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Inspiring Science

~ Casting light on great ideas

Inspiring Science

Monthly Archives: February 2012

Natural selection: different modes

27 Monday Feb 2012

Posted by sedeer in Evolution, Natural Selection

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

biology, Education, evolution, natural selection, Popular science, Population, science, selection

I mentioned “directional selection” in an earlier post and someone asked about it, so I decided to take the opportunity to explain the process of natural selection in a bit more detail.  I think there’s a tendency for people to have a very straightforward, simplified view of natural selection when they think about evolution.  As with everything in biology, the real story is more nuanced and therefore more interesting.  I’ll develop these ideas over a series of posts, starting with the different modes of selection in this post and moving on to different mechanisms in a future post.  Understanding how the different aspects of natural selection interact is an important part of appreciating the complex and dynamic process of evolution, which is at the very core of biology and has generated all of the beautifully fascinating life we see around us.

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Thinking bees and the concept of “sameness”

22 Wednesday Feb 2012

Posted by sedeer in Hymenoptera, Insects, Mind

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

animals, bees, biology, Cognition, Hymenoptera, Insecta, Learning, Popular science, science

Bee on Zinnia blossomThe ability to categorize objects or experiences as “the same” or “different” has generally been considered a relatively advanced cognitive capacity relegated solely to vertebrates (or perhaps even primates).  However, in a study published in 2001, researchers found that honeybees are able to conceive of sameness and difference, showing that the capacity to make these abstract conceptual distinctions is more widespread than we had believed.

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Hindsight bias: Inventing memories & blaming victims

18 Saturday Feb 2012

Posted by sedeer in Humans, Mind

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

animals, Hindsight bias, People, Popular science, psychology, rape, science, social science, Victims

It’s not unusual for people to think that an outcome was inevitable after the fact, a phenomenon known as “hindsight bias”. This remains the case even when test subjects are instructed to ignore their knowledge of the outcome and rate the likeliness of several possible outcomes. Once an outcome is known, people tend to see causal links in antecedents (the events preceding the outcome); this builds into a causal chain that makes the outcome seem an inevitable consequence of the antecedents. Studies have shown that, in addition to constructing such links, people also tend to exercise selective memory, preferentially remembering details that are consistent with the seemingly inevitable outcome.  Linda Carli (of Wellesley College) conducted a study extending these findings even further. She found that people will “misremember” additional antecedents that are stereotypically associated with a given outcome; these novel memories reinforce the hindsight bias – their perception that the outcome is inevitable – which affects their judgement of the behaviour and character of the individuals involved. These findings shed light on how & why we judge that people “get what they deserve”, often over-simplistically attributing credit for success and unfairly blaming victims. Continue reading →

Five common biology myths (or “Science in the service of the anthropocentric patriarchy”)

15 Wednesday Feb 2012

Posted by sedeer in Bacteria, Evolution, Humans, Mind

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

bias, biology, culture, Education, interaction, Popular science, science, science and society, Science in Society, society

In these “enlightened” times, people often try to use science to justify their social, political or ideological positions. While the influence of scientific research on our world view is commonly recognized, the converse dynamic gets far less attention. Cultural factors shape the sort of questions we ask and how we choose to interpret the answers; for example, despite the claim that the idea of evolution has radically altered our view of ourselves, it also often serves to reinforce existing social and cultural norms. Here are five commonly accepted biological “facts” which are untrue but are used to justify our conception of ourselves and our place in the world.

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Head to tail: segmenting the body

12 Sunday Feb 2012

Posted by sedeer in Development, Vertebrates

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

animals, biology, clock and wavefront, Developmental biology, embryo, Embryogenesis, Popular science, science, somitogenesis

Mouse embryo, 10.5 days old by Alan Boyde (Photo credit: dullhunk)Unlike plants, which can continue to develop new organs and elaborate their body plan throughout their life, animals generally have to contend with a body plan which is fixed at birth.  The basic body plan is laid out during embryogenesis, the intricately choreographed interplay of different processes and mechanisms involved in the development of the embryo.  An important step early in animal embryogenesis is the lengthwise division of the embryo into a series of primitive segments, called somites; each somite will later give rise to vertebrae, skeletal muscle, and dermis, although some of the somites may fuse before this happens.  Correct formation of the somites is a crucial component of the development and is precisely regulated in both space and time.  This tight regulation is accomplished by a remarkably simple, beautiful and ancient mechanism.

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Adam & Eve: Behind the Myth

08 Wednesday Feb 2012

Posted by sedeer in Evolution, Genetics, Humans

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

ancestry, animals, biology, Education, evolution, Human, Mitochondrial DNA, Mitochondrial Eve, out of Africa, Popular science, science, Y-chromosomal Adam

Out of Africa (Image via Wikipedia)In a paper published in 1987 in the leading science journal Nature, researchers claimed to have identified a female from whom all humans alive today are descended, dubbed “mitochondrial Eve”; nearly ten years later, another group of scientists published findings identifying her male counterpart, “Y-chromosomal Adam”. The choice of names, though evocative, was unfortunate and uninformative, since the use of “Adam” and “Eve” has led to several major misunderstandings about these two ancient humans.  In this post, I’ll try to clear up some of these misunderstandings by explaining what these terms actually mean and how scientists have gone about trying to identify our most recent common male and female ancestors.

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All text and original images by Sedeer El-Showk. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

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