In the garden of your mind

This remix of Mr. Rogers is simultaneously strange, gentle and more than a bit psychedelic.

 It's also wonderful.



(Via io9)

This was the first time I'd heard of the 'Symphony of Science' series by John D. Boswell. They're all good. I especially like 'The Greatest Show on Earth', not least since it makes Richard Dawkins sound like a member of the Pet Shop Boys.

Danger: Unreadable Flying Objects

We've had a rather nice, quiet time here in the OD household over the holidays so far (though it's been a bit too drearily rainy outside).

It's been good to withdraw from the world a bit, perhaps except for catching up on the latest terrorist panic: is it just me, or is it a particularly sad comment on the state of the world when one of ABC News's biggest recent scoops seems to be publicising pictures of 'a singed pair of underwear with a packet of powder sewn into the crotch'?

Our retreat into the domestic cave has been accompanied by trying to focus on some of the real-world writing we need to do, hence the relative hiatus in any light blogging recently.

Which may continue; we'll see.

But I felt the urge to break radio silence tonight while reading Steven Shapin's lengthy LRB article on Darwin Year 2009.

Not after reading the article, I stress, since I haven't finished it yet.

I may not ever, in fact.

An distant early warning blip sounded in my mind when visitors to the Galapagos were referred to as 'tourists making scientific haj'; a few more followed when Shapin recounts the majority of Darwin Year events in a tone of condescending mockery.

The alarms rang a bit more loudly when Shapin--apparently approvingly--offers another quote:

‘Every age moulds Charles Darwin to its own preoccupations, but the temptation is hard to resist,’ Philip Ball noted in the Observer. ‘In the early 20th century, he became a prophet of social engineering and the free market. With sociobiology in the 1970s, Darwinism became a behavioural theory, while neo-Darwinist genetics prompted a bleak view of humanity as gene machines driven by the selfish imperatives of our DNA.’

Beyond question, the first part is generally right, and, indeed, Darwinism has been misused in all kinds of ways.

Still, the sweeping reference to 'bleak' views of humanity and the 'selfish' imperatives of DNA caused me to nearly throw the paper across the room. I'm used to people making this reference who haven't managed to get past the title of Dawkins's 1976 book, but Shapin is a historian of science, so I'm assuming he has.

But one of the underlying aims of Shapin's article is to reveal the shocking true agenda of many of the Darwin enthusiasts over the last year--Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett prominent among them--i.e., to promote atheism.

Which Shapin apparently thinks is foolish, judging by his sarcasm:

The International Darwin Day Foundation, acting as publicist and clearing house for hundreds of the year’s global events, is administered by the American Humanist Association, a secularist pressure group which defends the civil liberties of the endangered species of the American godless, and hands out annual awards to its chosen ‘Humanist of the Year’ (past winners include Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, E.O. Wilson and Steven Pinker). For the Darwin Day Foundation (whose advisory board includes Dawkins, Dennett, Wilson and Pinker), as for other sponsors, Darwin Day is less about a historical figure than an occasion for extending versions of scientific materialism and rationalism to ever new cultural domains, encouraging an appreciation of ‘science and the role of humans in developing the Scientific Method that permitted the acquisition of an enormous amount of verifiable scientific knowledge, that is now available to modern humans’.

One can almost hear the phrase 'militant atheist' echoing in the background.

Shapin raises the the hoary old straw-man 'panadaptationist' critique (originating with Stephen Jay Gould) of Dawkins, Dennett and Pinker which verges into his letting us know that he Disapproves Strongly of evolutionary psychology (EP); unfortunately, he demonstrates as much subtle knowledge of that as he does of The Selfish Gene, summed up by his quip that it basically means 'Nature beats up nurture all the time.'

I know that EP's not everybody's thing; it's a wide-ranging field, most of it quite interesting and sensible, some of it a bit batty.

But I happen to be reading a fair amount of EP and EP-related material at the moment while preparing for an article that The Wife and I are working on, and--as is all too often the case--it bears little resemblance to the caricatured intellectual Gleichschaltung Shapin (like others) depicts.

(I may be feeling a bit touchy on this point, as I found out only yesterday about the death a few months ago of Margo Wilson, who, with her husband Martin Daly, was a pioneer in EP perspectives, especially on homicide. Her work has been important and inspirational to me over the last decade or so, and it is careful, subtle and methodologically rigorous...like most of the serious academic work in EP that I've read, in fact.)

At about this point, Steven Pinker is referred to as 'EP Thought Leader'.

At about this point, I could not resist throwing the paper across the room.

I don't have the energy to deal with this at any further length. I'm used to reading (or rather avoiding) this kind of crap at Comment is Futile, but I hold the LRB (perhaps naively) to a higher standard.

I'm almost tempted to make a new year's resolution: only to read and comment on things in my personal life that make me happy.

Judging by recent experience this would, however, mean that I would mostly be writing about The Wife, horror films, heavy metal and handguns.

And I'm not sure how much of that you all could all stand.

It was 150 years ago today

..that Darwin taught the band to play.

Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

Yep.

(Thanks for the reminder, Dale.)

On healthy habits and responsible role models

In this week's Die Zeit, Susanne "Jeremiah" Gaschke bemoans the loss of reading skills in Germany. Even in middle-class families, she complains, reading seems to be a dying art, as more and more time is spent in the Internet and in front of TVs and PlayStations.

This is an important observation, which pulls the rug out from under the mantra - currently en vogue amongst theoretical educators (Theoretical educator - me? I'm at the chalk face!) - of the "bildungsferne Gesellschaftsschichten" ("social strata at a distance from education"). Maybe the idea that a lack of education is solely caused by a lack of money needs to be rethought. Wealth does not protect from ignorance - I mean, look at the Royal Family or Apricot Boomtown.

The culprits, according to Gaschke, are middle-class parents who - although still passively upholding old educational ideals - fail to practice what they preach:

Ein geübter Leser wird man nur durch … Üben. Und die Übung beginnt durch das Vorbild der Eltern, durch Vorlesen, Erzählen und Über-Geschichten-Sprechen.

[You only become a accomplished reader by ... practising. And practice begins with the parental model, with being read to, with telling and talking about stories].

Quite right. However, it seems that Gaschke is losing the argument when she elevates the cultural practice of reading to a moral act:

Warum aber ist Lesekompetenz heute überhaupt noch wichtig? Weil sich dem geübten Leser Fragen stellen, die auch im Leben wichtig sind: Worum geht es? Ist das, was ich lese, glaubwürdig? Ist Ironie im Spiel? Was empfinden die Figuren in einer Geschichte?

[But why is reading still important today? Because the accomplished reader is confronted with questions that are also relevant in real life: What is this about? Is the story I'm reading credible? Is it ironic? What do the characters feel?]

Her mission statement: "Only those who read are able to empathise with others".

Well, here we are back to the Arnoldian fallacy that literature is a quasi-religion! This clearly is too simplistic.

If that were the case, then I should be surrounded, in my professional life, by supremely empathetic creatures. If reading made us all better people, then university literature departments would be free from violent strife, petty squabbles and parochial vanities - they would be sanctuaries of shared concern, intellectual openness and mutual respect.

Reader, let me tell you: They are not!

Also, if Gaschke were right, then most of human history (and pre-history) would have been empathy-free: an illiterate world of ruthless murder and rapine without remorse and regret until the Frankfurt Book Fair came along (but then again Zeit arts editors rarely think in an evolutionary time frame and are notorious for taking themselves too seriously).

Actually, it is not reading that leads us to ask the questions that Gaschke lists in the quote above: literature is only able to raise them because Homo sapiens can ask such questions and make such assessments. Our brain was there first! Reading merely trains cognitive skills that evolved for very different reasons - it is a further development of the human imagination, not that which shapes it.

Needless to say that the kind of responses that Gaschke hails as fundamentally literary are of course also triggered by other narrative artefacts, from soap operas to pop ballads (if the listener bothers to listen to the lyrics*). To be empathetic, we don't need books.

In other words, to defend the practice of reading, we have to come up with other, better explanations for the value of literature.**

Nevertheless, Gaschke and Michelle Obama would have a field day on Sesame Street:



Actually, this is kinda cute and doesn't deserve the kind of vicious commentary that raging loony libertarians have left at YouTube.

A final observation on role models: Why is it that in this day and age when universities across Europe have taken up the cause of internalisation with a vengeance - which is often seconded by the mysterious emergence of an administrative hydrocephalus and new central buildings to house it - administrative staff in international offices, who are prone to calling their students ignorant or parochial, often do not speak foreign languages or seem consummately reticent to travel. Talk about pots calling kettles black.


* Have you noticed, too, that only few people actually care about the words of songs?
** Lying in bed all day Saturday surrounded by a pile of books, with a pot of coffee in reach, being one of those explanations. Escapism. Not having to be in/with the world. Not wanting to get out of bed and still feeling that you are living.

A message from the past (or: Richard Dawkins slandered by German bishop)

There's so much wrong in the attack that Cardinal Joachim Meisner, Bishop of Cologne, launched against godless Dawkins in his All Saint's Day sermon that even the attempt to unravel this jumble of flawed, stupid prejudice seems futile:

"Ähnlich wie einst die Nationalsozialisten im einzelnen Menschen primär nur den Träger des Erbgutes seiner Rasse sahen, definiert auch der Vorreiter der neuen Gottlosen, der Engländer Richard Dawkins, den Menschen als 'Verpackung der allein wichtigen Gene', deren Erhaltung der vorrangige Zweck unseres Daseins sei ...."

("Like the Nazis, who saw the individual primarily as a carrier of his race's genes, the pioneer of the new atheists, the Briton Richard Dawkins defines human beings as 'containers for genes', whose preservation he considers to be the ultimate rationale for our existence.")

Sigh. Sometimes life is like hitting your head against a concrete wall, repeatedly. And I've been having a headbanging hell of a time lately, even without this benighted nonsense.

Put off by Padel's poetry

I initially thought that the title of Ruth Padel's (aka The poet formerly known as Oxford Professor of Poetry) poem "Survival of the Fittest", from her collection Darwin: A Life in Poems, was somewhat ... suboptimal. After all, the phrase (coined by Herbert Spencer, not Darwin, even though the latter adopted it in later versions of On the Origin of Species) is not exactly the most appropriate metaphor to describe the principle of natural selection.

But now that I've watched a video of Padel reading from her work (and in a yurt, too) at the Hay festival I'm no longer so certain that this was merely a minor slip of the pen by a slightly ditsy lady sporting the medusaesque hair and dramatic eye make-up of expressionist movie stars. Sounds more like Padel, who is Darwin's great-great-granddaughter, has used her poetry for a wee spot of kin bitching. I don't know whether the other poems in the collection are in any way more ... astute than "Survival ..." (in one of them, apparently, she imagines Darwin's horny revery over a smutty painting), but somehow I can't be arsed asked to read them.

‘You know, Bob, Darwin really knew a lot of biology.’

As we have for the past couple of years, we join some of our friends in marking the 200th birthday of one of the more remarkable individuals our species has brought forth, Charles Darwin. (And, this year, we'd suggest you also raise a glass to the equally aged Abraham Lincoln, who was not only a remarkable primate himself but who has long been especially regarded -- by one of us -- as a fellow Illinoisan.)

I have little to add to the general festivities, other than, perhaps, to again post this image of Darwin, which I like since it shows him a bit younger and less austere than most portraits.


He's sans beard, you'll note, but the extraordinary sideburns hint at the (ahem) tangled bank to come.

There will be countless articles on Darwin today, but I thought one at the New York Times by Nicholas Wade was worthwhile.

It concludes:

Historians who are aware of the long eclipse endured by Darwin’s ideas perhaps have a clearer idea of his extraordinary contribution than do biologists, many of whom assume Darwin’s theory has always been seen to offer, as now, a grand explanatory framework for all biology. Dr. Richards, the University of Chicago historian, recalls that a biologist colleague “had occasion to read the ‘Origin’ for the first time — most biologists have never read the ‘Origin’ — because of a class he was teaching. We met on the street and he remarked, ‘You know, Bob, Darwin really knew a lot of biology.’ ”

Darwin knew a lot of biology: more than any of his contemporaries, more than a surprising number of his successors. From prolonged thought and study, he was able to intuit how evolution worked without having access to all the subsequent scientific knowledge that others required to be convinced of natural selection. He had the objectivity to put aside criteria with powerful emotional resonance, like the conviction that evolution should be purposeful. As a result, he saw deep into the strange workings of the evolutionary mechanism, an insight not really exceeded until a century after his great work of synthesis.

And, once again, here's the closing sentence from the Origin of Species, which I always like to imagine being read in the voice of James Earl Jones.

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

David Attenborough is, like, so cool

While taking a quick lunch break here at the Colindale Newspaper Library (by the way: there are, it seems, few things more essential to the British experience than eating sandwiches from triangular plastic containers), I ran across this short article at the Guardian that recounts some highlights of a recent interview with David Attenborough.

I think it caught my eye because a recent Daily Fail story had also commented on Sir David, emphasising his 'longing for the comforts of faith' in its subtitle.

I found that a bit odd, since if you actually read the article, you'll find that it's David's brother Richard who said he ('almost') wished he'd believed in God because of the spiritual comfort it might have provided after the sudden deaths of his daughter and granddaughter.

David, for his part, says that he's an agnostic and notes that he ('almost') wishes he could have had a religious background, but this is only because in that case he'd have been able to actively reject it.

But, this is the Naily Quail we're talking about here, which also managed to mis-caption two of the article's photos as 'Richard' when they were actually of 'David'.

Astonishing.

Anyway, the Guardian article is briefer and not annoying at all, and it highlights Sir David's receipt of hostile mail from creationists (many of them, no doubt, avid Mail readers).

Telling the magazine that he was asked why he did not give "credit" to God, Attenborough added: "They always mean beautiful things like hummingbirds. I always reply by saying that I think of a little child in east Africa with a worm burrowing through his eyeball. The worm cannot live in any other way, except by burrowing through eyeballs. I find that hard to reconcile with the notion of a divine and benevolent creator."

He also states:

"It never really occurred to me to believe in God - and I had nothing to rebel against, my parents told me nothing whatsoever. But I do remember looking at my headmaster delivering a sermon, a classicist, extremely clever ... and thinking, he can't really believe all that, can he? How incredible!"

Indeed.

If we were in the business of naming patron saints for this humble blog (and, who knows, maybe someday we will be), David Attenborough would be well toward the front of the line to receive that honour.

Evolutionary literary criticism

One of the research interests that I have been pursuing over the past year (time and energy permitting) is what might broadly be called "evolutionary literary criticism".

In other words, what I'm interested in is the question of whether and how insights from the sciences - notably the field of evolutionary psychology - can be fruitfully applied to literary scholarship. Still being a novice in this field - which is not quite as recent a phenomenon as the heated debate currently taking place in the American academic context in particular may suggest - I haven't really produced anything concrete yet. But I'm working on it.

The scope and state of the debate around evo-lit-crit is documented by a Symposium on the topic, to be published in the next issue of the journal Style. PDF's of all articles in this issue can be found at the website of one of the contributor's to this collection: Joseph Carroll, Professor of English Literature at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and one of the famous names associated with this field.

You win some, you lose some

Two brief references - I'm frightfully busy right now - to noteworthy items in the German press today.

1. In Augsburg, Southern Germany, an atheist teacher loses his court case against the Free State of Bavaria (where the trees are made of wood). He had sued the state, demanding that the Christian crosses that are displayed in all Bavarian classrooms (don't I know it?) be removed. They constituted, he argued, an unacceptable emotional strain.

Der Spiegel quotes the court's decision:

Im Grundgesetz sei nicht nur die Glaubensfreiheit verankert, sondern auch die besondere Gehorsams- und Tolerierungspflicht des Beamten.

In rough translation, the court argued that the constitution not only lays down civil liberties (such as religious freedom), but also the civil servant's specific duties of obedience and tolerance. For Bavarian Minister of Justice Beate Merk (CSU), duly jubilant about the decision, the crucifix symbolises the specific values of the Christian West, to which "personal tastes" have to be submitted.

Oh my .... This problematic decision - problematic because the notorious "Kruzifix-Beschluss" of 1995 actually determined that the display of crucifixes in classrooms is against the German constitution - brings back bad memories. After all, I grew up in Bavaria and remember those haphazard classroom prayers in the shadow of a (more or less) stylised male figure, contorted and in a loincloth, led by bored teachers who clearly couldn't care less (well, apart from the obvious fanatics). Dutiful and obedient civil servants all right!

2. In Leipzig, Saxony (NB: in the comparatively atheist east of this country), Daniel Haun, a scientist investigating primate behaviour, has found out fascinating things about the ability of bonobos, chimps, gorillas and orang-outangs to see themselves as "individuals", recognise others as "others" and understand that they can influence these others through their behaviour.

The article in Süddeutsche Zeitung doesn't say it in so many words, but it sounds as if non-human primates have a Theory of Mind of sorts, even though they don't exploit that ability in the way Homo Sapiens do.

Guess which of the two stories makes me happier!

On finding (something more interesting than) Nemo

Not being in Britain, I didn't have the chance to watch 'The Genius of Darwin' as it was broadcast, and I haven't gotten around to seeing whether the episodes have popped up on YouTube yet.

Charlie Brooker did watch it, and he has also come up with (via) what I think is an original way of describing the creationist belief system:

Since Darwin's death, Dawkins points out, the evidence confirming his discovery has piled up and up and up, many thousand feet above the point of dispute. And yet heroically, many still dispute it. They're like couch potatoes watching Finding Nemo on DVD who've suffered some kind of brain haemorrhage which has led them to believe the story they're watching is real, that their screen is filled with water and talking fish, and that that's all there is to reality - just them and that screen and Nemo - and when you run into the room and point out the DVD player and the cables connecting it to the screen, and you open the windows and point outside and describe how overwhelming the real world is - when you do all that, it only spooks them. So they go on believing in Nemo, with gritted teeth if necessary.

Why do they do that? Well the alternative -- a.k.a. reality -- is not so...nice.

As Dawkins says: "The total amount of suffering in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute it takes me to say these words, thousands of animals are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, feeling teeth sink into their throats. Thousands are dying from starvation or disease or feeling a parasite rasping away from within. There is no central authority; no safety net. For most animals the reality of life is struggling, suffering and death."

Not that there aren't, of course, many much more pleasant things in life for some animals. A few of which we've blogged about recently, such as...um...well, art, Denny's, heavy metal and zoology museums.

And I think we may just have to include Charlie Brooker among them as well.

Recent Study Challenges Group Selectionism

The good news comes via Francis Sedgemore.

Read before you type. Please. No, really.

Over the last week or so, it so happens that I've been having an interesting e-mail discussion with a recently made friend that has involved evolution, human behaviour, Richard Dawkins, 'spirituality', the possibility of 'group selection' and related topics. It has become clear that we have different perspectives on these various issues, however -- as in all high-quality discussions amongst people with varying viewpoints -- I feel as if it's been a worthwhile use of my time and that I've actually learned something. Or, at least, when we finally differ, I continue to maintain my full respect toward the person with whom I disagree. It has, in fact, been a pleasure to exchange viewpoints.

It's not very easy to define, but I have had precisely the opposite feeling after reading an article by Pat Shipman, a 'professor of biological anthropology', published in the New York Sun. (Via A&L Daily)

Dr. Shipman, it is quite clear, does not like Richard Dawkins's book, The Selfish Gene.

Unfortunately, she shows no sign of having actually read it.

(I know: this is an accusation that appears rather often at this blog; however, I must say that it so frequently seems apposite that I can't help but make it. I would be pleased to receive any evidence to the contrary. Believe me, I would.)

In fact, she seems to dislike Dawkins so much that she can't bring herself to refer to him by his title. Dawkins has a D.Phil and a D.Sc., which in many places would lead to him being called 'Dr.' She denies him this privilege, referring throughout her article to 'Mr. Dawkins'. This might be acceptable in some contexts -- I mean, I don't always insist on my own title-- however, on her departmental website, she prefers being referred to by her title.

Fair is fair, Dr. Shipman. Thus, your insistent repetition of 'Mr.' seems in some way dismissive.

Anyway, in her brief, crappy article 'Reconsiderations: Richard Dawkins and His Selfish Meme', Dr. Shipman essentially argues that Dawkins's book is not only wrong-headed but has actually has had a malevolent effect on science and human morality.

However, it is actually her own ridiculous analysis of Dawkins's book that proves to be laughable.
The hilarity begins on the first page of her article, where she claims:

In Mr. Dawkins's view, the organisms containing those genes are merely "lumbering robots" or "survival machines" that house and carry genetic information. The implication is that, in these terms, selfishness, even ruthless selfishness, pays off, and altruism does not.

This is, not to mince words, utter nonsense.

The word 'selfish' has led to all kinds of misunderstandings of Dawkins's theory, but he has explained at length (including in The Selfish Gene itself) that the metaphor he chose to describe gene-level 'motives' did not require relentless selfishness on the level of individual behaviour. In the thirty years since his book's publication, he has taken ample opportunity to try to correct this misunderstanding. (Beyond even the clarifications in the book itself.)

But even as explained in the first few pages of the original edition of The Selfish Gene, Dawkins made clear that he was interested in the origins of altruism. Even more in the revised version (with a couple of extra chapters emphasising even further the theme of altruism), Dawkins illustrates repeatedly -- how could Dr. Shipman have missed this?! -- how simple ruthlessness does not pay off in most evolutionary stakes and how some degree of altruism (at least that oriented toward kin- or based on reciprocity) does.

Does the phrase 'tit-for-tat' ring a bell, Dr. Shipman? If you have even a glancing familiarity with Dawkins's work, then it should.

If not, then, please, hold your tongue until you have done some required reading. Such as, say, the book you're pontificating about in the New York Sun. At least that should be on your required reading list.

Because Dawkins -- even in the book that Shipman critiques but doesn't seem to have read -- dealt with this issue quite clearly:

The argument of this book is that we, and all other animals, are machines created by our genes. Like successful Chicago gangsters, our genes have survived, in some cases for millions of years, in a highly competitive world. This entitles us to expect certain qualities in our genes. I shall argue that a predominant quality to be expected in a successful gene is ruthless selfishness. This gene selfishness will usually give rise to selfishness in individual behavior. However, as we shall see, there are special circumstances in which a gene can achieve its own selfish goals best by fostering a limited form of altruism at the level of individual animals. 'Special' and 'limited' are important words in the last sentence. Much as we might wish to believe otherwise, universal love and the welfare of the species as a whole are concepts that simply do not make evolutionary sense. (p. 2, emphasis added)

Dr. Shipman might not like this latter conclusion (the 'limitations' bit), but to argue that Dawkins ignored altruism is wrong, wrong, wrong.

In the revised version of The Selfish Gene that I own (the 1989 Oxford edition) there are even further chapters discussing the topic of altruism.

Moreover, considering the flippancy with which she refers to 'lumbering robots' and 'survival machines' on the first page of her misbegotten screed, you might think that Dawkins never considered the difference between genes and beings with more subtlety.

However, in The Selfish Gene (yeah, the book that Shipman, you'd have thought, had read), he observed,

Some people object to what they see as an excessively gene-centred view of evolution. After all, they argue, it is whole individuals with all their genes who actually live or die. I hope I have said enough in this chapter [Chapter 3, 'Immortal coils', and, indeed, he did] to show that there is really no disagreement here. Just as whole boats win or lose races, it is indeed individuals who live or die, and the immediate manifestation of natural selection is nearly always at the individual level. But the long-term consequences of non-random individual death and reproductive success are manifested in the form of changing gene frequencies in the gene pool. (p. 45)

Didn't you manage to read as far as page 45, Dr. Shipman?

In contrast to Dawkins's view, Dr. Shipman advocates a recent article by E.O. Wilson and D.S. Wilson that has sought to revive a notion of 'group selection'.

Now, I am a great admirer of E.O. Wilson for many reasons (his book Consilience is one that I would recommend to anyone interested in unifying the humanities with the natural sciences and his environmental advocacy has been consistently inspiring...moreover, he manages to impart the way that ants are endlessly fascinating. Who'd have thought that possible?), though I'm rather more sceptical about the other (non-related) Wilson.

In any case, I'm not sure that Dr. Shipman has done much to benefit group selectionism, as she seems to think that this simply means 'the good of the species' (her article, page 1).

Even advocates of group selection (or, more accurately, multi-level selection) are careful enough to emphasise a more nuanced version of the theory.

However, here again, Dr. Shipman lets provides yet another embarrassing howler. Speaking of Wilson and Wilson, she states,

The pair asserted persuasively that altruism and cooperation can be adaptive if they are directed toward relatives who share a suite of one's genes (kin selection) or if relationships can be established within a group in which cooperation is rewarded with future reciprocity.

Having (apparently) not read The Selfish Gene, she is clearly unaware both 'kin selection' and 'reciprocal altruism' are central features of Dawkins's book. (See, particularly, Chapter 6, 'Genesmanship', for the former and Chapter 10, 'You scratch my back, I'll ride on yours' for the latter.)

Indeed, Dr. Shipman appears to present 'kin selection' as somehow in opposition to Dawkins's work, whereas Dawkins very much saw himself as popularising the work of Bill Hamilton, who put the notion of kin selection on a more stable mathematical footing.

For all her blathering on about kin-selection and the altruistic behaviour of meerkats, Dr. Shipman overlooks the fact that Dawkins -- in his revised 1989 edition of The Selfish Gene -- discussed the altruistic behaviour of vampire bats.

In conclusion: to suggest that 'selfish' genes invariably mean 'selfish' behaviour is to fundamentally misunderstand Dawkins's book.

For a professor of 'biological anthropology' managing to avoid that simple error should be a doddle; however, Dr. Shipman appears to not be up to the challenge. She should be ashamed of herself.

Not only does she present the theories of John Maynard Smith as somehow opposed to those of Dawkins (who makes extensive use, for instance, of his notion of the Evolutionarily Stable Strategy), but she oddly lumps kin and group selection together, as if Dawkins had not made abundant arguments in favour of the former.

One of the crowning insults of Shipman's little package of intellectual trash is to claim that Dawkins has in some way assisted the spread of the 'Intelligent Design' movement:

The picture of evolution offered by [The Selfish Gene], and others by Mr. Dawkins, which many found bleak, also contributed to the growth and stridency of the intelligent design movement to undercut the teaching of evolution in public schools.

What?!

Shipman doesn't even begin to explain what she means by this, and she should be deeply ashamed of linking Dawkins's work with any presumed success of 'Intelligent Design', a movement that Dawkins has been intensely focused on combating.

She even has the gall to argue that the book has provoked a 'backlash against science'.

I don't know much about the work of Dr. Pat Shipman, and for all I know she writes brilliantly and insigtfully within her own field. But having examined this piece of intellectual nothingness alongside her depthless article on violence in the wake of September 11th, I have to say this: I'm not impressed.

She definitely has some more reading to do. And in the meantime, she should keep her mouth shut.

And, I suggest, she should refrain from using the word 'biological' in her title until she demonstrates that she has the ability to read, understand and recapitulate works on that topic.

And, for what it's worth, A&L Daily should take a bit more care in the articles that it recommends.

Joy to the World ...

... Charles Darwin is online, completely!

Atheist Field Day

Ok, ok -- I admit it. I don't really have that much to say, I only wanted to write that title. Well, and draw your attention to some of the issues that us poor Germans are told to worry about by the media. And a nice little basket of eggs it has become.

There is, first of all, the outcry by German politicians and bishops about the Hollywood blockbusters shown by private TV channels this Easter (Die Hard (1-3, too!), King Kong and Highlander).

Now there's a few people with nothing else to do .... Shouldn't they be in church anyway? Like you, dear visitor???

Second, the prohibition of the sale of condoms in a chemist's in the sleepy (but staunchly Catholic) town of Fulda in Hesse. The snag: the building that houses said chemist is owned by the Catholic church -- and condoms, as we all know, are the devil's work.

Fulda, one must say, has a reputation for harbouring silly ideas.

This is a doddle, however, compared to the most recent British terror: the fear of Nazi racoons. The sun has it's own characteristic view of the matter. I really and truly love that famous British humour ....

Less cuddly but chillingly beautiful are the oversized creatures discovered in the Antarctic. But beware ... giant Nazi starfish out on a slippery blitzkrieg -- and saluting, too. Next step: Polar Bears that look like Hitler.

For the more arty ones amongst you, a nasty review of Thomas Ostermeier's Mark Ravenhill/Martin Crimp double feature at the Berlin Schaubühne. Here's the trailer (yes -- these days theatre goes movie):




I reckon I gave up on "In-Yer-Face-Theater" after voluntarily exposing myself to Irvine Welsh's totally forgettable play You'll Have Had Your Hole in Leeds in 1998. Though I quite liked Ostermeier's production of Sarah Kane's Blasted. Well, it had Ulrich Mühe in it ....

Finally, in an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, John R. Searle seems to get evolution completely wrong.

Happy egg-hunting everyone!

Welcome to Planet LaLa (a fully licenced subsidiary of Virgin Galactic)

Oh dear, what would we do without the British press! Both The Independent and The Telegraph bring us a deeply welcome, indeed essential, piece of news that otherwise would have slipped under our radar: Finally, after all these years, a German TV station will air (dubbed, of course) versions of 'Allo 'Allo.

With due thanks to Tony Paterson of The Independent for that excruciatingly witty headline "'Allo, 'Allo to invade German Screens". My midriff still hurts from all that laughing. You haff vays off mayking us laff indeed. (As the new Citroen ad says, very German.)

Thanks a bunch for this hyper-relevant info. We really have other problems to deal with over here at the moment. There is not only the major leadership crisis currently rocking the SPD. We also have the continuing drama around the polar bear infant 'Flocke' (who is three months old and being weaned off the bottle).

But going beyond the zoo into the human freak-show department, we also have our own, (in)famous incestuous couple, who are intermittently featured at Der Spiegel -- that stalwart defender of those poor people who claim to be victims of that harsh, terrible, inhumane system called "The Welfare State."

In an article about the upcoming decision by the Federal Constitutional Court as to whether this couple -- brother and sister, who are not only deeply enamoured of one another, but who have also sealed their love by producing four (!) children -- should be punished for their luv, the mildly defensive author goes beyond a perhaps understandable sympathy into the realm of scientific illiteracy.

According to Dietmar Hipp, abhorrence of incest is merely a culturally specific artefact of "an evolutionary dread" turned into a "powerful taboo," and does not deserve its illegal status. Apparently seeing evolutionary influences on our psychology as a bit old hat, he calls upon the mythical Oedipus, the French Revolution (though no Robespierre in sight) and Sigmund Freud to vouch for the legitimacy of these blood-crossed lovers. (The temptation to label them "Bro'Sis" is intense, but we will try to resist...oh, fuck it, never mind, we give in.)

What?!

I'm sorry, the negative reaction to incest is not triggered by some outdated prejudice. It is, rather, a universal phenomenon among humans and (at least most) animals, and it is a sensible natural strategy to keep that ol' gene pool a mixin'. (The results of failing to stir the pot can be scary: just see the royal family.) Amongst people unafraid of scientific ideas, such avoidance of sibling relationships is sustained (with little or no "repressive" cultural input) by what is known as the "Westermarck effect".

But this is not the only popular science clanger dropped today. The New York Times paints a grim apocalyptic scenario for the world. Of course, it's 7.59 billion years hence, but adapting the old boy scout adage, it seems it's never too soon to be prepared.

Not only does the article report about the doom that faces us all (eventually), it also makes all sorts of really neat suggestions about what to do about it. Like, shifting Venus an inch or so to the left and making preparations for colonising other planets (and presto: start catapulting your bottled water up to Mars now. No doubt Richard Branson will soon offer a semi-affordable shuttle service. Having been unable to get the toilets to work on his crappy trains under normal gravitational influences, he now wants to make a big mess in space...)

Which would be all cool and the gang, you know, if there weren't a few billion more problems that are a bit more down to Earth. (I could write headlines for the Independent any day, I tell you.)

Besides which: consider -- just for a moment -- what we're talking about here. 7.59 billion years is something like twice the amount of time that life has so far existed on the Earth. Homo sapiens has been around for all of about 100-150,000 years ago (give or take a few ten thou...).

What makes these geniuses (or anyone else) assume that we're going to be around to watch our planet be "dragged from its orbit by an engorged red Sun and spiral to a rapid vaporous death"?

Is it just me, or is there something breathtakingly arrogant about this?

I'd give us even odds to make it out of the century, let alone the next millennium...

(But, might I be able to interest you in some real estate on Venus? Get it while it's cheap!)

What the hell am I doing?

One of the questions that Norm asks contributors to his profile series is 'What philosophical thesis do you think it most important to disseminate?' Like many of the other questions, that's a tough one all right.

The answer I gave -- 'To promote both the use of rational thought and the awareness that people are not fundamentally rational' -- is far from perfect (or even profound) perhaps, but it does more-or-less express what has become a guiding principle of mine.

It has at least the benefit of being both parsimonious and symmetrical, as each side of this particular outlook has a single source:

Do we need to promote rational thought? Yes, why, just look at all the crazy shit people do?!

Are we, deep down, fundamentally rational beings? No, why, just look at all the crazy shit people do?!

What is more, given the sheer volume of said crazy shit, I get to see my beliefs confirmed on a daily basis.

That is nice.

It's helpful now and then, though, to discover that at least some of the views I hold have a more firm grounding in what has succinctly and pithily described as 'earth-logic', something from which all too many people's thinking achieves escape velocity.

Last week, Elizabeth Kolbert had an interesting article in the New Yorker on a related point. In 'What was I thinking?', she looks at a couple of books on research being done on the irrational bases of behaviour. She focuses on 'behavioural economics' in the form of Dan Ariely's book Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions.

I've not read it, but I like the gist of his arguments.

He claims that his experiments, and others like them, reveal the underlying logic to our illogic. “Our irrational behaviors are neither random nor senseless—they are systematic,” he writes. “We all make the same types of mistakes over and over.” So attached are we to certain kinds of errors, he contends, that we are incapable even of recognizing them as errors.

With regard to a somewhat different sphere, 'The Moral Instinct', by Steven Pinker, appeared at the New York Times, summarising a variety of work on the issue of where people's moral beliefs come from. Confronting the assumption that morality is (simply) imposed through learning and imitation, he points to research suggesting a far more intuitive understanding of moral concepts that underlies a large part evaluating right and wrong.

At least a certain portion of culture, then, appears as a result of the effort to find post-hoc rationalisations for what we think anyway. (That certainly explains a lot of blogging...)

Like a lot of Pinker's writing, the article is a mixture of effective summary, brilliant insight and sometimes careless quips. (For instance: I'm not convinced that arguments about the environmental impact of, say, S.U.V.s are necessarily based on personal moral abhorrence about 'over-indulgence'. One does not need moral priggishness to critique personal wastefulness, merely an understanding that individual behaviour multiplied by hundreds of millions of individuals can have an enormous impact.)

Also like a lot of Pinker's writing, it is enormously compelling. He observes:

The science of the moral sense also alerts us to ways in which our psychological makeup can get in the way of our arriving at the most defensible moral conclusions. The moral sense, we are learning, is as vulnerable to illusions as the other senses. It is apt to confuse morality per se with purity, status and conformity. It tends to reframe practical problems as moral crusades and thus see their solution in punitive aggression. It imposes taboos that make certain ideas indiscussible. And it has the nasty habit of always putting the self on the side of the angels.

One of the researchers mentioned by Pinker is Jonathan Haidt. Haidt has a curious article at Edge: 'Moral Psychology and the Misunderstanding of Religion'. I say 'curious', because its first part (up to about page six on the printed version) is a fascinating and convincing look at the intuitive nature of moral judgements and the unconscious causation of most behaviour whereas its second half is a much less convincing critique of 'New Atheism' .

This is one of the best bits, at least with regard to the topic I'm discussing here:

Our brains, like other animal brains, are constantly trying to fine tune and speed up the central decision of all action: approach or avoid. You can't understand the river of fMRI studies on neuroeconomics and decision making without embracing this principle. We have affectively-valenced intuitive reactions to almost everything, particularly to morally relevant stimuli such as gossip or the evening news. Reasoning by its very nature is slow, playing out in seconds.

Studies of everyday reasoning show that we usually use reason to search for evidence to support our initial judgment, which was made in milliseconds. But I do agree with Josh Greene that sometimes we can use controlled processes such as reasoning to override our initial intuitions. I just think this happens rarely, maybe in one or two percent of the hundreds of judgments we make each week. And I do agree with Marc Hauser that these moral intuitions require a lot of computation, which he is unpacking.

Hauser and I mostly disagree on a definitional question: whether this means that "cognition" precedes "emotion." I try never to contrast those terms, because it's all cognition. I think the crucial contrast is between two kinds of cognition: intuitions (which are fast and usually affectively laden) and reasoning (which is slow, cool, and less motivating).

And there's another conclusion that is also important:

The basic idea is that we did not evolve language and reasoning because they helped us to find truth; we evolved these skills because they were useful to their bearers, and among their greatest benefits were reputation management and manipulation. (Emphasis added)

And this, I think is a key point: our psychologies are about use, not truth.

Haidt's article is fairly lengthy, as are the responses to it by David Sloan Wilson, Michael Sherman, Sam Harris, PZ Myers and Marc Hauser. So, this posting is an entirely too brief summary of what that discussion is all about.

Much of that discussion focuses on the much weaker part of Haidt's paper, where he tries to apply his empirical conclusions to the 'New Atheism'.

I'll simply direct you to the responses by Myers and Harris on that topic.

But I also think that Haidt's efforts to link religiosity to the current effort by some people to rehabilitate 'group selection' are unconvincing.

Hauser makes a very good point about this:

This is bad evolutionary reasoning, and the kind of speculation that ultimately led Gould and Lewontin to have a field day with loose just-so stories. But there is more. Just because there is variation doesn’t mean it will be selected. It has to be heritable variation. One has to show that the belief systems are genetically passed on in some way, or one has to argue for cultural selection, which is an entirely different affair, at least at the level of mechanism and timing of change. I don’t see any evidence that the observed variation in beliefs is heritable in a genetic sense. (Emphasis added)

Neither do I, and there are other problems with group selection in the sense that Wilson and others seem to be trying to revive. This is not a new spat: Geoff made some good observations about another Dawkins-Wilson tiff on a similar topic last year.

(Hauser's point about heritability is also germane, of course, to Gregory Clark's recent speculations about the genetic basis of capitalism. I commented here, here, and here.)

It seems clear to me that while Haidt is right to point out the benefits that might accrue to those who are well integrated into their communities, he is mistaking those benefits as being purely religious in nature. (This is partly what Myers rebukes him for.)

Moreover (and this comes out in Sam Harris's response), Haidt seems to be basing his view of religion largely (or maybe even exclusively, as far as his empirical evidence goes) on the relatively contained, civilised, reformed -- in short, tamed -- version that you find in some parts of the modern world and not the less cheerful versions of it so common in much of the past and present.

Finally, I think the issue of 'benefit' (are religious people 'happier') is a different -- and far less interesting -- one than that of 'truth' (do gods exist). It's mainly the latter question that the recent best-selling atheist authors have confronted; however, even on the issue of the former one, Haidt's view of religion seems oddly one-sided.

Anyway, the topic of intuitive judgements seems difficult to escape these days.

Just this morning I ran across Momus using Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink to think about the great deal of information we can gain from the briefest of impressions:

Gladwell calls this "thin-slicing" and explains that "as human beings we are capable of making sense of situations based on the thinnest slice of experience". This might sound lazy, but there's something rather elegant -- and sometimes startlingly acute -- about it. "In a psychological experiment, normal people given fifteen minutes to examine a student's college dormitory can describe the subject's personality more accurately than his or her own friends." It's why I always scribble down my first impressions of a new city within minutes of arriving. It's not just that first impressions are lasting, they're also some of the most penetrating thin-slices you'll ever get. "Reality", said Willem de Kooning, "is a slipping glimpse".

And our minds present us a view of that reality (in most cases) that is useful rather than truthful.

Finally: Some digging around has brought up a couple of very interesting-looking articles on this topic by John Bargh -- whom Haidt mentions -- that I've not managed to read yet: 'The Unbearable Automaticity of Being' (pdf) and 'What Have We Been Priming All these Years?' (pdf).

What all of these insights mean for topics of interest at this blog -- namely, the study of history and literature -- is a challenging question.

Last year, in 'The Limits of Culture?', I at least tried to make a start on thinking about how evolutionary psychology might be integrated into historical studies with regard to the topic of violence. (The article, by the way, is FREE for download. I mention this only because articles in most academic journals are not...and also because, as Elizabeth Kolbert points out in the opening paragraphs of her New Yorker article, the word 'free' has a profound affect on the human psyche. I'm trying to start a stampede... Also note: occasionally, the IngentaConnect site seems to pitch a fit and either never load or tell you that the content is not there. It is. Just keep trying. Or get in touch if you can't.)

Responses to the article can be found here and here; my response to the responses here. Access to these latter bits, however, will require either that you be affiliated with some kind of institution that subscribes to such online content or that you cough up some bucks first. Sorry. As in so many things, as the man said, TANSTAAFL.

Ain't it the truth.

Being...aware.

Damian Thompson, at Counterknowledge, draws our attention to a lecture scheduled today at UCL as part of 'Islamic Awareness Week' at the university.

The talk, entitled “the Collapse of the Evolutionary Theory”, was originally booked for the Darwin Lecture Theatre but, after protests from scientists appalled at the insult to Charles Darwin’s memory, has now been moved – to another UCL lecture theatre.

Quite apart from what kind of 'awareness' this is supposed to promote (other than that of how pathetic religion can be), it is a shame that the university is now providing a platform for the scheduled speakers.

As Thompson observes:

The publicity material says: “Dr Oktar Babuna and Ali Sadun Engin are from the Science Research Foundation, which produces the Harun Yahya series of books and DVDs. They will provide an insightful view into the reality of evolution and the shaky grounds upon which several of the theories are based.”

Insightful? Let me tell you a bit about Harun Yahya. It’s the pen name of a series of writers flooding the Islamic world with books and DVDs that present Darwinism as part of a diabolical conspiracy. This is a particularly poisonous form of counterknowledge.

I have in front of me a book by Harun Yahya called The Dark Clan, which explains that evolutionary science is inspired by “a dark clan behind all kids of corruption and perversion, that controls drug trafficking, prostitution rings”. Evolution is the “greatest deception in the history of science”.

Yahya's silly-but-slickly-produced Atlas of Creation found its way to The Wife's university department last year, so I got to have a look at the book sent round the world. (Though it was apparently not sent to everyone.)

I'm happy that UCL moved the lecture out of the Darwin Lecture Theatre. It would have been a travesty.

(As previously noted, the same building contains an excellent -- if tiny -- zoology museum. They deserve your support.)

Nature/Nurture

In case you're looking for a quick read on a late Sunday afternoon, Der Spiegel has a good article by Irenäus Eibl-Eibelsfeld about the Galapagos islands as an evolutionary laboratory. Including pictures of finches.

Only in German, though. Sorry.

On a less pleasant note, the Sueddeutsche features watercolours of Disney-dwarves which a Norwegian museum director claims were painted by Hitler.

Proves the point: nature beats nurture any time.

Evolving views

At Reason, there's an interesting survey by Ron Bailey of U.S. presidential candidates' views on evolution.

The dividing line between the two parties is relatively clear on this issue, which is not surprising. Of course, all candidates express some kind of Christian belief--if they didn't, they would not, of course, be viable candidates--so even the relatively rational Democrats seem to be adopting one variation or another of the (wrong-headed) NOMA principle.

Which is not what I'd prefer, but given the strictures of acceptable American political discourse, I'll take what I can get.

There are a few slightly disconcerting notes on the Democratic side, though. Some candidates haven't even expressed an opinion. Barack Obama, for instance. As Bailey points out, it may be that he hasn't been asked. (Christopher Hitchens, however, recently took a look at the church to which Obama belongs and found enough grounds for concern.)

Trying to combine religious belief and scientific rationalism requires intense forms of mental contortion in the best conditions: being a politician in America (where, Obama quipped, 'more people...believe in angels than they do in evolution') is far from such a context. (Note: it seems he's right.)

So, OK: I'm uncomfortable with all the well-meaning spiritualist blubber coming from the Dems, but I'm pretty sure that at least science classes would be safe with one of them at the helm.

Speaking of mental contortion, though, the comments on Bailey's article (and responses to an earlier confirmation of Ron Paul's apparent creationist leanings) are instructive.

As I've noted, there are many elements of libertarian thinking which are appealing; however, nearly all of my personal encounters with self-described libertarians have been disappointing or disturbing. (There are exceptions, such as one Dale pointed me to. He also eloquently and thoughtfully responded to my thoughts here.)

And if the comments at Reason are any thing to go by, the movement has a problem, as it seems to be substantially composed not of thoughtful rationalists but rather of naively pathological anti-staters, conspiracy theorists, committed creationists and global warming deniers. Many of them are people who also seem to spend an awful lot of time screeching at the slightest heresy and debating who may and who may not call themselves a 'libertarian'.

Which, I think, is very grown up.

So much for free-thinking rational scepticism.

Not that this is surprising: their enthusiasm for Paul's highly troubling candidature is telling enough. (Via Cliopatria and Pharyngula.)

The Democratic candidate with the best answer on the evolution issue is former Alaska senator Mike Gravel, (who has about as much chance as winning the nomination as I do):

When LiveScience asked the senator if he thought creationism should be taught in public schools, Gravel replied, "Oh God, no. Oh, Jesus. We thought we had made a big advance with the Scopes monkey trial....My God, evolution is a fact, and if these people are disturbed by being the descendants of monkeys and fishes, they've got a mental problem. We can't afford the psychiatric bill for them. That ends the story as far as I'm concerned."

As it should be. (Though, of course, he may be right: all on its own that psychiatric bill might make any of the candidates' health-care proposals prohibitively expensive.)