Target acquisition and interception in dragonflies

Here is a fascinating post about some of the capabilities of dragonflies from Evolution News.

Selective attention

First, dragonflies have “selective attention” – the ability to focus on a single prey and ignore other distractions:

Dragonflies are among the best flyers in the insect world. Their twin pairs of paper-thin wings allow them to hover and move in all directions, even in mating. When the time comes to dart after prey at high speed, they rarely miss.

What’s their secret? One is “selective attention” — a trait previously known only in primates, according to new research from the University of Adelaide, Australia. Selective attention is the ability to focus on one object and exclude others. Just as a tennis player must focus on the ball and ignore the cheers of the crowd, a dragonfly must pick out one target from a swarm of insects and avoid being distracted by all the others.

Here’s a snip from the research paper:

Our data make a compelling case that CSTMD1 reflects competitive selection of one target. We emphasize “competitive,” because the attended target is not always the same between trials or even within a trial, as seen in strikingly perfect switches from one to the other…. Competition is further suggested by rare examples where the activity observed under Pair stimulation initially lags both T₁and T₂ responses… suggesting initial conflict in the underlying neural network before resolution of competition by a “winning” target.

We previously showed that CSTMD1 still responds robustly to a target even when it is embedded within a high-contrast natural scene containing numerous potential distracters. Taken together with recent evidence that the behavioral state of insects strongly modulates responses of neurons involved in visuomotor control, our new data thus suggest a hitherto unexpected sophistication in higher-order control of insect visual processing, akin to selective attention in primates.Perhaps the most remarkable feature of our data is that once the response “locks” onto a target (or following a switch), the second target exerts no influence on the neuron’s response: the distracter is ignored completely.

In order to succeed at the task of catching its prey, the dragonfly has to tune out all other distractions.

Target selection

In addition, dragonflies have the ability to intercept a target in mid-air – similar missile defense systems on AEGIS cruisers and destroyers.

The Evolution News article explains:

Another paper on dragonflies shows that these marvels of the insect world are equipped with navigational equipment that can do vector calculus. In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Gonzalez-Bellido and a team at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute discerned “Eight pairs of descending visual neurons in the dragonfly [that] give wing motor centers accurate population vector of prey direction.“

Intercepting a moving object requires prediction of its future location. This complex task has been solved by dragonflies, who intercept their prey in midair with a 95% success rate. In this study, we show that a group of 16 neurons, called target-selective descending neurons (TSDNs), code a population vector that reflects the direction of the target with high accuracy and reliability across 360°. The TSDN spatial (receptive field) and temporal (latency) properties matched the area of the retina where the prey is focused and the reaction time, respectively, during predatory flights. The directional tuning curves and morphological traits (3D tracings) for each TSDN type were consistent among animals, but spike rates were not. Our results emphasize that a successful neural circuit for target tracking and interception can be achieved with few neurons and that in dragonflies this information is relayed from the brain to the wing motor centers in population vector form.

What did I make of this? Well, evidence like this always causes me to think aboutthe reality of God, and the disturbing thought that we do not live in an accidental universe where I can do whatever I want and be accountable to no one. It’s easier to believe that – it requires less work and it frees us to be our own boss and make our happiness the first priority. As individuals, it’s very tempting for us to think that we are number one, and to resent our obligations to anyone else. The problem is that the scientific data doesn’t support that worldview. The facts are what they are and it is up to us, now, to try to find out who the designer is and what he wants from us.

Filed under: News, Biology, Biomimetics, Darwinism, Design, Dragonflies, Dragonfly, Engineering, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Naturalism, Research, Theism

Graduate students with non-STEM degrees increasingly dependent on welfare programs

From the Chronicle of Higher Education. (H/T Nancy Pearcey)

Excerpt:

Melissa Bruninga-Matteau, a medieval-history Ph.D. and adjunct professor who gets food stamps: “I’ve been able to make enough to live on. Until now.”

“I am not a welfare queen,” says Melissa Bruninga-Matteau.

That’s how she feels compelled to start a conversation about how she, a white woman with a Ph.D. in medieval history and an adjunct professor, came to rely on food stamps and Medicaid. Ms. Bruninga-Matteau, a 43-year-old single mother who teaches two humanities courses at Yavapai College, in Prescott, Ariz., says the stereotype of the people receiving such aid does not reflect reality. Recipients include growing numbers of people like her, the highly educated, whose advanced degrees have not insulated them from financial hardship.

“I find it horrifying that someone who stands in front of college classes and teaches is on welfare,” she says.

Ms. Bruninga-Matteau grew up in an upper-middle class family in Montana that valued hard work and saw educational achievement as the pathway to a successful career and a prosperous life. She entered graduate school at the University of California at Irvine in 2002, idealistic about landing a tenure-track job in her field. She never imagined that she’d end up trying to eke out a living, teaching college for poverty wages, with no benefits or job security.

Ms. Bruninga-Matteau always wanted to teach. She started working as an adjunct in graduate school. This semester she is working 20 hours each week, prepping, teaching, advising, and grading papers for two courses at Yavapai, a community college with campuses in Chino Valley, Clarkdale, Prescott, Prescott Valley, and Sedona. Her take-home pay is $900 a month, of which $750 goes to rent. Each week, she spends $40 on gas to get her to the campus; she lives 43 miles away, where housing is cheaper.

Ms. Bruninga-Matteau does not blame Yavapai College for her situation but rather the “systematic defunding of higher education.” In Arizona last year, Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, signed a budget that cut the state’s allocation to Yavapai’s operating budget from $4.3-million to $900,000, which represented a 7.6 percent reduction in the college’s operating budget. The cut led to an 18,000-hour reduction in the use of part-time faculty like Ms. Bruninga-Matteau.

“The media gives us this image that people who are on public assistance are dropouts, on drugs or alcohol, and are irresponsible,” she says. “I’m not irresponsible. I’m highly educated. I have a whole lot of skills besides knowing about medieval history, and I’ve had other jobs. I’ve never made a lot of money, but I’ve been able to make enough to live on. Until now.”

She’s irresponsible, because she expects the people who choose to study rather difficult and unpleasant subjects like nursing and computer science and economics to pay for her lifestyle through taxation and “higher education funding”. I do think it’s important to point out that the main driver of higher tuition is increasing government funding of education, and that this increasing funding of higher education is nothing but corporate welfare.

Excerpt:

The most obvious way that colleges might capture federal student aid is by raising tuition. Research to date has been inconclusive, but Stephanie Riegg Cellini of George Washington University and Claudia Goldin of Harvard have provided compelling new analysis. Cellini and Goldin looked at for-profit colleges, utilizing the key distinction that only some for-profit schools are eligible for federal aid. Riegg and Goldin find that that aid-eligible institutions “charge much higher tuition … across all states, samples, and specifications,” even when controlling for the content and quality of courses. The 75 percent difference in tuition between aid-eligible and ineligible for-profit colleges — an amount comparable to average per-student federal assistance — suggests that “institutions may indeed raise tuition to capture the maximum grant aid available.”

Here are some of the comments that I posted in a Facebook discussion about the CHE story:

I know that some may disagree with me, but this is why people need to focus on STEM fields and stay away from artsy stuff and Ph.Ds in general. We are in a recession. Trade school and STEM degrees only until things improve.

Also, no single motherhood by choice. Get married before you have children, and make sure you vet the husband carefully for his ability to protect, provide, commit and lead on moral and spiritual issues. This woman is not a victim. She chose her life, and the rest of us are paying for it. Nice tattoos by the way – that will really help when she’s looking for a job.

I am actually better at English than computer science, but I find myself with a BS and MS in computer science. We don’t get to do what we like. We do what we have to in order to be effective as Christians. According to the Bible, men have an obligation to not engage in premarital sex, and to marry before having children, and to provide for their families, or they have denied the faith. I would like to have studied English, but the Bible says no way.

I have no problem with people who can make a career out of the arts, like a Robert George or a William Lane Craig. But you can’t just go crazy. And I think men have a lot less freedom than women to choose their major, we have the obligation to be providers and we have to be selected by women based on whether we can fulfill that role (among other roles).

Women have more freedom because they are not saddled with the provider role like men are. However, I think that the times now are different than before. There is more discrimination against conservatives on campus in non-STEM fields and fewer non-STEM jobs in a competitive global economy. The safest fields are things like petroleum engineering, software engineering, etc.

If [people who major in the humanities] can make a living and support a family without relying on government-controlled redistribution of wealth, then I salute and encourage you. If you rely on the government, know that this money is being taken away from those who are doing things they don’t like at all in order to be independent and self-reliant. It is never good to be dependent on government. That money comes from people like me.

In response to an artsy challenger:

I am happy to be scorned by those who make poor choices so long as I can have my money back from them so that I can pursue my dreams. I didn’t see any of these artsy people in the lab at 4 AM completing their operating system class assignments, nor do I see them here working overtime on the weekend in the office. They can say anything and feel anything they want, and write plays and poetry all about their feelings, too. Just give me the money I earned back first. It’s not their money. They have no right to it.

One person asked why I was “always winter, never Christmas, and I replied:

It is Christmas for the Christians who I send books and DVDs to, as well as for the Christian scholars I support, and the Christian conferences, debates and lectures I underwrite across the world. Unfortunately, every dollar taken from me is a dollar less for that Ph.D tuition of a Christian debater, a dollar less for the flight of that Christian apologetics speaker, a dollar less for that textbook for that Christian biology student, and a dollar less for the flowers being sent to that post-abortive woman who I counseled who is now in law school. I have a need for the money I earn, and when it’s sent to Planned Parenthood to pay for abortions by the government, my plan to serve God suffers. And finally, should I ever get married, I would like my wife to have the option of staying home with the children and even homeschooling them. That costs money. Somehow, I feel that given the choice between my homeschooling wife and the public school unions, the government will choose to give my money to the unions. Just a hunch.

I think that people should go into the humanities when they are serious about making a career of it and can get the highest grades. But if they are coasting and only getting Bs and Cs and not paying attention in class, then drop out and go to trade school. Don’t complain later when you can’t find a job. STEM careers pay the most.

Top-earning degrees / college majors

Here’s my previous post on the woman who accumulated $185,000 of student debt studying the humanities and is likewise demanding handouts and claiming not to be responsible.

Filed under: Commentary, Arrested Development, Assistance, Big Government, College, Corporate Welfare, Dependence, Economics, Education, Engineering, Entitlement, Food Stamps, Government, Government Spending, Higher Education, Humanities, Jobless, Joblessness, Mathematics, Nursing, Perpetual Student, Ph.D, PhD, Redistribution of Wealth, Salary, Science, Socialism, Stem, Taxes, Technology, Tuition, Unemployment, Unemployment Rate, University, Wages, Wealth Redistribution, Welfare

Should the government restrict men’s participation in STEM fields?

Hans Bader from the Competitive Enterprise Institute is concerned about politics being injected into science.

Excerpt: (links removed)

Quotas limiting the number of male students in science may be imposed by the Education Department in 2013. The White House has promised that “new guidelines will also be issued to grant-receiving universities and colleges” spelling out “Title IX rules in the science, technology, engineering and math fields.” These guidelines will likely echo existing Title IX guidelines that restrict men’s percentage of intercollegiate athletes to their percentage in overall student bodies, thus reducing the overall number of intercollegiate athletes. (Under the three-part Title IX test created by the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, where I used to work, colleges are allowed to temporarily comply by increasing the number of female athletes rather than cutting the number of male athletes, but the only viable permanent way to comply with its rule is to restrict men’s participation relative to women’s participation, reducing overall participation.) Thus, as Charlotte Allen notes, the Obama administration’s guidelines are likely to lead to “science quotas” based on gender.

[...]Obama hinted that Title IX quotas would soon come to engineering and techology, saying that “Title IX isn’t just about sports,” but also about “inequality in math and science education” and “a much broader range of fields, including engineering and technology. I’ve said that women will shape the destiny of this country, and I mean it.”

What causes more men to go into the STEM fields than women?

Gender disparities in a major are not the product of sexism, but rather the differing preferences of men and women. The fact that engineering departments are filled mostly with men does not mean they discriminate against women anymore than the fact that English departments are filled mostly with women proves that English departments discriminate against men. The arts and humanities have well over 60 percent female students, yet no one seems to view that gender disparity as a sign of sexism against men. Deep down, the Obama administration knows this, since it is planning to impose its gender-proportionality rules only on the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and math), not other fields that have similarly large gender disparities in the opposite direction.

Many women are quite capable of mastering high-level math and science, but simply don’t find working in such a field all that interesting. As Dr. Sommers notes, many “colleges already practice affirmative action for women in science,” rather than discriminating against them. Susan Pinker, a clinical psychologist, chronicled cases of women who “abandoned successful careers in science and engineering to work in fields like architecture, law and education,” because they wanted jobs that involved more interaction with people, “not because they had faced discrimination in science.” Far from being discouraged by society from pursuing a career in math or science, these women had been strongly encouraged to pursue such a  a career: “Once they showed aptitude for math or physical science, there was an assumption that they’d pursue it as a career even if they had other interests or aspirations. And because these women went along with the program and were perceived by parents and teachers as torch bearers, it was so much more difficult for them to come to terms with the fact that the work made them unhappy.”

As Susan Pinker notes, “A mountain of published research stretching back a hundred years shows that women are far more likely than men to be deeply interested in organic subjects—people, plants and animals—than they are to be interested in things and inanimate systems, such as electrical engineering, or computer systems.”

Is this good for our economy? Should we be discouraging the best male students who want to study science and engineering to do their education abroad in Canada or Europe? Should women be steered into careers that may make it harder for them to have families and raise their children?

Filed under: News, Barack Obama, College, Discrimination, Education, Engineering, Feminism, Gender, Math, Quote, Science, Sexism, Stem, Technology, Title IX, University

How well are American schools teaching science?

Stuart Schneiderman links to this post.

Excerpt:

The results are in and America’s elementary, middle and high school students are stumped by science.

The National Center for Education Statistics released the findings of their National Assessment of Educational Progress science exam this week and it doesn’t bode well for the state of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education. While the majority of students at the fourth, eighth and twelfth grade levels could successfully complete straightforward hands-on or computer-based tasks and arrive at the correct conclusions, once additional variables or more complex calculations were introduced, their performance declined dramatically.

For example, 75% of high school seniors could successfully use test strips to test water samples for the levels of four pollutants, record the data and interpret whether the results exceeded EPA standards, but only 25% of students were able to design and conduct an investigation using a simulated calorimeter and related patterns in temperature changes in two different metals to determine which metal has the higher specific heat capacity. Results were the same at the lower grade levels, where only 24% and 35% of eighth and fourth graders respectively were able to handle the more difficult experiments. Students also had difficulty in explaining how they arrived at a correct conclusion, with only 27% of twelfth graders able to both select a correct answer and explain why they did so in one section of the test. And in another section, only 11% were able to make a final recommendation that was supported by the data they had worked with in the experiment.

[...]Currently, only about a third of bachelor’s degrees awarded in the US are in the STEM fields – by contrast, over half of Chinese and Japanese college students are specializing in STEM subjects. The economic and career benefits of STEM education are well-documented. STEM occupations are forecasted to grow faster than non-STEM occupations through to 2020. Over the course of the recession, unemployment in STEM fields has been almost half that of non-STEM fields. And STEM professionals earn, on average, approximately 26% more than non-STEM counterparts.

[...]If there’s a bright spot in the NAEP report, it’s the fact that female students are matching or exceeding the performance of their male peers in both hands-on and interactive tasks.

I always encourage Christians to go into STEM fields, especially men who have a Biblical mandate to provide for their families, if they have one. Women can be more flexible in what they study. Men are obligated to go for the bucks.

Regarding that comment in bold that I highlighted, Stuart writes:

Schools are not teaching advanced scientific problem-solving and reasoning, but they have achieved gender parity.

Is this an accidental correlation or is the connection causal?

It is certainly possible that educators have chosen gender parity over scientific excellence. If so, then that would help to explain their failure.

Educators may have chosen to close the gender gap at the expense of boys. They may have devalued certain types of reasoning because girls do not do as well on them. They may have changed the content of experiments to make science a more girl-friendly field?

We know that when boys believe that a field is identified as more feminine, they turn off and go back to their video games.

We know that teachers of the humanities and social sciences now actively discriminates against boys.

Is the same thing true of science?

If you read through the Department of Education report you will observe that the tests mostly involve girl-friendly and environmentally correct topics. They ask how sun-loving plants grow, how to test for pollution, and, how heat is conducted in frying pans.

Do you believe that ten or twelve year old boys will crank it up to study how to cook an omelet?

Sometimes the questions are directed at more boy friendly topics like electronic circuits and magnetic fields but they do not teach about cars, guns, and boats. They do not address questions about mining, agribusiness and construction.

Does it matter? I suspect that it does.

I think some combination of homeschooling and private schools is required if you expect your children to make a difference in the world. Young men especially will benefit from being taken out of the feminized public schools. That’s something I think about when dating and courting – picking the future teacher of my children.

Regardless, all Christians should be advocates for school choice. We shouldn’t be paying for a failed, politicized public school system. Give every parent a voucher and let the public schools compete for funding by pleasing customers – like every other business has to.

Filed under: News, Boys, Decline, Education, Engineering, Female, Feminism, Girls, Male, Math, Misandry, Provider, Public School, School, School Choice, Science, Stem, Technology

What should you study to prepare yourself for a career?

Here’s an interesting post from the Chapman Kids blog. The father is a software engineer like me, and he’s serious and intentional about how he is leading his children.

In a recent post, he talks about one of the adventures that the two kids are having with a community college professor of English writing. The post is entitled “Continued conversation with the kid’s commie teacher”.

He writes:

As many already know, Kelly and Christian take a “writing” class at the community college where the dear leader of the class lectures on the evils of all things Christian, the beauty of communism and atheism, and the righteousness of drug legalization and abortion.  Today’s topic was Christianity.

[...]At the point when he made the claim that Adam and Eve could not have existed because of the scientific evidence for evolution, Christian raised his hand and said, “There is just as much scientific evidence against macroevolution as there is for it.”

“You don’t believe in evolution!” exclaimed the professor incredulously with a look of disdain and horror.

“We DO believe in microevolution.  It is grossly arrogant for you NOT to question your own beliefs when it comes to evolution” said Kelly.  “That is what you are demanding from us.”

The professor said, “Evolution is established scientific fact” and used several of the standard canards (fossil record, etc.) to establish his point.

Then they were off to the races.  Fortunately, during homeschool, Christian and Kelly had read books like The Victory of Reason:  How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success by Rodney Stark, Understanding Intelligent Design:  Everything You Need to Know in Plain Language by William Dembski and Sean McDowell, Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions by Greg Koukl, and Intellectuals by Paul Johnson.  The professor was armed with shibboleths about the truth of macroevolution and quotes from John Shelby Spong about the virgin birth.  John Shelby Spong!?!!  You have to be WILDLY out of touch with both current scholarship and reality if you quote John Shelby Spong about virtually anything.  He quotes the likes of losers like Noam Chomsky and Bertrand Russell, too.

I tweeted Kelly a link to the William Lane Craig vs John Shelby Spong. Here is part 1 and part 2 of that debate on Youtube. It’s worth watching if you haven’t seen it before.

Mr. Chapman continues his post:

It is frustrating.  Here is a writing a professor who fervently believes he is making students question their beliefs through these profoundly silly arguments.  The subject matter is objectionable, but this guy’s incompetence is even more objectionable.  He does not appear to understand the difference between scientific method and historic method (very important in discussion of the resurrection).  Neither does he understand that it is impossible to argue for the primacy of scientific method without consideration of its philosophical underpinings.  I guess I should be grateful he is incompetent with respect to his arguments–he does nothing to get the kids to question their faith or worldview.  Still, a lot of taxpayer money is wasted on professors like this throughout the land.

Well, the kids have to learn how to write, but I think it is important to note English classes are especially politicized. There is an awful lot of ideology in English classes, because that’s the easiest place for people who want to teach to go if they want to avoid being corrected by real life. In English, and other similar areas, it’s easier for a teacher to go on and on about their ideas without have to test them against the real world. It’s the easiest subject for teachers to force students to agree with your ideology without allowing them to be able to bring in facts to disagree. Basically, a secular lefty teacher can always find literature (usually modern literature, blech!) that casts Christians as brutes, Christian moral standards as outdated and harmful, and non-Christian behavior as praiseworthy. Because literature is necessarily made-up – it’s just opinion.

Even someone like me who gets courting and chivalry guidance from Shakespeare and Austen is cautious about taking courses in literature. Plus, you can can get into a lot of trouble for disagreeing with the teacher. I took English electives during my undergraduate degree and they do grade you on your viewpoint, something which is much harder for them to do in math, science, physics, chemistry, etc.

Another post from Mr. Chapman discusses how children should study STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) topics, even if those children intend to work in a non-STEM field.

He writes:

I found a great article in the Wall Street Journal this morning titled Generation Jobless:  Students Pick Easier Majors Despite Less Pay.  It had some startling statistics:

Workers who majored in psychology have median earnings that are $38,000 below those of computer engineering majors, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data by Georgetown University.

Wow.  The article tells a story about a student who switched from Electrical and Computer Engineering because her team stayed up past midnight in a lab to write a soda machine program.  They could not get it to work, so to keep from getting a bad grade, she withdrew from the course.  Then she switched from engineering to a double major in psychology and policy management.  Her grades went from B’s and C’s to A’s.  She said her high school did not prepare her for the rigor of an engineering degree.

So the upshot is that she is willing to work in a low-paying career for the rest of her life because she was unwilling to do what was necessary to pass a few hard classes.  I have had this discussion with people before.  If you cannot handle a specifc course, you can do a TON of things to make it happen. You can get a tutor.  You can take the class two or even three times if needed.  You can take a more remedial course, then try the tough one again.  Is it worth it to go to school for a year or two more to do something you like and that pays well for the next forty or fifty year?  It seems like a no brainer.

The crazy part is that even for those who want to do less technical jobs, it is best to prepare for that non-technical job with a hard degree.

Research has shown that graduating with these majors provides a good foundation not just for so-called STEM jobs, or those in the science, technology, engineering, and math fields, but a whole range of industries where earnings expectations are high. Business, finance and consulting firms, as well as most health-care professions, are keen to hire those who bring quantitative skills and can help them stay competitive.

We joked about this quite a bit, but I wanted to get it into the kids head that, if they went to college (not necessarily a given–preparation for many careers–pilot, electrician, writer, and small business owner are monumentally better served through some type of preparation other than college), they could study their passion, but they needed to start with a rigorous degree.  We defined rigorous as anything that involves hard math.  The use of hard math and statistics is creating new breakthroughs in a lot of fields right now:  medicine, agriculture, sociology, etc., etc. etc.

I agree with Mr. Chapman. And I think that he is definitely going to raise successful, influential Christians, because he and the children are well prepared and engaged. He has a great relationship with his kids. They are definitely more advanced than I was when I was their age. It’s encouraging to me to see a Christian Dad who is focused and purposeful about having solid relationships with his kids, and preparing them for the dangerous world they are entering as adults. I think it’s important to admire the people who are getting it right (the parents and the kids together) and learn from their successes. I like that he is still involved with what his children are learning even after they are finished with high school.

I really do think that engineers make the best husbands and fathers. Engineers learn how to gather requirements, evaluate alternative solutions, and then implement. Engineers care about designing to support expandability, maintenance, security and unexpected emergencies. They are easy to argue with, because they believe in logic and evidence. They are pragmatic – they make decisions based on what works, not what sounds good or feels good. Good engineers also have training in project management, budgeting, leadership and resource management, too. The best engineers are the entrepreneurs, who understand business, economics, business law and politics. It really is an ideal skill set for marriage and parenting. Engineers try to build things, and those building skills can be re-used to build a family.

Filed under: Mentoring, Ambition, Career, Christian, Christianity, College, Education, Engineer, Engineering, English, Family, Father, Influence, Learning, Literature, Marriage, Math, Mathematics, Parenting, School, Science, Student, Teacher, Technology, University