An insider’s account from Copenhagen:
Copenhagen was a disaster. That much is agreed. But the truth about what actually happened is in danger of being lost amid the spin and inevitable mutual recriminations. The truth is this: China wrecked the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful “deal” so western leaders would walk away carrying the blame. How do I know this? Because I was in the room and saw it happen.
Sadly, this makes complete sense to me. It’s just how politics (international or otherwise—look at the recent health care hijackings) work. I wish it wasn’t so.
From Information is Beautiful, we get this Climate Change Deniers vs The Consensus graph.
They’ve done a good job of laying out both sides of the argument without bias or name-calling. What is interesting to me is that throughout the entire thing, “The Consensus” is on the defensive. That seems to be true in the debate as a whole, from my understanding. It’s an unfortunate predicament to be in, because it detracts from one’s credibility even if there is no reason to do so.
via Pharyngula we get this amazing video of “Evolution in Action” by the American Museum of Natural History.
I’m with Myers on this:
They too briefly showed a blind depigmented cichlid that apparently lives in very deep troughs in the river — I wanted to see more about that. It’s probably out of the question to send divers down into that maelstrom, but cameras? Someday? Please?
Every time I read articles like this it reminds me of how evolution showcases God’s awesome creation, as opposed to detracting from it.
The largest of the new finds was a previously unknown giant of Cameroon’s rainforest, stretching more than 42m (138ft) into the canopy of the Korup National Park.
Also, if you’re concerned about your coffee, be concerned about climate change:
Dr Davis estimated that almost three-quarters of the world’s wild coffee species were threatened, as a result of habitat loss and climate change.
“Conserving the genetic diversity within this genus has implications for the sustainability of our daily cup, particularly as coffee plantations are highly susceptible to climate change,” he added.
An interesting study in the effects of global warming on a specific ecosystem:
Global warming is giving a boost to Sonoran Desert plants that have an edge during cold weather, according to new research.
While the temperature as a whole is going up:
In a previous study, Venable and his colleagues had examined the physiology of the nine species and found that some grow better under cold conditions and are more efficient at using water. Those species are now becoming more common as the changing climate shifts the onset of the winter rains.
Interesting idea from Wallace J Nichols:
If the denial of science weren’t so dangerous, we could leave the topic to Jon Stewart to dissect on the Daily Show. But it is dangerous.
Make it your New Year resolution to quietly and kindly adopt a denier. Over time, explain how science works, share peer reviewed articles, go see films, have long conversations over coffee or beer afterwards. The idea isn’t to “win” an argument, it’s to answer questions and remove the fear or misunderstanding that surrounds advances in scientific understanding of ourselves and our planet.
In a way, that’s what I’m trying to do with this blog.
It is scarcely possible to avoid comparing the eye with a telescope. We know that this instrument has been perfected by the long-continued efforts of the highest human intellects; and we naturally infer that the eye has been formed by a somewhat analogous process. But may not this inference be presumptuous? Have we any right to assume that the Creator works by intellectual powers like those of man? If we must compare the eye to an optical instrument, we ought in imagination to take a thick layer of transparent tissue, with spaces filled with fluid, and with a nerve sensitive to light beneath, and then suppose every part of this layer to be continually changing slowly in density, so as to separate into layers of different densities and thicknesses, placed at different distances from each other, and with the surfaces of each layer slowly changing in form. Further we must suppose that there is a power, represented by natural selection or the survival of the fittest, always intently watching each slight alteration in the transparent layers; and carefully preserving each which, under varied circumstances, in any way or degree, tends to produce a distincter image. We must suppose each new state of the instrument to be multiplied by the million; each to be preserved until a better is produced, and then the old ones to be all destroyed. In living bodies, variation will cause the slight alteration, generation will multiply them almost infinitely, and natural selection will pick out with unerring skill each improvement. Let this process go on for millions of years; and during each year on millions of individuals of many kinds; and may we not believe that a living optical instrument might thus be formed as superior to one of glass, as the works of the Creator are to those of man?
- Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, Chapter 6 (emphasis added)
A fascinating observation, and one I was not expecting to encounter in On the Origin of Species.
From Pharyngula we get this video of Terry Pratchett:
While understandable sentiments, the reference to humans as “fallen angels” makes me think that his theology might be just a bit off.
The assumption that religion and evolution cannot coincide puzzles me. An understanding of religion as socially evolved at least attempts to deal with the issue, rather than simply mocking it.
From a new study out of UC Berkeley:
By combining data from three catalogs of mammal diversity in the United States between 30 million years ago and 500 years ago, UC Berkeley and Penn State researchers show that the bulk of mammal extinctions occurred within a few thousand years after the arrival of humans, with losses dropping after that. Although modern humans emerged from Africa into Europe and Asia by about 40,000 years ago, they didn’t reach North America until about 13,000 years ago, and most mammal extinctions occurred in the subsequent 1,000 to 2,000 years.
The question of our ultimate effect on nature remains up in the air, but it would be naïve to assume that humans are entirely innocent or entirely responsible. That said, the circumstances described here don’t sound that dissimilar to what Darwin describes in On the Origin of Species as the result of a more highly-adapted species moving into a new territory.
