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.
So you’re hanging around the house with your cat this weekend, and of course you have a camera. Along with a pen and a scrap of paper, that’s all you need to enter the “Cat Confession Contest,” which I announced here and added a reminder here. It ends a week from tomorrow, and there are 14 entries, so the contest is on. But those not as numerous as I’d like, especially in view of what’s required: a picture of a cat with a written confession (which must be true). The prize is an autographed copy of WEIT, with a drawing to your specification. What do you have to lose?
Just as a reminder, here are two exemplars (not from a reader; you won’t see those until the end); there are other specimens in the two posts mentioned above.
Face it—your cat has done some bad stuff, and you might as well profit from it.
Dr. Daniel H. Cole of Indiana University describes himself on his webpage as “Professor of Law (Maurer School) and a member of the Affiliated Faculty of the Vincent and Elinor Ostrom Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis. I am also a Life Member of Clare Hall (College of Advanced Studies), University of Cambridge.” Judging by his site’s title, “Law, Economics & Cycling”, and the heavy concentration on bikes, I’d say he’s a pretty avid cyclist as well.
His latest post deals with my critique of the Sophisticated Ground-of-Being arguments for God, and he generally agrees that they’re not by any means the best and most irrefutable arguments for God. I do have a few quarrels with what he said (when don’t I?), but it’s refreshingly on the mark for a high-profile professor—one who admits his atheism. I’ll reproduce the entirety of his new post, “Jerry Coyne says the best arguments for God are flimsy”. His post is indented; my comments are not.
Jerry Coyne says the best arguments for God are flimsy.
But I think he misses two of the best (but also flawed) arguments for the existence of some god(s):
(1) many people are comforted by a belief that some god (or other) exists, which obviously has no bearing on whether or not some god(s) exist(s) but is a valid normative (that is, non-empirical, non-positive) argument that some god(s) should exist;
Why is this even a good (must less “one of the best”) arguments for the existence of a god? It’s obviously not, and remember that Cole is claiming here to give arguments, albeit flawed ones, for an existence claim. Then he changes his argument so it’s not about actual existence, but an existence to be desired. Well, I’d like a big icebreaker that could sail me and some friends to the Antarctic to see the penguins, but is it a “valid normative argument” that such an icebreaker “should” exist? And what does he mean by “should”? Maybe I’m being philosophically naive here, but Cole’s argument #1 doesn’t only fail to do what he says, but comes down to claiming that “if wishes were horses, even beggars could ride”. On to #2:
(2) the absence of data does not warrant a conclusion that no god(s) exist(s), anymore than the failure to observe black swans warrants the conclusion that black swans do not exist. Thus, atheism, like any form of theism, is a matter not just of science but belief.* However, as Bertrand Russell argued about the celestial teapot, the burden of proof should rest on those who would posit the ontological existence of beings (natural or supernatural) about which we have no data. This goes for the mind (as opposed to the brain) and the soul, as well as the god(s).*
I disagree with much of this, starting with the notion that atheism is a form of theism (it isn’t) and is a matter of belief (it isn’t; it’s a matter of disbelief). Further, if there is an absence of data when the data should be there, then one can conclude—with various degrees of assurance, of course—that there is no god. And, according to many theists, that data should be there. But it isn’t. Would Cole argue that he can’t conclude that the Loch Ness monster doesn’t exist because there is an absence of data? There have been many attempts to find Nessie; all have failed. Likewise, there is an absence of data for the existence of Bigfoot, dinosaurs in South America, and alien abductions. Does Cole suspend judgment about those phenomena, too?
True, the burden of proof rests on those who make existence claims, but atheism is simply the lack of evidence for an existence claim. Frankly, I’m surprised that a law professor, who is used to parsing arguments, would say this as “one of the best arguments for the existence of some god.” It’s no such thing, but simply the use of religious logic along the lines demonstrated in one of my favorite cartoons (see Cole’s second footnote, though):
Finally, Cole’s footnotes:
————————————————————–
*The only scientifically pure position would be a feeble agnosticism. Atheism, including my own, requires an affirmative (scientifically unprovable) claim that no god(s) exist(s).
No, the scientifically pure position is a fairly robust agnosticism: we can’t demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is no god, but we’re pretty sure about the matter (I’m a 6.9 on Dawkins’s 7-point scale) given the complete absence of evidence and the strong likelihood that religions were manmade. And Cole errs in assuming that any scientific (read “rational”) position requires “proof,” so that a strong atheist refusal to believe in gods requires us to “prove” that there are no gods. Well, no scientific position requires such “proof.” What we require is evidence, and no evidence is ever 100% beyond future disproof, though some comes pretty close (e.g., a molecule of table salt has one sodium and one chlorine atom). This first footnote is particularly puzzling in view of the second:
*By the way, the oft-made argument that it is impossible to prove a negative is inaccurate. In fact, it would not require a trained scientist to prove quite easily that I have not buttered my toast this morning simply by examining the toast just before its consumption.’
Here Cole is right on the money, although again I’d avoid the phrase “you can’t prove a negative” in favor of “you can’t be nearly certain of a negative.” This argument, of course, is the Last Resort of the Religious: “Well, maybe the evidence is thin, but you can’t prove that God doesn’t exist.” It really surprises me that religionists even make such a dumb claim. If you try to rescue God in this way, you’re saving fairies, Bigfoot, Santa, and unicorns at the same time. You can be as certain as one can be (and you should bet every penny you have on it) that I do not have four legs or blue eyes. That’s as close to “proof of a negative” as you can get; in fact, it is “proof” in the conventional parlance, which, like Anthony Grayling, I take to mean something that is so sure that you’d bet everything you had on it.
After mulling this over, I guess I give professor Cole a C+ for this effort. The + is because he admits he’s an atheist.
Two photographers have contributed to today’s melange of shots, and they’re very good (click the photos to enlarge ’em). The first is by a regular—Stephen Barnard, who takes pictures on and near his property in Idaho. It’s the black-billed magpie, Pica hudsonia. He notes:
This is one of the most difficult birds to shoot around here — very spooky. In the suburbs they’re bold.
The blue tinge of wings and tail can’t be seen in this shot, but if you do some Googling you’ll see that they’re not jet-black.
This species is in the family Corvidae, along with crows and ravens, so you know it’s gonna be inquisitive and smart. As Wikipedia reports, they also cache food, and appear to have a “theory of mind” (my emphasis):
Black-billed Magpies are also known to make food caches in the ground, in scatter-hoarding fashion. To make a cache, the bird pushes or hammers its bill into the ground (or snow), forming a small hole into which it deposits the food items it was holding in a small pouch under its tongue. It may, however, then move the food to another location, particularly if other magpies are in the vicinity, watching. Cache robbing is fairly common so a magpie often makes several false caches before a real one. The final cache is covered with grass, leaves, or twigs. After this the bird cocks its head and stares at the cache, possibly to commit the site to memory. Such hoards are short-term; the food is usually recovered within several days, or the bird never returns. The bird relocates its caches by sight and also by smell; during cache robbing, smell is probably the primary cue.
I also got a passel of photos from reader Joe Dickinson, and have chosen a few of the best. First, an acorn woodpecker, Melanerpes formicivorus.
What a lovely bird! This is a very cool species, with a complicated social life and breeding system, and an amazing ability to store gazillions of acorns, as the one is doing above. The Cornell Ornithology Lab presents some “cool facts” about this bird, and I can’t help but reproduce most of them:
In 1923, American ornithologist William Leon Dawson called the dapper Acorn Woodpecker “our native aristocrat.” Dawson wrote: “He is unruffled by the operations of the human plebs in whatever disguise…Wigwams, haciendas, or university halls, what matter such frivolities, if only one may go calmly on with the main business of life, which is indubitably the hoarding of acorns.”
The Acorn Woodpecker has a very complicated social system. Family groups hold territories, and young woodpeckers stay with their parents for several years and help the parents raise more young. Several different individuals of each sex may breed within one family, with up to seven breeding males and three breeding females in one group. [JAC: since I’m not an ornithologist, I’m not sure whether all of the groups comprise related individuals, which would imply kin selection for this unusual social behavior. If they are completely unrelated, one might invoke group selection or, perhaps, some kind of individual selection based on the advantages to an individual of breeding in groups.]
All members of an Acorn Woodpecker group spend large amounts of time storing acorns. Acorns typically are stored in holes drilled into a single tree, called a granary tree. One granary tree may have up to 50,000 holes in it, each of which is filled with an acorn in autumn.
The Acorn Woodpecker will use human-made structures to store acorns, drilling holes in fenceposts, utility poles, buildings, and even automobile radiators. Occasionally the woodpecker will put acorns into places where it cannot get them out. Woodpeckers put 220 kg (485 lb) of acorns into a wooden water tank in Arizona. In parts of its range the Acorn Woodpecker does not construct a granary tree, but instead stores acorns in natural holes and cracks in bark. If the stores are eaten, the woodpecker will move to another area, even going from Arizona to Mexico to spend the winter.
In groups with more than one breeding female, the females put their eggs into a single nest cavity. A female usually destroys any eggs in the nest before she starts to lay, and more than one third of all eggs laid in joint nests are destroyed. Once all the females start to lay, they stop removing eggs.
An Anna’s hummingbird, Calypte anna, found on the west coast of the U.S. and Canada. Here’s its range from the Cornell lab:
Anna’s have an unusual courtship behavior, involving whistling and dive-bombing by males. Here’s Wikipedia’s description:
Unlike most hummingbirds, the male Anna’s Hummingbird sings during courtship. The song is thin and squeaky. During the breeding season, males can be observed performing a remarkable display, called a display dive, on their territories. The males also use the dive display to drive away rivals or intruders of other species. When a female flies onto a male’s territory, he rises up approximately 30 m (98 ft) before diving over the recipient. As he approaches the bottom of the dive the males reach an average speed of 27 m/s (89 ft/s), which is 385 body lengths per second. At the bottom of the dive the male travels 23 m/s (51 mph), and produces a loud sound described by some as an “explosive squeak” with his outer tail-feathers.
Here’s a mating display. Watch closely or you’ll miss the male!
The whistling, as noted above, is produced not by the bird’s vocal system, but by its tail feathers, which is remarkable. A report in Science (watch the video at the link, too) explains how it works (several related species make these sounds):
Hummingbirds may be some of the squeakiest fliers. Male Anna’s hummingbirds (Calypte anna), which look as if they’re wearing bright-pink scarves, swoop at speeds over 20 meters per second, emitting a shriek like a startled rodent. In 2008, Christopher Clark, a physiologist now at Yale University, and colleagues first identified the source of the noise: the birds’ tail plumage. When his team plucked the hummingbirds’ thin, outermost tail feathers, the boisterous animals became as silent as stealth bombers.
But it still wasn’t clear how the hummingbirds’ plumage sang. So in the new study, Clark and colleagues put tail feathers from 14 species of “bee” hummingbirds—a rowdy group that includes the Anna’s hummingbird—into a wind tunnel. At gentle breezes, the feathers just ruffled, but when the winds sped up to around the birds’ normal dive velocities, about 7 to 20 meters per second, something strange happened: The feathers started to ripple rhythmically, much like the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, which famously began undulating and then collapsed in 1940 when winds hit it at just the right speed. But unlike that infamous Washington State roadway, the feathers emitted sometimes-piercing noises when they vibrated, Clark and his colleagues report today in Science.
Many feathers whistled in harmony, too, Clark says. When placed side by side, for instance, some of the Anna’s hummingbird’s middle tail feathers started to mimic the vibration of those on the edge of the tail, producing a much louder but also uniform noise. The orange-throated Allen’s hummingbird, which sounds a bit like a chirpy machine gun, has two sets of tail feathers that each whistle separate notes. This nimble flier also makes a trilling noise with its wings before it dives, Clark says. “You can think of a bird as being a one-man band,” he says.
And some mammals for good measure. First, the fawn of a black-tailed deer, a subspecies of the mule deer found in western North America (Odocoileus hemionus columbianus):
One of my favorite urban mammals, the raccoon (Procyon lotor). They’re omnivores, and (as I think I’ve said before), when I lived in a place with a cat door a mother (and sometimes her babies) would squeeze in and wreak havoc. One of them ate an entire pound of Christmas chocolates! But these little burglars are cute. Here’s Joe’s photo of one of them using a storm drain as a shelter:
A striped skunk (Mephitis mephitis), an animal I once had for several years as a pet. They are tame, omnivorous, and unduly feared, for they squirt only under extreme duress. This animal is in remarkably good condition for a wild skunk, and I’m wondering if it’s a pet:
Finally, Joe labeled this photo as a “Western Gray Squirrel [Sciurus griseus] defeating my squirrel-proof bird feeder”. What a magnificent tail! Ceiling Cat loves squirrels and has placed them all under His protection. That is why they are able to defeat all bird feeders.
The first of these videos of cats playing the shell game popped up in my Tw*tter feed yesterday (forgotten from whom). I then went mooching on YouTube and found the others. Mine is a life well spent.
The ‘shell game’ (aka the Three Card Trick or Find the Lady) is a classic game used to by con men to fleece hapless observers. You see a group of men standing around on a street corner, shouting animatedly. One man is moving three shells about, or playing cards face-down. You have to guess which shell conceals a marble (or whatever), or where the Queen is. If you get it right, you win the bet. It’s very difficult to follow, but one man in the audience is able to work it out, and he wins money! So you decide to have a go. And fail dismally, losing your money. The guy who won was a stooge. I have seen this happening, although I’m wise enough (and no gambler) so I’ve never lost any money myself.
Anyway, these videos suggest that if you want to beat the system, take your cat down to the street corner. Each of these cats is pretty good at spotting where the marble is. These videos raise a number of questions.
First, how do they do it? Sound would seem the obvious cue (I bet the cats couldn’t do it with cards), although there may be subtle cues unconsciously emitted by the human – the ‘Clever Hans’ effect, named after a horse in Germany at the beginning of the last century who could apparently add numbers, but was in fact picking up tiny behavioural signals from his (honest) owner.
Second (and more interestingly), why would the cat want to bat the right shell? They don’t get any reward except for praise. It’s interesting that they all seem to be thinking about the problem, and then make their choice. Without wishing to spoil a nice story, I suspect they aren’t thinking about it at all, they’re listening. They know where the marble is (in most cases), having tracked it with their ears. They’re now listening to see if their potential prey is making a noise. If it’s quiet, they then biff the shell, just like they’d hit a mouse’s hiding place. Of course, you may have a different interpretation.
[Note from Jerry: if you can, try this with your cat and report the results below. It’s CITIZEN SCIENCE!]
Hili encounters Sarah’s novel (Sarah also took the photo):
Hili: Are there any cats in this novel of yours, The Bohemian Pirate?
Sarah: No, I’m afraid not.
Hili: Then how can you expect anybody to read it?
In Polish:
Hili: Są tam jakieś koty w tej twojej książce “The Bohemian Pirate”?
Sarah: Niestety, nie ma.
Hili: To jak możesz oczekiwać, że ktokolwiek to przeczyta?
Note: Malgorzata adds that “After a few weeks with mostly English at home, Hili has become quite fluent in this language.”
Faith-friendly historians of science (viz., Ronald Numbers), as well as many accommodationists, hasten to reassure us that there is no real conflict between science and religion. It’s all illusory, and insofar as it doesn’t seem illusory (i.e., the 46% of Americans who are young-earth creationists), well, it’s just a small misunderstanding.
That is, until you see something like this, which is not a Photoshop job. It’s a church sign from Fort Worth, Texas:
“Facts don’t count.” Can you get much more irrational than that? I’d love to put that on the cover of my book, but will refrain.
But do you suppose the congregants at Victory Tabernacle Holiness Church accept God as a Ground of Being rather than a Disembodied Person Who Cares About Them? Damon Linker and David Bentley Hart: are you listening?
At any rate, reader Barry, who sent me the photo and did a bit of legwork, also sent me a few tw**s by one Joseph O Morrow, a Christian from Philadelphia. This also demonstrates that a) some Christians do rely on evidence for their beliefs, and b) the standards of evidence are, well, a bit thin. . . .
