Richard Dawkins reading his hate mail

It would be funny, if it weren't so sad. Aww, hell! It's funny anyway.

But scary.

Be careful, Dr, Dawkins. It only takes one idiot, and that's obviously what these people threatening you are.

Both Elephants and Magpies Show New Signs of Intelligence

First Evidence To Show Elephants Recognize Themselves In Mirror

Science News

ScienceDaily (Oct. 31, 2006) — Elephants have joined a small, elite group of species-including humans, great apes and dolphins-that have the ability to recognize themselves in the mirror, according to a new finding by researchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in New York. This newly found presence of mirror self-recognition in elephants, previously predicted due to their well-known social complexity, is thought to relate to empathetic tendencies and the ability to distinguish oneself from others, a characteristic that evolved independently in several branches of animals, including primates such as humans.

Science News http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/10/061030183310.htm

Evidence of Self-Recognition in the Magpie

Public Library of Science (PLoS)

Comparative studies suggest that at least some bird species have evolved mental skills similar to those found in humans and apes. This is indicated by feats such as tool use, episodic-like memory, and the ability to use one's own experience in predicting the behavior of conspecifics. It is, however, not yet clear whether these skills are accompanied by an understanding of the self. In apes, self-directed behavior in response to a mirror has been taken as evidence of self-recognition. We investigated mirror-induced behavior in the magpie, a songbird species from the crow family. As in apes, some individuals behaved in front of the mirror as if they were testing behavioral contingencies. When provided with a mark, magpies showed spontaneous mark-directed behavior. Our findings provide the first evidence of mirror self-recognition in a non-mammalian species. They suggest that essential components of human self-recognition have evolved independently in different vertebrate classes with a separate evolutionary history.

Public Library of Science (PLoS), http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.0060202&ct=1

This fascinates me because the ability to recognize oneself in a mirror has never been found in non-human animals other than apes and dolphins before. Now two separate studies have just found this ability in the largest land animal and in a noisy, obnoxious bird.

The test is to put a mark on the animal in a spot it can't see. Like the yellow spot of paint below the magpies chin. The animal knows you've done something to it, but it doesn't know what. The magpies first turned and twisted their necks trying to see what had been done to them. When that didn't work, they went to the mirror and checked themselves. Upon seeing the dot of paint in the mirroe, they tried to touch it with their beaks and feet. This was considered evidence that they used the mirror intentionally and recognized themselves in it.

This is especially important, because it had been thought that only humans, apes, and dolphins (all mammals) had this ability. Bird brains are so different from mammal brains that few scientists thought any of them might have this ability. For one thing, bird brains have no neocortex, which had been thought to be necessary for this kind of cognition.

In a different study, three female elephants at the Bronx Zoo in New York were given a huge mirror (8'x8') in their enclosure. They had time to examine it, look behind it, and get used to it. They spent a good deal of time examining the insides of their mouths in the mirror and touching spots in their mouths with their trunks. Without the mirror, elephants cannot see inside their mouths; so this was impressive to begin with. (I have no idea why they only studied female elephants with the mirror, and no males. I'm just reporting what I read. OK?)

Then, a large colored spot was painted on each animal above her eyes, and a spot of clear paint on one cheek. When they examined themselves in the mirror, they touched only the colored spots above their eyes, indicating they were seeing them in the mirror and recognizing the images as themselves. Not just responding to the human touch or the smell of the paint.

All other known species either ignore their image in a mirror or treat it like another animal. (Or they haven't been tested yet, of course.) The working hypothesis now is that this ability requires an animal with a relatively large brain and a comples social system. Elephants have the largest brains on land. Magpies and their relatives in the corvid family -- crows, jays, ravens, rooks, jackdaws, nutcrackers, and others -- have the largest brains in the bird class (aves). Both elephants and the corvids have complex social systems that require them to recognize others of their species and at least remember friend from foe.

eBay insect fossil is new species

A scientist who bought a fossilised insect on the web auction site eBay for £20 has discovered that it belongs to a previously unknown species of aphid.

Dr Richard Harrington, vice-president of the UK's Royal Entomological Society, bought the fossil from an individual in Lithuania.

He then sent it off to an aphid expert in Denmark, who confirmed the insect was a new species, now extinct.

Dr Harrington and his team thought they had identified the bog down to genus level (one step above species), but they had no idea what species it was. Professor Ole Heie, a fossil aphid expert in Denmark, discovered it had not been described before.

Dr Harrington said he "had thought it would be rather nice to call it Mindarus ebayi." "Unfortunately," he said, "using flippant names to describe new species is rather frowned upon these days." Professor Heie named the new species Mindarus harringtoni after Dr Harrington.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7572052.stm

One More Reason to Teach Evolution in High School Science Classes

SF Gate
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 13, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal judge says the University of California can deny course credit to applicants from Christian high schools whose textbooks declare the Bible infallible and reject evolution.

Rejecting claims of religious discrimination and stifling of free expression, U.S. District Judge James Otero of Los Angeles said UC's review committees cited legitimate reasons for rejecting the texts - not because they contained religious viewpoints, but because they omitted important topics in science and history and failed to teach critical thinking.


Notice, this is not a decision about Christian schools, or any other kind of school. It is a decision about education. About being ready -- or not ready -- for additional education.

When a prospective student applies to a university for admission, the university wants to know what education the prospect already has. If he or she is missing certain things the university considers important, the prospect may be refused admission. It's generally up to the university to decide what those qualifications are.

They don't want somebody in their math classes who doesn't already understand basic arithmetic or algebra. They probably don't want somebody holding up history classes because he doesn't already have a basic understanding of history. Neither should anybody without a basic understanding of evolution be allowed to attend biology classes. Without evolution, they won't understand it anyway.

Otero also said the Christian schools presented no evidence that the university's decisions were motivated by hostility to religion.

Applicants without the required courses can qualify by taking college preparatory classes or by scoring well in those subjects on the Scholastic Assessment Test, just as anybody else can. How could it be fairer?

The ruling has already been appealed, of course, to try to force UC to admit these particular unqualified students with their impaired education. Charles Robinson, UC's spokesman, said the plaintiffs want a "religious exemption from regular admissions standards." Yep. That's what it sounds like to me.

He continued that the ruling "confirms that UC may apply the same admissions standards to all students and to all high schools without regard to their religious affiliations." And isn't that exactly what they should do? In fact, doesn't the law require them to do that?

There's more, if you want to click the link at the top and read the whole article. Naturally, the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) is already whining that it's a blow to academic freedom: http://www.icr.org/article/4006/ . It is not, of course. It's only a blow to ignorance.

Optimism in Evolution

From the New York Times Opinion Page
August 12, 2008
By OLIVIA JUDSON

When the dog days of summer come to an end, one thing we can be sure of is that the school year that follows will see more fights over the teaching of evolution and whether intelligent design, or even Biblical accounts of creation, have a place in America’s science classrooms.

In these arguments, evolution is treated as an abstract subject that deals with the age of the earth or how fish first flopped onto land. It’s discussed as though it were an optional, quaint and largely irrelevant part of biology. And a common consequence of the arguments is that evolution gets dropped from the curriculum entirely.

This is a travesty.

It is also dangerous.


Judson then discusses three reasons why evolution should be taught in science classes:

"First," she says, "it provides a powerful framework for investigating the world we live in. Without evolution, biology is merely a collection of disconnected facts, a set of descriptions."

I agree wholeheartedly. As noted biologst Theodosius Dobzhansky once said, "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." Science is not just a matter of making observations. Its also a matter of trying to make sense of those observations by developing theories. Evolution by natural selection makes sense of biology. No other idea that does has ever been published.

Second, "... the subject is immediately relevant here and now. The impact we are having on the planet is causing other organisms to evolve — and fast. "

She's not just talking about bacteria and viruses developing resistance to drugs, either. Her examples include fish that are evolving to a smaller size because we are catching the large ones and bighorn rams that now grow smaller horns because of trophy hunting. These are just two of many examples she could have given.

"In short," she says, "evolution is far from being a remote and abstract subject. A failure to teach it may leave us unprepared for the challenges ahead." Chllenges like preserving endangered species and even maybe saving ourselves from disease or starvation.

Her third reason is more philosophical. "It concerns the development of an attitude toward evidence. In his book, 'The Republican War on Science,' the journalist Chris Mooney argues persuasively that a contempt for scientific evidence — or indeed, evidence of any kind — has permeated the Bush administration’s policies, from climate change to sex education, from drilling for oil to the war in Iraq. A dismissal of evolution is an integral part of this general attitude. "

She then continues with a fourth reason for studying evolution, her personal favorite: "But for me, the most important thing about studying evolution is something less tangible. It’s that the endeavor contains a profound optimism. It means that when we encounter something in nature that is complicated or mysterious, such as the flagellum of a bacteria or the light made by a firefly, we don’t have to shrug our shoulders in bewilderment.

"Instead, we can ask how it got to be that way. And if at first it seems so complicated that the evolutionary steps are hard to work out, we have an invitation to imagine, to play, to experiment and explore. To my mind, this only enhances the wonder."

Absolutely!

Science has been accused many times of taking the wonder and beauty out of nature. I disagree vehemently. Understanding something to whatever extent we can only makes it all the more wonderous.

Those who find something difficult to understand and just say "God did it." can learn no more. If God did it, then what else is there to learn? Can they question God to find out how and why He did it, and what else He is likely to do. If not, then it is an end of learning. From there on is only ignorance.

But those who understand evolution can -- at least in principle -- figure out how it happened and make valid predictions based on their knowledge. They can keep learning.

It was Jerry Gels, a science teacher at Lloyd Memorial High School in Erlanger, KY, who said, "It's imperative that my students understand the concept of evolution If they don't understand evolution, they're not going to be very successful in the realm of science. If they're ignorant of evolution, they're not going to be ready for college."

Darwin's thery of evolution by natural selection has been described many times as one of the most important concepts in the history of science. No, Darwin didn't get everything right. How could he? After all, he had never even heard of genetics; and only a few relevant fossils had been discovered in his time. Now we have many times more evidence, from many areas of science that didn't even exist in Darwin's time, and have integrated it to form a better theory. Not a new theory, but a revision and improvement of the original.

It is vital that evolution be taught in science classes everywhere. Omitting it leaves students ignorant of one of the simplest but most important things they should learn.