Tag Archives: biology

Suggested: We need to think more about the sociology of aliens

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One analyst suggests we are ignoring a big feature about aliens: what would their society be like?

“We keep complaining about the fact that we know so little about extraterrestrials in general, and even though sociology is mentioned in the Drake Equation, it is generally agreed that is the most difficult aspect to address,” said Morris Jones, an Australian who describes himself as an independent space analyst.

The Drake Equation is a set of variables proposed by astronomer Frank Drake that estimates how many intelligent, communicating civilizations there are in the universe. While speaking at the International Astronautical Congress Wednesday (Oct. 1), Jones pointed out that most talk about alien communications focuses on the basics – how they transmit, and where to search, and whether we can hear them. But to fully understand the message, we have to understand how their society works.

How a society functions is partly a function of biology, Jones argued. So if humans decided to incorporate machine intelligence in their bodies, it would be reasonable to assume that society would change because of that. “Machine society is an entirely different sociology, and that we cannot predict,” Jones said. An extraterrestrial civilization could use machines, drugs, genetic engineering or surgery to alter their basic nature (something that is used also with humans.)

Class systems could also be in place that are similar to the animal kingdom. Herd and hive sociology covers how animals behave. Pigeons, for example, flock together for mutual protection. In the insect world, beings such as ants tend to be born in specific physiological roles that prepare them for different functions — such as the queen ant that is the mother of other ants in the colony.

These are societies that we could predict, perhaps, but more intriguing are those that are difficult to extrapolate from human experience or observation. Jones is particularly interested in cryptosociology. That’s the concept that because we can’t predict yet how alien civilizations will behave, we can speculate what they are capable of.

Sounds like a potentially interesting topic but how is anyone supposed to do anything definitive?

Applying evolutionary biology to the city

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Biologist David Sloan Wilson has taken an interest in better understanding Binghamtom, New York. His lens: evolutionary biology.

Differences in prosociality, Wilson thought, should produce measurable outcomes — if not in reproductive success, perhaps in happiness, crime rates, neighbourhood tidiness or even the degree of community feeling expressed in the density of holiday decorations. “I really wanted to see a map of altruism,” he says. “I saw it in my mind.” And with a frisson of excitement, he realized that his models and experiments offered clues about how to intervene, how to structure real-world groups to favour prosociality. “Now is the implementation phase.” Evolutionary theory, Wilson decided, will improve life in Binghamton…

Binghamton is hard to love. Established in the early nineteenth century, it has long relied on big industry for its identity and prosperity — early on through the Endicott-Johnson Shoe Company and then through IBM, which was founded in the area. But the manufacturers mostly decamped in the 1990s, and since then the city has taken on an aimless, shabby air. Dollar stores and coin-operated laundries fill the gaps between dilapidated Victorian houses and massive brick-and-stone churches. A Gallup poll in March 2011 listed Binghamton as one of the five US cities least liked by its residents. “It is a town that knows it is badly in need of a revival,” says Wilson. Even its motto, ‘Restoring the pride’, speaks of a city clinging to its past and ashamed of its present…

So Wilson decided to see whether he could raise up the prosocial valleys by creating conditions in which cooperation becomes a winning strategy — in effect, hacking the process of cultural evolution. He set about this largely by instituting friendly competitions between groups. His first idea was a park-design project, in which neighbourhoods were invited to compete for park-improvement funds by creating the best plan.

But Wilson soon found out that field experiments in real cities can take on lives of their own: different neighbourhoods couldn’t get their acts together on the same schedule, so the competition aspect largely disappeared. Instead, he is now working on turning multiple park ideas into reality. The dog park is one. Another is Sunflower Park, the most advanced project to date, but still a sad, mainly empty lot surrounded by a chain-link fence. Children don’t spend a lot of time playing here. Undaunted, Wilson is raising funds and laying plans for a relaxing community space flush with trees and amenities. “In a year,” he says, “we will serve you a hot dog from the pavilion.”

The rest of the article describes how Wilson acts more like a social scientist, taking surveys, making observations, interacting with residents, trying to understand local religious congregations. Some of this discussion is amusing as it rehashes debates about how close researchers should get to research subjects – social scientists would describe it as participant observation.

This reminds me of some of the work of early sociologists such as Herbert Spencer and the Chicago School who based at least some of their ideas on biological principles. Spencer viewed society as being like an organism and the Chicago School viewed competition for space as a primary driver of urban development and action. But evolutionary thinking has generally faded away in sociology (outside of sociobiology). Could sociologists, and urban sociologists, again view evolutionary principles as a boon for the field or simply a distraction from the better work that is going on in the field? Wilson is also interested in the topics of altruism and prosociality, topics that have attracted the attention of more sociologists in recent years. It would be interesting to hear what happens when Wilson comes to some conclusions about social and city life and then presents them to social scientists.

The future of textbooks: online and free?

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Traditional textbooks can be problematic: they often are costly, hefty, and have difficulty keeping up current research and trends. But a new biology textbook may be paving the way for a change in the textbook field:

Within 2 1/2 years, the E. O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation, named after the naturalist and founder, hopes to complete a 59-chapter digital textbook about biology called Life on Earth. As each chapter is finished, the foundation plans to put it into the hands of anyone who wants it. For free…

“No publisher is doing what we’re doing, which is developing, from scratch, a serious digital textbook,” Patterson said. He added that only $1 million of that funding — half of it from Life Technologies Foundation — is in place, and the remaining $9 million remains to be seen from private and public donors. “It’s expensive, but once you’re done you can keep it up to date across time, globally, essentially free of charge.”

The foundation plans to sell university-level editions for about 10 percent of the cost of the average print textbook, in part to fund that continuous updating. Kindergarten through 12th grade editions will be free.

Patterson said the idea is to provide any student in the world unprecedented learning tools, but acknowledged imminent backlash from profit-seeking publishers.

In some ways, this seems like a mash-up between traditional textbooks and Wikipedia: a constantly updated online text that is authoritative and offers video and other Web 2.0 features.

If the online version is to be used with classes, is there also an assumption that students will have the textbook open on their laptops? This would require all students to have some sort of viewing technology and there are other problems associated with laptops in the classroom.

It sounds like a major issue here might be funding: who is going to pay for all of this writing and computer work? What happens if the foundation can’t raise sufficient funds from donors?

Quick Review: The Canon

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When recently at the Field Museum in Chicago, I encountered several books in the bookstore. I tracked down one of them, a former bestseller, down at the library: The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science by Natalie Angier. A few quick thoughts about the book:

1. This book is an overview of the basic building blocks of science (there are the chapters in order): thinking scientifically, probabilities, scale (different sizes), physics, chemistry, evolutionary biology, molecular biology, geology, and astronomy. Angier interviewed a number of scientists and she both quotes and draws upon their ideas. For someone looking for a quick understanding of these subjects, this is a decent find. From this book, one could delve into more specialized writings.

2. Angier is a science writer for the New York Times. While she tries to bring exuberance to the subject, her descriptions and adjectives are often over the top. This floweriness was almost enough to stop me from reading this book at a few points.

3. To me, the most rewarding chapters were the first three. As a social scientist, I could relate to all three of these and plan to bring some of these thoughts to my students. Thinking scientifically is quite different than the normal experience most of us have of building ideas and concepts on anecdotal data.

a. A couple of the ideas stuck out to me. The first is a reminder about scientific theories: while some think a theory means that it isn’t proven yet so it can be disregarded, scientists view theories differently. Theories are explanations that are constantly being built upon and tested but they often represent the best explanations scientists currently have. A theory is not a law.

b. The second was about random data. Angier tells the story of a professor who runs this activity: at the beginning of class, half the students are told to flip a coin 100 times and record the results. The other half of the students are told to make up the results for 100 imaginary coin flips. The professor leaves the room while the students do this. When she returns, she examines the different recordings and most of the time is able to identify which were the real and imaginary results. How? Students don’t quite understand random data; usually after two consecutive heads or tails, they think they have to have the opposite result. In real random data, there can be runs of 6 of 7 heads or tails in a row even as the results tend to average out in the end.

Overall, I liked the content of the book even as I was often irritated with its delivery. For a social scientist, this was a profitable read as it helped me understand subjects far afield.