What’s in a Type?

One of my peeves against anti-evolutionists is those moderates who fully accept gene drift and mutations for short term changes (breeds, "micro-evolution") but not longer term changes (species, types, "macro-evolution"). Try to pin one of those people down on a definition of species and type, and one can always show them an observed example of something that crossed the line, or else multiple species that are obviously different but on the same side of their line. But this post is broader than that. For example, Pluto was a planet. Everyone knew that. Recently it was demoted to dwarf-planet. There are groups still dedicated to its reinstatement as a planet, like the Society for the Preservation of Pluto as a Planet. My presumption is, because that's what they were taught in their youth, therefore it's "As God Intended". Nothing changed in the sky, nor in our understanding of how things work. But a category changed and our world shook. Well, at least the world of those of us who noticed. What of moons? An excellent article is here: Meet our Second Moon! We now have two moons? And in my lifetime, the origin of our main moon changed from an unlikely captured or even less likely co-congealed object to a reasonable and most probably ejected one. I remember being disturbed when the moon count around Jupiter went from 12 (the 19th century standard) to 63 (care of Voyager etc). The count varies depending on how you define "moon". One has to be broadly accepting of both size and ballistic classification to accept 3753 Cruithne as a moon of the Earth, but it is there. Speaking of the moon, here is an incredible new way to see our moon up close (with pan and zoom) taken from ground based cameras. Things change. As I have mentioned many times on this blog, most people are hung up on the misconception that words accurately define things. The thinking that, if you have a name for it, then you understand the thing. You get the collector's fallacy: The confusion of the joy of matching names to things with the understanding of the things themselves. Knowing the names of thousands of birds (or bugs or species or stamps or diseases) and accurately matching them to the subjects is useful. But it is not complete in terms of understanding the similarities and differences. That is what is meant by the quote "Biology without evolution is but stamp collecting". One cannot understand things without also understanding the relationship between things (species, astronomical objects, populations, etc) and knowing the latest (most complete, so far) underlying set of theories (scientific definition, not vernacular). Humans are better than most other creatures at recognizing patterns. We regularly see patterns in random observations: Pareidolia. Any set of words will be an incomplete definition of any object. Defining a class of things is even more nebulous. Do species change over time? Certainly, given either enough time or a precise enough definition. How many moons are in the solar system? Good question. Define "moon", and show me the latest ballistic data on the 100,000 largest object so far discovered inside of the Oort Cloud. By the time I have an answer, something will have changed.

Continue ReadingWhat’s in a Type?

What we buy versus what makes us happy

Geoffrey Miller has just published a new book, Spent: Sex, Evolution and Consumer Behavior. I haven't read it yet, but I am now ordering it, based on Miller's terrific prior work (see here, for example). In the meantime, I did enjoy this NYT blog review of Spent, which includes this provocative question:

List the ten most expensive things (products, services or experiences) that you have ever paid for (including houses, cars, university degrees, marriage ceremonies, divorce settlements and taxes). Then, list the ten items that you have ever bought that gave you the most happiness. Count how many items appear on both lists.

If you're looking for simplistic answers, you won't get them from Miller. I won't spoil the answers he obtained or his analysis of those answers, but you'll find them here. [addendum] I found this one item refreshingly honest. Refreshingly, because I know a lot of parents, I see their faces, I hear their complaints (and their exhultations). I know that it's PC to say that having children is a continuous wonderful joy and that all parents are glad they did had children. Miller's research suggests that the answer is not this simple:

[Here's an answer that appears [much more on the ‘expensive’ than on the ‘happy’ lists [includes] Children, including child care, school fees, child support, fertility treatments. Costly, often disappointing, usually ungrateful. Yet, the whole point of life, from a Darwinian perspective. Parental instincts trump consumer pleasure-seeking.

Continue ReadingWhat we buy versus what makes us happy

Economics evolves into evolutionary economics

The July 2009 edition of Scientific American explores new ways of looking at economics in an article by Gary Stix entitled "The Science of Bubbles and Busts." The article explores the growing acceptance by professionals that people quite often are not rational when it comes to dealing with their finances. We are not homo economicus, as touted by many economists, including Milton Friedman. Our imperfections are many. For instance, we are supremely overconfident. We overrate our ability to make decisions in the market. We are also prone to "herding," following the crowd. We are also overwhelmed by our recall of recent events due to the availability bias. We are creatures who are strictly geared to the short-term. As a result of this mounting evidence establishing that we are not able to rationally deal with the market, new approaches are inexorably working there way into economics. These new approaches include evolutionary economics:

“Economists suffer from a deep psychological disorder that I call ‘physics envy,’ ” [MIT professor of finance Andrew] Lo says. “We wish that 99 percent of economic behavior could be captured by three simple laws of nature. In fact, economists have 99 laws that capture 3 percent of behavior. Economics is a uniquely human endeavor and, as such, should be understood in the broader context of competition, mutation and natural selection—in other words, evolution.

Having an evolutionary model to consult may let investors adapt as the risk profiles of different investment strategies shift. But the most important benefit of Lo’s simulations may be an ability to detect when the economy is not in a stable equilibrium, a finding that would warn regulators and investors that a bubble is inflating or else about to explode.

An adaptive-market model can incorporate information about how prices in the market are changing—analogous to how people are adapting to a particular ecological niche. It can go on to deduce whether prices on one day are influencing prices on the next, an indication that investors are engaged in “herding,” as described by behavioral economists, a sign that a bubble may be imminent. As a result of this type of modeling, regulations could also “adapt” as markets shift and thus counter the type of “systemic” risks for which conventional risk models leave the markets unprotected.

Continue ReadingEconomics evolves into evolutionary economics

Superorganisms take the limelight

In the Natural History's February 2009 article titled "Could an Ant Colony Read this Book," ecologist Robert Dunn tracks the long-term collaborative efforts of Edward O. Wilson and Bert Holldobler, leading up to their new book: The Superorganism. In their new book, Hölldobler and Wilson

. . . have breathed new life into a notion that intrigued scientists before World War I: that a colony of social insects is analogous to an individual. The concept of the superorganism—which compares a colony’s members to a body’s cells and sometimes its nest to the body’s skeleton—fell out of favor as research increasingly focused on the genes of individuals. Hölldobler and Wilson, building on new insights into the evolution and workings of insect societies, seek to bring it back. To them, “superorganism” is more than a metaphor; it is a unit in the hierarchy of biological organization, falling somewhere between an ecosystem and an individual. And, they argue, it is the most useful level of biological organization at which to examine how pieces are assembled to make a whole—be it an association of bacteria, a single creature, or a whole society—as well as to understand what holds all organisms together, even when the pieces struggle toward independent goals.

According to Dunn (and Wilson and Holldobler), ants and other highly social creatures (such as termites, and honeybees) offer a rare opportunity to study the process by which individuals meld into an unified organism. Other examples include the early symbiosis of mitochondria with an early form of bacteria, plant cells ("which arose when a eukaryotic cell . . incorporated a photosynthetic bacterium") and multicellular creatures in general (e.g., human beings). In each of these examples, individuals gave up reproduction "either partially or completely, to work for their overbearing mother." Wilson and Holldobler point to group selection (and individual selection) as a key component of the evolution of highly social species. "In group-selection models, evolution favors the groups whose member cooperate more effectively, regardless of whether such cooperation helps a given individual (or that individual's kin) reproduce." The key to allowing this process is "communication and the division of labor." Apropos for a book that was five years in the making by Wilson and Holldobler.

Continue ReadingSuperorganisms take the limelight

Texas Governor’s creationist yanked from State Board of Education

The Texas Senate yanked Governor Perry's creationist appointee to the State Board of Education.

In a rare rejection of an appointment by the Texas governor, the Senate Thursday ousted Don McLeroy as chairman of the State Board of Education, with his supporters claiming the Bryan dentist was the victim of his strong religious beliefs.

McLeroy is a devout Christian who believes in creationism and the notion that the Earth is about 6,000 years old. He has steadfastly argued that Texas students should be taught the weaknesses of evolution.

Continue ReadingTexas Governor’s creationist yanked from State Board of Education