Goodbye, Torosaurus?

According to this fascinating article in New Scientist, Torosaurus will be abolished and existing fossils of the "species" reassigned as mature specimens of Triceratops.

Recent research published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology by John Scannella and Jack Horner, from the Museum of the Rockies, suggests that Triceratops was actually a juvenile/young adult form of Torosaurus (or that Torosaurus was a more mature form of adult Triceratops).

As the animal aged, the shape of its bony frill and iconic collection of three horns altered, with the frill growing longer, holes developing in the frill's bonework, and the horns shifting downward and forward in orientation. Thus, no smaller and younger specimens with the distinctive Torosaurus appearance are ever found. Rather, the converging evidence is that the small number of Torosaurus fossils are actually from more mature specimens of Triceratops. Fossils of the more mature Triceratops specimens already classified as such can be seen taking on Torosaurus characteristics.

Though not stated explicitly in the New Scientist article, the name Torosaurus is the one to be abolished, as Triceratops (1889) is the older of the two names to be applied to the species. At this stage, it's not clear to me whether abolition of the name Torosaurus (1891) has obtained general acceptance among paleontologists - hence my question mark in the title of this post. Perhaps not, as these things take time, but it's pretty clear that specimens at the Museum of the Rockies, at least, will be reassigned as Triceratops.

More generally, this is just one example, albeit a dramatic one, of dinosaurs changing morphology with age. This can make it difficult to establish whether larger and smaller fossils of similar animals represent distinct species or older and younger specimens of the same species. Thus, Nanotyrannus is now widely believed to be a juvenile form of Tyrannosaurus rex, though this is disputed by some paleontologists and the issue is still not settled. Again, it is claimed Dracorex and Stygimoloch are immature specimens of Pachycephalosaurus.

A short review of Sentinels

In Library Journal. My essay on Arthur C. Clarke isn't specifically mentioned, but it's a very short (and very favourable) review. Just scroll down a bit to find it.

Hugo Awards 2010 open thread

With the World Science Fiction Convention starting in just over a month and 2010 Hugo Award votes due today, this is a good time to have an open thread about this years' nominees. I'm too far behind in my reading to vote meaningfully, but will try to catch up with some of it over the next month.

How are you going to vote? Or if you're not a member of the convention, but still have an opinion on this, how would you vote if you were eligible? Any observations about this year's nominees, or about what shouldn't have been overlooked?

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Aussiecon 4, the 68th World Science Fiction Convention, has announced the ballot for the 2010 Hugo Awards.

Best Novel
(699 Ballots)
•Boneshaker, Cherie Priest (Tor)
•The City & The City, China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan UK)
•Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America, Robert Charles Wilson (Tor)
•Palimpsest, Catherynne M. Valente (Bantam Spectra)
•Wake, Robert J. Sawyer (Ace; Penguin; Gollancz; Analog)
•The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi (Night Shade)

Best Novella
(375 Ballots)
•“Act One”, Nancy Kress (Asimov’s 3/09)
•The God Engines, John Scalzi (Subterranean)
•“Palimpsest”, Charles Stross (Wireless; Ace, Orbit)
•Shambling Towards Hiroshima, James Morrow (Tachyon)
•“Vishnu at the Cat Circus”, Ian McDonald (Cyberabad Days; Pyr, Gollancz)
•The Women of Nell Gwynne’s, Kage Baker (Subterranean)

Best Novelette
(402 Ballots)
•“Eros, Philia, Agape”, Rachel Swirsky (Tor.com 3/09)
•The Island”, Peter Watts (The New Space Opera 2; Eos)
•“It Takes Two”, Nicola Griffith (Eclipse Three; Night Shade Books)
•“One of Our Bastards is Missing”, Paul Cornell (The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction: Volume Three; Solaris)
•“Overtime”, Charles Stross (Tor.com 12/09)
•“Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast”, Eugie Foster (Interzone 2/09)

Best Short Story
(432 Ballots)
•“The Bride of Frankenstein”, Mike Resnick (Asimov’s 12/09)
•“Bridesicle”, Will McIntosh (Asimov’s 1/09)
•“The Moment”, Lawrence M. Schoen (Footprints; Hadley Rille Books)
•“Non-Zero Probabilities”, N.K. Jemisin (Clarkesworld 9/09)
•“Spar”, Kij Johnson (Clarkesworld 10/09)


Best Related Book
(259 Ballots)
•Canary Fever: Reviews, John Clute (Beccon)
•Hope-In-The-Mist: The Extraordinary Career and Mysterious Life of Hope Mirrlees, Michael Swanwick (Temporary Culture)
•The Inter-Galactic Playground: A Critical Study of Children’s and Teens’ Science Fiction, Farah Mendlesohn (McFarland)
•On Joanna Russ, Farah Mendlesohn (ed.) (Wesleyan)
•The Secret Feminist Cabal: A Cultural History of SF Feminisms, Helen Merrick (Aqueduct)
•This is Me, Jack Vance! (Or, More Properly, This is “I”), Jack Vance (Subterranean)

Best Graphic Story
(221 Ballots)
•Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? Written by Neil Gaiman; Pencilled by Andy Kubert; Inked by Scott Williams (DC Comics)
•Captain Britain And MI13. Volume 3: Vampire State Written by Paul Cornell; Pencilled by Leonard Kirk with Mike Collins, Adrian Alphona and Ardian Syaf (Marvel Comics)
•Fables Vol 12: The Dark Ages Written by Bill Willingham; Pencilled by Mark Buckingham; Art by Peter Gross & Andrew Pepoy, Michael Allred, David Hahn; Colour by Lee Loughridge & Laura Allred; Letters by Todd Klein (Vertigo Comics)
•Girl Genius, Volume 9: Agatha Heterodyne and the Heirs of the Storm Written by Kaja and Phil Foglio; Art by Phil Foglio; Colours by Cheyenne Wright (Airship Entertainment)
•Schlock Mercenary: The Longshoreman of the Apocalypse Written and Illustrated by Howard Tayler

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
(541 Ballots)
•Avatar Screenplay and Directed by James Cameron (Twentieth Century Fox)
•District 9 Screenplay by Neill Blomkamp & Terri Tatchell; Directed by Neill Blomkamp (TriStar Pictures)
•Moon Screenplay by Nathan Parker; Story by Duncan Jones; Directed by Duncan Jones (Liberty Films)
•Star Trek Screenplay by Robert Orci & Alex Kurtzman; Directed by J.J. Abrams (Paramount)
•Up Screenplay by Bob Peterson & Pete Docter; Story by Bob Peterson, Pete Docter, & Thomas McCarthy; Directed by Bob Peterson & Pete Docter (Disney/Pixar)

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
(282 Ballots)
•Doctor Who: “The Next Doctor” Written by Russell T Davies; Directed by Andy Goddard (BBC Wales)
•Doctor Who: “Planet of the Dead” Written by Russell T Davies & Gareth Roberts; Directed by James Strong (BBC Wales)
•Doctor Who: “The Waters of Mars” Written by Russell T Davies & Phil Ford; Directed by Graeme Harper (BBC Wales)
•Dollhouse: “Epitaph 1″ Story by Joss Whedon; Written by Maurissa Tancharoen & Jed Whedon; Directed by David Solomon (Mutant Enemy)
•FlashForward: “No More Good Days” Written by Brannon Braga & David S. Goyer; Directed by David S. Goyer; based on the novel by Robert J. Sawyer (ABC)

Best Editor, Long Form
(289 Ballots)
•Lou Anders
•Ginjer Buchanan
•Liz Gorinsky
•Patrick Nielsen Hayden
•Juliet Ulman

Best Editor, Short Form
(419 Ballots)
•Ellen Datlow
•Stanley Schmidt
•Jonathan Strahan
•Gordon Van Gelder
•Sheila Williams

Best Professional Artist
(327 Ballots)
•Bob Eggleton
•Stephan Martiniere
•John Picacio
•Daniel Dos Santos
•Shaun Tan

Best Semiprozine
(377 Ballots)
•Ansible edited by David Langford
•Clarkesworld edited by Neil Clarke, Sean Wallace, & Cheryl Morgan
•Interzone edited by Andy Cox
•Locus edited by Charles N. Brown, Kirsten Gong-Wong, & Liza Groen Trombi
•Weird Tales edited by Ann VanderMeer & Stephen H. Segal

Best Fan Writer
(319 Ballots)
•Claire Brialey
•Christopher J Garcia
•James Nicoll
•Lloyd Penney
•Frederik Pohl

Best Fanzine
(298 Ballots)
•Argentus edited by Steven H Silver
•Banana Wings edited by Claire Brialey and Mark Plummer
•CHALLENGER edited by Guy H. Lillian III
•Drink Tank edited by Christopher J Garcia, with guest editor James Bacon
•File 770 edited by Mike Glyer
•StarShipSofa edited by Tony C. Smith

Best Fan Artist
(199 Ballots)
•Brad W. Foster
•Dave Howell
•Sue Mason
•Steve Stiles
•Taral Wayne

The John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer
(356 Ballots)
•Saladin Ahmed
•Gail Carriger
•Felix Gilman *
•Seanan McGuire
•Lezli Robyn *
*(Second year of eligibility)

Six reasons why you won't upload your mind

Some of these reasons are better than others, I think. E.g., no. 5 sounds pretty weak to me. If we can imagine a magical technology that does everything else required, I don't see how the absence of an ordinary mammalian body will make all the difference. Once we get to the desired magic-technology point, emulation of bodily experience in cyberspace or in some sort of advanced robot body is fairly easy to imagine.

And I don't find this sample very convincing:

Without frequent physical backups, refreshes, and format updates, precious data will quickly be rendered unreadable or inaccessible. So when we're all "in the cloud," who's gonna be down on the ground doing all that real-world maintenance — robots? Morlocks? Even if that works, it just seems evolutionarily unwise to swap one faulty physical substrate (albeit one that has been honed for millions of years, runs on sugar and water, and lasts nearly a century) for another one that can barely make it from one Olympic season to the next, even with permanent air-conditioning.


Well, yes, but it's easy enough to imagine our robot or Morlock slaves doing the work concerned, or perhaps we'll be those robots. And if we accept everything else - the required super technology, an appropriate conception of personal survival, and so on - it's not a matter of swapping one faulty technology for just another faulty technology. Once we get to that point, it's not so hard to accept the idea of a technological substrate that lasts a lot longer than our current 80 to 100 years (or a lot less if things don't go well). All in all, the fifth reason just doesn't stand up to inspection.

Oh, and the author, or perhaps just the illustrator, obviously has no understanding of who Krang is. That's unforgivable!

All that said, I'm a bit of a sceptic about these mind-uploading scenarios ...

I agree that our understanding of human consciousness and how it supervenes on brain activity is at a primitive stage, and there's no sign that it's improving at the rate needed. The lack of sufficiently powerful hardware is not the real issue: the deepest problems would remain even if we had infinite computing power available. Combine our poor understanding of consciousness with issues of personal identity - and what would count as survival if we tried to move our minds from one substrate to another - and I think that much of the discussion that goes on about mind uploading is unrealistic. It's one thing to employ the idea for philosophical thought experiments or as a science-fictional enabling device; it's another to think it's a realistic option within current lifetimes.

Lighthearted

Y'know, the reason I had that afternoon in hospital, two days ago, getting some explorations done was partly because of an ongoing problem with reflux that is being handled perfectly well with Pariet (though it was worth exploring whether there was something that could be fixed once and for all). However, it was mainly prompted by the fact that a routine test had shown me to be at some risk of something much more serious such as bowel cancer.

The latter risk was always quite remote, and I wasn't very worried, at least most of the time. But I've seen too much cancer around me in my life, affecting various people very close to me. Even if the risk is remote, that sort of thing can still play on your mind as the day approaches for the consultations that are meant to rule it out. Okay ... but now that nothing like that was found in my case, the effect is the opposite. Obviously, there's some relief - it's a bit of weight off my shoulders, and although some very personal memories are touched on as I think of other people who've been victims of one form or another of this horrible disease, I've mainly been feeling in a quite lighthearted mood over the past 48+ hours. Just for once, I don't much feel like arguing about religion or politics. Nor do I want to talk any further, just now, about disease and death.

I'm really very fortunate to be in such general good health as I am, despite a minor problem or two. I should be enjoying it while I've got it.

What should we discuss that's not so heavy?

Maybe I need to get out and see some movies or something. Preferably some fun movies that don't require too much in the way of emotional investment or hard thinking. I wonder what's playing that I might enjoy.

Expressing our views on religion

Ronald A. Lindsay has a good editorial piece in the latest issue of Free Inquiry. In light of the latest debates about Gnu Atheism and accommodationism, this piece by Lindsay is especially useful. The following three paras not only provide a good sample of the article but also offer a commonsense approach that is valuable in its own right:

There should be no inherent limits on how criticism of religious belief is expressed, any more than there should be inherent limits on how criticism of a political belief is expressed. Cartoons and slogans are freely used in politics. Is there any reason why we cannot use them to make a point about religious beliefs or practices? Religion should not enjoy a privileged status, especially when many religious people strive to influence politics and public policy based on their religious beliefs. Do I violate some rule of civil discourse if I draw or publish a cartoon lampooning the Catholic Church's position on abortion when the Catholic Church is trying to influence public policy on abortion? If so, I fail to understand the reason for such a rule. Such self-censorship merely serves to perpetuate the taboo mentality that has protected religion for too long. As Daniel C. Dennett has so elegantly stated, we need to "break the spell."

This is not to say that we should do nothing but publish cartoons or work continuously to craft the best twenty-word jab against religion-any more than those engaged in politics confine themselves to cartoons or slogans alone. In criticizing another viewpoint, an array of expressive means is available and acceptable for use, including scholarly articles, detailed arguments, position papers, speeches, cartoons, billboards, slogans, and even jokes. What the appropriate mix of expressive forms may be is determined by the circumstances, including the goal of the criticism and the expertise and capabilities of the person or organization making the criticism. But determining the appropriate mix is a practical question, not a moral one. There is nothing per se immoral or unacceptable about a cartoon with a religious subject.

Nothing that I have stated should be interpreted as endorsing in-your-face criticism of religion around the clock, on any and all occasions. Religious beliefs are not always in play, just as political beliefs are not always in play. If you are at a party and people are discussing a movie, it is pointless, at best, to blurt out suddenly, "There is no God, and anyone who believes there is must be misguided, ignorant, or stupid." We are neither cranks nor missionaries. Similarly, if you attend a religious funeral, it is beyond tasteless to carry a sign saying, "It is a shame the deceased will never know how wrong she was." If you have strong objections to religious funerals, weddings, or similar events, just don't go.


Now, with all respect to Ron Lindsay, this isn't rocket science. It wouldn't have occurred to me that anyone would take an approach greatly different from the above, except for some of the wilder fantasies that appear, and sometimes get endorsed by the gullible, on the internet. But good for Lindsay in spelling it out.

He has pretty much described how I see it, and how I think most public critics of religion see it. We're not going to spit on the local vicar, but we do maintain the right to challenge religion's truth-claims and moral authority in a robust public debate analogous the the various political debates that we're all involved in. That may involve presenting our views in books, or articles, or book reviews ... or in other ways such as cartoons and stand-up comedy. It doesn't mean that we are going to go around acting unprofessionally or simply like arseholes ... or that we encourage anyone else to do so. I don't know why this is so hard to understand, but obviously some people find it difficult to get their heads around.

The same issue of Free Inquiry contains a lengthy and favourable review by George Zebrowski of 50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists.

Clean(ish) bill of health

I'm back from an afternoon in hospital having a colonoscopy and a gastroscopy. I need to go back to my specialist in a couple of weeks and talk about the results, but I'm apparently fine except for "a small hiatus hernia". I'm not sure what they'll want to do about that, but it's nothing to worry about in the scheme of things and is apparently the reason for the increasingly bad reflux that I've suffered in the last 10 or 15 years (and maybe some other minor things). There was some chance, however remote, that they might have found something seriously wrong with me, and I have to admit that today's scheduled visit was playing on my mind just a leettle.

But no, I have an almost clean bill of health. I'm still planning to be around annoying y'all for another 40 years or so. Muahahahahaha!

More on this topic in a couple of weeks.

New story by Jenny Blackford in Cosmos magazine

The new issue (#34) of Cosmos magazine contains Jenny's story "The Velvet Revolution". Do yourself a favour ...

Jerry Coyne clears the air

I've avoided posting on the whole You're Not Helping/Tom Johnson debacle, although I've been up to my neck in it on some other sites. If there's anyone in existence who is likely to read about the latest here - before seeing it from Jerry Coyne, Ophelia Benson, or PZ Myers, go and have a look at Jerry's new post. This does a lot to clear the air.

The situation now looks as follows. The events described by "Tom Johnson" last year did not take place; nothing at all like them took place; if there was any kernel of truth at all, it related to events wildly remote from the story that was told; the story was not only a complete fabrication, it was always totally implausible on its face, as well as uncorroborated; various people said this to Chris Mooney at the time (I was not the first, though I was one of the most forthright), but he took no real notice; Mooney's bullshit detector was obviously rendered inoperative by his biases; those biases led him to a very serious misreading of the intentions and impact of the "New Atheists" (in this case Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers, and Jerry Coyne, who were the individuals blamed by "Johnson").

It would now be nice if Chris Mooney thought about it and acknowledged all this. So far he’s been too proud to do so, and, yes, I do understand not wanting to admit making a serious error of judgment. But he did, and it's not - as has been suggested around the internet - just snark to point this out. Damage continues to be done as long as the implication remains that the story had some facial plausibility, as Mooney has suggested up until now and as various other people continue to insinuate ... or to state explicitly.

How about it, Chris? An unequivocal statement on this can only help your reputation, which has been harmed by the whole episode.

Phelps clan vs. Comic-Con

For some reason the nutty Westboro Baptist Church, Fred Phelp's mob, has been picketing this year's Comic-Con, the huge comics-and-stuff mega-convention that runs annually in San Diego. Don't ask me why. This, from an interview with one member of the Phelps clan, is about as cogent an explanation as I expect we're going to get:

MARGIE PHELPS: well we're out here to say that if were to invest one fraction of the resources that you spend and invest in worshiping Batman, and the Ghostbusters and Buffy the Vampire Slayer and so fourth in reading the Bible and obeying God, this nation would not be (garbled).

Some of my pals are over there at the convention right now, but this is a situation where we could do with some really heavy hitters like Thor or Magneto or the Incredible Hulk to make an appearance and show the Phelps gang what's up. Hey, that's no more unlikely than the Phelps clan receiving any divine assistance in its creepy activities (such as picketing the funerals of soldiers and heavy metal stars). Meanwhile, as you can see, the comix geeks have been hitting back - hard! - with no superhuman or supernatural help.