Is the National Trust bailing on creationism?

July 19, 2012 • 4:19 am

If you’ve been following this site (e.g., here and here), you’ll know that the National Trust got into hot water when it put up some creationist views (for “balance”) at the Visitor’s Centre exhibit at the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland.  Many of us objected on the grounds that that creationist material gave false credibility to a scientific “controversy” about the age of the earth, and was at any rate included only because of pressure from creationists.  Our emails to the Trust were rebuffed politely (see second link above), with the trust asserting that it was by no means giving young earth creationism a boost.

That, however, was belied by the boast of the creationist Caleb Foundation, which lobbied for the creationist inclusion (for a hearty chuckle, read the Foundation’s “statement of faith”):

We fully accept the Trust’s commitment to its position on how the Causeway was formed, but this new centre both respects and acknowledges an alternative viewpoint and the continuing debate, and that means it will be a welcoming and enriching experience for all who visit.

This is, as far as we are aware, a first for the National Trust anywhere in the UK, and it sets a precedent for others to follow. We feel that it is important that the centre, which has been largely funded out of the public purse, should be inclusive and representative of the whole community, and we have therefore been engaged in detailed and constructive discussions with the Trust in order to secure the outcome we have today.

Now, however, reader “Bonetired” informs me that the National Trust may be rethinking their unwise move.  Their website now states this (my emphasis):

The display in question focuses on the role that the Giant’s Causeway has played in the historical debate about how the earth’s rocks were formed.

Our intention in this section was to provide visitors with a flavour of the wide range of opinions and views that have been put forward over the years.

Our intention was not to promote or legitimise any of these opinions or views.

Unfortunately, elements from this part of the display appear to have been taken out of context and misinterpreted by some.

A spokesman said: “Having listened to our members’ comments and concerns, we feel that clarity is needed.

“There is clearly no scientific debate about the age of the earth or how the Causeway stones were formed.

“The National Trust does not endorse or promote any other view.

“Our exhibits, literature and audio guides for visits to the Causeway stones and this renowned World Heritage Site all reflect this.

“To ensure that no further misunderstanding or misrepresentation of this exhibit can occur, we have decided to review the interpretive materials in this section.”

If the National Trust wants any credibility, at least in its commitment to the truth, it had better just deep-six the young-earth stuff.  Yes, as the Caleb Foundation crowed, it was a first for the National Trust in the UK.  Let it now be a last.  There can be no compromise with the fact that the Giant’s Causeway is old.

Tammy Wynette: “Stand By Your Man”

July 19, 2012 • 3:52 am

Tammy Wynette (1942-1998; real name Virginia Wynette Pugh) had 23 #1 country hits during her short life, exceeded only by the number of major surgeries she had (26; her health was very poor).  “Stand by your man” (1968), politically incorrect as it seems these days, is no doubt her greatest hit; probably nearly every one of you has heard it.  And if you love the movie “Five Easy Pieces,” as I do, you’ll remember that this was the song that opened the movie.(It was also sung by Jake and Elwood in “The Blues Brothers”l you can see that video here.)

Wikipedia says this about the song’s inception and message:

“Stand by Your Man” was reportedly written in the Epic studios in 1968 in all of 15 minutes, from an idea that came from Wynette’s producer, Billy Sherrill, one of the two writers who wrote the song, Wynette was the other writer. Sherrill originally stated that before “Stand by Your Man”‘s release, he thought that Wynette’s “D-I-V-O-R-C-E” would be Wynette’s career hit. However, after witnessing how successful the song came to be in America during that time, Sherrill then stated that “Stand by Your Man” was definitely Wynette’s career hit.

Derided by the Feminist movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Wynette in later years defended the song as not a call for women to place themselves second to men, but rather a suggestion that women attempt to overlook their husbands’ shortcomings and faults if they truly love them (and in fact, the last line in the final verse says “after all, he’s just a man”). Wynette always defended her signature song. The song remained contentious into the early 1990s, when soon-to-be First Lady Hillary Clinton told CBS’ 60 Minutes during an interview that she “wasn’t some little woman ‘standing by my man’ like Tammy Wynette.”

Zombie ants controlled by fungi and worms

July 18, 2012 • 11:33 am

Many of you have probably heard of one of the most bizarre and sinister adaptations in nature: the manipulation of host behavior by parasites in a way that not only kills the hosts, but makes them behave in ways that help spread the fungus’s genes.

This can occur through either fungi making ants climb up high on trees or grass before expiring, facilitating the spread of spores that grow from the ant’s corpse, or, in the case of worms, making an ant resemble a berry before it dies. This attracts birds, which, eating the berrylike ant, become the next host in the parasite’s complex life cycle.

The ability of fungi and worms to control the behavior of insects to the parasites’ benefit is, to me, one of the most remarkable results of natural selection—which acts, as always, to promote the passing on of genes.  So, though a process of blind, mindless, and unguided selection (for what kind of a loving god would promote such a horrible scenario?), genes in the fungus that make the ant more liable to spread spores, and genes in the worm that make the ant more susceptible to the parasite’s next host, become the genes that replicate more often.

Rather than just rewrite someone else’s story, here’s the tale, from Wikipedia, of the fungus that is probably the one in the photo below, Ophiocordyceps unilateralis. Read carefully, for there are many marvels of evolution here:

The fungus’s spores enter the body of the insect likely through the cuticle by enzymatic activity, where they begin to consume the non-vital soft tissues. Yeast stages of the fungus spread in the ant’s body and presumably produce compounds that affect the ant’s brain and change its behaviour by unknown mechanisms, causing the insect to climb up the stem of a plant and use its mandibles to secure itself to the plant. Infected ants bite the leaf veins with abnormal force, leaving telltale dumbbell-shaped marks. A search through plant fossil databases revealed similar marks on a fossil leaf from the Messel pit which is 48 million years old.

The fungus then kills the ant, and continues to grow as its mycelia invade more soft tissues and structurally fortify the ant’s exoskeleton. More mycelia then sprout out of the ant, and securely anchor it to the plant substrate while secreting antimicrobials to ward off competition. When the fungus is ready to reproduce, its fruiting bodies grow from the ant’s head and rupture, releasing the spores. This process takes 4 to 10 days.

The changes in the behavior of the infected ants are very specific, giving rise to the term zombie ants, and tuned for the benefit of the fungus. The ants generally clamp to a leaf’s vein about 25 cm above the ground, on the northern side of the plant, in an environment with 94-95% humidity and temperatures between 20 and 30 °C. According to David Hughes, “You can find whole graveyards with 20 or 30 ants in a square metre. Each time, they are on leaves that are a particular height off the ground and they have bitten into the main vein [of a leaf] before dying”. When the dead ants are repositioned in various other situations, further vegetative growth and sporulation either fails to occur or results in undersized and abnormal reproductive structures.

The photo below is from Alex Wild Photography (used with permission; Alex also runs the great insect-photography website Myrmecos). His caption is below:

Ophiocordyceps fungus growing from the carcass of a carpenter ant. Note how the ant’s mandibles have gripped the leaf edge, anchoring it in place. This behavior is induced when the fungus takes partial control over the ant’s brain. Jatun Sacha reserve, Napo, Ecuador

This is an ex-ant. Bereft of life, it rests in peace

Now ponder what this fungus does: it produces some chemical that affects the ant’s brain so that it

  1. Climbs up to a specific height and location on a tree, a location that has a specific direction (north) and humidity
  2. Makes the ant clamp its mandibles onto a leaf before dying

I find that astounding. Truly, natural selection is cleverer than we are.  And here’s some project for an enterprising myrmecologist: find out exactly what chemical the fungus secretes that can control an ant’s brain in such a specific way. The results will surely be surprising.

If anything makes me “spiritual,” it is scenarios like this, gruesome as they are.

Here’s another zombie ant, this one controlled by a nematode worm that not only affects the ant’s behavior, but also its morphology, making it resemble a tasty berry and weakening the junction between the nematode-containing abdomen and the thorax, so that the abdomen is easily plucked off and ingested by the bird predator, its next host. The worm also affects the ant’s foraging behavior, making it search for food outside the nest more often, and thus be more likely to be found and eaten. Text and photo from Mental Floss:

A parasitic nematode named Myrmeconema neotropicum targets the gliding ant Cephalotes atratus in the Central and South America rain forests on its way to infecting birds. The nematodes travel to the ant’s abdomen, and as they mature, cause the abdomen to grow round and bright red! The ants will hold their abdomens, or gasters, high as if to draw attention—which they do. The red gasters look like berries and are eaten by birds who normally don’t eat insects. The nematodes then live in the bird’s digestive tract.

Here we have a simple worm that secrets a chemical or combination of chemicals that changes the behavior, color, and structural integrity of its host—a worm making chemicals that turn an ant into a mimic of a berry. What can be more wonderful than that?

Sort-of guest post: Sean Carroll comments on whether quantum mechanics gives evidence for God

July 18, 2012 • 4:44 am

After a year of total dormancy, the Templeton Foundation has resurrected its Big Questions Online site, so we can expect it to disgorge gobs of fuzzy accommodationism until the End Times arrive.

One of the latest is a piece called “Does quantum physics make it easier to believe in God?”  It’s by Stephen M. Barr, a professor of physics at the University of Delaware who writes frequently on science and religion. His Wikipedia bio notes that “In 2007, he was awarded the Benemerenti Medal by Pope Benedict XVI. In 2010, he was elected a member of the Academy of Catholic Theology.” We can presume, then, that Barr is a Catholic.

So it’s not surprising that the answer to his question is “Yes, quantum physics does make it easier to believe in God.” (Would you expect any other answer on a Templeton site?) It boils down to the fact that, according to Barr, quantum mechanics (QM) shows that the human mind is independent of pure materialism, which he calls an “atheistic philosophy”:

Materialism is an atheistic philosophy that says that all of reality is reducible to matter and its interactions. It has gained ground because many people think that it’s supported by science. They think that physics has shown the material world to be a closed system of cause and effect, sealed off from the influence of any non-physical realities — if any there be. Since our minds and thoughts obviously do affect the physical world, it would follow that they are themselves merely physical phenomena. No room for a spiritual soul or free will: for materialists we are just “machines made of meat.”

Quantum mechanics, however, throws a monkey wrench into this simple mechanical view of things.  No less a figure than Eugene Wigner, a Nobel Prize winner in physics, claimed that materialism — at least with regard to the human mind — is not “logically consistent with present quantum mechanics.” And on the basis of quantum mechanics, Sir Rudolf Peierls, another great 20th-century physicist, said, “the premise that you can describe in terms of physics the whole function of a human being … including [his] knowledge, and [his] consciousness, is untenable. There is still something missing.”

Now bear with me since this isn’t my area of expertise, but the whole woo-ish conclusion of Barr’s piece rests on the “observer effect” in QM made famous by Schrödinger’s cat.  I had thought that this didn’t need to involve a human mind: that a machine could also be the observer that collapses a wave function, but Barr says that this ain’t so:

Thus, the traditional view is that the probabilities in quantum mechanics — and hence the “wavefunction” that encodes them — refer to the state of knowledge of some “observer”.  (In the words of the famous physicist Sir James Jeans, wavefunctions are “knowledge waves.”)  An observer’s knowledge — and hence the wavefunction that encodes it — makes a discontinuous jump when he/she comes to know the outcome of a measurement (the famous “quantum jump”, traditionally called the “collapse of the wave function”). But the Schrödinger equations that describe any physical process do not give such jumps!  So something must be involved when knowledge changes besides physical processes.

An obvious question is why one needs to talk about knowledge and minds at all. Couldn’t an inanimate physical device (say, a Geiger counter) carry out a “measurement”?  That would run into the very problem pointed out by von Neumann: If the “observer” were just a purely physical entity, such as a Geiger counter, one could in principle write down a bigger wavefunction that described not only the thing being measured but also the observer. And, when calculated with the Schrödinger equation, that bigger wave function would not jump! Again: as long as only purely physical entities are involved, they are governed by an equation that says that the probabilities don’t jump.

But what if one refuses to accept this conclusion, and maintains that only physical entities exist and that all observers and their minds are entirely describable by the equations of physics? Then the quantum probabilities remain in limbo, not 0 and 100% (in general) but hovering somewhere in between. They never get resolved into unique and definite outcomes, but somehow all possibilities remain always in play. One would thus be forced into what is called the “Many Worlds Interpretation” (MWI) of quantum mechanics.

Barr reaches a bold conclusion: unless you acccept the MWI (under which wave functions don’t collapse, so observers aren’t required, but every quantum event creates a new universe, yielding elebenty gazillion of them), you’re forced to the ineluctable conclusion that there is dualism: the mind is independent of matter and can influence matter.  Right up Templeton’s alley!:

The upshot is this: If the mathematics of quantum mechanics is right (as most fundamental physicists believe), and if materialism is right, one is forced to accept the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics. And that is awfully heavy baggage for materialism to carry.

If, on the other hand, we accept the more traditional understanding of quantum mechanics that goes back to von Neumann, one is led by its logic (as Wigner and Peierls were) to the conclusion that not everything is just matter in motion, and that in particular there is something about the human mind that transcends matter and its laws.  It then becomes possible to take seriously certain questions that materialism had ruled out of court: If the human mind transcends matter to some extent, could there not exist minds that transcend the physical universe altogether? And might there not even exist an ultimate Mind?

Now I’m no physicist, but this sounded pretty strange to me. For one thing, dualism doesn’t imply an ultimate Mind, much less one that decrees that a cracker turns into Jesus on Sunday and that homosexual behavior is a “grave disorder.” So I wrote to Sean Carroll of Cosmic Variance fame—my go-to physicist on claims like this—and he gave me permission to reproduce his emailed answer.  As you might expect, he wasn’t wild about Barr’s piece:

I hadn’t heard this specific argument before, but it’s a natural one to make, in a God-of-the-gaps fashion: quantum mechanics is hard to make sense of, therefore maybe God. The only thing raising it above the level of that would be the specific suggestion that somehow conscious minds play an important role in QM. This is indeed something that some of the pioneers considered, but that has largely fallen out of favor since then (not that it was ever very favorable). Note that Barr is not quoting modern researchers in the foundations of QM, but a litany of dead physicists (Wigner, Peierls, von Neumann, Jeans). Great men all, but we know more now than we did then. In particular, we understand what makes wave functions seem to “collapse”—the process of decoherence, by which detailed information in the wave function is lost through interactions with a complex environment. A conscious mind would count as a complex environment, but so would the air in your room. As usual in this game, as we understand things better the apparent need for a divine assist disappears. That’s not to say we completely understand the measurement problem, but the “God interpretation” of QM is not a leading contender among modern thinkers.

As far as ontological commitments of the Many-Worlds Interpretation are concerned, I wrote about that mistake here. Shorter version: it’s not a proliferation of objects (including universes) that should count as uneconomical, but a proliferation of concepts, especially vague ones. Near the end of my post I used the example of theologian Richard Swinburne:

“The most egregious version of this mistake has to belong to Richard Swinburne, an Oxford theologian and leading figure in natural theology, who makes fun of the many-worlds interpretation but is happy to accept a completely separate, unobservable, ill-defined metaphysical category into his ontology.”

It would appear that Barr’s version is equally egregious.

Thanks to Sean for dissecting the piece.  As I suspected, it’s the usual Templetonian pablum about how science gives evidence for God.  Stay tuned for more of the same from Big Questions Online.

Shania Twain: “You’re still the one”

July 18, 2012 • 3:58 am

Canadians are going to dominate this week’s female country singers, for there are at least three to come (guess the other two).

The first is Shania Twain (b. 1965 in Windsor, Ontario), and, of course, still immensely popular.  This song, “You’re still the one,” won two Grammies in 1995: best country song and best country vocal performance. It was written by Twain and Mutt Lange. It was supposedly written to dispel rumors about her dissolving marriage to Lange; sadly, they divorced anyway—ten years after the song came out.

Why is America so much more religious than Europe? A local scholar gives a superficial answer.

July 17, 2012 • 11:12 am

Here at the University of Chicago, two of our bigwig academics, Gary Becker and Richard Posner, run a tony website called The Becker-Posner Blog. There’s a lot of brainpower here: Becker is an economist who has garnered a Nobel Prize, and Posner is a legal scholar and jurist (a judge on the regional U.S. Court of Appeals) who has written more than 40 books.

I was a bit astounded, then, to read Posner’s post of June 28: “Why are Americans more religious than Western Europeans?”  This is of course a question that has preoccupied many of us atheists, and the answer isn’t clear. My own feeling, adumbrated on this website and in my paper in Evolution, is that America is a more socially dysfunctional country than most countries of Western Europe, and there is a strong positive correlation between social dysfunctionality (and income inequality, also higher in the U.S.) and religiosity.  This is not mere speculation, for I document my theory with facts gathered by sociologists.

In contrast, Posner sees America’s religiosity as a result of competition:

Committed to a single set of rituals and beliefs, an established church is bound to lose the support of many people, who however may find only limited alternatives if competing churches are at a significant competitive disadvantage because of the established church’s governmental backing.

Although the United States had quasi-established churches in New England at the founding of the nation, the First Amendment to the Constitution (1787) forbade the federal government to establish a church, and the state establishments soon crumbled as well. The Fourteenth Amendment (1868) was eventually interpreted to forbid states to establish churches, and the Supreme Court continues to enforce a high degree of “separation” between church(es) and state even today, despite the nation’s increased religiosity. As a result, there is vigorous competition among religious sects in the United States, notably including competition in observances and doctrines. As a result of this greatly increased religious variety (compared to Europe, which has long had, and continues to have, established churches in most of its countries), there is a much greater likelihood of a given individual’s finding a religious sect that is to his liking in the United States than in Europe.

He gives some other reasons, too, including the greater mobility of Americans than Europeans, presuming that joining a church is a way to establish roots in a new community.

Well, perhaps there is some credibility to the competition theory, but presumably other evidence could be adduced.  Do other countries that allow similar religious freedom also show higher religiosity? I have no idea.

What I do know is that there are data from many countries showing that indices of societal dysfunction, and income inequality, are highly correlated with religiosity, presumably because societies in which people feel uncared for are societies that make people religious. If the government or your society don’t care for you, you to to the Father in Heaven.  Income inequality is particularly important, not only among different nations but also within the U.S.: religiosity in America is correlated with fluctuations in income inequality, and the latter seem to be causal because time-series analysis shows that higher religiosity follows increases in income inequality, but not the other way around.

In other words, I see Posner’s analysis as rather superficial, driven largely by his economic interests and seemingly uninformed by other relevant facts from sociology.

And his analysis of why Americans are more creationist than Europeans is equally superficial:

It does seem also that Americans are more credulous on average than Europeans—less matter of fact, less inclined to accept the authority of science (notably in regard to evolution, and geological phenomena related to evolution, such as the age of the earth), more superstitious. But it is unclear whether this is cause or consequence of the greater religiosity of Americans compared to Europeans. What seems more clearly causal is Americans’ individualism and spirit of independence.

Umm. . . .I think there is plenty of evidence, including statements by religious people themselves, that they reject evolution because it contravenes the tenets of their faith.  If it were just Americans’ “spirit of independence,” then why among different countries is religious belief so strongly and negatively correlated with acceptance of evolution? (This is again documented in my Evolution paper.) Does Posner really think that Americans are more religious as a consequence of being so independent and individualistic that they reject science?  Is he unaware that children imbibe their Jesus with their mothers’ milk, well before they are offered Darwinian comestibles?

Images in stone and wood prove Hinduism true

July 17, 2012 • 8:36 am

Two days ago we learned about an image of the Virgin Mary in a tree trunk in Brooklyn: obvious proof of Christianity.  But that was Saturday. Since then, two readers have sent me images of the Hindu god Ganesha (an elephant-headed deity) from nature.  (Ganesh is my favorite Hindu god, and I have a collection of his images I’ve bought in India.) It’s two to one now, and that means that Hinduism wins!*

The first, pointed out by reader Billy in a comment yesterday, is an apparition of the deity in some rocks near Madrid, a formation called “El Elefantito” (The Little Elephant):

If that isn’t proof of an elephant God, I don’t know what is. It’s a gazillion times better than yesterday’s image of Mary.

The second Proof of Hinduism was provided by Richard, who sent me the following email and photo:

Your post on the “Virgin Mary” tree (knothole?) gives me the opportunity to share this with you, and perhaps the opportunity (if you so desire, of course) to share your thoughts on face/image recognition and spalted wood fungus.

I was cutting down the remains of an old tree (birch perhaps? not sure) on my property and noticed the wonderful markings appearing on the exposed cross-sections. Nope, no BVM, holy trinity or Jesus likenesses, but two images that appeared as elephants, one Indian and one African. As an aside, I’m not sure what this means. If I had been a practicing Hindu, whould this be a significant find?

Here’s his photo:

For those of you who lack sufficient religious conviction to see the elephants, here’s Richard’s highlighting (click to enlarge):



QED

________

*This reminds me of an old Jewish joke:

It seems that four rabbis had a series of theological arguments, and three were always in accord against the fourth. One day, the odd rabbi out, after the usual “3 to 1, majority rules” statement that signified that he had lost again, decided to appeal to a higher authority. “Oh, G-d!” he cried. “I know in my heart that I am right and they are wrong! Please give me a sign to prove it to them!”

It was a beautiful, sunny day. As soon as the rabbi finished his prayer, a storm cloud moved across the sky above the four. It rumbled once and dissolved. “A sign from G-d! See, I’m right, I knew it!” But the other three disagreed, pointing out that storm clouds form on hot days.

So the Rabbi prayed again: “Oh, G-d, I need a bigger sign to show that I am right and they are wrong. So please, G-d, a bigger sign!” This time four storm clouds appeared, rushed toward each other to form one big cloud, and a bolt of lightning slammed into a tree on a nearby hill.”I told you I was right!” cried the rabbi, but his friends insisted that nothing had happened that could not be explained by natural causes.

The rabbi is getting ready to ask for a “very big” sign, but just as he says “Oh G-d…” the sky turns pitch black, the earth shakes, and a deep, booming voice intones, “HEEEEEEEE’S RIIIIIIIGHT!”

The rabbi puts his hands on his hips, turns to the other three, and says, “Well?”

“So,” shrugged one of the other rabbis, “now it’s 3 to 2!”