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.
When I had cats, I never used automatic feeders when I was out of town: I always hired a catsitter. Now I’m glad I did, because I wouldn’t want a cat to learn that you can get extra nomz by banging the apparatus.
As the YouTube notes say:
These are merely the highlights of a two day feeding binge by Milo. He stole food much more often than was shown here.
. . . which evokes this image.
And here is the story of Rufus and his owner. Greater love hath no man for his cat:
Last week I posted one strip from Wiley Miller’s comic Non Sequitur, but realized only today, thanks to alert reader Doug, that Miller is going after religion and creationism.
This is apparently a continuing series, and I haven’t reproduced all of the strips, but you can see them (and should, so Miller gets the clicks) by going to the website above and simply hitting the small left arrow by the date at the top, which will take you back day by day.
I don’t get a daily paper, so if this stuff is appearing in regular print, I’d be surprised. Here are the last three days’ worth; I’ll leave it to you to follow the tale from now on.
I love the motto on The Church of Danae: “Follow along and no one gets hurt.” So true!
Intelligent design creationism got a whack yesterday:
And the day before, the multifarious evidence for evolution gets a mention:
Just when the Republicans thought they were getting over the stupid remarks of Republic Todd Akin (Missouri), who claimed that a woman couldn’t get pregnant from a “legimate rape” because her body would somehow prevent it, now another Republican has put his foot in it. This time it’s one of Illinois’ own, Congressman Joe Walsh, who’s facing stiff opposition from Democrat Tammy Duckworth. As the Chicago Tribune reports:
At a televised debate with opponent Tammy Duckworth, Republican Walsh declared that abortion should be outlawed in all circumstances, including to save the life of the mother.
But it was his comments to reporters after the event at WTTW Channel 11 that sparked the most attention. Walsh said that medical advances had rendered it unnecessary to ever perform an abortion to save a mother’s life.
“With modern technology and science, you can’t find one instance,” Walsh declared.
Asked then if he was saying it was never medically necessary to perform an abortion to save the life of a mother, Walsh responded: “Absolutely, yes.”
He did not elaborate on how he came to that conclusion.
You can see the video of Walsh’s statements at HuffPo here. The statement that a fetus or fertilized can kill a woman if not removed is, of course, something that’s simply true. Ectopic pregnancy is the most common, I think, but there are others. As HuffPo notes:
There could be several medical reasons for a woman to need to terminate her pregnancy in order to protect her life or health, but the most common is an ectopic pregnancy. Ectopic pregnancies, or pregnancies that occur outside the uterus, are a life-threatening condition that occur in one in every 40 to one in every 100 pregnancies, according to the National Institutes of Health. The developing fetus must be removed in those cases in order to save the mother.
Fortunately, Walsh has been corrected (and should apologize). Dawn Laguens, executive Vice-President of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, issued a strong response:
“Joe Walsh’s ignorance about women’s health is alarming. It is deeply troubling that he and some politicians have such a fundamental disregard for women and women’s health. As the advocate for Planned Parenthood health centers, we know that ending a pregnancy can often be a very complex, personal decision and that there are absolutely times that a woman’s life depends on it,” the statement reads.
“If Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are elected, these ignorant statements will be more than words — they would become law. Joe Walsh and the Tea Party Congress are ready to completely ban abortion, and Mitt Romney has said that he ‘would be delighted’ to sign an abortion ban into law. The Romney/Ryan ticket has promised that they would put women’s personal medical decisions in the hands of politicians like Joe Walsh and Todd Akin.”
What do these Republicans have against women? Whatever it is, religion is playing a big role.
by Matthew Cobb
A team from the Amboseli Trust for Elephants in Kenya try to help an elephant calf out of a well. The calf was eight months old, its mother is called Zombe. First the team had to get mum out of the way…
Leopold Museum, Vienna.
By Matthew Cobb
Some religious folk accept that micro-evolution can be observed – shifts in allele frequency due to natural selection – but argue vociferously that no one has ever seen one species evolve out of another. We know that one reason for this apparent lack of evidence for speciation is due to the time-scales involved. Most speciation of animals takes thousands of years, we think, and we have not yet been able to accumulate enough data.
That doesn’t mean that the creationist argument is right, of course. Just as we know what the life-cycle of a star is without ever having seen their billion-year history unfold before our eyes, so too we know all the essential steps in speciation, because we can observe the various intermediate stages right now, and, in the case of organisms, we can see the intermediate forms in the fossil record.
However, biologists should not cede an inch of ground to the creationists, no matter what brand of sophisticated creationism™ they may propound. As Jerry makes clear in Why Evolution Is True, we can observe speciation directly in front of us, in the shape of allopolyploid evolution in plants. This occurs when a plant doubles up its number of chromosomes due to some error during the formation of the male and female gametes. The result is an organism that cannot sexually reproduce with others of its species. Because plants can reproduce by selfing, this new plant can reproduce with itself and may go on to produce a new species.
The latest example of this well-known phenomenon has just been described in the pages of PhytoKeys, an open access biodiversity journal. Mario Vallejo-Marín of the University of Stirling in Scotland, describes Mimulus peregrinus, a new British species that has recently appeared, apparently by chromosome duplication in a sterile hybrid:
Mimulus plants were introduced into the UK in the 19th century. The two main established species are M. guttatus and M. luteus. M. gutattus has 14 pairs of chromosomes, while M. luteus would appear to have undergone chromosome duplication – it has 30 or 31 pairs. These two species can cross, but their hybrids, which are triploid (ie they have three copies of each chromosome, rather than two) are sterile.
Vallejo-Marín reports that the new species, M. peregrinus has six copies of each chromosome (you can identify the chromosomes by their shape and distinctive banding, and count the amount of DNA in the plant, which shows up as a threefold higher than M. guttatus) – and apparently developed after a chromosome duplication event in a triploid hybrid. These six copies can now pair up quite normally during the creation of the haploid gametes, producing gametes that each have 46 chromosomes (as against 14 in M. guttatus). The new plant, which is known only from the banks of Shortcleuch Waters, Leadhills, South Lanarkshire, has yellow flowers and rather spikey leaves.
It is clearly different from the two other Mimulus species that are already present here, and from their triploid sterile hybrid. These new plants are inter-fertile, and isolated from other closely related species. They form a new species, one that has popped up on the banks of this stream in Scotland:
There is nothing particularly amazing or new about this process – it has been known for decades – but it is striking. Mimulus peregrinus is yet another nail in the creationist coffin, and yet another example of why evolution is true.
Reference:
As you might know, the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) have an official position, supported by the courts, that atheist boys can’t be members. As Wikipedia notes (I can’t find the original Scout page, but there’s plenty on “Duty to God” for Scouts), the official Scout position is this:
“The Boy Scouts of America maintains that no member can grow into the best kind of citizen without recognizing an obligation to God. In the first part of the Scout Oath or Promise the member declares, ‘On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law.’ The recognition of God as the ruling and leading power in the universe and the grateful acknowledgment of His favors and blessings are necessary to the best type of citizenship and are wholesome precepts in the education of the growing members.”
Avowed agnostic or atheist adults can’t be Scout leaders, either.
Nor can Boy Scouts be openly gay. Here’s the BSA’s official position:
The BSA is a voluntary, private organization that sets policies that are best for the organization. The BSA welcomes all who share its beliefs but does not criticize or condemn those who wish to follow a different path.
One would hope that this exclusionary policy would apply only in religious America. But we now hear that it holds in England, too, where the equivalent of the Boy Scouts is the “Scout Association,” which also accepts girls.
As today’s Telegraph reports:
Schoolboy George Pratt had attended his local Scout group for ten months, and was expecting to invest in the group along with his friends.
But, after being required to swear the traditional promise, he found himself unable to join as he does not believe in God.
George, 11, said he was “very disappointed” in the decision, calling it “very unfair” and claiming he feels left out from experiences and trips his friends are attending.
His father Nick Pratt, 45, has accused the Scout movement of being “narrow minded” and “intolerant”, saying his son is being “excluded because he doesn’t believe”.
To become a full member of the 1st Midsomer Norton Group in Somerset, which meets in a hall opposite his home, George must take the Scout Promise.
This reads: “On my honour, I promise that I will do my best, To do my duty to God and to the Queen, To help other people, And to keep the Scout Law.”
The British Scouts are holding firm: George has to take the oath.
Despite admitting he is “really disappointed” at the strict rule, George has pledged he will not change his decision.
“I am really disappointed about not being able to go anymore just because I don’t believe in God,” he said.
“We have spoken about it with the Scout Leader but he won’t change his decision, it is very unfair.
“My friends who are Scouts don’t think it is right, either. Everyone is going caving soon and I’ve never been before. It is something I would love to do but I’m not allowed.
“I’m not going to change my decision though.”
Be sure to go to the Telegraph page to see a video of the brave lad reiterating his position. But he goes wrong on one point: he claims that atheism is a religion because “not believing something is a belief.” It’s the old “not collecting stamps is a hobby” conundrum. It is a position that there is no evidence for a god, but it’s not a “belief,” at least not in the same sense a religious belief is.
Regardless, though, someone please take George caving!
And shame on the U.S. and British Scouts for this despicable move (I don’t know what the British Scouts’ position is on homosexuality).
h/t: pyers
