Another science book ruined by politics

 kw: book reviews, nonfiction, science, biology, sociology, deception

The first three verses of 1 Samuel 16, in the NIV, read thus:

The Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and be on your way; I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I have chosen one of his sons to be king.” But Samuel said, “How can I go? If Saul hears about it, he will kill me.” The Lord said, “Take a heifer with you and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.’ Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what to do. You are to anoint for me the one I indicate.”

The prophet Samuel had anointed Saul to be king a few decades earlier (1 Samuel 10:1). It soon becomes evident that king Saul is impatient, hasty, and disbelieving. God is ready to replace him with a king "after God's own heart", which is to be David. To avoid stirring up Saul's jealousy, God instructs Samuel to travel in a deceptive way. Some say that God instructed Samuel to lie. It does seem so.

Does this violate the Ninth Commandment? In the NIV translation we find, “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.” Bible translations are about evenly divided between "false testimony" and "false witness". This refers to giving testimony in a court proceeding. It seems God has less interest in "everyday lying", particularly when it could save your life.

This chimpanzee is hiding his face while eating, furtively, hoping a higher-ranking chimp won't come along and take the food away. Chimps also hide food, and more particularly, a courting couple hides from others to consummate their union, even though the highest-ranking chimps mate publicly.

Are these things lying? They are done intentionally, so most certainly, yes. And they are done at a higher level than the way most husbands would answer, "Does this skirt make me look fat?" (The one question we can be sure even George Washington may have answered with a white lie)

Let's consider a different animal, a leaf-mimic katydid. This is a species similar to the one pictured on the cover of The Liars of Nature and the Nature of Liars: Cheating and Deception in the Living World by Lixing Sun.

The evolution of such detailed leaf-mimicking appearance, in numerous species of katydid and other insects, required tens to hundreds of thousands of years of refinement. Can this insect's appearance be called a lie? There is no intention involved, so even though the appearance is deceiving, the deception is a natural characteristic of the animal, honed by thousands of generations of evolution. It is unlikely that the katydid even knows it looks like a leaf.

Dr. Sun discusses the three words "cheating", "lying", and "deceiving", and places the second and third under the first, as categories of cheating. I suppose that's a useful philology. It still doesn't answer the question, "Is a naturally deceptive characteristic a kind of cheating?" I would say that perhaps we need some new words, and that genuine "cheating" of any kind requires understanding on the part of the "cheater". Thus, my understanding of these words differs from his.

The first 60% of the book, by page count, deals with deception of many kinds in nonhuman animals, bringing out the author's two Laws of Cheating: (1) Transmission of false information (lying) and (2) Confounding the defenses of the receiver (deception). An example of the first "law" is the firefly that flashes the same as the female of a different species; when the male approaches it finds itself to be lunch rather than mated. An example of the second "law" is the leaf-mimicry of the katydid above, and similarly the color mimicry among many species of butterfly, such as the Viceroy mimicking the Monarch. It takes advantage of the warning colors of the Monarch, advertising its noxiousness (gained when its caterpillar ate the very bitter milkweed leaves). The Viceroy doesn't taste bad, but a potential attacking bird shies away anyway.

In nature, many cheats have the purpose of foiling predators. Many others are for enhancing mating opportunities, including the sexual displays of birds and the "dances" of many species including some spiders and most vertebrates. Sexual displays in particular are intended to be "honest" signals of good fitness. Usually they are, but in the book we read of several ways that less-fit individuals procure chances to mate, by one deception or another.

As the book turned to human cheating in Chapter 6, it became apparent that, sadly, the author had an axe to grind, namely, the incident on January 6, 2021, falsely called an "insurrection". Let's get a few facts straight about that:

• Early on it was called an "armed insurrection". When it became apparent that the only arms present were on the persons of the Capitol Police, this term vanished from the news.
• A total of five people died. None of them was a Democrat. None of them was a member of Congress or a staffer. One of the five actually died days later of a stroke, and it is not clear whether the stress of the event prompted it. In a genuine insurrection, the early result is a few hundred to a few thousand deaths. This wasn't even a decent riot.
• The first people to enter the Capitol building were ushered in as sightseers by Capitol Police. They were not part of the crowd that was still listening to President Trump finish speaking.
• About the same time, videos that are now hard to find show a busload of black-clad people, either members of Antifa or people dressed as Antifa, who changed into less conspicuous clothing and mixed with the crowd. They were agents provocateur.
• The provocateurs performed the first acts of violence and incited others.
• The entire incident was over before the bulk of the crowd that had been with Trump came into the vicinity of the Capitol building.

Democracy was never in danger, contrary to what Dr. Sun states in his Acknowledgements as the motive for writing the book. He is himself a purveyor of deception, although I will allow that he is repeating the deception fostered by others; he is not the source. He just listens to the wrong news programs. As to the statements by him and many others, that claims the November 2020 election was fraudulent are "false", I have a story to tell.

On Election Day my wife and I both voted for Donald Trump. The machines in use in our polling place have a big touch screen with buttons next to names. One pushes a button, which lights up. After one is done pushing buttons, the ballot is printed by pressing a big green button. Then the ballot containing the names of those voted for slides into a window for review; push the green button again and it is zipped into the ballot box; push a big red button instead, and the process aborts, and then the poll workers are supposed to extract and destroy the ballot for a re-try. In my case, all went as usual. Not so for my wife. She pressed buttons for Donald Trump and for other names and initiatives, and pressed the green button. When her ballot slid into the viewing window, it said "Joseph R. Biden". She was too shocked to move. After no more than five seconds, without any action on her part, it zipped into the ballot box. She came out and told me about it, but it was too late to do anything. Her "vote" had been placed...and stolen.

In all the swing states, a similar incident only needed to occur about 1% of the time, to sway the vote to the "wrong" Electors.

A further bit of evidence is this: Millions of ballots contained a vote for Joe Biden but had no other votes on them, not for any Senator nor Congressperson nor ballot initiative. In a typical election, such "one name" ballots are extremely rare. To me this is further evidence of vote tampering.

Nonetheless, once Mr. Pence had certified the election, Joe Biden became the President. That's how the rules work. Four years earlier millions of disenchanted leftists (who happened to be members of the Democrat party) shouted, "Not my President!" about Mr. Trump. In 2020, I don't know of any Republicans who did so. We play by the rules. But the rules seem to be changing.

So let's look at lying in modern America. In the 1990s this saying became current: "How do you know Bubba (Bill Clinton) is lying? His lips are moving." A little later, this one appeared: "Sometimes a Republican politician will lie. Bubba lies constantly just to keep in practice." Then, in 2015 when Bubba's wife Hillary was campaigning, a follow-on proverb stated: "Guess who taught Bubba how?"

And for those who claim it is a "crime" for Mr. Trump to complain that the election was rigged, Mrs. Clinton has been claiming that the 2016 election was rigged in nearly every speech she has delivered in all of the seven years since! Why not put her in jail? Where is her mug shot?

Let's dig out another error in the book. On page 157 it is stated that today the Federal government employs less than 2% of the American workforce. The actual number is 2.8 million, which is the "cap". By law, the government cannot employ more than this. The paragraph ignores the 12-13 million contract workers who are also effectively on the Federal payroll, while under the aegis of their contracting companies. This is how the government gets around the cap. The actual size of the Federal government workforce is 9.3%. Thus, a statement that "the Chinese population is three times larger than the population of the US, [while] its government is 13 times larger" is grossly misleading. 13 x 2% ÷ 9.3% = 2.8. Thus in proportion to population, the US government workforce is larger than that of China.

It is said, "A lie can circle the Earth three times while truth is tying its shoes." We are prone to pay more attention to lies, precisely because so many lies are designed to attract attention. Misdirection, for example, refocuses attention on some "bright shiny" thing to draw our attention away from the truth that is quietly sitting by.

Coping with the numerous errors that erupted once the author turned from science to politics, I don't have the heart to review this book further. I recommend that the reading public wait for someone more worthy of our trust to write on the subject.