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.
If you’re a fan of physicist Lawrence Krauss, here’s a half-hour video in which he’s interviewed by Steve Paikin of the Canadian channel TVO’s show The Agenda. (Paikin is 57: can you believe it?) I was once on his show, and was impressed by Paikin’s preparation and probing questions, as well as his ability to direct the interview and his practice of letting the interviewee speak without excessive intrusion. He’s one of the best interviewers going, and I’m sure he read Krauss’s book (as he read mine, as his copy was full of his notes and bookmarks).
Krauss’s spiel is very similar to his talk at the recent Imagine No Religion meeting in Toroto (for which he got a standing ovation), and is centered on his new history of modern physics,The Greatest Story Ever Told–So Far: Why Are We Here?Although the book doesn’t add much to similar histories, Krauss excels in his public talks on physics, infecting the audience with his own enthusiasm for science. You get a flavor of this in the interview.
From PuffHo (click screenshot to see a necessity made into a virtue):
There’s Feminist Sarsour at lower left
Saying “I am a hijabi feminist” is like saying “I’m a Confederate-flag-waving anti-racist” or “I’m a ball-and-chain toting, striped-suit-wearing free man.”
Three quotes from Sidra Binte Islam’s piece:
When in reality, the hijab/burqa stands for freedom. The freedom to practice one’s religion, symbolic of our obedience to Allah. It means modesty, it is an outer manifestation of our inner modesty. There’s a very common misconception about the hijab that it has only been imposed on women when in reality, men too have been asked to lower their gaze, grow a beard and to guard their modesty.
24:30:
“Tell the believing men that they should reduce/lower (يغضوا) their gaze/vision and guard their private parts…”
24:31:
“Tell the believing women that they should reduce/lower (يغضضن) their gaze/vision and guard their private parts…”
Apart from modest clothing, the hijab is also symbolic of modesty when it comes to the social world. For instance, these days when women often get gazed at by men and we don’t like those lustful gazes, that’s when the hijab ordains men to lower their gaze and vice-versa.
Tell that to the men in Iran and Afghanistan that continue to ogle covered women. Better yet, tell it to the morality policy. And in some countries there’s no “asking” but “telling.” This also holds in the West when many Muslim girls are shamed for not covering. I’d love to see a survey showing how many men in, say, Iran “lower their gaze” when they see a woman in a hijab!
and
Hijab is not oppression for women but a symbol of empowerment. Today, we live in a society where women are subjected to sexualisation and objectification and that’s where the hijab de-sexualises women. It gives them recognition for who they are and not for what they look like. Today, women are subjected to inferiority complexes because of what they look like or if they don’t meet the standards of beauty set by patriarchal society. The flourishing makeup industries prove that, or to be more precise, fairness creams. According to these industries, for a woman to look confident and be liked by men, she has to look good, she has to be fair, she has to be slim, etc.
If this is the case, can we expect to see Western feminists like the PuffHo editors reducing their objectification by veiling? I don’t think so.
Anyway, check out the new “Hijabarbie” from a CNN piece, “The hijab-wearing Barbie who’s become an Instragram star“. The empowering doll is wearing eyeliner, eye shadow, lipstick, and appears to have plucked eyebrows. How is THAT supposed to be de-sexualizing yourself? You can’t have it both ways.
When all else fails, blame this on the West:
This rhetoric of oppression has come from the west, from the time of colonisation. Leila Ahmed, in her book “Women and Gender in Islam”, writes that when in the 19th century, the British and the other colonisers came to Muslim countries, they looked for a means to justify their colonisation and the only way was to label their traditional culture as regressive. And yes they made the hijab their target.
The German film “Auserwählt und ausgegrenzt – Der Hass auf Juden in Europa” (“Chosen and excluded: the hatred of Jews in Europe”) is online illegally, but only for a day. It is highly regarded as thorough and honest, and you can read about it on the German Wikipedia, which will translate the piece into English wenn Sie kein Deutsch sprechen können.
The automatic translation of part of it:
The hate of Jews in Europe is a 90-minute documentary by the authors Joachim Schroeder and Sophie Hafner from the year 2016 about anti-Semitism in Germany, France , the Gaza Strip and the West Jundland – including the Jews’ hatred of Muslims . The film took a media interest both inside and outside the German-speaking countries after the TV channel Arte had rejected a broadcast in the summer of 2017. The WDR , which produced the film and had previously edited it in an editorial, expressed “doubts about the journalistic quality of the documentation”.
On 13 June 2017 the news and entertainment portal Bild.de published the film for the duration of 24 hours. The documentation is preceded by an introduction, in which the picture editor Claas Weinmann explains:
” Chosen and discriminated – the hatred of Jews in Europe – that is the anti-Semitism documentary that Arte does not want to show, and which still examines the WDR. We have been discussing this film for weeks, without being allowed to SEE him. The suspicion is, therefore, that the documentation is not shown because it shows an anti-Semitic view of the world in large parts of the society, which is staggering. Our historical responsibility obliges us to take a firm stand against the inadequacies, which are documented in the documentation. But we must all know what we are dealing with. That is why BILD shows the film, which the public broadcaster Arte NOT wants to show for 24 hours. “
On the same day, Arte responded with a press release stating that Arte had noted that Bild.de had put the documentation online on its own responsibility. “Even though this approach is strange, ARTE has no objection to the public’s own opinion on the film.” Furthermore,
“However, ARTE can not and does not want to legitimize the film by means of its own broadcasting since, without ARTE being informed about it, it deviates significantly from the agreed broadcast concept. Such an approach can not accept ARTE in this as in any other case. The hypothesis that the film does not fit into the program for political reasons is simply absurd. The program proposal, which was originally approved by the program conference, expressly envisaged the subject of anti-Semitism concealed under the cover of Israeli critics – but not in line with the editorial line of ARTE East, but in Europe. ”
So, if you speak German, watch it NOW. I can understand most of it, but lack time to watch the whole thing, and so can’t judge its quality or objectivity. If you understand German and watch it, weigh in below
According to the hadith (the traditional sayings of Muhammad, not the Qur’an), Muhammad was betrothed to a six-year-old girl, Aisha, but didn’t consummate the marriage until she was the ripe old age of NINE. That much is agreed on by many Islamic scholars, though a few apologists argue that she was older, finding the claim of child rape “disgusting” (see one apologist here). It’s a sore spot for defenders of Islam, as the practice of child marriage among many Muslims is based on the hadith story.
Today’s strip was prompted by this story in The Freethinker last week. Here’s the billboard and a response by the director of the Muslim Alliance of Indiana:
Over at The Friendly Atheist, David G. McAfee (what happened to Hemant?) examines the claims of the billboard and finds this:
Child marriage: PARTLY FALSE. Muhammed married Aisha when she was NINE, not six. A distinction without a difference.
Slave owner and dealer. TRUE.
Rapist. MAY BE TRUE based on Aisha and other inferences from the Qur’an
Beheaded 600 Jews. TRUE: 600-900 beheaded after a “military dispute”, though McAfee doesn’t say whether they were Jews
13 wives. TRUE: Mo had between 11 and 13 wives, most of them in a polygamous situation,
Torture and murder of unbelievers. NOT CLEAR; some unbelievers killed during war.
What’s interesting about McAfee’s post is that he indicts the Old Testament for approving similar behavior: rape, genocide, slavery, and so on. That’s true, but it’s beside the point, for Christians now reject those precepts and have largely been “defanged” after the Enlightenment, while those tenets of Islam (even an equivalent of slavery) are still in practiced in some places, and the murder of apostates and unbelievers is a regular practice. The defense of Islam by saying “Well, the Bible says that bad stuff, too,” is something I wouldn’t expect on Hemant’s site.
Just when you think Bret Weinstein’s demonization at The Evergreen State College couldn’t get any worse, it does. Now a group of cowardly and presumably Jewish students have written “A letter to Bret Weinstein from some Jews bent on the destruction of White Supremacy“. They sign the letter “Some Jewish students at Evergreen bent on the destruction of white supremacy”, but of course won’t give their names. The letter is particularly invidious because it uses Weinstein’s Jewishness—like me, he’s a secular Jew with ancestral roots in Russia—to further accuse him of racism.
Remember, this all came from his writing an email to the faculty and staff (and the diversity authorities) saying that he wouldn’t join other white people in leaving campus on “The Day of Departure”. (If you think that absence was purely voluntary without any coercion, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you.) And this despite Weinstein’s long history of progressivist and anti-racist activism, including participating in the Occupy movement.
The letter, which you can see at the link, is too long to reproduce here. Is it genuine, and was it written by Evergreen students—and Jewish ones? I can’t be completely sure, but I’ve found that 1) the site, Medium, is where Evergreen students publish their demands that they wish to make public; and 2) more important, the letter was circulated to the school’s faculty and staff by Evergreen professor and political economist Peter Bohmer, who wrote at the top of his email, “Please read this powerful letter by some Jewish students!” (See Bohmer’s letter of solidarity with the students and criticisms of Weinstein here.) Bohmer’s circulating the letter gives it more credibility; he may even have had a part in its composition. Curiously, and perhaps tellingly, at the bottom of the letter circulated by Bohmer via email—but not the published letter—appear these phrases:
NO COPS ON CAMPUS!!! FIRE BRET WEINSTEIN!!! BLACK LIVES MATTER!!!
Why these words appear in Bohmer’s circulated version and not the published one is interesting; I suspect they were eliminated before publication. After all, what this is really about is the students trying to divert attention from their own thuggery and childish behavior onto Weinstein. If they continue to demonize him, they think, the spotlight will remain on him and not them. Right now, what happened to Weinstein, and the events on campus, have made Evergreen look bad to nearly everyone, and drawn unwelcome attention to a small college previously unknown to most Americans. The school’s reputation, enrollment, and dollar intake are in danger. The protestors, and perhaps the faculty, are starting to realize that things aren’t really going their way; and, as Regressives tend to do, they double down, desperately heaping more opprobrium on Weinstein. This letter is part of that effort.
The letter is headed with this symbol:
It starts with the dubious assertion that “all Ashkenazi Jews are not white” (they presumably mean, “not all Ashkenazi Jews are white”, but who ever said they could write?). And that latter claim may be true, but I’d bet that 99% of them aren’t People of Color, though Ashkenazis were often treated as an inferior group. But that is irrelevant; what the students accuse Weinstein of doing, and what he’s never done, is to take refuge in his secular Judaism to argue that he’s not a racist. Nor has he ever promulgated “anti-black language and behavior” as the letter claims.
From the letter:
We want to talk about the ways that Weinstein is positioning himself as a Jew to invalidate the claims of racism being raised against him. We want to examine Bret’s invocation of his Judaism as a prop upon which his anti-black language and behavior has rested. We must speak about this because if we remain silent we accept this unacceptable usage of our shared history.
This is not an isolated incident. This is about Weinstein, but it [sic] also about white Jews acting in complicity with and upholding white supremacy, passively and actively. We seek to counter Bret’s narrative and de-center his place in the wider struggle against institutional racism on campus and beyond.
Well, if blacks have ever had any friends among whites, it’s the Jews, who played a huge role in the civil rights movement of the Sixties. Of course some Jews are racist, but to accuse them as a group of being “white supremacists” is simply wrong. But of course these students are deeply ignorant of history: they get their narratives from their peers, their professors, and Facebook.
The letter then claims that Weinstein is playing the victim, and if you’ve seen his interviews with Tucker Carlson (a new one is below), Joe Rogan, and Dave Rubin, you’ll know that’s a lie. Then, after saying that Ashkenazi Jews are People of Color, they accuse Weinstein of racism because he is not black (I presume they’re saying that HE is ignorant of his genetic heritage). Note the use of the regressive term “lived experience”, which according to postmodern ideology takes precedence over mere facts:
Bret has attempted to position himself as a victim. It wouldn’t take much for Bret to apologize, but he has held fast to his seemingly innocuous position of victimhood, and in doing so has highlighted some of the ways that liberal racism functions. Here we can learn something about how not to react when claims of racist behavior are raised against us.
. . . Something that Bret may be trying to get to when he talks about himself as a Jew is that Ashkenazi Jews have not always been considered white. This is true, and is very important to think about.
. . . However, the fact that Jews have not always been enmeshed in whiteness does not negate the fact that today many Jews in this country benefit from and uphold white supremacy. Additionally, we know that the past experience of anti-semitism and oppression of our ancestors does not mean that we are incapable of reproducing harmful behavior. Much less does it mean that we as Jews are the singular authority on what does and does not constitute racially motivated subjugation in a different historical and social context. We can understand that those who experience trauma can perpetuate harmful behaviors and reproduce traumatizing conditions.
So when Bret says that he cannot possibly be racist because he knows what it is like for his people to be oppressed, what we hear is a negation of responsibility and a gross misuse of the history and suffering of our ancestors. The lived experience of white Ashkenazi Jews and the lived experience of black people in the US is drastically different and cannot be equated, and by doing so Bret refutes both experiences. Anti-blackness and racism in general are pervasive amongst white Jews. In combating white supremacy, we are combating the roots of anti-semitism.
That last paragraph is nonsensical given the history of the Jews over millennia and in its claim that the historical oppression of blacks must take precedence over the historical oppression of the Jews. But that’s typical of the regressive Hierarchy of Oppression, in which people of color are at the very top. Since Bret has never denied the oppression of blacks in the U.S., to claim that he’s “refuted the experiences” of both blacks and Jews is sheer nonsense.
After further babbling, the students declare that Weinstein has put them in danger! How, exactly, can that be the case? After all, it is the thuggish regressive students who are roaming the campus with baseball bats looking for people to beat, and it is Weinstein and his family who have had to flee their home because of threats—and the declared inability of the police to protect them. Have a gander at this malarkey:
The way to address racism is to be willing to engage in honest conversations about it, and be willing to admit to where it lives within us. Bret’s refusal to engage in conversations about his own racism has put many Evergreen students in legitimate danger. We will not allow him to invoke our history, the history of our ancestors, as an excuse for his vile and inexcusable behavior. We, Jewish people, wish to express our unequivocal support and solidarity with undocumented, Latinx, black, MENA [people from the Middle East and North Africa] and Arab, Native, disabled, and trans and queer students, staff, faculty, and residents of the surrounding Olympia area. Bret Weinstein is wrong, he has put you in danger, and we will not allow him to hide behind our histories in order to dodge responsibility for his abhorrent and reprehensible words and actions.
It is these students’ unwillingness to engage in honest conversations, which is what Weinstein has always called for, and their demands that he apologize and conform to their own ideology, that has put Weinstein, the campus, and other students in danger. How dare these thugs take the moral high ground? I have nothing but contempt for students too cowardly to even sign their names, and also for Professor Bohmer, who circulated their letter with approbation.
The only remaining mystery is who wrote the last three sentences in the letter calling for Weinstein’s firing, and why they were left out of the letter that appeared online.
Here’s Weinstein’s latest short interview on Fox News with Tucker Carlson (who admits his politics are very far apart from Weinstein’s). It aired two days ago. Weinstein, of course, has been accused by regressives of being an alt-righter because he appeared on Fox News, but it’s mainly the conservative outlets that pick up these stories. (I have yet to see Weinstein interviewed, or even mentioned, on NBC, ABC, or CBS.) And even Christopher Hitchens appeared on Fox News. This accusation of where one does interviews as a sign of political comity is simply another attempt by Evergreen students and staff to turn the unwanted spotlight of opprobrium from themselves onto Weinstein.
Carlson asks Weinstein if he’ll return to Evergreen; Weinstein responds that he has further duties at the school, but adds “I don’t know how I can go back and teach given that I have been portrayed as the reason that Evergreen is in crisis.” I have predicted that his days at Evergreen are numbered; and it’s too bad for that school, where Bret and his wife Heather Heying were highly rated as teachers by the students. Now who, exactly, has been endangered here? Weinstein and Heying may have to leave their jobs, but I doubt that a single Evergreen student will be disciplined by the College. If they were, the rioting would get even worse!
Reader Emma Crawford from Whanganui in New Zealand sent some photos of a very rare bird; her notes are indented. I saw this bird, but briefly, at the Tiritiri wildlife reserve on my last visit to NZ.
Tom and I spend the southern hemisphere’s summer in New Zealand, my home country, and the northern hemisphere’s summer in England, Tom’s home country. We are both freelance ecologists, so we follow the summer because it is also the season when we get most work. Just before Tom and I set off on our journey back to the UK for the northern hemisphere’s summer this year, we decided to visit Zealandia Eco-Sanctuary in Wellington, New Zealand.
Zealandia is the world’s first fully-fenced, urban ecosanctuary, covering 225 hectares. They have reintroduced 18 species of native wildlife back into the area, 6 of which were previously absent from mainland New Zealand for over 100 years. The rarest species to be introduced to the sanctuary is the critically endangered South Island takahē, the feature of our email.
The South Island takahē, also known as simply ‘takahē’ (Porphyrio hochstetteri), was introduced as an analogue species for the extinct North Island takahē , also known as ‘mōho’ (Porphyrio mantelli). Like our extant takahē, the mōho was flightless, but perhaps even larger in size. The one other extant Porphyrio species native to New Zealand is the pūkeko (Porphyrio melanotus), which can fly and is widespread throughout the country. These three species all belong to the family, Rallidae, a group of small to medium-sized ground living birds. Our takahē can claim the distinction of being the largest living species of rail in the world.
It is thought that the flying ancestors (a pūkeko-like bird) of these species were blown over in storms from Australia on three separate occasions. The takahē and mōho possibly arrived during the Miocene-Pliocene 5 to 20 million years ago. Since then, they diverged considerably from their original form, becoming totally flightless due to lack of ground-based predators. The pūkeko, however, arrived more recently during the Holocene a thousand years ago or less, and hasn’t changed much. In fact, it is not distinguishable from Australian forms. You can see the difference between the takahē and pūkeko in the following two photos.
Adult takahē can weigh over 3 kg, stand 50cm tall, and are about the size of a large chicken. Their weight is something that really surprises you if you are used to handling flighted birds. I remember this from the post-mortem lab when one came in for examination. They may be the size of a large hen, but they certainly weigh a lot more than one! As for the pūkeko, they are more comparable to a chicken, being up to 50cm tall, and reaching about 1kg in weight.
The takahē’s story is quite amazing. Between 1849 and 1898, only four individuals were ever sighted. Then, with no more birds having being seen, by the early 1900’s takahē were considered to be extinct. That was until 1948, when they were rediscovered in the tussock grasslands of the remote Murchison Mountains, Fiordland. What a find! They had managed to hold out in this remote location, but only just. Their survival was still being threatened from heavy grazing by introduced deer competing for their tussock grass habitat, and nest and chick predation by stoats.
Since then, the Department of Conservation has done some great work consisting of an intensive captive breeding programme, translocations, stoat control and deer culling taking the takahē population from a low of 118 birds in 1981 to the current population of just over 300. In the annual census completed in September, 2016, the Department of Conservation estimated that there were a minimum of 106 birds remaining in the Murchison Mountains. The rest were found in predator-free locations across New Zealand, including Zealandia, which are home to 200 more takahē – bringing the total population to 306.
Zealandia Eco-sanctuary is home to a “retired” breeding pair of takahē named ‘Puffin’ and ‘T2’. They used to live on Mana Island, but hadn’t produced chicks for some years so were removed from the breeding population to create room for younger birds. Not many people have the opportunity to go to the remote Murchison Mountains, or even some of the predator-free offshore islands where takahē are located, so having this pair so accessible to the public is wonderful for takahē advocacy. It certainly promotes awareness of their plight and their recovery programme.
If you would like to see Puffin and T2, check out the wetlands area at the top of the lower lake, about 20 minutes wander from Zealandia’s entrance. They are quite unafraid of people. Tom realised he might have brought the wrong camera lens for this particular occasion as the birds kept on coming too close! In fact, even the humble camera-phone sufficed…
I asked Emma about Whanganui (it’s on the North Island), as I didn’t know anything about it, and she sent an explanation and more photos:
It’s not often on the tourist-trail, but it it’s a nice place to visit (if I do say so myself!). If you haven’t already, I highly recommend canoeing down the Whanganui River as well (I’ve attached a few pics – not the best quality, but you will be able to get the gist). The forest is lovely – we even saw long-tailed bats flitting about when we stayed the night at one of the DOC huts on the way. That would be another blog post in itself, haha!
If you would like to read more of our wildlife adventures:
Today is Wednesday, June 14, 2017. Let us spare a thought for those killed in the terrible high-rise fire in London last night, which killed at least six and probably many more. The cause has not been determined.
On this day the Continental Army was established in the U.S., which grew into the United States Army (and defeated the British). On June 14, 1822, Charles Babbage described his “difference engine” to the Royal Astronomical Society, often seen as the world’s first computer. The first Henley Regatta was staged in 1839, and in 1900 Hawaii became a U.S. Territory. On June 14, 1907, women got the right to vote in Norway, and 33 years later to the day, a group of Poles became the first occupants of the Auschwitz concentration camp. On this day in 1941, UNIVAC I, the first commercial computer, began operation for the U.S. Census Bureau. In 1966, the Vatical finally deep-sixed the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, the list of books prohibited for Catholics to read: a form of censorship that began in 1557. Finally, on this day in 1882 the Argentinian forces surrendered to Britain, ending the Falklands War.
Notables born on this day include Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811), Burl Ives (1909), Pierre Salinger (1925), Junior Walker (1931), Rowan Williams (1950), and Steffi Graf (1969). Although Junior’s gone, let’s wake up with his greatest hit, “What does it take” (1968), performed here on the Letterman show. That’s some sax work: “I’ve gotta blow for you.”
Notables who died on this day include Edward FitzGeralnd (1883), Mary Cassatt (1926), and Jorge Luis Borges and Alan Jay Lerner (both 1986). Here’s one of Cassatt’s paintings from 1908, “Sara holding a cat”:
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is hankering for cream (yes, she gets some from time to time):
Hili: Do you remember what we had to do after returning home?
A: Remind me.
Hili: We had to give me some cream.
In Polish:
Hili: Pamiętasz co mieliśmy zrobić po powrocie?
Ja: Przypomnij mi.
Hili: Mieliśmy dać mi trochę śmietanki.
Our in Winnipet, Gus got catnip (he gets one leaf several times a day):
And in Wloclawek, Leon, still waiting for his wooden house to be shipped from southern Poland, demands noms in the garden:
Leon: I’m resting. Will you bring me a sausage, please?
Here’s a tweet, but it looks suspicious to me. . .
There are nine questions, and not all of them are easy. Play here; it will take only about 3 minutes.
I did well! My score:
h/t: Jiten (who got 4/9 and the note that his “pussy powers are low” (he’s no Trump!) On the other hand, I’m not sure that Brits know what Americans mean by “pussy”.
It starts with the dubious assertion that “all Ashkenazi Jews are not white” (they presumably mean, “not all Ashkenazi Jews are white”, but who ever said they could write?). And that latter claim may be true, but I’d bet that 99% of them aren’t People of Color, though Ashkenazis were often treated as an inferior group. But that is irrelevant; what the students accuse Weinstein of doing, and what he’s never done, is to take refuge in his secular Judaism to argue that he’s not a racist. Nor has he ever promulgated “anti-black language and behavior” as the letter claims.
