Stephen Fry: Quite Interesting

[jack]

Amongst other things, yesterday cuddly sunflower introduced me to QI, Stephen Fry's quiz program. Not quite the same as the one in the St. Trinian's film, more like Have I Got News For You. It was indeed ever so funny :)

However, a couple of things bothered me.

Woodpecker Tongues

The woodpecker's tongue is nearly as long as it is. The obvious question is, "How does it fit in the mouth, then?" Is answered with the obvious but surprisingly apparently true answer that "Its wrapped round the brain, duh."

This fact is often touted in evolutionist/creationist debates although I'm not sure on what side. Should the argument be that "Wrapping your tongue round your brain is stupid, no-one could have thought that up, not a billion years!" or "Wrapping your tongue round your brain is stupid, that could never have happened by chance, not in a billion years!" :)

(The actual case appears to be slightly complicated. I didn't really care, I just thought it was funny,though its a bit interesting.

The creationist argument is that this is an example of a creature which can't have evolved because any intermediate forms would have tongue wrapped halfway round the brain, clearly useless. The evolutionist rebuttal is that wrapped round is a poor description, a better one is that the muscles behind the tongue lengthened, eventually going all the way round, and you can actually observe this change as a single woodpecker grows to maturity. However, I didn't bother analysing the argument in detail. I expect the second explanation is correct, and it sounded plausible at first glance, but I haven't actually checked.)

Comments

[robhu.livejournal.com]

Talk Origins: Anatomy and Evolution of the Woodpecker's Tongue

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's the page I was reading :)

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

The creationist argument really doesn't work at all in this case, because intermediate forms are usable and confer a competitive advantage. A 25mm tongue gets fractionally more bugs out of the wood than a 24mm tongue, and needs a slight displacement of the underlying ligaments in order to accommodate the extra length. There is no 'de novo' structure, just a continuous development of an existing one.

[simont]

A 25mm tongue gets fractionally more bugs out of the wood than a 24mm tongue

... not to mention the additional appreciation from lady woodpeckers and the consequent reproductive advantages ;-)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

:) That was indeed a recurring theme on QI.

Of course, it's hard to be sure. Maybe you'd end up spending all your time demonstrating your reproductive suitability and not enough reproducting.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Although, I suppose, it just occurs to me, this is a question spam doesn't seem to have brought to light yet: in theory, at some proportion of your body length, does a longer tongue become superfluous there?

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

There are at least three answers to that:

1. There's a law of diminishing returns: the extra food just isn't worth the metabolic cost of such a complex structure over the reproductive lifetime of the organism.



2. There is a functional limit: an upper boundary at which the metabolic 'cost' of a tongue 'x' is equal to the cost of moving around the tree and drilling a hole '2x' distance away.



3. There is also a need to consider whether a longer tongue is useful if the vast majority of insect burrows that can be explored from a single excavation are shorter - although the insects and the woodpecker may be in an evolutionary 'arms race' here. Maybe some species' tongues are gradually getting longer.

Only the first of these issues is correlated strongly with body length. Or rather, to body weight: the lifestyle of a bird - flight - imposes severe limitations on the payload of non-flight-related body parts.

The second point has implications for speciation: some woodpecker species are on an evolutionary path which involves better drilling, and others (like the sapsucker) derive reproductive advantage from longer tongues.

The strategies for insects are interesting, too: dig further? A good strategy if wood's the food, but a very bad one if the tree becomes so riddled that a woodpecker can reach interconnected burrows from a single point of entry. Drill more holes to insert eggs? For the insect, this is a mirror of the strategy choice between tongues and excavation for the woodpecker.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, sorry, I meant for the sexual aspect. If female woodpecker clitorides:

(a) Exist, and
(b) Are not buried 26mm deep in tree crevices[1]

Then you get diminishing returns at some point, however positive it might have seemed to start with. The trade off of length for snacking insects is the sort that is there often, and you explain much better than I could.

[1] I suspect the answers to be, respectively, no.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I didn't really explain well because I didn't think I could do it justice -- the best explanation is on google.

I think the idea that the creationists are rebutting is that the tongue of a normal bird starts in the mouth area, and goes forward, and that of a woodpecker starts in the same place, but instead goes *up*, round the brain, and back out the front of the mouth. That *would* be difficult to explain in terms of a gradual change.

However, other more detailed explanations, such as the one robhu linked to, say that's a misconception, in actual fact [true situation which I won't try to explain because I'll get it wrong, but *is* a continuous modification of a non-woodpecker bird as you describe.]

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

Yes, quite.

Your problem is that you find it difficult to analyse an argument which is built on glaring errors of logic, sophistry and deliberate distortions of fact - you're too used to dealing with people who are occasionally wrong but fairly sound in their logic, and who have a healthy respect for facts.

Here, we've got creationists and, reading what they are attempting to say, we're definitely in the shallow end of the gene pool. Poor arguments, elementary failings in logic, and no attempt to seek the facts - or an outright inability to understand fairly simple comparative anatomy.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Your problem is that you find it difficult to analyse an argument which is built on glaring errors of logic, sophistry and deliberate distortions of fact

Well, yes, that's often my problem. I don't know if it is *here* or not, I think I actually understand the process fairly well in this case.

That looking for things that can't be explained by gradual change is actually a reasonable place to start, and that at first glance a woodpecker tongue *might* sound like that. But it goes wrong for all the reasons you mention: fixating on disproving evolution rather than genuinely considering the evidence for (and against); refusing to accept evidence that your understanding of woodpeckers was wrong; repeating your argument when doubts/refutations have been raised; emotional and badly conceived arguments; seeking increasingly obscure examples[1].

What I tried and failed to do was leave out the question entirely. I assume it goes without saying that I assumed the creationist argument was wrong, and the rebuttal to it right, and that most people reading this (but not necessarily all) would agree. However, I hadn't actually *checked* the evidence, so I didn't want to pretend I had; it seems wrong to spread assumptions where people disagree so much (reasonably or not) when people can easily check much more reliable sources themselves.

But I wanted to make my joke about something that weird being as strange to invent as evolve. But in the interests of not spreading ignorance, wanted to at least mention the true arguments from all sides.

But completely failed to do so in a way that didn't sound like I was really talking about that. Partly because the anatomy is rather interesting, partly because such a fraught footnote always gets larger than the post! :)

[1] That is a difficult place to decide what's reasonable, its as much about meta-reasoning as reasoning. Supposing we all accept that n00 examples of things that sounded impossible to evolve, but later someone proposed a credible theory, were considered. In theory, one example of life that couldn't evolve would show something other than evolution had happened. But how sure can you be, when n00 things are resolved, that the next one will be? Consider exceptions to Newton's gravitation. Lots of nutjobs proposed some, but eventually one was RIGHT. I don't at all think evolution will ever be replaced (though we may get a better more comprehensive underlying theory with extra things that can happen or something), and I find what pro-creationists do wrong, but there's something about the meta-reasoning question I feel I still want to consider.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

If you want to know what they really believe about the Woodpecker, you can google Answersingenesis.

I actually gave them money to build that 'museum' you know.

Oops.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Aw! The google "oops, can't put you straight through, please confirm you're a person first" page is served from the server sorry.google.com! That's so sweet.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

Google are a cuddly Borg.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

If you want to know what they really believe about the Woodpecker,

Not really, no :) That is, I got the basic argument, but couldn't bring myself to wade into the morbid detritus of people yelling about it.

Looking at that, oh dear. That is impressively dumb :( It's not even about the tongue, which seemed like a potentially relevant argument, just wrong if you don't check the anatomy properly.

But he seems to be saying "The woodpecker's hardened head and fast drilling can't have evolved in exactly two steps, since one without the other would be useless/deadly." It doesn't even seem to have occurred to him it might have happened gradually, that either a slightly harder head or beak might have helped rooting in trees just a little, despite that seeming the simplest sort of change conceivable.

He says he's a fundamentalist convert the other way? I know there are people who convert to religion from personal experiences, and insights, and philosophical observations, and emotions, and observations, and bibles, but I hadn't thought from that sort of specific evidence. That, if you're used to assuming species are constant, then the idea of them changing by evolution does sound pretty wacky. But did he really used to understand evolution, and then look at a woodpecker and say "Wow, that's really a counterexample! I don't believe it any more!"? I came up with a credible theory in 0.3 seconds and I don't know anything about it at all.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

It's a fairly common tactic for creationists (or evangelical evangelists) to claim they had strong atheist beliefs, but were converted. There is never any evidence of this (blog posts / books / papers / posts in appropriate communities / etc). I'm pretty sure that when they say this it's a lie, or they don't really understand what they're saying.

He says he's a fundamentalist convert
Ack!

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Damn, I'd stayed sufficiently clear to be unaware of that :( What a shame. (I guess its most charitably parsed as "I heard this happened, but never actually understood how myself", although even that might be a stretch in many cases.)

[robhu.livejournal.com]

I mean... they could be telling the truth, but there never seems to be any evidence of it. It's often the case that when they say they used to be an atheist they mean when they were a child or a teenager.

People do convert of course, but I've never seen any evidence of a conversion from one 'extreme' to the other by a famous creationist or evangelist (despite almost all of them claiming that they have).

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Yes, of course.

People do convert of course, but I've never seen any evidence of a conversion from one 'extreme' to the other by a famous creationist or evangelist (despite almost all of them claiming that they have).

Well, I know people do convert, in lots of directions, and afterwards often become very articulate about it, and some of them must be famous.

What seemed so strange in this case is that he gave the impression that he had been an atheist, and more specifically (and probably falsely) a passionate atheist and more specifically (and probably falsely) knowledgeable about evolution.

I can totally see someone knowledgeable about evolution converting to a religion and deciding for an alternative explanation of that evidence (eg. God planted it, God caused evolution to occur), or even turning and attacking that evidence. But it seems strange they should immediately forget and attack a weak parody of what they used to understand.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

Well, I know people do convert, in lots of directions, and afterwards often become very articulate about it, and some of them must be famous.
Do they? Do people often convert from a strong atheist position to a strong theist position?

I know of famous people who have gone from strong theist to strong atheist, but not the other way around.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Hm, actually, I don't know for sure -- I know people convert to strong theism, and guessed some of them came from strong atheist[1] but can't think of any examples.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

Null pointer exception in Hulme.Rob.Brain.FootnoteHandlerFactory.SpecialCases.CartestianDaemon

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Whoops. Sorry. Again :) I was going to say, whatever strong theist/atheist mean in this context. I think you know what I mean/I know what you mean, but wanted to make to put a disclaimer so anyone reading who *doesn't* doesn't go further without asking for clarificaiton.

[d37373.livejournal.com]

I used to be a strong agnostic/weak atheist and am now a theist of some sort - I haven't worked out what subtype yet. It can happen, but in my case it's not something I am confident enough about to attempt to convert other people.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Oh, sorry, I admit that was *my* phrasing. That converts are often more serious, and he's obviously serious about his religion *now* and sounded like he had been serious about his evolution before (though that latter probably isn't exactly true).

[robhu.livejournal.com]

I will add that I find it quite annoying that atheists are now being labelled as 'fundamental atheists' when fundamentalism is a term invented by Christians (in 1910) to refer positively to Christians who hold certain 'core' beliefs.

It doesn't seem right to me for them to now turn around and use it in a negative sense to attack atheists!

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Ah! I hadn't heard it used pejoratively so much, but have heard it elsewhere (you or atreic were saying something like this elsewhere?) by people like us genuinely trying to encapsulate a set of concepts.

That article is a very good description of why it isn't quite right, that I think no-one would have a problem with, but I know people I know use it anyway, trusting the recipient to understand what they actually mean.

I definitely owe these things a post, of many more thousands of words than I can fit here.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

I'd love to read and comment on such a post :P

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I do hope to get to it. (Feel free to do so yourself, if you like, you may happen to be able to cover everything I was going to say.)

[robhu.livejournal.com]

I have bigger fish to fry. The target of my next major post is Yahweh himself.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I'm just imagining what sort of metaphor frying God incarnated as a fish would be :)

It seems optimistic you can settle matters on Yahwah...

[gareth-rees.livejournal.com]

It doesn't seem right to me for them to now turn around and use it in a negative sense to attack atheists!

The irony is of course that the word has gained that negative sense over time entirely through the good efforts of the fundamentalist Christians themselves.

The Chambers Dictionary (2003) gives two meanings for fundamentalism: (1) "a belief in the literal truth of the Bible, against evolution, etc." (2) "adherence to strictly orthodox religions or (figuratively) other, e.g. political, doctrines".

I think that there's clearly a third meaning (probably too recent for Chambers to recognize), something like (3) stubborn dogmatism.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I actually gave them money to build that 'museum' you know.

Oops.

*hug*

[d37373.livejournal.com]

If I'd known you didn't watch QI I would have recommended it. Seems like your sort of thing :)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

:) Yes. (In fact, the concept sounds good, and I wasn't absolutely sure at once, but it grew on me. Not every thing worked, but several times it had me laughing unstoppably, which is impressive :))

Alas, I don't really make time to watch much television at all, even good things.