But is it art?

Al Denelsbeck

It’s funny, now that I think about it, that I haven’t tackled this subject here before. I mean, what’s a blog for?

The photographer part of me has this little hate-affair with the “art world.” While opinions vary a great deal, it isn’t hard to find the prejudice that photography is not art, and this is distinctly noticeable right where I live, in a community that considers itself supportive of the arts. Heaps of rusty scrap metal welded together into a shape vaguely reminiscent of something else is considered “art” sooner and much more often than photography, and the town art council seems to specialize in promoting pottery out the wazoo. Yet in the past year, I’ve seen them feature only one photography exhibit, and only two photographers are ever listed in their studio tours featuring roughly fifty artists – but you can see as many bowls as you’d like!

Now, I’m a fair guy, and it isn’t up to me to define what someone else should like. I’ve seen some wonderfully creative uses of pottery and scrap metal, but to consider them more valid than photography? Am I missing something?

I’m going to offer a bit of perspective, portions of which I’ve mentioned briefly elsewhere. Many people think photography takes little talent, and is simply copying what already exists – “the sunset was there; all you did was take a picture of it.” Yet if that was all there was to it, I wouldn’t be seeing the huge selection of shitty images that I do, wouldn’t you think? I wouldn’t spend my time teaching people how to compose their images, recognize how the contrast and light angles work, and critiquing approaches.

As an example, I could point out how painters can put their image elements together any damn way they please, leaving out what they don’t like, and representing a situation that never actually existed. If they want an eagle soaring against the sunset where you can still see detail in the shadowed side of the bird, no sweat! And it is even considered creative to paint a frog or lizard in some colors that could never occur in nature – a painter can get credit for ridiculous inaccuracy! It’s all good, because it’s “art.”

Yet, the photographer can only work with what’s present (we will ignore the studio photographer for the time being, and the select few who do digital composites and crap like that.) They’re handed a collection of elements almost totally out of their control, and they have to portray them in a manner that still produces a strong image. They usually cannot choose a background or foreground, and cannot leave out nonartistic elements except for selectively cropping them from the frame. They may wait for the right light, the right clouds in the sky, the right position or expression of their subject. They might seek a different vantage point that produces the right background or contrast (or reflection,) or use camera technique to purposefully blur or soften elements and draw attention to their subject. And in many cases, a particular aspect of their subject existed for fractions of a second only, and they had to anticipate this and capture it at its ideal time. Good photographers actually have to know something about art in the first place, in order to put all of the above actions to good use.

I would probably be fine with this and simply shrug it off, if it didn’t affect where and how I can market my images – too many venues are closed off from public appreciation by the director who fancies themselves in some way arteestique, and is thus dismissive of photography. Far too often, when it is included, only black & white is permissible, for reasons that have yet to be demonstrated. I have to admit to no small amusement when seeing what passes for art sometimes, especially in regards to depicting animals; I recently came across a painting for sale that I was surpassing in talent in sixth grade art class.

What’s more amusing, I think, is that far too much of art is defined by how much utter bullshit the artist can produce when describing it. A wall hanging of egg cartons and soda straws might be described as “the juxtaposition of spiritual alignments allowing the essence of mind and surroundings to unite,” but I’m pretty straightforward about it myself – it’s egg cartons and soda straws, even when painted brown. I’m all for seeing the metaphor in certain elements, and actually teach my students to look for them. But it is not a metaphor if you have to tell me that it is, and the addition of artistic buzzwords does not elevate some piece higher – call me a spoilsport. The cloying pretentiousness of the art world is astounding sometimes.

It’s not a big thing, since I generally don’t “do” art, but work instead on interest and illustration. Yet I frequently take the time to put an image together in a pleasing, compelling, and artistic way – there’s no reason one cannot have both illustration and composition. My creative tendencies as a youth were channeled into photography instead of painting or drawing (though I still chase model-building from time to time.) I just find it funny that photography still gets short shrift when someone that glues broken glass together into bizarre shapes is considered “legitimate.”

Then again, maybe it’s because photography is too realistic, and doesn’t leave much room for imagination when describing it. No one needs to be told what they’re looking at, so there’s little opportunity to spew some existentialist post-modern interpretation of swirling colors.

Whatever, I’m not going to change it. I do what I like, and if someone else likes it too, great! Whether it falls into some specially defined category or not doesn’t alter it, though if someone’s perception of it is altered by such a category, well, that’s their issue. I’m sure someone can make up a description for that, too ;-)


Probably not

Al Denelsbeck

Recently, I came across two posts on probability, both of which possessing some serious issues. This is actually a common occurrence, since probability is one of those things that confuses people and is, in many ways, counterintuitive. What’s interesting about both of them is that the answers revealed are misleading in the same manner as the intuitive solutions.

The first is, “How unfathomable were your odds of coming into being?” This one is annoying in that there are countless ways that this question can be interpreted, and only one is displayed. Especially painful is the tagline at the top of the infographic which reads, “…and reveals that the odds of you existing are almost zero.” This is a classic case of misinterpretation – since you’re reading this, you exist, so the odds of you actually existing are 1 in 1, alternately listed as 1:1, 1/1, or simply 1, otherwise known as “guaranteed” (Jerry Coyne and PZ Myers get it right.) The question implied by the solution is more along the lines of, “What are the odds of known variable factors within common knowledge leading to exactly your point in time, rather than some other?”, which isn’t even accurate in itself. Start with, the odds of your dad meeting your mom being, as listed, 1 in 20,000 – that’s not true at all. You have to factor in how much your dad and mom might have traveled, how big the town they lived in was, how many people worked in the same place, and so on. And since a certain percentage of people marry their childhood sweetheart, you can run some figures on how many people were in the school they attended, within a few years of age, or in the immediate neighborhood. It’s way, way off base to create a random figure of available women (or men) and assume that anyone could have met any of them, like they were playing Spin The Bottle in a very large room…

The second part of this is, you can provide any particular scenario, compared against the number of variations, and marvel lightheadedly at the number involved. What are the chances, for instance, of the atoms within your body being at exactly such-and-such coordinates at some particular picosecond, compared to anyplace else in the universe? I could produce a number even greater than that displayed by the infographic, but again, this is meaningless; in another picosecond, the atoms have shifted position and attained yet another astoundingly high number, which turns your entire life into a series of events so improbable that you should cease existence almost immediately. Then again, it’s a fairly high probability that you will be someplace on the surface of the earth, wherever it is in the universe, and so that astoundingly high number drops drastically. In grim reality, the atoms within your body are very likely to remain in the immediate vicinity, within a fraction of a millimeter of where they were before. The variations that take place, for virtually any action or process, are usually quite small from moment to moment, often influenced by environmental factors. When your body moves at all, it moves to an area immediately adjacent to where it once was, often influenced by the trend of how you had been moving previously – you don’t reverse direction or shoot off at random angles. While your overall path can vary greatly from a starting point, how it gets there is through a series of tiny variations, many of which are extremely likely. Interestingly, this is a great analogy for evolution, which produces significant changes in small increments over long periods of time.

The likelihood of you being you, as in, thinking and behaving in a certain way, is actually much higher than implied by this whole situation, as well. You probably received your education at the nearest school, and from the same parents as any siblings, and from whatever situations you might have found yourself within (say, being shipped off to summer camp.) Those factors all serve to narrow down the chances of certain outcomes; if you were born in the US, for instance, the chances of you speaking nothing but Farsi are pretty slim. The chances of you attending a summer camp in Australia, also slim – the camp you attended is probably within easy driving distance, just due to common convenience. You probably look human, breathe air, eat protein, and shit shit. If you were truly as unique as implied by the quoted figure, you probably wouldn’t even have offspring yourself, because you wouldn’t be able to find a spouse that you had anything in common with ;-)

The other post is not as bad, and even better, the commenters are doing a good job of correcting it. Jason Rosenhouse at EvolutionBlog presents a chestnut that challenges some assumptions while falling blindly into others, making kind of a mess of the whole thing. As he mentions, there’s a probability puzzle called the Monty Hall Problem, where the actual probabilities are different from what intuition tells us it should be – mostly because “Monty” knows the goal that the contestant seeks. Very briefly: you choose one of three doors that might have a prize. Monty opens one of the two remaining that you did not choose, revealing no prize. Are your chances better with switching, or staying with your original choice? Look at it this way: you had a 2 in 3 chance of being wrong initially, and if so, Monty just showed you which one to pick. The chances are doubly in your favor by switching, as long as you don’t pick the door Monty already opened…

So, a man comes up to you on the street and says, “I have two children and one is a son born on a Tuesday.” What is the probability that the other child is also a son? Most people would say 1 in 2, or 50%.

Now it gets screwed up. Jason points out that,

It follows that the sexes of his two children, ordered from oldest to youngest, are either BB, BG or GB.

But this is wrong, because the other scenario, not listed, is also Boy/Boy, only this time the son named is the youngest and not the eldest. The oldest/youngest factor is a red herring. In other words, there are only three scenarios for two kids (both girls, both boys, and one of each) and one has been eliminated. It’s still 1 in 2.

Then, he goes on to speculate what affect Tuesday has on the situation, and the chances of the other child being born on whatever day of the week. This is called needlessly multiplying probabilities, because adding further options (hair color, time of day, and so on) does not change the original factors at all.

Then, he introduces the factor of how this particular man might have been selected. Now, we’ve ventured outside of the realm of simple word problems and into real-world scenarios that we have not been given information about. “What if the man was selected because he had one son born on a Tuesday?” Yes, you can start adding in contingencies, but all this does is show that probabilities can only be calculated within rigid circumstances. I can immediately ask, “Selected from where?” and find that this experiment was done in a town with more girls than boys in the population, and the probabilities are thus biased from the 1 in 2.

The problem, for instance, never allowed for the probability that one of the children was a hermaphrodite. We have to consider that the man might be insecure (probably over the concern that his child would turn out both gay and lesbian) and thus want to prove himself Mr. Clever Dick by putting one over on a total stranger, so the likelihood that his child is hermaphroditic is even higher than the normal percentage within any given population – it’s a great opportunity for such a trick question (though rather taxing on the child who is usually called upon to prove it.) And since you are either a dick or you’re not, the chances of the man being a dick are 1 in 2, right? Unless the man is a driver in North Carolina, in which case it’s 17 in 19…

[Okay, you’re going to love this. I paused and saved the draft right here, and checked my spam folder for its frequent new additions. There were two messages in there, one from a commenter with “shemale” in the name. What are the chances?!]

What all of this does serve to illustrate, however, is one way in which critical thinking can be applied, since probabilities are very frequently misused. And they can rarely be applied to a given situation with any degree of accuracy anyway, because environmental variables in real-world situations are too vast to calculate. I frequently remind people that math is an abstraction, and is only used with certain aspects being assumed or ‘given.’ Two oranges rarely ever equal twice the mass of one orange, and even the surface of the orange can only be calculated on a broad level, because at the atomic level there is little than can be measured…

This also puts paid to the claims, ever so frequently given, that the chances of such-and-such event (complex life, evolution, bacteria flagella…) occurring is a specific number, like one-in-a-billion. There is, literally, no way in which such a thing could ever be calculated, because there is no way to know all of the factors involved. Therefore, there is a 1 in 1 chance that any such quoted number has been pulled out of someone’s ass, and can safely be dismissed as a blatant lie intended to influence your thinking.

Glad to be of help.

Quality time!

Al Denelsbeck

Okay, this one’s for the parents of children aged, I dunno, four to sixteen or so. Use your own judgment. It stems from some thoughts provoked by another post that will be coming up eventually, and seems to me to be a fun parent/child activity that can spur some scientific and learning interest as well. I’ve never tried it, except for a variation with one of my nieces some two decades ago, so let me know how it works for you.

The rules are simple: Pick a lazy day, have a full tank of gas/petrol/electricity/fryer grease, and put your kid in the driver’s seat. Well, perhaps not literally, let’s just say ‘navigator’s station’ instead. Get in the car, and leave it up to your child to tell you where you’re both going. No, not a destination, but the route instead – all of the turns, straight out of the driveway. The kid calls the shots, within reason of course, but basically, they’re free to explore. If you find something interesting, get out and check it out.

You will want to have something to prevent you from getting lost, of course. A GPS is fine, but not as much fun as a map, which the child is encouraged to use (perhaps after getting lost – you gotta have some sense of adventure after all.) This is where the expensive web-enabled smart phone or tablet becomes more than just an overpriced toy too, since it can be used to produce more information about whatever you might find – lacking one of these (and as far as I’m concerned, more power to you,) you can take notes about such things to check out when you get back.

Here’s another fun item to bring along: a halfway decent mapping compass. Know about magnetic declination for your area, and shoot some sightings on whatever interesting landmarks you might spot. Learn the basics of triangulation, and then you and your kid can figure out just what you were seeing when you get back and trace those lines-of-sight. For this, you might want some decent topo maps of your area. The compass is also good for quizzes about direction of travel, using the sun for navigation, and various geographic activities.

We all love exploring, and this is a simple way to exploit your child’s interests, as well as giving them a little control that they may well be frustrated about (since, in case you’ve forgotten, it’s a long wait to adulthood.) You, on the other hand, are challenged to point out anything interesting that you might encounter, and to find answers to your child’s questions – as well as learning a little more about your area yourself. Much more interactive for you and your kid than soccer, more personal, and cheaper too.

Try it out, develop some variations, and use it to expand your activities. And of course, feel free to come back and tell me how it works, and what I missed ;-)

Have fun!

Religion has all the answers

Al Denelsbeck

If you’re interested in accuracy, however, that’s a whole different story…

Scenes From A MultiverseClick for the complete comic.

Scenes From A Multiverse should be a regular stop in your browsing, if it isn’t already. Jonathan Rosenberg wields the tongue-in-cheek incisiveness that makes webcomics much better than most syndicated fare. On top of that, I happen to like his artistic style, which produces very distinct, expressive characters without clutter or muddiness, and always has an appropriate background – a lot of comic artists out there never accomplish this. He also has a lot of fun with pop culture references, though I suspect I miss more than a few of these because I’m largely out of that loop.

He has a book, of course, and you know christmas is coming up, as well as Festivus, the Feast of Saturnalia, and FGOAF (Fuck Going Outside And Freezing.) If you are in one of those situations where you’re obligated to get something for the pious religiocrat that you know, you can always send along a copy and see if they get the message. Alternately, it is a great way to show you appreciation of your favorite wildlife photography and critical thinking blogger. You can order it online, which means you’ll miss out on the camaraderie of holiday shoppers, I’m sorry to say, but you can usually duplicate this good cheer by having someone slam your fingers in a door a few times. Joy, schmoy, tears are tears…

Amateur naturalism, part three

Al Denelsbeck


Our next topic in the series is reptiles – you can also refer back to the posts about insects and birds if you like.

Reptiles (and amphibians, which I’ll also refer to here but will use the same term for each just for convenience) are perhaps the most misunderstood of animal classes, which is unfortunate because they’re actually pretty cool. They become more prevalent with warmer climates mostly because they’re ectothermic, or “cold-blooded,” meaning they gain body temperature for higher levels of activity from outside sources. As such, you can find frogs, snakes, and lizards in virtually all of the US, but more of them in the southern states, and for longer periods of the year.

Now, a word about venomous snakes, up front. They do exist, and their venom is in varying degrees of potency, but the risk from such is shamelessly overstated. Snakes cannot eat people, so they have no reason to pursue us or attack us – aggression is simply not a trait of snakes. Biting is used only in defense, and generally requires some serious provocation. While it’s true that we can do this by accident, for instance by stepping on a snake, the circumstances where this can happen are rare. A little knowledge and attention is enough to render any area with venomous snakes completely safe, even for those actively seeking out reptiles.

So, what do I need? Really, very little is needed to pursue reptiles as a subject of interest, and you can do without any of these, but they might help at times.

Proper clothing. All of the snake guides recommend higher boots, thick socks, and long trousers, so I won’t go against this, even though they’re a pain in hot weather and I personally have never run into the faintest situation that would merit them. Does one story mean more than collected knowledge? It shouldn’t. Bear in mind that if you’re looking for ground dwellers, you’re going to spend a lot of time crouched and kneeling and crawling, so dress appropriately for that, and I’ll reiterate the kneepad advice from the insect post. Also think about rough rocky areas, briars, and poison ivy. Then again, when considering frogs and aquatic species, you’ll want to be able to wade, and get into the muddy and marshy areas. I’m very fond of waterproof hiking sandals myself, but be sure they can stay firmly on your feet in sucking mud. In other words, flip-flops aren’t appropriate. For anything, really…

A little trailblazing knowledge. I was remiss in not mentioning this earlier, but it is easier than nearly everyone believes to get lost in the woods. A compass does you no good at all if you don’t know how to use one, so doing a bit of research (right now, actually) and learning some basic directional tips is time well spent. A good handheld GPS unit is invaluable, properly used, but not necessary if you use good habits. Trails that are obvious in daytime can vanish entirely at dusk, so be prepared.

A small set of binoculars or a monocular. Something handy and able to focus closely. Believe it or not, they’re very helpful in identifying species from a short distance away, letting you stay far enough not to spook them. Many small lizards will be out in the open to bask in sunlight, but will scamper into hiding as soon as you get close, so this makes it possible to confirm that you’re seeing a lizard and not a knot on the tree. Most people never consider binoculars for reptiles, but they’re remarkably useful.

A good flashlight or head-mounted light. Many reptile species are primarily nocturnal, especially most snakes and treefrogs, so having the ability to spot them at night is paramount. It’s even easier when you have both hands free, thus the head-mounted light. As always, extra batteries are important too, especially if you wander even a short distance from known territory.

Observational Journal. As mentioned in the other posts, it doesn’t matter what you choose, whether it’s a pocketable notebook or an audio recorder or whatever; just keep track of what you’re noticing. Most important is getting down all of the details while they’re fresh in your mind. Also important is to refer back to it from time to time, to refresh your memory and compare observations, and help yourself build a pattern of information.

Identification guide. Good versions of these are rarely something that you can carry with you, and it’s more useful to have a complete one than a convenient one. Ones that identify the species within your region, rather than, say, all of North America, are more likely to correctly identify something that you spot. Finding a perfect match and discovering that it lives a few thousand miles away happens more often than you might think, or at least it does for me.

Snake stick. The folklore usually refers to a forked stick, but that’s not as useful as a pole with a short right-angle bend at the end – an old golfing putter even works, but the bend being made from 6mm (1/4″) rod or something similar is better. What you want to be able to do is pin one down for capture, or alternately slip the bend underneath to pick it up by the middle of the body, which doesn’t trigger the defensive behavior in snakes as often as pinning or grasping does. There are dedicated snake tongs, but they are of limited use in some terrains, and without the bend they cannot be used to pin a snake down. The other use, for more than just snakes, is for poking around under things and overturning rocks and logs without putting your hands anyplace close. Anyone’s comfort level with such pursuits is likely to be different from mine, but if it’s a known non-venomous snake species and smaller than my wrist, i simply grab it, but then again, I shrug off snake bites…

Collecting bag. I don’t recommend collecting reptiles at all – it’s better simply to observe them, but you may want to house them temporarily for photos or some such. A fine cloth bag without any tears or even tiny holes is fine – I’ve used a zippered pillowcase. It remains much cooler in hot weather than canvas, and easy to soak to keep aquatic and moisture-reliant specimens (such as newts and treefrogs) comfortable.

A thermometer. This is handiest if you’re really into detailed notes, which I recommend. A digital one with a separate probe works the best, able to get air and water temperatures, but even an old-fashioned glass tube style works fine, you just need a little patience. For those, they work better if they’re hanging on a cord at least a little away from your body, so you’re generally reading ambient air temperature rather than being influenced by body heat.

So, what am I looking for? Some basic habits can guide you a lot. First, rock and brush piles are homes to many species, especially if they have an area exposed to early morning sunlight. Most of the ground lizards like walls and fences with plenty of crevices, while frogs and toads usually want some source of water not too far away. A heavy rain, especially in the spring, will bring out more of the amphibians, and treefrogs are primarily nocturnal so this is a great time to start spotting them. Their calls will often give you a good idea where to start looking, though most stop calling when they suspect danger is close.

Watching reptile behavior is a lot harder than birds, at least in part because many things prey on reptiles, so they don’t tend to do a lot in the open. Additionally, many of their food sources are in hiding too. And if they suspect danger is in the area, they usually cease any typical behavior. So more often, you’re likely to stumble onto something interesting rather than specifically going out to observe it. To that end, you’ll want to learn how to walk softly and quietly, since many reptiles gain as much information from vibrations as they do hearing; snakes don’t even have ears. Frequent pauses to simply observe and listen are very helpful, and when you hear even a faint rustle, home in on it visually and wait for signs of movement.

It takes a little practice to pay attention to your peripheral vision (this is one of the places where video-gaming comes in handy, believe it or not.) Another thing that helps is being able to spot patterns, since nearly all animals have some symmetry to their coloration, and distinctive body shapes – I’ve spotted countless snakes from recognizing the body shapes, how they taper steadily and uniformly, unlike branches. And small movements are often indications of reptiles, so when you catch that little flicker, look hard – your quarry might be right there in plain sight, relying on camouflage or simply remaining motionless to avoid attention. This works for you too, by the way – remaining motionless does more for not being noticed than anything else.

Warming patches. Because of their circulatory system, many species need to warm themselves in the sun, especially if the night was cold. Snakes can often be found basking in the early mornings in the spring and fall, since the nights are colder then, and they sometimes need the extra energy to digest the evening’s meals. Very often, this means roads and sidewalks, which warm quickly in the mornings and retain heat in the evenings. Turtles need the same, and adore logs and rocks near the banks that provide good sun yet deeper water alongside for quick escapes. Fully aquatic newts and larval stages, as well as some frogs, will bask submerged in shallow water instead. For the ground lizards, it sometimes takes very sharp eyes to see them in their native cover because they blend in so well. Learn these types of areas well, so that you pause and examine them closely on first sighting, before you approach and scare off whatever was basking thereon.

By the way, snakes do not have eyelids either, so may sometimes be fast asleep while basking and we think they’re looking right at us. They may not notice slow subtle movements, but will almost always wake up when a shadow falls across their eyes. And while I’m on the subject, snakes with cloudy eyes are very close to shedding, and cannot see very well – they will usually be more irritable because of this, and should simply be left alone.

Habitats. Just about anything serves as a reptile habitat, so a complete list is rather difficult. Since we talked about sunlight, think also in terms of places to seek shelter, to cool off when the day’s too hot, and of course, places that provide plenty of food – very often this means insects, for the frogs, lizards, and smaller snakes. Moist earth is another attractor, because it means worms, grubs, and burrowing beetles. Areas with lots of crevices are popular with numerous species – people that don’t like snakes in their yards are advised to keep rock and brush piles from accumulating, so naturally that’s what we’ll be looking for. Meanwhile, anoles like low plants and bushes. Treefrogs usually like the higher tree canopies, but venture down for food (all year) and mating (in the spring), especially when the weather’s nice and wet. Frogs, of course, like fresh water, especially with still areas for egg laying.

Investigating. Naturally enough, turning over logs and rocks will reveal more species than simply waiting for them to pop up, but this is where you expose yourself to the greatest danger as well, especially in areas with venomous snakes, but also where there are stinging and biting insects. First rule is, always assume that whatever is underneath is the most hazardous species in the area, and act accordingly. Never put your hands blindly under a log or rock, even just the edge. Roll the rock or log towards you, so it is between yourself and whatever used to be underneath, rather than away from you and leaving a great opening for it to strike/swarm/spray/hypnotize. Do this while standing with feet firmly planted, so you can leap away as needed. Also don’t leave yourself the opportunity to roll it onto your feet. By the way, most venomous snakes can sense body heat and will aim for the warmer object in the vicinity, so ensure this is not your hand (mostly by keeping it out of the vicinity.)

When lifting rocks in a stream, it usually works better to pick an area with a decent current and expose into the water flow, or sideways to it, so disturbed silt will be swept away from the area you’re trying to see rather than into it. The same goes for wading upstream rather than down. Of course, it also helps to be facing a little towards the sun, rather than away, so you’re not trying to see into your own shadow (nor alerting species to your presence with the same.) This may mean choosing your time of day carefully.

Many reptile species, especially the small ground lizards, will freeze and count on their camouflage when danger threatens, but often not for very long. It’s easy enough to wait them out, especially if you caught a glimpse of movement – just remain motionless for a few minutes, and frequently they’ll assume it’s clear and reveal themselves again. When photographing, raise the camera and wait (this is when you find that holding it up to your eye for a while is much more fatiguing than suspected) – when the subject moves again, you won’t spook it back into hiding by having to raise the camera.

Aquatic species. Once you’ve frightened a frog into the water, you can just about forget seeing it again if you’ve lost sight of it initially – they’re remarkably good at seeking cover and waiting out the danger. However, snakes cannot hold their breath half as long and usually haven’t prepared themselves for a sudden dash into the water, so may surface quickly. But they will usually work towards cover of some sort, like border plants or brush, and bring just their nostrils and eyes above the surface to check for danger for several minutes. Turtles can stay down for a long time, but basking is popular and often competitive, so waiting for a bit near the abandoned log may produce investigating heads peeking from the water fairly quickly. Waiting for them to assure themselves that it’s clear enough to climb out takes a lot longer, though – sometimes it’s more useful to remember the spot and move on, to check it on the return trip. Newts and salamanders rarely surface and instead poke around under rocks and submerged leaves for food, so revealing them takes some poking around yourself, usually very gently so they’re not induced to flee.

Handling. Provided you’re quite assured of species identification, handling of most reptiles isn’t terribly difficult. All species may bite, which is best to be avoided, but I’ve been bitten by so many things that I find it overrated as a danger (squirrels are worse than any reptile that has bitten me, but I’ve never come close to being bitten by a venomous species either.) Far more likely, however, is having something defecate on you, the prime defense of countless species. This is often pungent and hard to wash off, and of course you don’t want it in open wounds, but otherwise the defense is usually harmless – it tastes bad (so I’m told,) which detracts from the primary danger of being eaten. Turtles, and some frog species, also wield claws on the hindlegs which can be painful. Smaller species are of course delicate, and can be hard to restrain without risking injury. Snakes are best grasped gently just behind the head with the rest of their body supported, or occasionally they can be picked up directly in the middle of their body, which remains balanced and doesn’t strain them. Frogs and smaller lizards can usually be scooped or cupped, and this will often require both hands to enclose them fully without gaps – your hands should be perpendicular to each other, the fingers of one hand closing the outside edge of the other, and even then, salamanders will show you every gap that you missed ;-). Virtually no reptiles have any fear of falling and will throw themselves from your grasp at any height, so it’s better to keep them low enough that they’re not injured when this happens.

Always remember, though, to wash hands thoroughly after any and all handling, due to the large number of illnesses that can be transmitted. This means good soap and scrubbing, not rinsing in a stream or splashing on the sanitizer.

Identification. As always, a good guide is important, but not often very handy to bring with you. Learn the dangerous species first – you can tell the difference between the venomous Copperhead (Agkistrodon contortrix) and the harmless Corn Snake (Pantherophis guttatus) in the photo that opened this post, right? It’s important to know that reptile species are widely variable in color, even among the self-same individual – see a snake immediately before and after shedding and you’ll know what I mean. Instead, what you’ll want to pay attention to is pattern. A camera comes in handy to help identify species, but even then, it might not work. The second frog seen here could not be positively identified because the key traits were the belly coloration and the webbing on the hind feet; with turtle species, it can be the number or shape of the marginals (the edge pieces of the shell, or “carapace”) or the stripes along the eyes. It takes time and practice to even know what you should be paying attention to, so don’t get discouraged.

Keeping notes. “Be meticulous” is the key here. Dates, times, seasons, temperature, weather conditions – all of these may hold clues as to why you’re seeing certain behaviors, or may indicate patterns. And as I said before, it’s also easy to mistake patterns too, especially if behavior depends on aspects we cannot distinguish ourselves. What you really want to accomplish, however, is knowing what typical behavior is for certain species and classes. Lizards virtually always appear more agitated than snakes – this is normal. But do you know what signs denote territorial anxiety?

Housing species. Once again, I don’t recommend this. The diet of wild animals is often hard to replicate, making it easy to introduce developmental issues and illnesses, and they often depend on both certain temperatures and UV levels as well. Countless reptiles can harbor zoonotic organisms – ones they can transmit to humans, like salmonella. And of course, no matter what the aquarium, it isn’t going to compare to their life in the open. But there isn’t even any reason to keep them; reptiles possess very simple brains, which means that they never bond to people, never learn anything, and really have no ‘personality.’ They’re simply there, requiring care but doing little besides eating and sleeping. I will, on occasion, do temporary housing to gain certain photos, but this lasts no more than a day or two and they are always returned to where I found them. I’m also careful not to do this during mating seasons, after obvious meals or with laying individuals. Better overall not to even consider it, and recognize that the point of naturalism is to let it remain natural.

So once again, with all that said, go out and do some observations! Reptiles display habits and behavior in a class all their own, and are often more abundant than you might think. They are more challenging to pursue as a subject than insects or birds, and may require more effort and patience, but they’re just as interesting and informative. Have fun!


Drop the ‘Straight’

Al Denelsbeck

I used to think the column “The Straight Dope” was pretty good, and well researched. I was first introduced to it about twenty years ago, when it was carried in the local independent newspaper called, for some unknown reason, The Independent (this is a local publication, not the British one.) Many years later, I found it online, and made a habit of stopping by semi-regularly to see what was new, and even reading past columns. Still do. The no-nonsense style of the column tended to succinctly skewer some of the weirder claims left untouched by mainstream media, and be a voice of reason among ads proclaiming the wondrous properties of Vitamin B complexes for stress reduction (remember those?)

But it seems the head honcho, Cecil Adams (which may be a pseudonym) has been slipping from such standards recently. I’ve already briefly dealt with his take on nuclear power, which completely dodged the largest issues and made some claims worthy of industry shills (look for the third highlighted link in that rather long post, if it helps.) Just a few days back, he gave his indications of wishing to rejoin lame-duck mainstream media with his slippery answer to the question, “Does god exist?”

For someone who claims to do research, Adams somehow never mentioned that his potential “proof” of god’s existence is widely known under another name, the Cosmological Argument (which I’ve also dealt with.) This is a shame, because anyone wanting to know more would find a wealth of information using that term in a search engine, most of it showing the Cosmological Argument to be the sophomoric failure that it is. Adams’ entire reason to trot this trope out is that, if we assume ‘first’ cause to mean ‘underlying’ cause, then there certainly could be something like that for the universe as we know it, and if you want to call that god, then you’re all set. As the message repeated from so many religious folk goes: stop there and don’t ask any more questions!

Because, of course, in the guise of an underlying cause, such a force is indistinguishable from the four fundamental forces, or ‘interactions’ if you prefer, that we already know and deal with constantly, two of which being gravity and electromagnetism (the other two deal with the binding of atoms.) Now, please note that Adams is not saying that something akin to gravity is created by god – he’s saying that it is god. Or could be considered that, if we found it, and we might, because there must be something.

Not a mention of how this really doesn’t represent any god that anyone invokes, ever, and even stretching like a child’s toy to elevate the mystery to supernatural status, still only constitutes a weak form of deism, unlike the monotheism that is sought in its place. Not a word about how theology is simply a method of finding a reason for an answer already decided upon. No exploiting of the perfect opportunity to demonstrate how learning, and science itself, really works, by bringing up the idea of using facts to lead towards a conclusion, and the actual existence of something (like electromagnetism) to lead into the investigations of the cause. No consideration that ‘proof’ is interchangeable with ‘preponderance of evidence,’ and doesn’t have anything to do with philosophy. Not even the simple analogy of Santa Claus and the Sandman, cultural concepts that are rampant yet, curiously enough, not supported in any way* – the reader may draw their own parallels.

I’ll be fair: Adams might have shied away (or been chased away by his editor) from simply saying, “No.” Even most atheists have been far too accommodating in allowing how a definitive statement of god’s non-existence is logically impossible, though we have no trouble whatsoever with saying the exact same thing about Santa and the Easter Bunny. We do this because the lack of evidence, and the historical sources of such stories, is enough to make the simple statement that they do not exist, and fretting about this being a definitive absolute truth statement is what we get to see instead of a decent argument for actual existence (much less evidence.) Most of the people on the planet do the exact same thing with god – just not the god they believe in, but each and every one of the other gods throughout history and cultures which they examined just as closely as their own (which is, “not at all.”)

But let’s be real, Adams’ answer is not dodging the issue; it’s actually paying lip-service to a puerile concept that is logically, rationally, and scientifically corrupt. It not only has absolutely no reason to be invoked, it doesn’t even work as intended. And in an age when fundamentalists are trying every trick in the book to get accepted, and with elections rolling around, what we really need is some straight-forward, hard-hitting commentary, and even just a simple demonstration that critical thinking is a good thing. Instead, we get Cecil Adams’ featherbrained sellout. And he gets paid for it, too.

* Yes, I know there is historical evidence for Saint Nicholas. That’s not who children think is supposed to be coming down the chimney, is it? Plus, I’m sure we can all agree that he’s gone now, right?

Do you like exploring?

Al Denelsbeck


Google Earth is a fun program, allowing the user to examine just about anyplace on earth (and elsewhere) from the vantage of aerial and satellite photos; I spend no small amount of time checking out areas of interest, finding places I’ve been and little curiosities.

Along those lines, I finally finished a project I’ve been planning for a while, which is to upload some Google Earth placemarks to select images within the photo gallery of the main site, linked to the actual areas where the photos were taken. In many cases, the placemark gives my shooting location as accurately as I can provide (especially since many of these were taken years ago, and in some cases the terrain has even changed!) You will need Google Earth installed to take advantage of this, but if there’s an interest, I can always put in latitude/longitude coordinates, which should work fine with online mapping services like Mapquest and Bing.

So if you like exploring, check out the gallery for the “Google Earth” buttons and poke around. I can tell you that the most interesting aspects can be found with the image seen above, and the one seen below. You have to find them yourself ;-)

Happy exploring!


I wonder why?

Al Denelsbeck

Yesterday, I had a visitor, who turned out to be (as most knocks on the door are anymore) someone who wanted to introduce me to god. The last couple of times that this happened, it was some Wally Cleaver types in white shirts and ties, which spells either mormons or jehovahs, and I wasn’t in any kind of mood then to open the debate, so I chased them off with obvious amusement. This time, however, I was in an impish mood, and it was a lady in her forties who simply told me that she was a “believer.” This prompted me to ask, “Believer in what?” and basically determined, from the vagueness and inclusion of god and allah, that she was likely unitarian. I didn’t even lead her on, and started out early by explaining that I was an atheist and relied on what was demonstrated by reality. This did not cause her to cut it off abruptly, however, and so we started a very friendly, mutually respectful discussion.

For over an hour. I began to feel sorry for her, especially near the end when she got largely silent, and I doubt she left happy. I wasn’t being nasty in any way, I was simply able to counter all of her points. One in particular stood out, and had me curious about it afterward.

One of the aspects convincing to her of a god, she admitted, was the behavior of some animals. Mother bears protect their cubs, and salmon swim upstream to spawn, where they die, and their bodies nourish the young (I’m just reporting what she told me – I know the current takes away whatever nutrients they might have contributed long before the eggs hatch.) I hadn’t told her that I was a nature photographer and science enthusiast, so she didn’t realize the opening she left me, but I was happy to fill it anyway, with a brief rundown of natural selection.

Here’s the funny thing, and I’ve noticed this before with too many other people. They find something wondrous, like the great fit between animals and environment, or the narrow range of conditions life can exist within, and that comprises their awe at god’s creation. But it never occurs to them to use that sense of wonder to actually ask questions, to see if we, overall, know more about such things than they know personally. Actually finding out that evolution explained those curious situations hadn’t entered her mind. The same could be said for other things that we talked about, such as human behavior and the tendency towards conflict.

I can only guess why I see this so often. I suspect people think they’re supposed to feel awe at the work of an omnipotent being. And of course, science is far too boring and clinical, emotionless and precise – it can’t serve to explain why something is fascinating (I’m putting myself in their shoes here, give me a break.) There’s even the idea, and I’ve run into this before more than once, that the lack of evidence for a supreme being isn’t really an issue, because everything is evidence of a supreme being! When all you have is a hammer, and so on; when you desperately need to believe in deities, they can be found under the carpet and behind every tree.

I’m funny; I think that the various aspects of animal physiology and behavior are hundreds of times more fascinating from having their origins in the simple formulas that natural selection provides, guided by slight advantages to reproduce better than others with different traits. I find myself thinking that an intelligently-designed system would have no need of competition, no variance in populations, because species would never exceed their resources. Seems like a basic first step in planning, doesn’t it? To offer up, as many do, the feeble excuse that “there must be a plan we don’t understand” is to remain ignorant of the point that they were using nature as evidence of that plan in the first place, to show why they believed in god. The same can be said for the explanation, offered only occasionally because few religious folk actually read scripture, that competition, animals eating other animals, all came about because adam & eve ate the fruit, gaining the knowledge of good & evil against god’s wishes – one wonders how he failed to know that this would happen, or why he put the tree in the garden in the first place. Again, what’s missed is that this only attempts to explain the competition that we already know exists, but offers absolutely nothing as to why any deity would bother; worse, why every last animal on the planet is along for the ride of original sin from god’s ‘special’ creation. For both, it becomes clear that “god” is the answer they had already settled on, then tried to jam the undeniable facts of nature into that answer.

I also have to wonder what such strange beliefs actually mean for things like environmentalism, conservation, and climate awareness. How often does it lead to the idea that these must be of no concern, because “god has a plan” or “things will be made to turn out all right”? Does the idea of there being some big daddy in the sky mean that people really believe we can’t fall off the bike?

I’m among the many who do not delight in not knowing something, thereby turning ignorance into awe, but instead prefer to try and find out. Wonder has a place, but as a goad, not a goal. I find it a special kind of cowardice to at least suspect, like in the case of evolution, that the answer is readily available, but avoid it anyway because it might mean learning something (mostly, that theism provides no answers.) To actually be afraid of knowledge is pathetic beyond description.

Like I said, my visitor was very quiet when she left, and I’m sure she felt she didn’t accomplish what she set out to do – but this is the bible belt, so I imagine she soon found someone else that reinforced her views again. Yet if I’m any good at all, she at least has a few things to think about now.

Sylvan Heights continued

Al Denelsbeck

And so, our saga resumes where it left off, with our heroes trapped within the confines of a completely non-treacherous and non-threatening bird park…

As I mentioned before, Sylvan Heights Bird Park provides great opportunities for close encounters, and to the photographer, the urge to do personal portraits of the birds is practically irresistible. I found myself breaking my own personal rule, however, which is to avoid direct portraits and try instead to include more setting and interest within the frame – in other words, not to make the subject quite so dominant, like the Demoiselle Crane (Anthropoides virgo) seen here, but instead part of a scene. In my defense (remembering what was on my mind at the time,) this is often hard to do with subjects that wander at will and don’t take direction too well, and one’s attention tends to concentrate on focus, light, and the poses of the birds. I know I spend no small amount of time, in situations like this, waiting for the critter to turn their head just right to get a nice catchlight in the eyes, a bright reflection that adds a lot to the character and “life” of the animal. Many animals prefer not to blind themselves and so don’t pose where sunlight is directly hitting their eyes too often, the selfish gits.

As it is with most zoos, you take the opportunities that you have, and plan to return later on to reap a whole different set of images, when particular animals are more accessible, and when plumage and light conditions are different. In this way you build a wide portfolio of images from any one location. There’s also the interesting concept of getting used to the species, knowing you already have several frames of simple portraits, and so subsequent trips means that you try for something more creative, artistic, expressive, and so on. For instance, I got spoiled on Great Blue Herons in Florida, where close approaches are surprisingly easy at times, so I almost ignore them here in North Carolina where I cannot get within twenty meters of one.

I’ve spoken before about exposure compensation, and in situations like this, knowing how to exploit it almost automatically will help produce much better results. We were in sunny, high contrast conditions, which can be hard to work with in the first place, because cameras (film or digital) tend to capture very narrow ranges of light, so on days when the ranges are wide, it’s easy to fall outside the envelope and lose detail in either bright or shadowed areas, sometimes both. At the same time, a large variety of multi-colored subjects often challenges the exposure logic within cameras. Is the camera obtaining its light reading, and thus setting “proper” exposure, off of the white feathers, or the black? Or even the background? I was delighted to finally see a Crested Screamer (Chauna torquata) in person, having read about them in The Drunken Forest by Gerald Durrell, but I have other frames where the sunlit crest feathers are overexposed and lose all detail in the glare. It’s possible to get a general ambient light reading, with an external meter or by aiming the camera at a good midtone, and use those settings on manual exposure throughout, but this would need to be done for all light conditions throughout your shoot, and with birds turning into and away from the light, it’s usually easier to adjust exposure compensation back and forth a bit, bracketing as needed. I always caution people that the preview image provided by the LCD is a truly horrible way to judge exposure, but with a lot of experience and comparison, it can provide a rough judgment. The same may be said for using histograms – birds with white feathers will naturally provide some peaks in the highlights, but how much is too much?

To the park’s credit, it is often possible to work multiple sides of the aviary or pond areas, and thus exploit the light conditions a little more. Provided, of course, that one can convince the birds to cooperate. This is where spending a little time, coming back through the same areas, and returning to the park on other days comes in handy.

At one point we noticed a local native Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) hanging out on the outside of the peacock cage, who was only mildly anxious at our approach. A little later we questioned a park worker, who informed us that it was actually a wild fowl, not a park resident, who had taken a shine to the peacocks and turned stalker. I admit to being a little curious over this, since both the peacock and the turkey were males, but I’ve seen territorial disputes between caged and wild birds before, and this situation didn’t have that appearance. (I digress for a brief anecdote: Many years ago while visiting a wildlife refuge in Florida, I saw my first Pileated Woodpeckers, surprisingly large birds, and then checked out the nearby rehabilitation clinic. There, an unreleasable captive who’d had a wing amputation would get apoplectic over a wild visitor, who would periodically sit on the timbers right outside the captive’s fence and beat a territorial drumming, well aware that the resident inside could do nothing about it. And you thought only humans could be sadistic…)

Situated in the transition area between cotton fields and wetlands, the park creators exploited this a bit and put in two other attractions: an observation blind over a beaver pond, and a “treehouse” gazebo on stilts over a wetland expanse. It was unfortunately the wrong time of year for either, but I imagine they’re great observation areas in the spring (we will, hopefully, find out.) There are also a couple of tanks of poison dart frogs, and a honeybee hive with a glass side. The main building offers a gift shop and some kids’ activities, though it appears the best opportunities come through their scheduled learning programs.

Despite my desire for some different subject matter on this trip, I yielded to temptation when I found a pair of Wheel Bugs (Arilus cristatus,) a variety of assassin bug, mating on a fence post. Their piercing proboscises, for draining the insides from the other insects that make up their food, are plainly visible from this angle. This past year has been almost entirely dedicated to bug shots, without my intentions – I’ve simply been unable to do enough traveling to provide opportunities for other subjects, and have been milking the local area for everything I can. I probably should begin a bobcat or fox portfolio project…

Species breeding programs, like the ones this park is built around, actually accomplish an astonishing amount. Numerous species that were on the brink of extinction have recovered, in part, due to the reintroduction of healthy animals that got their start in a protected and managed environment. Those people that work around such species for months or years at a time gain valuable experience in their behavior, diet, and physiology, contributing to our overall knowledge of the animals among us. Such programs are only part of the story, however, and need the assistance of public awareness, sanctioned areas, and often federal aid, both in the form of funding as well as regulation and enforcement of protective measures. The public portions serve to garner interest in the situations, essentially sneaking in a bit of conservational awareness to individuals who simply came to look at the pretty animals (let’s just agree to ignore the wheel bugs for the moment.) It’s disturbing, in a lot of ways, that banks and automakers receive government handouts while wildlife programs, which really do contribute to the health of the planet overall, have to beg and scrounge for funding. Even worse, when everyone starts fretting about the economy, such programs are often hit very hard.

So if you’re in the area, go pay Sylvan Heights Bird Park a visit, and if you’re not, find the counterpart program in your own area. It’s a small amount of effort that we can put forth, and worth a lot more to us than, for instance, seeing the latest pile of 3D CGI offerings from talentless Hollywood producers. Plus you’re allowed to bring your own food.

Book semi-review: Exuberant Skepticism

Al Denelsbeck

The book reviews on this blog have been more of a personal recommendation list, rather than a critical review of new releases as one might expect, for a couple of reasons. I don’t go through too many books at a time, and not many new ones, and as one might have noticed, there are certain topics I tend to concentrate on. So what’s been seen here before has been positive. Until now.

Exuberant Skepticism is a book that I picked up out of interest in the topic, and the reputation of author Paul Kurtz, who is the founder of the Center for Skeptical Inquiry, the Council of Secular Humanism, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a longtime contributor to Skeptical Inquirer magazine – seemed like just my cup of tea. Yet, it defeated me, and after numerous attempts over an extended period of time, I could not finish this book; thus the post title. While I have avoided chastising certain publishers of reviewed books regarding their cover art choices (mostly the complete lack thereof,) this one might have held a hint, as Kurtz looks out from the cover in undisguised contempt of those damn kids on his lawn, daring the potential reader to make any connection to the book’s title.

Part of the reason for my abandoning this book may be that it is not written for a specific goal, but is rather a collection of essays and lectures for a variety of audiences, largely academic; Kurtz is professor emeritus of philosophy from SUNY Buffalo, and some of the chapters were lectures targeted towards the philosophical community, where the academic style is often dry and abstract. It is this abstraction that allowed one of the greatest disservices to the ideas within the book, since Kurtz seems to feel that analogies or examples are to be avoided at all costs. Even when I identified with the points he was making, I found difficult to make a connection between the abstract statements and any real-world manifestation. Whereas many lecturers and academicians might make a statement of importance in broad terms and follow it with a breakdown of its meaning, Kurtz simply proceeds to the next statement. I found myself re-reading paragraphs and even sentences three or more times to parse the message within, a tedious process at best.

In the first 140 (of 226 total) pages that I managed to slog through, I found not the slightest hint of humor within, no anecdotes, no historical process, and barely even anything in support of the statements that Kurtz was making. The content is painfully dry and lifeless, about as far from “exuberant” as possible, causing me at one point to actually wonder if this was supposed to be satire. The tone throughout lacks any vestige of humanity, instead seeming to strive for Inscriptions of Great Import, as if each sentence is a thought of undeniable depth. There appears to be no effort to reach an audience, but simply to record truths.

This, all by itself, in effect denies a skeptical stance. Aside from the subtle connection to the Appeal From Authority fallacy, where statements are judged for value only by the status of those who issue them, there seems to be no recognition that the overriding idea behind skepticism is to seek rational support for holding a particular view. Little to no reasoning at all is given within this book; it is apparently assumed that the truth is self-evident. Now, anyone can find a proverb to support whatever position they prefer to hold – and with a little more effort, one to completely contradict it. The strongest points are made by building the case and demonstrating the usefulness within, showing how it applies effectively to our lives, decisions, attitudes, and so on. Simply offering a statement, even when completely correct, requires the reader to make any connections on their own, and to do this, they have to feel motivated to prove the truth of the statement to themselves. This is asking a lot from most people, which is something that critical thinking also addresses, since too many people skip such efforts in favor of whatever supports their immediate emotional needs. In other words, this book appears targeted towards those who need it the least.

And then again, it is almost condescending in tone, reading like a lecture from the head of a university to the assembled faculty, expounding on the school’s mission statement and the underlying values they all must strive for. In fact, this demarcation is frequently evident, in that there is an “I” and “you,” and Kurtz’s entire audience is “you.” There is no effort, and apparently no desire, to join the reader in a common goal, to point out that we are motivated by the same things, or to communicate with the reader as equals. While it is more subtle than I am about to put it, the book has a constant sense of, “me talk, you listen,” with engagement and maintained interest being either assumed or considered unnecessary.

I am more than a little hard on philosophy, so knowing that this was Kurtz’s field of expertise, I recognized that this might be emphasized distinctly within his book. Yet, I cannot even see the value from a philosophical standpoint. Philosophy virtually requires the development of a line of reasoning, a path that demonstrates a logical superiority over alternatives. This actually isn’t hard to do with skepticism, yet this was assiduously avoided, for reasons I cannot fathom.

Carl Sagan, James Randi, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Brian Cox, among others, show that exuberance in skeptical pursuits is entirely possible, and it is almost certainly this exuberance that does so much for the idea of critical thinking in the first place. Even Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens produce some of the most incisive commentary on belief systems, and while it doesn’t seem quite appropriate to call their approach “exuberant,” they nevertheless nail their topics so thoroughly to the wall that detractors almost invariably have to attack a parody of their points (or even the tone, as if this suddenly became relevant,) since arguing their actual points is so difficult to do. George Carlin is remembered for his biting, satirical views, presented with humor yet still getting his message across. There are many ways to promote skepticism, and to make it more savory and entertaining than the cynicism with which it is often confused.

This book is not among them. I have no problem with saying that it is assuredly one of the best ways to chase people away from the idea and practice, and convince them that skepticism is, at the very least, emotionless, pedantic, and tedious. It is not enough to derive items of importance to society; to be of any use, one must also be able to communicate them as well, preferably in a memorable way.

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