Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
Occasionally reader Peter Nothnagle has contributed skeptical commentaries on Christianity to this site, for example here, here, and here. And, on the day that Jesus supposedly made his exeunt from Mary, Peter has written me once again. I’m delighted to present his take on the Nativity.
First, his email:
I was writing to one of my prison pen-pals this morning. He had somewhat sarcastically suggested that the gifts of the Three Wise Men were impractical — for a young family with a newborn and living in a stable, diapers and baby formula would have been more welcome than frankincense and myrrh. In my reply I explained that the gifts, and indeed the whole Nativity story, was symbolic — because that’s the sort of correspondence we carry on.
Then I was compelled by the laws of physics to write that up a bit more formally, and I pass it on to you because you have enjoyed some of my other essays.
Without further ado:
On the Nativity
Peter Nothnagle, December 24, 2021
Here’s what you need to know about the birth of Jesus, celebrated, for various reasons, on December 25 of the modern calendar.
The capital-N Nativity is described in two of the four canonical gospels – written down perhaps a century or more after the events they describe. All other documentation and commentary is based on these two accounts. It’s noteworthy that the earliest gospel, the one attributed to Mark, doesn’t suggest there was anything at all remarkable about Jesus’ birth; and the still earlier (i.e., closer to any historical events) letters of the apostle Paul don’t even say that Jesus was “born” in the first place – the verb he uses translates to “made” or “manufactured” – it’s the same one he used to describe the creation of Adam. I am convinced, as faithful WEIT readers may recall, that the first Christians had never even heard of a human Jesus on earth, but worshiped him as a celestial archangel.
But every children’s Christmas pageant, every “living nativity scene” staged on a church lawn, every Christmas card illustration of the birth of Jesus, mashes together the contradictory birth narratives in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. In Luke, Joseph and his heavily pregnant fiancée Mary have traveled to Joseph’s ancestral home of Bethlehem to participate in an empire-wide census (which history does not record), only to find no lodging, and took shelter in a cattle shed where Mary gave birth, and choirs of angels announced it to shepherds. No wise men. But the gospel of Matthew, which was probably written earlier than Luke, has a completely different account – Joseph and Mary are married and are residents of Bethlehem, and Jesus was apparently born without fanfare in the family home, and, much later, “wise men from the east” showed up to bestow gifts of gold, incense, and myrrh. No shepherds nor angels. Their gifts are symbolic, as is the whole story – put into the story to foreshadow the rest of the arc of Jesus’ life: gold is an appropriate gift for a king; incense is a gift for a god; and myrrh is a scented ointment applied to a dead body.
These birth narratives are not historical accounts, they’re prologues to a myth – and they were intended to be read that way (by any literate person in the early 2nd century) and not simply to be believed as literally true. They weren’t even part of the first draft of the gospels! Open your Bibles to Matthew, chapter 13, verses 53-55 and you’ll see that when Jesus went back in his home town and taught in the synagogue, the locals were astonished by his wisdom, basically saying, isn’t this the village carpenter’s son? How does he know all this stuff? But what they don’t say is, isn’t this is the kid who was visited by Magi bearing royal gifts, the one the soldiers were hunting for that time they killed all the male children? What this shows us is that whoever wrote chapter 13 hadn’t read chapters 1 and 2! I think that’s because the entire birth narrative was a later addition – note that chapter 3 reads like it was originally the beginning of the gospel.
The Nativity stories in the gospels aren’t straightforward historical accounts – they’re much more interesting than that! They make for a really funny scene in The Life of Brian, though.
I’m not trying to spoil anyone’s holiday fun – I’m really not. It’s just that I like to get to the bottom of historical puzzles, and I find that the truth of any historical event is actually more interesting, and indeed, more useful, than any (commercially-inspired) traditional notions about it. I hope and trust that all readers will enjoy the seasonal holiday to the fullest and celebrate in whatever manner they wish!
I got more cats from readers than I expected, which is great. Here is the promised panoply of readers’ cats in Christmas poses (and one video). Each reader has named their cat and provides a bit of information (indented):
From Paul T.
Please find attached my Christmas cat shot. This is one of our cats, Brio, attempting to be a tree topper. It was taken a few years ago. Of course, this is a fake tree so it is much more supportive of his weight than a natural tree would be. Still, it does demonstrate good balance.
By the way, Brio and Zing, our other cat, had a big scare a few days ago. Right after I let them out in the morning, two coyotes showed up in our back yard. I actually had to chase them out of the yard in my bathrobe. I found Zing immediately in one of our trees but Brio was nowhere to be found. We spent a nervous morning but he showed up around noon and was very skittish. These coyotes are so bold and fast.
From Glenda Palmer:
This photo might be suitable for your Christmas selection of cats. These are Devon Rex altered females, 14 years old now, weighing in between eight and nine pounds. Photo from about four years ago.
A brief background story. I am in my eighties now and three years ago I had spontaneous cracked vertebra. Since I would not be able to properly look after two cats anymore, I was forced to give up one of my beloved furbabies. Fortunately Minky, the darker one, quickly found a home where two of her brothers already lived. I knew she would be better able to make a successful transition. The lighter cat, Kofi – after Kofi Annan, remains with me and we are growing old together. She sees herself as a badass girl, still very vocal, bossy and busy – and dedicated to keeping me on my toes.
From Divy:
I had to bribe Jango with extra catnip and laxatone before I could take this picture. His expression says it all.
From Claudia Baker:
I submit to you my ginger tabby, Bodie. He is almost 17 years old and came to me via his mother, who was a rescue that I took in. She promptly had four kittens (of course) and I ended up keeping one because, from the time he could walk, he never left my side. He was born in my clothes closet in a box and had his mother with him until about 4 years ago. He has led a charmed life, living in the country, hunting mice, drinking from the lake in summer and curling up by the fire in winter.
Heating with a wood stove means that one has to have kindling handy at all times. I keep mine in a basket by the woodbox, because it’s in the living room and it looks nicer than say, a cardboard box.
One day, the basket was empty, and I was taking it out to the shed to refill it. I set it on the bed for a minute, and when I came back, Bodie was happily ensconced, asleep, in the basket, and I didn’t have the heart to take it away from him. It is now his favourite place to sleep, day and night. After breakfast this morning, he headed back to his basket for a nap. I put a Christmas elf hat on him for this picture. In a wink, he had the hat off and used it for a pillow instead (of course).
My kindling stash now: in a cardboard box (of course).
From Susan Harrison:
Catmas with Boris and Natasha! (Note: the “Santa”-like ornament in the center of the tree is actually Darwin!)
From reader Linda:
The real cat’s name is Bella. The others are unnamed. Bella sleeps wherever she likes, most often in my lap.
PS. She is a cat welfare cat and about 12 years old. Still leaping at furniture and knocking chairs over!
From Jeff Lewis:
Here is a Christmas themed photo of Chester. As you might notice from the notched ear, he was a feral cat who decided he liked us and subsequently learned how to use the doggie door. We had a big scare a couple years ago when he got attacked by something (probably a dog). Luckily, he managed to make it back into the house where we found him. After several vet visits, a surgery, and weeks of spoon feeding, draining wounds, and recovery, he’s back to almost as good as new, minus a few scars and a bit less muscle on left front leg (it could have been worse – he could have lost the leg).
The way I see it, he’s not my pet, and I’m not his staff. We’re just two good friends.
Here he is relaxing in front of the Christmas tree.
From Michelle Caprara:
My 2 girls, Luna (top) and Rarity, Christmas 2015. They’ve outgrown climbing the tree, without once toppling it.
From “Winpay”:
Coco is about 7 years old and lives on the Dutch/French Caribbean island of St. Martin. He got his name because we first thought he was a female cat. But it turned out he wasn’t.
From Josephine:
Here’s a submission for your Christmas cat post; a picture of our 1-year-old cat, Baxter. He’s a blue bicolour ragdoll who loves drinking from the tap but who hides under the sofa when we have visitors! He loves playing with the laser-pointer, even as he knows it’s us controlling it(!). In this picture I caught him chewing on my pencil on the table behind me as I was working.
From Debra Coplan:
This is Peaches. She was just featured on WEIT a couple of weeks ago. Here she is again. Unfortunately, she has to wear the cone of shame for 2 weeks. She had minor surgery and will be fine. She has figured out how to take off the cone! Here she is in front of her present to be opened Caturday! (The dog bag is the only bag I had.)
From Mark T.:
All our cats visit Santa, it’s tradition! This is Tricks, a feral cat we captured using a trap with some fresh-cooked chicken as bait. She enjoys sitting in a cardboard box and making me pull her around the house using a string tied to the box.”
From Bruce Cochrane:
Per your request, here is our newest kitten Firefly, age 6 months, exploring her first Christmas tree. She is an absolute delight (as is our other new cat, her big friend Alexander The Great Cat – ATGC).
From Reese Vaughan:
The granddaughter and Rocky. Our cats are not enthusiastic about Christmas — I don’t think they are believers.
From JP:
Our Siamese, Jiro, obviously named after the famous chef, enjoys a good container like the rest of us, but one under the bird ornamented tree is extra special.
From Frank Colia:
Thank you for this opportunity to share a photo of our beloved Kitty Flash (full name: Kitty Flash Super Hero Tater Tot). As you can see, she has assumed her place upon her throne vigilantly awaiting her chance to pounce Cat Santa (Cat Jesus’ father).
From Merilee:
Booker T under the tree last night. [She sent this on Dec. 23]
From Tom Czarny:
Certainly not a great photo (way too overexposed) but this is Paisley (inherited from my daughter when she returned to university) imitating an area rug.
From Paul:
Attached is a picture taken by my son Ian of his cat Hazel helping to hang up the sock.
From Bill and Sara Meyer:
This is JeJe. She is straight from the streets of Grundy County USA. Over 10 years ago, my wife and I were walking in the neighborhood and I called, “Hey Kitty!” to a local stray. All other strays usually bolt the opposite direction but this one ran towards us and accepted us from then on. She’s a good kitty; she needn’t worry about Santa’s close surveillance.
From Terence:
I saw your request for Christmas cat photos today, so here is one of Ruby looking grumpy (with d*g brother Max cushion in background). Ruby was a stray last year, and now she rules the house.
From Heather Crozier:
Nala enjoying her new cat condo with some Christmas catnip from her stocking.
From “ebasham”:
Here is Maya, my apple-headed Siamese. She was adopted in 2009 when so many shelters were overrun due to the recession. The bow and holly are photo-shopped on. She has never worn a collar much less costumes-
From Effie:
I enjoy reading your blog and this is the first time I have emailed you. I am not a cat owner due to allergies, but my sister snapped these photos of her kitten, Bloom. Feel free to use either of them!
A video by Bruce Lyon:
You called for Christmas themed photos. Will a video do? Last year I spent Christmas by myself and entertained myself with making slow motion videos of my cat/kitten named Pigeon. At the time she loved to chase balls and would go crazy and slide into things. I decided to play with the slo-mo feature on my phone and see if I could get a video of pigeon bowling for Christmas ornaments—the three wise guy deer we have under our tree. With slo-mo the first couple of seconds start at regular speed; that is why the slo-mo only kicks in just before pigeon slams into one of the deer. I was also playing around with a remote camera trigger for my camera so I could set up the bowl and get the iphone recording before the action started.
In June 2020 you posted a couple of photos of the kitten (HERE) and implored me to keep her. She was a foster kitten but of course we were going to keep her—she is so adorable. My daughter came up with the name Pigeon because she is gray with stripes. At the time we were unsure of the name but now we think it is perfect. She is a fabulous cat packed with personality.
From Anne:
Well, there are no decorations in the photo, as they are something that Amber is deeply uninterested in, but perhaps the attached will do:
From Sonja M.
Marley enjoys the lights for her 15th Christmas.
From Ben and Christina Schwarz:
We’ve had cats, dogs, birds, and a kid who are wonderful, interesting, and usually loving—and also high-strung, demanding, quirky, and somewhat neurotic. Cyrus, on the other hand, is perfect. He’s deeply affectionate, attentive, and calm, while also having a big personality and a fascinated approach to the world. We, flawed creatures that we are, don’t deserve him.
From Greg Matukitis:
Chester’s first Christmas. Taken just before his first attempt at climbing the tree, which he did a half dozen times or so before losing interest.
A fluffball from Alexandra:
He is called Bean, and is a Siberian cat. He is wonderful, absolutely smooth & friendly in all situations, lives rurally (but inside) in NH, with 2other cats (rescues) and happily with 6 Great Danes. He has sired waited-for amazing kittens-that part of his story is now over. Photo by Sterling Moffat (my nearby daughter) Lyme, NH
From Alex K.:
This white boy’s name is Siegfried (Ziggy for short) and he’s been with us for about 8 years. The one in the back is Lucia whose celebrating her second Christmas. You can’t tell from the back that she has only three legs with one deformed stump where it should be her left hind leg.
From my friends Don and Karen in Pilorus Bridge, New Zealand:
Herewith a couple of photos of our two (new) kittens, to replace our beloved Sugar. The tabby is Kona, the black Nori. Names care of Karen’s son, Lloyd who’s staying with us over this period.
The kittens have had a ball tearing into the paper as well their own kitty presents. Lloyd is preparing a beef Wellington and my steamed pudding is awaiting its second steam, having been made a couple of days ago.
From Robert Seidel:
for your Christmas cats entry, I’d like to present you the latest addition to our household: 7-month old Rufus aka Busby aka The Night Terror aka The Toebiter of Abingdon, sampling his first Christmas tree.
From Simon:
Well my daughter finally got a picture of Pachacca in front of the tree. She is now an elderly kitty, coming up for 21 in the spring, so we have relented and are letting her drink this year!
We have a special treat today: Bruce Lyon, an evolutionary ecologist from UC Santa Cruz, stayed up late last night to prepare a special Christmas wildlife post, with wonderful photos of wild geese and two of his videos. His words are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
Here is a post about white geese, and the avian blizzard they sometimes produce.
A Christmas blizzard—of geese:
I thought I would add some holiday cheer with a blizzard, not of snow but an avian blizzard of white geese. The geese were mostly Ross’s geese, but a few snow geese were present as well. I photographed the geese at the Merced National Wildlife Refuge near the town of Los Banos in the Central Valley of California. I teach Ornithology every other year and I always take the students on a weekend trip to the Merced refuge. Merced never disappoints—depending on the day it can range from great to simply amazing. On one trip we watched a prairie falcon take out a snipe after a two minute chase and on another trip we watched a bald eagle snag a coot. But in terms of spectacles, it is mostly about the geese.
Below: It is often very foggy in the Central Valley early in the morning so we are often greeted with nice scenery. And until the fog burns off, the birds can be hard to see.
Below. The wildlife refuge has a loop tour road that circles the periphery of a large central wetland with areas of open water and extensive patches of bulrush. A flock of geese is flying over the marsh.
These wetlands have a rich diversity of waterfowl. We typically see 10 – 15 species per visit. But there are lots of other nice birds to see as well, such as this American bittern (Botaurus lentiginosus).
The white geese at the reserve can be either snow geese (Anser caerulescens) or Ross’s geese (Anser rossii). On some visits one can see mostly snows, on others it is mostly Ross’s.
Below: The two species are quite similar, but with a little practice can pretty easily be distinguished. Snow geese are larger, with chunkier beaks and they have a much more pronounced black ‘grin line’ along the middle of the beak. Some Ross’s geese also have fleshy grayish or pinkish ‘caruncles’ at the base of the beak, as can be seen in the individual below. Photos are not mine: Ross’s goose by Arthur Morris, snow goose not attributed.
Both of these white geese nest in colonies in the Arctic, out on the tundra, and migrate to California (and other locations) to spend the winter. Most of the Ross’s goose population winters in central California but snow geese also winter in many places in the eastern US as well.
Below: Geese migrate and winter in family groups—the young of the year stay with their parents. In the photo below the browner geese are juveniles and they are likely with their parents. The orange coloration on the heads of the adults is the result of staining from iron, apparently from the mud that that they forage in. One bird in the photo has a particularly orangish stain on its head.
Below. Both species of white geese come in two color morphs—a white morph and a dark ‘blue’ morph. The dark bird with a white head in the right of the photo is a blue morph individual and I believe it is a snow goose. Blue morphs are very rare in Ross’s geese and also rare in western populations of snow geese as well, but blue geese are common in some eastern populations of snow geese. The other birds are all Ross’s geese.
One of my undergraduate professors at Queen’s University in Ontario Canada, Fred Cooke, did a long-term study of the ecological genetics and life history evolution in a population of snow geese breeding at Churchill Manitoba. One focus was to understand how the two morphs are maintained in the population. The work revealed that the color morphs are the product of a single gene and I believe in the end that there was no simple explanation for the maintenance of the two color morphs. The researchers also used the color morphs, and their simple genetic basis, in a clever way to identify goslings whose color was impossible based on the color of the parents in the nest they hatched from. Two behaviors could explain these color mismatches between goslings and the parents—female geese lay eggs in each others’ nests (within-species brood parasitism) or offspring that result from matings outside of the pair bond (‘extra-pair matings’). The authors used the plumage markers to estimate the frequencies of these two ‘alternative reproductive tactics’.
Below. The geese often rest in the marshes during the day but sometimes head out to feed in the fields away from the wetlands. Here a couple of thousand Ross’s geese rest in the marsh against a dramatic sky backdrop.
Below: More resting Ross’s geese.
Below: A Ross’s goose shows off its wings. Many white birds have black wingtips (gulls, pelicans, storks)—I have read that the production of the black pigment melanin for some reason makes a feather stronger and more resistant to wear. Presumably there is more wear and tear on the wing tips because of the aerodynamic forces at play, so it makes sense to make those feathers particularly durable.
Below: A couple of photos of goose blizzards. The marsh can be calm and then all of a sudden a couple of thousand geese suddenly rise into the air in unison. Typically they all call as they take off so the spectacle is both visually and acoustically stunning to witness. These mass flights are often the result of the geese getting spooked when an eagle flies over the wetland, but sometimes it seems as if there is a false alarm, possibly triggered by an overly reactive goose that spooks the entire flock.
Below. Once spooked it does not take long for the birds to return. Their return to the wetland provides a great opportunity to photograph them in flight.
Below. A pair of Ross’s geese in flight. The bird on the left has particularly pronounced caruncles at the base of its beak.
On one of my visits I stayed until dusk. The light was amazing and the birds were quite active, with huge numbers leaving the wetland to have a bed snack on the fields just adjacent to the marsh.
Below: Ross’s geese resting on the wetland in the evening just before the exodus to feed in the uplands.
Below: Video of geese leaving the wetland to forage on the uplands at dusk.
Below: A small flock of Ross’s geese heading out for an evening bout of foraging.
Below: Ross’s geese foraging in the uplands at dusk.
Below: At one point the geese foraged in a bizarre way—they formed in a long thin line, just as one sometimes sees domestic geese doing.
Below: A video of the geese in a line and then taking off.
Merry Christmas and Happy Coynezaa! (the latter six-day féte begins today). My holiday card to readers (photo by Terrence James for the Chicago Tribune).
The James Webb Space Telescope will launch today (probably before this post goes up), but I’ll have already posted the links to the live feed.
It’s also Jesus’s Birthday, and No “L” Day (Noel get it?), when you’re supposed to remove all the “l”s from writing or speech.
Matthew sent me a virtual Christmas card, consisting of the cover of a children’s book and a greeting from Matthew and Ollie, the cat who slashed my nose open when I visited Manchester:
News of the Day:
*As you know, the James Webb telescope was launched successfully from French Guyana this morning, and at the time this is posted all has gone fantastically, with the scope heading out into orbit a million miles from Earth. I hope you watched. Note that this was due to international cooperation, with collaborators from many nations. Here’s a tweet from NASA showing our last view of the scope as it heads out a million miles from Earth. (h/t Matthew). The only thing that marred the luanch was the head of NASA’s religious blather at the end of his speech, mentioning the star over Bethlehem, Jesus the King, and the glory of God the creator. Oy!
Here it is: humanity’s final look at @NASAWebb as it heads into deep space to answer our biggest questions. Alone in the vastness of space, Webb will soon begin an approximately two-week process to deploy its antennas, mirrors, and sunshield. #UnfoldTheUniversepic.twitter.com/DErMXJhNQd
*Otherwise news is a downer today, with the omicron variant raging, resulting in the cancellation of over 3800 flights around the world yesterday because of infected pilots/crew or bad weather. I hope everybody reading here got to where they were going. If you are one of the canceled, here’s how to get your refund.
*If you do get to your destination, be careful if you want to rent a car. Average daily prices have risen 31% in most places, but can top $100 per day in sought-after locations like Maui or Bozeman, Montana (a ski place). I found this out when I paid nearly $600 for an 8-day rental in Austin, Texas. The cause? Companies sold out their fleets during the pandemic, and haven’t replenished them. Don’t expect prices to drop hugely after the pandemic wanes.
*The good news—and let’s have good news today to replace the lacuna when we realize, in about three posts, that baby Jesus really wasn’t really born on this day—is that omicron is more transmissible than existing variants, it’s not as lethal. South Africa, the first place heavily infected with omicron, has lifted some restrictions:
That includes allowing people who have tested positive but show no symptoms to gather with others, so long as they wear a mask and social distance. A top health official explained that since the variant spreads so quickly, there are likely many infected people socializing with others and it no longer made sense to quarantine only those who have tested themselves.
The move was yet another step toward a slow acceptance that many countries around the world will likely need to find a way to live with Covid, rather than avoid it.
*Senator Joe “Roadbump” Manchin has shown some signs that he’ll favor “taxes on billionaires”, raising hopes that the Democrats can still pass the Build Back Better Bill, albeit in a scaled down form. But Kyrsten Sinema is making grumpy noises:
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), long the biggest hurdle to Democrats’ tax aspirations, has again in recent days raised concerns about some of the revenue measures the party is pursuing.
In particular, Sinema has questioned whether owners of “pass-through” entities — companies structured so the owner “passes through” income onto their personal income tax returns — should be exempted from a new “surtax” intended to fall on the very rich, two people familiar with the matter said. These people spoke on the condition of anonymity to reflect private conversations
The White House was forced to dramatically revamp its tax proposals after Sinema previously ruled out increasing the corporate tax rate, which Biden initially sought to raise from 21 percent to 28 percent.
Two New Hampshire brothers have gotten their holiday regifting skills down to an art — they’ve been passing the same hard candy back and forth for over 30 years.
It started in 1987, when Ryan Wasson gave a 10-roll Frankford “Santa’s Candy Book” with assorted fruit flavors to his brother, Eric Wasson, as a joke for Christmas, knowing that Eric wouldn’t like it.
“I didn’t eat them,” Eric Wasson told WMUR-TV. “And so the next year I thought, ‘Hey, I think I’m going to give it back to him. He’ll never remember.’”
But Ryan immediately recognized it. They’ve been taking turns ever since, keeping a log of their exchanges. They’ve gotten creative about it.
Ryan Wasson told the station the candy has been frozen in a block of ice and put in Jell-O, adding, “He one time sewed it into a teddy bear.”
The tradition has also involved family members, co-workers and even a sheriff’s department. Last year, it was presented to Ryan Wasson on a silver platter at a restaurant.
Here’s the well-worn gift and the record of the regifting (all photos from Ryan Wasson family via the AP)
Note the first entry on the right-hand page:
The Lie of the Year Award goes to this guy. Click on the screenshot to read about it:
Here’s an “arm reliquary of Charlemagne at Aachen Cathedral Treasury”:
1013 – Sweyn Forkbeard takes control of the Danelaw and is proclaimed king of England.
1066 – William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy is crowned king of England, at Westminster Abbey, London.
1758 – Halley’s Comet is sighted by Johann Georg Palitzsch, confirming Edmund Halley’s prediction of its passage. This was the first passage of a comet predicted ahead of time.
With no anesthesia! It must have been benign, for the woman lived 32 years after the operation.
1831 – The Great Jamaican Slave Revolt begins; up to 20% of Jamaica’s slaves mobilize in an ultimately unsuccessful fight for freedom.
1868 – Pardons for ex-Confederates: United States President Andrew Johnson grants an unconditional pardon to all Confederate veterans.
1914 – A series of unofficial truces occur across the Western Front to celebrate Christmas.
1950 – The Stone of Scone, traditional coronation stone of British monarchs, is taken from Westminster Abbey by Scottish nationalist students. It later turns up in Scotland on April 11, 1951.
1968 – Apollo program: Apollo 8 performs the first successful Trans-Earth injection (TEI) maneuver, sending the crew and spacecraft on a trajectory back to Earth from Lunar orbit.
You can see a documentary and some video of the execution here. The firing started too quickly for the cameraman (yes, they filmed it) to capture the whole thing.
1991 – Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as President of the Soviet Union (the union itself is dissolved the next day). Ukraine’s referendum is finalized and Ukraine officially leaves the Soviet Union.
2004 – The Cassini orbiter releases Huygens probe which successfully landed on Saturn’s moon Titan on January 14, 2005.
1907 – Cab Calloway, American singer-songwriter and bandleader (d. 1994)
Cab was a great bandleader and, shall we say, an “energetic” one. Here is is conducting his most famous hit, “Minnie the Moocher“:
1924 – Rod Serling, American screenwriter and producer, created The Twilight Zone (d. 1975)
1946 – Jimmy Buffett, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer, and actor.
Here’s the music video for my favorite Buffett song, and he begins by explaining what and who’s in the video:
1971 – Justin Trudeau, Canadian educator and politician, 23rd Prime Minister of Canada
Those who passed away on December 25 include:
1946 – W. C. Fields, American actor, comedian, juggler, and screenwriter (b. 1880)
1983 – Joan Miró, Spanish painter and sculptor (b. 1893)
Miró painted a fair number of cats; this one is “The Farmer’s Wife, Kitchen, Cat, Rabbit”, with a detail of the moggy:
2005 – Birgit Nilsson, Swedish operatic soprano (b. 1918)
2008 – Eartha Kitt, American singer and actress (b. 1927)
2016 – George Michael, British singer and songwriter (b. 1963)
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej and Hili are speaking of determinism:
A: I know what you are thinking about!
Hili: But I don’t know yet.
In Polish:
Ja: Wiem nad czym się zastanawiasz!
Hili: Ale ja jeszcze nie wiem.
And from nearby Wloclawek, Mietek has a wish:
Mietek: Have a wonderful Christmas!
In Polish: Wspaniałych Świąt!
From The Far Side:
A Hitchens cartoon from reader Barry:
From Divy:
Below, a Christmas Meme from Andrzej. You don’t really need a translation, but here’s one from Malgorzata, “”IKA. Christmas Tree – a set to assemble at home.”
And the meme came with a Christmas message from Andrzej and Malgorzata:
Andrzej: “We wish all our readers fascinating conversations with their four- legged friends, a nice atmosphere together with their two-legged loved ones, and frequent return to ‘Listy‘”.
In Polish: “Wszystkim naszym czytelnikom życzymy fascynujących rozmów z ich czworonogami, miłej atmosfery z dwunożnymi bliskimi i częstych powrotów do ‘Listów‘”.
A tweet from Masih and friend:
It’s sad that many Democrats reduce Iran to a “nuclear issue”. While they criticise many authoritarian states for repressing dissent (and rightly so), they remain largely unmoved when the Islamic Republic of Iran does the same. Because, you know, nuclear deal is more important! https://t.co/SejuLHsadx
Tweets from Matthew. The first from Jennifer Ouellette, and I put the relevant video below it. It’s great: a human choreography of a starling murmuration:
Watch Awesome Human Choreography That Reproduces the Murmurations of Starling Flocks https://t.co/78VAhxsGXf
I was worried about the frog, but it’s apparently okay:
Photographer James Snyder found this little guy in his back yard and initially thought he was dead. After taking a couple photos, Snyder was able to safely pull the light out of the frog, though he reports that the frog didn’t seem happy about it.
MERRY CHRISTMAS! Here’s a present to the world from science—international science.
I know people are up in Europe, and if you’re an early riser in America, you’ll want to see this too (the Kiwis and Aussies will be asleep unless they’re night owls). The James Webb Space Telescope will be launched today, on Christmas Day, at 7:20 Eastern U.S. time, or 6:20 Chicago time. I’m already up at 4:30 to do my ablutions and have coffee before the big takeoff. The good news is that many Americans will be forced to be awake by early-rising kids who want to open their presents.
When this is posted it will be 6 a.m. Eastern U.S. time: 1 hour and 20 minutes to go! And the NASA feed below will have begun.
You know what’s happening: the space telescope, far more powerful than the Hubble, will provide oodles of scientific information, including detecting infrared light from billions of years ago. You can read about it at Wikipedia, or at the NASA site
Here’s the NASA live feed:
Fingers crossed!
A feed from the NASA site that does have commentary (click on screenshot to go to NASA t.v.):
And another live feed:
I believe all conditions are go (things are “nominal”, as they say), and only weather or one other thing could mess up the launch (xkcd cartoon courtesy of Matthew):
Well, I’ll be: of all the characters whom I’m compared to, the young-earth creationist Ken Ham is the one I find the most unlikely. But Joel Edmund Anderson, who presents himself as a Sophisticated Theologian®, sees profound similarities between Ham and me. Well, yes, we both have two arms, two legs, and presumably a Y chromosome. Yet Anderson sees another similarity—and there is one, though Anderson characterizes it wrongly. First, a bit about Anderson from his Linked In site.
Although I current am a high school teacher, I hope to eventually teach Biblical Studies at the college level. In addition to my masters degree from Regent College, I also have an MA in Old Testament from Trinity Western University, as well as a PhD in Old Testament from the University of Pretoria. I would also like to get more articles and books published.
According to Anderson’s blog, Resurrecting Orthodoxy, Ham and I are in fact like “two peas in a pod.” Click on the screenshot to see the 2018 post that someone called to my attention. But the arguments that Anderson makes are still around in 2021; I’ll talk about a more recent version of this argument against the “war between science and religion” next week. The narrative that there’s no incompatibility between science and religion, and that they’re not in opposition to one another, continues. In Faith Versus Fact I describe what I mean by “the war between science and religion”, and apparently Anderson either didn’t read that book, did read it and didn’t understand it, or read it and understood it but deliberately mischaracterizes my views.
Ham, “creator” of the Ark Encounter and the Creation Museum in Kentucky, was on a roll three years ago tweeting about me. I don’t have the tweets but Anderson repeats them:
. . . . for the purposes of this post, I am going to focus on a recent article Coyne wrote, entitled, “Yes, There is a War Between Science and Religion.” It came to my attention because Ken Ham tweeted about it three different times the other day. Ham’s tweets were as follows:
“Jerry Coyne (emeritus professor) is an atheist, & so such an article as this is totally expected from one who is against God & totally committed to his religion of atheism. Interestingly he sees Christians who compromise as inconsistent–which they are”
“There’s no war between observational science & creation, such science confirms Genesis account. But there’s a spiritual war between Christianity & blind faith religion of atheism & the belief in evolution which is contradicted by observational science”
“This scientist arbitrarily defines religion as involving the supernatural, declares atheism is not religion, arbitrarily declares evolution science & fact, so he can then falsely declare creation is at war with science! It’s how secularists work”
So Anderson’s point is that Ham and I are alike because we see a war between science and religion. In Ham’s case, the war is between evolution and creationism, and he sees creationism as “science” because it’s “observational science”, and views evolution as a religion, because it’s based on faith and the “religion” of atheism. In other words, Ham sees a war between the Bible and atheistic modern science.
My own view, which I’ll summarize in one sentence (read Faith Versus Fact if you want the whole megillah) is this: science and religion both claim that they involve “ways of knowing about the universe”, but while the methods of science really do enable us to understand the universe, the “ways of knowing” of religion (faith, authority, scripture, revelation, etc.) are not reliable guides to truth. If they were, all religions would converge on the same truth claims, which is palpably untrue.
Note that I do not claim that religion is the same thing as science, for it includes things like morality and worship and divinity. The Bible is not a “textbook of science.” But all religions do make firm claims about what’s true, and these truth claims, insofar as they’re not based on actual evidence, contravene the methods of science. That’s why science converges on what we think is real (and use to make correct predictions), while religions haven’t converged one iota. (Compare the truth claims of Hinduism, Catholicism, Judaism, Islam, Scientology, cargo cults, and so on.) Nor do I claim that religion has always been opposed to science, is always in conflict with science, that religionists can’t accept modern science, or all all scientists are or must be atheists.
End of my views. Now here’s what Anderson has to say:
Like Coyne, Ken Ham also sees the creation/evolution debate as being a war. Ham doesn’t see it as a war between science and religion, though. Ham simply throws in his made-up distinction between “observational science” and “historical science,” claims “observational science” confirms the creation account in Genesis, and then equates the scientific theory of evolution with “blind faith religion of atheism,” and claims the “war” isn’t between science and religion, but rather atheism and Christianity. But make no mistake, both Ham and Coyne agree: evolution is atheism, and evolutionary science is at war with the Christian faith.
No, evolution is a science, atheism a disbelief based on the absence of evidence. Science is atheistic in practice, for we do not use gods or the concept of miracles in our research. We don’t rule them out a priori—we’ve just found that dragging gods into science doesn’t help us understand anything. Evolutionary science is at war only with those Christians who deny evolution (or other scientific findings) and accept either an ex nihilo creation or the intervention of God in evolution.
Anderson:
Now, sadly, it is true that many people have abandoned their faith because they think evolution has disproven the Bible. In that respect, both Coyne and Ham are correct. But let’s be clear, the reason why evolution has led to a loss of faith of many people is that people like Coyne and Ham are mischaracterizing what science is and what the Christian faith is. Ham is actually correct in one of his tweets: Coyne essentially is hijacking the scientific theory of evolution and smuggling in his atheism into—later in his article, he claims, “science is practiced as an atheistic discipline.” Yes, it is “atheistic” in the sense that is simply studies natural processes, but to call it an “atheistic discipline” as Coyne does is to falselyequate the scientific theory of evolution with the philosophical worldview of atheism.
To the point, when atheists like Coyne and YECists like Ham are telling people that if you accept evolution then you must reject belief in God and accept atheism, then a whole lot of them are going to reject their faith because they are being told they have to.
I wish! Yes, I’ve met people who abandoned their faith because they were literalist Christians, and when they saw the evidence that the Genesis stories weren’t true, the whole edifice of their faith toppled. But I don’t tell people what to do. I either teach them evolution and let the results fall where they may, or I explain to them why I, Jerry Coyne, see science and religion as incompatible. People can ponder my arguments and make their own decisions. I don’t believe I’ve ever told anyone that they have to reject their faith if they accept evolution.
Just a bit more. Anderson touts himself as having a “correct” understanding of religion versus the “cartoonish” versions held by Ken Ham (and about 40% of Americans with him!) When I say that evolution is incompatible with creationism, I mean just that: it’s incompatible with a literal reading of the Bible. Anderson, however, being a Sophisticated Theologian®, somehow knows that much of (but not all of) the Bible was written as metaphor. Clearly Augustine, Aquinas, and many other church fathers didn’t understand Scripture properly either, for they always defended literalism—sometimes with a metaphorical veneer. Anderson:
And both Coyne and Ham lump the creation account in Genesis 1 in as being the same kind of writing as found in the Gospels. They see no difference between the genre of Genesis 1 and the genre of the Gospels. This failure of basic reading competency views anyone who acknowledges the difference in genre as trying to pull a fast one. Call it accomodationism [sic] or compromise, both Coyne and Ham think you are deceptive and dishonest if you simply acknowledge that the Bible is not written in one monolithic genre. Both men might think that failure to read Genesis 1 a literal history automatically means you have to reject the account of Jesus’ resurrection, but competent readers of Scripture know better.
In other words, Anderson knows that Genesis was metaphorical, but the Resurrection really happened. But we have no more evidence for the latter than for the former: they’re both assertions in a book that’s almost wholly fictional. Anderson is a Picker and Chooser, presumably anointed by God to know that sometimes God was speaking metaphorically, and at other times literally; and Anderson can tell us which is which. Piffle!
I could go on for hours, but we have celebrating to do, albeit many are celebrating the birth of a fictional being. I want to proffer one more bit of Anderson and let you have the laughs:
(5) Coyne(like Ham) misinterprets Hebrews 11:1 (“the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”) as referring to believing things about the origins of the natural world without evidence.
Both men are horrible biblical exegetes, as seen in their understanding of Hebrews 11:1. Both view it as defining faith as nothing more than blind belief about the past creation of the natural world. On AiG’s website, one can find an article entitled “Blind Faith” that says this: “So faith, as commended in God’s Word, is being sure about something that wasn’t witnessed firsthand (including creation), or that cannot be seen now, or that is yet to be revealed. By this definition, all faith is blind! If we can see something, then faith is no longer operative.”
Well, not quite. To the point, the “substance (or assurance) of things hoped for” and “the evidence (or conviction) of things not seen” has nothing to do with looking back and believing things about the creation of the material universe. Rather, the faith of Hebrews 11:1 is forward-looking to the fulfillment of the saving work of Christ and the new creation. Faith is being certain that what had begun in Christ and the out-pouring of the Holy Spirit will be completed in the New Heaven and New Earth. The faith that Hebrews 11:1 is talking about is the faith that sees the evidence of the out-pouring of the Holy Spirit in part, and that looks forward to the fulfillment of Christ’s work in the future. It is being certain of the outcome because we have been given, and now witness, a foretaste of that future reality. Contrary to what AiG (and Coyne) belief, the Christian faith is not blind, and Hebrews 11:1 isn’t about “blindly believing” that Genesis 1 is telling us exactly how God actually created the world.
Yes, Hebrews 11:3 says, “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible”—but it is not a scientific statement. It is saying something fairly simple: God created the universe and there is more to reality than just the material world.
No unevidenced claims in those paragraphs!
Ummm. . . .if you look at Hebrews 11, it’s not something forward looking, and it says almost nothing about Jesus, even though it’s in the New Testament. In fact, most of it tells people how faith was used in the Old Testament. What Anderson is doing here is exegesis: interpreting the Bible, and in a way that suits his beliefs. I would assert that the definition of faith in Hebrews 11:1 is accurate.
I’ll pass over Anderson’s claim that “Coyne says that religion is science”, as it’s a lie. I say that religion makes truth claims, but they aren’t asserted after using the methods of science.
End of story: I’m off to rest and have some bubbly. Happy holidays, and send in your cats!
Here’s Hebrews 11:1-8 (King James Version) being backward looking; you can read the rest of the chapter here.
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
2 For by it the elders obtained a good report.
3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
4 By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh.
5 By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.
6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
7 By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.
8 By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.
This is one the most stunning fossils I’ve seen in a long time. It’s an almost perfectly preserved dinosaur embryo that somehow died in the egg during the Late Cretaceous (100 mya-66mya). It’s not just amazing for its preservation, but also for the posture of the unhatched embryo, which resembles the posture that modern bird embryos (an also early birds themselves) assume soon before hatching. The inference is that the behaviors that precede hatching in birds, and help them through the tough process of getting out of the egg, actually evolved from their reptilian ancestors—the theropod dinosaurs, of which this specimen is one.
The paper appears in iScience and is free; click on the screenshot below or get the pdf here.
I’ve really conveyed the gist of the paper in the first paragraph above, but you need to see this embryo! Click to enlarge; all the photos are high-resolution
(from paper): Figure 1. Oviraptorid embryo inside an elongatoolithid egg (YLSNHM01266) Abbreviations: cev, cervical vertebra; cv, caudal vertebra; dv, dorsal vertebra; f, femur; fi, fibula; II-1, pedal phalanx II-1; il, ilium; is, ischium; m, mandible; mt-I, metatarsal I; mt-III, metatarsal III; mx, maxilla; p, pubis; pm, premaxilla; r, radius; s, scapula; t, tibia; ul, ulna. Scale is 1 cm.
The specimen is given the number YLSNHM01266, and is described as a “new non-avian theropod dinosaur embryo. . . from the Late Cretaceous Hekou Formation of southern China.” No species name is given because without a fossil of an adult in the vicinity, we have no idea. We can tell, however, that it is a theropod dinosaur, and an “oviraptorid oviraptorosaur“.
Oviraptors constitute is a group of theropod dinosaurs of varying sizes, which lived in what is now North America and Asia. Fossils show that they had feathers, parrot-like beak mandibles, sometimes bony crests on the head, and walked on their hind legs. Paleontological analysis combined with phylogeny shows, as Wikipedia notes, that they are “close to the ancestry of birds.” (The ancestor of birds is thought by most but not all paleontologists to be theropod dinosaurs.)
Here’s a group of diverse ovoraptors from Wikipedia. You can see that their skeletons are more birdlike than those of other dinosaurs. Some scientists, indeed, group them with birds! Four species have been found with feather impressions, so it’s likely that the group (including the baby above) had feathers, but couldn’t fly. Maybe one of the species below is the adult that would have developed from the juvenile above!
Back to the fossil. Here’s part of a later figure that helps you make sense of what’s what in the photos above. The air cell, also present in modern bird eggs, is to the right between the embryo and the shell.
If you want the technical description of the posture, here it is from the paper. I’ve bolded the important parts.
The articulated embryonic skeleton is preserved curled inside its egg (YLSNHM01266), with the skull positioned ventral to the body (Figure 1). The egg is elongate ovoid in shape with dimensions of 16.7 cm long by 7.6 cm wide, and has characteristics typical of the egg family Elongatoolithidae (see STAR Methods for eggshell analysis). The skeleton is almost complete, without much apparent postmortem disruption. The anterior surface of the skull faces toward the pointed pole and is situated about egg mid-length at the level of the ilium in-between the flexed hindlimbs, with a pes [foot] on either side. The anterior cervical vertebrae are in line with the long axis of the skull. The presacral vertebral column is strongly bent in an angular manner, so that the upper back of the embryo faces the blunt pole of the egg (similar flexion of the vertebral column is found in modern in ovo skeletons, e.g. Balanoff and Rowe, 2007: Figure 4, Day 18, and is not likely to be a taphonomic artifact).The skeleton is ∼23.5 cm in total length, measured from the anterior tip of the skull to the last preserved caudal vertebra, and occupies nearly the entire width of the egg and most of the length, with the exception of a ∼1.9 cm space between the dorsal vertebrae and the blunt pole of the egg. This space may represent the air cell, a space usually found between the back of the embryo and the blunt pole of bird eggs (e.g., Rahn et al., 1979). However, this inference is tentative and awaits further evidence. The posterodorsal, sacral and caudal vertebrae almost form a straight line along the long axis of the egg. Although the precise developmental stage of the embryo is unclear, it is likely to represent a late-stage embryo because the skeleton is well ossified and is large in size relative to the space inside the egg, as inferred in MPC 100/971 (Norell et al., 2001).
Note that the specimen is 23.5 cm, or a bit more than nine inches long: as long as a dollar bill and half of another one (American dollar bills are almost exactly 6 inches long, and can be used for emergency measurements).
When modern birds hatch, they assume this position as the first of three stages prior to hatching: “pre-tucking”, “tucking” and “posttucking” (we know this clearly because, sadly, many pre-hatched birds have been dissected from the egg). I won’t go through the complicated description of the changes in posture, but here’s how it happens in a chicken, with the fetal dinosaur placed between “pretucking” and “tucking”. “Membrane penetration” is when the bird uses its bill to get out of the membrane in which the embryo is enclosed, and “pipping” is when it begins to peck through the shell (often a long process).
Apparently birds always tuck their heads below their right wing, not their left, before pipping. How they know left from right (genetically) is beyond me; but somehow this asymmetry is coded in the DNA:
And here are three examples of embryonic oviraptors compared to a modern bird (chicken) at the assumed similar stages:
(from paper): Figure 3. In-ovo late-stage embryos of non-avian and avian dinosaurs (A) Oviraptorid specimens (MPC 100/971, YLSNHM01266 & IVPP V20183), which potentially correspond to various tucking stages. (B) Domestic fowl Gallus ontogenetic series (day 16-20) (modified from Rowe (2003)). Not to scale. Silhouettes modified from PhyloPic.
Now the authors are very careful not to overinterpret a single fossil, but I do think it’s likely that the oviraptor fossils show that their pre-hatching positions and behavior was passed on to birds, as oviraptors are phylogenetically close to the ancestor of birds (though we don’t know whether the ancestor of birds was an oviraptor).
The only question remaining is: do all dinosaur embryos—not just those closely related to the ancestor of modern birds—show similar embryonic behavior? The answer is, as usual, we just don’t know. There’s a severe shortage of well-preserved dinosaur embryos, as you might imagine One specimen of a sauropod, a distant relative, seems to show a different fetal posture than the ones above.
I hope we can find more fossil embryos, because, although behavior doesn’t fossilize, the correlates of behavior—represented by the posture of embryos—do. In that sense the way modern birds hatch might what some systematists call a synapomorphy: a character shared by two species (or groups) because it was present in an ancestor—in this case the common ancestor of the ovoraptors and modern birds. And it’s surely an adaptive synapomorphy, because birds that can’t get out of the shell don’t leave any genes behind.
