Happy Birthday Mr. Darwin!

We love birthdays and anniversaries , especially ones that end in zero. This year there are two such numbers related to Charles Darwin-200 years since his birth and 150 years since publication of Origin of Species. Of course there is all sorts of commentary and there should be. After all Darwin's way of looking at the world really did revolutionize biology and society as a whole.

What was it really that Darwin did that was so great? After all he wasn't the first person to speculate that evolution happens, or even to propose how it might happen. Maybe he was just the right person at the right time to be remembered. But I think there is more. Perhaps the best way to answer the question from my perspective is to briefly contrast Charles Darwin with Jean Louis Agassiz. Agassiz was one of the most popular scientists of the 19th century, especially in biology, Harvard Professor, did lots of important work on fossils and glaciation. Yet he never accepted evolution.

I encountered Agassiz in Edward Lurie's biography, Louis Agassiz: A Life in Science. Lurie observed, as I recall, that Agassiz was a proponent of the notion that the geological features of the Earth were molded mainly by a series of catastrophic events and that that the distribution of species could be best explained by a series of creation events. As new data about geology and the distribution of species came out-Agassiz would simply postulate a new catastrophe or a new creation event. So the data are explained.

Darwin was different. Not only did he synthesize masses of data to support his ideas, but he confronted the weaknesses in his ideas head on. After all, Darwin knew that contradictions between observation and theory are not to be feared but provide new opportunities to learn by empirical means what makes the universe work. Agassiz was an accomplished scientist as well and probably understood this idea as well. The difference is that Agassiz did not understand the universality of the principle that contradictions provide new opportunities in all spheres of science, and, I argue, life as well.

So happy birthday Mr. Darwin and here's to biologists today who see contradiction as something not to be feared, or glossed over with rhetorical tricks, but as opportunity for understanding.

Winter Beauty

Except for a couple of Dendrobium and a few paltry crown of thorns this Gymnocalycium is about the only thing blooming in my house right now. Normally a not very exciting bloom but when the light hit it just right the other day I had to get some shots.

Even the most ordinary can be beautiful in the right light.

Save the Sea Kittens?

The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals(PETA) has a new campaign, this time against fishing complete with a splashy new web site designed to hook unsuspecting visitors. The site claims that:

"People don't seem to like fish. They're slithery and slimy, and they have eyes on either side of their pointy little heads—which is weird, to say the least. Plus, the small ones nibble at your feet when you're swimming, and the big ones—well, the big ones will bite your face off if Jaws is anything to go by. "

Hence the make over. The site has places for "Sea Kitten stories" , petitions urging the US Fish and Wildlife Service to stop promoting fishing, oh and if you want you can even buy a Sea Kitten Hoodie-imagine the fashion statement that would make at school or in the neighborhood! Another page makes the PETA case a little bit more directly noting quite properly that fish are quite smart, capable sophisticated sensory and cognitive feats and therefore (their leap of logic not mine) ought to not be subject to the cruelty of fishing.

Now the notion that animals are cognitively aware at least of the present does give some moral weight to the notion that we ought to minimize human caused animal suffering and that animals ought to be respected for what they are, but really PETA's effort is a blatant attempt to exploit the healthy sense of empathy that most people have about animals rather than encouraging people to see animals (including ourselves) in a balanced way.

Also Leopold in one of his Sand County Almanac essays argued that in order for people to understand the value of conservation and "The Land Ethic", they have to have an emotional connection to the land. I agree but I don't think that this misplaced empathy is what he had in mind.

By the way, there is a very interesting essay on the Ethics of Eating Animals in Michael Pollan's recent book, Omnivore's Dilemma which tackles animal rights in a more balanced way. Pollan concludes that:

"To give up eating animals is to give up on these places(nota bene: where animals live) as human habitat , unless of course we are willing to make complete our dependence on a highly industrialized food chain."

Now that is a good omnivore attitude!

I recommend Pollan's book as a corrective to anyone who might otherwise be susceptible to the simplistc arguments that PETA foists an all us kitten lovers.

Full disclosure: I have 2 Kittens; well they used to be Kittens. One of them has eaten fish the other one wouldn't have the first notion what to do with a fish. I have been fishing, in fact for catfish. And yes this omnivore did eat them.

Welcome to the Holidays in My World

My wife would not let me put my dinosaurs in her Christmas village. But she didn't say anything about large predatory insects.

Just in Time for Christmas...

The Pope has released another in a series of misguided statements about gender and sexual orientation, this time attacking gender theory.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7796663.stm

See also:
http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=14067&size=A

It isn't at all clear to me what the Pope means by gender theory. If he means that gender is entirely a social construct a la post modernism then he is quite correct from my biological perspective. But I think he means to reenforce the standard gender binary.He says for instance:

"It is not "out-of-date metaphysics" to "speak of human nature as 'man' or woman'"

Well, yes it is outdated metaphysics because his statement is based on the assumption that there is some sort of metaphysical essence that distinguishes us from other animals and that this essence is somehow reflected in the gender binary. What is sad is that the Pope has lots of good things to say on many levels about the dignity of people-including in this address- but saying good things but based on faulty medival premises ultimately does more harm than good.

That said, the Pope is rightfully concerned about human nature and its manipulation: He notes (quoted from Asia Times) that:

“We should re-read the encyclical Humanae Vitae starting from such a perspective. In it Pope Paul VI’s intention was to defend love against a utilitarian view of sexuality, the future against the exclusive claim of the present, and man’s nature against its manipulation.”

and here he is a on target just as he is generally on target when it comes to issues of human dignity. But it seems he clings to outmoded typological thinking because it provides clear rules whose descendent, by the way, is the 1960's slogan "If you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem". We are moral animals, and moral animals capable of looking beyond the short term-taking an ethical progression outward from ourselves and immediate familiy to all of creation and taking it forwards in time to contemplate what we want our species to become.

Just because the Pope's essentialist assumption is flawed doesn't make his concerns any less valid-but again some of his conclusions, drawn from wrong premises (that creation implies an essential nature) can lead to great harm, something I really don't think he really intends inspite of his bullheadness about gender and sexual identity.

I really don't think he means for me to feel less than human because I don't fit his notions of male and female very well. He probably thinks a bit like Rick Warren who said well gee I have gay friends, I have been to gay people's houses. The essentalist stance leads to a debasing of human dignity, there very things that the Pope and Warren claim to be defending.

See naked mole rats here!

See naked mole rats here!
Originally uploaded by pdecell

...at Disney's Animal Kingdom over Thanksgiving. Nice exhibit except they really don't explain why these mammals are so interesting. What makes them so interesting is that they are the most like social insects of any mammal. See...

www.bbc.co.uk/nature/wildfacts/factfiles/614.shtml

Of course maybe the Disney folks would have to then explain why social insects are so important in the tropics in terms of the functioning of tropical ecosystems and how social insect biomass dwarfs that of the charismatic animals they have in Animal KIngdom.

Then they would have to explain why it is that you have to really hunt to even see an ant at any of the theme parks.

A Conservative Contradiction

According to Think Progress, Mike Huckabee and other conservatives has come up with an intriguing argument against gay marriage. It seems that Gays haven't suffered enough! Huckabee is quoted as claiming that he is all for gay rights but gay marriage would redefine an institution.

Here's the exchange between Huckabee and Joy Behar ABC's show "The View"

"People who are homosexuals should have every right in terms of their civil rights, to be employed, to do anything they want. But that’s not really the issue. I know you talked about it and I think you got into it a little bit early on. But when we’re talking about a redefinition of an institution, that’s different than individual civil rights.

BEHAR: Well, segregation was an institution, too, in a way. It was right there on the books.

HUCKABEE: But here is the difference. Bull Connor was hosing people down in the streets of Alabama. John Lewis got his skull cracked on the Selma bridge."

Watch it here:

Now the argument does make an odd sort of sense until you remember that these very conservatives are the ones who have exploited Southern White fears about race, support states rights as opposed to civil rights, and basically have dragged their feet on every major piece of civil rights legislation. Remember the Equal Rights Amendment?

Besides, some people deserve more civil rights because they have suffered more? That doesn't sound to me like a good conservative position. But, hey, what do I know? I'm a liberal.

Imagine those uppity gays...

Just who do they think they are...wanting the same rights as everyone else.



Wanda pretty much sums up my feelings.

I think what has people confused is that there is 'marriage' as contract and 'marriage' as a sacramental union. The two are not the same. So let the state deal with marriage as contract open to all and those who want the sacramental union (Holy Matrimony) look to their churches. Hmmm that's the way it is supposed to work now and as the courts are beginning to realize, it doesn't for part of our population.