by Matthew Cobb

Not sure if Jerry’s European trip will allow him to post a Caturday Felid today, so here’s something I’ve just posted over at the Z-letter [apologies for double posting]. Not really about cats, and yet, a bit:

The European pine marten (Martes martes) is a mustelid – part of the weasel family – and about the size of a cat. There is also a North American relative (Martes americana). They mainly nocturnal and pretty hard to spot. Here’s a rather nice picture of a pine marten, from DJS photography (note its right ear, presumably nibbled in a fight):

On the last episode of Autumnwatch on the BBC last night, Chris Packham claimed that pine martens are very partial to a jam sandwich, and this does indeed seem to be the case (Mr Google has 272 hits with those two phrases – 273 now this page has been posted [= 274 with this copy of the page…]).

Although primarily carnivorous, they will also eat berries, honey and other sweet stuff. Hence the jam sandwiches. Cats, on the other hand, do not eat jam sandwiches or honey. And cats cannot taste sugar, for the simple reason that their genome does not possess the relevant T1R2 receptor which, together with the T1R3 receptor (which they do have), enables mammals to detect sugar.

So I predict that when the pine marten genome is eventually sequenced, we will find, nestled in its chromosomes, the T1R2 receptor…

by Matthew Cobb

The media brouhaha around the publication of Sarah Palin’s new book has spread round the world, even if the BBC reporter this morning had to admit that the only real sign of public fervour at one signing was two teenagers who sat it out, alone, outside a mall bookshop overnight.

Palin is not only a figurehead for the most conservative sections of US opinion, she has now come out as a creationist. However, like many creationists, she claims to accept the existence of “microevolution”. The real issue, she claims, is that one species cannot split into two, or give rise to another species. God alone can do that.

Here’s her argument in all its glory:

“I believed in the evidence for microevolution—that geologic and species change occurs incrementally over time, (…) But I didn’t believe in the theory that human beings—thinking, loving beings—originated from fish that sprouted legs and crawled out of the sea. Or that human beings began as single-celled organisms that developed into monkeys who eventually swung down from trees; I believed we came about not through a random process, but were created by God.”

Leaving aside the tiresome misinterpretation that natural selection is “random” (where has any evolutionist said this?), this needs some robust rebuttal, which was provided by Jerry Coyne, in an e-mail published over at The Daily Beast:

“University of Chicago ecology and evolution professor at Jerry Coyne calls the passage in Palin’s book a “typical creationist ploy” easily refuted by fossil evidence suggesting transitions between animals as fish and amphibians or land animals and whales. “Her stand is basically a biblically oriented stand…that has no basis in fact,” Coyne told The Daily Beast in an e-mail. “It is a ridiculous ploy of the ‘duck kind,’ i.e. a canard.”

‘Nuff said.

With the help of communities secreatary John Denham , the British government is setting up an panel of religious leaders to advise on public policy decisions. Over at the Guardian, Anthony Grayling takes this truly bad idea apart with a series of rhetorical questions, e.g.:

 

And what, Mr Denham, of the rule of law as this will be viewed by your faith advisers? Is each citizen of this country equal before the same law for all, or will injustice and discrimination thrive behind the closed doors of faith-based courts? Are each of the faiths to be allowed exceptions and exemptions – for example, so that any faith school can exclude well-qualified teachers because they do not share the ancient superstition with which a particular school seeks to brainwash small children’s minds?

Also Mr Denham, why is your policy so discriminatory in itself? What of the Buddhists, the Zoroastrians, the Mother Goddess worshippers? What of the Druids, the White Witches, the Pagans, the astrologers, the Satanists? Are these not “faith groups” whose outlooks have precisely as much credibility and evidence-base as the Christians and Muslims? Are you going to include them and give them some of our tax money too? Can I start an “I Believe in Fairies” church and can I come to your meetings and get some government hand-outs too? If not, why not?

It’s been a hectic but fun trip so far; I’ve had my time in the UK and am sitting in Heathrow on my way to Amsterdam and Groningen. I’ve had no time to post about the Royal Society meetings, which were full of good talks and good fellowship.

Nick Barton spoke on the evolution of sex (summary: it’s still a mystery), and there were talks by John Willis on Mimulus, Spencer Barrett on heterostyly in plants, Holly Wichman on viruses as models of evolution, Dolph Schluter on sticklebacks, and many others on varied aspects of evolutionary genetics. When I return in late November I’ll try to post some of the intersting things I’ve learned, including the story of a South African plant that has evolved, as part of its ground-hugging flower, a PERCH on which sunbirds sit while sipping nectar and pollinating the plant. This is the only case I know of in which a plant has evolved a perch to specifically accommodate birds, although of course many species of flowers (including Mimulus lewisii), have evolved “landing platforms” from their petals to allow bees to alight.

I did find out that the Royal Society headquarters on Carlton Terrace used to be the German Embassy until WWII. Buried in the Royal Society Garden is a dog with a headstone, a name, and the epiphet “ein treues Hund” (a faithful dog), said to be Ribbentrop’s dog, although this is disputed. (The dog may belong to his predecessor.)

The news of the day is this: future GOP wacko Presidential candidate Sarah Palin doesn’t accept evolution. In her piece on Palin’s soon-to-be-best-seller, Going Rogue, NYT reviewer Michiko Kakutani reports that Palin doesn’t accept evolution. But first, some tidbits, which you will learn here first because you are NOT going to buy this book:

All in all Ms. Palin emerges from “Going Rogue” as an eager player in the blame game, ungrateful to the McCain campaign for putting her on the national stage. As for the McCain campaign, it often feels like a desperate and cynical operation, willing to make a risky Hail Mary pass to try to score a tactical win, instead of making a considered judgment as to who might be genuinely qualified to sit a heartbeat away from the Oval Office . . .

. . . Ms. Palin suggests that she and her husband, Todd, are ideally qualified to represent the Joe Six-Packs of the world because they are Joe Six-Packs themselves. “We know what it’s like to be on a tight budget and wonder how we’re going to pay for our own health care, let alone college tuition,” she writes in “Going Rogue.” “We know what it’s like to work union jobs, to be blue-collar, white-collar, to have our kids in public schools. We felt our very normalcy, our status as ordinary Americans, could be a much-needed fresh breeze blowing into Washington, D.C.”

As for evolution:

Elsewhere in this volume she talks about creationism, saying she “didn’t believe in the theory that human beings — thinking, loving beings — originated from fish that sprouted legs and crawled out of the sea” or from “monkeys who eventually swung down from the trees.” In everything that happens to her, from meeting Todd to her selection by Mr. McCain for the Republican ticket, she sees the hand of God: “My life is in His hands. I encourage readers to do what I did many years ago, invite Him in to take over.”

I had a bit of a problem with Francis Collin’s evangelic Christianity when he was appointed head of the NIH, but will those of you who criticized these reservations be equally accommodating of Palin’s overweening faith? I doubt it. Her denial of evolution alone disqualifies her to be President, for it shows her sheer, blind resistance to facts–at least those facts at odds with her faith.

Let’s face it: the woman is just plain dumb (and don’t tell me how media-savvy she is), and it’s a testimony to the desperation of the Republican Party that many of them are enthusiastic about electing the first president who openly embraces creationism. Let’s not invite Her in to take over.

h/t: Otter

by Matthew Cobb

Creationists have a very fixed view of the world – literally and figuratively. They have The Truth – it’s written in a series of manuscripts that were produced by various tiny Middle Eastern sects 2-3 millennia ago, which were eventually sifted and sorted and mistranslated into a set of what were deemed to be acceptable views to a group of Church leaders around 1500 years ago. All they have to do is to read it, and The Truth is obvious – God created all species, so there can be no evolution.

Science, however, doesn’t claim to have The Truth. We simply have the best approach to reality that we can have, based on the available evidence. If we were to find fossil rabbits in the pre-Cambrian, then we would all have to backtrack on the phrase that forms the title of this blog. However, there comes a point at which the absence of contradictory evidence, and the overwhelming weight of supporting evidence, leads us to stop pussy-footing around. We abandon all that philosophical bet-hedging and simply state “evolution is true”. If the fossil rabbits ever turn up (don’t hold your breath), we’ll revisit the statement – as the French say, only imbeciles don’t change their minds.

In the process of getting to such clarity, scientists spend a lot of time arguing, doing experiments that occasionally have contradictory results, and trying to figure out who in the resulting intellectual battle is actually right. It’s part of what makes science fun. Whenever these kind of debates arise – be they in evolutionary biology or climate science, to take two targets of certain sections of the blogosphere and of conservatives – they are immediately taken to be proof that there is “a crisis”. This is particularly irritating when the views that are supposed to be evidence of “the jury being out” in fact represent a tiny minority. Sometimes this can have dreadful consequences. There are some fools and charlatans who claim that AIDS is not caused by HIV. Tragically, they have had a great impact on the policy of the South African government. That does not mean that there is any kind of “debate” or “crisis” over the issue.

The latest example of this kind of claim has come, unsurprisingly, in the wake of the article by Donald Williamson on the evolution of caterpillars, and its recent utter and total debunking by Hart & Grosberg, which has been dealt with extensively by Jerry on this blog.

One Brian Thomas, “a Science Writer at the Institute for Creation Research” has posted an article which claims that the Williamson study and its trashing “discloses deep evolutionary disagreement”. He concludes:

Beneath the veneer of a controversial peer-review process is a substantial debate over the very basics of evolution. Some scientists have pointed out that neo-Darwinism is inadequate to explain why life forms appear fully-equipped, unique, and discrete. One of these bravely offered hybridogenesis as an alternative evolutionary mechanism. Others cogently demonstrated some scientific deal-breakers for hybridogenesis. Perhaps both sides are correct in their assessments of the opposing evolutionary ideas—neither explanation is sufficient. And if life could not have evolved, it must have been created.

Thomas may be a “science writer”, but he’s surely no scientist! No one with a scrap of scientific insight could read the article by Hart and Grosberg and not be totally and utterly convinced that they are right and Williamson was completely wrong. That’s the power of science – we determine our views on the basis of the evidence. Thomas, along with all other creationists, can’t allow himself to do that, or he’d come round to reality – life was not created, it evolved.

h/t: Rick Grosberg

by Matthew Cobb

[Apologies for cross-posting – this appeared last week over at z-letter.com, but I felt it could do with a wider outing!]

In the 1980s, the Alvarez (père et fils) first suggested that an extraterrestrial impact caused the catastrophic climate changes that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs – and loads of other stuff – 65 MY ago. The location of that impact is now widely thought to have been the Chicxulub crater on the Yucutan Peninsula in Mexico. Other suspects for the death of the dinosaurs include the Deccan Traps, a massive area of igneous rock in India that is more than 2 km thick and covers 500,000 km2. These rocks, formed 60-68 MY ago, would have led to massive release of sulphur dioxide, which wouldn’t have made the climate any nicer.

However, over the last few years, Sankar Chatterjay of the Texas Technical University, has been arguing that  a submarine structure off the western coast of India, which he has called “Shiva”, is in fact a massive crater produced by a meteor strike. “Shiva” – if it exists – is 500 km across, and would be indicative of a a meteor about 40km wide – nearly 10 times larger than the estimated size of Chixculub object.

Dr Chatterjee recently presented his ideas at a meeting of the Geological Society of America (GSA), in a 15 minute talk. Here’s an extract from his abstract which describes the catastrophic consequences of such an impact:

The impact was so powerful that it led to several geodynamic anomalies: it fragmented, sheared, and deformed the lithosphere mantle across the western Indian margin and contributed to major plate reorganization in the Indian Ocean. It initiated rifting between India and Seychelles in the west and created the Laxmi Ridge; it shattered the Indian plate easterly along the Narmada-Son Rift extending 1500 km across, dividing the Indian shield into a southern peninsular block and a northern foreland block. Because of topographic barrier of the Western Ghat Mountain range, the impact-triggered tsunami was restricted along the Narmada-Son Rift at the KT boundary. The relationships between large meteoritic impact, hotspot, flood basalt volcanism, plate tectonics, geodynamic anomalies, and sudden environmental catastrophe on Earth may open up a new field of unified investigation. Although the Reunion hotspot responsible for Deccan eruption was close to the Shiva crater in time and space, impact probably triggered a component of the Deccan Trap: the iridium-rich alkaline igneous complex rocks that were emplaced asymmetrically as a fluid ejecta at the KT boundary along the NE downrange direction of the bolide trajectory outside the crater ring. Two large impacts such as Shiva and Chicxulub in quick succession on the antipodal position, in concert with Deccan eruptions, would have devastating effects globally leading to climatic and environmental catastrophes that wiped out dinosaurs and many other organisms at the KT boundary.

For the non-geologist, it’s hard to know whether Chatterjee is right or not. In fact, it may be hard for the geologists, too, as this idea has been floating around since at least the 2003 meeting of the GSA, when Chatterjee gave a similar talk. Although he published a paper in Museum of Texas Tech University Special Publications in 2006 (available here), this is clearly an issue that needs to be addressed in a major peer reviewed journal, to help the rest of us decide whether he’s really found evidence of what would be more than a smoking gun – it would be a veritable smoking howitzer.