Another so-called missing link rises from the dust:
BBC: 'Lucy's baby' found in Ethiopia
The 3.3-million-year-old fossilised remains of a human-like child have been unearthed in Ethiopia's Dikika region.
The female Australopithecus afarensis bones are from the same species as an adult skeleton found in 1974 which was nicknamed "Lucy".
Darwin would have loved this:
BBC: Channel's key role in pre-history
A study of prehistoric animals has revealed the crucial role of the English Channel in shaping the course of Britain's natural history. The Channel acted as a filter, letting some animals in from mainland Europe, but not others.
Even at times of low sea level, when Britain was not an island, the Channel posed a major barrier to colonisation. This was because a massive river system flowed along its bed…
"We find we're getting only a selection of the mammals during the British interglacials that there are in mainland Europe," said Professor Stringer [of London's Natural History Museum]. "For example, at one pre-historic site, researchers found hippopotamus and fallow deer; but unlike mainland Europe at the time, there were no horses and no humans. This suggests that the Channel, or the Channel river system, is acting as a filter to prevent the movement of some of these [mammal] forms into Britain."
Colonisation of islands was a subject of great importance to Darwin. He devoted chapters 11 and 12 of Origin of Species to the geographical distribution of species, and islands figured heavily in his theories of speciation. He was mainly interested in mid-ocean islands, such as the Galapagos Islands, but he was always on the lookout for examples of how species could become isolated from parent stock.
It's crane fly season here in West Yorkshire. Last week, we were suddenly inundated with them. One week there wasn't any sign of them, the next they were all over the place—particularly in the evenings.
I didn't know, until I looked it up, that crane flies spend most of their lives underground in their larval forms, which are known a leatherjackets. I knew that leatherjackets were very common round here, and are a favourite food of the local crows (particularly the rooks), but I did not know that leatherjackets transform into crane flies. You learn something every day.
I naturally supposed that crane flies emerge en masse to increase their chances of encountering a mate—which I still guess is right. But then I had another thought: emerging en masse will also give the individual crane flies a better chance of avoiding being eaten by predators: plenty more fish in the sea, so to speak. And then it occurred to me that they emerge in early September, which is about the time that swallows traditionally start heading south for the winter. Could the timing of the crane flies' emergence in September be an adaptation to avoid being eaten by swallows?
If so, it isn't a 100% reliable strategy. One evening last week, a family of swallows spent a good half-hour hunting around the west-facing eaves of my house. I initially mistook them for local bats—I had not seen swallows that close to the house before. I wonder if they were hunting crane flies, which appear to be attracted to the residual warmth of the building after sunset.
BBC: Attempt to save declining lapwing
A five-year project has been launched to halt the decline of the lapwing, a bird traditionally known as the "farmer's friend".
More than 250 farm sites have been chosen to test measures designed to help the species recover.
Lapwing numbers have declined in the UK by almost 50% since 1970.
The article goes on to explain that the decline is believed to be due to modern farming practices, such as the loss of mixed agriculture, and the draining of land. This may well be correct, but I think there might be another reason, also linked with changes in farming practices:
I live in the South Pennines. Lapwings are one of my favourite birds. A pair of them nests in the fields behind my house every year. I have spent many an hour watching them from afar, and would be truly amazed if they have ever managed to rear a brood successfully. The reason: carrion crows. There are hundreds of them in these parts, and the poor lapwings seem to spend the whole of the nesting season fighting them off. I can't believe any of the eggs/chicks survive the onslaught. Indeed, I was talking to someone about it only last week, and he said that, this summer, he witnessed a carrion crow flying off with a young lapwing chick.
And why are there suddenly so many carrion crows? I would guess it's because so few farmers are shooting them any more. The laudable clampdown on firearms in recent years, and the public's disapproval of shooting birds have meant, I would hazard a guess, that crow numbers have increased in recent years, with disastrous consequences for lapwings.
Well, that's my theory at least, and I'm sticking to it.
I appreciate I'm probably being a bit unfair quoting from a brief news article, but is this a total non-story or what?
BBC: Study uncovers 'chimp cross code'
Experts studying chimpanzees while investigating the evolution of human social behaviour have uncovered their ability to safely cross roads.
They said the discovery has shown chimps' ability to cope with the risk of man-made situations…
It found the dominant adult males took up protective positions in the group when it was tasked with crossing roads…
The study has built on prior research showing that adult male monkeys took similar action to reduce the risk of being attacked by predators when travelling towards potentially unsafe areas, such as waterholes.
Kimberley Hockings, who worked on the study, said: "Road-crossing, a human-created challenge, presents a new situation that calls for flexibility of responses by chimpanzees to variations in perceived risk, helping to improve our understanding about the evolution of human social organisation.
In other words, what they appear to be saying is that, when presented with an unusual and/or potentially dangerous situation, dominant male chimps and monkeys take protective positions in front of and behind the group. An interesting, if pretty unsurprising observation.
But why do the people carrying out the study think that road-crossing presents a new situation that calls for flexibility of responses? Aren't the chimps simply giving a perfectly normal response when presented with a potentially risky situation? And why on earth do they think this is going to teach us anything about the evolution of human social behaviour? Don't loads of other animals (elephants, for example) do exactly the same thing?
I'm sure we can make certain inferences about the evolution of human behaviour by studying chimps, but I can't help feeling people read far too much into such studies. Why not study the chimps for their own sakes, rather than trying to bring in pretty tenuous links to human behaviour?
It's getting to be what the locals around here refer to as a little back-endish—by which they mean summer is on its way out, and autumn approaches.
Returning to my house today, I spotted several swallows congregating on the nearby telephone wires. At this time of year, this is a clear sign that they are preparing to migrate south for the winter. As they appeared to be fairly settled, I grabbed my camera and walked back down the hill to fire off a few photographs. It turned out that the swallows on the telephone wires were recently fledged juveniles, who were waiting to be fed. I watched for ten minutes or so as their parents gathered flies over the adjacent fields and returned to feed their young.
By coincidence, I am currently reading Richard Mabey's biography of the famous Eighteenth Century naturalist, Gilbert White (Amazon UK), who was an early influence on Darwin. White was fascinated by swallows. Their annual appearance in spring and disappearance again in late summer was still a mystery during his lifetime. In February, 1769, he wrote to his friend, Thomas Pennant:
When I used to rise in the morning last autumn, and see the swallows and martins clustering on the chimnies and thatch of the neighbouring cottages, I could not help being touched by a secret delight, mixed with some degree of mortification: with delight to observe with how much ardour and punctuality those poor little birds obeyed the strong impulse to migration, or hiding, imprinted on their minds by their great Creator; and with some degree of mortification, when I reflected that, after all our pains and inquiries, we are yet not quite certain to what regions they do migrate; and are still farther embarrassed to find that some do not actually migrate at all.
To his dying day, White never did find out for certain whether swallows migrated or hid (by which he meant hibernated). We now know that swallows migrate from Britain to South Africa during our winter: a phenomenal journey for such a small bird. And we now know that this impulse to migration is not imprinted on their minds by a creator, but by evolution.
Darwin was right: there is grandeur in his view of life.
I spent some time reading up about woodpeckers yesterday morning. There is a great spotted woodpecker which visits the bird feeder in our garden most days. Never ones to avoid clichés, we have nicknamed him Woody. On Friday, I managed to get this photograph of him.
Woodpeckers' toes are a familiar example of an evolutionary adaptation. Instead of the usual (in birds, at least) three toes pointing forward and one toe back, most woodpeckers have two toes pointing forward and two back. This adaptation makes it easier for them to cling to tree trunks.
Yesterday, I learnt that the scientific adjective to describe this toes-in-pairs phenomenon is zygodactyl. Apparently, several different lineages of birds (including parrots and treecreepers) have independently evolved zygodactyl toes for clinging to tree trunks—demonstrating that Nature isn't afraid of reinventing the wheel.
Then I remembered that Darwin had written about woodpeckers in Origin of Species:
As we sometimes see individuals of a species following habits widely different from those both of their own species and of the other species of the same genus, we might expect, on my theory, that such individuals would occasionally have given rise to new species, having anomalous habits, and with their structure either slightly or considerably modified from that of their proper type. And such instances do occur in nature. Can a more striking instance of adaptation be given than that of a woodpecker for climbing trees and for seizing insects in the chinks of the bark? Yet in North America there are woodpeckers which feed largely on fruit, and others with elongated wings which chase insects on the wing; and on the plains of La Plata, where not a tree grows, there is a woodpecker, which in every essential part of its organisation, even in its colouring, in the harsh tone of its voice, and undulatory flight, told me plainly of its close blood-relationship to our common species; yet it is a woodpecker which never climbs a tree!
As usual, Darwin hits the nail on the head: although evolution through Natural Selection provides organisms with adaptations ideal for certain environments, so might a benevolent creator. But to see an animal, such as a woodpecker, with adaptations better suited for one environment, living in a very different environment is the best sort of proof that something has changed (for which, read evolved). A few paragraphs later, Darwin continues:
He who believes that each being has been created as we now see it, must occasionally have felt surprise when he has met with an animal having habits and structure not at all in agreement. What can be plainer than that the webbed feet of ducks and geese are formed for swimming; yet there are upland geese with webbed feet which rarely or never go near the water…
He who believes in separate and innumerable acts of creation will say, that in these cases it has pleased the Creator to cause a being of one type to take the place of one of another type; but this seems to me only restating the fact in dignified language. He who believes in the struggle for existence and in the principle of natural selection, will acknowledge that every organic being is constantly endeavouring to increase in numbers; and that if any one being vary ever so little, either in habits or structure, and thus gain an advantage over some other inhabitant of the country, it will seize on the place of that inhabitant, however different it may be from its own place.
No matter how well Nature might hone certain species to certain environments, it can only work with the material (species) already available to it—so species' ancestral heritages often show through in their current designs. Stephen Jay Gould referred to this phenomenon as the Panda's Thumb, but I like to think of it as Nature's Kludges.
See also: Can Red Lions Evolve?
I promised myself I wasn't going to waste any time getting embroiled in the evolution v creationism non-debate on this website, but…
Guardian: Pope prepares to embrace theory of intelligent design
Philosophers, scientists and other intellectuals close to Pope Benedict will gather at his summer palace outside Rome this week for intensive discussions that could herald a fundamental shift in the Vatican's view of evolution.
There have been growing signs the Pope is considering aligning his church more closely with the theory of "intelligent design" taught in some US states. Advocates of the theory argue that some features of the universe and nature are so complex that they must have been designed by a higher intelligence. Critics say it is a disguise for creationism.
Just for the record, what a total tosser!
I never had much time for memes. I've always seen the concept of memes (as opposed to some of the memes themselves) as a harmless bit of fun that has got a bit out-of-hand. But now I'm beginning to wonder:
Since the re-launch of the Friends of Charles Darwin website 2½ days ago, the number of new members joining has been truly phenomenal. It had taken 12 years to amass (if that's an appropriate word) the 415 members prior to Wednesday evening's relaunch. At the time of writing (07:15 on Saturday) there are now 727 members. That's a 75% increase in 2½ days. Like I said, phenomenal.
The reason for the incredible response is quite clear: two mentions on PZ Myers' hugely popular evolutionary weblog, Pharyngula. It was Peter McGrath from the the Beagle Project who tipped him off a few hours before the planned re-launch, and, within minutes of PZ's initial post, new members began to pour in thick and fast (no offence intended). Then, when PZ published a follow-up post (later picked up by Seed Magazine) the next day, all hell broke loose. I'm not kidding, I thought I was under some sort of denial-of-service attack: new membership applications were coming in so quickly, the system was struggling to cope. People were starting to get record-locking errors as two or more of them tried to join at exactly the same time (I had realised that this was a risk, but had decided it was so unlikely that it wasn't worth doing anything about it). Then I became part of the problem by trying to update the membership list while the new applications were still piling in. So I gave up and waited for things to calm down (i.e. for America to go to bed).
Two and a half days later, and I'm still feeling shell-shocked.
Anyway, welcome to the Friends of Charles Darwin, you lot! (And I use the word advisedly.)
Why the Red Notebook?
Well, all weblogs need a name, and I wanted this one's to have a distinctly Darwinian ring to it:
The Red Notebook (as Darwin scholars refer to it) was the first in a series of notebooks that Darwin used to record and develop his thoughts on evolution. He began the notebook towards the end of his voyage aboard HMS Beagle. Initially, he used it simply for recording the ship's location and depth soundings, but, on returning to England, he filled its later pages with his early evolutionary musings. His subsequent notebooks contained much more information, but these are referred to as Notebook B, C, D etc.—which don't have quite the same ring to them.
So the Red Notebook it is!
In 2002, at home with a broken leg, I was invited to contribute an essay to a book being compiled in celebration of Darwin Day 2003. The essay (which I have published online for the first time today) encouraged people to become amateur scientists, exhorting readers (with new emphasis added) to:
Build yourself a slug-arium; count the spots on ladybirds; look for peppered moths on tree trunks; try to create a blue sweet pea; breed pigeons; find out whether male crustaceans ever fight for the females; look for seeds in bird pellets; try floating seeds in salt-water; keep a notebook; involve your friends; email people; read books; search the web; if you have a website, publish your findings (even if they're inconclusive).
… I thought it was about time I took my own advice.
I intend to use this latter-day Red Notebook to record my own thoughts and discoveries about Darwin, evolution, natural history, and related matters. I do not claim to be an expert in any of these fields, so I am sure I will make a few mistakes on the way. In fact, I hope I make a few mistakes on the way, for mistakes are an important part of (as another of my scientific heroes, Richard Feynman, put it) the pleasure of finding things out.
It should be fun.
Postscript: In July 2012, following a website revamp, I dropped the name The Red Notebook and started referring instead to The Friends of Charles Darwin blog. The name The Red Notebook was confusing people, and diluting the Friends of Charles Darwin brand.
Greetings Pharyngulites!
(Absolutely no pressure or anything… Thanks for nothing, Peter.)
Man, this Laphroaig is good!
We had lost one of these rare ministers and interpreters of Nature whose names mark epochs in the advance of natural knowledge… It is curious now to remember how largely, at first, the objectors predominated; but considering the usual fate of new views, it is still more curious to consider for how short a time the phase of vehement opposition lasted.Thomas Henry Huxley
The Darwin Memorial, 1885
Science is desperately short of great popularisers. It also needs intelligent sceptics who are prepared to challenge accepted beliefs. In Stephen Jay Gould, it had both. The world of science is the worse for his loss.
As a populariser of science, Gould had few equals. His unbroken run of 300 monthly essays, which appeared between 1974 and 2001 in Natural History magazine, and which were reprinted in several best-selling books, were masterpieces in the genre. In his best essays, Gould would often start with some small, seemingly obscure detail, then lead the reader through various twists and turns until the chosen detail became an illustration of a far wider scientific generality. En route, he would destroy myths, restore scorned historical figures to their rightful places in the scientific pantheon, wax lyrical about baseball, and occasionally slip in favourite Gouldian words such as canonical, maximal, contingency, ontogeny and exaptation. On reaching the end of a Gould essay, you would often feel (as Thomas Henry Huxley did after reading On the Origin of Species) how stupid of me not to have thought of that! You rarely, if ever, came away from a Gould essay without feeling just that little bit cleverer than before.
As a sceptical challenger of generally accepted scientific beliefs, Gould also had few equals. He was an outspoken critic of strict adaptationism - the tendency to describe just about every biological feature you care to name as a Darwinian adaptation. Instead, Gould claimed, many such features were merely incidental by-products of other adaptations (or, to use the metaphorical term he devised for them, spandrels [PDF]). With Niles Eldredge, Gould also developed the theory of punctuated equilibria, which claimed that the gaps in the fossil record that so embarrassed Darwin are often real, that evolutionary change is not always constant and gradual, and that species tend to evolve in relatively brief periods of rapid change separated by longer periods of relative stasis.
Critics have tried to dismiss Gould's science as unremarkable, unoriginal, or just plain wrong. They have accused him of caricaturing their views, setting up a straw men which are easy to knock down. Many of these critics, it must be said, are not above caricaturing Gould's own views. Straw men or not, Gould did evolutionary science a great service by arguing convincingly that there does not have to be a one-size-fits-all solution to everything: life is far more wonderful than that.
Gould's death leaves a noticeable gap in the world of science. No doubt his detractors will claim that the gap is illusory, but as Gould himself so often pointed out, sometimes gaps really are gaps.
Stephen Jay Gould
Born: Queens, New York, 10th September, 1941
Died: Manhattan, New York, 20th May, 2002