Category: WEIT

Arabic edition of WEIT now out

December 17, 2018 • 10:00 am

Or should I say, as the kids do, that “my book has just dropped”?

My Egyptian colleague, who saw the book through from inception until today, tells me that the Arabic edition of Why Evolution is True has now been printed, and next week will be on sale in a bookshop in Cairo, and perhaps in other venues. Rest assured that if there’s a way for Arabic-speakers to order or buy it, I’ll give you as much information as possible. There’s one possible contact at the bottom.

I also got three pictures of the cover. I can’t read them, of course, but Arabic-speaking readers might give us a translation of the cover. I have to say that the front image plenty weird: the T. rex looks like Groucho Marx!

 

Here’s a scan of the title page giving one idea of where you can get it; I’m told the telephone prefix is 0020. Or you might email the address given below.

 

Why Evolution is True now in Arabic!

November 27, 2018 • 8:30 am

Of all the 19 foreign translations of WEIT, this is the one about which I’m most excited. That’s for two reasons. First, in many Middle Eastern countries evolution simply isn’t taught, as it contravenes a literal interpretation of the Qur’an. Second, as far as I know there is no book in Arabic that comprehensively summarizes the evidence for evolution. In other words, there’s a big need for material on evolution in the Arab-speaking world.

Over the years, I’ve worked hard to find someone or someplace willing to translate WEIT into Arabic, but didn’t find much enthusiasm. Then, with the efforts of a friendly Egyptian colleague, the National Center for Translation and Publishing of Egypt agreed to translate my book into Arabic.  Sadly, the process was stopped during the Arab Spring, and then only recently got back on track. It was further delayed by the bureaucracy (the government had to assign an official number to the book and so on), and sometimes I thought it wouldn’t see the light.

Now I’m very pleased to announce that Why Evolution is True has been printed in Arabic and will be moving to the bookstores next week. I’m not sure how many copies they’re printing, and I don’t even have a link to the Arabic version, but I’m doing my best to get this information. If you are in a Arabic-speaking country, do be aware that the book now exists, and stay tuned for more information.

WordPress completely blocks this site in Pakistan because I’ve offended Muslims

June 21, 2018 • 9:32 am

Well, once again WordPress has blocked me in Pakistan: not just one cartoon like last time, but the entire site, apparently forever. Nobody in Pakistan will ever see anything on WEIT unless they have “workarounds.”  And, once again, it’s because I posted Jesus and Mo cartoons, which offend Muslims. I just received this email from the WordPress “community guardian” (bolding is mine):

Hello,

A Pakistan authority has issued a demand to block your WordPress.com site:

https://whyevolutionistrue.com/

Unfortunately, we must comply to keep WordPress.com accessible for everyone in the region. As a result, your site is now inaccessible for Internet visitors originating from Pakistan. They will instead see a message explaining why the content was blocked.

Visitors from outside of Pakistan are not affected.

You and your readers may be interested in these suggestions for bypassing Internet restrictions.

For your reference, we have included a copy of the complaint. No reply is necessary, but please let us know if you have any questions.

— Begin complaint —
Dear WordPress Team,

I am writing on behalf of Web Analysis Team of Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) which has been designated for taking appropriate measures for regulating Internet Content in line with the prevailing laws of Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

In lieu of above it is highlighted that few of the webpages hosted on your platform are extremely Blasphemous and are hurting the sentiments of many Muslims around Pakistan. The URL’s mentioned are clearly in violation of Section 37 of Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016 and Section 19 of Constitution of Pakistan.

The below mentioned websites can be found on following URL’s:-

S.No

URL

22

https://whyevolutionistrue.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/2014-12-03.png

23

https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2014/12/03/jesus-n-mo-and-the-omnibenevolent-god/

24

https://whyevolutionistrue.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/2014-10-2114.png

25

https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2014/10/22/jesus-n-mo-n-creationism/

26

https://whyevolutionistrue.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/jesus-and-mo.png

27

https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2011/02/23/jesus-n-mo-tackle-the-ontological-argument/

28

https://whyevolutionistrue.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/2014-06-18.png?w=1000

[…]

You are requested to contribute towards maintaining peace and harmony in the world by discontinuation of hosting of these websites for viewership in Pakistan with immediate effect. We will be happy to entertain any query if deemed necessary and looking forward for your favorable response at your earliest.

Regards

Web Analysis Team
— End complaint —

Name redacted. – Community Guardian

WordPress.com

As you see, what was objectionable to the Pakistani authorities, based on some peoples’ complaints, was my reposting of Jesus and Mo cartoons.

What really bothers me this time is that Pakistan’s Telecommunication Authority has the power to block this site itself; it doesn’t have to ask WordPress to do its dirty work for it. But, as you see above, it’s easier for WordPress just to block me so they can keep making money when their other sites are viewed in Pakistan.  That way they keep on good terms with the Pakistani government, which, I suppose, would block all WordPress sites if they got sufficiently pissed off.

I pay a decent sum of money to WordPress to keep this site going: I pay for hosting, for the right to put up an unlimited number of photos, and even to keep ads off the site. In return, WordPress, which claims that it is “committed to freedom of speech”, isn’t really—not when it acts as a censor itself at the behest of a foreign government. This, for example, is what WordPress says at its “Beat Censorship” page (their emphasis):

Access to the Internet is subject to restrictions in many countries. These range from the ‘Great Firewall of China’, to default content filtering systems in place in the UK. As a result, WordPress.com blogs can sometimes be inaccessible in these places. As far as we are concerned, that’s BS.

There are a number of ways available to bypass these restrictions. As part of our commitment to freedom of speech, we have listed some of the possibilities below. Bear in mind that the most effective route will depend on where you are connecting from. . .

As far as I’m concerned, that is BS. Yes, they list ways to bypass restrictions, but they also are putting the restrictions in place themselves. I emphasize once again: it is not Pakistan that is censoring me, but WordPress, which is doing so to keep its profitability in that region.

I’ve already written to WordPress protesting the previous censoring of a single Jesus and Mo cartoon. They did not respond. Some “commitment to freedom of speech”!

Well, so be it. My Jesus and Mo cartoons (but not my many posts criticizing Islam) have “hurt the sentiments of many Muslims around Pakistan.” Those who object are acting like spoiled children, for they don’t have to look at my site! And the Pakistani government is acting like a parent who puts site-blocking software on their childrens’ computers.  Needless to say, Islam is the only faith that would cause something like this to happen. Thanks, WordPress, for acting as censors on behalf of Pakistan! Why couldn’t you just let Pakistan block me by itself?

Where our readers stand politically

January 31, 2018 • 10:10 am

Yesterday I took the “political compass” test to find out where I stood on the left/right and authoritarian/libertarian spectrum. I turned out to be halfway between neutral and extreme liberal, and halfway between libertarian and neutral. Here are the results of the poll (there were a lot more votes than usual).

It’s not surprising that most readers fell in the lower left quadrant, with only 43 (7.2%) being right wing and only 13 (2.2%) being authoritarian (there’s some overlap here as there are 2 right-wing authoritarians).

Reader Dick Veldkamp was kind enough to make a summary plot of readers’ scores, which he sent to me with the indented remark below. Remember, the left side of the plot is left-wing, the right side is right-wing, the top is authoritarian, and the bottom is libertarian. My score is the red dot, and the mean is the green dot. Not all readers gave their numerical scores.

Here is a graph of your “survey”, which you might want to add to the current discussion. Remarkably (or unremarkably) the mean of the readers is very close to your own score.

It’s no surprise, of course. Being in the middle, I stand to get less flak, as that would come from readers farthest from me on the political spectrum, and if I were on one end or the other I’d have more of those extremes.

Note to readers

June 1, 2017 • 7:16 am

Tomorrow I’m going to the Imagine No Religion meeting in Toronto (iteration 7), and will be back Monday morning.  The lineup is good, featuring not only people I know, like Richard Dawkins, Matt Dillahunty, Seth Andrews, Chris DiCarlo, and Lawrence Krauss, but those I’d like to meet, including Kelly Carlin and Rob Penczak. INR is always a good time, and my own talk, on “Ways of Knowing: Science versus Everything Else”, is on Sunday at 2 p.m.  I will handily demolish the myth that the humanities, religion, personal feelings, etc. are ways of finding out facts about our universe.

Posting will be light till Tuesday, so bear with me.

Also: due to the high volume of email I’m getting, I’m going to ask readers to restrict emails to me to one every three or so days. If you have several things to call to my attention, could you put them in a single email? It’s hard to handle the volume I get. But keep sending stuff!

Thanks.

—Mgmt.

Video series of WEIT (Chapter 1)

March 7, 2017 • 11:30 am
Treat Paine Metcalf of MassComprehension is producing a series of online videos using the words from Chapter 1 of Why Evolution is True. Part 3 has just come out, and two more videos remain. (No other chapters will be done). Here’s the latest, and you can find all three at this link.
This is part 3, 5½ minutes long. There’s now a paper book, an audiobook, and this is at least one chapter of a “videobook”:

Professor Ceiling Cat (Emeritus) on The Rubin Report

January 24, 2017 • 10:30 am

Eight days ago, I did a taping of The Rubin Report in Los Angeles, and had a great time. I told Dave beforehand that I wasn’t all that politically astute, and might want to talk more about evolution than politics, which is what we wound up doing. It was a pleasant and relaxed conversation, and I think it went well, though, as usual I’ve avoided listening to most of it.

There was of course a modicum of discussion of politics and religion, some of which came from my view that the most effective thing we could do to get people to accept evolution would be to get rid of those religions that condition people to reject it. (Those include Catholicism, which, although officially accepting evolution, also accepts the view that Adam and Eve were the progenitors of all living humans, and 27% of whose American adherents reject evolution despite the Vatican’s stand.) And, to get rid of religion, you need to effect social improvement.

But that wasn’t the bulk of our discussion. Listen for yourself. As is his wont, Dave divided the initial posts into two parts, but I’ll replace them with the concatenated interview when it’s posted later.

Part I:

By the way, I was told that some of the YouTube commenters (I didn’t read the comments) have come to this website expecting everything to be about evolution, and have been disappointed. Well, the website has changed since its inception, but if you want to find the evolution posts, just enter “evolution” into the search box on the upper left, or, better yet, look at this link, which searches by the “evolution” tag appended to the appropriate posts.

Part II: