Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
Did you spot the tawny frogmouth in this morning’s post. It wasn’t too hard, was it. Here is the reveal and some closeups. By the way, I welcome good “spot the. . . ” photos, but try to avoid putting the hidden animal in the dead center of the photo!
Closeups:
How nice to live in a place where you can see one of these in your yard, even though they’re not easy to see!
For reasons I don’t understand, Miss Duck left Botany Pond three days ago and has not returned. There are no signs of a predator attack, and my best guess is that she just felt it was time for her to leave. Unfortunately, she leaves behind the brood of four, who seem quite discombobulated without their mom around. The only good part is that they’re seven weeks and one day old, and will be flying on their own very soon.
The brood hangs around together as they have all along, but seem aimless, and their appetite is definitely down. I am not too worried, but I do feed them as much as they can handle and I talk to them as they do know my voice. (I learned today they can recognize it over the telephone.)
I don’t know if I’ll ever see Miss Duck again, but she proved to be somewhat of a worse mother than we thought. Maybe she’ll return next spring; if she does she’ll get a stiff lecture (but after a big meal). I have some duck pictures left to post, but that will be later. For the time being, here is Miss Duck (when she was on the Pond):
I believe the frogmouth was among the very first animals in the “spot the. . ” series, and now here’s one again, courtesy of reader Peter, who sends a photo of a tawny frogmouth (Podargus strigoides) he spotted in his front yard in Brisbane, Australia.
Can you see it in the photo below. The reveal will be at noon Chicago time, and if you spot it, say so in the comments, but don’t reveal its location.
Welcome to Monday, September 7, 2026, and since it’s the first Monday in September, it’s Labor Day, an official government holiday. Here’s a brief history of the one day a year dedicated to celebrating workers:
It’s also Grandma Moses Day, celebrating the painter born on this day in 1860 (she lived to be 101). She started painting at age 77, older than I am now, and you can see some of her paintings here. It’s also National Acorn Squash Day, National Beer Lover’s Day (note that the apostrophe implies that the holiday celebrates only one lover of beer), and Salami Day. Salami is of course an Eastern European treat, and, in the porkless form, beloved by Jews. Here’s a photo that was in the window of Katz’s Delicatessen in New York City in 2010 (it was clearly taken during WWII):
Finally, today’s Google Doodle celebrates Labor Day; click the icon to see where it goes:
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the September 7 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*In a NYT op-ed, Margaret McMillan (“a historian and a former warden of St. Antony’s College, Oxford”) predicts a worldwide apocalypse, or perhaps even a world war, in a piece called “A new world order is coming. We aren’t ready” (article archived here).
Today, there are dead rats all around. Temperature records have been set and reset this summer, the earth has baked in droughts, and wildfires have raged. Debt across advanced economies is approaching historic highs. Cuts in medical and food aid, most significantly by the United States, have caused unnecessary deaths and helped the spread of diseases, one of which, sooner or later, could become another pandemic. Artificial intelligence continues its rapid, unregulated rise, threatening jobs, security and, in darker projections, human existence.
Revisionist powers flout rules and norms with impunity. Electorates are angry and volatile. Slow, deliberate, necessarily discreet diplomacy, which builds trust and understanding, has given way to a performative, brash style more suited for TikTok-addled attention spans or the playground.
The Uppsala Conflict Data Program recorded 65 state-based conflicts last year — the most since 1946. Great powers find themselves bogged down in asymmetric wars with countries that are making the most of new technologies. Russia’s war in Ukraine, meant to be won in a matter of days, is creaking through its fifth year. Iran, using inexpensive, mass-produced drones to attack American forces and allies, has gained control, perhaps permanently, over a crucial corridor of world trade, drastically reduced U.S. missile stocks and mired President Trump in a war of his own choice.
A world war is not inevitable, but the threat of a catastrophic conflict between big and well-armed powers is closer than it was for decades.
. . .But a new reality has arrived with startling speed. The world order that held together for most of our lives started to erode when those within it got too comfortable and complacent and when there was too much acceptance — even approval — of bad behavior.
We have arrived in a new age of disorder. We must prepare ourselves, beginning with being honest about the seriousness of the moment we’re in and accepting that our fragile system is faltering. That countries are already adjusting, for better and worse. And that any future of cooperation will have to look different.
McMillan ends on a hopeful note: perhaps we can rebuild something afresh, something that will not fail. Her example is what the Allies created after WWII. Unfortunately, that lasted only 80 years.
*Over at It’s Noon in Israel, Amit Segal gives us another dip on the roller-coaster ride of his Iran war coverage: this time he argues that although launches of drones and missiles from Iran have fallen substantially, they could in principle be replenished quickly:
By the tenth day of Operation Epic Fury, US officials assessed that Iranian drone launches had fallen 83 percent from their opening levels and ballistic missile launches by roughly 90 percent. But a recent report by the Hudson Institute’s Can Kasapoğlu argues that despite the seemingly optimistic numbers, Iranian drones and missiles can make a quick recovery.
His broader assessment is that attrition has hurt the IRGC badly without breaking it. Inventories are depleted and infrastructure damaged, but the order of battle, doctrine, discipline and cohesion have held. Despite the killing of much of the senior leadership in the first 24 hours of the war, the direct Mossad phone calls, and the apparent double agent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, there have been no senior defections and no organizational fragmentation. Precisely what is needed for an organization to rebuild.
Drones will come back first. The inputs are modular and substitutable, spread across universities, workshops, front companies and foreign vendors. Strikes can eliminate stockpiles, but so long as the knowledge and the suppliers survive, so will the drone threat. Kasapoğlu expects Iran to regain drone mass within months. They won’t be the highest quality, but it doesn’t take million-dollar drones to keep Gulf capitals up at night and the United States restrained.
Missiles will return more slowly, held up by a chemical chokepoint. Solid-propellant production depends on large planetary mixers and on sodium perchlorate from China. Rebuilding a bombed factory is the easy part. Restoring controlled chemical flows, specialized machinery and skilled production teams is not.
Whether that flow resumes depends less on Washington than on Beijing. China supplies the vast majority of Iran’s missile-fuel precursor and more than 60 percent of the electronics in the Shahed drone family, along with navigation modules, optics, batteries, machine tools and fibre-optic cable. Publicly, Beijing has assured Washington that no weapons will reach Iran; in practice, sanctioned Iranian ships have kept docking at Chinese ports.
None of this would matter much if not for one fact: US and Israeli interceptor stocks are stressed, and take far longer to replace than the cheap weapons fired at them.
Much of the mainstream media has hauled the battered Iranian boxer off the canvas, checked he’s still breathing, and declared him the winner for lasting a few rounds with the champion. It continues to insist, even as the effects of the blockade and sanctions have made it clear who has the upper hand.
My argument is simply not to swing from the doomerism of the past two months into triumphalism now. The lion may be trapped and starving, but it still has claws.
Well, does the U.S. have the upper hand? We haven’t stopped the Iranian nuclear weapons program for good, the Strait of Hormuz has a lot less traffic than before the war, and the Iranian people are still under the yoke. I call that something close to a standoff.
*Over at the Free Press, psychiatrist Sally Satel tells us what kind of verdict she thinks should have been handed down by the jury in the Lindsay Clancy case.
Clancy continues to be charged with three counts of first-degree murder. Her lawyer and the prosecutors will consider next steps while she remains in a mental-health facility.
Whatever comes next, the case is a reminder about the hazards of addressing mental illness challenges in the courtroom, the need for legal and psychiatric reforms, and the urgency of educating doctors as well as patients about psychosis in general and postpartum psychosis in particular. If Clancy is retried, here is why I hope the next jury will find her not criminally responsible.
. ., .The tragedy was the culmination of five months of anguish and help-seeking. Although Clancy said she initially felt well following Callan’s birth in May 2022, she saw a psychiatrist in late summer for help with depression, severe insomnia, and feelings of being overwhelmed by simple tasks like dressing or showering.Over time, she allegedly began having suicidal ideation and experiencing what have been variously described as “intrusive thoughts” and “auditory hallucinations” telling her that she was “damaged” and would “not be the same,” and that “the only option is to die.” In December 2022, she told her husband and mother that she had thoughts of harming her children and was worried that other people could hear those thoughts.
. . .Massachusetts uses the McHoul standard for insanity. It allows for a determination of “not criminally responsible” if a person with a mental disorder or defect (which every expert agreed Clancy had) lacks either the capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct or the capacity to conform her conduct to the requirements of the law. If the defendant presents evidence to support her lack of responsibility, the prosecutors bear the burden to prove her responsibility beyond a reasonable doubt. Some thought the prosecutors did not carry this burden; others thought they did.
I see particularly strong reasons to doubt Clancy’s capacity to conform her behavior to the demands of the law. After her husband left on the errand, she experienced an audible command to kill. She felt she had to “obey,” according to psychiatrist Phillip Resnick, an expert for the defense. Resnick also testified that Clancy suffered a “delusion of influence” (a formal term) just before and during the killing. “She felt that her body was taken over by an external force, where she was in a dream state and did not have control of her own body,” Resnick told the jury. “It was almost like she was a puppet and someone else was pulling the strings.” In short, this compulsion made it impossible for her to follow the law.
I could also make a case for solid skepticism that Clancy appreciated the wrongfulness of her conduct. This does not mean that she was ignorant of the law—she surely knew that murder was wrong and illegal. Rather, it means that she was acting on a deranged belief that her kids would suffer so greatly without her that they needed to die. Clancy genuinely believed, Resnick said, that she was protecting the children by taking them with her to heaven. Consistent with this formulation was Clancy saying to a hospital chaplain a week after the killings: “I am so glad my children are safe.”
In reaching these conclusions, I have accepted the truth of Clancy’s description of the voice she heard and her explanation of why she followed its command. I believe her account because absolutely nothing in her past foreshadowed her cataclysmic act.
Well, Clancy is responsible in the sense that she killed her kids, but to me that’s all a jury can decide, and it’s something that she already admitted. The second part of the justice system, which shouldn’t involve a judge or jury, is to determine how the accused is treated when convicted—treatment that can only be, in my view, for deterrence, sequestering a baddie from society, and for rehabilitation. Already there’s a parallel case in which a North Carolina woman did something pretty similar to Clancy, probably inspired by her (the woman was transfixed by the Clancy case). So yes, we may need deterrence. I can’t make a good case that Clancy remains a danger to society since she has no more children and is probably unlikely to attack strangers. As for the cure, well, that’s the job of the therapists. If a woman’s mentally ill but no longer a danger to society, can she be locked up against her will?
*If you read here regularly, you’ll know that although formal affiliation with religion is dropping among Americans, many still claim they have a “god-shaped hole” in their soul that needs to be filled with some faux-religious activity. Now the Democratic Socialists of America are trying to fill that hole with social (and socialist) activity; this is reported in the WSJ article, “The DSA is using coffee with comrades and socialist softball to convert the curious” (nice alliteration!). Sure enough, while I was thinking the above when reading the article, the word “church” appeared!
On a recent Saturday morning, a youngish group gathered around a table in the sun-dappled garden of a Brooklyn coffee shop. Beneath a bright blue sky they were sipping drinks, chatting—and building socialism.
The “Coffee With Comrades” was hosted by the Democratic Socialists of America. It was yet another in an endless buffet of social events the DSA uses both to attract new members and more closely bind existing ones to the movement.
In Queens, DSAers were playing “socialist softball” at Queensbridge Park. “Bring your own glove if you can—but if you don’t have one, we’ll encourage folks to share as need be,” an invitation advised. Meanwhile, at Forest Park in Woodhaven, other socialists gathered for a “Desi, Afro and Latin” potluck picnic. The previous evening featured a DSA game night in Long Island City.
The socialists, it turns out, are highly social.
In chapters across the country, they enjoy DSA barbecues, beach days, running clubs, happy hours, karaoke, prom nights, transgender rights and bodily autonomy game nights, reading groups, Marxist study circles and more. The DSA is even moving into affairs of the heart with a recent “Socialist Speed Dating” event in New York’s Lower East Side. (“In the era of late-stage capitalism, our dating and social lives are more and more controlled by for-profit companies,” read a flier.)
“It’s a good way to be social,” Caroline Hill, a printmaker who had attended the Brooklyn coffee, said of her DSA activism. The 25-year-old estimated about half of her social life was tied to the DSA.
For others, the DSA can become all encompassing, according to David Duhalde, a longtime member and writer. The movement, he argued, has stepped into a gap left by a withering civic society—particularly for a generation yearning for engagement after the isolation of the pandemic.
“It really fulfills a social function that a church would,” said Duhalde, who plays pickup basketball with DSA chums, often finds himself at dinner parties with fellow DSA couples and whose phone is populated by various DSA message chains—the DSA Knicks Chat, the Socialist Majority Caucus Chat and others. “It becomes a way for people to hang out.”
I don’t know which is worse: the DSA or religion.Well, I suppose religion is worse overall, but some religions, like the Quakers, are less harmful to America than the DSA would be if it ever got substantial political power.
*In the “Trilobites” biology column of the NYT, science writer Kate Golembiewski reports on insect fossils, noting that “The world’s first bugs had way more legs” (six is the standard number now). The article is archived here, and the Nature paper it summarizes is linked below (click the title to read).The word “bug” is unfortunate as Golemiewski really means “insects” (“true”bugs are insects in the order Hemiptera). This insect, from 324 million years ago, is identified as an insect because it shares “apomorphies” (derived traits common to all members of a group) with all insects, living or fossil; those traits are include “an ovipositor and a terminal filament but differ[ing] from crown-group insects, most notably with respect to the presence of multisegmented abdominal legs with paddle-like modifications.” The multisegmented legs and their position are not known in modern insects. An excerpt:
Erik Tihelka’s first glimpse of one of the world’s oldest insects came from an outdated Russian textbook that he bought on eBay.
In it, a small line drawing of a fossil, labeled as an early crustacean that had lived 324 million years ago, caught his eye. “The more I looked, the more intrigued I got,” said Mr. Tihelka, a doctoral student in paleontology at Cambridge.
For a fossil described as a crustacean, it seemed to have an awful lot of insectlike traits, such as a body split into three parts, a pair of antennae and six legs emerging from the central part of the body. Overall, it looked a lot like a modern silverfish.
But there was one big difference between this fossil and our current definition of an insect, which has six legs: This one had 24.
Today, insects make up more than half the known species of animals, but their early origins are shrouded in mystery. The many-legged fossil, unearthed in Texas and stored in the collections of the San Diego Natural History Museum since 1985, could represent a breakthrough. In a new study published in Nature, Mr. Tihelka and his colleagues propose that his discovery is one of the oldest insect fossils ever found, and that these early insects had four times the number of legs seen on a standard bug today.
Genetic analyses have shown that insects’ closest relatives are crustaceans, but they split off into their own group and moved onto land. Very little is known about this transition, because insects and their fellow six-legged arthropods are missing from the fossil record from roughly 385 to 322 million years ago. Paleontologists call this period the “hexapod gap.” But the insect-resembling fossil in Mr. Tihelka’s textbook was from 324 million years ago — just inside the gap.
Based on the illustration alone, he couldn’t be certain that he’d really spotted an early insect. “Although it’s a very nicely preserved fossil, it’s a black fossil on a black rock,” Mr. Tihelka said. “I had an inkling, but I thought, I have to make sure.”
. . .He took his first trip to the United States to examine the fossil in person. Using a microscope and specialized light polarization filters to highlight subtle features, he was able to confirm that the fossil had a combination of insect and crustacean traits. He hypothesized that the extra legs were “a holdover from its crustacean ancestors,” but the fossil was indeed an insect.
From the paper’s abstract:
Together, these stem-group fossils represent the earliest uncontested insects and partly reconcile the incongruence between molecular clock estimates and the fossil record. The unusual abdominal gill-like appendages of Chosha suggest a semiaquatic mode of life in at least some stem-insects and revise our understanding of the assembly of insect morphological organization.
Here’s a figure (with caption) from the paper, showing the 24-legged proto-insect (click to enlarge):
“Trilobite” gives this lesson: collections are important!
In addition to providing new insight into the history of life on Earth, Dr. Knecht said that the study highlights the importance of museum collections like the one where Chosha was kept for 40 years before being recognized as an insect. “It allows us to go back, revisit, and sometimes make big discoveries using new technologies or new insights that we didn’t have the first time we looked at the fossil,” Dr. Knecht said.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili isn’t ready for sleep:
Andrzej: It’s late already, time to go to bed.
Hili: Let’s read for another half an hour.
In Polish:
Ja: Późno już, pora iść spać.
Hili: Poczytajmy jeszcze pół godziny.
*******************
From Bad Spelling or Grammar on Signs and Notices; inappropriate apostrophes. The only possibly accurate one is “massage”:
From Meow Incorporated:
From the 2025 Darwin Awards!!!/Epic Fails!!!
From Masih; a sixteen-year-old girl beaten to death with batons by the Iranian police. Why? She was peacefully demonstrating, of course.
Let me introduce you to Sarina Esmailzadeh, another hero from my country, Iran.
She was 16 years old. And like so many teenage girls her age, she had a YouTube channel.
She filmed herself baking cookies. She vlogged about her life in Karaj. She talked about compulsory hijab,… pic.twitter.com/HPUHTBAMTB
— Masih Alinejad (@AlinejadMasih) August 31, 2026
From Malcolm; my dream (note that the tiger sounds like a buzzsaw):
A cat is a cat no matter the size pic.twitter.com/JdkFellG0D
— Posts Of Cats (@PostsOfCats) January 20, 2025
From Luana. People will believe anything, including that correlation proves causation. Also, maybe, over history, the rise of fascism is correlated with less food for both sexes.
Hollywood actress Hannah Einbinder blames “fascism” for women wanting to be slim.
“As we see a rise in fascism, there is a direct correlation with thinness to make women take up less space.” pic.twitter.com/0VTlRFqe2e
— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) August 30, 2026
The Number Ten cat has a bit of hubris:
Magnifique! https://t.co/9Ng0bdldF7
— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) September 3, 2026
One from my feed, and it’s a good one:
Norway’s Prime Minister rips apart Trump’s stupid letter. Love this!
Every leader that receives a letter like this from DJT should do the same.
Thanks for your attention to this matter! BRILLIANT! pic.twitter.com/dkytn3qp5t— Helena (@HelenaGoransson) September 6, 2026
And one I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:
This Hungarian Jewish girl was gassed to death as soon as she arrived in Auschwitz. She was about eleven years old. https://t.co/B67izB4WK4
— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) September 7, 2026
Two from Matthew Cobb. The first one he deems “accurate” (it’s a loon, of course). Click on it to go to original, as I can’t embed it.
A series of “reincarnation” cartoons on this thread; they’re of varying quality. Here, the second is far better.
A bit late, but what even is time cosmically speaking?
— Adrian Brightmoore / The World Foundry (@theworldfoundry.com) 2026-08-31T06:16:15.385Z
Welcome to Sunday, September 6, 2026, the second day of a three-day weekend, for tomorrow is Labor Day in America. It’s also National Read a Book Day (note, they don’t say “Listen to a book”). I’m on a Maggie O’Farrell kick, and after reading and enjoying Hamnet and The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, I’m now reading her first novel, After You’d Gone. I’ve just finished Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations, by Ronen Bergman, which is very good, fascinating, but scary.
It’s also Fight Procrastination Day (don’t worry, you can do it tomorrow), National Coffee Ice Cream Day, and Great Egg Toss Day, celebrating a day when people compete to toss an egg to a partner without breaking it. Here’s what the link says:
Great Egg Toss Day takes place on September 6th, because that was the day in 1981 that Risto Antikainen threw a fresh egg 317 feet, 10 inches, to Jyrki Korhonen. But, there is other evidence that a Guinness World Record was set in 1978 with a throw of 323 feet, 2 inches, in a toss from Johnny Dell Foley to Keith Thomas. This was listed by Guinness World Records until 2000, when they removed egg tossing from their book. The World Egg Throwing Federation currently holds egg throwing events, and contestants regularly toss eggs over 200 feet.
Here’s the World Championships in 2024, combined with another contest: Egg Roulette!
The Guinness Record is still posted, but if they stopped keeping records it’s reprehensible.
Posting will be light over the next week as I have a writing assignment I must complete. Bear with me; I do my best.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the September 6 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*As the war with Iran continues (described yesterday by Trump as “small potatoes”), the U.S. military says it hit three Iranian oil tankers in retaliation for Iran targeting two U.S. warships (article archived here).
The U.S. military said Saturday it hit three Iranian oil tankers, including one near Kharg Island, the country’s main oil terminal, after Iran launched missiles toward two U.S. Navy warships.
U.S. Central Command, which oversees operations in the region, said in a statement that its strikes disabled an oil carrier off the coast of Kharg Island and another off Jask, and it destroyed a third one in the Gulf of Oman.
“Let the message to the IRGC be clear: If you shoot at two of our ships, we will impose an even higher economic cost — taking out three of yours,” said Adm. Brad Cooper, Centcom commander, referring to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. “We will not hesitate to defend American forces, and if necessary, destroy Iran’s limited and exposed oil fleet.”
Iranian state media earlier in the day reported that an oil tanker was hit by U.S. missiles near Kharg Island.
Iran’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Kharg Island, about 15 miles from the Iranian mainland in the Persian Gulf, is the centerpiece of Iran’s oil-based economy, with about 90 percent of the country’s oil exports moving through there.
Why don’t we attack Kharg Island directly, then, as it would be the most devastating thing we could do to Iran? I suspect it’s because that would devastate the world oil market (and of course raise gas prices in the U.S.), because it would invite the harshest retaliation yet, and because to secure it might require the presence of “boots on the ground”, something the U.S. is unwilling to do. Trump could make a threat, of course, but he’d have to be prepared to carry it through when Iran calls his bluff.
Here’s a satellite image of Kharg Island taken in 2010; the T-shaped structures to the right are oil terminals:
*The Wall Street Journal declares that “Time is no longer on Iran’s side in the battle of the blockades.”
By squeezing the Strait of Hormuz, both the U.S. and Iran expected to outlast their foe, believing time would work in their favor.
Now, it looks like the trend is moving against Tehran.
The U.S. naval blockade has prevented Iran from shipping any oil from the Persian Gulf since July. At the same time, despite Iranian drone and missile attacks, Washington has been able to assist Gulf Arab states in moving significant amounts of their crude through the waterway, keeping global oil prices from surging above critical levels.
“The Iranian blockade is more leaky than the U.S. blockade,” said Samir Madani, co-founder of the maritime intelligence firm TankerTrackers.com. “The Iranians just aren’t able to shut it all down.”
The strategic question of whether time will eventually work in favor of Washington—or the Tehran regime—has yet to be settled. Iran retains ways of escalating what has now become a protracted conflict, raising costs for the U.S. and its allies. The U.S. military’s ability to maintain the naval blockade for many more months is also uncertain.
But now it is clear that Tehran’s calculation six months ago, as it shut down the Strait of Hormuz and bottled up one-fifth of the world’s crude oil supply, proved erroneous. The move didn’t trigger a worldwide economic crisis or force President Trump to end the war on Iranian terms.
Yet, Trump’s blockade of Iranian ports, imposed in April and reimposed in July, after a short-lived memorandum on reopening the waterway collapsed, hasn’t changed Iran’s behavior either. Despite growing economic disruption, the blockade didn’t spur a popular uprising against the Islamic Republic—and didn’t convince Tehran to reopen the strait to allow free navigation.
. . . For now, however, Iran’s leverage over the Strait of Hormuz is slowly but surely being eroded by the U.S. military campaign in the region. Crude oil prices remain below $100 a barrel on international markets, elevated but well below the critical threshold for the global economy. In part, this was due to China drawing on domestic reserves and reducing imports.
As the WSJ points out, “the clock is ticking more for the Iranians because they are under enormous economic strain.” Taking out Kharg Island’s facilities would make the clock tick really fast, and do we really need American troops on the ground to do that?
*Lindsay Clancy’s trial ended in a mistrial because apparently one juror held out for a “guilty” verdict while the other 11 wanted to declare her not guilty. But now, according to the NYT, she faces years of confinement. However, many Americans apparently want no confinement at all (article archived here).
Whatever happens next in the murder case against Lindsay Clancy after a Massachusetts jury failed on Friday to reach a verdict, it is certain that she will remain institutionalized for many months, if not years.
Even if she is not ultimately convicted, medical and legal experts have said that her future will be one of confinement.
Ms. Clancy does not deny strangling her three children with exercise bands in 2023. Her symptoms of postpartum psychosis in the months before she killed them were at the center of her defense. Her lawyers argued that she was not legally responsible for the deaths.
That view apparently persuaded most of the jury members in the monthlong trial. Notes from the jury suggested that 11 of the 12 jurors seemed ready to acquit Ms. Clancy. But one lone juror declined to join the rest, even after apparently expressing doubts about her guilt.
A similar debate has captivated and divided the American public for weeks. At its core is a fundamental disagreement about how Ms. Clancy should spend the rest of her life. Should she be labeled a criminal and imprisoned? Or should she be regarded as a victim of a sort, who should be provided treatment? In neither case would she go free. But to what end should her confinement serve?
Whatever happens next in the murder case against Lindsay Clancy after a Massachusetts jury failed on Friday to reach a verdict, it is certain that she will remain institutionalized for many months, if not years.
Even if she is not ultimately convicted, medical and legal experts have said that her future will be one of confinement.
Ms. Clancy does not deny strangling her three children with exercise bands in 2023. Her symptoms of postpartum psychosis in the months before she killed them were at the center of her defense. Her lawyers argued that she was not legally responsible for the deaths.
That view apparently persuaded most of the jury members in the monthlong trial. Notes from the jury suggested that 11 of the 12 jurors seemed ready to acquit Ms. Clancy. But one lone juror declined to join the rest, even after apparently expressing doubts about her guilt.
A similar debate has captivated and divided the American public for weeks. At its core is a fundamental disagreement about how Ms. Clancy should spend the rest of her life. Should she be labeled a criminal and imprisoned? Or should she be regarded as a victim of a sort, who should be provided treatment? In neither case would she go free. But to what end should her confinement serve?
. . .The murder charges against Ms. Clancy remain intact after the mistrial, and will keep her locked up in a local psychiatric hospital for now, while the state decides whether to try her again, according to her lawyer, Kevin Reddington.
In remarks after the judge declared the mistrial, Mr. Reddington said that Ms. Clancy would be returning to Tewksbury Hospital, where she was held during the trial. It is a state-run psychiatric facility about an hour’s drive from where Ms. Clancy was tried in Plymouth, Mass.
If Ms. Clancy is ultimately found not responsible for the crimes, experts say she may be sent to a high-security forensic psychiatric hospital — a center to treat people who have stood criminal trial — for long-term mental health care.
Several psychiatrists said that for many women, symptoms of postpartum psychosis are treated and resolved within a year. But even if she is found not guilty because of that diagnosis, Ms. Clancy will most likely be treated for other ongoing issues, such as suicidal thoughts and a potential diagnosis of bipolar disorder, which can be a risk factor for postpartum psychosis.
Dr. Katrina Furey, a reproductive psychiatrist, has treated patients with postpartum psychosis for about a decade. She said treatment could be conducted through a combination of drugs, and sometimes with electroconvulsive therapy, in which electricity is used to trigger a short seizure that can help “reset the brain.”
The treatment has a bad reputation from Hollywood movies, Dr. Furey said, but is routine and often effective.
“The end game of treatment is for mom to feel like her normal self again,” she added.
I agree that Clancy should be helped, not punished, but doesn’t that hold for all criminals? As a determinist and consequentialist, I see no point in retributive punishment, which assumes a nonexistent free will. To me, there are three valid reasons for confinement after conviction: deterrence of others, keeping bad people out of society lest they do harm, and rehabilitation. The third is important, and would seem to the most urgent in Clancy’s case.
Clancy is 36 years old and will almost surely have no more children, so the risk of this happening again is small. But she should be freed only after being pronounced “cured” by reputable therapists, and not be allowed ever again to have unsupervised contact with minors.
*In May of 2025, John Spencer‘s website, “War Scholar” (he’s teaches urban warfare at, among other places, West Point), had a useful article with Arsen Ostrovsky list “The top 7 lies about Israel and IDF operations in Gaza.” It’s still useful. I’ll summarize the “lies” using quotes from the article (all indented), but there is more on each point on the site:
1. Lie: Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
Genocide is the most serious crime under international law, defined by the 1948 Genocide Convention as acts committed with “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.” Crucially, genocide requires specific intent — not simply that civilian deaths occur during war, but that they are intended as part of a broader plan to exterminate a people. This specific intent — known in legal terms as dolus specialis — sets a uniquely high bar that distinguishes genocide from even the most destructive military actions.
2. Lie: Israel intentionally targets civilians in Gaza.
Under international humanitarian law, the presence of civilian casualties in war — while tragic — does not equate to a war crime unless civilians are directly and intentionally targeted.
The IDF is one of the only militaries in history to systematically exceed the legal obligations to protect civilians.
3. Lie: The civilian-to-combatant ratio in Gaza proves Israel is committing war crimes.
One of the most dangerous and misleading claims is that civilian casualty figures alone prove Israel is committing war crimes. This is a fundamental distortion of international humanitarian law (IHL). Under the law of armed conflict, the legality of an attack is not judged by its outcome — such as the number of civilians killed — but by what commanders knew or reasonably could have known at the time of the attack. The legal test is proportionality: whether the expected incidental harm to civilians was excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.
4. Lie: Israel is starving Gaza’s population.
The accusation that Israel uses starvation as a weapon is flatly contradicted by facts on the ground — and by the sheer scale of humanitarian aid Israel facilitates even during wartime. Since October 7, according to COGAT (the Israeli government body coordinating humanitarian operations), almost 100,000 trucks have entered Gaza carrying 1.75 million tons of aid, including humanitarian supplies, medicine and food, at a volume that in some periods has exceeded pre-war levels. In addition, Israel has also facilitated the supply of water and fuel, and even enabled the construction of numerous field hospitals.
The real cause of humanitarian suffering in Gaza is Hamas, which systematically hijacks and weaponizes aid for its fighters, attacks crossing points, and manipulates civilians as human shields.
5. Lie: Israel indiscriminately attacks hospitals and schools.
International law protects hospitals, schools, and religious sites — but that protection is not absolute. If these facilities are used for military purposes — such as storing weapons, housing fighters, or command operations — they lose protected status.
Hamas has repeatedly, and systematically, turned Gaza’s hospitals into fortified military compounds and terrorist staging grounds, a grave violation of international humanitarian law.
6. Lie: Israel is illegally occupying Gaza.
The assertion that Israel occupies Gaza is a misrepresentation of the current geopolitical reality. In 2005, Israel unilaterally disengaged from the Gaza Strip, evacuating all Israeli civilians and military personnel, and dismantling its settlements. Since then, Hamas has maintained de facto control over Gaza, exercising both political and military authority.
7. Lie: Israel violates Hamas prisoners’ rights under the Geneva Conventions.
The 3rd Geneva Convention defines Prisoners of War (POWs) as combatants who meet four key conditions: being part of a recognized armed force, carrying arms openly, wearing a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance, and conducting operations in accordance with the laws of war.
Hamas meet none of these standards. They hide among civilians, wear no uniforms, and routinely commit war crimes by targeting Israeli civilians, while shielding behind Palestinian ones, and embedding their combat operations within hospitals, schools, Mosques and residential areas.
I don’t know how many times I’ve had to make these points in arguments—and I’ve lost friends for making them—but anybody engaged in debate about the Israel/Gaza war should know the assertions as well as the rebuttal in this article.
*The conservative National Review calls for our culture to return to “biological realism,” which it defines as “a sensible acknowledgement of human limits and biological realities,” arguing that, “The normalization of extreme claims about humans’ ability to push past or ignore those realities has only increased in recent years, to the detriment of our common culture and common sense.”
The article gives several examples where “biological realism” was ignored. One is AOC’s freezing of her eggs, adding this:
. . . it remains a harsh biological reality that most women experience a significant decline in fertility after the age of 35, and the women most likely to achieve successful pregnancies using their previously frozen eggs are those who froze a lot of them before 35. If Ocasio-Cortez were intent on educating women of her generation about preserving their fertility (rather than turning her personal choices into yet another Instagram-enabled political stunt), she would have noted these biological realities. She might also have acknowledged that the largely unregulated fertility industry raises many ethical and legal questions and has been implicated in cases of abuse and fraud.
Well, one might say that the NR is being too hard on AOC, though if she wanted to inspire women, she should have pointed out the advantage of freezing eggs earlier. But there are other examples where the biology is unrealistic:
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reportedly paid a Canadian company, Nectome, a deposit of $10,000 to secure a spot on its waiting list to one day freeze his brain, with the expectation that the company will scan it and grant him some form of digitized immortality. “I assume my brain will be uploaded to the cloud,” he said. Altman is one of many Silicon Valley entrepreneurs on a quest for life extension and immortality. Transhumanist Ray Kurzweil has long predicted that humans, nanobots, and artificial intelligence will eventually merge to form a new species, while others in the AI successionism movement want AI to replace humanity.
Bryan Johnson, champion of the “Don’t Die” movement who is tracking and monitoring every possible bodily function he has while taking extreme measures to prolong his life, describes his journey as follows: “Conquering death will be humanity’s greatest achievement.” Talking to Ross Douthat on the Interesting Times podcast, Johnson described himself not as a man, but as “the first Don’t Die Homo sapien prototype.” Comparing himself to a self-driving car, he noted, “I’m building a self-driving body so it just automatically takes care of itself.”
The denial of biological limits is perhaps most prominent among transgender activists, who insist that biological men can become women and that those men should be allowed access to women-only spaces, including in women’s sports. Just as a child had to point out that the emperor wore no clothes, former NBA players Kanter and White highlighted the absurdities of men in women’s sports by declaring their intention to play on women’s teams. Their stunt was in part a response to criticism of professional athletes like WNBA player Sophie Cunningham for simply stating the obvious: Significant biological differences between the sexes make it unfair to allow men to compete against women. The overwhelming majority of Americans agree with her, and when Cunningham told reporters her position was “common sense,” she was correct.
ADCommon sense does not fare well when pitted against the ideological zeal of an extremely small minority — especially when that minority controls the levers of power in institutions. During a press conference, WNBA Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve hemmed and hawed but stuck to the ideological script, saying, “We need to protect trans kids.” Some WNBA players, like Golden State Valkyries player Gabby Williams, went so far as to claim she would “welcome a trans athlete on my team or against my team, anytime.” Even though the U.S. Supreme Court upheld states’ right to ban men from playing on women’s teams, the mainstream media and trans activists continue to push the message that biological men should be allowed to take spots on teams from women.
There are other examples as well; Luana and I pointed out some cases of biological unreality in our Skeptical Inquirer article. I am still flummoxed about why, among WNBA players, only Sophie Cunningham has spoken out against biological men playing in their league, while other players and coaches waffle. Not only do most Americans frown upon biological men playing in women’s sports, but the data show the advantage of being a man, even one who has taken hormones to “transition.” But in this case, ideology outweighs the data. It’s simply against the progressive agenda to say that trans-identified men should not participate in women’s sports.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Szaron are both griping:
Hili: Tomorrow will be better.
Szaron: Yesterday’s tomorrow is today, and it’s not any better at all.
In Polish:
Hili: Jutro będzie lepiej.
Szaron: Wczorajsze jutro jest dziś i wcale nie jest lepiej.
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From Waterfowl Addicts Anonymous (Ducks, Geese, and Swans) with the caption, “How fast was that duck going?”
From Jesus of the Day (the site gives no indication of whose cartoon this is, but it must be Steve Nelson, the artist who creates “Twonks”):
From Terrible Maps:
From Masih; a bunch of Iranian men and women mocking her activism. It’s a testimony to her power, though, that so many people make these videos and ensure that they get to Masih. She just laughs and posts them.
Translation from the Farsi. “White Wednesdays” are days on which women protesting the regime wear white.
Take a look at this creep in the videos I found, who was loudly claiming with all their might that they were in the “majority” and mocking the women who were engaging in civil disobedience during the White Wednesdays. Now they’re backpedaling hard now that they’ve realized they’re just a bunch of stray sex toys in the minority.
این عرزشی را در این ویدیوهایی که پیدا کردم ببینید که با قدرت میگفتند در «اکثریت» هستند و زنانی را که در چهارشنبه های سفید نافرمانی مدنی میکردند اینطوری مسخره میکردند. حالا به غلط کردن افتادهاند وقتی فهمیدند یک مشت آلتهای جنسیِ سرگردانِ در اقلیت هستند https://t.co/oCl2IFkQfY pic.twitter.com/kDrYW1qqco
— Masih Alinejad (@AlinejadMasih) August 31, 2026
From Malcom; a potpourri of black cats:
black cats are just orange cats with intelligence pic.twitter.com/4InbNQjah1
— Why you should have a cat (@ShouldHaveCat) March 3, 2025
The Number Ten Cat protests Trump’s characterization of the war with Iran as “small potatoes”, and I agree with Larry that this was thoughtless wording:
Private Isabella Gonzales
First Lieutenant Tyler James Feehan
Captain Cody A. Khork
Sergeant 1st Class Noah L. Tietjens
Sergeant 1st Class Nicole M. Amor
Major Jeffrey O’Brien
Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert Marzan
Maj. John ‘Alex’ Klinner
Captain Ariana Savino
Technical Sergeant… https://t.co/VqDTJc80OW— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) September 4, 2026
Maarten Boudry describes his treatment at the University of Ghent in Belgium. And his Substack article is here, but you’ll have to pay (this excellent one is for free, though).
My own rector, Petra De Sutter, turned the “Gaza genocide” into official university policy, threatening anyone who dared to question it. Multiple professors emailed the previous rector behind my back, urging disciplinary action against me. Philosopher and former friend… https://t.co/AyTXfOkuMt pic.twitter.com/B6J5AZ8wWH
— Maarten Boudry (@mboudry) September 5, 2026
One from my feed; a botfly larva emerges from The White House (sound up):
OMG — This is so funny and hilarious! 😆 pic.twitter.com/43vGXsE9G8
— Lucas Sanders 👊🏽🔥🇺🇸 (@LucasSa56947288) September 5, 2026
And one I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:
This Norwegian boy was gassed to death as soon as he arrived in Auschwitz. He was seventeen years old. https://t.co/YThd9j23Yv
— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) September 6, 2026
Two from Doc Cobb. First, a lovely set of photos with a biology lesson:
Night eyes 😎 Finally got proper pictures of this amazing phenomenon! Mantises change their eye color (and light sensitivity) at night by transporting pigments from the surface of each compound eye unit toward the deeper eye region. Same female Tenodera sinensis, two different times. #bugsky
— D. Allan Drummond (@dadrummond.art) 2026-09-04T21:17:03.981Z
. . . and a playful baby bear:
Toddler bear burning off some energy while mom rests just off camera.#mammals #nature #bears #love #trailcam #Seattle #goodmorning #PNW #nokings #babyanimals
— Menestune (@menestune.bsky.social) 2026-09-05T15:03:50.951Z
We’re back with another Caturday post with three—count them, three—items of substance, and two of lagniappe. The first one is from The Independent; the “love hormone: turns out to be oxytocin, which has this complex structure (it’s a neuropeptide, with the amino acid residues labeled):
Click the headline to read how the “love hormone” soothes us when we interact with cats:
An excerpt (indented):
Cats may have a reputation for independence, but emerging research suggests we share a unique connection with them – fuelled by brain chemistry.
The main chemical involved is oxytocin, often called the love hormone. It’s the same neurochemical that surges when a mother cradles her baby or when friends hug, fostering trust and affection. And now studies are showing oxytocin is important for cat-human bonding too.
Oxytocin plays a central role in social bonding, trust and stress regulation in many animals, including humans. One 2005 experiment showed that oxytocin made human volunteers significantly more willing to trust others in financial games.
Oxytocin also has calming effects in humans and animals, as it suppresses the stress hormone cortisol and activates the parasympathetic nervous system (the rest and digest system) to help the body relax.
Scientists have long known that friendly interactions trigger oxytocin release in both dogs and their owners, creating a mutual feedback loop of bonding. Until recently, though, not much was known about its effect in cats.
Cats are more subtle in showing affection. Yet their owners often report the same warm feelings of companionship and stress relief that dog owners do – and studies are increasingly backing these reports up. Researchers in Japan, for example, reported in 2021 that brief petting sessions with their cats boosted oxytocin levels in many owners.
In that study, women interacted with their cats for a few minutes while scientists measured the owners’ hormone levels. The results suggested that friendly contact (stroking the cat, talking in a gentle tone) was linked to elevated oxytocin in the humans’ saliva, compared with a quiet resting period without their cat.
Many people find petting a purring cat is soothing, and research indicates it’s not just because of the soft fur. The act of petting and even the sound of purring can trigger oxytocin release in our brains. One 2002 study found this oxytocin rush from gentle cat contact helps lower cortisol (our stress hormone), which in turn can reduce blood pressure and even pain.
Research is pinpointing specific moments that cause the release of this hormone in our cross-species friendship. Gentle physical contact seems to be a prime trigger for cats.
A February 2025 study found that when owners engaged in relaxed petting, cuddling or cradling of their cats, the owners’ oxytocin tended to rise, and so did the cats’ – if the interaction was not forced on the animal.
The researchers monitored oxytocin in cats during 15 minutes of play and cuddling at home with their owner. Securely attached cats who initiated contact such as lap-sitting or nudging showed an oxytocin surge. The more time they spent close to their humans, the greater the boost.
. . . Are cats just less loving than d*gs?
It’s true that studies generally find stronger oxytocin responses in dog–human interactions. In one widely discussed 2016 experiment, scientists measured oxytocin in pets and owners before and after ten minutes of play. Dogs showed an average 57% spike in oxytocin levels after playtime, whereas cats showed about a 12% increase.
This is of course because d*gs have been bred to be worshipful sycophants, while cats retain a measure of independence. At any rate, words to remember:
So, next time your cat blinks slowly from across the sofa or climbs on to your lap for a purr-filled cuddle, know that something invisible is happening too: oxytocin is rising in both your brains, deepening the trust and soothing the stress of daily life. Cats, in their own way, have tapped into the ancient biology of love.
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Meet Cleopatra, who, in this 7-minute video, gets groomed for the first time. She’s “severely compacted” rather than matted, with tons of shedded undercoat remaining in her fur. There is a ton of fur. She even gets her nails cut and has a bath, but, with her hoodie and cone, she remains relatively calm. As the groomer says, “[Cleopatra] was an absolute pleasure to work with.”
I don’t know if amost groomers are this kind and thorough, and of course she knows she’s on camera, but if I had a fur-clogged moggy I’d take her to this person.
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This article, from MetLife Pet Insurance (click screenshot to read) is full of useful information. Which states are “dog states” versus “cat states”? Which cities have the most of the best pets versus d*gs?
Here’s the method behind the survey, and realize that the same is not all that large. Also, determining the “leaning” of cities and states is done by using Internet searches, which is dubious. But let’s assume for the time being that the results are fairly accurate:
This survey, conducted by Fractl on behalf of MetLife on July 7, 2026, gathered responses from 1,005 U.S. adults to settle America’s dog-versus-cat divide and uncover how pet preference aligns with personality, lifestyle, and relationships. Respondents had an average age of 42; 50% identified as men, 49% as women, 1% as nonbinary, and under 1% declined to specify their gender. Generationally, 35% were baby boomers or Gen X, 47% were millennials, and 18% were Gen Z. Of those surveyed, 84% were pet owners: 39% owned a dog only, 24% owned a cat only, and 21% lived in multi-species households with both a dog and a cat, while 16% had no pets at the time of the survey.
In addition to the survey, Fractl analyzed Google search volume data from June 2025 to May 2026 to determine each state’s and major city’s dominant pet preference. The research reviewed 84 dog- and cat-related search terms, organized into 40 matched dog-versus-cat pairs (such as “puppy adoption” vs. “kitten adoption” and “dog park near me” vs. “cat cafe near me”), across all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and 55 major metropolitan areas.
Because dog-related terms out-search cat-related terms nationwide, researchers measured each location’s relative lean, meaning its share of paired dog searches compared with the national average, rather than raw volume, so that a “Dog State” or “Cat State” leans relative to the rest of the country rather than in absolute terms. Researchers weighted all 40 pairs equally and excluded four unpaired terms (“dog leash,” “dog walker,” “cat litter,” and “litter box”) that had no cross-species counterpart, to keep the index balanced.
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The main results:
Mississippi, Wyoming, and South Carolina are America’s most dog-obsessed states, led by Mississippi, where dog-related searches run 120% above cat searches.
The last result surprised me the most! Here’s the geographic split, which leads me to believe, to my satisfaction, that, compared to Republicans, Democrats are more likely to own cats than dogs: Somebody should do the correlation between percentage of Democrats versus percentage of cats (and ditto for Republicans). From the site:
Mississippi is the most dog-obsessed state in the country, where dog-related searches run 120% above cat searches. A dog belt runs through the Deep South and Mountain West, while a cat belt stretches across New England and the Pacific Northwest. Each state’s lean index below shows how far its dog-versus-cat search mix runs above or below the national average, with positive scores leaning dog and negative scores leaning cat.
The East and West coasts have a relatively higher ownership of cats than do the middle-of-America states and the South.
And for cities:
El Paso is the most dog-obsessed metro in the country, with dog-related searches 135% above cat searches. The strongest dog metros cluster across the Sun Belt and South, mirroring the dog belt at the state level.
Philadelphia is the most cat-obsessed metro, and the cat list is dominated by coastal and tech hubs. Cities also polarize more than states. The most cat-obsessed metro leans nearly twice as feline as the most cat-obsessed state, so the divide sharpens in urban America.
And some psychology and behavior. I’m surprised that people post more on their dogs than their cats, but not that cat people tend to be more introvert-ish and judgmental about their partner’s pet preferences.
Make what you will of these data, and post it below.
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Lagnaiappe:
Click below to learn how the police removed a bunch of ice to reach a cat (now named Cadence) trapped behind an ice machine (the news story is also on Chicago’s WGN news site):
More:
I can’t guarantee that this is real video, but I hope so:
Owners couldn’t figure out why the cat wasn’t sleeping in its bed.. then they saw this..🐈🐾😊 pic.twitter.com/D6a0a2ynkI
— Posts Of Cats (@PostsOfCats) January 27, 2025
h/t: Nicole, Erik
Yesterday, after second lunch for the ducks, I was chatting with a grad student in medical research when I was—as I often am—besieged by squirrels begging for nuts. After several months of getting them habituated to me and to the way I look and smell, I have made them fairly friendly (I want to avoid bites at all cost!)
At this point several of them will climb up my leg and onto my shoulder for a nut. When they do that, only a quick turn of the head is necessary to allow me to kiss them on their furry flanks.
See below for the short video showing this. The smack of the kiss is audible.
I can now credibly claim that I am the only person at the University of.Chicago who has kissed a squirrel. I may be the only person in the history of the University of Chicago who’s done this.
If any readers have osculated a squirrel, let me know below. (h/t to the woman who took the video).
And here’s another squirrel begging for a nut, unaware that his face is decorated with a leaf. With his eyes on the sides, perhaps he can’t see it.
