"Boots on the ground"

There are certain phrases that rub me the wrong way, and this is one of them. Right now, we're in the midst of dealing with fundamentalist Muslims in the form of ISIS, and the concern expressed by almost everyone is "Are we going to have to have boots on the ground in Iraq again?" CEO's use the term as a way of showing that they "understand" what the average worker does in their companies, and I've heard it in lots of other contexts ever since the phrase cropped up. It pisses me off no end.

Here's why: there are people in those boots, and they are the ones getting blown up, or grievously wounded, or experiencing terror the likes of which no one should have to deal with. They'll live with that for the rest of their lives. "Boots on the ground" implies all this is just a bunch of footwear; it dehumanizes every person alluded to by that phrase.

We have a tendency to do that with any unpleasant reality. "Collateral damage" was a big one in my day - and it still is; implying that the use of military force *might* lead to some buildings being damaged somewhere that - oh shucks - we didn't mean to do that but it's the price of "doing business". Of course, what's hidden by that phrase are the people killed and injured because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. We're pretty good at disguising what we really mean with language.

While we're at it, the contention that the US isn't committing combat forces against ISIS at this stage denigrates the hazards the airmen doing the current bombing are facing. As a former "grunt" (now there's a euphemism that really does capture reality) I admit to some scorn for the flyboys because they don't necessarily see the reality of what they do; but they're in hazard's way like grunts and if that isn't combat, I don't know what is.

Sustainability and miracles

The latests Science arrived in my mailbox yesterday. Usually I'm too busy to read much of it, but this morning I decided to take a break and look it over. There's lots of good stuff in there, but the two things that caught my eye were sustainability and miracles.

Sustainability first. An editorial in this issue praised Pope Francis for his concern about the poor around the world and how environmental degradation affects those people, who have arguably had the least input in producing major problems such as climate change. A second article pointed out how religious institutions can have a dramatic favorable impact on these problems. In an earlier blog (a week ago, in fact - see Evolution Dreams) I argued that folks like Richard Dawkins, who contend that religion is a cancer and science is the only valid way of approaching the problems we face, were misguided at best. We need the moral authority of people like Pope Francis to help us make the best choices.

The second article might seem diametrically opposed to what I just wrote, as it's about an evolutionary biologist and linguist who has been investigating the origin and spread of human language and animal cognition. Russell Gray of the University of Auckland has a pet phrase - no miracles - which he uses when addressing what were previously regarded as questions beyond the reach of scientific investigation. He's using modern evolutionary analysis tools to address questions of the origin of human languages and the origin of "intelligence" in non-human animals.

The "no miracles" part is guaranteed to rub some religious folks the wrong way, but in context what he's saying makes sense. In fact, that's how science makes progress; previously unsolvable (by scientific means) problems become tractable when a clever scientist comes along and figures out a way to address them.

What about religious miracles? Well, science can't really help us there. Was Jesus divine? Sorry, no help. However, I'm in the racket I'm in because I regard life as "miraculous".

Evolution dreams

I woke up this morning after a dream about me teaching evolution and inciting a riot. Well, I do teach evolution and so far I haven't incited a riot - keep your fingers crossed! But my dream actually turned out ok; I managed to calm down the two gentlemen who were breaking windows and throwing things and I got the rest of the town to come in and settle down so we could talk about it. I really wish that could happen in real life, but I don't see any obvious signs that it will.

I think fear drives the opposition to evolution, as well as the reaction of hard-core evolutionists like Richard Dawkins. I think those who oppose evolution fear moral decline and consigning people to hell. Those who react so strongly against anti-evolutionists fear a world where science is reviled and society degenerates into a "dark age".

I'm not sure what to make of such fears. I don't believe in a sort of hell where bad people or non-believers "go" when they die (though I certainly believe in the kind of hell we humans inflict on one another - I've experienced it) and I don't believe that evolution leads inevitably to moral decline (it may even explain where our moral sense comes from - an even more frightening consequence for anti-evolutionists). But I don't know how to convince those who oppose evolution that neither hell nor moral decline are consequences of teaching evolution.

As for the Richard Dawkins of the world, I feel that if science loses its place in modern society, it will be the fault of those who believe that science is the only valid way to learn things. Einstein is often quoted in this regard: "... science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." and many folks have raised that quote to support their view (a view I share) that the two spheres of human thought are both necessary. Jerry Coyne (who might be a "Dawkinsian") wrote an article disputing this view here.

Having read Coyne's book (Why Evolution is True), where this article comes from, I have to say I think Coyne is wrong. Science cannot possibly address what is good or bad, and we definitely need help in doing that. It seems to me that religion and philosophy are the only two spheres of human thought making an effort to help us discern "good" from "evil", and that there's no more important work for us to do than that.

Will machines take over the Earth?

I was looking at Crisis News Network (motto: We print all the trivial news about celebrities and none about stuff that matters) and there was an article posing the idea that "Terminators" could be real. I read it and found it was by a researcher at Oxford regarding artificial intelligence and the possibility that machines would soon outstrip human intelligence, possibly with a bad outcome for us. What caught my eye, and the reason I'm writing about this, is the author's reference to evolutionary intelligence.

The article was in some ways simply a promo piece for a book the author wrote (the author is Nick Bostrom - you can look it up on Amazon), but the notion of evolutionary intelligence is worth considering. The book I'm using in my "Evolution for Everyone" class notes that computer scientists are using evolutionary algorithms to develop programs much faster than they could do so by "hand" - and the programs so developed are often better than those written by a human programmer. The fear expressed by Bostrom is that such programs could reach a tipping point where the machines writing the programs would begin to alter the environment in a way that suits them and not us. The idea that we need to impart wisdom to computers rather than simply "intelligence" struck me as worthy.

His book received positive reviews, so I may check it out. The theme that we often develop technologies that seem "good" and then turn out to have some major downsides is not new, but it becomes increasingly dangerous as those technologies become more powerful. Evolution is the most powerful organic force we know of, and we tinker with it without having the wisdom to handle it wisely.

God help me, I'm about to teach about "protists" in zoology! Molecular methods have taught us that "protists" is a term without meaning in the evolutionary scheme of things, but the term won't die since it's a "convenient" way to talk about everything that isn't a plant, an animal or a fungus. But it leads to all kinds of confusion so I personally doubt the educational value of such a term.

For example, the text I'm using insists on calling Opisthokonts a "phylum" (opisthokonts include animals and fungi) and then turns around and calls the animals a "kingdom"! You can't have a "kingdom" as a group contained within a "phylum". Furthermore, in a couple of places unicellular critters with no close connection to animals are called "animals". There's something about zoologists that doesn't let them give up critters that used to be thought of as "animal-like", but clearly aren't. Maybe it's the collection mentality.

Speaking of the collection mentality, a group I'm associated with is arguing about moves to have the Monarch butterfly declared a threatened species. Beyond the difficulty of determining what "threatened" means, I'm sure part of the disagreement stems from collectors who fear another encroachment on their ability to collect. Already in many European countries one cannot collect moths and butterflies without some sort of permit from the government, and those permits are often quite difficult to obtain.

I find myself torn on this issue. I applaud the drive to preserve nature, and I think collectors can be unconscious about the impact of their activities, but really? Banning a kid from picking up a net and collecting some common butterflies or moths helps conservation efforts how?

A new academic year

Well, the big news is that we now have a new academic building, named after the principle donor, Dr. Sanders. I taught with Dick the whole time he was at Eureka College, mostly in western civilization and culture. If any alums are reading this, and you were in that course "back in the day", you know what I'm talking about.

In those days, the course was basically a history course, so Dick took the lion's share of the lectures, which was quite a job. Whenever one of the other team members did a lecture, he always took the time to write a note thanking that person for her/his efforts. Pretty thoughtful, and I'm embarrassed to say that I never did the same.

The big biological news is the Ebola outbreak in west Africa, which has killed at least 50% of the people who contract the disease. This may be one of the worst diseases (in terms of mortality rate) in the whole world. However, it's not easy to become infected; one needs contact with an infected individual's bodily fluids. If the disease ever became infective via aerosol, we'd be up a creek without a paddle. We have vaccines which protect us against some viruses, but for the most part we're helpless against viral infections. Many people believe that antibiotics also kill viruses, but that is not true (otherwise, we'd be shipping tons of antibiotics to west Africa right now).

And speaking of vaccines, the idea that vaccination "causes" autism still won't die. A recent report, since removed, indicated a higher risk of autism for African American male children who had been vaccinated with MMR. You can imagine how the anti-vaccine crowd responded to that! Here's the deal: nothing is ever proven in science. So while the bulk of evidence supports the idea that vaccination does not "cause" autism, the question must forever remain open. Science tells us that our best avenue to avoid crippling and potentially fatal viral illnesses is to vaccinate our children; the risk of autism from such vaccinations is vanishingly small. Which certainly doesn't help a parent who has a child with autism and wonders what could have been done to prevent it.