Whale Watch!
For Erica’s birthday, I took her on a whale watch here in Portland. We had a great time, and saw a lot of unexpected wildlife. While we eventually saw a few whales, the most exciting sightings were not mammalian. As the boat headed out, we saw several sea otters and a couple of pods of porpoises, which served as a nice warm up.
Erica spotted something in the distance that, while it could have been a buoy, was actually moving independently. A pair of bird watchers made an identification, which I was reluctant to believe, until the captain agreed with it and announced that we’d be slowly and quietly making our way over, in the hopes of not startling the animal and getting a good look. As we got closer, I snapped a photo.
By this time, we were catching glimpses of the body underneath the surface: the shadows of gills, a bright spot at the front, the tail that confirmed the captain’s estimate of a 20-foot-plus length… The beast kept on trucking, seemingly oblivious to our presence. People began to joke about being afraid, and talk about that bright spot being a fish in its mouth. I felt it would be asinine to correct them, and, trying to keep my mouth shut, snapped another photo.
Basking Shark! I never in my life thought I would see one, live, in the wild. This is an amazing animal, being one of two shark species known to grow larger than the Great White. It swims along, mouth wide open to catch plankton. It is unaggressive to humans. It allowed the boat to pull right alongside it, and we spent some time watching it swim and feed. Its mouth would open, and the gills would balloon outwards, and it would swim slowly like that for a long time. We eventually pulled away in search of the cetaceans, but for me, this was the highlight of the trip.
I soon spotted another fin in the distance and pointed it out. The captain said we were in for a bizarre treat, and headed towards it. It turned out to be a Mola Mola, or ocean sunfish, and was strange looking indeed. I tried to get a picture, but ruined it by putting my fingers in the way. (My phone camera has no wrist strap, and I was getting nervous about dropping it into the ocean.) Feel free to check out the Wikipedia Page on Mola Molas for photographs and information. We ended up coming across three of these things in the course of our trip.
Finally, we saw a leatherback turtle. It also let us come right up on it, and was an amazing sight. The captain claimed that in seven years of leading these tours, this was the first leatherback turtle he’d seen. It is an endangered species as well, making this a very special sight in the wild.
We eventually came across some whales, first a finback, then a pod of minkes. The finback did not let us get very close, and, while the minkes surrounded the boat, none came alongside or swam underneath.
We had a great time, and it’s likely I’ll go again someday. I do feel some reluctance, though, as the bar has been set extremely high by this amazing experience.
Too..Something
I enjoy reading about the creation/evolution debate. I like seeing science and reason defeat lunacy. Lately, the blogs have been a-roaring over the Expelled brouhaha with PZ Myers and his mystery guest. Tonight served up some more delicious drama when PZ crashed their promotional conference call.
This is all, of course, tangential to the truly important thing I discovered tonight, buried in the comments of that thread.
And I love it.
Geologic Timescale
Here is one of the best illustrations of Geologic Time I’ve seen in a while, and certainly the best I’ve seen online. Most of them, inadvertently or not, end up magnifying our time at least a little, so that it is somehow disproportionate to the rest. This one seems much better about that. Check it out, and have fun scrolling along!
(Saw this on Pharyngula)
Why I Hate Archeology, and moving beyond it
Don’t get me wrong..I’m sure archeologists are, on the whole, wonderful and intelligent people, doing some fantastic science. I didn’t always hate archeology either. When I was quite young, I simply didn’t care about it. Sure, we occasionally spent an inordinate amount of time on ancient Egypt in my elementary school, but this was simply a mild annoyance, learning about something for which I truly felt not the slightest spark of interest.
Things began to change once my interest in dinosaurs turned into an interest in paleontology. Or, perhaps, once I learned/decided that paleontology is what people who love dinosaurs do. Regardless, archeology began to intrude into my life and conversations with disturbing frequency. Whenever I told anyone of my interest in paleontology, they somehow must have heard ‘archeology’ because they would immediately talk about it: “Oh, I like archeology too!” or “So you like dinosaurs and stuff? Yeah, well I think those pyramids in Egypt are great.” or “Did you hear about that recent archeological find in _____?” The last one was far and away the most common, putting me in the awkward position of either pretending to care about ancient human history or trying to find a polite way of explaining that, no, I really do not care about that particular find in the least, and it’s nothing against that discovery, just that I find the whole enterprise entirely devoid of interest. As these conversations repeated over and over, every time I tried to tell someone new about my passion for dinosaurs and other long-dead animals, I became increasingly frustrated, and resentful of archeology. It came to symbolize for me humanity’s obsession with itself, our focus on studying ouselves instead of the world around us. I mean, how could anyone interested in ancient life not be primarily interested in ancient human civilizations??
In college I met an archeology major at a party once.. She went to a different school, and I’ve never seen her since. It was an eye-opening experience for me because she had the same problem! Whenever she told anyone about her archeology studies, they would immediately begin talking to her about dinosaurs! I began to feel sympathy for the archeologists, always being forced to talk about the spotlight-stealing, movie-grubbing dinosaurs instead of their true passion.
I just recently finished reading the Best American Science and Nature Writing for 2004. An archeology piece stood out for me. Written by Garrett G. Fagan, it was about pseudoscience and television. He lamented the preponderance of pseudoscience showing up in archeology shows, even on channels like Discovery or The Learning Channel. He delved a little bit into some reasons behind this… TV shows have to sell a story, and even documentary ones must do this. A common and successful formula is that of what I will call the vindicated visionary, (called The Vindicated Thinker in Fagan’s piece, but I like alliteration), a scientist with the courage to go against the mainstream and follow the evidence, who faces ridicule at first, but is, of course, eventually proven right as the evidence mounts and the mainstream comes around. The problem arises because this format is particularly easy to fit to pseudoscientists. Pseudoscientists almost always see themselves in this light. Indeed, someone comparing him or her self to Galileo or Newton as a misunderstood or suppressed scientific revolutionary is a dead giveaway that they are really off their rocker. The Baez Crackpot Index might be useful here. Check it out, particularly the later ones. Then, if you haven’t already, go read some pseudoscience and see how well the Index works. Anyhow, with pseudoscientists already telling their own, autobiographical, vindicated visionary stories, TV producers have an easy time buying into it, or at least, making a show out of it. And tadaa! we get pseudoscience in some prominent TV spots. Fagan goes on to suggest some ways to make exciting, but still accurate, archeology television.
After reading that piece, I found myself suddenly feeling some kinship with the archeologists. They’re facing the same attacks on good science that the paleontologists, geologists, and especially biologists are facing. That’s plenty reason for me to get over my own personal feelings about archeology.
