My new toy!

October 18, 2015 • 9:30 am

Sue Strandberg, who notes that she comments on this site under the name “Sastra,” is responsible for designing the Richard Dawkins Award trophies and getting them made. Each statue is tailored to the work or interests of the recipient. The only limitation is that the object must be a replica of a fossil. So, for example, Rebecca Goldstein got an Australopithecus skull and Steve Pinker a Cro-Magnon skull. I was eager to see what my fossil was, but despite my pleas Sue wouldn’t tell me in advance.

Well, what I got was totally appropriate, and I love it (all photos by Mark Gura):

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It’s a Smilodon, the extinct saber-toothed cat. Not only that, but Sue noted that it was the color of cowboy boots, making it even more appropriate. As she’s an artist, she also touched up the teeth to make them even more fearsome. I hope the TSA doesn’t confiscate this when I fly back tomorrow because the teeth could be considered weapons.

Here’s Sue giving me the award:

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Richard had taped a lovely introduction, which I think will be online eventually. Here is a screenshot from it, using one of my quotes that he admired:

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My thanks to the Dawkins Award committee, to Sue, and to the Atheist Alliance of America for this very great honor. As I said in my acceptance speech, echoing the words of Garth and Wayne, “I’m not worthy!”

I’m still collecting pictures of the meeting and its participants, and will post those soon.

63 thoughts on “My new toy!”

  3. Congratulations, Jerry. Your writings and other presentations more than justify your receiving this award!

  5. Congratulations Jerry! Your arsenal for getting the grip on an audience now includes appropriate fangs. [/Insert religious background mumbling of “we always knew atheists had such” here.]

  6. Congratulations! But a Drosophila fossil would be easier to smuggle into a plane…

  7. Has to be one of the best awards a person could receive. The words from Dawkins are just great.

  11. Zounds and Holy Cow and Huzzah! This is terrific. That is a totally cool item for the mantel, award or not.

  12. Fantastic and sooooo deserving!! I can’t think of a better award for the great professor!!

  13. Many, many congratulations for this this well-deserved recognition for your tireless efforts to disseminate reason: you are indeed worthy!

  14. That trophy is very cool.
    The quote in the screenshot is really satisfying. Something for the ages.

  15. When Wayne and Garth told Alice Cooper they were not worthy, Alice Cooper held his hand for them to kiss it like the pope.

    By contrast, when they said they were not worthy to Steve Tyler of Aerosmith, they instead got this response.

    https://youtu.be/wIE_ITidaKY?t=10s

    2. I have actually just recalled about 6 hours after posting above that in the immediate following scene Wayne and Garth run into Heather Locklear and conclude that there IS a God.

  16. Congratulations, but that comment about the TSA taking your trophy is a little scary because it could actually happen, and it wouldn’t be the dumbest thing they’ve ever done.

  18. Something that’s never been quite clear to me…could the smilodon actually open its jaws wide enough to get a grip between the lower jaw and those teeth? And, if it did so, did it have sufficient leverage that it could do the kinds of damage that, say, a modern jaguar can?

    Or were these teeth more ornamental…?

    b&

    1. Google sayeth:

      Why the enormous teeth? Certainly they were used in hunting, but opinions vary as to exactly how they were used. Some paleontologists have suggested that they were used to grab and hold onto prey. However, attacking a large herbivore this way could easily break the saber teeth and saber teeth that were demonstrably broken during an animal’s lifetime are rare in fossil deposits. A more plausible hypothesis suggests that saber teeth were used to deliver a fatal ripping wound to the belly or throat of a prey animal. Sabertooth carnivores may not have tried to grapple with prey. More likely, they delivered one crippling stab wound and then waited for the prey to die.

      http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/mammal/carnivora/sabretooth.html

      1. Nice to see that the link was from UC Berkeley, where I did my postdoc (in chemistry) many years back. There’s a smilodon statue outside McCone Hall, apparently sculpted by “Trader Vic” (http://searchresearch1.blogspot.com/2012/03/wednesday-search-challenge-31412-wheres.html) and a fossil skeleton inside Valley Life Sciences (https://oaklandgeology.wordpress.com/2013/02/15/smilodon-californicus/).
        So, PCCE, you’re now a proud possessor of the official California state fossil.
        Congratulations!

        1. “So, PCCE, you’re now a proud possessor of the official California state fossil.”

          Charlton Heston?

      2. From the article:

        Smilodon is a relatively recent sabertooth, from the Late Pleistocene. It went extinct about 10,000 years ago.

        Which raised an obvious possibility to me, confirmed by Wikipedia: we have smilodon DNA! And they were apparently social cats, like lions.

        …so, here’s hoping that smilodons wind up on the short list for Jurassic Park treatment….

        b&

        2. Damned sight better chance with a Smilodon than any dromaosaurid (Utah raptor, “velociraptor”, etc).
          In fact, considering the relative profusion of potential surrogate mothers in zoos, probably a better chance for a Smilodon than a mammoth of any sort either.
          Well my 2€c, any way. Call it 20 XFA.
          Even if the idea didn’t have the support of PCCE, I’d probably argue to try with a (relatively) small animal like a Smilodon long before trying a mammoth. Though on those grounds, an aurochs would probably beat both.
          I note that the only attempted “de-extinction” that I can recall off the top of my head is a Pyrenean goat of some sort. Relatively small, recent, and plenty of material available. All important points.

  21. Congratulations on a very well-deserved award. And Sstrawberry did such a lovely job on the actual award.

    I hope you’re having a great time and have had a chance to meet some of my friends from Raleigh, NC’s Triangle Freethought Society and some of the great folks from the SC Camp Quest. I so wanted to come along, but just couldn’t do it this year.

  23. You’re SO Worthy! Thanks for all your books and articles and, of course, this WebSite. (Thanks also to Richard Dawkins, through whose book I found his website through which I found this one through which I found your book, etc., etc., etc.) It’s a beautiful day!

      1. Was that meant as Google bate?
        Pake: (noun) 1. A delicious pie baked inside of a delicious cake resulting in a delicious, decadent over the top dessert. This is the Turducken of desserts.

        And…
        The word turducken is a portmanteau of turkey, duck, and chicken. The dish is a form of engastration, which is a recipe method in which one animal is stuffed inside the gastric passage of another.

  27. Congratulations Jerry! Very cool indeed, much deserved, and topped off by a trophy that will always make you smile.

    The quote Prof Dawkins highlighted is one I like myself. 🙂

      1. Well Sastra should know, being a denizen of this list, exactly what rings ProfCC’s bell. 😉

  29. Congratulations, PCC. A well-deserved award.

    And my respect for Sastra goes up yet another notch.

  32. I was hoping you two would hit it off. Kitty has been sitting behind my computer chair reading WEIT for months, smiling. Waiting. And now s/he is gone and I will miss it.

    Since the fossil is a replica made from a high grade resin I’m hoping it won’t have/didn’t have any problems getting through airport security. The fangs look more dangerous than they are.

    Dawkins’ introduction was wonderful and Jerry’s speech was great. I loved getting a chance to talk to him in person later, too. A very good convention, with a lot of fine speakers — some familiar to me, and some intriguing new ones.

  34. Well deserved,congratulations.!Looking at that set of Incisors, I suspect there wasn’t much to smile about meeting a Smilodon.

  36. Thylacosmilus, the convergent marsupial sabre tooth of South America, was once thought (probably wrongly) to have been driven extinct by competition from Smilodon coming south in the Great American Interchange. It too must have been pretty terrifying. I would love to have seen one. There were other convergent “false sabretooths” among the placental mammals which lived much earlier. Sabretoothery seems to be something mammals readily evolve towards.

    Anyway, I was delighted that Jerry got this award.

    1. The noun “sabretoothery” – itself – wins the ZERO – Hits’ – Noun – in – Google – Search Award.

      Smashingly Dr Dawkins can even beat out Goooogle’s machinations !

      Blue

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