Stump:
Welcome to Language of God. I’m Jim Stump.
Hoogerwerf:
I’m Colin Hoogerwerf.
Stump:
Right this moment we’re bringing you one thing a bit bit new. A brand new episode section which we hope to do extra of. We’re calling it Cool Creatures.
Hoogerwerf:
The thought right here is that we’re going to take a complete episode to give attention to one piece of God’s creation.
Stump:
We expect we’ve received fairly good justification to do this sort of factor, each from a scriptural foundation and from the sorts of issues we need to do with this podcast and at BioLogos. We get to know God by way of scripture, the place we find out about God’s creativity and the love God has for all issues in creation. Science offers us extra instruments to discover the creation, to show with even better readability what was stated to be ‘excellent’.
Hoogerwerf:
People, in fact, are creatures too. We occur to be an particularly social sort of creature. We’ve developed to be depending on different people and reside in complicated societies. And so it’s fairly pure to make connections with different individuals. However we’re additionally depending on non-human life. Typically that’s actually apparent, just like the crops and animals that feed us. Typically it’s much less apparent, like all of the creatures that contribute to well being sciences behind the scenes—
Stump:
Or all of the creatures that decompose our waste each day…it might be fairly onerous to reside if we didn’t have worms and mushrooms to assist break all that stuff down and switch it into soil.
Hoogerwerf:
However making a connection to non-human life just isn’t solely about appreciating the creatures that do some service for us. And it’s not simply an mental train. It appears to go deeper than that.
Montgomery:
I feel our brains are typically extra wired to connect with people than to connect with ideas. And I’ve a really robust idea that we have to defend the earth and all that’s in it, and that we honor the Creator, and we honor our planet by doing this.
Stump:
That is Sy Montgomery, creator of many widespread books about animals and a champion of connecting with non-human creatures, so it’s pure that she would be a part of us on this primary creature assembly.
Montgomery:
However once you really fall in love with any person and their unbelievable magnificence and their grace and their powers, and it touches each fiber of your being, and engages your entire senses, that connection, I feel is extraordinarily highly effective. And we’re hardwired for that sort of a connection. I feel that’s a connection that then results in conviction and motion.
Hoogerwerf:
It doesn’t matter what creature we meet in episodes like these, there’ll undoubtedly be attention-grabbing scientific questions on biology and ecology and evolution, and I’m certain these questions will lead us down all types of different scientific paths.
Stump:
And attending to know a creature is inherently theological. In the identical manner we’d turn out to be extra acquainted with an artist by finding out her work, changing into intimately acquainted with the creation is without doubt one of the greatest methods to turn out to be extra acquainted with the creator. Moreover, we’d be taught a bit extra about ourselves on this train. After we work together with others, human and non-human, there’s all the time going to be a mirrored image again to ourselves. Which may be particularly the case with right now’s creature, the Big Pacific Octopus.
[music]
Montgomery:
Have a look at you, take a look at you. And see he’s modified colours, see beneath the attention, it’s gotten lighter. Hello, do you need to play with us? We might like to play with you.
Hoogerwerf:
That’s Sy Montgomery once more, this time speaking to not us however to a younger Big Pacific Octopus in a small tank within the again room on the New England Aquarium. This octopus was new to the aquarium on the time of our go to, and nonetheless not on show, however as an alternative in a quarantine tank in regards to the measurement of a faculty dorm mini-fridge.
Stump:
So how did we discover ourselves standing there, pushing our sleeves again, prepared to stay our arms right into a tank of 40 diploma water and attain down towards an eight-armed boneless creature? Nicely in a single sense that’s defined by the truth that we met Sy Montgomery when she got here to talk at a BioLogos occasion just a few years in the past and have become quick buddies, and as we had been dropping her off on the airport she stated, “you guys want to come back out to Boston and I’ll take you to the aquarium.”
Hoogerwerf:
Yeah, I feel the precise phrases had been “let’s get some suckers on you”
Stump:
And also you and I checked out one another with large eyes and stated “yep…”
Hoogerwerf:
Yeah I feel we’ve each been fairly fascinated by octopuses in the previous few years.
Stump:
And it’s not simply. It looks as if there’s been an explosion of octopus curiosity in books and TV exhibits, and quite a lot of it appears to deliver up some actually attention-grabbing questions on what it means to be human too, and what it means to be clever. Octopuses appear to problem some fundamental assumptions we make about how intelligence has developed.
Hoogerwerf:
We’re fairly used to not less than some degree of intelligence in animals which are intently associated to us and doubtless are likely to assume that intelligence goes down the additional you get from people. However Octopuses should not intently associated to us. If we return to when the final frequent ancestor between people and octopuses was, we now have to return in all probability greater than 500 million years. That’s 500 million years of separate evolutionary tracks.
Stump:
Yeah, so this was earlier than vertebrates even developed, in order that final frequent ancestor is a few sort of worm-like creature, basically only a tube. After that vertebrates and invertebrates, together with the cephalopods, developed in actually alternative ways. We all know what occurred with the vertebrates, growing inside skeletal methods and huge brains to manage them. The invertebrates went a unique route.
Hoogerwerf:
And that’s to not say they weren’t profitable. It’s tempting to outline success in evolution as changing into human, or not less than growing human-like traits. However success in evolution is de facto about how nicely a creature can occupy its area of interest. And invertebrates are extremely profitable from that standpoint even with out bones or huge brains. However then, out of 1 group of invertebrates—the mollusks—comes the octopus.
Mather:
They’re a mollusk. That’s actually attention-grabbing as a result of which means their closest kinfolk are snails and clams they usually’re in no way like snails and clams. However as a result of they’re a mollusk, they’ve the heritage of the mollusk.
Hoogerwerf:
That is Dr. Jennifer Mather.
Mather:
I’m a professor of psychology on the College of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada.
Stump:
She’s one of many main consultants on octopus cognition and conduct.
Hoogerwerf:
Mollusks, whereas quite a few and nicely tailored to their particular niches, should not sometimes held up as fashions of excessive intelligence.
Mather:
Not one of the different mollusks have something that you’d actually name a mind, and the cephalopods do.
Stump:
Proper. That is the place the octopus took a extremely attention-grabbing flip. Someplace alongside the best way octopuses did spend money on intelligence.
Hoogerwerf:
There are some theories for why this occurred. Octopuses and their cephalopod cousins developed from ancestors that had shells. And a lot of the cephalopods misplaced their shells. There may be one cephalopod that also has a shell really, the nautilus. However the remainder of the cephalopods are within the Coleoids (coal-ee-oids). This contains squids, cuttlefish and octopuses. With out shells, these animals wanted a unique technique to defend themselves and it appears intelligence might need been a reasonably good different to a tough shell.
Stump:
Squids and cuttlefish are all actually attention-grabbing and wonderful too and share many traits with octopuses, however we’re going to give attention to octopuses from right here on out.
Hoogerwerf:
It seems that one of many issues that differentiates octopuses from squids and cuttlefish is that they’ve 8 arms. And they aren’t tentacles, opposite to widespread terminology. Squid and cuttlefish even have 8 arms however they have 2 tentacles—I assume the principle distinction is that tentacles solely have suckers close to the ends.
Stump:
There are greater than 300 completely different species of octopus. That quantity appears to be rising as individuals research them. It’s not all that lengthy that we’ve had the expertise to have the ability to research underwater creatures very nicely. Add in the truth that octopuses are masters of camouflage and you can begin to know how quite a lot of species might be missed. It’s actually onerous to establish a creature that may utterly change its coloration and its form relying on its temper.
Hoogerwerf:
And octopuses have occupied nearly each a part of the ocean and canopy the globe from tropical coral reefs, to intertidal and coastal waters to the deep ocean.
Stump:
I’m fairly proud to say that on two events in very completely different components of the globe, I’ve seen octopuses within the wild. As soon as within the Pacific ocean off the coast of Hawaii, and as soon as within the Mediterranean Sea close to Malta (although presumably that second one was a cuttlefish, not an octopus, as my information wasn’t fairly certain).
Hoogerwerf:
I’ve to say I’m a bit jealous of these sightings. It’s nonetheless on my bucket checklist to see an octopus within the wild. We did look throughout a while we spent in Hawaii, and even had tips about the place to look from an octopus scientist within the space. However once we had been down within the water trying among the many rocks and coral it was fairly clear to me simply how onerous it might be to see an octopus even when it was proper in entrance of me.
Stump:
Yeah the one I noticed was as a result of the information discovered it. It wasn’t me discovering it myself. However I’ll nonetheless take it. And this brings us again to probably the most spectacular options of Octopuses: their capability to camouflage themselves. This comes from the mix of with the ability to change coloration and to vary form.
Hoogerwerf:
Let’s begin with the colour altering. This can be a fairly wonderful organic course of. Octopuses have three layers of pores and skin that each one have completely different coloration altering properties.
Mather:
So the fundamentals of the colour system are that there are little sacs within the pores and skin known as chromatophores, they usually’re elastic, however they’ve muscle tissues that pull them out. So when the muscle tissues contract, the colour exhibits, and when the muscle tissues loosen up, the colour doesn’t present.
Stump:
Consider a coloured balloon and the way that coloration adjustments when it’s blown up. When it will get stretched out it brightens. That’s sort of what’s occurring with octopus pores and skin, and it could possibly make these adjustments in milliseconds. And there’s extra complexity as a result of the completely different layers of pores and skin have completely different properties that work together with one another.
Mather:
So you may see beneath there are what are known as leucophores and iridophores. And the leucophores merely mirror no matter gentle it sees, okay, and the iridophores mirror blue, inexperienced, purplish, they usually can change a bit bit. So the result’s a extremely a kaleidoscope of look.
Stump:
So an octopus just isn’t the one animal that may change the colour of its pores and skin. A chameleon can do that too proper?
Hoogerwerf:
Yeah, and it makes use of some comparable processes to do it. However an octopus has much more management and may change colours loads sooner.
Stump:
After which it could possibly additionally change its form and even the feel of its pores and skin, to look virtually precisely like its environment. This capability to vary itself to seem like one thing else appears to talk to its intelligence.
Hoogerwerf:
I feel it’s useful to check to different animals once more. A number of issues camouflage themselves that we don’t sometimes consider as extremely clever. Strolling sticks…
Stump:
Proper, however that may be a sort of camouflage that has developed. A strolling stick just isn’t observing the world after which making adjustments to its physique to mix in with the world that it observes.
Hoogerwerf:
So a chameleon once more?
Stump:
Yeah, that that perhaps will get nearer. A chameleon coloration altering might be a type of communication of some type in addition to camouflage, which is true for the octopus too. And so there’s perhaps some type of management with a chameleon. But it surely’s a reasonably easy model proper? It’s altering coloration to mirror colours round it. But when you concentrate on it when it comes to decision, then a chameleon is fairly low decision camouflage. An octopus can obtain a lot increased decision and to a a lot larger vary of contexts. Add within the capability to vary the feel of its pores and skin and it’s not even shut.
Hoogerwerf:
Does this counsel then that an octopus would possibly even have the flexibility to take the angle of one other creature? If an octopus is making an attempt to make itself seem like a chunk of coral, can we are saying that it should be capable of take into account what the world seems to be like from a shark’s perspective? The issue is that they solely have one coloration receptor of their eyes (we now have three), and they also aren’t selecting find out how to look by replicating what they’re seeing, not less than within the case of coloration.
Stump:
Hmm… it’s nonetheless an attention-grabbing query about whether or not they can take into consideration the best way they give the impression of being and the world itself from the angle of one other being. Philosophers and psychologists name this idea of thoughts. Which is the flexibility to know that different people have acutely aware expertise such as you your self do. And it takes some fairly superior intelligence to have this. Solely a handful of different creatures apart from us are thought to have idea of thoughts. Chameleons should not a type of. I’d say what they do is simply an computerized response. Whereas perhaps with an octopus there’s something extra there… are they conscious that different creatures are on the market with intentions of making an attempt to see them and eat them, and so their camouflage and shapeshifting is completed deliberately to counter that? Perhaps.
Hoogerwerf:
So if we need to discover intelligence in an octopus additional, we’d need to take a look at the nervous system. And for an octopus that is the place issues get much more attention-grabbing.
Mather:
So think about your mind like a collar round your throat. That’s sort of humorous.
Hoogerwerf:
It is likely to be useful to make a distinction between the mind and the nervous system. The mind is simply what you assume.
Chan-Devaere:
The kind of like, funky, squishy, barely squishy organ that sits in our heads.
Hoogerwerf:
That’s Vanessa Chan-Devaere.
Chan-Devaere:
I’m an Assistant Educating Professor of Psychology on the College of Notre Dame. My background is in cognitive neuroscience.
Hoogerwerf:
Which implies she research the mind and the way it pertains to how we predict and behave.
Stump:
The nervous system contains the mind but in addition contains all the remainder of the nerves that exit into the physique.
Chan-Devaere:
So in people and most different vertebrates, we distinguish between the central nervous system, which for people, is the mind and the spinal twine, and the peripheral nervous system, which is all the different nerves that stretch out from the mind and the spinal twine to all different components of the physique.
Mather:
Now, the opposite factor that’s actually attention-grabbing in regards to the octopus nervous system is that the mind is 2 fifths of the nervous system. The opposite three fifths is out within the arms as chains of ganglia.
Stump:
That is actually completely different from a human mind. Whereas we do have neurons outdoors of our central mind, most of them are in our heads.
Chan-Devaere:
In order that’s the best way it’s in quite a lot of creatures, and quite a lot of that central computing energy occurs within the central nervous system.
Hoogerwerf:
However for an octopus, with all that nervous system out within the arms, there’s quite a lot of data processing that’s positioned outdoors of the mind.
Mather:
So these ganglia, every ganglion, is definitely above a sucker. And suckers have tons of of tactile and chemical receptors, so the ganglion sort of controls what the sucker is doing, what the sucker is perceiving, and what the sucker ought to do due to it. After which the sum of all that data does certainly return to the mind.
Stump:
This results in a unique manner of being.
Mather:
Once I need to discuss find out how to perceive the parallel, I generally say, nicely, consider the vertebrate nervous system as like Putin. “I’m in cost and I’ll dictate all the things, it doesn’t matter what goes on.” After which consider the cephalopod nervous system as like Biden. “Yeah, I’m principally in cost, however I give this job to you, this job to you, and you’ve got states rights.” In order that’s kind of just like the arms, in order that it’s not that the octopus has 9 brains. I get awfully bored with listening to that, however the octopus is a democracy within the sense that the mind tells the arm nervous system roughly what it needs to do, and the ganglia within the nervous system work out the main points of find out how to do it.
Stump:
There are tales of octopus arms which were severed from the physique, persevering with to crawl, however this isn’t simply reflexive (the best way frog legs can nonetheless twitch when severed). The severed arm will really crawl in the fitting route, and generally even proceed looking and making an attempt to maneuver meals towards a mouth that not exists.
Hoogerwerf:
So reflexes…we now have reflexes too. Not each motion we make is a choice processed by our frontal lobe.
Chan-Devaere:
The physician hits your knee to see whether or not it’ll transfer. Or your first response to touching one thing actually scorching, even earlier than you notice that it’s actually scorching, you’ve already sort of began pulling away.
Stump:
Okay, a reflex like this is likely to be a bit bit like how an octopus’s distributed nervous system works. Our physique is doing one thing with out our centralized, acutely aware management of it. But it surely appears it’s nonetheless a great distance off and doubtless rather more difficult for an octopus and no matter its acutely aware expertise is like, than the best way we expertise a knee jerk response.
Hoogerwerf:
Complexity might be a part of the rationale for why octopuses developed this distributed nervous system. It seems that bones are a a lot much less complicated manner of with the ability to transfer, even when they do restrict us from with the ability to squeeze by way of tiny gaps.
Mather:
Now the bones are what we use to articulate in opposition to, in order that if you happen to curl your arm with the biceps, you shorten a muscle, which is hooked up on the elbow of the shoulder. And if you happen to don’t have one thing to maneuver in opposition to, you may’t transfer. So the octopus doesn’t have that, it’s simply received a bunch of muscle tissues. And what it really does is, when it makes any motion, it allocates one or two of the muscle tissues to stiffen and be non permanent bones, after which the others transfer in opposition to them. It’s extraordinarily difficult. But it surely’s in all probability as a result of that’s such an especially difficult technique to run motion that the octopuses ended up with all that nervous system on the market within the arms,
Montgomery:
[sounds from aquarium] Can I stick my hand in there? Can I say Whats up? Have a look at this arm coming over. And it actually does make me consider that Sistine Chapel.
Stump:
Sure! When he reaches out an arm like that, to your reached out arm.
Hoogerwerf:
I had quite a lot of this analysis in thoughts as I used to be standing in entrance of the tank on a bit foot stool pushing my sleeves again. Once I put my palms down into the water the octopus was down within the nook and with out transferring its mantle, out got here one lengthy skinny probing arm reaching out towards my fingers. I had been fascinated by that second for a very long time. Sy Montgomery talks about her many experiences with octopuses, and generally an octopus will attain out with many arms, seize and pull, desirous to discover all of you from inside its personal tank. And even a small octopus has quite a lot of energy. However our octopus gave the impression to be a bit extra shy than a few of these descriptions I had examine.
Stump:
Ultimately he did interact with us and not less than begin to discover. These suckers Sy talked about began reaching out and tasting our arms; she calls this being kissed by an alien. And I used to be making an attempt to get a gauge of how huge this big pacific octopus was by gently coaxing it to stretch out. However he didn’t actually need to try this, and principally stayed within the nook of his small tank. I’m guessing that it’s pretty traumatic to be housed in a quarantine tank.
Hoogerwerf:
Sure, we must always in all probability acknowledge that this octopus was taken from the pacific ocean and despatched to the aquarium, which sounds a bit merciless. But it surely’s actually the one technique to have an octopus in an aquarium. They don’t breed in captivity. We requested Sy about this, and she or he gave a extremely attention-grabbing reply.
Montgomery:
On a philosophical degree, we must always not have the fitting to kidnap and imprison those that have executed no mistaken to us. Nevertheless, if you happen to take a look at the actual world and our actual ocean and the actual lives that octopuses have, we now have so wrecked the wild that for a lot of, many animals, life in captivity is best. Our oceans may have extra plastic than fish by the 12 months 2050. And people are taking part in a fishery for octopuses. Not solely are they eaten by people, however octopuses are used as reside bait for they’ll lower off their arms and use the squirming arms to draw different animals. Even past that, an enormous Pacific octopus lays 100,000 eggs. What number of of these do you assume survive to have the ability to reproduce? I imply, discover we’re not as much as our lips in octopuses, so your possibilities of surviving lengthy sufficient to breed within the wild are, , one or two in 100,000. And what’s going to occur to you? Almost certainly, if you happen to’re a wild octopus, you can be killed and eaten and torn limb from limb when you’re nonetheless alive.
Stump:
In that sense, perhaps Murphy received the lottery by being captured and brought to reside out his life on the New England Aquarium, the place finally he’ll get to reside in a pleasant huge tank with common feeding, and medical care, and plenty of enriching issues for his life. And past his personal consolation, it’s value noting that his life on the aquarium does one thing vital for us too.
Montgomery:
You understand these people are going to have a very good life, and past that, I feel what they’ll share with us about their type and about our duty for the oceans in the actual world of right now, the place world warming is wiping out species left and proper, and the ocean is warming sooner than the air on the land and the place most of life exists. It’s so critically pressing that individuals care sufficient to vary that I feel morally, taking somebody from the wild to reside a very good and attention-grabbing, lengthy, wholesome glad life to assist us make that selection for thus many different species, I feel we’re on the fitting facet.
Hoogerwerf:
One of many methods they fight to verify an octopus does have a wholesome glad life within the aquarium is by ensuring it has possibilities for enrichment and engagement, together with with guests like us. At one level we even threw a canine toy and a few seashells into the tank to attempt to get him to play.. However he didn’t appear all that and we couldn’t actually get him to play very a lot.
Stump:
Nicely let’s discuss play. We all know that quite a lot of animals play and we count on some animals to play. Canines and cats, most familiarly, however a lot of different mammals. However in some unspecified time in the future we sort of cease anticipating play in animals. I don’t actually consider fish as being playful and positively not slugs or starfish, that are in fact mollusks together with octopuses.
Hoogerwerf:
However there’s some fairly good proof for octopus play. And Jennifer really helped to design an experiment to check this alongside along with her buddy and colleague Roland Anderson.
Mather:
So we ended up doing this with six octopuses. And what we did is just gave them an aquarium which had a few rocks at one nook, so the octopus would have a spot to shelter and nothing else. After which we took a capsule bottle and waited it a bit bit in order that it floated gently on the water floor. Now one thing we hadn’t deliberate turned out to be vital, as a result of it turned out that the water movement got here in a single finish of this lengthy tank, and the octopus was sitting on the different finish, so something that was floating freely would transfer from one finish to the opposite
Hoogerwerf:
The primary couple of trials all the octopuses would attain out to discover the capsule bottle and determine if it was meals or one thing harmful. After they had been glad after a trial or two they’d merely ignore it.
Mather:
However then on the fourth trial, two of the octopuses did one thing attention-grabbing.
Stump:
An octopus breathes by taking water into their mantle and respiratory it out by way of a funnel they usually can direct the water by way of the funnel which they use to assist them transfer and to ship jets of water at different objects or creatures.
Mather:
What these two octopuses did is that they shot a jet of water on the capsule bottle, which despatched it over to the water consumption finish, and it drifted slowly again to the octopus they usually shot one other jet of water at it.
Hoogerwerf:
Now one occasion of this conduct might be defined by annoyance, simply making an attempt to do away with it. However 8, 10, 12 occasions and it began to seem like one thing else.
Mather:
And this was pre-email, by the best way, and Roland phoned me in nice pleasure, and he says she’s bouncing the ball!
Stump:
So whereas Murphy wouldn’t actually play with us there are in all probability some preconditions to play, like a sense of security and perhaps a degree of boredom, which may not have been met. We had been new, unusual smelling creatures in spite of everything, sticking our bony appendages into his tank.
Hoogerwerf:
So this brings up one other actually attention-grabbing side of octopuses. You say we had been new creatures, and we had been, however that assumes that octopuses actually know the distinction between you and me and the caretakers who’re there on a regular basis.
Stump:
I additionally stated we had been “unusual smelling”. Odor for an octopus is a bit completely different than scent for us however scent actually is simply the processing of chemical data. We do it by way of the air. Octopuses do it by way of contact and thru chemical substances within the water and they’re in all probability a lot rather more delicate to these chemical substances than we’re.
Hoogerwerf:
So telling the distinction between two people chemically, by way of the water won’t be all that stunning. However evidently octopuses can really inform the distinction between completely different people visually as nicely, which is proven in one other experiment run by Roland and Jennifer.
Stump:
Individuals who work with octopuses have quite a lot of anecdotal proof of this. Tales of octopuses who all the time jet water at particular caretakers and never others. However they wished to attempt one thing extra data-driven.
Mather:
And what they did is that they stated Okay, we’re going to be good cop, unhealthy cop. After which we’re going to see if, after a number of trials of being good cop, unhealthy cop, the octopuses would react otherwise to us. Okay, so the one who was good cop fed the octopus, and the one who was unhealthy cop got here close to equal frequency and had a check tube brush and pressed it gently however firmly in opposition to the facet of the octopus.
Hoogerwerf:
So that they received 8 big pacific octopuses they usually put them to the check, utilizing completely different individuals dressed the identical and with completely different roles, feeder, that’s good cop, or irritator, which is the unhealthy cop. They did that 10 occasions over the course of two weeks.
Mather:
After which they merely got here and stood in entrance of the octopus and recorded its conduct to see if it reacted otherwise to them. And it did. Within the case of the individual with the meals, it got here out, took an arm or two out of the water and went, Okay, the place’s my meals? And within the case of the one who had the check tube brush—
Hoogerwerf:
The unhealthy cop—bear in mind this can be a individual dressed the identical because the feeder however has spent two weeks annoying the octopus. When this individual got here they did quite a lot of the identical sorts of belongings you would possibly count on when a predator is close by.
Mather:
They placed on these, and I discussed this eyebrow, there’s disguise, they usually shrank away
Stump:
A number of different animals can do that too, however for an octopus to be visually recognizing the distinction between people of one other species that aren’t even within the water with them, is fairly spectacular.
Hoogerwerf:
I might go on and on with these experiments as a result of I feel they’re quite a lot of enjoyable. There are many research about downside fixing and persona and all types of different points of octopus life. They usually all appear so as to add complexity to a creature so distant from us on the evolutionary line.
Stump:
There was one other octopus on the aquarium we haven’t launched but. Sedna was additionally a Big Pacific Octopus and had been on the aquarium for some time. When an octopus will get to a sure age it goes into what is named senescence.
Hoogerwerf:
That is generally described as being much like dementia in people.
Baker:
[sounds from aquarium] She has some spikes in exercise the place she’ll stroll round as if nothing’s up.
Hoogerwerf:
That’s Jordan who was our information on the aquarium.
Baker:
However most days she senescing fairly onerous and doesn’t have a lot of an urge for food.
Stump:
The factor is, Sedna is only some years previous. However that is regular. Big Pacific Octopuses reside solely about 3 to five years, and that’s the longest dwelling of octopus species.
Hoogerwerf:
Yeah this actually sort of bothers me. Why would a creature that invested so closely in intelligence, reside such a brief life?
Mather:
Nicely, it bothers us simply as a lot because it bothers you.
Stump:
There’s no actually good scientific reply to this paradox.
Mather:
Yeah, science doesn’t know all of the solutions. We all know a few of the solutions. And we don’t even know all of the questions. However then that’s what retains me going.
Hoogerwerf:
Sedna was nonetheless in a giant tank with the entrance open to the general public a part of the aquarium. We regarded in from up high and after having met Murphy, Sedna was large. 10 toes from arms to arms
Stump:
I wasn’t anticipating a lot from Sedna, having learn a bit about this stage the place they’re principally inactive. However after I put my palms in she did attain an arm out, after which finally she glided over and stated hiya within the octopus manner.
Hoogerwerf:
Yeah, this was actually cool, partly simply due to how huge she was. I’ve encountered some huge imposing creatures, moose and bears and I used to feed a golden eagle with a 7 foot wingspan that will fly backwards and forwards just a few toes over my head. And Sedna ranks proper up there with all of them, but in addition so completely different. And a part of that perhaps was a unique expectation. I approached Sedna with extra openness to there being a thoughts and expertise behind these eyes and I’m wondering if each encounter with life could be completely different if I might strategy it with the identical sort of curiosity.
Stump:
It’s one of many coolest experiences I’ve ever had with a non-human. she’s so huge, but in addition so swish in a billowing, boneless manner. Sedna had certainly one of her arms round mine as she was tasting me, however we additionally made eye contact.
It’s a wierd and humbling expertise to lock eyes with a creature so completely alien—particularly one nearing the tip of her life. I felt a spark of connection that made me assume: She sees me. Perhaps we had been simply two dwelling organisms in that second, every evaluating the opposite’s presence. But it surely felt like greater than fundamental curiosity. I’m studying into it, I do know, but it surely felt like she conveyed along with her look, “I’m glad to know you. Thanks for coming to see me in my final days.” Then she glided away, again to the opposite facet of the tank.
Occupied with it later, I remembered Jane Goodall’s phrases about trying into the eyes of a chimpanzee: “I reached out my hand, and he reached again to carry it. It was a gesture of belief, one thing that handed between us that appeared to transcend the limitations of species.”
If there’s a barrier of species between us and a chimpanzee, with whom we now have frequent ancestors simply six or seven million years in the past, how rather more of a barrier is there between us and an octopus, the place we now have to return 500 million years to seek out frequent ancestors? And but these eyes!
Hoogerwerf:
If this had been simply an peculiar science podcast, we might in all probability finish right here. However that’s not totally satisfying for me. I need to know what to do with this glimpse into the octopus world and the way it pertains to my very own creatureliness. What are the large questions this all uncovered for you?
Stump:
Nicely in fact it brings us again to our ongoing debate in regards to the distinction between people and non-humans.
Hoogerwerf:
Yeah. So there’s this tendency to make use of science, and particularly this research of animal conduct to both show by some means that people actually are superior beings, or perhaps to disprove that. Within the case of octopuses we be taught that quite a lot of traits we thought had been solely human traits, are shared with different creatures. We already know that about quite a lot of animals, however in so lots of these circumstances we will say that it’s as a result of they’re evolutionarily near us. The octopus sort of ruins that.
Stump:
Yeah. That’s actually attention-grabbing. We are able to discuss spectrums of behaviors. And octopuses nonetheless don’t downside remedy or talk to the extent that people do. However the truth that these tendencies developed convergently, I assume ought to not less than lead us to surprise about how distinctive these traits are to us. Perhaps curiosity, intelligence, and even idea of thoughts are rather more broadly distributed and don’t essentially communicate to what it means to be human, as a lot as they communicate to what it means to be alive.
Hoogerwerf:
And that ought to in all probability have us surprise about how we deal with such creatures.
Mather:
Given all of the sorts of issues that I’ve informed you about how they’re clever, they’re delicate, they’ll take into consideration what’s occurring sooner or later, they’ll retailer data from the previous, they’ll play, they’ll program completely different responses which are acceptable to completely different conditions, I assume I might to say you may have a posh, delicate animal, you don’t deal with it like junk.
Hoogerwerf:
I received in contact with Dr Mather as a result of she is without doubt one of the high consultants on octopus conduct and cognition. And after I informed her in regards to the podcast she was a bit involved as a result of she just isn’t a Christian and didn’t need to be misconstrued. She has really executed some writing on moral remedy of invertebrates and she or he has some critiques of how non secular concepts have led us to a spot the place many creatures aren’t given the identical sort of moral consideration.
Stump:
And she or he might have a good level there. Human superiority has been tied to the doctrine of the picture of God and to the nice chain of being the place people are positioned slightly below the angels, and beneath people are the remainder of the animals, crops, and minerals down on the backside.
Hoogerwerf:
Invertebrates fall fairly far down that checklist.
Stump:
Yeah and that sort of theology has given justification for lots of dangerous conduct towards the non-human world. However I might argue that it wasn’t faith that led individuals in that route, moderately it was those that led faith in that route. And Christianity definitely doesn’t should result in mistreatment of different creatures. Take Sy Montgomery for instance. We requested her, at one level, if spending her time touring round encountering animals ever will get previous.
Montgomery:
It so doesn’t get previous. I imply, prayer doesn’t get previous. Surprise doesn’t get previous. Awe doesn’t get previous. It’s what we’re made for. And with the ability to commune with any person like, I’m simply so—Jim, I’m so glad that you simply had this expertise, Colin, I’m so glad that you simply had this expertise.
Hoogerwerf:
And that’s partly why we wished to go, to have this expertise of communing with one other dwelling creature and to go on a few of the information and the awe and surprise of it. We hope this is usually a small a part of shifting the narrative that faith leads solely to human domination of the world. Wouldn’t or not it’s cool if at any time when non-christians considered Christians, alongside caring for the poor, in addition they thought, “oh these are these individuals who care about octopuses and cease to assist turtles cross the street.”
Stump:
It wouldn’t be such a stretch for us to consider our neighbors as together with a wider vary of lifeforms together with octopuses.
Montgomery:
I imply, we final shared a standard ancestor with an octopus half a billion years in the past, again when everybody was a tube. However we do share a standard ancestor. And that’s the reason you may look within the eyes of an octopus that may look again at you, and you can also make buddies with an octopus.
[music]
Stump:
Nicely that’s our present. However there’s one thing we would like assist with. We’re going to do some extra of those Cool Creatures episodes and we’ve already began on just a few of them, however we need to hear from you. What creature encounters have you ever had which have reoriented the best way you take a look at the world or have deepened your understanding of God or God’s creation? E mail them to us at podcast@biologos.org. Perhaps your story will make it right into a future episode.
Credit
Language for God is produced by BioLogos. BioLogos is supported by particular person donors and listeners such as you. In the event you’d like to assist preserve this dialog occurring the podcast and elsewhere, yow will discover methods to contribute at BioLogos.org. You’ll discover a lot of different nice sources on science and religion there as nicely. Language of God is produced and combined by Colin Hoogerwerf, that’s me. Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. BioLogos places of work are positioned in Grand Rapids, Michigan within the Grand River Watershed. Thanks for listening.
