September 1, 2008
Links 33
1. Surf like a Bushman - I just noticed this great article in my bookmarks list (which is finally shrinking to a more manageable size after 33 entries). I thought I would never find it again, so I'm pleased to be able to share it. Foraging theory is a useful, powerful way to investigate and explain animal behavior -- and (though some might disagree) a wide variety of human behaviors as well. Most humans now live in environments remarkably different from the one(s) in which we evolved, but it is reasonable to assume our brains still use the machinery and 'rules' shaped throughout our evolutionary history. Many of us now spend time browsing through text and images on the web rather than browsing through the woods looking for a particular plant or food source, but might modern humans 'forage' on the web in the same way we would forage for food as hunters & gatherers? From the article:
Imagine you're a financial analyst looking for data about an investment company. You've found a useful site on the Web, but it's starting to feel a bit stale. You'd like to move on, but you know that a search will take time and there's no guarantee that other sites will be any more useful. When should you abandon the dwindling supply? This, Pirolli and Card argue, is analogous to the problem faced by hunter-gatherers. And it can be solved in the same way.
The article (originally published in New Scientist) is a great read. This sort of research could have a significant impact on how we design information retrieval systems, although the authors note there are some limitations:
The analogy between food and information looks like being a big help to Web designers. But at some point, Pirolli says, it's likely to break down. For one thing, there's the question of evaluating costs and benefits. Biologists and anthropologists can always draw up an energy balance sheet for a foraging behaviour in joules. The value of information isn't so easy to measure.
2. How It All Ends - You've probably seen this guy before. If not, take some time to watch this video. It's slightly obnoxious (more so than his previous videos), but his arguments regarding global warming are very well-reasoned. If you really get into it, you can visit an enormous list of related videos in the 'More Info' box of the YouTube page.
3. Aboriginal archive offers new DRM - Short but intriguing article from the BBC (via John Hawks). It's difficult to overstate the importance of preserving the history and culture of indigenous groups, especially given that they are increasingly being subsumed by cultures around them and disappearing. Providing access to the information can be complicated by cultural rules, a lack of computer skills, and the like. For example, the archivist in the article encountered the following issue when displaying a slideshow of preserved photographs:
After loading them onto her laptop, she took them back to Tennant Creek and set up a slideshow - where she noticed that people turned away when certain images came up on screen.
For example, men cannot view women's rituals, and people from one community cannot view material from another without first seeking permission. Meanwhile images of the deceased cannot be viewed by their families.
These are issues we might not immediately think about. (I wonder how well some of our 'social software' might translate to other cultures.) The solution to this particular problem was to design a system that restricted access by requiring individuals to input name, age, sex, and standing within their community -- what the article describes as "a new take on DRM." Interesting stuff.
4. Did You Know - a video on globalization and the information age. Interesting, but long... and I'm not sure I trust their numbers. It would probably be better as a web page with proper citations.
5. Google to Host Terabytes of Open-Source Science Data
6. MIT Entrance Exam, 1869-70 - from the MIT Archives & Special Collections. Take the exam and see how well you do. You can also try your hand at the 1876 exam.
01 Sep 13:40 | Link | Category: Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Libraries & Digital Information, Link Dump '08, Science, Technology & Computing
August 26, 2008
Links 29
1. Walk Score - "Walk Score calculates the walkability of an address by locating nearby stores, restaurants, schools, parks, etc." - This is a clever tool that calculates how walkable your neighborhood is and displays results using a Google Maps mashup. I'm pleased to say my new neighborhood gets a "very walkable" score of 89 / 100. (Of course, that was one of my primary reasons for choosing this spot.) The site does a good job of showing what businesses, parks, and other facilities are within walking distance (for my neighborhood, at least... I'm not sure what their data source is, so your mileage may vary). Two limitations are the wide definition of what constitutes, say, a grocery store or restaurant, and the limited list of eight items per category.
2. Where the Hell is Matt? - This video has been floating around for months, but apparently I've never linked it to it. Hmm. This link is for any of you who somehow missed it. (There's a larger Vimeo vid at APotD.) The guy's site is here.
3. An anthropological introduction to YouTube - I'm fascinated by the intersection of technology and culture (beyond just the hype of the 'social web'), so I thought this video was worth sharing. It's a lecture by Michael Wesch, "a cultural anthropologist exploring the impact of new media on human interaction (and the impact of human interaction on new media)." He's currently working on an ethnography of YouTube.
4. Brain Scanners Can See Your Decisions Before You Make Them - If you take some time to study research on human behavior, you will find ample evidence supporting the interesting and unsettling fact that your 'conscious brain' doesn't always make decisions for you. (Libet's experiments are probably a good start.) Instead, you unconsciously make a decision and act, after which you consciously feel like you're making a decision and usually come up with some rationale for the decision you made (post hoc). It's strange, but there are all sorts of weird and fascinating experiments that demonstrate the phenomenon. (They tend to involve simple, quick sorts of decisions, so for now let's avoid deep, thorny philosophical discussions about whether or not free will is an illusion. Still, it should give you pause to realize you're not as 'in control' as you believe.)
5. Presidential Election Already Decided ... In Voters' Minds - Continuing in the same thread, an article in the current issue of Science (you'll need a subscription to read past the abstract) demonstrates how people often have their mind made up at an unconscious level based on mental associations, even when they consciously believe themselves to be undecided. The Wired article explores what this could mean for, say, politics. Creating negative associations in the unconscious minds of voters would, sadly, seem to be the best (or at least easiest) strategy for winning elections. And... when we think we're basing our votes on rational, informed judgement, are we really just going with our gut and coming up with post hoc justifications for supporting one candidate or another? (Our 'gut' having been influenced by negative association, dominance displays, assessment of sexual attractiveness, etc.) As depressing as that thought is, it would explain much about politics. (Once again, the great Stephen T. Colbert was on to something with his notion of truthiness that comes "from the gut".)
26 Aug 17:56 | Link | Category: Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Libraries & Digital Information, Link Dump '08, Politics, Science
August 25, 2008
Jamaican athletes and the 'sprinting gene'
In my new apartment, I've opted to go with a handful of fuzzy over-the-air TV channels. (Cable is both expensive and distracting, but oh, how I will miss it!) So I actually spent quite a bit of time watching NBC's coverage of the Beijing Olympics. I can't remember why I missed most of the '04 and '06 games, but it was somehow comforting to watch Bob Costas and the NBC crew covering the events in their usual, distorted way.
In sprinting, the Jamaicans were simply unbelievable. Usain Bolt's performances were superhuman and his teammates racked up a number of medals, too. Assuming they're not doping (a reasonably safe bet since they've apparently been tested frequently), why is it that Jamaicans are such great sprinters? Further, why do New Worlders of West African ancestry make up such a disproportionate number of champions in short-track events? Is it genetic?
Clearly, genes are a very significant factor in creating an Olympian. Olympic champions are probably all at the very far end of the bell curve for some trait or combination of traits. (Michael Phelps, for example, has disproportionately large hands, feet, and torso.) But of course there's much more to it. We all know phenotype isn't determined entirely by genotype, yet we hear about a "sprinting gene" and immediately forget about countless environmental factors (like culture, nutrition, scouts, trainers, etc. -- it's quite belittling to Jamaica's culture and running programs).
The popular press, in particular, loves to latch on to some piece of data from the very complicated and nonintuitive field of genetics and run with it. A number of simplistic stories have been circulating in the press declaring ACTN3 as the Jamaican sprinting gene. Some articles (like Slate's 'Jamaican Me Speedy'), to their credit, did try to point out that it's rather more complicated than figuring out who does or doesn't have one or two copies of a particular gene variant (allele) in their genome. There are, of course, countless interacting genes involved as well as countless environmental & cultural factors. (Read this article to learn about some of the social reasons Jamaica has such a great track program.)
The best explanation I've seen is over at the Genetic Future blog. Take a minute to read The gene for Jamaican sprinting success? No, not really. Some highlights:
So, how good is this scientific evidence? Does the "Actinen A" gene (whatever that is) actually influence sprinting performance? And if so, does it explain the difference in explosive power between Jamaicans and the rest of the world? The answers, as it turns out, are "probably" and "not really."
...
So the absence of α-actinin-3 means very little to most of us, but to a young athlete craving 100 metre Olympic superstardom it could make all the difference in the world. The same could be said of many other genetic variants, of course; Olympic sprinters, essentially, are those unlikely individuals at the vanishing edge of the probability distribution for whom nearly every genetic coin has come up heads.
...
It is almost certainly true that Usain Bolt carries at least one of the "sprint" variants of the ACTN3 gene, but then so do I (along with around five billion other humans worldwide). Indeed, I'm fortunate enough to be lugging around two "sprint" copies - but that doesn't mean you'll see me in the 100 metre final in London in 2012. Unfortunately for me, it takes a lot more than one lucky gene to create an Olympian.
None of this rules out the possibility that some genetic edge does play a significant role in Jamaican sprinting success. Maybe there really is a difference in the Jamaican gene pool (and it wouldn't have to be much because it would be magnified when you're looking at Olympics-level athletes). It could be stochastic, or it could be the result of something like artificial selection resulting from the slave trade. (I doubt this, but you never know...) More explanation can be found at Weird lands of the tails from the Gene Expression blog.
The bottom line is that we simply don't know. It's complicated and there are probably multiple explanations for the trends we see. It would behoove the press (and us, as individuals) to stop speculating and making simplified assumptions. (In this wild new 'genetic world' we're living in, I'm not sure that's going to happen. Frankly, I'm a little worried. But we'll see...)
25 Aug 13:31 | Link | Category: Current Events, Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Science
May 15, 2008
Links 14 (Primates)
Sorry for the silence. It's been a strange week. I've also been busy with work-related web stuff which means I wanted to get away from the computer, not spend more time in front of it. This may continue for a while.
Anyway, let's get back to emptying my overflowing bookmarks list. Today I have a bunch of primate links. I had lots more but I narrowed them down to ten, which are hopefully the most interesting or attention-grabbing. I also tried to choose links that weren't too lengthy or scholarly (read: journal articles that would bore most readers of this blog), so most of the links are to articles from New Scientist. New Scientist often veers into oversimplification and tabloid science (see 'A Plea to Save New Scientist'), but longtime readers know I routinely link to their articles because they're usually good for casual readers but always cite primary sources if something piques your interest. Without further ado:
1. Girrrrl power - "Females were persistently attacked by adult males, during this time. But, between October and December 2003, he noticed the females were starting to organise themselves into retaliation coalitions." - This is quite an interesting observation because it's not what one would expect based on conventional wisdom about chimpanzees. Bonobo females band together to combat male aggression, but as far as I know, this is the first observation of the behavior among chimpanzees, at least in East Africa. It has long been hypothesized that ecology is largely responsible for this interspecific difference. (Briefly, different food sources allow for different foraging patterns, which keep females from being alone and allow for more female bonding, etc.) But perhaps ecological and demographic conditions affect intraspecific and even intercommunity differences. I would love to see more research done on this. (And every other aspect of ape behavior, before they're gone in the wild. Our closest relatives can tell us much about human behavior, past and present.)
If you have access to the International Journal of Primatology you can read the journal article. Also look at this research brief.
2. New monkey species is already endangered (see also).
It's a new species of uakari. (The most well-known, or at least the most visually striking, uakari is the bald-headed uakari.)
3. 'Altruistic' chimps act for the benefit of others - The journal article is available from PLoS. The evolutionary origins of so-called "altruistic" behaviors are fascinating (and contentious). Studying the behavior of living species isn't the only way of approaching the question, but it is a very useful one. Chimpanzee behavior is of interest for human altruism simply because we are so closely related.
Primate characteristics satisfy many prerequisites for reciprocal altruism (long lifespans, large brains, long-term social relationships, etc.). Still, it may be that reciprocity explains only a small slice (if any) of altruistic behavior, even among big-brained apes. I would highlight de Waal's quote in the article:
"Animals don't know much about genetic kinship or future return favours," de Waal says, arguing that altruism could still be a self-serving trait, helping to win the "altruist" a good reputation and higher status.
4. Bonobos join forces to outdo chimps
5. Killings of mountain gorillas in Congo prompt U.N. probe - I may have mentioned this story last year, but I don't think I linked to these disturbing, heartbreaking photos.
Such a shame... this species, like so many primate species, is doomed to imminent extinction.
6. Chimps keep busy to control their urges - "In the experiment, the primates distracted themselves by playing with toys in order to avoid giving in to the temptation of eating instantly available candy so they could obtain even more treats at a later time."
7. Menopause sets humans apart from chimps - and, really, from all our ape cousins. It's an obvious, glaring difference that begs for explanation. There are several hypotheses and much intriguing research. One hypothesis for the adaptiveness of human menopuase is briefly discussed in one of article's links: Caring grandmas explain evolutionary role of menopause.
8. 5-year-old chimp beats college kids in computer game - "Japanese researchers pitted young chimps against human adults in two tests of short-term memory, and overall, the chimps won."
Even with six months of training, the college students couldn't catch up to the chimps. Tetsuro Matsuzawa's explanation? "He thinks two factors gave his chimps the edge. For one thing, he believes human ancestors gave up much of this skill over evolutionary time to make room in the brain for gaining language abilities." Maybe.
9. So college students are worse than chimps at short-term memory games. What about arithmetic? Turns out they're at about the same level as macaques: Monkeys perform arithmetic as well as college students.
10. New World monkeys are also clever. Here's an article about an interesting study on capuchin monkeys: Monkeys learn to do arithmetic for peanuts
I tried to hold the list to ten, but I just noticed this link in my bookmarks list and I have to share:
11. Did we learn to walk in the trees? (and more comment from the author's blog)
Conventional wisdom holds that apes developed bipedal locomotion after (or, more accurately, as) they descended from the trees. (Why and exactly how remain hotly debated.) A year or two ago, I started to very seriously consider a different possibility - that the bipedal locomotion of hominids actually started in the trees. Although heretical, the idea is attractive for a variety of reasons. (I don't have time to expound, but suffice it to say I think it matches some evidence in ways other hypotheses do not). Perhaps the knuckle-walking of gorillas and chimpanzees is derived and bipedal locomotion is ancestral (not, as traditionally thought, the other way 'round). You will need a subscription to read the full article from the first link, but I have a copy of the entire article. E-mail me if you're interested. I can also point you to some more reading on the topic.
15 May 22:02 | Link | Category: Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Link Dump '08, Science
March 13, 2008
Guys and Dolls
Last year, Richard Hawley put out a great, funny video for his song 'Serious' off the Lady's Bridge album. It features a guy who lives with a mannequin that he treats like a girlfriend:
Seemed funny enough when I first saw it. But little did I know, there are people who actually do this. That is, they live with dolls and treat them as companions. (And there was also a comedy/dramedy made last year called Lars and the Real Girl based on the concept, but I live under a rock and hadn't heard about it.)
It's one of those things you expect to read in a sci-fi novel. You know, the aliens decide to put a human in their zoo, but then realize the human needs companionship, so they create the closest facsimile they can. Interesting fictional material, but quite bizarre to see in real life. The following documentary follows several men who own one or more $6500 'real dolls':
From a psychological and anthropological viewpoint it's fascinating. (For example, I suspect there are very few women who would do this sort of thing. It would also be interesting to look at differences between cultures.)
But it's mostly just, well, creepy, isn't it? And how far will it go? A friend pointed me to this page of creepy Japanese robots in an IM. Check out the Simroid (#3). Or to be completely creeped out, check out the details of the last item, the Japenese "Honey doll" sex doll that looks like it's about twelve years old. You'll agree with me: we're doomed. Completely doomed. Someone take me back to the Pleistocene, please.
(I've thought of starting a "We're Doomed" category for posts like this that show technology outpacing the human brain in ways that are frightening. Whaddya think?)
13 Mar 19:08 | Link | Category: Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Misc. Tidbits, Music, Technology & Computing, Video
January 2, 2008
America's Vainest City?
Forbes looked at the country's 50 most populous cities and compared the number of plastic surgeons per 100,000 people. The city topping the list? Salt Lake City.
Part of the explanation may be that the University of Utah's medical school offers residency in plastic & reconstructive surgery. However, Salt Lake residents also spend more on cosmetics, hair coloring, skin care, and the like than residents of other cities. Residents of Oklahoma City (a similarly sized city), for example, spent about $175,000 on hair coloring vs. $2.2 million for Salt Lake City, and $400,000 on skin care products vs. $4.4 million for Salt Lake City. So it seems the medical school alone doesn't explain the high rating. (I would like to know if they studied just Salt Lake City rather than the whole metro area, though I suspect the results might be similar either way. It would also be interesting to see income information. People with more disposable income will obviously have more money for cosmetics and surgery. Also, surgeons per 100k does not equal procedures per 100k.)
What's interesting to me is that this result is considered "shocking" -- because, I presume, of Utah's (well-deserved) conservative reputation. But I think they're missing two important points.
First, 'conservatives' (whatever that word might imply) are no less obsessed with manufacturing the perfect look than anyone else. For example: Watch Fox News for more than a few seconds, and you will be bombarded by bimbos female anchors with fake hair and breasts. This exercise should quickly disabuse you of the notion that only those 'crazy Hollywood liberals' think women should look fake and overtly sexual. (For more fun, take the Fox News Anchor or Porn Star Quiz). People in every society care about good skin and a figure that conforms to notions of attractiveness. Plastic surgery was once restricted to the elite because they had lots of money, needed to look young for career and/or status, and were perhaps more willing to break taboos. Now cosmetic procedures are cheap and ubiquitous -- why should we be surprised that they're prevalent in conservative Salt Lake City?
Perhaps there's still this sort of perception: "But wait, isn't Salt Lake City full of dowdy old-time Mormon housewives who wear homemade dresses and spend their days sewing and canning fruit?" This is, of course, untrue. I would argue that there are aspects of Mormon culture that, in a modern setting, actually lend themselves to "vanity". One is that the social organization and practices increase the pool of neighborly acquaintances and bolster gossip networks, fanning normal status competition ("keeping up with the Joneses" writ large). Another is the patriarchal power structure, which leads - as one should expect - to the exhortation that women should bear as many children as possible. (To put it bluntly, a woman's value is measured primarily by the number of children she has.) This increases pressure on a woman before she has children and also means she needs extra help looking young and attractive after having so many.
I would need more detailed information to really convince myself that Mormon cultural characteristics drive the results of the ranking, but there is one way in which I'm sure they are a primary factor, at least indirectly. It's the second point I think the "shocked" folks at Forbes are overlooking: Salt Lake City is full of young people.
In the old days it was mostly old, affluent women who got plastic surgery - they needed to look young to maintain attractiveness and status, and they could afford it. But with cosmetic procedures dropping in price and losing their taboo (indeed, becoming the "in" look), it should be absolutely no surprise for the young to latch onto them. And Utah's a relatively young place. Lots of young people means lots of young adults (i.e., adults of mating age, ~18-45) who have a strong desire to be considered sexually attractive. According to the U.S. Census, the median age in the U.S. (2000) is 35.3. The median age in Utah is only 27.1 and Utah Valley, just south of Salt Lake City and the most predominantly conservative, Mormon county in the nation, has a median age of just 23.3. (Oklahoma City, mentioned above, has a median age of 34. I also looked up the median age for all of the top ten 'vainest' cities on the Forbest list. Salt Lake was the youngest.)
I know of many young (and 'conservative' and 'religious') women around here who have had cosmetic procedures (and not for a cleft lip or a droopy eye). From all appearances, it's a booming business. My parents receive an advertising circular (ironically and annoyingly titled Hometown Values) that features some sort of cosmetic procedure on practically every other page, including cosmetic dentistry, teeth whitening, laser hair removal, tanning, permanent makeup, pedicures, day spas, hair salons, surgical weight loss procedures, cosmetic surgeons, and more. I chuckle every time I see it in their stack of mail (and then grumble about the goddamned craze over the word "values" that people still haven't gotten over).
So, is Salt Lake City really 'vain'? Maybe. It wouldn't surprise me in the least. And if it is, I suspect much of the reason is those crazy Hollywood liberals young people and middle-aged mothers who lost their shape when they had children.
02 Jan 18:36 | Link | Category: Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Opinion & Thoughts
December 1, 2007
Pope: Atheists behind greatest cruelty
An item about Pope Benedict XVI caught my eye at the J-Walk Blog. In a 76 page encyclical letter, Ratzinger lays into atheism, saying that it has led to the greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice.
The document is erudite and eloquent, and I share the concern about technology, wealth, and ideology (though I would add religious ideology). But like so many scholarly books and writings, it feels like a studiously crafted bit of clever but essentially empty wordplay. And it confirms that the Roman Catholic Church still hasn't come to grips with any of the intellectual and political changes that have occurred over the last 300+ years. (Of course, it took them until 1992 to make up with Galileo.) So they fall back on the pain and suffering caused by Marxist regimes.
Contrary to popular opinion, Marxist political ideology is not synonymous with atheism. And the argument that atheists are evil and single-handedly responsible for all the horrors of the 20th century is really tired. (I might expect it from a second-rate high school debate squad, but surely the Vatican can do better.)
I certainly suspect it's easier for Ratzinger to point the papal finger at the atrocities committed in the name of Soviet nationalism than at the atrocities committed in the name of German and Italian nationalism, in which the Catholic Church and its adherents were totally complicit.
Really, though, there's not much point in spending too much time attacking or defending any political ideology or religion. It seems they've all caused plenty of pain and suffering. (Actually, the best defense can be mounted for atheism since it's not a political ideology or a religion, but I'll leave that to others.)
When it comes down to it, I think ideology - religious and political - is essentially icing on the cake. If you're really interested in the ultimate roots of human behavior, biology provides the most satisfying answers. Human tendencies toward ingroup bias and coalitional behavior, for example, make more sense from an evolutionary perspective than any other. And as far as sweeping statements about what group of people causes the most violence, warfare, and "cruelty", here's one that actually holds: Across human societies in both time and space, it's men.
Why? Look into it and you'll find it's not because they're all atheists, Marxists, or even Catholics.
01 Dec 14:45 | Link | Category: Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Opinion & Thoughts, Science
November 30, 2007
Obama is 'hip to Margaret Mead'
No presidential candidate in history -- not the polymath Thomas Jefferson, not the orator William Jennings Bryan, not the egghead Adlai Stevenson -- has ever uttered a sentence like this: "My mother was an anthropologist [and] the Margaret Mead reference I'm always hip to."
Somehow I was unaware that Barack Obama's mother was a cultural anthropologist. I'm always griping about how policy should be informed by an anthropological perspective, so this pleases me in a roundabout sort of way.
[ I tend to be critical of Mead's work -- but with that aside, I'm just glad he's heard of anthropology. Do you think the current president has any idea who Mead was or what anthropology (cultural or otherwise) is? Sadly, when people ask me what I majored in as an undergrad, most react like "what is this word 'anthropology' you speak of?" ]
30 Nov 17:32 | Link | Category: Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Politics
October 11, 2007
How much did you pay for 'In Rainbows'?
I've been listening to In Rainbows, the new Radiohead album, for the last couple of days. It's a slow-grower that'll take a while to digest, so I'll refrain from reviewing the record. (I'm a lousy reviewer anyway, so turn to someone who can actually do it decently. Here's a glowing review to start with...) I will say that I'm currently digging "Jigsaw Falling Into Place", "Nude", "Reckoner," and - perhaps surprisingly, given others' comments - the lovely "House of Cards".
Anyway, what really prompted me to mention the album is the novel marketing/distribution/payment strategy. You've surely read about it by now. You can download the album now for whatever amount you'd like (including nothing). You can also wait a few months and get an expensive super-deluxe version with vinyl, CDs, booklet, etc. And so on.
Everyone's atwitter over what the band's move says about the state of the music industry, the value of music, the future of music distribution, and more. All interesting questions, and there's plenty of lively debate. I don't have time to elaborate on those topics, but I would like to take a moment to focus on perhaps the most interesting aspect of Radiohead's approach - the variable pricing scheme - and specifically, the fact that you can legally choose to pay nothing at all.
Cheap, effortless digital distribution has turned recorded music into a public good (much like public television & radio), subject to the problem of free/easy riding. The rational thing to do (and I'm using "rational" in the game theoretic sense) is to pay nothing to download Radiohead's new album. But what did you pay? I think Radiohead are correctly banking on the likelihood that you'll pay something for their music.
I paid for the album, and judging from other people I've talked to, I'm willing to bet you put something into the honesty box. The following statement will betray my geekiness (like so much on this site does), but I would absolutely love to get my hands on detailed payment data, because (as Jonny Greenwood himself has said) Radiohead are conducting an interesting experiment. (Not a strictly scientific experiment, mind you, but an interesting one nonetheless.) We are getting a few hints of how many copies have sold thus far and some speculation as to the average price paid (£1), but I would really like to see the price distribution, geographical variation, etc.
It's like a real-world variant of some of the games used to examine human behavior and figure out the hows and whys of sociality's evolution. The long and the short of it is that, contrary to what one might expect (given the so-called "selfishness" of genes), we have been shaped by natural selection such that we don't play these games as a rational agent would - that is, we tend to be quite altruistic. For example, in the prisoner's dilemma, people cooperate more than expected (a rational agent will always defect), and in the ultimatum and dictator games, they offer more than expected.
Anonymity does have an effect, and it will certainly play a role in Radiohead's little experiment. But we're very sensitive to anonymity. For example, even in the comments section of the review I linked to above (which is almost totally anonymous), a commenter who wrote about downloading the album for free from a BitTorrent server was roundly castigated by the other commenters, leading another commenter to wonder: "Hmmmm.... should it be £2, should it be £4 do I dare do the £0 thing - all this handwringing from you guys!" Another wished for Radiohead to "publish the names and emails of those who paid nothing to download the album."
Anyway. This post is getting too long. I'm curious to see how Radiohead's experiment plays out and if it has any lasting effect on popular music. In the meantime, just out of curiosity I'd love to find out what you paid (or didn't pay) for the album. E-mail me.
Update: I was just informed that one of the Nature Network blogs already explained this angle far better than I did. See Fiona Jordan's post '"In Rainbows" in anthropological context'. I particularly like what she writes concerning the emotional aspect:
Importantly, the "music business" is not just a business. It transacts not only in the tangible product but in intense amounts of emotion. The social contracts between an artist and their audience are multiple and complicated, and they do not produce agents who play their economic games in a rational manner.
11 Oct 17:18 | Link | Category: Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Music, Science
June 5, 2007
"I'm not planning on writing the curriculum for an eighth-grade science book"
No playlist for May.
Don't panic.
(There'll be one for June. Maybe even a week or two early.)
Silence will now resume.
But first, a lovely quote I just saw as I was perusing news stories...
"If anybody wants to believe that they are the descendants of a primate, they are certainly welcome to do it." - Mike Huckabee, candidate for President of the United States. (Video clip here or below.)
I guess I should be glad that I'm "welcome to do it." Listen, Mike... I hate to break it to you, but not only are you a descendant of primates (pl.), you are a primate. Your children, your wife, your constituents... they're all primates, as dirty and scary as that might sound to you. And if your god made you in his image, he must be a primate too. I mean, seriously. Have you looked in a mirror lately??? (We all know "even the president of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked.") Maybe he's never been to a zoo.
And the quote in the title of this post is also absurd. (As if the essence of what we are matters only in some inconsequential eighth-grade science book, but not to arguably the most powerful man primate on the planet.)
Fools.
05 Jun 21:32 | Link | Category: Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Opinion & Thoughts, Politics, Science, Video
July 15, 2006
Population : One
I've linked to scrollable scale models of the solar system, a hydrogen atom, and the timeline of life. Here's yet another one. I'm sorry that I keep linking to these so often, but I think they're amazingly effective at putting things into proper perspective.
This one, called Population : One, represents each human as one pixel. Look at the tiny pixel that represents you and then scroll through the other 6.5 billion to see what a tiny, tiny part of the human population you make up. Very cool.
(It doesn't work very well in Opera or Safari.)
15 Jul 0:34 | Link | Category: Cool Links, Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Science
July 10, 2006
Evolutionary Timeline to Scale
Recently, I've linked to web page scale models of the solar system and a hydrogen atom.
If you liked those, this might interest you: Evolutionary Timeline. It stretches life's history (from the earliest life on Earth through the present) across 135 feet of scrolling web page.
Like the other pages, this one provides useful perspective. It takes a lot of scrolling just to get to the first eukaryotic cells, after which it takes a lot more scrolling to get to the Cambrian explosion. The history of the genus Homo fits in the last inch or so.
It's a pretty effective approach for illustrating the depth of time. I'd like to see it expanded to include the history of the universe.... but that would increase the scrolling immensely.
One approach that has often been used is to condense the history of life (or the universe) into a 24-hour period, or a year. (In fact, the author of this timeline has a chart of a 'one year' timeline of life here.)
In Cosmos, Carl Sagan used a 12-month calendar to represent the history of the known universe. In this analogy, Earth doesn't form until the year's half over, the Cambrian explosion occurs on December 15th, Dinosaurs show up on the 24th, humans on the evening of the 31st, and all of written history takes up the last ten seconds of the year. As with the cephalopod video yesterday, I've taken the liberty of ripping an 8½ minute clip for you (15 MB, this time in MPEG-4, but QuickTime or VLC will still work). The information in the simplified story is a bit dated for nitpickers like me, but it's remarkably accurate considering its nearly thirty-year age.
Update: Here's an interactive Flash timeline of evolution. (It's a cool idea and has lots of good biology info., but the presentation is slightly confusing and far too busy.)
10 Jul 23:32 | Link | Category: Cool Links, Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Science, Video
July 8, 2006
Bible Quiz
Here's a pretty interesting quiz that's been floating around: What Do You Really Know About The Bible?. I managed 42 / 50 but only because I'm pretty familiar with the strange customs and laws in the Old Testament and the contradictions found in the New Testament. (If you actually have a life and don't want to waste time answering the questions, just submit a blank quiz to see the answers.)
The quiz does a good job of highlighting parts of the Bible that conflict with teachings of modern Judaism and Christianity (even orthodox and fundamentalist sects). It makes the point that taking every word of the Bible literally is a nonsensical idea. And maybe part of the point is that even so-called Biblical literalists don't take the Bible as literally as they profess to.
The quiz is obviously biased and has its own agenda, but I still think it's pretty interesting and makes a good point. A wise person, of course, realizes that it's never a good idea to look at selections of a document out of context or without consideration of the whole. The Bible has a very interesting history and has played a significant role in Western history and people's lives, so it's interesting to try to understand where it came from, how/why it has changed, and how/why it came to be seen as it is today by so many religious people.
Religious texts in general are interesting documents from both a historical and anthropological perspective. I think the key in approaching such a text is to learn and understand its context in culture and history. The Old Testament, for example, is an interesting look back at how the patriarchal Hebrew society, a relatively early civilization, saw itself and the world. It provides a peek into the genesis, transformation, and mindset of an early monotheistic religion & civilization. The New Testament's story is also interesting - particularly how it was first written, then adopted by foreign cultures and modified through the years.
Maybe viewing the Bible simply as a cultural and historical artifact is heretical to those who see it as God's daily guide to personal life and a relatively (or absolutely) inerrant guide from His mouth. Maybe they see that view as the start of the slippery slope so many scholars have taken towards disbelief... I don't know... as I've said countless times, if a divinely inspired / directed religion can't honestly reconcile itself with both history and obvious facts, something must be rotten to begin with.
Anyway. I can't say Biblical history and interpretation have ever been all that interesting to me - the world's just such a big place with so many more fascinating things to study in depth - but if it interests you, there's a huge body of work about it (and that's an understatement). The most recent book I have sitting on my desk is Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why by Bart Ehrman.
08 Jul 17:31 | Link | Category: Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Interactive, Misc. Tidbits
July 6, 2006
Creationism and evolution tackled on 'The Simpsons'
I came across a brilliant clip from an episode of 'The Simpsons' that ran a few months ago. Sadly, only about 13 minutes of the show are included in the clip... but there are still some classic moments:
- Lisa's clandestine meeting in the school's "Single Purpose Room" where she has written 'Viva La Evolución' on the blackboard
- Homer, upon hearing that according to creationism, there were no cavemen: "Good riddance! Their drawings suck and they look like hippies."
- Ned Flanders declaring under oath that he is as sure that man and ape are not related as he is that "Jesus hates hip-hop"
- Ralph Wiggum saying "The George Will?!"
My favorite moment of all, though, is when Reverend Lovejoy and Ned Flanders tell Principal Skinner they want the school to teach alternatives to Darwinian evolution. Skinner replies, "You mean, Lamarckian evolution?" Classic.
[The biology geek in me would like to note that Darwin himself never ruled out Lamarckism since he was unaware of Mendel's work (or was he?) and its significance... but when most people talk about "Darwinian evolution", they're referring to the modern synthesis.] Just as a sidenote while I'm talking about Lamarckian evolution (something I never thought I'd be doing on this blog), some scientists feel that cultural evolution is very Lamarckian... that is, in species with culture (a group whose size is heavily debated), cultural changes are acquired during an organism's lifetime and passed on to offspring -- Lamarckism (of a sort)! In fact, I just finished reading a recent book by Eric Chaisson ("Epic of Evolution") in which he writes:
. . . in the recent history of humankind, Lamarckian evolution has clearly dominated Darwinian evolution. Cultural acquisitions spread much faster than genetic modifications. Our gene pool differs little from that of the Cro-Magnons some twenty thousand years ago, yet our cultural heritage is a good deal more robust in the knowledge, arts, traditions, beliefs, and technologies acquired and transmitted during the past thousand or so generations.
If you have trouble getting the Simpsons video from the site I linked to, try here (11.3 MB QuickTime).
For another very cool Simpsons video, check out the best Simpsons couch gag ever (10.3 MB QuickTime).
06 Jul 23:44 | Link | Category: Art & Entertainment, Current Events, Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Humor, Science, Video
April 26, 2006
Berkeley on iTunes
A few weeks ago, I mentioned that Stanford had opened up part of their iTunes U program to the public, so anyone could download audio of various visiting lectures and other events. Now it seems UC Berkeley has taken the idea a step further by actually opening up course content to the public. Cool.
Head over to itunes.berkeley.edu to get in.
If you have trouble choosing a course, I suggest you try IB 31: Animal Behavior. I haven't actually listened to the lectures, but animal behavior and behavioral ecology are fascinating topics. If you don't want to commit to listening to a whole course, there are a few lectures with intriguing titles:
- On the Trail of Our Human Ancestors by Tim White
- Studying the Human Condition: Habits of an Anthropologist by Nancy Scheper-Hughes
- Making Science Accessible by Eva Harris
- History of Information
- Open Source Development and Distribution of Digital Information: Technical, Economic, Social, and Legal Perspectives
- Search Engines-Technology, Society, and Business
- Bush Science: Use and Abuse of Science in Policymaking by Various.
26 Apr 19:56 | Link | Category: Cool Links, Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Libraries & Digital Information
March 31, 2006
This Page Unintentionally Left Blank
Back in January, I remember complaining publicly about being ridiculously busy and having time for nothing. This was a mistake because it drew the attention of the angry vengeful gods. Suffice it to say things haven't gotten better... in fact, a lot of shit has happened to make things much worse than they were back in January.
Anyway... in the time since I phoned in the playlist last week, the inbox is up to 135 unanswered e-mails and the bookmarks are up to about 270. It should be interesting to see how long it takes me to dig out.
One activity that has complicated my schedule during the last month has been making 36 visits to the zoo in the last 32 days. I finally finished the data collection portion of my observational research project, but I still have to digitize, quantify, and analyze the data.
Earlier this week, I brought my camera to one of my observation sessions and snapped some photos. Along with the annoyance of taking photos through glass, there wasn't much light - and I refuse to use a flash on zoo animals (even though they're probably accustomed to all the idiots placing their cameras up to the glass and flashing right in the animals' faces). Tamarins are severely hyperactive, so a slow shutter speed would simply lead to blur. I kept the aperture open all the way in order to keep shutter speed as fast as possible (which in turn affects depth of field, making proper focusing a bit of a trick). The results weren't too bad, though. I chose ten of my favorites and uploaded them to the site. Click the photo below to browse through the pictures.
31 Mar 23:25 | Link | Category: Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Photography, Site/Life News
January 24, 2006
Don't forget to look up
I wasn't going to comment on this story, but I have a fondness for old hominid skulls. The famous, tiny Taung Child is among my favorites.
Anyway, for some reason a story has been all over the news about how Taung Child was possibly killed by birds from above. (More here.)
It's interesting how stories like this end up in the headlines while other interesting stories and discoveries barely reach public ears. I think it's because people form a straight-from-the-movies image of a poor little australopithecine child being carried off by a screeching eagle (regardless of whether or not this is what really happened). It also allows headlines such as "Two-million-year old murder solved!" It's too bad that so many of the more interesting, more significant discoveries and ideas fail to ignite the public imagination like that. But that's the way it goes.
(As always, John Hawks has more... including a link to a pretty funny limerick contest.)
24 Jan 21:10 | Link | Category: Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Science
December 1, 2005
40,000 year old footprints revisited
Some of you (OK, maybe two of you) might remember a story I mentioned back in August about some researchers who claimed to have found footprints in Mexico that dated to nearly 40,000 years ago.
As far as I know, there are no skeletal remains in the New World older than about 11,000 years. And many archaeologists are still skeptical of archaeological evidence for pre-Clovis colonization. (Pre-Clovis sites like Monte Verde and Meadowcroft Rock Shelter remain controversial.) But others are convinced that evidence (genetic, cultural, even linguistic) shows there might also have been an earlier colonization (or colonizations). Lots of theories and lots of arguments.
When I posted the item about the footprints, I wondered if the evidence would "stand up to scrutiny" and thought it would "be interesting to see how this story shakes out."
Well, the story is shaking. Other researchers contend the footprints probably aren't even footprints at all. In fact, they dated the rock to 1.3 million years. So much for that evidence. Still, I think there's every reason (I won't get into the details) to believe there's much more to the picture than the traditional simple land-bridge crossing 12,000 years ago. As to whether there will be sufficient evidence found... who knows.
I've been taking a class about the biology of Native Americans. The other day, I jotted down a few quotes from my professor's slides that seem relevant. The first was from Lord Bryce:
No branches of historical inquiry have suffered more from fanciful speculation than those which relate to [origins] . . . the more obscure a subject is, so much the more fascinating. Hypotheses are tempting, because though it may be impossible to verify them, it is, in the paucity of data, almost equally impossible to refute them.
The other was from the ever-quotable HL Mencken:
There is always an easy solution to every human problem — neat, plausible and wrong.
We're growing more and more certain about the basic details of New World settlement... but I wonder if we'll ever have enough reliable data to adequately fill in the many many important and fascinating details.
01 Dec 10:18 | Link | Category: Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior
October 21, 2005
"Neanderthals" CG-animated feature
Apparently, actor/director Jon Favreau (Elf, Swingers) is now working on a CG-animated feature, Neanderthals, based on his original story.
Like every other Hollywood portrayal of Neanderthals (or even generic "cavemen"), it will probably portray them as stupid brutes. Even many people who know enough about Neanderthals to know roughly when & where they lived tend to assume they disappeared simply because they weren't as "smart" as humans. It's certainly much more complicated than that. But anyway... The popular notions of Neanderthals and "cave men" as humorously dim-witted is unfortunate.
Still, Favreau usually chooses good stuff to star in or direct, so maybe it won't be so bad. As John Hawks says, "I guess it has to be better than Spielberg's 'Neanderthal' would have been."
21 Oct 18:14 | Link | Category: Art & Entertainment, Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior
August 31, 2005
Humans in the Americas 40,000 years ago?
You may have already heard about this 'news' item since it's nearly two months old, but an international team led by geoarchaeologist Silvia Gonzalez has claimed to find some new evidence of human presence in the Americas prior to 30,000 years ago. They uncovered footprints near Puebla, Mexico that have been dated to nearly 40,000 years ago. (More from BBC News.)
It seems quite evident that the most traditional explanations (Clovis-first, humans arriving via Beringia 11,000 or 12,000 years ago, etc.) are no longer fully adequate. There have probably been multiple migrations (taking various routes - perhaps a coastal route, for example). It should be interesting to see how this story shakes out. I'm skeptical, but if the evidence manages to stand up to scrutiny, it would vindicate those who claim migration and colonization at dates far earlier than Clovis.
31 Aug 13:24 | Link | Category: Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Science
Westerners and Easterners see the world differently
Here's an interesting example of an experiment being able to objectively measure something we all know anecdotally: Westerners and Easterners see the world differently. Most of us are aware that both language and culture actually cause us to think differently and see the world in very distinct ways. Still, it's always interesting to see someone put together an experiment that attempts to gather objective data about it.
31 Aug 0:15 | Link | Category: Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Science
August 30, 2005
The Undergraduate Experience
Watching the freshmen make their way around campus during fall semester always reminds me of my first year of college so many years ago. I thought it would be a breeze considering my high school record and full scholarship, but I was completely unprepared. Unfortunately, that first year also coincided with other messiness in my life, which didn't help matters. (I know it's easy to mock the idea of people dropping out of life for a few years to "find" themselves, but I completely support it.) Anyway, there I was... an immature, lonely kid thrown into a major I didn't like, taking classes I wasn't interested in. Those of you who know me are probably aware that when something doesn't interest me, I will completely ignore it... which is exactly what I did. My attendance during that first year was embarrassingly low. I didn't enroll the next year, and it took me a long while before I felt like coming back.
It's odd to look around and realize that a quarter of these freshmen won't make it past the first year, and only half will end up with degrees. (Then again, at my rate, I won't be getting one for a long while either.) Last April, John Merrow wrote a great (and lengthy) piece for the New York Times about the experience of being an undergraduate at the University of Arizona -- a school larger than mine, but relatively similar. The Times is charging for the article now (don't get me started on my rant about that obnoxious policy), but here's an MS Word version I found through Google: The Undergraduate Experience. It profiles several students and details various failings and successes of such universities. At the end of the article, one of the "successful" students offers this bit of advice:
"Get out of your comfort zone. You learn so much more when you have to change what you're doing, than if you just came in and said, 'Well, this is me and I'm always going to be like this and I'm always going to study this.' If you think that way, then you never stop to question whether that's what really you're supposed to do. Relax. You haven't lived 20 percent of your life. What's the rush?"
I completely agree with this sentiment. Among other complaints I have with the secondary education system in general (some private colleges excepted) is that students are set on a path of study while still in high school. The main goal of college becomes quickly plowing through four years of courses so you can hopefully make more money when you get out. The notion of spending time expanding your mind and discovering yourself has become archaic and clichéd, which is really a shame.
A more recent story that caught my eye was an anthropology professor who decided to take a year and live as an undergraduate, in an attempt to better understand the experience. A somewhat obvious observation that ties in with what I just said:
Small also said she found current undergraduates faced more pressure to pick a major that readily translated into a job that could pay off student loans.
Travis Shumake, student body president and a senior at NAU's School of Hotel and Restaurant Management, said he sees that all the time -- students choosing his program because it provides the "fastest results at the highest income."
Small said her generation wasn't as career-oriented in college.
"It was an era of anti-materialism. It was kind of nerdy then to talk about careers," she said. "Now, different things are nerdy."
Another obvious observation:
She found some of the coursework tough and had to seek tutoring for a class far outside her field of study. "It was a hectic life," she said.
No shit. I've got a very full schedule this semester, and I have three or four courses that are already killing me. I'm a week into school and I'm already behind, without time to have any semblance of a life (or sleep, for that matter). Ugh. You're probably wondering the same thing I am, which is: Why am I wasting time typing these boring thoughts on my pointless web site? I think I'm trying to distract myself from my studies, but I really should get back to my boring reading now.
30 Aug 12:00 | Link | Category: Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Opinion & Thoughts, Site/Life News
August 21, 2005
Baby Aye-Aye
Awwww, ain't it cute? A baby aye-aye made its debut in the UK a few months ago. It was only the second in history to be reared by humans. Aye-ayes are super cool nocturnal primates from Madagascar with a long, specially adapted middle finger. They use their sensitive ears (along with finger-tapping) to locate grubs under tree bark. Then after breaking the bark with their incisors they use the long finger to fish out the grubs. Last time I heard, aye-ayes in the wild number only in the hundreds.
21 Aug 23:13 | Link | Category: Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Science
August 16, 2005
Computer helps decipher khipu
An interesting item from New Scientist about scientists using a computer to analyze Incan khipu. (Learn more about khipu at the Khipu Database Project.)
16 Aug 11:36 | Link | Category: Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior
August 15, 2005
Is My Child Becoming Homosexual?
I found an amusing, depressing article from James Dobson's "Focus on Your Child" site, via Cynical-C. (Dobson is the wingnut who runs Focus on the Family, a site which would require many paragraphs to comment on.)
Here are some warning signs that your child is becoming homosexual (try not to laugh):
- A strong feeling that they are "different" from other boys.
- A tendency to cry easily, be less athletic, and dislike the roughhousing that other boys enjoy.
- A susceptibility to be bullied by other boys, who may tease them unmercifully and call them "queer," "fag" and "gay."
- A tendency to walk, talk, dress and even "think" effeminately.
Happily, Dr. Dobson informs us that homosexuality is preventable and reversible!
How does one even begin to comment on this? I think I'll just direct you to Fafblog's better ways to tell how gay your son is.
Oh, I suppose I shouldn't joke about it, considering all the lost, gutted souls that result from this kind of repressive cultural ideology. But what else can you do? There's no way to easily change notions of gender in Western society that are so old and deeply ingrained. Certainly reason won't work. And even highlighting other cultural approaches probably won't work (because ours is superior, of course!)... which is too bad. In an anthropology class last semester, I read an interesting excerpt from The Spirit and the Flesh, a book by Walter Williams about the Native American berdache tradition. I can't find an online copy of the exact excerpt I read, but suffice it to say the Native American approach was radically different from ours, taking what we consider negative and regarding it as positive. A berdache was often endowed with special powers. From Williams' book:
"Since no cultural system can explain everything, a common way that many cultures deal with these inconsistencies is to imbue them with negative power, as taboo, pollution, witchcraft, or sin. That which is not understood is seen as a threat. But an alternative method of dealing with such things, or people, is to take them out of the realm of threat and to sanctify them."
It's always enlightening to see what approaches other cultures take (or, rather, took when they still existed)... something that is sadly impossible for folks like Dobson who know their way is the one and only right way. (Today's broadcast over at Focus on the Family: "Ergun Caner shares his amazing testimony of becoming a Christian after being raised by an Islamic leader in a devout Muslim family.")
15 Aug 16:11 | Link | Category: Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Humor, Opinion & Thoughts
July 14, 2005
Tourists and researchers contributing to gorilla deaths
This news item confirms something I've been hearing for several years: An unsettling percentage of mountain gorilla deaths are due to diseases spread by visiting humans. Respiratory diseases are second only to poaching as the cause of death for mountain gorillas. Of 100 gorilla deaths dating back to 1968, 24 of them were caused by respiratory diseases, including influenza A and parainfluenza viruses.
Tourism is one of the Catch-22s in mountain gorilla conservation. It's one of the best ways to raise awareness and funds. Additionally, without tourist revenue, governments would have little incentive to maintain the park's integrity. (In Rwanda, for example, farmland stops only right at the small park's edge.) But at the same time, tourism disturbs the habitat (though probably not as much as the alternative) and apparently spreads deadly viruses, which is a critical problem when mountain gorilla population consists of perhaps 600 individuals).
So... a very tricky situation indeed. It's probably true that the only hope for preserving the gorillas (which is a long shot at best anyway) inevitably includes ugly Western tourists (like yours truly) as a big part of the equation, and it's sad it has gotten to that.
14 Jul 23:11 | Link | Category: Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Science
June 19, 2005
Did humans take a coastal route out of Africa?
An interesting tidbit (for at least some of you, I hope): Researchers in the UK are surmising that humans (and we're talking modern humans, not earlier groups) left Africa only once, via a southern coastal route. (This conclusion was reached primarily through analysis of mitochondrial DNA from the Orang Asli, a 'relict population' from Malaysia.) This is an interesting and controversial claim. At the very least, it doesn't disagree with dates of remains (and the fact that modern human remains are found earlier in Australia than, say, Europe). It should be interesting to see how well this hypothesis stands up to scrutiny.
19 Jun 22:51 | Link | Category: Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Science
June 15, 2005
Amazon loggers clash with lost tribe
This link has been lingering in my bookmarks list for weeks. I've been trying to think of a suitable comment for it, but I always find myself at a loss. Instead of deleting it (as I do with an increasing number of my bookmarks), I'll just throw it at you and wish we could exchange facial expressions.
(I would put it in "Quick Links" but judging by the RSS feeds visitors subscribe to, I have a nagging suspicion that a lot of you skip those... your loss, since they're often the best links I post.)
15 Jun 0:18 | Link | Category: Current Events, Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior
April 29, 2005
Old Man of Georgia
I have literally three minutes to post something tonight, so I'll try to choose something interesting... Here's one about a 1.77 million year old skull found at Dmanisi. It's one of those skulls where the resorption of the tooth sockets shows that the individual was toothless for some time before death, providing possible evidence for 'altruism' and care of the infirm.
Another fascinating example (though much more recent -- only 60-70,000 y.a.) is the famous Shanidar 1 from Iraq, a Neandertal who died in his thirties or forties and suffered an amazing number of injuries. There was a blow to the left side of the head that fractured the eye socket and probably caused blindness in that eye. There was also a blow to the right side of the body that damaged the right arm to such a degree that it would have been useless (and shows signs of being withered). The lower part of the right arm is missing, which might indicate it atrophied & dropped off or was amputated. He also suffered damage to the lower right leg (including a healed fracture of a foot bone). The right knee and left leg show signs of pathological involvement, which may have left him with a limp. The fact that this individual survived so many traumas and lived to such a ripe old age means that he must have been cared for to a significant degree (perhaps not surprising in such a recent hominid, but still...). It also provides more evidence that Neandertals were incredibly tough folks.
Interesting interesting stuff. Anyway. The April issue of National Geographic had some interesting bits (of which only teasers are online) about recent discoveries in Dmanisi and the even more recent Homo floresiensis discovery in Indonesia.
29 Apr 21:53 | Link | Category: Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Science
March 19, 2005
Congo Gorilla Forest at the Bronx Zoo
The other night I was watching a TV show about Snowflake the white gorilla. They showed a zoo exhibit at the Bronx Zoo called the Congo Gorilla Forest. (Official site at congogorillaforest.org.) Have any of you ever visited the exhibit? I'd love to hear first hand accounts. If it's as cool as it looked, I'll have to add it to my list of things to see next time I visit New York.
19 Mar 13:37 | Link | Category: Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Science, Travel
November 15, 2004
"Was Darwin Wrong?"
The struggle against 19th century ideas is alive and well in the 21st (despite the refinement and overwhelming evidence from the 20th). And we're not just in Kansas anymore, Toto. Recent news headlines include Georgia school superintendent Kathy Cox proposing removal of the word evolution from Georgia's teaching standards, a suburban county in the same state placing stickers inside biology texts warning that evolution is "a theory, not a fact," and school officials in Wisconsin allowing teaching of Creationism because science curriculum "should not be totally inclusive of just one scientific theory."
So, when the latest edition of National Geographic arrived in my mailbox a few weeks ago, the question boldly posed on the cover - "Was Darwin Wrong?" - hit a nerve. Not simply because National Geographic sank to using tabloid-like tactics to sell a few extra copies (by creating the appearance of some shocking revelation inside), but because mentioning the name Darwin can still be such an effective way to create controversy.
Obviously the article inside wasn't any sort of refutation of Darwin's big idea, or even - for example - a look at the debate over "intelligent design" (see Michael Behe and others). It was just an article outlining the basics of evolution, headlined by a giant "No" in response to the question on the cover. The article is actually a nice introduction to the basics of evolution. The schoolboard in Georgia should pay attention to the following passage:
Evolution by natural selection, the central concept of the life's work of Charles Darwin, is a theory. It's a theory about the origin of adaptation, complexity, and diversity among Earth's living creatures. If you are skeptical by nature, unfamiliar with the terminology of science, and unaware of the overwhelming evidence, you might even be tempted to say that it's "just" a theory. In the same sense, relativity as described by Albert Einstein is "just" a theory. The notion that Earth orbits around the sun rather than vice versa, offered by Copernicus in 1543, is a theory. Continental drift is a theory. The existence, structure, and dynamics of atoms? Atomic theory. Even electricity is a theoretical construct, involving electrons, which are tiny units of charged mass that no one has ever seen. Each of these theories is an explanation that has been confirmed to such a degree, by observation and experiment, that knowledgeable experts accept it as fact. That's what scientists mean when they talk about a theory: not a dreamy and unreliable speculation, but an explanatory statement that fits the evidence. They embrace such an explanation confidently but provisionally--taking it as their best available view of reality, at least until some severely conflicting data or some better explanation might come along.
The rest of us generally agree. We plug our televisions into little wall sockets, measure a year by the length of Earth's orbit, and in many other ways live our lives based on the trusted reality of those theories.
Evolutionary theory, though, is a bit different. It's such a dangerously wonderful and far-reaching view of life that some people find it unacceptable, despite the vast body of supporting evidence.
The article mentions that in 2001, 45 percent of responding U.S. adults agreed that "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so." To me this has more to do with scientific literacy than it does with religion per se. (Religions with something relevant and purposeful to offer their followers should be able to acknowledge overwhelming scientific evidence and adapt - otherwise it's an indication of something rotten.) If 45 percent of U.S. adults are really this scientifically illiterate, we're in serious trouble.
Maybe we just need evidence that's so incredibly "in your face" that it will stir people out of their ignorance. Like Richard Dawkins, I have "nursed a wild and hopeful dream" that someone might stumble across "living, breathing specimens of a second and very different species of human, intermediate between ourselves and chimpanzees." We nearly have that in the Flores Woman. But maybe that's not enough for people... maybe we need a living, breathing being. Dawkins muses:
But maybe Homo floresiensis survived the volcano, only to be extinguished by competition -- or worse -- from our own species. And, is it possible? Dare we hope that they still lurk in the forests?
Why call it hope rather than just disinterested scientific curiosity? Because we are human, and to meet another human species would be a soul-building experience. Besides, the live discovery I wistfully imagined would turn human complacency on its head. Our speciesism accepts a vast moral gulf between Homo sapiens and every other animal. Nice people will unquestioningly value the life of a human embryo above that of an adult chimpanzee. The chimpanzee thinks and feels, enjoys love and suffers fear, yet moral absolutists feel no unease at the killing, or selling, of a captive chimpanzee. Simultaneously, they see an infinite moral objection to the "murder" of a brainless, senseless human embryo.
What would become of such a double standard in the face of a living -- and perhaps suffering -- Homo floresiensis?
And if Flores Woman indeed belongs in the genus Homo, she might be capable of interbreeding with us -- and therefore of shaking absolutist morality to its ill-considered foundations. (Please, somebody, go out to Flores and search.)
Unfortunately, the daydream about this most unlikely of discoveries probably won't come true, so we can't rely on it as a solution to a pressing matter. We've really got to figure out how 45 percent of us have missed out on the last 150 years of earth-shattering scientific discovery, and we've got to correct that. If we're going to build any sort of future, we all need to understand our past and our connection to the planet and our fellow lifeforms.
15 Nov 12:00 | Link | Category: Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Opinion & Thoughts, Science
October 30, 2004
Pondering the recent discovery of Homo floresiensis
Hopefully you've read at least a bit about the recent momentous scientific news: the discovery in Indonesia of the remains of what may be a tiny and hitherto unknown species in the genus Homo that lived perhaps as recently as 13,000 years ago. The discovery has been heralded as the most important paleoanthropological find in 50 years, and could radically alter the accepted picture of human evolution.
In an article for BBC News, Desmond Morris (one of my old favorites among pop-sci writers) explores some of the questions the discovery raises:
The truth, if we are honest, is that there still remains a huge gap in our knowledge of what happened between the time of our remote ancestors and our more recent ones.
What occurred in that "great gap", several million years ago, is anybody's guess - and guesses there have been aplenty.
But the new discovery of a tiny, 3ft tall, flat-faced, bipedal "ape-man" on the Indonesian island of Flores is rather different.
Here, the skeletal remains are not only much more detailed, but they are found in caves along with delicate stone tools and evidence of fire-making and the hunting of large game.
What is more, these hunters existed as recently as 12,000 years ago and, who knows, living groups of them may still be lingering on in odd corners even today.
This is shattering news and will create fascinating problems for both political and religious leaders.
See also:
- Flores man special @ nature.com
- Story @ National Geographic
- Digging Deeper: Q&A with Peter Brown @ Scientific American
(Previous three links via BoingBoing)
30 Oct 0:34 | Link | Category: Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Science
September 29, 2004
The Crusade Against Evolution
The latest issue of Wired reports on The Crusade Against Evolution.
I've said it before, but please wake me up in 1925. Three quarters of a century and we're still arguing about it.
If the Wired articles makes you interested in "Intelligent Design" or reading Michael Behe's book Darwin's Black Box... don't bother. (He's like the eighteenth-century theologian William Paley arguing about his hypothetical watch and its maker.) If you do bother (like I once did), make sure you also take a dose of, say, Richard Dawkins (who can teach you about the blind watchmaker) or Stephen Jay Gould. (Here's a nice bit from Skeptic Magazine about Darwin's Black Box.)
I'm not about to delve into the subject at this time of night... I'll just direct you to this Richard Dawkins site that's full of information and links. (See the evolution and creationism links page, for example.)
What scares me is that the "intelligent design" idea is going to appeal to lots of well-meaning but ill-informed people in important positions.
29 Sep 1:13 | Link | Category: Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Science
September 13, 2004
The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat
I was just reading about a woman who lost the ability to dream for several months after a stroke, and it reminded me of a book I read last year. It's by Oliver Sacks (whose books are almost always fascinating) and is called The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat.
The book contains intriguing stories of people with fantastic neurological disorders: people who have lost memories (or the ability to make new memories), people who can't recognize common objects or acquiantances (or confuse the two!), people with extraordinary mathematical or artistic gifts who are otherwise unable to function in society, people whose limbs have become foreign to them, and much more.
It's an interesting look into the brain and what can go wrong with it. One example is a brief story about a medical student who took mind-altering drugs one night and had a dream he was a dog surrounded by extraordinarily rich, meaningful smells. He woke up to find that this heightened sense of smell persisted in real life. Some smells were pleasurable. Others disgusted him, but all were so compelling that he could hardly think about anything else. The symptoms disappeared after a few weeks, much to the relief of the student. But years later, as a successful physician, he still remembered "that smell-world--so vivid, so real! It was like a visit to another world, a world of pure perception, rich, alive, self-sufficient, and full...I see now what we give up in being civilized and human."
Another example, among my favorites in the book, starts with the line:
What was going on? A roar of laughter from the aphasia ward, just as the President's speech was coming on, and they had all been so eager to hear the President speaking...
It goes on to explain that aphasiacs are incapable of understanding words. To get around this disability, they focus on the parts of speech that don't include words - tone, expression, etc.
Something has gone, has been devastated, it is true - but something has come, in its stead, has been immensely enhanced, so that - at least with emotionally-laden utterance - the meaning may be fully grasped even when every word is missed.
Many of the patients, though intelligent, were incapable of understanding words, but nonetheless they understood most of what was said to them. Friends, relatives, even nurses could sometimes hardly believe some of the patients even were aphasic:
This was because, when addressed naturally, they grasped some or most of the meaning. And one does speak 'naturally', naturally. Thus, to demonstrate their aphasia, one had to go to extraordinary lengths, as a neurologist, to speak and behave un-naturally, to remove all the extraverbal cues - tone of voice, intonation, suggestive emphasis or inflection, as well as all visual cues (one's expressions, one's gestures, one's entire, largely unconscious, personal repertoire and posture): one had to remove all of this (which might involve total concealment of one's person, and total depersonalisation of one's voice, even to using a computerised voice synthesiser) in order to reduce speech to pure words, speech totally devoid of what Frege called 'tone-colour' (Klangenfarben) or 'evocation'.
All of this makes it difficult, if not impossible, to lie to an aphasiac. Which explains why the laughter at the speech on television:
Thus it was the grimaces, the histrionisms, the false gestures and, above all, the false tones and cadences of the voice, which rang false for these wordless but immensely sensitive patients. It was to these (for them) most glaring, even grotesque, incongruities and improprieties that my aphasic patients responded, undeceived and undeceivable by words. This is why they laughed at the President's speech.
It gets better. Some people have the opposite affliction: "tonal" agnosia, meaning they "lack any sense of expression and 'tone', while preserving, unchanged, their comprehension for words." Unable to tell if a voice is happy, sad, angry, etc., they have to pay extreme attention to exactness of words and word use. Such a patient also watched the speech:
It did not move her - no speech now moved her - and all that was evocative, genuine or false completely passed her by. Deprived of emotional reaction, was she then (like the rest of us) transported or taken in? By no means. 'He is not cogent,' she said. 'He does not speak good prose. His word-use is improper. Either he is brain- damaged, or he has something to conceal.' Thus the President's speech did not work for Emily D. either, due to her enhanced sense of formal language use, propriety as prose, any more than it worked for our aphasiacs, with their word-deafness but enhanced sense of tone.
Here then was the paradox of the President's speech. We normals - aided, doubtless, by our wish to be fooled, were indeed well and truly fooled ('Populus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur'). And so cunningly was deceptive word-use combined with deceptive tone, that only the brain-damaged remained intact, undeceived.
You can read the entire selection here. Many other interesting stories and observations can be found in Dr. Sacks's book.
13 Sep 12:00 | Link | Category: Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Opinion & Thoughts
July 4, 2004
Sneakiest primates have biggest brains
According to a recent study, primates who are good at deceiving their peers also have the biggest brains relative to their body size. Makes sense, but I'd like to read the actual journal article and don't have access at the moment...
04 Jul 21:59 | Link | Category: Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Science
May 11, 2004
Wake me up in 1925
(I know this is old news, but I'm clearing out a few months' worth of bookmarks.) The Georgia state school superintendent has proposed striking the word 'evolution' from Georgia's science curriculum and replacing it with the phrase "biological changes over time." According to the superintendent, evolution is a "buzzword" and the ban was proposed, in part, to alleviate pressure on teachers in socially conservative areas where parents object to its teaching.
Apparently 'illiterate' and 'ignorant' aren't buzzwords in Georgia.
Jimmy Carter is rightfully ashamed of his state.
In other news, a National Science Panel is warning of far too few new scientists in the United States, noting "a troubling decline" in the number of Americans training to be scientists. The report shows waning interest among young Americans in science careers. Huh... I wonder why...
11 May 22:10 | Link | Category: Current Events, Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Opinion & Thoughts, Science
December 4, 2003
Sustainability
A study comparing humans with other species concluded there are 1,000 times too many humans to be sustainable. Comparison between humans and other species will probably be a bone of contention for some. It's true many of these population studies end up being flawed somehow because we just don't know enough about our planet and ourselves.
Still, it's an interesting and important topic. To me, the issue boils down to finding a permanent maximum point for both quality of life and quantity of it. In other words, what population level provides the best quality of life for the most people, while remaining sustainable? A visit to any spot on the globe, from the first world to the third world, will reveal to even the most unobservant observer that we're frighteningly far from that ideal. (Worse, it seems that this most pressing issue is on the minds of very few.)
Be sure to read the entire article.
04 Dec 11:45 | Link | Category: Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Science
October 22, 2003
50% of us are under 25
New Scientist reports that one in five people on Earth are adolescents between 10 and 19, and about half the world's population is under 25. This statistic seems a bit staggering. The challenges and possibilities are immense.
22 Oct 0:45 | Link | Category: Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Science
May 18, 2003
Caveman Challenge
Somehow I just found myself playing the BBC's cavemen challenge through to the end. Hmm. I need to get a life. (But maybe I'll try the chimp challenge first...)
18 May 23:29 | Link | Category: Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Interactive
May 17, 2003
Beauty Averaged = Average Beauty?
A interesting German study used a specialized software program to find the average attractive (and unattractive) faces for both males and females, among other things. If you ask me, their greatest success was in creating a bunch of very boring character-less faces.
There's lots of interesting material, though. Learn about average faces, symmetry (apparently "symmetry only seems to be a rather weak indicator for attractiveness"), virtual attractiveness,