it doesn’t!
If you want to see a great whitewash of Islam, with all of its bad aspects completely blotted out (or rationalized), read Aslan’s book No god But God. You’ll be either amused or horrified to see the Whiggish rewriting of Muslim history, including Aslan’s “explanation” for why Muhammad (despite the assertion of important Islamic texts) didn’t really marry a child bride, Aisha, when she was 6 and deflower her at 9. No, Aslan says that she was deflowered after puberty, which was okay because that was the custom then.
Aslan may know a ton about Islam, but he also knows how to twist it so it’s user-friendly to those Americans who are apologists for this most pernicious of all faiths. (I am not, of course, saying that all Muslims are bad people or extremists.) And of course American book-buyers ate it up.
I got an email from one of the Deepakity’s assistants two nights ago, which said this:
Deepak wanted me to share this letter with you and wondered if you would consider signing it along with 1,000 others [sic] scientists.
Of course I knew, based on experience, that this was something I would probably refuse; but I did read it. Here is Deepak’s cover letter and then the “statement” we were asked to endorse are below. Before posting all of this, I asked and got permission from Chopra’s assistant, for which I’m grateful.
The cover letter from Chopra was also sent to several equesterian atheists and, I suppose, to others I don’t know.
General wording? I don’t think so. Here’s the statement we were asked to sign (my emphasis at end):
Science Must Face Reality: In Support of Consciousness
There’s a general feeling that science has advanced to the point that it can answer the two most important questions facing it. What is the universe made of? What is the biological basis of consciousness? If these two mysteries are finally solved, a true Theory of Everything cannot be far off. We are concerned, however, that the old scientific paradigm is not adequate to provide answers to either question. The old paradigm, under which we were trained, along with every working scientist, reduces difficult problems to smaller, more manageable parts. Experiments are conducted, data is collected, and findings are reached. In this way objective knowledge emerges that a consensus can accept, whether it concerns the behavior of moving bodies in Newton’s time or the existence of the Higgs boson in ours.
The mainstream view in science is that this general method of exploring Nature will continue to succeed, based on the enormous progress science has made in the past. We don’t share such confidence. There comes a time when old paradigms falter and fail, giving way to a completely new paradigm. This is the natural evolution of scientific investigation. We urge anyone interested in the advance of knowledge to recognize that the signs of a new paradigm emerging are unmistakable.
What forces such a radical change is reality itself, which science is obliged to follow. Reality has led us to the point where reductionism, a “bottom up” approach that seeks to build reality up from its smallest constituents, must give way to holism, a “top down” approach that accepts an undeniable fact: Reality is one thing. Up to now, reductionism has been successful in disguising the dualism that is threatening to become a fatal flaw. There is no credible bridge between classical and quantum physics, brain and mind, physiology and psychology. In effect, the march of science through theory and technology has yet to explain how atoms and molecules took the leap that produced human experience, our mental participation in the reality science is trying to explain. Science has relegated personal experience to the sidelines and at times even rejected that consciousness is a valid subject of study. The reason is obvious, because the scientific quest has been for objective findings, not subjective impressions. The split between objective and subjective lies at the bottom of every other duality. But without a top down, holistic framework, there will never be an adequate explanation of reality. The two big questions facing science (What is the universe made of? What is the biological basis of consciousness?) needs to be reframed. What’s at stake is actually “What is existence?” and “How is existence known?”
This reframing will strike the vast majority of scientists as metaphysics, in other words, not science. There is an implicit disdain for philosophy among even elite scientists, who are on public record calling philosophy useless, pointless, and an obstacle to the progress of science. But this viewpoint is the product of an old paradigm on the verge of being superseded. Many significant advances in quantum physics depended on thought experiments, and every science depends on hypotheses and models, which are mental activities.
At some point, a problem can approach the horizon where thought experiments, models, and even mathematics, the ultimate mental foundation of science, must confront the nature of experience. Until we understand the basis of consciousness, from which all experience arises (including the experience of doing science) there is no guarantee that how we perceive the universe matches reality. By taking consciousness for granted, or shunting it aside, the old paradigm assumed that perception
is an adequate match for reality–this despite the obvious fact that science distrusts the report of the five senses. A person sees the sun rise in the East and set in the West. Science investigates to discover if this report has any basis in fact.
What would a top down, holistic foundation for science look like? An answer is just now emerging; the new paradigm is emerging through the activity of many minds. We simply want to make a declaration of intent, pointing science away from its collision with reality. The future of a planet in danger depends upon seeing human experience in a new way, so that preservation replaces endless consumption, saving replaces bottomless spending, and caretaking replaces despoiling. The peril we face is entwined with science and technology, and it is widely expected that science and technology will rescue us.But this will only happen, we believe, through a deeper, better understanding of consciousness, since after all, nothing is real unless we are conscious of it. The late physicist John Archibald Wheeler was among the first to point out that this is a participatory universe. Humans are embedded in the reality they seek to explain. The time is long past when science can afford to stand outside reality in search of perfect objectivity. As useful as that stance has been, a new stance is urgently needed.
I answered politely by email, but didn’t register my choice electronically. Can you guess my answer?
This is not a call for a serious new paradigm—at least, it suggests no fruitful directions of research—but simply an endorsement of Chopra’s metaphysical and woo-laden views. If reductionism won’t help us understand consciousness, what will? The “top down” approach is the name for something that starts with woo, and that simply won’t work.
Note, too, that the only “direction” of research suggested is through “the activity of many minds,” which I presume to be some kind of nebulous “quantum universal consciousness.” And there’s also a threat that if we don’t go in this direction, it’s all over for Earth. That’s rather presumptious, to say the least.
It’s clear from this letter that Chopra is asking a number of scientists to sign on to his call for a New Paradigm. He wants validation of his views—views that many of us have criticized, clearly upsetting him. He’ll get some endorsers, too, including his mate Rudy Tanzi, and maybe some others who are enamored or woo and suspicious of the reductionist approach to science—the only approach that really ever works for understanding biological systems. But I seriously doubt he’ll get any of the more skeptical neurosciences.
Signing this letter is like wearing a sign on your forehead that says, “I iz baffled. I can haz new paradime?”
~
Many readers sent me a note about this paper, but, given my schedule, I simply hadn’t gotten around to reading it. Fortunately, Greg did, and gives us a nice summary of what it means.
by Greg Mayer
In the latest issue of Nature, Simon Conway Morris and Jean-Bernard Caron provide a detailed description of Metaspriggina walcotti, a poorly known and enigmatic fossil from the famous Burgess Shale of British Columbia. Originally described by Alberto Simonetta and Emilio Insom in 1993 from a single specimen that had been collected by Charles Walcott around 1910, in 2008 Conway Morris referred a second Walcott specimen to the species, and redescribed the species based on these two specimens. It was Conway Morris who first referred Metaspriggina to the chordates (the group that includes vertebrates, lancelets and tunicates). He and Caron have now redescribed Metaspriggina again, this time on the basis of 100 new specimens from British Columbia, and also referred specimens from a few other North American localities to the genus. The new material is very well preserved, and allows a much more detailed reconstruction.
The results of their studies are very interesting. Metaspriggina has the basic chordate features of a notochord, postanal tail, and gills. In addition it has segmented muscles, and the “vertebratey” features of eyes, nasal sacs, and perhaps cranial cartilages and arcualia. (The latter are arrayed along the notochord, and would be ancestral vertebrae.) Most interesting to me is that there are seven sets of paired branchial bars (gill arches), all but the most anterior supporting laterally directed gill filaments. The direction of the latter is significant. In jawed fishes and their descendants, the gills extend laterally from the skeletal arches, while in lampreys and hagfish (the cyclostomes) the gills extend medially from the arches. The lateral gills in Metaspriggina suggest that this is the primitive condition, retained by jawed fishes, and that the medial placement in cyclostomes is derived. The seven pairs of arches also suggest that the many arches of cyclostomes is another derived feature, and that therefore Metaspriggina more closely resembles the jawed fish ancestor. The anteriormost arch, perhaps the homologue of the jaw, differs from the other arches in being more robust.
In their phylogenetic analysis, Metaspriggina is close to Haikouichthys and Myllokunmingia, two other very early Cambrian vertebrates from the Chengjiang of China. Metaspriggina (ca. 500-515 mya) is slightly younger than the Chinese forms (ca. 520 mya). An interesting side result of their phylogenetic analysis is that Pikaia, formerly the only known Burgess Shale chordate, and usually considered a cephalochordate (i.e. a relative of lancelets, which is what they look like to me) comes out crownward of the cephalochordates, in fact as the sister-group (i.e. closest relative) of the vertebrates.
This paper is a real advance in our knowledge of vertebrate evolution. It is becoming clear that there is an at least modestly diverse Cambrian fauna of jawless fishes, and that these fossils will help us understand the origin of vertebrates and jawed vertebrates in a way that the extant jawless fishes (the cyclostomes) cannot, due to the latter being collateral relatives with their own long separate evolutionary history and corresponding suite of derived characters. These Cambrian fossils seem to provide a better model for the ancestral vertebrates than do the modern lampreys and hagfishes.
I would also add that these early Cambrian vertebrates look very much like what ancestral vertebrates were hypothesized to look like prior to their discovery.
__________________________________________________
Conway Morris, S. 2008. A redescription of a rare chordate, Metaspriggina walcotti Simonetta and Insom, from the Burgess Shale (Middle Cambrian), British Columbia, Canada. Journal of Paleontology 82:424–430.
Conway Morris, S. And J.-B. Caron. 2014. A primitive fish from the Cambrian of North America. Nature 512:419-422. abstract only
Simonetta, A. M. and E. Insom. 1993. New animals from the Burgess Shale (Middle Cambrian) and their possible significance for the understanding of the Bilateria. Bolletino di Zoologia 60:97–107. pdf
A note for taxonomy geeks: In his 2008 paper, and again in this latest one, Conway Morris refers to the second specimen collected by Walcott as the “lectotype”. This is completely wrong. The specimen upon which a new species is based is the holotype; additional specimens upon which the original description is based are called paratypes. In the old days, before the current rules were codified, authors would frequently base a new species description on several specimens, without specifying a particular specimen to be the name-bearer or holotype. When no holotype was designated, all the specimens had equal status, and were called syntypes. This is bad in case it should turn out that the original set of specimens actually comprised more than one species (this happened a lot). A later author, in order to insure nomenclatural stability, is permitted to choose from among the syntypes a single specimen to be the primary type of the species. This selected syntype then becomes the lectotype, the other syntypes becoming paralectotypes. A lectotype has the same status as a holotype, in that it fixes application of the name should the type series prove to be composite.
So what’s wrong with the second specimen being a lectotype? Well first off, the second specimen was not part of the original type series, and so cannot possibly be a lectotype. (Simonetta and Insom mentioned this specimen, but thought it taxonomically distinct from Metaspriggina, so it was not part of the basis of the description of Metaspriggina— only the first specimen was.) If a holotype is lost or destroyed, or for some other very good (and rare) nomenclatural reason, it is possible to designate a new primary type, which would be called a neotype. But the holotype of Metaspriggina (the single original specimen) is still in existence and readily observable, so there is absolutely no need to try to designate a new primary type. This is inside baseball and perhaps small beer, but it’s really puzzling how Conway Morris seems not to understand the rules of nomenclature, and how this has not been caught by reviewers or editors.
This covers only half of yesterday, for I had an awesome visit to a historic mansion that one of my friends just bought, and then a wonderful multi-course Hungarian dinner, and one of the guests happened to be a Big Macher in Pittsburgh. But more on that tomorrow. Yesterday morning and afternoon I roamed around downtown admiring the architecture of the city, which is underappreciated. Here are some buildings:
The Allegheny County Courthouse (completed 1888) and Allegheny County Jail (completed 1886). The complex now houses offices.
The Union Trust Building (1915-1916), erected by Henry Clay Frick, originally designed as a shopping arcade (the malls of their day). I love the neo-Gothic roof, which reminds me of the Tribune Tower in Chicago (the world’s only Gothic skyscraper):
I believe this logo is made out of real vegetation, but I may well be wrong. It seems to be for the PNC Bank in Pittsburgh. Perhaps it’s Astroturf after all, for how would they mow it?
A hidden little Art Deco building;
The diversity of architectural styles in Pittsburgh:
“Meet me under the Kaufmann’s clock.” Kaufmann’s Department Store. The Pittsburgh store, built in 1887, became the first of a chain, and is now owned, as is Marshall Field’s in Chicago (also with a famous “meet me” clock), by Macy’s. As Wikipedia notes:
The original clock which was installed in 1887 was a large free standing four faced clock. It immediately became a popular downtown meeting place, with the oft-used phrase “Meet me under Kaufmann’s clock.” With the expansion of the store in 1913, the current clock was installed.The clock is a Pittsburgh icon, and is often featured in visual materials representing and marketing the city. Both the Kaufmann’s flagship building and the clock are designated as Pittsburgh Historical Landmarks. Upon announcing the 2006 retirement of the Kaufmann’s name and the downtown store being rebranded as Macy’s, the store gave out tote bags printed with the Clock’s image and its phrase “Meet me under the Kaufmann’s clock” to honor the store’s 135-year history.
The 64-story U.S. Steel Tower, completed in 1970. It’s a rusty steel building, but designed to be that way. As Wikipedia notes:
The U.S. Steel Tower is architecturally noted for its triangular shape with indented corners. The building also made history by being the first to use liquid-filled fireproofed columns. U.S. Steel deliberately placed the massive steel columns on the exterior of the building to showcase a new product called Cor-ten steel. Cor-ten resists the corrosive effects of rain, snow, ice, fog, and other meteorological conditions by forming a coating of dark brown oxidation over the metal, which inhibits deeper penetration and doesn’t need painting and costly rust-prevention maintenance over the years.
A closeup of the partly rusted Cor-ten steel.
Time for lunch at last! And what better place for a light lunch than Primanti Brothers, a Pittsburgh landmark and now a chain. Michael Stern’s description and review at Roadfood notes that Primanti’s weird custom of including french fries and cole slaw within the sandwich began when the restaurant (which has another branch in the busy “Strip” district) was servicing truck drivers. (It’s open 24 hours a day.) The drivers had no time for a sit-down meal, so the cole slaw and fries were simply stuffed into the sandwich along with some Russian dressing. (One also adds a vinegar sauce to spice it up.) That sounds icky, but it was actually quite good. Primanti’s is a Pittsburgh Institution.
I ate early and had a pastrami and cheese sandwich, shown here in normal view and cross section:
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Just when you thought cats on the Net had had their day, Japan launches Pizza Cat. This new pizzeria is run by a group of lazy, hairy eyeballing cats named Tencho, Hime, Dora and Detch. You can watch them at ‘work’ – taking orders on the phone, dealing with spreadsheets, cleaning, making deliveries – in a series of short video clips on the store’s official website. Ready to order? Just don’t complain if you find a furball in your cheese.
In case you don’t know of this Twi**er site, it’s pretty damn funny: “Why my cat is sad.” Here are a few examples of tw**ts:
If you don’t know Bagpuss, it was an awesome British kids’ show (go here for a few videos).
h/t: Zach, Matt, Andrea ~