Economic View - The Invisible Hand, Trumped by Darwin? - NYTimes.com

Economic View

The Invisible Hand, Trumped by Darwin?

• By ROBERT H. FRANK

Published: July 11, 2009

IF asked to identify the intellectual founder of their discipline, most economists today would probably cite Adam Smith. But that will change. Economists’ forecasts generally aren’t worth much, but I’ll offer one that even my youngest colleagues won’t survive to refute: If we posed the same question 100 years from now, most economists would instead cite Charles Darwin.

Darwin, renowned for the theory of evolution, was a naturalist, not an economist, and his view of the competitive struggle was different from Smith’s in subtle but profound ways. Growing evidence suggests that Darwin’s view tracks economic reality much more closely.

Smith is celebrated for his “invisible hand” theory, which holds that when greedy people trade for their own advantage in unfettered private markets, they will often be led, as if by an invisible hand, to produce the greatest good for all. The invisible hand remains a powerful narrative, but after the recent economic wreckage, skepticism about it has grown. My prediction is that it will eventually be supplanted by a version of Darwin’s more general narrative — one that grants the invisible hand its due, but also strips it of the sweeping powers that many now ascribe to it.

Economic View - The Invisible Hand, Trumped by Darwin? - NYTimes.com

Manes, Trains And Antlers Explained: How Showy Male Traits Evolved

 

ScienceDaily (Aug. 22, 2008) For Charles Darwin, the problem of the peacock's tail, in light of his theory of natural selection, was vexing in the extreme. See also: Plants & Animals * Evolutionary Biology * Mating and Breeding * Genetics Fossils & Ruins * Evolution * Charles Darwin * Origin of Life Reference * Speciation * Plant sexuality * Natural selection * Genetic drift Indeed, in 1860, writing to Asa Gray, his most ardent American champion, Darwin confessed: "The sight of a feather in a peacock's tail, whenever I gaze at it, makes me sick!" In his struggle to explain why such extravagant and seemingly burdensome features existed, the great English naturalist struck upon the idea of sexual selection -- that showy traits such as the Peacock's ornamentation were an advantage in the mating game that outweighed other disadvantages.

Manes, Trains And Antlers Explained: How Showy Male Traits Evolved

Researchers hunt for what killed ice age moose

 

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - Ohio archaeologists and historians are trying to figure out what killed a moose more than 10,000 years ago in northeastern Ohio. The researchers are intrigued by a hole in 1 of the animal's forelimb bones. Bob Glotzhober (GLOTTS'-hoh-ber), senior curator of natural history at the Ohio Historical Society, says it's possible the marks came from a short-faced bear. He says that would be the second record of the predator in Ohio. Other suspects include the dire wolf, an extinct prehistoric animal, as well as wolves and bears common to those living today.

WDTN Dayton Ohio Weather and News |Researchers hunt for what killed ice age moose

Manes, Trains And Antlers Explained: How Showy Male Traits Evolved

 

A team of Wisconsin scientists has turned from the question of why such male traits exist to precisely how they evolved. They have worked out the molecular details of how a simple genetic switch controls decorative traits in male fruit flies and how that switch evolved. By extension, the work explains the mechanics of how the male lion got his mane, how the bull moose acquired such an impressive set of antlers and, yes, how the peacock got its magnificent tail. Writing in the latest edition (Aug. 22, 2008) of the journal Cell, a team led by University of Wisconsin-Madison molecular biologist Sean Carroll describes the regulation and evolution of a genetic circuit in fruit flies that permits the male to decorate its abdomen. The work also shows how the regulation of the same genetic circuit in females represses such ornamentation. "This study is about the how, not the why," says Carroll, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and one of the world's noted evolutionary biologists. "How can this trait be made in one gender and not the other?

Manes, Trains And Antlers Explained: How Showy Male Traits Evolved

Remains of ancient beast found in N.W.T. permafrost

CBC News

A man walking in a small Northwest Territories community has stumbled across what paleontologists believe could be the carcass of a steppe bison that roamed before the last Ice Age.

Shane Van Loon displays the ancient animal skull he found last week in Tsiigehtchic, about 230 kilometres south of Tuktoyaktuk in the Northwest Territories. Paleontologists believe the animal was a steppe bison that lived more than 20,000 years ago.
(CBC)

The remains of the beast were uncovered in the permafrost near an eroding cliff, said Shane Van Loon, who first came across the pre-historic find last week while walking along the riverbank in Tsiigehtchic, about 230 kilometres south of Tuktoyaktuk.

Van Loon said something strange was jutting out of the permafrost from an eroding cliff, so he climbed up for a closer inspection and noticed the frozen animal hide and bone, as well as a large-horned skull that measures one metre wide from horn to horn.

Remains of ancient beast found in N.W.T. permafrost

Early Elephant 'Was Amphibious'

 

ScienceDaily (Apr. 16, 2008) — The scientists were investigating the lifestyle of two early elephants (proboscideans) Moeritherium and Barytherium that lived in the Eocene period, over 37 million years ago. By analysing isotopes in tooth enamel from Moeritherium they were able to deduce that it was very likely a semi-aquatic mammal, spending its days in water eating freshwater plants.‘

We know from molecular data that modern elephants share a common ancestry with the sirenians - aquatic sea cows and dugongs,’ said Alexander Liu of Oxford’s Department of Earth Sciences, lead author of a report of the research published online in PNAS. ‘It suggests that elephants may have an ancestor which was amphibious in its mode of life and we wanted to know if Moeritherium or Barytherium was this semi-aquatic ancient relative. Unfortunately only fragments of the skeletons of these early elephants survive, so instead of looking at their bones we looked at the chemical composition of their teeth to determine what they ate and how they lived.’

Alex Liu, with colleagues Erik Seiffert from Stony Brook University (USA) and Elwyn Simons from the Duke Lemur Center (USA), analysed the oxygen and carbon isotope ratios contained within tooth enamel from both extinct proboscideans.

While carbon isotopes can give clues as to an animal’s diet, oxygen isotopes found in teeth come from local water sources - and variations in the ratios of these isotopes can indicate the type of environment the animal lived in. They compared the ratios of these isotopes to definitely terrestrial animals from the same period and these results – when combined with results from studies of embryology, molecular data, and sedimentology – lead them to believe that Moeritherium was semi-aquatic.

Alex Liu commented: ‘We now have substantial evidence to suggest that modern elephants do have ancient relatives which lived primarily in water. The next steps are to conduct similar analyses on other elephant ancestors to determine when the switch from water to land occurred, and to determine exactly when the now fully-aquatic sirenians split from their semi-aquatic proboscidean relatives.’

Adapted from materials provided by University Of Oxford.

Moeritherium - an early elephant which we now know

Early Elephant 'Was Amphibious'

Planet Ark - Receding Permafrost is a Bone-Hunters' Bounty

 

Receding Permafrost is a Bone-Hunters' Bounty

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CHERSKY, Russia - One day, climate change could cost the earth. For now, it is a nice little earner for Russian hunter Alexander Vatagin.

In Siberia's northernmost reaches, high up in the Arctic Circle, the changing temperature is thawing out the permafrost to reveal the bones of prehistoric animals like mammoths, woolly rhinos and lions that have been buried for thousands of years.

Private collectors and scientific institutes will pay huge sums for the right specimen, and bone-prospectors like Vatagin have turned this region, eight time zones from Moscow, into a paleontological Klondyke.

"Last year someone was paid 800,000 roubles (US$31,000) for a mammoth head with two tusks in great condition," said Vatagin.

A brawny 45-year-old, he has a network of helpers: the fishermen and reindeer-herders of the tiny Yukagir ethnic group, whose numbers have dwindled to about 800 people.

"I must have earned the respect of the Yukagir," he said. "Their shamans convened a council and decided to name me a Yukagir," he added. He is now Yukagir No. 456.

These tribesmen are his 'finders', fanning out across the vast emptiness of the tundra seeking valuable artefacts.

Planet Ark - Receding Permafrost is a Bone-Hunters' Bounty

Baby mammoth find promises breakthrough

 

The discovery of a baby mammoth preserved in the Russian permafrost gives researchers their best chance yet to build a genetic map of a species extinct since the Ice Age, a Russian scientist said on Wednesday.

"It's a lovely little baby mammoth indeed, found in perfect condition," said Alexei Tikhonov, deputy director of the Russian Academy of Science's Zoological Institute, which has been taking care of the mammoth since it was uncovered in May.

"This specimen may provide unique material allowing us to ultimately decipher the genetic makeup of the mammoth,"

Baby mammoth find promises breakthrough | Science | Reuters