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.
The battle over superstition vs. rationality will end sooner than the one pictured here. If we didn’t have that one contrarian reader. . .
Oh god. This is awful.
HANG IT THE RIGHT WAY AROUND. pic.twitter.com/lNHzTiuHfX
— Scott Flashheart (@ScottFlashheart) May 19, 2016
Here’s the BBC’s Newsnight interviewing Larry Alex Taunton, author of The Faith of Christopher Hitchens: The Restless Soul of the World’s Most Notorious Atheist. As you recall, Taunton’s book claims that, near the end of his life, Hitchens was flirting with accepting God.
I have to say that the BBC interviewer (I don’t know his name) goes after Taunton properly and strongly, questioning him about how two long car rides with Hitchens would given him insights into the man that his own long-time friends wouldn’t have.
Krauss comes on after 4 minutes with fists raised, calling Taunton not a friend but a “paid associate.” And then he proceeds to discuss the views of Hitchens’s widow, Carol Blue, about Taunton’s book (“disgust”). Finally, Krauss recounts exactly why Hitchens was such a strong anti-theist.
Taunton doesn’t come off looking good.
Well, I’m trying not to get too deeply sucked into the fracas about John Horgan’s Admonition to Skeptics, so I’ll just note that there are two good critiques, one by Orac on Respectful Insolence and the other by Steve Novella on Neurologica. They’re similar, but both worth reading, and both make the point that Horgan’s complaints about skeptics’ neglect of “hard targets” like medicine and physics (and war!), while concentrating on “soft targets” like religion, homeopathy, and opposition to GMOs, are completely misguided. As I noted before I read these two critiques, skeptics have been dealing with those hard targets for years, but only informed people have the chops to analyze stuff like string theory or the multiverse notion (which they have criticized). I’ll let Orac’s peroration stand for all the pushback Horgan has gotten:
Of course ending war is important, but so what? As Loxton puts it, almost everything skeptics do is less important than ending war, which is “obvious to the point of silliness.” That includes Horgan as a “small-s skeptic.” In fact, I’d go beyond Loxton. Why isn’t Horgan out there curing cancer? A half a million people die of cancer every year in the US alone, after all! Or what about malaria? Over 200 million people a year suffer from malaria, and 415,000 die. Or what about environmental pollution? Or racism? Or sexism? Or ending totalitarian regimes? Why is Horgan wasting his precious time bashing skeptics when he should be bashing the “hard targets” like cancer screening, multiverses, psychiatric drugs, and war? Inquiring minds want to know!
Obviously—painfully so—there will always be issues more important or more impactful than what any of us does, with rare exceptions. Pointing to them and using them to denigrate someone’s efforts as pointless, which, make no mistake, is what Hogan comes across as doing, is not constructive. Rather, it is a very old strategy to denigrate that which you consider unimportant. A much better question is this: Is what one is doing worthwhile? Coming back to the episode of homeopathy, I say yes: Getting rid of homeopathy, if skeptics could accomplish it, would be worthwhile. Pushing for the FDA to regulate homeopathy the way it regulates real drugs would be worthwhile. Getting the FTC to regulate claims about homeopathy would be worthwhile. Keeping people from being defrauded by psychics is worthwhile. Countering antivaccine misinformation is worthwhile and saves lives. It’s also a direct outgrowth of skeptical activism against alternative medicine, as many antivaccine views derive from pseudoscientific health beliefs.
The bottom line is that, contrary to what Horgan implies, the skeptic movement, be it big-S or little-S, does not dogmatically worship at the altars of Richard Dawkins, Michael Shermer, James Randi, or anyone else, and it can walk and chew gum at the same time. Horgan would know that if he weren’t so clueless about just what skepticism is and what skeptics do. Yes, we can be tribal at times. We’re human beings, after all. However, I haven’t seen any evidence that skeptics are detectably more prone to “tribalism” than any other large group of humans, and it’s not as though we haven’t discussed this tendency ourselves. Basically, after all this time, the kids are all right. Horgan’s talk illustrates a very important principal. Honest criticism can be a very good thing (and I do think Horgan was sincere). However, even the most honest criticism can rapidly devolve into a string of self-righteous, distorted, and downright wrong characterizations like the ones in Horgan’s speech if the critic doesn’t take the time to understand his audience and learn about just what the heck he is talking about. Skeptics can take criticism just fine, but you’ll excuse us if we don’t react that well to uninformed criticism that betrays a lack of understanding about just what it is we are and do.
Well, it’s only fair; after all, there are a gazillion professors of religion on Earth! And now we have a small step to rectify that situation: according to the New York Times, the University of Miami has established a chair for the study of atheism, presumably to be filled by a full professor:
With an increasing number of Americans leaving religion behind, the University of Miami has received a donation in late April from a wealthy atheist to endow what it says is the nation’s first academic chair “for the study of atheism, humanism and secular ethics.”
The chair has been established after years of discussion with a $2.2 million donation from Louis J. Appignani, a retired businessman and former president and chairman of the modeling school Barbizon International, who has given grants to many humanist and secular causes — though this is his largest so far. The university, which has not yet publicly announced the new chair, will appoint a committee of faculty members to conduct a search for a scholar to fill the position.
“I’m trying to eliminate discrimination against atheists,” said Mr. Appignani, who is 83 and lives in Florida. “So this is a step in that direction, to make atheism legitimate.”
Religion departments and professors of religious studies are a standard feature at most colleges and universities, many originally founded by ministers and churches. The study of atheism and secularism is only now starting to emerge as an accepted academic field, scholars say, with its own journal, conferences, course offerings and, now, an endowed chair.
“I think it’s a very bold step of the University of Miami, and I hope there will be others,” said Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist and atheist luminary who is the author of “The God Delusion.”
“It’s enormously important to shake off the shackles of religion from the study of morality,” Mr. Dawkins said in a telephone interview from his home in Britain.
As you might expect, creating such a chair wasn’t easy, although professorships in theology meet no such objection:
With atheists still often stigmatized and disparaged in this country, it took some persuading for the University of Miami to agree to create a chair with the word “atheism” in the title, according to Harvey Siegel, a professor of philosophy who has helped to broker the arrangement. He said that more than 15 years ago, when he was chairman of the philosophy department, he and Mr. Appignani first began discussing the idea for a chair to study atheism and secularism.
“There was great reluctance on the part of the university to have an endowed chair with the word ‘atheism’ in the name, and that was a deal-breaker for Lou,” Mr. Siegel said. “He wasn’t going to do it unless it had the word atheism in it.”
The university had reason to be cautious, Thomas J. LeBlanc, executive vice president and provost, said in an interview.
“We didn’t want anyone to misunderstand and think that this was to be an advocacy position for someone who is an atheist,” he said. “Our religion department isn’t taking an advocacy position when it teaches about Catholicism or Islam. Similarly, we’re not taking an advocacy position when we teach about atheism or secular ethics.”
Yet throughout the country, private universities like the University of Miami have professors of religion, usually in divinity schools, who do advocate for religion. They write books on their faith, they give lectures on their faith, they teach the precepts of their faith to students, and so on. Just to name one example, John Haught is a professor of theology at Georgetown, and has written book after book advocating for his religion and dissing atheism. Why isn’t that advocacy?
At any rate, who would you nominate for this chair? My choice would be Phil Zuckerman, currently a professor of sociology at Pitzer College in California. He certainly has the requisite scholarship under his belt, including a book you should all read, Society Without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell us About Contentment—a study of atheism in Denmark and Sweden).
h/t: Greg Mayer
I found the video below on Facebook the other day, and though it was publicized by a right-wing group, it was part of a 20-minute VICE documentary, “Bangladeshi gang rape.” (Do watch that, too.) The clip below shows Tania Rashid, a reporter, interviewing Mohammed Shahidul Isham, an imam. It’s unbelievable that in 2016 you can hear stuff like this coming out of a man’s mouth. And remember—he’s an imam.
This is the perfect embodiment of the Islamic principle that women are the bearers of “honor,” and, in some branches, must drape themselves lest they excite the uncontrollable passions of men. That always puzzles me, for in countries like Iran and Afghanistan, women once dressed Western style, with exposed hair and limbs, before those places became theocracies. Does that mean that men were uncontrollable sexual predators then, with rape and assault seen everywhere?
I don’t think so. The draping of women simply makes men sexually repressed so that, once they get used to the system, a wisp of hair or a flash of ankle both excites and enrages them. Combined with the prohibition against unmarried women mingling with men, that leads, as the VICE documentary shows, not to a decrease in sexual assault, but an increase.
The forcible covering of women oppresses one sex and brutalizes the other. And it completely warps human sexuality.
That means, of course, that while it’s easy for a society to go from women dressing as they choose to putting women in veils and sacks (it only has to be made a law, as in Iran), it’s much harder to go back, for veiling women, by making men sexually repressed, actually turns them into what they are supposed to be—but weren’t—before covering was ubiquitous. And that, in turn, makes it harder for women to remove their hijabs, niqabs, or burqas in a Muslim society that allows it. Further, the men, instantly transplanted to Western culture, might act out that repression, as in the Cologne attacks on New Year’s Eve. Religion poisons sex.
But I digress. The point of this post is to call your attention to Heather Hastie’s informative essay inspired by the video, “Women who get raped go straight to hell.” It’s an analysis of conservative Islam’s dress codes and their effect on psychology, rape and sexuality. Go read it.
These attitudes are, of course, the fault of colonialism. As one person said, “Noam Chomsky is still bashing U.S. imperialism, but he’s almost 90. He needs help!”
Ed Kroc sent some lovely photos of native Hawaiian birds (not all are limited to the islands):
It’s been a long time since I’ve sent some wildlife photos. But as I just returned from Hawaii, this seems like the perfect time to send some new ones along. I’ll send you two batches: one of native birds, the other of introduced birds.
There are more introduced bird species in the Hawaiian Islands than native ones (about 70 to 50). Of course, it wasn’t always this way. About 40 endemic bird species have gone extinct due to human interference, dating all the way back to when humans first populated the islands 800-1500 years ago. Some entire families are extinct, like Mohoidae which contained 5 species of songbird, and others have been totally decimated, as with the Hawaiian honeycreepers (Drepanididae). While still an excellent example of adaptive radiation, sadly less than half of the original 50+ species remain, most now critically endangered.
The first bird pictured is one of the lucky ones, an unendangered species of honeycreeper: the ‘Apapane (Himatione sanguinea). These guys love to eat the nectar from the red, filamentous flowers of the ‘Ohi’a Lehua (Metrosideros polymorpha) tree. The picture isn’t the greatest, but you can still make out the characteristic, deep-curved bill. This guy and the next were both photographed in Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island.
The Black Noddy (Anous minutus), or Noio, is a beautiful seabird that likes to nest in the black lava seacliffs along the south side of the island. These guys are about the size of a large gull. (Incidentally, there are no species of gull that are native to the Hawaiian Islands. Even highly migratory gulls usually stay on the continental shelf, so truly oceanic islands like Hawaii are only visited by ones who lose their way, usually due to a storm or following a ship. Those that make it to the islands rarely stay long.)
Just outside of Hilo, I ran across a couple of endemic Hawaiian Coots (Fulica alai), or ‘Alae Kea, at dusk. As you can see, they are very similar to their American and Eurasian cousins. Unlike those cousins however, only about 3000 Hawaiian Coots remain on the planet.
Next is a Wandering Tattler (Tringa incana), or ‘Ulili, snapped on a black sand beach in Punalu’u. These guys have a great name that captures their two most distinctive behaviours. They are usually the first shorebird to sound the alarm and give away any bipedal primate hoping to just blend in. You can find them across the Pacific.
On the island of Oahu, I encountered two other endemic and endangered species that bear obvious signs of their mainland heritage. The Hawaiian Duck (Anas wyvilliana), or Koloa, is sometimes difficult to tell apart from its Mallard (A. platyrhynchos) cousin. Pictured is a male of the species, who shows only a hint of the classic Mallard-green hood, and is also lacking their solid black and white rump. This species is at risk mainly due to extensive hybridization with introduced Mallards. There seem to be very few pure-blooded populations left.
Next is the iconic Hawaiian Goose (Branta sandvicensis), or Nene, the state bird of Hawaii. While superficially similar to the Canada Goose (B. canadensis), this species is smaller, with a beautiful ruffled neck, and feet that have lost much of the webbing of their mainland relatives. This is a useful adaptation as they need to clamber over rocks far more frequently than through muddy or marshy terrain. They are a very gentle species, lacking the agonistic behaviour of the Canada Goose, as well as that characteristic harsh honking call. In fact, their Hawaiian name is derived from the sound of their soft calls, ne-ne.
The Black-crowned Night Heron (Nycticorax nycticorax) is a common bird throughout much of the world, including Hawaii where it is known as the ‘Auku’u. Not only does the species have an awesome scientific binomial (the “night raven”!), it also looks pretty cool. I can’t decide if this guy is more cute or creepy.
Finally, my personal favourite and the official bird of the city of Honolulu, a few photos of the native White Tern (Gygis alba), or Manu-o-Ku. You can see why this species is also commonly called the Angel Tern. Interestingly, the White Tern nests in trees, but does not ever actually construct a nest. Instead, they lay a single egg in the fork of a branch.
White Terns have adapted surprisingly well to the urban landscape, and several hundred pairs now nest regularly among the trees of downtown Honolulu. The two pairs pictured here seemed to have claimed separate trees as territory. Both trees stand in the middle of a busy street in Waikiki, packed with tourists and taxis. You can even make out a passel of nearby balconies from one of the giant resorts next door in the background of the last photo. I’m always amazed by species that can adapt and thrive in a heavily urban environment.
That’s it for this installment. I’ll send along a batch of photos of introduced species soon.
It’s Friday, May 20, and seems like just yesterday I was bemoaning the advent of Monday. The good news is that the weekend is nigh; the bad news is that we’re all a week closer to death.
On this day in history, Shakespeare’s sonnets were published by Thomas Thorpe in London (1609), the first traffic ticket in the US was issued in 1899 (a taxi driver, Jacob German, was ticketed for driving 12 miles per hour in New York City). And, in 1940, the first prisoners arrived at Auschwitz. I’m taking the liberty of showing four photos I took when visiting Auschwitz in 2013:
Early in the camp’s operations, every prisoner was photographed; later, they were recorded with numbers tattooed on the forearm. Many of these photos show people in a state of shock, for of course they were taken right after the prisoners had arrived, had their heads shaved, and had begun being brutalized:
Some of the suitcases left by prisoners who were gassed. They were told to put these aside and they’d be returned after they had their “showers”:
One prisoner’s tunic. The orange triangle in the Star of David denotes a Jewish political prisoner:
A mockup of an entire day’s rations: two bowls of thin soup, a hunk of “bread” (often made with sawdust) and a pat of margarine. (Photo taken through a glass case.) No wonder so many prisoners died of starvation, or of dysentery from the food. On this amount of food you were expected to work the whole day:
The toilets in Birkenau, the women’s camp a few km away:
And the women’s sleeping “facilities” (these are original). Six people fit onto each level between the posts, and the cement floor underneath was also occupied:
Those born on this day included John Stuart Mill (1806), Cher (1946; she turns 70 today), and reader/biologist Marlene Zuk (happy birthday!). Those who died on this day included Gilda Radner in 1989 (she was but 43) and Stephen Jay Gould in 2002 (he was 60). Both died of cancer. Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili makes a threat:
Hili: How the time flies.A: That’s true.Hili: I would stop it if the clock were hanging a bit closer.
Hili: Jak ten czas leci.
Ja: To prawda.
Hili: Gdyby ten zegar wisiał trochę bliżej, to bym go zatrzymała.
And Gus’s staff made him a “nomming box” similar to that described in yesterday’s Simon’s Cat episode, but they used toys instead of dead leaves, so the food wasn’t concealed among leaves. They made it too easy for him! And he still needs an Ikea box.
Simon Tofield, the talented creator of Simon’s Cat, has teamed up with cat experts to provide not only cartoons, but also useful information about cats. The new series is called “Cat Logic.” Here we have an episode on boxes with cat expert Nicky Trevorrow from Cats Protection:
h/t: Ken