Readers’ wildlife photographs

November 16, 2015 • 7:30 am

We have some photos from a new contributor, Christina Pfaff; her notes are indented:

I’ve been looking at the wildlife pictures for a long time, but only recently got a camera that I felt took good enough pictures to send in. Near the end of October, my husband and I went camping at Council Bluff Lake in southern Missouri to enjoy one of the last weekends of fall color. As with many MO lakes, it’s man-made via a dam across the Big River which was constructed about 30 years ago. The first picture I included was shot from the Lakeshore Trail looking down one of the many fingers of the lake.

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I’m not as savvy with species names as many of your readers, but I enjoy finding and photographing critters we find on our hiking adventures. I do my best to identify species on the internet, but probably make mistakes sometimes. One of our first sightings on the trail was an Eastern Chipmunk (Tamias striatus), who thought he was doing a very good job of hiding from us in a log. I know chipmunks are a dime a dozen, but this was one of the better shots I’ve ever taken of one.

Can you spot the rodent?

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The next two photos are Eastern American Toads [(Anaxyrus americanus americanus). Although they’re very common, they come in so many size and color varieties that they’re always a joy to see on the trail. They usually amble off in a mixture of hopping and tumbling as soon as they hear us coming.

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Another common companion on the trail are turtles (fifth photo). I believe this guy is a Three-Toed Box Turtle (Terrapene carolina triunguis) and he was just waiting for us in the middle of the trail. He retracted his limbs a bit into his shell as we walked past, but otherwise seemed unconcerned by our presence.

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The last three photos are some of the insects we found along the trail. The Horned Passalus (Odontotaenius disjunctus) is the only Missouri member of the Bess beetle family. The forest around the lake would provide plenty of rotted and decaying wood for them to survive on.

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The Banded Woolly Bear is the caterpillar form of the Isabella Tiger Moth (Pyrrharctia isabella). While we found many in the forest, there were even more creeping along the highways on our drive home. I imagine the moth population will be booming come spring!

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Finally, we found a Carolina mantis (Stagmomantis carolina) in a picnic area near the lake. She appears to be a female since her wings only extend part-way down the abdomen.

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Monday: Hili dialogue

November 16, 2015 • 4:50 am

Well, another work weeks begins—another week closer to our demise, and rain is predicted in Chicago through Wednesday. On this day in 1940, the Germans sealed off the Warsaw Ghetto, presaging the tragedy to come. And, on November 16, 1960, Clark Gable died at the age of 59. On the up side, I’ve recovered from my seafood poisoning. Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Cyrus play ambulatory philosophers.

Peripatetikós

Hili: Have you read The Book of Job?
Cyrus: No.
Hili: Neither have I.
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In Polish:
Peripatetikós

Hili: Czytałeś “Księgę Hioba”?
Cyrus: Nie.
Hili: Ja też nie.

Why are cats startled by cucumbers?

November 15, 2015 • 1:00 pm

Several people have called this video to my attention, and although I don’t approve of startling cats, especially by sneaking up behind them and depositing cucumbers, there may be a biological lesson in the video. Here’s my hypothesis, which is mine: the cats have genetic predisposition to be scared of snakes—a disposition instilled in their distant ancestors by natural selection. Clearly, those wild cats lacking a tendency to avoid long, thin, and unrecognized objects wouldn’t leave as many genes behind as cats having genes for a startle reflex.

So I think these cats are startled because, to them, cucumbers activate a long dormant snake-avoidance reflex. This can be tested, of course, at least in part. I would urge readers to sneak up behind their cats and deposit a variety of fruits and vegetables, including tomatoes, apples, bananas, avocados, broccoli, and so on. If you’re brave and heartless enough, you can even use a rubber snake. My prediction is that the more snakelike an object is, the more it will startle a cat. It has not escaped my notice that cucumbers, like some snakes, are green.

I don’t want to give cats heart attacks, but this is an issue in which we can all do Citizen Science. Report your results below.

 

Rosenhouse on Ruse on atheism

November 15, 2015 • 11:15 am

The amiable and temperate Jason Rosenhouse has cut way back on posting on his Evolutionblog, which is a great pity as he always had thoughtful and substantive things to say. Perhaps he’s tired or writing or is occupied with other things, and I can understand that; but I’d like to see him to post a bit more often than he does. I haven’t put up a “blogroll”—a list of other websites that I read regularly—but mine would include Jason’s site.

He was, however, back yesterday with a post about Michael Ruse’s fairly new book, Atheism: What Everyone Needs to Know, issued in January by Oxford University Press. I haven’t read it—indeed, I didn’t even know it existed—but I find Ruse’s writings so eccentric (and sometimes splenetic, especially when dissing atheists, of which he is one), that I doubt I’ll read it. I’ll just point you to a few excerpts from Jason’s review of the book.

Uncharacteristically, Jason makes some pretty strong statements. (In fact, he didn’t even finish the book, giving up after thirty pages. So take this with a grain of salt, and, if you’ve read the whole book, do weigh in in the comments below. Jason:

I’ve started reading Michael Ruse’s book Atheism: What Everyone Needs to Know, published by Oxford University Press earlier this year. Ruse is a philosopher at Florida State University, but he has turned himself into something of a crackpot over the last ten years. He’s edited two books with ID proponent Bill Dembski, has picked foolish fights with his colleagues, and has engaged in laughably over-the-top rhetoric towards the New Atheists. Most memorably, he once said in an interview: “And this is why I think the New Atheists are a disaster, a danger to the wellbeing of America comparable to the Tea Party.” In a later interview he confirmed that he meant this literally, and was not just exaggerating to make a point. I would think that such a statement simply places you outside the bounds of honest discussion. The Tea Party has taken over Congress and has a real shot at picking the next President, while the New Atheists have published a few books no one is forced to read and maintain a few websites no one is forced to visit. The former development seems like a bigger danger to the wellbeing of America than the latter.

He highlights invidious comparison by Ruse, one involving a perennial favorite of accommodationists, l’affaire Galileo:

I’m only thirty pages in, but I’m not optimistic that it’s going to get any better. Here’s what [Ruse] says about Galileo:

That Galileo ran into problems with the church because he endorsed Copernicus’s heliocentric (sun-centered) worldview does show that there were significant tensions. But the clash was never quite what later anti-religious zealots made it out to be. It occurred a hundred years after Copernicus, during the Counter-Reformation, when the Catholics were firmly shutting the stable door after the fleeing of the Protestants. It should never have happened, but students of the episode all stress that much of the problem was brought on Galileo by himself. To say he was tactless is a bit like saying Hitler had a thing about the Jews. He set out to rub the authorities the wrong way, and having been parodied as a near-moron in Galileo’s writing–writings in the vernacular so everyone could read them–it is hardly surprising that the pope reacted badly and strongly. (p. 20)

That’s pretty vile.

I’m sure Ruse intended his Hitler analogy to be funny, but it’s an obscene comparison. Hitler’s thing about the Jews was that they were evil and deserved to be genocided. Galileo just thought the Pope was wrong on a question of astronomy and made fun of him in a book. The equivalency is lost on me.

I find it touchstone for accommodationism when reading how someone deals with the persecution of Galileo. To me it largely instantiates the refusal of the Church to accept scientific findings that contravened scripture. Yes, it was a bit more complicated than that, what with Galileo making fun of the Pope and all, but those who claim that the “nuanced view” shows that this was certainly not a case of religion opposing science seem to me dead wrong. Apparently Jason feels the same way:

The fact is that the Galileo story is exactly what Ruse’s “anti-religious zealots” say it is. It so perfectly expresses the conflict between science and religion that the most hard-core atheist could not have scripted it better. Galileo got into trouble not just because he advocated heliocentrism, but because he argued that scientific questions should be answered by science and not by scripture. That was anathema to The Church. Church authorities spent years lecturing Galileo on precisely what he was and was not allowed to say. They exercised near-total thought control over acceptable opinion at that time. What does Ruse think a conflict between science and religion looks like?

Of course, the revisionists in the “science and religion” industry tell it differently. They have concocted a story in which the Catholic Church positively loved science, with Galileo being a weird, easily ignored, aberration. But this is just nonsense. The Church did encourage certain systematic investigations into nature, because such investigations could further religious ends, but that is a far cry from saying they were supportive of science. Their attitude was that revelation as understood by the Church authorities was supreme, and that science existed only to service the needs of religion. Indeed, that is still their view, and it is one they would enforce today were they suddenly returned to the sort of power they had in the Middle Ages. And if that happened, would Ruse or his fellow apologists really be inclined to defend them against the charge of being anti-science?

I’ve relegated Ruse’s book to the status of bathroom reading. I’m still morbidly curious about what he has to say, but I doubt if the book is going to get any better.

Well, depending on how often Jason uses the loo, we may get further reports.

Amherst College students protest free speech, issue onerous set of “demands”

November 15, 2015 • 10:45 am

The Daily Beast and the Washington Times both report that students at Amherst College in Massachusetts are, as some students did at Yale, protesting FREE SPEECH. It’s ironic that their right to protest in this way is made possible by laws permitting free speech. As the Daily Beast reports:

Students protesting at Amherst College have issued a list of demands to administrators that includes making them apologize for signs that lament the death of free speech.

A group calling themselves the Amherst Uprising listed 11 demands they want enacted by next Wednesday. Among them is a demand that President Biddy Martin issue a statement saying that Amherst does “not tolerate the actions of student(s) who posted the ‘All Lives Matter’ posters, and the ‘Free Speech’ posters.”

The latter posters called the principle of free speech the “true victim” of the protests at the University of Missouri.

I haven’t written about the protests at the University of Missouri, as I’ve waited to get more evidence about the incidents that sparked them, but you can see the Amherst students’ list of demands here. I reproduce it in full below, along with the long and surprising list of signatories. I find this document offensive, peremptory, and entitled. Read it all. “Demands” #4, as well as #5 and 6 (the ones asking that free speech be prohibited, and those exercising it be given “extensive training for racial and cultural competency”), and #8, and #11 are particularly invidious. Sure they can have forums to discuss this issue, and there may be real grievances that should be aired, but they shouldn’t be aired during class time.

1.    President Martin must issue a statement of apology to students, alumni and former students, faculty, administration and staff who have been victims of several injustices including but not limited to our institutional legacy of white supremacy, colonialism, anti-black racism, anti-Latin racism, anti-Native American racism, anti-Native/ indigenous racism, anti-Asian racism, anti-Middle Eastern racism, heterosexism, cis-sexism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, ableism, mental health stigma, and classism. Also include that marginalized communities and their allies should feel safe at Amherst College.

2.    We demand Cullen Murphy ‘74, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, to issue a statement of apology to students, alumni and former students, faculty, administration, and staff who have been victims of several injustices including but not limited to our institutional legacy of white supremacy, colonialism, anti-black racism, anti-Latinx racism, anti-Native American racism, anti-Native/ indigenous racism, anti-Asian racism, anti-Middle Eastern racism, heterosexism, cis-sexism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, ableism, mental health stigma, and classism

3.     Amherst College Police Department must issue a statement of protection and defense from any form of violence, threats, or retaliation of any kind resulting from this movement.

4.   President Martin must issue a statement of apology to faculty, staff and administrators of color as well as their allies, neither of whom were provided a safe space for them to thrive while at Amherst College.

5.    President Martin must issue a statement to the Amherst College community at large that states we do not tolerate the actions of student(s) who posted the “All Lives Matter” posters, and the “Free Speech” posters that stated that “in memoriam of the true victim of the Missouri Protests: Free Speech.” Also let the student body know that it was racially insensitive to the students of color on our college campus and beyond who are victim to racial harassment and death threats; alert them that Student Affairs may require them to go through the Disciplinary Process if a formal complaint is filed, and that they will be required to attend extensive training for racial and cultural competency.

6.     President Martin must issue a statement of support for the revision of the Honor Code to reflect a zero-tolerance policy for racial insensitivity and hate speech.

7.     President Martin must release a statement by Friday, November 13th, 2015 by 5:00pm that condemns the inherent racist nature of the unofficial mascot, the Lord Jeff, and circulate it to the student body, faculty, alumni, and Board of Trustees. This will be followed up by the encouraged removal of all imagery including but not limited to apparel, memorabilia, facilities, etc. for Amherst College and all of its affiliates via a phasing out process within the next year.

JAC: The Daily Beast says this about the “mascot” Lord Jeff: ”

They also insist the president condemn the “inherent racist nature” of school mascot Lord Jeff, a nickname for Jeffrey Amherst. Amherst was a British army officer commonly believed to have masterminded the idea of giving Native Americans smallpox blankets during the French and Indian War.

 The college’s FAQ pages says it “is accurate to say that Lord Jeffery Amherst advocated biological warfare against Indians, but there is no evidence that any infected blankets were distributed at his command.”

JAC: This is the only demand that I think merits immediate consideration; why celebrate someone who even advocated genocide against Native Americans. But of course the much-admired Thomas Jefferson himself was a slaveholder. That doesn’t excuse Lord Jeffs, of course, but he was the man who gave his name to the College. This is the unofficial mascot:

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8.     Dean Epstein must ask faculty to excuse all students from all 5 College classes, work shifts, and assignments from November 12th, 2015 to November 13th, 2015 given their organization of and attendance at the Sit-In.

9.     Do not threaten the jobs of the faculty, staff, or administrators that support our list of demands. Such threats will result in an escalation of our response.

10.   The Office of Alumni and Parent Programs must send former students an email of current events on campus including a statement that Amherst College does not condone any racist or culturally insensitive reactions to this information.

11.   Dean Epstein must encourage faculty to provide a space for students to discuss this week’s events during class time.

Please acknowledge that all of these statements of apology are not the end all – that they are only a part of short-term healing and by no means achieve all of the goals we will set forth. We are in the process of finalizing long-term goals which we hope to collaborate on regularly with all members of the community.

By no means does this start/stop with the administration.

Students from:

AC Voice
ACEMS
African and Caribbean Students Union
Amherst Christian Fellowship
Amherst Dance
Amherst Equestrian Club Team
Amherst Soul
Amherst United Left
Athlete Bible Study
Asian Students Association
Association of Amherst Students
Black Students Union
Charles Drew Health Profession Society
The Charles Drew Memorial House
Chinese Student Association
Choral Society
Cross Country/Track & Field, Lacrosse, Softball, Women’s Rugby, Basketball)
Dance and Step at Amherst College (DASAC)
Divest Amherst
First-Generation Association
Gospel Choir
GlobeMed at Amherst College
German House
Hip Hop Club
Hillel
International Students Association
Japanese and Chinese Language House
Korean Students Association
La Causa
La Casa
Marsh House
Muslim Students Association
Multicultural Resource Center
Middle Eastern Students Association
Mental Health Education
Men’s and Women’s Ultimate
Multifaith Council
Native American Students Organization (NASO)
Newman Catholic Club
Peer Advocates of Sexual Respect
Purple Pride
Pride Alliance
Queer Resource Center
Remnant (Black Christian Ministry)
Roosevelt Institute at Amherst College
Sports Teams (Minority Students/ Allies in Football, Tennis, Field Hockey, Soccer, Baseball, Golf, Crew, Swim,
South Asian Student Association
Somos
Student Athlete Advisory Committee
Student Health Educators
Student Security
TransActive
Transfer Student Association
Women of Color Empowerment Group
Women’s and Gender Center
Women and Men’s Club Soccer
Women in Science

Almost nothing surprises me about American college students these days, but this seems a completely over-the-top list. And it makes me worry what will happen to these students when they’re forced to enter the real world after graduation.

Finally, in the interest of presenting opposing opinion, I’ll refer you to Ross Douthat’s column in today’s New York Times, “A crisis our universities deserve.” Douthat thinks that colleges, by their own actions, brought these protests on themselves.

h/t: Will

 

France cancels dinner with French and Iranian presidents because Rouhani insisted it be wine-free

November 15, 2015 • 9:00 am

This article, from last Wednesday’s Independent, is a microcosm about why religion poisons everything: it’s okay if people keep their faith to themselves (not, to my mind, if they force it on their children), but the bad stuff happens when they try to force it on others, or make laws based on scripture or revelation. We’ve seen that this week in the Paris shootings, and I have no words for the horrors that unfolded there.

Today I report an incident, also in France, that is far more trivial but also symbolic. President Hollande was scheduled to have a state dinner with Iranian President Rouhani.  That didn’t come off, and it’s because Rouhani insisted not only on halal meat (meat prepared according to Muslim dictates) but, importantly, also insisted not just that he wasn’t to be served wine, but nobody was to be served wine. That’s unthinkable for a French state dinner. And why force your own religious dietary restrictions on anyone else?

The Religion News Service suggests that while the halal meat may have been an issue, the sticking point was (as I suspected) the wine:

But Tehran made the faux pas (in the French view) of insisting that President François Hollande’s chefs follow Muslim dietary rules and serve only halal meat and no alcohol. There must be no champagne or wine at the planned lunch on Tuesday, even for the non-Muslim hosts, they told French diplomats organizing the event.

. . . Halal meat has become a political issue in the regional polls campaign. Conservatives want state schools that offer it to Muslim pupils – as well as kosher meals to Jewish pupils – to take both off their cafeteria menus. Even vegetarian meals, the default alternative, should be scrapped in favor of meat dishes, including pork.

. . . When he retired in 2013 as Élysée Palace head chef after cooking for six presidents, Bernard Vaussion revealed that he had occasionally served halal and kosher meat when requested by Muslim and Jewish guests dining at the center of the secular republic.

He had even strictly separated meat and dairy items in his kitchen and had it inspected and approved by a rabbi before a meal for visiting Israelis, he said.

But wine is different. It is a centerpiece of French cuisine and tradition, as well as an important export product. Banning it would amount to telling the French not to be French.

A few years ago, neither the emir of Qatar nor the Saudi king, both Sunni Muslims, objected to wine being poured from opaque carafes to other guests at Élysée dinners in their honor. They could take mineral water, fruit juice or any other soft drink of their choice.

Why the fracas? Why can’t Rouhani just allow others to have their wine? Why can’t the French abjure it at dinner? I can understand the latter issue, but both decisions have political consequences. As RNS observes:

It might seem strange to clash over such details, especially when bigger issues are actually at stake. But there are domestic political costs for both leaders if wine is or is not on the menu. If he accepted it, Rouhani would give more fuel to Iranian conservatives who accuse him of being too accommodating to western powers.

What happened? The French offered a substitute: a breakfast meeting in which, presumably, wine wouldn’t be served. The Iranians rejected that as it was too “cheap” (the characterization reported by the Independent), so Hollande and Rouhani will now simply meet face to face: presumably with Perrier.

h/t: Gravelinspector

Don’t pray for Paris

November 15, 2015 • 8:30 am

Reader Tom sent me this poignant cartoon, which I verified as genuine from an article in People magazine and other venues. It was drawn in the wake of Friday’s terrorist murders in Paris by well-known French artist Joann Sfar, who drew for Charlie Hebdo.

Don%27t pray for paris

Well, yes, for the living it’s about life. But for thousands of others—the friends, family, and beloved of the hundreds of dead and wounded—it’s about people who won’t participate in that life. I can only imagine the combination of unbearable pain and the unanswerable “Why him/her/them?” questions that many will be asking themselves.

I have to say that I have mixed feelings about this cartoon, for while it does allude to both the harm religion does and the inevitable question of why a beneficent god didn’t stop this tragedy, the hashtag site isn’t mainly about religion, but compassion for the victims.

But in the end, Sfar’s carton reminds us to make the most of the short lives we have—lives that could end at any time.

Readers’ wildlife photos

November 15, 2015 • 7:45 am

Reader Joe Dickinson sent some photos and notes he called “Early birds”:

One of the compensations for having a d*g who, as we get into winter, demands a walk pretty much at sunrise is the chance to see birds in the wonderful light of early morning.  Here are a few from the last couple of weeks.
First, a male Anna’s Hummingbird (Calypte anna) on the cliff above Capitola (California):
early birds1
The rest are from near the mouth of Aptos creek, mostly on the same log (but at different times).
A Greater White-fronted Goose (Anser albifrons):
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A female Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos):
early birds3
A couple of Double-crested Cormorants (Phalacrocorax azurites), probably a juvenile on the right:
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early birds5
Finally, if you like, I have a little quiz.  Can your readers identify this bird just from its wonderful feet?
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Right, it’s an American Coot (Fulica americana).

JAC: Even I knew that one!

Finally, Stephen Barnard sent yet another photo of the coyote (Canis latrans) Who Doesn’t Fear God. It apparently hasn’t blown itself up yet.
Barnard Coyote