Zebra Finches

Nature v. 430, 22 July 2004, p. 414,

"A social call" by Christopher B. Sturdy reviews a report on the discovery that male zebra finches "respond to their mate's calls according to the social situation," specifically, whether or not there's another mated pair in the vicinity.

It seems to me the most important aspect of this is that it shows that laboratory studies alone may cover up natural complexities of behavior. Sturdy claims it "suggests for the first time that a non-primate may be able to assess the social relationships between other animals of its own species, an ability thought to be a mark of intelligence" and says "perhaps the most important implication of this study is that we primates are not alone in our ability to duge social context. It seems that birds are far more aware of such niceties than we have previously given them credit for.

I think what it really shows is that simple behaviors are too easily interpreted as signs of intelligence -- we humans tend to read human motivation and intelligence into all sorts of things, the "anthropomorphizing" I've referred to several times before.

Ian Taylor is fond of pointing out (and rightly so) that it is NOT our intelligence that separates us from animals, but our spirits that were created in the image of God. On the other hand, I do think human intelligence is distinct from animal intelligence.


Until Next Time,

David Bump
Philippians 3: 13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but [this] one thing [I do], forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. http://home.att.net/~david.bump

Thomas Gold

The obituary (found in Nature v. 430, 22 July 2004, p. 415) has some noteworthy material.

Thomas Gold was the guy who first proposed a possible static-universe solution to the apparent expansion of the universe, namely, "the continual creation of matter in space."

Fred Hoyle was one of his friends and became relatively famous for championing this idea, although via "a different route." The author of the obit, Hermann Bondi, was another friend who joined Gold in publishing their version of the steady-state theory, "but only a limited number of astronomers found the theory attractive, and a few were hostile" even though "Early attempts to disprove our theory failed."

Most everyone now considers stead-state ideas completely invalidated, but while Bondi notes this, he doesn't seem to have given up on it entirely and says "Gold thought to the end ...that a proper critique of the observations would remove any contradictions" and "Unfortunately, there is nobody knowledgeable in modern astronomy who is willing and able to carry out the critique he had hoped for."

It's almost strange that Gold was involved in a couple other things of interest to creationists and also controversial. He "soon moved on to thinking about human hearing." Quite a jump, but he seems to have been attracted by a mystery. "The excellent frequency discrimination of our sense of hearing could not then be explained."

Gold's solution was something any creationist or ID'er would have anticipated: he "saw the similarity of the problem to that of receiver design for radio, radar and televsion" and the problem there is solved "by the use of positive feedback." Perhaps because he was an outsider to the field, or perhaps because other researchers shied away from the obvious intelligent design implications (or both), "only some 30 years later was his theory accepted by physiologists."

Here's a VERY important piece of information: Gold is apparently the source of the moon dust problem. Bondi doesn't directly mention the way creationists jumped on this (and perhaps carried it too far), but he does show how the whole fuss got started. Gold "became involved in the Apollo space programme ...designed the astronauts' camera, and also raised the possible problem of the Moon's surface."

To scientists at that time, "The darkness of the Moon was a puzzle. Gold suggested that the Moon is covered by a layer of dust...his analysis did not determine the dust's thickness" but "He warned that a very thick layer could act like quicksand." So the possibility was raised and considered before unmanned probes checked it out. "although Gold's prediction of a dust layer was fully confirmed, he received little credit for it. Only his warning of the dangers of a deep layer was remembered."

Gold also "proposed the universally accepted solution" to the question of the source of "intense flashes of radio waves recurring at precise intervals and arriving from specific directions" from deep space -- the fantastically dense spinning stars known as pulsars.

One last thing of interest: "He thought that large amounts of hydrocarbons (especiallly methane) had been part of the Earth as it formed, and that the Earth has been 'outgassing' ever since. The methane rises through a layer of living organisms that he called 'the deep hot bioshphere'." In this part of its journey it "acquires its organic 'baggage'...but its origin is not organic."

While not at all a popular idea, "if it is correct, reservoirs of hydrocarbons exist deep underground almost everywhere" and I would add that it would cast further doubt on the standard theory that oil and natural gas deposits are all products of tiny dead things accumulated over hundreds of millions of years.

Until Next Time,

David Bump
Philippians 3: 13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but [this] one thing [I do], forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. http://home.att.net/~david.bump

Fiddler Crabs

In Nature_ v. 430, 22 July 2004, p. 417,

The brief communication report "Coalition among male fiddler crabs" describes observations in the wild that "indicate that a resident will strategically help a neighbour to defend its territory against an intruder."

When a crab sees one of its neighbors fighting with a wandering crab, it will go so far as "to vacate his own territory temporarily to join the fight" against the intruder "when they were most likely to have a beneficial effect" and "when their neighbour was more likely to lose their territory."

In other words, these crabs will help their smaller neighbors chase off intruders when they're also bigger than the intruder, even though there's still some risk that another crab will sneak into their own burrow while they're gone, or that they will lose a claw in the fight. Their only benefit is keeping a "known," smaller neighbor that doesn't bother them.

"The circumstances under which assistance was provided appeared to involve judicious decision-making. That this occurs in an invertebrate, but has still not been reported in birds or mammals, suggests that territorial coalitions depend more on appropriate circumstances than on advanced cognitive skills."

In other words, if teeny little crabs (I have some in my aqua-terrarium) can appear to use "strategic thinking" then we shouldn't be too quick to ascribe thought processes to more advanced animals based on relatively simple behaviors.

I don't know how many neurons fiddler crabs are blessed with, but I bet it would be a real challenge to program all their behaviors, especially in the light of this study, in an equivalent computer chip.

Until Next Time,

David Bump
Philippians 3: 13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but [this] one thing [I do], forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. http://home.att.net/~david.bump