Kip Hansen’s opinion — November 29, 2022
If you think Science is out of error Climate change, then you lack imagination. Now the field of “evolutionary ecology” [no need to ask me why I have added quote marks to that] has entered the fray with a new entry.
It’s such a shame John Brignellof the “Full list of things caused by global warming” stopped updating in 2015. Brignell’s official reason for stopping updates:
Footnote (September 2015) Why the list stopped growing. The time required to process a new entry increases approximately with the square of the list length, after checking for duplicates, forgery, etc. To begin with, it is based on the naive assumption that the occurrence rate will decreased as counterintuitive evidence accumulated, but the opposite was true. That is the difference between science and religion. It’s taking over my life, which I don’t want to end up being a garbage collector. Since then there have been hundreds more claims of an increasingly ludicrous nature.
Time has proven him absolutely right. The list has been constantly growing and has become ‘increasingly ridiculous.”
The new entry to the “Things Caused by Global Warming” list was featured in a once-reputable journal article. Science. The pieces are in them News—Social Science section with the title “Weather can affect baby names. Some unpopular ones may be about to explode“. The work is interesting and should be read with your sense of humor button turned all the way up.
The article includes supporting statements from an “evolutionary anthropologist” [ditto] and, conscription, a physicist! (By the way, “didn’t get involved in the work but considered the parents’ reasons for the child’s name.”)
The article wrote:
“Evolutionary ecologists Raymond Huey of the University of Washington, Seattle and Donald Miles of Ohio University, Athens, have dedicated their careers to understanding how the physical environment, especially temperature, affects how to the behavior, physiology and other aspects of the life of animals, especially lizards. They wondered if the environment might influence a single human behavior: naming babies.”
Now, you might ask “Who are you to doubt the opinion of human names given by Scientists! Who has spent their entire career studying lizards?”. I don’t have a reason, I just have to.
There is one study – a peer-reviewed “Acceptable Manuscript” published. No, really. That is “Geography, climate and foliage signatures on girls’ names“in the magazine Evolutionary humanities.
The summary reads:
“Parents often consider social, family and cultural considerations when choosing a name for their child, but the name they choose may be influenced by their physical or biological environment. Here we test whether month-by-month and seasonal name popularity among girls is geographically covariate with environmental variables. In the continental United States, April, May, and June (Autumn, Summer) are the most common month (season) names: April predominates in the southern states (early spring), while June predominates in the northern states (late spring). Whether the popularity of April will increase with recent climate warming remains unclear. Fall is most popular in the northern states, where fall foliage is exceptionally colorful, and in the eastern states there is a high coverage of fallen foliage. On a continental scale, Autumn is most popular in English-speaking countries with its vibrant colors of autumn foliage. These analyzes are descriptive but indicate that climate and vegetation sometimes influence parents’ choice of names for their children’s names.”
You ask, where is the climate change request? It’s in Science article About research. Elizabeth PennisiWrite to Science quote “Ruth Macean evolutionary anthropologist at University College London (UCL) who was not involved in the work” (and not even at the same institution as either author), who said:
“[It’s] It’s exciting to speculate our great-grandchildren might have names like January and February when global warming is rapid” and warm weather comes earlier in the year.
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Author’s comments:
It’s science for you (and Science magazine).
Author at Science, Pennisi, there has to be a fairly short “go to” list of scientists to call for citations – all of those used in her paper on baby names are available at University College London (UCL). Neither of the study’s authors was at that institution or even in the same country as UCL.
On the other hand, Pennisi continued Hat head (from “physicist” — Paolo Barucca) arrive Simon & Garfunkel who released their very popular song April Come She Will 1966, suggested that the song was influential behind the fact that “April became popular and from the 1960s until 2000, April was the predominant month name.”
And there you have it!
Thanks for reading.
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