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.
It’s Wednesday, or Hump Day, the 27th of April, and the temperature in Chicago has dropped 30 degrees Fahrenheit in the past two days; it’s now chilly. On this day in 1521, Magellan was hacked and speared to death by natives in the Philippines. Also on this day, Herbert Spencer was born in 1820, and Ralph Waldo Emerson died in 1882.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is becoming an incisive anti-theist! Perhaps I should have her translate Faith Versus Fact into Cat.
Hili: If there is no God spring has no meaning.
A: What are you talking about?
Hili: I’m bringing the logic of the believers to the absurdity where it belongs.
In Polish:
Hili: Jeśli Boga nie ma, to wiosna nie ma sensu.
Ja: Co ty mówisz?
Hili: Doprowadzam logikę wierzących do absurdu, tam gdzie jej miejsce.
And in Winnipeg, Jesus saves but so does Gus!
. . . and he’s attacking a new tuft in the garden (he destroyed a tuft last year):
Lagniappe: a LOLcat from Facebook (h/t jsp for both items):
and today’s Dilbert, whose second panel is a classic (it should be on a tee shirt):
Since Samantha Cristoforetti (the Official Website Astronaut™) returned from the ISS, we haven’t heard much from her, but at least I can report that today is her 39th birthday, and she got a special cake from a special person:
From boingboing, Rob Brydon gives us a number of familiar phrases coined by the Bard. I thought I was pretty up on Shakespeare, but many of these were new to me as his own spawn:
A similar but more animated video, by Christopher Gaze (artistic director of Bard on the Beach in Vancouver), is here.
Well, the no-platforming policy of British students continues apace. This time it involves rescinding a speaking invitation to the Donald Trump of England—London mayor Boris Johnson (they’re both clowns, but Johnson’s hair is marginally better). Johnson was set to take part in debates at King’s College London about whether Britain should dissociate itself from the EU. Writing in The Sun about how leaving the EU would solidify Britain’s ties to the U.S., he had said this about President Obama:
Something mysterious happened when Barack Obama entered the Oval Office in 2009.
Something vanished from that room, and no one could quite explain why.
It was a bust of Winston Churchill – the great British war time leader. It was a fine goggle-eyed object, done by the brilliant sculptor Jacob Epstein, and it had sat there for almost ten years.
But on day one of the Obama administration it was returned, without ceremony, to the British embassy in Washington.
No one was sure whether the President had himself been involved in the decision.
Some said it was a snub to Britain. Some said it was a symbol of the part-Kenyan President’s ancestral dislike of the British empire – of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender.
Well, that’s sort of rude, but I don’t consider it either racist or a terminal macroagression. And the rest of Johnson’s piece is a fairly tame call for leaving the EU, and calling out America for its hypocrisy, like our country’s not signing UN human rights accords.
Nevertheless, the Independent reports that “Think Tank,” the King’s College student group who had invited Johnson, rescinded his invitation on the basis of the last two lines above. Their email:
Dear Mr Johnson,
Given your inappropriate comments and inferences toward President Obama’s Kenyan heritage, of which he is rightly proud, and your general tone of disrespect over the past few days in relation to the President of the United States of America, we are now formally withdrawing your invitation to speak at Kings College London.
We are looking forward to providing a forum for both sides in the EU Referendum Debate to argue their point of view without fear or favour. The level of discourse over the past few days does not meet the bar we set for these events nor do we feel does it help the British people in making the most momentous decision of our lifetime. Furthermore we believe it does not reflect the true greatness of the United Kingdom, a land of tolerance, respect and fair play towards all.
Mike Molloy (Director of EU Referendum Events at Kings College London)
Margot MacDonnell (President of Kings College London Think Tank)
Erica Arcudi (Vice President of Kings College London Think Tank)
In other words, they rescinded his invitation because he was rude to the U.S. President! He was also “rude” to the U.S. as a whole, but so what? Clearly the reference to Obama’s Kenyan ancestry was somehow mistaken for racism.
Boris Johnson
But this is just one pustle from a more virulent disease sweeping Britain’s youth. For according to yesterday’s BBC News, a poll o0f 1001 British students showed that 63% of them agree with the National Union of Students’ (NUS’s) “no-platforming policy,” which asserts (but does not require) that some people or organizations should not be allowed to speak at universities, nor should any NUS officers share a stage with them.
Here are the six proscribed groups (from Wikipedia); three are right-wing British groups and three are Muslim groups that were considered either anti-Semitic or supportive of terrorism:
Also according to Wikipedia, some individuals have been no-platformed:
The NUS also has policy refusing platforms to people or organisations for other reasons: the NUS LGBT Campaign (and formerly, also the Women’s Campaign) refuses platforms to those they consider to be transphobic, including Julie Bindel; and the National Executive Committee has policy refusing a platform to those it considers to be rape deniers or rape apologists, following George Galloway‘s statements about rape when asked about the allegations of sexual assault facing Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
In recent years, individuals believed to be sexist, transphobic or rape apologists have also been banned from speaking at universities.
It is argued these speakers would threaten a “safe space”, which is described as an accessible environment in which every student feels comfortable, safe and can get involved free from intimidation or judgment.
At Canterbury Christ Church University, an NUS rep refused to share a platform with gay rights activist Peter Tatchell, whom she regarded as having been racist and “transphobic”.
. . . Feminist writer Julie Bindel was banned from speaking at Manchester University’s student union last October as students said her views on transgender people could “incite hatred towards and exclusion of our trans students”.
Chief Executive for HOPE not Hate, Nick Lowles, was reportedly “no-platformed” by the NUS in February on the grounds that he was seen to be “Islamaphobic”. The anti-racism and fascism campaigner responded on social media that the NUS had “officially become a joke” after “ultra-left lunacy” stopped him from speaking at the anti-racism conference.
Ironically, HOPE not Hate is a left-wing, antifascist and antiracist group.
The BBC survey, taken by ComRes, also showed that 54% of the surveyed students supported enforcing the policy “against people who could be found intimidating.”
As you might guess, I don’t support any official policy of no-platforming. It is of course up to universities and individuals if they wish to invite representatives of various groups, and some groups are so clearly beyond the pale that it’s not likely many people will want to invite them. But to have a list—to claim that nobody belonging to these organizations should ever be given air time, or share a platform with an NUS officer—is clearly an attempt to stifle discussion. People like Peter Tatchell and Julie Bindel have things to say, and if you don’t like their views on, say, the way we should regard transgender people (Tatchell didn’t do anything but sign a letter opposing censorship), they should be opposed with counterspeech, not banned from speaking.
These lists also demonize people, irrevocably tarring them with the label of “racist” or “transphobe”, or other names that, fairly applied or not, can follow them around for the rest of their lives.
Let us call the NUS what it is: a fascist organization, even if it does oppose right-wing fascism. It’s simply a Fascism of the Left. And in an Orwellian demonstration of doublespeak, the NUS claims it really is on the side of free speech (my emphasis):
. . . The NUS said it was proud of the policy and the fact that the majority of students surveyed agreed showed demonstrated that the policy was necessary in standing up to racism and fascism.
A spokeswoman said: “In the past, students have been physically harmed and tragically even killed as a result of such organisations coming on to campuses and inciting hatred. That is why ‘no platform’ was introduced in the first place, to keep students safe in a very real sense.”
”Our policy does not limit free speech, but acts to defend it by calling out violence, hate speech, bullying and harassment, which allows debate to take place without intimidation. Students’ unions are champions of debate on campus, in fact a recent survey showed zero out of 50 students’ unions had banned a speaker in the past year.”
I’m not sure which students have been harmed or killed by the incitement of hatred, but if they were it constitutes a violation of the law, and the speakers should be prosecuted.
The part I’ve put in bold is simply laughable, for who gets to determine what constitutes “hate speech, bullying, and harassment”? The NUS, of course! But Julie Bindel and Peter Tatchell don’t fall into those proscribed categories. They just espouse views that liberals, and the NUS, don’t like. By arrogating unto itself which speakers are deemed “safe,” the NUS is becoming students’ Big Brother—just the kind of paternalism they’re supposed to escape when they go to University.
I was shocked to learn this morning that Rick Harrison, an evolutionary biologist at Cornell, died at 70. He had been treated for a form of cancer a while back, but that was a long time ago, and I assumed he was okay. I’m not sure if that caused his very untimely death (he was a runner, and in terrific shape), but never mind. He was one of the good ones, and I’ll miss him.
There’s an obituary in the Cornell Sun, and I’ll quote from it, but want to add my own take. Like me, Rick was an evolutionary biologist with a leaning toward genetics, and worked on speciation and population differentiation, particularly in hybrid zones, which was seminal work. His research, largely on crickets, was thorough and careful, and he himself was properly cautious (his long list of papers is here). One of my favorite papers of his (probably because he agreed with me!) was his discussion of species concepts and its relevance to systematics, a paper I always assigned for my graduate course on speciation:
Harrison, R. G. Linking evolutionary pattern and process: The relevance of species concepts for the study of speciation. Pages 19-31 in Endless Forms: Species and Speciation (D. J. Howard and S. H. Berlocher, eds.). Oxford University Press.
Although I admired Rick as one of the more critical thinkers in the field, he was a truly nice guy: he would criticize work, and species concepts, but never people. I wish I had that personality! Here is an excerpt from the obituary:
Harrison’s work was “held in highest regard by his peers,” according to Prof. Ronald Hoy, neurobiology and behavior.
Prof. Charles Aquadro, molecular biology and genetics, added that Harrison was also known for his eloquence and scholastic integrity.
“If Rick published something, you could believe the results completely and trust that his interpretation was balanced and objective,” Aquadro said. “This level of intellectual honesty is all too rare and will be sorely missed.
Prof. Kelly Zamudio, ecology and evolutionary biology, said Harrison’s contribution to students and mentees was as great as his contribution to evolutionary biology.
“He was incredibly giving of his time,” Zamudio said. “He had a really high dedication to the department and to people in the department.”
Those are from his Cornell colleagues, and he was chair of that department (Ecology and Evolutionary Biology) from 1996-2001 and 2006-2009. It’s a tribute to his people and administrative skills that he was not only chairman twice, but the faculty he supervised liked him so much—as did everyone else in the field.
Cenk (pronounced “Jenk”) Uygur is the main host of the online news show The Young Turks (TYT), a popular leftist program that generally has a progressive political slant. I occasionally watched it, but gave up when Uygur started going after New Atheism and espousing a regressive line on Islam, excusing all the tenets of the faith in favor of excoriating those like Sam Harris. In fact, the show now instantiates the Regressive Left: it’s the liberal equivalent of Fox News.
However, Uygur is himself an atheist. If you want to see him go after New Atheism, here are two videos:
And Uygur’s three-hour interview with Sam Harris is here; you may remember Uygur trying without success to take Harris apart.
Now atheism shouldbe (but isn’t always) evidence based; after all, the main reason for denying gods is that we see no evidence for them. Yet Uygur has repeatedly refused to look some important evidence in its face: the evidence for the genocide of Armenians conducted by the Ottomans (now the Turks), a massacre that began in 1915 with the arrest of Armenian intellectuals on April 24. That date is called “Bloody Sunday” and is now commemorated as Genocide Remembrance Day. Many of the arrested intellectuals were killed, and that was followed by death marches of Armenians, mass murders, the erection of concentration camps, confiscation of all Armenian property, and a general slaughter that resulted in the death of as many as 1.5 million Armenians. By any measure this was genocide (or “ethnic cleansing”): the deliberate attempt to extirpate an entire people.
Every open-minded person who has looked at the evidence agrees that this genocide happened—except for Turks. (To start reading about the evidence, go here, here, here, here, here, or look at the references in the Wikipedia article.) The notion that their country could commit such unspeakable crimes is completely unpalatable to them, and many (but not all!) Turks simply deny that the genocide happened. I’ve encountered this denial several times when visiting Turkey, and believe me, you don’t want to talk about the issue if you don’t know whom you’re talking to. The attitude of many Turks is the equivalent of those who deny the Nazi Holocaust despite insuperable evidence.
Curiously, one of the Armenian Genocide deniers has been Cenk Uygur. It may be relevant that he was born in Turkey, though his family moved to America when he was young. In 1991, while at the University of Pennsylvania, Uygur wrote an article for The Daily Pennsylvanian (the student newspaper) called “Historical Fact or Falsehood“, which is straight-out genocide denialism, imputing false claims of genocide to Armenian demands for land and money. An excerpt:
Hence, once you really examine the history of the time it becomes apparent that the allegations of an Armenian Genocide are unfounded. So the question arises of why the Armenians would bother to conjure up such stories, and even go as far as, committing approximately 200 acts of terrorism since 1973 to further their cause, resulting in countless deaths and injuries to government officials and civilians. The answer is that they want their demands met. Their demands are that they receive close to one-half of the land of the Republic of Turkey for a new Greater Armenia, and that every Armenian claiming to be injured by the alleged genocide be compensated with cash reparations. That is why every year they push the U.S. Congress to pass a bill declaring the Armenian Genocide a historical fact. Fortunately, every year it is defeated because of the courage of people such as the 69 professors who wrote in to explain the truth of the matter.
. . . every non-Armenian scholar in the field believes it is an open question whether this event was a genocide. Is it the claim of the article that all of these people are tainted by the tentacles of the Turkish government? If not, then why is it not pointed out that no one outside of the “Armenian position” believes it is a genocide? Why is it assumed that the “Turkish studies side” has the burden of proof in overturning the verdict of Turkish guilt? It is because of the underlying assumption that despite what these people in “Turkish studies” say, there must have been a genocide.
This is an embarrassing position for someone to take who’s an American progressive, and over the years Uygur has taken a lot of flak for it. When an ethnic minority is “cleansed”, and you’re supposed to be supportive of minorities, it doesn’t look good for you, or your online news show, to ignore one of the greatest massacres of the 20th century. Yet ignore it Uygur did, refusing to mention it on the 100th anniversary of Bloody Sunday last year, ignoring it this year, and ignoring the questions about it he was asked in a reddit “Ask me Anything” interview. Apparently “Anything” doesn’t include genocide.
It got so bad that Uguyr’s cohost Ana Kasparian, of Armenian descent, put up her own video about the genocide on its anniversary in 2015, making no bones about its reality. Of course she didn’t get to mention it on TYT. Here it is:
I suppose the pressure on Uygur got so bad, and its potential effects on his reputation and show so damaging, that he finally said something about the genocide. Did he admit it happened? No—he simply said that he didn’t know the facts well enough to pass judgment on it. Have a look at the most disingenuous notapology ever, “Rescinding the statements in my Daily Pennsylvanian article“, published four days ago on the TYT site (the genocide was, by the way, committed by the government instituted by reformers called “The Young Turks”). Here’s Uygur’s “retraction” in its entirety:
Today, I rescind the statements I made in my Daily Pennsylvanian article from 1991 entitled, “Historical Fact of Falsehood? When I wrote that piece, I was a 21 year-old kid, who had a lot of opinions that I have since changed. Back then I had many political positions that were not well researched. For example, back in those days I held a pro-war rally for the Persian Gulf War. Anyone who knows me now knows that I am a very different person today.
I also rescind the statements I made in a letter to the editor I wrote in 1999 on the same issue. Back then I had a very different perspective and there were many things that I did not give due weight. On this issue, I should have been far, far more respectful of so many people who had lost family members. Their pain is heart-wrenching and should be acknowledged by all.
My mistake at the time was confusing myself for a scholar of history, which I most certainly am not. I don’t want to make the same mistake again, so I am going to refrain from commenting on the topic of the Armenian Genocide, which I do not know nearly enough about.
Thank you for being patient with me on this issue, though I might not have always merited it.
One might think that, after 25 years, it was finally time for Uygur to admit the existence of that genocide. Did he do that? Not that I can see. All he says is that he’s a “very different person,” doesn’t stand by his denialism of the past, and henceforth is going to shut up about the issue. After all, he was not a “scholar of history”. (If he used that excuse all the time, he couldn’t say anything about history.)
Well, imagine if he showed similar behavior with respect to the Nazi Holocaust and, after denying it for a quarter of a century, issued something like the statement above: “I am not a scholar of history and so can’t determine whether the Nazis killed six million Jews and another six million non-Jews. I do respect the pain of those who may have lost family members in this claimed Holocaust. But since I don’t know all the facts (and can’t be arsed to look them up), I’ll just refrain from mentioning the Holocaust again.”
This is reprehensible. In 25 years Uygur could have acquainted himself with the facts, for crying out loud! It’s not that they’re hard to find, and although a few denialists still exist—just as there are Holocaust denialists—the consensus of scholars and historians is that yes, the Armenians were exterminated en masse by the Turks.
I would like to have praised Uygur for his late admission, as few are willing to admit they were wrong, but somehow I can’t think of him as a mensch. His treatment of New Atheists, his distortion of their claims, and now this notapology—all this shows that he’s disingenuous. That is the conclusion that Dave Rubin, once a friend and protégée of Uygar, arrived at last November when he and The Godless Spellchecker discussed Uygur’s attitudes toward New Atheism:
My conclusion is that Uygur’s statement wasn’t made in good faith. If he had good faith, he’d look at the evidence for the Armenian genocide and then render his opinion rather than saying, “I’m not a scholar.” Such an evasion is laughable. As it is, I can only imagine what Kasparian thinks of him. What I think of him is that he’s an insufferably pompous and disingenuous man, not worthy of attention, and I won’t be listening to his show. He is neither an honest Leftist nor an honest atheist.
Were it the case that I wanted people to be certain that I wasn’t denying a historically established genocide, I’d be sure to confirm my acknowledgement of said atrocity in a released statement intended to put the matter to bed. Something like: ‘Of course I now accept the Armenian genocide happened’ would do it for instance.
The above simply reads as someone who just doesn’t want to talk about it and is hoping it will all go away, rather than someone who wishes to set the record straight.
But unfortunately, Cenk can only manage to concede he was mistaken for ‘confusing’ himself for a ‘scholar of history’ rather than being mistaken about historical fact.
Also, ‘I don’t know enough about this, I’m not a scholar’ is an odd defence to take for a talk show host. Cenk is not a ‘scholar’ on any topic as far as I’m aware.
Will Cenk refrain from being opinionated on topics he is not a scholar on from now on? Surely he would need to find a new job then. Or does this credential humility only apply where inconvenient topics such as the Armenian genocide are concerned?
Reader Gary called my attention to this magazine, which is over a year old already. In case you don’t know, AARP stands for the American Association of Retired Persons, described by Wikipedia as “a membership organization for geriatrics”. I get mailings from thm all the time, asking me to join, buy life insurance, etc. I won’t, though, as I’m not geriatric.
We don’t get very many submissions of plant photos, and I know we have some botany lovers out there, so enjoy these photos from reader Ken Phelps from the Pacific Northwest:
A foliose lichen (Flavoparmelia caperata??) growing in the moss that substitutes for lawn in our yard.
Bracket fungus on tree trunk. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen one of these with a seascape painted on the underside and made into a lamp. I consider that a mercy.
Leaves (or “leafs” for Ontarians) sprouting on a young maple.
Arbutus, as we call them here, with stripes of peeling bark.
Another close-up of the intense arbutus colors.
Some very mossy maple trees (and a few alders) on a flood plain adjacent to the Nanaimo River earlier this spring. By now, this is all dry.
And let me (PCC[E]) throw in two photos I took of birds at the Chilika Wildlife Sanctuary in India. I don’t know from birds, so help me out here.
