New APPS: Art, Politics, Philosophy, Science

Still more on Neil deGrasse Tyson - philosophy and biology, too

M. Anthony Mills has a very nice reply to Neil deGrasse Tyson's dismissal of philosophy.  Among the points he makes, Mills notes:

Helmholtz, Mach, Planck, Duhem, Poincaré, Bohr, and Heisenberg are a few noteworthy modern scientists “distracted” enough to engage in philosophical question-asking. Einstein himself read philosophy voraciously beginning from an early age (he read Kant when he was 13) and engaged in lively disputes with many leading philosophers of the era. Mach’s empiricism, Poincaré’s conventionalism, and Duhem’s holism all influenced Einstein’s thinking. Such cross-pollination between philosophy and science did not stall the progress of physics, but instead led to one of the greatest scientific revolutions in history.

Lest we think that only noteworthy modern physicists engaged in philosophical question-asking with actual philosophers, let me point out some noteworthy modern biologists who have done likewise -- a list off the top of my head, so no doubt missing some (and thus, please feel free to add names in the comments).  And to be clear, I am citing here only some of the most famous ones -- there are many less famous ones who have nonetheless had important and influential (in both directions) exchanges with philosophers.

• Michael Ghieselin - nature of species, sexual selection, and more
• Stephen Jay Gould - importance of constraints, contingency, species selection, adaptationism, and more
• Eva Jablonka - epigenetic inheritance and more
• Richard Lewontin - fitness, natural selection (especially levels of selection), adaptationism, and more
• Ernst Mayr - concepts of species, nature of speciation, and more
• Joan Roughgarden - natural selection, social selection (different from MW's), and more
• Mary Jane West-Eberhard - development, social selection (different from JR's), and more

In other words, biologists and philosophers have had productive exchanges about important biological concepts, theories, processes, and (although I haven't emphasized it here) methods.

What does time tell us about troublesome views on race?

Nicholas Wade's new book A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History is barely off the presses and it has already been the subject of numerous reviews, largely because of its provocative argument for the reality of human races, based on recent studies that associate different statistical genetic clusters with particular continental groups.  I have yet to read the book, but one author of such reviews in particular caught my eye: Agustin Fuentes (see here and here), in part because of his assertion that:

If you are making a scientific argument about genetic variation, you need to focus on populations -- and be clear about your definitions. Throughout the book, Wade uses the words "cluster," "population," "group," "race," "subrace" and "ethnicity" in a range of ways, with few concrete definitions, and occasionally interchangeably.

I focused on the connection between the concepts of race and population – and time – in a recent talk; for those who want the gory details, it's at minute 43 of this video. (I recommend the other talks as well!)

This is what a philosopher looks like

Awhile back, there was an campaign to show all the different ways that philosophers can look, called "This is what a philosopher looks like." I thought this was a good project, with the goal of making a small dent in implicit bias, but it looks like it hasn't gotten any love in awhile; the last entry was in August, 2013.  So, if you haven't sent in your photo and brief description yet, you might want to head on over there and submit your stuff!

If fighting climate change denial is like fighting creationism, how do we do it?

Helen De Cruz has some excellent suggestions for how to talk to creationists given that neither debate nor denouncement are likely to be productive.  She describes the way in which a religious person who is not a creationist can speak to another religious person who is a creationist, e.g., by pointing out that Biblical literalism is a recently emerged approach, one that may be impossible to apply consistently, and for that reason among others it may not be thoroughly used by anyone.

This article by Dan Kahan suggests that disbelief in human-caused climate change is like belief in creationism in this respect: What people "believe" about each doesn't reflect what they know, but rather expresses who they are.  This supports the thesis that providing evidence for creationism isn't likely to change minds and that providing evidence for climate change isn't likely to change minds, either.

But what is the climate change equivalent, where we speak to people from their own perspective as Helen proposes that we do for religious people who are creationists?

Fighting creationism through debate is pointless; how then can we do it?

A friend of mine is doing her DPhil in Oxford. She's American, and out of term she goes back to her home in middle America. She recently went to see the newly refurbished museum in her home town. When she was looking at the displays on human evolution, a museum guard, who had been observing her, suddenly said "So, what side are you on: the Bible or evolution?" Whereupon my friend replied "What do you mean what side am I on? This is not a football game, you know".

I am deeply troubled by the incipient creationism, which treats biblical literalism as a serious intellectual contender to scientific inquiry. I want my children to grow up with normal biology textbooks, not with Of Pandas and People. If creationists win their lobbying efforts to make creationism mainstream in schools and the public sphere, that is a loss for everyone (including the creationists). Debates don't seem to do any instrumental good. If we are not going to fight creationism through debates, how can we - as public intellectuals - ensure that creationism doesn't encroach even further upon our schools and public life?

On evolutionary biology and giving religion a "pass"

Last week, Jerry Coyne gave a talk at my university, UC Davis.  Coyne is one of the "new atheists," people who believe that "religion should not simply be tolerated but should be countered, criticized, and exposed by rational argument wherever its influence arises" (Simon Hooper).  In his talk, he argued that science and religion were incompatible, focusing on evolution and religion in particular.  When pressed afterward, however, he seemed to grant that not all forms of supernatural-believing religions are incompatible with science; deism, for example, is not incompatible with science.  However, he then wanted to know why those of us who were pressing him – people who think that the theory of evolution is well-supported and are not ourselves religious – were giving religion a "pass."  We would not, he suggested, give a similar pass to beliefs in UFOs or fairies or tarot cards.  And that is probably true.  So is there a difference?

Now, admittedly, part of my reasons are pragmatic.  I happen to think that religious believers who accept the theory of evolution are our best allies in the fight to keep good science education in public schools.  That's because they show people that they don't have to give up their deeply held beliefs in order to accept views about common descent and evolutionary processes like natural selection and random drift.  They don't force a choice, a choice that religion would most likely win most of the time.

Positive interactions between scientists and philosophers

Many philosophers of science are understandably excited about Neil deGrasse Tyson's reinvorgoration of the TV show Cosmos.  After all, most of us are pretty excited about science and anything that improves the public's scientific literacy.  Thus, it is extremely disappointing to hear him articulate the comments that he does at about 1:02:46 of this video.* He says that a "philosopher is a would-be scientist without a laboratory" and that we have been "rendered essentially obsolete."  He later suggests that there is much positive work that a philosophers can do (in ethics, for example), but doesn't seem to think that there can be any good philosophy of science.  (Richard Dawkins, who is also shown in the video, seems to take a slightly more positive view of the field). 

This morning, I saw two things that shook the cobwebs: 1) Eric Winsberg's intriguing post about dark matter, and, more to the point at hand, the fact that he was at an event that involved astronmers and philosophers, and 2) with the web announcement for a “Genomics and Philosophy of Race” Conference that I am a part of, involving both biologists and philosophers (not to mention historians and sociologists).  These two events are only two of the many, many productive collaborations between scientists and philosophers of science.  We need to do a better job telling people about them, and about telling the general public what philosophers of science do.

* H/T to Lucas Matthews, graduate stuent at the University of Utah, for the pointer to the video and NdGT's attitude toward philosophy of science

Quick thoughts on pluralism in philosophy of biology

Philosophy of biology is pluralistic, or so my friends tell me.  Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that many philosophers of biology believe that biology is pluralistic.  One friend recently used the phrase "irreducibly pluralistic."  But I am not so sure.

There seem to be at least two sources of this pluralism.  One is John Beatty's excellent essay, "The Evolutionary Contingency Thesis." Beatty points out that all generalizations in biology are the outcomes of evolution, and as such, are subject to exceptions (either in the present or the future), and could be otherwise (due to the chance order of mutations and the possibility of solving the same selective challenge in different ways).  And if there are no universal generalizations necessitated by nature in biology (i.e., no laws), then we should expect pluralism.  Beatty highlights pluralism of theories in particular, such as between neutralist and selectionist theories in evolution, or alternative theories about the origin of sex.

Another source of pluralistic thinking in philosophy of biology surely results from decades of debate over species concepts.  Many philosophers of biology think that different areas of biology reasonably use different species concepts, e.g., one might rely on a morphological definition of species while another might rely on an interbreeding one.  As Marc Ereshefsky so elegantly argues in "Eliminative Pluralism," this is due to the multiplicity of evolutionary processes that divide up the natural world in multiple ways. 

Donate to the APA’s Committee on the Status of Women for International Women's Day

Today, March 8, is International Women's Day.  To celebrate this day, the APA’s Committee on the Status of Women offers a challenge: you can help to raise $10,000 to support the work of the committee.  More information here:

https://apaonline.site-ym.com/news/163910/This-International-Womens-Day-help-us-improve-the-climate-for-women-in-philosophy.htm

 

A new open access journal: Feminist Philosophy Quarterly

From time to time, this blog has discussed the benefits (and the challenges) of open access journals; see, e.g., here, here, and here.  New APPS  has also discussed the temporary moratorium that Hypatia had to institute (now over) because of a large backlog of submissions.  So, I am very pleased to see an announcement for a new open access feminist philosophy journal.  (Keep your eye on Feminist Philosophers for future announcements).

Below the fold, the announcement from the editors:

PSA Women's Caucus Prize in feminist philosophy of science

As conversations in the discipline concerning the climate for women in philosophy and the role of feminist philosopy in fostering good climate continue, it is worthwhile to pause and honor the good work in feminist philosophy that is being done in various areas in philosophy, such as philosophy of science.

Nominations are now open for the 2014 Philosophy of Science Association Women's Caucus Prize. The Prize is awarded biennially for the best book, article, or chapter published in English in the area of feminist philosophy of science within the five years prior to each PSA meeting. The winner will receive an award of $500, which will be presented to the winner at the November 2014 PSA meeting in Chicago, Illinois.

The deadline for nominations is May 1, 2014. To be considered, works must have been published between May 1, 2009 and May 1, 2014. Articles posted electronically on journal websites in final (accepted) form prior to May 1, 2014 are eligible for consideration. Self-nominations are allowed but are limited to one per person. One may nominate more than one paper by someone else.

To make a nomination, please provide information about the article, book or chapter you are nominating by clicking on the link below:
http://websurvey.sfu.ca/survey/163354447

The first Prize was awarded in November 2010 at the PSA meeting in Montreal. The co-winners were Elisabeth Lloyd, for her book The Case of the Female Orgasm: Bias in the Science of Evolution, and Sarah Richardson for her essay "Sexes, species, and genomes: Why males and females are not like humans and chimpanzees".

The 2012 Prize was awarded to Inmaculada de Melo-Martín and Kristen Intemann for their article, "Feminist Resources for Biomedical Research: Lessons from the HPV Vaccines."

UCSD Summer Program for Women in Philosophy - Call for Applications

The Philosophy Department at the University of California, San Diego, is calling for applications for the 2014 Summer Program for Women in Philosophy, which will be held at UCSD from July 28 to August 8, 2014. The two-week program will feature two intensive courses and a variety of workshops, all geared towards providing an engaging philosophical learning experience and preparation for applying to graduate school in philosophy. Participants will be provided with housing and meals, will have transportation costs covered, will have all course and workshop materials provided, and will receive a $600 stipend.

Website is here:  http://spwp.ucsd.edu/

Facebook page is here: https://www.facebook.com/UCSD.SPWP

GMO paper retraction produces yet another Elsevier boycott

In an earlier post, I suggested that the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology (FCT) should not have retracted a paper that purported to show toxic effects in rats fed GM corn.  Now just over 100 scientists have signed a petition protesting the retraction, stating that the retraction violated the norms of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), of which FCT is a member.  The scientists note concerns about the impartiality of the process (e.g., the the appointment of ex-Monsanto employee Richard Goodman to the newly created post of associate editor for biotechnology at FCT) and assert, "The retraction is erasing from the public record results that are potentially of very great importance for public health. It is censorship of scientific research, knowledge, and understanding, an abuse of science striking at the very heart of science and democracy, and science for the public good."

The scientists are boycotting the journal's publisher, Elsevier; they will "decline to purchase Elsevier products, to publish, review, or do editorial work for Elsevier."

This is one more black eye for Elsevier that we can add to the removal of papers from Academia.edu, which Catarina recently blogged about, and the pre-existing boycott of Elsevier, discussed on this blog many times (see, e.g., here,  here, here, and here).

Consumer Risk, Producer Risk, and the politics of commercialized science

I thought I would make my inaugural post on NewAPPS a follow-up to Roberta's post about the retraction of the article in Food and Chemical Toxicology.  I don't want to continue the debate about whether the retraction was justified; that debate can continue in the original thread.   Here, I want to discuss one of the reasons why we should be paying vigilant attention to events such as these, and why their importance transcends the narrow confines of the particular scientific hypotheses being considered in the articles in question.  What I worry most about is the extent to which pressures can be applied by commercial interests such as to shift the balance of “inductive risks” from producers to consumers by establishing conventional methodological standards in commercialized scientific research. 

Inductive risk occurs whenever we have to accept or reject a hypothesis in the absence of certainty-conferring evidence.  Suppose, for example, we have some inconclusive evidence for a hypothesis, H.  Should we accept or reject H?   Whether or not we should depends on our balance of inductive risks—on the importance we attach, in the ethical sense, of being right or wrong about H.   In simple terms, if the risk of accepting H and being wrong outweighs the risk of rejecting H and being wrong, then we should reject H.  But these risk are a function not only of the degree of belief we have in H, but also of negative utility we attach to each of those possibilities.   In the appraisal of hypotheses about the safety of drugs, foods, and other consumables, these are sometimes called “consumer risk” (the risk of saying the item is safe and being wrong) and “producer risk” (the risk of saying the item is not safe and being wrong.)

When should a journal article be retracted?

The editor of the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology (FCT), Dr A. Wallace Hayes, has decided to retract the study by the team of Prof Gilles-Eric Séralini, which found that rats fed a Monsanto genetically modified (GM) maize NK603 and tiny amounts of the Roundup herbicide it is grown with suffered severe toxic effects, including kidney and liver damage and increased rates of tumours and mortality.

But as this article points out, the retraction goes beyond the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), of which FCT is a member.  The guidelines state that the a journal should consider retracting a paper if:

• they have clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct (e.g. data fabri- cation) or honest error (e.g. miscalculation or experimental error)
• the findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper crossreferencing, permission or justification (i.e. cases of redundant publication)
• it constitutes plagiarism
• it reports unethical research

But none of these applied to the paper by Séralini et al. The journal found "no evidence of fraud or intentional misrepresentation of the data" but that there " is a legitimate cause for concern regarding both the number of animals in each study group and the particular strain selected."

Making your published articles freely available - "green access"

Over the weekend, I learned that journals published by the University of Chicago Press – this includes, e.g., Philosophy of Science – have a policy of "green access" for published articles.  (I believe this was a change made in the last few years, but I am not positive).  Details are here, but here is what I was surprised and pleased to learn. 

First, authors may "post their article  in its published form on their personal or departmental web pages or personal social media pages, use their article in teaching or research presentations, provide single copies in print or electronic form to their colleagues, or republish their article in a subsequent work" (emphasis added).  It was the italicized part that was new to me; the rest I knew.  It's a big deal that they are allowing the published articles (with proper pagination, etc.) to be added to one's website or one's department website immediately after publication.  That is, it's not full open access (which would be better), but it still provides for good dissemenation given tools like Google Scholar.

Second, "Authors may deposit either the published PDF of their article or the final accepted version of the manuscript after peer review (but not proofs of the article) in a non-commercial repository where it can be made freely available no sooner than twelve (12) months after publication of the article in the journal" (emphasis added).  Here, I knew that the final accepted version could be deposited on non-commercial sites like PhilSci Archive or PhilPapers after 12 months, but I didn't know that the published PDF could be.  Again, this is a big deal.

So, I guess the moral is, check the publication policies for articles that you have published, even if you think you know what they are, and perhaps consider such policies when deciding where to send articles.  And if you know of other philosophy journals with similar policies, please mention them in the comments.

Call for a diversity of submissions to the PSA

As Co-Chairs of the Philosophy of Science Association Women's Caucus (PSA-WC), we write to encourage a diversity of paper and symposium proposals for the PSA 2014 meeting, to be held in Chicago, IL in November 2014.  Note that the CFPs state, "The PSA 2014 Program Committee will strive for quality, variety, innovation and diversity on the program" and that "The Committee aims to prepare a program that reflects the full range of current work in the philosophy of science." 

As PSA-WC Co-Chairs, we hope for submissions from areas that have in the past been traditionally underrepresented at PSA meetings, such as feminist philosophy of science, philosophy of race, philosophy of social science, philosophy of science in practice, history of philosophy of science, and more.

Information on the meeting, including the call for symposia and call for papers, can be found here:  http://philsci.org/psa-biennial-meeting

Holly Andersen, Simon Fraser University
Roberta L. Millstein, UC Davis

Free logic resources for classroom or personal use

Readers may be interested in two free and freely available logic resources, both housed at my university, University of California Davis:

1. Paul Teller's A Modern Formal Logic Primer:The Primer was published in 1989 by Prentice Hall, since acquired by Pearson Education. Pearson Education has allowed the Primer to go out of print and returned the copyright to Teller, who now makes it available without charge for instructional and educational use.
   
2. Howard Pospesel and David Marans, Arguments: Deductive Logic Exercises: Similarly, the text has long been out of print, and the copyright has now reverted to the authors, who have generously made the book available to logic students, teachers, and the general public. Arguments is unique in that it can be used with any system of proofs for first-order predicate logic: truth trees, Fitch-style natural deductions, etc.

Please feel free to share information about similar free and freely available resources in the comments.

 

Renew membership in the APA or make a donation

Feminist Philosophers has an important message from APA Eastern President Sally Haslanger, asking us to renew our memberships in the APA or make a donation to the fund for diversity and inclusiveness.  This will help support some important new APA ventures.

Orgasms and Adaptationism

If Elisabeth Lloyd’s take on the female orgasm is correct—i.e. if it is homologous to the male orgasm—then FEMALE ORGASM is not a proper evolutionary category. Homology is sameness. Hence, male and female orgasms belong to the same category. The orgasm is an adaptation, whether male or female (and Lloyd should agree). It is not a spandrel or by-product. 

I’ll get back to this in a moment, but first some background. There are five NewAPPSers who have a particular interest in the philosophy of biology. Roberta Millstein, Helen De Cruz, Catarina Dutilh Novaes, John Protevi, and myself. Aside from Roberta, each of us comes at it from a related area in which biological insight is important. For me, that area is perception. I have written quite a bit about biology, but my mind has always been at least half on the eye (and the ear, and the nose, and the tongue, . . .).

There is a divide among us with respect to a leading controversy in the field. Catarina is strongly anti-adaptationist and I am strongly adaptationist (perhaps because of my motivating interest in perception, which is exquistely adaptive).  Roberta, Helen, and John are somewhere in between, but likely closer to Catarina than to me. You can gauge where I stand when I tell you that in my view, Gould and Lewontin’s 1979 anti-adaptationist manifesto, “The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm” is one of the worst, and certainly one of the most mendacious, papers I have ever read in any field. Among the five of us, I am sure I am alone in this.

Given all of this, my take on adaptationism with regard to the orgasm may get a hotly negative response from my co-bloggers. Nevertheless, I’ll get on with it.

Improving the Climate in Philosophy

It's always nice when you hear about people doing positive things to improve the climate in philosophy for women and other underrepresented minorities.  Feminist Philosophers has details about a new blog that aims to do just that.  You can ask questions and get advice, or see what issues are arising in for others and how they might be dealt with.

On leaving academia, interdisciplinarity, co-authorship, and other things

Zachary Ernst, we're sorry to see you go.  But you've left us with some important issues to mull over, here.

These even includes some issues that are under faculty control, like the following:

Furthermore, my department also considers single-authored work to be more significant than co-authored work. Frankly, I find this policy totally absurd, but it's not that uncommon. Because a lot of interdisciplinary work will appear in unfamiliar (to one's colleagues) venues, and be co-authored, that work is downgraded, not once but twice. The effect is that when it comes time to decide on salary raises, a faculty member with broad, interdisciplinary research interests is at a severe disadvantage. To put the point bluntly, interdisciplinary researchers get paid less.

Is philosophy really so insular that we can't respect interdisciplinary work?  That we can't recognize the extra effort (not less effort) that it takes to collaborate?  I am afraid that I know the answers.

Gaps between science and humanities, or lack thereof: Philosophy of biology

I certainly applaud and concur with the spirit of Gary Gutting's recent piece, "Science’s Humanities Gap."  He agrees with Steven Pinker that specialists in any area are likely to benefit from acquaintance with relevant work beyond their disciplinary boundaries, but thinks that Pinker errs in saying that it is humanists who need to pay more attention to science.  Instead, Gutting says, "it’s humanists who are the choir and scientists who need a call to grace."  Gutting then goes on to characterize all of the areas in which philosophy has been informed by a deep knowledge of science.  All well and good.

However, I have a bone to pick with Gutting.  Here is the sum total of what he has to say about the philosophy of biology: "Philosophers of biology like David Hull have been similarly well versed in that discipline [as philosophers of physics have been versed in physics]."  It is true that Hull is a fine example of someone who was well-versed in biology, who engaged with biologists, and who inspired many other philosophers of biology to do likewise.  But that is just the point.  Many, many other philosophers of biology since Hull have immersed themselves in various areas of biology – far too many to list here, since such philosophers comprise a substantial portion of the field.  What I can attempt to list, however, is all of the different areas of biology that philosophers of biology engage with, knowing that I will miss some: systematics (an area that Hull particularly focused on), genetics, population genetics, paleobiology, developmental biology, evo-devo, molecular biology, genomics and other -omics, ecology, conservation biology, cell biology, behavioral biology.  Once all these areas are listed, it becomes clearer just how empirical the philosophy of biology has become.

The problem with giving short shrift to philosophy of biology is that one might actually walk away with the opposite impression of what was intended, i.e., one might get the mistaken impression that not much science-oriented philosophy of biology is going on.  And that would be a shame, particularly since Pinker could do with a greater appreciation of the philosophy of biology, such as Elisabeth Lloyd's excellent shredding of his views in"Kanzi, evolution, and language."

Letters of recommendation: Comparing X to Y

It is common for those writing letters of recommendation, whether for faculty going up for tenure or for students going on the job market, to compare the subject of the letter X to a faculty member or student Y at the same career stage.  I've heard it suggested that this is one of the few concrete things that a letter of recommendation can say.  Otherwise, the letter reader ends up trying to divine adjectives like "excellent," "outstanding," "superb," etc.

However, I've long been uncomfortable with this practice.  It's a bit hard for me to say why, so this post is my attempt to put my vague discomforts into words, toss them out into the blogosphere, and see what other people think.  So let me be clear at the outset – I am not saying that comparing X to Y is unethical, or should be stopped, or anything along those lines.  Just that the practice is... troubling.  I offer several reasons for concern below (both as a letter writer and as a reader of letters), in no particular order. They raise the specter of bias, among other issues.

Endangered Orcas and the Concept of "Population"

In a previous post, I pointed out that a proper understanding of "population" is central for claims about the endangered status of gray wolves under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA).* The same is true for a recent ruling reaffirming the endangered status of southern resident orcas. Endangered "distinct population segments" are recognized under the ESA, but even the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) seems to acknowledge that their interpretation of this term may be faulty, having explicitly called for comment on it in their wolf delisting proposal. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), who issued the ruling on orcas, uses a more bare-bones interpretation of "distinct population segment" than the FWS does, considering only whether the population is "discrete" and "significant."

It is time for the FWS and the NMFS to recognize a more robust concept of population, based on the interactions among organisms. As I have argued elsewhere, populations ought to be characterized in terms of survival and reproductive interactions among organisms, with the boundaries of the population as the largest grouping for which the rates of interaction are much higher within the grouping than outside. The Pacific Legal Foundation, on behalf of the Orwellian-named "Center for Environmental Science Accuracy and Reliability" and two farms in central California,** argued that the southern resident orcas were not genetically distinct from other orcas. The NMFS found that the scientific evidence did not support this claim, and that, moreover, there are significant behavioral differences between the southern resident orcas and the other orcas: "differences in morphology, behavior, diet and feeding ecology, acoustical dialects and practices." In particular, the practice that orcas are most well known for, i.e., killing other whales (a practice that gives rise to the name "killer whale"), is not one that that the southern resident orcas engage in; rather, the southern resident orcas eat salmon. These differences are sometimes, perhaps with good reason, described as differences in culture.

What do climate scientists mean when they cite 95% odds?

A draft summary of the Fifth Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been leaked to the press. Although I don't have access to the draft itself, the reporting alone is interesting, but also potentially confusing to the average layperson. The New York Times tells us that "An international panel of scientists has found with near certainty that human activity is the cause of most of the temperature increases of recent decades," and quotes the document as saying, "It is extremely likely that human influence on climate caused more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010." We are also told that whereas in 2007, "the chances were at least 90 percent that human activities were the cause" of climate change, saying that now in 2013 "the odds are at least 95 percent that humans are the principal cause." Reuters words this slightly differently: "it is at least 95 percent likely that human activities - chiefly the burning of fossil fuels - are the main cause of warming since the 1950s." But what do the phrases "near certainty," "extremely likely," "95 percent odds," "95 percent likely" mean? [the emphasis is mine in all of the above quotes]. In this context, I think they all mean the same thing, but that's not entirely obvious.

More political shenanigans concerning wolves from the Fish & Wildlife Service

Just in case publishing in their own journal and crowning their own work as the best science wasn't enough, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has requested the removal of three scientists from participating in the peer review of the FWS's proposal to remove gray wolves from the endangered species list.  Their crime?  Public criticism of the proposal.   Apparently, thinking that the FWS proposal isn't based on sound science makes one unqualified to judge the proposal.

Learning from Leopold

In thinking about wolves and the faulty proposal to remove them from endangered species status, my thoughts turn quickly to Aldo Leopold. Leopold, 20th century forester, wildlife manager, conservationist, professor – and hunter – is perhaps best known for "The Land Ethic" from A Sand County Almanac. He is also known for another essay from the same book, "Thinking Like a Mountain." In that essay, Leopold describes a change of heart he experienced upon hunting a pack of wolves:

We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes – something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters' paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.

But as biographer Curt Meine has documented, Leopold did not, in fact, come to appreciate the value of wolves as a young man. Rather, a lifetime of experiences as a forester and a wildlife manager eventually convinced him of the folly of exterminating wolves to create a "hunter's paradise":

Since then I have lived to see state after state extirpate its wolves. I have watched the face of many a newly wolfless mountain, and seen the south-facing slopes wrinkle with a maze of new deer trails. I have seen every edible bush and seedling browsed, first to anaemic desuetude, and then to death. I have seen every edible tree defoliated to the height of a saddlehorn. Such a mountain looks as if someone had given God a new pruning shears, and forbidden Him all other exercise. In the end the starved bones of the hoped-for deer herd, dead of its own too-much, bleach with the bones of the dead sage, or molder under the high-lined junipers.

With the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone producing positive effects on the local ecosystem, Leopold's views have been vindicated. We would do well to learn from them, remembering that we too are dependent on the other species around us.

Public comments on the proposed ruling may be submitted here.

Manufacturing Scientific Consensus by the Government

Even most Kuhn-haters are committed to the popular idea that an important measure of scientific truth is  consensus among the experts. The downside of this commitment is on display in Roberta Millstein's important piece on "the removal of gray wolves from endangered species status in the U.S." One could debate the merits of the proposal, of course, but a scary aspect of her account is the manufacture of scientific consensus by a government-agency. I quote the relevant bits first, and comment below the fold:

The problem is, as the authors of the proposal acknowledge, that there is a lack of consensus among scientists on what species are, what subspecies are, and how many species and subspecies of wolves there are. Nonetheless, they declare that one paper, Chambers et. al (2012), "is the only peer-reviewed synthesis of its kind conducted for North American wolves and summarizes and synthesizes the best available scientific information on the issue."...Chambers et al. (2012) appears in the journal North American Fauna, a publication of the FWS [Fish and Wildlife Service] itself; it is unclear why the paper wasn't sent to a more recognized peer-reviewed journal in the field, such as Conservation Biology. According to the website for North American Fauna, Chambers et al. (2012) is the only publication since 1991; it appears as though the journal was reborn specifically to publish the wolf study only to languish again afterward....In short, the FWS service has taken one of the most well-studied animals, about which there is great controversy...and benighted one paper, authored by itself (perhaps by some of the same people who wrote the proposal) as "the best available scientific information"....What is the urgency – so urgent that the FWS must hastily designate itself as the source of the best available science – to make policy when the science is so unsettled?"

The Proposed Removal of Gray Wolves from Endangered Species Status in the U.S. is Arbitrary, Capricious, and Inconsistent

On June 13, 2013, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) proposed removing the gray wolf, Canis lupus, from the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife. Under this proposal, the species of gray wolves – which was at one time protected across the 48 contiguous U.S. states – would no longer be so protected. Only one subspecies of gray wolf would be granted protection: the Mexican wolf (Canis lupus baileyi). This would, in effect, protect only 75 of the wolves in the U.S. (the current size of the wild population of Mexican wolves). The FWS is soliciting comments on this proposed ruling here, where you can also find the text of the proposal. If you find this proposed ruling as problematic as I do, I would urge you to submit a comment.

Philosophers of biology such as myself, many of whom are well-versed in the challenges of defining the terms "species," "subspecies," and "population," not to mention skills in evaluating arguments, are particularly well placed to see the flaws in the proposed ruling. I was first alerted to potential problems in the proposal upon reading this editorial, which blamed the ruling on pressure from "a loose coalition of hunters' groups, outfitters, and ranchers." While I don't have any evidence for this assertion, after reading through the ill-defended proposal one has to wonder, "Why this? Why now? And why has the fact-finding process of the Endangered Species Act been corrupted with a 'government-manufactured scientific consensus'?" (thanks to Eric Schliesser for the felicitous phrase).