Month: May 2021

Readers’ wildlife photos

May 26, 2021 • 8:00 am

Readers, please send in your good wildlife photos, as my tank is running low.

Today, after a hiatus, evolutionary ornithologist and ecologist Bruce Lyon has returned with one of his science-plus-photo posts. His captions are indented and you can enlarge Bruce’s photos by clicking on them. His topic is one that’s been on my mind this year: adoption and brood desertion in ducks.

Given the recent duck conflict and infanticide on Botany Pond by Jerry’s office, I thought readers would be interested in some information about adoption in ducks. In 1986 I did an experimental study on adoption in Barrow’s goldeneyes (Bucephala islandica) with John Eadie. Eadie, now a professor at UC Davis, is a leading expert on waterfowl ecology, behavior and management. He wrote the foundational synthesis paper on brood parasitism and adoption in waterfowl just as he was starting his PhD at the University of British Columbia, and he studied these ideas with field work on goldeneyes at a gorgeous study site in the Cariboo region of central British Columbia. We joined forces during his PhD work to do an experiment with his study population. I will start with some natural history photos of the ducks and then get to our study.

Below: John Eadie on recent trip to check his original goldeneye study population in BC.

Below: Typical Barrow’s goldeneye habitat: a mix of wooded and grassland areas. This was early spring (May) and the aspen trees have not yet leafed out and the marsh vegetation is brown with last year’s dead growth. Goldeneye nest in tree cavities, and the trees have to be somewhat near water. Nests up to 2 km from water have been reported. Within a day or two of hatching, the ducklings jump from the nest and follow their mother on an overland march to the wetland where they will then grow up.

Below: More goldeneye habitat, a small lake in the forest. It’s early spring and the aspens are just leafing out so their leaves are a lovely pea green color.

Below: A pair of Barrow’s goldeneyes on a small pond.

The same pair:

Below: The same male as above but now by himself—his female was likely off visiting her nest, perhaps to lay an egg. Males associate with the females prior to and during egg-laying but then abandon the wetlands once incubation begins. The females alone raise the kids. Note the male’s spectacular iridescent purple head complete with the diagnostic white crescent near the beak.

The Barrow’s goldeneye may soon be ‘extinct’, but in name only. The American Ornithological Society seems poised to change the names of all North American species with eponymous names (Jerry posted about that here). I have been trying to think of an appropriate new name for Barrow’s goldeneye and it is hard coming up with good names (fun naming contest—suggest your names in the comments). The females are similar in appearance to female common goldeneyes (Bucephala clangula), so a name based on the female seems tough. A geographic name is also a challenge since Barrow’s goldeneyes overlap with common goldeneyes in Western North America, and Barrow’s goldeneyes also have a peculiar disjunct distribution—Northwestern North America, Eastern Canada and Iceland (the bird was first known to modern science from Iceland, hence the latin species epithet islandica). Perhaps something like purple-headed goldeneye will do? Or maybe history will prevail and it will be the Icelandic goldeneye.

Below. A very clean and dapper looking male. I love the two tone feet. Barrow’s goldeneyes are one of my favorite birds; they are charismatic and live in hauntingly beautiful habitat. In flight, both goldeneye species make a characteristic loud whistling noise with their wings, giving rise to their nickname ‘whistlers’. It is an evocative sound that I will always associate with the wild north woods.

Below: A goldeneye clutch of eggs inside a nest box. The eggs are greener than those of most other ducks.

Below: A female goldeneye with her brood. 

In goldeneyes, there are two ways that females end up raising the ducklings of other females—brood parasitism, where a female lays eggs in the nest of another female, and adoption after hatching. Both are common, and an important contribution from Eadie’s synthesis paper was the idea that adoption might in some cases be a form of post-hatching brood parasitism. The paper also highlighted the importance of considering the costs and benefits to both the female adopting the ducklings (the recipient) as well as the donor, who is getting her ducklings adopted by the recipient female. It is not always clear whether the donor female or the recipient female is causing the adoption to happen so it is important to consider the consequences to both females and their kids.

At least a couple of different explanations might account for adoption in waterfowl. First, adoption increases the number of ducklings in a brood and there may be safety in numbers—if predation occurs, the risk per individual duckling goes down. In this case the adopting female should be happy to adopt ducklings and increase her brood size, and the donors would also gain this benefit. This cooperative view of adoption dominated the field for a long time, reflected in the fact that amalgamated broods in waterfowl are often called crèches, from the French word for a nursery where babies are cooperatively cared for.  Second, adoption might reflect a form of post-hatching brood parasitism where the donating female benefits by fobbing her chicks off on someone else. Her kids get the benefit of having a parent around but the donor is off the hook for caring for kids and invests less time and effort in breeding that she would otherwise. The cooperation and parasitism hypotheses are not mutually exclusive because both donor and recipient might benefit from adoption. Finally, some have suggested that adoption is not adaptive but a mistake—female goldeneyes are territorial and often fight with each other, and broods get mixed up during fights.

Below: An unusual Canada goose (Branta canadensis) nest on the roof of an old cabin at our study area. One study of Canada geese claimed that parents actually kidnap young from other parents—apparently having additional goslings in the brood is so beneficial that the adults steal kids from each other.

Below: Goldeneye ducks are great for studying adoption for a couple of reasons. Large lakes can have more than one female with ducklings and adoption is common. The ducklings have white cheek patches that are ideal for marking with colored permanent markers to keep track of which broods the ducklings come from. We have lots of colors to use and we only color one cheek (left blue chick is a different brood than right blue cheek). This provides enough combinations so that each adult female on a lake gets her own unique brood color for her ducklings. Then, when a duckling is adopted its cheek color gives it away as an adoptee (it differs in marking from the foster mom’s kids) but we can also know which donor brood (and mom) it came from.

Below: John Eadie giving a duckling its unique brood cheek color (blue left in this case). The colors last for a few weeks and are easily seen with a telescope during brood surveys.

Below. An example of a brood with adopted ducklings. The two photos show the right and left cheeks, respectively. The hen’s own kids are yellow right and she adopted kids with yellow left and green left. We kept track of the adult females with plastic ‘nasal saddles’ attached to the beak; each hen gets a unique color combination. Colored leg bands would be useless for identifying swimming females.

John and I did a brood size manipulation experiment to study both the recipient and donor perspectives of adoption. In other species of waterfowl, researchers noted that adoption often occurs during a period of intensive predation on ducklings, leading to the conclusion that adoption likely functions to reduce the risk of predation per individual duckling, as described above. However, John and I realized that there could be another explanation for the link between predation and adoption. Intensive predation can quickly reduce a female’s brood size well below the number of ducklings she leaves the nest with, changing the benefit she can expect to gain from caring for the brood relative to the costs of staying and caring for them. If the expected costs exceed the benefits, the adaptive response would be for the mother to desert the brood and save her investment for future reproduction. Studies with several birds, and some mammals like bears, provide evidence that adaptive desertion of offspring sometimes occurs.

John and I applied these ideas to adoption and proposed that adoption might be result of adaptive brood desertion. We dubbed this donor-driven explanation for adoption as the ‘ditched duckling hypothesis’ and we predicted that these deserted broods would besmaller broods. Desertion could then lead to adoption in two ways. First, females might desert their brood and the ducklings then find a foster mom on their own. Alternatively, females could invade the territory of another hen, which would invariably result in a fight between the two hens, and during the fight her kids might mix in with the other kids. The sneaky donor is then ‘chased off’ by the territory owner, but her kids now have a foster mom. We tested the adaptive desertion part of hypothesis by experimentally reducing brood sizes at hatch—we took ducklings at hatch from some nests and gave them to other females, either by adding them to another nest box at the same stage or by getting females with young broods to adopt the kids. We left many broods unmanipulated to serve as ‘control’ broods.

Below: The brood size manipulations strongly affected whether a female ditched her ducklings: smaller broods were far more likely to be abandoned than control broods. There also seemed to be a clear threshold size: 100% of the broods smaller than four ducklings were deserted while only 20% of the broods with four or more ducklings were deserted. This graph from our paper shows this key result and compares the sizes of broods where females stayed and where they left. Importantly, we also found a link between desertion and adoption: a few of these deserted broods ended up being adopted. Whether ditched ducklings got adopted depended in part on how many potential foster moms were available on a given lake.

Below: A female with tiny brood of two ducklings. This bird was not part of our experiment but tiny broods like this in our experimental study were invariably deserted by their moms.

Data from John Eadie’s first couple of years of thesis work suggested that adoption might benefit the adopting females—his observational data showed that an individual duckling’s chances of survival to the end of the season was higher in larger broods, as predicted by the safety in numbers idea. However, observational (non-experimental) studies can be misleading because some other hidden factor might actually be causing the pattern. For example, ducklings might survive better in larger broods because they have better mothers: in birds generally, older more experienced mothers often have bigger broods and are better able to care for their kids. Experimentally changing brood size is essential to scramble any correlation between brood size and mother quality, and thus directly assess the effect of brood size itself. When we did this, we found no relation between experimental brood size and duckling survival. In other words, we detected neither a cost nor a benefit to the adopting hen in terms of the survival of the kids.

An additional experimental suggests that there may sometimes be costs to the mothers that adopt ducklings. We did some duckling addition experiments to see if moms would happily adopt kids—they were similar to Jerry’s attempts to get the stray mallard ducklings he encountered adopted by one of the females on Botany Pond. Putting a duckling in a lake near a female with a brood causes the released duckling to begin calling which gets the attention of the mother with the ducklings. She then swims over to check out the duckling. Having the ducklings be the same age as the adopting moms kids turned out to be key. When we released newly hatched ducklings near female who also had newly hatched ducklings they were invariably adopted without fuss—she treated them as she would her own. However, when we tried to introduce smaller ducklings into broods of older ducklings the moms would invariably attack the ducklings and try to kill them (we were able to rescue virtually all these experimental ducklings and get them safely into broods with ducklings of the same age). The discovery that females sometimes aggressively reject foster ducklings suggests that there may be costs to adoption in some contexts but we do not yet understand what these costs are.

Below. A female aggressively chases an introduced duckling away from her brood and the duckling wisely flees. Before our study John assumed that female goldeneyes would readily adopt ducklings so this aggressive behavior came as a real shock. We named the spit of land where we observed this particular chase Epiphany Point—this single observation of female aggression changed the way John thought about adoption in these ducks.

Below. Not wanting to end on a depressing note (parents beating up kids), let’s end with a bluebird of happiness—specifically, a mountain bluebird (Sialia currucoides). These bluebirds are very common in study area. This is a male bluebird at his nest in an aspen tree. Aspens often have lots of holes, which serve as nest sites for bluebirds, goldeneyes and lots of other cavity-nesting species as well. Given the abundance of aspen trees, cavity-nesting birds are particularly abundant at our study area.

Wednesday: Hili dialogue

May 26, 2021 • 6:30 am

It is a humpish sort of day, suitable for camels or Quasimodo: it’s May 26 2021: National Blueberry Cheesecake Day (make mine either plain or cherry, though). But it’s also National Cherry Dessert Day, Paper Airplane Day, Sally Ride Day (honoring her birthday on this day in 1951), World Redhead Day, and, in Australia, National Sorry Day, a day of apology for the mistreatment of indigenous people.

Today’s Google Doodle (click on screenshot) is an animated swing-dancing game celebrating the famed Savoy Ballroom, in which you can test your rhythm, individually or in a two-person game, for four swing songs. I haven’t played the game, so no guarantees.

This video explains the video, the Savoy Ballroom, and the game:

News of the Day:

According to the Washington Post, Manhattan’s district attorney has convened a grand jury to evaluate the  possibility of criminal charges against Donald Trump and his business associates.

The panel was convened recently and will sit three days a week for six months. It is likely to hear several matters — not just the Trump case ­— during the duration of its term, which is longer than a traditional New York state grand-jury assignment, these people said. Like others, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. Generally, special grand juries such as this one are convened to participate in long-term matters rather than to hear evidence of crimes charged routinely.

The move indicates that District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr.’s investigation of the former president and his business has reached an advanced stage after more than two years. It suggests, too, that Vance believes he has found evidence of a crime — if not by Trump then by someone potentially close to him or by his company.

Is anybody betting that the Orange Man will be wearing an orange onesie in jail? Remember, there is no Presidential pardon for state charges, even if Biden had the unlikely inclination to intervene.

More about grand juries from the AP: Madison Smith, a Kansas woman who accused a man of raping her convened her own grand jury when local prosecutors declined to bring rape charges. It turns out that, at least in Kansas, citizens can impanel a grand jury if they present a petition signed by hundreds of citizens. Smith was persistent and succeeded:

The process of seeking a grand jury wasn’t easy. Smith had to stand in a parking lot telling her story over and over again to strangers to collect hundreds of signatures, and then do it again when the first petition was rejected on a technicality.

The accused had already pleaded guilty to aggravated battery and was given two years’ probation. I believe that, at least in Kansas (a few other states have such procedures), this is the first time the citizen-impaneling procedure has been used in a case of sexual assault.

Down in Texas, the state legislature just approved a bill that allows anyone over 21 to buy and carry a handgun in pubic places without a permit and without training. The governor says he’ll sign the bill.

From the BBC, an article titled, “Miss, what’s a duck?” reveals the deep and sad ignorance of British children who get little exposure to nature. Here’s part of the sad report:

When school teacher Kim Leathley took her class on a trip to the local aquarium, she was asked an unusual question.

“Miss? What’s that?” said a nine-year-old boy, pointing towards the waves, as they walked along Blackpool promenade.

It turned out he’d never seen the sea before.

A surprise, given the school is in the middle of Blackpool and only a few streets from the seafront.

Other teachers have had similar experiences over the years on school trips outside the city, she explains. A 10-year-old once asked what a duck was, while a pupil – spotting cows in the field – said: “Look at those horses.”

Speaking of ducks (and we should), a California man was arrested for firing his gun to protect his pet duck. According to the BBC, the man fired into the air as a dog leapt his fence went after his duck. The duck survived, but with a broken leg. In my view, that man should get a medal, not a charge of reckless endangerment!  (h/t: Matthew)

Over at the Atlantic, Matti Friedman has an article about how Americans’ attempts to see commonalities between themselves and Israel has distorted our view of what’s happening. Read “Israel’s Problems are not like America’s.”

Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is 590,628, an increase of about 700 deaths over yesterday’s figure. The reported world death toll is now 3,500,840, an increase of about 12,650 over yesterday’s total.

Stuff that happened on May 26 includes:

  • 1293 – An earthquake strikes Kamakura, Kanagawa, Japan, killing about 23,000.
  • 1857 – Dred Scott is emancipated by the Blow family, his original owners.

Scott had lost a Supreme Court case, 7-2, which said that African-Americans had no right to citizenship in the U.S. Sadly, after he was freed, he died about 15 months later of tuberculosis. A photo:

Here are the final resting places in St. Petersburg of the Tsar and his family, shot by the Bolsheviks. I took this in 2011. Nicholas’s resting place is to the left in the center.

A first edition, first printing of this puppy will run you around $40,000 U.S.:

  • 1923 – The first 24 Hours of Le Mans was held and has since been run annually in June.
  • 1927 – The last Ford Model T rolls off the assembly line after a production run of 15,007,003 vehicles.

Here are some model Ts on Ford’s famous assembly line:

It was successful. Here are some British troops lined up on the Dunkirk beaches, awaiting evacuation:

Here’s Abbey Road Two Studio, where most of the tracks of Sgt. Pepper (54 years old today) were recorded:

  • 1998 – The Supreme Court of the United States rules in New Jersey v. New York that Ellis Island, the historic gateway for millions of immigrants, is mainly in the state of New Jersey, not New York.
  • 1998 – The first “National Sorry Day” was held in Australia, and reconciliation events were held nationally, and attended by over a million people.

Notables born on this day include:

Lange was most famous for her images of the Great Depression in the U.S. Here are two of them. First, a family moves with its belongings:

A family in Pittsburg County, Oklahoma, are forced to leave their home during the Great Depression, June 1938. Photograph: Dorothea Lange/Getty Images

“Migrant mother” (1936), perhaps her most famous image:

  • 1907 – John Wayne, American actor, director, and producer (d. 1979)
  • 1920 – Peggy Lee, American singer-songwriter and actress (d. 2002)

Here’s Lee singing “Why Don’t You Do Right” with the Benny Goodman Orchestra in 1943. I love this video! Her singing is lovely and understated, and Goodman plays some sweet licorice stick.

  • 1926 – Miles Davis, American trumpet player, composer, and bandleader (d. 1991)
  • 1928 – Jack Kevorkian, American pathologist, author, and assisted suicide activist (d. 2011)
  • 1940 – Levon Helm, American singer-songwriter, drummer, producer, and actor (d. 2012)
  • 1948 – Stevie Nicks, American singer-songwriter

Here’s the best Stevie Nicks video ever, recorded spontaneously as she was being made up for a Rolling Stone shoot. Voilà: “Wild Heart.” This may be the best spontaneous rock song ever, and is infinitely better than the recorded version. You won’t regret listening to this.

  • 1949 – Jeremy Corbyn, British journalist and politician
  • 1951 – Sally Ride, American physicist and astronaut, founded Sally Ride Science (d. 2012)

Those who went belly up on May 26 include:

Here’s one of Riis’s photos. Wikipedia caption: “Bandit’s Roost (1888) by Jacob Riis, from How the Other Half Lives. This image is Bandit’s Roost at 59½ Mulberry Street, considered the most crime-ridden, dangerous part of New York City.” Would you walk down this street? Talk about “Gangs of New York”!

  • 1943 – Edsel Ford, American businessman (b. 1893)
  • 1976 – Martin Heidegger, German philosopher and academic (b. 1889)
  • 2008 – Sydney Pollack, American actor, director, and screenwriter (b. 1934)
  • 2010 – Art Linkletter, Canadian-American radio and television host (b. 1912)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili doesn’t understand the prevalence of annoying insects (has she considered evolution?):

Hili: I can find no justification.
Paulina: What for?
Hili: Neither for mosquitos nor for any flies.
(Picture: Paulina R.)
In Polish:
Hili: Nie znajduję żadnego usprawiedliwienia.
Paulina: Dla kogo?
Hili: Ani dla komarów, ani dla innych muszek.
(Zdjęcie: Paulina R.)

Little Kulka is intense, as usual:

A meme from Bruce:

From Nicole, a plaint that I’ve sometimes had:

A bad joke from Jesus of the Day:

From Titania. Shoot me NOW!

Tweets from Matthew. The first is a science experiment: “How ducklings’ feet sound on different floors.” Awesome!

If they start opening beers we’re all doomed:

I don’t think these ducks are particularly spoiled, do you?

A nice optical illusion, and no, it does not expand! Click on it to enlarge the picture.

ARRESTED!???? This guy deserves a medal!

This really is excellent even if it is the New Woke Times. Excellent graphics:

There are more pictures in this thread of quail walking alongside a gopher snake. Matthew’s take: “I reckon they are ensuring it leaves. Safety in numbers and intimidating to snake.”

 

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Concerto for Cootie

May 25, 2021 • 2:15 pm

Why not continue with a little more Duke Ellington, perhaps the greatest jazz artist in history? My favorite songs come from 1940-1941, when the band featured the incomparable combination of Jimmie Blanton on bass (he died shortly thereafter of tuberculosis) and Ben Webster on tenor sax. Ellington was never as good as he was in those two years. This song, “Concerto for Cootie”, was recorded on March 15, 1940, and features the growling trumpet of Cootie Williams. (The song title was later changed to “Do Nothing Till You Hear from Me”.)

Jazz doesn’t get any smoother than this, though this isn’t “easy-listening” jazz. Make sure you listen for Blanton’s superb backup. And here, from Ehsan Khoshbhakt’s “Notes on Jazz” is his analysis of “Why Concerto for Cootie is a Masterpiece“. I don’t necessarily agree with everything the critic says, but I do agree about the near-perfect blending of solos and the orchestra.

Concerto for Cootie is a masterpiece because every thing in it is pure; because it doesn’t have that slight touch of softness which is enough to make so many other deserving records insipid. Concerto for Cootie is a masterpiece because the arranger and the soloist have refused in it any temptation to achieve an easy effect, and because the musical substance of it is so rich that not for one instant does the listener have an impression of monotony. Concerto for Cootie is a masterpiece because it shows the game being played for all it is worth, without anything’s being held back, and because the game is won. We have here a real concerto in which the orchestra is not a simple background, in which the soloist doesn’t waste his time in technical acrobatics or in gratuitous effects. Both have something to say, they say it well, and what they say is beautiful. Finally, Concerto for Cootie is a masterpiece because what the orchestra says is the indispensable complement to what the soloist says; because nothing is out of place or superfluous in it; and because the composition thus attains unity.
Concerto for Cootie should not be considered as an ordinary arrangement. Its unusual structure, the polish of its composition, the liberties with certain well-established rules that are taken in it, the refusal to improvise these characteristics are enough to place it rather on the level of original composition as this term is understood by artists of classical training.

 

Test for teacher literacy ditched in New York State

May 25, 2021 • 1:00 pm

UPDATE: As reader aburstein points out below (and gives another source), the article below is four years old.  So the news is dated, but the rationale and actions are still in line with the dismantling of meritocratic assessment that continues today.

_______________

Once again a standardized test—this time for certification as a New York State teacher—has been eliminated. The axed test involved mastering reading and writing abilities, and is known as the Academic Literary Skills test, one of four tests previously required to be a ceritified teacher. Now the requirement to pass that test has been ditched.

Officials give several reasons for eliminating the test, but none are really convincing, and I suspect that they’re getting rid of it because it reduces equity in the teaching profession—minority teachers don’t pass the test as often as white ones.  If this is the real reason, then we have again encountered the dismantling of the meritocracy to achieve equity (representation of groups in proportions equal to what obtains in the general population). While you may say that this is “lowering standards” for becoming a New York teacher, state officials deny that; and yet the article itself implies that this is a lowering of standards.

Click on the website at ny.chalkbeat.org below to read the article:

First, the opening statement of the article implies that removing the literacy test does represent a lowering of standards (my emphasis):

State officials voted to make it easier to become a New York state teacher on Monday by knocking off one of the state’s main teacher certification requirements.

. . .The literacy test, which became mandatory in 2014, was one of several requirements the state added to overhaul teacher preparation in 2009. Regents hoped that a slate of more rigorous exams would help better prepare teachers for the real-life demands of the job and make for a more qualified teaching force.

In total, teachers have had to clear four certification hurdles, including the literacy exam. The other exams ask teachers to demonstrate their teaching skills, content knowledge, and understanding of students with particular needs.

Now “making it easier” may simply mean that people save time by not taking the test, but further information in the article suggests that’s not what they mean:

Though the intent was to create a more qualified teaching workforce, officials argued Monday the overhaul did not work out as planned — providing an unnecessary roadblock for prospective teachers. The exam faced legal challenges after a low percentage of black and Hispanic students passed the test. Only 38 percent of aspiring black teachers and 46 percent of aspiring Hispanic teachers passed the test between September 2013 and June 2016, compared to 69 percent of their white peers, according to the state education department officials.

Judge Kimba Wood (remember her?) ruled the test legal because it tested job-related skills and thus wasn’t discriminatory, but the state ditched the test anyway. The reasons are suggested by the differential passing rates given above, which would lead to lower proportions of minority teachers, as well as the words “unnecessary roadblock” above, whose meaning isn’t clear:

One gets the impression that this differential passing rate was unanticipated, and thus decisions were made post facto that the test was both “flawed” and “unnecessary”:

“The issue is not that literacy is not important, literacy is everything,” said Regent Kathleen Cashin, who chairs the board’s committee on higher education. “It’s just that if you have a flawed test, does that raise standards or does that lower standards?”

But what evidence is there that the test is “flawed”? If it’s just the differential passing rate, that’s not evidence at all. What could be going on here is that the “flaw” is racism, and that would be based on Ibram Kendi’s assertion (now widely accepted) that if there are inequities in a system (in this case, the test), then there is structural racism in the system (the test). But there isn’t independent evidence for that.

And then there’s a flat dismissal that eliminating the test involves lowering standards:

Chancellor Betty Rosa gave a particularly strong defense of the changes, arguing that some of those who have been critical of this move have “no clue” and that dropping the test does not represent a lowering of standards.

“The theme song … has been ‘Oh you’re lowering the standards,” Rosa said. “No, ladies and gentlemen.”

To me, this doesn’t sound like a “strong defense.”

If they want to eliminate the test because minorities pass it at a disproportionately low rate, thus creating inequities in the teaching corps, then they should admit that. There’s no shame involved in saying that you are getting rid of the test as a form of affirmative action or academic reparations, for one can argue that we need minority teachers as role models. But then you shouldn’t pretend that the test is “flawed” if you don’t have independent evidence for that.

And yes, it does involve lowering standards for admission, as do all affirmative action methods. But remember that “lowering standards” may not be injurious if truly qualified people are being eliminated under the present system (Harvard, after all, would be just as good if they admitted not the top 4.6% of applicants but the next best 5%).

Also, one can argue that relaxing the standards must be balanced against the potential benefit of having teachers that serve not only as role models, but themselves are given a leg up in a profession that historically has discriminated against them. All I would like here is a little honesty on the part of those who ditched the test. But honesty is in short supply in these parlous days.

University College London handles political controversy the right way

May 25, 2021 • 9:45 am

I’ve written in detail about one of the Foundational Principles of Free Expression of the University of Chicago, the one embodied in what we call the “Kalven Report“.

The principle of this report, as summarized yesterday by my Chicago colleague Brian Leiter, is that our University should take no official position on any ideological, moral, or political issue except for those issues that directly impinge on our academic mission. The principle grew out of calls from faculty and students for the University to take positions against Communism, against the Vietnam war, and other issues du jour. The principle is there to guarantee that nobody is cowed from speaking their minds by “official” university statements that might chill one’s speech.

In response to several of us seeking clarification, President Bob Zimmer clarified last October that the prohibition against taking such positions applies not just to the University administration, but to its units: departments, schools, and so on. Nevertheless, many departments and statements from administrators continue to blatantly violent this prohibition (see a list of violations here). For reasons beyond my ken, the administration has yet taken no action to remove these statements. That means that the Kalven Principles are unenforced, are eroding, and may disappear. And if they go, so goes academic freedom at our school. What a pity that would be, since freedom of speech and academic freedom are points the University makes to sell our school to prospective students. It would be a shame if students came here under false pretenses.

Brian’s nice post quotes the Kalven report, and I think all universities should adhere to these words. I’ve put the crucial bit in bold:

A university has a great and unique role to play in fostering the development of social and political values in a society. The role is defined by the distinctive mission of the university and defined too by the distinctive characteristics of the university as a  community. It is a role for the long term.

The mission of the university is the discovery, improvement, and dissemination of knowledge. Its domain of inquiry and scrutiny includes all aspects and all values of society. A university faithful to its mission will provide enduring challenges to social values, policies, practices, and institutions. By design and by effect, it is the institution which creates discontent with the existing social arrangements and proposes new ones. In brief, a good university, like Socrates, will be upsetting.

The instrument of dissent and criticism is the individual faculty member or the individual student. The university is the home and sponsor of critics; it is not itself the critic. It is, to go back once again to the classic phrase, a community of scholars. To perform its mission in the society, a university must sustain an extraordinary environment of freedom of inquiry and maintain an independence from political fashions, passions, and pressures. A university, if it is to be true to its faith in intellectual inquiry, must embrace, be hospitable to, and encourage the widest diversity of views within its own community. It is a community but only for the limited, albeit great, purposes of teaching and research. It is not a club, it is not a trade association, it is not a lobby.

Since the university is a community only for these limited and distinctive purposes, it is a community which cannot take collective action on the issues of the day without endangering the conditions for its existence and effectiveness. There is no mechanism by which it can reach a collective position without inhibiting that full freedom of dissent on which it thrives. It cannot insist that all of its members favor a given view of social policy; if it takes collective action, therefore, it does so at the price of censuring any minority who do not agree with the view adopted. In brief, it is a community which cannot resort to majority vote to reach positions on public issues.

One school that has just adhered to this principle is University College London, which of course probably isn’t even aware of Chicago’s avowed policy. During the recent fights between Israel and Palestine, UCL’s Provost has rightly decried bigotry of students against each other, but refuses to take a stand on the matter of the war. Click on the screenshot to read Provost Michael Spence’s take:

What he should have said and did say:

The first question concerns why my message of earlier this week called out antisemitic activity when issues of prejudice remain a problem for so many in our community, not least our Palestinian students. The answer to that question is that we had had several incidents involving direct threats of serious physical violence against Jewish students. That was a situation to which the University needed urgently to respond, and for which there was no immediate parallel.

However, it goes without saying that the University takes every form of discrimination with the utmost seriousness. In the last few days, I have been made aware of reports of Islamophobia, of prejudice against Palestinian students, and of some feeling unsafe. I want to be clear again that we unreservedly condemn abuse, harassment or bullying directed at any member of our community. There can never be a justification for this behaviour, and we will take action where necessary.

That’s very good: internecine bigotry of one group of students against another affects the University’s mission and can be properly criticized.

But what makes Spence’s position almost unique is what he says about any University position about the war itself:

The second question that has been raised with me is whether the University should adopt an institutional stance in relation to the current situation. Given that so many of our staff and students feel deeply about the conflict in Israel/Palestine, and some have personal experience of its effects, I understand the desire that we should. But it is my strong conviction that to do so would be incompatible with the purpose of a university in a liberal democracy.

. . .It follows from this conception of the university, which I share, that it is not a participant in public debate, but a forum in which that debate takes place. While our staff and students should loudly argue for their conceptions of truth and value, the university, as an institution, should refrain from doing so lest it chill the exercise of the ethical individualism of its staff and students. This does not mean that we have no strongly held normative positions about our own collective life; we must, and we should, do so. But it does mean that the University, as an institution, ought not to become an advocate in public debate. I believe this to be the case even, perhaps especially, where a majority of UCL staff and students are of one mind on a given issue.

For this reason, I do not think it would be appropriate for UCL to comment on the rights and wrongs of the current conflict in Israel/Palestine. That is a task for our staff and students. It is the University’s role to ensure that we remain a community of respectful debate in which it is possible for them to do so. And on that front, I remain deeply committed.

This is pretty much UCL’s version of the Kalven Principles, and I believe wholeheartedly that Spence is right. I’d recommend reading the rest of Leiter’s take on how the University of Chicago has dealt with the Kalven Principles lately; it’s a short read and you can find it here. I am not aware of any school other than ours that has an official policy of not taking institutional positions on ideological, political or moral issues that don’t affect the mission of the University: to teach, to learn, and to learn to think. If you know of such schools, do let me know.

h/t: Coel

Another death threat

May 25, 2021 • 8:30 am
 I take death threats about as seriously as did Christopher Hitchens—that is, not at all. But I can’t say that they don’t discombobulate me a bit. This one came yesterday as a comment on a thread about the death threats received by Blair Scott, communications director for American Atheists, after he’d appeared on Megyn Kelly’s FOX news show. The entirety of the comment, including the IP address is below, as my policy is not to hide this information if personal harm is threatened.

 

If you can find out who this person is from the IP address (I’m afraid that’s all the information I have), I’d welcome any information. I put the IP address in an IP lookup site, which appears to show it’s from Chicago, though I have no idea whether that’s the case.

Here’s what I got:

bounce+wordpress=whyevolutionistrue.com@b.atomicsites.net

 on behalf of 

WordPress <wordpress@whyevolutionistrue.com>
Mon 5/24/2021 4:55 PM

  •  Jerry Coyne
A new comment on the post “More death threats from religious folks” is waiting for your approval
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2011/07/30/more-death-threats-from-religious-folks/Author: … (IP address: 173.239.197.51, 173.239.197.51)
Email: mugshots.com1@gmail.com
URL:
Comment:
Take down your website or I promise you we will find you and your family and kill you all, slowly. Go ahead…take a chance with it…you’re messing with criminals who clearly don’t respect the law, you think we won’t do it? 🙂

Readers’ wildlife videos

May 25, 2021 • 8:00 am

Robert Lang, reader, physicist, and origami master, sent us some lovely videos he took from his California studio. These were sent on May 14, and Robert’s captions are indented.

These all come from a camera I have set up outside my studio window, so it’s capturing pretty much the view I have during the day at work (the animal visits are great, but my productivity has taken a nosedive). The critter cam has an IR feature, which lets me also get visitors who only show up at night. That’s when I’ve had most of my Gray Fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) visitors. (They are honorary cats, I hear.)

The meadow (mostly bare this spring, due to the poor rains this past winter) is prime habitat for California Ground Squirrels (Otospermophilus beecheyi). Sometimes, though, the Western Gray Squirrels (Sciurus griseus anthonyi) come out of the trees, like this one.
I get visitations from two types of rabbits: Brush Rabbits (Sylvilagus bachmani) and Desert (or Audobon’s) Cottontails (Sylvilagus audubonii). These are the latter. They’re distinguishable by (among other things) the black rim on their ears (which the Brush Rabbits lack; also the Brush Rabbits stick close to the brush line at the back of the lot, so I rarely get videos as they’re too far away.) These are being a bit frisky with each other.
I’ve seen way more rabbits this year than in previous years (and not many bobcat or coyotes). There’s probably some sort of relationship there.
We get lots of California Mule Deer (Odocoileus hemionus californicus). This one is ready for her close-up, Mr. DeMille.
And the grand finale, from this morning: an American Black Bear (Ursus americanus). Although California extirpated its grizzlies from everywhere but the state flag back in the 1920s, the Black Bear continues to spread throughout the state. They regularly come out of the mountains to visit the adjacent neighborhoods, and in recent months, a mother and two cubs have become downright famous in Altadena via postings from neighborhood security cameras. Despite the name “black bear,” their color is highly variable; the ones around here range from rich brown (like this one) to nearly blond.