In misguided attempt to achieve gender equity, kindergarten teacher prohibits boys from using Legos

November 25, 2015 • 12:00 pm

We are living in an Onion world now, where no act of political piety surprises me. When I sent this article to a colleague, he even thought it came from the Onion. But it didn’t, it comes from CBS in Seattle, and I’ve verified it from other venues.

As  CBS Seattle reports, a kindergarten teacher in Washington state, trying to promote gender equity by not restricting her pupils to “gender-appropriate” toys, has made a misstep by taking Lego blocks away from the boys. And then she lied about it:

Bainbridge Island Review reports that Captain Johnston Blakely Elementary teacher Karen Keller doesn’t allow male students to play with the blocks in order to encourage use among females. She even makes up excuses sometimes to set her agenda in order.

“I always tell the boys, ‘You’re going to have a turn’ — and I’m like, ‘Yeah, when hell freezes over’ in my head,” Keller told the Bainbridge Island Review. “I tell them, ‘You’ll have a turn’ because I don’t want them to feel bad.”

Keller says she started doing this because boys were flocking to the colorful blocks during their “free choice” playtime, while girls tended to play with dolls or crayons. Keller hopes by blocking use of the toys for boys that female students may be encouraged to play with them.

The teacher says that Lego play helps with development acceleration and math skills, while dolls offer little challenge or opportunity for growth.

So she’s lied to her pupils, and simply prohibits the boys from having Legos. I’m wondering what notion she was laboring under when she decided to rectify the tendency of boys to go for Legos and girls for dolls and crayons. Most likely she sees that as a result of the kids’ previous social conditioning—conditioning that to her is both sexist and an impediment to future achievement when the girls grow up. And it might be.

But we should consider that perhaps there are real biological (i.e., genetic) differences in those preferences which don’t result from cultural indoctrination. Should she still try to rectify those; and, if so, who is she to make that decision? (The source of behavioral differences that cause future inequities might, of course, be completely irrelevant to what we do.) Regardless, it seems to me that the children should have equal access to the toys. After all, what the hell is wrong with crayons? And I had stuffed animals when I was a kid (I still have my teddy bear here in my office.) How does that differ from a doll? After all, I played for hours with Toasty and his faithful sidekick Tiger (Tiger’s here, too!).

Keller also deceived her bosses as well as the kids:

She first used pink and purple Legos to try to attract the girl students to play with the toys, but she found this ineffective. Soon after she requested funds from the school to purchase Lego Education Community Starter Kits. She did not tell school officials that access to the toys would be denied for male students.

“I had to do the ‘girls only Lego club’ to boost it more,” Keller said. “Boys get ongoing practice and girls are shut out of those activities, which just kills me. Until girls get it into their system that building is cool, building is ‘what I want to do’ — I want to protect that.”

Keller says the practice is “fair” because she’s giving different students the tools they need to succeed.

“I just feel like we are still so far behind in promoting gender equity,” Keller added.

While Keller’s motivation is admirable, the way she’s achieving her ends is not. What we’re seeing now, and this holds for campuses, are ironic attempts to address perceived inequalities by promoting actions that are inherently divisive, or in some cases punitive. This holds whether we are talking about buildings designed for the use of only one ethnic group or the shaming of certain classes of people for “appropriating” types of clothing, food, or hairstyles invented by one ethnic group.
Now some attempts to address inequities by “divisive” actions are justifiable. I am, for instance, in favor of affirmative action in hiring and schooling for historically oppressed minorities, though some whites see that as divisive. On balance, though, I think such things are good for society. But when denying boys Legos, forcing students and administrators to take propagandizing courses in “cultural competency,” or denigrating “cultural appropriation,” you run the risk of creating—on balance—increased discontent, misunderstanding, and resentment.

I think most of us would favor children being given the choice of all manner of toys from the very moment they start playing with toys, and then letting them choose what they want. But I don’t think that any child should be denied toys as a mechanism of social engineering.

Punctilious scientists correct Google Doodle, possibly incorrectly

November 25, 2015 • 10:45 am

I wrote yesterday about the “Lucy” Google Doodle, which looked like this:

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Some of my colleagues didn’t like that Doodle, and fixed it. They couldn’t help it . . .:

Actually, I’m not sure this is scientifically accurate, as it shows Lucy (middle figure; A. afarensis) as a lineage that split off from modern humans rather than being one of our direct ancestors. We don’t know that, as Lucy’s species could have continued evolving into modern H. sapiens. The leftmost ape, if it’s a modern chimp, is correct, as they certainly branched off before hominins. But I’m not even sure, nor are the people at the Beacon Center, whether it’s a modern chimp or some ancestor of modern humans.

I therefore asked Greg Mayer, who knows more about this stuff than I do, to tell me if I was right in what I just said. He responded at some length, and even made a figure (upshot: I was right, and readers not conversant with taxonomy needn’t read on). Greg’s comments:

Yes, afarensis may have living descendants, and thus to show it as a terminal lineage isn’t quite right (or, at least, it involves additional assumptions). Some conventions for depicting fossil species in a tree with living species are needed, and it could be plausibly argued that they should be shown as terminal taxa (i.e at the tip of a branch, as in the corrected Google doodle Figure A).

Lucy phylo tree

But when a fossil species may be ancestral to a living species, we would consider the branch leading to the fossil species to have 0 length (i.e. it is at the node: Figure B).

Fossil species are usually depicted as terminal taxa, on the reasonable notion that of all the many species in an ancestral group, the probability of finding the ancestor is small. (For example, we know that early synapsids are ancestral to mammals, but the chance that Dimetrodon grandis is the ancestor of all mammals is small, so it probably is accurate to show it as a terminal taxon.) But when dealing with recent events with a rich fossil record in a geographically proscribed area, the probability of finding the ancestor does go up to the point where it’s no longer safe to make the assumption that it won’t be found.

For molecular and chromosomal data, where a complete description of the phenotype/genotype (i.e., nucleotide or banding sequence) is possible, actual ancestors can often be identified, and are often shown in trees as lying along the branches or at nodes in the tree.

Based on what we know about how speciation occurs, most ancestral species are probably paraphyletic relative to their descendants (Figure C, with afarensis zoomed in on and shown as ancestral to the lineage leading to Homo), and thus some parts of afarensis are terminal relative to Homo. If Lucy were in one of these terminal bits (the X in Figure C), then the corrected Google Doodle could be construed as accurate.

(I made the figure before checking the original Google doodle, and now realize that the leftmost ape was not identified as a chimp. If it was intended to be a chimp, then all of the above holds. However, if Google intended it to be a fossil ancestral species– which I think most likely– then it should fall along the branch, and not be a terminal taxon.)

Quotes of the day

November 25, 2015 • 9:45 am

We have two quotes today. The first is from a reader who, commenting on the pervasive campus movement to restrict “offensive” speech, said this, which I see as pretty profound:

If we ban offensive speech, how will we know who the assholes are?

The second is from an interview in the New York Times with Bob Mankoff, who holds the very important post of cartoon editor for The New Yorker, which of course has the world’s best cartoons. Among other things, he says this in the Q&A:

This might get you in trouble: Do dogs or cats make better cartoon material?

No question, cats. We can project so much more onto cats. If you look back at the history of New Yorker cartoons, in the ’20s and ’30s, the cats and dogs don’t talk. And once they really start talking, in the ’40s, they don’t shut up.

Now why do you suppose, dear readers, that it’s possible to “project so much more onto cats”? Because they don’t express emotions as much as dogs do?

High Court rules that British schools must include humanism in religious studies

November 25, 2015 • 9:00 am

Just a quick note about what appears to be a landmark decision. The British Humanist Association (BHA) reports that the High Court has ruled that non-religious “philosophical” views such as humanism must be included in the Religious Studies curriculum. As you may already know, religious education is mandatory in government secondary schools in England and Wales (see details here). The BHA report notes this:

In his decision, Mr Justice Warby stated that the Government had made an ‘error of law’ in leaving non-religious worldviews such as humanism out of the GCSE [General Certificate of Secondary Education, awarded to students who successfully complete a specified curriculum] amounting to ‘a breach of the duty to take care that information or knowledge included in the curriculum is conveyed in a pluralistic manner.’ The British Humanist Association (BHA), which was responsible for bringing the case and has supported the three families throughout, has welcomed the landmark decision.

While the Government will not be immediately compelled to change the GSCE, religious education syllabuses around the country will now have to include non-religious worldviews such as humanism on an equal footing, and pupils taking a GCSE will also have to learn about non-religious worldviews alongside the course.

In his judgment, Mr Justice Warby said, ‘In carrying out its educational functions the state owes parents a positive duty to respect their religious and philosophical convictions… the state has a duty to take care that information or knowledge included in the curriculum is conveyed in a pluralistic manner… the state must accord equal respect to different religious convictions, and to non-religious beliefs; it is not entitled to discriminate between religions and beliefs on a qualitative basis; its duties must be performed from a standpoint of neutrality and impartiality as regards the quality and validity of parents’ convictions.’

He found that GCSE specifications drawn up along the lines recommended ‘would give priority to the study of religions (including some with a relatively very small following and no significant role in the tradition of the country) over all non-religious world views (which have a significant following and role in the tradition of the country)’ and would therefore risk being unlawful.

As the BBC reports, the Justice ruled that earlier governmental changes in the curriculum, which left out non-religious views, were unlawful, for they failed to be sufficiently pluralistic.

I wonder if “atheism” will be in there along with “humanism.” Although atheism isn’t, strictly speaking, a “philosophy,” as it’s simply nonbelief in gods, it is an alternative to the religious views described in the curriculum.

You can find the full decision of Justice Warby here, and here’s the most important bit:

Screen Shot 2015-11-25 at 8.18.33 AM

h/t: Dom

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Just a self-aggrandizing note related to the British Humanists: I’ll be delivering their annual Darwin Day Lecture on February 12 in London. My title: “Evolution and atheism: best friends forever?” (the answer, of course, is “yes”; they asked me to add the question mark). Richard Dawkins will be chairing the talk, and you can get information and buy tickets at this site.

Jesus ‘n’ Mo ‘n’ Paris

November 25, 2015 • 8:20 am

Today’s excellent Jesus and Mo refers to something you may already know about: the Paris attacks caused the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Least Reverend Justin Welby, to doubt the presence of God. The BBC recently reported this:

The Archbishop of Canterbury has said the terror attacks in Paris made him “doubt” the presence of God.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby told BBC Songs Of Praise he had prayed, asking “where are you…” after the attacks.

He said his reaction to the attacks had been “first shock and horror and then a profound sadness”, heightened because he and his wife once lived in Paris.

The gun and suicide bomb attacks on 13 November, carried out by so-called Islamic State, left 130 people dead.The archbishop said: “Saturday morning, I was out and as I was walking, I was praying and saying: ‘God, why – why is this happening? Where are you in all this?'”

“He said ‘in the middle of it’ and also in answer from Psalm 56 – ‘he stores up our tears in a bottle, none of our sufferings are lost,'” he added.

Yes, of course: Welby managed, as he always does, to find a reason why God allowed such horrors. It’s the old chestnut that all will be set right in Heaven.  For that’s surely what Welby means, unless there’s some other reason why those tears are stored up.

What I want to know is this: why didn’t any of the other atrocities in our age—all the way from the Holocaust to the depredations of Boko Haram to the suicide bombings in in Beirut—cause Welby to doubt God? Why just the killings in Paris? Does he think that God especially favors the French?

I really don’t like that man. He parades his doubt, which I see as a cynical ploy to convince wavering Anglicans in the UK that “I’m just like you,” and then, of course, resolves that doubt—this time by pulling a genie out of a bottle of tears.

But I fulminate; here’s today’s strip:

2015-11-25

In my email, the author notified us of a contest:

Yesterday was this comic’s 10th birthday, and to celebrate we’re running a little competition (thanks to sparky_shark for the suggestion). To enter, you just have to write a script for the last panel of a J&M “X-factor” strip (see the entry under today’s comic). The script should a line from Jesus, a line from Mo (in any order), plus the off-screen judge if required. Just words, presented like this:

Jesus: Blah
Mo: Blah
Judge: Blah

Here’s the strip for the contest:

comp

Send entries entitled “X-factor script” to author[AT]jesusandmo.net

The best script will win a book of the latest collection of Jesus & Mo strips (Vol 7), plus publication on the website (anonymously, obvs). There may be runners-up prizes, too.

Oh, and if you want to send us a birthday present, please consider becoming a Patron of the Blasphemous Arts at this site.

Readers’ wildlife photographs

November 25, 2015 • 7:30 am

Reader Craig Carpenter sent a very artistic photo:

Beaver (Castor canadensis; photo by Judy Carpenter) on a small lake in North Georgia.
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And from reader Colin Campbell:
I am sending a few pictures taken with my iPhone, insects from the south of France and an extra from Spain (plus lagniappe)
The first is a beautiful black waspish thing I saw sheltering on the inside of a window. I think it looks like an ichneumon and have tentatively identified it as Pimpla rufipes.
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Second up is a true illegal immigrant! This I believe is a walnut husk fly, Rhagoletis completa, native to north america and an invader in Europe that is causing damage to native walnuts.
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This I think is another invader enjoying our gapes in the evening sun, an asian hornet Vespa velutina nigrithorax (actually that might just be a local hornet)
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Now to return in a roundabout way to a traditional topic of your website, is a Mantis religiosa (the predator that knows its creator – i just know there is a metaphor in there somewhere!) that was sitting on the courgette plant.
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Lastly,  a view of migrating Eurasian cranes [Grus grus] moving south for the winter last year (a bit far away, sorry). This is a bleak and lovely spot in central Spain where up to a a couple of hundred thousand cranes congregate to feed and rest on route. In the evening as the sun goes down they can be heard before they are seen as they come low overhead to roost by the waters edge for the night. Magical, though it is very cold in late November!
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Finally, a landscape from reader Ken Phelps in British Columbia:
Sunrise yesterday at Nanaimo Lakes.
Ken Phelps

Wednesday: Hili dialogue (and Leon lagniappe)

November 25, 2015 • 5:08 am

It’s the day before Thanksgiving, and although in Europe and other places people are blithely going to work, here in the U.S. everybody has either gone home to relatives, or is leaving at noon—all bound for that Big Turkey Dinner. But in Dobrzyn it’s an anniversary of sorts, with Hili taking some dubious credit:

Hili: It’s an anniversary today!
A: What anniversary?
Hili: Two years ago I became the Editor-in-Chief of “Listy”.
A: But we first started the website on December 15, 2013.
Hili: You have to admit that I prepared everything very well.

P1030625

In Polish:
Hili: Dziś jest rocznica!
Ja: Jaka rocznica?
Hili: Dwa lata temu zostałam naczelną “Listów”.
Ja: Ale w sieci ruszyliśmy 15 grudnia 2013.
Hili: Przyznasz, że dobrze to wszystko przygotowałam

*******

Meanwhile in Wroclawek, Leon appears to be bored. Might I suggest an evening constitutional?

Leon: Any suggestions for the evening?

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