A few months back, I shot this Tolkienesque scene on the side of the river nearby, actually on the same outing that I chased down this special assignment. To get this angle, I was flat on my belly on a rock at the edge of the river, with my legs extending behind me into the water, far enough that my shorts were getting wet. That’s the kind of extremes I go to in pursuit of my interests.
Okay, granted, it’s not exactly National Geographic caliber hardships, but I’m not getting paid what those photographers are, either, so there! In fact, now that it’s online this pic will probably get ripped off.
Anyway, aside from simply showing it off, the point I’m making is that interesting compositions sometimes require a vantage that many people don’t consider. Looking down on these roots at your feet wouldn’t be half as compelling, and have none of the depth that this shows. While a lot of nature photography (and many other genres) require finding a good subject to begin with, it’s also important to try and render it in a captivating or dramatic way. This does sometimes mean getting wet or dirty, or doing something awkward or uncomfortable, but a wet crotch until I got home was worth the resulting images. I tend to think people are way too neurotic about getting dirty anyway – we’ve gotten far too soft. Flop down and get the shot. As Calvin’s dad says, it builds character.
This is another post inspired by Demon Haunted World, and if I find out that you haven’t read this book yet, I’m going to come to your house and smack you in the back of the head with a rolled up e-magazine…
Yet despite my promotion of this book, I’m going to highlight something that I find misleading within it. Sagan lists a quote from Ethan Allen, who said:
Those who invalidate reason ought seriously to consider whether they argue against reason with or without reason; if with reason, then they establish the principle that they are laboring to dethrone: but if they argue without reason (which, in order to be consistent with themselves they must do), then they are out of reach of rational conviction, nor do they deserve a rational argument.
This is something that I suspect everyone runs into from time to time, but of course it is especially known among skeptics. Or at least, we think we run into it; in truth, there’s often something else entirely at work, and it bears recognition because it seriously affects our approach.
When it comes right down to it, very few people argue against reason itself, at least as a principle, which is how Allen was referring to it. Virtually no one actually finds reason or rationality to be a bad thing, nor do they ever consider themselves to display irrational behavior at any time – the same may be said for ‘evil’. The conflict invariably comes in because different people have different standards of reason and rationality, and to argue that someone is being irrational will almost certainly be ineffective – it becomes nothing but an ad hominem attack and is quickly dismissed.
Let’s take, for example, those that believe many UFO reports are indications of visiting alien life forms. They did not pick this subject to champion at random, or because it seemed silly; they are convinced because of such factors as the large number of reports, the detailed descriptions, and even the likelihood of life having arisen on other planets, among perhaps many others. These are not irrational reasons in the slightest, and nothing to be dismissive of, if we’re being honest with ourselves. Using myself as an example, I fail to be convinced of alien visitations because of factors that counter those, such as the huge market for visitation stories, the complete lack of corroboration, the ability for people to drastically misjudge what they see, and the wanton disregard for physical laws. I might be considered irrational for placing more weight on these, but this is only because the standards of reasonable evidence are different from person to person.
For those who want to advocate critical thinking, this is important to recognize. We can’t arbitrarily decide who is rational and who isn’t, and the criteria should not include such concepts in the slightest. Instead, we have to make a case for the alternatives, and be able to demonstrate that such alternatives carry greater weight, or at the very least, throw some doubt into the mix. Eyewitness testimony is often considered highly reliable in regards to witnessing UFO activity, but not when it comes to fishing stories – why the double-standard? Our goal is to raise such questions and compare the evidence for popular or favored phenomena against the evidence for mundane explanations. It’s a little like a court case: if reasonable doubt exists, no firm conclusion can or should be reached, but reasonable doubt is not self-evident – it must be enumerated, patiently and without antagonism.
This is, most likely, what Phil Plait was trying to communicate with his infamous Don’t Be A Dick speech (it was the follow-through that sucked.) Active skeptics sometimes take for granted the mental process of comparing exceptions and alternative explanations, but too few people have even been exposed to such things, much less have adopted them as routine. While most disciplines of science require the examination, and ruling out, of alternative explanations before some new discovery can be considered valid, such rigor isn’t common in humanity overall. People tend to rely more on personal accounts and their instincts for what ‘feels right.’
One of the most difficult of factors to deal with in such claims is the emotional one. For whatever reason, any individual may find the idea of extraterrestrial life to be a fascinating concept, and it is this fascination which can, very often, affect just how much weight is given to any particular piece of evidence. The same might be said for government conspiracies, alternative medicine, religion, and so on. Emotionally favored ideas mean that once some factor in support of this favor is found, the individual generally stops looking, and certainly doesn’t consider if counter-evidence exists. We actually do this constantly throughout our lives – think of your favorite food. Is it rational to like it? Does it really do something good for you, or fulfill needs better than alternatives – or do you just like it for the taste? Is that really a good reason? Or, for that matter, a bad reason? That’s an example of emotional versus rational commitment. Countering this is sometimes pretty hard, and we should never expect it to happen quickly.
What we can do, however, is to offer the alternatives, the explanations, and the exceptions, to provide at the least the myriad reasons why some particular kind of evidence can be called into question. We can demonstrate what it is that makes us pause and question some conclusion, especially if we can provide counter examples (like the fishing story above.) Most especially, we need to detach from the idea of either emotional commitment, or the relative comparisons of intellect, if we want to have any affect at all. We shouldn’t look down in the slightest on those that don’t see things as we do, but only make the effort to explain why we see it differently.
I’ll be the first to admit that this isn’t easy, and that I’m guilty of not heeding my own advice on numerous occasions. We tend to see things as personal conflicts, especially when faced with arrogant or dismissive attitudes towards ourselves, but that’s a trap, a way of driving us away from our goals. We need to view our activities, despite provocation, as efforts to improve the standards, to critically examine the evidence, to catch the flaws before someone else does. Most especially, we need to demonstrate that questioning doesn’t stop at a preferred answer, and/or that preferred answers don’t actually exist – facts are facts regardless of our preference for them.
That raises another issue, again seen far too often, which is the arbitrary interpretation of facts. What someone sees or hears is generally simple stimuli of sensory organs, interpreted by the brain into an idea of something known and, usually, expected. They may then communicate their interpretations, and not the stimuli itself, when describing the event. But like the meanings behind literature, interpretations do not necessarily indicate accuracy, and may reflect either preconceptions of the interpreter or even suggestions from others. UFO enthusiasts absolutely hate birds, military flares, and the planet Venus, because they keep blocking witness’ views of alien spacecraft. But like it or not, if someone was looking at a clear sky in that specific direction and could not place the spaceship in relation to the highly-visible planet nearby, they probably didn’t see a spaceship. As for movement, the moon really rips across the sky on the nights that a stiff wind is blowing high thin clouds…
The point is, in order for something to be a compelling explanation, there must be no exceptions, no possibility of mistake, no way of misinterpreting it. And the skeptic’s job is to present this concept in a useful manner. There will naturally be resistance, so our goal should never be to win, but only to raise that niggling little question and let it grow on its own. Doubt is a very hardy weed, and once started, requires some very firm evidence to kill off.
There have been a couple of things I’ve been working on and trying to update, and I finally have them available, so this post is simply a short list of new things available on the site.
I mentioned earlier that I would include a tutorial on removing noise, and so I have:it can be found here. Bear in mind that this is limited to noise from bad sensor pixels, the kind that shows up in many images, especially low-light or long exposure shots. The other kind of noise, usually multi-colored speckling from low light or high ISO, is a very involved thing to remove, and the tutorial would be much longer, but I still may get to that someday.
I might have to start teaching my students directly about the next one, which is how to effectively resize an image. I’m still amazed at how few people understand this, and how many websites I see where the images load slowly because no one knows how to make their images web-sized. You can save a lot of download time and server load by making web and e-mail photos the right size, and get better results from your prints too.
Last year I provided instructions on making a year-long guide to rise and set times for the sun and moon, and I have updated it for 2012 (formatting and leap year stuff.) Call me optimistic, but I didn’t cut it off after December 21st, either. It’s admittedly a bit fussy, but you only have to do it once and then have a quick reference for the sun and moon for the year, which you’re going to use frequently to get those great landscapes and ‘golden hour‘ shots, right?
And I figure I’ll just mention this here, rather than make another post about it. You may recall my taking Cecil Adams of “The Straight Dope” to task on his wishy-washy answer to the question, “Does god Exist?“, and apparently I wasn’t the only one. Yesterday, he responded to one of his detractors in a disparaging way, claiming that he really was making the point of how weak the Cosmological Argument is. I’ll be blunt: bullshit. If you’ve ever read the details of some of his answers, you’ll know that he’s more than capable of getting past the appearance of importance to deal with the crucial details, and if anything, his advisory staff is even better. Even the Straight Dope Message Board handed him his ass over the reply, which is no doubt what prompted the revisit. That he couldn’t do so without both shameless backpedaling and several petty digs is just a lack of character.
I didn’t initially intend it this way, but we’ve been working through a scale of increasing difficulty and effort in this series, starting with insects, then working through birds, then reptiles, and come finally to mammals. In my journeys, mammals have been the hardest to photograph and observe, for a number of reasons. So my first warning is, be patient, and be prepared for not seeing very much.
We tend to relate more to mammals, it appears, not perhaps for the least of which that we ourselves belong to that order, but to be honest, I think it’s more because mammals display both more apparent emotion through their eyes and expressions, and have more behavior that we recognize – or at least, think that we do. More on this shortly. First, our lists.
What do I need? This list is short, because mammal observation doesn’t benefit from many materials at all.
Flashlight. As before, a head-mounted one works better, and of course, spare batteries. Many mammals are far more active at night, so expect to spend some nights outside. Additionally, most mammals have reflective eyes, so a head-mounted flashlight provides a light source close to your own eyes, minimizing the reflection angle and increasing your likelihood of spotting something.
Appropriate clothing. The temperature often drops at night, and you may well be in rough country, so dress for trailblazing, with layers you can add or remove as needed. Since mammals rely on their noses to some extent, skip the perfumey detergents or softeners – and for that matter, cologne or scented toiletries on your body as well. Camouflage is better than, for instance, high-contrast clothing, but not absolutely necessary. The color vision of many mammals is limited in certain ways – not necessarily ‘color blindness,’ but often the inability to distinguish a wide range of colors. Usually, muted and darker colors are fine.
Measuring tape. Used for size of tracks and distance between, height of territorial marks, width of teeth marks, and the like. In a lot of cases, you’ll see more evidence of mammals than the mammals themselves, and this can help detail what, exactly, you’re seeing evidence of.
Collecting bags. Unlike the reptiles, these are used more for the evidence itself rather than collecting species. Usually ziplock plastic bags, film cans, or something similar work fine. In addition, tweezers or forceps for smaller or more gross items – you might actually be collecting feces for examination, if you’re serious ;-)
Binoculars. Again, good for identifying species from a distance, but not terribly high on the importance list – not like for birds.
The ability not to get lost. This is especially important if you’re trying to follow an animal trail at night. Orientation/trail skills, or a decent GPS unit, work very well here. I would add either area maps for the GPS, or a good knowledge ahead of time of the salient terrain features, like streams and ravines. These are distinct features that can tell you where you are, and direct you where you need to be. The typical topo maps, like the kind available from US Geological Survey, are often of limited use because they’re on a larger scale than a hiker can use. You’ll want fine detail.
Believe it or not, an identification guide is not really necessary, unless you’re trying to identify spoor (tracks, marks, feces.) Mammal species are usually quite distinct in an area, and easy to learn – most people can learn to tell a raccoon from an opossum pretty quickly ;-). And while identifying tracks can sometimes be useful, it requires terrain that leaves distinct tracks in the first place, like the mud at the edge of streams, or fine silty soil. Heavy forest, grasslands, and such terrain usually provide nothing to see, so while you might start tracking at a streamside, it becomes easy to lose the trail a short ways further on.
So, what am I looking for? Unlike the other classes we’ve covered, you’re likely to be doing as much detective work as you are actually seeing mammals, if not more. You’ll be looking for evidence that they’ve been around, especially if you’re doing anything in the day. This means tracks, trails through the tall grasses, feeding signs, freshly-dug small holes, and, occasionally, feces.
Start at the water. Everything needs water, but mammal species often leave the most distinct traces of their passing there. The fresher and more accessible, the better. Follow the edges of streams, looking for tracks and trails of flattened grass leading away. Also look for deposits of shells from molluscs and crayfish – this often indicates otters or raccoons. Steeper banks along deeper water often allows for entrances to beaver dens in the banks, but muskrats more often seek shallower areas because they eat grasses.
Spot the trails. Most times, this is simply an area of flattened grasses, so keep a sharp eye out. On the banks of water, you might see a smooth, cleared slide area often indicative of beavers – if so, you can often find anything from small sticks to limbs that have been cut, gnawed, or stripped of bark. Deer will often leave behind a large flattened section (about a meter across) in very deep grasses where they made their beds. However, wolves, foxes, raccoons, and opossums often have no trails at all, since they wander opportunistically looking for food.
In early mornings, occasionally you can find a very faint trail of overturned leaves, especially since they’ll have been damp on their undersides and this shows when disturbed. When the dewpoint arrived sometime in the night, occasionally a larger animal passing through high grass will have shaken off the dew there, leaving a very subtle trail that might be seen with the light at your back.
Listen! This is very important in spotting mammals. Their movements produce more sound than the others we’ve discussed, but it is still usually very subtle (the biggest exception, in my experience, is squirrels, which can produce a racket way out of proportion to their size.) The normal sounds of wind and such rarely produce little snaps or distinct rustles, so these are what you’re paying attention to. Freeze the moment you hear them and wait them out – if something is nearby, you’ll hear them again shortly. And of course, this means you can’t be sending your own signals, which animals are quite adept at listening for themselves, so you’ll be avoiding leaves, twigs, gravel, bubble wrap, and anything else that causes your feet to make noise. Find the bare patches or soft grasses, move slowly and gently, and pause very frequently.
Look! Well, this is obvious, but there are some good habits to get into. Most especially, any time you’re about to leave an area of, for instance, screening trees or tall grasses, pause just inside the edge and scan the open areas very carefully. There’s nothing like bursting out into the open to scare off something you could have seen easily, which also means that sticking to edges and cover helps a lot more than crossing open fields. Watch those stream banks carefully, and look for those breaks in patterns. Most mammals are brown or greyish-brown to varying degrees, and can be distinguished from foliage with a sharp eye, but often not as easily as believed (I’m amazed at how well deer disappear even a few meters into wooded areas.)
Patience. When you know you’re in an area that sees frequent activity, or hear something, or simply know it’s a good area, this is where you wait it out. Get comfortable if you can, and a camo blind or anything that screens your own subtle movements can help here, and of course, being in shade works better. The longer you can wait, the more you’ll be able to see. Animals that were alerted to your presence when you arrived have time to relax and reappear. Being on a slope or rise above good areas lets you have a much better view, but also be aware of what you look like yourself, and don’t silhouette yourself against the sky or something that shows your contrast. When photographing, you’re going to pick areas that give you a clear field of view and a good background, uncluttered and photogenic, preferably giving you something that contrasts from your chosen subjects to help them stand out.
Use the tire marks for comparison - yes, those are bear tracksTracks. This is a field of special education all its own, and I couldn’t do justice to it in a post. It depends on what you want to do; it’s easy to identify that tracks came from a mammal, for instance, and if that’s all you need to know then you’re set. But if you want to differentiate otters from raccoons, or skunks from cats, that takes a bit more effort, and a good tracking guide is recommended. If you suspect nighttime visitors, for instance, you can spread a layer of fine white sand or gypsum (drywall) powder in likely travel areas and check for tracks in the morning – the gypsum powder will make more distinctive tracks but needs to remain dry. Overall, however, tracks simply indicate that this is a good area to start observing.
Scat. Or poop, if you prefer. This can also be used to identify what’s been visiting, and gives a better indication of how recently than tracks will, but for reasons mysterious, you may not want to mess with it. Knowing the basic types helps a lot, however: deer, rabbit, raccoon, fox, and so on. If you’re unsure, poking through it (a stick, at least, is recommended) can reveal what the animal has been eating recently, through the presence of small bones, seeds, grains, et cetera. Of course, this means you must know what diet the species has as well.
Other signs. This might mean small holes dug into soft ground (or an excavated beehive,) saplings with small branches nibbled off, deposits of mollusc shells, patches of fur or feathers in one spot, and so on. Again, for these to mean something, you have to know what’s in your area and what its habits are. Many people think deer graze, like cows, but they browse instead, eating new shoots and saplings, berries, garden plants, and the like. They’ll strip off soft bark from saplings, but bucks (males) will also score it with their rack to mark territory and clear the velvet off new horns. A cluster of fur or a patch of feathers often denotes fox or wolf ate something there, but smaller cases might indicate raccoon or opossum, and sometimes either is an indication of birds-of-prey instead – it can be very tricky to tell which. Beavers and muskrats do not touch fish, being strictly vegetarian, so finding something that’s been feeding on molluscs and shellfish means raccoons and otters, most likely (I admit I’m sticking to North American species here from experience.) Beaver signs are easy to find, consisting of the obvious felled trees, but also twigs stripped of bark, especially floating or with a series of crosswise teethmarks, trees with bark stripped off up to half a meter off the ground, and of course, dams. In my area, there are virtually no lodges; instead, the beavers live in the banks, often under tree roots.
Interpreting behavior. This is actually much harder to do than it would seem, but because we tend to have a greater affinity for mammals than for birds or reptiles (or insects, imagine that,) we often fall for the trap that we know what they’re thinking, or what some particular aspect of behavior means. Yet, we may live around domesticated dogs or cats all of our lives and still not know what certain behaviors mean – we just think that we do. Virtually no animal thinks like us, or has the slightest reason to, and they all have their own particular social interactions. It’s best to simply keep very specific notes, remaining aware of all that you can, and leave the interpretations as mere speculation.
Imitation. I’ve mentioned this elsewhere, but many animals rely more on the behavior of other species, including us, than appearances. What this means is that behaving like a deer is actually more reassuring to a deer than looking like one. We have a wicked tendency to stop and stare when we see something, but this is actually predatory behavior, and often sends all kinds of warning signs to mammals (and birds too.) However, I have crept closer to deer and herons by imitating their behavior, especially that which sends the message that everything is cool. For herons, this was slow, lazy gazing around at the surroundings, careful steps in the shallow water, and preening behavior – yes, really; I was ducking, shrugging, and lifting my ‘wing’ to get at the ‘feathers’ on my side, and walked within 4 or 5 meters of a Great Blue Heron in Florida. For deer, this meant dipping my head low while wandering around slowly, examining the ground rather than them, and moving closer at an oblique angle rather than directly. It’s startling how well this can work, but overall, should only be attempted once you’ve already been spotted. Remaining motionless is still the best way to prevent discovery.
Stay safe! This must go hand-in-hand with the sections above. As tempting as it may be to get nice close photos, or to have that “special encounter,” most mammals can do us a great deal of damage if so inclined. From my years of doing wildlife rescue and rehabilitation, I have a scar on my shoulder from a cute little grey squirrel that someone had tried to raise as a pet, and raccoons are a species that I’ll handle only with a net. We really don’t know what behavior, what circumstances, what line, constitutes a threat to most species and invites an aggressive response, and once it occurs we’re likely in no position to deal with it. This applies even to habituated animals in parks and refuges. So the cardinal rule is, keep your distance, and always have your escape route. Don’t keep pushing your luck by seeing just how close you can get, or by believing that since nothing has happened so far, this will continue to hold true. Most especially, animals with young should be left entirely alone (as in, leave the area,) and mating season is a time to remain very discreet. If any animal is staring at you, this is a warning sign, and walking up to you is very likely not a friendly gesture, but the test to see if you’re serious about invading their territory – the charge comes next. Relying on our human ideas of behavior is almost always a bad idea. Treat everything as if it’s an alien species from another planet, with unknown abilities and responses – this is the right attitude of respect and caution.
To go along with that: Rabies is active in the mammal population across, at the least, the eastern seaboard of the US. The risks of this are often overstated, since it is no reason to avoid going out into the woods to look for mammals, but it does mean that you treat odd behavior as potentially dangerous. Most people think rabid animals are especially aggressive, but another trait of infection is the ‘dumb’ rabies, where animals are disoriented, slow, clumsy, and often spaced-out in appearance. This can give the impression of a sick or injured animal. Ditch the nurturing instincts and leave it be – call animal control as needed.
Baby mammals: On occasion, you may come across what appears to be an orphaned or abandoned mammal, and feel this necessitates intervention. Once again, contact animal control or the local wildlife authority for your area (throughout the US, each state has a wildlife commission which will generally provide better resources than the federal US Fish & Wildlife Commission can – that’s how the jurisdiction breaks down.) And do this before you even pick up the animal – there are many circumstances where you should not interfere in any way. For instance, fawns instinctively stay put, laying down in tall grass while their mother forages, and may appear abandoned when this is business as usual. Many animal parents spring off at signs of danger, hoping to draw attention away from their young, and have not abandoned them at all.
Further, raising an orphan should never be attempted without proper education, and most states require specific permits to do this legally anyway. From having been in this field, I can’t stress this enough – it’s not as easy as it seems, and this is a wretched way of indulging your nurturing instincts. Mammal diets are specialized, and their behavior patterns as adults are, to some extent, established in their childhood; other behaviors come up naturally, and thus pets cannot be created just by getting them young. Rehabilitation takes education and experience, and the concern over an animal’s life should be the very reason not to attempt this on your own, since it’s far too easy to permanently, fatally affect an infant.
I’ll say it again: Mammal observation is often hard, and all the tips in the world won’t guarantee your ability to see something. You’ll have to work at it, and use patience, but most times it’s far more rewarding when you’re successful than with other types of animals. With luck, you’ll discover a situation where you can see frequent visits and start getting a good collection of observational notes, and perhaps some pics too.
I feel obligated to let my four readers know that the blog Weird Things has rebooted. Greg Fish took a hiatus because of time demands earlier this year, with no promises of a return. But he was kind enough to send me an e-mail last night announcing his encore, and I am happy to send people his way again. Technically, I never really stopped, because his link remained there in the blogroll, simply marked “Archive” since he had plenty of interesting posts available to work through, but now you can find new content as well.
Greg is one of those that likes to show up bloggers like me, because he made a point of having a post every damn day, missing this only through a period of illness. I’m nowhere’s near that kind of activity, but I feature more of my own illustrations (as in, nearly all of the pics you see here.) That makes up for it, right? Right?
Anyway, be sure to check it out. And, naturally, don’t miss the others in the blogroll to the right, who’ve been posting steadily while Greg took his six-month vacation ;-)
While anxious neurotics the world over are wailing desperately about where christmas actually comes from and how it’s gotten all secular, most others manage to get at least a little generosity and benevolence from the holiday, and use this time of year to favor those less fortunate than themselves. Whether or not this actually springs from religious roots (I have my doubts,) we can use this to positive effect anyway.
In 1984, Midge Ure and Bob Geldof organized a benefit effort to produce food and money to help alleviate, and raise awareness of, the vast amount of starvation in Africa, and convinced dozens of pop stars to participate. The result is the best christmas song ever performed – don’t try arguing with me ;-)
It doesn’t matter whether or not you celebrate christmas, or agree with any particular attitude that someone, myself included, might have. There’s always someone out there that needs help, and every one of us can provide this in some way. It shouldn’t be restricted to this time of year, or need to be limited to Africa either – anyplace is good to start.
It’s not to win points. It’s not to appease our conscience. It’s simply because we are all human, and that should be more valuable than electronic toys and overpriced fashions – just a matter of perspective. If this is the ‘right’ time of year to start thoughts of goodwill and selflessness, well, so be it.
I think everybody probably knows someone like this: the person that, in their everlasting quest for shortcuts, ends up taking obscure, winding routes to “avoid traffic” or stoplights or whatever, and goes several kilometers further than necessary, often taking longer to do so as well. I’ve certainly known more than a couple. My brother-in-law once decided, when the winter weather turned ugly, to dodge the Baltimore-Washington Expressway and cut through the Virginia mountains, because when the roads get treacherous, it’s always better to avoid the one highway in the country guaranteed to remain plowed and instead take the route with lots of inclines and curves…
Some decision-making shortcuts are this way. In all honesty, we use shortcuts all the time. Every time we use a credit or debit card, especially online, we usually have no idea if the process is truly secure, or even how to determine this other than a websearch. When we see a new food item or pharmaceutical in our local stores, we not only assume it’s safe, but effective as well. And all I really have to do is mention the word, “politics”…
In The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins relates a test given by psychologist George Tamarin to Israeli adolescents, just some simple questions. Presented with the scriptural account of god commanding Joshua’s followers to wipe out an entire city (but keep the valuables for god), the children were asked if such actions were actually moral, or ‘right’; it is perhaps unsurprising, yet still disturbing, that a majority considered genocide okay, largely because it was commanded by god. This is a pattern that is often repeated in discussions of religious morality with adults as well: it is moral because god commands it. When such statements are put to the test, a significant number of religious folk admit that yes, they would kill someone if commanded by god.
The interesting twist was presented to a different group of kids from the same background, where the situation was identical except for changing the circumstances to a Chinese general in ancient China. Now, however, the answer was different: a larger majority said that the actions were immoral and wrong.
The key difference here being whether god decrees it or not. So, suppose we change it from the classic ‘god/allah’ of Abrahamic scripture (‘yahweh’ or ‘YHWH’ if that helps,) to another deity: baal, or vishnu, or xuan wu, or !xu? Do the actions related within the scriptures now sound rather barbaric? Does, for instance, the complete drowning of all life on earth, save for a select breeding population, because of the sins of humans (and one must presume that it certainly could not have been all humans save for Noah’s immediate family) sound like a petulant and psychotic action, from a deity with some serious issues? Does the idea of someone who sacrifices his daughters to a horny gang to spare two total strangers the same fate sound like rewardable behavior?
The argument, when such scenarios are presented, is that god is the one true god, and god is good. But how do we even determine that? “Well, it says so right there in the scripture, which is the word of god.” That’s what we call a circular argument, exactly the same as my typing, “Al is absolutely correct in everything that he says.” No one would buy this for a second, and quite frankly, I’m glad. Yet, they build their entire lives around it when it comes to religion.
If we bother to apply just a smidgen of thought to it for a second, we find that there seems to be two definitions of ‘good’; one that deals with treating people with respect and mutual beneficence, and one that says, “what god wants,” regardless of the affect on people, even those too young and naive to understand any adult issues. As hard as this may be to believe, there are people (a lot of them) unthinking enough to hear a simple statement like, “god is good,” and actually accept that as an infallible rule over everything that common sense tells them. Imparted to them long ago as “truth,” there was never a reason to revisit it and seek support.
Isn’t that cool? All you really have to do is repeat something, especially if you call it “traditional” or “virtuous,” and you have no need to do silly little things like establish a line of reasoning or a body of evidence. It doesn’t matter how fucked up the statement really is, just keep repeating it. For good measure, tell someone that they’re good if they believe it. Start early, or course, before the child learns that adults have a tendency to lie; that way, you might be lucky (the odds are, fortunately, in your favor) and the child won’t ever revisit the statement with a thinking brain.
There are some snags, of course – you have to take the good with the bad (a ha ha.) For example, it works even with such ludicrous concepts as islamic terrorism, Irish nationalism – well, nationalism of any kind, really – and come to think of it, racism, sexism, classism, tribalism, brand loyalty… gosh, it pops up a lot, doesn’t it?
Leaving behind the sarcasm for a second, I have to point out two interesting things about this post. The first is, it’s been in draft form for a while because it wasn’t coming out as I liked; meanwhile, I had the visitor that I mentioned here, and I thus had the opportunity to bring it up with her. It’s also the reason why I make no distinction between moderate and extremist faith, regardless of what affect they seem to be having. When the primary support for a belief system (religious or not) is based upon some assertion or assumed value, then the system has a critical, fatal flaw. Moreover, there’s the bit where anyone with an agenda can manipulate people as desired, because all it takes is a new assertion. Can you say, “splinter sect?”
Worse, however, is how often this actually is recognized, not only by priests and evangelists, but by political parties in the US. Have you noticed the frequency with which the religious card is played? This is only because it is widely known that people drop all pretense of rational thought when it comes to religion, so it’s an automatic win. The candidates don’t have to worry about their policies, past record, future goals, or anything else – just mention their fealty to god, regardless of how little this has to do with the office they’re proposing to fill, and more than enough unthinking automatons will start salivating like Pavlov’s dogs. Barnum had it all wrong: there’s a sucker baptized every minute. Even among those that, as preposterous as this sounds, might have actually thought about whether merely mentioning god is sufficient, far too often this thought gets pushed away by the realization that they would then exempt themselves from being able to flash their own ‘good’ card.
It’s not just religion that exploits this trait (though by far it’s the worst offender) – the same might be said for appending the word “spiritual” to something, or “holistic,” or even “natural.” Many things are natural, including snake venom and poison ivy, salmonella and brain tumors. Yet when applied to food, for some reason, it changes definition to indicate “healthy.” Even more interesting, the very application of any of these words seems to automatically imply, to a majority of people, that anything not bearing such adjectives must therefore be unnatural, unhealthy, or some other unsavory attribute.
However, if we decide that the definition of ‘good,’ to return to the original example, reflects how we get along with one another, then distinguishing good from bad might require something more than skin color or nationality, or allegiance to a god or sports team or city where one was born. It would require seeing that some action was, oh, I don’t know, beneficial in some way. Admittedly, this is a very difficult thing to determine, and might require the consumption of three calories in thought. Here’s a wild and crazy idea to entertain, though: if someone cannot spare the effort, maybe they shouldn’t be making any decisions in the first place?
What becomes clear is that decisions are a process, a process that probably should be followed all of the time for every situation, rather than seeing if some variable factor can be jammed into a category with predetermined characteristics. Not every shortcut is a benefit; not every rule can apply to every situation, nor every pattern free from inconsistency. In the centuries that we’ve been expanding our scientific knowledge, we have only a handful of steadfast rules that appear unbreakable, most applying to physics reactions and ratios. Not one, ever, has been found to apply to human behavior – hell, we can’t even count on perfect consistency with evidence-based medicine, the kind that brought us anesthetics and decongestants. No political party could be said to be composed solely of morons, hippies, communists, or corporate shills; no scientist can ever be said to be right all of the time.
In fact, consistency and rules are so rare that it could almost be said that any time some distinct assertion is offered, it is certainly wrong. While we’d really like something dependable that never requires examination, some shortcut to save us even a tiny smidgen of time or effort, such things almost never exist – we’re better off knowing how to avoid such crutches and applying a judicial eye to everything instead. Not only does it lead to better decisions, it can save us from being pawns or schmucks as well. Even natural ones.
This is, unfortunately, a great example of a photo that’s far too busy – too many different things clashing together, preventing any strong focal point and destroying the uncluttered composition that every photographer should strive for. Given what I was after, though, there wasn’t much I could do about it, and catching the spray of water was the main accomplishment.
Back when I lived in Florida, I frequented an area on the channel inside the barrier islands called the Indian River Lagoon (though everyone dropped the “lagoon” part.) This was a fun place to snorkel, since it was mostly saltwater and harbored marine life of all sorts, and was as fecund as a rainforest. What you’re seeing in this pic is a typical rock in the water, completely hidden beneath various seaweeds, barnacles, and oysters. The barnacles and oysters were especially memorable, since they’re remarkably sharp and quite capable of dealing nasty injuries; most of my trips resulted in at least a few small cuts, and I still have a distinctive scar on my hamstring area from stepping off a rock and dragging my heel down the edge of an oyster shell.
The water level was lower than normal at the time this pic was taken, and the oyster here is just barely in the water. It was opening its shell to draw in some nutrient-rich water, then expelling the filtered remnants back out again with a sudden contraction. This usually occurs completely submerged, but in this case the spray was ejecting out into the air instead, making a rude gesture to all passing.
Not, however, as rude as another example a little later on. This time, I was completely submerged and examining the rocks through the dive mask, and noticed a different effect. Another oyster was occasionally emitting a cloud of milky white effluent that would drift off in the current. I got up very close to view this is detail, then realized what I was probably seeing – “white” is the clue, but “milk” is in the wrong direction. Let’s be real: species that are attached firmly to rocks are not going to be avid readers of the Kama Sutra, since their options are, shall we say, limited. Fabulous.
I’m realistic, and I know the water is full of all sorts of things like that, but there is admittedly a bit of difference in cases of immediate proximity. I don’t know whether to be insulted or flattered, but I can say that it hasn’t happened since I’ve put on weight. Perhaps not the best incentive for losing it, either…
This was a book that, I admit, wasn’t on my reading list, but when I came across a copy I began reading it out of interest. It is a credit to the author that I stayed with it, and chose to throw it into the review lineup.
Big Bang by Simon Singh is named in a very straightforward way, since it lays out the entire history of the currently-preferred theory of the origin of the universe, colloquially called the “Big Bang” by one of its early detractors. But Singh doesn’t just stick to the theory itself; he builds virtually the entire history of cosmology, taking care to elaborate on the various details that form the foundations. I was fairly familiar with the general principles and most of the science before I started reading, which meant that this was an already-solved mystery for me, and yet, I found the development of these details quite interesting – not to mention that Singh introduced several new aspects to me as well. From my position as an enthusiast about astronomy, cosmology, and science in general, I found little that he glossed over or failed to explain.
It’s easy to have a book of this kind become something of a list, merely pointing out the key steps, and the potential for a dry, clinical synopsis is pretty high – see Wikipedia, for example. Instead, what is presented is the process itself and those who participated, the trials and successes they experienced, and even the personalities they displayed. While Singh doesn’t concentrate on any particular person within, it is easy for the reader to get a taste of what each person was like, and how this affected the discoveries they made.
That’s the sneaky part about this book. There’s an underlying message about the humanity of even scientists, where emotions and personal preferences colored the progress of the theory throughout. Those that view scientists as some kind of elitist snobs might relish this aspect, since it reminds us that we’re all human and prone to errors and bias, but scientists don’t hold some particular attitude or caste simply by being scientists, any more than truck drivers do. There’s a deeper message than that, because within the sometimes-astounding mental prowess sits the subconscious influences of emotion, ego, and even complacency. To see how it affected our scientific progress is a great reminder to remain as open-minded as possible, and to accept mistakes rather than try to deny them. The discoveries that we make are greater than the human concerns that preoccupy us (and even blind us) all too often.
Another subtle aspect that I caught was how much the various wars influenced our progress. Countless scientists abandoned promising research to perform some function during wartime; some of them died doing so. These abrupt stops and long interruptions clearly had an affect on our pursuit of knowledge, only on rare occasions positively. It is easy to accept the ideology of serving one’s country, but in most cases, scientists do so at the expense of serving mankind instead. And there’s even the bonus of finding how many significant contributions to the whole theory were made by those with little or no training in the fields, something that we non-scientists can appreciate, at least.
Singh devotes the last chapter to the issues yet to be resolved with the theory, and provides a bit of perspective on the way. It is easy to read the book and consider the perplexity of the people at the time, before stellar spectra or nuclear fusion were discovered, but we’re in the same position now, with the questions of dark matter, the inflation period, and dark energy. Opponents of science like to consider these as damaging to the theory, yet they are merely gaps awaiting further understanding, which is how science progresses. Such gaps do not cause the numerous supporting factors that we now have to vanish, and any alternate explanation has to take these same factors into account. The main reason that the Big Bang is favored over the Quasi-Steady State for cosmological theories is that it explains much more, and even predicted a major discovery, two decades before we had the ability to make it (the Cosmic Microwave Background.)
The reader also meets another aspect of scientific theory that assures us of accuracy, that of cross-disciplinary support. Astronomy used to consist of merely observation and careful mathematics, but we garnered so much more information when we found that it tied in with the physics of light, nuclear interactions, radio waves, chemistry, and so on. In fact, the basic laws of physics, of merely existing, got simpler as we found that everything we see obeys the same sets of behaviors. The periodic table of elements, originally listing all known matter in the order of their atomic weights, was eventually found to also list them largely in order of their abundance in the universe, as well as the number of protons in the nucleus. This was evidence of how stars form nearly all elements from the fusion by-products of hydrogen, while the presence of these elements blocks certain wavelengths of light within stars and tells us how massive, and old, they are. The xenon gas that forms the functional portion of every camera flash is the residue of not just normal stellar activity, but of rare supernovae, and tells us the sun is a son itself, being at least second-generation in the universe (it’s considered third generation, actually.)
One might ask how much use cosmology has to us; what purpose there is to knowing how the universe began. But this is the same kind of thinking trap as “serving one’s country,” above. Knowledge gained is available to be used everywhere, and it’s impossible to predict how, but I can list two prime examples. The first is, with the knowledge that we gain from space probes devoted to entirely unrelated tasks, we are (hopefully) developing the ability to ward off a cataclysmic collision with some wandering asteroid, a fate that affects this planet periodically and unpredictably. The second is that, by changing our impressions of human life from “deliberate and goal-oriented” (which religion provided us) to “incidental and insignificant” (which is what nature tells us,) we can see that our continued existence on this planet is not guaranteed, but requires careful stewardship, which might help head off doing something irretrievably stupid like depleting our natural resources too far.
While Singh mentions religion only in passing, I have more than a faint suspicion that Big Bang is written, at least in part, in response to the anti-science emphasis seen far too often today. Cute little sound bites and over-simplified arguments attempt to disguise the overwhelming body of evidence that we have regarding things like the Big Bang theory, and Singh’s book is a distinct, approachable, and entertaining response to such childish tactics. Anyone can deny whatever they choose, but this book demonstrates that they cannot do so with cosmology from any standpoint resembling intellectual honesty. Those with enough integrity to leave behind the gutter rules of debate will find there’s far too much evidence in support of the universe’s age and behavior to even create an argument.
Singh’s writing is concise and free-flowing, almost conversational, and while he talks about some of the more involved portions of physics, it is at a level understandable by virtually anyone. Anyone expecting a science book to be dense and require specific knowledge will be pleasantly surprised, and Big Bang can be handled by any reader from middle school on up. The biggest fault I had, virtually the only one, is that he deals with specific aspects of cosmology at the expense of the chronological order, so that the book skips back and forth a little and makes it hard to place things in the context of then-current knowledge – this is mostly true for the earlier sections. Other readers may find this easy to ignore, however. Big Bang is a great primer that brings the reader up-to-date with the efforts we’re making right now to piece together the largest historical event, well, ever, and is altogether fascinating, humbling, and encouraging.
I had originally started a post on largely this topic when the news was full of the epic awesome wonderfulness of Steve Jobs, the man who, according to the media hype, was the most amazing businessman on the planet. When these died out rather quickly, I let the post go, but now The New Yorker has a kind of biographical article on Jobs, and I’ll simply point you to that. If you’re one of the Apple worshippers, best to just skip over that one – it’s not pretty.
No, I don’t engage in Mac vs PC wars – I think if you’re hung up on branding then you’re too stupid to take advice from, or even involve in grownup conversation. No product has ever impressed me very much, and every last one of those who tried to tell me how great Apple is could not even display basic competence in computers – funny that. But if you’re buying a Mac to avoid those nasty viruses, maybe you could save a bit of money (actually, quite a lot) and just learn how to use the internet safely instead.
Here’s another tip: when someone tells you something, there’s always a chance that it is simply made up. Remember that the next time you are assured that any product is innovative (or even “original” – if you don’t get that joke, remember what I said about grownup conversations.)
A few months back, I shot this Tolkienesque scene on the side of the river nearby, actually on the same outing that I chased down this special assignment. To get this angle, I was flat on my belly on a rock at the edge of the river, with my legs extending behind me into the water, far enough that my shorts were getting wet. That’s the kind of extremes I go to in pursuit of my interests.
Start at the water. Everything needs water, but mammal species often leave the most distinct traces of their passing there. The fresher and more accessible, the better. Follow the edges of streams, looking for tracks and trails of flattened grass leading away. Also look for deposits of shells from molluscs and crayfish – this often indicates otters or raccoons. Steeper banks along deeper water often allows for entrances to beaver dens in the banks, but muskrats more often seek shallower areas because they eat grasses.
Look! Well, this is obvious, but there are some good habits to get into. Most especially, any time you’re about to leave an area of, for instance, screening trees or tall grasses, pause just inside the edge and scan the open areas very carefully. There’s nothing like bursting out into the open to scare off something you could have seen easily, which also means that sticking to edges and cover helps a lot more than crossing open fields. Watch those stream banks carefully, and look for those breaks in patterns. Most mammals are brown or greyish-brown to varying degrees, and can be distinguished from foliage with a sharp eye, but often not as easily as believed (I’m amazed at how well deer disappear even a few meters into wooded areas.)
Other signs. This might mean small holes dug into soft ground (or an 
Stay safe! This must go hand-in-hand with the sections above. As tempting as it may be to get nice close photos, or to have that “special encounter,” most mammals can do us a great deal of damage if so inclined. From my years of doing wildlife rescue and rehabilitation, I have a scar on my shoulder from a cute little grey squirrel that someone had tried to raise as a pet, and raccoons are a species that I’ll handle only with a net. We really don’t know what behavior, what circumstances, what line, constitutes a threat to most species and invites an aggressive response, and once it occurs we’re likely in no position to deal with it. This applies even to habituated animals in parks and refuges. So the cardinal rule is, keep your distance, and always have your escape route. Don’t keep pushing your luck by seeing just how close you can get, or by believing that since nothing has happened so far, this will continue to hold true. Most especially, animals with young should be left entirely alone (as in, leave the area,) and mating season is a time to remain very discreet. If any animal is staring at you, this is a warning sign, and walking up to you is very likely not a friendly gesture, but the test to see if you’re serious about invading their territory – the charge comes next. Relying on our human ideas of behavior is almost always a bad idea. Treat everything as if it’s an alien species from another planet, with unknown abilities and responses – this is the right attitude of respect and caution.
Baby mammals: On occasion, you may come across what appears to be an orphaned or abandoned mammal, and feel this necessitates intervention. Once again, contact animal control or the local wildlife authority for your area (throughout the US, each state has a wildlife commission which will generally provide better resources than the federal US Fish & Wildlife Commission can – that’s how the jurisdiction breaks down.) And do this before you even pick up the animal – there are many circumstances where you should not interfere in any way. For instance, fawns instinctively stay put, laying down in tall grass while their mother forages, and may appear abandoned when this is business as usual. Many animal parents spring off at signs of danger, hoping to draw attention away from their young, and have not abandoned them at all.
I feel obligated to let my four readers know that the blog 
This is, unfortunately, a great example of a photo that’s far too busy – too many different things clashing together, preventing any strong focal point and destroying the uncluttered composition that every photographer should strive for. Given what I was after, though, there wasn’t much I could do about it, and catching the spray of water was the main accomplishment.