Indigenous “ways of knowing” invade Canadian science classes

March 27, 2026 • 11:00 am

I’ve spent a lot of time pushed many electrons going after the fallacy in New Zealand that indigenous “ways of knowing”—in this case from the Māori—are just as valid as so-called “Western ways of knowing,” which is what Kiwi progressives call “science”. You can see my pieces here, but there are many.

This sacralization of the oppressed, whereby the beliefs of minorities are given extra credibility, has now spread to Canada, a pretty woke place.  Lawrence Krauss, who now lives in British Columbia, was astonished and depressed to find indigenous (Native American) superstitions treated as science in the secondary-school curriculum.

You can read his lament by clicking the screenshot below, or find the article archived here.

Quotes from Krauss’s piece are indented, and my comments are flush left. This battle apparently needs to be fought in every country where science, which is not “Western” but worldwide, has been diluted via the efforts of “progressives” who think they’re doing a good thing. They’re not: they are impeding the education of kids by conflating superstitions and established science.

Check out the links in the first paragraph:

I now live in British Columbia (B.C.). A colleague recently forwarded me the current B.C. high school science curriculum for grades nine and twelve. It includes an embarrassing amalgam of religious gobbledygook and anti-science rhetoric. It is an insult to school children in B.C. and does a disservice to the students of the province at a time when understanding the nature and process of science is becoming increasingly important to their competitive prospects in a world dominated by technology.

You may wonder how religious fundamentalism could so effectively creep into the curriculum in a progressive place like British Columbia. The answer is simple. The religious nonsense being inserted into the curriculum has nothing to do with Christian fundamentalism; rather, it is Indigenous religious nonsense. And in the current climate, Indigenous “knowledge” is held to a different standard from scientific knowledge—or, rather, to no standard at all.

. . . In the B.C. science curriculum for grade nine, this agenda is explicit. Students are expected to: “Apply First Peoples’ perspectives and knowledge, other ways of knowing, and local knowledge as sources of information.” “Ways of knowing” are defined as “the various beliefs about the nature of knowledge that people have; they can include, but are not limited to, Aboriginal, gender-related, subject/discipline specific, cultural, embodied and intuitive beliefs about knowledge.”

Here’s one example of how indigenous knowledge dilutes superstition. Like me and many others, Krauss has no problem in teaching this stuff as “social science or history”, but bridles at equating it with science:

For example, lesson three of the “BC Grade 9 Student Notes and Problems Workbook,” contains a section entitled “The Universe: Aboriginal Perspectives.” Over the course of two pages, the creation myths of various aboriginal peoples are described in detail, as “beautifully descriptive legends depicting the relationship between Earth and various celestial bodies.” Such subjects as the creation of the universe by a raven; the presence of water everywhere on Earth except on Vancouver Island; the eternal efforts of the Moon to get some of that water to drink; how and why a divine son and daughter team set out to make the Sun traverse the sky, while ensuring that it seems to stop in the middle of the day; how one of the jealous siblings turned into the Moon; how lunar eclipses occur when the spirit of Ling Cod tries to swallow the Moon; how one constellation of stars is the remnants of a giant bird that flew up from Earth; and how the celestial raven eventually released the Moon, stars, and Sun from boxes, in that order. These are quaint myths, and one can imagine how a reasonable science book might describe how we overcame these prehistoric notions to arrive at our modern understanding via the process of science. Instead, the conclusion at the end of this chapter reads, “These stories parallel the Big Bang Theory.”

The only answer to that is, “No they don’t.”  Krauss continues:

As if the insults to the process of science reflected in these curricular statements weren’t bad enough, when the workbook actually discusses science, it gets it all wrong. For example, the book states that, “Indications are that all galaxies are moving away from a central core area. Thus, the universe is said to be expanding.” In fact, the central premise of the Big Bang picture of our expanding universe is that there is simply no centre to the universe. The Universe is uniformly expanding but not from a single central point, but from everywhere. Elsewhere, the process that describes the power generation in stars is listed three times as nuclear fission. This is the opposite of the actual process, nuclear fusion, which explains how light nuclei combine to form heavier nuclei.

This is not surprising, for the people who tout indigenous knowledge as coequal with modern science often are not conversant with modern science. This is also true in New Zealand: advocates for native people simply look for parallels that can be used to say, “Look—indigenous people had a parallel but equally correct way of understanding the universe.” And the answer to that, too, is “No they didn’t.

The damage done to children’s education, and to science itself, are obvious, but summed up by Krauss at the end:

The understanding of the modern world is based on science and that understanding was built up, often at great cost, by overcoming myth and superstition. It is a giant leap backwards to cater to such superstitions in a misguided attempt to somehow pay back Indigenous peoples for historical wrongs. Students today had nothing to do with the sins of the past, and we owe it to them to teach them the best possible science we can. That means separating religious myths from science, and in the process actually trying to get the science straight. The B.C. science curriculum is a disgrace on both counts.

Amen.  I suspect the only reason this tactic hasn’t spread to Europe is that they have—with the exception of the Sámi of Scandinavia—almost no indigenous people to sacralize. But India has plenty, and already science is being diluted there by Hindu “ways of knowing”, including the government’s establishment of institutes tasked with revealing the scientific wonders of cows and their urine, dung, and milk. When I visited India on a lecture tour, I spent a long time listening to credible scientists beef about (sorry for the pun) the stupidity of the government’s dilution of science. Their complaint? “Where’s the beef?”, for despite a big government expenditure, there was little to show. That’s what happens when “scientists” are more or less ordered to come up with results wanted by others.

Now The Atlantic touts religion—or rather, beliefs that don’t need evidence

March 27, 2026 • 9:30 am

I’ve been posting from time to time about how the mainstream media is suddenly touting religion and its benefits—a phenomenon I don’t fully understand. Now The Atlantic has joined the queue with an article by Elizabeth Bruenig, who’s written for the magazine for 6 years, and before that for the NYT, the WaPo, and the New Republic. She also has a master’s degree in Christian theology from Cambridge University.  All this means that she’s fully qualified to tout religion to liberals.

And in the article below she does just that, but in an unusual way.  She dismisses the need for any evidence for gods or specific religions, and takes the position that belief itself, however arrived at, is sufficient to warrant the truths of that belief. It’s bizarre, and another example of a supposedly reputable publication jumping the rails.

You can read the article archived below, or find it archived here.  (Thanks to the many readers who sent me this piece.)


Bruenig begins by dissing the New Atheists (unfairly, of course), and then segues into her Frozen Waterfall Moment: the epiphany that solidified her waning faith.

I grew up in a faithful Methodist household in deep-red Texas during the George W. Bush years, when the political sway of Evangelicals was at its zenith. At the same time, evangelists of a robust atheism—figures such as the biologist Richard Dawkins, the critic Christopher Hitchens, and the neuroscientist Sam Harris—toured the country offending salt-of-the-earth Americans with their contempt for religious belief. It was hard for me to ignore that a number of their assertions were clearly correct: Young-Earth creationism, for instance, instantly struck me as absurd when I first learned about it from a history teacher in my public junior-high school, who confidently told me that the world is only a few thousand years old.

That wasn’t what my family or church taught, but Christians who subscribed to those beliefs were suddenly ascendant, and their thinking colored the country’s religious landscape. Meanwhile, the New Atheists were making hay of the fact that such faithful misapprehensions about nature were easily disproved by scientific discovery. Though I continued to attend church as usual, I privately wondered whether the entire enterprise might be rooted in nothing more than a misunderstanding.

This steady diminishing of faith probably would have continued indefinitely, were it not for one brisk autumn afternoon in 2011 when, standing alone at a bus stop, I happened to witness the presence of God.

The unevenly paved lane where I waited was a quiet one-way street tucked away in a clutch of trees. I gazed down the road, preoccupied with other things—midterm exams, campus-club minutiae—and expecting the bus to trundle around the bend. A sudden icy wind tore around the corner instead, sweeping into gray branches and climbing ivy to send a spray of golden birch leaves spiraling into the sky, taking my breath along with them. And I knew that my soul was bared to something indescribably majestic and bracing—something that overwhelmed me with the unmistakable sensation of eye contact. What I saw, I felt, also saw me. Before I could rationally account for what had happened, a verse of poetry from John Ashbery came to mind:

A look of glass stops you

And you walk on shaken: was I the perceived?

That seemed to explain things perfectly, jarringly so. I was dazed in class as afternoon darkened to evening.

Note that at the same time she sneers at New Atheists for their “contempt” for religion, she notes that they also dispelled misguided beliefs in creationism, so chalk that up to New Atheism. In her case, the ephipany was more mundane than the three frozen waterfalls that brought Francis Collins to Christ: hers involved a wind blowing leaves into the sky.  And for some reason that made her think about a poem that is not at all about God, but (as far as I can see), the creative process of a writer and how that process is perceived by the poet and how it interprets reality. It’s an okay poem, but it doesn’t rhyme, so it’s really a bunch of fragmentary thoughts, as in Ulysses, but put into verse form. At any rate, when Breunig, the wind that blew the leaves around somehow blew faith into her sould.

Surprisingly, given Bruenig’s own contempt for the need for evidence to buttress one’s faith, she spends a long time describing a new big book that appears to make the same old arguments about the facts of science that point to God (fine-tuning, the Big Bang, etc.):

The latest evidence suggests that God most likely exists, argues a big recent book by Michel-Yves Bolloré, a computer engineer, and Olivier Bonnassies, a Catholic author. Tracts that aim to prove the reality of God are hardly novel. What makes this endeavor unique, say the French writers behind God, The Science, the Evidence: The Dawn of a Revolution, is the scientific nature of their work. Medieval monks toiling away at poetic meditations on the divine have their place, the authors allow, but their own arguments are meant to surpass mere abstract justifications for belief. Instead they assert that cutting-edge empirical proof observable in the natural world makes a firm case for God. With this, they strive for the ultimate alchemy, transforming faith into fact.

Bolloré and Bonnassies’s book is part of a burgeoning genre of apologetics that relies on relatively new scientific developments and theories, like quantum mechanics and cosmology, to make an ancient case. Their book, which has already sold more than 400,000 copies around the world, arrives at a time of both bloody religious conflict and rapidly collapsing religious belief, especially among the young and the highly educated. It joins other recent projects—including two new documentaries, The Story of Everything: The Science That Reveals a Mind Behind the Universe and Universe Designed—that propose the same tantalizing theory: that there is incontrovertible proof that a divine power created the cosmos, and that this evidence is mounting.

. . . [the authors] identify a series of scientific breakthroughs that helped undermine religious faith over the centuries, including Galileo’s heliocentrism, Newton’s clockwork universe,

The publisher says pretty much the same thing: scientific discoveries in quantum mechanics, cosmology, the “fine-tuning of the Universe,” and the incredible complexity of living organisms” (i.e., Intelligent Design) have dispelled materialism and naturalism:

Yet, with unexpected and astonishing force, the pendulum of science has swung back in the opposite direction. Driven by a rapid succession of groundbreaking discoveries—thermodynamics, the theory of relativity, quantum mechanics, the Big Bang, theories about the expansion and fine-tuning of the Universe, and the incredible complexity of living organisms—old certainties have been completely overturned. Materialism increasingly has the appearance of an irrational belief.

I’ll admit I haven’t read this 500-page behemoth, whose summaries recycle the same old arguments for God from science, and I’m not sure I want to read it (you can see a critical review of its content archived from Medium), whose author (“Matthew”) confirms the impression I got from above, but adds that the book also throws in some theology. From Medium:

Yet what is strange is how much [the book] feels like a nostalgic throwback, it is reminiscent of the publishing fads of the 00s when New Atheism was in its peak and church book stands were full of books with titles like “The Dawkins Delusion” or “How Science Proves God” or whatever it might have been. The book even approvingly quotes Dawkins’ claim that God is basically a scientific hypothesis that we can prove or disprove, and the authors claim we should be able to look at science and find evidence of God, or at least we shouldn’t find evidence that contradicts the idea that there is a divine creator. Yet it is also far weirder than intelligent design rebuttals of atheists, the book goes beyond science, including lengthy chapters on the bible, the person of Jesus, the continued existence of the Jewish people, the persecution of scientists in the Soviet Union and (sorry Substack) for some reason, the Fatima miracle.

I will be honest up front, I found the book to be absolutely mad, hamfisted and confused. It is error strewn, misrepresents various ideas completely, and in spite of being written by two Catholics claiming to be retrieving a more ancient worldview, it largely constitutes a clumsy argument for a God of enlightenment deism, making some absolutely eye wateringly odd claims along the way. As the reviews all seem to say it is extremely “readable” but mostly because it is presented as a skim over of topics in soundbites and quotes so that it reads like a print out of a load of powerpoint slides.

. . . More to the point, I find it hard to believe we are in an “intellectual paradigm shift” when the authors have offered what is essentially undigested quotes from wikipedia and a bunch of arguments that were in vogue nearly two decades ago. This book is the definition of singing to the choir, except by the choir it must mean a very particular set of Christians inclined to share the author’s theology but not inclined to know anything about the arguments.

You can read the rest of the review for yourself.  The fact is, though, that the quality and arguments of the book are irrelevant, for Atlantic author Breunig says that people don’t need no stinking evidence to accept gods and their natures. The argument from science, she says, is misguided (bolding henceforth is mine):

To imagine that one might find traces of the divine strewn throughout the universe, or that earthly methods of inquiry might uncover some of those signs, isn’t ridiculous. But this latest round of arguments in favor of intelligent design seems aimed mostly at establishing that God could or should exist within the rational frameworks we already employ. This is both weak grounds for belief and a fundamental misunderstanding of faith. The route to durable faith in God often runs not through logical proofs or the sciences, but through awe, wonder, and an attunement to the beauty and poetry of the world, natural and otherwise.

In other words, it’s the “beauty and poetry of the world” that convinced Bruenig of the divine. Apparently she has overlooked the ugliness of the world: the cancers in children, the incessant wars and killings, the death of thousands of innocent people in natural disasters, and even humans’ destruction of the very beauty that inspires her. Is this evidence for Satan?

It’s quite bizarre to read about Breunig’s transformation into a believer, one who rejects science but still touts “objective evidence” for divinity.

She turned her Golden Leaf Epiphany over in her mind, and it is that epiphany—a purely emotional experience—that led her to see reality (OBJECTIVE reality) through a god-shaped lens. And she disses New Atheism again for its supposed claim that believing in gods makes one unsophisticated or dumb.  No, she’s wrong: the argument is that accepting theism means you’re credulous. Breunig:

 I began to ask myself what it would cost me intellectually if I were to choose to metabolize the experience as it had occurred to me. That decision came with several implications. If God is real, then perhaps other things—goodness, righteousness, beauty—that are usually dismissed as matters of subjective experience might also be objectively real. That prospect was much more agreeable to me than another consequential implication of electing to believe: that, as the New Atheists had so vigorously argued, theism meant putting aside any pretensions I had of sophistication or intellect.

As I explored this problem, I spent hours in my college library reading Saint Augustine, a foundational philosopher and theologian. Here I encountered another strange sensation: Every word I read felt like remembering something I had once known but somehow forgotten.

Oh dear God, St. Augustine, a man who was a Biblical literalist (something that Bruenig rejects). Like many early theologians, Augustine argued that the Bible could be read both literally and metaphorically, but insisted on the absolute truth of what’s in print. Augustine accepted instantaneous creation from Genesis, Adam and Eve, Noah’s ark, and the whole Biblical mishigas. Bruenig ignores those parts, for she’s looking to buttress her incipient belief. (And remember that she concluded, apparently objectively, that God exists because of the feeling that swept over her when she saw the wind blow the leaves around.)  And so, after reading Augustine, she decided to accept an “objective” reality that didn’t need empirical support, and re-embraced religion:

And maybe the Christian Neoplatonists, Augustine among them, had some points as well. I contemplated this for a while before I realized that there wasn’t any sense in debating it with myself anymore. I knew what I felt, so I gave up and chose to believe.

Note that she has no evidence for Christianity, but chose to believe, even though she uses the word “objectively,” implying that other people would agree with her “choice”. (They don’t: Christians are in a minority of the world’s people.) At the end of her piece, Bruenig simply asserts that you don’t need anything but emotion to buttress your Christianity. In so doing she simply shrugs off all the arguments that have been raised against belief and says “faith is enough”, effectively immunizing her beliefs against refutation. (Bolding is mine.)

In my years of working out exactly what I believe, I have been relieved to learn that faith does not in fact demand the surrender of logic and vigorous intellectual inquiry—a case Bolloré and Bonnassies convincingly bolster with numerous testimonials from award-winning scientists. Still, to trust in the existence of God is to accept both the appearance and the possibility of being naive or delusional. No accumulation of promising developments in our analytical understanding of the world can delay confrontation with that essential fact. Having faith is a vulnerable thing.

Bolloré and Bonnassies’s arguments are more likely to shore up the faith of wavering believers than to win new converts. This itself is no small thing. The authors may even be right about the growing evidence for the existence of God secreted away in the latest science. But their approach has a history of upsets. The only way to inoculate belief against that cycle of disruption is to treat faith as a decision that transcends scientific proof.

It’s clear here that she wants to inoculate her belief against disruption (i.e., against disproof), and by arguing, “It’s true because I believe it,” she’s succeeded.  Well, good for her, but she’s not going to convince people who think that giving your life to Christianity and its beliefs of a divine Jesus who was also God, the miracles he performed, and the crucifixion and resurrection—you are donning the mantle of a superstitious belief system without a rational reason to do so. Remember, emotions and feelings are not part of rationality.

This whole essay could be summed up on one sentence:  “I believe because I want to believe, and I don’t need reasons (or rationality) to do so.”

Shame on The Atlantic for pushing this pabulum!

h/t: Jim

Friday: Hili dialogue

March 27, 2026 • 6:45 am

Welcome to the last Friday of the month: it’s March 27, 2026, and National Spanish Paella Day.  When I gave a talk in Valencia (the Home of Paella) in 2011, I was taken to a small building out in the country that was supposedly the best place to get paella in that paella-famed town. There was an old man cooking the paellas over wood, constantly moving about to tend them and the fire. Here’s a photo of the man at work and the finished product that we ate:

It’s also International Whisky Day, World Theater Day, and Quirky Music Song Titles Day.  Here’s one of those:

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the March 27 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Today’s war news from It’s Noon in Israel:

  • The Pentagon and U.S. Central Command are developing plans for a “finishing blow” against Iran, according to four senior American officials and sources familiar with internal discussions. Four main options are on the table: invading or blockading Kharg Island; seizing Larak Island, which anchors Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz; taking control of Abu Musa and two smaller islands near the strait’s western entrance; and intercepting Iranian oil tankers on the eastern side of Hormuz. The military has also prepared plans for ground operations deep inside Iran to seize enriched uranium from nuclear facilities. Donald Trump has not made a decision, and the White House describes all ground options as “hypothetical”—but sources say he is prepared to escalate if diplomatic talks fail to produce results soon.
  • Trump claimed this morning that despite Iran’s public posture of merely “looking” at the U.S. proposal, Tehran is privately “begging” for a deal. He closed with a warning: Iran had better get serious about negotiations, because once it is “too late” there will be “no turning back.”
  • Iran’s ambassador to Japan made clear today that Tehran will not accept a U.S.-imposed peace plan. “It’s not the Americans who will determine anything. It’s Iran,” he said, adding that any unilateral imposition is “not acceptable.” The statement comes as Tehran continues to publicly deny that negotiations with the United States are even taking place.
  • Staff Sergeant Uri Greenberg, 21, from Petah Tikva, a fighter in an elite Golani Brigade unit, was killed in battle in southern Lebanon. Israel’s military fatalities have now risen to three.

As we approach the weekend the war has come to a crossroads. Donald Trump has three paths available:

  1. Continue with his current direction and we end this war with a negotiated settlement.
  2. Return to his original plan and continue pounding the regime.
  3. Walk away altogether, a unilateral ceasefire.

The article considers #2 the most likely, and so do I. If Trump has any military brains left, #1 and #3 should be off the table. Only unconditional surrender and the dismantling of the regime are acceptable. Despite the view that Iranians value victory more than their lives, they aren’t gonna get victory and member of the IRGC continue to leave the country.

*At The Free Press, Yoav Gallant (a former IDF officer and later Israel’s Minister of Defense) wrote an article I couldn’t resist reading, “How to finish the job in Iran.”

And yet, Iran has found a way to fight back. How? By closing the Strait of Hormuz, and shifting the battlefield from military targets to the global economy.

Roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil and a significant share of liquefied natural gas pass through that narrow waterway. Iran brought traffic to a near standstill not with formal naval blockade, but via selective drone strikes on tankers, the threat of mines and anti-ship missiles, and the resulting collapse of insurance coverage. Tanker movement has dropped by more than 90 percent. Brent crude has surged to as much as $120 a barrel. One of the largest disruptions to global energy supplies since the 1970s is now underway.

This was a predictable move. Iran has threatened to close the Strait for decades, and the logic was always clear: If the regime is struck hard enough, it will use its geographic position to inflict economic pain on the entire world. The question was never whether Iran would try. The question is what we should do about it.

. . . You must take from Iran something it cannot afford to lose.

Kharg Island is a small strip of land in the northern Persian Gulf, roughly comparable in size to lower Manhattan, sitting about 25 kilometers off Iran’s coast and several hundred kilometers northwest of the Strait of Hormuz. The main terminal for close to 90 percent of Iran’s crude oil exports, Kharg Island is the economic backbone of the regime. It is also, critically, the primary source of hard‑currency revenue for the military and security services, which control and sell a significant share of those exports.

Disrupting energy operations on Kharg Island is regarded by analysts as a doomsday scenario for Iran’s economy, with far‑reaching consequences. Iran’s economy depends in practice on two main sectors: oil and gas. Disruption would trigger a chain reaction throughout the energy system, creating acute shortages of gasoline and diesel inside a country that sits on some of the largest hydrocarbon reserves in the world. Iran would also lose billions of dollars a month in oil income. Without the flow of dollars and yuan, the central bank would struggle to defend the rial, driving hyperinflation and eroding the savings of an entire society.

Economic pressure on this scale would dramatically increase the likelihood of popular unrest. Iran’s population has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to take to the streets. The demonstrations of January 2026 were one of the most significant since the 1979 revolution. A regime that cannot pay its security forces or fuel its own economy faces a fundamentally different internal reality.​ Its ability to support proxies and sleeper cells throughout the Middle East, Europe, and the U.S. would also be compromised.

Of course this “solution” will impose hardship on the Iranian people for a limited period—a lack of energy and oil revenue.  What is crucial here is that the Iranian population must still have the “willingness to take to the streets,” despite the regime’s promise to shoot them on sight. All we can do is wait.

*According to the Times of Israel, Israel has struck down another Iranian military bigwig, this time the head of the Revolutionary Guard Navy, the man responsible for blocking the Strait of Hormuz. Other targets have also been “neutralized”:

Israel said Thursday that the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, Adm. Alireza Tangsiri, had been killed in an airstrike, the latest senior Iranian official targeted in a relentless hunt-and-kill campaign. The Israel Defense Forces later said all of the IRGC Navy’s key commanders had been killed in the strike.

However, Israel took Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf off its hit list after Pakistan requested that Washington not target them, a Pakistani source with knowledge of the discussions told Reuters. Qalibaf is reportedly the “top man” with whom US President Donald trump said Monday he has been indirectly negotiating on terms for ending the conflict.

“The IDF eliminated the commander of the IRGC Navy, the person directly responsible for the terror operation of mining and blocking the Strait of Hormuz to maritime traffic,” Defense Minister Israel Katz said during a morning assessment with military officials.

Katz said the strike was a “message” to the IRGC: “The IDF will hunt you down and eliminate you one by one.”

“We will continue to operate in Iran with full force to achieve the objectives of the war,” he added.

Later, the IDF confirmed the killing and said that in addition to Tangsiri, the strike also killed the IRGC Navy’s intelligence chief, Behnam Rezaei, and the rest of the navy’s top leadership. The military did not immediately name other top commanders killed in the strike.

Tangsiri was targeted in the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas while meeting with senior commanders of the IRGC Navy, according to the military.

“Over the years, Tangsiri was responsible for attacks on oil tankers and commercial vessels and personally threatened the freedom of navigation and trade in the Strait of Hormuz and the international maritime domain,” the IDF said.

During the current war, the IDF said he “led efforts to close the Strait of Hormuz and advanced terror attacks in the maritime domain, one of the primary figures responsible for disrupting the global economy.”

I am amazed at Israel’s ability to track these people down, but that, and the fact that Israel can confirm the deaths, suggests that they have reporting sources inside Iran (they used street cameras for getting rid of the last Ayatollah). The other IRGC bigwigs, as well as politicans, must be very apprehensive.

*Also at the Times of Israel, human-rights attorney Gerald Filitti writes, “Harvard got sued. Why it deserves it.” , subtitled, “The Trump Administration’s new Title VI complaint is more legally serious than its critics will admit, and Harvard’s own record makes the case for them.” This refers to the very recent lawsuit filed against Harvard by the administration for allowing antisemitism to pervade the campus.

The government’s theory has two distinct prongs, and both are well-constructed.

The first is deliberate indifference. Under Davis v. Monroe County, a federally funded institution violates Title VI when it has actual knowledge of severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive harassment and responds with deliberate indifference. Harvard’s own Presidential Task Force – commissioned by Harvard, staffed by Harvard, published by Harvard – concluded that Jewish and Israeli students faced “dire” conditions, were subjected to “social exclusion,” experienced “widespread” discrimination by peers and professors alike, and that Harvard’s complaint mechanisms lacked even “foundational awareness” of how to handle antisemitism reports. Harvard’s own task force said that. The government didn’t manufacture that record. Harvard produced it.

The second prong is more interesting and, in some ways, stronger: intentional selective enforcement. The complaint documents a pattern of Harvard enforcing its rules vigorously against everyone except those targeting Jews. In 2017, Harvard rescinded ten admissions offers over offensive private Facebook messages. In 2022, it canceled a lecture by a feminist philosopher over her views on transgender identity. When a gay law student was assaulted, Harvard sent a campus-wide email condemning the attack the same day. When a Jewish student was assaulted – physically attacked while trying to film a demonstration – Harvard awarded one attacker a $65,000 fellowship and named the other a Class Marshal. That is not indifference. It is the inverse of indifference.

Under Arlington Heights, discriminatory intent is established through circumstantial evidence of exactly this kind of differential treatment. The complaint’s factual record on selective enforcement is, frankly, devastating. And it draws almost entirely from Harvard’s own documents.

. . .Here is what most of the coverage will miss entirely: this complaint is not the same legal action as the funding freeze Burroughs struck down last September.

When the administration unilaterally froze $2.6 billion in Harvard’s research grants, it skipped the mandatory Title VI enforcement process. There was no notice, no investigation, no opportunity to respond, no judicial involvement. Burroughs correctly found that violated both the statute and the First Amendment. That ruling was about how the government acted, not about what Harvard did. It was a ruling about process, not about the merits.

Today’s complaint is the opposite procedural posture. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) opened its investigation in February 2025. It issued formal findings of violation in June 2025. It met and conferred with Harvard in July 2025. It negotiated for eight additional months. When those negotiations failed, it filed in federal court and asked a judge to order relief. That is textbook Title VI enforcement. Same statute. Right procedure. The Burroughs ruling does not govern this case, and treating it as dispositive is an error.

As for what comes next:

The case is assigned to Judge Richard Stearns, a Clinton appointee who handled Shabbos Kestenbaum’s Title VI lawsuit against Harvard and is known as a careful, precise jurist without an ideological axe to grind. He will read the Burroughs opinion. He will also be aware that this complaint followed the procedure Burroughs said the prior action violated. The legal question before him is narrower than the culture war questions the press will insist on litigating: did Harvard violate Title VI, and did it breach its contractual compliance certifications? On those questions, Harvard’s own record is its worst enemy.

. . . . But here is what should not get lost in the noise: Jewish students at the most prestigious university in the world were spat on, stalked, and physically assaulted. They hid their yarmulkes under baseball caps to walk across campus. They reported their assailants, and their assailants were promoted. They asked Harvard’s diversity office for help, and its staff had locked the door.

I think that summary is about right.  You can go to a pdf of the complaint by clicking on the screenshot below:

*Reader Loretta pointed me to this article in the Washington Post, “The Mideast pushed out the Muslim Brotherhood. Here’s where it landed.” She noted this: “I’m surprised the Post published this piece, given their own biases, but I’m glad to see it.  There don’t seem to be any comments yet, but I’m sure the usual progressive baying crowd will chime in.” 

Arab states spent decades learning to contain the Muslim Brotherhood. Europe has yet to begin. The result is a dangerous irony: As the radical Islamist group’s influence wanes in the Middle East, it is growing stronger in Europe by the day.

For years, security experts in the United States and Europe have warned about the organization. And yet, outside of Austria, no E.U. state has taken decisive action. Most Western states tolerate the group’s political wings, citing its peaceful integration into political systems. In the United States, President Donald Trump signed an executive order designating chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood as foreign terrorist organizations. But there has not been a concerted Western effort to counter the movement’s ideological threat.

In Britain, the United Arab Emirates cut scholarships for Emirati students, concerned they could be radicalized by Islamists in the country. In Belgium, neighborhoods have become parallel societies. In Germany, despite the government raising concerns, the group continues to grow in its cities. In Sweden, the Qatari-funded affiliate has turned the country into a hotbed of Islamist ideology.

. . .Last year, a French government report on the Brotherhood called out the danger and warned of the group’s spread in European society. The report was picked up and repeated in European capitals, where academics and civil society dismissed it as alarmist.

Why the complacency? Western conventions against interfering with religion are one reason. But that bias for tolerance has served to give mosques tied to the Brotherhood free rein to spread messages of intolerance and hate, including some that exalt jihadist violence, in many Western cities. The group’s spread also threatens the cohesion of European states by exacerbating racial tensions and establishing alternative social structures based on its interpretation of sharia.

The modus operandi of the Brotherhood is patience — it waits until it is confident in its strength, then moves against the established state structure.

It’s considered “Islamophobic” everywhere to be wary of the erosion of a culture in favor of Muslim culture, but who wants Islamism (the politicization of the faith) when it’s authoritarian, ridden with religion, and misogynistic, as well as intolerant of non-Muslims, atheists, and especially apostates.  This is also happening in the U.S. (viz., Minnesota), but “progressives” would rather die than call attention to it.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is being a real Princess:

Hili: Could you lay a carpet here.
Andrzej: A red one?
Hili: Whatever, as long as it’s soft.

In Polish:

Hili: Mógłbyś tu położyć dywan.
Ja: Czerwony?
Hili: Wszystko jedno byle był miękki.

*******************

From Funny and Strange Signs:

From Cats Doing Cat Stuff:

From The Language Nerds:

Masih tells us that Iran can now recruit soldiers as young as twelve years old:

Luana sent this one; I hadn’t heard about it on the local news, but that’s because it was late last night:

From Emma.  The relevant article from the International Olympic Committee is here, and announces this:

  • Eligibility for any female category event at the Olympic Games or any other IOC event, including individual and team sports, is now limited to biological females, determined on the basis of a one‑time SRY gene screening.
  • Evidence‑based and expert‑informed, the policy – applicable for the LA28 Olympic Games onwards – protects fairness, safety and integrity in the female category.

The policy is not retroactive, but this is a move in the right direction.

The announcement from the IOOC:

Two from my feed. First, some great dancing:

You’ll want to watch the pair here, too. This may be my favorite Astair pairing. I’ve watched it a million times and could watch it a million more times.

And I had to post this one:

Lagniappe: a great video from Science Girl:

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

. . . and two from Dr. Cobb. First, catroaches! But don’t squash ’em!

How to get disowned by your family.Available on Amazon for $13.94.

— Rav (@rvbdrm.com) 2026-03-26T03:50:18.082Z

Three liters of vodka? Seriously?

Not a fan of defacing works of art, but the picture is hilarious. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/article…

— Meepy (@floweroflondon.bsky.social) 2026-03-25T13:23:22.921Z

Once again, the superstitionists proclaim the death of New Atheism—and atheism in general

March 26, 2026 • 11:30 am

The oxymoronically-named Union of Catholic Christian Rationalists (UCCR) has joined the yammering pack of believers that keeps telling us that New Atheism has died, when, in fact, it did its job and then moved on. It’s like saying that suffragism failed and has died out!  The New-Atheist-dissers are trying desperately to explain the failure of a phenomenon that not only succeeded in changing minds, but whose proponents, no longer consumed by a need to point out the lack of evidence for gods, have moved on to other things.

You can read this tripe by clicking the UCCR articlebelow. Excerpts are indented, and my own comments are flush left. The piece is also archived here in case they want to correct stuff like their mis-naming of Rebecca Watson.

Here’s their intro (bolding is theirs):

Why did New Atheism fail?

Numerous observers have tried to explain the astonishing failure of new atheism, despite a society that was intellectually lazy, affluent, and consumerist, and that agreed with them on everything: the supposed anachronism of religious thought, the bigotry of moral judgments, the violence generated by religions, and the unhealthy mixing of politics and religion.

And yet, as the rationalist Scott Alexander observed, “in the bubble where no one believes in God anymore and everyone is fully concerned with sexual minorities and Trump, it is less painful to be a Catholic than a fan of Dawkins.”

Indeed, Alexander continues, only in the case of “New Atheism”, “modern progressive culture turned toward the ‘new atheists’ and, seeing itself, said: ‘This is truly stupid and annoying.’”

UCCR was born precisely during the years of fame of the “new atheists,” out of the need to provide a tool for believers “surrounded” by opinion-makers, intellectuals, and journalists. We followed the evolution of the phenomenon and its deflation, despite predictions that it would dominate the scene.

Having familiarity with the topic, we suggest five decisive factors to explain the disastrous end of “New Atheism.”

They are of course more biased against atheism than they are familiar with the topic.  I’ll condense the five factors; there is more text at the site:

1.) The election of Obama

It may seem incredible, but former U.S. President Barack Obama delivered the first major blow to the “new atheists.”

First of all, his election removed the “common enemy” that had ensured unity within the movement.

Before 2008, the glue binding activists was the much-hated conservative George W. Bush. Biologist PZ Myers and Richard Dawkins (today bitter enemies) appeared together publicly to oppose Bush and became idols celebrated by the progressive establishment.

Secondly, the Obama administration—supported by major media and cultural circles—pulled the rug out from under them: it reshaped American (and thus Western) culture by making criticism of Islam politically incorrect.

In fact, “New Atheism” emerged in the aftermath of September 11, and for years Islam was the preferred tool for generalizing about religious violence.

Under Obama, however, it became a minefield, and the first to step on it were two leading figures, Sam Harris and Michael Onfray, who began to be viewed negatively and portrayed as racists even by progressive media.

Obama was elected in 2008 and, as you see below, America’s rejection of established religion was well underway by then.

2.) Rejection by the academic world.

After the publication of his bestseller “The God Delusion” (2006), Dawkins, together with the other “horsemen,” began to denigrate agnostics and “moderate atheists,” accusing them of tolerating religious opinions and refusing to take sides.

Over time, the entire academic world was accused of cowardice for not joining the attack on religion. One example was Coyne’s media campaign against the agnostic historian Bart D. Ehrman, author of works defending the historicity of Christ.

Another emblematic case was the media pressure by Sam Harris in the New York Times and against the scientific community to prevent the Christian geneticist Francis Collins from remaining head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The attempt of “New Atheism” to enter and influence the academic world was explicitly stated at the 2006 Beyond Belief conference.

But the resounding failure was confirmed by the deep embarrassment expressed by non-believing academics themselves. For example, Nobel laureate Peter Higgs stated: “The problem with Dawkins is that he focuses his attacks on fundamentalists, but clearly not all believers are like that. In this sense, I think Dawkins’ attitude is fundamentalist, from the opposite side.”

Having lost the academic world, all their visibility depended entirely on media support, which gradually began to crumble, as seen above.

In fact, in the last relevant survey I could find, published in 2010, 23% of American college professors were agnostics and atheists, compared to just 4% of the American public. If there were no reporting bias, the rate of nonbelief among university academics is about six times higher than that of the American public in general. Once again, the authors of this dire piece are not using data as evidence, but simply ad hominem arguments—mostly detailing people’s criticisms of Dawkins and Sam Harris. But given the continuing rise of “nones” (which may have hit a temporary plateau but has not decreased), these are post hoc rationalizations. As faith slips away from Americans, it’s not enough for religionists to hold on to their personal beliefs—they need the support of like-minded people to make them think they’re on the right track.

I should add that as I quote and document in Faith Versus Fact, American scientists are 41% atheists, with only 33% believing in God (the other didn’t answer or were “spiritual”). If you look at more accomplished scientists, the rate of atheism rises to nearly 100%. It’s simply dumb to think that academics as a lot have rejected New Atheism.

3.) The response of believing intellectuals

Another reason for the decline of “New Atheism” lies in the entry into the debate of various Christian scientists, philosophers, and thinkers.

A new generation of believing intellectuals succeeded in presenting reasonable arguments in support of faith, showing that the “New Atheists” spent much of their time constructing straw-man arguments about religion, only to knock them down.

In his books, for example, Richard Dawkins strongly opposed a god that no one has ever believed in: the famous “god of the gaps”.

Some of these Christian intellectuals engaged directly with “New Atheism” by publishing books explicitly opposed to it, catching irreligious activists off guard. Among them:

  • John Lennox, emeritus professor of Mathematics at Oxford University, author of “God’s Undertaker”;
  • Amir D. Aczel, professor of Mathematics at the University of Massachusetts, author of “Why Science Does Not Disprove God”;
  • Francis Collins, renowned geneticist, author of “The Language of God”;
  • Kenneth R. Miller, emeritus professor of biology at Brown University, author of “Finding Darwin’s God”;
  • Owen Gingerich, emeritus professor of Astronomy and History of Science at Harvard University, author of “God’s Universe”;
  • Arthur Peacocke, theologian and biochemist at Oxford, author of “Paths From Science Towards God”.

More briefly, we also mention philosophers Alvin Plantinga, William Lane Craig, Robert Spaemann, Roger Trigg, Richard Swinburne, and Richard Schroder; physicists Gerald Schroeder, John Polkinghorne, and Russell Stannard; and sociologist Rodney Stark.

I have to laugh when I look at that list of names.  While Ken Miller, who’s circumspect about exactly what he believes, is a good scientist and textbook writer, I’ve look at the beliefs of most of these people either on this website or in Faith Versus Fact. I usually don’t count theologians as intellectuals because most of them adhere to an unevidenced superstition—that there’s a God.  They are academics with a delusion.  If you want to take frozen waterfalls as evidence for God, for example, read Francis Collins. Or, for a good laugh when you want reasons why people think that Jesus was Lord, read the “evidence” used by C. S. Lewish. For every name they give above, I could give the name of five real intellectuals who are atheists.

This next one’s a corker, and even mentions me:

4.) The “Elevatorgate Scandal”

In 2011, a minor dispute about the behavior of participants at an atheist convention became known as “elevatorgate” and sparked the first major internal feud among irreligious activists online.

Feminist Emma Watson was sexually harassed in an elevator and publicly reported it, but was rebuked by leaders of “New Atheism” for risking negative publicity for their movement.

This episode marked the beginning of a break between the movement and feminism.

The situation worsened when Richard Dawkins made sexist remarks about the victim, hosted on the blog of PZ Myers. The community split between feminists and Dawkins supporters.

At that point, PZ Myers turned against Dawkins, labeling him racist and Islamophobic, alongside Sam Harris.

The media amplified everything and even named Dawkins among the worst misogynists of the year—a devastating blow to the movement.

Gradually, more commentators began to turn against the “priests of atheism”. Biologist Jerry Coyne tried for a time to defend Dawkins and Harris but eventually burned out. Today, much of his blog focuses on cats. . . .

First of all, “Elevatorgate” involved Rebecca Watson, not the actress Emma Watson. Do your homework, Christians! But beyond that, no, Elevatorgate did not make people start believing in God again, or erode the increase in nonbelief, as you can see by looking at the years around 2011 in the two plots below. It was a tempest in a teapot, and there’s not a scintilla of evidence that it buttressed faith, stemmed the rise of atheism, and so on. It just led some people who already hated Dawkins to criticize him even more.

As for me being “burned out” and focusing on cats, that’s ludicrous. I’m as atheistic as ever, and still promulgating it, as I am in this piece. But after I spent three years researching and writing Faith Versus Fact, I grew weary of banging the same old drum, and decided to bang it only when necessary, for example when this moronic article came out. As for “focusing on cats”, you be the judge. Sure, I write about them, but they’re by no means in every post I put up.

And, god help me, we have the last one:

5.) Richard Dawkins

The creator himself turned out to be the worst cause of his creation’s demise.

Richard Dawkins was the most prominent figure, a YouTube celebrity and tireless preacher. After “elevatorgate,” however, he became a target of internal criticism.

His downfall, however, came with social media—especially Twitter. Without editorial filtering, the zoologist revealed aspects of himself that had previously remained hidden.

With nearly a million followers, his sexist and racist remarks, his defense of “mild pedophilia”, encouragement of infidelity, and criticism of mothers who give birth to children with Down syndrome did not go unnoticed.

For years he has become a mockery online, especially after opposing the transgender movement.

According to Vice, “he has dishonored atheism”. His books have flopped, and even his most important scientific theory, the “selfish gene”, has been challenged by physiologist Denis Noble.

Yes, people have found plenty of “reasons” to go after Richard Dawkins, and he’s become the lightning rod for believers who hate atheism.  But nowhere in those criticisms, or in this very piece, do we see any refutation of Richard’s main reason to be an atheist: lack of evidence.  One would think that a genuine reason for rejecting atheism is that new evidence for a personal god has appeared. It hasn’t, and even a new line of anti-atheistic arguments, Intelligent Design, has come to nothing.

As for Dawkins’s books flopping, I’d suggest the authors look up the sales of The God Delusion, Climbing Mount Improbable, The Blind Watchmaker, and others. All of them were bestsellers, and all gave arguments against religious belief.

Here’s the summary of the piece:

Primatologist Frans De Waal accused the “new atheists” of being “obsessed with the non-existence of God, going on media campaigns, wearing T-shirts proclaiming their lack of faith, and calling for militant atheism.”

But he also asked: “What does atheism have to offer that is worth fighting for in this way?”

This is the question that remains. Defining oneself as “anti-” allows only limited survival; without offering meaningful answers to life’s meaning, failure is inevitable.

Philosopher Philippe Nemo wrote a remarkable epitaph for “New Atheism,” which we reproduce in full:

“Despite attempts to eradicate Christianity, atheism has died a natural death; it was not killed, since the modern world has given—and continues to give—it every opportunity to defend its cause and offer humanity new reasons for living. Opportunities wasted, because it failed to keep its promises, did not fulfill the intellectual programs that constituted its only attraction, and did not succeed in showing that man is less miserable without God than with God.”1.

This is ridiculous, of course. First, nobody, including the Great Satan Richard Dawkins—thinks of atheism as something that gives their life meaning.  It is simply a lack of belief in gods: an abandonment of religious superstition.

And what were the “promises” that New Atheism made? None, as far as I can tell. They maintained only that if you accept things based on evidence, you’re not going to embrace religion. And as the power of science grows (it’s one reason people give for leaving religions), so the grip of belief loosens.

The rise of nonbelief in America is documented in the two plots below, one from Pew and the other from Gallup. The plots (summaried in The Baptist News!) show the rise of the “nones”—people who don’t embrace an established church—as well as the fall of the ‘not-nones,” that is, people who do adhere to an established church.

Yeah, nonbelief has really fallen in America since the first New Atheist book (by Sam Harris) in 2004. NOT!

One question for readers:

Why are so many people eager to proclaim the death of New Atheism?

This is a Gallup plot:

And a Pew plot:

Ghost the octopus died

March 26, 2026 • 9:30 am

This morning I woke up to this email from the Aquarium of the Pacific (I suppose I’d signed up for communications a while back) announcing the death of Ghost, the universe’s best-known and most loved Giant Pacific Octopus (Enteroctopus dofleini):

The Aquarium is saddened by the loss of Ghost, the giant Pacific octopus who was beloved by staff, guests, and those who learned about her online. Ghost died on March 24 after entering senescence, the natural end-of-life process after laying eggs. The Aquarium announced Ghost’s senescence online in September 2025. Ghost was resting behind the scenes while animal care and veterinary staff provided her with extra support and care during her senescence.

Digital image and b-roll of Ghost can be downloaded here through the Aquarium’s Media Library.

For interviews, please call 562-833-1455 or reply to this email.

Best wishes,

Marilyn Padilla / Chelsea Quezada / Andreas Miguel

(562) 951-1684 / (562) 951-3197 / (562) 951-1678

Public Relations

Aquarium of the Pacific

AoP Logo with Organization.png

20250606AOP_JB10065.jpg

I’ve posted about Ghost several times before, and when she went into senescence, after producing a batch of infertile eggs (there was no male in her tank), they took her off display. I kept watching for a death announcement, but in the absence of one, I assumed she’d crossed the Rainbow Bridge and they were going to keep her death quiet.  So I was taken aback by the announcement above because I didn’t think it possible for an octopus to senesce for seven months.  But I guess it is possible.  I looked it up on Wikipedia, which said this (my bolding):

After reproduction, they enter senescence, which involves obvious changes in behavior and appearance, including a reduced appetite, retraction of skin around the eyes giving them a more pronounced appearance, increased activity in uncoordinated patterns, and white lesions all over the body. While the duration of this stage is variable, it typically lasts about one to two months. Despite active senescence primarily occurring over this period immediately following reproduction, research has shown that changes related to senescence may begin as early as the onset of reproductive behavior. In early stages of senescence, which begins as the octopus enters the stage of reproduction, hyper-sensitivity is noted where individuals overreact to both noxious and non-noxious touch. As they enter late senescence, insensitivity is observed along with the dramatic physical changes described above. Changes in sensitivity to touch are attributed to decreasing cellular density in nerve and epithelial cells as the nervous system degrades.  Death is typically attributed to starvation, as the females have stopped hunting in order to protect their eggs; males often spend more time in the open, making them more likely to be preyed upon.

Ghost lived more than three times that long, probably because she was lovingly cared for by the Aquarium staff, as recounted in this story from ABC Eyewitness News 7.,which also confirms the demise of the beloved mollusc:

A beloved octopus at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach has died, officials announced Wednesday.

The giant Pacific octopus named Ghost died on Tuesday.

Back in September, aquarium officials announced that Ghost laid eggs and entered the last phase of her life cycle, known as senescence. She had been resting behind the scenes while being taken care of by aquarium staff during her senescence.

Ghost the octopus is spending her final days at the Aquarium of the Pacific caring for her eggs – even though they will never hatch.

“We are going to miss her. Ghost left a big impression on us and on so many people, even those beyond our Aquarium,” Nate Jaros, Aquarium of the Pacific vice president of animal care, said in a press release announcing her death. “She was spirited and very charismatic and loved to interact with our animal care staff. She was very engaged with the mazes and puzzles our staff created just for her. Ghost had a preference for interacting with her aquarist caregiver, sometimes preferring these interactions over eating. She was especially inquisitive when our staff members would dive in the habitat for maintenance.”

In her last days, care for Ghost included hand-prepped quality seafood, curated enrichment activities for her mind, and state-of-the art veterinary care.

Although senescence is part of the natural life cycle of a female octopus, aquarium officials noted her passing was a sad time for all.

“We hope part of her legacy is raising awareness about octopuses and inspiring people to care for and protect the ocean,” said Jaros.

Ghost arrived at Aquarium of the Pacific in May 2024 and only weighed about three pounds at the time. She grew to be over 50 pounds and was estimated to have been between two and four years old when she died.

In the wild, giant Pacific octopuses live up to five years. They spend their whole lives alone and only come together briefly to reproduce.

Here’s Ghost being weighed (a hefty 40 pounds) in happier days:

@aquariumpacific

Ghost’s weigh-in 🏋️‍♀️🐙⚖️ #animalcare #octopus #aquariumofthepacific

♬ Jazz Bossa Nova – TOKYO Lonesome Blue

As a thought exercise, and maybe in a comment, think about why it’s adaptive for a female to waste away unto death when she could start eating and perhaps produce a second brood. Why would evolution favor senescence in a case like this? Notice in the announcement above that she was indeed eating as she approached death, but senescence involves more than just food deprivation: humans senescence and die too, even when they’re eating.

Readers’ wildlife photos

March 26, 2026 • 8:15 am

In the absence of much of a backlog, I’ve stolen some gorgeous photos from reader Scott Ritchie of Cairns, Australia (his FB page is here).  Scott’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

Recently I visited my friends, Karen and David Young in the Crater Lake cabins near Lake Eacham, Atherton Tablelands, west of Cairns. This area is a mega for birds and they did not disappoint. In particular, we got great up close and personal views of our local bird of paradise, bird of prayer, paradise, the Victoria rifle bird.

The male of the species has jet black feathers. However, in just the right light you get a lovely iridescent reflection. The other thing these birds do is dance. It’s an amazing shuffling of the wings while top of stump while throwing their head out and flashing your lovely iridescent blue throat. The immature riflebird is a beautiful brown/rufous color, and they can’t help to practice their dance moves. And of course dad’s gotta come along and join in the festivities.

Also, here’s a few photos of some other creatures that I saw on my little five hour trip to the table lands. I hope you enjoy them.

Male Victoria’s Riflebird (Ptiloris victoriae),in full dance pose. Note the jet black feathers:

Swishes wings sideways, like a flying saucer. Peering above the wings:

But in the right light, iridescent rainbows appear:

I love the cooper and purple sheen on his back:

Meanwhile, youngster, an immature male, practices his dance moves. He leans back, showing off his wild yellow throat:

“Peek-a-boo”
Stands up, and swishes his wings back and forth, hiding his head behind them:

Then stands proud:

And then the adult male shows up. I’ll show you who’s boss:

Has he lost his mind?

I’m definitely King of the Stump:

Off youngster goes, only to be replaced by another male!:

And a few other local birds made an appearance. Pacific Emerald Dove (Chalcophaps longirostris):

Macleay’s Honeyeater (Xanthotis macleayanus):

Grey-headed Robin (Heteromyias cinereifrons):

And the musky rat-kangaroo (Hypsiprymnodon moschatus), our smallest proper roo!:

And the Boyd’s Forest Dragon (Lophosaurus boydii) appeared for the lizard and snake lovers: