Posts tagged 'science'

Screenshot from the trailer of Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious [1946], via WikiCommons

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who read the last page or two of a book before starting it, and those who insist on knowing as little as possible. To the latter group, one can barely mention a book or a film without them snapping back, “Don’t say anything more! I don’t want to know!” They’ll sanctimoniously stick their fingers in their ears – some of them won’t even read the book blurb on the back cover. And in the process they make those of us who don’t mind knowing the ending feel like second-rate readers. Spoilsports, so to speak. Well, spoilsports of the world, unite! No longer need we skim the last page of a John Grisham in furtive shame, for new research suggests that spoilsports have more fun.

Results of a recent US study suggest that knowing the ending of a story may increase audience pleasure. The Guardian reports that a forthcoming issue of the journal Psychological Science is due to publish results of a survey undertaken by University of San Diego researchers indicating that survey subjects who were given spoiler paragraphs to read before reading 30 short stories across a variety of genres reported higher levels of satisfaction than subjects whose reading wasn’t spoiled. “So it could be that once you know how it turns out, it’s cognitively easier – you’re more comfortable processing the information – and can focus on a deeper understanding of the story,” explained Jonathan Leavitt, a PhD student at the university and one of the study’s co-authors.

Image of an ant via WikiCommons

It’s one of the most mysterious aspects of animal behaviour, one even Charles Darwin struggled with: why would an animal choose to sacrifice itself to help other members of its own species, at the expense of passing down its own genes? It’s a question fundamental to biology because it amounts to an investigation into the evolutionary logic of goodness.

An 81 year-old Harvard biologist – a colossus of the science – has stirred a hornet’s nest, so to speak, by turning his back on biology’s most widely accepted explanation for animal altruism. Called the father of biodiversity, Edward O. Wilson has revised his earlier theories on evolutionary altruism. In so doing he’s come under stinging attack from fellow scientists. “I don’t know what’s gotten into E. O. Wilson,” writes one blogger.

An article Wilson co-authored last August in Nature magazine called ‘The evolution of eusociality’ sees Wilson fundamentally reassessing his thoughts on what might be called ‘altruistic’ behaviour in socially highly-developed species like ants and bees. Among the five dissenting letters the magazine published following the article’s publication – which Richard Dawkins slammed as a disgrace – one letter was signed by no less than 137 scientists. Much is at stake – one journalist reporting on the controversy called it “a high-stakes inquiry into the nature of good”.

The theory most commonly accepted for evolutionary altruism is kin selection theory, where the logic of altruism is, roughly speaking, ‘if I can’t pass on my genes, I can at least act to pass down genes that are very similar to mine’. For example, in a eusocial insect colony, according to Wikipedia, “sterile females act as workers to assist their mother in the production of additional offspring.”

In his article, Wilson opts for another, decidedly less fashionable theory, called group selection. Group selection posits that genes survive according to the benefits they bestow a group, regardless of their kinship – in other words, that social cohesion determines genetic survival. One of Wilson’s two co-authors, Martin Nowak, says their revival of the theory is based on mathematics – and that the maths of kin selection theory just doesn’t add up. He adds its a maths the article’s critics haven’t engaged with.

The implications of the argument stretch beyond biology. Wilson claims group selection applies to humans too. “Human beings have an intense desire to form groups, and they always have,” Wilson recently remarked. “This powerful tendency we have to form groups and then have the groups compete, which is in every aspect of our social behavior … is basically the driving force that caused the origin of human behavior.”

The federal government is also coming under pressure from health researchers after government spokespeople refused to deny speculation that next month’s federal budget will include a significant cut in funding for medical research. Medical researchers are alarmed at a rumoured cut of $400 million over three years to National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) funding as the government seeks to return the budget to surplus. Speaking on ABC Radio, Professor Julie Campbell, President of the Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes, said, “It’s going to mean that a lot of medical researchers are going to be unemployed.”

The health research community has launched a campaign – Discoveries Need Dollars – to raise awareness of the effects of such a funding cut. Rallies will be staged in Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide tomorrow in association with the campaign. The Melbourne rally will begin at 12:45 on the State Library lawns.

Following Peter Singer's Lunchbox/Soapbox appearance yesterday, we invite Meat & Livestock Australia to respond, as well as asking you to join the debate.

Peter Singer

Watch Peter Singer and join the debate here.

David Palmer Managing Director of Meat & Livestock Australia:

David Palmer

"Peter Singer’s suggestion that red meat should be taxed alongside items that are not good for people, such as tobacco and alcohol, is ridiculous and irresponsible. Red meat is an essential part of a healthy diet and the environmental impacts that Peter Singer is attributing to red meat are incorrect.

"Australian red meat production is amongst the most efficient of the major beef producing nations. A recent study by the University of New South Wales (UNSW) found that Australian production systems use considerably less energy to produce red meat than is often quoted in the media and by people such as Peter Singer."

"The UNSW study was a life cycle assessment, which is a form of cradle to gate analysis that attempts to quantify the important environmental impacts of all processes involved in a production system. Based on figures from the research, eating red meat three times a week results in between 164kg to 258kg of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions a year, vastly different to figures quoted that claim up to 1.5 tonnes.

"Australian farmers are also naturally environmentalists, caring for and managing large parts of our amazing country.

"Despite what Peter Singer would like to have us believe, a recent report by Cranfield University in the UK and commissioned by environmental group WWF, found that vegetarians can do more harm to the environment than meat eaters.

"The study found that switching from a diet of beef and lamb to meat substitutes, such as tofu, soy and lentils would result in more foreign land being cultivated and raise the risk of forests being destroyed to create farmland. Meat substitutes also tended to be highly processed and involved energy-intensive production.

"The red meat industry is the only production industry in Australia to have reduced greenhouse emissions since 1990. According to the Australian Greenhouse office we have reduced our emissions by 7.5%, compared to increases in other industries such as transport and electricity, up 26.9% and 54.1% respectively.

"Whilst we have reduced our emissions over this time, we know there are further improvements to be made. This is why MLA has co-invested with the Federal government and other partners in a $28 million programme with 18 research projects that are looking at how to reduce emissions from livestock.

"Importantly, the livestock industry in Australia produces food on land that often can’t be used to produce any other protein source. If we cut out red meat production on this land it couldn’t be used to grow plant based crops. Australian cattle and sheep are raised in a natural environment feeding on pastures with little or no use of fertilizers, it is a natural part of our environment.

"Calculations that are based on emissions alone, such as the ones Peter Singer has used, are simplistic and ignore the carbon cycle. If the carbon cycle is taken into consideration, as recently was done in a report by the Queensland Government (where the industry in that state is 47% of Australia’s cattle) the industry was found to be close to carbon neutral and potentially a carbon sink in the near future.

"Whilst I acknowledge the views of Peter Singer, he is fundamentally a vegetarian/ part time vegan who wants to force his views on free-thinking Australians.

"I wonder if this is not his main motivator for a tax on beef. Frankly I can’t see Australians responding well to a tax on their food."