Uncommon Ground

Senators react to ESA rule changes

2008-08-28T10:35:01Z

I've posted several times about proposed changes to rules implementing the Endangered Species Act. On Tuesday, John Kerry, Barbara Boxer, Chris Dodd, Sheldon Whitehouse, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Frank Lautenberg sent a letter to Secretary of Interior Dirk Kempthorne.

The proposed changes are inconsistent with the letter and spirit of the ESA, contradicted by federal judicial precedent, and would reduce rather than strengthen protections for imperiled fish and wildlife.

They ask Kempthorne to withdraw the proposal. Failing that, they ask that the comment period be extended to six months, allowing time for a series of public hearings on the proposal.

You can read the full text of the letter at JohnKerry.com.
]]> Joe Lieberman was not among those signing the letter.

Joe Lieberman, where are you?

2008-08-27T20:42:37Z

On Tuesday a group of Senators wrote to Dirk Kempthorne asking that he withdraw his recently proposed changes in regulations implementing the Endangered Species Act. Joe Lieberman was not among them.

On his Senate website, Lieberman has this to say about environmental oversight:

In April 2007, Senator Lieberman led four Senate colleagues in writing the US Secretary of the Interior to oppose draft changes to the regulations that implement the Endangered Species Act. Their letter noted that the draft changes would reduce dramatically the current scope and positive impact of the Act. The letter posed fifteen detailed questions about the draft rule changes and requested that the Department not move any closer to promulgating any revisions until it answered the Senators' questions.

Senator Lieberman. Please join your colleagues in asking Secretary Kempthorne to withdraw the changes Endangered Species Act regulations proposed on 15 August.
]]> Update:28 August 2008, 06:40am -- I just noticed that this post got published with the date of the proposal reading "XX August." I had that a placeholder while Iooked up the right date and forgot to change it to the correct "15 August." Sorry about that.

The North Pole is melting (again)

2008-08-27T13:00:28Z

From the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Click on the image for a full-size version.

In 2007 the extent of ice in the Arctic Sea reached a new low. Last year it reached a low of 4.24 million square kilometers. Yesterday the National Snow and Ice Data Center reported that it has dropped below the minimum level of 2005, and the minimum is not normally seen until late September.

With several weeks left in the melt season, sea ice extent dipped below the 2005 minimum to stand as the second-lowest in the satellite record. The 2005 minimum, at 5.32 million square kilometers (2.05 million square miles), held the record-low minimum until last year.

Juliet Eilperin has additional information in a Washington Post story this morning.

Evolution rocks!

2008-08-27T10:41:41Z

]]> 1 but I'm delighted to see a rock band whose "mission statement is to help teach critical thinking and science skill sets." Talk about communicating science! You can find out more about Overman at www.overman.info, and about "Evolution Rocks!" at www.overman.info/evolutionrocks.html.

¹For example, if an undergraduate wrote this

The human race, the highest product of evolution, was now at the cutting edge of progress toward higher things

in a paper, we'd have a long discussion about "progress" in evolution. To say that humans are "the highest product of evolution" is either completely meaningless or completely wrong.

The ESA on proposed changes in the ESA

2008-08-26T18:53:29Z

The Ecological Society of America just released a statement on the proposed changes in federal regulations implementing the Endangered Species Act. The bottom line?

The Society believes that independent scientific review is a critical part of the Endangered Species Act and that eliminating this part of the process will result in environmental neglect at best and species extinctions at worst. The administration's proposal would compromise our ecosystems' capacity to provide essential services, such as mitigating pollution, regulating climate and providing natural resources. Exposing the most vulnerable species to the threats that will result from the Bush proposal will endanger our ecological support system.

I encourage you to read the full text of the statement at the ESA's web site. The American Institute of Biological Sciences submitted comments last week requesting that the public comment period be extended to at least 90 days.

Growing better

2008-08-26T15:44:18Z

]]> Chris Martine graduated from UConn in 2006.

Evolution, education, and the integrity of science

2008-08-25T10:49:53Z

I just learned that the American Association for the Advancement of Science released this video, Evolution, education and the integrity of science, last spring. Take a look, and and pass it along.¹
]]> ¹You can read more about the video on the AAAS web site.

Teaching evolution

2008-08-24T13:44:07Z

I have enormous respect for high school biology teachers, especially those like David Campbell who teach evolution in communities where many parents (and even some biology teachers) are hostile to it. Campbell was part of the committee that drafted Florida's new science standards, standards that require evolution to be taught.

Today's New York Times has an article describing the challenges Campbell faces teaching evolution in Orange Park, Florida. You should read the whole thing. It shows how Campbell achieved a small victory by being firm on what science tells us about the natural world, while being sensitive to the religious beliefs many of his students bring to class.¹

In his first exam on evolution, Campbell asked students to provide two pieces of evidence for evolution and natural selection. One of his student, Bryce Haas, refused to answer. Bryce plays football and regularly attends prayer meetings of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes that are held at 6:00am in the school gymnasium.

Faced with a challenge like that, I probably would have given up.² But David Campbel isn't me. He's a much better teacher. He pressed on through a difficult, challenging lecture in which he presented some of the evidence that humans and apes share a common ancestor.

When the bell rang, he knew that he had not convinced Bryce, and perhaps many of the others. But that week, he gave the students an opportunity to answer the questions they had missed on the last test. Grading Bryce's paper later in the quiet of his empty classroom, he saw that this time, the question that asked for evidence of evolutionary change had been answered.

]]> ¹Dare I say that Campbell "framed" his lessons in terms that made it more likely his students would hear and accept what he had to say?
²That's why I have such enormous respect for high school biology teachers like David Campbell. They have reserves of dedication and creativity far greater than mine. They are the real heroes of science education, and they deserve a lot more recognition for the work they do.

What's in your sushi?

2008-08-23T15:38:54Z

Tim Whitehead links to this story from yesterday's New York Times in which two high school students found that 25% of the fish sold as sushi in New York are misidentified.

[O]ne-fourth of the fish samples with identifiable DNA were mislabeled. A piece of sushi sold as the luxury treat white tuna turned out to be Mozambique tilapia, a much cheaper fish that is often raised by farming. Roe supposedly from flying fish was actually from smelt. Seven of nine samples that were called red snapper were mislabeled, and they turned out to be anything from Atlantic cod to Acadian redfish, an endangered species.

Tim headlines his entry "More fake fish", which is true, but it's not what interests me.]]> Although the students did not present the project for a grade at school, they made sure to mention it on their college applications. Both will enroll at Johns Hopkins University this fall.

Neither, however, expects to major in the sciences. "I've always been into art history," [Louisa] Strauss said, "which is really different from this." [Kate] Stoeckle, who is the granddaughter of the entertainer and arts patron Kitty Carlisle Hart, is thinking about studying writing or psychology. But that, they said, is the point. "If we found it interesting -- which we did -- I think lots of people like us can do it, too," Ms. Stoeckle said. (emphasis mine). I find that last statement very encouraging. Science should be fun and interesting, whether or not you're a scientist. An art history major or a writer can enjoy science every bit as much as as a biologist or a physicist can enjoy music or literature. As Brian Greene put it a couple of months ago,

Like a life without music, art or literature, a life without science is bereft of something that gives experience a rich and otherwise inaccessible dimension.

Louisa and Kate know that. I hope my students know it, too.

You don't have to pass an IQ test to be in the Senate

2008-08-22T21:07:22Z

]]> Thanks to Greg Laden for pointing this out.

Federal funding for science and engineering

2008-08-22T20:03:39Z

In 2007 universities and colleges in the United States spent just over $49.4 billion in scientific research and development. Of that total, more than 60% ($30.4 billion) came from federal sources. Although total federal support increased by a little less than $300M from 2006, that represents a 1.6% decline when adjusted for inflation. Its the second year in a row when federal support for scientific research and development failed to keep pace with inflation. Total research and development expenditures increased by only 0.8% from 2006 to 2007 when adjusted for inflation.

According to figures from the Bureau of Economic Analysis the Gross Domestic Product of the United States increased by almost 2.4% from the fourth quarter of 2006 to the fourth quarter of 2007. In other words, the U.S. economy grew at three times the rate of overall U.S. investment in scientific research and development at colleges and universities.

I'm not going to claim that federal and non-federal funding for university-based scientific research should increase at the same rate as the overall economy, but surely we're eating our seed corn when the economy is growing three times as fast as our investment in university-based scientific research.

Hey, maybe this is something we should ask John McCain and Barack Obama about. Oh wait. It sounds a lot like question 13 of the fourteen questions both candidates have been invited to answer. Shawn Otto reported in a recent e-mail that both campaigns have said they will respond. I, for one, am looking forward to their answers.
]]> Read the full report at the National Science Foundation.

Update on Endangered Species Act changes

2008-08-21T19:35:36Z

I've mentioned before the changes that Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne is proposing to regulations that implement the Endangered Species Act. The Union of Concerned Scientists has just posted a brief analysis of the proposed changes. They conclude that the proposed changes would:

Transfer much analysis away from the scientists at the Services and instead give the action agencies enormous discretion to determine whether or not their own project will affectimperiled species.
Make action agencies the gatekeepers to the consultation process, effectively transferring decision-making based solidly in science to agencies that severely lack the biological expertise to make them.
Impose an arbitrary deadline of 60 days for the Services to respond to a consultation requestfrom action agencies. If the Services do not reply in 60 days, the action agency is free to move forward with their desired action.

]]> Rocky Mountain News (Denver, CO) has this to say about the proposed changes:

[W]e don't want a lame-duck White House unilaterally revamping how the act is enforced.

...

Changes of this magnitude - Interior calls them the most sweeping reforms of the act in two decades, and critics agree - should be fully and publicly deliberated, not imposed by bureaucratic fiat.

That from an editorial board also suggesting that the changes "may actually be warranted." The Grand Forks Herald (Grand Forks, ND) writes:

Teddy Roosevelt would not be proud.

And John McCain should waste no time in pointing that out.

Presidential candidate McCain calls himself a "Teddy Roosevelt Republican" and often calls the 26th president his "ultimate hero." So, how would Roosevelt -- the creator of five national parks and 18 national monuments -- respond to the Bush administration's idea to hobble the Endangered Species Act?

He likely would reject the idea out of hand. "There can be no greater issue than that of conservation in this country," Roosevelt once said.

That's the kind of language McCain should use in denouncing the president's plan.

Dire predictions

2008-08-21T16:54:26Z

I mentioned last month that Michael Mann and Lee Kump from RealClimate.org have a new book out, Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming. I ordered shortly after learning about it, and I finished reading it this weekend. It is a very, very, very good book. Mann and Kump explain the current state of climate science very well. They identify those features of the global climate that we understand well (e.g., the greenhouse effect), those we don't understand so well (e.g., the surface warming expected if CO₂ levels increase to 560ppm), and those where the uncertainties are even larger (e.g., how fast will the major ice sheets melt). More importantly, they do a good job of explaining why action to curb climate change makes sense even though there are parts of the climate system we don't understand well.

Clearly, we must work to diminish the uncertainty where possible, particularly when it impacts on our ability to make appropriate policy decisions or choose an optimal strategy for mitigating climate change. Recent history has taught us that uncertainties are not adequate justification for avoiding action. We know enough today to understand how vital it is that we act now. (emphasis mine)

]]> 1 In it they point out that

Western Europe, the United States, and other developed countries currently have high standards of living, in part, because of our past consumption of fossil fuels.
The deleterious effects of climate change will be borne predominantly by those in developing countries whose poverty and lack of technological infrastructure make it less likely they will be able to adapt.

As Mann and Kump put it,

The developed world has already benefited from a century of cheap fossil-fuel energy. Given this fact, it is surely unfair to tell developing nations, who are just now beginning to build their energy and transportation infrastructures, that they can't have their turn to enjoy cheap oil.

I wouldn't put it quite that way, but surely it isn't fair to ask developing nations to shoulder as much of the burden as we whose wealth is responsible for most of the "locked in" climate change and whose wealth can help those who will suffer most.

¹See James Garvey's The ethics of climate change: right and wrong in a warming world for an extended discussion.

Big biology

2008-08-20T15:54:42Z

Biology is a very, very different discipline from the one I began to study thirty years ago when I started graduate school at Stanford.¹ Entire genomes are sequenced routinely where once we were lucky to know the sequence of a single gene. Theoreticians, like me, depended on computers in our research, but for everyone else the only time they used a computer was when they needed to do a complicated statistical analysis in SAS.² Now it's difficult to imagine any biologist surviving without a computer and an internet connection, whether downloading sequences from Genbank, inferring phylogenies,³, or inferring rates of gene flow, computers are an essential part of the modern biologists toolkit. Writing in Nature Genetics Lincoln Stein outlines a vision of the future for cyberinfrastructure in biology. The whole article is worth reading, but if you can't wait for the punchline, here it is:

This is an exciting time for biology. The projects that are now in progress or just getting under way point towards a future in which scientific collaborations will be unimpeded by geographic constraints or by limited access to data. Just as it is now inconceivable to do science without access to a personal computer and e-mail, in a decade the cyberinfrastructure will be an absolutely indispensable part of the biological researcher's equipment.

]]> ¹Yes, I really am that old.
²My first copy of Sokal & Rohlf's Biometry had advice on how to streamline ANOVA calculations with mechanical calculators.
³Whether using parsimony, likelihood,or Bayesian approaches, the days are long past when the data sets were small and simple enough for hand calculation.

Bigfoot in Georgia -- Not! Not!

2008-08-20T10:56:36Z

A few days ago we learned that DNA from the "bigfoot" specimen in Georgia came from a human and an opossum. Today we learn that Tom Biscardi, the guy who sponsored the news conference in Palo Alto announcing the "discovery" and paid "a substantial amount of money" for the corpse, admits that he was duped. "It was just a total scam," he said.

Well, Mr. Biscardi, my offer still stands. If you really did pay "a substantial amount of money" for a frozen gorilla suit, there's a bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in buying. I'm sure I could get you a good deal.

USA Today has more details.