Dream of Science!

I dreamed there was a news paper article with the headline, "The Nutroavailabitizer!"

Below the headline, there was a picture of a long skinny fish with a big weird bumpy appendage, almost as massive as the main fish, sticking up from its tail. The article was quoting a scientist who had concluded that the function of this big appendage was to take nutrients in the water in the stream where it lived, and convert them to a form that would be easier for the trees around the stream to use. In the dream, Iris asked me what I thought of that, and I said that it didn't make very much sense from an evolutionary perspective, because the fish would be putting enormous energy and resources into building and operating the filter thing, and it would make the fish much less streamlined, and in the end the only benefit the fish gets is healthier trees around the stream. I argued that if there was a mutation for not having that appendage, the mutant fish would still get the benefit of the healthier trees, because of the other fish still having the filters, but would not have to support the costs of having a filter itself. Likewise, if there were no fish with that filter, and one had a mutation that caused it, or an earlier version of it, only it would bear the costs but all would get the benefits, so it would be at a disadvantage again. Iris asked why I thought the fish did have it, and then my cellphone rang with a 7AM automated sales call.

Sloppy

I've written here before about what a poor job journalists generally do in describing science to the public. I was just reading this Op-Ed piece in the NYTimes and wincing over phrases such as "sharks are very primitive living fish" and "ensure the survival of a species," which reveal a very out of date and human-centric misunderstanding of evolution. The piece includes at least half a dozen points contradictory to modern evolutionary theory. I was just considering writing yet another response letter explaining to the author that natural selection does not favor traits because they help ensure the survival of the species, and so forth, when I looked at who the author is.

The attribution:
"Neil Shubin, an associate dean at the University of Chicago and the provost of the Field Museum, is the author of 'Your Inner Fish: A Journey Into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body.'"

Neil Shubin knows that evolution doesn't work that way. So why is he writing like a journalist? I can only guess it is because he wants to sell more books, and someone (the NYTimes, his publicist or him) felt that one has to adopt the public's misunderstanding in order to interest them. It is sad when scientists start writing like science journalists.

Summary of reproductive biology, as conveyed by my four year old neighbor:

1. "I was in my mommy's belly"
2. "You was in your mommy's belly."
3. "Everything was in mommy's belly."
4. "Except fish. They don't do it."
5. "Then you crawl, crawl crawl down to, um, butt? Come out!"
6. "That cool, right?"