Come Visit Me at Boskone!

I'll be at Boskone starting 2/14 at the Seaport Weston in Boston. 

 

I always enjoy Boskone. There's a lot about books and science--two of my favorite subjects. Here is my schedule:

 

Friday, 2/14, 2:30: Biology in SF/F. I'll be on the panel with my good friend JamesCambias. That will be fun.

 

In addition, Fridays are free this year. 

Saturday, 2/15, 2:30: Why villains can't carry the story. To which, I say, why can't villains carry the story? I'll be on the panel with one of my heroes, Michael Swanwick.

 

Saturday, 2/15, 5:30 Writing and structuring a long series. This one is dear to me since pretty much everything I've been working on has been in a much larger structure.

 

(Picture from here.)

Common Ground

I woke up thinking about taxonomy. Hence, today’s topic. Go figure.

 

(Picture from here.) 

First, taxonomy is about successful lineages. Evolution doesn’t select for failed systems. Relative reproductive success is it’s only criteria. Therefore, even of species or families or classes go extinct, they existed because they were successful. 

 

This doesn’t mean a thing about successful individuals—an individual that doesn’t reproduce is an evolutionary failure in that its genes were not contributed to the gene pool. Individuals compete solely on that basis. If individual A outcompetes individual B by killing individual B’s offspring, that’s a win for individual A. If individual A outcompetes individual B by being so social cooperative that A is sought after as a mate, that’s a win for individual A, too. The means of competition is immaterial. What’s important is individual A’s genetic contribution outweighs other individuals. The behaviors, mechanisms, physiology, and characteristics of A are then passed down. 

 

The common characteristics that represent taxonomic groupings reflect those evolutionary successes. Species that are members of Class Mammalia are characterized by milk-producing glands, a neocortex in the brain, middle ear bones. But no species became mammals on purpose. A successful root species happened to have those characteristics—evolved from variation and selection—and passed those characteristics on to its descendants. 

 

Imagine a collection of pictures of a particular individual—call her Claire. Each year a picture is taken in the same pose from birth to death. Now, imagine all of those pictures superimposed on one another such that common features remain in the aggregate and individual characteristics—hair cut, size, clothing—are discarded. The remainder should show all of the common features of that individual’s physical appearance over their lifetime. 

 

A taxonomic tree is a similar artificial construction. An individual species partakes of the general qualities of the group containing it. That group partakes of the qualities of its containing group like a set of nesting Russian dolls.

 

Carl Linnaeus gave us the first scientifically based taxonomy called binomial nomenclature. This is the genus/species combination we’re so familiar. For animals, modern taxonomy starts at the top in a set of hierarchies. Here’s the hierarchy for Homo sapiens.

• Domain: Eukaryota: eukaryotic cells. I.e., cells with nuclei.
• Kingdom: Animalia: The animal kingdom. Everything from jellyfish to jaguars.
• Phylum: Chordata: Animals with a notochord— in mammals this is protected in the spine
• Subphylum: Vertebrata: any animal with a backbone containing a notochord.
• Class: Mammalia: mammals. See above.
• Order: Primates: Old and New World monkeys, great apes, lemurs, tarsiers, lorises etc.
• Suborder: Haplorhini: Old World monkeys and apes and New World monkeys.
• Infraorder: Simiiformes: (Simians) Old World monkeys and apes.
• Family: Hominidae: The Great Apes: chimpanzees, orangutans, gorillas, bonobos, humans
• Subfamily: Homininae: humans, chimpanzees and bonobos, and gorillas
• Tribe: Hominini: all members of genus Homo and genus Pan (chimpanzees and bonobos)
• Genus: Homo: includes extant and extinct members that emerged from genus Australopithecus. Includes H. erectus, H. habilis, H. neanderthalis, H rudolfensis, H. sapiens, etc.
• Species: H. sapiens: us

Therefore, H. sapiens shares the common characteristics of genus Homo. All members of genus Homo share common characteristics of Tribe Hominini, etc. 

 

This is the record of our success.

 

Different Kingdoms and Domains have different taxonomies. Linnaeus was a mammal and brought a mammal’s narrow perspective to the problem. Bacteria share DNA all the time. Plants hybridize. Animals don’t hybridize near as much and vertebrate hybridization even less, and mammals hardly at all. Thus, these fairly rigid categories hold mostly well—but even here, the rules can be bent or broken to the point that there have been arguments that the only real grouping is a species and all these other groups are human simplifications. There are even those that say there’s not really such a thing as a species.

 

An example of the problem can be shown in one of my favorite animals, the common box turtle, Terrapene carolina. 

 

Box turtles are clever, colorful, and highly individualized animals. Each has their own personality within the confines of their species. There are several “subspecies”: T. carolina carolina, T. carolina bauri, T. carolina major, T. carolina mexicana, T. carolina yucatana, and T. carolina putnami. These subspecies represent changes that correlate with their range. T. carolina carolina is the Eastern Box Turtle. It’s a bright, colorful animal with a high dome. They can range from southern Maine down to Florida. T. carolina major, the Gulf Coast Box turtle is larger and less colorful and found along the Gulf of Mexico. 

 

The Eastern Box tends towards deciduous fortests and the Gulf Coast Box along swamp and estuaries. Both are omnivorous. I have worked with the Eastern Box and Gulf Coast Box extensively. The reproductive behavior between the two subspecies is somewhat different but not extremely so and there is intergrading where the range is shared.

 

However, the other subspecies are more contained and do not intergrade as much. At what point does a species become sufficiently isolated to become a new species?

The Eastern Box occasionally has three toes on the hind foot. T. triunguis, the Three Toed Box Turtle, is a small box turtle that has three toes on the back feet but some four toed examples have been noted. Some speculate that T. triunguis is actually an Eastern Box in disguise. Both have high domed shell. Thought the coloration is markedly different. The Three Toe is not brightly colored. The male display colors are different between the two species.

So, what is a species?

 

In our own lineage, there is strong evidence that humans and Neanderthals interbred. Is it, then, H. neanderthalensis or H. sapiens neanderthalensis?

 

But I think dwelling on minutia is missing the point. Taxonomy is a tool, not sacred writ. It marks historical qualities that reach down to the current species. For a long time, dinosaurs were in reptiles. Now, dinosaurs reside in Class Dinosauria. Birds were Class Aves and they are still generally so considered. However, it’s become ever more clear that birds descended directly from dinosaurs and still so resemble them that some have suggested Aves should, instead, be a subclass of Dinosauria. Has the evolution of birds since their origin a sufficient difference as to justify Class Aves? Arguments abound. Thus, the taxonomy continues to reflect both our current understanding and confusion.

 

Taxonomic groups (at least in animals) reflect a heritage from a common ancestral population. Genus Homo came from an ancestral group representing genus Australopithecus. At some point, the changes in that population were such they could no longer easily breed back to the ancestral genus. As time went on, further populations subdivided, sharing common characteristics but developing their own distinctions.

 

Always successful. Always changing over time.

 

 

Ethology for Writers

I was on the Ethology for Writers at Arisia this weekend. Here are my notes:

Definition: study of the behavior of non-human animals.

Comments: There was a comic I saw years ago. A collection of different animals such as a horse, a monkey, a human, a giraffe, an elephant. In the thought balloon over each were the words “And God created <insert animal here> in his own image…”

The definition of ethology has that same sort of arrogance. Similar to the division of animals between invertebrate and vertebrate animals—as if vertebrates, which contain humans, were the important group and all other animals lumped together regardless of heritage or adaptation.

A better approach is to include humans in ethology as another animal. Or, it’s possible, the distinction allows uncorrupted study of non-human animals and the inclusion of humans would inevitably torque the study around us.

As writers, we are writing for an audience of humans. That constrains us.

I think, for our purposes, we can list a few basic principles:

1. Behavior derives from evolutionary heritage and adaptation. This does not limit its capacity but it does orient its expression. Humans have two hands and two eyes. What we do personally begins there. But it could end with an enhanced human Shiva.
2. Evolutionary change is drive by variation and natural selection. Organisms retain capabilities as long as they are useful and/or are not too expensive to remove. Evolution loves to repurpose otherwise “useless” components to new purposes. Horses run on their middle finger. The other bones have been repurposed to support that effort. Our reptile ancestors have many bones in their lower jaw. Mammals have but one—the mandible. Two of those ancient bones were repurposed to the mammalian middle ear.
3. My definition of “conscious” is quite broad. It means the animal is aware of the consequences of its actions as an entity. The degree of this “consciousness” varies by species and individual. My suspicion is an ant is not conscious. A cuttlefish is. Once this awareness is in place, it changes the dynamics of behavior.
4. Behavior, then, can be inherited (typical of stereotypy) or learned or a blend of the two. My own feeling is as we progress upward on the axis of stereotypy we probably progress downward on the access of consciousness.
5. Common categorical behavior across the breadth of a species is probably indicative of some heritability. Unique categorical behavior within species groups is likely product of a cultural aspect. (By “culture,” I mean group behavior that retains knowledge independent of biology. I.e., termite hunting in chimps or sinking ships by orcas.) In human terms, common ground might be the existence of special procreative behaviors such as marriage, music, group organization. This capability is likely inherited. The individual instantiation of these categories is not inherited but preserved in the culture.

For purposes of fiction, I think we can broadly discuss two basic aspects of how ethology can influence writing:

1. Behaviors animals have in common with human beings. E.g.: mammals rear their young. Humans, as mammals, do the same. Fictionally, this allows the reader to feel common ground to the animal/alien/mythic creature in question.
2. Behaviors animals that are unique to them and not common with human beings. E.g.: cattle offspring are born quite ready to walk, move, and eat—given a little start up time. Human offspring can’t even thermoregulate properly for several months. Fictionally, this creates contrast between the human and the animal/alien/mythic creature. 

All animal behaviors (as well as human) exceed the bare necessity required by survival and reproduction. 

 

The advantage of cognitive mediated behavior is that it enlarges the behavioral repertoire of the animal to handle future events that cannot easily be extrapolated from past adaptations. Evolution does not know the future. However, animals that are in general better prepared for an unexpected future do better than more specialized animals over long periods of time. However, repertoire can only derived from the animals evolutionary heritage. If it’s advantageous for humans to have a third eye that can see x-rays, we’re not going to develop one because we don’t have the biological mechanism to present it and have it honed by natural selection.

 

There’s another approach where a given animal is given human characteristics—the Mowgli stories, for example. The tension between the animal nature and human nature of the characters drives the dramatic tension.

 

Okay, okay. Enough about analysis. What can we use?

 

I’m in SF so I’m not going to play in the fantasy camp. 

 

If you’re world building in SF you’re interested in ethology for three reasons: aliens, beasts, future humans. (Which is another word for aliens.)

 

For my money, over the last billion years or so, earth has pretty much explored all possibilities of form given the earth environment. For physiological adaptation, you can go back to Ediacaran all the way to the present. But you won’t get much in the way of behavior. It’s pretty certain that some dinosaurs nested and probably reared their young. But it’s debatable.

 

Behavior is the province of the present. I’d start with the character goal of the alien/beast/future human. 

 

Vertebrate examples:

1. Stickleback fish and some other similar fish. The female leaves the eggs with the mated male. The make cares for them and doesn’t eat for the duration of the hatching and raising of the fry. If it survives the experience, it will make no distinction between the fry and other pray. Some sharks nurse similarly.
2. Many reptiles are the deposit and leave them there philosophy with their offspring. Of those, some engage in cannibalism—that is, they make little distinction between same species and extra-species meals. However, some reptiles—notably alligators—make and guard the nest and will actively come to the defense of the young. At some point, the young mature enough to leave the area near the nest and from then on are considered a competitive adult.
3. I like cuckoos. They are a high stereotypy—and probably less conscious—organism. The adults have little interaction except for mating. Since the cuckoo leaves its eggs in the nest, there is no rearing. Consequently, there has been shown some specialization of cuckoo subgroups towards particular species with the newly hatched young more closely mimicking the host species.
4. There are many examples in primates, elephants, cetaceans, and birds where quite sophisticated behaviors and cultures exist in the absence of obvious language—at least, language as humans perceive it. Corvids have been shown to have knowledge persist across generations without the benefit of language. No one knows how.
5. There’s some evidence that dolphins can project sonar images of an object under discussion. To my knowledge, this is still debatable. While it is in the bandwidth of their sonar, it’s not clear how to prove this.
6. A lot of vertebrate behavior is oriented around the ecological niche they have to live in. For example, elephants have a matriarchal society. Non-forest elephants are incredibly destructive to the local are.  Before they were decimated and the area around them destroyed, they had a roughly fifty year circle where they would cycle through. It’s not an accident that this is a bit less than the age of a matriarch. It gives a young elephant time to cycle through the path and then remember it for the next round.
7. More on elephants: apparently, the older bull elephants tended to keep younger bulls in check. However, they also attract poachers. Without the older bulls around, the younger bulls are much more destructive.
8. One thing that I wish were more explored in fiction is the cross-species cooperation. Cooperation is selected for at least as much if not more than direct competition. There are a number of examples:
1. Crocodilians and wading birds. The birds tend to nest near the crocs. It’s not clear what the mutual advantages are. One hypothesis is the crocs scare off the egg stealers and get the tasty chicks that fall out of the nest. I can buy the egg stealers but the birds would have to lose a lot of nestlings to make it worth the crocs while. Also, given the normal diet of the croc, a nestling is pretty small potatoes.
2. Ostriches and zebras: sight vs smell. This is a fairly obvious case of mutualism. It’s also the case that there’s no possible competition between them.
3. Coral grouper and moray eel: if the grouper’s prey goes into a rock, it signals the eel to go after it. The grouper gets the shredded bits.
4. Remoras and sharks: remoras have been following sharks so long that they’ve developed an attachment sucker on their head. They eat the remainder the shark leaves behind. Not so sure what’s in it for the shark.
5. Coyotes and badgers mutually hunt ground squirrels.
6. Tarantulas and frogs: tarantulas protect the frogs and lets them live with her. The frogs eat the ants that are trying to eat her eggs.
7. Pistol shrimp and goby. The goby sees predators and alerts the pistol shrimp. The pistol shrimp digs a burrow for them to both live in. They pair bond for life. Figure that one out.
8. Ravens guiding wolves to prey
9. Carrion beetles with mites. Carrion beetles lay their eggs in the carcass. The mites eat any eggs other than the carrion beetles. Beetles carry the mites from carcass to carcass.
10. In the 1860’s orcas drove baleen whales to a whaling station in Australia where they would be killed. The whale would be left out overnight so the orcas cold feed.
9. One of the more interesting ideas to come out of paleontology in the last decade is the predator/prey relationships. If you examine something like the Serengeti, you’ll see a bunch of animals fitted closely to their niche. Small cat sized predators. Medium sized predators. Large predators. Similarly, you’ll small herbivores, medium, etc. Enormous species diversity. However, if you look at the paleontological record in the Jurassic or Cretaceous, you won’t see this. One  hypothesis is that even very large animals hatched out at a fairly small size. This meant you had a single species that, as it grew up, occupied the size niches from birth to adulthood. A baby T-rex for a leopard. A juvenile T-rex for a lion. And an adult T-rex.

Invertebrate examples

These are a lot harder to tease out. There have been a few studies of the neurology of invertebrates showing that just random chemical variation can present multiple options for given behavioral decision. Some have interpreted this as “free will” or evidence of sentience. I’m not in this camp. It’s not at all clear to me that a planarian can possibly have free will.

We can’t conceive of exercising memory without consciousness. Therefore, it’s very hard for us to imagine how that happens. Instead, we place the burden of consciousness on the organism to make us feel better.

It’s fairly clear one can have multiple behavior options and intelligent decision making in the absence of consciousness. We see it in ChatGPT, for example. And, given such a system, there is a potential to select for intelligence as this gives better long term viability for the organism.

Thus, you can have complex behaviors without any associated consciousness.

1. Cephalopods. You can’t have a discussion of invertebrate behavior without octopuses and cuttlefish. It’s not just a good idea. It’s the law.
1. They have strong ability to solve problems.
2. They modify their behavior based on the circumstances. During mating there are big tough guys and little not so touch guys. While the big guys are displaying, the little guys slide in and get the girl.
3. Not sure they are actually conscious but they are the best candidate we have in the invertebrate world.
4. They have a networked brain—this gives some credence to the idea that intelligence arises inevitably above a certain neural complexity. Or, at least, it presents the opportunity for evolution to select for intelligence.
5. They do not have a social existence. Both O’s and C’s are solitary except at mating time. This violates a long standing hypothesis that intelligence arises from social interaction. Certainly, that correlation is viable in vertebrates.
6. They no not have long lives. Neither O’s nor C’s live all that long. Breaking another hypothesis that long lives are necessary for intelligence.
7. So, we have intelligent behavior in a non-social animal. This means that though it might have sophisticated behavior, that behavior is not oriented around a social existence. O’s have been shown to engage in behavior that might be construed as play. How does play help a non-social animal?
2. Insects are another group being investigated. A lot of work has been done with honeybees and bumblebees. They learn. They appear to have the capacity to mitigate a behavior based on a previous state. I.e., they can have an “emotional” state going into a task and have that state affect the outcome.
3. Cost/benefit analysis is rampant in invertebrates. It’s been demonstrated over and over again. Crayfish make informed decisions when presented with a positive appetite reward coupled with a potential predator signal. This sort of behavior is shown time and again in cockroaches, bees, ants, etc.
4. Eusocial insects (bees, ants, termites) do seem to have an “intelligence” that is embodied in the group rather than in individuals. That is, interactions between members of the group produce positive outcomes even though the individual actions may be quite simple.

Examples in fiction

There was a very interesting story I read a long time ago about a frog-like alien and a human teaming up for a goal. All of the story from the set up to the finish are lost to the mists of time but the character of the frog alien contrasting to the human remains. The frog alien only responded to its own self interest. It was not interested in friendship with the human, did not care for him—did not care at all. The frog had only self interest in mind. He was the perfect rational economic person. The human, on the other hand, had feelings of honor, obligation, and friendship.

By the end of the story the maguffin was achieved (that is another panel) with the human baffled and confused and the frog alien, having achieved its goal, moves on. I think there might have been a sort of coda where the frog alien decides it’s in his own best interest to maintain a relationship with the human.
The point of the story were the irreconcilable differences between frog and human. They could achieve their goals together but had little common ground.

Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle postulate an elephant derived alien where the behavioral paradigms were based on acts of dominance and submission—which humans kept screwing up. The aliens were clearly vertebrate mammalians—much closer to us than other phyla.

In my own work, I invented the Centaurs for the Future Boston anthology. Centaurs resemble a preying mantis top stuck on a sow bug body. They were context driven—that is, were a more digital kind of conscious rather than our continuous analog version. They were also laid their eggs in the sea and the survivors returned to their ancestral home as larvae which pupate into an adult. Thus, there are no Centaur children and only intellectual husbandry to keep the adult population from eating the offspring. I got this from a lot of invertebrate groups and the way some vertebrates care for their young by not eating rather than eating them. When the “not eating” period is ended, the offspring might be fair game.

The Role of Lies

I’ve been watching Hogfather recently.

 

(Picture from here.)

 

I’ve seen it before but I’ve been rather interested in comfort food lately and Hogfather filled the bill.

 

For those who are unfamiliar, Hogfather is Terry Pratchett’s take on creating a Christmas tale. Hogfather, the television series, an adaptation of the novel. In Pratchett’s Discworld, Hogwatch is remarkably similar to Christmas in that there are presents, an archetype Santa Clause like being, yet no hint of Christianity. It’s more an investigation of Christmas the holiday rather than Christmas the Holy Day.

 

I will not give away any part of the plot—it is a wonderful story—but I will try to get at something important the film talks about. This is the role of illusion—lies—in human society. The foreground metaphor is the Hogfather—the Santa Clause equivalent—but the background for that are all the other illusions: ownership, justice, mercy, honesty, etc. These are no more real than Santa Clause yet we act as if they have heft and substance like a lump of iron.

 

Stories matter. Words matter.

 

This is where I get upset with the current climate. In human beings there is a tension between what we believe and what is factually real. The sun is a great ball of gas and radiation. It is also the symbol of light and grace. Justice the dispassionate determination of the role of the state with regards to crime. 

 

It is also a euphemism of revenge and punishment. In human beings, we tend to slant towards the belief rather than the fact. I remember reading somewhere that there was a selective advantage to running from a tiger that is imaginary to remaining and being eaten by one you didn’t believe was there. Thus, human bias is born. (I do not remember who said it at I apologize.)

 

The comfort I find in science is that if you examine a scientific proposition, you will find in its ultimate heritage observable, experimental facts it is based on. The whole concept of dark energy came from an observation that the universe appears to be expanding faster the further away you look at it. The expanding universe came from Hubble’s observation that all celestial objects observed at a sufficient distance appeared to be moving away from us. That observation was based on the “red shift,” the idea that objects emitting light that are also moving away from us shift their frequency lower (toward the red, hence “red shift”) to compensate that light in a vacuum always travels at the same speed. That was demonstrated by the Michelson-Morley experiment that showed that light moved at the same direction no matter how it was measured in a vacuum—one of the sources of Einstein’s theory of relativity. 

 

This particular path is a bit simplified but shows that if you drill down far enough, you will find the facts and the long chain of analysis arriving at the proposition. One can agree or disagree with the chain of analysis—that’s the basis of scientific debate—but experimental evidence trumps everything else. If the experiment disproves the hypothesis, back to the drawing board. This is why published and peer reviewed experiments are so important, to make the facts clear. Experimental facts are the foundation upon which the scientific edifice is constructed.

 

This is the reason when a false story is accepted as truth—worse, used as proof for a belief—is so terrible. It’s not the story in and of itself, it’s the way the story then is accepted, absorbed, and becomes part of the structure of our social world. Justice and mercy are invented concepts just like revenge and religion. We decide how true they are. Once we’ve decided that, we act—whether or not the original story was true or not. 

 

Because, for good or ill, to humans, truth is malleable. It’s up to us to penetrate the rhetoric and determine what we need to know. Is this justice or revenge? Is this mercy or self-interest? Do I believe this man or am I just following him because he validates how I think the world should work and not how it does work?

 

The Rosewood Massacre happened because white people believed a black man had raped a white woman. In 1931, eight black men were accused and seven went to prison because of fabricated rape story. Hitler rose to power on the lie that the Jews were responsible for Germany’s loss in World War I. Stories matter. Words matter.

 

The theme of Mother Night (Kurt Vonnegut) is be careful who you pretend to be for that is who you will become. 

 

Similarly, beware the lies you espouse and accept, for they will become your truth.