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.
I’m terribly sad to report that Theo, the beloved cat of readers Laurie and Gethyn, passed away yesterday. Although I never met Theo, who lives with his staff in London, he’s been featured on this site several times, most notably because he drank espresso coffee without cream or sugar (see here). I hoped to meet him if I went to London this year (a possibility), but now I won’t, even though I was considered his Uncle Jerry.
Here’s Laurie’s memoriam for Theo, as posted on her Facebook page. It includes the first picture taken of Theo after he was adopted, and the very last picture taken with Gethyn, the day before Theo died. Laurie’s words and pictures are posted with permission:
The first time I read these words, I was not grieving; however, I am now, and they are relevant.
“I seem to have lost a beautiful estate, — no more. I cannot get it nearer to me. If to-morrow I should be informed of the bankruptcy of my principal debtors, the loss of my property would be a great inconvenience to me, perhaps, for many years; but it would leave me as it found me, — neither better nor worse. So is it with this calamity: it does not touch me; something which I fancied was a part of me, which could not be torn away without tearing me nor enlarged without enriching me, falls off from me…”
Theo died in my arms yesterday, whilst I told him I love him. Our hearts and lives are utterly shattered. The first and last photos of our sweet boy 😿
1661 – Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, is ritually executed more than two years after his death, on the 12th anniversary of the execution of the monarch he himself deposed.
1908 – Indian pacifist and leader Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is released from prison by Jan C. Smuts after being tried and sentenced to two months in jail earlier in the month.
1948 – Mahatma Gandhi is assassinated by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu extremist.
1959 – MS Hans Hedtoft, said to be the safest ship afloat and “unsinkable” like the RMS Titanic, strikes an iceberg on her maiden voyage and sinks, killing all 95 aboard. (Moral of the story, don’t call your ship unsinkable, you’re just asking for trouble).
1982 – Richard Skrenta writes the first PC virus code, which is 400 lines long and disguised as an Apple boot program called “Elk Cloner“.
Also this idiot decided to go walkabout for 2 days until his prolonged and exasperated yowling inside a massive thorny bush enabled a rescue at 6.22am this morning. He’s been asleep pretty much since then He now won’t go outside at all…possibly ever pic.twitter.com/WRXRjih2Bj
Yet another demonstration that precision is not the same as accuracy, not to mention the need for metric education in America. Do the maths. (From a pet shop in Wisconsin).
A stiff tailwind brought us into Honolulu an hour early (that’s a first!), but the absence of an open gate forced us to sit on the tarmac for 40 minutes. It was raining, too, but that didn’t dampen my enthusiasm for what promises to be a swell three weeks.
United gave us no food on the plane, either (there was food for sale, but I wanted to work up an appetite), so I subsisted on pretzels and Diet Coke (plus one overpriced airport latte) from 4 a.m. yesterday until 4:30 p.m. Hawaiian time (8:30 Chicago time). It turned out to be another fasting day—until dinner.
It’s forbidden to bring fruit and produce into Hawaii (as well as any animals, which require a four-month quarantine, even if you’re moving a pet), and you must fill out a declaration before you land if you’re carrying contraband.
If you forget, you can dispose of illegal goods in this Amnesty Bin, located right before the exit into baggage claim:
The goal for dinner was originally Helena’s Hawaiian Food, famous for its indigenous cuisine (kalua pork, poi, butterfish collar, pipikaula short ribs, and so on, but it’s closed for the holidays until January 4. (Poi, pounded and fermented taro, is one of my favorite foods, but it’s impossible to get on the U.S. mainland.)
The next best restaurant choice, and a good one, was the almost-as-reputed Highway Inn in Honolulu, serving indigenous food. It’s accompanied, starting at 5 pm, by a music group featuring four guys playing slack-key guitar and singing Hawaiian songs. That was a great accompaniment to this plate:
kalua pork (pulled pork from a pig cooked underground), poi (the purple stuff), lomi-lomi salmon, steamed ‘uala (purple sweet potato), “chicken long rice” (not rice but chicken and broth served with “glass noodles” made from mung-bean paste), and haupia (the white block of dessert, a coconut-milk gelatin which was delicious.
It was great. The pig looked like Carolina-style shredded bbq, but was completely different in flavor. It had no sauce and needed none: just complete porky goodness infused with smoke. And I loved the purple poi. It’s starchy, goopy, and a bit sour because it’s fermented, and the perfect accompaniment to a bit of kalua pork.
Many people don’t like poi, saying it’s an “acquired taste”, but I loved it the first time I tried it, and am going to stuff as much down my craw during this trip as I can. It was worth starving myself all day to get this meal.
After a driving tour of crowded downtown Honolulu, replete with fancy stores like Tiffany’s, Fendi, Jimmy Choo and the like, we headed for real dessert: shave ice—the Hawaiian version of a snow cone. It’s made with very fine machine-shaved ice covered with fruit syrups, with additions like ice cream, condensed milk, and Japanese mochi (discs made with glutinous rice paste). It was a big favorite of Barack Obama when he lived here, and he still eats it when he comes back.
Judicious research by my host turned up the place to go: Uncle Clay’s House of Pure Aloha, famous for using only natural fruit flavors in its syrups as well as premium ice cream. (see the menu here, and do look at it). There was only one thing I wanted to get, something I’ve been craving for days (description from the menu):
(#2) UJI KINTOKI
A traditional Japanese favorite, taste the rich and real matcha balanced with soft and chewy mochi, sweet azuki, and creamy ice cream.
The store (there’s now another branch in Honolulu):
Shaving the ice. The treats are made with great care: it took about 10 minutes to prepare my dish:
My reward:
Omygod was it good! The green tea syrup was heavy with matcha flavor, and there was a generous scoop of sweetened azuki beans on top. It all blended perfectly with the ice cream and chewy discs of mochi. I want to come here every day!
Here’s a video showing the store, the wares, and the much-beloved Uncle Clay.
And so to bed. Off to new sights and culinary adventures (and more poi) today.
Happy Caturday from Hawaii! As usual, we have three items today for the devoted ailurophile. First, a lovely 15-minute video of a variety of cats getting the mail. Some are friendly, some are vicious, but all are exactly like cats:
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This article from Grape (found by Grania) shows a variety of Japanese hand creams that supposedly make your hands smell like cat paws! (Click on screenshot.)
After the brilliant invention of the Meomeo hand cream, made to attract cats to your side with its unique fragrance, another dreamy cat hand cream has arrived for cat lovers. The new Punipuni Nikukyu hand cream (literally, soft cat paw), will magically make your hands smell exactly like cat palms, while working as a perfect moisturizer for your dry hands.
The hand cream even comes in different colors of paw.
Here’s one for the ginger-cat lover:
According to the many people who’ve already tried it out, it appears that the hand cream smells 100% like cat paws.
Now I happen to be one of those weirdos who love the smell of cat paws: they’re musty and slightly pungent—an attractive feral smell. But, it turns out, many Japanese also share this penchant:
It’s not uncommon to smell cat paws in Japan, in fact, many cat lovers enjoy their scent in the morning, saying that they smell like sunflowers and bring you energy. Similarly, many take a whiff to feel refreshed after a stressful day of work. Now they can smell their own humans paws anywhere they go, and relish in the same effects. The Punipuni Nikukyu hand cream is sold for 1,050 yen (10.15 USD), and is available in three different colors.
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Reader Shirley found a “Fred. Coyne” who, as I gather from trawling the Internet, was somewhat of a music-hall sensation in Britain at the end of the nineteenth century. Shirley wrote this and attached a photo of sheet music:
I’ve been sorting my books and came across the attached cover page (in a set of 12 Music Hall Songs covers). Most are undated, but 3 bear dates 1897, 1898 and 1899, so I guess they are all of about the same vintage.
I wondered whether you were aware of your ailurophile (?) ancestor Fred, who was singing cat songs (with immense success) so long ago?
“Sung with immense success by Fred. Coyne”. What does “immense success” mean? Why is the cat bristling? Is the woman with the broom about to bash the cat? Did he try to get the cockatoo? All is mystery.
I found this cover, showing a person who may well be Fred. Coyne, on the UK’s National Portrait Gallery site. He appears to have had immense success with every song! However, I don’t think Fred. is a relative.
And at Song Facts, you can read this about Fred (minus the period) Coyne:
In Coyne Of The Realm, an article published in the summer 2005 issue of The Call Boy, the quarterly journal of the British Music Hall Society, Peter Chorlton said that Fred Coyne (1847-84), who popularised this song, rode one daily, and for some time, and actually came on stage riding it. Velocipede (literally fast foot from the Latin) is an antiquated (and now somewhat humorous) term for a bicycle, which at the time this song was written was still in its infancy, and included all manner of odd looking contraptions, most notably the penny farthing.
Coyne’s ditty contains the lines:
“Everyone should try one,
Everyone should buy one…”
which begs the question was he sponsored by a manufacturer? – as was George Leybourne (of “Champagne Charlie” fame).
Actually, Coyne rode a tricycle; the song has lyrics by Frank W. Green and music by Alfred Lee, and is far from unique; at this time there were many songs and pieces of music dedicated to or inspired by the new invention.
Okay, the first reader who finds the article “Coyne of the Realm” and sends it to me will win a signed paperback copy of Faith Versus Fact, embellished with a cat.
1997 – Hong Kong begins to kill all the city’s 1.25 million chickens to stop the spread of a potentially deadly influenza strain.
2003 – The last known speaker of Akkala Sami dies, rendering the language extinct. Actually Wikipedia seems at odds with itself over whether there are still two speakers alive, however it notes that the language is poorly documented and its demise is imminent. This is where it was spoken in Russia. It always makes me sad when languages die.
2011 – Samoa and Tokelau skip straight to December 31 when moving from one side of the International Date Line to another, losing two days.
Notable birthdays:
1808 – Andrew Johnson, American general and politician, 17th President of the United States (d. 1875)
TALLY HO ULTIMA THULE!! An ancient relic of solar system formation, 4+ billion miles away, as dark as dirt, & shining only in the faint sunlight of the Kuiper Belt. Here it is, in a New Horizons imaging sequence. SEE IT MOVE, AGAINST THE STARS? TALLY HO! We'll be there on Monday! pic.twitter.com/EExUpK6wLt
In celebration of #ThrushDay, please enjoy this short clip of a hermit thrush foraging for insects on an unseasonably warm December afternoon in #UpstateNY. This behavior, known as "foot trembling," wakes dormant insects, revealing their location to the hungry bird. pic.twitter.com/Vtmt9be0Jo
My nephew Steven, who shares roughly 25% of my genes, writes for the Lincoln Center’s Film Comment site, and so, touting his wares, I refer you to his interview with actor Jacqueline Bisset in the latest issue (click on the screenshot):
His introduction:
An international star of the first rank whose mantle of honors includes everything from a Golden Globe to the Légion d’honneur, Jacqueline Bisset has distinguished over five decades’ worth of productions with her sophisticated glamour and finely honed craftsmanship, her performances growing in complexity and power with cumulative experience. She’s enjoying a particularly verdant career phase at present: the last two months have seen her play opposite Sarah Jessica Parker in Here and Now, Nick Nolte in Head Full of Honey, and Ron Perlman in Asher, and her era-defining blockbuster Bullitt made a welcome return to theaters 50 years after its release. While in New York for the Tribeca premiere of Here and Now, Ms. Bisset took time to share her recollections of an astonishing galley of collaborators, for most of whom no first name is necessary (Polanski, Truffaut, Huston, Chabrol), and to reflect on the mechanics of screen acting and the intangibles of stardom.
How much do you have to study religion before you can say that Abrahamic religions are a.) often based on assertions about what exists and what is real and b.) adjudicate their truth statements in a manner completely different from how science decides what is (provisional) truth? Just look how many Americans believe in Heaven and Hell, and the evidence for that, versus why scientists accept the existence of viruses and bacteria, and the evidence for that. It’s a no-brainer.
I’d say that a moderate knowledge of religion and of religious people would suffice, but people like the one below, who sent me a petulant email, think that years of study are required to claim the two assertions above. This person, who apparently lives in Utah (a Mormon?) is wrong. But here’s the email I got at 3:30 this morning (I have an early flight.) This person’s email is indented; my comments are flush left.
Hi Jerry,
I read your op-ed in the 12-27-2018 edition of the Logan Herald-Journal
Not having heard of you until now, I checked out your bio at Wikipedia.org. There you’re described as an atheist, a secular Jew, and a metaphysical naturalist. I don’t question your credentials in evolutionary biology. However, please explain why you consider yourself an expert in analytic philosophy and metaphysics? For example, can you explain the difference between atheism-theism-agnosticism on the one hand and theological noncognitivism on the other? If theism is not false but empirically meaningless, then why wouldn’t atheism and agnosticism likewise be meaningless (i.e., neither empirically true nor false)?
This is the hurdle one must leap, apparently, to be able to write a popular essay on science versus religion. But I wonder if this guy knows as much about evolutionary biology as I do about theology and religion? Has he read On The Origin of Species? Where is HIS expertise. The fact is, though, that it doesn’t take years of study to make the points I did in my article.
As for theism being “empirically meaningless”, I never said it was, for there is potential evidence for assertions about God. It’s just that we haven’t seen any. In contrast, there is evidence for accepted truths in science. Atheism, the simple rejection of belief in gods, is based on the absence of evidence for gods, not the “empirical meaninglessness” of religion. This guy hasn’t read enough about atheism!
He goes on:
Your bio includes a quote by you taken from The New Republic in which you claim that “all scientific progress requires a climate of strong skepticism.” [My italics] Besides reading your above op-ed, I also viewed one of your lectures on YouTube. Both lead me to doubt your understanding of philosophical skepticism. Therefore, I suggest you read the following article by Keith Lehrer, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona. He’s clearly an expert on what it means to be epistemically dogmatic:
See “Why Not Scepticism?” Philosophical Forum, vol. II, (1971), 283-298.
(According to the author’s bio, this article is required reading in undergraduate courses on cognitive theory.)
Best wishes, NAME REDACTED
Well, if I’ve made some major error about religion or philosophy, this person should tell me what it is. They never do (or when they do they’re wrong), but rather they almost always refer me to one or another article to read in the endless rabbit-hole that is academic philosophy and theology.
