Self-Driving Cars and Ecology, or "Where's the Running Board?"

 NYTimes had an article on Tesla in its Sunday magazine. Its emphasis was on the problems in the self-driving software.  

Tesla claims that based on accidents per miles their cars are much safer than those driven by people.  That may well be true, but I'd love to see a test where the drivers and conditions are randomly assigned.

I think one problem is the lack of sound data--apparently each company which is trying to implement such software maintains its own data, presumably for competitive reasons. But even if the data were public, there doesn't seem to be a basis for comparison.  The testing being done uses drivers who aren't at all reflective of the overall population and is done on roads and in conditions which aren't representative of normal driving. 

As it stands the testing being done is also unfair to Tesla and the others.  What do I mean?  The current ecology of drivers, roads, and conditions has evolved over a long history. An experienced driver has expectations based on her experience, and operates on their basis. I imagine it could be modeled as a circle in a Venn diagram. Imagine 60 years from now when almost all cars are self-driving.  That ecology will have "drivers" with somewhat different expectations, cars different than todays--notably quicker to to react, and roads which will have been modified for better self-driving. In our Venn diagram, the circle for the current ecology and the circle for the self-driving ecology will not be identical; they'll overlap in some areas.

Today when we judge self-driving software we're judging it by the current ecology, not the ecology of 60 years from now.  It's like cow-catchers on locomotives or running boards on cars--both were things needed by the early rail and automotive systems, but not by the current ones (though it turns out our trucks and SUV's still need them).  It will take time for the ecology to evolve; for drivers to gain experience with the cars, for the cars and software to improve, for the roads to be modified, for the insurance industry to adapt and the laws to change. It will be evolutionary.

Herbicide Resistant Weeds

 NY Times Mag has an article on "superweeds", weeds resistant to herbicides, specifically Palmer amaranth.

It's a reminder that as we change our environment, our environment changes as well. Natural selection rules.  The same process is going on with bacteria, as we get resistance to antibiotics. 

I don't know, and haven't noticed discussion, whether the use of Crispr and the sort of science which led to the fast development of covid vaccines has any implications for our fights against resistance.

When Humans Are Elephants

 The NYTimes Magaine has a short piece on the herd of elephants in China who've gone walkabout. Apparently they just took off in search of better, perhaps because of disturbances in their environment and have now traveled 300 miles. The article suggests the excursion is a model of how nature adapts to change.

To me it suggests what humans have done over the millennia--how we have traveled from Africa across the world reaching every continent and significant island by 1300 CE (except Antarctica.)

I've read one book (Wrangham?) suggesting that periodic shifts in Africa from moist to dry had the effect of pumping humans out of Africa.  So we are elephants too.

Neanderthals Weren't Dumb

 Reading the book "Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art".  I've some reservations about the level of detail and the rather literary preludes to each chapter, but the gist is eye-opening.  Science has learned so much more about Neanderthals than I realized.  Modern technology has enabled very detailed reconstructions.

The bottom line is the species knew what they were doing. 

That doesn't mean that Gov. Abbott knows what he's doing.

The Virtue of Lynch Mobs

Yes, the title is bait.

I'm reading Richard Wrangham's The Goodness Paradox?, about 3/4 of the way through.  I like it and the argument he makes, having read the recent book on the experiment in Russia of rearing silver foxes selected for non-aggression, which seems to support a "domestication" theory.  After 40 generations the foxes were much like dogs, both physically  (floppy ears, changes in skull shape, etc) and in behavior.

So in the chapter I just finished Wrangham's discussing how humans might have developed a moral sense (as part of their self-domestication).  His basic theory is: lynch mobs, triggered by observations of chimpanzees.  The idea is, if and when an alpha male gets too alpha, the subordinate males discover by forming a coalition they can take him out.  From that we can evolve to coalitions which enforce social norms, and innate behavior which makes us hyper conscious of norms and therefore very moral.

That's a quick and dirty summary; no doubt one Wrangham would shudder at.

It's an interesting subject, and he's a careful writer.  I want to see if he explains why we still generate alpha males like our current president.

[I should note, Wrangham doesn't call them "lynch mobs", but his description would match a description of a generic lynch mob--a bunch of males converging to execute justice on someone who is perceived to have violated a norm.  He has some descriptions from anthropology of societies/tribes where there are strong norms covering such actions.]

The Agricultural Revolution as Insurance

I forget whether I've mentioned listening to Harari's Sapiens, as an audiobook (Mr. Bezos is taking over the world).  It's slow going, not because it's not interesting or well-written, but because I'm only listening when I use my exercise bike, and these days I'm mostly able to get exercise in the garden or by walking. 

Anyway, he's discussing the agricultural revolution, adopting the stance of Jared Diamond and others that it was bad for individuals, because hunter-gatherers had less work to get their food than did the early farmers.  While agriculture meant a given area of land could support more people, which was good for the species, it meant harder work and misery for the individuals.  His explanation for the revolution is mostly materialistic, a gradual accumulation of changes resulting in domesticated grains and animals, each change seeming an advantage but the overall result was poor.  An alternative explanation is possibly religious, citing an example of great stone columns erected by a hunter-gatherer culture in the same area where einkorn wheat was domesticate.

One thing I think Harari misses is the influence of climate and the seasons.  One of the outstanding features of our staple grain crops is storability.  There are food items a hunter-gatherer can store: acorns, dried fish, dried grapes, etc., but in most cases these are limited.  Grains can be stored indefinitely.  While Harari emphasizes the variety of foods hunter-gatherers could obtain, I'm not convinced.  Checking the climate for Jericho, a place he mentions, there's big seasonal changes: a cold wet season and a hot dry season.  What that means to me (operating on logic with no knowledge of the facts of the area) is that the life of a hunter-gatherer is good half the year, not the other half.  So growing and storing grain for the dry season would be rewarding.  A store of wheat was insurance against the risk of starving during the hot, dry season.

Coitus Interruptus

Five-thirty-eight has a post on the always interesting subject of penises (actually "wieners" in their terminology), which includes this:

"That’s partly because it’s difficult to study how male and female genitalia interact during sex. For example, Kelly told me that, in order to study fruit flies, scientists drop mating pairs into liquid nitrogen to freeze them mid-flagrante."

Pizzly Bears

A new term to me, but not to biologists who study hybrids.  A very interesting article in the NYTimes magazine.

Local Food, Economics, and Evolution

Freakonomics has a post with this theme:

But implicit in the argument that local farming is better for the environment than industrial agriculture is an assumption that a “relocalized” food system can be just as efficient as today’s modern farming. That assumption is simply wrong. Today’s high crop yields and low costs reflect gains from specialization and trade, as well as scale and scope economies that would be forsaken under the food system that locavores endorse.

Part of the argument is "comparative advantage" and specialization: Iowa gets higher corn yields than Mississippi, Idaho gets higher potato yields than Florida, etc.  Part of the argument is "economies of scale".

Makes sense to me, though it's quite possible over the long long term that arguments from evolution will trump the arguments from economies: remember the dinosaurs.

Sex Gives Farmers Troubles

That's my takeaway from a Stu Ellis piece on waterhemp, a weed which is very difficult for farmers to control.  The reason, although I'm reading between the lines and making assumptions, is sex:

Since the waterhemp family has both male and female plants whose genes mix annually, the genetic diversity increases every year and an increasing number of plants have become resistant to a wider variety of herbicides. 

 If I recall my biology, that's the purpose of having sex, to increase diversity and therefore increase adaptability to the environment.  I'm glad to know some of my knowledge isn't obsolete.

On the Mystery of the Male Anatomy

I enjoy Joel Acehenbach's writing in the Post, and he points to a post on the Scientific American blog explaining the whys and wherefores of the male genitalia.

Overconfidence Helps, But Why Underconfidence

Technology Review has a piece on why overconfidence (the idea one is an above-average driver, etc.) is evoluntarily sound.

In fact, overconfidence is actually advantageous on average, because it boosts ambition, resolve, morale, and persistence. In other words, overconfidence is the best way to maximize benefits over costs when risks are uncertain.

So why are some people lacking in confidence (as in social relations), why do that evolve?

Corn

Sometimes I can follow science, sometimes I can't. This post is interesting, as it deals with the evolution of corn, though I had a bit of trouble following the logic of "cryptic variation", meaning genes change but the trait doesn't. (Hat tip to Brad DeLong.)

The big news for me was a throwaway for the writer--they've been able to mate modern corn and teosinte and produce viable offspring--meaning they're the same species.

One implication I think is Richard Dawkins was wrong in "The Selfish Gene", because the trait, not the gene, is what is selected for.