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.
It’s Hump Day, I have a podcast interview, and otherwise there is nothing of distinction to report. Nor do I have any Big Ideas about what to write about today—try facing a blank page with no ideas when the readers are waiting! Well, at least there is some interesting cat lagniappe this morning (see below). And, in Dobrzyn, they are harvesting hazelnuts and soon will be picking walnuts, which will go into the crusts of the many cherry pies I am soon to eat. Meanwhile, Hili, is showing off to her dimwitted by loving friend Cyrus:
Hili: I have a proof for non-existence.
C: Non-existence of what?
Hili: Of Małgorzata on the verandah.
In Polish:
Hili: Mam dowód na nieistnienie.
Cyrus: Nieistnienie czego?
Hili: Małgorzaty na we
And two items of cat fashion arrived this morning from readers. First, a woman and her cat in matching shirts, taken from Facebook and sent by Heather Hastie:
NASA has put up some stunning pictures of Pluto taken by the New Horizons spacecraft that did its amazing and recent flyby. I won’t duplicate everything the article says, but will show you just a few sections of text and some images (more at the site) that justify the URL’s bit that “it’s complicated”. The text from the NASA site is indented:
New close-up images of Pluto from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft reveal a bewildering variety of surface features that have scientists reeling because of their range and complexity.
“Pluto is showing us a diversity of landforms and complexity of processes that rival anything we’ve seen in the solar system,” said New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado. “If an artist had painted this Pluto before our flyby, I probably would have called it over the top — but that’s what is actually there.”
New Horizons began its yearlong download of new images and other data over the Labor Day weekend. Images downlinked in the past few days have more than doubled the amount of Pluto’s surface seen at resolutions as good as 400 meters (440 yards) per pixel. They reveal new features as diverse as possible dunes, nitrogen ice flows that apparently oozed out of mountainous regions onto plains, and even networks of valleys that may have been carved by material flowing over Pluto’s surface. They also show large regions that display chaotically jumbled mountains reminiscent of disrupted terrains on Jupiter’s icy moon Europa.
An icy plain and other complex features (Pluto’s diameter is about 2400 km, or about 18% that of Earth):
“The surface of Pluto is every bit as complex as that of Mars,” said Jeff Moore, leader of the New Horizons Geology, Geophysics and Imaging (GGI) team at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. “The randomly jumbled mountains might be huge blocks of hard water ice floating within a vast, denser, softer deposit of frozen nitrogen within the region informally named Sputnik Planum.”
A closeup of the broken terrain, photo taken July 14 of this year:
New images also show the most heavily cratered — and thus oldest — terrain yet seen by New Horizons on Pluto next to the youngest, most crater-free icy plains. There might even be a field of dark wind-blown dunes, among other possibilities.
Craters, mountains, and ridges:
“Seeing dunes on Pluto — if that is what they are — would be completely wild, because Pluto’s atmosphere today is so thin,” said William B. McKinnon, a GGI deputy lead from Washington University, St. Louis. “Either Pluto had a thicker atmosphere in the past, or some process we haven’t figured out is at work. It’s a head-scratcher.”
If you’re a Plutophile, you know that the planet (or whatever you want to call it) has five moons. Here’s the largest, Charon, 1200 km in diameter. Its terrain is also also quite complex:
Just a note about what may be Oliver Sack’s last published work, or at least the last thing that he wrote that was published most recently. It’s a piece in the New Yorker (free access) called “Filter Fish“. It is of course about the Jewish dish gefilte fish (something I can’t abide, but always call “filter fish” too). Sacks loved the stuff, but only the homemade version, and preferably made by his mother. It’s interesting that, at the end of his life, Sacks, still a nonbeliever, turned to his cultural Jewish roots. Do remember that his last New York Times piece was called “Sabbath.”
Here he draws full circle between the “filter fish” that sustained him in his childhood and then at the terminus of his life. Do read the whole piece, but here are the last three paragraphs, which I find deeply moving.
But now, in what are (barring a miracle) my last weeks of life—so queasy that I am averse to almost every food, with difficulty swallowing anything except liquids or jellylike solids—I have rediscovered the joys of gefilte fish. I cannot eat more than two or three ounces at a time, but an aliquot of gefilte fish every waking hour nourishes me with much needed protein. (Gefilte-fish jelly, like calf’s-foot jelly, was always valued as an invalid’s food.)
Deliveries now arrive daily from one shop or another: Murray’s on Broadway, Russ & Daughters, Sable’s, Zabar’s, Barney Greengrass, the 2nd Ave Deli—they all make their own gefilte fish, and I like it all (though none compares to my mother’s or Helen’s).
While I have conscious memories of gefilte fish from about the age of four, I suspect that I acquired my taste for it even earlier, for, with its abundant, nutritious jelly, it was often given to infants in Orthodox households as they moved from baby foods to solid food. Gefilte fish will usher me out of this life, as it ushered me into it, eighty-two years ago.
Reader Doug sent me two links: one to a Langer Research Poll conducted for ABC News and the Washington Post, and the other to a Politico story about the poll. But the poll pretty much tells it all, and the figure in the poll is striking:
METHODOLOGY – This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by landline and cellular telephone Sept. 7-10, 2015, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 1,003 adults. Results have a margin of sampling error of 3.5 points, including the design effect. Partisan divisions are 33-22-35 percent, Democrats-Republicans-independents.
The general question about equality trumping religion shows a stronger preference for equality than does the specific case of Kim Davis and gay marriage licenses in Rowan County, Kentucky. This is not surprising: people often become more sympathetic when real human beings are involved. But in both case over 60% of Americans prioritized legal requirements above religious convictions. That’s a ratio of about 2:1 at a minimum, and it’s heartening.
Politico notes, though, that these results differ a bit from a July poll:
The results contrast with the findings of an Associated Press/GfK survey conducted in July, weeks after the Supreme Court ruled same-sex marriage bans unconstitutional. In that poll, 49 percent said that local officials should not be required to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples if they have religious objections, while 47 percent said they should be. In the same poll, 56 percent to 39 percent said it is more important for the government to protect religious liberties than gay rights
That is a huge difference, especially for the general philosophical question. Now it’s possible that this reflects a sample size difference (I always wonder how pollsters derive their “sample error” estimates), or how the questions were asked. But it’s also possible that the truculence of Davis, the blatant cross-waving and God-osculating of her supporters, and the anger and sadness of gay couples in Kentucky, all combined to harden American hearts against privileging religion when it conflicts with principles of democracy. Let us hope so. It would be interesting to see the AP/GfK repeat their survey, using identical methods, four months after the first one.
Matthew is of course a Brit, and his email of this link to me was headed “Ouch!” But of course one problem with this argument is that by voicing your own views on morality, you might improve society. That, after all, is the reason why civil rights, women’s rights, and gay rights have become the norm. They were not promulgated by “silent judgement.” But maybe I’m making too much out of a humorous and clever strip.
Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo. —Karl Marx
Nigel Barber is an Irish psychologist who wears many hats besides psychology, including evolutionary psychology, popular writing, and the sociology of religion. And over at PuffHo’s Science section, he has a piece predicting when atheism will overcome religion. His date is 2038—less than a quarter-century away, which is quite surprising.
I share Barber’s optimism about the decreasing religiosity of the planet, but this due date is, I think, way too close, and it’s off because of Barber’s assumptions. First, though, let’s see the basis for his prediction. (I’ve added the references at the bottom, numbered as in his text, because they’re useful for many of us):
The view that religious belief will give way to atheism is known as the secularization thesis. The specific version that I favor (1) is known as the existential security hypothesis. The basic idea is that as people become more affluent, they are less worried about lacking for basic necessities, or dying early from violence or disease. In other words they are secure in their own existence. They do not feel the need to appeal to supernatural entities to calm their fears and insecurities.
The notion that improving living conditions are associated with a decline in religion is supported by a mountain of evidence (1,2,3).
I share the “existential security thesis,” (EST) which of course was suggested by Karl Marx in the quote at the top, and you can see the data supporting this thesis in the references at the bottom. (I particularly like Norris and Inglehart’s book, which has a lot of data, while I haven’t reader Barber’s books.) But “improved living conditions” can include a lot of factors. Greg Paul’s 2009 paper, which I’ve added to the citations below, shows a negative correlation between the religiosity of a society and its performance on the “successful societies scale” (SSS) that incorporates no fewer than 25 factors. Paul found, as have others, that the most “successful” societies are the least religious.
That supports the EST, but it’s just a correlation, and one could argue the contrary: that religion creates less successful societies instead of less successful societies being more susceptible to religion. However, other data suggest that the EST hypothesis is correct; these are highlighted in Norris and Inglehart’s book. One is the time course of religiosity and income inequality in the U.S. When income inequality (as measured by the famous Gini Index) goes up, religiosity also rises—but a year behind. The reverse is the case when income inequality goes down: religiosity decreases a year later. This lag suggests that income inequality, which is taken by many as a good measure of how “well off” people feel, is causal for religiosity rather than the other way around.
Paul’s “successful societies scale” incorporates 25 indices, all shown below (with some other socioeconomic factors) in Table 1 on p. 408 of his paper. Most of these factors taken in isolation show a significant correlation (either positive or negative) with religiosity among 17 first-world countries. (The data are presented as Pearson correlations of the levels of each factor with the country’s degree of secularism, including (+) and excluding (-) the US, with N the number of countries examined. Note, too, that secularism is highly positively correlated with acceptance of human evolution. That’s no surprise! Finally, per capita income is negatively correlated with religiosity, but not significantly so, while income inequality shows a much stronger (negative) correlation, and one that’s significant.
Table 1. Pearson r correlations bold type when socio-economic conditions or other factors improve or rise with increasing secularism, regular type when factors deteriorate or decrease with increasing secularism. No underline = correlation not significant, thin underline = correlation moderate, double underline = correlation strong, thick underline = correlation very strong.
One problem with these data is that multiple regression or factor analysis weren’t done, so these individual indices, many of which are surely correlated with each other, weren’t analyzed for their correlation with religiosity with all other factors held equal.
But on to Barber’s paper. It’s a cute analysis, but uses only one factor to predict when atheism will outstrip religion: that is, when nonbelievers will become more numerous than believers. And that factor is income (per capita GDP). His analysis involves nine countries, and here are his conclusions (my emphasis):
The most obvious approach to estimating when the world will switch over to being majority atheist is based on economic growth. This is logical because economic development is the key factor responsible for secularization. In deriving this estimate, I used the nine most godless countries as my touchstone (excluding Estonia as a formerly communist country).
The countries were Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom. These nine countries averaged out at the atheist transition in 2004 (5) with exactly half of the populations disbelieving in God. Their gross domestic product (GDP) averaged $29,822 compared to $10,855 for the average country in the world. How long will it take before the world economy has expanded sufficiently that the GDP of the average country has caught up to the average for the godless countries in 2004?
Using the average global growth rate of GDP for the past 30 years of 3.33 percent (based on International Monetary Fund data from their website), the atheist transition would occur in 2035.
Well, of course there are many problems with this, the most obvious being that average income in the “half-atheist” countries will itself rise over time, and is it kosher to use average GDP at the present time to predict atheist transitions in the future? But a more severe problem is the use of GDP as the single predictive factor, which (at least on its own) is less correlated with religiosity than is income inequality—or factors like child mortality and abortion rate? Finally, the countries surveyed were all First World nations whose believers (except for Japan, which is largely atheist) are Christian. Will this hold in all the diverse countries of the world? I doubt it, as many factors beyond GDP must promote religion in those nations.
A problem that Barber himself brings up is that his index of a country’s religiosity is the proportion of its inhabitants who say they “believe in God.” He notes that some belief may be superficial, and so he redid the analysis using as an index of religiosity the Gallup-poll criterion: whether people say that religion is important in their daily lives. Using this criterion makes the “50% godless countries” Spain, South Korea, Canada, Switzerland, Uruguay, Germany and France. His estimate of when the average country in the world will achieve their current per capita GDP was 2041.
To get the 2038 figure that represents Barber’s transition date for majority godlessness, he simply averaged the 2041 and 2035 figures. He notes that although this may seem too soon, it represents only a 1% reduction per year in the level of belief.
Well, this is all very cute and clever, but there are sufficient problems in extending data taken from only a few First World countries to the world as a whole, including places where religiosity must surely be driven by factors beyond mere GDP. So while I agree with Barber’s existential security hypothesis, and am pretty confident that the world is becoming more secular, I’m not at all confident that the Atheist Tipping Point will occur within a quarter of a century.
But I do agree with Barber’s final paragraph:
Is the loss of religious belief something fear? Contrary to the claims of religious leaders, Godless countries are highly moral nations with an unusual level of social trust, economic equality, low crime and a high level of civic engagement (5). We could do with some of that.
Indeed! These data give the lie to the claim that religious belief is essential for a harmonious and well-functioning society. In fact, the data say the precise opposite. I won’t repeat the tortuous arguments that believers use to dismiss this inconvenient truth, but they are, like most apologetics, unconvincing.
________________
Sources
1. Barber, N. (2012). Why atheism will replace religion: The triumph of earthly pleasures over pie in the sky. E-book, available at: http://www.amazon.com/Atheism-Will-Replace-Religion-ebook/dp/B00886ZSJ6/
2. Norris, P., & Inglehart, R. (2004). Sacred and secular: Religion and politics worldwide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
3. Barber, N. (2011). A Cross-National test of the uncertainty hypothesis of religious belief Cross-Cultural Research, 45, 318-333.
4. Kaufmann, E. (2010). Shall the religious inherit the earth? London: Profile books.
5. Zuckerman, P. (2008). Society without God: What the least religious nations can tell us about contentment. New York: New York University Press.
UPDATE: In the comments reader George analyzed the data on a per capita view basis, and sent me an Excel file, which I reproduce below. I was surprised to find out that the US is actually fourth in views per capita, with New Zealand heading the list, and Canada and the UK still above the US. Thanks to all the Kiwis!
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Every few months I check the dashboard of this site to see where the readers come from. Below is the diagram showing readership over the past 365 days. Naturally, the readership is highest in Anglophone countries, but I’m pleased to see that, with one exception, there were views from every country in the world, including those recalcitrant central African countries from which we never used to get any views.
Now what is the one country that’s missing? You can probably guess from first principles alone, but you can also see it as a tiny blank on the map. Last year I believe we got two views from that same nation, and the presence of even those views mystifies me.
Here are the top ten countries with yearly reader views:
And the bottom eleven (three were tied with four views each). I wonder who provided the one view from Nauru and St. Helena. both oceanic islands.
Two birds (more coming soon) from reader Damon Williford:
Here are photos of some of the South Texas birds. The White-winged Dove (Zenaida asiatica) and the Great-tailed Grackle (Quiscalus mexicanus) are two of the most abundant birds in Texas. The White-winged Dove was originally restricted to riparian areas along the Rio Grande but has adapted to other habitats and has moved into urban areas and occurs as far north as Amarillo. This expansion has taken place in about 40 years.
White-winged dove:
Great-tailed grackle:
And finally, from reader Karen Bartelt, some photographs of monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus). I’ve often said that people don’t appreciate the beauty of starlings because they’re so common. I think the same is true of monarchs.
Last year we saw almost no monarchs, despite living in spectacular habitat. This year the numbers of monarchs are way up. Hope this is a harbinger of good things for them.
The picture is from north of Menominee, Michigan. The second is from my extended backyard near Washington, IL (our 20 acres abut on 260 acres of undeveloped park).
