Buzzard

This afternoon I saw a buzzard being mobbed by a carrion crow over Reading University grounds.  It was large, about the  size of a grey heron, darkish-coloured with white patches under its wings.  The above photo by Sergey Yesileev shows just what it looked like.  It flew at below tree-top level from the lake towards the Earley Gate entrance and then turned right into a tree on the edge of the Wilderness.  Pigeons scattered in all directions, two almost bumping into each other in their haste to get away from it.  The crow flew off more slowly back towards the lake. (Photo by Sergey Yeliseev.)

A Nuclear Bunker in Reading University Grounds

A couple of weeks ago, while trying to find out when and why the low white buildings near the Earley Gate entrance to Reading University were built, I came across this page at Subterranea Britannica which describes a nuclear bunker in Reading University grounds.  This bunker was built in the 1950s as a seat of government for central southern England in case of nuclear war.  It was decomissioned in the 1960's and is now used by the University Library for storage space. I wandered up there this afternoon and took the above photo.  You can find the bunker here on Google Maps.

Incidentally, the low white buildings were apparently built during the war to house a department of government, presumably evacuated from London to avoid the bombing. 

Back to The Origin

Some years ago I was in Reading University Library looking up a paper on computing when I noticed their collection of Nature going right back to Volume 1 in 1869.  Now I had read somewhere that Nature had been created by a group of supporters of Darwin so they would have somewhere to publish their ideas.  I pulled out a volume from the 1870's and it fell open at a page of letters.  Several of these were responses to a letter in the previous issue proposing some apparently insuperable problem with evolution by natural selection.  I don't remember the precise details of the problem, but what struck me was the way different people responded: Wallace gave a detailed point-by-point rebuttal covering about half a page; Rosanes (I think) gave a similarly detailed but somewhat shorter reply, and maybe one or two other people also weighed in with their opinions.  But hidden away at the end was a short note from Charles Darwin simply giving the chapter and page number in The Origin of Species where the question was answered.  After having spent so many years writing the book he wasn't going to  waste any time repeating it for those who couldn't be bothered to read it!

I wonder if we should have the same attitude today when dealing with creationists:  "You've not even bothered to read The Origin?  Well, your opinion on evolution obviously doesn't count for much then."  And I do like the idea of quoting chapter and page number at biblical literalists.

Darwin and Galileo

In Chapter 12 of the Origin of Species Darwin compares how well in-situ creation and migration with modification explain the geographical distribution of species:

The most striking and important fact for us in regard to the inhabitants of islands, is their affinity to those of the nearest mainland, without being actually the same species. Numerous instances could be given of this fact. I will give only one, that of the Galapagos Archipelago, situated under the equator, between 500 and 600 miles from the shores of South America. Here almost every product of the land and water bears the unmistakable stamp of the American continent. There are twenty-six land birds, and twenty-five of these are ranked by Mr. Gould as distinct species, supposed to have been created here; yet the close affinity of most of these birds to American species in every character, in their habits, gestures, and tones of voice, was manifest. So it is with other animals, and with nearly all the plants, as shown by Dr. Hooker in his admirable memoir on the Flora of this archipelago. The naturalist, looking at the inhabitants of these volcanic islands in the Pacific, distant several hundred miles from the continent, yet feels that he is standing on American land. Why should this be so? Why should the species which are supposed to have been created in the Galapagos Archipelago, and nowhere else, bear so plain a stamp of affinity to those created in America? There is nothing in the conditions of life, in the geological nature of the islands, in their height or climate, or in the proportions in which the several classes are associated together, which resembles closely the conditions of the South American coast: in fact there is a considerable dissimilarity in all these respects. On the other hand, there is a considerable degree of resemblance in the volcanic nature of the soil, in climate, height, and size of the islands, between the Galapagos and Cape de Verde Archipelagos: but what an entire and absolute difference in their inhabitants! The inhabitants of the Cape de Verde Islands are related to those of Africa, like those of the Galapagos to America. I believe this grand fact can receive no sort of explanation on the ordinary view of independent creation; whereas on the view here maintained, it is obvious that the Galapagos Islands would be likely to receive colonists, whether by occasional means of transport or by formerly continuous land, from America; and the Cape de Verde Islands from Africa; and that such colonists would be liable to modification; --the principle of inheritance still betraying their original birthplace.

This paragraph strikes me as very powerful. It reminds me Galileo's use of observations of the moons of Jupiter to argue against the Earth-centred solar system: the initial colonists of the Galapagos playing the role of Jupiter and and the modified descendant species on the various islands of the archipelago playing the roles of the moons.

Parasites and Social Behaviour

I am currently reading Volume 3 of Narrow Roads of Gene Land, The Collected Papers of W. D. Hamilton (Oxford University Press, 2005).  Today I came across the following:

...  To my mind, parasites and their effect on the health of hosts, in every sense from death to dominance-hierarchy, have great consequences in every aspect of life.  ...

...  Parasites are why there is sexuality and, proceeding from this, they underly also the construction of social behaviour.  ...

These are both from a book review originally published as W.D. Hamilton, J. Appl. Ecol. 32(3), 451-453 (1995).