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.
PCC(E) appears to have eaten some bad seafood last night, so posting (and his alimentary canal) may be a bit light; I will be merciful and spare you the details. As always, I’ll do my best. On this day in history, the Continental Congress approved the Articles of Confederation (1777), a precursor to the American Constitution; and, on November 15, 1932, Petula Clark and Alvin Plantinga were born: I know which I prefer. Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, the animals are plotting against poor Andrzej:
Hili: We must assume that he will not stand it much longer.
Cyrus: Jump on his keyboard and he’ll finally move, and we then can go for a walk.
In Polish:
Hili: Musimy założyć, że on długo tego nie wytrzyma.
Cyrus: Wskocz mu na klawiaturę, to w końcu się ruszy i pójdziemy na spacer.
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And, in the forests around Wroclawek, Leon remains dapper:
Leon: Wait, I will just wash my paws. You have to look decent even in the forest.
From Facebook, courtesy of a reader who probably doesn’t want to be named. But the Bible quote is accurate! Imagine if nonbelievers produced mock cups (or real ones with handwriting) like this, all sporting bizarre bits of scripture. I should have a contest. . .
There hasn’t been an execution in California since 2006, but that may be about to change.The Atlantic reports that a Federal appeals court has just overruled a 2014 lower-court finding that California’s death-penalty statue was unconstitutional. (The full opinion is here.) It’s a complicated ruling, basically arguing that the lower court didn’t have the power to declare the law unconstitutional because the Supreme Court was bound to enforce federal laws in force at the time each inmate was sentenced (you can read more at the Atlantic site or in the original opinion). The opinion concludes this way, and perhaps a lawyer can clarify it for the rest of us:
Many agree with Petitioner that California’s capital punishment system is dysfunctional and that the delay between sentencing and execution in California is extraordinary. But “the purpose of federal habeas corpus is to ensure that state convictions comply with the federal law in existence at the time the conviction became final, and not to provide a mechanism for the continuing reexamination of final judgments based upon later emerging legal doctrine.” Sawyer, 497 U.S. at 234. Because Petitioner asks us to apply a novel constitutional rule, we may not assess the substantive validity of his claim.
The lower court ruling found that the way the death penalty is applied in California violates the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment. Because of the long appeals process, the average time between sentencing and execution of a prisoner in California was twenty-five years. That amounts to life without parole for many prisoners, most of whom die before execution:
Among the states that allow it, California is simultaneously the most and least prolific wielder of the death penalty. With about 750 inmates awaiting appeals or execution, California houses about one-quarter of all death-row inmates in the nation. Juries in the state send an average of two additional inmates there each month, according to the Los Angeles Times. In 2012, 52 percent of California voters narrowly rejected a ballot initiative to abolish capital punishment in the state.
At the same time, the state carries out a fraction of its death sentences. California executed only 13 of the more than 900 inmates sentenced to death since the return of capital punishment in the 1970s. By comparison, the Sacramento Bee reported that more than 70 death-row inmates died of natural causes, another 24 inmates had committed suicide, and another “half a dozen” inmates were murdered or died of drug overdoses over the same period.
So, although the opinion, written by Justice Susan Graber, admits that the long delay in executions renders the system “dysfunctional,” that doesn’t matter: the state can resume killing people. My opposition to the death penalty is a matter of record on this site, and so I found the Atlantic’s conclusion chilling:
The panel’s decision is a significant step toward resuming executions in the state for the first time since 2006. On November 6, the state also unveiled a new lethal-injection protocol using a single drug. State officials may choose from one of four different barbiturates to execute an inmate—amobarbital, pentobarbital, secobarbital, or thiopental—to provide flexibility amid the ongoing lethal-injection drug shortages. Amobarbital and secobarbital have not previously been used to execute a prisoner in the United States.
And, of course, the 25-year average waiting time will probably remain the same, because the appeals process is unchanged. Remember that since capital punishment in California resumed in 1978, nearly twice as many people on Death Row committed suicide as were executed. That alone is a sign of cruel and unusual punishment. So, by the way, is life without parole. I refer reader to my June post on how well the judicial system works in Norway, where there is no capital punishment and no life sentences, with or without parole.
We all know that homeopathy is a complete scam. Its conceptual basis alone renders it at once laughable and scary, while studies of its efficacy always show nothing above placebo effects. And yet the stuff is sold where apparently intelligent people shop, including Whole Foods and the Davis, California Food Coop, a place I used to shop as a postdoc. The homeopathic “remedies” in those places also make health claims, something that I always thought was illegal.
Well, according to both DeadState and BuzzFeed (the latter is apparently getting more serious), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US is set to take some regulatory action. The BuzzFeed piece, by Dan Vergano (who used to be my editor at USA Today), is actually quite good, giving, along with the news, a history of homeopathy and the evidence that it doesn’t work. An excerpt:
Homeopathic drugs are not subject to much regulatory scrutiny. The FDA ensures that their manufacturing facilities are clean, but the products are not evaluated for their health claims. (This is even less regulation than what’s required for dietary supplements, vitamins, herbs, and minerals, which face some limits on the health claims they can make.)
But that may change. This month, both the FDA, which oversees drug safety, and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which oversees drug ads, will end lengthy public comment periods that followed hearings on homeopathy. The FTC [Federal Trade Commission] smacked its sister drug-safety agency in public comments in August, calling for the FDA to crack down on homeopathic products, which “may harm consumers.”
About damn time! The harm is not just that they sometimes contain stuff that can actually harm people (like high levels of ethanol, or, in teething tablets, toxic levels of belladonna), but also that they can eat up time when sick people resort to ineffective homeopathic nostrums instead of scientific cures. (I’ve described already how a French friend with salivary-gland cancer tried to treat it homeopathically, but it got worse and he finally needed an operation. He appears to be okay now, thank Ceiling Cat).
But of course the quackery has its defenders, as always:
Still, homeopathy’s supporters say these remedies have a much better safety record than conventional drugs, along with millions of satisfied customers.
“We believe they are proven to be effective and extremely safe,” Ronald Whitmont, an internist at the New York Medical College and president of the American Institute of Homeopathy, told BuzzFeed News. The institute has been around since 1844 (longer than the American Medical Association), publishes its own research journal, and has certified dozens of physicians as “homeotherapeutics” specialists.
. . . But both Whitmont and Mark Land, president of the American Association of Homeopathic Pharmacists, support FDA and FTC moves to change the labels on homeopathic drugs and advertising to acknowledge they haven’t been tested for efficacy, similar to dietary supplements.
That would still keep homeopathic drugs on pharmacy shelves, however. Homeopathy “historically relies on recommendations from highly satisfied customers to influence sales,” Land told BuzzFeed News by email. “It’s an outstanding example of the U.S. free market.”
No, it’s an outstanding example of how unethical companies take example of people’s ignorance and credulity. It’s time to remove all claims of efficacy from these “drugs”, slap big warning labels on them, or, best yet, just remove them from pharmacy shelves. Companies like Whole Foods that sell homeopathic remedies should be ashamed of themselves.
The d*g lovers on this site always like to point out that cats don’t do anything helpful for humanity: dogs do jobs like saving drowning people or fetching ducks or guiding blind people, while cats do squat. Well, the emotional pleasure and peace that a soft, purring cat conveys can’t be dismissed; and here’s a case in which a cat really might have helped save someone’s life: a suicidal man on a ledge in San Francisco.
As SFGate reports, a man suspected of stealing a car somehow got on a third-floor ledge and threatened to jump.
The man, barefoot and wearing only black shorts, was distraught and hanging out of a third-floor window of a building at 10th and Harrison streets, threatening to leap. Officers set up foam pads below him as the department’s trained hostage negotiators perched precariously on a fire escape, urging the suicidal man figuratively and literally off the ledge.
But after three unsuccessful hours, reinforcements arrived — in the form of the man’s orange-and-white feline.
Using his pet, hostage negotiators were able to persuade him to go back inside the building, come down the stairs and surrender without incident.
Within 45 minutes of the cat’s arrival, the 3½-hour standoff was over.
“Using the cat was ingenious,” said Officer Albie Esparza, a police spokesman. “Never underestimate the power of the love between people and their pets. I think it was great to think outside the box like the officers did. It made enough of an impact on this person to bring him down and come to his senses.”
. . .“I don’t remember ever using a cat before, but it worked,” Esparza said. “The guy voluntarily came out of the window and opened the door and was taken into custody without incident.”
Esparza said he never got the cat’s name, but he applauded the officers for their quick thinking, as well as their sensitivity. Even as the man was handcuffed and taken to a police car, officers brought the cat to him so he could see his beloved feline before going to jail.
The scene:
The rescue cat:
Reader Diane G. was one of the reader who sent me this piece, and I wrote back saying that it wasn’t clear whether the cat itself played a pivotal role in averting the suicide. Her response?
Cat probably told the guy, “You do anything to disrupt my flow of Friskies and you won’t have to worry about killing yourself–I’ll do it for you!”
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I’m not sure how they took this nice video of a Pallas’s cat, or manul (Ocotolobus manul), as they’re secretive; but it doesn’t look as though it was taken in captivity. At any rate, I’m putting it up because it’s my favorite wild felid: all cute and furry, with very small ears to conform to its cold habitat (“Allen’s Rule“).
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Finally, if you go to Etsy, you can find a swell rolling pin (or rather, several) that can emboss your cookies or pies or dough with cool pictures of cats. It’ll cost you around $32, but it’s good Polish beech wood, and will provide a lifetime of pleasure and LOLs. Have a look:
p.s. You can also get butterflies, owls, jungle animals, dinosaurs (Matthew would like those), monkeys, horses, and yes. . . d*gs. But I wouldn’t eat a d*g cookie.
It’s Saturday, November 14 (I forgot to note that yesterday was Friday the 13th). I regret to note that on this day in 1944, Karen Armstrong was born, and Condoleezza Rice in 1954. There is a lot of other bad things that happened on this day of the year, and the only good thing I can find was the issuance of the first patent for a laser in 1967. Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is petulant as well, kvetching that the picture on her cup—a cup I had made—is too small:
Hili: This is a very nice mug but too small.
A: Why do you think so?
Hili: I would be more visible on a bigger one.
In Polish:
Hili: To bardzo ładny kubek, ale za mały.
Ja: Dlaczego tak sądzisz?
Hili: Na większym byłoby mnie wyraźniej widać.
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And tabby Leon asks what I assume must be a rhetorical question. Look at his stripey toes!
