Evolution Humor

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comics has to be one of the best nerdy/dorky type humor out there on the web. Today's dealt with evolution and what is known as Sexually Antagonistic Selection but I will let the comic tell the whole story.



Oh nerdy humor I love it.

Snow, Snow, Snow

The East Coast of the United States is currently getting buried under tons of snow I have seen the responses that I expected. These following two posts are from Conservapedia's news portion on the right hand side of their main page:

Atlanta will see its "first white Christmas since the Chester Arthur administration" in 1882. [20] Global warming???

and

Global warming? Many Europeans have been unable to get home for Christmas due to cold, severe weather. "Bitterly cold temperatures brought problems in Scandinavia" and "Britain's aviation regulator said it had written to several airlines about the 'unacceptable' failure to properly feed and accommodate stranded passengers." [23]

(See here and here)

I don't know how many times scientists will have to say it but global climate change has global in it for a reason. It will still be colder in winter than summer no matter what happens. With that said there are two posts over at the Climate Denial Crock of the Week blog that describe what is occurring. They are must reads and show that this "cold" is regional and has an explanation.

1) White Christmas in Southeast. Heatwave in Hudson Bay.
2) Why is the UK cold? The NAO is stuck.

Evolution or Climate Change?

Something that I am surprised that scientists do not hear the idea expressed in this article more often. I will try to break it down but the central concept is expressed in the headline:

Let the polar bears die, liberals: It's only your beloved evolution at work

The author sums up here feelings quite nicely a few paragraphs down:

But here's a question that's rarely asked: Why should we necessarily bother saving a species - any species - from extinction? And what's so gosh-darn special about the polar bear? Yes, animals are dying. But death - of a single animal or a whole species - is a part of life.

At least, that's what Darwinists tell us. In fact, if you think hard about it, animal conservation should actually be anathema to the Darwin-loving liberal agenda, which holds up evolution - and not altruistic compassion - as the final word on the survival of a species.

Sure, it's possible that we're crowding out the polar bear - but aren't we animals, too? And don't animals sometimes crowd each other out? Isn't it entirely possible that the polar bear is simply going extinct, like countless species before it?

These sentiments make sense until you dig deeper into the problem. Extinction is one of the most often overlooked parts of evolution but as recent papers have pointed out, and many people knew just based on common sense, is that we would not be here were it not for the extinction of the dinosaurs and mass extinctions give rise to new niches for species to fill (Smith et al., 2010). So extinctions in and of themselves are good and an important part of evolutionary theory. What is more is that there are always background levels of extinctions. So is the author of this piece right?

Well the answer is no not really. Eventually given enough time every species that is alive today would be extinct, yes even those that closely resemble their ancient ancestors are considered different species. The main problem is the rate and how species are going extinct. A recent paper argued that it may have taken upwards of 10 million years for species diversity to recover from the end-Permian mass extinction (Hu et al., 2010). While the end-Permian was an extreme mass extinction the time frame from the K-T extinction may have been similar.

But why am I referencing mass extinctions and not just the loss of a single individual? Simple, this extinction will not just involve the loss of one single species. If climate change continues it will threaten total ecological collapse in the arctic and antarctic. This means that not only will the polar bear die off but most if not all species of flora and fauna in these areas will as well. But it is not just the poles that are threatened but the entire planet. Temperature changes will push many flora away from where they currently live, with the loss of the base of the food chain a total collapse will likely follow. While less likely to occur elsewhere it is a possibility.

Another way of looking at it is by what I am calling the Yellowstone Wolf effect. In general the idea is this: As top predators when the wolves were all killed in Yellowstone it allowed the primary source of food to reproduce almost unchecked, there are other animals that will feed on elk but tend to do so less often than wolves. This damaged the amount of plant life present and hurt animals that will then have to compete with the elk for food. When the wolves were reintroduced this put stress on the elk as their numbers declined many different flora where able to better survive it also increased the amount of food available for scavengers and other predators such as Bear and Coyote (Smith, 2005; White et al., 2005).

The concern for the polar bears is therefore not just for the bears themselves but for the entire ecosystem. We have hurt it in ways we are not completely sure of yet but if we have the power to prevent a total collapse, which we likely do in some areas, shouldn't we?

Sources

Hu, S.-x., Q.-y. Zhang, Z.-Q. Chen, C.-y. Zhou, T. Lü, T. Xie, W. Wen, J.-y. Huang, and M.J. Benton. (2010). The Luoping biota: exceptional preservation, and new evidence on the Triassic recovery from end-Permian mass extinction. Proc. R. Soc. B published online before print December 23, 2010, doi:10.1098/rspb.2010.2235

Smith, D.W. (2005). Ten Years of Yellowstone Wolves 1995–2005. Yellowstone Science. 13 (1), 34-41 (Freely available here)

Smith, F.A., A.G. Boyer, J.H. Brown, D.P. Costa, T. Dayan, S.K.M Ernest, A.R. Evans, M. Fortelius, J.L. Gittleman, M.J. Hamilton, L.E. Harding, K. Lintulaakso, S.K. Lyons, C. McCain, J.G. Okie, J.J. Saarinen, R.M. Sibly, P.R. Stephens, J. Theodor, and M.D. Uhen. (2010). The Evolution of Maximum Body Size of Terrestrial Mammals. Science; 330 (6008): 1216-1219 DOI: 10.1126/science.1194830

White, P.J., D.W. Smith, J.W. Duffield, M. Jimenez, T. McEneaney, G. Plumb. (2005) Yellowstone After Wolves: Environmental Impact Statement Predictions and Ten-Year Appraisals. Yellowstone Science. 13 (1), 34-41 (Freely available here)

I am a huge nerd

If you are like me you probably enjoy Star Wars and Indiana Jones, except the new ones for both of them come on, then you might get a kick out of this. The only known occurrence of Han Solo and Indiana Jones coming into even remote contact. Sorry to awesome not to post. I came across this during an Indiana Jones marathon when I was trying to figure out what happened to Short Round, apparently he becomes an archaeologist like Indy.

Anyway Enjoy.

Fun with impacts

This will just be a short post because I wanted to post this link. It goes to a website run by Purdue University that allows you to calculate the effects of a meteor impact on Earth. You do this by specifying the size the density and many other factors and then a set distance from the impact and seeing the damage that is caused. This is a fun thing to just play around with for a little while so enjoy.

A meteor that might be fun to play around with would the the Chicxulub Meteor:
Diameter: 10km (some say as big as 20km but this is where most estimates are)
Speed: ~16km/s
The impact occurred most likely in water
Play around with some of the other variables to see what all occurred
Animation

What happens when CO2 doubles

Potholer54 (for other posts discussing him and his other channel Potholer54debunks see here, here, here, here, and here) discusses in his newest video the myth that evapotransporation will actually help keep the earth cool while CO2 increases. This was one I hadn't heard before but I figured I would share it here just to get it out there before I start hearing it.



I have really been on a climate change kick as of late, sorry for that.

Climate Change the Comic

I stumbled across this comic yesterday, don't expect to laugh it isn't funny except on how true it is, so I figured I would share. It is a long comic so it might take some time to load it is also going to take a while to read through the whole thing so make sure you don't have anything to do soon, or maybe you do have something to do soon but want an excuse not to. This comic does a good job of getting both the science behind climate change as well as getting the political reaction, especially the negative reaction. Enjoy!

Dismal numbers on Education

While this is not surprising a friend on Facebook posted a link to this article that said this:

Add to this clear evidence that the U.S. education system, that source of future scientists and innovators, has been falling behind its competitors. After leading the world for decades in 25- to 34-year-olds with university degrees, the country sank to 12th place in 2010. The World Economic Forum ranked the United States at a mediocre 52nd among 139 nations in the quality of its university math and science instruction in 2010. Nearly half of all graduate students in the sciences in the U.S. are now foreigners, most of whom will be heading home, not staying here as once would have happened. By 2025, in other words, the United States is likely to face a critical shortage of talented scientists.

These numbers are bad, scary bad. As a country the United States rose to power behind the education system, it could be argued that the G.I. Bill which allowed US servicemen to get a college education made the United States a superpower. This allowed the U.S. to improve in technology, both military and civilian, and allowed us to reach for the stars, literally. Over the last few years there has been a backlash against education and against the educated population. This can be most drastically seen during the 2008 election cycle when Sarah Palin questioned why we need to continue funding certain levels of science research. While I can understand trying to cut wasteful spending, many times science research and education can appear to be wasteful but typically the results they produce can be used throughout the economy. Science is one of the best ways to teach people to think, we do after all use the scientific method daily even if you aren't a scientist, and it allows us to learn about ourselves and our surroundings. These numbers and the right's view of science are going to continue to put us behind in science and science education and very well might lead to the demise of the U.S. as a superpower.

The Front Lines of Climate Change

I have been sitting on this story for a little while till I actually had a chance to read through the whole thing. Often times when people think of climate change they only think of the changes occurring in far away places like the Arctic, Antarctic, Alaska, or Siberia. While the most drastic changes are often seen in these areas according to this article major cities within the continental US are also experiencing the change. Norfolk, VA is experiencing major flooding in portions of the city. While some of this can be attributed to the land sinking, this is what happens when you build on a swamp, for another example of this see New Orleans, not all of the flooding can be because of that.

When Ms. Peck, now 75 and a caretaker to her husband, moved here 40 years ago, tidal flooding was an occasional hazard.

“Last month,” she said recently, “there were eight or nine days the tide was so doggone high it was difficult to drive.”

Norfolk is acting to try to limit the amount of damage that is done by the flood water. This includes raising roads 18 inches and changing storm water drainage to prevent it from backing up. While these are just temporary fixes and will not solve the overall problems associated with climate change they may limit the amount of damage to the city itself. These fixes being put into place now in Norfolk will become more and more common, as the climate continues to warm, throughout the east coast of the United States and in many other places around the world.

C0nc0rdance reads Asimov

People often accuse science of taking the beauty out of everything and they accuse scientists of being cold and not being able to see the beauty in the universe. Isaac Asimov disagrees and can be seen in the video below (read by C0nc0rdance (prior posts on him here, here, and here)).



If you want to read what he had to say go here and see it written out.

I have to agree with Asimov on this. The more I learn about the universe or even just our planet the more beauty and intrigue I see. I can look at a road cut and see the past, I can see rivers flowing through, I can see animals that are no long alive interacting in ways that are similar to modern organisms and in ways that none of us can imagine. The beauty of the universe and this planet is not the momentary one we see now but spans back billions of years from a singularity through a molten earth to one crawling with organisms that we can barely imagine. The beauty and complexity amaze me and capture my attention everyday.

And all of this vision- far beyond the scale of human imaginings -was made possible by the works of hundreds of "learn'd" astronomers. All of it; all of it was discovered after the death of Whitman in 1892, and most of it in the past twenty-five years, so that the poor poet never knew what a stultified and limited beauty he observed when he 'look'd up in perfect silence at the stars-"
Nor can we know or imagine now the limitless beauty yet to be revealed in the future - by science.

More on the beauty of this picture after I am done with finals

Antivax and Creationism

With the semester wrapping up I will be busy with finishing up work so don't expect much for the next few week, although I have a lot I want to do (damn inspiration coming during the busiest time of the year).

The Louisiana Coalition for Science has a great article about the tie between the antivax movement and those who want to teach creationism in Louisiana's science classrooms, in particular Dr. John W. Oller, Jr.

Such is the evidence for the quality of the scientific judgment of Prof. Oller, who, in his LinkedIn profile, specifies that his interests are “consulting offers” and “expertise requests.” He hangs out with not only the the disgraced (and disgraceful) Andrew Wakefield but also with young-earth creationists who have misinformed an untold number of innocent children. His association with ICR indicates that he believes that the earth is only a few thousand years old. Yet, according to Oller, the scientists with hard-earned, professional expertise in biology who wrote the proposed textbooks don’t know what they’re doing. Oh, and — lest we forget — evolution is causing the downfall of society.

It is a long read but it is good so I recommend everyone read it.