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.
Bob Trivers is a bit of an eccentric character, but his ideas on parental investment, parent-offspring conflict, and altruism have been landmarks in evolutionary psychology, and even though some of his ideas may be far-fetched, they’re never boring. He’s one of the most important evolutionary thinkers of our era.
I’ve just received a copy of his new book, The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life, whose thesis, as stated on the book jacket, is that “in order to deceive others, we often deceive ourselves first.” In other words, we have evolved brain “modules” to hide our own motivations, or suppress data or arguments that conflict with our genetic interests.
This is definitely a book worth reading if you’ve any interest in the evolution of human behavior, and you can get it for less than seventeen bucks on Amazon. (It’s officially out October 25.) This book has been in the works for a very long time: as I recall, it was originally supposed to have been co-authored with Huey Newton, a founder of the Black Panther party (now that would have been interesting!), but Newton was shot to death in 1989.
I note that the back dustflap comes with a ringing endorsement from Richard Dawkins:
This is a remarkable book, by a uniquely brilliant scientist. Robert Trivers has a track record of producing highly original ideas, which have gone on to stimulate much research. His Darwinian theory of self-deception is arguably his most provocative and interesting idea so far. This book is enlivened by Trivers’s candid personal style, and is a pleasure to read. Strongly recommended.
Some of the chapter titles are “Deception in nature,” “False historical narratives,” “Religion and self-deception,” and “Fighting self-deception in our own lives.”
The amazing results reported in this piece from New Scientist, “Rat cyborg gets digital cerebellum,” haven’t yet been published in a scientific journal, but were reported in a meeting in the UK. The details are sketchy, but scientists apparently built a computer chip using information from the inputs of a rat’s brainstem to its cerebellum as as well the output generated by its input. (The cerebellum, a lumpy part of our brain located underneath and at the rear, is, among other things, responsible for motor control of the body based on input from the brainstem.) How they got this information onto a chip is also unclear to me, but I trust some readers will enlighten us.
Once they made the artificial cerebellum-chip, they used it to see if it could substitute for the real one in an elementary brain-processing task. As the journal describes:
To test the chip, they anaesthetised a rat and disabled its cerebellum before hooking up their synthetic version. They then tried to teach the anaesthetised animal a conditioned motor reflex – a blink – by combining an auditory tone with a puff of air on the eye, until the animal blinked on hearing the tone alone. They first tried this without the chip connected, and found the rat was unable to learn the motor reflex. But once the artificial cerebellum was connected, the rat behaved as a normal animal would, learning to connect the sound with the need to blink.
While there are substantial differences in how brains process information versus computers, there isn’t any reason why computer chips couldn’t replace many of the functions of the brain. It’s intriguing to contemplate, for example, the possibility that a computer chip might one day help blind people to see, or improve memory in those with diminished capacity.
This YouTube video, sent in by a reader, shows how a school of fish reacts to hunting behavior of blacktip sharks (Carcharhinus limbatus) off the Maldive Islands.
Notice how the fish seem to move in a coordinated fashion, almost as one, and how they tend to group behind the sharks, where they’re less liable to be nommed. Such “coordinated” group movement is not unusual in flocking animals; we’ve seen it before in the amazing behavior of flocks of starlings (see the videos here). The thing is, biologists don’t really understand what cues animals use when groups of them appear to move as one.
It hasn’t escaped my notice that the sharks seem to be driving the fish toward the wharf, perhaps to either trap them or stun them against the pilings. (Dolphins, by the way, sometimes stun prey by whacking them with their tail.)
I asked my colleague Steve Pruett-Jones to watch it and, as an animal behaviorist, send me his take. Here it is:
Animals form large groups for many reasons, from reproduction to migration to avoidance of predators. Some of the largest groups of vertebrates are seen when birds flock and fish school as an anti-predator defense.
This amazing video illustrates the apparent coordinated movement of individuals in a large school, although in fact the movement of each fish is thought to be independent. How the fish do this remains somewhat of a mystery. Obviously, vision is critical (fish don’t or can’t school after dark, and fish that have been blinded also don’t form schools) but fish also often have prominent markings on their shoulders or tails (schooling marks) which appear to serve as reference marks indicating their movement.
Other possible cues include pheromones, sound, and the sensitivity of a fish’s lateral line. Fish that have had their lateral line removed swim closer together, suggesting that the lateral line keeps fish at a minimum distance from each other; fish appear to be able to ‘feel’ when another fish comes close because the lateral line is sensitive to pressure. In contrast to the fish avoiding the sharks in this video, the movements of the sharks are clearly coordinated as it is in many predators.
By “independent” above, Steve means that the fish are not all responding to a single external cue (which may in fact be what the sharks are doing when they make their “hunting rush” in this video), but to the presence of surrounding fish. This suggests two things: first, that this “coordinated” behavior is really a response to the movement of a single individual, who sets off a wave that propagates through the group. Second, the speed of propagation seems much faster than can be explained by the sum of the reaction times of all the individuals. The fact is that we simply don’t yet understand how this type of group movement works. That seems like a simple question, but it’s a simple question that’s hard to answer.
“The pace of life” was the title of a 1976 paper in Nature in which Marc and Helen Bornstein did something very simple: they went to 15 cities in Europe, Asia, and North America, and simply measured the rate of walking of unwitting subjects over a marked, 50-foot stretch of pavement on sunny days of moderate temperature. What they found is summarized in this graph from their paper, which shows that people from larger cities walk significantly faster. There was a threefold difference between the smallest and largest towns!
Their interpretation, which they based on the work of psychologist Stanley Milgram, was a bit dicey: they suggested that larger towns overload the mental processing ability of their inhabitants, and so the people simply walk faster in bigger towns “to minimize environmental stimulation.” There are, of course, other interpretations—I’m sure you can think of a few. (Rushing to and from work over larger distances is one.)
Regardless, this was one of those crazy but appealing ideas that we scientists get sometimes, and testing it did point to something interesting. I’m sure, though, that these results would no longer be publishable in Nature.
This is by way of introducing another crazy idea I had a while back, and have been chewing over for some time. It’s also about “the pace of life,” but about the pace of our entire lives. If you’ve lived a substantial time, as I have, you may have noticed that the seasons and years seem to be passing more quickly than when you were younger. This summer, for instance, seems to me to have vanished in a flash. And I’ve noticed this more strongly as I’ve gotten older.
So I made a hypothesis: one sees the passage of time in relation to the length of one’s past life. The duration of each moment is weighed in relation to how many moments have gone before, and so seems more fleeting when you’ve experienced more moments. And that’s why, for older people, time seems to pass more quickly. An alternative hypothesis is that as one gets closer to the close of one’s life, one senses “time’s wingèd chariot” more prominently, so time seems to pass more quickly because you don’t have as much left. (I call this the Raitt Hypothesis after Bonnie Raitt’s song, “Nick of Time,” which includes this lyric: “Life gets mighty precious when there’s less of it to waste.”)
Both of these theories, however, predict that as one gets older, one’s perception of time becomes compressed.
I realize that this is just a dumb idea, but it’s eminently testable. Here’s my experiment: take a number of people of different ages, put them in a room, and ask them to tell you when an hour has passed. Of course, you can’t let them count (that’s why I suggest an hour rather than a minute), and perhaps there should be some distraction so that people are doing quotidian tasks when asked to judge the time elapsed. My hypothesis would predict that older people would think that an hour had gone by after a shorter time than younger people; in other words, there would be a negative correlation between age and actual time elapsed.
I’m not aware that anyone has done such an experiment, though it’s an obvious idea, and maybe the notion is flawed, but surely a significant correlation (either positive or negative) would mean something. If anything has been published on it—because, of course, I’ll never actually do this experiment—let me know.
Does this sound totally off the wall?
Just to round out this post, here’s an apposite song from 1966: “Time,” by the Pozo Seco singers. It was their only hit, but it was popular in the U.S. If you remember this, you’re old enough to have noticed how time seems to be passing faster.
There’s a cat in this picture (click to enlarge), and it’s not a trick and you’ll kick yourself when you see where it is. You can post the answer in the comments, but don’t look at the comments before giving it an honest try.
With the departure of Biblical scholar Pete Enns from BioLogos, who had an official position as “Senior Fellow in Biblical Studies” (as well as a Ph.D. from Harvard in Old Testament studies and a considerable reputation for work on Biblical literalism/nonliteralism), it appears that the organization is cleaning house. What both Enns and Karl Giberson (also recently departed) had in common was their repudiation of the physical existence of Adam and Eve—something that angered the evangelicals, who desperately want to save that story to ensure that Jesus didn’t die for a mere metaphor. I would guess that both Enns and Giberson were shown the door because of this issue, and I predicted some time ago that BioLogos would fall apart.
That appears to be happening, at least with respect to the Foundation’s original mission—designed by ex-BioLogos-President and now-NIH director Francis Collins—to get evangelical Christians to accept the truth of evolution. That mission has gone down the tubes. BioLogos has bounced anybody who questions Adam and Eve, and now they’re promoting a young-earth creationist.
In this video, young earth creationist Aaron Daly offers his thoughts on theistic evolution, creation, and how Christians should handle disagreements over issues such as the age of the earth and how God created. Most of all, however, Aaron highlights the need for love in our discussions with one another, especially when we disagree.
It’s curious that the organization deep-sixes its anti-Adam-and-Evers but puts up posts about unrepentant evolution-deniers and young-earth creationists. Doesn’t that contravene its policy of accepting good science and trying to make that science palatable to evangelicals? Doesn’t that violate the aims of the Templeton Foundation, who funded BioLogos “to seek a theology more accepting of science”? (See below.)
This is what reader Sigmund, who sent me the link, has to say:
The video is interesting for two reasons. First, Mr Daly states that he would be more willing to listen to ideas about evolution if it came from a theistic perspective—and then immediately points out that he still wouldn’t actually believe these ideas because he doesn’t see the evidence there to support evolution.
Second, and probably more importantly, he says something that crystallizes my opinion about the new direction of BioLogos.
He states that he disagrees with the idea that someone will necessarily go to hell if they don’t believe that God created the world in a literal six days and calls for more love and understanding among evangelicals.
How I read this in the context of the history of BioLogos is that the Foundation’s mission is not any longer the conversion of evangelicals to the scientific viewpoints of theistic evolutionists like Falk [Darrel Falk, current BioLogos President] or Collins. It has now changed to merely promoting tolerance of the minority—and, frankly, heretical according to mainstream evangelicism—viewpoints of the theistic evolutionists.
Remember that BioLogos is funded to the tune of two million dollars by the Templeton Foundation (grant description here and below). Are you embarrassed yet, Templeton? Your money is going to promote the views of young earth creationists and people who try to rationalize the existence of a historical Adam and Eve. Templeton, you and BioLogos are a huge embarrassement to science. And Templeton, if you want to keep what little credibility you retain among good scientists, you’d better not give BioLogos dime one after their grant runs out in February. (I predict that BioLogos will meet a quick demise at that time.)
Here’s where the Templeton money is going:
The Language of God: BioLogos Website and Workshop:
Description
These grants support the launch of the BioLogos Foundation with the creation of a website and a series of workshops on the compatibility of theism and evolutionary science. The website will serve as a forum for Francis Collins and other expert consultants to address common questions about the relationship between faith and science. The invitation-only workshops will bring scientists and evangelical leaders together to seek a theology more accepting of science, specifically evolutionary biology. These projects will allow the BioLogos Foundation to build a reputation as a source of sympathetic, authoritative, and accessible thought on matters of science and faith.
Project Leader(s)
Francis Collins, Founder and President
The BioLogos Foundation
After that last piece, we need something a bit less stressful. Here’s a series of photos, taken in Kenya’s Maasai Maru game park in August, of a mother lion rescuing her cub from a ravine. Several females of the pride try to rescue the cub before the mother herself finally succeeds. According to PuffHo, which has the same piece (but with pictures in a slideshow):
Jean-Francois Lagrot snapped these incredible shots of a lioness rescuing her struggling cub, who seems to be holding on for dear life. The perilous position of the young lion seems to have it within inches of losing its life, just before its mother comes to the rescue.
This is a guest post by Grania Spingies of Atheist Ireland. After talking with her about the abuse of women and children by Catholic priests in Ireland, and having read some of the Ryan Report (link at bottom), which is disturbing beyond belief, I invited her to write about that issue.
What appalls me is not only the Ryan Report’s descriptions of the atrocities, but the systematic actions of the Church to cover up the crimes, arrogating any punishment to the Church itself rather than to civil authorities. It would behoove you as well to read Pope Ratzi’s letter (link below) mandating the coverup. The fact that these actions, and the exculpatory assertions of the Church, extend to the very highest levels of the Vatican has led me to conclude that the coverup of child (and adult) abuse is an official policy of the Catholic Church.
***
NORMALIZING TORTURE
by Grania Spingies
As the years go by and more and more cases of child rape and abuse by Catholic priests come to light, we become inured to the reports and immunised against feeling anything more than resignation to the seemingly endless parade of horrors.
Amnesty International has classified the institutionalised betrayal and exploitation of children as torture, and this is about as close an approximation as language is ever going to get to describing the litany of crimes committed against children and adults by members of Catholic-run institutions in Ireland over the last few decades.
It has become almost an amusing pastime to catalogue the excuses offered by representatives of the Church in their blatant attempts at damage control and dissemination of the blame as widely as they can. The Vatican and its lesser representatives have laid the blame on gays, overwork, secularization, Irish mothers and even the victims themselves. Apparently everyone is to blame except the very institution that has done so much for decades to block investigation, shelter the criminals, and stymie the judicial process.
Bu this is not distant history alone that has slowly been uncovered. This week, the Irish papers report once again that another priest has “taken leave” as a new police investigation begins.
In an unprecedented statement in July this year, Ireland’s Prime Minister, TaoiseachEnda Kenny broke the long-honored deference on the part of the Irish government to the Church and openly criticised it: “when it comes to the protection of the children of this State, the standards of conduct which the Church deems appropriate to itself, cannot and will not, be applied to the workings of democracy and civil society in this republic”:
This comment must, however, be viewed in light of the statement by the current Pope Ratzinger who has stated: “Standards of conduct appropriate to civil society or the workings of a democracy cannot be purely and simply applied to the Church.” Currently the Catholic Church controls more than 90% of the state-financed schools in Ireland. It also owes hundreds of millions of Euros for legal fees and other costs due after the various Commissions of Inquiry reported about institutionalised child abuse at the hands of a number of Irish Catholic institutions. So far, however, the Irish taxpayer has financed most of this as well. At the moment it’s not clear whether this debt will ever be repaid by the Church.
But even now some Irish priests and their defenders are defiant and unrepentant—and intend to oppose new laws that would legally oblige the clergy to report any knowledge of such crimes, even if obtained through Confession. The director of the Iona Institute, Ireland’s ultra-conservative Catholic “think-tank,” stated that the proposed new law was equivalent to mindless mob violence: “Even revolutionary France in the days of its worst violence against the church did not pass a law requiring the breaking of the seal of confession”.
To people like this, the reputation of the Church far outweighs any actual crime or abuse to defenceless members.
The Vatican’s official response to the Irish Taoiseach’s speech was complete repudiation, citing his accusation of the institution’s attempts to frustrate the judicial process as “unfounded”.
In fact, history directly contradicts this assertion. In 2001 Ratzinger issued a letter to Irish bishops specifying that the Church was to holdits own inquiries in private and keep any evidence secret for a minimum of ten years. The letter reprises earlier missives that argued for the same tactics in 1997 and in the 1960s.
In spite of occasional speeches of contrition and self-pity, on the whole the Vatican is apparently playing a waiting game, denying and obfuscating for as long as they are able. The public are slowly becoming anaesthetised to the continual news feed of cases of abuse, torture and rape; and our inertia and ignorance only allows this institution and its supporters to ignore their responsibilities and complicity in a crime that has lasted for decades. There is no end to the Catholic Church’s callous indifference to justice and reparation.
Although the findings of these reports are horrifying and deeply saddening, they should not be forgotten or go unread until justice has finally been served.
JAC: If you don’t have the stamina—or the stomach—for the Ryan Report, let me describe the actions of just one priest recounted in its pages. And believe me, this isn’t even the worst of the many cases—and there are many. Although the following is disturbing, there is no other way to apprehend how vile the acts of Catholic priests really were. And keep in mind that this is only one of four such commissions that issued reports in the last decade.
This is the testimony of an adult, describing his abuse as a child in a Catholic industrial or reformatory school. It comes from Chapter 7, Volume III, of the report: “Record of abuse: male witnesses.”
Br …X… came and pulled me from my bed into his bedroom, he turned his wireless up to full volume and said “take that nightshirt off, you can scream now as much as you like, you little bastard”. He masturbated himself with his left hand while he was hitting me with his strap…. He just brought the strap down on me and kicked me with his boots on, that is all he was wearing…. He threatened that if I told anyone the same would happen again. . .
One particular morning he …(Br X)… put me up against the wall because I was left handed, he put me hands up against the wall like that …indicated arms stretched above head… he started flogging me with the leather strap. This particular session I lost all control and soiled myself, he took me by the ear straight out, around to the showers. He wanted me to strip off and get into the shower, the water was freezing. … It’s very hard for me to tell this … but I want to tell it anyway … I was crouched down in the corner, he grabbed me by the hair into the cubicle, dragged me up off the floor, on the lats you know, lats for the seats and he buggered me again, and told me to shut up, I was screaming, I was in sheer pain you know. He had done it before in my bed and he made me bleed, he tore the skin you know. It could be once a week and then he mightn’t come near you for a month. It lasted for all the years I was there.
