Happy Darwin Day!

Today is Charles Darwin's birthday. His ideas have been the basis of biological science for 150 years. Unfortunately, we live in a country that still thinks he was full of BS (see chart below, from The Economist). More than half of the US population rejects the scientifically proven fact of evolution. It's like rejecting the idea that gravity exists. It's mass delusion.

Fortunately, there is more data all the time to help us open our eyes.

I think things are slowly changing. We have a long way to go, but people are starting to see the light. Evolution is a beautiful theory that really makes the world seem more amazing and interesting to me. It may be easy to think the complexities of the human brain and the sophistication of the eye are designed by some sort of supernatural god. But it is wrong. All it takes is a little interest in the subject; just a little research, and it opens up a world of understanding of how life works. It can be hard to figure out how an octopus' skin changes color, but that doesn't mean it is a magic trick; it isn't God showing off. To say so is to discount how amazing it is that life exists on our little planet in all of its amazing varieties. All of these sentiments have been expressed by millions of people already, I know. I just thought I should add to the growing roar of people fed up with this age of ignorance we have been living in. Wake up, people. The world is more amazing than your God could have ever imagined. Happy b-day Charles.

Suggested reading: Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins

Japan Plans to Keep Whaling

Will it ever stop? Well, of course, eventually it has to... when all the whales are gone.

Artificial Selection

I just read Carl Sagan's Cosmos for the first time (I was stoked to find it at an English bookstore in Buenos Aires). One of the many interesting things Sagan wrote about was the idea of "Artificial Selection," which is basically rapid evolution caused by human interference. Some manifestations of this phenomenon are intentional: sheep bred to have something like 300x more wool in their coat than occurs naturally, domesticated dogs, etc. There are also unintentional examples of humans changing entire species.

Sagan told a cool (true) story about the Heike crab in Japan. The Heike gets its name from a Japanese legend of a samurai clan (the Heike) who were defeated by another clan. In their defeat, the surviving samurai all jumped into the sea. The legend says that these Heike became crabs and walk the seafloor to this day. For centuries, Japanese crab fisherman have been finding crabs that seem to have a samurai face on their shell (as seen below). They assume these crabs are the Heike and throw them back in the sea out of respect for the Heike.

Of course, these are not mystical samurai crabs. They are simply descendants of a specific species of crab that has passed on its genes for hundreds of years because it looks like a samurai. Human fisherman selected which crabs would survive. In fact, they did in a way that the only crabs to survive were the ones that looked most like samurai faces on their shells. Artificial selection.

Recently, a study came out showing how humans are the earth´s super-predators, and how we have changed the characteristics of 29 different species forever (only 29 were in the study, there are undoubtedly many many more). Big-horn sheep have smaller horns, Atlantic cod are shrinking, and you can imagine how we have affected others.

Cosmos was written in 1980. This study will be published in the July 31 issue of ScienceNOW. It's just another scary example of how we know we are harming the planet, but most of us just don't give a shit. The next 50 years will be scary. It looks to me like the African elephants, polar bears, and many great whales will go extinct. Maybe everyday Joes can't do anything to stop those inevitabilities. But we can start thinking about what happens to other species and parts of the world when we make everyday decisions; what to eat, what to buy, how to get to work. There are consequences.

First the Reefs go, then...

20% of all coral reefs in the world are dead. One fifth. Gone. Why? Us; Pollution, over-fishing, and climate change.

If you ever wondered why eating fish could be bad, think about this. You may not be the one fishing fragile coral reefs unsustainably, or even buying from those who do. But the overall demand for seafood is increased by every person who goes to Red Lobster, eats sushi, or likes tuna salad sandwiches. It may be healthy, and some suppliers may claim to do their fishing responsibly, but why risk it when we are killing our own planet? If the coral reefs die, other ocean ecosystems will die, then probably eventually every other ecosystem. Sorry to sound high-horsey, accusational, or whatever, but this stuff makes me crazy.

Japanese Whalers Claim They are the Victims

The Japanese whaling fleet is scared of the big bad Steve Irwin! Much like they did in the book I read on the subject, The Whale Warriors, the Japanese are trying to turn the press and public opinion against Sea Shepherd, who are trying to disrupt the hunt. They are calling the activists "terrorists" and accuse Westerners of being "insensitive" of their culture. Please. Go Sea Shepherd.