Superstitious?

Al Denelsbeck

During a phone conversation with a friend the other night, I admitted to holding some senseless superstitions, and got (rightfully) berated for it. As punishment, he assigned me a five hundred word essay on superstition, so don’t be blaming me if this is boring – it’s his assignment. I’m just not sure I can keep it down to five hundred words…

Superstition actually appears to come from three different sources combined. The first is related to my earlier post about meaning and purpose, and our drive to find the cause behind the effect. This has an interesting cause of its own. We have long inbred instincts towards social interaction, the same kind of instincts that make mother birds stuff food down gaping gullets, even of birds that are not their own species. Ours, however, revolve around how we work together as a tribe/village/society, and might be called a sense of justice. It tells us that people who do things against the collective good of the tribe are bad, and deserve punishment – and vice versa of course. So we associate bad things with punishment, and figure that we must have done something to deserve it. When misfortune befalls us without any distinct evidence of why we’re being punished, we still insist on finding the cause.

The second source of superstition is our tendency to find patterns, and again, this probably dates way back. I emphasize this ability for its use to nature photography, because visual patterns are one of the better clues to finding animals. And this is possibly why we even developed it in the first place. It serves other purposes too, in helping us to learn what actual causes are, and even produced mankind’s earliest form of timekeeping, in the patterns of the stars to predict the seasons. We’re incredibly attuned to patterns, as evidenced by things like pareidolia, the tendency to see faces in random designs, and the reaction we have to people we know who break their patterns of behavior, even in subtle ways.

And finally, we have this ugly little thing best called “confirmation bias.” We’re hypersensitive to being right and avoiding being wrong, so much that we have hard times admitting it, so we often settle for causes and answers that fit a few criteria, without examining them thoroughly enough to see that they miss more than they fit. Did this come up way back? Quite possibly, but this is one of those things that I think are imperfectly evolved within us. Trying to be right, to find correct answers, is good. But being driven to settle for a particular answer because we have a greater fear of being wrong doesn’t always work, to which our history of pseudoscience can attest. It has the appearance that the fear of being wrong is far more powerful than the desire to be right, which lends too much emphasis towards actually being wrong.

This, in itself, might strike people as questionable, and truth be told, I have no background in this – actually educated people might disagree. But we also have to remember that evolution, while effective, isn’t exactly efficient, and we are not in a “final state” of any kind – there is always room for improvement, and this might simply be one of those things that didn’t develop well enough yet. There is no doubt, however, that we have difficulties with confirmation bias, and this stems from somewhere.

Put all of those above factors together, and you can see where random occurrences, especially unfortunate ones which only affect one person, can get assigned a curious “cause.” Once established within a society’s lore, that confirmation bias comes into play again, where people fall and break their wrist, then think back to which one of the myriad causes of bad luck they might have inadvertently activated. Aha, I spilled salt on a ladder yesterday – that was the culprit!

What it comes down to is, we have several different useful traits in our instincts that we often apply automatically, and in some cases they lead to strange behavior. This is not in any way excusing superstition, because we also have a rational portion of our brains that can override instincts pretty easily. The issue is when we don’t exercise this, or even realize that it should be exercised. We are far from perfect, and can easily be fooled by drives within us that have use to us in certain circumstances, but not others. The first real step is recognizing this.

That’s a lot more than five hundreds words, so I expect extra credit for this.

Even weirder

Al Denelsbeck

Recent downpours have kept the amphibians happy, which means I encounter at least one a day. Sometimes the encounters are closer than I’d like.

I have to draw you a picture here, so you understand what happened. Maybe. It’s still hot outside, so my clothing is loose shorts. In order to get decent portraits of this Southern Cricket Frog (Acris gryllus gryllus), I had to be in kneepads, on my hands and knees down close to the ground to not simply get photos of its top side. While in this position praying to the gods of macro photography, the frog decided I was dangerous enough and broke for cover, hopping between my legs where deepest shadow lie. And right up my shorts.

There was no one around to witness this, thankfully, but also no one around to help. The frog was 1.5 cm long, a little over a half-inch, which means the Little Rascals style of comedic contortions that you’ve already pictured wasn’t going to take place, I’m sorry to say. What it did mean was that I couldn’t stand up for fear of crushing it as it sped deeper into my shorts looking for safety, and I had to remain in the Dropped Soap Position as I frantically shook my shorts in the hopes I could flush it back out. Its tiny size (the frog, smartass) and my awkward position also meant that I really didn’t have a clue whether it was still around or not, and spent some time ensuring myself that it had indeed realized its folly and left in search of a safer swamp.

I was also wary of repeating a performance of a few years ago, something I was reminded of by finding this photo just last night. The Southeastern Five-lined Skink (Eumeces inexpectatus) seen here had cornered itself above my head in a window. After getting this pic, I wanted to see if I could achieve one with a bit more natural setting like ground litter or a tree trunk, and reached up to try and catch it. The skink bolted, ran down my arm, across my shoulder, and disappeared. I turned around hastily but saw and heard nothing. This didn’t mean a lot to me, since there was a bush directly behind me that would provide good cover, but I thought I should at least have heard a rustling. I did several twists and gropes to be sure that it wasn’t simply hanging on my shirt back, then shrugged and forgot about it.

Until I arrived home a few hours later, took out my wallet, and brought out a dead skink. The little bugger had sought refuge in my back pocket, which might have seemed fine until I got back in the vehicle and sat down. I felt really bad about it, and chided myself for not checking my pockets, but seriously, would you have? And when the frog hopped into my shorts today, I immediately pictured the return of my Ass of Death. Things like that can scar a man for a long time.

You’ll be happy to know I spotted the frog a little later on, safe and sound on the ground. It sped for cover very quickly – it had learned.

Yes, I’m weird

Al Denelsbeck

…but then again, you already knew that, didn’t you?

This little bugger here is, to the best I can determine right now, a spined micrathena spider (Micrathena gracilis,) common as muck in the woods of North Carolina, especially this time of year. Yesterday I was walking in the woods and came across a spread of huge mushrooms (one per pizza – you think I’m joking?) and this inspired me to go back out at night and try to find some bioluminescent fungi. I’ve seen it once before, many years ago, and figured this was the time to locate it with the weather we’ve been having.

I had no luck with that, but in performing my search I wandered through countless spider webs. They’re most active at night, and micrathenas prefer to spin their orbs (the classic circular “wheel” webs) between trees centered about 1.5 meters up. Of course, that’s just under our own height and we pick the gaps in the trees to navigate through the woods, so encountering them is just about unavoidable. They’re harmless, of course, but opportunistic.

Near as I can tell, one decided to stay on board when I traipsed through its net, and once I was back in the office and unloading the memory card (two whole shots in extremely dark conditions,) bailed My Body The Bus and set up shop with a web that stretches from my desk lamp, to my monitor, and up to the ceiling fan. Since last night, I’ve been watching it diddybopping back and forth over my desk on invisible strands. Just now as I was getting this pic, it decided that it might examine the area under the lamp down to my desk, and began dangling down towards the mouse – I discouraged this by poking it gently to get it to retreat.

Putting something in the photo to show scale was going to be hard, so you’ll have to settle for a description: body length without legs is roughly 4mm, maybe half the length of a grain of rice. Its not exactly a tarantula.

Two of my four readers are now asking themselves what kind of brain-damaged human would leave a spider spinning a web directly over their desk, and the answer is, a nature photographer of course. I talked about this before, but when shooting tiny subjects outdoors, your focus range is minuscule, and even gentle breezes can move your subject around. So a subject this difficult that basically asks to be photographed is welcomed. Plus my window screens aren’t as good as I’d like them and little flying insects like congregating around my monitor at night, so I’m hoping we can work a deal…

I was thinking of expanding this post with some details about how to get images like this (or even better!) but that will wait a little bit, since I need to do some shots of the macro rig. Stay tuned.

Hitting the fan

Al Denelsbeck

Let me throw a hypothetical situation at you. Suppose you have a blogger and journalist, who has a mission to eradicate childish attacks and disrespectful behavior from public figures. All well and good, except that this blogger is having a bit of difficulty finding the behavior he insists is rampant. Among his targets are two prominent and outspoken public figures who, despite accusations, deal with the issues and not things like ad hominem attacks.

Then, lo and behold, a commenter appears on blogger/journalist’s (hereinafter “BJ”) site and relates a story showing how childish and disrespectful attacks really do happen. The story is all by itself, relates no checkable facts, and sounds a bit over-the-top even for fiction. But it supports the BJ’s assertions, so rather than being an anecdote, it now becomes evidence. So much so, apparently, that BJ creates a whole new post highlighting this particular story, specifically labeling it as evidence.

But, there’s a catch. Through the course of events, the commenter and his story have turned out to be totally false – complete fabrications, confessed by none other than the commenter himself.

Further, it appears (again through confession) that many of the other commenters who chimed in with support for the story and the BJ’s standpoint itself, were actually the very same guy masquerading under multiple names – in internet slang, this is called sock puppetry. Even further, the fraudulent commenter maintained his own blog, specifically for the purpose of addressing those childish and disrespectful attacks, that was populated almost entirely by sock puppets of himself.

Now remember, we have BJ, who champions reasonable and respectful discourse, and we have the public targets of his attention, who are clearly nasty, brutish, and short-tempered.

So, now the questions. Who do you think performed research, contacted witnesses and companions, and laid all the evidence out for the world to see, while refusing to reveal the actual name of the sock puppet because of the potential of retaliation?

And who dodged the evidence, never admitted to fault, never fact-checked, and even, while being on one of the most prominent and advanced blog networks, missed the evidence of the sock puppet in the first place? And who continues to deny that he has actually no evidence whatsoever for his accusations, now that the source of his only anecdote has dried up and turned out to be a pathological liar? Who also banned and deleted comments from his blog that pointed out his errors, while allowing baseless accusations of lying from the sock puppet to remain? [Edit: Initially, I had attributed a specific epithet to the blog in question here, but have since discovered it was made on the sock puppet’s independent blog and thus not subject to the BJ’s moderation efforts. If that sounds confusing, suffice to say that I just deleted an incorrect attribution.]

Oh, I forgot one little detail: the BJ is getting paid by a notorious religious organization, and his targets are working, published scientists. Whoops, they’re also immoral atheists! Can’t forget that little tidbit.

Kudos to Jerry Coyne at Why Evolution Is True for handling the real research behind this – the comments on that thread, by the way, demonstrate just how mean, nasty and vindictive atheists are. If that wasn’t enough proof, PZ Myers at Pharyngula provides just a wee bit more evidence from his own commenters. Most especially, watch how the supporters of the BJ get taken apart on their bullshit, methodically, rationally, and without resorting to name calling.

And piles of shit on Chris Mooney, the supposed “journalist” who failed to perform even rudimentary research, still has no evidence to back his assertions, has weakly admitted he got taken but not that he never should have in the first place, and most egregiously, after seeing the confession of total fabrication from the commenter, demonstrates he has gall where his brains should be in stating that it still might be based in real life.

Science is based on evidence, and one of the key portions of the process is taking steps to eradicate the possibility of confirmation bias. If you continue to assert without evidence to support your point, and in the face of evidence to the contrary refuse to even recognize that you may be on the wrong track, that’s denial and delusion, the stuff crackpots are made of. Chris Mooney needs to be removed from Discover Blogs and any science advocacy whatsoever.

Last night

Al Denelsbeck


Just a few shots from last night as an active but small thunderstorm cell passed quickly through the area. I had actually gone out on errands after the storm, seemingly insignificant, passed my area, and drove directly into a seething thunderhead. Had to go back to get my cameras and ended up missing the best part of the storm.

The foreground is “okay,” not ideal, but you can’t direct the storms where you want them. My area actually has few locations with a good view of the horizon, and using gaps in trees works terribly – lightning is rarely so obliging to stay in the gap. The cell was moving away from me, bearing right a little, but the most distinct flashes were to the left side of the frame. To the right, however, was the full moon that rapidly got covered by clouds – the glowing edge you see at top right comes from the moon hidden only minutes before.

I fired off 48 frames, trying to balance the traffic and the lightning strikes, and got only a few usable images – that’s how it goes. Some can be cropped tighter, like below. Some have squiggly little bolts like a child got their hands on a fine-tip white marker, which is not what you want from storm shots. To get the number of useful frames that I did actually means it was a successful night, and I’m cool with it.

What does it mean?!

Al Denelsbeck1 Comment

Anyone who has ever spent time in a discussion about religion and lack thereof, or even about the value of the scientific approach, has come up against the argument of “meaning.” “But if we live in a random, uncaused universe,” comes the plaintive cry, “then life has no meaning.”

This is a curious statement. After all, the search for the meaning of life has been going on for thousands of years, so it doesn’t really appear that the lack of this is slowing anyone down. If anything, it seems to be a background quest, though I have a hard time calling it that, since I’ve seen very few people actually looking for it in the first place. Those that have told me they’ve found it usually say it’s “spreading the word of god” or something similar. Ignoring the point that finding someone who hasn’t yet heard this word would mean they should be cutting through jungles somewhere, I haven’t really seen these people living out the meaning they’ve found, any more than anyone else. It’s also curious that this simple meaning hasn’t answered that question for so many other people.

Returning the the original reaction, though, we have to wonder why people seem distraught over “losing” something that they never had. It’s obviously not the meaning itself, but the idea that there is one that people are settling for. And when you get down to that concept, you tumble to the possibility that this desire for a cause, purpose, or simple answer is the key factor. It shouldn’t be surprising that we operate from a “cause and effect” standpoint, but we want to substitute “intent” for “cause.” The leaf falls from the tree due mostly to gravity – that’s cause. If we’re talking about ourselves, however, we seem to want there to be something more, a goal or intention to our existence. We don’t concern ourselves with the meaning behind trees or the moon; we don’t have an issue with these simply existing. We just can’t apply this to ourselves.

There’s an interesting dichotomy to all this, though. We also retain a firm belief in free will, and while not mutually exclusive, the dividing line between meaning, as in a purpose, and the ability to pursue our own agendas or desires can become very muddy. You will find people getting just as distraught over the thought that free will may not exist. This comes up in at least two concepts: the deterministic one, which states that all physical aspects that influence our lives, from seemingly random events down to the reactions in our brains, can be traced back to predictable atomic behavior; and the predestination one, which can be similar but also applies to scenarios where an omniscient being has planned the entire universe.

Both of these come with their own baggage, and amusingly enough, it’s the same baggage. Both the disordered universe scenario, where free will can exist, and the (pre)deterministic where it does not, directly relate to nihilism, the philosophical state of life without meaning or purpose. Depressing, yes?

Except that it misses one simple thing: meaning, purpose, depression and love and humor and even green, are all human constructs. None of them have meaning in the vast universe we inhabit. The fact that this evokes any kind of emotion in us indicates that these concepts do have meaning to us. Our brains have certain demands, and these are but a few of them. There’s actually nothing wrong with that. We are not masters of the universe, but we are human beings, and can be happy with that. Can’t we?

Meaning is a strictly personal thing. So, maintain whatever meaning you like. The lack of a universal direction actually provides the ultimate in free will – do whatever the hell pleases you, go in the direction you think is best. This begins to sound like hedonism, the concept of pursuing only that which gives us pleasure, but this is badly misunderstood. Of course we do, as a moment’s thought will demonstrate – we just don’t always do it from an immediate gratification standpoint. The kicker here is, some of the things that give us pleasure are not selfish in any way, but contribute towards the social apparatus of human beings as a whole: cooperation, empathy, charity, fairness, and so on. If you want to spread god’s word, go for it (I have my doubts you can determine what this actually is without inserting your own personal biases, but whatever.) If you want to teach wood shop, have at it! The universe is not going to stop you in any way.

It’s still subverted by the idea that our contribution to the universe is infinitesimal. A thousand years from now, ten thousand, will things be any different because of us? Well, no. And yes. We aren’t going to have any decent impact on anything sizable, and evidence of our existence will vanish quickly. We’re only affected by this because we allowed ourselves to think otherwise, and again, this is probably a by-product of our peculiar brain makeup. Have you ever found yourself saddened by the thought that the rabbit in the woods will leave no mark on the universe? No, we don’t concern ourselves with that, do we? Just our own impact, in our hubris. Get over it.

Let’s not forget the “yes” part above, either. The very fact of our existence is having impact, in the usage of energy and catalyzing of chemicals. This isn’t huge, mind you, but it’s the same as the tiny atomic processes in your body – it adds up. You can have a greater impact if you want, by producing some change in the human species, even on a small scale. Leave a legacy of some kind, be remembered for something, help someone’s life be better in some way. If you look at this from the standpoint of most other living species on our planet, you have a remarkable ability – the tree can do little to change its environment or help other trees, the kinkajou is unlikely to be remembered by other kinkajous in any way. Our brains lend us some interesting possibilities – as long as we don’t let them bog us down with the pursuit of, or despair over, something incredibly vain like ultimate meaning and purpose.

When you step back and look at it in this way, you’ll probably find something interesting: this was all you ever wanted in the first place. A little recognition, a little justification, a little impact, a little legacy. Did we really expect to wield some kind of universe-changing power? Of course not – all we want is to interact with other humans in a positive manner. The nature of the universe changes this in no way whatsoever. Pick your purpose and run with it.

I have to insert some endthoughts here, because this little essay produced some ideas that I think bear closer examination. Nihilism, for instance, was shown to be pointless in definition – it actually only has impact if an individual chooses to avoid defining their own purpose. Hedonism, another philosophy with a bad rap, turns out to be something we all engage in routinely. And while they can almost be considered opposite sides of the coin, both can spring from the “lack of meaning.” Isn’t that a hoot?

But the message that has come up repeatedly in just this short space is how we can be influenced by what is nothing more than a conceit of the mind. Practically everything I’ve talked about here is a damaged concept that doesn’t really have application to the world as we know it, and instead of being born from evidence of their existence, they were created from emotional reactions within our minds. Even worse, the emphasis placed on some of these lend them a legitimacy that isn’t deserved, which is one of the reasons why I push critical thought. A few hundred years of philosophers isn’t proof against starting with a bad premise.

And finally, a return to that plaintive cry from the beginning. Surprisingly few people, when faced with a discovery they don’t personally like such as “the universe has no meaning,” ever stop to think that it must always have been this way, even before they knew about it, and this did not affect their life then. The issue is not reality at all, it’s the willingness to accept it.

Groovy!

Al Denelsbeck

I found this little bugger sitting on a shirt I’d left outside near a light. This is an Ailanthus Webworm Moth (Atteva punctella) and my lighting here doesn’t do it justice, since the colors, in bright sunlight, are iridescent and the dark patches are actually navy blue. The reason you’re not seeing it here is that bright sunlight also makes them wander quickly out of focus range before flying off.

The patterns on this moth evolved in the 1960s in order for it to blend in with the flower patterns common in the hippie counterculture, because the moth feeds on marijuana and hashish leaves. It flies quite erratically (obviously), congregates around colored or black lights but occasionally likes strobes, and seems to have a compulsion for sitar music.

You’re not buying that, are you? In truth, the coloring is believed to be aposematic, one of those sciencey words that’s easier (so I’m told) than saying, “warning coloration.” Seen in many species, including insects like wasps and reptiles like poison-arrow frogs, the idea is that bright colors means the species is unpalatable or dangerous. The funny thing about this is, it relies on a very large number of other species having the instinct to shy away from bright colors.

Except, so it would appear, humans. We like bright colors, kids especially, and are attracted to touch them – not a particularly useful trait where frogs with poisonous skin secretions live, but this probably developed long before humans got themselves down to South America. The question is why (not why South America, because it’s a neat place, but why the attraction to colors)?

Okay, that was supposed to be a lead-in to some interesting information about color and the brain, but it failed. I actually haven’t been able to find why it is that we respond to colors. There’s lots of info out there about what colors we respond to and what emotional response they evoke, and it’s easy to speculate. For instance, brighter colors mean ripest fruit, healthiest plants, and healthiest animals, so good for finding food. A flushing response in someone’s complexion often indicates increased blood pressure, and provided this isn’t accompanied by yelling, this can be a sign of attraction. But then there are the anachronisms, like birds. Birds are attracted to bright colors from potential mates, and can actually see a much greater, richer range than we can – and at the same time, they’re the ones most likely to eat my little friend up there, so also most likely to see bright colors as the keepaway signal. So there’s something more there than meets the eye (I’m shameless, I know.)

And as a side question, other predators of insects are bats, which presumably wouldn’t see the aposematic colors in most situations (bats can see just fine, but hunt in the dark.) So is there some other kind of signal that insects might utilize to warn off bats, or do they perhaps have an active mechanism to escape their clutches, like sensitivity to the frequencies bats use to find their prey (which might be difficult without ears) that lets them dodge?

Other questions abound, such as why we respond so dramatically to sunset colors and rainbows, and as I type this the thought occurs that this may be overstimulation, the combined response to all of the individual colors that produce their own particular emotional response.

Now I’m intrigued, and am going to attempt to follow up on some of these lines of thought. Watch for further updates.

And then the rains came

Al Denelsbeck


After a long period of ridiculously hot weather with only mild breaks, the storm front rolled in this evening right at sundown. I have to admit that, even after living in Florida, I have never driven in rain that fierce before. We needed it badly, but spreading it out a bit would have been much better, you know?

Lots of critters are going to be very happy with all this, but the first to show their appreciation have been the frogs. Even as I type this, the dude above is still calling from its perch in a tree alongside my driveway, and I took the one below only minutes ago. Getting these images required getting soaked, and having quite a difficult time in trying to keep the camera dry enough – the Cope’s grey treefrog (Hyla chrysoscelis) at top proved to be the toughest. Not because it wasn’t holding still or in a bad position – actually it was extremely cooperative. Rather, it was pouring like mad when I was trying for this image, and the camera viewfinder and lens continued to either fog up or get fouled with water drops as I attempted to focus by flashlight. Fun!

The capture below has been tough to identify, mostly because I’ve never developed the habit of keeping my photo subjects until I can positively identify them, but instead let them go their merry way. Which means I can’t check belly markings or length of webbing on hind feet. So for now, I’m just going to say this is a juvenile crawfish frog (Rana areolata) with the possibility it’s the Carolina subspecies. This one was less cooperative, but once it had gotten to a shallow puddle it hunkered down and pretended to be submerged. It had moved on when I came back out (in the rain, again) to try and see the other markings – yes, I agree, that was quite rude.

And right this second, I think I have another calling on the window to my right, on the deck…

Making light work

Al Denelsbeck


Just a peek at one of the male hummingbirds that visit my feeder. I still haven’t set up some natural feeder plants for a better prop than my plastic feeder – it’s been low on the priority list.

No, this wasn’t taken at night – this actually shows the nature of photographing some types of subjects. In order to try for some sharpness on a fast moving and jittery subject like a hummingbird, I was shooting at 1/1000 of a second with a high-speed strobe. The strobe provided light for the subject, but this was much brighter than the ambient background light, early evening with light overcast. What happened is, the brief moment that the shutter was open didn’t allow enough light from the distant background trees to come in, so they’re underexposed almost to black. This gives a very unnatural look to the image, so a better time to try for this is when the sun is brightly illuminating the background.

This happens often in closeup/macro work as well, for a different reason that still has the same result. At high magnifications, depth of field drops way down, meaning that sharp focus does not extend very far – the eyes of the bug might be sharp, but the wings or hindbody are well out of focus. To try and combat this, a small aperture is used, which increases the depth of field but admits much less light. So the same thing happens – the strobe can illuminate the subject adequately, but won’t carry to the background, which then remains dark.

In some cases, a second strobe can be used to illuminate the background, but this can be tricky – too much, too little, or poorly-aimed light causes this to fail. When you’re shooting tiny subjects while trying to keep what’s exactly behind them properly lit, aiming isn’t as simple as you might think, especially when the second strobe is probably mounted on a bracket attached to your camera, which you are then moving around for the best framing (and quite possibly trying to keep your moving subject in sharp focus.) You can also try to use natural light, which would mean leaving the shutter open for a longer exposure to compensate for the reduced light through the aperture. Fine in theory, provided your camera is locked on a tripod, your subject isn’t deciding to wander about, and the wind is completely dead.

Ah, the wind! The macro photographer’s sworn enemy. You never realize how often there’s even a tiny breeze until you’re focused on a bug on a leaf that continually drifts in and out of focus. Is it any wonder that I’ve done detailed shots of insects (such as here) while they perched on a leaf or twig that was then held in a set of tiny clamps on my desk, indoors away from the wind and under a balanced set of lights? Yes, we’re talking cheating yet again, which would imply that this was easier, wouldn’t it? And not requiring lots of camera repositioning as the subject wanders up and down the setting, across the clamps, facing the wrong way, and generally behaving like a hyperactive toddler. Actually, much worse – you can jingle your keys and get a toddler’s attention for 1.8 seconds…

It wouldn’t seem like photos of bugs, or even birds at a feeder, should be even remotely challenging, but there you have it. It’s all about the light, and how you make use of it.

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