What horror movie monster are you?

Here’s a Halloween thought for you: what Halloween/movie monster do you most closely identify with? Is it the tragic cursed werewolf, doomed to a life of mad animal viciousness whenever the moon is full? Are you a more modern rage monster, a Freddie or Jason slashing their way through the world? Or a blameless Frankenstein’s monster, hideous and hated? There are a thousand choices. Pick one now and explain your reasoning.

I was thinking of this yesterday while I was doing some drudgery in the lab. I had fed the spiders the other day, lots of big juicy mealworms. I raise mealworms at home, and I have a terrarium in the basement where I cultivate thousands of the little bugs. You throw in a big box of cornmeal every few months, and periodically toss in table scraps — the ends of carrots, a mushy tomato, a shriveled orange, and they thrive in there. I comb my fingers through the meal, which is steadily being converted to frass, and scoop up handfuls of wriggling larval beetles. I drop them one at a time in the adult spiders’ cages.

Here’s the catch: the spiders are adept at quickly killing and eating them, but the way they do it leaves behind a tube of cuticle filled with the soupy mix of digested guts and venom. It’s an amazing medium for bacteria — you would not believe the stench that a rotting mealworm can produce. They reek of death and decay, and I have to go through all the containers and clean them out.

The younger spiders need more delicate food, so I raise fruitflies in an incubator in the lab. Flies are also easy, but the bottles full of medium can get quite nasty, when they got old they get moldy and a bit slimy. So yesterday I was scrubbing out a month’s worth of fly bottles, filling up a sink with scum and floating bits of mold and insect parts, and thinking…hey, this is quite pleasant. Low stress, no demands, light work, I was quite enjoying myself. I could be quite content as a lab assistant, doing the dirty work behind the scenes as long as I didn’t have any more long-term demands on myself.

It’s obvious then. I’d want to be a lesser horror movie character, not a monster, not a mad scientist, I just want to be an Igor, a Fritz, a Karl, maybe occasionally aspiring to a Renfield.

Me and Dwight Frye, we’d be the bestest buddies.

Your turn. What’s your Halloween avatar?

Do spiders dream?

They seem to — they have behaviors suggestive of REM sleep.

I want to know that they’re dreaming about. The investigators in the video above have a clear idea of what a spider nightmare would be like: they wake them up with a speaker that buzzes at the frequency of a wasp’s wingbeat.

So now we know how to terrify a spider, in case you were looking for that kind of information.

Modern education

We grandparents love to hear about the cute and adorable things our grandchildren are up to. Here’s the latest news about Iliana:

Tomorrow, she gets to wear pajamas to school because her class filled up a “good behaviour” jar. The final fill-up was because the class did really well during the lockdown drill today. She explained to us that a real lockdown is when a person with a weapon comes into the school to kill you. They hid for the drill and the principal acted as the threat person. She said if she gets outside she’s supposed to sprint away because they’ll be trying to kill her. She said that the teachers weren’t talking about killing, but the kids figured it out. She and her friends were playing a game called “lockdown drill” after this and acting it out again.

Wow. That sounds like such a fun game. We didn’t have games like that when I was a kid.

Say no to wanna-be space tyrants

This is not Mars

Somebody finally says what our colonies in space would look like (although, to be fair, there are so many distopian science fiction novels that have repeatedly said it): they would be slave compounds, or at their most charitable, company towns.

A million inhabitants live in the city under the soft pink sky of Mars, just a century after the first robotic probes from Earth visited the Red Planet. They farm and labor in habitats that shield them from dust and harsh ultraviolet radiation.

Promoted as a society unshackled from earthly laws, this town is in fact as unfree as possible. The company rules everything, owning not only the buildings but the water and air people need to survive. If a person took out a loan to pay for passage, the company effectively holds them in indentured servitude. Human rights are not a given, nor is bodily autonomy.

Matthew Francis makes that bold prediction in Scientific American. He goes on to say, though, that

Thankfully, this dystopia isn’t inevitable.

It isn’t? How does one plan to trick people into living in a brutally unsurvivable environment that lacks any appeal or relief from drudgery short of economic compulsion? I’m going to disagree. I think the entire plan is deadly, built entirely on corpses and bloody backs in the long run, and I see no other alternative. I would love to hear about this alternative plan that isn’t a product of capitalist exploitation. Instead, we get the familiar refrain naming the usual obscenely rich people scheming to take advantage of those less powerful.

However, some of the world’s most powerful men believe it’s part of humanity’s multiplanetary future, and as leaders of the private space industry they have the potential to realize much of the vision. For years, SpaceX chief Elon Musk has pushed claims that he will resettle a million people on Mars by 2050 using a thousand rockets built by his company, with the first settlers arriving by the end of this decade. Even sooner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin rocket company is plotting to build an “office park” in low-Earth orbit in the next five years called the Orbital Reef. His ultimate vision, however, is trillions of people in space colony canisters, to produce “1,000 Mozarts and 1,000 Einsteins,” in his questionable phrasing, in coming centuries.

The only good news about space colonies designed by Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos is that they aren’t going to happen. Musk will not be launching a million people to Mars in 15 years, not even close (although I do see some fantasy synergy between Musk and Trump’s plan to deport millions of people on day one of his presidency — maybe he’s dreaming of filling his Martian city with Puerto Ricans, Haitians, and South American gang-bangers). Bezos is not going to build an office park in Earth orbit, not as long as he can bulldoze farm land for cheap and assemble giant concrete boxes here on Earth. Those are two professional liars. Don’t believe anything they promise, because all they really promise is controlling you to their benefit.

All you need to do to see their true vision of the future is look at what Musk does in the present. He’s a control freak. He’s building a compound in Austin, Texas. It’s creepy and controlling, and just the idea of building a “compound” for your family reeks of Mormon cultishness and Saudi dictatorships.

On a quiet, leafy street of multimillion-dollar properties, one stands out: a 14,400-square-foot mansion that looks like a villa plucked from the hills of Tuscany and transplanted to Austin, Texas.

This is where Elon Musk, 53, the world’s richest man and perhaps the most important campaign backer of former President Donald J. Trump, has been trying to establish the cornerstone of an unusual family compound, according to four people familiar with his plans.

Mr. Musk has told people close to him in recent months that he envisions his children (of which there are at least 11) and two of their three mothers occupying adjoining properties. That way, his younger children could be a part of one another’s lives, and Mr. Musk could schedule time among them.

He’s got lots of money, he could afford to give his wives and children complete freedom and the ability to be autonomous agents of their own will, but no — he wants them conveniently close to do his bidding. Do you really think his Martian workers would be allowed any kind of independence? If they whispered the word “union” he’d shut off their air. Musk is very concerned about birth rates, too. Workers would not only have quotas of profitable units produced, but would have quotas of children to pump out. Having a self-perpetuating labor force totally under his control is the main virtue of a Mars colony to him. The only pronoun he values is the possessive pronoun that he’d apply to children, workers, and women.

Francis has it right.

To put it bluntly: if our space overlords behave this way on Earth with governments looking over their shoulders, how will they behave off-world with little possibility of oversight or redress? Even returning to Earth from Mars might be technically impossible. Trusting your life to private space companies is a big gamble, not least since Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in May signed a bill shielding SpaceX and other companies from liability from death or injury incurred from spaceflight.

If you want a glimpse of the real future of space colonization, read this story about how Saudi princes control their own daughters. It’s got compounds. The few things it has that a Mars colony wouldn’t is gilded cages and shopping trips to Dubai (under armed guard, of course). That’s the fate of any people who find themselves at the mercy of wealthy, grasping autocrats, like Musk or Bezos.

We should not even be considering space colonization — take it right off the table.

Musk and Bezos don’t serve a fascist regime, but like von Braun, their visions are rooted in 20th-century colonialism, resource extraction and disregard for labor rights. Martian company towns off-world won’t be the libertarian paradise promised by our tech billionaires.

Space exploration, yes; space exploitation, no. It should not be in the hands of billionaires, who we have learned, are the worst people on the planet.

Some days, I wonder why I’m doing this

Yes. But they’ll feel like they’re the one who failed.

Today, I had 3 students (out of 11) show up for what I thought was a scintillating talk about the immediate aftermath of publishing The Origin. Wilberforce and Huxley! Huxley humiliating Owen on the hippocampus minor question! Fleeming Jenkins’ extremely awkward question! Darwin’s epic genetics failure! How can you not want to discuss these dramatic events?

Maybe I’m not as scintillating as I thought. How are these students going to learn anything if they don’t keep up? Less significantly, how do they expect to pass?

Retirement looks ever more attractive.

P.S. I should mention that my entire class is not at risk of failing. Some are. Others may be working on a lower grade than they want.

There are multiple “C words,” you know

While the Republican Party is busy covering the racism angle, Elon Musk is, in his @America account, making sure the misogynists know to vote for the convicted rapist.

It’s part of a misleading and suggestive ad.

Warning: This ad contains multiple instances of the ‘C Word.’ Viewer discretion is advised. Kamala Harris is a ‘C word.’ You heard that right. A big ole ‘C word.’ In fact, all of the other ‘C words’ think she’s the biggest ‘C word’ of them all. That’s right. She’s a tax-hiking, regulation-loving, gun-grabbing communist. And the worst part? She’s proud of it. Kamala Harris: the ‘C word America simply can’t afford. See you nationwide Tuesday, November 5th.

It ultimately reveals that the “C word” it is talking about isn’t the usual misogynistic slur (but you know you’re supposed to think it). She’s a communist. What stupid nonsense — I know communists, and I have to tell you, Elon, Kamala Harris is no communist.

The ad might be more persuasive if it used the correct “C word”: Kamala Harris is a capitalist, and yes, she is proud of it.

Only one week until the election, and a few months of bickering, lying, and phony lawsuits until we can possibly get down to the business of grabbing guns and imposing regulations, not that I think that will actually happen if the Democrats win.

Who is that jackwad?

Trump had a rally in Madison Square Garden this weekend and it was reminiscent of a Nazi rally. They brought on a ‘comedian’ who made a ‘joke’. I don’t know if you know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico.

Ocasio-Cortez said it all in the clip above: this is what the Republican party is, a clique of elitist thugs who willingly insult entire ethnicities because they believe that they, by virtue of their whiteness, are truly superior. The Trump campaign is scrambling to distance themselves from this alienation of part of the electorate, but you know this is what the think, deep down. Notice that the audience laughed at the ‘joke’.

Walz was characteristically pithy: Hinchcliffe is a jackwad.

Hinchcliffe has responded!

Oh. It was just a joke. It was taken out of context. Where have I heard those excuses before?

Transphobia rots your brain

CSICon is currently taking place in Las Vegas, with a great speaker lineup: Neil deGrasse Tyson, Brian Cox, Michael Mann, Massimo Pigliucci, Steve Novella, etc. For some reason, they also included Jerry Coyne, who has become a right-wing crank over the years, and who is quite annoyed that Novella discussed the myth of the gender binary — and chose to talk about Sex and Race: Handling the Ideological Hot Potatoes. His abstract for the talk says he was arguing that race is a valid category because you can distinguish “race” genetically, which tells me that he doesn’t understand the argument. Individuals are unique and carry the record of their ancestry, but that ignores the fact that people use race as a catch-all for lumping people into stereotypes, which are not valid.

But I haven’t heard his talk, nor am I interested in hearing it. He did give a kind of “rebuttal” to Novella’s talk, though, summarized in one simple list. The list is a collection of his misconceptions and says far more about him than any argument us “woke” people would actually make. Further, it is embarrassingly stupid — irrelevant, confused, and not even wrong. It reminds me of the kinds of arguments creationists make that just reveal that they understand nothing about evolution.

Here’s Coyne’s list In Defense of the Binary Nature of Sex, which does nothing of the kind.

IN DEFENSE OF THE BINARY NATURE OF SEX
Argument is completely limited to humans; is the binary of reproductive systems also “delusional” in other animals (e.g., foxes, ducks) or in plants?
No evidence of any “brain modules” for gender identity.
Do people who are temporally binary, with gender fluctuating over time, change sex each time they change gender?
Fluctuations in referrals for gender dysphoria over time (20-fold in last ten years in UK)
Are “pure” members of one sex (with the corresponding genitals, chromosomes, gametes and chromosomes), but who feel they’re not of their natal sex, actually of the other sex?
People have incorrect feelings about their nature all the time (yes, in their brains), but this doesn’t mean that their self-image should be taken as biological reality.
And what do we do with people who sincerely feel that they’re other animals? Are they Indeed animals likes horses and cats?

Let’s take them on one at a time, shall we?

Argument is completely limited to humans; is the binary of reproductive systems also “delusional” in other animals (e.g., foxes, ducks) or in plants?

Who says the argument is completely limited to humans? It’s not. It’s just that we are far better at distinguishing subtle variations in our own species. Sexual development and differentiation in animals uses the same complex cascade of molecular interactions as it does in humans. There are differences in sexual morphology and behavior in individual animals that will leap out at you if you actually scrutinize them carefully. Even in spiders, which are only distantly related to humans. They exhibit different degrees of social behavior, aggression, cooperation, and yes, sexual activity. I’ve had spiders who exhibit no interest in sex at all; I raise them to adulthood, and can’t persuade them to reproduce even as their siblings readily mate at every opportunity. Every coupling is different. This is in a species that cannot communicate to us and every interpretation of their activity is subjective. What kind of biologist would look at the range of sexual interactions in any species and decide that they must be shoehorned into just two types?

As for plants — they don’t exhibit much in the way of behavior, expression, or culture, but they do have a complex range of sexes. How do you tell if a carrot is uncomfortable with its expected biological role?

No evidence of any “brain modules” for gender identity.

Jerry Coyne knows nothing about neuroscience. We know there are differences in the brain that are correlates of differences in behavior and thinking; I’m pretty sure Coyne wouldn’t be claiming that brains are like featureless potatoes with patterns of activity that arise without differences in morphology or connectivity of pharmacology. Modules are abstractions that are used to model the functionality of different parts of the brain.

Many complex networks are composed of “modules” that form an interconnected network. We sought to elucidate the nature of the brain’s modular function by testing the autonomy of the brain’s modules and the potential mechanisms underlying their interactions. By studying the brain as a large-scale complex network and measuring activity across the network during 77 cognitive tasks, we demonstrate that, despite connectivity between modules, each module appears to execute a discrete cognitive function relatively autonomously from the other modules. Moreover, brain regions with diverse connectivity across the modules appear to play a role in enabling modules to interact while remaining mostly autonomous. This generates the counterintuitive idea that regions with diverse connectivity across modules are necessary for modular biological networks.

The brain is a network with spatial and functional segregation of elements that we can call “modules”; trans people will have modules that differ from cis people, and people who prefer coffee to tea have their own kinds of modules. All Coyne is doing here is denying the existence of differences between brains, which I would hope most people would recognize is ignorant and absurd.

(Note that there are differences in interpretation in the neuroscience community; we can argue about modules vs. modes, but good grief, denying that there are neurological differences is like trying to claim that population structure doesn’t exist.)

Do people who are temporally binary, with gender fluctuating over time, change sex each time they change gender?

Sure, why not? Why can’t both sex and gender be fluid? Coyne just wants to force-fit everything into only one of two possible categories, but biology is more complex than that. His narrow-mindedness is not evidence of much of anything.

Fluctuations in referrals for gender dysphoria over time (20-fold in last ten years in UK)

Jesus christ, really? Culture and evironment affect everything, that varying rates of referrals is a product of the way that societies fluctuate in their tolerance of sex and gender differences. That he doesn’t recognize this is just a sign that he has a painfully simple-minded notion of how sex functions as more than just a mechanism for reproduction.

Are “pure” members of one sex (with the corresponding genitals, chromosomes, gametes and chromosomes), but who feel they’re not of their natal sex, actually of the other sex?

I’m glad I didn’t hear his talk, because I wonder if he also talked about “pure” members of one race. There’s no such thing as being “purely” a member of one complex multidimensional and weakly defined category. We are all part of a continuum along many dimensions. This point makes no sense unless you’re thoroughly soaking in the preconception that there can be only two sexes and everyone must fit into one or another in all particulars.

People have incorrect feelings about their nature all the time (yes, in their brains), but this doesn’t mean that their self-image should be taken as biological reality.

I am grossly materialistic. Self-image is part of one’s biology. If it’s in our brains, how can it not be a reflection of biological reality? I’m sorry if plasticity isn’t in Jerry Coyne’s vocabulary. I’m pretty confident that dualism isn’t part of his worldview.

And what do we do with people who sincerely feel that they’re other animals? Are they Indeed animals likes horses and cats?

I kew that was coming. And what about the people who sincerely feel that they are attack helicopters?

No, people can’t change species. They’re still people. Being a person, though, encompasses a wide range of possibilities. Trans people fully understand their biological realities and don’t imagine that genitalia are magical products of desire.

As for what we do with people who have ideas that are less rigid than Coyne’s dumb-ass cis-normativity…do we have to do anything, or can we just let them live in peace?