Don't diss the dolphins

I was at a meeting of marine biologists recently where a speaker made a comment  that they hated dolphins. This got a big cheer from the audience, and seething from the small group of dolphin conservation scientists that were there with me. This got me thinking about issues related being a dolphin biologist and some of the prejudices and biases we face, and my friends over at southern Fried science encouraged me to do a guest blog. So without further ado - here it is:   "Don't diss the dolphins"

Are dolphins intelligent ? Of course they are duh!

I've been very lax in keeping this blog up to date, oops.


Recently I've been involved in a lot of arguing about the ethics of keeping captive dolphins, mainly in the wake of the documentary Blackfish. My grad student and I organized a workshop at the recent Society for Marine Mammalogy conference on the science behind intelligence in dolphins, and what it means in terms of ethics and laws. For example, studies showing that they are self aware and have other cognitive skills equivalent to a 4-6 year old human child, yet the US government can allow permits for capturing, harassing and these injuring animals with little consideration for implications of this level of intelligence. The primate science community has been addressing similar concerns, and laws have been passed that basically shut down much invasive great ape research, and requires the retirement of great apes to "sanctuaries". But not so with cetaceans.


Just prior to this a book came out that basically posits that dolphins are not especially intelligent - at least that's what all the press coverage claimed. I had to weigh in:


http://www.southernfriedscience.com/?p=15458


And encouraged my friend Mel to write a critique of the book: http://www.southernfriedscience.com/?p=16532


So if you have any thought about saying that dolphins are dumb, you'd better think twice.

Noah's Ark snark

Coming from Somerset, England, a large swath of which is currently under water (including the house I spent my tweenage years), floods have been on my mind. So my blog entry to day is about probably the most famous “flood”.  

The infamous creation museum - where dinosaurs walk peaceably with humans in the Garden of Eden and visitors are told that the world is just a little over 6000 years old (for a review by a scientist see) is planning to build a Noah’s Ark exhibit (http://arkencounter.com/).

Although the story of a great flood pre-dates the bible and is referred to in Mesopotamian tablets dating back as far as 1800BC (http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/feb/11/noahs-ark-round-ancient-british-museum-mesopotamian-clay-tablets-flood), biblical literalists (for example http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v2/n2/caring-for-the-animals

and http://icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=2465 for just a couple of examples) including the above mentioned creation museum treat the Noah story as historical fact (based on Genesis 6-8), that all the species of animals in the world were carried in the Ark, and that this is a valid and equal explanation for the existence of current biodiversity as evolution by natural selection.

Let’s for the moment overlook that fact that biblical scriptures does not agree on the exact story of Noah’s Ark, for example in one version of the story of the flood, it lasted 40 days whereas a second says 150 days, and likewise in one version version Noah sent out a dove three times to look for dry land, and the other a raven is sent out once, yet Christian fundamentalists are adamant about the version that appears in Genesis is the literal truth. Let’s look at the nature of the Ark.

The ship was six times as long as it was wide, with three decks and an opening in the side 450 ft long X 50 by 30 ‘ high or  521 ‘ x  87’ by 52’ high, depending on what version of cubit you use for determining the size.

The largest wooden ship built to date was the six masted schooner Wyoming, which was built in 1909, and which was 450’ long. This ship sank, because at that size wood is not an effective building material, and it twists and warps. Bear in mind that Noah and his sons were building a vessel that was actually slightly larger, with bronze age tools, and were not experienced boat builders with university trained engineers structurally designing the vessel.

Now, inside this vessel all the creatures of the earth would be placed two by two. Genesis 7, mentions that 7 pairs of birds and “clean” species were put upon the ark, with one pair of each ”unclean” species (there are currently 10,000 bird species, which would mean 140,000 animals, which would be a tight squeeze as the generally given dimensions of the ark would allow as  average 1 ¾ foot cube per individual bird) and so conditions would have been pretty cramped. At the moment there are an estimated 8.7 million species, not including bacteria etc (Mora et al. 2011; http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1001127). The biblical literalists talk about the Ark holding 7,000 to 16,000 species, including dinosaurs, and to get around the issue of size, it has been posited that the animals were all babies, in order to fit. In order for those species to have <I can see biblical literalists shudder at the thought> evolved into the number of species recorded today, approximately 6 species of animal would have had to have spontaneously arisen every 24 hours since the flood. Don’t get me started on the genetic bottlenecks involved.

Logistics of space and species diversity aside, Noah must have spent a long time travelling post flood, to, for example, taxi kangaroos from the middle east to Australia,  kiwi’s to New Zealand, and must also have repopulated North America with wildlife.

So to biblical literalists I say – WTF guys?!

Now if you wanted to take the biblical stories as folk history, the Mediterranean region has had a history of earthquakes and volcanic activity, and a tsunami or other geological event that may have led to a regional flood (hey perhaps there were minor earthquakes and Noah in his wisdom preempted an upcoming biggie on its way), and Noah built a preemptive boat to carry a diversity of agricultural livestock, and perhaps some local wildlife, well maybe that makes logical and scientific sense. But increasingly biblical fundamentalists are trying to crow bar a literal interpretation of Genesis 6-8 into science classes (for example see  http://ict.aiias.edu/vol_26A/26Acc_057-077.htm , http://noahsdinosaurs.wordpress.com/, http://christiananswers.net/kids/lesson-plans.html#noah, and for what to do if you encounter this issue see http://ncse.com/rncse/20/1-2/search-noahs-ark-science-curriculum for starters). It a literal interpretation of the Noah’s Ark story is to be included side by side with evolution in terms of validity you would have to disregard our current understanding of not only biology, but geology, paleontology, geography and quite frankly engineering and mathematics to boot.

Blackfish

My review of the new movie "Blackfish"

There was a house in New Oooorleans

It’s all about the funding …

Just moments ago another advertisement for an academic position came across my desk with the words “must have a strong track record in fund-raising”. There was no mention of proven teaching ability or published research.  This seems to be an escalating trend in universities. A few months ago I had a meeting with a university administrator to talk about what counts towards getting tenure as a faculty member. I was basically told recruiting students and developing programs didn’t count; neither did mentoring students whether graduate or undergraduate. Leadership in, and recognition by, professional societies – doesn’t count. Poor teaching evaluations would count against you, likewise if you weren’t producing at least a few peer-reviewed publications a year.  But the number one criterion seemed to be getting money for the university through outside research grants, and only research grants – getting money for the university through attracting meetings to the campus, from having popular and well attended classes, or through attracting more students to the university, basically didn’t matter.

That meeting left me dismayed and depressed about the future of the university. I came back to academia after working for an environmental NGO, which I left because I was frustrated at spending the majority of my time raising money for administrative costs instead of achieving the aims of the organization (i.e. marine conservation). What I wanted to be doing was using my scientific knowledge to make an impact, helping to conserve threatened species and also trying to inspire and train young conservation scientists to make a difference. I thought that a university would be the best place for this. The above administrator made me feel like I was working for a business where making a profit was more important that education, intellectual innovation or making the world a better place.

Around the same time one of my graduate students informed me that a faculty instructor had advised a class to do research, not in what intellectually inspired them, or what they felt was important, but “where the funding is best.”

Over the past two decades government funding for research across the board has steadily decreased (when adjusted for inflation; Skyler 2013). With government budget freezes, sources of funding for external research projects are declining, have been completely axed, or the government agency employees are applying for them themselves to maintain projects and staff – with insider knowledge that makes it effectively impossible for outside academics to compete for these grants. Foundations are still offering grants, but government agencies are also applying for these grants to make up budget shortfalls, increasing competition for academics. Likewise non-governmental organizations, which may historically have been a source of funding for academics, especially those of an environmental bent, are now competing with academics for grants, as opposed to offering them, with increasing numbers of staff specifically dedicated to this task.

The budgetary forecast for government funding looks increasingly bleak as, with an expanding and ageing population, more government funds will have to be dedicated to programs such as Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security. The only area of government funding that seems to be unaffected is military spending, and military-oriented research (Skyler 2013). Linked to these spending forecasts, funds will also be available for biomedical research. The pharmacological industry will stand to benefit from an increasing and ageing population, and associated increased healthcare spending.

There is a science-fiction series on television at the moment called Continuum. The show portrays a dystopian future where everything is run by corporations and the military. Is that what we are heading towards in academia, where faculty will be pressured to do research with military or medical applications so that one day these will be the only research fields? Already the university’s greed for external grants is stifling my academic freedom – I have been pushed by certain Deans in the past to develop grants and write proposals for topics I am not particularly interested in or don’t think are important, just because there is funding available and a possible overhead for the university. Conducting projects that interest me, and may actually have big impacts in terms of environmental practice and management, is effectively looked down upon by the powers that be because they don’t bring big money into the university coffers. This financial situation also encourages a climate where overheads, salary and equipment go to university coffers instead of, for example, financially struggling graduate students or conservation practitioners and environmental groups in the developing countries where many of my projects are based.

I returned to academia because I wanted to find out why things happened the way they did, and because I had ideas about the way animals or people behaved, and because there were threats to the environment and I wanted to test if my hypotheses about them were correct. I didn’t want to spend my life filling in forms and making up budgeting spreadsheets, although I was willing to do that to a reasonable degree. If I had wanted to spend most of my time doing that, I would have become an accountant. It’s not the best use of my academic training and brain cells.

 

The current model of university research funding is unsustainable. US government projections for expenditure are going to be increasingly invested in health care and the military. Moreover, industry will quite frankly use their own scientists, so we can’t look to them for funding in the future – their in-house scientists are cheaper, faster and will give them the answers they want, not the answers the data support. Not only will this future environment restrict the range of research projects that are pursued, but there will be increasing corporate influence over the interpretation and disclosure of results.

 This is certainly evident in my field of marine mammalogy. The US Navy funds 70% of all marine mammal research in the U.S. and 50% of marine mammal research worldwide (Weilgart et al. 2004). There is evidence that the US Navy has used the threat of withdrawing funding to stifle comments from academics (Whitehead & Weilgart 1995; Weilgart et al. 2004)*, something which I have personally experienced., Some years ago, US Navy representatives called my university president and several Deans to note my comments about the impacts of navy sonar on cetaceans  and the fact that the Navy funds several university research projects, in a not terribly veiled threat. In the environmental consulting field this has long been recognized – the client often dictates the conclusions of a study, because if a client isn’t pleased, contracts and funding aren’t renewed (see Wright et al. 2013).

 

 The funding situation is unlikely to improve in the future and will likely get much worse. This will impinge on the whole nature of a university as a place of academic freedom to make new discoveries and to push back the boundaries of knowledge over a wide and varied selection of fields and disciplines. If the university continues the way it’s going, downplaying teaching and mentoring of students in favor of making money, it will stifle academic freedom. Or it could reassess its priorities and think about innovative ways to develop independent sources of research funding. If not, the universities of the future may only have two departments - engineering and biomedical science - and be little more than the research wings of the military and Big Pharma.

 References

Skyler, J. 2013. Why you don’t “Fucking Love Science”. Published 17 Sept 2013. http://www.johnskylar.com/post/61507282912/why-you-dont-fucking-love-science

Whitehead, H. and Weilgart, L. 1995. Marine mammal science, the U.S. Navy and academic freedom. Marine Mammal Science 11: 260-263.

Weilgart, L., Whitehead, H., Rendell, L. and Calambokidis, J. 2004. Response to “Resonance and Dissonance: Science, Ethics, and Sonar Debate”. Marine Mammal Science 20: 898-899.

Wright, A.J., Dolman, S., Jasny, M., Parsons, E.C.M., Schiedek, D. and Young, S. 2013. Myth and momentum: A critique of environmental impact assessments. Journal of Environmental Protection 4 (8A2): 72-77.

 *See also: Administrative Record, August 6-9, 2001, Natural Resources Defense Council v. Evans, 279 F. Supp. 2d 1129 (N.D. Cal. 2003).

 

The sequester and conservation science

The budget sequester has limited federal spending, but the penny pinching has impacted conservation. The Society for Conservation Biology (SCB), the international professional body for conservation scientists, estimated that because of the sequester at least 200 federal conservation scientists who normally attended could not go to this year’s International Congress for Conservation Biology (the largest meeting specifically for conservation scientists) in Baltimore. Even though the congress was so close to DC, many federal scientists were prohibited from attending, even ones who volunteered to do so in their own time, on their own dime. The sequester also resulted in government agencies reneging on pledges for funding. The SCB estimated that they had lost a minimum $150,000 because of the sequester that could have gone to conservation projects or helping developing country conservation scientists or students. The total cost to conservation is incalculable however, when you consider lost opportunities to make vital connections with leaders in the conservation field, and to discover and learn the latest conservation science knowledge and cutting-edge techniques.