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 am the least racist person you have ever met. I am the least racist person.” —President Trump
According to CNN, President Trump denies having made the “shithole countries” remark that I mentioned last night. As CNN reports:
President Donald Trump on Friday denied describing certain nations as “shithole countries” during a meeting in which he rejected a bipartisan deal on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
“The language used by me at the DACA meeting was tough, but this was not the language used. What was really tough was the outlandish proposal made – a big setback for DACA!” Trump tweeted.
The White House, however, did not deny that he said this, and, according to the Washington Post, several people at the meeting reported the same remark. What does this mean? Almost certainly that Trump is a liar. That’s no surprise, of course.
As for those readers who said that the nations to which Trump alluded (including those in Africa and Haiti), and others as well—including India—really are shithole countries, I have no patience with you. There are countries where it’s better or worse for an average resident to live, of course, but Trump was referring not just to social conditions themselves but to the people who live in these lands. I repeat what the Post quoted:
“Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” Trump said, according to these people, referring to countries mentioned by the lawmakers.
Trump then suggested that the United States should instead bring more people from countries such as Norway, whose prime minister he met with Wednesday. The president, according to a White House official, also suggested he would be open to more immigrants from Asian countries because he felt that they help the United States economically.
This is a call to stop letting in residents of countries like Haiti and those in Africa, and let in more Norwegians, who, said one wag on Twitter, are “so white that they have to wear moonscreen.” Regardless, no country has a monopoly on deserving immigrants, and to characterize entire countries as unworthy of sending immigrants to the U.S., particularly countries with black residents, is simply racist.
We have two contributors today, each sending photos of a cool animal. First up is reader Karen Bartelt, whose notes are indented:
One of our winter quests was to see a snowy owl [Bubo scandiacus]. “In some years, some North American Snowy Owls remain on their breeding grounds year-round, while others migrate in winter to southern Canada and the northern half of the contiguous United States. In the northern plains, New York, and New England, Snowy Owls occur regularly in winter. Elsewhere, such as in the Pacific Northwest, the Midwest, and eastern Canada, Snowy Owls are irruptive, appearing only in some winters but not in others.” (Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology)
There was an irruption this year; large numbers of snowy owls migrated much farther south than they normally do in winter. One was recently sighted in Oklahoma.
There have been many sightings in Illinois, but every time we tried to see an owl in Central Illinois, we were unsuccessful. The Lake Michigan lakefronts (both east and west sides) have been hotspots recently, so we headed to Milwaukee. We checked out several hotspots, and found no owls, but then spotted this beauty as we were driving north on Lake Drive, just south of the water treatment plant. It was on an ice-covered rock about 50 feet offshore. The light was good : so good that the owl only opened its eyes about halfway. Quite a crowd after a while.
A flying squirrel sent by James Blilie and photographed by his son:
Just when you think you have made your bird feeders squirrel-proof, they send in the flying monkeys! This morning we had a flying squirrel (Glaucomys sabrinus) on our bird feeder (in suburban St. Paul-Minneapolis!). My son, Jamie, 13, got some excellent photos. He uses a Canon PowerShot SX530 “super zoom” camera. In the close-up, one version has the original red-eye and the other has the red-eye corrected in SW.
The interesting thing was: The squirrel absolutely froze when my son turned on the deck lights (this was 1-2 hours before sunrise). I was able to get within a meter of it and my son was able to take photos from that sort of range. It must be similar to the freezing behavior of rabbits. The squirrel is also very small: Significantly smaller than the little red squirrels around here (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus). The other interesting feature was the distinctly flattened tail.
After he shut off the lights, it was gone a short while later.
It’s Friday already, and the temperature has plummeted in Chicago to below freezing. Right now it’s 22° F (-6° C), with the daily highs predicted to be below freezing for a week. It’s January 12, 2018: National Marzipan Day, a holiday created by Big Almond. But wait!: the very same site says it’s National Chicken Curry Day. Having just returned from India, I’ll take the latter, even in the debased British yellow-sauced “curry” meant to fuel drunkards. And in India it’s National Youth Day, honoring the birthday of Swami Vivekananda, seen as an inspiration to India’s youth.
Not much happens in history in January compared to other months: that is my theory, which is mine. Perhaps it’s because the history recorded in Wikipedia is largely from the Northern Hemisphere, and in winter it’s too cold for much to happen. At any rate, on this day in 1915, the U.S. Congress rejected a proposal requiring states to give women the right to vote. That right was attained only 5 years later with the passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. But it’s another banner day for women: on this day in 1932, Hattie Caraway became the first woman elected to the United States Senate (from Arkansas). In 1969, in a football game I remember well (and watched), the New York Jets beat the Baltimore Colts by a score of 16-7 in Superbowl III. That was a huge upset. It remains the only Superbowl game to be won by a single touchdown (the Jets scored one TD and three field goals), and you’ll remember, if you’re of that age, that Broadway Joe Namath was the Jets’ quarterback. Here’s a 2.5-minute clip of the highlights:
On this day in 2004, RMS Queen Mary 2, the world’s largest ocean liner, made its first voyage. As I said, I’ve lectured on two transatlantic crossings, and here’s more evidence—reading Darwin in the top-deck Jacuzzi! As I recall, this was near the spot where the Titanic went down (they announced it on the ship’s intercom).
Finally, on a more somber note, on this day in 2010 the Big Earthquake in Haiti struck (remember?: that “shithole country”), killing over 100,000 and severely hitting the capital of Port-au-Prince.
Notables born on this day include John Winthrop (1588), Edmund Burke (1729), Swami Vivekananda (1863), Jack London (1876), and two Nazis on the same day, Hermann Göring and Alfred Rosenberg (both 1893, and both died within a day of each other during the Nuremberg Trials: Rosenberg was hanged on October 16, 1946, while Göring committed suicide in custody the day before). Also born on this day were P. W.Botha (1916), Tim Horton (1930, donut king and hockey player), Howard Stern (1954) and Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon (1964).
Those whose metabolism ceased on this day include Hiram Walker (1899), Agatha Christie (1976), and Cyrus Vance (2002).
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, there was a power outage the other day, cutting off Malgorzata and Andrezej’s computers: a real tragedy. Fortunately, power was restored after a few hours, but Hili had something to say.
Hili: Life without electricity was interesting.
A: Not for everybody.
In Polish:
Hili: Ciekawe było życie bez prądu.
Ja: Nie dla wszystkich.
And in frigid Winnipeg, Gus is sleeping off the winter on his Katzenbaum:
Here are the results of an online poll about “furries“: those people who like to dress up as animals and sometimes think they have the persona or psyche of animals. More catgirls!
Should furries be allowed to undergo gene therapy to add animal traits if it would change the genome of their children?
And a tw**t from Helen Pluckrose, whose writings have often been featured on this site:
The indignation of a pussycat whose Whiskers has run out and who can't believe he is expected to survive on dry food for FIVE HOURS until the next lot is delivered. pic.twitter.com/ZnzZrGgEvs
I think Smokey is Eric Idle’s cat, and I know John Cleese also has a very large cat. Maybe it’s because the Pythons are atheists, and cats are the Official Pet of Atheism.™
I just heard this on the evening news (I guess I didn’t check the written news this afternoon) and verified it in the New York Times. The NYT gives the gist:
President Trump on Thursday balked at an immigration deal that would include protections for people from Haiti and African countries, demanding to know at a White House meeting why he should accept immigrants from “shithole countries” rather than people from places like Norway, according to people with direct knowledge of the conversation.
Mr. Trump’s remarks left members of Congress attending the meeting in the Cabinet Room alarmed and mystified. They were there discussing an emerging bipartisan deal to give legal status to immigrants illegally brought to the United States as children, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity without authorization to discuss the explosive proceedings of the private meeting.
When Mr. Trump heard that Haitians were among those who would benefit, he asked if they could be left out of the plan, according to the people familiar with the conversation, asking, “Why do we want people from Haiti here?”
According to NBC News, who talked to anonymous sources, “shithole countries” were meant to include not just Haiti but countries in Africa.
The White House didn’t deny the statement, but, in ineffectual damage control, deputy press secretary Raj Shah issued this statement, which won’t placate anyone who, like me, is furious at Trump’s remarks:
“Certain Washington politicians choose to fight for foreign countries, but President Trump will always fight for the American people,” Mr. Shah said. “Like other nations that have merit-based immigration, President Trump is fighting for permanent solutions that make our country stronger by welcoming those who can contribute to our society, grow our economy and assimilate into our great nation.”
It’s bad enough that Trump thinks things like this, which smack of internalized racism (seriously, Africa and Haiti versus Norway?), and even conjures up visions of Aryan superiority. But why on earth would he say these things in an open meeting with members of Congress, knowing that they would be reported?
I doubt few people reading this voted for Trump, or have any sympathy for the man, so I’m ranting at the choir. But he has no conception of the gravitas of the Presidency. It’s not a locker room, and Trump’s words will further convince the world that he’s a nativist and a racist.
I suspect the base to which these remarks appeal is shrinking. The man has to go before he destroys this country. And remember, there are aging, liberal justices on the Supreme Court.
UPDATE: Here’s the front page of today’s Daily News in New York (h/t: Barry):
From Grania, we have an absolutely fabulous penguin video. Make sure to turn up the sound.
The sound of a penguin falling, its sympathetic crew responding, and its gruff dismissal of pity is so far the audio hit of the year. https://t.co/aXxYGpi1hn
A poll conducted last year and just now released by Research!America and Zogby Analytics (full results here; Zogby summary here) shows how abysmally ignorant Americans are about science, even though they trust scientists and think scientific research is important. Here, for example, are some statistics and graphs:
Fewer than 1 in 5 Americans can name a single living scientist, while 81% are stymied. Moreover, some of the living scientists named are either science popularizers and not scientists (e.g., Bill Nye), used to be scientists but are now science popularizers (Neil deGrasse Tyson, who hasn’t published a paper in ten years), or have long ago stopped doing science (J. D. Watson). Look and weep:
I’m not a sports fan, but I can name a lot of athletes (living and inactive or active)—even though I’m a scientist! I can also name entertainers! What is going on here?
Further, only a third of Americans can name any institution (including companies and universities), where “medical or health research is conducted”. People should know that virtually every large university, including state universities, have people doing such research. Look and weep:
Only one out of five Americans know that medical research is conducted in all 50 states. 29% say “nope”, and half of them say they’re “not sure”. Look and weep:
Despite this, 80% (43% + 37%) of Americans think that the President should assign a high priority to putting health research and innovation to work. Clearly, Americans don’t know scientists or where science is done, but they seem to think that high-priority science involves “health research”, despite the fact that many medical advances come out of pure “non-health” research and that the intellectual benefits of science go beyond simply improving the health of Americans.
There are other results as well, including that more Americans have a “lot” of confidence in the military (37%) than in scientific institutions (25%). That disturbs me; what would engender such a low level of confidence in scientific institutions? (If you add up “a lot” and “some”, the military comes up with 75%, science with 71%.) But most Americans still consider scientists—as opposed to “health care professionals”, journalists, or “elected officials”—to be the most trustworthy spokespeople for science:
Well, to a scientist this is all pretty depressing. I guess that since most people are more interested in sports and entertainment than science, and see only the spokespeople for science in the media, it’s no surprise that they can’t name anybody other than popularizes and spokespeople. What frightens me is that only one in five Americans can name a single scientist. I’m sure a lot higher percentage of them can name an athlete or an entertainer. And why don’t Americans know that virtually every decent university, including the state universities of all 50 states, are sites for scientific and health-related research? Do they have no idea where research is done?
My own popularization of science involves teaching people about evolution, but it doesn’t tell people where research is done or name many scientists. I’m torn between adding snippets of that to some talks, or leaving it alone because I’m already speaking to people who know this. But I still think that the 19% figure is abysmal and embarrassing to Americans. Should we worry about it? If so, what should we do?
Now the paper at hand is far from conclusive, but it raises questions that really do deserve investigation, for it suggests that at least three species of Australian raptors, jointly called “firehawks,” spread brushfires to flush out prey. If true, that would mean that birds either “use fire” or “weaponize fire”—something known only in our own species.
It’s long been known that predatory birds from many places hang around the edges of spreading fires to snap up prey fleeing incineration or to feast on burnt corpses. But what’s new about this paper by Mark Bonta et al. in the Journal of Ethnobiology (reference below, free text and pdf) is the description of raptors carrying in their beaks or talons burning sticks from places on fire to places yet unburned, igniting new fires (they spread quickly) and flushing out more prey to eat. The study was conducted in Northern Australia, and the behavior hasn’t been described in other areas.
First, here, from Cosmos Magazine, are some pictures of raptors in Australia hanging around the edges of fires. The photos were taken by an author of the paper.
Black kites swooping around a fire that observations suggest they may well have started themselves. Photo: BOB GOSFORD
Black kites swooping around a fire that observations suggest they may well have started themselves. Photo: BOB GOSFORD
The species involved in this behavior are mainly Black Kite (Milvus migrans), Brown Falcon (Falco berigora), and Whistling Kite (Haliastur sphenurus).
There are three ways the authors document this behavior, though none are satisfactory to those who want convincing evidence that raptors start fires. First, they collected twenty cases from twelve aboriginal tribes of “local knowledge” that birds do this. While these shouldn’t be dismissed, there’s always the possibility that these aren’t eyewitness reports but constitute local lore or tradition that may be spread among populations.
Second, the authors compiled six first-hand accounts, some of them published, from people who said they saw birds spreading fires by carrying firebrands from one place to another that was not yet on fire. Here’s an example:
Two eyewitnesses report intentional, cooperative fire-spreading. Bob White (Table 1:Record 16), while fighting a bushfire in the Roper River, NT region, watched a small group of raptors—presumably Black Kites—pick up numerous smouldering sticks and transport them ahead of a fire front, successfully helping the blaze spread up a small valley. ‘‘MJ,’’ a Kimberley, WA cattle station caretaker manager (Table 1:Record 17; Supplementary Report 7), saw kites working together to move a late dry season fire across a river by picking up, transporting, and dropping small, burning sticks in grass, which immediately ignited in several places. The experience resulted in an uncontrollable blaze that destroyed part of the station’s infrastructure. The observer later saw the larger group of hundreds of kites that had gathered for the fire actively pursuing prey in the intentionally burned area.
Finally, two of the authors (Eussen and Ferguson) directly observed “fire spreading,” though sadly didn’t document it with photos or video. That’s understandable, though, for, as the authors note, when one is busy dealing with fire—the men are fire officers—or avoiding it, your mind is on other things! Plus the spreading behavior is not that common. Here are two of the authors’ descriptions:
From Eussen:
Another fire-spreading encounter occurred at the Ranger Uranium Mine near Kakadu, NT, where Eussen was a firefighter (Eussen and Angelo 2003; Martin 2003, 2004; Table 1:Record 15). One afternoon, while he was ensuring that a grass fire did not leap across a highway, he observed fire-foraging activities of both Whistling and Black Kites. Though the fire burned itself out, Eussen was alerted to a new blaze on the unburnt side of the road. He drove over and put it out, noting a Whistling Kite flying about 20 meters in front of him with a smoking stick in its talons. It dropped the stick and smoke began to curl from the dry grass, starting a spot fire that had to be immediately extinguished. In all, he put out seven fires, all caused by the kites. On that occasion, approximately 25 kites were foraging at the edge of the dying fire, but only two were adept at transporting smoking sticks. One repeatedly swooped at a stick, only lifting it a meter or less before dropping it.
From Ferguson:
While Ferguson’s most recent fire-spreading observation in March 2017 (Table 1:Record 18) involved unsuccessful attempts to transport burning sticks, previous observations that stand out most to him, from September 2016 and around 2000-2001 (Table 1:Records 19 and 20), were of a few kites, within gatherings of hundreds during very hot fires, successfully seizing burning sticks in their beaks, sometimes switching them to their talons, transporting them over 50 meters, dropping them, and, thus, igniting unburned grass. Like several other non-Aboriginal observers, and in concordance with Aboriginal IEK, Ferguson is adamant that fire-spreading behavior, whether successful or not in starting new fires, is intentional.
So this is what we have, and it’s pretty much hearsay. Yet given the consilience of all the reports, I tend to believe it. I say “tend”, because I’d be a lot more confident if I saw video or pictures of this behavior occurring. Given its frequency, that should be possible, and there’s clearly work to be done here—especially given the fame that would accrue to anyone who “proved” that animals can use fire in this way.
Now just a picture or video of a raptor carrying a flaming stick isn’t sufficient, for there have to be “controls”: do raptors around fires also pick up nonburning sticks? (I can’t see why they would, but it could happen.) If not, and if there’s, say, a good video showing one (or preferably more) birds carrying and dropping firebrands, I’d start to be convinced.
Further, if fire-spreading is real, is it learned or somehow evolved and coded in the genes? (Or both: a bird could have the propensity to spread fire but do so only when that propensity is triggered by seeing another bird do it.) That would be harder to test, but in principle could be seen as purely hard-wired if a hand-reared bird who had never seen the behavior was seen to perform it.
I really want to believe this is true because it’s so cool, and because it baffles me a bit how a bird could learn to do this, for it would have to connect a lot of dots to take a burning firebrand and start a new fire somewhere else. But raptors aren’t dumb. I hope some Aussie researchers will take up this problem!
