Evolutionary biologist E.O. Wilson says Richard Dawkins is just a ‘journalist’

Edward O. Wilson, November 2014: "He's a journalist."

Legendary Harvard professor E.O. Wilson delivers a serious zinger aimed straight at Oxford University’s Richard Dawkins during a recent interview with BBC Two’s Newsnight.

by John Tyburski

Copyright © 2015, John Tyburski. All rights reserved.

Published at TheDawkinsMonitor.com on 26 January 2015.

The non-scientific public likely hears enough on the “battle” between science and religion to overshadow the disputes that occur between scientists regarding scientific controversies. These disagreements tend to be a bit too esoteric for nonscientists to care. While they can be vicious and protracted, these rows largely remain hidden from public view.

Every now and then, however, a scientific skirmish boils over into the mainstream, which is exactly what happened about three months ago between retired Harvard University professor Edward O. Wilson and retired Oxford University professor Richard Dawkins. The battle was, in fact, part of an ongoing war between the two over evolutionary theory, an area of biology with which both Wilson and Dawkins are closely associated.

Dawkins is probably best known by most as an outspoken critic of religion in general and of Christianity in particular. Early in his academic career, Dawkins conducted some original research in evolutionary biology and wrote influentially in the subject. Wilson, also a somewhat outspoken critic of spiritual faith, has published over 440 peer-reviewed manuscripts, over two dozen scholarly books, and is regarded as the world’s leading expert in social insect biology. Wilson is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and Dawkins is a member of the British Royal Society. Both are heavyweights in their respective academic capacities.

During a recent interview with Evan Davis on BBC Two’s Newsnight to promote his most recent book titled The Meaning of Human Existence, Wilson was asked about his dispute with Dawkins on evolutionary theory.

“There is no dispute between me and Richard Dawkins and there never has been, because he’s a journalist,” explained Wilson. “[J]ournalists are people who report what the scientists have found, and the arguments I’ve had have actually been with scientists doing research.”

Davis followed up with a question of whether Wilson has any regard today for Dawkins’s concept of “the selfish gene.”

“I’ve abandoned it, and I think most serious scientists working on it have abandoned it,” said Wilson. “Some defenders may be out there, but they’ve been relatively almost totally silent since our major paper’s come out.”

The major paper that Wilson referred to was on the evolution of eusociality, published in Nature on 26 August 2010, which refuted Dawkins’s proposals put forth in his book The Selfish Gene, published in 1976.

Shortly after the interview broadcast, Dawkins took to Twitter to defend himself, tweeting: “Anybody who thinks I’m a journalist who reports what other scientists think is invited to read The Extended Phenotype.”

Dawkins was referring to his 1982 book, The Extended Phenotype, intended as a follow up to The Selfish Gene. Whether or not Dawkins was insulted by being called a journalist was settled when he later tweeted a link to his severely critical review of Wilson’s 2012 book The Social Conquests of Earth, published in Prospect magazine in June of that same year.

In that review, Dawkins wrote that while Wilson may have presented “interesting and informative chapters on human evolution, and on the ways of social insects,” his readers are “obliged to wade through many pages of erroneous and downright perverse misunderstandings of evolutionary theory.”

Further in, Dawkins insinuated that the only reason Nature published Wilson’s 2010 eusociality paper was because of Wilson's reputation. Dawkins suggested that had the paper been submitted anonymously, it would have not survived the ordinary peer-review process. As any scientist will attest, this was an extraordinarily harsh criticism.

Wilson’s original reply to Dawkins’s review was tempered; it only took a slightly unfriendly turn at the very end with a reply to Dawkins’s rather long list of big-name researchers who were critical of Wilson’s 2010 Nature paper: “[M]aking such lists is futile. It should be born in mind that if science depended on rhetoric and polls, we would still be burning objects with phlogiston and navigating with geocentric maps.”

At the time of the review controversy, Warwick University professor Georgy Koentges remarked in an interview for The Guardian that “Dawkins has a lot of unnecessary rhetoric in his review.”

Neither man has probably yet healed from the wound inflicted by the other, and the public has probably not heard the last from these two mighty rivals.

Readers can learn more about and stay current with Richard Dawkins by visiting the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science website. Those interested in E.O. Wilson and his most recent work are encouraged to visit the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation website.

Long live the king? Monarch butterfly populations experience unprecedented drop

Experts call for consideration of protecting the Monarch butterfly under the U.S. Endangered Species Act as population numbers fall precipitously.

by John Tyburski

Copyright © Daily Digest News, KPR Media, LLC. All rights reserved.

First published at Daily Digest News on December 31, 2014

Monarch butterflies are as fascinating as they are beautiful. They require one kind of plant — the milkweed — for egg-laying and food for the larva, which themselves have a distinctive striped coloration. Monarchs also undergo an amazing seasonal migration to one specific location in Mexico, a behavior that has been the focus of entire scientific careers.

Unfortunately, however, loss of habitat across North America, brought about largely by farming, has brought with it the progressive loss of the milkweed plant, and the loss of as much as 90 percent of the monarch butterfly population present two decades ago. These declining numbers have prompted the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to call for adding the insect to the list of endangered species.

According to the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, the tremendous decline in monarch numbers relates to increased cultivation of genetically modified crops that can withstand herbicides that kill native plants, including the milkweed that is crucial for monarch reproduction. The Society filed a petition on Monday requesting federal protection for the monarch. That petition is currently under review for the next year with the Fish and Wildlife Service.

North American monarchs that reside east of the Continental Divide fly some 3,000 miles to Mexico each autumn. Those west of the Divide migrate a shorter distance to a location in California. In 1996, an estimated one billion monarchs migrated to Mexico. Last year, the number was substantially lower at 35 million, according to ecologist Marcus Kronforst at the University of Chicago.

The monarch migration remains a bit of a mystery. Each year, new adults make the journey with no prior experience. Researchers have discovered that they rely partially on the sun’s position and the Earth’s magnetic field when the sun is obscured by clouds. Exactly how the butterflies find their way to the very same spot year after year remains unknown.

Study suggests that memories are never truly lost, and can be resurrected

The findings of a new study by UCLA scientists challenges the current paradigm of how memories are maintained.

by John Tyburski

Copyright © Daily Digest News, KPR Media, LLC. All rights reserved.

First published at Daily Digest News on December 30, 2014

Aside from being deadly, the other major devastating effect of Alzheimer’s Disease is the progressive loss of memory and identity. Alzheimer’s is a degenerative neurological disease affecting over five million Americans that presents as a loss of neuronal synapses, or connections, in the brain. Progress in understanding and potentially preventing or treating Alzheimer’s has been slow despite tremendous scientific efforts. However, a new study by neuroscientists at the UCLA Brain Research Institute may offer some promise.

The accepted explanation for how long-term memory is stored in the brain is that they are maintained in the synapses — the tiny connections between nerve cells — which tend to disappear over time in Alzheimer’s patients. Research by David Glanzman and colleagues challenges this long-held notion of how memories are stored.

“Long-term memory is not stored at the synapse,” said Glanzman, senior author of the study and UCLA professor of integrative biology and physiology and of neurobiology, in a statement. “That’s a radical idea, but that’s where the evidence leads. The nervous system appears to be able to regenerate lost synaptic connections. If you can restore the synaptic connections, the memory will come back. It won’t be easy, but I believe it’s possible.”

The study was conducted in a species of sea snail called Aplysia, a research model organism popular among neuroscientists and behavior scientists. More specifically, the scientists were keenly interested in the animal’s withdrawal reflex, a sensory- and motor neuron-mediated reaction to potential harm of the snail’s gills.

The research team was able to enhance the snail’s withdrawal reflex by giving it a series of mild electrical shocks on its tail. The observed reflex enhancement persists for days, indicating that the snail’s long-term memory had become involved. The shocks caused the neurotransmitter serotonin to be released in the snail’s central nervous system. The serotonin went on to evoke the formation of new synapses.

The researchers found that by interrupting the formation of new synapses, they could essentially prevent the reflex enhancement. On the other hand, if they interfered with the production of new proteins after the synapses were already formed, then the enhancement remained in place.

“Once memories are formed, if you temporarily disrupt protein synthesis, it doesn’t affect long-term memory,” said Glanzman. “That’s true in the Aplysia and in human’s brains.”

Interestingly, the memories could be erased by hitting the neurons once with serotonin and preventing synapses from forming by blocking the synthesis of new proteins. Then the memories were restored with a new series of electrical shocks. The research sheds new light on long-term memory by shifting attention for where it is stored away from the synapses more centrally toward the nerve cell bodies.

Oceanic explorers may have just discovered what wiped out the Mayans

Scientists find evidence in Belize’s Blue Hole of a severe draught occurring long ago and suggest it may explain what happen to Mayan civilization.

by John Tyburski

Copyright © Daily Digest News, KPR Media, LLC. All rights reserved.

First published at Daily Digest News on December 30, 2014

Scuba divers from around the world are familiar with the Blue Hole, a stunning geological feature off the coast of Belize. Divers and tourists flock in droves each year to visit the oceanic cave. Another kind of visitor has also taken interest in the formation.

Researchers recently took core samples from drillings around the region and examined sediments collected from within. What they found suggests that a massive drought hit the area right around the same time as the estimates for when the Mayan civilization collapsed. Two new scholarly reports detail the latest efforts to explain what happened to the Mayans, one in the Proceedings of the National Academy of

“When you have major droughts, you start to get famines and unrest,” André Droxler of Rice University, lead investigator of the study, said.

For thousands of years, the Mayan civilization flourished in Mesoamerica, a region which now consists of Mexico and Central America. Mayans developed their own hieroglyphics and mathematics, both of which were advanced for their time period. The Mayans are perhaps best known for the calendar they developed, which mapped out time some ten centuries into the future. The calendar ended in 2012, causing many to anticipate with trepidation the end of the world.

Experts estimate that the Mayan civilization collapsed during the period between 800 and 900 C.E. In 700, the city populations began to decline, and wars became frequent. The city dwellers are thought to have ultimately dispersed, and scattered remnants appeared in the larger surrounding area after rains began falling at normal levels around 1,100 years ago.

By 900 C.E., most of the Mayan cities sat completely empty. Since archaeologists have been unable to find any evidence of a large-scale extinction from war or natural disaster, large-scale drought has become a popular explanation for the mass exodus from the cities. This latest research supports the drought hypothesis.

Researchers purposely get birds drunk for science, find surprising effects

A recent report shows that birds share a common trait with humans while under the influence of alcohol.

by John Tyburski

Copyright © Daily Digest News, KPR Media, LLC. All rights reserved.

First published at Daily Digest News on December 29, 2014

Just like the drunk at the local karaoke bar, birds slur their songs too when they are under the influence. Researchers from Oregon Health & Science University recently reported in the journal PLOS One that birds intoxicated with alcohol exhibit impaired singing, much like their human counterparts attempting to speak while under the influence. The research, the scientists say, provides new insights into the neural underpinnings of songs in birds and speech in humans.

Zebra finches are a species of bird that scientists often use in the study of the origins of language among humans. The finches exhibit similar learning patterns as observed in humans. For example, they learn to make complex sound sequences by listening to others around them, much the same way humans seem to learn language.

“There are remarkable analogies in how zebra finch song and human speech are learned and produced,” the authors of the study wrote.

There are some differences, however. For one, only male zebra finches sing. The researchers fed white grape juice to a control group of male birds and the same juice laced with ethanol to another experimental group. Then they studied the songs emitted by the two groups of finches to find differences associated with the ethanol consumption.

In the group that consumed ethanol-laced juice, the amplitude and entropy of the songs were altered, compared with those of control group birds. The intoxicated birds could not sing as loudly, nor could they maintain their song structures. Interestingly, not all song characteristics were altered.

In addition, the intoxicated birds did not exhibit alterations in posture or appearance. They did not let their wings droop or eyes closed, nor did they appear sluggish. In other words, they did not look drunk.

“We did not detect visible effects on the birds’ general behaviors or health, as indicated by the normal appearance of feathers and the ability to perch, feed, maintain normal posture and fly inside the cage,” the authors reported.