Amateur naturalism, part one

Al Denelsbeck1 Comment


In an earlier post, I mentioned encouraging kids to keep a journal about their insect observations, and at that point (the first draft of this is being typed immediately after I published that post) decided to create a series dedicated to this subject. So, welcome to the first of the Amateur Naturalist posts, this one dealing mostly with insects. Bear in mind this doesn’t have to apply to just kids – anyone interested in such subjects should feel comfortable chasing this if they want. Hell, I’m in my mid-forties. But if the writing seems aimed a little too low, I apologize; I’m trying to strike that balance.

Insects are one of the easiest subjects to pursue, from an observation standpoint, because they’re so abundant – chances are, no matter where you are in the world, you have thousands of species available. From a nature photography standpoint, however, they’re much harder, because decent photos of very small subjects are challenging on several levels, as well as often requiring something in the form of specialized equipment – usually a lot of somethings. Right now, I’m going to approach this from a non-photographic view, because photos aren’t necessary to generate an interest in this subject matter.

Basic materials to help with this pursuit are as follows. None of these are absolutely necessary, and none of these need to be specialized, but any of them can help considerably:

Observation Journal: Any method you want to use is fine for this, whether it be the “Doctor Jones” field manual to scribble in right on site, or a word processing file on your computer, or even an audio recorder (so help me, I still say “tape recorder.”) You might be amazed at how much can be forgotten, and being able to go back over what you’ve observed helps a lot, including reminding you of something to look up. Comparing what you knew or surmised then and what you know now is also encouraging and a good reminder of progress. For those in school, it can even be something that garners extra credit. Just try to make it a habit, and be sure to re-visit it periodically.

Magnifying lens: There are good and bad examples out there, and the more expensive ones tend to provide better images, but even the cheap ones work better than nothing. Simple “fresnel” magnifiers can be obtained in office supply stores and carried in a wallet, and cost so little that damaging or losing one is insignificant. Glass lenses tend to provide a better, less distorted view, however, and larger ones can provide more working distance and a wider field of view at the same time. Working distance helps a lot for insects that can be scared away or under cover with a close approach.

Collecting cans: Something small that closes tightly is ideal – I use film cans because I have tons of them. The idea is to hold onto something until it can be examined closer under better light, or even taken to someone who knows more for identification. Entomologists (those that study insects) very often kill and preserve specimens, because this allows close examinations and comparisons, but other may balk at this, and that’s fine. Bear in mind that identification of insects usually requires more than appearance, and a photo or sketch will be inadequate in a majority of the cases, so a live specimen will often be the barest minimum. Most insects use air in such sparing amounts that air holes aren’t as necessary as many people feel, and these should be short-term enclosures anyway, but if needed, a nylon screen top affixed with rubber bands works better than holes, which allow for almost no circulation.

Fine forceps, tweezers, or hemostats: These are used more for dissection, and for handling material in the habitat rather than the insect itself. Snagging an insect by a leg or a wing is likely to injure it, and I don’t recommend trying it unless the insect is either sturdy or dead. But you may want to remove stuck-on materials (like in the case of the camouflaged inchworm,) or parasites, or move vegetable matter for a better view. Locking hemostats also allow for securing something that moves in the wind or needs to remain in a useful position. Also, something very fine and sturdy, like a long pin or needle or dental pick, provides a very small probe that can move material, lift wings, or flush out a tiny spider from among leaves. I don’t carry one and frequently end up furnishing one from pine needles and sticks, so learn from my shortcomings ;-)

Something to measure with: Ideally, it should be pocketable and be in metric, since most insects fall into the fractions-of-inches realm (not to mention it’s about time we dumped English measurement anyway.) You might want to use a variety of things, depending on the circumstances, but a small ruler from the school supply section of a department store works fine. If you’re into photography, and especially if you want to submit photos for identification and scientific use, a proper photographic scale works better, such as those found here, or you can print your own courtesy of Jason Quinlan. A small tip, too: insects may not wait around for you to slide a ruler up next to them, so before you try, measure them by eye against their surroundings, so you can measure that when they get scared off by the approaching ruler. Estimating is usually a bad idea; people are typically terrible at guessing size.

Flashlight: I recommend the kind that can go in a headband at least, so both hands can be free, but this also works to help spot certain critters at night, since the reflection works only at very narrow angles, so you want the light as close to your eyes as possible. Even by day, a flashlight can help throw light into shady areas or see details that ambient light just isn’t producing – any photographer knows that light angle can highlight contours and textures, and can even lend a hand with camouflage. Spare batteries help too, especially if you’re hiking at night and need the light to get back (think ahead!)

Water: Not just to drink. Some insects exude a caustic substance to discourage predators, which you may want to wash off just from the stink, and poking around in the undergrowth may also expose you to fun things like poison ivy. So of course, add to this adequate clothing and, especially if you’re susceptible to insect bites, repellant and something that eases the pain of stings. Believe it or not, I’ve been stung only once by Hymenoptera while chasing photographic subjects, but I’ve encountered countless fire ants, mosquitoes, and the occasional poison ivy.

Ground cloth: Gosh, this makes things so much easier. Observation often takes patience, and the ground is usually uncomfortable, damp and messy. I use a carpet square near the house, but often carry a small vehicle floor mat on excursions, small enough to roll up and stuff in a large pocket. I also use kneepads frequently – found in construction stores, you can get these for as little as five bucks.

Okay, so you have some materials, and want to get started. What do you do? Well, first off, there isn’t anything you have to do – observation is simply about learning, and if you’re paying attention, you’ll be picking up on things. Even just finding the insects is a matter of patience and careful examination – what works best for me is spotting the break in the patterns that plants have, something that is too symmetrical or simply doesn’t do what leaves normally do. Did something move when there was no wind? Are these leaves curled over for a reason? But there are a couple of little things that can help your observations:

Use your ears, too: We have a bad tendency to tune out natural noises, but they can point to a lot of what’s going on. Insect sounds, by nature, can be hard to pinpoint, especially when they vary pitch over the course of a few seconds. You can narrow this down a bit by triangulating, changing position a little and drawing an imaginary line towards the source of the sound from different locations – where the lines cross is fairly likely to point to the noisemaker. Do this early on, because most insects cease making sounds when danger (like looming people) threatens, so once you’re close enough to make them stop you’re out of luck. Recording such sounds, by the way, can even help identify species, but be aware that many microphones have a much shorter dynamic range than we hear ourselves, and the recording you get might sound nothing like what you heard (I did this with a bat once – the squeaks had become ratcheting clicks on tape.)

Be meticulous: Note date, time, weather conditions, plant conditions, and so on. Has it been a long time since rain? Does certain behavior seem to occur only at certain times? Pay attention, and see if any patterns emerge. But…

Don’t jump to conclusions: It’s easy to invoke a pattern after only a couple of observations, but this can be very misleading. Countless factors may have influence on something that you see, and many might not be obvious (for instance, can you smell insect pheromones? How about seeing in ultraviolet?) The scientific method involves testing any hypotheses that are made – basically, trying to prove yourself wrong. Don’t feel bad if and when this happens – real advances don’t come easy, and if it’s easy to spot, chances are someone else already has. But just learning how nature works is pretty rewarding in itself, and the interactions can be fascinating.

Insects are not human: Seems obvious, but the subtle aspect is that we’re so used to human interactions, we take for granted certain kinds of behavior. It’s much worse with animals that have “faces,” but still occurs for insects too. Bees, for instance, sting only for protection, and there’s no animosity involved. There is no fundamental difference between “damaging” and “beneficial” garden insects – such values are placed by us alone, because we prefer certain plants, but insects only seek to survive, like everything else.

Do the research: The internet is a powerful, remarkable tool. In my youth, finding any kind of information involved poking through books at the library or attempting to call someone, so I can really appreciate typing things into a search engine. In a lot of cases, finding the information you’re after takes searching in different ways, and making sure you’re not assuming some trait. It may have looked like a moth, but maybe it’s not. Yet, the internet contains plenty of incorrect information as well, so learning how to distinguish is paramount. For instance, published papers and working entomologists tend to provide much more accurate information than brief descriptions on a site heavy with photos and light on detail.

Don’t grab: Many insects, even stinging and biting ones, can be handled safely with some care. I don’t recommend handling anything unnecessarily, but on occasion it’s useful, especially if you’re examining it or showing it to someone else, like your kids (and in such cases, handling can allay some of the unreasonable fears.) But our fingers are large, clumsy, and too hard to handle insects the same way we would a pencil, so coaxing an insect into your open hand works the best, and sometimes scooping or nudging can work. When collecting into a can, usually it’s more effective to place the can in front of the insect and then nudging or scaring it in. You can also simply pluck the leaf that the insect sits on and move the whole thing. But remember – almost everything has some means of defense, and insects often have surprises. If you’re not quite sure, leave it alone.

Move slowly: Most insects have rudimentary vision, and can be fooled by very slow movements – and of course, anything is going to flee if they perceive a threat from a rapid approach or hasty searches. I’ve demonstrated the usefulness of this by moving my finger directly towards a perched dragonfly, ever so slowly, until I could nudge it under the forelegs and actually have it transfer onto my finger – I just never triggered the danger response. And holding still for a while can allow insects to resume natural behavior that they halted when you came around, letting you see more of what they get up to.

Vary the times of observations: Many insects come out at night, or change behavior at those times. Others go into torpor when the temperature drops, and must warm themselves up in the morning. Some spiders are day hunters, but many more are nocturnal. Cicadas and mayflies hatch only at specific times and conditions. If you only go out at certain times of the day, you’re going to miss a lot.

Try not to interfere: Any kind of contact or interruption can change behavior, so it works much better if you only observe. Most especially, no matter how cool something might be, insects don’t really make pets – they don’t bond, they don’t learn, and captivity can deprive them of properly varied diet, sunlight, humidity, mating, migration, and on and on. A small terrarium might be helpful as temporary housing for photos, but for the most part, it’s far more interesting and informative to let them be and simply watch what they do. Also, don’t play favorites – even if a wasp is attempting to lay eggs in the caterpillar you’ve been desperate to watch make a chrysalis, that’s how it goes.


How do I identify certain insects? First off, I’ve found from long experience that asking “the locals” is just about pointless, since colloquial terms are used far more often than not. I can’t tell you how many species of arachnid I’ve seen identified as “garden spider.” Second, insect species are incredibly numerous, and distinctions sometimes very trivial. So don’t expect exact identification, even when resorting to experts, and by the same token, even large books aren’t necessarily going to help. I’ve found Bugguide.net can supply a lot of info, provided you know how to search for key details, but even with numerous entomologists frequenting the site and contributing, there just isn’t much known about thousands of species in the US alone, much less in remoter areas. If you prefer a certain genera, you might get by with a few specific books, but expecting an encyclopedia of all species is asking way, way too much. Better to use books to help familiarize yourself with insect traits and anatomy (“true bugs” and all that.) Getting to know entomologists can help, such as at the local university, but be aware that most specialize and may well look at your butterfly and say they know nothing about Lepidotera, since they do Blattaria. Often, though, they can direct you to a colleague that is better suited. Just don’t abuse the privilege – remember that they have their own work to do.

What just happened? Insects can have the most astounding behavior, some of it very specialized. One species of mud wasp paralyzes spiders to lay their eggs within, where the young will hatch out inside the still-living spider and use them for food (the most disgusting variation of a gingerbread house imaginable – yes I enjoyed drawing that analogy.) These spider are stuffed into the mud tubes often seen under overhangs in barns, garages, and bridges (I have yet to obtain a photo of a wasp arriving with a spider, but now I know what I’m looking for.) Remember not to draw conclusions or even be fooled by what you think happened – describe exactly what you saw, and nothing more. The biggest mistake in observation, of any kind, is trying to fit what was seen into what was expected, which really does let one’s imagination start to interfere.

You could be the first. Sometimes it seems like science leaves very little yet to be discovered, but in reality, we can’t even provide an accurate count of how many species there are on this planet, because so many remain unrecorded. Insects are very high on that list. It’s important not to get too wrapped up in the idea that you might be finding a new species or witnessing unrecorded behavior, but this is far more likely for insects than it is for just about any other family – microorganisms lead the list. The key is, the only way you’d ever know is to treat it seriously and make good observations.

And there’s another aspect hiding in here, seemingly negative but actually quite useful: you may decide you really aren’t very interested in fieldwork, or in pursuing insects as a subject. It’s much better to find this out on your own with a minimal investment of time and money than six years into an advanced degree, where changing majors is hampered by thoughts of wasted effort. This goes for parents, too: Encourage your kids, but let it run as it may. If their interest isn’t holding, perhaps something else fits the bill more. Which lets me lead in to the next installment of Amateur Naturalist posts ;-)

Does science lead to atheism?

Al Denelsbeck

Update September 2012 – This was one of the sample posts chosen for the podcasting experiment; click below to listen, if you like (it is identical to the text):
Walkabout podcast – Does science lead to atheism?

The title question is actually an interesting one; it is hard for me to say how many people ask it, or assume to already know the answer. It bears some examination because of the nature of science, and the way we humans tend to structure our thinking. It can be answered multiple ways, if you assign different properties to the question rather than taking it literally.

Science, as I’ve said before, is simply a methodical process of learning. The entire goal is to puzzle out nature and reality as untainted as possible by human preconceptions, emotions, desires, or “common sense.” Part of the method is to accept that humans are imperfect and prone to mistakes, and therefore attempt to overcome these barriers by testing all conclusions against empirical evidence. What this means is that science leads only to knowledge, via the best method that we’ve ever used, so if atheism is an end result, it is because nature itself demonstrates a lack of godly influence.

This is not, however, what many people mean, or at least think, when asking that question. Instead, they are asking if the scientific method, or even the “dogma” of physical laws and textbook information, only proposes a godless universe – in other words, is “god” either disallowed as an explanation, or specifically proscribed against? Bluntly, the answer is “no,” since scientific laws are only of things that we have demonstrated over and over again, things that hold true no matter what and are thus trustworthy, just as we trust gravity to bring things to the ground when we let go of them. Sure, there is a scientific theory of gravity, but one need not know this to remain tethered to the planet, and denying the theory still requires someone to explain why we do not float through the air.

But does science proceed on the assumption that a god is not acting in measurable ways? And to that, the answer is “yes” – but this isn’t as damning (I should do stand-up) as it seems. First off, the definitions of gods aren’t rigid enough to provide a useful hypothesis for explaining anything we observe, and even the general definitions of gods provide for capriciousness and, in essence, “free will.” In other words, the gods are not beholden to doing the same thing every time, and so their actions might be widely variable. These make it hard to use any gods as a working hypothesis; to test if a certain antibiotic actually inhibits bacterial growth, we must assume that nobody is screwing with the bacteria in ways that we cannot detect. If this didn’t work consistently, even rudimentary tests would be pointless. Still, there are two ways that such interference could be tested for. The first is to rule out the presence of any regularity, patterns, or cause-and-effect scenarios – what we typically consider physical laws. Nothing, for instance, has ever been observed to fall slower than something else within the same conditions – this is so rigidly within a pattern, so dependable, that everyone around the world can use it, and even measure it to very fine decimal places. We can catch thrown objects precisely because of this. Such consistency allows us to determine many other things on top of the immediate physical laws; we can design aircraft and parachutes and such because we can calculate gravity against air resistance and compressibility, and they only work dependably because no such capriciousness is ever visible in their effect.

The second way of testing this is to assume, for the time being, a posit of intention, and then to see if such a posit bears out. This is exactly the process behind testing to see if prayer works for healing, where we already know what typical recovery rates are, so we can see if intercessory prayer provides for a significant difference in recovery. There are mixed results when such studies have been tried; does this indicate the presence of a god? We have to be very careful with such a conclusion because, as noted above, we are human and may want to see certain results. So such studies have to be done in a way that interpretation cannot be open to wishes, what is often called “double-blind” testing, where neither the test subjects nor the physicians measuring results know who is being prayed for and who is not. In this way, no bias towards certain patients doing “better” can be applied, intentionally or subconsciously. When such controls are used (which aren’t as often as they should be,) the mixed results vanish, and the trends towards prayer working are no longer present. The same thing can be said for the “miracle cures” from Lourdes and in the presence of various religious icons, where the recoveries that are attested to are always things that are either not firmly diagnosed, or possible to enter remission on their own. No one is ever cured of an inoperable brain tumor, or regrows missing limbs, and the recovery rates (when the bias for self-reporting is removed) are no different from average.

No matter how faithful we might be, we do this every day ourselves. When our keys go missing, we don’t believe they were spirited away, we simply look in all the places we might have left or dropped them. When we try criminal cases, “god” is never the verdict nor the responsible party. When our cars stop working, we look for mechanical issues. All of these betray that very same “assumption of no god” that science does.

The concept of law, as another example, is as “atheistic” as science, since it denies the idea of divine judgment, moral guidance, and faith in omnipotence. Sports, despite the praises of many athletes, relies on things being extremely predictable and consistent, so that the ball arcs exactly as we’d expect and wind resistance does not abruptly change. A soccer ball that changed direction in midair or lilted outside the goal might actually be worthy of thanking god for the assistance, but all we ever see are plain ol’ laws of physics at work, and that’s all that athletes train for as well (it might actually be amusing to see, not tackling dummies or batting practices, but intensive prayer sessions, but no one seems to buy the concept that faithfully, do they?) Even churches pass around collection plates, rather than expecting their new buildings to magically pop into existence, even while insisting to the congregations that miracles will indeed take place if one has faith.

We can (and frequently do) assign theistic influence to events that seem mysterious to us, but this is actually a dead-end when seeking knowledge, serving to halt progress that could be made otherwise. We practiced this for centuries: lightning, floods, illnesses, privileges, and countless other phenomena and behaviors were all attributed, at one time or another, to supernatural intervention. The very word “supernatural” denotes something that cannot be demonstrated through natural means, and is thus out of our grasp. Making this assumption precludes any further progress – it serves as a stopping point for inquiry. We have no issues now with the idea that viruses are communicable and undirected, but at one point even proposing that illnesses were something other than god’s will was considered blasphemy, and investigating such could even earn the retribution of the churches. Thank, no not god, but science that investigating and demonstrating properties eventually took hold and became accepted, because an ounce of vaccination is worth many millions of prayers.

Science itself, or more specifically the scientific method and the various laws discovered through its application, does not have anything to say about gods – as noted, supernatural things are supposed to fall outside of such domains. But one thing science actually does do is remove the reliance on default explanations. Among non-scientists, gods have been invoked, as seen above, when we have not discovered a natural explanation for some observed phenomenon. But such an attitude fails to take into account that we may simply not have looked in the right place, nor had the necessary ability to see the explanation (such as microscopes and cultures to see bacteria.) Science does not accept assumptions, and there is no “default” explanation – if we do not have an answer, we keep looking. Additionally, in order for something to be a useful explanation, it must be consistent, not beholden to preconceived notions that do not carry across cultural lines, or debated fiercely among factions.

Invoking the supernatural also provides no real answer, nothing of any use to scientific inquiry or our body of knowledge. If we cannot obtain a consistent response from some set of inputs, then how can we put this to use? Even quantum mechanics, with its wildly variable effects and indeterminacy, ends up producing distinct average responses given enough time and samples, to the point that we can use it to determine ages of organic materials and many minerals, through radiometric dating (such as the well-known Carbon-14 method.)

To continue the dogpile on the concept of “supernatural,” there’s also the contradiction in definition whenever it is invoked. If, as claimed, it involves things outside of what we can experience, sample, or observe naturally, then it has no measurable effect and can safely be ignored. However, if it impinges on the physical world in ways that we experience, such as miracle cures and personal revelation, then it becomes fair game to scientific inquiry and testing. Attempting to have it both ways is simply hypocrisy, and a shallow attempt to create an explanatory concept that’s exempt from establishing its own value.

Frequently, the statistical significance of the number of non-religious scientists is brought up as evidence that science must be influencing this. At the same time, the number of scientists holding some religious belief is used to establish that science does indeed coexist with religion. Neither one of these has any actual value, since “science” and “scientists” are not interchangeable, and in fact, there is no distinct definition of “scientist.” Science is not defined by scientists; instead, scientists are defined by the science that they perform. There is not only the factor, pointed out above, that science does not and cannot involve supernatural explanations, but also the distinctive trait of it functioning extraordinarily well without them. If there is any influence on those deeply involved in science, it is the simple fact that the more one finds out about how everything works, the fewer things there are for a god to do.

Both of these common claims about scientists’ religiosity reflect a reliance on authority, the belief that someone could be infallible, or produce the final word on anything. This is the underlying principle behind religious leaders, but also reflected in the concept of “expert” authorities as well, as in court testimony. The nature of inquiry, however, doesn’t support any such thing – in its place we have simply the weight of the evidence. Scientists do not gain esteem by title, but by their accomplishments, and even those are subject to careful scrutiny. In order for something to achieve the status of scientific “law,” the evidence must be overwhelming and unvarying, but such laws reflect only what we have experienced and demonstrated – should we find a violation of, for instance, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, it would cease to be used thereafter. No one is considered a mouthpiece for natural evidence, nor does science accept pronouncements, even from “distinguished” scientists.

Contrast this with religion, where pronouncements override evidence and experience to varying degrees. Religious leaders are provided authority only on their title, with no demonstration of any value or accuracy. But in order to maintain this, churches require weekly reinforcement of the ideas, immersion in a culture and the use of peer pressure, as well as the early indoctrination of children (knowing full well that implanting ideas in the formative years tends to stick longer than trying to instill it in adults with experience.) Yet, even in the face of this, we still find countless examples of religious signs, as people somehow find the face of jesus or mary (that have never had their likenesses recorded in any way) appearing in a grilled cheese sandwich or on the side of a soy oil storage tank. People pray for guidance, and amazingly, receive it in a vague way that only they can experience (that somehow never provides something that they didn’t already know.) Explorers mount expeditions into mountains in Turkey looking for an ancient animal transport vessel. What these tell us is, despite the avowals that all we have to have is faith, we’re still desperate for something real, tangible, provable: evidence. No matter the devotion, we use science constantly.

And in fact, science is only a name for the process, and knowledge gained thereof, of establishing a firm trail of evidence – in other words, demonstrating reality. We use it from the moment we can first control our actions, learning how to walk and talk by trial and error. Almost everything that we consider “thinking” is built upon the input of our external sampling system, our senses. Our entire existence as human beings is built upon empirical evidence. Sure, we engage in philosophy, theoretical science, speculation, and “spirituality” (one of those words that is defined by its context and little else,) but none of these provide anything other than emotional reaction – until they can be demonstrated.

We can ponder the mysteries and intricacies of god’s retribution, demonic conflict, unbalanced chi, foul humors, and germ theory, all for the exact same set of symptoms… but we rely on what germ theory has provided for us when it consistently and undeniably works. In fact, we found germs solely because we recognized the patterns of infection, and tried to see what was causing them. Lo and behold, critters too small for us to see and never mentioned in any religious scripture in any culture turned out to be the most ubiquitous life on earth. Danish astronomer Ole Rømer, assistant to Giovanni Cassini (we name our satellites and probes as we do for good reason) confirmed that the periodic movements of Jupiter’s moon Io occurred at different times when the earth was closer to or farther from Jupiter, and calculated the first figures for the speed of light – in 1676. He did not pray for this information, nor receive it from revelation, nor interpret it from genesis (which, it must be noted, refers to the “vault” of the heavens, not implying but saying directly that the sky is a ceiling, which couldn’t be further from the truth and cannot even charitably be called a euphemism.) Progress awaits us if we don’t assume such scripture (or anything else) is accurate, but test for accuracy instead.

In developing methods to derive knowledge, we came across some useful tools, so useful that they are now used throughout scientific investigation. Among them sits the examination of alternatives. Once an initial conclusion or hypothesis is proposed, alternatives are considered and tested, to be sure that the right conclusion is being made – if an alternative fits better, the original conclusion is obviously thrown into doubt. With scripture, of course, we find that much of what is related regarding the shape and composition of the earth, the size and makeup of the universe, the history of mankind itself and the events that have occurred in the past, all range from remarkably inconsistent to flat-out wrong. One alternative that presents itself is that most scripture is simply fiction, which doesn’t run into any serious flaws in the slightest. Another is that a god presented scripture (or the communication related therein) as accurate, but modeled the entire universe in contradiction to this. Such a posit, which incredibly is seriously considered by far too many people, raises the important questions of what purpose it serves, and how to determine that this is more accurate and explanatory than, for instance, scripture as fable. One must also note that, in accepting the two posits that a) there is a creator, and b) that scripture represents such creator’s communications, then it automatically follows that either the scripture or the universe presents intentional deceit.

But, since these all offer not only nothing to be tested, but nothing of any value, while the laws within this “modeled universe” work consistently and thoroughly, there is no function that is actually served by following any posit of scriptural fact. It can be argued that faith itself has an emotional value – someone may prefer to believe in an active and beneficial god – but if they cannot believe that such is true, the emotional value vanishes. In ancient times, people may have preferred to believe that the bright thing in the sky was a chariot driven by the sun god, but this had no effect on their lives then, and we miss absolutely nothing from not believing it now.

It becomes easy to see that it isn’t practicing science that leads away from religion, but nature itself. What anyone might perceive as godly influence can be seen as both the desire to scientifically establish their belief system, as well as actually being valueless in terms of function – we cannot use, predict, or build upon “miracles.” We must begin considering that the tendencies towards atheism in those that seek knowledge are not because science leads to atheism, but instead that religion leads nowhere.

Can you hear me now?

Al Denelsbeck

Ah, yes, natural disasters! Bad enough in their own right, but compounded because they herald the news programs desperate for drama, so they can run their stock footage of other disasters and send some idiot to stand out in the rain shouting above the din of their windbreaker six sizes too large (you thought “windbreaker” referred to something other than the noise?) But this is nothing compared to the religious windbags who trumpet every newsworthy phenomenon as a “sign,” making even the noise of crashing nylon seem soothing.

As the east coast of the US got treated to a minor tremor and a weak hurricane in quick succession, nitwits such as Pat Robertson, Glenn Beck, and Michele Bachmann were quick to proclaim god’s wrath revealed – “We warned you,” they said in effect, “You were only spared now to give you a chance to choose the proper path!” We have, they assured us, received a message. But like graffiti, it’s not really clear who this message is directed towards, nor even what it says.

Now, the earthquake is indeed a rare occurrence for that area, and it may be true that god is communicating with central Virginia about something. After all, the towns of Mineral and Louisa, Virginia are well known as beds of, well, nothing in particular, really. Since it was midway between Charlottesville and Richmond, maybe god was trying to send them both a message about their, um, totally average iniquities? Ah, but wait! DC is only 135 km away – surely that’s the target! The strike was off-center simply because god sneezed (and who’s going to bless him when that happens?)

Then we have the hurricane, which tells us that god has it in for the east coast in the late summer months, possibly because of bikinis (god apparently isn’t paying attention to Lake Havasu or the French Riviera.) Spring Break is not the bastion of hedonism, vice, and obscenity that we have been led to believe by the liberal media, if I’m getting the message right; god instead doesn’t like pasty overweight families from New Jersey and Ohio.

But seriously, we can read this message if we try hard enough. After all, it’s mostly the southern states that get hit by hurricanes, Florida by far the worst. If we add in tornado season, we find that it’s mostly the states in the southeast region that get handed the message, the region commonly referred to as the “bible belt.” Coincidence? Don’t be too hasty! As Texas Governor and bible-thumper Rick Perry announced plans to ask for god’s intervention in the drought, Tropical Storm Don drove straight towards Texas yet died out without producing measurable rainfall.

Wait! There’s more! Florida has been known for its storms for centuries, since the first Spaniards arrived. There are hundreds of shipwrecks off the coast, mostly of god-fearing Spanish fleets bringing their treasures back to the glory of the church, or arriving to instill proper worship upon the savages. Oh, there’s a pattern all right!

The real message, however, is clear, yet perhaps heeded just as little: religious pundits have absolutely nothing of any value to provide to anyone, and resort to drawing vague connections to natural disasters because they have nothing to sell but fear. And in fact, this is exactly the message they tell us that their god provides – this holds true for every last religious “leader” who preaches damnation. I suspect it’s only a matter of time before we’re urged to refer to this creator as, “Mommie Dearest.” We might have gotten to see what the oft-rumored “loving” god was like if we hadn’t fucked around with wire hangers. Just sayin’…

Then of course, we might, just might, consider the possibility that only brain-damaged asshats bother waving the god flag in the first place. That pattern seems to hold pretty well, too.

Just for fun

Al Denelsbeck

I actually get chills when watching the following video – it’s just too cool seeing this all come together:

I’ve known this video for a couple of years now, and there’s a decent chance you’re familiar with it; at least with the tour that culminated from it. That, however, was only the lead-in for this. Turn your volume down if you’re someplace public:

Seriously, hang onto that link – there’s nothing better to cheer you up when you’re down than baby animals. Yes, I’m referring to the kids with that ;-)

This was a promo to announce the Walking With Dinosaurs tour in Australia (unfortunately, shameful autoplay video at that link – never, ever do this.) When the tour came into this area of the US, there was no way in hell we were going to afford it at that time, which is a shame, because the effort put into it is astounding. It’s impossible to say whether the behaviors and movements displayed are accurate depictions of species from millions of years ago, but from our perspective with the species alive now, they certainly look realistic. In an age when no movie company seems capable of producing entertainment without hosing around the CGI, clumsily and shamelessly, seeing what can be done with live action is refreshing.

Hiding in plain sight

Al Denelsbeck2 Comments


Right alongside our front walk sits a cluster of flowers that I planted from seed to assist with hummingbird photography – I’d rather have shots at natural-looking flowers than feeders. Unable to find either plants or seed for varieties I knew were hummingbird attractors, I grabbed a bag of “bird and butterfly mix,” which wasn’t an ideal choice – absolutely nothing that has grown has been of the faintest interest to the hummers.

But a couple of days ago I noticed something strange about one of the flowers I passed constantly: it had stray petals showing up in the central pollination area, which eventually struck me as “not right.” Stopping to take a closer look, I induced some movement from this cluster. Ah.

Seen here, a curious species of inchworm has decorated itself with cuttings from the flower, allowing it to sit in an area that couldn’t be more noticeable and eat peacefully. The camouflage was so good it took several minutes to actually determine what kind of insect I was even seeing, and as you look close at this image, realize that the paler portions are the inchworm’s own skin – everything else is planted on. Most times the worm kept its head buried down into the flowers, and it took several minutes to get this shot as it changed position.

Inchworms are actually larval stages of butterflies and moths, and initial research indicates that this is most likely a wavy-lined emerald moth (Synchlora aerata) larva, since it appears to be the only species of Synchlora known to do this. You might compare this behavior to the spider crab that I featured earlier.

I took these photos at night, which was both a blessing and a curse. A curse, because the wind had kicked up and all of the plants were swaying unpredictably, making even focusing hard. A blessing, in that the temperature had dropped significantly, so not only was I no longer sweating like a sumo, I wasn’t in danger of sunburn. Plus, there’s a lot more activity at night.

I have gotten to know not only several species of insect, but individuals as well. A spotted orbweaver spider (Neoscona crucifera) lives in a tight nook under the porch overhang by day, to emerge at dusk and recreate her circular web every evening, recycling the material by eating it each morning before she retreats into hiding for the day; I have to remember where she likes to be each night so I don’t walk through the web. Two large female praying mantises used to occupy the pampas grass in the yard, until one lost the territorial battle to the other – I found this out while the loser was half-eaten by the victor (I knew some, only some, species did this as mating behavior, but not as rivalry.) I see the winner every couple of days, and know that an egg sac is imminent. I’ll have to watch for it when I cut back the pampas grass in the winter, since if I have the species right, the egg sac will overwinter and hatch new young out in the spring.


Another mantis occupies the small bush right alongside the flowers shown. I’m fairly certain this one is a male, judging from the size and body shape, and for a couple of weeks I didn’t see him at all, until I encountered him again last night. The bush is only a meter across and globular, so not a large area at all, but he avoids the heat of the day by remaining deep inside, to emerge at night when things get cooler. The deep color of his eyes is typical of their night mode, but finding out what exactly is at work here has proven difficult. It seems clear that the green pigmentation during the day helps camouflage the mantis, and the curious “false pupil” that they exhibit, which makes any person seeing them think irresistibly that the mantis is looking right smack at them, may help warn off predation by birds which are often sensitive to eye contact. I’ve observed that behavior numerous times while rehabilitating raptors – staring is considered a threat, and far worse than talking (which shouldn’t be done either, but we rarely think about eye contact.)

Anyway, those dark eyes presumably help with night vision, otherwise why should there be any change? But what change is actually taking place isn’t clear, though there are some indications that the reduction in pigmentation allows more light to come into the eyes obliquely, making mantis vision less precise but more effective in terms of light-detection. The same source of this info also threw out another curiosity: while I thought that the mantids would be hunting more at night, since that’s when I see both them and prey species active the most, this may not be the case, and night activity is strictly sexual. I’m not sure about this, since they may have only meant the particular species under study, and my photo subject here seemed to be exhibiting stalking behavior. This tied in with the visual resolution that was related in the paper as well: most insects with compound eyes seem able to see only one “spot” from each facet (actually a rudimentary eye in itself,) and create an impression of their surroundings from this collection of spots. This isn’t all that different from us, where we have a collection of spots from each photoreceptor cell in our eyes, but we can focus, while insects have no way to perform this function. So what they respond to are changes in individual spots, making movement and shadows the primary way of spotting prey and danger. Since my night vision isn’t all that hot itself, I was relying on a flashlight, which threw shadows with every move – my photo subject here was displaying some quick, precise movements which put me in mind of chasing down prey, though I was seeing nothing to capture myself. This may have been because he was seeing the shifting shadows and misinterpreting them.

I encountered one more known resident last night. If you remember the ambush bug from a few weeks back, this is a continuation of that story. Later visits turned up a second one nearby, while the flowers were all dying off, so I collected the new one and transplanted it to this flower patch which was much more active. Initially, I placed it on the same flowers as the inchworm, but it abandoned my choice within the day to reappear two days later on the same species it had occupied when I found it (I stand corrected!) Then it had disappeared for a while, only to be spotted again last night. It stands out like a sore thumb against the petals and flower center, but blends in quite well with the base where it likes to spend its time during the day, so I’m surmising this is primarily a night hunter as well.

All of these, and several other insect photos from last night, were collected in an area smaller than a bedroom, one of the reasons I pursue so much macro work. I barely have to step outside to see a wide variety of both species and activity, and now know several well enough to recognize them on sight, and learn some behavioral traits from them at the same time. None of this requires any special travel, blinds, or even preparations to observe, and everything seen here was spotted on decorative plant species in groomed areas of the yard. It’s a safari right under our noses.

So if you have kids that keep bringing home bugs to show you, introduce them instead to the art of observing in place, as well as web research on what they’ve found – you think I knew any bit of this when I got the photos? Hell, no – I’m not educated in the slightest. But I feel obligated to find out, especially when I’m showing them off to you, so it means that I keep expanding my store of knowledge just because I keep looking for interesting photo subjects. Don’t discourage this in your kids, and in fact, get them a journal to keep observation notes (I think I just found another post subject.) It’s a behavior well worth fostering.

The information age

Al Denelsbeck

I was just sitting here a few minutes ago answering e-mail, and felt something shake the chair I was in gently, as if a strong gust of wind had shaken the house, but if there was a sound, it was at the edge of hearing. Went outside to see what might have caused it, but found nothing even remotely likely. I thought I might have had my first encounter with infrasound.

…Until The Girlfriend called from a neighboring city and asked if I’d felt it too. Okay, that’s not infrasound. A quick web search revealed a 5.8 magnitude quake hit central Virginia about five minutes before I felt it. If you want to see comparative distances, think “Raleigh NC” for where I am when looking at the map.

I hope the damage, and especially the injuries, are at a minimum at the epicenter. I sit here amazed that I could find the answer so distinctly within ten minutes of the actual event. When I was growing up, I had to rely on the TV news and radio, and might have heard nothing until 6 PM. You kids have it lucky…

No flag at the summit

Al Denelsbeck

In working on an earlier post, a particular observation suddenly leapt out at me, making me wonder if skeptics and critical-thinkers need to put a little more emphasis on a different approach. Whether it is sufficient to increase the number of people reached will remain to be seen.

Some of us mix it up on forums, websites, bulletin boards, and whatever, addressing the various flaws of religious belief (and religion in general.) Not surprisingly, this does lead to some defensiveness, regardless of the approach, and even results in accusations of being mean, shrill and strident from those supposedly working towards the same goals. Yet, there’s a difference in perspective that I suspect is rarely realized.

Here’s the deal: religion, to many, is worn proudly, almost a title. It’s a conspicuous indication of their status which is, in a word, “good” – witness the number of crucifixes you see worn, not to mention the bumper-stickers displayed. No one can reasonably believe that any god should need such armbands to identify the faithful – these are intended to send a message to other people. Further, religion is a bastion of ultimate authority, which means that their religiously-inspired views on subjects are backed by an unquestionably “correct” source. It’s god, it’s good, end of argument. Naturally, this leads to a certain level of elitism, and the attitude that their standpoint is sacrosanct. But there are also competing religions, which means people of radically different views are vying for the title of being “right.” For many aspects, there are no half-measures, no grey areas – it is all about absolutes. An action is either good or it isn’t, and while people can vary greatly, they can in theory be completely “good.”

Skeptics, however, maintain that no standpoint is free from examination, and thus no authority acceptable as “ultimate.” The definition of “good” is not deity-based, but revolves around actually being an improvement over both “bad” and “so-so” – it is defined by comparison, in other words. Absolutes are an abstraction, and not attainable, but we can still select actions that are further in that direction than others. Humans themselves do not gain infallibility either, regardless of the scripture invoked as support (most especially when that scripture is contradictory and does not coincide with physical reality.) So the authority of religious people, the moral high ground that they feel they occupy, does not exist. What, and who, is “better” must be demonstrated with actual improvement or useful information.

All too often, neither side (loathe as I am to assign two sides to such things, it serves a purpose here for the time being) recognizes the viewpoint of the other. Religious people whose authority is questioned or denied feel that they are yielding to some greater authority – that skeptics are challenging them for the title, in essence placing the religious below the skeptics. Skeptics, on the other hand, fail to see the reliance on position and class-consciousness in their opponents, since they are arguing from a standpoint of demonstrable benefit, and value from evidence. They do not hope to claim the title, only to see that no one has it, since it doesn’t actually exist. They are not stepping above the religious, only making them realize we are all at the same level.

To be sure, this does not characterize everyone in the arena, and couldn’t possibly. Some religious folk are very circumspect in the authority claimed for themselves; some skeptics really do consider themselves smarter and more capable than the religious. None of this is helped by the frequent confusion of the argument with the arguer, from either.

From a skeptics’ standpoint, it may be useful to remain aware of this. Treating religion, and by extension the religious, as “bad” is not only offensive, it’s not going to be accepted as an argument – religion is what defines “good.” Instead, wouldn’t it be better to concentrate on demonstrations of the flaws and difficulties, most especially with scripture being a guide towards moral behavior? Anything seen as an attempt to take away or eradicate religion will often be seen as denying goodness itself. It is very likely to meet stronger resistance than questioning how one resolves the contradictions – and, for instance, the biblical stance on slavery and women’s rights (women’s whut?) Most especially, and this holds true for any debate, any approach that conveys a message, even subtly, that skeptics are smarter than the faithful is not going to go over well.

Carl Sagan demonstrated one of the best approaches in his book, The Demon-Haunted World. He rarely, if ever, provided a conclusion, but instead asked penetrating questions: “If A is true, shouldn’t we then expect B?” Couched in terms of logical puzzles, it avoided the aspect of assigning blame to anyone or expressing flaws directly, and without a target, there is essentially no victim.

Without careful attention paid to our approach, skeptics are as susceptible as anyone else to seeing discussions and debates in terms of an opponent, a competition on the personal level, rather than in terms of ideas. There are no winners nor losers, but simply the effective communication of our respective viewpoints. While there may certainly be issues that fit into the classifications of “right” and “wrong,” this shouldn’t be our goal; instead we need to illustrate how one approach is demonstrably better than another. The focus may be directed away from such goals, and it takes great diligence not to be dragged with it, or roped into emotional debates.

Sides are unavoidable in many situations, but finding common ground can often dodge this aspect. We are all human, after all, and primarily motivated by the same things. Someone may see following their scripture as good, while someone else defines doing the least harm to the greatest number of people as good… but both are seeking good. Regardless of whether we feel there is a top to the mountain or not, we agree that “up” is where we want to go. And while there can be many paths, some are more useful than others. The emphasis should remain on the path itself, however, and not on who found it.

The mailbag

Al Denelsbeck

Hi, all you spambots out there! You’ve been sending me so many fascinating comments that I’ve been neglecting, so I thought I’d sit down and finally answer some choice selections. I’m sorry that I can’t get to all of you, but I can say that I appreciate your efforts nonethemore. Also, for those of you who included links (which seems to have been most of you, come to think of it,) I’m sorry to say that advertising actually costs money on this site, so if you want to link to something other than your personal blog or something relevant to the topic you’re commenting on, you need to send some money along.

To any other readers that might exist, this is real spam that I’ve received, a small sample of between 5 and 50 a day now. It is a variation of Turing Test, I think, that shows that I can keep the robots coming back at least.

This morning We threw up with a board meeting. I had been sure the cat seemed to be out of the bag, however no one seemed to assume anything about it; apparently it’s quite common for people to throw up at table meetings.

The urge is certainly there, according to those who have to attend regularly, but the bigger problem seems to be verbal diarrhea.

Hmm, I see your point. Oh well, excellent work none the less.

I thank you for the feedback, and will try harder to be more vague.

Hi there, I found your blog via Google while searching for first aid for a heart attack and your post

I have to remind everyone to read the directions: they explicitly say “not to be taken together.”

People currently undergoing cardiac arrest are advised against rollerblading, operating heavy machinery, and websurfing.

it cerebrate deployment this illumination online is enterpriser absurd (excepting civilize) hint. As others hearer acclaimed, gifted topographic meetups is keen if you’re harmony the boundary, at least similarly you’ll arrogate pending achieve projector larger paper.

It’s spelled, “Babelfish,” not, “Babblefish.”

I can agree with you but of course this isnt the case… another question: what would you do if I had 3 million dollar?

All I can say is that you should’ve agreed with me…

I will be attending an interview with a magnetic bit holder this Monday. I am excited.

Who wouldn’t be?! I ache with envy.

I find this very difficult to ejaculate to.. . -Thought I’d mix it up from the masturbate :3

And here I thought I was putting in enough photos of bugs and spiders, but there’s no accounting for taste, I guess…

i want to buy an apple ipad but am unsure if its a good buy. What are the good and bad points?

If you buy two, you can glue them to your feet and skate on the carpet. Also, using one in public means you no longer have to tell everyone you have more money than sense. The downside is, the only way for one to project a holographic image of Steve Jobs smiling down on All Creation is by using Flash…

*The next time I read a blog, I hope that it doesnt disappoint me as much as this one. I mean, I know it was my choice to read, but I actually thought youd have something interesting to say. All I hear is a bunch of whining about something that you could fix if you werent too busy looking for attention.

The fuck would I want to fix something?! It’s a blog, Feynman!

[The comment above was posted by the screenname “Diaper Rash Healing” on this post, by the way.]

Hey, I think your website might be having browser compatibility issues. When I look at your blog in IE, it looks fine but when opening in Internet Explorer, it has some overlapping.

[Sigh] If I had a nickel…

Okay, that’s it for today, bots! Come back in another 255 posts for another discussion of vomiting and whacking off! Until then, keep… – uhh, never mind…

That’s where I draw the line

Al Denelsbeck2 Comments

There have been some interesting discussions coming up of late within skeptical circles, largely based on a survey report regarding religiosity in select populations of the US. The critical thinker in me starts asking these sneaky little questions, as usual, but in this case the answers may not be evident without a lot of examination. Bear with me a moment, here.

The census report in question is the US Religious Landscape Survey, conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life. The report illustrated some remarkable trends about racial and sexual demographics and the levels of religiosity within them. Now, the politically correct method of referring to people of darker skin color due to more recent African residence than the greater population is “African-American,” but I’m simply going to refer to such distinctions throughout this post as “black,” partially because there is no definition of “recent” (we all came from Africa,) but more because I’ve always found the phrase awkward and downright stupid. The premise is that the word “black” has negative connotations, but this is a serious stretch in any culture. But anyway, when we look at the report for percentages of populations, we find that secularism and atheism show noticeable departures from the average population in several demographics. In other words, men are more likely than women to be secular, and whites significantly more likely than non-whites (often referred to as “People of Color” or “PoC,” another stupid phrase.)

Among those that are activists, this is a call for action – only, which action? Two recent posts over at Friendly Atheist address this question, which is not to say that they answer it. With, perhaps, good reason: nobody is really sure why these differences exist. It is demonstrated that blacks overall attend church far more often, pray more often, and profess belief in a god to a higher degree. But what is the connection between blacks and religion?

In the middle of this sits one of the unwarranted conclusions: that white male atheists are doing something to exclude everyone else. Many people are proceeding on this assumption without actually determining if such a thing exists, which is a really hypocritical thing for any skeptic to be doing. We’re usually quite aware of confirmation bias, where someone pays attention only to confirming evidence for some belief, and ignores contradictory evidence. If we are pre-convinced that white males are discouraging others (because we’re misinterpreting what these survey figures mean,) we can then find evidence of this – but from what I’ve seen, the evidence that’s been presented has been so ambiguous and ephemeral that it can hardly be considered to explain the numbers from the report.

Let’s look at some other ideas for a moment. Women are underrepresented in areas such as hunting, fishing, and motorcycle riding. Men are underrepresented in areas such as artistic painting, knitting, and herbalism/alt med/homeopathy. UFO and comic book conventions see men (well, males.) Psychic and astrological conventions see women. I think it’s safe to say that nobody thinks that either men or women are excluded from any of these things by some prevalent attitude or action of the other – we accept that these reflect current interests, whatever the underlying motivation, and aren’t in need of correcting the abject bigotry.

Some might argue that these differences reflect older cultural norms, the remaining influence of male-dominated societies – men did “manly” things things like hunting, and women did “womanly” things like keeping house. But we have to be careful with easy answers like that. In the past half-century, the art world went from a male-centric pursuit to weighted towards females, though women seem to pursue art as a hobby a little more often than as a career. Up until recently, “chef” meant “male,” but it certainly didn’t take long for this to change. Blaming the lack of change on any gender influence doesn’t hold up very well – cultures can adapt quickly to desires.

So we should feel obligated to seek why there is such a radical difference between, for example, black atheists and white. And even to wonder if we’re not looking at the numbers effectively.

If I were to say, “There are far fewer atheists among regular churchgoers than average,” you’d congratulate me on this amazing display of logic and give me a cookie (if you were as sarcastic as I usually am.) We don’t, for instance, see any particular group of churchgoers as a target demographic for skeptical outreach – we simply address religious belief as a whole, to the population at large. Alternately, I am not using a “whites only” website, host, or browser compatibility – those of us pursuing skepticism on the web reach about as broad an audience as is possible. Also notable among skeptics, the percentage of LGBT (lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender) population is significantly higher than the average – but is this because same-sex issues are given higher priority than racial, or simply because prejudice against sexual orientation is predominantly religious? Moreover, should we feel the need to reach out to the “straight community” to make the numbers more representative of the population at large?

Rap, R&B, Gospel, and Soul music are predominantly black. It’s safe to say that this is not from whites being excluded, but instead from a cultural (or subcultural if you prefer) influence. We all may identify better with a particular style of music, choice of car, choice of pet, vacation destination – whatever. We’re not excluded from the others, we just happen to prefer our choices. Bars, restaurants, and even local theaters may have a collection of “regulars,” which doesn’t mean that either the venue or the patrons exclude anyone else, but simply that the regulars are most comfortable in that environment.

The poll actually demonstrates this, too; it’s rather disturbing that many people never got down to this portion. When broken up, the numbers of black churchgoers is incredibly biased towards “historic black protestant churches,” even over “mainline protestant” and “evangelical protestant.” But this is no surprise – protestantism, especially southern baptism, was the first to become open to blacks following emancipation, and churches are, if nothing else, a community affair, relying heavily on tradition. Catholicism was very slow to open up to blacks, and upholds its strong roots to Europe – I’m also not making anybody’s eyebrows shoot up in shock when I point out that the Italian population, not just in this country, favors catholicism to a significant margin. We have to consider the idea that churchgoing is as much a black cultural thing as R&B music. Hell, we already know that the social interactions and status that churchgoing provides is one of the anchors of resistance to secular appeals.

There is another tricky part as well: black churchgoers are a part of the national average of churchgoers, from which we base our idea of averages to begin with. Are Italian-Americans underrepresented within the atheist/secular numbers? Well, nobody seems to have asked – and in fact, if former nationality were used as a division, a lot of people would have started getting upset, wondering why such a distinction needed to be made. Quite frankly, that’s a good point in itself.

When it comes to skepticism, critical-thinking, and decreasing the influence of religion in areas where it doesn’t belong, there isn’t anything that makes one population more or less susceptible than any other. The things that I cover on this site are human traits, and demonstrate no racial variations – in fact, there is no such thing as “racial” variation, since humans can interbreed with humans all over the world. While it is possible that some subtle influence would display a bias at any given point (like my typing in nothing but US English, or my use of slang and cultural references,) the distinction must be made between minor issues that might not resonate as much with blacks, females, or some other particular demographic (e.g., people that hate bugs,) and behavior that specifically excludes, denigrates, or condescends to such groups. Those are huge differences.

We even have a problem with defining the groups in the first place. Skin color is an easy out, but it’s not defined very well. Does it include Mediterranean and Egyptian? Mulatto and Filipino? Well, it’s self-reported, so it reflects the culture that someone wants to identify with, for the most part. We don’t even have a good reason to reach blacks in some distinct and separate way from all others, and trying to do so implies that there is something more different than skin color, which is getting into dangerous territory. We run the risk of many advertisers, who try to associate their product with basketball or hip-hop and instead look stupid, as well as pointing out that some special approach is needed in the first place. While more subtle than what we usually think of as racism, this still qualifies.

It’s okay, and in fact encouraged, to look for things that we might actually be doing to exclude any group in particular (and that’s an invitation for anyone to speak up in the comments regarding this site itself.) But separation of any group does not denote exclusion automatically, it simply denotes a smaller “community.” And community is a loaded term in itself. While the immediate implication is social bonding with like-minded people, it also serves to draw lines in front of those who do not “belong.”

I, for instance, am not part of an atheist “community” – it is a standpoint, not a movement, and I really don’t care whether someone joins up or not. I concern myself with the flaws of religions precisely because they create their own in-groups, ostracize people and behaviors that have no adverse effect on society as a whole, and rely on uncritical acceptance of certain posits, which leads to poor decision-making. Part of the reason this is so hard in the first place is because of religion’s acceptance within the “community,” and the amount of people who prefer to let others do their thinking for them, who want to belong. But “belong” shouldn’t take precedence over “right,” or even over “rational,” so I emphasize these latter two standards. Maybe that’s just me ;-)

Too cool, part 10: Bang!

Al Denelsbeck


I’ve related this in part elsewhere on the site, but I thought it deserved its own post, especially since it was one of the more memorable experiences from a few years ago.

When I lived in Florida, I started “maintaining” a small saltwater aquarium to house photo subjects and interesting marine critters. Being close to both the ocean and the Indian River Lagoon, a large isolated saltwater sound inside the barrier islands facing the Atlantic, I had lots of access to the aquatic residents. I could bicycle down to the lagoon to snorkel, and did this frequently. Mostly, what I saw were crabs, barnacles, and oysters, but I had encounters with dolphins, manatees, stingrays, and jellyfish too.

Now, I put “maintaining” this aquarium in quotes above because I did not manage this as most people manage saltwater aquariums with their exotic tropical fish. There was no careful measuring of pH levels, no purchases of salt and mineral mix, no consideration of compatible species, and no filtering. Instead, I obtained water directly from the lagoon a few times a week, simply aerated or circulated, and whatever I caught that I had an interest in had to fend for itself. I had a basic heater to maintain the water at roughly the same temperature as the sound, and not much else. I couldn’t filter, since many species that I caught were filter feeders themselves and relied on microorganisms in the water.

I had no underwater photography gear, so the tank allowed me to photograph various small catches under controlled conditions, where lighting and setting, as well as water clarity, were not up for grabs. While most critters stayed only a few days at best, several of my subjects became long-term residents, as keeping them required little more than fresh water and seaweeds, and they thrived surprisingly well. I’m pretty ambiguous about fish, but I like crustaceans, so I had several porcelain crabs, a handful of fascinating little grass shrimp, numerous small anemones, and a tiny flounder that I caught by chance, slightly larger than a quarter.

One catch stymied me, though. Basically, it was a 8 cm (3 in) “lobster” in deep green fading to blue-white on the underside, with one pincer being huge and misshapen, tumorous-looking. It bore some resemblance to a crayfish, but slimmer, and I was pretty sure there were no saltwater crayfish. Web searches turned up nothing – what do you search on, especially when, like me, you have no knowledge of marine biology? It was very shy and remained hidden, so I kept it for a few weeks as I worked out ways to photograph it in a decent setting.

Some nights, down at a dock collecting water and whatever nocturnal denizens I could spot, I heard a very sharp clack! nearby, like a small stone hitting a rock at high velocity. Absolutely no one was around, and the area I would hear it from, less than a few meters away, was often devoid of rocks above the surface. I found it hard to believe that anything beneath the surface would produce a sound in this pitch (usually water reduces the pitch,) so this remained a mystery. I was keeping a loose journal of observations at the time, and in that I speculated on things like archer fish, the species that hunts insects above the surface by spitting water droplets at them, but even then, this seemed implausible.

Sometimes, while snorkeling, I’d hear it too, and one day I got a series of them while trying to extricate a small crab from a crevice in a piling. Aha! But the pitch seemed a little off, and certainly not as loud.

Then, one night when I was almost asleep, the tank produced a sound like a marble hitting the side, and I immediately got up to see if one of the glass sides had fractured. But no cracks, leaks, or chips were visible in the slightest, and nothing that could fall over to strike the side. I had several crab species in the tank at this time, but able to produce so sharp a noise? Naaahhh…

You have, of course, already made the connection since I didn’t structure this tale as a murder mystery, but this was an ongoing curiosity to me for a while – until I stumbled across an illustration for a pistol shrimp, sometimes called snapping shrimp, while doing some online research. And suddenly realized just how cool one of my residents really was.


Pistol shrimp (Alpheus heterochaelis) have a unique way of obtaining food. That misshapen claw (chelae) houses a simple mechanism that allows the thumb (dactylus) to open and lock in place, cocked like a gun, to be released under great muscular force when a food source is nearby. The shape of the claw and the velocity of it slamming closed produces a shock wave that stuns nearby prey, whereupon the shrimp can amble over and eat it leisurely – and of course, the shock wave was what I was hearing. The sound has to be heard to be believed, since it’s surprisingly loud. Bear in mind that this method of hunting is not a contact system but works at short distances, most especially on prey that can be affected by pressure. I cannot attempt to explain this as “non-aggressive,” since this is predation and not scavenging or foraging, but the shy pistol shrimp doesn’t have to throw down with its prey in full-contact sport, but opens its can of WhupAss (well-shaken it would seem) from a safe distance, bringing a gun to what is almost always a knife fight throughout the environment.

Even more interesting, the force actually causes a cavitation bubble to appear (cool video,) momentarily creating a region of vacuum in the water within the immediate vicinity of The Claw, and this can at times even produce a tiny flash of light called sonoluminescence This is not visible to the naked eye so I never witnessed this myself, and in fact only got to see the behavior in action once. This occurred when I introduced a fist-sized thinstripe hermit crab (Clibanarius vittatus) into the tank for the afternoon, to obtain some images. While the crab sat, minding its own business atop a rock, the pistol shrimp obviously had some difficulties with its presence. I watched as, several times, the shrimp eased out from under a rock, slipped up to the hermit crab from behind, and placed The Claw right against one of the crab’s legs, firing off a shot at point-blank range before darting back under cover. The crab, perhaps with smug condescension, showed absolutely no reaction at all to this treatment. No, I didn’t get any pics of this happening, since my observation angle was poor and setting up the camera and lights likely would have halted the action.

A perfectly legitimate question is to ask how something like this could have evolved (yet it is illegitimate, when unable to fathom this, to assume it could not have.) But grasping appendages and claws to break apart food are common, so the significant difference here is the speed and shape of such producing a shock wave. Yet almost all chelae would, to some extent, and sounds can be used for communication and threat displays as well, so have multiple reasons to be refined by evolution. Anything that produces a sound (which is really just pressure waves in the medium, in this case water) that can affect something else at short distances can obtain prey without contact, and even a tiny distance is an advantage. It is also fairly likely that, long ago, the prey species were easier to stun too, and both the defensive pressure resistance of the prey, and the sonic ability of the pistol shrimp, increased in competition with each other over thousands of generations of each. I’m just sorry I can’t be around in a few thousand more generations to watch blaster shrimp nailing their food with sonoluminescent laser bolts…

If you were sharp-eyed above (or have seen the image in the photo gallery of the site,) you noticed the eggs carried in the pleopods (swimming appendages under the tail) of the pistol shrimp in my tank. Nothing ever came of this, possibly because there was no male handy to fertilize them. Below, a family portrait from the aquarium, showing a transparent grass shrimp (atop the rock and facing the camera), two tiny hermit crabs, and even the flounder, mostly buried in the crushed shell at bottom – directly under the larger hermit crab can be seen one of the googly eyes, and the darker region to the right of that is the top surface of the fish.


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