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.
by Greg Mayer
A number of readers have wondered what Georgia congressman Paul Broun has against embryology; it was number two in his hit list of hellish lies (evolution and the big bang being one and three, respectively). The answer, of course, is that Broun must be a proponent of scientific storkism, another major scientific theory that is being suppressed by the academic elite. Tom Tomorrow blew the lid off the story several years ago.
David Barash, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Washington, had the temerity—imagine!— to question the existence of free will in today’s New York Times op-ed section. His piece, “Who’s in charge inside your head?” has an unusual take: he begins by citing the increasing number of cases in which parasites are documented to manipulate the behavior of their hosts to the parasites’ advantage: cases of zombie ants, zombie bees, and so forth. To me these are some of the most fascinating findings of modern biology, for we have no idea how something like a fungus can produce a chemical that affects the behavior of its ant host in such complex ways.
He then segues to one possible conclusion: the only thing manipulating our behavior is not our souls, not some immaterial “will,” but our genes:
Think about having a child, and ask who — or rather, what — benefits from reproduction? It’s the genes. As modern biologists recognize, babies are our genes’ way of projecting themselves into the future.
Unlike the cases of parasites or pathogens, when genes manipulate “their” bodies, the situation seems less dire, if only because instead of foreign occupation it’s our genes, our selves. But those presumably personal genes aren’t any more hesitant about manipulating our bodies, and by extension our actions, than is a parasitic fly hijacking a honeybee.
Here, then, is heresy: maybe there is no one in charge — no independent, self-serving, order-issuing homunculus. Buddhists note that our skin doesn’t separate us from the environment, but joins us, just as biologists know that “we” are manipulated by, no less than manipulators of, the rest of life. Who is left after “you” are separated from your genes? Where does the rest of the world end, and each of us begin?
Let’s leave the last words to a modern icon of organic, oceanic wisdom: SpongeBob SquarePants. Mr. SquarePants, a cheerful, talkative — although admittedly, somewhat cartoonish — fellow of the phylum Porifera, “lives in a pineapple under the sea… Absorbent and yellow and porous is he.” I don’t know about the pineapple or the yellow, but absorbent and porous are we, too.
It’s an okay piece, but I think much of his point is lost in the verbiage, and especially in the neglect of the environment. Yes, we are the product of our genes, but also of our environments, and of how our genes interact with our environments. It’s the combination of both of those factors, neither of which is spiritual or immaterial, that is in charge of our behavior and “will.”
And I suppose he might have been a bit clearer about the implications of the lack of a homunculus riding a saddle atop our brain. I’m talking here about implications for punishment and reward, and for those issues the environment is critical.
h/t: William
Talk about Elvis not dying; well, I found Chuck D. sitting on the stoop in a village in the Douro. I was too freaked out to approach him and to ask what he thought about neo-Darwinism
This is what I woke up to this morning: the view of the Douro Valley from my balcony. The vineyards you see in the distance are actually on the other side of the river of this very steep valley, and you can see the terraces where the grapes for port are grown (click all photos to enlarge):
But before we arrived, I gave a talk at the Fundação Serralves yesterday afternoon; it’s the cultural center of Porto, situated on the grounds on an estate once owned by the wealthiest man in the country. We had a wander on the property before my talk:
The Foundation bookshop was full of books on art. There was exactly one science book: Darwin’s Black Box, by Michael Behe, a pro-ID screed. I made a big noise about this in my talk! Here is one of my hosts, ornithologist Martim Melo, holding the offending book:
After the talk, we repaired to the property of the parents of my official host, Nuno Ferrand. After a harrowing two-hour drive up the Douro Valley to the family port farm, Nuno’s parents, Maria and Nuno Sr., both over eighty, greeted us with a sumptuous dinner. A traditional Portuguese feed starts with soup, and so we began with spinach soup, produced (like nearly everything else in our dinner) on the farm:
Progress comes slow to this rural area, though the ports are now transported down the river not by small ships, but by tanker truck. However, this village didn’t even get electricity until ten years ago.
There was a wonderful local relish made from macerated unripe olives—great with bread! I can’t remember its name, but I’m sure at least one reader will:
Then chicken and rice and a fantastic local wine. With the exception of port, the wines of Portugal, both red and white, are of a very high standard. I’ve not had a bad bottle since I’ve been here. Sadly, because production is small, they’re rarely imported to America. And they are inexpensive: I’ve rarely seen a bottle for more than 13 Euros in a restaurant, and they’re half that in the shops.
Dessert was a humongous bowl of custard topped with meringue, followed by a “tower” of fruit grown on the property: grapes, pears, and ripe green figs. I love figs, and they’re pricey and hard to find in the U.S.; I of course gorged myself on them:
To finish, port, of course: but a port whose grapes were picked, vinified, and aged on this property. It was barrel-aged ten years before bottling, and so approximates a tawny port; but it had the freshness and fruitiness of a vintage port. Delicious! Note the private label:
Today we inspect the property and the wine-making process; the harvest and crushing are going on at this moment. It’s a beautiful day in the Douro.
. . . after missing a high-speed head-on collision by a few feet. After my book talk in Porto (a good crowd, lots of questions [all about religion vs. science, none about science itself], and a good sale of my Portuguese edition, four of us from the biology institute headed up the Douro valley, where I’m now ensconced on a farm that grows grapes for making vintage port. It is gorgeous here, and atmospheric; I’ll try to post some photos tomorrow.
But during our drive, a car somehow got on the wrong side of the barrier of the two-lane road and suddenly we found ourselves heading at high speed directly toward another pair of headlights in the same lane. Fortunately, Nuno, my host, reacted automatically and steered the car to the right, missing that car by inches. Had he not done that, and had there not been a rare bit of space on the right side of the road, all four of us would be dead.
I have no idea whether the idiot who was driving fast on the wrong side of a divided highway survived his encounter with the cars behind us.
Fortunately, Ceiling Cat was watching, and saved four of us, including His professorial namesake.
I have a lot of nice pictures, including moar fudz and my visit to the port lodges, and will try to put them up before I leave for Vienna on the 11th. Of course I have no idea what’s going on on the internet, and I’m very glad about that!
UPDATE: An alert reader noted that Olivia Binfield has her own website on which her poem (yes, she wrote it) is printed. Be sure to read her other poems, including the classic “Respect for Rhino.”
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From “Britain’s Got Talent”, this is a totally adorable video of 7-year-old Olivia, who wants to be a zoologist, reciting a poem about biological conservation. If it doesn’t make you smile, you need to frequent some other website!
I hope she does become a zoologist.
h/t: P.
by Greg Mayer
Rep. Paul Broun (R-Georgia) is caught in the following video saying that evolution, embryology, and the big bang are “lies straight from the pit of Hell”. This is sadly no longer astonishing from a Federal officeholder. What is astonishing is that this man is a member of the Science Committee of the House of Representatives, and the chair of an important subcommittee!
He goes on
as a scientist [!!!]… I don’t believe that the Earth’s but about 9,000 years old…. [A]s your congressman I hold the Holy Bible as being the major directions to me of how I vote in Washington, D.C., and I’ll continue to do that.
Alan Boyle of NBC News notes
The Georgia Republican is already well-known as an outspoken conservative Christian, due in part to his unsuccessful campaign to have 2010 declared “the Year of the Bible.” But the latest comments have taken on an extra dab of controversy because Broun, a medical doctor, calls himself a scientist in the video and chairs the House Science Committee’s panel on investigations and oversight.
Broun believes the Earth began, as Richard Dawkins has put it, after the domestication of the dog. His remarks are astonishing not only for the profound ignorance of science they reveal in a man entrusted with a significant role in shaping the nation’s science policy, but his apparently utter lack of understanding of the foundational governing principles of the United States.
h/t C. Mayer
With the input from readers, Shuggy (Hugh Young) has completed work on “The Dummy’s Guide to the One True God,” and you can see the final product here. It now incorporates 7 faiths and 27 criteria showing disparities in crucial theologial matters like the ingestion of bacon cheeseburgers.
Shuggy notes:
I have replaced Hinduism with Sikhism because it is more clearly monotheistic, and added a row “He also likes…” for the various head-slashings, genuflecting, magicunderwear etc that were too much fun to leave out.
At some point I had to give up trying to “correct” it, because what each denomination says the OTG is like is almost as diverent as each from the others, and in the end it’s a bit futile trying to give the “right” version. If anything here looks like a parody of anyone’s [former] church, well, it probably doesn’t to some other adherent of the same church.
This is already available as a poster at this site but it’s not too late to correct any egregious errors remaining.
By way of thanks to all the people who commented, readers should feel free to print out their own copies, but please direct requests for reprints to my shop. (I have serious issues with the whole concept of “intellectual property”: What if Ug had patented the wheel, or Turing the programmable computer, or Berners- Lee the www? Humanity progresses because we can give ideas away and still have them. But devising this wallchart was my work and payment is appreciated.)
I’d recommend buying the poster from cafepress. It comes in six forms, with the large wall version only $21. It would make a swell decoration on the wall of your office, especially if your job is in the southern U.S.!