Commemoration of The Selfish Gene's 40th Anniversary

Last night, I headed down to the scintillating Symphony Space for the Secret Science Club North commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the publication of Richard Dawkin's The Selfish Gene and the 30th anniversary of the publication of The Blind Watchmaker.

Dr Dawkins structured his talk as a friendly interview with the divine Dorian Devins, who he has known for twenty years. Dr Dawkins began by noting that natural selection involves the survival of something. He came to the conclusion that it involves the survival of genes, and a gene has the potential to be immortal. The world is full of genes which are successful, the bodies of individual organisms are vehicles for the genes inside them. Genes which are good for survival survive.

In no way is The Selfish Gene advocacy for selfishness... while genes are 'selfish', animals often act in altruistic fashion. Given a chance to change the title of the book, Dr Dawkins proposed the potential alternates The Immortal Gene or even The Cooperative Gene. He noted that such a change of title would not involve changing one word of the book itself.

When asked about his role as a populizer of science, Dr Dawkins noted the unfortunate existence of the Carl Sagan Effect- populizers of science are often shunned by the Academy for writing books for laypersons. He noted that, in his case, writing was good for working out his thought processes. While forty years have passed since the publication of The Selfish Gene, he would not change the book, but more is now known about genomes, and about how genes work. He noted that he had had his genome sequenced and that Dr Yan Wong, his assistant author of The Ancestor's Tale analyzed the genome to look for common ancestors of his two parents. In the analysis, Dr Wong noted a peak of genetic similarity at a time 60,000 years before the present, indicating an evolutionary bottleneck. It was possible to make inferences about paleodemographics by analyzing the genome of one individual. Dr Wong then sequenced the genome of an individual from Nigeria and was able to determine that no genetic bottleneck existed in West Africa at the time of the genetic bottleneck in Western Europe.

Many organisms have had their genomes sequenced- figuring out the Pedigree of Life involves looking at genomes and the proteins coded by the genes. In order to draw the family tree of life, one would have to use a piece of paper the size of the planetary orbit. Dr Dawkins then noted that a fractal map of the tree of life is now available (WARNING: AMAZING TIME SINK) ran a quick video of a search of this map.

Dorian Devins then asked Dr Dawkins, "Is each book the 'child' of the book before it?" Dr Dawkins noted that his second book The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene should be considered a direct sequel to The Selfish Gene, written for a more academic audience. The Blind Watchmaker was an exploration of the illusion of design resulting from an unguided, neutral process.

The Ancestor's Tale was explicitly modeled on Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, and portrays a pilgrimage back in time (depicting a forward journey would only perpetuate the fiction that evolution is directed towards humanity, with humans as an end point- all living organisms are equal end points, with no pinnacle). The reason why he started with humans is because, as he joked, most of his readers are humans.

The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution lays out the evidence for evolution as established scientific fact, a rebuttal to creationists of all stripes.

When asked about the use of anthropomorphism in writing about science, Dr Dawkins noted that it can be a useful illustration of scientific principles- as an example, he noted that asking, "What would I do if I were a gene trying to replicate into further generations?" would result in a correct answer. Other useful questions are "how will I manipulate this animal?" and "how will I manipulate the world?"

Dorian then asked Dr Dawkins whether the publication of The God Delusion hurt or hindered his scientific career. Dr Dawkins indicated that he does not separate his atheism from his scientific work- belief is a hypothesis, an erroneous one. Scientists can help people to develop critical thinking. He noted that critical thinking was in short supply in much of the Anglophone world, citing the election of Vulgarmort and the Brexit vote, and joked about emigrating to New Zealand.

He noted that we need less emotion and more reason, then quipped, "Screw your feelings." He exhorted the audience to trust reason, then stated that climate change is the worst problem faced by the world's population. He noted that President Obama has made every effort to support the Paris Climate Agreement and stated that our decisions must be rooted in evidence-based thinking.

When asked about the popular use of his coinage 'meme', Dr Dawkins first quipped, "Did the internet destroy democracy?" He then noted the original definition he applied to his neologism in 1976: a cultural selection unit which undergoes a Darwinian process analogous to that which a gene undergoes. A meme is an 'agent of mind' that can be selected for. He originally posited a question regarding the self-replication of alien life, which would undergo Darwinian processes but which probably wouldn't have DNA as the coding molecule. He carried the analogy further by positing the meme as a unit of selection for cultural inheritance. Memes can be fashion trends, such as wearing baseball caps backward (he joked that this 'reduces the wearer's IQ by ten points, which I won't dispute). Memes evolve, they are selected for and perpetuated- Dr Dawkins likened the spread of religion to the spread of viruses, viruses of the mind. These memes are co-adapted, forming meme-complexes. He noted that the internet is a fertile ecosystem for memes. He recounted a memetic epidemic which he started at his school- he introduced origami to his school and it spread like a flu epidemic before dying away like a flu epidemic. He learned origami from his father, who had learned it during a former origami 'epidemic' at the same school.

When asked if he could name any problems with the thesis of The Selfish Gene, he begged the audience to forgive him if he couldn't immediately think of one. He noted that genes are replicators- they make high-fidelity copies of themselves. Through Darwinian selection, some things replicate more than others and spread. Originally, scientists were used to the idea that animals do what is good for them- individual survival promotes gene survival. In actuality, the important unit is the gene, not the organism- if something is good for the gene, but bad for the organism, the gene survives. As an example, he offered a 'driving Y-chromosome'. Ordinarily, in vertebrates, there is a 50/50 sex ratio. If a mutation arises which codes only for Y-chromosomes, an individual will only have sons, a situation which will ultimately lead to extinction.

Multicellular organisms are coherent because all of their genes stand to gain from common work. In animals, there is a single common bottleneck for genes, through the genitals. Viruses are genes which broke out of this exit and reproduce through alternate means, no genitals needed.

Genes are the units of selection, not individuals- Dr Dawkins cited the example of army ants, which he described as a 'ball of frenzy' protecting the genes of the queen. The column of army ants is an extended vehicle to protect these genes. He recounted a childhood encounter in Africa with driver ants which terrified him, then noted that an adult encounter with South American army ants which failed to inspire terror, and noted that adult understanding allays childhood fears.

Dr Dawkins stated that when he wrote The Selfish Gene, evolutionary theory hadn't quite got hold of the gene idea- it was generally thought that natural selection worked on groups. This was his primary reason for writing the book, which he intended for three 'imaginary readers', a professional academic, a student, and a layperson. When asked why he wrote, Dr Dawkins indicated that he had an altruistic impulse to explain things, to correct problems, to put things right.

When asked about behavioral complexity in humans, he indicated that humans consider complexity to be the highest achievement, while a swift would consider flight to be the highest achievement, as a mole would consider digging. Humans have taken over the world using behavioral complexity deriving from brains which evolved through Darwinian selection, but have largely overtaken natural selection through overdeveloping complexity (he cited the use of contraceptives as a means of voluntarily thwarting selfish genes).

The chat was followed by a Q&A session and some bastard was tapped to pass the microphone around the balcony during the Q&A, so he didn't ask a question. The best question of the night involved extinction, which pretty much involves the wholesale end of genetic lines. After giving a brief overview of the Permian-Triassic mass extinction event, Dr Dawkins noted that the best known mass extinction, the K-T extinction event, cleared the way for mammals to evolve into a myriad of forms, having previously been relegated to the 'small, noctural animal' niches. He noted that he mourns the current mass extinction event, the human-caused sixth mass extinction, and decried the loss of the dodo and the mammoth... though he did mention attempts to clone mammoths, while cautioning that elephants are endangered.

Another questioner asked how a designed universe would be different from the universe we inhabit. Dr Dawkins noted that a giant intelligence at the center of the universe would be salient, but that any searches for a designer have failed.

The next question, one which I was going to ask myself, concerned epigenetics, the switching on or off of genes by external factors. Dr Dawkins noted that epigenetics played an important role in embryology, determining whether a cell differentiated into a liver cell or a kidney cell, but that it will probably be a 'nine days wonder' in evolutionary biology, which will eventually go away- there is no evidence of the Lamarckian passing of acquired characteristics.

A really awesome kid of about nine, who was wearing a safety pin to signal solidarity with minorities, asked about the genetics of ants- why do they sacrifice their individual lives? Dr Dawkins noted that an ant colony could be thought of as a 'distributed animal'. Their imperative is to pass their genes on through the reproductive success of their queen. He then noted that eusocial insects such as ants and termites are supremely successful and dominate tropical ecosystems to a great extent.

When asked about Social Darwinism, Dr Dawkins noted that it allowed late 19th and 20th century power brokers to cite Darwinism as a justification for ruthlessness. Darwinian selection cannot be equated with 'good'. He noted that Hitler did not mention Darwin as an influence, but his actions brought Social Darwinism to a horrific conclusion. Dr Dawkins did note, though, that such a beloved figure as H.G. Well also authored some horrifically racist material. Of course, Social Darwinism involves artificial selection.

The last question I heard concerned the driver of human intelligence- what role did bipedalism play? Dr Dawkins noted that Lucy walked upright, but had a brain similar in size to that of a chimpanzee. He didn't know the significance of the freeing of hands from locomotory functions, but did suggest that the ability of hands to manipulate objects possibly played a precursory role to developing intelligence.

I then had to return the microphone I was given after the balcony questions were exhausted, and joined a line of individuals waiting to have their books signed by the Good Doctor. When I took the stage, I thanked Dr Dawkins for his work in promoting science and joked that I wanted Dorian to sign my book as well (she demurred), then accepted my now-signed copy of The Selfish Gene.

Once again, the Secret Science Club provided an amazing night of learning. Kudos to Dr Dawkins, Dorian and Margaret, and the staff of the scintillating Symphony Space. Also in the audience were such previous lecturers as Dr Mercer Brugler and Dr Mark Siddall, the Leech Guy. Overall, the atmosphere was pretty festive, sort of like a giant Dawkins love-in... exactly what you'd expect from a friendly chat with a Titan.

Dawkins' Talkin'

As I detailed in my last post, last night I headed down to NYU's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts to see Friend of the Bastard Dorian Devins conduct an interview with scientist Richard Dawkins. Dawkins is currently touring to promote his new memoir, An Appetite for Wonder, and the interview pretty much stuck with the topics addressed in the book.

Professor Dawkins detailed his youth in Kenya, recounting a funny anecdote about a game of hide-and-seek with an adult friend. After searching a building, the young Richard returned to it after searching elsewhere and found the man. The man told the six-year old Dawkins that he had been in the building all along, but had been invisible. Professor Dawkins joked that the hadn't been a skeptic back then and, not considering that the man "lied", he took him at his word. It was a charming story, not as dramatic an "origin tale" as Bruce Wayne's, but illustrative of the good Doctor's "trajectory".

Professor Dawkins spent quite a bit of time talking about linguistics, and indicated that he had written a computer language as a younger man. He spoke about the development of dialects, and the point at which they split into separate languages. After observing that a Glaswegan dialect is barely intelligible, he opined that a dialect splits off to become a language when a native speaker is flattered by attempts to address them in their vernacular. An attempt on his part to speak German would be considered politeness, while an attempt to imitate a Glaswegan accent would probably get him in trouble.

He continued on with a long discussion of his neologism meme from The Selfish Gene. He described how a meme is a reliably transmitted unit of social information that is "selected" for (fashions and slang phrases are two examples of memes, and the spread of them can be measured much like a measles outbreak)- he used the analogy of a game of Chinese whispers to illustrate the transmission of memes- subjects playing the game can reliably transmit messages in their own language, but a group of English-speaking players transmitting a phrase in Hungarian would hopelessly garble the phonemes of the message. He indicated that, had computer viruses existed at the time, he would have used them as an analogy. He then wryly observed that the meaning of "meme" had mutated so that it describes internet phenomena usually involving cats.

The tone of the interview was very cordial, almost cozy. The audience was a friendly one, and Dorian kept a light, conversational tone. Professor Dawkins came across as a charming, erudite fellow- a far cry from the firebrand his detractors paint him to be. There was a brief Q&A after the conversation, and all but one of the questions were from whole-hearted supporters. The one guy who "challenged" Professor Dawkins was so inarticulate that his question had to be "translated" by a young lady standing at the other microphone set up for the Q&A. Basically, the guy asked Professor Dawkins about mathematical formulae that do not rely on empirical evidence, but on pure deductive reasoning, and questioned why a search for a deity couldn't proceed along the same lines. Dawkins steamrolled him, answering that when one proceeds from a false axiom, then one's logic, no matter how flawless, cannot lead to a sound conclusion. Poor stumbletongued dude, he didn't stand a chance against the articulate Oxford professor with the cultivated accent.

On the atheism front, Dr Dawkins cited census data indicating that religious identity declined precipitously in the UK from 2001-2011 and boggled at surveys which indicated that 40% of Americans didn't believe in evolution.

There were other cute moments, the good doctor mentioned his tie, hand-painted by his wife to depict chinstrap penguins. The doctor also gave advice to a man who was asking about "coming out" as an atheist to his wife (he told him to argue and debate, a surefire way to determine if the marriage were worth saving). He then related an anecdote about a friend whose husband transformed from a non-observant Jew to one who had two refrigerators and wouldn't flip a switch on Saturday- that marriage didn't survive. He was very sympathetic to kids who were struggling with coming out as non-believers and expressed a great degree of compassion for people living in fundamentalist societies such as Afghanistan, and the very real dangers that they faced. I was a bit surprised that nobody brought up the aftermath of Elevatorgate.

All told, it was a nice night, and my Dawkins fanboy friend got a book signed.

Disembodied Intellect

Oh, Dawkins, Dawkins, Dawkins... you've done it again. Richard Dawkins' latest controversial tweet, covered by Amanda Marcotte, concerned a hypothetical case of aborting a fetus with Down Syndrome:

Abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have the choice.

My personal take on this ethical dilemma is that the decision is entirely the pregnant woman's to make, but the assertion that giving birth to a child with Down Syndrome is immoral squicks me out. For the record, I know a guy with Down Syndrome and he is a great guy- his mother has had to make sacrifices and concessions to raise him, but she's a productive member of society and so is he. I can't imagine her taking Richard Dawkins' comment in stride, nor should she.

Dawkins' principle flaw is that he's a disembodied intellect- while he is a brilliant thinker, his "EQ" is very low, and he often makes statements which may be logically correct, but seem to come from a complete lack of empathy.

Make an issue about sexual harassment? Sheesh, you don't have to deal with genital mutilation! You were sexually abused as a child? That's not so bad in some cases. You were raped by an acquaintance? Hey, that's not as bad as a violent sexual assault. In all of these cases, Dawkins, a man brought up in the bubble of upper-class white male privilege, thinks he's making a logical point, but all of these issues are emotionally charged... there's no way to coldly approach the subjects.

I've heard Richard Dawkins lecture, and he is a witty, urban, informative speaker. He needs to be a better listener, though, if he is to avoid making gaffes when making off-the-cuff remarks about touchy subjects... and for Darwin's sake, the dude has to stay off Twitter.
As a straight, white, middle-class male, I would advise Dr Dawkins to use his ears more often, his fast fingers less frequently.

In the "Pandagon" comment thread, there's a commentor who is lambasting Dawkins' critics in a hilariously cack-handed fashion... here's some real word salad from a guy who has vague memories of the original Star Trek and fancies himself a Vulcan:


Amanda, please leave this man alone. He is one of our greatest scientific and logical thinkers. Your last article seemed to simultaneously say he was wrong and offensive while the article you were responding to suggested that people should not be so emotional and reactive, but that facts and logic should dominate conversation. Your response was, in my memory, somewhat to argue that "we are all emotional beings who can be expected to respond and utilize our emotions in finding answers to questions we have both personally and as a culture and race." This was reasonable, but can't you understand that it is the emotions we carry with us are tools in the utility of evolution and not necessarily so important in the modern world. Is it not possible that the end result of evolution is to separate us from the individualistic chains binding us to our own emotions. Being controlled by our own emotions. Isn't is possible that humanity will only achieve it's pinnacle when we become pure logic. Aren't emotions a vestige of a world in which we are all trying to survive in a random world?


T'Putz isn't exactly winning over the other members of the commentariat:

As I have dubbed him. An over ASSuming ASSholier than thou poster.

Some snarky bastard had a theory about this:

His problem is that he's been practicing the "Vulcan Mind Meld" on the wrong end of the aliens he's encountered.

Hey, speaking about Vulcans and all that, Arlene Martel, who played Spock's betrothed in the famed "Amok Time" episode of Star Trek, died over a week ago. I wish I'd put up a post about her... she had a whole lot of television credits to her... uh... credit, but she had a knack for being able to appear completely different in each appearance- her website notes that she was nicknamed "The Chameleon" because of this ability. Here's a brief clip of her most celebrated role, as the one individual who was able to beat Spock in a battle of wits:





I bet T'Pring could have set Dawkins straight.

Devins! Dawkins!

In a little while, I'll be heading down to NYU's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts to see my great and good friend Dorian Devins, chanteuse and Secret Science Club goddess (one of a pantheon of two) interview Richard Dawkins. One of the friends I am meeting downtown is a total Dawkins fanboy, while another of them is, like me, a total Dorian Devins fanboy. While I appreciate the good that Dawkins has done as a populizer of science, I do recognize that he is oblivious to his straight white male privilege. I am looking forward to an evening of spirited discourse, followed by a trip to Mamoun's Falafel Restaurant.

I'll put up a post about the evening tomorrow. It's going to be an interesting evening, to be sure!

Secret Science Club Post Lecture Recap: Of Two Minds

Last night, I headed down to the beautiful Bell House in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn for the latest Secret Science Club lecture, featuring Dr Moran Cerf, who is one of those scientist/rockstar figures, a former hacker/security expert and Moth "Grand Slam" story winner.

Dr Cerf's lecture dealt with decision making and the brain/body interface. Why do individuals want one thing, but do the opposite thing? At times, it seems that an individual is two people fighting for dominance in one body. How does the brain interact with the body in everyday life?

Dr Cerf illustrated this conundrum by relating the tragic tale of Charles Whitman, the infamous University of Texas "tower sniper". After the mass shooting, the police tried to determine a cause for the shooting spree. Whitman was generally seen as a quiet, law abiding man, but his diary told an alarming tale. Whitman wrote that he "feels like he's not the same guy" and described having violent urges. Before he embarked on his murderous foray, he indicated that he wanted an autopsy performed on him and left a check to pay for it. When an autopsy was performed, a tumor the size of a walnut was found in his brain which impinged on his amygdala.

I another instance, a patient with a frontal lobe tumor began to exhibit signs of sexual deviancy, including pedophila. The removal of the tumor caused him to revert back to his previous sexual mores, but a partial recurrence of the tumor caused a return of the symptoms until it too was removed.

To illustrate the ability of individuals to "color" their perceptions of events, Dr Cerf cited a study (PDF) in which which a group of colonoscopy patients were told to rate the pain they experienced on a ten-point pain scale. Half of the patients experienced an interval at the end of the procedure in which the tip of the scope remained in their rectums. Oddly enough, the patients with the extended colonoscopy rated their experience as less painful than the patients whose colonoscopies were shorter in duration. It is probable that they experienced fewer "highs and lows" during the procedure than those with a quicker colonoscopy, and that the patients with the quicker procedure assessed it from moment to moment, rather than assessing it as one single event.

Studying the "competing influences" in the brain poses some ethical dilemmas- while studies using rats and monkeys can be conducted using electrodes implanted in the brain, human subjects typically refuse to have their brain tissue exposed and to have wires implanted in their brains. The ideal human subjects for such studies are patients who have brain injuries or illnesses. In extreme cases of epilepsy which cannot be treated medicinally (about 4% of cases), the corpus callosum, which connects the hemispheres of the brain is "cut". In these patients, the brain is typically open for two weeks, and electrodes are implanted in the brain to monitor it. The patients are asked for permission to be studied during this period of time.

The two hemispheres of the brain control "handedness" in the body, with a hemisphere controlling the motor functions of the opposite side of the body. The brain is not completely symmetrical, though, for instance, the language center of the brain is typically in the left hemisphere. Dr Cerf showed a couple of videos in which a subject with a "split brain" had to sort tiles or cards with various symbols on them, with one hand at times "correcting" the sorting performed by the other hand.

Electrodes in the brain can detect the stimulation of a single neuron (Dr Cern cited the "Simpsons" neuron also mentioned by Dr
André Fenton in his SSC lecture). Here's a video of the "Simpsons neuron" in action:





A neuron that fires for a concept came to be known as a "Jennifer Aniston Cell"- one patient's neuron fired not only when an image of Jennifer Aniston was displayed, but also when the patient heard her name or saw it in written form. In another patient a similar cell fired when images, text, and spoken words represented the Sydney Opera House. This neuron was "fooled" when a display of the Baha'ai Lotus Temple was shown, but it stopped doing so when the discrepancies between images of the two buildings was pointed out to the subject.

In another experiment, a subject was asked to manipulate images on a monitor. The images chosen were of icon Marilyn Monroe and actor Josh Brolin- the subject was asked to concentrate on image, then the other, and the image on the monitor would shift accordingly. In essence, two neurons would vie for dominance. Wired has a great summary of the experiment with an accompanying video.

Dr Cerf then moved on to the role that neurons play in movement- in quadriplegics, the brain cells responsible for movement work properly, but patient is immobile. Is it possible to manipulate objects with the brain? Dr Cerf showed a very poignant video of a paralyzed woman who has been able to manipulate a robot arm with an electrode implanted in her motor cortex in order to drink her coffee- I challenge you to try to watch it without tearing up:





Currently, there are flaws in the work. Dr Cerf discussed, as Dr Anne Churchland did in her lecture, the fact that, although computers can "master" the game of chess, they have not been able to direct the physical act of moving the pieces on the board. The mechanics are being improved- in one particular experiment a monkey was able to manipulate a prosthetic arm via an electrode implanted in its brain in order to grab marshmallows:





During the trials, the monkey's arm was immobilized, necessitating the use of the prosthetic arm. Once able to manipulate the arm properly, the monkey continued to use the prosthetic even when both of its arms were free, effectively giving it a "third arm". Imagine the possibilities, an individual could use the TV remote, drink a beer, and scratch oneself all at once. Now THAT's what I call multitasking!

Of course, there are ethical problems as well as technical ones- one cannot simply implant electrodes into people without an underlying therapeutic need. The human subjects described by Dr Cerf were individuals who needed drastic medical interventions. That being said, it may be possible that the limitations of the human body may be overcome through the use of machines. He cited the transition of the typewriter, from Pellegrino Turri's machine to allow his blind lover to write letters to a ubiquitous office staple.

Dr Cerf then described an experiment in which individuals were presented with a "clock face" graphic, and were instructed to use a button to stop the clock "hand" whenever they chose, and were then asked to indicate when they felt the "urge" to stop the "clock". Using an EEG to measure brain activity, the test administrators determined that brain activity increased three seconds before the button was pressed, and 1.5 seconds before the subject indicated an "urge" to stop the clock. In subsequent iterations of the experiment, the subject was manipulated in different ways- they were told that they couldn't stop the "clock" under certain circumstances and were given conflicting stimuli. In some cases, the subjects tried to "fool" the administrators, but the EEG always gave the subject away.

Dr Cerf wrapped up by reiterating the whole topic of contradictory desires and behaviors. He cited the "snooze alarm" conundrum, in which one's desire to wake, characterized by the setting of the alarm, is "at war" with one's decision to sleep more. He showed various novelty alarm clocks which "escape" the snooze-prone. He wrapped up with a hilarious photo of fitness club patrons taking an escalator one flight to the gym. In the Q&A some bastard asked the good doctor if he'd seen any evidence that the increasing use of electronic gadgets was making subjects more comfortable with electrode implants. Dr Cerf indicated that, to the contrary, the trend is for more conservative therapeutic measures, with the use of electrode implants and radical brain surgery becoming less common as less drastic measures are put into place.

In the middle of the lecture, an individual at the other end of the room from myself fell ill, and there was a brief interruption of the talk, but Dr Cerf recovered quickly without losing his stride. Kudos to Dr Cerf for not missing a beat and delivering a superb lecture. It was another feather in the cap of the Secret Science Club. Here's a brief animated feature covering some of the topics of Dr Cerf's talk:





In other news, I had a conversation with the brilliant and awesome **FUTURE BLOG POST**, a previous Secret Science Club lecturer, about some assistance in an upcoming project. I am looking forward to this project, so watch this space. Additionally, Secret Science Goddess (one of a pantheon of two!) and chanteuse Dorian Devins will be conducting a dialog with Richard Dawkins on Wednesday, 9/25 at NYU's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts. A friend of mine who has just recently gotten into science via Dawkins' writings picked up tickets for a bunch of us to go, as soon as I texted him about the event. I feel bad about having told him about Dawkins' dickishness, but I feel that one needs to know about any warts that one's "heroes" may have. Me? I can see the beneficial accomplishments of Dr Dawkins as well as his dickery, and will be keenly interested in the possible controversies that will be brought to the fore in this forum. Of course, my primary reason for attending the event is my unwavering support for Dorian Devins, whose feminist credentials are as strong as her science-supporting community credentials. Put succinctly, I dig Devins more than Dawkins... nobody's ever had to make excuses for her behavior.

Secret Science Club Post-Lecture Recap: Dennett Delivers

Last night, I headed down to the beautiful Bell House, in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn, for this month's Secret Science Club lecture featuring philosopher and cognitive scientist Dr Daniel Dennett of Tufts University. Dr Dennett's talk touched upon topics covered by his new book, From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds.

Dr Dennett opened his lecture by displaying the beautiful Evogeneao Tree of Life diagram. He noted that one major 'explosion' in evolutionary process was the endosymbiotic origin of the eukaryotic cell. After more than one billion years of evolution during which life was restricted to the prokaryotes, bacteria and archaea, the eukaryotic cell arose from symbiotic relationships among prokaryotes and the Cambrian explosion, during which a lot of new forms of life emerged and other forms of live went extinct, occurred. Dr Dennett indicated that a new 'explosion' is occurring in the present- noting that humans are a recent development, having shared a common ancestor with the chimpanzees a mere six million years ago.

Dr Dennett likened evolution to Research and Development, to engineering... evolution exploits information to create, maintain, and improve 'designs'. Research and Development is an expensive process, it requires time and energy. Evolution occurs by two processes: natural selection and human design. These processes differ in fundamental ways- evolution by natural selection is purposeless, foresightless, and extremely costly... there are lot of 'rejects', organisms which die without reproducing, and it is slow. Evolution by human design is purposeful, somewhat foresighted, and constrained by cost considerations. It is many orders of magnitude faster than evolution by natural selection.

Evolution by natural selection is slow and costly, but brilliant- Dr Dennett invoked Orgel's second rule, which can be summed up as “Evolution is cleverer than you are”. Evolution by natural selection is a mindless, purposeless, thoughtless process capable of brilliance and ingenuity. With the development of genetic engineering, 'intelligent design' now exists, and is becoming more common.

Dr Dennett contrasted evolution by natural selection and evolution by human design by comparing a termite mound to Gaudí's Sagrada Familia church. While the structures have a superficial similarity, they are products of hugely different processes. The termites are mindless while Gaudí was a charismatic genius. While the processes of design are polar opposites, the results are similar. In the case of the termites, the design process is bottom-up, while Gaudí's design process was top-down. A large mound-building termite colony consists of approximately seventy-million clueless termites, while a human brain consists of eighty-six billion clueless neurons. How does one get a Gaudí mind from a termite colony brain? Each individual neuron is less savvy than a termite. Dr Dennett noted that one cannot do much carpentry with bare hands, and one cannot do much thinking with a bare brain. The human brain is well-equipped, while the termite brain is unequipped. Dr Dennett then displayed a quote by Freeman Dyson: "Technology is a gift of God. After the gift of life it is perhaps the greatest of God's gifts. It is the mother of civilizations, of arts and of sciences." He pooh-poohed the first sentence, then noted that technology is cultural evolution- the brain has 'thinking tools' that impose novel structures on the brain. These virtual machines can be likened to apps that we download into our necktops. These 'apps' are new competences, we don't have 'bare brains'.

Dr Dennett then displayed a quote by Robert Beverly MacKenzie, an early critic of Darwin:

In the theory with which we have to deal, Absolute Ignorance is the artificer; so that we may enunciate as the fundamental principle of the whole system, that, in order to make a perfect and beautiful machine, it is not requisite to know how to make it. This proposition will be found, on careful examination, to express, in condensed form, the essential purport of the Theory, and to express in a few words all Mr. Darwin's meaning; who, by a strange inversion of reasoning, seems to think Absolute Ignorance fully qualified to take the place of Absolute Wisdom in all the achievements of creative skill.


Dr Dennett quipped that this 'strange inversion' is just what Darwin demonstrated. He then discussed Alan Turing's 'strange inversion' (here is an article by Dr Dennett on this subject for readers who want to go into this in more depth), which can be summed up as: "In order to be a perfect and beautiful computing machine, it is not requisite to know what arithmetic is."

In the case of evolution by natural selection and machine computing, competence can be achieved without comprehension. While rote learning is often looked down upon, comprehension comes after competence. Bacteria and termites are competent without comprehension. Beavers are competent, and while more intelligent than bacteria or termites, lack the comprehension possessed by the engineers who designed the Hoover Dam. Humans are the first intelligent designers in the tree of life, other animals are not intelligent like we are. We are endowed with competences that have a different evolutionary basis than those of other animals.

Dr Dennett then brought up the topic of the MacCready explosion (PDF), articulated by aircraft designer Paul MacCready: ten thousand years ago, at the dawn of human agriculture, humans and their 'pets' would have made up 0.1% of terrestrial vertebrate biomass, today they make up 98%. Dr Dennett likened this to engulfing the planet with a great technology transfer. In the eukaryote revolution, which lead to the Cambrian Explosion, the earth was swamped with eukaryotic life. This second great explosion was enabled by the invasion of the human brain by symbiotic thinking tools, the memes that Richard Dawkins proposed. Dr Dennett quipped that the current usage of the word 'meme' has turned Dawkins' symbiotic thinking tools into ignoble things.

Unlike genes, memes are not inherited. The two sources of human competence are our genes and our memes. We have thousands of memes, each a way of thinking... how to alphabetize a list, how to perform long division. These 'apps' are the source of our power. Until recently, memes were produced by natural selection acting on culture, they were not designed. For instance, a fraction of one-percent of words were 'designed' by a person- e.g. 'meme' was designed by Richard Dawkins. These memes represent an explosive amplification of competence without comprehension which allowed a transition to competence with comprehension.

Dr Dennett noted that organisms do things for reasons- trees, fungi, the entire biotic world is saturated with reasons, from the molecular level on up- these reasons don't originate in any 'mind', there are free-floating rationales behind various adaptations. Dr Dennett reiterated: "Evolution is cleverer than you are." With humans, though, problems are solved culturally.

Dr Dennett then posed the question, how does one get a Bach mind from a termite colony brain? Before answering the question, he digressed to discuss the usefulness of memes. He specified the meme which results in religious belief. Having been asked, "Every human society has developed religion, what is it good for?" He answered, "Every human society has experienced the common cold, what is it good for?" He noted that certain memes are useful, certain memes aren't. Certain viruses are good, certain are bad, certain are indifferent. He noted that humans harbor trillions of viruses- symbiotic visitors which thrive, even if they aren't alive, in the body. He joked that viruses are 'strings of nucleic acid with attitude', not alive but capable of entering cells and using them for reproductive purposes. Dr Dennett then posed the question, how does one get a Bach mind from a termite colony brain? Before answering the question, he digressed to discuss the usefulness of memes. He specified the meme which results in religious belief. Having been asked, "Every human society has developed religion, what is it good for?" He answered, "Every human society has experienced the common cold, what is it good for?" He noted that certain memes are useful, certain memes aren't. He characterized the invasion of the brain by memes as the 'second great endosymbiotic revolution' and quipped that we are 'apes with infected brains'. He further joked that memes are what make a person a francophone guitarist who loves the Iberian peninsula.

Dr Dennett described cultural evolution in comical terms- cultural evolution begins with a lot of doofuses, but some of the doofusry provides benefits. The process of cultural evolution develops to the point where deliberate design takes place. This deliberate design rests on a backstory of unintelligent design, memes selected by natural selection. Dr Dennett displayed a quote from Picasso: "Je ne cherche pas je trouve." "I do not search, I find." Editors note: Despite what you've heard, Pablo Picasso was an asshole. Dr Dennett then described Bach as an ideal of creative intelligence that even Picasso couldn't meet. He noted that Bach was an exemplary intelligent designer- he had a deep comprehension, he was well-versed in trial and error methods, he was well equipped with thinking tools (in this case, music theory), and he possessed a wealth of technocratic know-how.

Dr Dennett then displayed a picture of an Acheulean handaxe next to a computer mouse. He noted that the handaxe wasn't really invented by any one individual and that the design was in use for about a million years without change. The computer mouse was invented by Douglas Engelbart in the 1960s, and it is almost extinct. Dr Dennett noted that chimpanzees have culture- their nut-cracking and termite-fishing techniques constitute the rudiments of culture. Homo sapiens, though, is the only animal with voluminous, recursive cultural evolution. In the case of language, words started out as synanthropic memes, like bedbugs and rats, words thrived in the human environment, but we didn't own them, they weren't domesticated. The first words were 'picked up like fleas'. Eventually, humans domesticated words, we exerted control over their reproduction. Coined words are like genetically modified organisms, their creation was engineered, but some of them don't fly. Certain words begin as technical terms, some as internet 'memes'. Replication is the future of a word, with internet memes being a reductio ad absurdum... Dr Dennett noted that an 'intelligently designed meme' is a contradiction in terms, like a splitable atom. Regarding the development of memes, Dr Dennett quoted Émile Chartier on the topic of boats:


Every boat is copied from another boat... Let’s reason as follows in the manner of Darwin. It is clear that a very badly made boat will end up at the bottom after one or two voyages, and thus never be copied... One could then say, with complete rigor, that it is the sea herself who fashions the boats, choosing those which function and destroying the others.


Once again, Dr Dennett reiterated, "Evolution is cleverer than you." Cultural evolution can be described with an economic model- good things are reproduced. Cultural evolution is increasingly top-down and self-comprehending, it's increasingly resembling genetic engineering rather than evolution by natural selection. Now, with the advent of deep learning, we see the development of 'thinking' machines that work, but do not know. Noam Chomsky recognized a distinction between mysteries and problems- problems can be solved, but not mysteries. Such issues as free will and consciousness are mysteries. Dr Dennett indicated that artificial intelligence should be likened to a Nautilus machine for the mind- a tool, not a colleague.

Dr Dennett characterized Einstein and Feynman as being 'good at using thinking tools', with Feynman being particularly good at teaching others how to use these 'apps'. If the 'apps' weren't true, then we wouldn't be where we are, they represent an accumulation of good design. Eagle eyes are optimized for the needs of eagles, they are highly developed truth-finding apparatuses. Humans have developed microscopes and telescopes which have generated mountains of truth, not just random crap. Dr Dennett likened evolution to plagiarism- if something works, just copy it.

The lecture was followed by a Q&A session. The bastard wasn't able to get a question in, what with the standing room only crowd and all. While micturating, the bastard missed a question, but the tail end of the answer was funny- Dr Dennett stated that he doesn't trust the word 'emergent', traffic jams are emergent but they don't cause 'Zen' moments. To a question about the difference between human and chimpanzee brains, Dr Dennett noted that there is a huge difference between human and chimp 'hardware'- thousands of chimpanzees have lived in close proximity to humans and human language, but they don't pay attention to language. If some factor could be changed in chimp cognition, everything could change. Regarding immortality, Dr Dennett opined that one could be 'immortal' if the information in one's brain could be stored and uploaded into another brain- one's personality wouldn't appreciably change, it would be a case of 'Whoa, here I am back again.'

Dr Dennett delivered an entertaining lecture, a thought-provoking philosophical odyssey leavened with wit and humor. It's no wonder that the man is a celebrity. Personally, I prefer the nuts-and-bolts stuff, but it is important to get a dose of 'big picture' thinking periodically. Kudos to Dr Dennett, Margaret and Dorian, and the staff of the beautiful Bell House. For a taste of the Secret Science Club experience, pop open a tasty beverage and check out this video, which covers a lot of the topics covered last night:





At about the midpoint, Dr Dennett displays some Decker cube diagrams that I omitted because I couldn't find representations of them on the t00bz. Without the pictures, the concepts were a bit wonky to encapsulate verbally.

Spreading Scientific Literacy

So, I have a friend who is very smart, but whose scientific literacy is, like that of most Americans, sub-par. Thankfully, my mom insisted that all of us were readers, and she supplemented our learning with educational and enrichment trips... hikes, classes, trips to museums. We learned, and we learned to love learning.

My friend's scientific curiosity has been piqued recently by a recent fascination with Richard Dawkins (I don't have the heart to tell my friend that Dawkins is kinda an asshole). Now, one complication in my friend's learning process is that he's not much of a reader... he's an artist, and he learns visually. I've been trying to find decent science videos online to e-mail to him so he can absorb information in the fashion to which he's accustomed. It's funny though, one has to wade through each video in order to see if it's distorted by religious content or WOO!

Why am I bothering to go to such lengths to see to it that a friend of mine gets a belated grounding in the sciences? While I don't have my membership card on hand, I took an oath to spread scientific literacy. I'm stuck at work, but I'll dig up my card and copy down the oath... I swear an oath to do so.

UPDATE: Got my card... emblazoned on it is the following:

THIS IS TO CERTIFY THAT
Big Bad Bald Bastard
IS A CARD-CARRYING MEMBER OF
THE SECRET SCIENCE CLUB
And solemnly swears to uphold
the scientific method and
to advance the public understanding
of science throughout the Universe.

That's a pretty heavy burden, but it's a joy to shoulder it.

Secret Science Club Post Lecture Recap: Swarming Bacteria

Last night, I headed down to the beautiful Bell House, in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn, for this month's Secret Science Club lecture featuring Dr João Xavier, computational biologist and director of Sloan Kettering's X-Lab. Dr Xavier's topic was experimental evolution and swarming bacteria.

Dr Xavier began his lecture with a quote from Richard Dawkins:


My eyes are constantly wide open to the extraordinary fact of existence. Not just human existence, but the existence of life and how this breathtakingly powerful process, which is natural selection, has managed to take the very simple facts of physics and chemistry and build them up to redwood trees and humans.


He followed this up with a beautiful tribute to biodiversity, first showcasing the human diversity of New York City's populace with pictures from the subway system, then showing pictures of animal biodiversity, then expanding his focus to include plants, fungi, and bacteria. Dr Xavier then took a brief digression to note that he entered into the field of biology relatively late- he was initially more interested in math and physics, but eventually felt the call to apply his knowledge of those fields to biology. He followed up this digression with a brief overview of Darwin's theory of evolution by means of natural selection: put succinctly, successful individuals will be 'selected' by natural processes to pass on their traits to their offspring, and this selection will drive the direction in which a species will evolve. The basic mechanism of biological inheritance was formulated by Gregor Mendel, who observed the passing of traits in plant lineages. The central dogma of molecular biology, as formulated by Crick et al. is that DNA is the molecular entity behind evolution. DNA encodes genes which make proteins. DNA can be transcribed- it is copied when a cell divides, and sometimes there are errors in the copying, known as mutations. Most mutations are harmful to an organism, but occasionally they may lead to better survival outcomes. Diversity emerges through mutations, and the fittest organisms tend to propagate.

Dr Xavier then noted that everyone alive today descends from a common ancestor, then he amended this statement to note that every living organism on Earth comes from a common ancestor. He noted that this is a hard-to-grasp concept, so some people refuse to believe it. This refusal to believe led to the creation of the 'Intelligent Design' movement, which posits a director/designer in the evolution of life. The bacterial flagellum was considered the icon of Intelligent Design creationism, but Dr Xavier noted that the proteins behind the flagellum are understood- complex structures look precisely adapted to their environment, they look designed, but their evolution in incremental steps is explainable.

This talk of flagella then segued into the real topic of the lecture- the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a human pathogen. Dr Xavier uses Pseudomonas to investigate the fundamental facts about evolution and their direct implications in medicine. Bacterial evolution can be deadly- Dr Xavier recounted a case in which a patient needed a bone marrow transplant, which involved suppressing their immune system. Ten days before the transplant, while the patient's immune system was compromised, the patient developed a Pseudomonas infection which was resistant to most antibiotics. The patient was treated with aztreonam, but the bacteria evolved resistance to this antibiotic through a mutation, sepsis set in, and the patient died. Antibiotics select for resistance against themselves- they kill off non-resistant bacteria, then the small population of resistant bacteria propagates. The evolution of antibiotic resistance is fast, and it happens all the time.

Dr Xavier then followed this cheerful news with another quote from Richard Dawkins:


“We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?”


Bacteria evolve quickly because they reproduce quickly. The Pseudomonas bacteria form a swarming collective, they have motility due to their flagella. Dr Xavier studies this swarming behavior in petri dishes. Separate bacterial swarms in a petri dish repel each other. The bacteria need flagella to swarm, and this is the natural condition of the wild type. A non-swarming, non-flagellated form, known as flgK was developed in the lab. Dr Xavier then showed us a series of videos comparing the spread of swarming wild-type bacteria to the spread of non-swarming mutants:





Parallel experiments were conducted in different petri dishes, and they demonstrated the heritable and stable tendency to evolve into hyperswarming bacteria with multiple flagella, a new feature that evolved in the laboratory. Genome sequencing revealed the precise mutations which caused hyperswarming. Some bacteria evolved an excess of flagella, and too many 'tails' prevented swarming... the right number of flagella was needed. Hyperswarmers, though they move more quickly to exploit new resources, grow more slowly than the ancestral type bacteria- multiple tails require more resources.

Dr Xavier likened the petri dishes with different bacterial strains as to 'fighting arenas' in which the strains were pitted against each other. Different strains were stained red or green, and hyperswarmers were pitted against ancestral types. The hyperswarmers expand quickly and find nutrients, while the non-hyperswarmers are stuck in regions in which nutrients are exhausted. Faster speeds can come with a trade-off, though. Dr Xavier cited the invasive cane toad as an example of such a trade-off... in areas in which the toads are expanding their range, they evolved longer legs which enabled a faster spread. Dr Xavier joked that there was an 'Olympic village of cane toads' down under. The trade-off is that the longer legs, while enabling faster movement, also resulted in more spinal injuries among the leggy toads. In the case of Pseudomonas, hyperswarmers are not found in natural environments or in hospitals- while they can move quickly, they are bad at forming biofilms. In the fighting arena of the petri dish, the slow bacteria will eventually take over- in nature, the fast bacteria don't do well. It's difficult to evolve a change in the structure of the flagellum, the icon of the Intelligent Design movement. Dr Xavier got another dig in at the ID crowd- when the New York Times ran the headline “Watching Bacteria Evolve, with Predictable Results”, a creationist publication describing itself as 'a great tool for countering pro-Darwin propaganda' countered with the rejoinder 'They're still bacteria.' CHECK AND MATE, POINDEXTERS!!!!

Dr Xavier then went on to discuss the use of swarming bacteria to study social behavior- how do social behaviors evolve? Social behaviors can have a different impact on actors and recipients. In mutualism, everyone benefits- actors and recipients. Altruism is costly to the actor and benefits the recipients. Selfishness benefits the actor and is costly to the recipients. In the case of spite, everyone loses. Game theory uses mathematics to analyze behavioral choices. Dr Xavier cited the example of the prisoner game to illustrate game theory:





Kin selection explains many altruistic behaviors- altruism is more likely among relatives. When asked if he would lay down his life to save his brother, biologist J.B.S. Haldane was quoted as saying that he wouldn't, but that he would for two brothers or eight cousins. Altruism makes sense when it results in evolutionary fitness benefits.

Among bacteria, the whole population benefits from swarming, but swarming involves sacrifice among individuals. Non-swarming bacteria tend to consume all available nutrients in their environment until they cannot grow their population. Resources are spent to propagate a swarm, and the tiny contributions of individual bacteria can add up to an impressive spread. Alone, on-swarming bacteria cannot spread, but they can hitchhike along with swarming bacteria. In this cooperative situation, the ratio of swarming to non-swarming bacteria remains stable. Cheating is hard due to metabolic prudence- bacteria cooperate when they have excess metabolic resources to devote to swarming. Dr Xavier ended his lecture by joking that metabolic regulation of good behavior is not only found among bacteria- citing a study of judicial records which suggested that judges at parole hearings tended to become less lenient as they got hungrier, but exhibited renewed leniency after lunch.

The lecture was followed by a Q&A session. Some bastard in the audience, thinking back to Dr Paul Turner's SSC lecture on phage therapy, asked if there had been experiments to use selective pressure to 'breed' less harmful versions of pathogenic bacteria by selecting and propagating less virulent individuals. Dr Xavier replied that this hasn't been attempted, but that it would be possible for less harmful bacteria to out-compete their dangerous relatives. There's no good model for this sort of study, but it could be evolved... of course, as in the example of the introduction of the cane toad to Australia, things could go awry, as organisms don't necessarily behave in the wild as they do in the lab. The Bastard missed a bunch of questions while taking a break to micturate, but when he returned to the main auditorium, the question regarded cancer- cancer cells have an initial propagation advantage over 'normal' cells, but are an evolutionary dead end as they kill their hosts... they are successful for a while, then they fail utterly. He also mentioned the transmissable cancer that is devastating Tasmanian devil populations as a particularly horrific example of this sort of thing.

Once again, the Secret Science Club served up a fantastic lecture. I am particularly struck by the sheer coolness of a Professor Xavier setting up clashes among mutants in a battle arena. The multiple videos of the petri dish battles were gorgeous:





Kudos to Dr Xavier, Margaret and Dorian, and the staff of the beautiful Bell House.

In Hoc Signo Resistis

Riding on the subway to attend the chat by Richard Dawkins last night, I noticed several people on the train wearing safety pins to show solidarity with groups which face marginalization and outright violence during the Vulgarmort regime. When I got to Symphony Space, I saw additional safety pins, including one adorning the T-shirt of a boy who asked the Esteemed Professor a great question about eusocial insects... can I just mention how great I think this kid is?

I ran into a friend of a friend who was wearing a pin. She was concerned enough about being put on a national database that she and her girlfriend decided that marrying is a risk that is just too great to undertake in Mike Pence's America. She mentioned that she had friends who had voted for Trump for various reasons, and that she asked them point-blank, "What are you going to do when they come for ME?" Sobering... as a cishet white male, this is the sort of horror story which I never have to contemplate, which is the real meaning of Straight White Male Privilege.

Riding the train up to the Bronx, I saw additional safety pins, silent but eloquent evocations of both safety and unity. Today, at work, I hunted up a small safety pin and affixed it to my sweatshirt:

It's a mute symbol of solidarity, but if it signals to people that this is one shave-pated white guy who doesn't tolerate bigotry, then it will have served its purpose.

Richard Returns!

It's been a few years since last I attended an event featuring Richard Dawkins. Tonight, I am heading to the scintillating Symphony Space for the Secret Science Club North for the 40th anniversary commemoration of the publication of The Selfish Gene. I'll be heading down on the 1 train and, the Symphony Space being pretty far uptown, I won't be the guy with the longest train ride home.