Purpose of Sex

If we want to redesign sex, it would help if we knew what sex was for.

Writing in The New Scientist (15th June 2009), Nick Lane asks Has the mystery of sex been explained at last? , and quotes Canadian biologist Sally Otto.

"sex is most advantageous when there's a lot of variation in a population, when mutation rates are high and selection pressures are great"

Does this explain why even the most physically unattractive politicians seem to have vigorous sex lives? See my post on Sex and Stress.

Sex and Design

If you are interested in the design of the human sex organs, there are some fascinating theories suggesting how they may have evolved in order to perform some complex biological functions.

Scientific American recently recycled a theory about the design of the penis propounded by Gordon Gallup. (Secrets of the Phallus, April 2009. Gallup's theory had been published by the BBC and New Scientist several years ago: Penis is a competitive beast, August 2003.) According to this theory, the shape and thrusting action of the penis has the function of removing old semen (including that of rival lovers) before depositing a fresh load. The partial lost of erection after ejaculation is an important design feature; it makes sure that the new semen is not removed as the penis is withdrawn.

Meanwhile, a separate theory, the delightfully named "upsuck theory", explains how the female organs are designed to select the sperm from the most desirable lover, pumping it upwards towards the uterus during orgasm.

There are significant problems with both theories. See for example Harry, Sally and Evolutionary Biology, which suggests that if these evolutionary mechanisms really worked, then humans would by now have evolved to have mind-blowing sex all the time. See also my earlier post on Female Pleasure, and an interview with Elisabeth Lloyd in Thinking Meat.

But it is what happens when you put these two theories together that bothers me here. Both theories appear to rely on POSIWID thinking - looking at some biological feature and trying to infer its purpose (in terms of a positive contribution to the survival and reproductive success of its owner). But it is usually incorrect to think of a single biological feature in isolation. These bits of biology interact to form complex systems, frantically pumping live semen in all directions.

So what (if anything) does POSIWID tell us about the whole system and its purpose? As Žižek argues (in To Read Too Many Books Is Harmful), human sexuality is not limited to the biological sphere: "sexuality is the very terrain where humans detach themselves from nature ... a drive that gets thwarted as to its natural goal (reproduction) ... thereby explodes into an infinite, properly meta-physical, passion".

The POSIWID principle doesn't mean we have to reduce all explanations to unobservable biological mechanisms. Human behaviour is driven or constrained by many forces, including social and spiritual ones.

Sarcasm causes Cancer

( for @bengoldacre )

Practically anything you can think of has been named either as a possible cause of cancer or as a possible preventative or cure.

January 2008 marked the launch of an ambitious project, the Daily Mail Oncological Ontology Project, which was going to follow the Daily Mail’s ongoing mission to divide all the inanimate objects in the world into those that cause or cure cancer. After only four days, the project was abandoned in despair. (Like a typical New Year Resolution, perhaps.)

But why pick on the Daily Mail? Even the BBC is constantly running stories like these.

• How spicy foods can kill cancers
• Lack of exercise linked to colon cancer
• A chemical used to manufacture rubber ...
• Shark blood offers cancer hope
• Limit mobile phone use, cancer expert tells staff
• Popping bubbles to treat cancer
• Aspirin prevents bowel cancer
• Doctors' call to regulate sunbeds

How to respond to this endless array of pseudo-oncology without sarcasm?

• Facebook causes cancer
• You are hereby sentenced eternally to wander the newspapers, fruitlessly mocking nutriwoo

But all is not lost. A New Daily Mail Oncological Ontology Project rises from the ashes. So that's all right then.

Does fortune-telling work?

A recent survey shows a significant proportion of people believing in astrology and Tarot (BBC News, 12 April 2009). The number of believers is slightly down from the 1990s, but still much higher than in the 1950s.

One reason why these beliefs are popular is because they appear to work: practitioners of fortune-telling sometimes produce excellent insights. However, this can be explained as follows.

We start with the theory that the human brain is divided into leftbrain and rightbrain.

We then observe that fortune-telling typically involves a complicated procedure, and sometimes complicated calculations. This applies to a range of practices, including astrology, iChing and Tarot. Sceptics typically dismiss this as pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo.

However, all of these procedures and calculations have the effect (and so perhaps the purpose) of occupying the leftbrain, while the rightbrain quietly produces some interesting and relevant insight. In other words, the more complicated the procedure the more effective it is.

See my post on Confirmation Bias

Is History One-Sided?

Not everyone liked Robin Hood. According to myth, he stole from the rich to give to the poor.

But shock horror: a document critical of Robin Hood has been discovered ('Negative' attitude to Robin Hood, BBC News, 14 March 2009).

(Notice, by the way, how the BBC subeditors insert coy quotation marks around the word "negative" - just in case anyone might think the BBC might be taking sides in this controversy - even though surely the word "attitude" already indicates that they are merely reporting an opinion.)

Julian Luxford of St Andrews University, described by the BBC as an expert in medieval manuscript studies, said: "Rather than depicting the traditionally well-liked hero, the article suggests that Robin Hood and his merry men may not actually have been 'loved by the good'.

Here are two important clues about the document.

1. It was written in Latin.
2. The manuscript is owned by Eton College.

According to the tradition that I learned as a boy, Robin Hood was well-liked by the poor and well-hated by the rich, including bishops and abbots. And of course the Sheriff of Nottingham.

Let me see: who would write a document about Robin Hood, in Latin, and deposit it in the Eton College Library? Obviously not a poor peasant.

So how does this discovery affect the "traditional" depiction of Robin Hood? Not much, as far as I can tell from the BBC report. It seems to tell us rather more about Dr Luxford and his notion of who were the "good" people in late mediaeval England.

I expect that Dr Luxford is reasonably competent as an art historian, and "well-liked" by his peers. However, like many other academics before him (see this blog for more examples), he has allowed his research to be popularized in a way that makes him look rather silly.

---

Update: Dr Luxford was interviewed on the BBC Today Programme this morning (17 March 2009). He didn't repeat his point about "good people", and James Naughtie made a point of saying why we might expect monks to dislike Robin Hood (following, but possibly not triggered by, my tweet to the programme), so misrule is restored.

It turns out that Dr Luxford's discovery conveniently parallels the plot of a new novel by Adam Thorpe, so we also have another entry for the life-imitating-art category.

Of course the evidence for Robin Hood's real character is very thin either way. All I'm saying here is that we shouldn't just jump to the Robin-Hood-Bad theory on the strength of a single, predictably hostile document.

See also Alex Hudson, Prince Among Thieves (BBC 17 March 2009)

Science and Public Policy

What is the purpose of science in society? Let me start with three data points.

1. The UK Parliament has asked the British public what science issues it should investigate (via Bad Science).

2. The media are constantly packed with celebrity scientists, who pontificate on a wide variety of subjects, often way outside their narrow specialism, unconstrained even by the feeble discipline of "peer review". For example, Baroness Professor Susan Greenfield, who appeared on BBC Newsnight on Tuesday, debating the perils of Facebook with Dr Aric Sigman and Dr Ben Goldacre. [The Perils of Facebook, “Facebook causes cancer”, There is a Greenfield far away, Susan Greenfield Profile]

3. The UK Prime Minister has set targets to increase the number of pupils in secondary school in England taking science subjects, in particular the "triple science" GCSE exam. [BBC News, 27 February 2009]

As it happens, my son is currently doing a triple science course at his high school. I find myself particularly puzzled by the chemistry syllabus, which doesn't seem to have very much to do with the chemistry I did at school. My hunch is that they have taken out much of the real science in an attempt to make the subject more "relevant". Sadly, the more they vainly try to make these subjects "interesting", the fewer students appear able and willing to study these subjects seriously at university.

What these three data points have in common is the idea that foolish and shallow notions of relevance, and ill-considered pseudo-scientific pronouncements by people who should know better, may create a barriers to the development of a genuine interest and deep understanding of science, as well as to properly informed debate on public policy based on good and authoritative science.

The Prime Minister obviously thinks that science education is a Good Thing. He has doubtless been briefed by his officials that British Industry needs so many scientists a year, whatever it is that scientists do, contributing (in Harold Wilson's phrase) to the White Heat of Technology. (As it happens, Britain has only had one prime minister with a science degree, and I think I may have read somewhere that she thought being a scientist-PM was an even more unlikely achievement than being a woman-PM.)

But I question the educational value of undifferentiated science. Are schools supposed to teach children lots of random and incoherent bits of science, so that they may grow up to be white-coated experts on a wide range of policy issues? Or is there some macroeconomic formula that depends on a fixed percentage of science graduates? Surely this isn't what science is about.

When an expert witness is called in a court case, there is the possibility of challenging not only the expertise itself, but also its relevance to this particular case. Perhaps similar challenges should be institutionalized whenever contributions to public debate rest on some claim of scientific authority.

My suggestion to the Parliament Select Committee will therefore be to investigate the nature and source of scientific authority in a democratic society, and to ask how society should assess and evaluate the available scientific expertise.

Not yet quite back into the fold after all ...

What exactly is the purpose of an apology?

The Vatican has rejected an apology by Bishop Richard Williamson, who had denied the full extent of the Holocaust, and said the bishop needed to "unequivocally and publicly" withdraw his comments. [BBC News, 27 Feb 2009]. This follows Bishop Williamson's earlier excommunication (which was for reasons unconnected with his opinions about the Holocaust) being controversially cancelled, as I discussed here a few weeks ago [Back into the Fold].

The Catholic Church now feels that Bishop Williamson's apology is ambiguous and grossly inadequate.

In September 2006, the Pope himself was forced to apologize after making some comments about mediaeval Islam. Some Moslems were dissatisfied with the Pope's apology; they felt that his Holiness appeared to be apologizing for the response rather than for the words themselves.

As I said at the time, an apology - especially a forced apology - often reveals a disconnect between intention and outcome. [Papa Ratzi 4]

Test of Character

Here's an interesting juxtaposition: two stories from the BBC News, 15th February 2009.

• US uses songs to deter immigrants The US Border Patrol is turning to traditional style Mexican songs, known as corridos, to dissuade illegal immigrants from trying to cross the US-Mexican border.

• US army 'wants more immigrants' The US army is to accept immigrants with temporary US visas for the first time since the Vietnam war, a report says.

Is this an unlucky coincidence - a classic example of two branches of government working at cross-purposes? Or is it a very clever piece of joined-up government? Thus sensitive and risk-averse Mexicans should remain south of the border, and only the most courageous and determined Mexicans are welcome for military posts.

Bank Bonuses

Why is it a good idea for banks to pay bonuses to their employees, when there seems to be a severe shortage of funds needed by real businesses to survive?

For many years, the banking industry has attracted many of the cleverest young people from the top schools and universities, and assigned them to playing transiently profitable number games. We are now told that the banks must continue to pay large bonuses to these people, so that their talents are retained within banking.

The apparent purpose of these bonuses is to perpetuate a discredited system, in which a significant pool of intelligence is still being denied to the industries that might actually create real wealth. Where would they go instead? Fields, factories and workshops perhaps?

Some cynics suggest that the current bank employees are so damaged by their experience, that letting their talents loose on wealth-creating industries would cause further economic and social catastrophe.

However, it would be a disgrace if new generations of bright students continued to be lured into gambling with other people's money by the prospect of high bonuses and zero accountability.

Perhaps we should get the bankers to do some real banking - along with hedging and ditching. See Somerset Guide to Restoring Hedgerows (pdf).

Nuclear Disarmament

Why does Britain need to invest in a new generation of nuclear weapons? There is no conceivable circumstance in which these weapons will ever be used, even in self-defence.

The old argument was that the possessors of nuclear weaponry would use their power wisely to deter other nations from developing such weapons. This has clearly failed. There is no credible threat of ever using nuclear weapons against Iran or North Korea, let alone any non-state terrorist organization; the fact of proliferation is therefore completely uninfluenced by the fact that the Western powers have some expensive and untested nuclear warheads corroding in a bunker somewhere.

The supporters of multi-lateral disarmament say that it would be an excellent thing if everyone were to abandon nuclear weapons at the same time. But they don't believe that Britain's taking a unilateral move away from the possession of nuclear weapons will persuade any other country to disarm. Therefore we must continue to develop ever more advanced nuclear weapons. I heard the Foreign Secretary David Miliband putting this argument on the BBC News this evening.

Unilateral disarmament is traditionally associated with liberal philosophers and left-wing Christians - from Bertrand Russell to Bruce Kent. However, an increasing number of military top brass are openly questioning the acquisition of nuclear weapons that can never be used. [Generals in 'scrap Trident' call BBC News 16 January 2009. General calls for Trident rethink, BBC News 29 January 2009]

In the past, some supporters of unilateral disarmament have put forward the view that we don't have to wait for others to disarm, we can set a moral example. Once we lay down our arms, other countries will be shamed into doing the same.

Supporters of multilateral disarmament believe this is unlikely, and perhaps they are right. But they go on to draw a fallacious conclusion - that because our abandoning the bomb would have no effect on other countries, therefore there is no purpose in our abandoning the bomb, therefore we should keep it.

In other words, they are still hoping to use the bomb - not as a way of killing millions of innocent citizens but as a bargaining chip in some game of international politics. Keeping the bomb allows us a seat at a diplomatic table at which no meaningful agreement is ever going to be reached. What a wonderful way of spending $20bn of taxpayers' money.