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 bet you thought that Flat Earthers—those who deny that the Earth is spherical—were long gone. But flat-Earthism persisted into the 20th century, and some of the loons are still with us. There are serious (and also parody) flat-Earth societies; one of the serious ones is the International Flat Earth Research Society (IFERS; header on bar says that link is not secure). That one is connected, as you might guess, with religiosity, anti-Semitism, and other conspiracy theories. Some adherents who are strict Biblical fundamentalists deny a spherical earth because some passages in scripture can be interpreted as describing a disk or plane.)
Here’s a screenshot from the IFERS site:
And here, according to Wikipedia, is the IFERS’s “model”:
The Flat Earth Society’s most recent world model is that humanity lives on a disc, with the North Pole at its center and a 150-foot (45 m) high wall of ice, Antarctica, at the outer edge. The resulting map resembles the symbol of the United Nations, which Johnson [Charles K. Johnson, the former president of IFERS] used as evidence for his position. In this model, the Sun and Moon are each 32 miles (52 km) in diameter. [JAC: if that were the case, then you could explain eclipses only by asserting that the Sun and Moon are about equidistant from Earth!]
Flat Earth Society recruited members by speaking against the U.S. government and all its agencies, particularly NASA. Much of the society’s literature in its early days focused on interpreting the Bible to mean that the Earth is flat, although they did try to offer scientific explanations and evidence.
And they’re in America! As the Denver Post reported just yesterday, there’s a group of three dozen flat-Earthers (FEs) in Fort Collins, Colorado, and the “movement” is supposedly growing, with several thousand people accepting this pseudoscience:
Every Tuesday at 6 p.m., three dozen Coloradans from every corner of the state assemble in the windowless back room of a small Fort Collins coffee shop. They have met 16 times since March, most nights talking through the ins and outs of their shared faith until the owners kick them out at closing.
They have no leaders, no formal hierarchy and no enforced ideology, save a common quest for answers to questions about the stars. Their membership has slowly swelled in the past three years, though persecution and widespread public derision keep them mostly underground. Many use pseudonyms, or only give first names.
Indeed, it surely is a faith, because there are no facts supporting it. The article describes how it was founded, links to YouTube videos that have converted people (see the GlobeBusters channel), and describes their “theory”. Two more excerpts:
In Colorado, Ptolemaic-science revivalists have lofty ambitions: raising $6,000 to put up a billboard along Interstate 25 broadcasting their worldview. A GoFundMe site quickly raised more than $400 but has recently stalled. Anyone can contribute funds or submit billboard ideas, and the group has promised $100 to the winning submitter.
“This is not something you can force down others’ throats,” Vnuk says. “They have to come to it on their own journey. A billboard is a nonaggressive way to introduce people to the idea.”
(All scientists and educators consulted for this story rejected the idea of a flat earth.)
At the Tuesday night meet-ups, dubbed “Flat Earth or Other Forbidden Topics,” believers invite fellow adherents to open discussions in which the like-minded confirm one another’s hunches and laugh at the folly of those still stuck in the Enlightenment.
Here are two photos of the Fort Collins branch. The people look normal to me:
Members of Flat Earth Fort Collins watch YouTube videos on the topic at a meet up on June 27, 2017 at the Purple Cup in Fort Collins. The group is skeptical of the science behind the Earth being a spinning sphere.
John Vnuk, 54, founder of Flat Earth Fort Collins, speaks at their meet up on June 27, 2017 at the Purple Cup in Fort Collins. The group is skeptical of the science behind the Earth being a spinning sphere. Photo by Gabriel Scarlett, the Denver Post.
But wait! There’s more!:
“There’s so much evidence once you set aside your preprogrammed learning and begin to look at things objectively with a critical eye,” says Bob Knodel, a Denver resident and featured guest at a recent Tuesday meeting. “You learn soon that what we’re taught is mainly propaganda.”
. . . The movement, though, is not a monolith. Differences of opinion divide the community on matters of scientific interpretation, cosmology, strategy and even the most fundamental questions of geology, such as: what shape is our planet?
Many subscribe to the “ice wall theory,” or the belief that the world is circumscribed by giant ice barriers, like the walls of a bowl, that then extend infinitely along a flat plane. Sargent envisions Earth as “a giant circular disc covered by a dome.” He likens the planet to a snow globe, similar to the one depicted in “The Truman Show,” a fictitious 1998 existential drama about an insurance salesman unknowingly living in an artificially constructed dome.
What then lies on the other side of the ice walls or beyond the glassy dome enclosing our world?
Flat Earthers don’t claim to know with certainty, instead paying lip service to “common sense” evidence they claim can be proved. When skeptics demand proof, though, Flat Earthers wield reams of figures from so-called curvature tests and gyroscope calibrations that seem to buttress their views. Leaders want Flat Earthism to be an accessible creed for the common man, an egalitarian movement that gives life meaning by punching back at scientific disenchantment.
“They want you to think you’re insignificant, a speck on the earth, a cosmic mistake,” Sargent says. “The flat earth says you are special, we are special, there is a creator, this isn’t some accident.”
This would seem to be the height of lunacy, even dumber than creationism, but it’s not all that surprising. If you can deny the evidence for evolution, which is as strong as that for a spherical Earth, why not deny that round Earth? I recently met an evolutionary biologist who made significant contributions to writing science textbooks in an Anglophone country, but he believed strongly that the 9/11 hijackings were a ruse: the destruction of the World Trade Center was done by the U.S. government with the help of the Jews. He was dead serious.
How can this be? Well, Michael Shermer wrote a book on the subject, Why People Believe Weird Things, and I’ll refer you to that. It’s nor surprising that this kind of movement is growing in the Trump era. With the pervasiveness of conspiracy theories, the resentment of a scientific “elite”, the feeling that your group is persecuted, and the idea that the media is constantly deceiving us, it’s not too hard to see how people can buy “alternative facts.” Even if those facts involve the Earth being shaped like a Necco Wafer.
Here’s the ultimate disproof, courtesy of reader Laurie, that the Earth isn’t flat:
On June 27, the city hall of Minneapolis, Minnesota became “Kitty Hall”, with cats gracing the building, all in the cause of adoption. As the Star-Tribune reported then:
The purpose of the event (as if we really needed one) is to bring awareness and excitement to cat adoption.
The “Kitty Hall” event will feature 18 kittens from Minneapolis Animal Care and Control, as well as six poised, ambitious cat-idates running for coveted kitty leadership roles with the city.
Here are some of the kittens; I hope they all found homes:
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As deathandtaxes reported two years ago, a British man called the emergency number to report that his girlfriend’s cat ate his bacon. This was apparently not a joke:
A West Yorkshire resident called the cops after realizing his girlfriend had allowed her cat to eat his bacon. The operator asked if he wished to press charges and he said yes, against both of them. The operator then had to hit him with the bad news. “It’s not a criminal offense to let your cat eat your bacon. We don’t arrest cats. I’m very sorry,” she said, crushing the man’s dreams of getting that wonderful judicial revenge against the feline culprit.
Here’s a genuine recording of the call with added animation. What did the guy expect the cops to do? (By the way, is that a Yorkshire accent?).
I suspect the guy was drunk.
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On June 7, the New York Times reported a new fad sweeping the privileged classes: yoga with cats. It’s offered in several places, including the Meow Parlour, New York City’s first cat cafe (classes there are booked two months in advance). The good bit is that the cats are up for adoption:
. . . cats are a strangely relaxing presence during yoga class.
“Yoga is all about being in the moment,” and cats are in the moment “all the time,” said Amy Apgar, one of two yoga instructors at Meow Parlour, a cat shelter and cafe in Lower Manhattan that, like a growing number of places across the country, offers yoga classes with cats.
The yoga sessions are partly just for fun, but they also bring in new people who may want to adopt a pet. (The cats on hand tend to be highly available.)
Other animal-inspired yoga classes include doga with dogs, yoga with goats and yoga with rabbits. But yoga with cats has gained a small but cultish following.
Here’s a class in Fairfax, Virginia:
More from the NYT:
Cat participation in the yoga classes varies widely.
“We’ve actually had kitties who have stretched with people,” said Ms. Hatt. “Probably unintentionally. But they do an excellent downward dog.”
Ms. Legrand, of Meow Parlour, said that the rotating cast of cats refreshes the experience. “It’s fun when we have a few new cats, and you can tell it’s their first yoga class, because they are very curious,” she said. “The yoga mats are like cat magnets.”
I don’t know about you, but I’d ditch the yoga and just play with the kitties. Cat yoga classes are also offered in Marietta, Georgia and San Francisco.
Ingrid King, a cat blogger, practices reiki, a healing therapy that involves the transfer of energy from person to person or, in Ms. King’s case, person to cat. And while she herself is more of a Pilates person, she called yoga a good fit for everything feline.
“Cats’ energy is such a wonderful and relaxing thing to be around,” Ms. King said. “I think it’s a perfect match to yoga.”
Meow Parlour, which charges $6 for a half-hour admission to the cafe and $20 to$22 for a yoga class, regularly fields requests from tourists who want to schedule a class during their visits to New York City.
At Meow Parlour, a cat lopes between the yoginis in class. Meow Parlour, in Lower Manhattan, keeps a rotating cast of cats in its classes. Yoga with cats has acquired a small but cultish following. VINCENT TULLO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Do any readers do yoga with their cats?
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And some lagniappe: A woman is given the seal of approval by Tonto, her boyfriend’s cat. He’s a Bengal, of course:
We have some younger photographers who are very promising. One is Jamie Blilie. His father James sent in Jamie’s photos in April with some notes and IDs:
Here are some more photos from my son, Jamie, age 13. Shot with his Canon Powershot SX530 HS camera.
This one is a little unusual: Yellow-rumped Warbler (a.k.a. Audubon’s Warbler, Setophaga coronata):
Good morning on a not-too-hot summer day in Chicago; it’s July 8, 2017. Is everyone having a good time? If not, it’s National Chocolate with Almonds Day, though I prefer mine plain, undiluted with nutmeats.
On this day in 1497, Vasco da Gama set out from Lisbon, sailed around Africa, and landed in what is now Kerala, India, on May 20 of the next year. It was the first sea voyage from Europe to India. On this day in 1932, the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit its lowest point during the Depression, closing at 41.22. As of yesterday it was 21,414.34, about 522 times higher. Finally, on this day in 1994, Kim Il-sung died, leaving the leadership of North Korea in the hands of Kim Jong-il. He’s been in charge for over 45 years. After his death, the government abolished the office of President, which Il-sung (is that the way to say it?) held, and designated the dead leader as Eternal President of the Republic. He’s therefore still in charge—as a stiff! (His body is preserved à la Mao, and is on display.) Here are the 22.5 meter high statues of the first Dear Leader and his son at the Mansu Hill Grand Monument—an obligatory stop for all visitors to the DPRK.
Notable born on this day include John D. Rockefeller (1839), Nelson Rockefeller (1908), Billy Eckstine (1914), Jaimoe, drummer for the Allman Brothers (1944), and Joan Osborne (1962). In honor of Joan’s birthday, have a listen to her rousing version of “Heat Wave,” accompanied by the Funk Brothers, the original Motown backup musicians. It’s the best version by anyone other than Martha and the Vandellas:
And let’s not forget Billy Eckstine, a great vocalist and musician who’s been largely forgotten. What a mellow voice he had! Have a listen:
Those who died on this day include Elihu Yale (1721; his riches helped found the eponymous University), Kim Il-Sung (see above), Sir John Templeton (2008, his legacy is bad), and Ernest Borgnine (2012). Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is again trying to perplex her interlocutor:
Hili: I’m trying to understand.
A: What are you trying to understand?
Hili: What I see.
A: And what do you see?
Hili: That’s what I’m trying to understand.
Who’s on first?
In Polish:
Hili: Próbuję zrozumieć.
Ja: Co próbujesz zrozumieć?
Hili:To, co widzę.
Ja: A co widzisz?
Hili: Właśnie to próbuję zrozumieć.
Stephen Barnard sent a photo of the kitten Jerry Coyne VI, now owned by his tenant. (You can see Jerry VI when he’d just been caught, around June 11, here. At that time he was named Jerry Coyne V, but then we realized that another Jerry Coyne the Cat, the real Fifth, was in New Mexico and had been forgotten). This one is captioned “Mountain lion in the desert”:
Ben Goren has a new kitten named Vega; he caught it roaming about on the street. So far Baihu, Ben’s other cat, has tolerated it. Vega has been taken to the vet, de-flead, and appears otherwise healthy:
Finally, out in Winnipeg, gus went to bed after dinner. Here’s his photo, titled “Gus snoozing on the deck”
Reader Bill B. sent a link to a video about a blind raccoon (I’d call him “Milton”) who, mirabile dictu, has survived in the wild (albeit with human help) for five years.
This is a Blind Raccoon. He is at least 5 years old and has been coming to our house for about 5 years. There is something wrong with his tapetum lucidum. His eyes shine bright green during the day. He is at least partially blind. He walks into things. He is afraid of the wind, high grass, birds, and snow.
He is out and about during the day. He comes to our house for food early in the morning usually around 6-9AM. He often returns for seconds and sometimes comes back for thirds. His bottom lip is missing so we feed him soft pasta noodles soaked in cream of chicken soup. We often cut up small pieces of hot dogs, ham, pork, etc. He refuses to eat canned cat/dog food.
Recently (late October 2014) 2 black kittens have been hanging around our yard. And they became close with the Blind Raccoon. They would magically appear when he would come for food. So they figured out that Blind Raccoon = FOOD. So they would appear when the Blind Raccoon (and sometimes other raccoons) would show up.
And then THIS happened today….
Well, I’m not sure what “THIS” is, unless it’s the kittens following the raccoon about, but what lovely people to feed him such fancy food! Sadly, the raccoon died in 2015, but he lived at least twice as long as wild raccoons, or so the staff says in the comments.
The Johnson Amendment, in effect since 1954, is in fact named after Lyndon Johnson, who introduced it as a congressman. It’s part of the U.S. Tax Code, and specifies behavior prohibited for 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations (the amendment itself is the part in bold below):
(3) Corporations, and any community chest, fund, or foundation, organized and operated exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, testing for public safety, literary, or educational purposes, or to foster national or international amateur sports competition (but only if no part of its activities involve the provision of athletic facilities or equipment), or for the prevention of cruelty to children or animals, no part of the net earnings of which inures to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual, no substantial part of the activities of which is carrying on propaganda, or otherwise attempting, to influence legislation (except as otherwise provided in subsection (h)), and which does not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.
These organizations, the most important of which are churches, are thus prohibited from siding with one candidate or party, or criticizing others. They are, however, allowed to engage in nonpartisan activities like voter-registration drives.
There are two reasons why this amendment is necessary in a secular country. First, churches are already subsidized by taxpayers with respect to property taxes, other taxes, and ministerial housing allowances, and if churches became partisan it would be partly at the taxpayers’ expense. Further, if you made a political donation to a church that endorsed a candidate or party, that donation would be tax-deductible (unlike other political contributions) and also by law would not be “disclosable” like other donations are. This would produce an invidious inconsistency in how political donations are made. Polls have shown that the public, most clergy, and nonprofit umbrella organizations favor this amendment and frown on churches being able to endorse candidates.
Trump has been against this amendment since he began running as a candidate; as Wikipedia notes:
During his 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump called for the repeal of the amendment. On February 2, 2017, President Trump vowed at the National Prayer Breakfast to “totally destroy” the Johnson Amendment, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer announced to the press that the President “committed to get rid of the Johnson Amendment”, “allowing our representatives of faith to speak freely and without retribution”, and Republican lawmakers introduced legislation that would allow all 501(c)(3) organizations to support political candidates, as long as any associated spending was minimal.
On May 4, 2017, Trump signed the “Presidential Executive Order Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty.” The executive order does not (nor can it) repeal the Johnson Amendment, nor does it allow preachers to endorse from the pulpit, but it does direct the Department of Treasury that “churches should not be found guilty of implied endorsements where secular organizations would not be.” Douglas Laycock, speaking to The Washington Post, indicated that he was not aware of any cases where such implied endorsements have caused problems in the past.
As the Washington Post reports, Congress is trying to do an end run around the tax code by gutting the government’s ability to investigate transgressions of this amendment:
Many pastors already ignore the so-called Johnson Amendment, and the IRS rarely investigates churches that violate a law that many clergy feel provides a chilling effect on their free speech. But some observers fear the language proposed in a new spending bill released this week would make it difficult for the IRS to investigate any claims of pulpit politicking or money flowing between houses of worship and political campaigns.
During his campaign for the presidency, Donald Trump targeted the Johnson Amendment as a big part of his pitch to religious conservatives, but because the amendment is law, repealing it would take an act of Congress.
Instead of trying to repeal the amendment, legislators appear to be targeting it through a spending bill that says the IRS can’t use funds to investigate a church for breach of the Johnson Amendment without the sign-off of the IRS commissioner, who must report to Congress on the investigation.
Why is this happening? Because, of course, it’s Trump and the Republicans catering to their conservative Christian base—a base that wants churches to endorse conservative candidates (those who are, for instance, anti-gay and anti-abortion). The Post also points out that if churches were allowed to engage in political endorsements, politicians could pressure churches by various means to direct their endorsements in a particular direction.
I’ll follow this measure over time to see if it passes. If it does, it’s just another breach in the real wall the U.S. needs: the one between church and state. It may not get the attention of the Great Mexican Wall, or of the dismantling of Obamacare, but it’s part of the metastasizing theocracy that is part of Trump’s plan—though he’s probably an atheist—to appeal to his supporters.
What do you think when someone who espouses oppressive, religiously based views, and favors the adoption of sharia law, also hates and campaigns against Donald Trump? Well, you can agree with her about Trump but disagree about the other stuff. That, I suppose, is my view about Linda Sarsour, a hijabi who has often praised sharia law and has also called for the (presumably symbolic) removal of Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s vagina (apparently not realizing that some of it had already been removed by FGM). But self-proclaimed Leftists go farther and absolutely worship the woman. She was one of the co-leaders of the Women’s March on Washington, and regularly appears as a Leftist icon, despite the fact that if she were President, we’d be living under a very different kind of law. Wearing a hijab doesn’t make you a hero, but the Cntrl-Left sees the garment as a sign of her moral value, because it means she’s oppressed (she’s not). She is the symbol of what I see as a dangerous alliance between the Left and a repressive form of Islam.
Though at some point she calls for “jihad” against the Trump administration, I’m not going to make anything of that, for although the word can mean a real battle against the enemies of Islam, it can also mean simply a “struggle” for what are considered good aims, and that’s what Sarsour says she means. The word in this speech has been seized upon by the right-wing press as a call for terrorism, which is a huge overreaction and misunderstanding (did they hear what she said?). Rather, I’d point out her repeated praises to Allah, like Republicans praising God (she says Muslim’s top priority should be “to please Allah, and only Allah,” something that scares me); her statement that the Muslim community should be “perpetually outraged every single day” (18:56, that’s a mindset that led to Muslim riots and murders over the Danish cartoons and Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, as well as to a British teacher’s arrest and imprisonment in Sudan for naming a teddy bear “Muhammad”); her assertions that “if you’re not with us, you’re against us”; her call for people to invest in dubious propaganda organizations like CAIR, and her praising her mentor and “favorite person in the room,” Siraj Wahhaj. Wahhaj (born Jeffrey Kearse) is a black American imam (a convert to Islam) at the Al-Taqwa mosque in Brooklyn, New York, where Sarsour lives, and the leader of The Muslim Alliance in North America (MANA). Sarsour describes Wajjah as “a mentor, a motivator, and encourager” who advised her to “speak truth to power and not worry about the consequences.”
Wahhaj is a dubious character, and was listed by prosectors as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, though he denies any involvement and was never charged.
Wahhaj has long supported every facet of Sharia Law, including its call for brutal punishments like the removal of one’s hands as the penalty for theft, and death by stoning as the penalty for adultery. By Wahhaj’s reckoning, such harsh measures are wholly justified by Islamic scripture. As he proclaimed in a May 1992 sermon: “I would cut off the hands of my own daughter [if she stole] because Allah stands for Justice.” On another occasion, Wahhaj said: “If Allah says 100 strikes, 100 strikes it is. If Allah says cut off their hand, you cut off their hand. If Allah says stone them to death, through the Prophet Muhammad, then you stone them to death, because it’s the obedience of Allah and his messenger—nothing personal.”
Wahhaj has been a longtime supporter of Hizb ut-Tahrir, an organization that seeks to create a worldwide Islamic caliphate, or kingdom, governed by Sharia Law. In the summer of 1994, Wahhaj attended a Hizb ut-Tahrir conference in London, where Islamists openly called for jihad, denounced democracy, and declared that “the Islamic system is the only alternative for mankind.” Less than a week later, back in the U.S., Wahhaj lauded Hizb ut-Tahrir’s “scholarly brothers” for their “good insight” and “their pushing for the Khilafah [Caliphate].”
In 1995, U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White named Wahhaj as a possible co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Soon thereafter, Wahhaj stated during one of his Al-Taqwa sermons, “I’m not frightened by no list, by no government! I thank Allah. I’m honored that they thought enough of me to put me on a list.”
Wikipedia says this, with supporting links:
Wahhaj has made statements in support of Islamic laws over liberal democracy. He also supports capital punishments such as stoning for adultery and cutting off of hands for thievery. He has said: “Islam is better than democracy. Allah will cause his deen [Islam as a complete way of life], Islam to prevail over every kind of system, and you know what? It will happen.”
He has also said: “If Allah says 100 strikes, 100 strikes it is. If Allah says cut off their hand, you cut off their hand. If Allah says stone them to death, through the Prophet Muhammad, then you stone them to death, because it’s the obedience of Allah and his messenger—nothing personal.”
And here are some quotes by Wahhaj provided by the Clarion Project:
“If only Muslims were clever politically, they could take over the United States and replace its constitutional government with a caliphate. If we were united and strong, we’d elect our own emir and give allegiance to him. Take my word, if eight million Muslims unite in America, the country will come to us,” Wahhaj said in 1992.[5]
“As long as you remember that if you get involved in politics, you have to be very careful that your leader is for Allah. You don’t get involved in politics because it’s the American thing to do. You get involved in politics because politics are a weapon to use in the cause of Islam,” he said in 1991.[6]
“The trap we fall into is having a premature discussion about Sharia when we are not there yet,” he said in 2011.[7]
You can hear the rest of the talk—much of it is unobjectionable—and judge for yourself. My impression is that Sarsour isn’t all that smart, but she’s canny and good at organizing. That, of course, applies to a lot of politicians—perhaps even Trump (except for the “organizing” part). But she’s canny enough to gull a lot of the Left into thinking she’s a beacon of feminism, all the while covering herself out of modesty and making approving statements about sharia law. She favors a one-state solution to the Israel/Palestine problem, a “solution” that she knows would destroy Israel as it is today, and she’s a BDS supporter. She is an expert at leveraging Leftist guilt to achieve her own ends.
She’s a queer duck, though I think that’s an insult to ducks. I feel about her the way I feel about Pamela Geller: I agree with some of what she says but disagree profoundly with her underlying aims and bigotry. Sadly, while Geller is a hero to the right, Sarsour is a hero to the Regressive Left. If we should take any Muslims as leaders of true progressivism, it should be someone like Maajid Nawaz. I’d also mention people like Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Sarah Haider, but, like all Muslims who are rational and can’t abide the faith’s dictates, they’ve become ex-Muslims, apostates singing with the choir invisible,
