Evolution and the Heavens

This week in introductory biology we started our material on “Evolution” and I always think about “the controversy” surrounding evolution in our society.   I’ve polled the students in  class for the last eight years (~N=150 X 8 years) and around 30% fall into the categories of 1) having a problem with evolution, 2) sort of having of problem with it, or 3) aren’t really sure how they feel about it.  Although our class is a foundational course taken by students of many disciplines, it is mostly science majors (mostly pre-meds).   The students seem to have the biggest issue being related to other apes or being considered apes at all. Such comments from them always make me think of my father with a smile since he liked to introduce himself as Emmette Ba Boone (you know, as in baboons, which are monkeys and not apes).  Sharing a common ancestor with any life form was never a stretch for me, but that may be one of the advantages of being a Ba Boone. 

When I think about “the controversy,” I mostly wonder why there is a controversy.  Jesus was such a reasonable guy.  Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s. Or, Let him who is without sin among you cast the first stone…  Or hundreds of other perfectly reasonable statements.  If Jesus was around today in the flesh, I think he would worry about God’s creation and what humans are doing to it, and the general problems of human failure.  It’s hard to imagine that man of the bible waging a war over the evolution of life and a literal interpretation of the story in Genesis.   He gives no impression that he’d be someone who has a problem with using the available data to understand natural phenomenon.  And why should he?  Scratch the surface and the world really is awesome in the traditional and contemporary sense.  Evolution and religion are not mutually exclusive for many people. 

What I wish we all could concede is that because we share common ancestors with the rest of life, we should be extremely (even evangelically) motivated to care for our fellow creatures on this planet.   That is a more productive conversation to have:  what we can do to protect the creation.  “Believing” in a literal translation of Genesis or “believing” the diverse and abundant data that serves as the foundation for the theory of evolution really do not matter in terms of Christian salvation—that salvation is found through other beliefs.   A life spent examining natural explanations for natural phenomenon requires its own kind of faith, but interpreting and reinterpreting the data available should always be based on logic and reason.  Heaven would expect no less.  

Looking Up

Another semester begins here at Miami University and there is the usual excitement and anticipation associated with the beginning of fall semester.  The temperature even dropped ten degrees yesterday as if to concede that the summer is coming to a close.  A generous concession at this point. 

I am recently back from a two week vacation and sufficiently recharged to feel a little of that new-school-year excitement as I prepare for another semester of introductory biology with lots of freshman and others. Today was our first day of class and I shared a poem with the students called “Invitation” by Mary Oliver, one of the great living nature poets. It begins: Oh do you have time/ to linger/for just a little while/out of your busy//and very important day/for the goldfinches/that have gathered/in a field of thistles…

When she puts it that way you realize, yes I do.  One of the things I love about Mary Oliver’s poetry is that she witnesses the goings on of the natural world and reminds you that you have the time to linger, to stare, and to listen. Ah, such hobbies. On my drive home, I watched a young student walking down the street with rather large head phones on her head. Fashion-wise, I didn’t really like the look; nature-wise, I worried she might miss the calls of the cicadas and wondered if she even saw the birds flying all around her. Sure, I like my folk my music and I understand that it’s nice to have a good beat to walk to. But, nature is now and it’s a shame to miss any more of it than necessary.  Walking home or to class seems like the perfect time to witness our urban ecology.

With that thought, I came home, laid on our deck, and looked up. Near the top of one of the thinner branches, there was a robin’s nest secured in the maple.  It has probably been there all summer, right above our heads apparently, and it was news to me.  It made me want to Tweet like a bird in her nest.  Hope you find something new and exciting in your backyard too.  

Grow

My babies are growing up.  Despite the cold April and May with lots of rain, which I thought might slow them down, my northern leopard frog tadpoles haven't seemed to notice.  I collected these tadpoles toward the end of March and the tadpoles were added to my ponds shortly after hatching.  They've been in the ponds about 6 weeks now and they are about 1000-1500X larger than they started out.   That would turn your average 8 pound baby into an 8,000-12,000 pound menace--mightier than King Kong and harder to ignore.  From birth to adulthood, we human animals only increase our mass 15-20X.  The human transformation, I am learning with my own ray of sunshine, is amazing and dramatic, but frogs have much, much more to be amazed by.   A final thought:  Tadpoles should be the poster child for vegetarians.   

Jumping To It, With Frogs and Elementary School Kids

These kids had a lot of jump in them.

This week at Miami U, 1^st through 5^th graders from our school district are visiting science labs to learn about some of the science going on here.  There are 177 sessions in five days with the kids and different science labs that volunteer across the campus.  We figured we had a big (excitement) advantage over some labs, because we work with frogs and salamanders.  I mean really, it doesn’t get more jump-up-and-scream exciting than that.  My lab had a number of great ideas for working with the young scientists.  I had a few ideas myself, and after they convinced me the kids did not want to make graphs of anything or get their very own pocket protectors, we were off to a good start.  So, this week we’ve been jumping frogs and students to do a comparison of who jumped farther in terms of body length. 

A class of tie-dyed third graders watch 

the glorious American Toad show his stuff.

After introducing the kids to the frogs, we worked in groups to measure the frogs from nose to rump with a piece of string.  Everyone had a chance to hold, feel, and admire the frogs; it was so cool that the kids were so open-minded and open-handed about holding the frogs.  Not a bit squeamish.  After suitable admiration, we put the wet frogs on some brown paper and waited sometimes patiently for the frog to jump, then recorded the number of body lengths each frog travelled.  We used toads, bullfrogs, and cricket frogs…and, of course, kids.  The kids recorded their data and found that the toads jumped 2-4 times their body length, as did the bullfrogs.  The cricket frogs, these small gorgeous champions, jumped 7-12 times their body length and caused an inordinate amount of screaming among the young people.  At one point, I almost screamed too, but then I remembered I was a calm, logical scientist and I didn’t want to break the stereotype any more than necessary. 

A student jumps like a frog, while the others wait for the data.

The children jumped between 1-2 times their own body lengths.  They were athletic, yes.  They were full of energy, true.  They were inspirational, definitely.  But relatively speaking, they did not beat most of the frogs.  If they could jump as far as a cricket frog, they could leap about 30 feet in a single, casual hop, rather than 4-5 feet most of them were jumping.  This must be why one kid left the room saying “Amphibians are toadily awesome.”  

Second graders with a spotted salamander.  They don't jump, but they're still cool.

A Television Drama about Scientists Needed

                Last Friday I was sitting in the doctor’s office getting my knee examined by your average trained medical professional.  I hurt my knee practicing a jumping activity that my lab is going to try out on some elementary school kids (as well as some frogs).  I wanted a professional opinion on whether or not I had popped something that was going to torture me through the weekend or if I was just reaching the end of my standing jump days on hard surfaces.  According to the doctor, my knee and I were mechanically fine.  It was the “slightly old and feeble” diagnosis, which I accepted from this guy who has a medical degree, who has been recommended by other patients, and who seemed to know what he was doing as he felt around my swollen, sore knee.  I didn’t consider not believing him, but hey, he’s a doctor not a climate scientist.

                My visit had me thinking about the (often) blind faith people put in doctors.  And it makes me wonder why scientists do not get even the faith of the mustard seed from some sectors of the public.  In order to obtain a position of a research scientist or faculty member, a person has completed an undergraduate degree (4 years), a graduate degree (+5 years), a post doctoral position (+2 or 3 years), and competed on a tight market for a job.  That’s easily more than a decade of training (and my estimates were on the average to low side).  A person earns her/his medical degree and complete his/her residency in about the same amount of time as a scientist; still, scientists do not seem to have the street cred that a doctor has.  Is it because there aren’t enough television shows about ecologists or climate scientists?  Or maybe people do not understand what a scientist does in any kind of detail that allows them to have a sense of trust in a scientist’s professional opinion.  Maybe.  We all go to the doctor, but hardly any of us go to the scientist.  No doubt, we scientists could work on reaching out to make some human contact with our fellow earthlings.

                There are several reasons why we can have some faith in scientific consensus, however.  First, scientists rely on evidence and are often forced to change their hunches or expectations in light of data that contradict them—most scientists even love this.  Understanding any phenomenon requires a number of studies by a range of researchers.  One experiment is not going to prove anything—even a thousand won’t.  But, if you have a thousand experiments, you will likely have enough data to support a conclusion (and to generate all sorts of other questions).  It’s sort of like putting an idea on trial.  The scientific community individually and together serves as the jury and judge weighing all of the evidence and based on the evidence presented at the trial, they come to a decision.  Of course, new evidence can surface that changes the outcome of the trial, which is more likely to happen if there wasn’t a lot of conclusive evidence at the trial to begin with.  The more data you have at a trial, the more likely the jury is going to be able to come to a fair and just conclusion. 

Scientists are a skeptical bunch, and in this respect we should have a lot in common with a skeptical public.  If by some chance an individual scientist fails to be skeptical about his or her own work, then other scientists they meet in their departments, at meetings, and in the peer-review processes as they publish research will be there…being skeptical, holding the scientists feet to the fire.  However, skepticism without perspective is a hindrance rather than a benefit to our understanding and decision-making process.  I wish we could put some of the scientific ideas bouncing around in public on trial—like climate change and evolution, topics that have turned into a “he said/she said” argument (in the words of Ira Glass) rather than a discussion that logically weighs scientific evidence to make scientific conclusions.  Maybe that would be a reality show worth watching.  But still, I vote for a good (non-medical) scientist television drama.  It could go a long way to helping the public understand science and how decisions are made, as well as make us look a little more glamorous (the one thing that may be missing from the average scientist's top-five characteristics). 

Message in a Box

                When people ask me what I do, I reply, “I work with frogs,” which is true, but it leaves out salamanders, other components of the amphibian food web, undergraduates, graduate students, and other research scientists, not to mention exciting research questions that can cause the mind to sizzle.  And in response, I usually get some bizarre question from them about an amphibian on their land that sounds like a tale out of a Dr. Seuss book, but with less rhyming.  This week in my seminar on communicating science with the public, we are all trying to boil down our field of research to a simple “message box.”  The message box is the research statement equivalent of packing up your house to move: Ideally, you label the box with something like “Kitchen—pots, pans, potholders, wooden spoons,” which gives you a good idea of what’s in the box (and where it should go) without providing extraneous details like “Kitchen—frying pan, 2 qt sauce pan, 3 qt sauce pan, 4 qt pot, 6 qt soup pan, potholders made by Mrs. Hamilton, 15 wooden spoons, ladle, 3 whisks, and salad tongs."  Even worse would be a message with so little information that you may know that 20 boxes belong in the "Kitchen," but you'd be hard-pressed to locate your can opener in a digestive emergency.  (Alas...my own work description suffers from the can-opener in a box in the kitchen problem.)  My research objective is to understand how human alteration of habitat in various ways impacts amphibian communities, all of which has implications for global amphibian population declines.  There are lots of interesting details, but I’m boiling in my 6 quart soup pan today, and here’s what is left:

                For now, that is my message, and I’m sticking to it.  

Taxing Jobs

          I just finished reading a book for a publisher about a scientist’s personal account involved in the struggle for funding for research of an emerging issue at a state agency amid administration conflict, which has me thinking of the potential power and weakness of government research.  I worked for the US Geological Survey for a little over three years after finishing my graduate degree.  I worked with very good scientists who were doing important and valuable research, and it gave me some critical experiences that helped define my career objectives and goals.  Ultimately, it also sent me applying for academics jobs, and not only because there were no forms to fill out that were screened by “personnel” in an office far, far away from the actual position.

One of the strengths, perhaps the greatest, of government research at places like the USGS is that they have a built in network of scientists that they can draw upon when an emerging issue arises.  Many government agencies have research scientists and a number of technicians available for conducting research.  Although they are often stretched to fulfill their research mission, they have a full time staff (along with term and temporary staff) which often allows some time to run additional studies with other collaborators or to evaluate some issue “emerging” in their area.  My lab has recently started a collaboration with a USGS research scientist (one I had not previously worked with)—he sent us some tadpoles of a species he was interested in, we were able to do a research study in my lab, and then he was able to find people at two separate USGS labs to run chemical analyses on our water and a test for a pathogen we were using.  I know people working on this particular issue, but without funding, we would be hard pressed to find other people to run these critical analyses.  It is cool that the framework within an agency allows for this type of interagency collaboration, which meets their research goals and also answers an interesting research questions.  Universities often have relatively reasonable labor (i.e., undergraduates) that gain from the research experience without costing the agency much or any money, making government-university collaborations beneficial for both. 

Government also has the power to fund large, long-term projects that influence everyone—for instance, computer technology.  Thank you, NASA.  Because science has a great value to society, it makes sense for tax dollars to support research because it’s something that helps all of us, but it can take many years (and tax dollars) to reach the goal—a sort of cultural delayed gratification.  When I was at the USGS, they were also able to fund an Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative across the nation, which has monitored amphibian populations and habitats, and funded research on issues that could be contributing to population declines.  The number of people that was involved is this initiative is likely not rivaled by any other group of people working in this research area. 

However, one of the weaknesses of working in government research is that the scientists are often at the mercy of political and public whims.  It’s one of the main reasons I decided to not try to find a job in USGS during the early Bush administrations.  There was some pressure at the agency where I worked to limit interpretation of one’s data—not that they were trying to suppress the results or outcomes, but I did feel like they were trying to limit the conclusions I made so that I couldn’t really make any conclusions at all.  Could have made things easier, since the discussion is the hardest part of the paper to write:  Discussion—see results.  However, I didn’t take their advice to heart and said exactly what I wanted to say.  The idea that an agency would even attempt to limit the researcher in this way made me extremely uncomfortable.  What are people with families (or just themselves) to support going to do if that sort of pressure was strong?   The discussion part of a paper is for putting your data in perspective and for pointing toward what the data overall suggest.  If the scientist who did the study can’t do that, who can?  The peer-review process, where other scientists read and evaluate your work, prevent scientists from extrapolating way beyond their data or making outlandish conclusions.  Politics should not influence science, but because of the way government research is funded (through the government), there is always that danger.  And if nothing else, science can be weakened by government through lack of financial support, which has rendered whole agencies powerless to enforce the laws that are on the books.

There were a lot of things I liked about working for the government—the scientists were good, the hours were sane, the pay potential was good, and the mission was clear (research)—but the other challenges would have made the job frustrating to me for the long haul—besides the fact that getting a permanent position required the patience of Job (I had one friend who was temporary at USGS for nine years and then they let her go, which has sent her on a trajectory she never imagined [hello, industry]).  Academic jobs, though, where research is a major focus also require federal or state funding for research which is also vulnerable to whims of politicians and the public, but there’s a lot you can do in ecology on a dime when necessary and you can be just about as outlandish as you wish (at least after tenure, but often before as well).  The author of the book I just reviewed retired from her state job pretty ticked off and after reading 305 pages I can understand why.  She believed in the agency’s mission and that seemed to blind her to the fact that the agency was failing to understand environment issues or support research within their mission.  I wonder if that experience is more common in government than academics, or if it all depends on leadership and vision of the people administrating away.  So far, I am happy to be in academics, even if my own mother doesn’t seem to think I’m working unless I’m teaching class.