A new finding shows dogs performing better on one kind of intelligence test than chimpanzees. If evolution teaches that human intelligence is the main trait separating us from other animals, and dogs are smarter than apes, shouldn’t the conclusion be that dogs are closer on the family tree? If not, is it valid for evolutionary biologists to pick and choose the traits that matter?

Why ask? Well,

A new paper in PLoS ONE had the surprising title, “Dogs (Canis familiaris), but Not Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), Understand Imperative Pointing.” Researchers at Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology worked with 32 dogs of different breeds, and 20 chimpanzees at reserves in Germany and Uganda. They gave them simple tests to see if they could figure out where food was by pointing at it. Despite rigorous attempts to rule out background causes or other distractions, the dogs scored much higher; the chimps just couldn’t get the message. Jennifer Viegas at Live Science headlined the story, “Dogs Understand Us Better Than Chimps Do.”

What it may mean is that dogs got smarter about that, due to living with humans. They discovered that humans often point a finger to convey a message.

What’s remarkable about all this is that dogs don’t even have fingers, but chimps do.

So dogs learned to detect a message using fingers, which they don’t have, but chimps, which have fingers, didn’t learn to detect the message? Jane Goodall, check YOUR messages.

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Whatever the implications, and I agree that many are there, I don’t want Darwin’s achievement caught up in America’s culture wars, to the extent that it is part of that and nothing else. I want to celebrate the human spirit and what we can do, rather than drag all down to the level of the rather disgusting display that we are seeing in the Republican race for the presidential nomination.

I want to celebrate a theory that tells us why the worker ants are always female and never male. I want to celebrate a theory that tells us why there are so many different little finches on the Galapagos and why they look like the birds of South America and not of Africa. I want to celebrate a theory that tells us why our DNA is in major respects identical to the DNA of the fruitfly and why nevertheless we humans don’t have wings and live just on bananas. I want to celebrate a theory that tells us why the Stegosaurus has those daft plates all down its back (they are for heat control). I want to celebrate a theory that tells us why sex selection in humans in places like India and China tends to favor boys over girls. I want a theory that tells you why, when you have VD, you might be randier than you were before. I want a theory that does all of these things and, like the goose, promises to go on laying golden eggs day after day, year after year.

Those eggs are not golden. They hatch the dragons of culture wars. And Darwinism will not do what its devotees hope. Whether they celebrate Darwin Day or not.

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In “Epigenetic Inheritance: What News for Evolution?” (Current Biology Vol 22 No 2 R54, DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2011.11.054) by Ben Hunter, Jesse D. Hollister,and Kirsten Bomblies, we read,

What does spontaneous variation imply for the potential for epigenetic change to play an important role in evolution? First, consider the genome-wide variation in stability of methylation states. Among the variable sites identified in these A. thaliana genome scans, a large proportion changed state in multiple independent lines, suggesting that some sites are indeed ‘hotspots’ for epigenetic change [9,10], and rates of reversion are appreciable [10]. It has been known for some time that epialleles at some loci are ‘metastable’ and can change dramatically over generations [15]. Such instability suggests it is unlikely that alternative epialleles can contribute appreciably to stable evolutionary change [4].

While instability speaks against the idea that individual epialleles would contribute to long-term adaptive evolution, it does beg the question why there is variation among loci in epigenetic stability in the first place. As Richards has pointed out, one possibility is that the unstable epialleles are really just phenotypically inconsequential ‘‘genomic clutter’’ that is reset with passing generations [3].

Genomic clutter? Whoops! Sounds like “unstable epialleles” are competing with transposable elements to be the new junk DNA. Better not go there ….

On the other hand, such variation could also be part of a plastic environmental response system or, if selection can stabilize epigenetic states, then it becomes a standing supply of potentially heritable, adaptive epialleles [3]. A particularly intriguing possible explanation when considering the role that epigenetic variation may play in long-term evolution is that it is the propensity to vary, rather than any particular allelic state, that is under selection. Simulations have shown that phenotypic variation and plasticity generated by epigenetic instability can be beneficial in variable environments, and thus instability may itself be a target of selection.

Darwin’s natural selection is beginning to sound more and more like an ancient Greek god who didn’t create the world, but decides intelligently where he will intervene in it.

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Further update: Eigenstate has run for cover.
The genesis of this post was the StephenB’s accusation that eigenstate refused to concede the law of noncontradiction: “For you [i.e.,eigenstate], the law of non-contradiction is a “useful tool” except on those occasions when it reveals the poverty of your non-arguments, at which time, it can be safely discounted. That position alone renders you unfit for rational dialogue.”

Surely not, I thought to myself. No one can argue logically and at the same time ever deny the law of noncontradiction, because the law of noncontradiction underlies ALL logical arguments. So I put this post up to give eigenstate a chance to refute StephenB’s accusation. I know eigenstate came back onto this site after I put up this post, because he commented on another string after this post went up. Yet he refused to answer the question. I can only conclude from this that StephenB is correct. Eigenstate and his ilk are not acting in good faith. They feel free to spew their nonsense, but when they are confronted with a challenge they cannot meet they run away. He is not, as StephenB points out, fit for rational dialogue, and you will not see him on this site again.

Another update: At another site Eigenstate says he responded here, which is an outrageous lie. At that same site he up an idiot’s answer to the question which is not worth responding to. Suffice it to say it was neither “yes” nor “no.”

This offer may be time limited. Today is the highest of the Darwin holy days.

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From James Barham:

Human Nature Watch 6: Ritalin Gone Wrong:

Two days ago, in “Human Nature Watch 5: Is Depression Good for You?,” I reported on a surprisingly level-headed and humane article in The New York Times challenging our newspaper of record’s standard Darwinian-reductionist line on human nature.

Today, I am delighted to report on another recent article that speaks sensibly about medicine and human behavioral problems. I hesitate to announce a new trend on the strength of a couple of articles. But if trend there is, I welcome it wholeheartedly.

Perhaps we should all write letters to the Editor to encourage whoever it was who decided to buck the dominant reductionist narrative line at the Gray Lady by publishing these two excellent pieces.

The new article is called “Ritalin Gone Wrong” … (Jan. 29)  More.

Some of us wouldn’t waste much time on the Gray Lady down, but exposing the “drug store” approach to failure in school is overdue.

and

Morals and Money: Seems celeb economist Paul Krugman is not pleased with a new book on social inequality.

The Nobel Prize–winning economist and regular New York Times op-ed columnist is intensely irritated by all the attention accorded by the press and the punditocracy to Charles Murray’s new book, Coming Apart (Crown Forum, 2012).

Today, Krugman pushed back against Murray in a column whose title, “Money and Morals,” I have adapted for mine.

Murray’s controversial thesis, you will recall, is that the widening income inequality in America is the result of an even more yawning gap in moral values between managerial-class and working-class Americans.

Murray’s new book is a stunning synthesis of studies showing that poorly educated, low-income, white Americans have fallen into a social pathology consisting of falling educational levels, declining marriage rates, sky-high illegitimacy rates, waxing criminality, waning industriousness, and—to cap it all—rapid secularization.

Their upper- and middle-class counterparts have avoided most of these plagues, or else—as in the case of the divorce rate—fallen prey to them to a lesser degree. …

More. Not only is Krugman not pleased, but no one will be – if they need to make a living off the problem.

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DARWIN DAY IS NEARLY HERE

It’s time to dust off your Darwin costume again: Darwin Day 2012 is practically here! Colleges and universities, schools, libraries, museums, churches, civic groups, and just plain folks across the country — and the world — are preparing to celebrate Darwin Day, on
or around February 12, in honor of the life and work of Charles Darwin. These events provide a marvelous opportunity not only to celebrate Darwin’s birthday but also to engage in public outreach about science, evolution, and the importance of evolution education – which is especially needed with assaults on evolution education currently ongoing in …

And with Darwin Day comes the return of Evolution Weekend! Hundreds of congregations all over the country and around the world are taking part in Evolution Weekend, February 10-12, 2012, by presenting sermons and discussion groups on the compatibility of faith and science.

If that’s so, how come 78% of all evolutionary biologists (mostly Darwinists, of course) are strict believers in “no God and no free will”?

So is the Darwin lobby saying that evolutionary biology is okay; it’s Darwinism that’s the problem? If so, then why is Evolution Weekend associated with Darwin Day?

The good thing about the Darwin lobby is, they make it easy for people who don’t want to be fooled to just walk away.

Real churches are about the ways in which we are not like animals, not the ways in which we are.

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A new study has shown that boosting the estrogen levels of male garter snakes causes them to secrete the same pheromones that females use to attract suitors, and turned the males into just about the sexiest snake in the neighborhood — attracting dozens of other males eager to mate.

In this study, male snakes were implanted with a small capsule that raised their estrogen level to about that of female snakes. After one year of this estrogen supplementation, the male snakes exuded a pheromone that caused other males to swarm to them and form the writhing “mating balls” that this species of garter snake is known for.

And just as the pheromone production could be stimulated, it could be taken away, the scientists found. When the supplementation was removed for a year, the males reverted to normal function and behavior.

What it all mainly shows is that snakes are not very smart. But, curiously, in the midst of a reasonable discussion of the effects of estrogen on snake behaviour, Darwinism rears its stunned head. We are told:

Large and older females, preferred by male snakes because they can produce more babies, also have a slightly different chemical signature in their pheromone. Young, small, females can still attract suitors, but not as readily.

Male snakes clearly can’t tell a she from a he-on-estrogen, so what mystical Darwinian knowledge causes them to prefer a bigger female because she “can produce more babies”? They know? They care?

Oh wait. Evolution happened. Yes, that must be the explanation.

Timothy Gowers is surprised and delighted that thousands of mathematics and other researchers have joined him in a public pledge not to have anything to do with Elsevier, the Amsterdam-based academic publishing giant. He is leading a boycott because of company practices that he says hinder the dissemination of research.

He cited Elsevier’s high prices; the practice of bundling journals, which some see as forcing libraries to subscribe to journals they don’t want to get those that they do; and the company’s support for US legislation such as the Research Works Act (RWA), which would forbid government agencies from requiring that the results of research they fund be placed in public repositories. Elsevier is not the only publisher guilty of such practices, says Gowers, but it is the worst offender.

Nearly 5,000 researchers have joined him. But it’s not clear how – or whether – a boycott would work.

Gowers is entertaining more radical ideas, such as creating journals that consist solely of links to papers posted on the arXiv preprint server. Publishers are no longer needed to typeset or distribute papers, he says; the main outstanding question is how to replicate or replace the role that journals play in reviewing work and conferring prestige.

The problem is that anyone who does play that role becomes a publisher, for good or ill. Stay tuned.