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.
Hili: What would happen if I jumped up there?A: You would probably fall down.Hili: And it will all be your fault.
Hili: Co będzie jak tam wskoczę?
Ja: Prawdopodobnie spadniesz.
Hili: I to będzie twoja wina.
I nominate this for the Squirrel Video of the Year (my own rodents, by the way, are all fattened up for winter after generous ingestion of seeds and nuts). As the Daily Mail explains, a David Freiheit of Montreal affixed a piece of bread to the GoPro camera and put it near a squirrel.
The results were absolutely predictable, as you can see below. At least the guy got his camera back.
The video, of course, went viral, with over a million views in the last week.
h/t: Tina
Nine days ago I wrote about a discussion between a reddit questioner and Bill “The Science Guy” Nye about genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The questioner asked Nye if he still expressed his doubts about GMOs that he’d previously aired in an “Eyes on Nye” television episode. Here’s that episode if you want to see it:
The video’s not a debacle, but I don’t think Nye presents the issue fairly, and, in a few acted-out scenarios, he raises the issue of sneaky companies passing off environmentally dangerous products for their profit. He also raises fears that “modifying organisms is a way of modifying the world,” i.e., endangering ecosystems (in the last two minutes Nye paints one harrowing but overblown scenario). Finally, Nye says “we have enough food.” But as we know with cases such as golden rice, that’s not the only question at issue.
I agree with Pam Ronald’s assessment in this video that the benefits of GMOs far outweigh the risks. Throwing around names like “Monsanto” and “Big Agro” to demonize GMOs, as was done by some people in my earlier post, only serves to muddy this issue.
Ramez Naam has put together a page summarizing scientific organizations’ views on GMO, all of which attest to its safety of the process to date. Yes, of course one needs to think about the perils of such interventions, but right now there’s nothing obvious to worry about, and certainly nothing to justify the environmental “activist’s” trashing of fields and overheated demonstrations.
Nye responded to the reddit questioner by expressing his continuing doubt about GMOs, as well as some goal-post moving about “malnourished fat people” who “don’t need more food”. Nye:
We clearly disagree.
I stand by my assertions that although you can know what happens to any individual species that you modify, you cannot be certain what will happen to the ecosystem.
Also, we have a strange situation where we have malnourished fat people. It’s not that we need more food. It’s that we need to manage our food system better.
So when corporations seek government funding for genetic modification of food sources, I stroke my chin.
But enough of that. Over at his Discover Magazine website Collide-A-Scape, Keith Kloor publishes an open letter to Nye by Kevin Folta, a professor of horticultural science and plant molecular biology at the University of Florida—a letter challenging Nye to a public debate about GMOs. (Folta is an advocate for GMO foods.) Part of Folta’s letter is below:
Last week you published a new book, Undeniable, again covering the harm of science denial with regard to evolution. But then in the same text, and in later comments on Reddit, you expressed a belief-based criticism of agricultural biotechnology, or “GMO” technology. No evidence, just “here’s what I think” coupled to arguments from ignorance, and positions that lay perpendicular to the scientific consensus. Your logic and reasoning match the fallacies of climate and evolution deniers, the people you correctly criticize.
Over almost two decades agricultural biotechnology has shown to safely and effectively aid farmers, and offers future promise to deliver higher quality food, more sustainably. Perhaps you were just speaking off the cuff from an uninformed opinion. We all can’t be experts in everything.
However, given your prominent status and huge media platform, you have a special responsibility to accurately communicate the science about this subject. GMO technology is backed by massive data and proof of concept, yet the topic is poorly understood and frequently misrepresented in the public discourse by anti-GMO activists. Agricultural biotechnology is not going away; the public would be well-served by a fact-based discussion, not one that is colored by emotion or ideology.
My hope is that you will consult with experts in the field and rescind your incorrect assertions. But if you elect to stand by them, they should be challenged, and challenged publicly.
And here’s where Folta really has Nye on the spot, for since Nye has decided (vis-à-vis Ken Ham) that public debate is an appropriate way to air scientific disputes, how can he turn down this request?:
As a public scientist immersed in the biotech literature for 30 years, I am disheartened by your statements (so are many of my colleagues) as they do not reflect the current state of our scientific understanding. Let’s use public debate to articulate the science of this issue. I am happy to arrange a forum at a major university for a civil, evidence-based debate on the benefits and risks of agricultural biotechnology. Consider this an invitation. Three hours, same format as the Nye vs. Hamm [sic] debate. Let’s talk about the science and make sure we get it straight. Either I’m missing something you know, or you’re missing something I know, but it can’t work both ways.
Now I don’t think Nye will take him up on this, for I don’t think The Science Guy has done his homework, and Folta appears to know his stuff. There’s no gain in Nye looking like a fool by losing this debate. But if he really thinks that these kinds of issues should be debated verbally on stage (I don’t agree), he really should engage.
Ten to one he won’t. I’m not a fan of the new Science Guy, and see him as a self-aggrandizing person trying to capture his lost limelight more eagerly than he wants to promulgate science. But if he favors the debate route, and sees it as a way to educate the public, this is his chance.
h/t: Grania
This disparity between our two related and Anglophonic lands is even worse than I expected. U.S. and U.K. citizens were polled just last wee about how they think life on Earth began. The question and choices were virtually identical for the two countries.
First the good news:
YouGov poll on the origin of life taken in the U.K. (2003 adults), Nov. 12-13 of this year. Figures are percentages:
If you lump the third and fourth answers as “naturalistic origin,” then 59% of the respondents think life occurred as an outcome of the laws of chemistry and physics. And if you go to the page, you’ll see the results don’t vary much with age, gender, region, or political affiliation.
Before you look below, guess what the answer is for the U.S.
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Here’s the bad news, then: the YouGov poll from the U.S., taken Nov. 12-14:
Less than half of the respondents were naturalists: 25%, while 53% thought life was created by God (and by that I suspect direct intervention, not just that God made sure the right chemicals were there. That is more then threefold the number of Brits assuming God’s work (15%).
Breaking the U.S. data down by gender, age, and politics, we see that, as is often found, females are more religious than males, older people are more religious than younger (this reflects, I suspect, more a clinging to one’s upbringing than an age-related conversion), and the damn Republicans are goddier than the Democrats.
Republicans are the bane of science in the U.S.:
Now I haven’t looked at all the survey data (there are more questions on other stuff like the possibility of intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe), but once again we see how hyperreligious the U.S. is, even compared to the U.K., where faith schools are rife. I don’t think Americans are dumber than the inhabitants of Great Britain; they’re just blinkered by faith.
h/t: Dom
It takes several hours to write a science post, for when I’m reporting on a paper like the one about the cat genome yesterday, I read the paper twice, and then go over it again before summarizing it. In toto, that post probably involved four hours of effort, most of it in the evening. About a dozen people bothered to comment.
A post on atheist issues, or on “readers’ beefs”, often takes no more than 25 minutes to write. Those posts can garner between 40 and 150 comments.
The lack of comments on science posts, leads me to wonder if people even read them, or read them but have nothing to say, or just skip them as seeming “too hard” (I, as well as Matthew and Greg) strive to make them comprehensible to science-interested readers).
If it’s the latter, what’s the point of writing about science? But if I couldn’t do that, I wouldn’t want to run this website. I could turn it into the Daily Mail of atheist sites, but there’s already an entire blog network devoted to drama, rage, and recrimination.
All I can say is that this is dispiriting.
According to Diana MacPherson, winter has begun in Canada, and the beasts need noms:
It has been snowing here all day so the animals have been hungry. Here a blue jay chased away the chipmunk from some seeds but the chippy cheerfully found some on the deck and got snow on his snout snuffling for them. He looks like he’s smiling about it. 🙂
Robin Cornwell sent a photo of a Mule Deer (Odocoileus hemionus) entitled, “His Majesty,” as well as a brief story about the herd that frequents her land:
This photo is from in front of my house – he is so beautiful. I have about 15 or so regular on my property. Now that the rut is over, there are 4 or 5 bucks regularly visiting. Watching their interaction is interesting. But this guy, well, he has survived to reach his full majesty. By western conventions he is 7 points, by Eastern he is 14 points. But in all conventions, he is magnificent. It is really a privilege to be alive to see this. Can religion offer more than this? I figured that out as a child. No.
And an adorable fawn (they’re called “mule deer” because of their oversized ears):
And a special treat for astronomy buffs: our own moon (click, as always, to enlarge):
The image was taken through a 5-inch Cassegrain telescope using a Canon 70D camera filtered down to 13% of visual brightness.
The prominent crater near the top right-hand of the visible area is named for Tycho Brahe. You can clearly see the paths of ejecta thrown from the impact.
Wikipedia has the following to say about Brahe:
- “In his De nova stella (On the new star) of 1573, he refuted the Aristotelian belief in an unchanging celestial realm. His precise measurements indicated that “new stars,” (stellae novae, now known as supernovae) in particular that of 1572, lacked the parallax expected in sub-lunar phenomena, and were therefore not “atmospheric” tailless comets as previously believed, but were above the atmosphere and moon. Using similar measurements he showed that comets were also not atmospheric phenomena, as previously thought, and must pass through the supposedly “immutable” celestial spheres.[6]”
Brahe is sometimes portrayed as a bah-humbug anti-Copernican, but the truth is a bit different.
The Apollo 11 landing site is in the “Sea of Tranquillity”, roughly at the top edge of the middle of three large dark areas to the left of the image.
Northern Hemisphere viewers will notice that they have been looking at the Moon upside down all these years. Here is a tip: drinking water while standing on your head is also an infallible cure for hiccups.
Here’s a bit of music to start the week. Here’s the finest folk rock singer/songwriter of our time (I will brook no dissent), performing at the height of her powers: at the BBC on September 30, 1970. She was 26.
Joni plays piano, guitar, and dulcimer. Unlike many acoustic concerts, where it’s simply a display of proficiency on acoustic instruments and a chance to see the artist, an acoustic concert by Joni Mitchell was a complete, emotionally satisfying experience, needing no other accompaniment.
The highlights for me here: “My Old Man” (8:32, written about Graham Nash), “Real Good for Free” (11:43), a stunning version of “California” (18:17), and “Both Sides Now” (25:49).
If you want a bit more, there’s a lovely piano version of “Woodstock”, from the same concert, but not on the video above
Oh, and if you want to see her first incarnation, as Joni Anderson of Saskatoon (1965), go here and start at 1:36. And you can read about her greatest album here.
