To whom it may concern:
Are you an “accommodationist”? I suppose that is what I would be labeled. It is a term often used to denote someone who espouses a view that science and religion need not be at odds with each other.
Definitions, of course, matter. I have blogged and given podcasts on evolution, science, and faith before, so I won’t use this entry to rehash what you can find there. But again, definitions matter, and I’m sure the term “accommodationist” means different things to different people.
So before I go further, let’s set some definitional ground rules for this discussion.
- Science = a discipline whose sole focus is posing answerable questions about the physical universe.
- Methodological naturalism = the philosophy of the scientist; natural laws and phenomena govern the known, physical universe. Our assumptions as scientists, if you will.
- Philosophical naturalism = a philosophical position (no judgments here, by the way, this is not about wrong or right) that in simple terms is what laypeople would call “atheism,” but in more complex ways means belief that all the world is natural laws and phenomena, and nothing more.
In this context, what does “accommodationist” mean? If science = methodological naturalism, then I would argue that “accommodationist” is an odd term. By definition, if the question isn’t about the physical world, we’re done — science cannot answer that. I suppose I am accommodating the fact that many people have a faith, believe in a higher power, or see a purpose or plan in the universe, but that is not the same as calling any of these examples science. I suppose I am accommodating the fact that all of us have a belief system of some sort, and that my goal as a scientist is not to test faith. That, at least, is what I mean by being an accommodationist.
However, if to you science = philosophical naturalism, then accommodation with faith probably does not work. That is all well and good — there are many fine and wonderful people whom I deeply respect, love, and admire, and they are philosophical naturalists or whatever they are labeled or label themselves in different contexts. But the issue, then, is one of personal belief, not of science. Science is not a belief, it is a tool for understanding the natural world. If you are not comfortable with the concept or faith in something beyond nature, that is perfectly acceptable, but it really has no bearing on science.
When you think about it, most of us accommodate all the time, we just may not realize it or think about it in those terms. The concepts of God, spirituality, and philosophical naturalism, among many others, never make their way into a book on plumbing. Yet, as long as the plumber does his or her job, does it also matter if they are Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindi, or any number of faiths? Do you really care what your medical doctor’s faith is or is not, as long as when they are performing surgery they follow the Hippocratic Oath, know their anatomy, and wash up beforehand? If not, I suspect you are then an “accommodationist.”
Let’s be clear: being an accommodationist, whatever that means, shouldn’t mean that science and religion or faith be combined into one. In other words, science as a tool only works within certain, clear parameters, and appeals to the supernatural or to matters of faith won’t cut it. It also doesn’t mean you get to ignore data and trends if they don’t suit your personal faith, or read into data and trends what you want there to be. As a scientist, I would never tolerate any explanation for or against evolution, climate change, or any myriad of topics that appealed to faith, the supernatural, or any other untestable approach.
The fear among the scientific community surrounding “accommodationism” I believe stems from the disheartening reality that truly being an expert in something is very undervalued in our culture. For example, we pit climate scientists, experts on climate mind you, against political pundits, lawyers, and talking heads and call that a fair fight. It’s not. Not even close. There is a reason you listen and give more weight to experts: because they have the data, they see the trends, they have the best chance of predicting what is to come. This is different from blind trust in authority. In science, using your status as an expert to distort the facts, fudge the data, or otherwise abuse your power is sooner or later a death sentence for your career. Most of us trust each other implicitly because we are supposed to be dealing in data: break that trust and no one should return your calls.
As an American citizen, I can say from my own experiences that we have an outlook that questions authority. That outlook can be very useful, but I think it can run amok and also do much harm. The real issue seems to be not one of trusting authorities or not, but of knowing where trustable authority comes from. I cannot speak about experts in other fields, but in science that trustable authority comes from peer-reviewed literature and a track record of doing honest science. Perhaps that is the biggest problem we have here in the U.S.: understanding the difference between “because I said so” and “based on my years of experience with this particular phenomenon I can predict that …”
So, is “accommodation” a problem? I would argue it depends on how you view science and whether you distinguish that tool from your own philosophical and religious leanings. But if “accommodationist” simply means accepting the fact that science is not about undermining faith, I suppose I could accommodate that.
Tags: accommodation, accommodationist, Bonnan, evolution, faith, Science
Politics are again in the airwaves here in the U.S., and unfortunately anti-science sentiments have come along for the ride. I have previously posted here and elsewhere on distinctions between science and non-science and what the biological theory of evolution actually is about.
But with all the heated rhetoric going around, I wanted to try another way of getting across why we in the scientific community are opposed to such things as “creation science” and “Intelligent Design Theory.” Then I had a thought today that inspired this post: imagine if science, faith, and pseudoscience could each describe themselves as people. What would they say?
Science: “I am a powerful tool. I can help you describe nature and unlock its secrets. My authority comes from data, from the physical universe, from the tangible or abstract, but always from data. Unlike the people who use me, I show and reveal the natural world unflinchingly. I can show you what is possible and not possible in the physical universe, but no more. Don’t rely on me for moral or spiritual guidance, or for the human need for emotional connection — you will find nothing here. Always remember — I am a powerful tool, so use me wisely. In the right hands, I can do immense good. In the wrong hands, I can do immense harm.”
Faith: “I provide solace, strength, and guidance. I am hope. I can bring people together for the common good. I am not present as a physical force, nor am I amenable to scientific testing or mathematical proof. I am not religion, although religion is steeped in me. I am what prods you to risk, I am what inspires, I am art, and I am soul. I am inspiration, and I am what some call the human spirit. I am not a substitute for anything in the physical world, and yet I am necessary to a great many people. Like science, I am powerful, and I can do immense good or harm depending on how I am used.”
Pseudoscience: “I am used for personal gain, politics, and power plays, or simply to satisfy narcissistic or emotional wants. I corrupt both science and faith. I cloak myself in the authority of science because those who don’t understand what I am assume my authority is equivalent. I speak like science, but I have no data to support me. Instead, I corrupt the notion faith as a way to support what I cannot show. Instead of inspiring hope or providing guidance, I use sleight of hand, I confuse the facts, I inspire conspiracy, and I make others question the authority of science rather than my lack of data. I take the powerful notion of faith and turn it on its head, using it to muddy the waters, create confusion, and lend me power. I care not for what the natural world holds nor for the common good. I am the perfect tool for manipulating the ignorant, and I can turn science and faith on one another in order to distract from my power grabs. My power comes from your ignorance, but my destruction comes from your proper understanding of science and faith.”
In these imaginary self-descriptions, the point I hope to drive home and make crystal clear is this: so-called “creation science” and “Intelligent Design Theory” are pseudoscience. When science and faith are used appropriately, and when their complimentary aspects are understood, there is no room for pseudoscience. I don’t want my children, your children, or anyone to be fooled by pseudoscience into thinking they have to chose between a powerful, useful tool that has helped us find our place in the natural world (science) and their spiritual and emotional well-being (faith). I oppose “creation science” and “Intelligent Design Theory” not because of faith or religion, but because they are pseudosciences with nothing important to contribute to science or faith.
Tags: Bonnan, creationism, evolution, evolutionary, faith, intelligent design theory, Matthew Bonnan, pseudoscience, Science, theory
Hello world. It has been a while since I’ve posted to Jurassic Journeys. I want to assure everyone I’m still here and working on the big dinosaurs, but life has been a good busy.
I have some new items to comment on and new ideas to post so please stay tuned … and thanks to everyone who still follows this blog!
Dr. Matt
Tags: Bonnan, Jurassic Journeys, Matthew Bonnan
A new paper published in Nature presents a novel way to test for evidence of sauropod migration. Many paleontologists have suggested that sauropods migrated: with such gigantic herbivores, water and food intake needs would certainly have driven these animals to continuously seek these resources. Given the wet/dry cycles of the Morrison Formation, it has often been suggested that these huge animals kept moving to where the resources were plentiful.
In the new paper by Fricke et al. (2011), the researchers test the hypothesis of sauropod migration by using oxygen isotope differences in tooth enamel sections to predict whether or not these animals were getting water from places other than where they are buried. Specifically, they examined teeth from the most common Morrison sauropod, Camarasaurus, from two different localities: Dinosaur National Monument, Utah, and Thermopolis, Wyoming.
Perhaps the simplest way to think about oxygen isotopes is like a permanent dye. Let’s say waters from lowland areas stained enamel green and the upland waters stained them blue. In sauropods that stayed in one spot all the time, their enamel would be blue or green through and through because they would only be drinking from one water supply. In sauropods that migrated to different water sources, the newly growing enamel would take up the color of the new water supply, so they would change from blue to green or green to blue from root to crown depending on the migration pattern.
Enamel is the diamond of vertebrate tissues in that it is often the best preserved skeletal material and, more importantly, the oxygen isotope chemistry is difficult to alter. In other words, the oxygen isotopes of the water the Camarasaurus was drinking should not be “overwritten” by the environment it was subsequently buried in. Therefore, their data support the hypothesis that these animals were drinking water from areas far from where they buried.
What is significant about this study is that it tentatively provides additional data which, when combined with other approaches, is consistent with migration. For example, my own research on sauropod dinosaur limbs, including those of Camarasaurus, shows that these animals had long limbs that acted as “stilts.” When you strap on a pair of stilts, a small movement at your hip translates to a long movement at the end of the stilt. Likewise, I have hypothesized that the long legs of sauropods like Camarasaurus were probably ideal moving machines that allowed this giant herbivores to efficiently cover long stretches. The oxygen isotope data of the current study is consistent with that, and with other lines of evidence such as trackways.
Just as the authors are tentative about these findings, so am I. I think they have a novel approach and new angle to getting at questions of sauropod migration. As they suggest, more data from more sauropods from more localities would be ideal. More studies, especially on modern reptile teeth, would also be ideal to see if those data support or contradict their hypothesis. The glint of promise I see in this study is the fact that it is consistent with other information we have about sauropods and their hypothesized migratory habits. The greatest contribution of the study right now is that this will spur new research into the connection between oxygen isotopes, fossil enamel, and dietary/migratory predictions, and this will in turn lead to new insights which could either support or reject this study’s hypothesis, and possibly reveal a new way to infer sauropod dinosaur migration.
The biggest weakest I can see is that many of these teeth are isolated, and not in the skull. In paleontology, you get what you get and sauropod skulls are very rare, so that is not a criticism. But the potential weakness is that since teeth are so resilient, they can be transported, sometimes great distances, before they are deposited, and that could effect the interpretation of the data. In other words, you are sampling teeth that could come from sauropods that died far away, so the contrast between the soil and tooth might simply reflect that the teeth came from somewhere else, not that the animal migrated back to that site. Given what I’ve just said, it is still intriguing that over the course of the tooth’s growth, they’re finding a significant trend in changing oxygen isotopes. That certainly deserves further investigation and scrutiny.
There’s a lot left to understand, as I’ve indicated throughout this blog post. However, this is how science works — they’ve shown an interesting possibility for correlating sauropod teeth with water consumption sources which might indirectly reflect migration patterns. Now we need more data both from sauropods, other dinosaurs, and the living world to see just how robust this hypothesis is.
The takehome message: uplands water has a different signal than lowlands water — changing signals in teeth suggest that Camarasaurus was a long-distance wandering dinosaur that changed where it was drinking over time.
References:
- Nature News
- Fricke, Hencecroth & Hoerner. 2011. Lowland–upland migration of sauropod dinosaurs during the Late Jurassic epoch. Nature http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature10570
- Bonnan, M.F. 2007. Linear and geometric morphometric analysis of long bone scaling patterns in Jurassic Neosauropod dinosaurs: their functional and paleobiological implications. The Anatomical Record, 290(9): 1089-1111. ABSTRACT
- AAAS News article
- Teeth study shows big dinosaurs trekked for food – AP, Alicia Chang
Tags: bones, Camarasaurus, Jurassic, Late Jurassic, Morrison Formation, oxygen isotopes, Paleobiology, teeth
Just a brief post to let those interested know that I have a new blog, Along the Backbone, that acts as a discussion site and feed router for a podcast series on the evolution of vertebrate anatomy through deep time.
You can access the site here: http://alongthebackbone.wordpress.com/
You can follow the audio feed here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/AlongTheBackbone
You can download podcasts directly from iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/along-the-backbone/id471544519
Thanks again to all my followers here on Jurassic Journeys and out in the Twitter-verse.
Tags: along the backbone, backbone, Bonnan, comparative anatomy, evolution, evolutionary, Functional Morphology, Matthew Bonnan, Paleobiology, Paleontology, vertebrae, vertebrate anatomy
About every month, various anti-evolution activities elicit complaints and exasperation from scientists. For example, currently, there is the possibility that the public school board in Springboro, Ohio, will incorporate creation science in their science classrooms. These sorts of challenges to science teaching are unfortunately not new, and the reactions to them tend to be the same. As scientists we say, “why don’t people accept the evidence for evolution?” and in popular media two talking heads will shout at each other over the issue, usually with a title like, “Science Versus Religion!” Seeing the frustration and hand-wringing of my colleagues and friends over this issue yet again (see above) prompted me to write this blog post.
As scientists, we typically respond to challenges about evolution the way we would respond to a colleague questioning our data or methods: we give lots of information. Scientists are taught to defend their hypotheses by providing data that can then be evaluated by others, and this is one of the great strengths of our discipline. However, if you assume that anti-evolution proponents will be swayed by a lot of scientific data, you will be sadly mistaken. Here, I dissect what I have come to learn about the creation-evolution argument in the public sphere, and give some thoughts on how to be more effective science communicators.
First, clear definitions matter. What, for example, do you mean when you say, “creationism” or “creationist”? To a scientist, those terms generally translate into someone with a very narrow, fundamentalist view of the world, including those who may take a holy text literally. But I guarantee these words translate very differently in the public sphere. For example, many people feel that if you believe in a creator, then you are a creationist. This is a very important difference! To many people, the word “creationist” means “people of faith” – so if you believe that a scientist is debunking creationism, they are therefore debunking your faith. Yet, many people of faith accept evolution as a valid theory. From this perspective, it is easy to see why many spiritual and religious people are uncomfortable or angry with scientific “debunking” of creationism. So carefully defining our terms from the beginning is extremely important.
Second, this is not about data: it is about fear. There are many reasons for why people reject evolutionary theory, but in my experience the primary one seems to be the fear of loss: losing the spirit, losing the soul, and dehumanization. If you believe that accepting evolutionary theory is tantamount to rejecting your faith, your family, and your humanity, I doubt you will be willing to listen to a scientist give you facts about evolution, let alone be persuaded that the theory has merit.
Third, both the public and the scientific community tend to conflate various things together under the banner of “science” or “evolution” or “religion,” and this leads both to more confusion and anger on both sides. As I describe elsewhere at length, science is merely a tool for understanding the natural world. It is certainly a powerful tool, but nonetheless a tool just the same. Science is not about making God go away. Science is not an antidote to religion, it cannot replace faith, and one does not live by scientific tenets. But this cuts both ways, because faith cannot and does not replace science as a tool for understanding the natural world. I am not the first to point out that both science and faith serve different roles. Here’s where the problem lies. Let’s say you are an atheist and you conflate science with atheism. It would then be appropriate to ask, where does the science end and the atheism begin? But we often don’t make these distinctions, and this leads to the false impression that evolution is a theory whose purpose is to reject religion.
Given these realities, how can we be more effective science communicators, particularly about evolutionary theory?
First, assuaging fear is critical. We as scientists will get nowhere in general public discourse if we mock, belittle, or talk condescendingly about faith while proclaiming the value of science. Having respectful discussions with those willing to engage will probably accomplish a lot more.
Second, that said, stop trying to convince the unconvincable, and instead focus on the majority. For example, there are people who still believe that the earth is flat, despite all evidence to the contrary. Why on earth (pun intended) would you waste your time as a geographer or cartographer trying to convince that small group of people otherwise? Wouldn’t your time be better spent arguing for better geography classes and public awareness on how the use of maps influences our culture, politics, and resource management? Which of these options will be more fruitful in the long term? By the same token, there are those who doubt evolution and go so far as to claim that plants are not alive for convoluted reasons arising from a literal interpretation of one section of Genesis. How can you convince someone about the importance of evolution or science if they won’t acknowledge plants as living things? How does such a concept even gel with the very underpinning of our human civilization: agriculture?
Third, I realize that there will always be those in positions of power who will question science, especially evolution, and the necessity of teaching these tools. In these situations, showing the links in the chain from basic research to practical matters is always more beneficial than talking about how well evolution is supported. Going back to the flat earth example, let’s get practical here: if you are an airline pilot and you don’t take into account the roundness of the earth, you are going to chart a course that will take longer to complete, may not even put you where you want to be, and certainly will gobble up more fuel. Let’s turn to geology and paleontology and get practical here too: it is the concept of an old earth and the distribution and sequence of rocks and fossils that oil companies rely on to find their fuel. I know a geologist who is sought out by gas companies because he can predict the depth of ancient river beds from rocks, and these data help him predict where to find natural gas. If paleontology and geology were equivalent to flat earth concepts, do you think companies that invest billions of dollars of their money would waste their time?
And what of teaching evolutionary theory? Let’s get practical again: biological evolution states that all living things are related to each other and descended with modification from a common ancestor, a family tree concept I have detailed here before. In medicine, this means it is practical and desirable to look outside the human body for solutions to anatomical defects, disease, and developmental problems. I can simply tell you that genetic and fossil data support a close relationship between primates and rodents, but it is perhaps more convincing to consider why pharmaceutical companies and medical researchers would bother with lab rats and mice at all if they had nothing at all to do with us? It would be a huge waste of money. Acknowledging evolution means you also acknowledge that diseases are often caused by living things who descend with modification and adapt to their host’s body. A static view of disease-causing bacteria or viruses would get you nowhere fast with drug research, and again, why would a pharmaceutical company investing millions of dollars into a drug continue to pursue this?
I plan to write another post about why we should bother to support basic scientific research of the kind myself and many of my colleagues pursue, so I won’t elaborate on those aspects here.
I wanted to end by again emphasizing the role of fear in all of this. In my experience, the biggest barrier for many to accepting evolution is accepting that we are related to other living things, and that we share a close, common ancestor with chimpanzees. I acknowledge that this can be a deeply disturbing thought for some. As a scientist, I would say that this is where the data consistently point us. But as a fellow human, I would say, even though humans may share a common ancestor with chimpanzees, we still have value, there can still be a God, there can still be morality, and people can still love and be loved. As scientists, we must become better at both conveying our data and our shared humanity.
Tags: atheist, Bonnan, creation-evolution, creationism, creationist, evolution, evolutionary, faith, flat earth, Paleobiology, Paleontology, policy, reiligion
Just a short post to draw attention to a new article in Nature on the evolution of sauropod dinosaurs from small animals into giants by Fredric Heeren. I feel privileged and honored to be among the many paleontologists featured in the article. Among the many paleontologists cited in the article are close colleagues and friends Adam Yates and Matt Wedel. There are nice interactive graphics as well. It is a wonderful feeling as a scientist to have your research featured in such a prestigious scientific publication.
Thanks to Fredric Heeren for a good, informative article on the early evolution of these amazing giants. As Paul Barrett best puts it in the article, the sauropodomorphs are “the unsung members of the dino community”.
Tags: Aardonyx celestae, Adam Yates, Age of Dinosaurs, bones, Bonnan, Dinosaur, Early Jurassic, Earth Claw, evolution, evolutionary, Functional Morphology, gigantism, Jurassic, Late Jurassic, limb, Matt Wedel, Matthew Bonnan, Paleobiology, sauropod, South Africa, Western Illinois University, WIU
Dr. Bonnan and the WIU crew are heading home to Illinois, having once again unearthed, mapped, and jacketed many new dinosaur bones at the Hanksville-Burpee quarry. Hillary Parks will be staying on with the Burpee crew, Josh Mathews, and the Augustana students for the rest of the field season.
We’ve had some nice fossils exposed this year, including much of the skeleton of a juvenile Diplodocus.
Chris and father Kevin, two volunteers with the Burpee Museum, uncover a very nice juvenile Diplodocus scapula.
The beautiful juvenile Diplodocus scapula uncovered by Chris and Kevin.
Ph.D. candidate, Holly Woodward from the Museum of the Rockies, joined us and helped uncover the juvenile Diplodocus jumble.
The juvenile Diplodocus cluster was a very exciting discovery. Bones are still emerging from this skeleton.
Augustana student Jake Crandall uncovered a nice vertebra from the predatory dinosaur Allosaurus. You can see a large sauropod femur behind him.
Collin VanBuren (WIU) left and Katie Tremaine (Burpee) right, jacket and prepare a large jumble of sauropod vertebrae for removal.
After all of our work in the field, all of us headed out to Arches National Park in Moab, Utah, to view the spectacular Jurassic sandstone formations.
Dr. Bonnan at Arches National Park with members of the Burpee, WIU, and Augustana crews in the background.
We continue to work with the Utah Bureau of Land Management and the Park Service to develop the Hanksville-Burpee quarry into a world-class scientific research and public education site.
Tags: Arches, Arches National Park, BLM, bones, Bonnan, Bureau of Land Management, Burpee, Camarasaurus, Christine Gardner, Collin VanBuren, Dinosaur, diplodocid, Diplodocus, Hanksville-Burpee, Hillary Parks, Jurassic, Late Jurassic, limb, Matthew Bonnan, Morrison Formation, National Park Service, sauropod, Scott Williams, Shannon Worstell, Students, Utah 2011, Western Illinois University, WIU
I have had the privilege of working a number of dinosaur dig sites here in the United States and in South Africa. My involvement with the Burpee Museum and our site in Hanksville, Utah, has been one of the biggest privileges of my paleontological career. When you are this close to the bones and to a site that yields years and probably decades worth of well-preserved specimens, you sometimes lose sight of how special this all is.
Below is just a recent example of one small segment of the Hanksville-Burpee quarry and what we are finding — bones to most of the skeleton of a juvenile Diplodocus.
A segment of our Hanksville-Burpee quarry showing the collection of limb and rib bones that belong to a juvenile Diplodocus. The bones are labeled and can be read if you click on the picture to expand its size.
Today, Utah paleontologists Dr. Jim Kirkland and Scott Madsen joined up with the WIU and Burpee crews and volunteers to go prospecting for new sites. We had good information and a lot of hope for some good sites … but, as often happens in field paleontology, we ended up empty-handed. This is not the fault of these paleontologists or anyone else — but it goes to show that finding fossils in the field is difficult work and holds no guarantees.
From left to right, Scott Madsen (Utah Paleontologist), Dr. Kirkland (Utah State Paleontologist), and Scott Williams (Burpee) searching for a potential fossil site around Hanksville, Utah.
What these sorts of experiences cement for me is how fortunate we are to find sites like the Hanksville-Burpee quarry, to have a community that supports our efforts, and to have the privilege to see the bones of some of the most remarkable animals to have lived on earth.
Although the results of our prospecting were not spectacular, we work in a spectacular landscape. From left to right, top: Christine Gardner (WIU), Collin VanBuren (WIU), Jake Crandall (Augustana), Spencer Hellert (Augustana), Josh Matthews (WIU/Augustana); Bottom: Dr. Bonnan, Shannon Worstell (WIU), Hillary Parks (WIU).
Hope springs eternal — we will find those bones yet! In the meantime, the Hanksville-Burpee quarry beckons … and who can not love a juvenile Diplodocus?
Tags: Augustana College, bones, Bonnan, Burpee, Christine Gardner, Collin VanBuren, Dinosaur, diplodocid, Diplodocus, Hanksville-Burpee, Hillary Parks, Jake Crandall, Jim Kirkland, Jurassic, Late Jurassic, Matthew Bonnan, Morrison Formation, sauropod, Science, Scott Madsen, Scott Williams, Shannon Worstell, Spencer Hellert, Students, Utah 2011, Western Illinois University, WIU
Trying to describe certain concepts to the public in words only proves to be challenging as a scientist. On my new Jurassic Journeys Video Podcasts page, I have embedded and linked to YouTube videos that describe various aspects of the science of paleontology, especially as they apply to my work with students and the Burpee Museum at the Late Jurassic Hanksville-Burpee quarry.
I always welcome feedback.
Tags: Bonnan, evolution, Hanksville-Burpee, podcasts, video, YouTube