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.
Emma: In a moment there will be freedom and independence.Hili: Just to keep you company I will wait for my freedom and independence until the gate is open.
In Polish:
Emma: Zaraz będzie wolność i niepodległość.
Hili: Dla towarzystwa też poczekam z moją wolnością i niepodległością do czasu otwarcia bramy.
Ah, the WooMeister keeps on giving LOLs! I won’t reproduce his many new tweets saying, “Read my new piece on radical skepticism” (he’s now published PART 4 in two different places: PuffHo and SFGate), but here are three choice tw**ts for the holiday.
First, the Gang of Five (Aurora Carlson appears to be a fan of Deepak):
I suppose that “pseundoskeptic” could be a clever neologism rather than a misspelling, but Chopra frequently makes typos when he tw**ts—and he’s not that clever.
Here’s a good one:
And I love this one:
I guess I’m in the first class since I’m now seen as a “pseundoskeptic.” But if consciousness is not an emergent property of evolution—or something that was an adaptive product of selection—what else could it be? Cyanobacteria don’t have it; later-appearing creatures do. Therefore it evolved.
Ladies and gentleman, we have our Thanksgiving turkey.
Several readers sent me a link to yesterday’s “Get Fuzzy” by Darby Conley. Bucky Katt, who hates ferrets, is acting as Satchel’s spiritual adviser, but one who’s saner than D**pak:
UPDATE: Trivers and two co-authors have published a 99-page explication of the case, “The Anatomy of A Fraud: Symmetry and Dance”; you can get a free pdf here.
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Curiously, Nature has just retracted a paper that’s about evolution, in particular, sexual selection. The retraction, here, is short and enigmatic, and I’ll post a screenshot:
The paper was actually published in 2005, and I’m not sure why retraction is warranted because “K. G. could not be contacted.” Surely there’s a deeper story here.
Below is the title and abstract of the original paper (reference and link below; free access), which reported a positive correlation among Jamaicans between measured bodily symmetry and dancing ability (as judged by a group of other Jamaicans watching films of dancers). The correlation was particularly high in males. This goes along with the common wisdom that a more symmetrical body indicates higher reproductive fitness, and makes one more attractive to the opposite sex. I don’t know a lot about the evidence, but for a while symmetry was a fad in evolutionary biology, and I guess I grew a bit suspicious about the spate of positive results. But I don’t know whether this paper was retracted because its results were wrong, or for some other reason. It’s a puzzle.
h/t: Matthew Cobb
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Brown, W. M., L. Cronk, K. Grochow, A. Jacobson, C. K. Liu, Z. Popovic, and R. Trivers. 2005. Dance reveals symmetry especially in young men. Nature 438:1148-50.
The Dawkins Foundation has posted what I suppose is its own list of the “Top 10 questions from Richard’s live chat on reddit.” You’ll learn what his favorite soup is (I like that one, too, but give me New England clam chowder any day), whether he thinks any animals are religious, what his greatest achievement is (you should already know that if you’re a regular here), how he thinks American science education can best be improved, and who was the most frustrating person with whom he ever debated evolution (if you follow Dawkins you can guess that one, too).
I especially appreciate his answer to question #9.
h/t: Matt
First we have a creature that may be new to science. It’s one of the weirdest animals I’ve ever seen, and was captured on film by an oil-rig camera. I can’t embed the video from LiveLeak.com, but you can see it at the link in the previous sentence. Do have a look: it’s massively bizarre. I’ve put a screenshot below.
One of Matthew’s friends said it’s just a loose tarpaulin, but I highly doubt that. For one thing, it’s translucent, and for another (viz., screenshot), it seems to have organs. But the video is properly labelled “WTF”. Perhaps some reader can identify it; I think it’s a deep-sea cnidarian (jellyfish):
The second creature has been known for a long time but is elusive, and its biology is almost completely unknown: the bigfin squid(s). Wikipedia gives some information about the group, which appears to include several species. First a photo, and then some information. Look at this thing!!
From Wikipedia:
The bigfin squids are a group of rarely seen cephalopods with a distinctive morphology. They are placed in the genus Magnapinna and family Magnapinnidae. Although the family is known only from larval, paralarval, and juvenile specimens, some authorities believe the adult creature has also been seen; several videos have been taken of animals nicknamed the “long-arm squid”, which appear to have a similar morphology. Adult specimens have never been captured or sampled–it remains uncertain if they are the same genus, or only distant relatives.
. . . These videos did not receive any media attention; in any case, most were brief and fairly blurry. However, in May 2001, some ten minutes of crisp footage of a long-armed squid were acquired by ROV Tiburon, causing a flurry of attention when they were released.[JAC: see first video below.] These were taken in the Pacific Ocean north of Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi
On November 11, 2007, a new video of a long-arm squid was filmed off Perdido, a drilling site owned by Shell Oil Company, located 200 statute miles (320 km) off Houston, Texas in the Gulf of Mexico. [JAC: see second video below.]
The specimens in the videos looked very distinct from all previously known squids. Uniquely among cephalopods, the arms and tentacles were of the same length and looked identical (like extinct belemnites). The appendages were also held perpendicular to the body, creating the appearance of strange “elbows”. Most remarkable was the length of the elastic tentacles, which has been estimated at stretching up to 15–20 times the mantle length. Estimates based on video evidence put the total length of the largest specimens at 8 metres (26 ft) or more.On close ups of the body and head, it is also apparent that the fins are extremely large, being proportionately nearly as big as those of bigfin squid larvae. While they do appear similar to the larvae, no specimens or samples of the adults have been taken, leaving their exact identity unknown.
This pictures shows the strange fins. What they’re for is a mystery:
Below is the 2001 videotape of one of these beasts, with the following notes:
ROV Tiburon, May 2001, north of Oahu, Hawaii (21.9° N, 158.2° W), 3380 m. Squid was videotaped for nearly 10 min. When first encountered, it was hovering vertically in the bent-arm posture with the filamentous appendages touching the sediment-covered bottom. Its body was estimated to be ca. 1 m long and the arm crown 3-4 m.
From Deep Sea News comes the 2007 video of one of these creatures, as well as a photo. The caption says this thing was found 1.5 miles down, far deeper than a human could survive:
On November 11, 2007, a Shell oil company ROV captured a Magnapinna on video (below) at a depth of 2386 meters (~1.5 miles). Someone (I’ve been unable to track down who created this), used the video to produce a single image of this individual (above).
Another photo:
h/t: Matthew Cobb
The abyssal depths surely contain a panoply of creatures as bizarre is this. It’s dark, food is scarce, and there’s the problem of finding each other to mate. That will create all sorts of weird adaptations and morphologies.
Well, it’s a surprise to me, but a pleasant one: The New Republic published a slightly modified version of my Adam and Eve vs. Science post from yesterday. And yes, I get a modest stipendiary emolument for the NR version, so I’m not a write-for-free dupe like those who enrich HuffPo. The New Republic’s online version is here, and there’s a nice header:
What surprised me is that a piece that is so strongly anti-theology, and doesn’t mince words about it, would be acceptable to a mainstream venue. It’s a nice palliative to the accommodationist blatherings of BioLogos.
Don’t bother to read this one if you read yesterday’s; there’s only a slight difference in the text. (On the other hand, as some readers pointed out, going over there gives them hits that might help get more such articles published, and you also get the chance to comment in a place with a larger readership than this one.)
Today’s Jesus and Mo deals with the fracas about Universities UK and their endorsement of gender-segregated seating, a story that I haven’t covered since everybody else has. But the Jesus and Mo artist gives two links below the cartoon that will tell you the whole sordid story.
The story, and the commentary.
You can (and should) sign Maryam Namazie’s petition against this ridiculous decision to allow sex-segregated seating in the UK. It’s another cowardly capitulation to Muslim religious practice. There are as of now 5250 signers, and they want 7500. I’m sure that if everyone reading this signs, we’ll go over the top. Please sign. If you’re in favor of such segregation, you shouldn’t be reading this site.
