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.
This is an experiment in crowdsourcing a vacation trip, and, given my strong opinions about travel, may not work. I have some trips scheduled for fall, and even next year, but they’re all work-related. This summer: bupkes. I’d like to get away for about two weeks or so, and my criteria are these:
Not really far away, as when I travel a long distance, as to India, I want to stay at least a month.
Not expensive (i.e., not Scandinavia)
Not full of tourists, even though I’ll be one
Local cuisine must be decent
Things to see and do (I’m not a beach-y kind of person)
This may be a tall order, but if you can suggest and tout one place to go, I’d be mighty grateful. And if I wind up going there, you can have either an autographed hardcover of FvF, an audiobook of the same, or a paperback of WEIT. (Cats drawn in the books, of course.)
The ethereal rice pudding (with trimmings, fruit and praline to be added) at my favorite Parisian restaurant, but I wouldn’t go to that city between the end of May and the middle of September. I find October optimal, as it’s cooler and the great cold-weather food begins to be on offer. By the way, you help yourself to the riz au lait from the bowl on the left, which holds about half a gallon. Dessert à volonté!
Over at 3 Quarks Daily, a site I find of extremely variable quality, there’s a decent post up today (PCC[E] said self-aggrandizingly). It’s by my philosophy colleague Maarten Boudry, whose help and collaboration gave me Philosophy Cred, and it’s called “Disbelief in Belief.”
Boudry’s piece is a concise, popular exposition of the paper that Boudry and I wrote for Philosophical Psychology, a paper whose thesis is that religious people often really believe, in a factual sense, much of the doctrine they take as true (e.g., the Genesis creation story or the inerrancy of the Qur’an). We wrote it because another philosopher, Neil Van Leuuwen, claimed that, in reality, religious believers see such “truth” claims as “fictive imaginings”—something different from empirical claims like “the Earth orbits the Sun.” We took issue with his claim in our paper, and then answered Van Leeuwen’s attempt to rebut us.
The links to the papers are embedded in Maarten’s piece, and my offer to send pdf files of our two papers still stands.
This new clip from the BBC show Super Powered Owls shows a snowy owl, Bubo scandiacus, defending its young against hungry skuas and wolves. Because these owls breed north of the Arctic Circle, they don’t nest in trees: there aren’t any up there. To get a good view of the surroundings, though, they nest on top of large rocks or mounds. This still makes them especially vulnerable to predators, which is clearly why owls like the one below are so aggressive in defense of their young:
I’ve seen one of these beautiful birds once—when I was in graduate school in Boston. There were reports of a snowy owl living around Plum Island, Massachusetts, and so my late friend Ken Miyata and I drove up there. The birders, who were out in force, of course, told us where to find the beast, and there it was, a gorgeous white sculpture with yellow eyes, sitting placidly atop a snow-covered hill. I doubt I’ll ever see another.
Well, Australian-born artist Illma Gore, until recently living in the U.S., did a drawing of Donald Trump that has him and his supporters really riled up. The 11″ X 14″ image, done in pastel pencil, depicts The Donald in the nude, and with a Very Small Organ. You’ll remember the back-and-forth between Rubio and Trump about the size of Trump’s penis (see below), with the former asserting that the member was small, and Trump asserting that his genitals were just fine, thank you.
I’ve put a picture of Gore and her drawing (called “Make American Great Again”) below, and in deference to those who don’t want to see a nude Trump—or a small wiener—I’ve put the full drawing below the fold.
The LA-based artist has received thousands of death threats and travelled to the UK to escape the frenzy, agreeing to allow Mayfair to manage the sale of the controversial painting, now priced at £1m.
Cordelia de Freitas, Maddox gallery director, said: “It only really got out of hand when Donald Trump referenced it in a debate, which sums up Trump and his ego. From there, everyone wanted to see this image.”
Gore believes her work inspired Marco Rubio’s comments about the size of Trump’s hands at a Virginia rally in late February, where he said: “And you know what they say about men with small hands? You can’t trust them.”
On 3 March, Trump responded: “[Rubio] referred to my hands, if they are small, something else must be small. I guarantee you there is no problem. I guarantee.”
The drawing was originally offered for sale on eBay, but was removed after an anonymous person filed suit for violation of the “Digital Millennium Copyright Act.” I’m not sure what that is, or why the painting violates copyright. The Guardian continues:
. . . The Maddox Gallery in London offered to exhibit the painting after galleries in the US refused to host the piece due to security concerns following threats of violence from Trump’s supporters. Hundreds of visitors have queued to see the work.
Gore has been offered $100,000 for her drawing, and the asking price is now ten times that (this is going to make her career, I tell you),
So Trump’s supporters have converged with the Muslims they so hate: both of them become violent when their Prophet is depicted in an unflattering way.
This got me wondering, though. Almost the worst insult you can hurl at a man is to accuse him of having a small penis. But equivalent accusations that women have small breasts aren’t seen as nearly as damning. Why the difference? (I’m looking forward to the readers’ comments!)
Click below the fold to see “Make America Great Again.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has shown some moxie in trying to make Germany do the humanitarian thing by absorbing many fearful immigrants from the Middle East. Many of her constituents don’t want those immigrants, and so her approval rating has dropped strongly in the last year, particularly after the mass attacks on women in Cologne on New Year’s Eve.
I’ve supported her stand, but now I want to criticize her about a different matter: her handling of free speech. As many of you probably know, a German comedian, Jan Böhmermann, wrote a scatalogical poem criticizing Turkish President Recep Erdogan, and broadcasst the poem on German television. I haven’t been able to find the poem, or even a transcript, as the clip has been removed. Many, however, found it not that funny, tasteless, and offensive on the grounds of both its nature and its profanity.
Böhmermann’s poem apparently accused Erdogan of being a pedophile and of copulating with animals; Wikipedia gives a bit more detail:
Böhmermann, among other things, called the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan “the man who beats girls”, and said that Erdogan loved to “fuck goats and suppress minorities, kick Kurds, hit Christians, and watch child pornography.” Much of the rest of the poem is devoted to associating Erdogan with various less accepted forms of sexuality. Böhmermann deliberately played with the limits of satire and said several times that this form of abusive criticism was not allowed in Germany.
German law generally favors free speech, but there is a notable exception: it’s against the law to insult foreign leaders. From the BBC:
Here’s article 103 of Germany’s criminal code: Defamation of organs and representatives of foreign states
(1) Whosoever insults a foreign head of state, or, with respect to his position, a member of a foreign government who is in Germany in his official capacity, or a head of a foreign diplomatic mission who is accredited in the Federal territory shall be liable to imprisonment not exceeding three years or a fine, in case of a slanderous insult to imprisonment from three months to five years.
That’s absurd, and unworthy of a democratic nation. It’s as bad as a blasphemy law prohibiting the mockery of religion.
Erdogan, offended, protested to the German government and demanded through his lawyer that Böhmermann agree to never again recite the poem. Böhmermann refused.
To prosecute Böhmermann for violating the law, Merkel has to give prosecutors the go-ahead to start an investigation. Sadly, bowing to the desire to keep good relationships with Turkey, a crucial country in the immigrant crisis, Merkel did. At the same, time, though, she did this (report from NPR):
Even as she allowed the case to proceed, Merkel announced Friday “that her government will draft a proposal to replace the current law that criminalizes insulting foreign heads of state, making it ‘dispensable in the future,’ ” Deutsche Welle reported.
Well, that’s good, but by allowing prosecution of Böhmermann to go forward, with possible jail time, she’s blatantly violating the freedom of speech that should be part and parcel of German law. She could, without any penalty, have prevented the present investigation.
It’s clear that Merkel holds her relationship with Erdogan—an authoritarian bully who’s in the process of dismantling free speech in his own country—more important than the principle of free and unpunished expression. It’s a severe disappointment, and makes her tenure as Chancellor look increasingly tenuous.
I spoke yesterday of a possible debate between Robert Price and Bart Ehrman about the historicity of Jesus. One or two readers gave the details in comments, but I thought I’d put it above the fold if you’re anywhere near Milwaukee. The details of the “Mythinformation Conference” (subtitle: “Is Faith Rooted in Fiction”) are here, and I’ve put the schedule for the one-day meeting below. It’s on OCTOBER 21 of this year and will held at Turner Hall in Milwaukee. Tickets will run you $60 (only $30 if you buy them now; add an unconscionable $100 or $75, respectively if you want to go to the “afterparty”,), but it’ll be worth it to see Price and Ehrman go head to head on whether there was a real Jesus Man. There are other good speakers, too!
If you want something to discuss, you can address reader Lou Jost’s claim that the Biblical evidence for Jesus as a historical person is sufficiently strong that the burden of proof is actually on the mythicists to show that he didn’t exist. But how are you going to do that? It all comes down to a subjective judgment on how much you believe the Bible as a source of historical information—at least on Jesus.
I’ve been spending a bit of time listening to Amy Winehouse on YouTube and iTunes (thanks to a friend for sending me files). She’s an interesting and tragic figure, but a lot of her music is splendid.
One thing I’ve noticed is the nature of the comments on her YouTube videos. In contrast to comments for other women singers who died early (Patsy Cline, and especially Janis Joplin, who died at the same age as Winehouse, also of drug and alcohol abuse), the comments for Amy express strong emotion: she was an “angel”, the word “love” and heart emoticons are often used, and there’s a general atmosphere that something went badly wrong with the world when she died.
Why the difference? My theory, which is mine (but not very novel), involves two factors. First, she was fragile: unable to withstand the pressures of fame (and, of course, having an addictive personality); that likely evokes feelings of tenderness and affection. Second, one gets the feeling that some commenters have a “rescue fantasy”: if only they, or somebody, could have done something, Amy might not have died. That, of course, is insupportable because the laws of physics dictated her end from her beginning.
But I do mourn her loss, and her music is often a revelation; she was a natural singer, putting every note in the right place. Example: this Latin-esque jazz version of the Paul McCartney song, “All My Loving,” performed with just a guitar accompaniment. The video isn’t great, but the sound is okay. This was obviously recorded in the days before her tattoos and big hair. You can hear the Beatles’ recording here.
Don’t expect much but persiflage for this week: I’m crazy busy and can’t brain. But we do have a nice panoply of beetle photos from reader Jacques Hausser in Switzerland:
Here some pictures of Cetonidae. I inserted a photo from Wikipedia commons #4.
#1 The European rose chafer, Cetonia aurata (family Cetonidae, sub-family Cetonini), is a rather big (about 20 mm) and somptuously colored beetle. The coloration is physical, the structure of the cuticle of the beetle reflecting mostly left-handed circular polarized light.
#2: The adult rose-chafer lives on flowers, eating mostly pollen and stamens – and if necessary ripping apart the flowers themselves to reach their food: rose chafers are not unanimeously appreciated by rose gardeners. Here on Philadelphus (mock-orange), its long squared “nose” (clypeus) covered by pollen (what gives it a rather bovine look),
#3: Coloration is variable, here a vividly red-and-green specimen (on a wild carrot). Note the “beard” used to brush and gather pollen and, interestingly, the softly rounded slot on the margin of the elytra. Most of the beetles fly with the elytra (hardened forewings) passively open, what induces drag and slows them, but not the Cetonini. Their elytra are welded together and stay closed. They can only be slightly lifted up to unfold the large rear wings, which then work through this margin slot.
#4: This beautiful composite photo by Bernie Kohl (public domain, Wikipedia commons) shows the takeoff of a rose chafer, elytra closed. Their flight is very efficient, powerful, straight and fast.
#5: The babies are less attractive. They eat mostly rotting wood and twigs, and can be found in compost heaps, where unfortunately they are frequently mistaken for cockchafer grubs and destroyed. The trick: rose chafer grubs have a small head and a big bum, for the cockchafer it is the contrary.
#6: Is this splendid bronze specimen another color variant? It could easily be so, but no. It is another, very similar species, and even another genus:Protaetia cuprea (subspecies bourgini). The main difference between the two genera, the shape of the mesosternal process, is hidden on this picture, but the whitish spot on the “knees” (look at the middle leg) provides a clue. The flower is Angelica sylvestris.
#7: Some smaller species don’t show such a gleaming glory. Here is Tropinota hirta on a hawkweed (Hieracium sp.)…
#8: … and Oxythyrea funebris, busily destroying an iris bud to reach the stamina. It is easily recognizable from the previous one by the six white spots on the pronotum.
