Evolution 2010 recap

This was my second year going to Evolution 2010, the join meeting of the Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE), the Society of Systematic Biologists (SSB), and the American Society of Naturalists (ASN). Last year I went as part of the Undergraduate Diversity program (which funded my way!) and had a blast.

This year was just as good. My talk was on the first day of the conference, which was awesome. I only had to spend that morning fretting, and I got to enjoy the rest of the conference stress-free (unlike most of my labmates). My presentation went alright – Prof said I did a good job, but I think I could have been a little smoother. I was surprised that I still had a good number of people in attendance, even though I was speaking at the same exact time as the end of the USA World Cup match. Yes, annoying vuvuzela sounds filled the conference hall.

As for the talks themselves, I went to a lot of interesting ones. Well, the first day started off a little shaky, but the conference improved once I started going to research talks. One of the bad things about the conference was that there were just so many talks – 12 concurrent sessions to choose from! You never know what talk is going to be good, so I know I missed some great ones just by choosing poorly.

The downside of going as a post-bach (I’m in undergrad/grad student limbo!) is that most of the stuff is still way over my head. Almost all of the talks are given by professors, post-docs, or nearly finished graduate students, so no matter how much of a nerdy brainiac I am, I was still way out of my league. So, sorry, no talk re-caps for you. Though Wired did cover one talk that I thought was super cool (and actually understood!), so check it out: Lizard Camouflage Confuses Males About Gender. Pssssssshhhh, Wired covered that but not my copulatory plug talk?

Some amusing things about the conference:

  • I met Jerry Coyne! I was nervous to approach him since he was one of the most famous people there – not just for his blog (which I love) or his book (which my dad loved), but for kind of being the leading authority on speciation. He was super nice to talk to, so my nerves were unfounded. We talked for a good amount of time, mostly ranting about religious accommodationism and evolution. It surprised my lab, though. Or as my professor said, “Even I’d be nervous to talk to him.”
  • There was a Christian Homeschooling Conference going on at the same time in the convention center. There was much loling by the evolutionary biologists. I think at least four different talks I saw made a joke about this is one way.
  • Speaking of jokes, at least two presentations had penis jokes in them. We are so mature.
  • So many nerdy t-shirts! One day I wore the same exact nerdy shirt as someone else, and we kept running into each other and giving each other shirt-props. Also, one day I was wearing my “You say Tomato, I say Lycopersicon esculentum” shirt and I actually ran into someone who studies tomatoes, who informed me that that was not the current accepted binomial nomenclature for tomatoes. Which I knew, but I just found it amusing that this was one of the few places where that could happen.
  • All of the receptions had free “unlimited” (it said limit 2, but no one checked) beer and wine. However, you had to pay 3 dollars for water or pop. I think the conference understood it’s grad student audience very well.

Some amusing things about goofing off in Portland:

  • I went to my first sushi-go-round. I had never heard of these things (mainly because I’m not a huge fan of sushi). Basically they put different small servings of sushi on a conveyor belt, and you snatch the ones you want to eat as they go by. It was pretty good, and that says a lot coming from me!
  • Voodoo Donuts is fucking amazing. It’s a good thing I’m not living in Portland, or I would surely gain 300 pounds. Seriously, I’m going to have to make a trip from Seattle just to get another Old Dirty Bastard. Chocolate, peanut butter, and oreos on a donut? For less than two dollars? Hell yes. All the donuts I tried were delicious, not to mention that all had hilariously inappropriate name. We took our professor there the second night and tried to convince him to get the Cock and Balls. Thankfully he was amused and didn’t fire us all (yet). Also, I was severely tempted to get a The Magic is In The Hole shirt or panties, but I was too cheap.
  • Right next to Voodoo Donuts was a creepy little hentai movie theater. I had to explain what hentai was to my labmates and professor.

Me: It’s anime porn.
Labmate: …Why would you watch that instead of the real thing?
Me: Because you’re not constrained by the bounds of reality.

And then the discussion went to tentacles. I mean, how could you not when discussing hentai? I’m just said I didn’t think to trick my lab into actually going into the theater before they knew what it was.

  • Omg Powell’s bookstore. It was so huge that I seriously got lost. They had a whole aisle devoted to evolution/genetics and a whole column to atheism. I was so overwhelmed I ended up not buying anything!
  • I met a couple of my blog readers, which is always fun. Hi guys! Oh, and Jaki was awesome enough to give me a graphic adaptation of the Origin of Species, which is awesome and made my lab jealous.

I’m sure I’m forgetting some craziness, but that’s all I can remember right now. It was a lot of fun, and hopefully I can go back to Evolution and Portland in the future.

The egg, the chicken, and evolution

A question from formspring.me:

“Who came first, the egg or the chicken?!”

The egg, of course! Reptiles were laying eggs before the first bird was even around. Now, if you’re specifically talking about a chicken egg, it gets a little more complicated. I was going to create my own explanation, but I think Wikipedia already does quite a nice job:

Since DNA can be modified only before birth, a mutation must have taken place at conception or within an egg such that an animal similar to a chicken, but not a chicken, laid the first chicken egg.[8][9] In this light, both the egg and the chicken evolved simultaneously from birds that were not chickens and did not lay chicken eggs but gradually became more and more like chickens over time.

However, a mutation in one individual is not normally considered a new species. A speciation event involves the separation of one population from its parent population, so that interbreeding ceases; this is the process whereby domesticated animals are genetically separated from their wild forebears. The whole separated group can then be recognized as a new species.

The modern chicken was believed to have descended from another closely related species of birds, the red junglefowl, but recently discovered genetic evidence suggests that the modern domestic chicken is a hybrid descendant of both the red junglefowl and the grey junglefowl.[10] Assuming the evidence bears out, a hybrid is a compelling scenario that the chicken egg, based on the second definition, came before the chicken.

There you go – a scientific answer to an age-old question! Of course, the Biblical viewpoint is that the chicken came first, since God created birds on the fourth day and made no mention of eggs. Guess proving the Bible wrong again is the cherry on top.

Religious accommodationism at Evolution 2010

Amongst evolutionary biologists, there are differing opinions on how to communicate science to the public and increase acceptance of evolution. One of these opinions is religious accommodationism, which attracts much ire from more outspoken activists such as PZ Myers and Jerry Coyne. While I happen to agree with them, I do understand not everyone does. There are those who believe science and religion are totally compatible, that theistic evolution is good enough, and that we need to mince our words lest we offend liberal theists who could be on our side.
However, I was surprised to find a whole 2 hour symposium at the Evolution 2010 conference devoted to accommodationism. It was the Communicating Science Symposium, which started with a talk by Robert T. Pennock on Communication Evolution, focusing on audience and message. You all know my love for evolution and communicating it to others, so I was initially very excited for this talk. It definitely had good parts, especially about carefully choosing our wording as to not confuse others (Don’t say you “believe” in evolution, don’t call it “Darwinism,” don’t say you have “faith” in science, etc).

But it quickly went downhill. Much of the talk was about distancing support of evolution with atheistic views – that we need to stress that religion and science is compatible so people in the “middle” can still accept theistic evolution. That people are more willing to accept evolution if they hear it from their pastor. He lauded Francis Collins and the BioLogos foundation for being pro-evolution…even though BioLogos just had a piece trying to reconcile Biblical Adam and Eve with evolution.

That’s why there’s a problem with accommodationism. It’s more about winning numbers for your cause than truly communicating and educating people about evolution. Are people truly supporters of evolution if they’re not accepting it as a natural process? Do people really understand natural selection if they think God is zapping in mutations or had a plan for humans to eventually evolve? Why is it that our tactic involves people preserving their religious beliefs (which are based on faith), but molding science (which is based on facts) to fit their world view? If anything, it should be the other way around. Religion should have to accommodate science.

The reason why people feel compelled to do this is because religion holds a special status in our society where it can’t be criticized, even when it’s blatantly wrong. This really came out in the second part of the symposium, which was by a woman from AAAS (I unfortunately missed her name). She said there’s no use in including creationists or atheists in the discussion because we’re extremists who won’t change our minds.

Yep – we don’t want to potentially alienate theistic allies, but it’s totally okay to ignore those atheist extremists. Why is theism worth accommodation, but secular opinions are not? I commented on this in the Q&A, saying if they’re accommodating religion they should also accommodate secular opinions, but all I received was an awkward “Okay” and the Q&A ended – where every other question got a long reply.

I guess it’s just disappointing seeing such a one sided representation of “communication” at a large conference. Should have spent my morning going to the research based talks.

Writer’s block

Sorry for the dearth of blog posts lately. I’ve had horrible writer’s block, mainly because it’s the summer. I get most of my inspiration from classes or crazy campus antics – finishing research and playing video games isn’t as exciting. Just to give you an example of my current activities, I spent the last two days at my parents’ house watching them watch golf. Yeah, thrilling.

I’m also going to be out of town soon. On Wednesday I’m leaving for the Evolution 2010 conference in Portland, Oregon. I’ll be there for a week presenting my research along with a bunch of my lab mates and professor. This is a huge conference, with almost 2,000 scientists attending, and I had a blast last year. But unfortunately for you, it also means I’ll have limited to no internet access.

So, help me out. Ask me questions either in the comments, by email (blaghagblog(at)gmail(dot)com), or anonymously through formspring.me! That way I can keep you entertained while I’m gone.

Male antelopes lie to increase their chances of having sex

Replace “antelopes” with “humans” and I think most of us would nod in agreement. But this is the first time researchers have found “intentionally misleading behavior in animals for the explicit purposes of mating.” Ars Technica has a great overview of the study:

The four-year study looked at the behavior of topi antelopes (Damaliscus lunatus) in the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya. This area is dominated by a huge number of predators, including lions, cheetahs, leopards, and hyenas, all of which prey regularly on antelopes. When topi detect a predator nearby, they often make snort-like alarm calls.

From February to March, male topi hold small territories through which receptive females pass to assess each male’s mating potential. The authors noticed that, while a female in estrus was on a male’s territory, the male would sometimes emit alarm calls, even in the complete absence of a predator. These false alarms are acoustically indistinguishable from true alarm snorts.

The authors set out to determine whether these false alarm snorts are simply predator detection errors, or if they function to deter the female from leaving the territory in order to secure more mating opportunities with her. The results overwhelmingly supported the authors’ “sexual deception hypothesis.” False alarms almost never occurred without a receptive female on the territory, the onset of the false snorts was highly correlated with a female’s attempts to leave the territory, and, after emitting a false snort, males managed an average of 2.8 extra booty calls.

You may be wondering why females continue to fall for the lies of males. If this behavior evolved, you think females would also evolve to detect lies, right? It boils down to probability and consequences: Lies happen a lot less frequently than truthful signals, and believing a lie has less severe consequences (mating with a less desirable male) than ignoring a true signal (getting eaten).

This questions comes up a lot when you’re discussing dishonest signaling, which actually happens more than you would think in nature. One of the more popular example is bluffing in fiddler crabs. Sometimes when a fiddler crab loses its enlarged claw, it will grow back a weaker, cheaper claw. While these claws aren’t as good in fighting, they’re just as good at intimidating other crabs. It’s not worthwhile for crabs to check and see if another crab is bluffing, because the consequences of the signal being true are so large (getting the crap kicked out of your crabby self).

Still, it’s very interesting that they’ve now documented this type of bluffing specifically in regards to sex. I have a feeling we’ll see more examples of this in the future, now that researchers will be keeping their eyes open!

(Via Carnal Nation)

The Evolution Litmus Test

A couple days ago when I was waiting for my Biomedical Ethics exam to begin, I started chatting with this girl sitting near me. She was in my recitation class, but I didn’t really know anything else about her. Somehow I mentioned I was a biology major, and she brought up the one biology class she took as an Animal Science major: it was my favorite Biology class at Purdue, Evolution of Behavior.

Now, even though one of my research advisors teaches that class, I promise I’m not being biased – every day I left that class absolutely amazed at how interesting and inventive nature was. I’ve always been more of a lab rat and genetics nerd, but this gave me real appreciation for natural history and behavior. We talked about insanely interesting topics like the evolution of echolocation, altruism, dominance regulated ovulation suppression, and electric fish communication. And as a perk, I thought the class was pretty easy; if you just understood basic evolutionary principles and paid attention at all (which was a given, since it was so cool), you’d do fine.

So when this girl brought it up, of course I gushed about how much I loved that class. To which she replied,

“Oh, I don’t believe in evolution. I just took that class to see what the different opinion was like.”

The only thing that kept me from calling her out on the stupidity of her statements (EVOLUTION IS NOT FUCKING OPINION) was the fact that I didn’t want to totally upset myself right before I had to take a difficult exam. But of course, she had to go on,

“It was so hard! I didn’t understand anything he was saying all semester!”

I asked her if she took the required introductory evolution classes before taking this one, and she said no – her Animal Science advisor said the class was easy and she waived the requirements. This made me fume. Evolution of Behavior is a 500-level class meant for upperclassmen and graduate students. We spend about a day reviewing the principles of evolution because it’s assumed you’ve already learned them in the various required classes. So if you stick a creationist in that class with no knowledge of evolution, of course they’re going to be totally confused. And now they can proudly claim “well I took a class on evolution and so I know it’s wrong” just because they didn’t have the skill set to understand the class!

The thing that annoys me the most is that this person is graduating with a degree in Animal Sciences. If you are getting a degree in something biology-related, you should understand and accept evolution. Hell, I know Biology students (mostly molecular or pre-med people) who don’t accept evolution, so it’s not a matter of curriculum*. But to know that we’re giving degrees to people who fail to understand – no, outright deny a basic tenet of biology is shameful.

Would chemistry give degrees to someone who thought the five elements were more accurate than the periodic table? Would physics give degrees to a someone who thought gravity was fairies holding us down to the ground? Would earth and atmospheric sciences give degrees to flat-Earthers? Would astronomy give degrees to people who think the moon is made of cheese?

Maybe with the way American education is set up, you can’t stop someone from graduating based on these things. Maybe they adamantly believe in fanciful superstition, but are smart enough to give the desired (aka correct) answers on exams. How do you hold back someone with crazy beliefs if they got As in all the classes?

And while I hate giving creationists undeserved credentials (“I got a degree in Biology, and I know evolution is false, trust me!”), I guess they can go have jobs where evolution doesn’t matter as much. Go pipette for hours at some company for all I care. But when these people are going on to become teachers or scientists, it’s scary. You need to be able to understand and accept evolution to 1) Teach it to others so we don’t keep perpetuating ignorance, and 2) Come up with plausible hypotheses, do good research, and interpret results correctly.

This is why I think we need an Evolution Litmus Test in these fields. Do not accept people into your school or Masters/PhD program unless they accept evolution. I don’t care how you do it – a written test, an essay question on the application, a simple check box to weed out the honest, asking pointed questions during interviews, sending grad student spies to mingle and get the truth out… But figure out what people deny basic science before you turn them into scientists. A friend shared with me a story about a fellow grad school interviewee at a very prestigious university who was a unabashedly proud young earth creationist around the other prospective students (but not current ones or professors) – do not let this ignorance infiltrate your program.

I know people are going to claim I’m just putting an “atheist requirement” on studying biology, but I am not. There are many many biologists who are religious but still accept evolution. I have friends here at Purdue who go to church weekly, are in religious clubs, and will still laugh at Intelligent Design for it’s anti-science lunacy. This is just a scientific standard. If you don’t believe in a fundamental of the field, you should not be able to claim some sort of expertise in it. It’s as bad as graduating in History with a focus on WWII and believing the Holocaust was a hoax. It proves you do not understand the topic, and it is embarrassing to the school.

But really, is it that outlandish to require people to understand the field you’re hiring them in?

*Note for non-Purdue people: AS is part of the College of Agriculture, and Biology (what I’m in) is part of the College of Science, so we have very different curriculum. Hence why she didn’t have to take those intro Biology courses that teach evolution (though those still fail to educate some bio majors).

Fiction for Fiction: Trade religious texts for novels

Today the Society of Non-Theists held our annual spring event, Fiction for Fiction. The basic premise is that people can trade in various religious texts for fiction novels. We stick little bookmarks in the book explaining why we’re doing the event, which say the following:

“Religious texts may give some moral guidance, but that does not necessarily mean what they say is true. Fictional novels can contain important morals and insight into human life. You must think critically and ask questions to learn from what you’re reading. We encourage you to come to your own conclusions about what is fact and what is fiction. If you would like to investigate inconsistencies and contradictions specifically in the Bible, Koran, and Book of Mormon, skepticsannotatedbible.com is a great place to start.”

Or, to summarize:

Random student: Are you saying the Bible is fiction?!?!
Us: …Uh, yes?

This year it went just as well as in the past. We collected two Bhagavad Gitas, the Popol Vuh (from the Mayan religion), and a bunch of Bibles. The most common response was positive: People smiled, smirked, waved, laughed, came up and thanked us, took photos next to our sign, and generally were very appreciative. One parent who was on a tour with their high school student was grinning ear to ear. We also had theists come up wondering what we were doing and what our group was all about, and talking to them was great. There were no hard feelings and they agreed with what we were doing.
See? Happy non-scary atheists!

We did have the occasional scowl and a couple people who wanted to debate, which also always happens. One person came up (while I was off eating lunch, unfortunately) apparently trying to say the shroud of Turin was absolute proof of God’s existence. …Yeah, I know. Could you pick anything that has been debunked more than the shroud of Turin?

And in an ultimate event of irony, a guy that has been handing out chick tracts around campus came to pass them out to us. I squealed that I collected them (now up to 107!), so I gave him the totally wrong impression with my eagerness. Even more ironically, the tract was anti-evolution. Eventually he realized we were all atheists, and that I am majoring in evolution, so he tried to debate me. And by try, I mean he said Neanderthals were just arthritic humans and that Satan put fake fossils in the ground because he wants us all to act like monkeys (I wish I was making this up).

Him: The problem is people don’t hear enough facts about evolution. Have you talked to creationists?
Me: Tons, yes.
Him: And did they give you any facts? Not Biblical scripture, but science
Me: Well, they thought they were giving me facts, but no, they didn’t.

When I asked for an example of facts, he told me there were too many to remember (even a single one, apparently) and that I should go watch some Kent Hovind. He seemed impressed when I actually knew who he was. I was more impressed that I didn’t revert to my rage face during the conversation.

A liberal Christian who sometimes hangs out with our group then came up, and got all excited that it would possibly be a Christian debating a Christian, so she jumped in. The discussion turned to Biblical literalism and I had to run to class, so I missed most of their discussion. There was one part I did hear, however:

Christian Gal: Well, God used leprosy as a sign that you’ve done something wrong. I mean, I believe in modern medicine and everything, but I don’t think it can explain everything…

Then I facepalmed and ran off to my psychology class. Really, she’s usually pretty good, so I was just like…wut?

Anyway, overall I would say Fiction for Fiction was a success. A club member said he overheard people talking about it favorably in one of his classes. Always good to generate discussion and not piss people off! At least, not everyone.

I now have my official atheist chick bling

I’m not typically into jewelry, but when I saw Surly-Ramics, I knew I needed one. Surly Amy (who’s also a Skepchick) is a wonderful artist who produces awesome skeptical, atheist, and science themed jewelry (amongst other things). I had been lurking on Etsy, waiting for the perfect color, but I finally found exactly what I was looking for:Yep, that’s Darwin’s sketch of the tree of life. As a female evolutionary biologist, I’m pretty much required to get this due to overwhelming awesomeness (plus, I loved the color). I’ll definitely be wearing this to my evolution class and lab!
Thanks, Amy!