In the American vernacular, “theory” often means “imperfect fact”—part of a hierarchy of confidence running downhill from fact to theory to hypothesis to guess. Thus the power of the creationist argument: evolution is “only” a theory and intense debate now rages about many aspects of the theory. If evolution is worse than a fact, and scientists can’t even make up their minds about the theory, then what confidence can we have in it? Indeed, President Reagan echoed this argument before an evangelical group in Dallas when he said (in what I devoutly hope was campaign rhetoric): “Well, it is a theory. It is a scientific theory only, and it has in recent years been challenged in the world of science–that is, not believed in the scientific community to be as infallible as it once was.”

Well evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world’s data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don’t go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein’s theory of gravitation replaced Newton’s in this century, but apples didn’t suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin’s proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered.

Moreover, “fact” doesn’t mean “absolute certainty”; there ain’t no such animal in an exciting and complex world. The final proofs of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world. Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us falsely for a style of argument that they themselves favor). In science “fact” can only mean “confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional consent.” I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.

Evolutionists have been very clear about this distinction of fact and theory from the very beginning, if only because we have always acknowledged how far we are from completely understanding the mechanisms (theory) by which evolution (fact) occurred. Darwin continually emphasized the difference between his two great and separate accomplishments: establishing the fact of evolution, and proposing a theory–natural selection–to explain the mechanism of evolution.

Stephen J. Gould, “Evolution as Fact and Theory”; Discover, May 1981

Just a little quibble with this quote though… In it, Gould says that Darwin proposed a theory to explain the mechanism of evolution. That’s untrue – Darwin proposed several, complementary theories to explain evolution, the most notable being Sexual Selection.

This is part of the series of posts Poaching in Cyprus FAQ

Approximately how many birds are killed seasonally?

BirdLife Cyprus derives its estimates regarding the number of birds trapped from observations of the number of limesticks and nets observed during monitoring, which is done by previously described surveillance methods. The direct findings from BirdLife’s monitoring schemes were published most recently in an Autumn 2008 report, released 15 January, 2009. Their data:

Here’s an amazing video of cell divisions and movements in early embryonic zebrafish development:

Mo writes about the video and the science behind it at The Neurophilosophy Blog:

This reconstruction, produced by researchers from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany using a technique called digital scanned laser light sheet fluorescence microscopy, shows the movements of all 16,000 cells in an 18-hour-old zebrafish embryo.

To make the film, the researchers injected a fluorescent protein into an embryo at the one cell stage. They began imaging at the 64-cell stage and captured images every 90 seconds for 12 hours.

This movie and 15 others accompany a paper published in a recent issue of Science.

This is part of the series of posts Poaching in Cyprus FAQ

How Does BirdLife Monitor Illegal Bird Trapping?

BirdLife Cyprus uses a standard surveillance scheme that has been in use since they began studying bird trapping in Cyprus in 2002. Two observers are employed to carry out field investigations aimed at monitoring illegal bird trapping activity in the two traditional bird trapping hotbeds on the Island: the Famagusta area and the Ayios Theodoros – Maroni valleys West of Larnaca. These two areas (roughly represented by areas 1 and 2 in the map below) comprise the “core” study area, and the study takes place during two months in Spring and again in Autumn. Originally this “core” area comprised approximately 360-km2, but has grown to 406-km2 since 2002.

The main bird trapping areas in Cyprus

Sometimes, the pressures of getting data just tired a person out in science.

Not to mention the difficulties in learning new techniques quickly. Lately, I’ve been learning how to do RNA microinjections into 4-cell stage frog embryos. Simple, by the standards of your average embryologist, but my experience in embryology (or developmental biology, if you prefer) is limited – I was trained as a cell biologist. And learning experiences tend to involve me saying “I had better not do that again!” In other words, in the lab, I tend to learn by a winnowing process, until finally I’ve weeded out all the wrong ways to perform a technique. It’s not very efficient, but for cutting-edge protocols, one has to write the protocol themselves much of the time. The ancient Japanese proverb, “Fall down seven times, get up eight,” comes to mind.

Via Bioephemera, I’m reminded that the 2009 Nikon Small World competition results are out. Check them out… but here’s my favorite:

Ciliated protozoa - Honorable Mention, by Dylan Burnette (1700X)

Black storks (Credit: Ken Preston-Mafham / Premaphotos Wildlife)

Black Stork (Ciconia nigra) — A scarce passage migrant in Cyprus, it is generally seen in single figures in late April/early May and from September to November. I was lucky to see seven this past Saturday on the Akrotiri Salt Flats, and four of them again a while later, probably the same birds. Seeing seven together was a treat as they’re fairly secretive and solitary birds, even though they are sometimes seen in numbers as great as 30 outside of their breeding season.

Charlie beat me to it, but Martin Hellicar sent me also the latest report to the Bureau of the Bern Convention Standing Committee on Illegal trapping, killing and trade of birds in Cyprus. The report is not good (emphasis mine):

The situation on the ground in the Autumn of 2009 looks very bad, first results from the ongoing BirdLife monitoring project show. The Spring 09 migration season seemed to provide some grounds for hope – with a reduction in mist netting activity compared to the spring of 08. But now that the main, Autumn trapping season has arrived, the trappers are back in force, particularly with limesticks.

Levels of limestick use detected in the main trapping areas during the four-week period August 31st to September 25th were almost double (83% increase) those detected in the Autumn of 08. BirdLife also found greatly increased evidence of limestick manufacture in September 09, often on a big scale. In mid-September, following a BirdLife tip-off, a Larnaca area villager was arrested with almost 1,000 limesticks in his garden “workshop”. The day after his arrest, the man was back making limesticks in his garden – indicating a strong market for his illegal produce. This points to a growing tolerance of limestick use, which, though illegal and highly damaging, is still perceived as “traditional” by a large sector of Cyprus society.

Mist netting levels in the first part of the Autumn 09 season were slightly higher than in the Autumns of 08 and 07. It should be noted here that netting levels in the Autumns of 07 and 08 were the highest recorded for five years – representing a serious reverse in the enforcement effort. Mist net use is taking place on a massive scale in the Pyla Range area, within the British Sovereign Base area (SBA). Up to three years ago, trapping had been minimised within the SBAs, but now seems to be making an unwelcome comeback. In the Republic areas, detection of trapping activity (with nets or limesticks) is increasingly hampered by the fact that trappers are now mostly active within enclosures (which BirdLife observers do not enter). This could be leading to an underestimation of trapping levels in some areas.

My own opinion is much more harsh than what is contained in the report. And both the Cyprus and British governments are culpable, it would seem.

So, a rhetorical question: Why does it seem that we need activism to enforce laws?

Found on the web, this clip has a cool feel to it, taking a view through a spotting scope with a camcorder. The effect is to give the sensation of actually being there, looking through the scope, which probably was itself shaking simply due to the wind.

Moreover, the Demoiselle Cranes are just as you can see them on the salt lake in early mornings in Cyprus.

An excerpt from the introduction to David S. Wilcove’s book No Way Home: The Decline of the World’s Great Animal Migrations (US/UK):

Cole Porter was right. Birds do it. Bees do it. Even bats with fleas do it. Tens of thousands of species migrate, and the journeys they take are as different as the creatures themselves. Arctic terns migrate from their nesting grounds in the Bering Sea to the Antarctic Ocean, a circumpolar voyage that is without equal in the animal kingdom. At the other extreme, spotted salamanders in Maine awake from their winter hibernation in abandoned shrew burrows and trek 150 yards or so across the forest floor to their breeding ponds, an annual journey typical of many salamander species. Three-wattled bellbirds in Costa Rica migrate from montane cloud forests to lowland jungles. Like the bellbirds, mountain quail in the western United States retreat from higher elevations during the winter, but they prefer to walk down the mountains rather than fly. Great white sharks will wander halfway across the Pacific Ocean and back over the course of a year, while krill, the little shrimplike crustaceans that are the bread and butter of the Southern Ocean’s food chain, move up and down the water column in response to daylight. Theirs may be a daily migration of only a few hundred feet, but it is nonetheless essential for the survival of millions of other animals, ranging in size from two-ounce storm petrels to one-hundred-ton whales, that either consume krill or eat the creatures that consume krill.