Readers’ wildlife photographs

July 24, 2015 • 8:30 am

We have a special treat today: biologist Lou Jost, who works in Ecuador, sent a video and a bunch of photos of a bird that I [Jerry] didn’t even know existed. It’s surely one of the world’s most colorful and beautiful birds. Here are Lou’s notes (indented):

I’ve just had a magical bird experience which I’d like to share. I was showing our newest reserve in northwest Ecuador to a group of ornithologists and botanists, including Robert Ridgely, author of many books and field guides on Latin American birds. As we drove to our hotel after a long day in the forest, a stunning Plate-billed Mountain Toucan (Andigena laminisrostris) perched right next to the road, in perfect soft evening light. We all took hundreds of pictures and made videos as the bird regurgitated seeds, preened its plumage, and posed for us in every conceivable position.

Ornithologists Francisco Sornozo and Robert Ridgley can be heard talking while watching the bird.

Lou’s video:

This bird lives in the western Andean cloud forests of Colombia and Ecuador, eating fruits and small vertebrates, especially nestling birds. We also have two other mountain-toucans in our reserves: the Gray-breasted Mountain Toucan (Andigena hypoglauca) from high elevations in the eastern Andes, and the Black-billed Mountain Toucan (A. nigrirostris) from middle elevations in the eastern Andes.

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Untitled-1

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I include a painting I made of the Gray-breasted Mountain Toucan, and a picture by Roger Ahlman of the Black-billed Mountain Toucan. For more info, see my post at the Ecominga Foundation.

Black-billed Mountain Toucan (photo by Roger Ahlman):

158079099.Um3jNjJx

Lou’s painting of the Gray-breasted mountain toucan (if you’re a regular, you’ll know he’s an accomplished artist as well as photographer, naturalist, and biologist—both field and theoretical):

GrayBrMtToucan

A  few notes on the plate-billed toucan from Wikipedia:

The plate-billed mountain toucan (Andigena laminirostris) is a species of bird in the family Ramphastidae. It is native to Colombia and Ecuador, where it occurs in the high-altitude humid montane forests of the Andes. It is one of five species in genus Andigena, the mountain toucans.

Other common names include plain-billed mountain-toucan, laminated mountain-toucan, and hill-toucan in English, toucan montagnard in French, Leistenschnabeltukan in German, and tucán piquiplano in Spanish.

. . . This is the most vocal of the mountain toucans, and the sexes often duet. The male makes a loud, repeating tryyyyyyyk sound and the female makes a drier t’t’t’t’t’t’t’t noise. The bird utters rattles and clicks so loud they can be heard over a kilometer away.

. . . The species is in decline because its habitat is being lost to deforestation. It is also poached for the trade in exotic birds. It is still a “fairly common” species.[1]

Friday: Hili Dialogue

July 24, 2015 • 4:17 am

Welcome to Friday, the most sought-after day of the week!

Today in 1911 the beautiful Machu Picchu was discovered by American archaeologist Hiram Bingham. I feel the need to channel Terry Pratchett here and point out that before that it had been ‘discovered’ on a daily basis by locals in the area.

In 1969 Apollo 11 returned safely to earth.

 

Over in Dobrzyń, Hili is faced with an existentialist dilemma.

Hili: I have a feeling that I would like to climb higher.
A: What’s stopping you?
Hili: Lack of incentives.

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In Polish:

Hili: Mam wrażenie, że chciałabym się wdrapać wyżej.
Ja: I co cię powstrzymuje?
Hili: Brak bodźców.

Readers’ beefs: I’m a “New Atheist embedded in the political right”

July 23, 2015 • 12:00 pm

A few weeks ago, Neil Godfrey, who writes the website Vridar and has criticized New Atheists for being Islamophobes who consistently misrepresent the roots of Muslim terrorism, sent in the following comment on my post “A Muslim-basher becomes an atheist-basher“:

Jerry, what concerns me about the various statements made by yourself along with Dawkins and Harris is that they are not informed by specialist scholarship — sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists et al — in Islamic and terrorist studies. Rather, they seem to be fueled by visceral reactions without the benefit of broader understanding and knowledge that comes from scholarly investigations into these phenomena.

It almost appears to some of us that your criticisms are willfully ignorant of the scholarship. I find these visceral responses coming from trained scientists difficult to understand.

What “scholarship” that people like Godfrey and Robert Pape have mentioned or produced has completely ignored what the terrorists say about their own motivations in favor of blaming colonialism—something that self-flagellating liberals in the West love to do. (Not, of course, that the U.S. is completely blameless in oppressing and attacking the Middle East, but neither are we the sole cause of extreme Islamic terrorism.) As I once asked one of these blame-the-West apologists, “What would it take to convince you that some Muslim terrorists are actually motivated by religion?” Clearly the terrorists’ own words don’t count: the “scholars” claim to know better. This unfounded psychologizing clearly shows their motivations.

Quoting Robert Pape’s discredited conclusions about the colonialist sources of Islamic terrorism, Godfrey has argued that “all suicide bombing can be attributed to political causes.” (For a few critiques of Pape’s widely-accepted but fallacious claims, go here, here, and here).

I would maintain that this “scholarship” we ignore (and, in fact, I’ve read it) is tendentious and ideologically motivated, and that Godfrey is pulling the credentials card here.

A few days ago, reader Robert C called my attention to another post by Godfrey at Vridar that makes the logical (and unfounded) extension of the argument above: New Atheists who pin Islamic terrorism on Islam are members of the political right:

Hector Avalos does identify himself with the New Atheists and it is true, as Robert Myles notes, that the likes of Dawkins, Harris, Coyne, the later Chris Hitchens, are all embedded in the political Right. I don’t know whether Avalos does likewise.

Clearly Godfrey has found a truth universally acknowledged!

As Robert noted, “I guess that Godfrey might perceive that any atheist who doesn’t osculate Islam’s rump would be among the political right.”

Indeed.  It’s simply invidious to claim that because we agree with conservatives on one issue—the religious motivation of Islamic terrorism—that we’re “embedded in the political Right.” Yes, I am uncomfortable with my conservative bedfellows, but even conservatives can be right sometimes, although I suspect that their emphasis on religiously-inspired terrorism is meant to buttress Christianity, while ours is to point out the dangers of faith.

More important, what kind of “scholarship” tries to discredit New Atheists’ criticisms by simply saying that we’re right-wingers? Only a moron who ignores everything we’ve written would claim that those of us named above are “embedded in the political right.” That’s not scholarship, but smearing—a form of Manichaeism that sees any agreement with any claim by a right-winger as a form of heresy. Such is left-wing identify politics.

By the way, Myles, a Marxist, wrote this:

Avalos self-identifies as a a New Atheist. This perspective holds that theism is generally destructive and unethical. It is embodied for example in the writings of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens. What Avalos doesn’t explore is how this movement has also tended to form strong associations with a neoconservative political ideology, perhaps expressed most triumphantly by the late Christopher Hitchens.

Jesus & Mo: Believing Moderately

July 23, 2015 • 10:00 am

by Grania

To give you some background on today’s cartoon, in the UK, Prime Minister David Cameron has spoken about putting a plan into action to get rid of extremist Islamists. Click through on this link if you would like to read or listen to what he said.

Here’s a sample:

It begins – it must begin – by understanding the threat we face and why we face it. What we are fighting, in Islamist extremism, is an ideology. It is an extreme doctrine.

And like any extreme doctrine, it is subversive. At its furthest end it seeks to destroy nation-states to invent its own barbaric realm. And it often backs violence to achieve this aim – mostly violence against fellow Muslims – who don’t subscribe to its sick worldview.

But you don’t have to support violence to subscribe to certain intolerant ideas which create a climate in which extremists can flourish.

Ideas which are hostile to basic liberal values such as democracy, freedom and sexual equality.

Ideas which actively promote discrimination, sectarianism and segregation.

Ideas – like those of the despicable far right – which privilege one identity to the detriment of the rights and freedoms of others.

 

 

 

See original here.

Support the artist’s Patreon.

 

BBC Newsnight spoke to Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Cameron’s speech. You can watch it here:

The other person in the video is Miqdaad Versi, assistant secretary general for the Muslim Council of Britain.

Readers’ wildlife photos: The Milky Way & Hummingbirds

July 23, 2015 • 8:30 am

Thanks to the talents of WEIT’s readers, we have some especially nice photos today. Tim Anderson, who is adept in taking photographs of the cosmos, sent this in with the comment:

Here is a photograph of a small section of the Milky Way showing the stars and clouds of dust and gas that inhabit the disk of the galaxy.

GalaxyClouds

And WEIT Regular Stephen Barnard sent Jerry two more hummingbird photographs.

Black-chinned hummingbird (Archilochus alexandri).

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JAC: I’ve seen a fair few of these in New Mexico and Arizona. They’re denizens of the western US and Mexico.You can hear their call here: Audio Recording.

Rufous hummingbird. (Selasphorus rufus). You can see me and the room I’m shooting from reflected in the eye.

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[Grania] I think the eye looks like a jewel. This is their range. If you click through on the map link, there is an audio sample you can listen to as well of this hummingbird’s call.

Thursday: Hili Dialogue

July 23, 2015 • 3:56 am

Good morning!

Today in 1888 Raymond Chandler was born ensuring the world would one day get to read The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye. One hundred years later Guns & Roses released Sweet Child Of Mine, condemning Western society to endure a significant percentage of its population patiently trying to butcher the song as they earnestly tried to recreate the opening bars on every piano or guitar they could lay their hands on for the next three decades.

Hili and Cyrus are being enigmatical this morning. Enigmatical is a word. If it was good enough for Shakespeare, it’s good enough for me.

[JAC note: I have an explanation from Malgorzata.  Due to storms and other factors, Dobrzyn has experienced serious power cuts over the last few days. When that happens, Andrzej and Malgorzata, who work on their website most of the day, get very distressed when their computers have no power.]

Hili: We have to look for some secluded place.
Cyrus: Why?
Hili: When there is a power break they get very nervous.

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In Polish:

Hili: Trzeba poszukać jakiegoś ustronnego miejsca.
Cyrus: Dlaczego?
Hili: Bo jak nie ma prądu to oni są bardzo nerwowi.

We also have a bonus Leon monologue. I’m not sure he’s fooling anyone, except himself.

Leon: I’m meditating, following the greatest masters of yoga.

leon yoga

Won’t somebody think of the children?

July 22, 2015 • 3:28 pm

by Grania

No Republicans or ultra-Conservative Christian groups are going to be worried terribly much about this case though. However it seems that at least one other mammalian species is “redefining traditional relationships”.

There’s an interesting article by Colin Barras  in New Scientist on mixed-species dolphin groups in the Bahamas. Although interaction between dolphin species is not unknown (Jerry’s written about this before), apparently this level of interaction is “unprecedented“.

Atlantic bottlenose (Tursiops truncatus) and spotted (Stenella frontalis) dolphins play, forage, babysit, fight common foes and even engage in cross-species sex.

The research is being done at the Wild Dolphin Project and you can read or download the  publication by Denise Herzing and Cindy Elliser on the subject here.

It’s not always harmony and cooperation though. Barras notes:

Bottlenose males are about twice as long as spotted males and sometimes exploit this to force their way into groups of spotted dolphins and mate with females. Elliser and Herzing found that male spotted dolphins can fend them off, but only by cooperating in very large groups (Marine Mammal Science, doi.org/583).

Image: David Fleetham/Naturepl.com

Sola fide: Does Christianity always promote morality?

July 22, 2015 • 12:00 pm

When I was chatting with Linda Calhoun at the goat dairy, she brought up the “justification by faith, not works” issue as an argument against religion. What kind of God, she argued, would forgive someone who lived a life that harmed others (Hitler is the classic example), if that person simply confessed on his deathbed that he accepted Jesus as a personal savior?

The doctrine of Sola Fide, or “justificationism” (sole justification and forgiveness by faith, not by one’s deeds) is one of the five solas of many—but not all—Christian sects, and is summed up by Wikipedia:

Historic Protestantism (both Lutheran and Reformed) has held to sola-fide justification in opposition to Roman Catholicism especially, but also in opposition to significant aspects of Eastern Orthodoxy. Protestants exclude all human works (except the works of Jesus Christ, which form the basis of justification) from the legal verdict (or pardon) of justification. In the General Council of Trent the Catholic Church stated in canon XIV on justification that “If any one saith, that man is truly absolved from his sins and justified, because that he assuredly believed himself absolved and justified; or, that no one is truly justified but he who believes himself justified; and that, by this faith alone, absolution and justification are effected; let him be anathema (excommunicated).” Thus, “faith alone” is foundational to Protestantism, and distinguishes it from other Christian denominations. According to Martin Luther, justification by faith alone is the article on which the church stands or falls.

Some brands of Christianity reject the doctrine. Catholics, for example, claim that if you have the requisite faith in Jesus, you will necessarily do good works and lead a moral life, and if you don’t, mere confession on your deathbed won’t keep you from frying. But other churches adhere pretty strictly to the doctrine—with some theological waffling, of course. Here are some statements of church doctrine used to justify sola fide:

Anglican

Article XI
Of the Justification of Man
We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by faith, and not for our own works or deservings. Wherefore that we are justified by faith only is a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort; as more largely is expressed in the Homily of Justification.

Thirty-nine Articles of Religion (1571)

Lutheran[edit]

Article IV Of Justification

Our churches by common consent…teach that men cannot be justified before God by their own strength, merits, or works, but are freely justified for Christ’s sake, through faith, when they believe that they are received into favor, and that their sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake, who, by His death, has made satisfaction for our sins. This faith God imputes for righteousness in His sight. Rom. 3 and 4.

Augsburg Confession, 1530

Southern Baptist

Baptist Faith and Message – 2000

Article IV, sub-article B.
Justification is God’s gracious and full acquittal upon principles of His righteousness of all sinners who repent and believe in Christ. Justification brings the believer unto a relationship of peace and favor with God.

United Methodist[edit]

We believe we are never accounted righteous before God through our works or merit, but that penitent sinners are justified or accounted righteous before God only by faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Article IX—Justification and Regeneration (The Discipline of The Evangelical United Brethren Church 1963)

After Linda mentioned this, I realized that sola fide, besides being morally repugnant to us today (seriously, would God forgive Hitler if he confessed?), has another implication: it destroys the argument that religion promotes morality. After all, if, as many Christians aver, simple acceptance of Jesus as one’s savior is sufficient to get you to heaven—and works don’t count at all—what motivation is there to do good? (Remember that religion is supposed to provide the motivation that atheists lack, which is why we supposedly have no impetus to be moral.)

Now a believer may argue, in response, that if you accept Jesus you will naturally be a moral person and do good. That is the Catholic Church’s argument. But remember that sola fide claims that ONLY  faith, and not deeds, matters when it comes to salvation. You can lead a moral and exemplary life, helping all kinds of people, but if you’re a heathen or a Jew, sola fide damns you to perdition.

Perhaps I’m missing something here, but it seems to me that those sects that embrace sola fide provide no genuine impetus to be moral, but in fact give you a loophole that allows you to live as immorally as you want and still sing with the choir invisible—something that secular humanists don’t have.

I know there are former adherents of those faiths here, so tell me: doesn’t sola fide argue against religion being a source of morality, at least in those sects? (Of course the Euthyphro Argument blows any argument for religiously-derived morality out of the water.)