Tag: Carl Zimmer

Carl Zimmer on governments ignoring and abusing science

February 11, 2021 • 9:15 am

by Greg Mayer

[Addendum— I’ve only just realized (1005 h) that Jerry posted on this same piece by Carl Zimmer back in 2017. Great minds think alike! But the relevance to today is, I think, even more striking.]

A few days ago I happened to run across an old blog post by the eminent science writer Carl Zimmer, in which he recounts the Lysenko affair and the lessons to be learned from it. Posted in 2017, the lessons he identifies are eerily prescient in light of the U.S. government’s (i.e., Trump’s) response to the coronavirus pandemic:

— A government decided that an important area of research, one that the worldwide scientific community had been working on for decades, was wrong. Instead, they embraced weak evidence to the contrary.

— It ignored its own best scientists and its scientific academies.

— It glamorized someone who opposed that mainstream research based on weak research, turning his meager track record into a virtue.

— It forced scientists to either be political allies or opponents.

— It personally condemned scientists who supported the worldwide consensus and spoke out against the government’s agenda, casting them as bad people hell-bent on harming the nation.

— The damage to the scientific community rippled far, and lasted for years. It showed hostility to scientists from other countries, isolating them from international partnerships. It also created an atmosphere of fear that led to self-censorship.

— And by turning away from the best science, the Trump administration did harm to its country.

It all seems very relevant, and his third item practically screams, “Scott Atlas!” He wrote the piece in 2017 in the context of climate change policy, but the relevance to today must have been evident to Carl, too; the reason I came across the 4-year old post is because he had moved it to near the top of his blog, where I came across it while looking for other things on his website.

The blog post is based on a talk Zimmer gave at a conference on “Science, Journalism, and Democracy: Grappling With A New Reality” at Rockefeller University on how science journalism can deal with the “confusing swirl of reality, misinformation, and so-called fake news” that is “[t]he current media landscape”. Carl’s talk can be seen on YouTube (below).

Fathered by the mailman? Well, not the mailman—it was the PM’s private secretary

April 10, 2016 • 9:15 am

by Greg Mayer

A lot of work in behavioral and evolutionary biology concerns the evolution of mating systems—polyandry, polygyny, monogamy, promiscuity, and the like—and elucidating the factors that lead to the evolution of one or another. Mating systems can be variable within a species, and human societies exhibit a range of mating systems, with monogamy and polygyny being perhaps the most common. But these culturally defined mating systems may exist more as aspirational norms than as universal practices. From a biological point of view, it is actual paternity and maternity that count, not what the culture deems most appropriate.

In a piece in the New York Times, Carl Zimmer takes a look at this in human societies, asking how often is it the case that the father of a family’s children is not the mother’s spouse, but rather some other male who has fathered the children through adultery.  This is a popular theme of “reality” TV, but Carl concludes it’s an old wives’ tale, citing a review by Maarten Larmuseau and colleagues in press in Trends in Ecology and Evolution. Using a variety of approaches that have become possible only since the development of DNA sequencing, including ordinary paternity testing and the clever use of Y chromosomes in concert with family genealogies and historical migration events, they show that “extra pair paternity” (EPP, i.e. cuckoldry) is actually rather rare—only 1-2%.

Carl notes that this is not as unexpected as the myth would have you believe. In species with females who frequently have multiple mates, males evolve a number of adaptations to insure the precedence of their sperm over other males—and men have none of these sorts of adaptations.

But, as luck would have it, on the very day Carl’s article appeared, a case of human EPP is also in the headlines: of all people, it turns out that the Archbishop of Canterbury’s father was not his mother’s husband! As the Independent put it “DNA test reveals Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby is illegitimate son of Sir Winston Churchill’s private secretary“.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, is forgive me, literally a bastard. (The Sun).
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, is, forgive me, literally a bastard. (The Sun).

My doctoral mentor, E.E. Williams, always said that observations refuting your favorite hypothesis don’t come early in your hypothesizing; a Malevolent Nature ensures that they come only after you’re really convinced you’re right. And in the journalism version of this, the contrary example doesn’t come till you get your piece on the front page of the New York Times. In fairness to Carl, though, one example does not refute his general conclusion, and it isn’t even quite cuckoldry: the Archbishop’s mother had sex with the private secretary just before her marriage, so the birth of the Archbishop-to-be nine months after the wedding had been wrongly assumed to be the fruits of the wedding night.

Larmuseau, M.H.D., K. Matthijs, and T. Wenseleers. 2015. Cuckolded fathers rare in human populations. Trends in Ecology and Evolution in press. pdf

Darwin’s pigeons

February 5, 2013 • 8:39 am

by Greg Mayer

In today’s Science Times, Carl Zimmer has a nice article on Darwin’s favorite birds, pigeons. “Whoa”, you say, “Pigeons? Don’t you mean finches?” No, pigeons it is. While we’ve grown accustomed to associating Darwin’s name with the 15 or so finches of the Galapagos Archipelago (plus one species on Cocos Island), the term “Darwin’s finches” was coined by the British ornithologist Percy Lowe in only 1936, and popularized by David Lack in his 1947 monograph Darwin’s Finches. Darwin collected and observed finches in the Galapagos, and wrote about them, especially in the Voyage of the Beagle, but  he spent many more years studying pigeons, and learned a great deal from them.

Pigeons
Pigeon breeds by A.E. Lydon, from The Boy’s Own Paper, ca. 1892.

Darwin was greatly interested in the work of plant and animal breeders in creating and modifying domestic varieties, and the vera causa (“true cause”) of artificial selection was an important part of Darwin’s argument for the efficacy of natural selection. Darwin corresponded widely with breeders, and gleaned their magazines, collecting a wide variety of facts on the nature of variation and the response to selection. He included some of this in the Origin, but most extensively in Variation Under Domestication (1868, 2 vols.).  Darwin chose pigeons as the domestic species to study most closely, keeping them himself at Down House.

Pigeons
Pigeon skulls, showing striking variation in bill and head shape, from Variation Under Domestication (1868).

The occasion for Carl Zimmer’s piece is a paper in press by Michael Shapiro and colleagues, who have instituted a very interesting program of research on the genetic basis of evolutionary change in domestic pigeons; like Darwin, they are relying on the help of breeders. Early results indicate that all domestic pigeons arise from the wild rock dove, and that certain characteristics, such as head crests, have arisen multiple times, but on the same genetic basis. There’s a very nice set of photos online accompanying the piece.

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Darwin, C. R. 1868. The variation of animals and plants under domestication. London: John Murray. (illustrations plus link to full text)

Shapiro, M.D. et al. 2013. Genomic diversity and evolution of the head crest in the rock pigeon. Science, in press. (abstract)

Sulloway, F.J. 1982. Darwin and his finches: the evolution of a legend. Journal of the History of Biology 15:1-53. (pdf)

Evolution: Making Sense of Life

October 5, 2012 • 9:29 am

by Greg Mayer

Another book that was just published in August is a new textbook of evolution intended for biology majors, Evolution: Making Sense of Life, by Carl Zimmer and Douglas Emlen; the title evokes Theodosius Dobzhansky‘s famous 1973 paper “Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution” (pdf). Carl Zimmer, a science writer and journalist, should be well familiar to WEIT readers, while Douglas Emlen, a biology professor at the University of Montana who works on sexual selection, has also drawn attention here at WEIT for his marvelous photographs of beetle weapons (and I wonder if he’s related to the famous Emlen family of biologists). Many illustrations have been provided by Carl Buell, the noted scientific illustrator. (I reviewed a couple of chapters in manuscript.)

The book is an interesting collaboration between a science writer and a biologist. There have been other such collaborations, usually for large multi-author introductory textbooks, where a writer is brought on to meld together and bring unity of voice to the disparate writing styles of the many scientific authors. In this case however, Zimmer is already a noted author on evolutionary topics, having written such books as At the Water’s Edge (my favorite) and Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea (a companion to the PBS series), and had previously written The Tangled Bank: An Introduction to Evolution, intended as a non-majors text. The new majors’ text grew in part out of this earlier book.

The book is published by Roberts and Company of Greenwood Village, Colorado, a relatively new publisher that is quickly making a name for itself in academic biology publishing. In addition to textbooks, they publish important monographic works (e.g. Trevor Price’s Speciation in Birds, the perfect complement to Jerry and Allen Orr’s Speciation). We’ve noted one of their books, edited by Jonathan Losos, here at WEIT before.

Science goes to Hollywood– what are your favorites?

November 10, 2010 • 4:19 pm

by Greg Mayer

Jerry recently posted on a piece by Carl Zimmer on the depiction of science in movies. Carl doesn’t think Hollywood films have shown very realistic views of science and scientists, and is not sure Hollywood can or should do anything about it. Carl’s more jazzed by the promise and accomplishments of smaller films of the type shown at the Imagine Science Film Festival. This got me to thinking about my own favorite science-y movies, and so, in the spirit of Jerry’s recent literary selections, I thought I’d mention some of my favorite depictions of science and scientists on film. I’ll be putting one up each of the next few days.

I invite WEIT readers to tell us in the comments what are their favorite scenes or films. The ones I’m thinking of capture something I believe to be true about the scientific enterprise; let us know what you found appealing in your favorite. It might be a kernel of truth, but it might be a ‘so bad it’s good’ (a la Plan 9 From Outer Space) kind of thing. I’ll put my first one up tomorrow.

(As an aside, I note Carl wondered why the acid in Alien didn’t burn through the hull of the Nostromo; much more fantastic is how the alien managed to put on about 500 kilos and grow ten feet longer without eating anything after emerging from John Hurt’s chest. The acid, after all, would be used up in the course of reacting with the metal in the hull, but where’d all that body mass come from?)

 

Sean Carroll and Carl Zimmer quit Bloggingheads for promoting creationism

September 1, 2009 • 7:28 am

Bloggingheads.tv was founded (and still largely run) by Robert Wright, and was once funded by the Templeton Foundation.  What does that tell you?  For one thing, to expect a lot of faitheism and sympathy for religion — even on Science Saturday, where it doesn’t belong.  But what I didn’t expect was sympathy for creationism.  Although Bloggingheads, which features online discussions between pairs of writers, scientists, or scholars, has featured some really good stuff, it now seems to be tilting dangerously toward woo.

First there was a discussion on Science Saturday between historian of science Ronald Numbers and Discovery Institute young-earth creationist Paul Nelson — a discussion notable for oodles of mutual back-patting but a dearth of criticism of Nelson’s insane views on the age of the earth.  More recently, Bloggingheads featured another amiable chat between ID creationist Michael Behe and linguist John McWhorter.

Listening to the Behe/McWhorter love-fest, physicist Sean Carroll, who runs the superb blog Cosmic Variance, had enough:

I couldn’t listen to too much after that. McWhorter goes on to explain that he doesn’t see how skunks could have evolved, and what more evidence do you need than that? (Another proof that belongs in the list, as Jeff Harvey points out: “A linguist doesn’t understand skunks. Therefore, God exists.”) Those of us who have participated in Bloggingheads dialogues before have come to expect a slightly more elevated brand of discourse than this.

Various bizarre things ensued:  the LoveFest disappeared and then reappeared on the site, unconvincing reasons were given, and finally Carroll and others had a teleconference call with Robert Wright.  As Carroll tells it, things did not go well:

But, while none of the scientists involved with BH.tv was calling for the dialogue to be removed, we were a little perturbed at the appearance of an ID proponent so quickly after we thought we understood that the previous example had been judged a failed experiment. So more emails went back and forth, and this morning we had a conference call with Bob Wright, founder of BH.tv. To be honest, I went in expecting to exchange a few formalities and clear the air and we could all get on with our lives; but by the time it was over we agreed that we were disagreeing, and personally I didn’t want to be associated with the site any more. I don’t want to speak for anyone else; I know that Carl Zimmer was also very bothered by the whole thing, hopefully he will chime in. .

. . .What I objected to about the creationists was that they were not worthy opponents with whom I disagree; they’re just crackpots. Go to a biology conference, read a biology journal, spend time in a biology department; nobody is arguing about the possibility that an ill-specified supernatural “designer” is interfering at whim with the course of evolution. It’s not a serious idea. It may be out there in the public sphere as an idea that garners attention — but, as we all know, that holds true for all sorts of non-serious ideas. If I’m going to spend an hour of my life listening to two people have a discussion with each other, I want some confidence that they’re both serious people. Likewise, if I’m going to spend my own time and lend my own credibility to such an enterprise, I want to believe that serious discussions between respectable interlocutors are what the site is all about.

. . . I understand that there are considerations that go beyond high-falutin’ concerns of intellectual respectability. There is a business model to consider, and one wants to maintain the viability of the enterprise while also having some sort of standards, and that can be a very difficult compromise to negotiate. Bob suggested the analogy of a TV network — would you refuse to be interviewed by a certain network until they would guarantee to never interview a creationist? (No.) But to me, the case of BH.tv is much more analogous to a particular TV show than to an entire network — it’s NOVA, not PBS, and the different dialogues are like different episodes.

And so Carroll, in a gesture I admire immensely, said farewell to Bloggingheads.tv.

I have no doubt that BH.tv will continue to put up a lot of good stuff, and that they’ll find plenty of good scientists to take my place; meanwhile, I’ll continue to argue for increasing the emphasis on good-faith discourse between respectable opponents, and mourn the prevalence of crackpots and food fights. Keep hope alive!

Business model indeed!  It sounds as if Bloggingheads plans more injections of woo, creationism, and goddycoddling, for if Wright had promised an end to that stuff, I doubt that Carroll would have resigned.  At any rate, Carroll’s stance is personal and nuanced, so do read his piece.  He hasn’t called for anybody else to follow him in defection.

But I do. Respectable journalists like Carl Zimmer, John Horgan, and George Johnson have participated in bloggingheads.tv.  I ask them to have the courage of their convictions and resign if they don’t get assurances that Bloggingheads will stop presenting woo.

. . . Just after I wrote this, I learned that Carl Zimmer has indeed pulled out:

As you can see from Carroll’s post, he was not happy with things either. So he and I talked to Robert Wright and other Bloggingheads people today. I had expected that I’d get a clear sense of what had happened over the past month at Bloggingheads, and what sort of plan would be put in place to avoid it happening again. I imagined some kind of editorial oversight of the sort that exists at the places where I regularly write about science. I didn’t get it. . .

. . .My standard for taking part in any forum about science is pretty simple. All the participants must rely on peer-reviewed science that has direct bearing on the subject at hand, not specious arguments that may sound fancy but are scientifically empty. I believe standards like this one are crucial if we are to have productive discussions about the state of science and its effects on our lives.

This is not Blogginghead’s standard, at least as I understand it now. And so here we must part ways.

The loss of Carroll and Zimmer is a real blow to Bloggingheads.tv — and to science popularization in general.  But you can’t pin this one on Dawkins and his atheist pals; blame it instead on the accommodationist Robert Wright.

_____________________________

Note:

In a comment on Carroll’s post, Robert Wright responds:

It’s true that I didn’t give you the pledge that apparently would have kept you appearing on BhTV: No more creationists or Intelligent Design folks ever on Bloggingheads. I said that, for example, I could imagine myself interrogating ID people about their theological motivation. And I said I’d welcome a Behe-Richard Dawkins debate, since Dawkins is a rare combination of expertise and accessibility. But I also said that offhand I couldn’t imagine any other Behe pairing that would work for me (though there may be possibilities I’m overlooking).

The key thing that I tried to underscore repeatedly in our phone conversation yesterday is this: The two diavlogs in question were not reflective of BhTV editorial policy, and steps have been taken to tighten the implementation of that policy so that future content will be more reflective of it. Sean, I wish that in your post you’d conveyed this to your readers, though I realize that you had a lot of other things you wanted to say.

(Read the whole comment; it’s number 37 after Carroll’s post.)  And Wright also takes a lick at yours truly for my critique of his book.  I’m working on a response to him now, which should be up after my trip to Alabama this week.

Darwinius, the “link” and the book

July 4, 2009 • 12:50 pm

Over at the Times Literary Supplement, paleontologist Ian Tattersall reviews Colin Tudge’s new book on Darwinius, The Link.

As you may remember if you read this and other evolution-related websites (see Greg Mayer’s post on this site), Darwinius masillae is an extraordinarily complete primate fossil that was revealed to scientists and the public in May, complete with a paper in PLoS,  overheated press releases, a movie deal on the History Channel, and, of course, Tudge’s book.  What was truly remarkable about this affair was the degree of hype: a publicity explosion that has never been equaled by any evolution-related discovery (indeed, even the completion of the human genome did not receive such fanfare).  Mayor Bloomberg was there, a press release touted Darwinius (known more familarly as “Ida”) as “a revolutionary scientific find that will change everything” (everything??), and one of the authors of the Darwinius paper, Jens Franzen, proclaimed that “When we publish our results it will be like an asteroid hitting the Earth.”

Well, hardly.  Ida turned out to be a really lovely fossil that didn’t add much to our knowledge of primate evolution.  It is almost certainly an adapiform primate, member of a group that went extinct without leaving descendants, and the early reports that Ida was a “missing link” between the two branches of primates were premature and based on incomplete and sketchy analysis by the scientists who described her.  Ida probably belongs firmly in the lemur/loris group.

Several of the science bloggers realized this immediately, although most reporters swallowed the “missing link” description uncritically (to be fair, they are not primate paleontologists).   The whole sorry affair resulted from the agreement between Ida’s discoverers and the publicists to prevent any scientists other than the “dream team” (that’s what Tudge calls them) from looking at the fossil or the research before publication, and blacking out journalists’ access to the paper until after the big press conference.  In the end, it was the bloggers like Brian Switek, and a few intrepid science journalists like Ann Gibbons and Carl Zimmer, who put Ida in the correct perspective.

According to Tattersall’s review, The Link looks as hyped-up and tendentious as were the original announcements.  The book was apparently written in only a couple of months so that it would appear the day after the press conference:

Colin Tudge’s book is part of the media blitz; and, at the risk of damning it with faint praise, I have to say that it is much the best part. It is more restrained and judicious than the other coverage; and while it does strictly hew to the party line, the hyperbolic statements it makes are always carefully attributed to others. To that extent, it is a thoroughly professional job, as one would expect of a distinguished interpreter of science to the public. . .

If The Link deserves a prize of any kind, it is for the speed with which it was written. Your reviewer has it on good authority that the television producers were still trawling around the Book of Ida project as late as January of this year; and Tudge evidently found he could not meet the almost impossibly short time constraints imposed by the TV schedule without co-opting the assistance of his colleague Josh Young. In combination with deadline pressure, this co-authorship presumably helps to explain a pattern of minor and generally harmless inconsistencies and inaccuracies throughout the book that might have been resolved with more time for reflection. It was hard, for example, to credit that the same author could have written on page 13 that “dinosaurs and mammals had coexisted briefly”, and (correctly), later on, that “the oldest known mammals could be older than the first dinosaurs”. And, in a note at the end of the book, we learn that he didn’t.

In this rather unseemly rush to publication, Tudge and Young were not alone. Speed, as well as obsessive secrecy, seems to have infected the entire Ida project from its inception. As reported by Nature, a member of the Dream Team complained that “there was a TV company involved and time pressure. We’ve been pushed to finish the study; it’s not how I like to do science”. I’m sure it’s not how Colin Tudge likes to write books, either.

Let’s just say that my own opinion is along the lines of Tattersall’s, but less charitable. More about that later.