Month: January 2022

The inanities of Scientific American—almost all within just one year

January 26, 2022 • 1:00 pm

I’m tired of beating up on Scientific American, even though the magazine saw its best days years ago and is superannuated—it was founded in 1845 and has published work by 200 Nobel Laureates.  No, I’m not going to say that—I’ll let someone else do it. That someone is Peter Burns, who, at Medium, wrote the article below (click on the screenshot to read it):

There’s not a lot new here, as Burns just reiterates that Sci. Am. published the much-discussed hit piece on Ed Wilson, calling him a racist (Gregor Mendel was also tarred with that label) only a few days after Wilson died. I know of no evidence that Wilson was a racist, though some hint darkly that they will produce that evidence. And surely Mendel was not a racist. He might have been an ageist (see below), but I’ll eat my hat if they dig out evidence that the friar was dire.

Burns goes through Monica McLemore’s ludicrous hit-job, but says about the same thing I did, so you can read for yourself.  He did dig into McLemore’s links, though, and here’s a bit of Burns worth reading:

You really should read that study; it’s an all-time classic of conflating science with ideology—and yet its inanities are taken seriously!

Before I go, I want to do two more things. First, make a joke (at bottom) and second, give a list of all the ludicrous pro-“elect” articles (I’m reading McWhorter’s book) that have recently appeared in Scientific American, as well as articles that are purely ideological and have nothing to do with science.  The Wilson hit-job was not a one-off thing. The bits in bold below link to my posts, and in plain text to the Sci. Am. articles. These are just articles I’ve written about that were called to my attention by readers; I don’t read the rag, and I’m sure there are others. I’ve not included the Wilson hit piece, which I discussed here.

1.) Bizarre acronym pecksniffery in Scientific American.Title: “Why the term ‘JEDI’ is problematic for describing programs that promote justice, diversity, equity, and Inclusion.”

2.) More bias in Scientific American, this time in a “news” article. Title: “New math research group reflects a schism in the field.”

3.) Scientific American again posting non-scientific political editorials.Title: “The anti-critical race theory movement will profoundly effect public education.“

4.) Scientific American (and math) go full woke.  Title: “Modern mathematics confronts its white, patriarchal past.”

5.) Scientific American: Denying evolution is white supremacy. Title: “Denial of evolution is a form of white supremacy.”

6.) Scientific American publishes misleading and distorted op-ed lauding Palestine and demonizing Israel, accompanied by a pro-Palestinian petition. Title: “Health care workers call for support of Palestinians.” (The title is still up but see #7 below)

7.) Scientific American withdraws anti-Semitic op-ed. Title of original article is above, but now a withdrawal appears (they vanished the text): “Editor’s Note: This article fell outside the scope of Scientific American and has been removed.”   Now, apparently, nothing falls outside the scope of the magazine!

8.) Scientific American: Religious or “spiritual” treatment of mental illness produces better outcomes. Title: “Psychiatry needs to get right with God.”

9.)  Scientific American: Transgender girls belong on girl’s sports teams. Title:  “Trans girls belong on girls’ sports teams.”

and one more for an even ten, as I’m not going to spend another minute doing this:

10.) Former Scientific American editor, writing in the magazine, suggests that science may find evidence for God using telescopes and other instruments. Title: “Can science rule out God?“

Is ten enough to show you where the magazine is going? I’m surprised that the sub-editors don’t quit en masse. After all, these article were all published within the last three years.

Enough.

Let me finish by recounting a joke I made in my first post defending Mendel that several authors have now claimed for themselves. This is what Burns says:

Seriously, how was Gregor Mendel a racist? This guy spent his entire life in a monastery in Brno (in what is now the Czech Republic) observing peas grow. Unless he wrote somewhere that yellow peas are racially superior to green peas, I don’t see why his name was on the list.

I won’t call him out for theft of humor, but here’s what I said in my first post:

We’ve talked about most of these people before, and yes, they had ideas that today would be considered racist, but Darwin was also an abolitionist. And MENDEL, for crying out loud? Find me one piece of Mendel’s writings that suggest that the good friar was a racist! Were green peas considered superior to yellow peas? Here we have McLemore simply making stuff up: throwing Mendel’s discoveries of inheritance into the pot with the other accused “racists.” This is dreadful scholarship, almost humorous in its ignorant assertions.

Look, the green vs. yellow trope was mine (it’s slight but it’s okay), but if you want to steal something better, here’s a trope I suggest:

Mendel found that the shape of round peas was genetically dominant over that of wrinkled peas. This is nothing more than ageism on Mendel’s part.

If you read that anywhere from now on, remember that it’s been lifted from here.  And I’ll be here all year, folks!

 

Round vs. wrinkled peas. Actually, the recessive “wrinkled” trait is more prized by breeders, as wrinkled peas are sweeter.

Sarah Palin sues NYT for libel

January 26, 2022 • 10:00 am

You may have heard that Sarah Palin (you remember her, right?) is suing the New York Times for libel.  I’m not a lawyer—I just play one on television—but I’d say that in normal circumstances she’d lose. But these are not normal times, for the ultimate arbiter of the case may be the U.S. Supreme Court—no friend of liberals or of the New York Times.

The case is described pretty well, with included links at the GBH site below, the website of the (liberal) National Public Radio in Boston.

According to the law, a libel judgment against a public figure like Palin must involve not just printing something that was palpably false, but printing it with deliberate malice against the candidate. this standard was affirmed in the case of NYT Company v. Sullivan in 1964. Oyez gives the background and details of that case:

During the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, the New York Times published an ad for contributing donations to defend Martin Luther King, Jr., on perjury charges. The ad contained several minor factual inaccuracies. The city Public Safety Commissioner, L.B. Sullivan, felt that the criticism of his subordinates reflected on him, even though he was not mentioned in the ad. Sullivan sent a written request to the Times to publicly retract the information, as required for a public figure to seek punitive damages in a libel action under Alabama law.

When the Times refused and claimed that they were puzzled by the request, Sullivan filed a libel action against the Times and a group of African American ministers mentioned in the ad. A jury in state court awarded him $500,000 in damages. The state supreme court affirmed and the Times appealed.

The Supremes then ruled unanimously for the NYT (my emphasis):

To sustain a claim of defamation or libel, the First Amendment requires that the plaintiff show that the defendant knew that a statement was false or was reckless in deciding to publish the information without investigating whether it was accurate.

In a unanimous opinion authored by Justice Brennan, the Court ruled for the Times. When a statement concerns a public figure, the Court held, it is not enough to show that it is false for the press to be liable for libel. Instead, the target of the statement must show that it was made with knowledge of or reckless disregard for its falsity. Brennan used the term “actual malice” to summarize this standard, although he did not intend the usual meaning of a malicious purpose. In libel law, “malice” had meant knowledge or gross recklessness rather than intent, since courts found it difficult to imagine that someone would knowingly disseminate false information without a bad intent. 

This is what Palin claims the NYT did to her. Here’s a description from the BGH site:

Palin is suing The New York Times for libel, claiming that a 2017 editorial tying her incendiary rhetoric to the 2011 shooting of then-congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords — a crime that also claimed the lives of six people — was false and defamatory. Jury selection in the long-delayed trial had been set to begin this past Monday in U.S. District Court. Then we learned that Palin had tested positive for COVID-19. “She is of course unvaccinated,” said Judge Jed Rakoff. Yes, of course. And the proceedings have been delayed until Feb. 3.

There is no question that there were mistakes in the Times editorial, published after a gunman shot and injured several members of Congress, including U.S. Rep. Stephen Scalise. The Times compared the event to the Giffords shootings and noted that Palin’s political action committee had published a map on Facebook with gunsights over the districts of several members of Congress it hoped to defeat — including Giffords.

After that, things went awry. First, the editorial originally stated that the map targeted “electoral districts that put Ms. Giffords and 19 other Democrats under stylized cross hairs.” In fact, the map targeted only the districts, not the members themselves. More consequentially, the editorial tied the map to the shootings, stating: “In 2011, when Jared Lee Loughner opened fire in a supermarket parking lot, grievously wounding Representative Gabby Giffords and killing six people, including a 9-year-old girl, the link to political incitement was clear.” (You can read the original Times editorial here, at the Internet Archive; the revised and corrected version is here. You can see the map here.)

The original statement by the NYT that spawned the lawsuit (my emphasis):

Was this attack evidence of how vicious American politics has become? Probably. In 2011, when Jared Lee Loughner opened fire in a supermarket parking lot, grievously wounding Representative Gabby Giffords and killing six people, including a 9-year-old girl, the link to political incitement was clear. Before the shooting, Sarah Palin’s political action committee circulated a map of targeted electoral districts that put Ms. Giffords and 19 other Democrats under stylized cross hairs.

The map (from HuffPo) at issue:

The NYT’s correction:

Correction: 

An editorial on Thursday about the shooting of Representative Steve Scalise incorrectly stated that a link existed between political rhetoric and the 2011 shooting of Representative Gabby Giffords. In fact, no such link was established. The editorial also incorrectly described a map distributed by a political action committee before that shooting. It depicted electoral districts, not individual Democratic lawmakers, beneath stylized cross hairs.

Well, if you look at the map, yes, it is the districts that have crosshairs in them, but the names of the Representatives are right in there.  I remember beefing at the time that this looked like an encouragement of Palin supporters (mostly gun advocates) to go ahead and fire a few off a few rounds at the relevant Congresspeople.  But that’s the way it looks. Just as Palin’s team has to show malice on the part of the paper for making its original statement, I suspect that they must also show that Palin was encouraging murder, which is a defamatory statement. None of us can know that, nor could the NYT, which is why it withdrew the offending paragraph.

It was also my impression that if the offender (the NYT) was contacted and issued a requested correction, a libel suit cannot go forward. The NYT did issue that correction, but the suit is still proceeding. Perhaps one of our legal experts can explain this.

Assuming that the case is going forward under libel law, can we conclude that what the NYT published was done out of deliberate malice? To me that would seem hard to prove (see below for the standard of “proof” here), for, just as I made a connection between the gunsights and murder, but was just speculating, so the NYT could have made that same connection without a deliberate attempt to harm Palin. (On the other hand, we do know that they hated their Palin!).  But proof is proof, and I can’t see the NYT meeting the standards of defamation here. GBH asked two free-speech experts, and they gave opposite opinions:

[Author Dan Kennedy] put the question to a couple of First Amendment experts. One, Boston lawyer Harvey Silverglate, said that the Times’ (mostly) truthful description of Palin’s actions should cut against Palin’s libel claims. “Since the Times accurately described what Palin did,” Silverglate told me by email, “it would not matter whether it actually incited violence.

Taking a different view was Justin Silverman, a lawyer who is executive director of the New England First Amendment Coalition. “Just because Loughner didn’t use the map as motivation, [that] doesn’t mean that readers of the NYT weren’t told that he did — which arguably is the same as being told that Palin incited the violence and is responsible for that violence by publishing her map,” he said in an email. Silverman added: “By incorrectly saying that Loughner was motivated by the map, isn’t the NYT also incorrectly saying that Palin incited Loughner by publishing it?”

Nevertheless, Silverman said the Times should prevail if it is able to prove that its errors resulted from “sloppy journalism” rather than actual malice.

Which brings us back to where we started. Regardless of whether Palin wins her case, it seems likely that it will begin to wend its way through the appeals process — and perhaps to the Supreme Court.

And since two of the current members of the court (Thomas and Gorsuch) have argued or implied that the Supreme Court Sullivan decision in 1964 was wrong, and since there’s a pile of new conservative justices on the court who weren’t there in 1964, it’s possible that the Supremes could rule against the NYT.

My own view is that this is unlikely since malice of the NYT can’t be demonstrated beyond a “preponderance of the evidence” (i.e. a greater than 50% probability; the standard for liability in these cases). But this assumes, of course, that the Supreme Court follows settled law. By allowing the new Texas anti-abortion statute, which contravenes settled abortion law, to go forward, the new Roberts court can do pretty much do anything it wants.

Finally, an affirmation of Palin’s suit would clearly chill speech by the media, for a “> 50% chance” is about the most subjective decision you can make. You’d want to err on the side of not looking malicious.

Was this what Palin wanted?

Readers’ wildlife photos

January 26, 2022 • 8:45 am

Today we have a panoply of taxa from reader Scott Goeppner. His notes are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

These photos were all taken around Stillwater, Oklahoma:
Physa acuta at Sanborn Lake in Stillwater OK. These freshwater snails are common at pretty much any location in Oklahoma with water, along with other species of Physa.

Planorbella (Helisoma) sp., most likely Planorbella trivolvis from Sanborn Lake. Another very common freshwater snail in Oklahoma.

Spined micrathena (Micrathena gracilis) near Sanborn Lake:

Eastern Pondhawk (Erythemis simplicicollis) next to Sanborn Lake:

Pearl Crescent butterflies (Phyciodes tharos) on the edge of Boomer Lake in Stillwater OK.:

Green-striped grasshopper (Chortophaga viridifasciata) – Teal Ridge wetland in Stillwater OK:

Obscure bird grasshopper (Schistocerca obscura) – Teal Ridge wetland:

Southern Leopard frog (Lithobates sphenocephalus) at the Teal Ridge wetland:

Hackberry emperor butterfly (Asterocampa celtis) at the Teal Ridge wetland:

Here’s another one from Boomer Lake with its wings open:

Common Green June beetle (Cotinis nitida) at Teal Ridge:

Widow Skimmer (Libellula luctuosa) near the Teal Ridge Wetland in Stillwater OK:

Sachem (Atalopedes campestris) from Teal Ridge:

Wednesday: Hili dialogue (and Mietek monologue)

January 26, 2022 • 7:30 am

Yes, it is Hump Day: Wednesday, January 26, 2022, but not everyone likes the name (h/t Grant):

It’s also National Peanut Brittle Day, National Green Juice Day, Spouse’s Day, and International Customs Day.

There a new Google Doodle today honoring the life and work of Katarzyna Kobro, born on this day (26 January 1898 – 22 February 1951).Wikipedia identifies her as

a Polish avant-garde sculptor and a prominent representative of the Constructivist movement in Poland. A pioneer of innovative multi-dimensional abstract sculpture, she rejected Aestheticism and advocated for the integration of spatial rhythm and scientific advancements into visual art.

The Doodle:

One of her works (they’re like three-dimensional Mondrians):

News of the Day:

*I had forgotten about this but reader Ken caught it:

Yesterday, Joe Biden got caught on a hot mic (or “mike,” per your preference) calling Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy “a stupid son of a bitch.”
And here’s the video:
Within the hour, Biden called Doocy to apologize — as one does, if one hasn’t been raised by wolves.
But how can you apologize for saying something like that? Biden surely meant it, so he has to give the “notapology” of “I’m sorry if I upset you.” I’m sure he does think the guy is an s.o.b.

*Two from the NYT. First, in an op-ed called “What does it mean to be ‘done with Covid’?“, columnist Michelle Goldberg criticizes her former colleague Bari Weiss for expressing that sentiment as pushback against the government’s health policies. (We discussed this the other day.) I disagreed with Weiss, and so does Goldberg:

The desperate desire to get back to normal is understandable. What’s odd is seeing the absence of normality as a political betrayal instead of an epidemiological curveball. The reason things aren’t normal isn’t that power-mad public health officials went back on their promises. It’s because a new coronavirus variant emerged that overwhelmed hospitals and threw schools and many industries into chaos, and because not everyone has the luxury of being insouciant about infection.

. . . Critics of how liberals have responded to the pandemic sometimes argue that we’ve overestimated our ability to control this virus. But those who think we can escape this excruciating period simply by changing our mind-set are also overestimating how much control we have. America won’t seem remotely normal until it’s a lot less sick.

*In his new NYT column, “Stay Woke. The right can be illiberal, too,” John McWhorter addresses the frequent comment (also made here) about censorship form the Right probably being a greater danger than is censorship from the Left.

I’m genuinely open to the idea that censorship from the right is more of a problem than I have acknowledged. The truth may be, as it so often is, in the middle, and a legal case from the past week has made me think about it.

The case? That of a Florida judge overturning the University of Florida’s prohibition of 6 of its professors testifying against the imposition of new voter-registration laws in the state, a case of the Right muzzling academic freedom. McWhorter then gives equal time to a kerfuffle at the University of North Texas about whether or not a Jewish figure in music theory might have been racist, with the critics being on the Left this time. (These fights get so tiresome.) At any rate, McWhorter just concludes that both sides are more or less equally culpable, which may be true, but who cares? It’s harder for a Leftist to effectively push back against Right-wing than against Left-wing censorship, though in both cases they can be called out. McWhorter:

On the right, even if you’re wary of critical race theory’s effect on the way many kids are taught, it is both backward and unnecessary to institutionalize the sense that discussing race at all is merely unwelcome pot stirring (and if that’s not what you mean, then you need to make it clear). On the left, illiberalism does not become insight just because some think they are speaking truth to power. Resistance to this kind of perspective is vital, no matter where it comes from on the political spectrum.

And don’t get on me for not criticizing the Right; I went after the University of Florida case the minute I heard about it!

*The SATs (American standardized test used for college admission) are circling the drain. By 2024 the test will be completely digital, the readings will be more “diverse” (they didn’t explain what they meant), and the tests will last two hours instead of three. Already 80% of American colleges don’t require the SAT or the ACT for admission, and that figure will grow.

The digital SAT will be easier to take, easier to give, and more relevant,” said Priscilla Rodriguez, vice president of College Readiness Assessments at College Board. “We’re not simply putting the current SAT on a digital platform — we’re taking full advantage of what delivering an assessment digitally makes possible. With input from educators and students, we are adapting to ensure we continue to meet their evolving needs.”

The decision comes as the College Board has felt increasing pressure to change its stress-inducing test in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and questions around the test’s fairness and relevance.

The test has long been criticized for bias against those from poor households as well as Black and Hispanic students. The high-stakes nature of the test means that those with more resources can afford to take expensive test prep courses — or even, as the 2019 college admissions scam revealed, to cheat on the test.

Well, the above is from CNN, and the last paragraph is full of distortions. Repeated tests of whether questions are “biased” have shown that they aren’t, and any question with even a “hint” of being biased is tossed. As for SAT prep, it’s often free for poorer students, and what CNN doesn’t note is that test prep adds only very slightly (at best) to one’s score. The real reason the SATs are being dismantled is one we all know but can’t vocalize. Suffice it to say that the downgrading of these tests is part of ending the meritocracy in education. And it must follow, as the night the day, that as these students age, the meritocracy will be dismantled everywhere except (as in plane pilots or brain surgery) it cannot be dispensed with.

*Elizabeth Rata, one of the “Satanic Seven” professors at the University of Auckland who objected to giving indigenous ways of knowing equal time with modern science in the secondary-school and college classroom, has written an article in Newsroom (a NZ news site) reiterating her position. A quote:

. . . science is not euro-centric or western. It is universal. This is recognised in the International Science Council’s definition of science as “rationally explicable, tested against reality, logic, and the scrutiny of peers this is a special form of knowledge”. It includes the arts, humanities and social sciences as human endeavours which may, along with the physical and natural sciences, use such a formalised approach. The very children who need this knowledge the most, now receive less.

The science-ideology discussion matters for many reasons – the university’s future, the country’s reputation for science and education, and the quality of education in primary and secondary schools. But at its heart it is about democracy. Science can only thrive when democracy thrives.

Rata is the Director of the Knowledge in Education Research Unit in the Faculty of Education and Social Work at the University of Auckland. She’s got guts.

*Over at the NYT, columnist Paul Krugmen has a new column: “Attack of the right-wing thought police“. Krugman agrees with McWhorter about the censoriousness of the Right, but says nary a word about the censoriousness of the Left. Like McWhorter, he mentions the Florida professors whom the Right tried to prevent from testifying in favor of equitable voting laws, as well as  the ludicrous state laws against the teaching of CRT. His words fall sweetly on the ear attuned to sounds from the Left:

What’s really striking, however, is the idea that schools should be prohibited from teaching anything that causes “discomfort” among students and their parents. If you imagine that the effects of applying this principle would be limited to teaching about race relations, you’re being utterly naïve.

For one thing, racism is far from being the only disturbing topic in American history. I’m sure that some students will find that the story of how we came to invade Iraq — or for that matter how we got involved in Vietnam — makes them uncomfortable. Ban those topics from the curriculum!

Then there’s the teaching of science. Most high schools do teach the theory of evolution, but leading Republican politicians are either evasive or actively deny the scientific consensus, presumably reflecting the G.O.P. base’s discomfort with the concept. Once the Florida standard takes hold, how long will teaching of evolution survive?

But every word in that first paragraph applies to both the Left and Right. Why does he write only about Right-wing censoriousness? I think it was Dr. Johnson who said that if a person’s bread and butter depends on their believing something, then believe they will.

*Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is 870,837, an increase of 2,362 deaths over yesterday’s figure. The reported world death toll is now 5,636,137, an increase of about 11,400 over yesterday’s total.

Stuff that happened on January 26 include:

Do you know the distinction? And don’t say that one church is led by the Vatican and the other isn’t. There are doctrinal differences that you should read about at the link to the “Council of Trent.”

  • 1788 – The British First Fleet, led by Arthur Phillip, sails into Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour) to establish Sydney, the first permanent European settlement on Australia. Commemorated as Australia Day.
  • 1841 – James Bremer takes formal possession of Hong Kong Island at what is now Possession Point, establishing British Hong Kong.v
  • 1885 – Troops loyal to The Mahdi conquer Khartoum, killing the Governor-General Charles George Gordon.

Gordon became famous for his military leadership in China, but then went to the Sudan, where he angered the local authorities. He was hacked to death in Khartoum. Below is an imagined depiction of his death:

Here’s the rough diamon—about 3,100 carats.

It was cut into nine smaller stones, the largest of which (Cullinan 1) weighd 530 carats. It was set into the British royal crown (see below). Pity that it’s not all that visible:

Here’s Baird’s first moving t.v. image, with the caption from Wikipedia:

The first known photograph of a moving image produced by Baird’s “televisor”, as reported in The Times, 28 January 1926 (The subject is Baird’s business partner Oliver Hutchinson.)
  • 1942 – World War II: The first United States forces arrive in Europe, landing in Northern Ireland.
  • 1945 – World War II: Audie Murphy displays valor and bravery in action for which he will later be awarded the Medal of Honor.

The son of a sharecropper, Murphy won every single military medal for valor that the Army had. He later became a well known actor, but was killed in a plane crash at 46. Here he is with all his decorations; the Medal of Honor is around his neck:

  • 1949 – The Hale telescope at Palomar Observatory sees first light under the direction of Edwin Hubble, becoming the largest aperture optical telescope (until BTA-6 is built in 1976).
  • 1998 – Lewinsky scandal: On American television, U.S. President Bill Clinton denies having had “sexual relations” with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Here’s a news report in which Clinton lied. In what world is fellatio not “sexual relations”?

It was via in vitro fertilization, of course. Oy–look at this high chair! (She was known as “Octomom”.)

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1880 – Douglas MacArthur, American general, Medal of Honor recipient (d. 1964)
  • 1908 – Stéphane Grappelli, French violinist (d. 1997)

Here’s the great jazz violinist playing “I Got Rhythm” at 76:

This is how I remember her. She’s now a professor at UC Santa Cruz:

Here’s du Pré playing part of the first movement of Elgar’s Cello Concerto. I believe that it’s Barenboim conducting (they were married). It’s a tragedy that she died of MS at only 43.

Her grave (you can see a late interview with her here. conducted when she was already ill). This is in Golders Green Cemetary, and I suppose she converted to Judaism given the writing (Barenboim was Jewish).

  • 1946 – Gene Siskel, American journalist and film critic (d. 1999)
  • 1955 – Eddie Van Halen, Dutch-American guitarist, songwriter, and producer (d. 2020)
  • 1958 – Ellen DeGeneres, American comedian, actress, and talk show host
  • 1961 – Wayne Gretzky, Canadian ice hockey player and coach

Those who perished on January 26 include:

He saved a gazillion lives by devising the small pox vaccine. Here’s “Jenner’s 1802 testimonial to the efficacy of vaccination, signed by 112 members of the Physical Society, London”

  • 1885 – Charles George Gordon, English general and politician (b. 1833)
  • 1893 – Abner Doubleday, American general (b. 1819)
  • 1943 – Nikolai Vavilov, Russian botanist and geneticist (b. 1887)
  • 1962 – Lucky Luciano, Italian-American mob boss (b. 1897)

He was lucky that he wasn’t murdered by fellow mobsters. Here’s an NYCPD mug shot from 1931:

  • 1973 – Edward G. Robinson, Romanian-American actor (b. 1893)
  • 2003 – Hugh Trevor-Roper, English historian and academic (b. 1917)
  • 2020 – Kobe Bryant, American basketball player (b. 1978)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn,  Hili is replacing the late Henri the Existentialist cat, and is filled with ennui:

A: What are you thinking about?
Hili: I’m wondering whether the charms of this world outweigh its futility.
In Polish:
Ja: Nad czym myślisz?
Hili: Zastanawiam się, czy uroki tego świata przeważają jego marność.

A head shot of Kulka:

And a Mietek monologue:

Mietek:  From the series: read for me mom

(Malgorzata notes that there was/is a series of children’s books called “Read for me mom”.)
In Polish: Z serii: poczytaj mi, mamo

From Bruce:

From Not Another Science Cat Page:

From Ducks in Public: “The fellowship of the wing”:

From Masih, who points out that the newly-chosen Rina Amiri, U.S. Special Envoy for Afghan Women, Girls, and Human Rights, has put on a hijab when meeting the Taliban delegation. In Norway, where hijab are not required! Nor can you say that Amiri wears a hijab normally, for as you can see in the photo to the left or in all the photos here, she doesn’t. Below I’ve put a photo of her in the American delegation with an arrow showing her wearing the hijab.

Her hijab is reprehensible, a slap in the face of the very women she’s supposed to support, for when she has a choice in her normal life she doesn’t wear hijab. She is wearing one to cater to the religious misogyny of the Taliban. (Note that there are no women in the Taliban delegation.)

From Simon: This staff person is very privileged!

From Barry. Sound up! And I’m not at all sure that this video is supposed to be funny (read the little words on the lower right).

From Ginger K.

Tweets from Matthew. First, sexual dimorphism in blue-winged teal. Every duck species with such dimorphism does it in a different way, with different colors, patterns and behavior. A mystery for sexual selection to solve!

Translation: “Blue-winged teal the drake (male) has a white spot in the shape of a crescent between the eye and beak. The forewing is blue to. Underside is ocher yellow with closely spaced round black spots. The duckling (female) has a light blue front wing and a white belly.”

The kakapo are having a banner year in New Zealand! Keep your fingers crossed; all of these flightless parrots are confined to a single island to keep predators away. They need to reproduce!

Do you know what this bird is? I don’t, but I bet at least one reader does.

Very clever; I wonder what kind of book it’s from.

Dawkins keeps his cool when surrounded by irrationality

January 25, 2022 • 1:30 pm

I would never have been able to keep my cool as well as Richard Dawkins does on this Australian television program where he’s faced with a group of creationists (who refuse to admit what they really believe) as well as religious sympathizers who demand “respect and tolerance” for their views.  All the usual criticisms of atheists come up, and I’m impressed with how well Dawkins handles them. My favorite is his answer to the accusation, “Isn’t your strident atheism like going around and telling children that there’s no Santa Claus?” I would have been stymied for a bit, but his answer is a few short words that stops the argument cold.

Isn’t it odd how atheists are supposed to show respect and tolerance for the palpable nonsense that people embrace, while those same people get heated and strident when faced with those who don’t buy their palaver?

Now if you can watch this and still argue that Dawkins is a “strident atheist”, then you’re engaging in deliberate misrepresentation.

How “indigenous medicine” differs from “medicine”

January 25, 2022 • 11:15 am

I seem to be spending a lot of time reading about Mātauranga Māori (the indigenous “way of knowing” of the Māori of New Zealand, henceforth called MM), for there’s a battle over whether it’s to be considered “coequal to science” in New Zealand science classes, and whether MM should be taught with as much intensity, truth value, and classroom time as “modern science”— which is simply what we call “science”.  Yesterday I did a two-hour video podcast with a New Zealander on the subject, and it should be posted soon.

In the meantime, I’m looking for specific claims about MM and how it can tell us stuff that modern science can’t, or can somehow supplement modern science.

If you try to run down the claims of the “science” in MM, it invariably comes down to one of three examples.

First, Polynesians learned to navigate by the stars and other signs (this is a form of cultural selection, as those who couldn’t do it didn’t survive), which is indeed a form of knowledge, but doesn’t deserve as much classroom time as, say, the theory and mechanisms of biological evolution.

Second, the Māori teach us proper stewardship of the land. This claim is at best dubious given their historical destruction of the land and its fauna), as well as the value of scientific conservationists, who are using modern methods, for example, to save the kakapo: the world’s only flightless parrot.

Third, we have the recurrent claim that the Māori idea of a water demon in a river taught people that when the demon twitched its tail, the river would overflow, supposedly prompting road builders to circumvent the stream. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the water-demon claim adumbrated as exemplifying the true value of MM. But hydrodynamics, which is what the builders really relied on, tells you much more than mythological tales or metaphors about where to put your roads. If MM is so valuable, why do its advocate always go back to the “water demon example”?

The same goes for medicine. Many Māori practice traditional medicine, often involving medicinal plants but also prayer and the numinous. Does it work? It could in practice, because, after all, we’ve gotten clues to modern medicines from observing indigenous practices. The ingestion of cinchona bark, which contains quinine, was a folk remedy for malaria, and 25% of modern pharmceuticals are said to have been derived from plants. But finding out what about the bark was the active substance, and how well it worked, required more than indigenous knowledge.

These examples can constitute knowledge gained from experience, but the gold standard for testing drugs these days is not a trial-and-error process, but the vastly more efficient method of double-blind testing.  Below is a paper from Frontiers in Immunology that’s been represented to me as an example of how MM can help science find new drugs. Sadly, the paper doesn’t even come close to doing that. Click on the screenshot to read; you can download a pdf there, too.

I’m not going to go through it. It simply describes how the Māori suffer excessively from type 2 diabetes (this is largely blamed on colonialism, which apparently gave them no healthy sources of food), and that there are traditional plants that they ingest to relieve the symptoms and damage of the condition. They then list all the possible plants, describe the chemicals in them, and say which ones might improve diabetes because rat studies have shown them to effect the insulin/glucose storage pathways. (Many of the plants lack even that minimal evidence.)

What is lacking in the study is this:

a.) Any evidence that these remedies actually work (there are, of course, no double blind studies). The whole paper is full of statements like, “Traditional reports describe compound X as having good effect for diabetes” and “Māori practitioners are known to use the leaves of Y to help alleviate symptoms.” This is assertion based on tradition, not evidence, though it could be evidence were the plants or their extracts tested under proper clinical conditions.

b.) Any evidence that the chemicals in the long list of plants help alleviate diabetes in humans.

c.) Any evidence that the plant “medicines” are better than the drugs currently used to treat type 2 diabetes.

In other words, the studies show a lot of “this is possible” and “that is possible” but give no substantive evidence for the efficacy of the Māori treatment for diabetes. This lack of evidence for efficacy is of course not unique to Māori medicine, but is characteristic of much “alternative” medicine throughout the world, as well as other traditional cures like reiki, faith-healing, and so on. In fact, faith is an integral part of Māori medicine, as the authors note (my emphasis)

Given the uniqueness and diversity of New Zealand indigenous flora, it is likely that new anti-diabetic treatments will be discovered from these sources. [JAC: I am not sure this is at all true. There may be more efficacious plants elsewhere in the world!] The plant vegetation foods, seeds, roots, nuts, and fruits that formed the basis of traditional Māori diet and rongoā would seem worthwhile targets in a systematic search for anti-diabetic agents. It is also important to understand that Māori believe the beneficial effects of rākau rongoā are not due to the plant alone, but are more importantly due to other traditional influences such as faith in Te Atua God, personal mauri (connection) with Papatūānuku (mother earth), a good sense of oneself as Māori, and a good sense of whakapapa (family history). In Māori communities, natural health and traditional medicinal practices are increasingly widely supported (Williams, 2001).

This means that Māori culture plays some ineffable role in the cures. And the need for “faith” to make the medicine works is a blatant way of insulating the potential treatments from falsification.

One such statement:

There has been growing recognition that “health” is more than an individualistic, biomedical concept; health is also determined by social circumstances and contexts (Lines et al., 2019). These social determinants of health involve the conditions under which people live and work, and include diverse factors such as language, culture, and identity. Indigenous culture is a dynamic and adaptive system of meaning that is learned, shared, and transmitted from one generation to the next and is reflected in the values, norms, practices, symbols, ways of life, and other social interactions of a given culture (Kreuter and McClure, 2004). Relationships, interconnectivity, and community are fundamental to these dynamics (Lines et al., 2019).

Language and identity? But wait; there’s more:

For Māori, the indigenous peoples of New Zealand, there is an intrinsic connection between the health of the people and the health of their land (McGowan, 2017). Māori developed mātauranga of their whenua over centuries, which was passed down from their ancestors who originated from Hawaiiki (Smith, 1898). As such, mātauranga Māori is about connection to Papatūānuku or whenua land (McGowan, 2017). Once those connections are broken, mātauranga Māori becomes less of a living knowledge. A disconnection of mātauranga Māori commonly occurs when it is taken out of context in which it originated.

That makes no sense at all to me.

So we see how MM can be rendered immune to falsification, which is a way to say that it’s “not science”.  Anything that can’t be falsified shouldn’t be taught in science class.

Futher, you can say, as advocates of paranormal stuff like ESP often do, that “it won’t work if taken out of context”.  An example (don’t ask me to translate). Emphasis is mine:

Many Māori support the use of animal testing to understand the effects of rongoā at the physiological and molecular level, if that knowledge is unknown. Many Māori support animal testing of rākau rongoā if the research is conducted under the guidance and protection of a Māori kaumatua (elder), kairongoā (rongoā Māori practitioner), and Māori kairangahau (researcher). As mentioned earlier, Māori have strong interests in kaitiakitanga and rangatiratanga, and support animal testing of rākau rongoā if it is preserved and governed under their guidance.

Māori view the intake of rongoā by animals as a very natural process, which can help guide laboratory research if conducted in a culturally humane and safe environment for the animal and rākau rongoā under investigation. Furthermore, it is important that a karakia (prayer) is given by a Māori kaumatua before the research commences and ends, including when the animal is euthanized humanely.

The requirement that you must have specific Māori elders around to do the research properly, and to recite a specific prayer, is another way of immunizing this kind of MM against falsification.

Finally, the authors disparage modern medicine simply because it’s “colonial”. I found the statement below amusing—but also infuriating (remember, this is a peer-reviewed paper in an immunology journal):

Mainstream health systems are constantly charging Māori to validate the efficacy of their rongoā Māori practice based on mainstream health systems, without recognizing that Māori have their own body of knowledge and practice systems based on mātauranga Māori and tikanga Māori (traditional kaupapa Māori protocol) (Koia, 2016). This is viewed as institutional racism and Crown inaction on health equity in New Zealand (Came et al., 2019). Furthermore, this also supports historical practices of colonization and forced assimilation enacted by the Crown as profoundly racist (Smith, 2012). Furthermore, colonial policies informed by superior Pākehā people, institutions, and systems, have allowed entitlement of Pākehā to resources and power, including those related to traditional rongoā Māori practices. As such, the New Zealand Crown are thought to be in breach of Treaty of Waitangi obligations in terms of inequity between mainstream health systems and traditional rongoā Māori healing practices.

In other words, “We don’t need no stinking tests because that’s just racist colonialism.”

As I said, there may be value in investigating “traditional” plants used in indigenous treatment of diabetes. But you can’t just assert that or say “traditionally, plant X has been used and seen to be helpful.” Further, new remedies have to be at least as useful (taking into account side effects) as the ones already in use. There may be no plant as effective as insulin in some severe cases of type 2 diabetes. I find it ironic that the authors note this at the end of their paper:

Based on traditional reports and knowledge, karamu, kūmarahou, and kawakawa each display anti-diabetic potential. Remarkably, no molecular or biomedical research has been conducted to confirm the anti-diabetic efficacy of these rākau rongoā and to understand the mechanisms by which these effects are achieved. Although early phytochemical studies confirm known constituents, research is yet to be performed to validate anti-diabetic agents of the given rākau rongoā. 2D cell culture and animal model systems provide ways to study the effectiveness of anti-diabetic agents sourced from rākau rongoā.

Translation: those plants have chemicals in them, but we’re not sure whether they work.

That’s an admission that they have no idea whether any of the plants they suggest are of even potential value (the “potential” here is defined very thinly). Finally, the efficacy of the plants is said to defend on the need for a specific Māori harvesting protocol that comes close to religious practice (my emphasis):

The preparation of rongoā from these should be performed following certain principles and Figure 2 illustrates a kaupapa Māori molecular research scheme to undertake pre-clinical and clinical studies to test efficacy of karamu, kūmarahou, and kawakawa rākau rongoā in T2DM “mate huka.” Harvesting and aqueous extraction of rākau rongoā ought to be performed under the direction of a kairongoā or Māori kaumātua. In line with traditional Māori protocol, karakia is essential to acknowledge and thank the gift of Tane Mahuta prior to harvesting any rākau rongoā plant material. Harvesting rākau rongoā involves considering the needs of others, ensuring sustainability in the forest, being gentle with footprints in the forest, harvesting the eastside of the plant by hand, never harvest in the rain and to harvest leaves during growing season (Kerridge, 2014

The east side of the plant?  Harvesting during the growing season alone? I can think of reasons why one might do the opposite—and at least you should try a variety of protocols, like harvesting on the west side of the plant!

I found little of value in this paper, but was astounded to see how infused the medicine is with prayer, proper Māori elders, and unjustified harvesting practices, as well as having some unspecified but necessary connection to the land.  There are ways to do double-blind tests on the plants even without a clinical study, but none of that has been done in this case.

I will continue to read defenses of MM as being scientific or supplementing science, but I tell you, it’s a mental beating. And imagine what’s in store for New Zealand medical schools if MM is required to be taught, as it may well be, as an alternative and equally valuable way of treating disease or injury!