Jesus ‘n’ Mo ‘n’ brain scans

January 18, 2017 • 9:00 am

Today’s Jesus and Mo strip, called “drugs” is based on a Daily Mail report on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of the brains of 19 “devout Mormons” (what—no other faiths?). When the Mormons were scanned while undergoing religious experiences, like reading scripture or watching Mormon videos, the fMRIs (which show blood flow to various parts of the brain) revealed activation of several parts of the brain, notably including the “nucleus accumbens”, a bit that also lights up during hedonistic experiences like taking drugs or listening to music. (You can read the paper in Social Neuroscience here, though I haven’t done so.)

At any rate, Jesus is willing to see how other stimulants affect him, but of course Mo is forbidden from drinking or listening to music. My suspicion is that Jesus’s “drug”, which appears to be a Guinness, isn’t strong enough.

2017-18-01

Secular conference on freedom of conscience and expression: London, 22-23 July

January 18, 2017 • 8:15 am

On July 22 and 23 of this year, there’s an International Conference on Freedom of Conscience and Expression in the 21st Century in London, featuring a diverse and distinguished panoply of speakers.  The description:

Join notable free-thinkers from around the world for a weekend of discussions and debates on freedom of conscience and expression in the 21st century at a spectacular venue in central London during 22-23 July 2017.

The exciting two-day conference will be a follow up to the historic 2014 International Conference on the Religious-Right, Secularism and Civil Rights and will discuss censorship and blasphemy laws, freedom of and from religion, apostasy, the limits of religion’s role in society, LGBT and women’s rights, atheism, secular values and more.

Speakers from countries or the Diaspora as diverse as Algeria, Bangladesh, Canada, Egypt, France, India, Iran, Iraq, Iraqi Kurdistan, Ireland, Lebanon, Malaysia, Morocco, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Palestinian Territories, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Turkey, Tunisia, UK, Ukraine, US and Yemen will gather in London to defend freedom of conscience and expression and argue that freedoms are not western but universal.

The conference will highlight the voices of people on the frontlines of resistance – many of them persecuted and exiled – as well as address challenges faced by activists and freethinkers, elaborate on the links between democratic politics and free expression and conscience, promote secular and rights-based alternatives, and establish priorities for collective action.

Art and culture will be integral to the event as will lively debate with the dauntless use of the free word.

Tickets for each of the two days, which you can buy here, are £85; and if you want the full experience, including dinner and drinks, it’s between £230 and £260. What struck me is the list of participants, which I’ll give in full:

A C Grayling, Philosopher
Abdalaziz Alhamza, Co-founder and Spokesperson of Raqqa is being Slaughtered Silently
Ali A. Rizvi, Pakistani-Canadian Writer, Physician and Musician
Aliaa Magda Elmahdy, Egyptian Feminist Activist
Alya Al-Sultani, British-Iraqi Vocalist and Composer
Ani Zonneveld, Founder and President of Muslims for Progressive Values
Annie Laurie Gaylor and Dan Barker, Co-Presidents of the Freedom From Religion Foundation
Benjamin David, Editor-in-Chief of Conatus News
Bonya Ahmed, Activist, Writer and Blogger at Mukto-Mona
Cemal Knudsen Yucel, Co-Founder and Chair of Ex-Muslims of Norway
Chris Moos, Secular Activist
Clive Aruede and Lola Tinubu, Co-Founders of London Black Atheists
Dave Silverman, President of American Atheists
Deeyah Khan, Filmmaker
Djemila Benhabib, Author and Activist
Elham Manea, Yemeni-born Author and Human Rights Campaigner
Faisal Saeed Al Mutar, Iraqi Founder of Global Secular Humanist Movement
Fariborz Pooya, Bread and Roses TV Presenter and Editor
Fauzia Ilyas, Founder of Atheist & Agnostic Alliance Pakistan
Gina Khan, One Law for All Spokesperson
Gita Sahgal, Director of Centre for Secular Space
Gona Saed, Co-Founder of Kurdistan Secular Centre
Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, Award-winning Playwright
Halima Begum, Ex-Muslim Feminist Researcher and Blogger
Hassan Radwan, Agnostic Muslim Khutbahs blog
Houzan Mahmoud, Culture Project Co-Founder
Ibn Warraq, Writer
Imad Iddine Habib, Founder of Council of Ex-Muslims of Morocco
Inna Shevchenko, FEMEN Leader
Iram Ramzan, Journalist and Founder of Sedaa
Ismail Mohamed, Egyptian Atheist and Founder of Black Ducks Talk Show
Jane Donnelly and Michael Nugent, Atheist Ireland’s Human Rights Officer and Chairperson
Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of Index on Censorship
Karima Bennoune, UN Special Rapporteur in the Field of Cultural Rights
Karrar D. Al Asfoor, Co-founder of Atheist Alliance Middle East and North Africa
Kate Smurthwaite, Comedian
Kenan Malik, Author and Broadcaster
Lawrence M Krauss, American Theoretical Physicist and Cosmologist
London Humanist Choir
Maajid Nawaz, Founding Chairman of Quilliam Foundation
Marieme Helie Lucas, Algerian Sociologist and Founder of Secularism is a Women’s Issue
Mario Ramadan, Co-Founder of Freethought Lebanon
Maryam Namazie, Iranian-born Rights Activist, Writer and Conference Organiser
Nadia El Fani, Tunisian Filmmaker
Nasreen Rehman, Co-Founder and Chair of British Muslims for Secular Democracy
Nina Sankari, Polish Secular Activist
Noura Embabi, Muslim-ish President
Peter Tatchell, Human Rights Campaigner
Pragna Patel, Director of Southall Black Sisters
Rana Ahmad, Head of the RDF Arab Atheist Community
Rayhana Sultan, #ExMuslimBecause
Richard Dawkins, Author and Scientist (subject to availability)
Sadia Hameed, Spokesperson of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain
Sanal Edamaruku, Founder and President of Rationalist International
Sarah Peace, Nigerian Artist and Director of Fireproof Library
Savin Bapir Tardy, Counselling Psychologist for The Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation
Shelley Segal, Singer/Songwriter
Sukhwant Dhaliwal, Founder and Editorial Collective Member of Feminist Dissent
Tasneem Khalil, Swedish-Bangladeshi Journalist and Editor of Independent World Report
Teresa Gimenez Barbat, MEP, Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe and Euromind
Usama al-Binni, Arab Atheists Network Activist
Victoria Gugenheim, Award-winning Body Artist
Waleed Al Husseini, Palestinian Writer and Founder of Council of Ex-Muslims of France
Yasmine, Confessions of an ExMuslim
Yasmin Rehman, Women’s Rights Campaigner
Zehra Pala, President of Atheism Association of Turkey
Zineb El Rhazoui, Moroccan-born Columnist for Charlie Hebdo

I know some of these people, and have heard of many others, and I wish I could go. The only issue I have is how, with so many speakers, everyone’s going to get a chance to talk! I count 67 people on the list above, and even if there were 8 hours per day of talks, that’s a maximum of 15 minutes per speaker. Perhaps there will be panels.

Readers’ wildlife photos

January 18, 2017 • 7:30 am

Reader Joshua Lincoln sent us some lovely photos of damselflies; his notes are indented:

My friend Wally once said that birds are a gateway drug for dragonflies.  I don’t think that it could be put any better than that.

I will include some Anisopterans (dragonflies; aniso=different ptrery=wing; the front and back wings are different in shape) next time and some Zygopterans (damselfliesl zugos=even ptery=wing; the front and back wings are essentially the same), now. All except the Argia translata are from Vermont (where I live), the A. translata is from Mission, Texas.

Familiar Bluet (Enallagma civile) female. Possibly the most widely distributed damselfly in North America. The Familiar Bluet flies until later in the season than many other damselflies.

Enallagma civile
Enallagma civile
Lilypad Forktail (Ischnura kellicotti) immature. This isn’t a great photograph, but I like this composition. I couldn’t figure out why the immature Lilypad Forktails look so different from the adults.  After I saw this, I wondered no more.
Ischnura kellicotti
Ischnura kellicotti (immature)
Lilypad Forktail (Ischnura kellicotti) male adult. These guys become pruinose (chalky) as they get more mature. Females are orange and black.
Ischnura kellicotti
Ischnura kellicotti (adult)
Vesper Bluet (Enallagma vesperum) male and female vesper=evening. Another Narrow Winged damselfly. This genus Enallagma (American Bluets) is the largest genus of damselflies in North America.  Typically they are blue, hence the name bluet, however this one is one of the exceptions. These guys are easy to miss as they come out mainly when the sun is going down (hence the name). 
Enallagma vesperum
Enallagma vesperum
American Rubyspot (Hetarina americana) male. One of the broad-winged damselflies, Caloptyrigidae (kalos=beautiful ptery=wing). The wing attachment of this family is broader than the typical narrow or petiole-like wing attachment present in other damselflies.

While not uncommon in dragonflies, the Calopterygidae are the only damselfly family that “obelisk” (when an odonate points their abdomen towards the sun to thermoregulate).  By doing this they minimize the portion of their bodies receiving a direct hit, which keeps them cooler.

Hetaerina americana
Hetaerina americana

Spotted Spreadwing (Lestes congener) female. One of the spreadwing family of damselflies, Lestidae (Leste=plunderer). This family holds their wings open (usually).  However at night, when the weather is bad or when they’re threatened, they close their wings.

Lestes congener
Lestes congener
Dusky Dancer (Argia translata). One of the Narrow Winged or Pond Damsel Family of damselflies, Coenagrionidae. Members of the genus Argia (Dancers) fly in a bouncy jerky movement through the air more than bluets, forktails and other pond damsels.
Arrgia translata
Arrgia translata

Wednesday: Hili dialogue

January 18, 2017 • 6:30 am

Good morning! Ii’s Wednesday, crassly known as “hump day”, January 18, 2017. It’s Gourmet Coffee Day (that does not mean double caramel macchiato lattes with whipped cream), Peking Duck Day, and also the first day of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.  I doubt anyone reading this will be praying for such a thing—or praying period. And we have only two more days of Barack Obama as President. I will not mention what will happen then. I will mention this report from CNN:

President Barack Obama will leave office Friday with his highest approval rating since 2009, his presidency largely viewed as a success, and a majority saying they will miss him when he is gone.

A new CNN/ORC poll finds Obama’s approval rating stands at 60%, his best mark since June of his first year in office. Compared with other outgoing presidents, Obama lands near the top of the list, outranked only by Bill Clinton’s 66% in January 2001 and Ronald Reagan’s 64% in January 1989. About two-thirds (65%) say Obama’s presidency was a success, including about half (49%) who say that was due to Obama’s personal strengths rather than circumstances outside his control.

On this day in 1535, Francisco Pizarro founded the city of Lima, Peru. In 1884, Wikipedia recounts a bizarre event on this day:  “Dr. William Price attempts to cremate the body of his infant son, Jesus Christ Price, setting a legal precedent for cremation in the United Kingdom.” Jesus Christ Price? In 1943, the first uprising of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto began, and, in 1967, the Boston Strangler was convicted. Finally, on this day in 1993, Martin Luther King Day was first celebrated in all 50 of America’s States. (I well remember the opposition to that holiday in the South—nothing to do with race, of course.)

Notables born on this day include physicist Paul Ehrenfest (1880), who made big contributions to quantum mechanics and then, afflicted with depression, shot both his son and himself in 1933. A. A. Milne was born on this day in 1882, Jacob Bronowski in 1908, Danny Kaye in 1911, and David Ruffin, lead singer of the Temptations, in 1941 (he died of drug use at age 50). Those who died on this day include Rudyard Kipling (1936), Curly Howard of the Three Stooges (1952), and Glenn Frey (2016). Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili, contemplating identity politics, is not having any of it, despite being an oppressed member of another species, and a female as well:

A: What are you thinking about?
Hili: About identity.
A: And?
Hili: I won’t let anybody hoodwink me. I’m me.
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In Polish:
Ja: Nad czym myślisz?
Hili: Nad tożsamością.
Ja: I co?
Hili: Nie dam się wrobić, jestem sobą.
Out in frigid Winnipeg, Gus is having a nap on his Katzenbaum.

 

img_6512

And lagniappe: a tw**t found by Grania showing a miscalculating cat:

The lichen story and the guy who revised it

January 17, 2017 • 1:45 pm

A story I wrote in July of last year described a huge change in our understanding of one of the best known cases of symbiosis: the view that a lichen is a symbiotic partnership between a fungus and an alga. That happens to be true—the alga photosynthesizes, producing food for the fungus, while the fungus provides support, water, and minerals for the alga. But there’s more.

The alga/fungus partnership was discovered in 1868 by the Swiss botanist Simon Schwendener, and it’s what all of us who took biology were taught—until last year. For that’s when a paper came out in Science by Toby Spribille et al. (see my summary of it here) showing that there was a third partner in the symbiosis: another fungus, but a basidiomycete (a group that includes yeasts) along with the well-known ascomycete (the two groups of fungi diverged about 400 million years ago),

A piece by Ed Yong in last year’s Atlantic, called to my attention by reader Hempenstein, tells how Spribille, raised in a trailer park in Montana, came to the discovery that overturned over 150 years of conventional wisdom.  It’s a cool tale, involving sequencing the genome of two lichens that seemed to involve the same species of ascomycete fungus but one of which appeared to contain basiodiomycete genes as well.  The failure to recognize this third partner in the relationship explains why scientists had encountered difficulties trying to make synthetic lichens by combining the constituent ascomycete and alga in the lab. They were simply missing a partner.

Of course Spribille wasn’t working by himself: there are 12 other authors on the Science paper describing the finding. And we’re not sure if all lichens have these three constituents: so far Spribille has found this situation to obtain in most of the “macrolichens”, but not all of them. And there are other groups of lichens that haven’t yet been examined. Finally, this whole revision may lead to a revision of what each of the partners provides for the others. Clearly the algal role is well defined, but what about the two types of fungi?

At any rate, the story shows the surprises that await us, and how easily long-established paradigms can change in an instant—especially now that we have the ability to sequence DNA. I’ll give just one excerpt from Yong’s piece, “How a guy from a Montana trailer park overturned 150 years of biology”. (I have to say that’s a bit clickbait-y given that Spribille did get a Ph.D. and did his work in a great lab (the McCutcheon group) working on symbiosis; and, moreover, it was a collaboration and not just the work of one guy.)

Down a microscope, a lichen looks like a loaf of ciabatta: it has a stiff, dense crust surrounding a spongy, loose interior. The alga is embedded in the thick crust. The familiar ascomycete fungus is there too, but it branches inwards, creating the spongy interior. And the basidiomycetes? They’re in the outermost part of the crust, surrounding the other two partners. “They’re everywhere in that outer layer,” says Spribille.

Despite their seemingly obvious location, it took around five years to find them. They’re embedded in a matrix of sugars, as if someone had plastered over them. To see them, Spribille bought laundry detergent from Wal-Mart and used it to very carefully strip that matrix away.

And even when the basidiomycetes were exposed, they weren’t easy to identify. They look exactly like a cross-section from one of the ascomycete branches. Unless you know what you’re looking for, there’s no reason why you’d think there are two fungi there, rather than one—which is why no one realised for 150 years. Spribille only worked out what was happening by labeling each of the three partners with different fluorescent molecules, which glowed red, green, and blue respectively. Only then did the trinity become clear.

Here’s a photo from the science paper showing the yeasts:

f3-large1
(from paper): Figure from paper. (A) B. fremontii, with (B) few FISH-hybridized live yeast cells at the level of the cortex. (C) B. tortuosa, with (D) abundant FISH-hybridized cortical yeast cells (scale bars, 20 μm).

And the mysteries that remain:

“But really, we don’t know what they do,” says McCutcheon. “And given their existence, we don’t really know what the ascomycetes do, either.” Everything that’s been attributed to them might actually be due to the other fungus. Many of the fundamentals of lichenology will need to be checked, and perhaps re-written. “Toby took huge risks for many years,” says McCutcheon. “And he changed the field.”

31475686-flavoparmelia-caperata-macrolichens-stock-photo
A macrolichen. (Source here).

Eight people have as much money as the poorest half of the world

January 17, 2017 • 10:30 am

When I talked to Dave Rubin yesterday morning, he asked me, if Americans are so resistant to the facts of evolution, what could I do to get people to accept it as truth? I told him that we’d have to get rid of those forms of religion (read: most religions) that make people resistant to evolution, and to do that would require mitigating the conditions that promote religion: social dysfunction. I added this: “If I could wave my hands and make two social changes in the world (besides dispelling religion) that would promote the acceptance of evolution, it would be to reduce income inequality and install universal medical care.” Those, I think, would go a long way toward reducing the need for religion and therefore the resistance to evolution, but of course their salubrious effects would be far more important than just getting people to accept evolution. Creationism is a long shot from being the worst thing that religion does.

Rubin looked a bit startled when I talked about income inequality, and asked me if I meant that everyone should have the same income. (He’s a libertarian, and I doubt that libertarians would favor that.). I quickly added that, no, I don’t favor everybody making the same wage, but that something had to be done to raise up the poorest people in the world, and perhaps pare down the exorbitant amount of money that the hyper-rich make, perhaps by increasing taxes.

And, shortly thereafter, I read a story in USA Today taken from an Oxfam report (“An economy for the 99%”; see also the PuffHo report) which gives data on the dire nature of income inequality in the world and the devastation it wreaks on well-being. The Oxfam report, for examples, says these things (my emphasis)

  • Since 2015, the richest 1% has owned more wealth than the rest of the planet.
  • Eight men now own the same amount of wealth as the poorest half of the world.
  • Over the next 20 years, 500 people will hand over $2.1 trillion to their heirs – a sum larger than the GDP of India, a country of 1.3 billion people.
  • The incomes of the poorest 10% of people increased by less than $3 a year between 1988 and 2011, while the incomes of the richest 1% increased 182 times as much.
  • A FTSE-100 CEO earns as much in a year as 10,000 people in working in garment factories in Bangladesh.
  • In the US, new research by economist Thomas Piketty shows that over the last 30 years the growth in the incomes of the bottom 50% has been zero, whereas incomes of the top 1% have grown 300%
  • In Vietnam, the country‟s richest man earns more in a day than the poorest person earns in 10 years.

Left unchecked, growing inequality threatens to pull our societies apart. It increases crime and insecurity, and undermines the fight to end poverty. 10 It leaves more people living in fear and fewer in hope.

Frankly, I was startled to read this, particularly the bit in bold. Granted, people like Gates and now Zuckerberg give a lot of their money to good causes, but few of the rich (i.e., Trump) have Gates’s sense of obligation. I’m not sure yet where I come down on the issue of inheritance (the third point). There is inheritance tax, but some think that nobody should be allowed to give any of their wealth to their offspring. (After all, the human trait that shows the most “heritability”—fidelity of transmission from parent to offspring—is not height or IQ but wealth, which of course is not a genetic trait at all.) But many people work just so they can create a family legacy, and leave their children better off. Readers can weigh in below on all of this, but particularly on taxing the ultra-rich and on the laws of inheritance.

Here are the RICHEST EIGHT; how many can you name? (Answer below.)

screen-shot-2017-01-16-at-2-48-44-pm

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The Ultra Rich in the pictures above (text from PuffHo):

Six of these billionaires, from Forbes’ list of the world’s richest people, are American entrepreneurs: Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Berkshire Hathaway chairman and CEO Warren Buffett, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Rounding out the list are Carlos Slim, the Mexican tycoon, and Amancio Ortega, the Spanish founder of a retail conglomerate that includes clothing chain Zara. Together their net wealth ― assets minus debts ― amounts to $426 billion.

Their wealth (from USA Today): Bill Gates ($75 billion, source of wealth Microsoft); Amancio Ortega ($67 billion, Zara); Warren Buffett ($60.8 billion, Berkshire Hathaway); Carlos Slim Helu ($50 billion, Telecom); Jeff Bezos ($45.2 billion, Amazon);  Mark Zuckerberg($44.6 billion, Facebook); Larry Ellison ($43.6 billion, Oracle); and Michael Bloomberg($40 billion, Bloomberg LP).

 

h/t: Randy

Turkish government removes evolution from nation’s high-school curriculum

January 17, 2017 • 9:30 am

“I have no religion, and at times I wish all religions at the bottom of the sea. He is a weak ruler who needs religion to uphold his government; it is as if he would catch his people in a trap. My people are going to learn the principles of democracy, the dictates of truth and the teachings of science. Superstition must go. Let them worship as they will; every man can follow his own conscience, provided it does not interfere with sane reason or bid him against the liberty of his fellow-men.” —Kemal Atatürk

President Recep Erdoğan’s dismantling of Turkey’s secularism continues, and this time it’s personal.

Several sources, including Turkish Minute and SolInternational report that the Turkish Education Ministry has removed a chapter on evolution from a 12th-grade textbook. The earlier chapter was called “The beginning of life and evolution,” but, beginning with the 2017/2018 school year, it’s been replaced by a chapter called titled “Living creatures and the environment.” I seriously doubt that this is just a change of title; all indications of what’s happening in Turkey suggests that this will be either a pro-creationist chapter or one that questions the truth of evolution. After all, this is all part of Erdoğan’s drive to make Turkey an Islamic theocracy, and the Qur’an (which is often read literally, and has a purely creationist description of human origins) has no truck with evolution. While the modern theory of evolution is taught in some Muslim countries, in many the topic is simply off limits.

SolInternational reports, in English that’s a bit fractured,

The debates around whether to exclude Evolution Theory and include Intelligent Design model has been escalating recently. Responding to a question on the exclusion of Evolution Theory from the curriculum, the Minister of National Education, İsmet Yılmaz said that the draft is open for feedbacks, and the Evolution Theory is not an exception. Yılmaz claimed that “whether it is scientific, merely a hypothesis, or just theoretical, all these are debatable.”

The AKP government [Erdoğan’s party] had long been attempting to transform the education system and curriculum in line with Islamic principles and credo. In 2012, weight of Religion courses had been increased from 2 to 6 hours a week. In 2013, the government had made a regulation, which let the Intelligent Design model to be included in the curriculum beside the Evolution Theory.

There are other changes as well:

– Information about Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey, is being reduced in the first grade.

. . . On January 5, pro-AKP teachers’ union Eğitim-Bir-Sen has suggested that courses related to Atatürk should be removed from school curriculums. The union’s statement came after the Education Ministry announced that it had concluded efforts at renovating the schedule. 

You can read my appreciation of Atatürk here. As you can see from the quote at the top, he was secularist, a reformer, and an atheist whose legacy is being systematically dismantled by the new government. What we are seeing in Turkey, and which is verified by my friends there, is a metastasizing Islamization of the country. The elimination of evolution is one aspect of this, but of course that tactic, while removing an important aspect of knowledge from the Turkish curriculum, will do far less damage than the increasing repression of women, muting of freedom of speech, and jailing of opponents. Many of us who have spent time in Turkey love that country, and weep for what’s happening to it now. Going back to secularism seems an impossible task.

h/t: Stephen Muth