Thank you, Sir David

I've just been watching episode 2 of "Life in Cold Blood", which is "Land Invaders". This is about the amphibians, and as usual, it was an hour in which I was transported in wonder to corners of our living world which I'd otherwise never see.

"Life in Cold Blood" is the final in his "Life" series. All told, the series has 79 episodes; beautifully filmed, fascinating and informative, and a window to evolutionary biology for countless of fans. For each series there is a book as well.

Thank you, Sir David Attenborough, and thank you also to the BBC and to all who have worked on these magnificent programs.

I was inspired to write this by the recent brouhaha over "Expelled". There is, at present, a massive debate going on through the blogsphere between fans and critics, and also within the reality-based community on how to respond. There's a lot of breast beating and angst on whether the IDists are better at PR than the evolutionists, and how we should frame the debate, and so on ad infinitum. For my part, I think we should engage Expelled loudly and often; and if it gives them more publicity then so be it. The nonsense is piled sufficiently high and deep that for those who care to look it's obvious, and we must not ignore that or fail to make it easy to find out. (Hat tip: Expelled exposed.)

True believers (on either side) will not be persuaded in the debate, but the middle ground who don't have a lot of exposure to ID will, to a large extent I hope, recognize the failings of Expelled -- even folks who have creationist sympathies. (This view is also expressed by Razib at Gene Expression.)

On the other hand, there's also a role for good old selling of evolutionary biology to the public. There have been questions about how to get the message across; how to sell it; how to frame the information.

All the while, Sir David is putting beauty and excitement and wonder into millions of households all over the world... and it is soaked in evolutionary biology. It's not there as some kind of artificial addition, nor does the series beat viewers over the head with the science. It's there, naturally and without artifice, as part of the whole framework that makes sense of the living world.

Here is one of the many highlights I enjoyed in this episode.

The film crew captured, for the first time, how the caecilian feeds her young. Caecilains are limbless amphibians, and there are are over 170 different species. Because most of these live underground, they are amongst the most poorly known or understood vertebrates. And during the filming of this episode, they discovered that the mother feeds her young by regularly shedding her fat enriched skin, which the babies rip from her body with their tiny especially adapted teeth. (See the footage here: 'Flesh-eating' amphibians filmed at the BBC.)

Thank you, Sir David!
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Davescot on Darwin and eugenics

In a post at the Uncommon Descent blog, Davescot has an excellent summary of the connection between Darwin and eugenics. The article is A complete Darwin quote with a brief translation (20 April, 2008). Davescot's article is simple, accurate, and straight to the point.

For those who follow these debates, this may come as a surprise. Normally I find little of value at Uncommon Descent, and I'm very surprised to see this one. But credit where it is due; Davescot's post is excellent, and needs no modication or qualification to get my full recommendation.

The article has a full quote from Descent of Man, including the second paragraph traditionally omitted by those who want to link Darwin to the holocaust. He follows this with a couple of very simple and straightforward observations.

Paraphrasing briefly, Darwin notes that we humans are animals in the body, and that the same selective breeding applied to farm animals for generations would work in the same way if it was applied to humans. Immediately after this, Darwin also notes that the attempt would degrade the noblest part of our nature, the very part which distinguishes humans from other animal species.

Quoting Davescot's concluding paragraph.

If there’s any real case to be made for Darwin and the holocaust it’s the opposite of what’s messaged in Expelled. The holocaust resulted from a failure to heed Darwin’s warning that eugenics could only be practiced by sacrificing the noblest part of our nature, the very part and only part that separates us from other animals. Those responsible for the holocaust, beginning with the eugenics movement in America, were the true animals. Those opposed were nobler than the animals.

Hat tip to Wes Elsberry at the Austringer for alerting me to Davescot's post. Flunked, Not Expelled: Not Even David Springer Buys the Darwin-Leads-to-Hitler Rhetoric.
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I've seen a scientist!

Here is a discussion with de niece, who is noted for her careful attention to detail.

De niece: I've seen a scientist!
De uncle: Where was this?
De niece: We saw a scientist at preschool.
De uncle: Oh... what did he look like?
De niece: Not "he". "She".

The visit evidently had a big impact. I gather that the scientist came to visit preschool, and showed everyone how to do some experiments. De niece was able to tell me how the various experiments worked, and we were able to reproduce them at home.

The first involved sticking a pin into a balloon without letting it burst. The trick is to find the dark spot on the balloon surface, where there is less tension and the pin can go in without a catastrophic rip of the skin. She was able to get the pin in, and then we went even further with a metal skewer. The end result was a neat little hole, that could be stopped with the finger, and which otherwise gently deflated the balloon.

We also tried a control. Here's a shot of the two of us discussing the end result of a balloon where the pin was inserted into the stretched out parts of the balloon.

De other niece also joined in. De scientist niece had two more experiments for us all to try. One involved sultanas in carbonated water. You should try this too. Drop a few sultanas into a glass of carbonated water or lemonade, and explain why they do what they do.


And here is de other niece with vinegar and bicarb of soda. The glass had about three centimeters of vinegar to start with.

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Duae Quartunciae is back on line

After an extended hiatus, I am taking up the blog again. I am not sure how frequent posts will be at Quae Quartunciae; possibly around about weekly.

I'm chuffed to report that article here from last year, on The Evolution of Wings, has been included in the recent anthology The Open Laboratory 2007, a collection of science related blog articles from 2007.
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Brilliant teaching aid for Möbius transformations

This is a simply brilliant bit of mathematical visualization. It you want a simple mental picture of Möbius transformations, this video will give it to you. Stunning.

The video is produced by Jonathan Rogness and Douglas N. Arnold. They have made available also for download a 130 Mbyte high res version, as well as the low-res clip on YouTube. There is a page for this video, which is produced under a generous Creative Commons license.

I picked this up from Good Math, Bad Math.
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Cycling Sensibly

I was sucked in. My previous blog entry, Cycling Responsibly, is about a clash between cyclist Stephan Orsak and the law. He was stopped while riding out of the airport. That encounter eventually led to Stephan being tasered, arrested, and detained. He is shortly to face a jury trial on five misdemeanor changes and one gross misdemeanor. You can read his account at greencycles.

Initially, I was angry at his treatment, and put up the previous blog article to help bring attention to his treatment. I called it Standing up for responsible cycling. Then, after reviewing some of the details more carefully, I felt that he had left out some important details, and I modified my blog article accordingly, and retitled it Cycling Responsibly.

Now, I've come around almost full circle. I think the police actions were understandable and for the most part well justified, though I deplore unnecessary use of the taser. It looks as if Stephan was in the wrong, probably from even before he was stopped right up until the present when he is trumpeting a self-serving and misleading account all over the web. Some of the police actions may have been excessive, or not. I can't tell, and at this point I don't trust Stephan's account as a reliable guide. I was an idiot to blog too quickly; my bad. But having blogged, I'm going to finish the story as best I can.

Also, I have found it interesting the information one can obtain on-line; this blog is intended also to demonstrate that.

A couple of provisos to bear in mind.

1. Comments at Stephan's blog are massively polarized, and a number are absurd. Some folks hate cyclists; and some folks hate policemen. If I get abusive comments about killing people you don't like, I will remove them. Irrelevancies about liberals or hippies are not welcome. Disagreement or clarification is welcome, however.
   
2. Stephan gives an enormous amount of details at his blog; including the complaint against him and the police statements. This is sufficient to get the perspective of police and most of the useful background. Thank you.
   
3. I am not a lawyer; not remotely. None of this is useful legal advice.
   

I was accosted, assaulted with battery, and tased at Minneapolis St Paul USA international airport by Airport Police, simply for choosing to leave the airport by bicycle.
I had broken no laws.

-- Stephan Orsak

Oh really?

-- Duae Quartunciae

With all that in mind… It is a fundamental starting premise of Stephan's account that he broke no laws, and that the initial stop was unjustified police harassment of an innocent cyclist using his bicycle legally and responsibly. Stephan compares it to road rage against a cyclist; something any regular bicycle commuter will empathize with. Is this really true?

It's going to help to understand where all this occurred. I used Google maps and Google Earth, together with the detailed information Stephan made available at this site. You can click on images to see them in a larger size.

By his own account and by police statements, Stephan was stopped while riding outbound on Glumack Drive, the main exit from Lindbergh terminal of the Minneapolis St Paul airport. Northwest Drive is a service road that runs along side. It is (at this point) one way, heading back in towards the terminal. At his site, there is video of a car driver's view of driving down Glumack Drive, and photos of two signs. He was stopped east of the post office and west of the highway.

Here is a satellite view of the airport area, from Google Earth. The location is 44.88 degrees North; 93.2 degrees West. (44.88, -93.2).


Here is the same region, with Google Maps, showing the relevant roads.


Here I have marked in yellow the route shown on Stephan's video, and also the locations of the two signs. The "Authorized Vehicles Only" sign is north of the road; the "No Pedestrian Crossing" sign is south. The region where Stephan was stopped must have been somewhere along the stretch marked in magenta.


It seems strange: the road Stephan was on can only lead on to the freeway. Yet on his page, he insists that he had a legal route to Fort Snelling Park. It seems impossible. However, I saw on a different site a description of where Stephan was planning to ride.

But by bike, one takes Outbound Road toward the highway (15mph to 30mph max, same as residential MPLS), then begin to take the ‘return to terminal’ ramp, but immediately get off the road and cross over the median to Northwest Dr, the parallel service road, ‘walk’ a few hundred feet as it is one-way, then ride the rest as it becomes two way traffic. It is very lightly travelled. From there, Post Road, crossing over the highway and to the Fort Snelling trails. Very nice once you’re there.
-- Stephan Orsak, in this comment, at star tribune blogs

Here is an expanded view of his planned route, with the portion he would have to walk in green, until North West Drive becomes two way again. Very neat! It provides a convenient way to leave a very bicycle unfriendly airport terminal, as long as you are willing to brave the heavy traffic on Glumack Drive, and to walk a bit where there is no legal road access.


On the face of it, this is a legal route; though not one any road planner would anticipate. The roads are such that I would normally expect cycling traffic to be prohibited, and signs have been added since this incident to make explicit that bicycles are not allowed. I am sure that Stephan's normal use of this route involves riding illegally along a short section of NorthWest Drive, especially given his comments on the relative safety of riding and walking the bike. Even if not riding illegally when stopped, I guess that was part of his intent and that the police were correct to perceive a potential problem. There seems to be a viable and inexpensive way for the airport to add a safe bicycle path feeding onto NorthWest Drive leading to Post Road.

The stop

All did not go to plan; somewhere along Glumack Drive Stephan was stopped by police. This stop was entirely proper. Even if we admit the legality of Stephan's plan, it is not one that fits with the roads. Glumack Drive was at that point a road going exclusively to places where a bicycle is illegal. That's a good reason for police to stop you.

The argument

The police were at the time on a call to lookout for a missing fifteen year old girl. By their account, they did not want to waste time dealing with the cyclist; they just wanted to resolve his position quickly and be on their way to a more important matter.

Stephan treated the matter as if it was police harassment from the start. By his own account, he failed to stop when initially asked, because there were no lights and no siren, and the actions of police were equivalent to shouted insults from another driver.

… It was indistinguishable from what regular cyclists occasionally experience as road rage. I was not stopped in a normal way with siren and/or flashing lights for any kind of violation, but was being distractedly yelled at while traveling down the road. …

Things were off to a bad start. Already, Stephan had shown himself slow to follow instructions. (I think a siren or lights is used to get your attention; not as a required signal for when police are giving you an instruction.) Already, the police were in a hurry and were abrupt and abrasive.

It went down hill. Stephan accused the police of being overbearing and abusing their authority. The police told him the bicycle was dangerous on Glumack Drive and that he should walk his bike along Northwest Drive instead, towards the point where he could proceed to Post Rd. He was roughly 400 meters from the point where NorthWest Drive would have allowed two way traffic again. Stephan continued to argue the legalities of this with them.

Disengaging

At this point, Stephan decided to leave. By his own account, he "took the initiative" to leave, and also to ride rather than walk his bike on NorthWest Drive, since in his own judgment this was a safer than walking.

Everyone was plainly angry, but here a line was crossed, and Stephan was the one who crossed it. He decided on his own behalf to terminate the discussion, and to ride the wrong way up a one way street rather than to walk as instructed.

Up until this point, we could debate endlessly about politeness and wisdom of either party. When Stephan rode away, however, it was plainly illegal, directly disregarding instructions, and a cyclist leaving police who were on foot. That's not going to end gently. The exact details of warnings and so on from police and from Stephan are inconsistent, but in the end a taser was used.

Stephan's accounts of this always have as the byline that he was tasered "simply for leaving the airport by bicycle".

That's flatly false. Leaving the airport by bicycle resulted in being stopped and challenged. What lead to the taser was illegal riding on a one way street, and worse, doing it against explicit instructions and as a way of leaving the argument with police "on your own initiative". That sounds a lot like fleeing; you don't leave an argument with police "on your own initiative".

Legalities

I'm not a lawyer; neither is Stephan. But he decided to argue the law with police (a very bad idea, regardless of any issues of fairness or actual legalities) and his web page tries to suggest that police actions were unconstitutional, and inconsistent with the regulations. He links to the list of airport bylaws and ordinances and cites "ordinance 58", of dubious relevance. It says no person shall be stopped "except as otherwise restricted by other ordinances". I followed his link, and I think he'd do better to look at the other ordinances, in particular ordinance 100 (on driving; effective June 2004). There are clauses there about signs, and bicycles, and driving in unsafe conditions, and appeals process, and so on; which may or may not apply. Ask a lawyer about that.

But it seems to me that one crucial bit is section 4.6 on traffic control. It says:

Section 4.6: Traffic Control. Drivers shall obey all posted regulatory markings, Traffic signals, and all instructions of a MAC representative, the Airport Traffic Control Tower, or an officer charged with Traffic control and enforcement.

That's not a police state clause; it's pretty much common sense. You argue or appeal the legalities and the manner of instructions later, with their superiors and with the benefit of proper legal advice. But at the time of an encounter, you recognize that police do actually have the authority to decide what is safe or not and to instruct you accordingly. Even if you personally disagree with what is safe, at the time you follow instructions, which in this case involved only a minor inconvenience of a 400 meter walk.

Conclusion

I'm a bit cheesed off about this. I used to be a daily bicycle commuter in heavy central city traffic. I know about harassment from those who cannot accept a bicycle as a legitimate road user, and I know about riding responsibly. I've participated in bicycle advocacy actions, and I've observed the cavalier disregard for safety and road laws by many of my fellow cyclists.

I feel Stephan let us down. His account was incomplete, inaccurate in some crucial ways, and unfair on the police involved. I think they could have handled it much better, but that the lion's share of the blame belongs to Stephan. I come to this conclusion very reluctantly. Having joined in rather too hastily in Stephan's ill considered broadcasting of events all over the net, I now have to backtrack and 'fess up to having changed my mind.
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Cycling responsibly

Note. There will be a followup to this article after I sort out a few details. The account given here seems incomplete in important ways. Stay tuned.

Stephan Orsak uses his bicycle as a means of transport. It's one small way in which people can modify their lifestyle so as to reduce their impact on the environment. He is about to go to court facing five counts of various misdemeanors and one of gross misdemeanor, relating to an interaction with police at Minneapolis St Paul airport.

I've revised my original blog post considerably. I hope Stephan manages ok in court. I would also like to see bicycles given more recognition as a valid choice for ground transport. But I think in this particular incident Stephan made a bad situation worse. Ah well. I have blogged it anyway, so I'll leave it up with a pointer to Stephan's account at greencycles.

---

Now, after a bit of time to sit and think, I'll try and add something substantive.

Most people who have ridden a bicycle as a regular means of ground transport will have met up with occasional instances of "road rage" directed against them for no other reason than being on a bicycle, even when using it legally and responsibly. But when it comes from the cops, things can go bad.

In this case, Stephan was riding legally on roads that are heavily used and not bicycle friendly. He's got a video on his website showing the roads in question. I've ridden in such conditions as well, but it's not a place for a beginner, nor is it a place where you would want to meet up with car drivers that are intolerant of bicycles. There was, however, no legal impediment I can see to a bicycle being used. Using a bicycle is a reasonable choice and not one to which other vehicles can object.

Nevertheless, Stephan was stopped by police, who told him to walk his bike to a different location, and proceed from there. He was directed to use an adjacent one-way minor road, and to walk the bike against the traffic flow to another road where he could continue to ride. Police allege in their complaint that bicycles were not permitted; Stephan appears to have a good case that they were mistaken.

This is where matters became really ugly. Stephan provides his own account, as well as the police statements and the formal complaint brought against him. There are some differences, but it is clear even by Stephan's own account that he tried to argue with police, and that by his own initiative he decided that the conversation with police was over and it was time to leave. He left along the one-way road, but decided on his own initiative to ride rather than walk the bike. He was physically brought down off the bike, tasered, arrested, taken to hospital, and then to the police station to be charged and detained. There's a fair bit more detail at Stephan's website for those interested, both by his own account and as statements made by the arresting officers.

There are many comments at the website, and they are highly polarized. Many comments strongly attack the police, even to the point of wanting to see them with years in prison for assault. Many are extraordinarily critical of Stephan, with crude gutter language.

Don't take this the wrong way Stephan. I sympathize, and I hope you win in court; either acquitted or else at worst given a light token punishment. I've been a daily bicycle commuter myself, in central city traffic; it looks to me that this started out as an unfair response to responsible use of a bicycle in heavy traffic.

But I think you made some unfortunate choices, and share the responsibility for what followed. So here is my "Duae Quartunciae" on the issues raised by your clash with the law.

• Unfortunately, some folks have deep seated prejudice against bicycles, and take any use of a bicycle on a major road as an affront. Sometimes even police may share that bias.
  
• Police legitimately have powers and authority to step in when in their judgment they see a problem, and also responsibilities and constraints on the exercise of their special powers. The time to argue legality is not when you are first meeting up with the police; but later when you can take it up with some higher authority. To actually argue the toss at the time is really stupid, no matter how much you believe you are in the right.
  
• To decide on your own initiative that a conversion with police is concluded, and then turn your back and leave, and in a manner that you decide is best rather than in the manner that police have said is best, is incredibly foolhardy. If police say one thing and you decide on something else and just leave, you are asking for trouble; and you have very little recourse. Your best hope, I would guess, is for a measure of leniency based on your own good record and upon the legality of use of the bicycle when stopped. I hope you get it.
  
• If you are riding away from police who are on foot, you've got very little hope of being stopped gently.
  
• The use of a taser was way out of line. By all account you had been brought down off the bike before the taser was applied. It looks like an over reaction by a pissed off policeman; and I hope they get disciplined for it.
  
• If you put up a website, on which you say "I was accosted, assaulted with battery, and tased at Minneapolis St Paul international airport, simply for leaving the airport by bicycle. I had broken NO laws.", and the judge happens to see it, your chance of leniency probably drops precipitously. You were not tasered simply for leaving the airport by bicycle, even by your own account. You were tasered shortly after riding illegally on a one-way street.
  

I hope you don't take this the wrong way. I am wishing you the best of luck in July.
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