Walking home last night I was about to jaywalk across Madison when I saw a rental cop checking out the bushes across the street, and this got me to thinking about evolution and camoflage. One of the creationist objections to evolution is that camoflage and mimicry couldn't have evolved, since an insect that looks only a little bit like a poisonous wasp doesn't derive any benefit, and thus can't transition from no similarity to sufficient similarity. (As an aside, is anybody aware of a scientist with any acamedic credentials who is opposed to evolution and is not religious?) Dawkins argues quite convincingly, and nature holds plenty of examples, that even a minor similarity can offer an evolutionary advantage. While under direct light in a museum exhibit one can readily pick out a camoflaged, stuffed bird in the foliage, in the real world life and death moment occur quickly, at the margins of perception. A bird that blends in just a little bit may be fifty yards closer to safe distance when the hawk is a mile away; a bug that looks a little like a wasp has an edge over all the bugs that look nothing at all like a wasp. And when I saw the rental cop, in a uniform that across the street at night without SPD for comparison looked convincing, I could clearly see his bare right hip, but I still declined to jaywalk because it just wasn't worth the risk of being mistaken. The power of mimicry.