Evolution debate ends in compromise

Posted on March 31, 2009 by Michael

Absolutely not.

For 20 years, Texas science teachers have been required to cover the strengths and weaknesses of Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. Two decades later, that rule has been changed. They traded the curriculum for a new set of standards.

Board of Education member Bob Craig said the new curriculum will require students to use critical thinking to discuss, analyze and evaluate the information for yourselves.

Lies. The new ‘standards’ will set science back.

For example, the revised biology standard (7B) reflects two discredited creationist ideas — that “sudden appearance” and “stasis” in the fossil record somehow disprove evolution. The new standard directs students to “analyze and evaluate the sufficiency of scientific explanations concerning any data of sudden appearance, stasis and the sequential nature of groups in the fossil records.” Other new standards include language such as “is thought to” or “proposed transitional fossils” to make evolutionary concepts seem more tentative.

These people are stupid. Straight up stupid. Not politically, of course. They are, naturally, quite coy in that respect – that is the second most notable characteristic of the creationist mind. The most notable, of course, is the ability to simply not understand a single, damn thing about science. These people hate science. It conflicts with the beliefs with which they grew up, so they act like little babies and fail to realize that they are wrong. They assume what they hear of science must be incorrect because it does not fit their fairy tale. It’s rather pathetic, really.

By making these changes, the board of education hopes students will use reasoning and experimental testing to examine all sides of scientific explanations, including evolution.

“You need to have that critical thinking by the student,” Craig said, “and you need to have a free discussion of any scientific explanation.”

The revisions apply to students in kindergarten through 12th grade who take the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills or TEKS test. However, they focus primarily on high school students.

“Have that free discussion, analyze and evaluate,” Craig said. “Critique those scientific explanations, and encourage critical thinking because that’s what we want to do in all fields.”

Scientists have that free discussion. High school students are not qualified in the least bit to tackle any of the vague, coy-creationist, sneak-attack, trojan, flat-out-fucking-liar terms listed.

“Somebody’s got to stand up to experts!” cries board chair Don McLeroy.

Don McLeroy is the chairman of the Texas State Board of Education. He is also a dentist. Next time 9 out of 10 of his colleagues tell you to do this or that with your teeth, tell them they aren’t allowing you to freely discuss, analyze, or evaluate any of the evidence. Tell them it is YOU that should be critiquing the field of dentistry. Those arrogant experts have been holding down the ignorant layman for far too long, I say!

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Hurray! Internalization. Again.

Posted on March 28, 2009 by Michael

Asshat Trooper Michael Galluccio risked the health of a soon-to-be-born baby and its mother for the sake of giving someone a ticket. That ticket was overturned because it was given improperly. The trooper got off without a real scratch. He should have been suspended without pay for at least a day for his stupidity and rule internalization. He wasn’t. No huge injustice. Now take this incident. If the officer is not fired, he should at least be suspended, given a pay cut, and put on some sort of administrative probation. He clearly can not do his job correctly.

Officer Robert Powell pulled over Houston Texans running back Ryan Moats’ sport utility vehicle outside Baylor Regional Medical Center in Plano as he and his relatives were hurrying to see his dying mother-in-law on March 18.

Callers are tying up 911 lines to complain about the stop.

Police are asking people to stop calling 911 to sound off about the incident, because the calls are keeping dispatchers from responding to emergencies.

People are also calling the police department directly — some from as far away as Lansdale, Pa., Washington, D.C., and New York City.

Dallas police estimated Thursday night they are getting about 150 calls per hour.

Moats spoke with Kevin Scott and Greg Hill on 105.3 The Fan KRLD-FM on Thursday about the incident.

Video from a dashboard camera inside the officer’s vehicle revealed an intense exchange in which the officer threatened to jail Moats.

He ordered Moats’ wife, Tamishia Moats, to get back in the SUV, but she ignored him and rushed inside the hospital.

She was by the side of Jonetta Collinsworth, 45, when her mother died a short time later.

Collinsworth had breast cancer.

“Get in there,” said Powell, yelling at 27-year-old Tamishia Moats, as she exited the car. “Let me see your hands!”

“Excuse me, my mom is dying,” Tamishia Moats said. “Do you understand?”

Moats explained that he waited until there was no traffic before proceeding through the red light and that his mother-in-law was dying, right then.

Moats couldn’t find his insurance paperwork and was desperate to leave.

“Listen, if I can’t verify you have insurance…,” Powell said.

“My mother-in-law is dying,” Moats interrupted.

As they argued, the officer got irritated.

“Shut your mouth,” Powell said. “You can either settle down and cooperate, or I can just take you to jail for running a red light.”

It is quite irrelevant what the result is with the dying mother-in-law. This is awful, irresponsible, dumb, unthinking, robotic rule internalization. It deserves punishment whether she lives or dies. Unfortunately…

At one point during the stop, a nurse walked out from the hospital and talked to a guard.

The guard walked up to Powell and can be heard saying, “Hey, that’s the nurse, she said that the mom is dying right now. And she’s the one saying get him up there right now before she passes.”

On the video, Powell can be heard saying, “All right. OK, I’m almost done.”

Powell can be seen walking toward Moats and handing him the ticket.

“Attitude is everything, OK?” he is heard saying. “All you had to do was stop and tell me what was going on, more than likely, I would have let you go.”

…

By the time the 26-year-old NFL player received a ticket and a lecture from Powell, at least 13 minutes had passed.

When he and Collinsworth’s father entered the hospital, they learned she was dead, the Dallas Morning News reported in Thursday’s editions.

Let’s recap: Man is rushing to hospital. He sees a red light and slows down to be sure no traffic is coming. Thus, he has accomplished the point of the law concerning red lights: to prevent collisions. Note, this is after 1:30 a.m. After being sure of everyone’s safety, he runs the red light. An officer sees this and attempts to pull the man over. The man puts on his hazard lights, pulls into the parking lot of the hospital, and everyone explains, in plain language, what the situation is. At least two people ignore the police officer and run inside. The police officer does not chase these people, call for backup, or taken any action that indicates he believes anyone is trying to run from the police. A security officer and a nurse both explain to the officer why he is being such a fucking retard. He still finishes up his ticket. He then tells the man how he should behave. Woman dies while this happens.

At what point is this okay? Sure, give the guy the traffic ticket. A good case can be made that he achieved a high enough level of safety to run the light, but people aren’t infallible. So maybe he gets a ticket. But detaining him? The officer clearly did not think the other people in the vehicle were trying to escape. He didn’t even really try and make them stay. What good reason could he have for detaining the driver? Ah, right. “Attitude is everything.” The officer determined that it was in everyone’s best interest if he treated people like 3rd graders and taught them how to behave. Awesome.

Fuck this guy.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=Ryan+Moats&aq=f.

Let’s not forget this name: Officer Robert Powell.

Update: Oh, and he pulled a gun on the family.

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Common sense wins

Posted on March 13, 2009 by Michael

The atheist bus campaign has been whirling around the globe over the past several months. It was briefly stopped in Ottawa because of a stupid policy that states this:

…religious advertising which promotes a specific ideology, ethic, point of view, policy or action, which in the opinion of the city might be deemed prejudicial to other religious groups or offensive to users of the transit system is not permitted.

The only religious ad which could fit into that description would be one that says “No one is wrong and everyone is the best at everything” (thank you, Principal Skinner for that one).

Fortunately, the city council has some common sense.

Council voted to allow the ads — which read “There’s Probably No God. Now Stop Worrying and Enjoy Your Life” — to be displayed on OC Transpo buses after city solicitor Rick O’Connor told councillors the ban wouldn’t hold up in court.

They saw the obvious legal troubles and put their foot down. It’s the anti-Dover of behaviors. Of course, not everyone can be so smart.

Orleans Coun. Bob Monette said the ads are offensive and shouldn’t be allowed on public property.

“I believe they are in very poor taste and derogatory to anybody who believes in God,” he said. “I am concerned they are judging other people’s beliefs. It’s public property and it’s inappropriate.”

That’s exactly what it’s doing. What doesn’t judge other people’s beliefs? Why is that a bad thing in the least? Besides that, when, exactly, did religion earn this hyper-respect? Its ideas are flimsy at best. It has done nothing to show it has any worth in an intellectually-concerned society. Creationism/intelligent design-creation go to support this point.

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George Will is a mook

Posted on March 10, 2009 by Michael

Really, it’s as simple as that.

Q: You have felt the righteous wrath of those who believe in man-made global warming. Are you still all there?

A: Oh, heavens. Yeah. The odd thing about these people is, normally when I write something that people disagree with they write letters to the editor or they write a responding op-ed piece. These people simply set out to try and get my editors to not publish my columns. Now I don’t blame them, because I think if my arguments were as shaky as theirs are, I wouldn’t want to engage in argument either.

That is George Will getting a proverbial blowjob from some hack journalist. It is in response to an article he wrote about global warming where he just flat out made stuff up. Carl Zimmer wrote about the errors Will made in his piece, exposing the fraud for what he is. The rest of the blogging community did roughly the same (though certaintly not with the same talent level of Zimmer). Here’s the jist.

To recap: George Will wrote a column in which he tried to downplay the evidence that global warming has already affected the Earth, and that it will have bigger impacts in the future. Various bloggers have pointed out examples where Will misrepresented scientific studies in this column. The most glaring one was this: “According to the University of Illinois’ Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979.”

The Research Center put a statement on their site explaining that Will was wrong. On February 15, the day Will wrote his column, there was substantially less ice than on February 15, 1979: the area of Texas, California, and Oklahoma combined.

Zimmer goes on to explain that comparing one specific day to another specific day is erroneous. It is not how climate is measured – that’s how weather is done. Anyone who isn’t functionally retarded knows there’s a significant difference. Will did not recognize the difference. We’re left to connect the dots.

Of course, now some journalist with a hard-on for Will is giving him an opportunity to reply to his critics. We’ve seen his dumb rhetoric above. How about a little meat?

Q: The big issue was about how much global sea ice there is now compared to 1979.

•A: And that of course was a tiny portion of the column. The critics completely ignored — as again, understandably — the evidence I gave of the global cooling hysteria of 30 years ago.

Looks like the proverbial blowjob isn’t going so well. We just have some flaccid words.

Zimmer already addressed this in his earlier response.

George Will wrote a column in which he tried to downplay the evidence that global warming has already affected the Earth, and that it will have bigger impacts in the future.

Of course, I’m not a fundamentally dishonest conservative, so I’ll be fair. Will’s initial point is that there was concern for global cooling in the 1970s and now there is not. Okay, fair enough. He can make that claim. However, this is not his primary point. His primary point is that because there was some science (which he exaggerates) that sided with global cooling 30-40 years ago, that science which supports global warming today cannot be trusted. This reminds me a recent post about 50 reasons one should not believe in evolution.

12.) Because the fact that science is self-correcting annoys me. Most of my other beliefs are rigidly fixed and uncorrectable.

That is essentially to what this comes down. Will is a conservative who does not want to do things which will cost large corporations significant amounts of money. That is his motivation for being anti-global warming. The same goes for the vast majority of conservatives who are widely known figures. They’re blatant liars. They have no concern for truth or science. It’s all about their economic, religious, or ideological dogma they’ve come to adopt. All else must fall before it.

But let’s return to the core of Will’s flaccid words. He’s saying that his primary point was about global cooling hysteria. In truth, that was not his primary point: as I pointed out, he is saying that science’s self-correcting nature makes it currently wrong. That is, his primary point is that some science was wrong in the past, so global warming is wrong today. Okay, so now that some actual truth has been told, let’s continue.

As global levels of sea ice declined last year, many experts said this was evidence of man-made global warming. Since September, however, the increase in sea ice has been the fastest change, either up or down, since 1979, when satellite record-keeping began. According to the University of Illinois’ Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979.

If Will’s primary point was that he was addressing “global cooling hysteria”, wouldn’t this be entirely unrelated? Oh, hold the phone. That’s right. His primary point is actually that today’s science must be flawed because of yesterday’s science. One wonders why he would even bother citing today’s science, but if I’ve connected the dots from earlier correctly, he may very well be functionally retarded.

But regardless, Will is using this to try and support his point that today’s trend in science must be wrong about global warming. Do you see the issue, Will? You made a statement and then tried supporting it with evidence. That evidence does not, in fact, support your statement. By attacking that evidence, bloggers like Zimmer are, in effect, attacking your primary point (obscured as you tried to make it, you liar).

Imagine a high school kid in a wood workshop. He makes a chair. The seat and back are well done. But he royally screwed up on the legs. They’re of inferior material, too thin, shaky, poorly attached: in short, he made a bad chair. The teacher comes by and tells him that the chair is bad. But no, the student objects, “The legs are just a tiny portion of my chair! You can’t ignore the seat. That’s the primary piece of the chair!” The teacher then proceeds to fail the student for being a stupid jackass.

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Discovery Institute is shut out; whines

Posted on March 6, 2009 by Michael

The Vatican held another meeting trying to squeeze its tiny God into the ever shrinking gaps of reality as brought to us by science. (Apologies for the FOX Noise link, but it is an AP article.) Even though they have most things fully 1/2 wrong, them there Catholics do have some things entirely correct.

The Discovery Institute, the main organization supporting intelligent design research, says it was shut out from presenting its views because the meeting was funded in part by the John Templeton Foundation, a major U.S. nonprofit that has criticized the intelligent design movement.

Good. The Discovery Institute is filled with hacks who are purely motivated by religion, not science. They are, by definition, liars.

Organizers of the five-day conference at the Pontifical Gregorian University said Thursday that they barred intelligent design proponents because they wanted an intellectually rigorous conference on science, theology and philosophy to mark the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s “The Origin of Species.”

The implication being – though not as eloquently as I am about to put it – is that people who actually think intelligent design is science are fucking mooks who have no idea what science actually is. Honestly. Can any IDist actually give one prediction made by intelligent design ‘theory‘? Does any IDist understand why his failure to do this is one of the major reasons intelligent design is not science?

Muslim creationists also complained about the conference.

Oktar Babuna, a representative of a prominent Turkish creationist, Harun Yahya, was denied the right to speak at the opening session Tuesday.

Notice this says “right to speak”. I assume this is in the same sense that I have a right to swing my fists. That right ends once it impedes someone else’s liberty. At that point, we no longer refer to my fist-swinging as a right: harassing, dangerous, disturbing, etc, perhaps we call it one of these, but certainly not a right. So surely Babuna couldn’t have been figuratively swinging his fists with his gaping mouth of creationist inanity, correct? After all, he was denied a right, not the ability to harass people or spew dumb, disturbing ideas of stupidity.

Participants took the microphone away from Babuna when, during a question-and-answer session, he challenged them to give proof of transitional forms of animals in Darwinian evolution.

Organizers said he hadn’t formulated a question and was just stating his point of view.

Babuna said afterward that the conference was clearly undemocratic. A statement from Yahya said, “Although there are discussion parts, they want this discussion to be one-sided.”

Surprise. It looks like Babuna took his verbal fists and started throwing them around the conference. It’s fortunate there’s no muscle to back them up.

Scientists can keep pointing to these fossils, but creationists just keep asking the same question over and over. They’re like little kids who keep asking their parents “why?” no matter what the answer. They aren’t actually seeking any information, truth, or answers; they just want attention because no one takes their childish ideas seriously.

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Troopergate resolved

Posted on March 6, 2009 by Michael

Asshole trooper Michael Galluccio‘s ticket to a man trying to get his pregnant wife to the hospital has been tossed out. Of course, someone had to keep internalizing the rules.

Even after John Davis appealed the $100 ticket and a Cambridge clerk magistrate tossed it out, the department refused to give up. A lawyer for the State Police challenged the clerk magistrate’s decision and appealed late last month to restore the ticket. A hearing was scheduled before a Cambridge District Court judge March 18.

Davis’s attorney, David Lucas, said that in a dozen years, he’d never seen the State Police appeal a traffic ticket. He couldn’t quite believe the department’s prosecutor was going to pursue one against a woman in labor.

“When I asked, ‘Are you sure the State Police want to be on record as appealing this?’ what he said was, “I just wouldn’t have any credibility if I did not appeal this,’ ” Lucas said.

Right, well, the law is black and white. Just like reality. There are no shades of gray in life. If the State Police want any credibility they need to internalize rules. It makes sense. It’s basically their job to forgo reasoning for the sake of snap judgements based upon internalization. It works a lot of the time because that internalization happens to coincide with actual reasoning, but it’s still a huge fallacy. So it comes as no surprise that the police didn’t drop the appeal based upon any worthwhile reason.

But within an hour and a half of being contacted by the Globe, the State Police dropped the case. State Police Colonel Mark F. Delaney “immediately ordered it to be rescinded,” Procopio said.

The media was ready to pounce on this. That’s the only ‘reason’ the appeal was dropped. It was PR, pure and simple. The police don’t care that none of asshole trooper Michael Galluccio’s actions made any sense. It’s that they didn’t want a big PR flap over a $100 ticket.

He also said state troopers are expected to make judgment calls all the time. “We understand that there may be a backlash to that,” said Procopio. “That goes with the territory, and we understand that. That said, we make the calls based on public safety and the interest of justice – and not public opinion.”

And now the department spokesman is lying. He’s a fucking liar. There’s really no sugar-coating this one. The department makes a move that is blatantly motivated by public opinion and then goes on to say that the police simply do not do that. Rescinding the appeal after discovering the Globe is doing a follow-up? Nah, they just filled out the wrong form, said the wrong words, and slipped up with the wrong intentions. All an honest mistake.

Fuck these people.

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Happy Darwin Day

Posted on February 12, 2009 by Michael

Today is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin. The discover of the principles of the most important theory yet formulated, Darwin also wrote his landmark book, On the Origin of Species, 150 years ago this year (though not this day).

As more people are likely to note, it is also the 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln. Certainly a man of high significance, his contributions to humanity have been greatly smaller than those of the aforementioned great scientist. Evolutionary theory is the backbone of life itself. It goes to explain far more important things than Lincoln’s actions affected mankind.

I am tentative in the qualifiers and apologies within these statements because it is abundantly clear Darwin trumps in greatness most men, at least insofar as contributions to his fellow species are concerned. However, this post isn’t intended to tarnish the image of Lincoln. Rather, we recognize Lincoln as one of the great men in history, one of the great contributors. In contrasting and comparing the man with Darwin, the intention is to illuminate the significance of Darwin’s theory of evolution. Lincoln was great. I hope we agree. Darwin was greater.

Let’s not forget, however, that Darwin is great for his discovery, but greater still is the discovery itself. It explains so much.

Earth

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Good news for Maine

Posted on February 11, 2009 by Michael

A recent Gallup poll “asked representative samples in 143 countries and territories whether religion was an important part of their daily lives.” The United States, despite the religiously-driven anti-science movement, does not rank as having an especially high number of individuals who say religion is an important part of their lives. For all the countries surveyed, the median response was 82%. The U.S. came in at 65%.

This does not mean the U.S. is unreligious. The interesting thing about this survey is that it is strongly correlated with poverty. In nations where poverty is higher, so is the rate of positive respondents to the poll. That is, poor people cling to their religion. It makes sense that someone who has lost hope, or at least been placed in the dismal position of being desperately poor, would turn to mysticism as a last resort. Of course, this has not helped the people of Sri Lanka or Eygpt gain much wealth. Religion simply isn’t the helpful. In fact, it isn’t really helpful at all.

So what’s rather shocking, at least statistically, about this poll is America’s amount of wealth and rate of religiosity.

Social scientists have noted that one thing that makes Americans distinctive is our high level of religiosity relative to other rich-world populations. Among 27 countries commonly seen as part of the developed world, the median proportion of those who say religion is important in their daily lives is just 38%. From this perspective, the fact two-thirds of Americans respond this way makes us look extremely devout.

Of course, the obvious point to be made is that this seems to directly contradict the issue of correlation. In fact, it does not. This is because as poverty increases by state, so does religosity. Alabama, the slack-jawed center of the South, comes in at 82% answering positively. Mississippi, the well-established cesspool of stupidity, Mr. 50 in Everything Bad, as it were, comes in a smidge higher than the worldwide median, at 85%. These two poverty-rich states are roughly equal to Iran with their rate of response.

It should be of little surprise, then, that all six states of New England fill out the top ten. In fact, the top four are, in order, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts. Tending toward less general poverty, these states also tend toward less religiosity. Of course, it’s important to also consider the more liberal, more moral, less evil leanings in this area as well. Such people – the ones concerned with reality – often have a liberal bias. Freed from the shackles of sheepdom as wrought by religion, these states have generally better standards of living and education. No big news there.

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More news from John Lott

Posted on February 10, 2009 by Michael

John Lott has an article up attacking Ashley Judd. She does not favor aerial hunting of wolves and is part of an organization that is active against what they say are practice encouraged by Sarah Palin up in Alaska.

I, frankly, don’t give a damn. It’s an uninteresting issue. John Lott, on the other hand, does care. His interests are of a lesser quality, it seems.

Yet, sometimes the emotional response isn’t the most responsible one. In this case, hunting is done to keep animals from dying from starvation and to maintain higher quality populations. The problem is that in the wild, animal populations go through what are called “boom and crash” cycles – animal populations expand to consume the available food supplies and when those are exhausted, the animals starve and the populations crash. Starvation also makes the animals more susceptible to disease. Hunters stabilize populations, and keep those problems from recurring.

It’s probably safe to assume Johnny is just getting his information from the official website of Alaska, which he cites in his article. Okay, dandy. Population control is done for a good reason. That isn’t Judd’s argument, but whatever. It’s a boring issue. I’m just giving you the jist of it. Next.

As it is, since 1972, the federal government has heavily regulated aerial hunting of animals – only allowing it for predators by government employees or licensed hunters and even then, contrary to last year’s campaign ads and Judd’s latest, animals can’t be shot from the air. While the planes can be used to find and track or chase the wolves, the wolves can only be shot by hunters who are on the ground. The pictures used in the ads inaccurately depict the policies that have been in effect for the last 37 years.

This isn’t so misleading, but it is inaccurate. It is illegal and the act does state that no person is allowed to hunt by aircraft. However, after stating that it is illegal, the act also says this:

“This section shall not apply any person if such person is employed by, or is an authorized agent of or is operating under a license of permit of, any State or the United States to administer or protect or aid in the administration or protection of land, water, wildlife, livestock, domesticated animals, human life, or crops, and each such person operating under a license or permit shall report to the applicable issuing authority each calendar quarter the number and type of animals so taken.”

Clearly, the act does not only state “animals can’t be shot from the air”. Relatively minor issue, but still worth noting. Given the fact of notability, I let Johnny know this. You see, we’re dear friends on Facebook and Johnny posted the link to his article on his status. I left him a comment telling him that he should be more accurate. I also responded to this from the end of the article:

Possibly the most telling point of Judd’s ad is that the ad first mentions Sarah Palin and not the wolves. But how often are fundraising efforts directed against the losing candidates in recent national elections? Never? The ad probably says more about Democrats still viewing Palin as a credible future opponent than it does about the Defenders of the Wildlife and Judd’s inaccurate claims about hunting.

I informed John that Ashley Judd and her wildlife organization are not representative of Democrats. He left a response to my point about the act, telling me that it is clear in what it says. I told him I agree and posted the section concerning the exceptions to the law.

So what was Johnny’s response?

…

No, he didn’t leave three dots. And it wasn’t simply nothing. I presume he wrote something. Or maybe he deleted everything. No one likes to be embarrassed afterall. Of course, I cannot actually confirm any of this. You see, Johnny and I are no longer friends. Our promise to be BFFs has been broken. WHY, JOHNNY! WHY!

Indeed, embarrass John Lott by simply reading a file to which he originally linked and he ain’t nobody’s BFF.

BFFs no more

BFFs no more

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Awesome

Posted on February 6, 2009 by Michael

Just read it.

WASHINGTON – Flitting across your yard, butterflies seem friendly and harmless. But at least one type has learned to raise its young as parasites, tricking ants into feeding it and giving special treatment.

The pupae of the European butterfly Maculina rebeli exude a scent that mimics the ants and make themselves at home inside the ant nest. Once they become a caterpillar they even beg for food like ant larvae, researchers report in Friday’s edition of the journal Science.

But, not content just to be fed, the butterflies even manage to demand special treatment, Jeremy A. Thomas of Britain’s University of Oxford and colleagues report.

It turns out that ant queens make subtle sounds that signal their special status to worker ants. The caterpillars have learned to mimic those sounds, the researchers say, earning high enough status to be rescued before others if the nest is disturbed.

In times of food shortage, nurse ants have been known to kill their own larvae and feed them to the caterpillars pretending to be queen ants, they added.

In nature, the real ant queen and the caterpillar keep to different parts of the ant colony and would not encounter one another, the report said.

But in an experiment, a butterfly pupa pretending to be an ant queen was placed in a chamber with worker ants and four real ant queens. The ant queens began to attack and bite the caterpillar, but the workers intervened, biting and stinging their own queens, which they then pulled to a far corner of the chamber while other workers attended the pupa.

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