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Debunking Straw Vulcan Rationality
The Straw Vulcan is a nice trope for Hollywood to use such that Captain Kirk can save the day, but in reality we can't be emotionless.
It's a common belief about rationality that being rational means being emotionless, being stiff, unable to appreciate beauty in the world, unable to love or even just have fun on a summer day.
In large part I blame Hollywood for this misconception because it is commonly how rationality is portrayed in Hollywood. And in particular I blame Mr. Spock on Star Trek for being the poster child for this caricature of rationality. This caricatured vision of rationality has a name, which I didn't come up with, although I wish I had. It's called the Straw Vulcan. This was coined by the website TV Tropes. It's a play on the expression "a straw man," which is like a weakened caricature of your opponent's argument that's easy to knock down.
So this vision of rationality as being stiff and wooden and emotionless is a caricature because that is not what real rationality looks like. But Hollywood likes narratives where the passion-driven, intuition-driven, spontaneous, flawed, yet endearing hero like Captain Kirk rushes in to save the day when rationality fails.
So the Straw Vulcan is a nice trope for Hollywood to use such that Captain Kirk can save the day, but in reality there is nothing about viewing the world accurately and making effective decisions that naturally implies being emotionless. In fact, if you look at people like Carl Sagan or Neil deGrasse Tyson or Bill Nye, the science guy, all of whom are passionate advocates of a rational worldview, none of them are lacking joy or excitement or passion.
So I blame Hollywood in large part for this, but there are other misconceptions about rationality beyond the idea that you would have to be emotionless if you reason accurately about the world. So for example, Spock tends to assume that other people will make decisions rationally and that's one of the reasons that he ends up getting into trouble, because of course people don't behave rationally. T
The human brain is not wired to be rational. We make great decisions in a lot of cases. Our intuition is often very reliable, but as cognitive science has learned there are systematic ways and systematic situations in which human brains make mistakes. And Spock has repeated data about this, which he fails to update his views on, which is actually a case of irrationality, not rationality.
In Their Own Words is recorded by experts in Big Think's studio.
Image courtesy fo Shutterstock.
‘Designer baby’ book trilogy explores the moral dilemmas humans may soon create
How would the ability to genetically customize children change society? Sci-fi author Eugene Clark explores the future on our horizon in Volume I of the "Genetic Pressure" series.
18 January, 2021
Surprising Science
- A new sci-fi book series called "Genetic Pressure" explores the scientific and moral implications of a world with a burgeoning designer baby industry.
- It's currently illegal to implant genetically edited human embryos in most nations, but designer babies may someday become widespread.
- While gene-editing technology could help humans eliminate genetic diseases, some in the scientific community fear it may also usher in a new era of eugenics.
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<div class="amazon-assets-widget__title" style="display: block;">Genetic Pressure Volume I: Baby Steps</div>
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<p>Imagine it's 2045. You start hearing rumors from your well-heeled friends about a mysterious corporation based on an undisclosed island that's offering an unprecedented service: the ability to genetically design your baby.</p><p>The baby will have some of your genetics, and some genetics from a sperm or egg donor, selected by you. But the rest of your child's genetic profile will be engineered by science. These changes will make it impossible for your child to develop genetic diseases. They'll also allow you to customize your child for dozens of traits, including intelligence level, emotional disposition, sexual orientation, height, skin tone, hair color, and eye color, to name a few. </p><p>This raises unsettling philosophical questions for some customers. "When does my child stop being my child?" they ask the corporate representatives. These wary customers are reminded of how risky it is to reproduce the old-fashioned way. The Better Genetics Corporation's motto sums it up: "Only God plays dice—humans don't have to."</p><p>This is the world described in a new science-fiction series by Eugene Clark titled <a href="http://bigth.ink/38VhJn3" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">"Genetic Pressure"</a>, which explores the moral and scientific implications of a future in which designer babies are becoming a major industry. The first book begins with the story of Rachel, a renowned horse breeder who befriends a billionaire client, and soon gets the funding to visit the tropical island on which the Better Genetics Corporation is headquartered. </p><p>There, corporate executives walk her through the process of designing a baby—an experience that feels like an uncanny mix between visiting a doctor and designing a luxury car. The series is told from multiple perspectives, serving as a deep dive into a complex moral web that today's scientists may already be weaving.</p>
<blockquote>[T]he introduction of designer babies would create a labyrinth of philosophical dilemmas that society is only beginning to explore. </blockquote>
<p>Case in point: In 2018, Chinese scientist He Jiankui announced that he had helped create the world's first genetically engineered babies. Using the gene-editing tool CRISPR on embryos, He Jiankui modified a gene called <a href="https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/gene/CCR5" target="_blank">CCR5</a>, which enables HIV to enter and infect immune system cells. His goal was to engineer children that were immune to the virus.</p><p>It's unclear whether he succeeded. But what's certain is that the experiment shocked the international scientific community, which generally agreed that it's unethical to conduct gene-editing procedures on humans, given that scientists don't yet fully understand the consequences.</p><p>"This experiment is monstrous," Julian Savulescu, a professor of practical ethics at the University of Oxford, told <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/nov/26/worlds-first-gene-edited-babies-created-in-china-claims-scientist" target="_blank"><em>The Guardian</em></a>. "The embryos were healthy. No known diseases. Gene editing itself is experimental and is still associated with off-target mutations, capable of causing genetic problems early and later in life, including the development of cancer."</p><p>Importantly, He Jiankui wasn't treating a disease, but rather genetically engineering babies to prevent the future contraction of a virus. These kinds of changes are heritable, meaning the experiment could have major downstream effects on future generations. So, too, would a designer-baby industry, even if scientists can do it safely.</p><p>With major implications on inequality, discrimination, sexuality, and our conceptions of life, the introduction of designer babies would create a labyrinth of philosophical dilemmas that society is only beginning to explore. </p>
<a href="http://bigth.ink/38VhJn3" ><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTI2MTEzNi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0NDcxMzY4M30.5fwCPH_6sQ0RF19aAH4FQFue9HFJykzdEc0Xka1TY04/img.jpg?width=980" id="affdd" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="76374e8775bd9441a338cf513bb1fa55" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="924" data-height="520" /></a>
Tribalism and discrimination
<p>One question the "Genetic Pressure" series explores: What would tribalism and discrimination look like in a world with designer babies? As designer babies grow up, they could be noticeably different from other people, potentially being smarter, more attractive and healthier. This could breed resentment between the groups—as it does in the series.</p><p>"[Designer babies] slowly find that 'everyone else,' and even their own parents, becomes less and less tolerable," author Eugene Clark told Big Think. "Meanwhile, everyone else slowly feels threatened by the designer babies."</p><p>For example, one character in the series who was born a designer baby faces discrimination and harassment from "normal people"—they call her "soulless" and say she was "made in a factory," a "consumer product." </p><p>Would such divisions emerge in the real world? The answer may depend on who's able to afford designer baby services. If it's only the ultra-wealthy, then it's easy to imagine how being a designer baby could be seen by society as a kind of hyper-privilege, which designer babies would have to reckon with. </p><p>Even if people from all socioeconomic backgrounds can someday afford designer babies, people born designer babies may struggle with tough existential questions: Can they ever take full credit for things they achieve, or were they born with an unfair advantage? To what extent should they spend their lives helping the less fortunate? </p>Sexuality dilemmas
<p>Sexuality presents another set of thorny questions. If a designer baby industry someday allows people to optimize humans for attractiveness, designer babies could grow up to find themselves surrounded by ultra-attractive people. That may not sound like a big problem.</p><p>But consider that, if designer babies someday become the standard way to have children, there'd necessarily be a years-long gap in which only some people are having designer babies. Meanwhile, the rest of society would be having children the old-fashioned way. So, in terms of attractiveness, society could see increasingly apparent disparities in physical appearances between the two groups. "Normal people" could begin to seem increasingly ugly.</p><p>But ultra-attractive people who were born designer babies could face problems, too. One could be the loss of body image. </p><p>When designer babies grow up in the "Genetic Pressure" series, men look like all the other men, and women look like all the other women. This homogeneity of physical appearance occurs because parents of designer babies start following trends, all choosing similar traits for their children: tall, athletic build, olive skin, etc. </p><p>Sure, facial traits remain relatively unique, but everyone's more or less equally attractive. And this causes strange changes to sexual preferences.</p><p>"In a society of sexual equals, they start looking for other differentiators," he said, noting that violet-colored eyes become a rare trait that genetically engineered humans find especially attractive in the series.</p><p>But what about sexual relationships between genetically engineered humans and "normal" people? In the "Genetic Pressure" series, many "normal" people want to have kids with (or at least have sex with) genetically engineered humans. But a minority of engineered humans oppose breeding with "normal" people, and this leads to an ideology that considers engineered humans to be racially supreme. </p>Regulating designer babies
<p>On a policy level, there are many open questions about how governments might legislate a world with designer babies. But it's not totally new territory, considering the West's dark history of eugenics experiments.</p><p>In the 20th century, the U.S. conducted multiple eugenics programs, including immigration restrictions based on genetic inferiority and forced sterilizations. In 1927, for example, the Supreme Court ruled that forcibly sterilizing the mentally handicapped didn't violate the Constitution. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes wrote, "… three generations of imbeciles are enough." </p><p>After the Holocaust, eugenics programs became increasingly taboo and regulated in the U.S. (though some states continued forced sterilizations <a href="https://www.uvm.edu/~lkaelber/eugenics/" target="_blank">into the 1970s</a>). In recent years, some policymakers and scientists have expressed concerns about how gene-editing technologies could reanimate the eugenics nightmares of the 20th century. </p><p>Currently, the U.S. doesn't explicitly ban human germline genetic editing on the federal level, but a combination of laws effectively render it <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jlb/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jlb/lsaa006/5841599#204481018" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">illegal to implant a genetically modified embryo</a>. Part of the reason is that scientists still aren't sure of the unintended consequences of new gene-editing technologies. </p><p>But there are also concerns that these technologies could usher in a new era of eugenics. After all, the function of a designer baby industry, like the one in the "Genetic Pressure" series, wouldn't necessarily be limited to eliminating genetic diseases; it could also work to increase the occurrence of "desirable" traits. </p><p>If the industry did that, it'd effectively signal that the <em>opposites of those traits are undesirable. </em>As the International Bioethics Committee <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jlb/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jlb/lsaa006/5841599#204481018" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">wrote</a>, this would "jeopardize the inherent and therefore equal dignity of all human beings and renew eugenics, disguised as the fulfillment of the wish for a better, improved life."</p><p><em>"Genetic Pressure Volume I: Baby Steps"</em><em> by Eugene Clark is <a href="http://bigth.ink/38VhJn3" target="_blank">available now.</a></em></p>
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The mystery of the Bermuda Triangle may finally be solved
Meteorologists propose a stunning new explanation for the mysterious events in the Bermuda Triangle.
21 October, 2016
Surprising Science
One of life's great mysteries, the Bermuda Triangle might have finally found an explanation. This strange region, that lies in the North Atlantic Ocean between Bermuda, Miami and San Juan, Puerto Rico, has been the presumed cause of dozens and dozens of mind-boggling disappearances of ships and planes.
<p>The Bermuda Triangle lore includes such stories as that of <strong>Flight 19,</strong> a group of 5 U.S. torpedo bombers that vanished in the Triangle in 1945. A rescue plane sent to look for them also disappeared. Other stories include the mystery of <strong>USS Cyclops</strong>, resulting in the largest non-combat loss of life in U.S. Navy's history. The ship with a crew of 309 went missing in 1918. Even as recently as 2015,<strong> El Faro</strong>, a cargo ship with 33 on board vanished in the area.</p> <p>Altogether, as far as we know, <strong>75</strong> planes and hundreds of ships met their demise in the Bermuda Triangle. Possible causes for the catastrophes have been proposed over time, ranging from the paranormal, electromagnetic interference that causes compass problems, bad weather, the gulf stream, and large undersea fields of methane.</p> <p>A fascinating theory has been proposed by meteorologists claiming that the reason for the mysteries pervading the Bermuda Triangle area are unusual <strong>hexagonal clouds</strong> creating 170 mph air bombs full of wind. These air pockets cause all the mischief, sinking ships and downing planes. </p> <p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image"><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xODQwODU4Ny9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0NjE3MTU4OX0.JhBZo4qJ1WvJg8lsMu7oZxK6T2jye4jgOGdTt2lY9R4/img.jpg?width=980" id="344f6" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="c52ae161e59731094f60814a1fff0409" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image"></p> <p><em>Photo credit: Science Channel.</em></p> <p>By studying imagery from a NASA satellite, the scientists concluded that some of these clouds reach <strong>20</strong> to <strong>55</strong> miles across. Waves inside these wind monsters can reach as high as <strong>45 feet</strong>. What's more - the clouds have straight edges. </p> <blockquote>
As told by Colorado State University's satellite meteorologist <strong>Dr. Steve Miller</strong> to <a href="http://www.sciencechannel.com/tv-shows/what-on-earth/what-can-these-hexagonal-shapes-tell-us-about-the-bermuda-triangle/" target="_blank">Science Channel's “What on Earth"</a>: “You don't typically see straight edges with clouds. Most of the time, clouds are random in their distribution."</blockquote> <p>What's special about that?</p> <blockquote>
Meteorologist <strong>Randy Cerveny </strong>added: “The satellite imagery is really bizarre… These types of hexagonal shapes over the ocean are in essence air bombs. They are formed by what are called microbursts and they're blasts of air that come down out of the bottom of a cloud and then hit the ocean and then create waves that can sometimes be massive in size as they start to interact with each other." </blockquote> <p>Anything caught inside one of these air bombs could be very well knocked out of the air, flipped over, sunk. More observation is needed to confirm this theory that could finally explain many of the infamous Bermuda Triangle events. Scientists are pouring over satellite imagery to confirm.</p> <p>Here's the Science Channel interview:</p> <p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube"><span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="72e7bd117aa30e55cedb81a3ab00002e"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5fuSHfhRiIE?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span></p> <p>Of course, not everyone is convinced, with some <a href="https://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/new-theory-may-solve-mystery-behind-bermuda-triangle/73608" target="_blank">experts saying</a> that hexagonal clouds also occur in other parts of the world and there's no evidence strange disappearances take place more often in the Bermuda Triangle area than elsewhere. </p>
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Astrophysicists find unique "hot Jupiter" planet without clouds
A unique exoplanet without clouds or haze was found by astrophysicists from Harvard and Smithsonian.
23 January, 2021
Illustration of WASP-62b, the Jupiter-like planet without clouds or haze in its atmosphere.
Credit: M. Weiss/Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian
Surprising Science
- Astronomers from Harvard and Smithsonian find a very rare "hot Jupiter" exoplanet without clouds or haze.
- Such planets were formed differently from others and offer unique research opportunities.
- Only one other such exoplanet was found previously.
<p><span style="background-color: initial;">Astronomers detected a first of its kind hot Jupiter-like planet without clouds or haze. Such p</span><span style="background-color: initial;">lanets are very rare, with only one exoplanet with a clear atmosphere previously found – that one classified as a "hot Saturn".</span></p><p>The "hot Jupiter" exoplanet WASP-62b is 75 light years away from Earth, coming in at about half the mass of our Jupiter. It completes a rotation around its sun in only 4.5 days (compared to 12 years for Jupiter). That closeness to the star makes the planet extremely hot. </p><p>The discovery was made by astronomers at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. The gas giant was actually first located in 2012 using the Wide Angle Search for Planets (WASP) South survey. But the unique state of its atmosphere has only been understood now. </p>
<p>Munazza Alam, a graduate student from the Center for Astrophysics who led the study, was working on her thesis that involved exoplanet characterization when she zeroed in on the atmosphere of WASP-62b.</p><p>She used the Hubble Space Telescope for data and observations that were made via <em>spectroscopy</em>, a method of detecting chemical elements by studying electromagnetic radiation. In particular, Alam focused how WASP-62b looked as it came in front of its host star on three occasions. Observing visible light in such instances can show the existence of sodium and potassium in the atmosphere of the planet. The scientist could see no potassium but a complete fingerprint of sodium's presence. This led her team to conclude that the exoplanet's atmosphere lacked clouds or haze, which would have hidden the sodium's clear signature.</p>
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTUyNjIzOC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNDE5Nzk1Mn0.0FEgMt4QIDUs1Scp1E-8KZpSIqPUagMkKkrmQsefVpg/img.jpg?width=980" id="318b0" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="3696fd2b92b776989e2e1056f3707aea" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1087" data-height="723" />
Munazza Alam – a graduate student at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian.
Credit: Jackie Faherty
<blockquote>"I'll admit that at first I wasn't too excited about this planet," Alam said in a <a href="https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/2021-01" target="_blank">press release</a>. "But once I started to take a look at the data, I got excited." Seeing the sodium was "the smoking gun evidence that we are seeing a clear atmosphere," she added.</blockquote><p>Finding such a planet is very unlikely since <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2515-5172/aafc63" target="_blank">astronomers estimate</a> under 7% of exoplanets have clear atmospheres. Studying them can help us understand why they were formed in a way that is different from most planets, according to Alam. Without clouds and haze getting in the way, it is also easier to study the chemical makeup of such a planet.</p><p>Jupiter itself has a complex and chaotic cloud structure, formed at different altitudes:</p>
Jupiter's Colorful Cloud Bands Studied by Spacecraft
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8a72dfe5b407b584cf867852c36211dc"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GzUzCesfVuw?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>The astronomers plan to study WASP-62b further upon the launch of the next-generation <a href="https://www.jwst.nasa.gov/" target="_blank">James Web Space Telescope</a> later in 2021.</p><p>Check out the new study published in <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/abd18e" target="_blank">The Astrophysical Journal Letters. </a></p>
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Lair of giant predator worms from 20 million years ago found
Scientists discover burrows of giant predator worms that lived on the seafloor 20 million years ago.
22 January, 2021
Bobbit worm (Eunice aphroditois)
Credit: Rickard Zerpe / Flickr
Surprising Science
- Scientists in Taiwan find the lair of giant predator worms that inhabited the seafloor 20 million years ago.
- The worm is possibly related to the modern bobbit worm (Eunice aphroditois).
- The creatures can reach several meters in length and famously ambush their pray.
<p>If you happened to be traversing the seafloor of Eurasia about 20 million years ago, you'd likely come across giant predator worms as long as several meters, claims new research. Scientists discovered that super-long worms may have taken over the ancient seafloor, based on their reconstructions of large burrows found at the bottom of the sea in northeast Taiwan.</p><p>The samples studied came from as far back as the Miocene epoch of 23 million to 5.3 million years ago. The research team used 319 specimens found in the sandstone of Yehliu Geopark, an area outside New Taipei City in Taiwan, to reconstruct a trace fossil dubbed <em>Pennichnus formosae.</em> Trace fossils are geological features such as burrows that can be used to make educated inferences about how ancient creatures behaved. The fossil uncovered by the researchers is comprised of an L-shaped burrow about 2 meters in length but only 2-3 centimeters in diameter. The scientists concluded that this fossil was probably left by gigantic sea worms, possibly the ancestors of the <em>bobbit worm</em> (Eunice aphroditois), which is still around today.</p>
<p><span style="background-color: initial;">The way a bobbit worm catches its food is by first hiding in a long burrow in the seafloor, then lunging up to catch its "</span><span style="background-color: initial;">unsuspecting prey with a snap of their powerful jaws," as the study authors <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-79311-0" target="_blank">write</a>. The researchers believe the structure they found was created when the ancient worm retreated into the seafloor with its prey, still alive and struggling.</span></p><p>Ludvig Löwemark, a National Taiwan University paleontologist and the study's co-author, explained in an <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/is-this-a-fossilized-lair-of-the-dreaded-bobbit-worm/" target="_blank">interview</a> with Wired that the fossil they found shows invertebrates like the ancient worms were eating vertebrates. </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Typically, what we find in the sedimentary record is animals that are moving through the sediment," said <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/is-this-a-fossilized-lair-of-the-dreaded-bobbit-worm/" target="_blank">Löwemark</a>. "But this is a record of a much more active behavior. The worms were actually hiding in the sediment, jumping out, catching their prey, and then dragging this prey down into the sediment."</p>
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTUxNTY0Ny9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MjQ2MTk1Mn0.tkPuCz4gGHRaBY20bVTzWkDN0GQwNCMM7lzlfw_7Tog/img.png?width=980" id="265f8" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="82fcd65b35990d68e015ed2dcf3deae6" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="685" data-height="636" />
A three-dimensional model of the feeding behavior of Bobbit worms and the proposed formation of Pennichnus formosae.
Credit: Scientific Reports
<p>What's also remarkable about the study is that studying ancient worms is generally an extremely difficult task. One big problem – they would have had bodies composed mainly of soft tissue, which is hard to preserve. The trace fossil discovered by the scientists is likely the first known fossil made by an ambushing predator of this kind.</p><p>If you're wondering, the bobbit worm's unusual name comes from a sordid episode of American culture, referencing the story of<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/30/arts/television/lorena-bobbitt-documentary-jordan-peele.html" target="_blank"> John and Lorena Bobbitt</a>, who cut off her husband's penis after years of abuse.</p><p>Check out the study published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-79311-0" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Scientific Reports.</a></p>
Beware the Bobbit Worm!
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Politics & Current Affairs
FOSTA-SESTA: Have controversial sex trafficking acts done more harm than good?
The idea behind the law was simple: make it more difficult for online sex traffickers to find victims.
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