Open thread

November 27, 2014 • 2:24 pm

As I am now gone (this post is put up by a loyal minion), I’ll let you entertain each other.  I had one previous open thread, which seemed moderately successful, so let’s try it again. Perhaps readers can describe their Thanksgiving experiences (or dinner!), or anything else that’s on their minds.

Or perhaps you can discuss this short column at the blog Hulabaloo by “Digby” (Heather Digby Parton), claiming that Bill Maher and Sam Harris are “bigots” against Islam. Parton, who also writes for Salon (of course), has won journalistic awards for social-justice writings, raises the usual “Islamophobia” canard, claiming that only a very small proportion of Muslims are terrorists. (That’s true, but is that the only probem with the faith?)

I’m baffled by tendency of liberals to give Islam a pass when they wouldn’t defend Catholicism if Catholics professed the same beliefs as do a substantial proportion of Muslims in many lands (i.e., Catholics who leave the faith should be killed, corporal punishment should be the rule).  Did people not read the Pew report, a report prepared by a religon-friendly organization? And can’t they distinguish between hating beliefs and hating believers? Or are some liberals’ strong critiques of Islam misguided—or even harmful?

Screen shot 2014-11-27 at 12.12.45 PM
Note that countries like Saudia Arabia and Iran weren’t survey.

Screen shot 2014-11-27 at 12.11.35 PM

But I digress. Talk about anything you want

Go.

~

165 thoughts on “Open thread”

  1. We had a seven course Thanksgiving meal followed by seven desserts. And, of course, football.

          7. I have no idea if you’re a freak or not but according to the figure arollinson gave in the blog entry he linked to, you’re among the mere 14% of humans who do have these tendons.

            I think that makes us more like throwbacks. 😀

            Funny, the way they stand out you’d think they’d be vital, not useless.

          8. I thought it was the other way around:

            14% of the population missing this vestige from my anatomy: a muscle in the flexor compartment of the forearm by the name of palmaris longus.

            So, that means 86% of us have it.

  2. I have someone trying to convince me that the “atheistic worldview” (as they call it) is unscientific and illogical on my blog about atheism. The person is very literate but I am very skeptical that they will produce any even relatively original arguments. They already seem to be on the path of the kind of apologism that William Lane Craig has trail-blazed and the argument has barely begun. I am awaiting a response and I hope it is good.

    Anyone else feel free to help me out! My credentials as an atheist are not scientific but rather as a convert from fundamentalist, Pentecostal Christianity to atheism. They claim to have some knowledge of science but I am not so sure. Let me know what you think!

    http://theatheistofmelos.wordpress.com/2014/11/11/75/

    Scroll to the bottom to see our discussion as it exists thus far.

    1. Just left a small addition to your questions to him.

      Interesting to see if he responds and how.

    2. Thanks for your support Jesper Both Pedersen, I appreciate knowing I am not the only one who thinks this guy is attempting to make an impossible argument!

      1. Anytime. 🙂

        It looks like he’s trying to set you up for the gish-gallop.

        At the end of the day there’s always one thing missing from the ID/Creationist’s attempts at science: Evidence.

        And if you grant them the positive assumption of a designer as a starting point, it simply opens up a whole new can of worms.

        1. He has responded! I am not quite sure what to say. He says:

          1. None of us can attest to the orgin of the laws that govern this universe but I can’t contemplate how you can support the idea that they formed of themselves. What piece of evidence can you provide to support that this is even a reasonable position to consider? Is there any reason to believe that fixed constants can form themselves and remain fixed?

          2. If you cannot describe how the laws formed, how do you get to establish the idea that anything that proceeds according to these laws is a “natural” process? Presumably, the word natural implies a creator is not needed. wouldn’t it therefore be required for you to show that these laws are indeed naturally occurring?

          3. Once you provide your explanation and your evidence for why these laws are indeed naturally occurring (no creator necessary), we can evaluate which position is more logical and more rational.

          He to me this seems to be a lack of understanding of the Big Bang and what exactly did. I would be interested in hearing others’ thoughts.

          1. Ask for the evidence of his supposed creator.

            Numbers 1 and 2 are the argument “You weren’t there!” You are right that he does not know any of the physics that explain this. He should look them up before he passes judgement of what he does not understand.

            Number 3: What is rational about believing in a creator with no evidence whatsoever? There is plenty of evidence for why these laws are indeed naturally occurring. He should do his own work to learn them.

          2. Frankly I don’t know exactly where something like gravity came from or why it remains constant. Did it come from the Big Bang or was it already a force that influenced the Big Bang? And why is gravity constant and able to be defined by mathematics. I am sure there answers to these questions, I just don’t know them.

          3. “In modern physics, gravitation is most accurately described by the general theory of relativity (proposed by Einstein) which describes gravitation as a consequence of the curvature of spacetime.”

            – Wikipedia

          5. I wanted to add it’s an entertaining, and easy to read book that will get you up to speed on the current understanding (as of 2005), and the how and why we have that understanding. In the fields of cosmology, geology, chemistry, biology, physics, and more. Everything from the big bang, and evolution to the structure of the atom, and continental drift.
            I’m currently reading it for the 3rd time since it came out.

          7. It doesn’t matter. Something at some level of existence must defy explanation, must simply exist without reference to something else. What that is, well, maybe the natural laws, or maybe some meta-natural laws. Whatever it is it’s going to boggle our minds because it breaks out of causality and we simply aren’t built to think about it. But the same is true if that ultimate thing happens to be a God of some sort. How can such a thing as that simply exist? It doesn’t buy you ANYTHING in the mind boggling department. It’s even more mind boggling to imagine an always exiting intelligence than to imagine an always existing meta-universe of laws (which is to say, regularities) of some sort. In fact, in an infinite meta-universe of absolute chaos and randomness, there would pockets of regularity (maybe the size of our universe) just by accident.

            But not only does it buy you nothing to assume a God of some sort, it runs contra to everything we actually do know. Everything we know about intelligence tells us that intelligence is a derived quality. On Earth, intelligence is the result of neurons organized into brains. Intelligence is built out of neurons which are cells which are built out of atoms and protons and electrons and on down to the fabric of reality. The one and only reason anyone has ever had for imagining that intelligence can exist independent of brains (to say nothing of independent of matter), is the unitary illusion that our own brains produce, the way they make our minds seem like magic. The failure of introspection to reveal the machinery that produces our thoughts makes our thoughts feel immaterial. This illusionary feeling is taken as evidence for the immateriality of mind and that leads naturally to some Ultimate immaterial mind. But the whole edifice here is built on an illusion whose wrongness is revealed by all of the things we actually do know about brains and how brains relate to minds.

          8. Ask him why it’s more logical for his god simply to exist than for physical “laws” simply to exist.

            I’m not anything like a physicist, but it seems to me you could also tell him those laws don’t really exist. They are just descriptions; generalizations about the way certain kinds of matter behave under certain circumstances. It’s no more logical or parsimonious not to expect that under the same circumstances the same kind of matter will behave the same way than it is *to* expect it. IOW, that matter behaves uniformly can reasonably be taken as an axiom, given our observations. Suggesting that utter chaos would necessarily be the case if there were no god is the unparsimonious proposition.

          9. My answer would be “I don’t know where the laws that govern the Universe came from which is a more tenable position than “Goddidit”.

            As for evidence that “the laws formed themselves” is reasonable, you can argue that something at some point must have “formed itself” or you get an infinite regress. To suggest that it couldn’t be the laws of the Universe is special pleading.

            Put it another way: I can’t contemplate how you can support the idea that God formed of itself. What piece of evidence can he provide to support that this is even a reasonable position to consider?

          10. Your respondent seems to think that the laws of nature were put on place by something/someone, like a law against speeding is created by a state legislature.
            Actually, they are a description of how matter and energy behave – their intrinsic properties.
            (Now, why they have intrinsic properties is a whole ‘nother question.)
            It is like describing a ripe strawberry as being “red”. There is no law that a strawberry is obeying that says it must be red – but an observation that ripe strawberries are red.

          11. “1. None of us can attest to the orgin of the laws that govern this universe but I can’t contemplate how you can support the idea that they formed of themselves.”

            What if the “laws that govern the universe” are just properties of matter? This would mean that the origin of the laws adds no extra difficulty over the origin of the matter.

            You will need to be discussing the fallacy of False Dilemma. Your correspondent wishes to challenge naturalistic explanations, rather than make a case for supernatural explanations, on the presumption that he will win by default once the competition is shown to be inadequate.

          12. This is right, basically. Only on a supernaturalistic world view do the laws of nature (objective patterns in reality) *come* from anything else. In a naturalistic view, they just are (while the things that “posess” them exist). So the laws come into being with things and pass away with them; global laws like conservation laws then do not ever come into being or pass away. (Or rather the reverse, but that’s a detail.)

    3. I changed the settings so that, hopefully, comments no longer have to be moderated and will appear automatically. I never worried about it before because I honestly don’t usually get this many comments :p

      1. You got us hooked with your fine post and it’s always fun to see what new shenanigans these H. sapiens are up to. 🙂

        1. It is really quite stupid of me; I really need to focus on my essay about “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”, and here I am arguing that the belief system that brought churchyards into existence is illogical on the internet! But thanks for visiting, it is nice to feel a kind of sense of community I used to have to get from church back in my own personal Dark Ages.

          2. Had to memorise that as a kid! Still remember a few verses…. The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, the lowing herd winds slowly o’er the lea….
            First time I’ve seen it referenced in a very long time… Thank you!

          3. I am writing a five-page essay on the use of the word “tenor” in the poem and how it allows for different interpretations of the poem based on the different definitions of the world. Fun stuff!

          4. If you appreciate five meanings of “tenor” in “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”, read Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “The Windhover” for seventeen meanings (+/-) of “buckle”.

          6. The ploughman homeward plods his weary way

            Did you know that there are 18 different ways to rearrange the words in that sentence and still make sense? Try it!

          7. Since it’s an open thread today: ‘Elegy’ was one of Abraham Lincoln’s favorite poems. He could recite it from memory and, imo, the poem nicely modeled AL’s early life as ‘some mute inglorious Milton.’

          8. I didn’t know that! I should learn Tourette it from memory…

            Indeed, it even almost seems to model his desire to remain as such. He never wanted to publish his poetry except anonymously, and even went so far to have a warning paired with “Elegy” that stated the publisher came upon it by accident and that the author didn’t want his name shared. I am glad it became well-known for it anyway, he deserves the section he has in my Anthology of British Literature.

          10. Unfortunately it was the insidious autocorrect on my phone. I think I meant to say something along the lines of “I should learn to recite it by memory”

  3. It is interesting that those countries that have low numbers of Muslims who favour the death penalty for apostasy are also the same countries that have experience of secular government. Once a person of any faith (for death used to be the penalty for apostasy in Christianity too, and some other religions) has experienced secularism, they almost universally recognize that it’s a better form of government.

    However, the change process is difficult and scary for many. It also threatens the power base of many desperate to keep hold of that power, so they fight it tooth and nail.

  4. Going to friend’s house where there is no TV. (No football.) Yeah! Food, fun, friends, and a d*g that mooches from the table.

    1. Our d*g also mooches at the table, but he gets essentially nothing except the occasional accidental droppage. He is not obnoxious about it, just cute (giving you the eyes as you feed from plate to mouth), but I suppose obnoxiousness would be a matter of opinion.

  5. It is a real pity that social justice is becoming synonymous with ideology politics. Historically, society has often been changed for the better by grass-roots people-power movements.

    I wonder how much of it has to do with the fact that once upon a time activism actually required someone to actually do something. Now it only seems to require an obsessive pounding of the keyboard.

    1. I guess internet-activism is still finding its feet.

      And everybody’s got a platform. 🙂

  6. Since the previous time I posted this, it was too late in the thread for many to see it, just wanted to announce the happy news that a book often mentioned here, The Faith of a Heretic by Walter Kaufmann is being reprinted, and will be released a month after Jerry’s new book comes out.

    Along with Matthew Cobb’s Life’s Greatest Secret, that’s going to be some good reading next summer!

  7. I don’t see the problem with corporal punishment for crimes like theft. If we brought back public flogging instead of long prison sentences, it would save billions of dollars, break the “college for criminals” phenomenon, and provide a more humane option than robbing someone of years of life and family.

    Peter Moskos wrote a great article about this a few years ago: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/in-lieu-of-prison-bring-back-the-lash/2011/06/10/AGBIpUWH_story.html

    1. I definitely think that the inhumane aspects of prison sentences are not given enough attention, so that when weighing whether a punishment is inhumane or not we tend to unreasonably take prison as the null model. Among the biggest negatives of prison, I expect, are the impacts on families. I’m not knowledgable enough to really know, but I have a hunch that I might prefer a flogging to five years in prison. I’d rather be in pain and scarred with my family than in a scary place without.

      This seems like a good place for some real science to ask just what does serve as a good deterrent (which is the real purpose). Everyone has an opinion about this, but what do we really know about the deterrent effects of various punishments? How much less crime does 1 extra year of prison sentence deter? And how objectively have, or can, we assess the suffering that results from different punishments (including third parties like families, the economy, etc.)? I think the ideal punishment would be one with high deterrent effect but objectively low actual suffering, which would I guess imply that it would be something people imagine is worse to experience than it actually is.

    2. Don’t send to prison for theft. Don’t flog them either, that’s barbaric. Get them to pick litter. Result : City is cleaner, prison is not full and we are not barbaric. Everyone is a winner.

      For thefts of hundreds of millions of dollars by bankers then we have to think differently. First, fine them hundreds of millions of dollars. Then get them to pick litter.

      1. One of the problems with having prisoners doing useful work with little to no pay is that it’s going to be advantageous to maintain the wonderful supply of cheap labor for such fine causes. This could … be abused.

        1. Or we could just continue with the current model of for-profit prisons where prison management companies have a financial incentive for getting more people imprisoned.

        2. For years, southern prisons not only had crews work on prison-related projects, but rented out prisoners for very little money to wealthy landowners to work on their projects. There definitely was incentive to keep the work population up.This may still be happening.

          It is well known that sending people to prison is not a disincentive to prevent crime. Recidivism is extremely high and prisons function as crime colleges.

      2. Also (and especially) don’t send people to prison for possession of small amounts of illegal drugs like heroin and especially crack. That is very much like replacing a light bulb with a hammer, or some other equally silly analogy.

  8. I would note that PZ Myers is also conducting a campaign against Sam Harris on several grounds, among other things, that Harris is an Islammophobe and a sexist. Like a lot of others, it appears to me that PZ is going off the rails.

    1. The whole Sam Harris thing drives me crazy. He’s not sexist; he said some comment that someone chose to make a big deal out of. It’s embarrassing to me that people jump on this because it takes away from actual sexism!

      1. You’ve just summarized the essence of 2014 politics: a return to primitive tribalism.
        Us against them, them against us. That is UKIP, that is Le Pen, that is ISIS, that is all this rubbish we’re seeing.

    3. Sexist? Because a lot of men appeared in his talk and he joked about it? I don’t follow PZ so I don’t really know him, but his comment about Sam Harris is obviously wrong. I respect Sam Harris, because you really need wisdom, courage, and guts to be him.

    4. I respect both Sam Harris and PZ Myers — and their respective defenders. So I’m sitting back and considering … and eying a mountain of discourse I haven’t/can’t/won’t go through with a fine tooth comb. Either I am missing something critical against one or the other, or they are misunderstanding each other, or bits of both. Or I might be blinded by my own prejudices and/or privilege. I won’t rule that one out.

      As it is, I’ve mentally granted some points to Harris and some to PZ. This puts me in the horrible position of being in the middle between the extremes. Yuck. I HATE when people do that. Or rather, I hate when people announce that like it’s going to enlighten anyone about anything. Everyone is a moderate.

        1. Oh, I know. But I also know that it’s not helpful unless you’re willing to back it up with specifics, preferably with quotes and an adequate understanding of context and history. Which I don’t think I have.

          When I’m not sure of my ground, I don’t jump up and down on it and try to wave a peace flag.

      2. That is how I feel. But I tip more toward siding with Harris b/c he at least is not throwing mud and crowing about new outrages over minutia with an air of triumph. I think where Harris had erred was barely detectable, at most. There are far, far worse problems in the skeptic community.

        1. “he (Harris) at least is not throwing mud and crowing about new outrages over minutia with an air of triumph.” Great summation! Contrary to the common narrative, the likes of PZ all too often behave like trolls.

      3. I’m in a similar position on the Harris/Myers(etc) dispute.

        On one hand I believe the reaction to Harris’ vies and moments were toward the hysterical side.
        On the other, both P.Z. and Harris are smart reasonable individuals and, as I find many times in these type of disputes, they are much closer on issues than the dispute implies. PZ is saying lots of nuanced things Harris (and I) would certainly agree with, and I think the actual position Sam holds is one quite close to PZ.

        But here is were “tone” actually does play deleterious role: PZ’s side seems to leap on minor differences and blow them up to be enemy-defining, out-group moments. Harris while usually quite calm, has his own tendencies to hyperbole and sarcasm to make his point, and you get pointed edges aimed at each other, forcing each other apart.

        This is one reason I’ve become more weary of the type of discourse the happens within atheism these days. The New Atheism started out as a breath of fresh air: it granted everyone the right to be publicly challenging, even publicly caustic and ridiculing in regards to religion.
        Gloves are off.

        It was great watching Hitchens go for the throughout, and Harris with all his brilliant argument ad absurdums. And it made reading sites like Pharyngula so much fun, because PZ is a master of ridicule. The problem I started to have, that I noted first and most obviously on Myers’ site, was that ridicule and righteous indignation just feel so good, it becomes a desired response to anything you disagree with.
        After all, if you think you’ve reasoned to a conclusion correctly, then anyone not sharing that conclusion isn’t being “reasonable” so everyone, not just the religious, are now in the scope sight of this disdain.

        At first this sounds as it should be, egalitarian criticism, turning skepticism on anyone’s claims, not just religious. But it soon struck me as something else: the style becomes ever bridge-burning rather than bridge-building. Because it turned disagreement into personal insults. “You don’t get that THIS is the right answer? Then it’s not simply you are wrong, you are an imbecile, if not an outright asshole!”

        The more topics that come up, the more disagreements are going to arise between various individuals and if THIS insulting/us/them is the style of discourse, you will just keep alienate and estrange more and more people, which is exactly what seems to be happening.

        It feels sort of like one of those cliche “ABC After School Specials” about group behaviour. You are in the “cool” group of kids casting aspersions at everyone else and it’s a great time. But then if someone has any disagreement with the group, they get cast out and ridiculed, and should you stick up for them, you get cast out and ridiculed. And when you do, you get a new view of this behaviour and start thinking “Maybe that attitude was fun for an in-group, but in the wider view it seems pretty toxic.”

        I’m just as prone as anyone else to this type of thinking, but I’m trying to do better these days at giving someone I may disagree with the benefit of a doubt, the most charitable reading I can, so that the tendency to “outrage” back doesn’t rise up and obscure the fact I actually agree with that person’s position to quite a degree.

        Though I still find it fun as heck to ridicule
        truly silly religious beliefs, and I think it’s a valuable tool in the box for changing beliefs! But I’m also trying to be more consistent when engaging a theist, in terms of not jumping to bridge-burning methods of discourse.

        Them’s my thoughts anyhow…

        1. ^^^ Good Lord the spellchecker wreaked havoc with that one!

          “On one hand I believe the reaction to Harris’ views and comments…”

          etc.

      4. I don’t much like the feeling that I have to pick sides. The feeling that everyone everywhere is constantly on trial reminds me of my fundamentalist youth. That was our major activity, figuring out who was righteous enough and who didn’t make scratch. It’s a dark place to go. I have no interest in sifting through quotes and context and history to try to decide who is on Team Righteous and who is on Team Asshole. If you write an article about something, I’d love to debate that article. “Should we bomb Iran?”, “Is Islam the most horrible religion?”, “How far are we from achieving a fair society?”. That’s what I want when I come to websites to read articles. I’m not so interested in trying to pass judgment on particular people, “Is Harris one of the Good Atheists?” “Has PZ gone power mad?”

      5. “This puts me in the horrible position of being in the middle between the extremes.”
        PZ Myers says, when you’re in the middle of 2 extremes, “It just means you’re halfway to crazy town.”
        I wouldn’t take that from him if I were you.
        Sam doesn’t talk smack like that about you, I’d side with him.

        1. IMO, Myers is a self-righteous, intolerant, doctrinaire, attention-seeking fool, consumed with envy for his intellectual betters.

          2. Are you old enough to remember when Barry Goldwater got into a lot of trouble for saying this? “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!”

            My objection to Myers has nothing to do with his political ideology, which is pretty similar to mine, to the degree I have one. My objection to Myers is personal — his sneering contempt for any dissent, however mild; his self-promotion; his tendency to find fault in the smallest infraction, and to pick away at it, endlessly; the list could continue. This is not a person I would like to spend any time with.

          3. New one on me, Stephen, re: Goldwater’s quotation. Interesting, nevertheless, and a slight dent to my amour propre, thinking I had contributed a minimally acute aperçu to the world. Dunno much about Myers vs. Harris: not qualified to comment. x

        2. trou wrote:

          PZ Myers says, when you’re in the middle of 2 extremes, “It just means you’re halfway to crazy town.”

          Iirc, the context of that quote addressed people who claimed to be in the middle between the “extremes” of atheism and fundamentalism, or scientific naturalism and the worst of the New Age. Liberal religion/spirituality, iow. Theistic evolution. It’s actually a good point, and one made often on WEIT.

  9. I freely admit to being Islamophobic because I fear Islam. Anyone carrying an American or British passport traveling in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. would be well advised to be Islamophobic as a matter of survival. I’m Islamophobic in exactly the same way I’m North-Korea-phobic.

    1. Probably any individual from a country that is a US ally should be careful when travelling to those countries. However,max a woman I would find those places dangerous even before the latest kerfuffles. It’s a hassle for female archaeologists who specialize in studies from those areas too.

    2. Stephen, I certainly agree with you now. But back in 2008, my daughter, then in her late 20s and traveling around the world on a US passport, did a group trip from Cairo through the Sinai, Jordan, Syria, and Turkey, ending up in Istanbul. She said that Syria was the friendliest of all those countries. She has photos with merchants in the local markets and one with a group of female university students sitting on the steps in front of the university in Aleppo. When she went to get her visa, she found that the usual rule was that the visa had to be used within 3 months of issuance, but she was going to be traveling for more than 3 months before using the visa. I said “just explain and ask”, which she did, and back came the visa with 6 months’ validity instead of 3. But Iraq and Afghanistan wouldn’t have been safe in 2008, and Syria surely isn’t now.

    3. They’re beautiful, Stephen! Please tell us something about them.

      What about the Belgians on your Flickr site–are they yours?

    4. Here’s what I propose:

      We should trade homes. I’ll take that corner of impossibly sublime countryside you live on, and you can have my 1/5 acre in soul-crushing, cookie-cutter suburbia.

        1. I literally grew up in trailer parks in the west Texas panhandle. I don’t understand to this day how I escaped the tornados.

        1. Indeed, my family once had horses in the ‘backyard’ and they had the life. I remember going to Montana and working on the ranch when I was a vegan (don’t ask) and it was then that I realized that the stories that all animals were raised cruelly was inaccurate.

  12. We had our turkey, with two kinds of stuffing, mashed potatoes, broccoli, and lots of other yummy items. And, oh yes, the Unwanted Salad. Which is still sitting there, untouched.

  13. So how many of the world’s muslims favor sharia? And what does those muslims, who doesn’t favor sharia, answer these polls?

  15. I think Digby need to do some reading up on the subject and maybe watch some news in places other than FOX. Concentrating on how many Muslims are actual Terrorist or have joined ISIS does not make any argument. Maybe read Sams book and try not to rant.

  16. Can you outline the achievements of a scientist who deserves more credit?

    What about Charles Wyville Thomson (1830-82)? In his 1872 voyage of three and a half years covering 68,890 nautical miles aboard the H.M.S. Challenger, he and other naturalists sounded the oceans’ depths, charted 140 million square miles of ocean floor, measured the temperatures on the abyssal plains, determined which elements lay where on the sea floor, and mapped the topography of the sea-beds, discovered 4,717 species and 715 genera, posited the explanation for animals to exist under such high pressure and analysed the varying salinity of the seas. The report filled 50 volumes of 29,500 pages.

    What a man.

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Wyville_Thomson

    Any other unsung heroes? x

    2. I would like a globe model of the earth that features the oceanic mountain ranges and trenches. Sure, some nice globes have slightly elevated ridges to indicate, say, the Rocky Mountains or the Himalayas but, more typically, the oceans are depicted as flat, blue spaces between land masses. Seems to me a cartographic error, at least, and a pedagogical catastrophe given how many imaginations might have been piqued over the years by providing a more engaging view of our world.

    3. Humboldt isn’t exactly unsung, but he is largely forgotten. Humboldt’s Cosmos by Gerard Helferich is a great read.

      1. Who could ever forget the Current, or the Squid?
        First heard of Humboldt back when I first read Darwin’s ‘Voyage of the Beagle’, and eventually (only about 37 years later) got round to reading the ‘Personal Narrative’ as a Project Gutenberg free e-book on my phone. Not the most convenient format for skimming or reference, but easy to carry on the bus.

  17. One Islam apologist pointed out to me that Indonesia which has the largest Muslim population in the world was “only” at 18% on that Pew poll. So I actually did an analysis of poll. Indonesia, and Pakistan, the two countries with the most Muslims (24% of the worlds Muslim population) are at a combined *45%.

    *I wanted to make clear that I actually calculated the number of Muslims who hold this opinion in each country (according to the polling data), combined the populations of each, and then calculated the the percentage. I’m quite sure if you combined all the countries pew polled this number would approach if not exceed 50%.

    1. Such pretty horses! They remind me of the ancient przewalski’s horse, and cave paintings of horses.

    2. Ah, well, ignore my question above. 🙂

      Work horses are supposed to be gentle giants–are yours? I love them, & I love to go to the horse pulling events at fairs.

      1. Not mine. They belong to the cowboy who’s the ramrod of the big dog rancher in the valley.

        1. Ah yes, I see I should have read your introductory post more carefully.

          Well, very nice critters to have in the neighborhood.

    3. On somewhat related note–I was devastated sorry to learn that Annheuser Busch was eliminating their Super Bowl Clydesdale commercials this year in order to “appeal to the millenials.” Those were the best ads!

      1. Idiots. They used to film those commercials in Stanley, Idaho, where I lived. The one with the horse kicking the field goal was filmed there, beside a stunning backdrop of the Sawtooth Mountains. One time a car company (Ford, I think) did a commercial there. You would not believe how many trucks of equipment and people they needed for a 30 second commercial. It was filmed on a cattle ranch. There were cows all over the place, but they brought in THEIR OWN COWS! I think they must have been union Hollywood stunt cows.

  19. Does believing Islamic tenets produce violence or is the Koran being (mis)used by some adherents in a complex milieu of history, culture and sociology to promote an agenda where violence is a tool? From a perspective of policy of the US, GB, etc. is this a distinction without a difference or does deciding this issue in favor of the Harris or Aslam perspectives change what policy would be?

  20. Maybe the reason a lot of Americans wouldn’t stand for Catholics advocating the death penalty for apostasy and corporal punishment for theft, whereas they more or less ignore these practices in Islam, is simply due to cultural proximity. Muslims are “less like us” than Catholics, who tend to blend in for the most part. So we care less what they do. We shouldn’t, but we do.

    2. Yes, and also we seek to give strong religious practices a pass, especially those that are different from ours b/c we want to be oh so tolerant.
      If this suggestion is true, then it is clearly contradictory that on the one hand many people will tolerate immoral beliefs b/c they stem from religion, but on the other hand they will claim those beliefs are not religious but ‘cultural’.

  22. Open thread – if you are not already a fan, check out eTown, generally found on your local NPR station – http://www.etown.org/ We were there on Monday night for the taping of Over the Rhine and Max Gomez – wonderful evening. If you are anywhere close to Boulder, try to make it to the eTown Hall for an event.

  23. I think the reason that liberals tend not to get it that Islam deserves special criticism for being a bad religion is that they think it’s being singled out, picked on. That’s probably the case with most conservatives. Their criticisms no doubt are unfairly focused on Islam, and never Christianity, for instance.

    Liberals who go after Islam, it needs to be understood, are usually atheists (I’ll bet) who, when saying Islam sucks, are really saying religion sucks and especially this one. Someone like Ben Affleck, then, would probably “get” the argument if that perspective was made clear – You must understand, Mr. Affleck, religion generally is an anchor around our necks. Islam is the poster child of it. You see, I’m not being a bigot, I’m being an atheist!

  24. You do digress! But it was appropos of a discussion we had with neighbors this Thanksgiving.

    I’d like to talk about cat evolution stuff. No, really.

    And I wanted to thank you, Jerry, this being Thanksgiving Day in the US of A, for posting all of the variety of stuff from cat pix, wildlife fotos, science stuff, religion, and Hili Dialogs, of course.

    I rarely comment on anything. I never comment on science stuff because I have nothing to add!

    You may think I have nothing to add generally, but you take my meaning….

    I do read the scientific articles, though I understand more of the other stuff.

    Anyway, keep on keepin’ on, and I have your Albatross on pre-order, so there. Too bad you couldn’t subtitle it The Albatross for us cohorts in crime.

  25. Salafism, the guiding ideology behind muslim terrorism worldwide, claims hundreds of millions of adherents. The fact that most of them are not terrorists does not mean that their ideology is compatible with Western liberalism.

    1. What fraction of Christians actually participated in The Crusades? It must be a low number. Does that let Christian doctrines completely off the hook for The Crusades?

      1. Can you blame all Islam for ISIS? Considering that many if not most of ISIS/ISIL’s victims are Muslim, can you include the victims in the blame?
        OK it’s complicated.

        I think, given that the Crusades were tied up with European (i.e. predominantly Xtian) politics & religion, yes you can hold Christianity as responsible for the Crusades as you can hold Islam responsible for ISIS. The Crusades certainly wouldn’t have happened where they did if it hadn’t been for the Jesus legends. Maybe they would have gone and terrorised Norway looking for Asgard or something instead.

        But Xtianity has mostly had a few centuries to get diluted with a bit of civilisation, whereas Islam seems to be lagging.

  26. I tried very hard to be sad about not being with anyone on Thanksgiving, but the reality is that I’m an introvert and my family is full of introverts. When I make the trek to home I never get to see everyone at once. Never more than 4 at a time. They are probably happy they didn’t have to socialize with me. Nothing personal. It’s just work for us introverts. We’d rather be reading.

    1. Thanksgiving should have a little of…long walks alone reflecting upon whatever inspires personal growth…everyday should.

    2. QFT.

      I was disappointed that my wife and I were not hosting this year (means we went to someone else’s house), because when we host I can disappear into the bedroom for a while and read things. Things like WEIT!

      2. I’ve been reading WEIT (the book) much of the day, with a four month old cat running over me or sleeping on me periodically. A day to be thankful for!

  28. “I’m baffled by tendency of liberals to give Islam a pass when they wouldn’t defend Catholicism”

    It’s probably a sort of guilt feeling over those drunken murdering bigoted thugs the Crusaders. Of course now the bigoted scum of the Islamic world are getting their revenge.

    (Anyone who thinks the Crusaders were motivated by idealism should watch Terry Jones’ doco The Crusades. That’s Terry Jones the Python and historian, not the Koran-burning hick preacher of course).

    1. On the other hand, even the author of the excellent book “the crusades through arab eyes” admits that the crusader states were generally better run than their rival arab/turk states nearby, in the sense of being less repressive of the general populace.

    1. Hey, that was fun! I could see the WEITers getting into this. I missed one on the basic game, and two on the harder version. It was a very enjoyable challenge, so thanks!

  31. I also like this stat:

    SUNNI EXTREMISTS ACCOUNTED FOR THE GREATEST NUMBER OF TERRORIST ATTACKS AND FATALITIES FOR THE THIRD CONSECUTIVE YEAR. More than 5,700 incidents were attributed to Sunni extremists, accounting for nearly 56 percent of all attacks and about 70 percent of all fatalities. Among this perpetrator group, al-Qa‘ida (AQ) and its affiliates were responsible for at least 688 attacks that resulted in almost 2,000 deaths, while the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan conducted over 800 attacks that resulted in nearly 1, 900 deaths. SECULAR, POLITICAL, AND ANARCHIST GROUPS WERE THE NEXT LARGEST CATEGORY OF PERPETRATORS, conducting 2,283 attacks with 1,926 fatalities, a drop of 5 percent and 9 percent, respectively, from 2010.

    U.S. Department of State, Country Reports on Terrorism 2011, http://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2011/195555.htm

    1. Well, those secular groups better pick it up. Don’t they know that if they sacrifice their lives they get to spend eternity with an XBox 1 and 72 games?

  32. Thanksgiving tradition — slipped over the border into beautiful Canada, where it is not Thanksgiving. St. Andrews by the Sea, this time. Light repast involving smoked salmon.

  33. A friend reported half an hour ago that he has myriad Small Tortoiseshell, Aglais urticae and Cabbage White butterflies, Pieris rapae and Bumble Bees (unidentified species) in his garden in Menai Bridge, Wales (approx. Lat. 53.3°N, Long. 4.3W). My friend’s identifications are strictly amateur and he may be wrong in the detail.

    The weather in the last few days has been ‘cold but sunny’ and the area ‘does provide a maritime micro-climate locally to some extent’ according to another commenter. Any other reports of such surprising summerish bugs so late in the year, so far north? Any comments? x

  34. Centiped genome

    “The use of different evolutionary solutions to similar problems shows that myriapods and insects adapted to dry land independently of each other,” said Chipman. “For example, comparing the centipede and insect genomes shows that they independently evolved different solutions to the same problem shared by all land-dwelling creatures — that of living in dry air.”

    1. This is interesting. There is another group of centipede-like arthropods known as the Symphylans which are generally considered to be a sister taxon to the insects. Their similarity to centipedes could be essentially convergent evolution. But I wonder what the DNA says.

  35. Responding to the posting invitation:

    In the hard-copy Friday 11/28/14 NY Times:

    An op-ed by American Enterprise Institute president Arthur Brooks: “The Trick to Being More Virtuous.”

    Mr. Brooks spoke at BYU several years ago. He received a variety of “branded” souvenirs bearing the BYU logo, including a briefcase. (He’s recently spoken there again, and received a replacement set of items.)

    He effectively says that toting the branded briefcase here and there has prompted him to more assiduously:

    ” . . . live up to the high standards of Mormon kindness, or at least not besmirch that well-earned reputation. I even found myself reluctant to carry my customary venti dark roast, given the well-known Mormon prohibition against coffee.”

    Would he refuse a similar collection of branded souvenirs from, let’s say, the RCC? Or especially the Southern Baptists, and would he take umbrage at their righteous, unctuous labeling of the Mormons as a “cult,” and consequently view Baptists as possessing less “kindness”? Would he try to be more “kind” to the Baptists so as not to “offend” delicate religious sensibilities? Does he believe that religious people in general exhibit more “kindness” than the “nones”?

    Is “kindness” overrated? Hitch once said that “civility” is “overrated.” Is that true? Very much, or just a little “overrated”? Can we “civilly” (dis-)agree that, all else being equal, it is at least better to be a bit more civil, rather than a bit less? I certainly perceive a marked decrease in civility in this precious “exceptional” Amuricun culture during the last 20-30 years.

    I wonder what are Mr. Brooks’s own religious views. Does he believe that women should be subordinate to men in any (every?) domain of life, as the Mormons, Catholics, and So. Baptists hold? Would he consider this an example of facilitating and optimizing “kindness” and human flourishing? Does he consider women less “kind” if they refuse to so subordinate themselves – if they refuse to submit to clerical bullying (like a Romney imposing himself on and lecturing a Mormon woman confined to her hospital bed)?

    Perhaps he would accept a speaking invitation from the Center for Inquiry at its national gathering next year, if CFI would care to extend one, so that he might evaluate the “kindness” of the non-religious. From my experience, the CFI staff in Buffalo are no less kind and courteous than any religious assemblage. Would he be no less willing to accept a souvenir package from CFI, and no less display it throughout the world wherever he goes, all in the spirit of supporting and extolling the virtue of rational inquiry?

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