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.
According to the hadith (the traditional sayings of Muhammad, not the Qur’an), Muhammad was betrothed to a six-year-old girl, Aisha, but didn’t consummate the marriage until she was the ripe old age of NINE. That much is agreed on by many Islamic scholars, though a few apologists argue that she was older, finding the claim of child rape “disgusting” (see one apologist here). It’s a sore spot for defenders of Islam, as the practice of child marriage among many Muslims is based on the hadith story.
Today’s strip was prompted by this story in The Freethinker last week. Here’s the billboard and a response by the director of the Muslim Alliance of Indiana:
Over at The Friendly Atheist, David G. McAfee (what happened to Hemant?) examines the claims of the billboard and finds this:
Child marriage: PARTLY FALSE. Muhammed married Aisha when she was NINE, not six. A distinction without a difference.
Slave owner and dealer. TRUE.
Rapist. MAY BE TRUE based on Aisha and other inferences from the Qur’an
Beheaded 600 Jews. TRUE: 600-900 beheaded after a “military dispute”, though McAfee doesn’t say whether they were Jews
13 wives. TRUE: Mo had between 11 and 13 wives, most of them in a polygamous situation,
Torture and murder of unbelievers. NOT CLEAR; some unbelievers killed during war.
What’s interesting about McAfee’s post is that he indicts the Old Testament for approving similar behavior: rape, genocide, slavery, and so on. That’s true, but it’s beside the point, for Christians now reject those precepts and have largely been “defanged” after the Enlightenment, while those tenets of Islam (even an equivalent of slavery) are still in practiced in some places, and the murder of apostates and unbelievers is a regular practice. The defense of Islam by saying “Well, the Bible says that bad stuff, too,” is something I wouldn’t expect on Hemant’s site.
Just when you think Bret Weinstein’s demonization at The Evergreen State College couldn’t get any worse, it does. Now a group of cowardly and presumably Jewish students have written “A letter to Bret Weinstein from some Jews bent on the destruction of White Supremacy“. They sign the letter “Some Jewish students at Evergreen bent on the destruction of white supremacy”, but of course won’t give their names. The letter is particularly invidious because it uses Weinstein’s Jewishness—like me, he’s a secular Jew with ancestral roots in Russia—to further accuse him of racism.
Remember, this all came from his writing an email to the faculty and staff (and the diversity authorities) saying that he wouldn’t join other white people in leaving campus on “The Day of Departure”. (If you think that absence was purely voluntary without any coercion, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you.) And this despite Weinstein’s long history of progressivist and anti-racist activism, including participating in the Occupy movement.
The letter, which you can see at the link, is too long to reproduce here. Is it genuine, and was it written by Evergreen students—and Jewish ones? I can’t be completely sure, but I’ve found that 1) the site, Medium, is where Evergreen students publish their demands that they wish to make public; and 2) more important, the letter was circulated to the school’s faculty and staff by Evergreen professor and political economist Peter Bohmer, who wrote at the top of his email, “Please read this powerful letter by some Jewish students!” (See Bohmer’s letter of solidarity with the students and criticisms of Weinstein here.) Bohmer’s circulating the letter gives it more credibility; he may even have had a part in its composition. Curiously, and perhaps tellingly, at the bottom of the letter circulated by Bohmer via email—but not the published letter—appear these phrases:
NO COPS ON CAMPUS!!! FIRE BRET WEINSTEIN!!! BLACK LIVES MATTER!!!
Why these words appear in Bohmer’s circulated version and not the published one is interesting; I suspect they were eliminated before publication. After all, what this is really about is the students trying to divert attention from their own thuggery and childish behavior onto Weinstein. If they continue to demonize him, they think, the spotlight will remain on him and not them. Right now, what happened to Weinstein, and the events on campus, have made Evergreen look bad to nearly everyone, and drawn unwelcome attention to a small college previously unknown to most Americans. The school’s reputation, enrollment, and dollar intake are in danger. The protestors, and perhaps the faculty, are starting to realize that things aren’t really going their way; and, as Regressives tend to do, they double down, desperately heaping more opprobrium on Weinstein. This letter is part of that effort.
The letter is headed with this symbol:
It starts with the dubious assertion that “all Ashkenazi Jews are not white” (they presumably mean, “not all Ashkenazi Jews are white”, but who ever said they could write?). And that latter claim may be true, but I’d bet that 99% of them aren’t People of Color, though Ashkenazis were often treated as an inferior group. But that is irrelevant; what the students accuse Weinstein of doing, and what he’s never done, is to take refuge in his secular Judaism to argue that he’s not a racist. Nor has he ever promulgated “anti-black language and behavior” as the letter claims.
From the letter:
We want to talk about the ways that Weinstein is positioning himself as a Jew to invalidate the claims of racism being raised against him. We want to examine Bret’s invocation of his Judaism as a prop upon which his anti-black language and behavior has rested. We must speak about this because if we remain silent we accept this unacceptable usage of our shared history.
This is not an isolated incident. This is about Weinstein, but it [sic] also about white Jews acting in complicity with and upholding white supremacy, passively and actively. We seek to counter Bret’s narrative and de-center his place in the wider struggle against institutional racism on campus and beyond.
Well, if blacks have ever had any friends among whites, it’s the Jews, who played a huge role in the civil rights movement of the Sixties. Of course some Jews are racist, but to accuse them as a group of being “white supremacists” is simply wrong. But of course these students are deeply ignorant of history: they get their narratives from their peers, their professors, and Facebook.
The letter then claims that Weinstein is playing the victim, and if you’ve seen his interviews with Tucker Carlson (a new one is below), Joe Rogan, and Dave Rubin, you’ll know that’s a lie. Then, after saying that Ashkenazi Jews are People of Color, they accuse Weinstein of racism because he is not black (I presume they’re saying that HE is ignorant of his genetic heritage). Note the use of the regressive term “lived experience”, which according to postmodern ideology takes precedence over mere facts:
Bret has attempted to position himself as a victim. It wouldn’t take much for Bret to apologize, but he has held fast to his seemingly innocuous position of victimhood, and in doing so has highlighted some of the ways that liberal racism functions. Here we can learn something about how not to react when claims of racist behavior are raised against us.
. . . Something that Bret may be trying to get to when he talks about himself as a Jew is that Ashkenazi Jews have not always been considered white. This is true, and is very important to think about.
. . . However, the fact that Jews have not always been enmeshed in whiteness does not negate the fact that today many Jews in this country benefit from and uphold white supremacy. Additionally, we know that the past experience of anti-semitism and oppression of our ancestors does not mean that we are incapable of reproducing harmful behavior. Much less does it mean that we as Jews are the singular authority on what does and does not constitute racially motivated subjugation in a different historical and social context. We can understand that those who experience trauma can perpetuate harmful behaviors and reproduce traumatizing conditions.
So when Bret says that he cannot possibly be racist because he knows what it is like for his people to be oppressed, what we hear is a negation of responsibility and a gross misuse of the history and suffering of our ancestors. The lived experience of white Ashkenazi Jews and the lived experience of black people in the US is drastically different and cannot be equated, and by doing so Bret refutes both experiences. Anti-blackness and racism in general are pervasive amongst white Jews. In combating white supremacy, we are combating the roots of anti-semitism.
That last paragraph is nonsensical given the history of the Jews over millennia and in its claim that the historical oppression of blacks must take precedence over the historical oppression of the Jews. But that’s typical of the regressive Hierarchy of Oppression, in which people of color are at the very top. Since Bret has never denied the oppression of blacks in the U.S., to claim that he’s “refuted the experiences” of both blacks and Jews is sheer nonsense.
After further babbling, the students declare that Weinstein has put them in danger! How, exactly, can that be the case? After all, it is the thuggish regressive students who are roaming the campus with baseball bats looking for people to beat, and it is Weinstein and his family who have had to flee their home because of threats—and the declared inability of the police to protect them. Have a gander at this malarkey:
The way to address racism is to be willing to engage in honest conversations about it, and be willing to admit to where it lives within us. Bret’s refusal to engage in conversations about his own racism has put many Evergreen students in legitimate danger. We will not allow him to invoke our history, the history of our ancestors, as an excuse for his vile and inexcusable behavior. We, Jewish people, wish to express our unequivocal support and solidarity with undocumented, Latinx, black, MENA [people from the Middle East and North Africa] and Arab, Native, disabled, and trans and queer students, staff, faculty, and residents of the surrounding Olympia area. Bret Weinstein is wrong, he has put you in danger, and we will not allow him to hide behind our histories in order to dodge responsibility for his abhorrent and reprehensible words and actions.
It is these students’ unwillingness to engage in honest conversations, which is what Weinstein has always called for, and their demands that he apologize and conform to their own ideology, that has put Weinstein, the campus, and other students in danger. How dare these thugs take the moral high ground? I have nothing but contempt for students too cowardly to even sign their names, and also for Professor Bohmer, who circulated their letter with approbation.
The only remaining mystery is who wrote the last three sentences in the letter calling for Weinstein’s firing, and why they were left out of the letter that appeared online.
Here’s Weinstein’s latest short interview on Fox News with Tucker Carlson (who admits his politics are very far apart from Weinstein’s). It aired two days ago. Weinstein, of course, has been accused by regressives of being an alt-righter because he appeared on Fox News, but it’s mainly the conservative outlets that pick up these stories. (I have yet to see Weinstein interviewed, or even mentioned, on NBC, ABC, or CBS.) And even Christopher Hitchens appeared on Fox News. This accusation of where one does interviews as a sign of political comity is simply another attempt by Evergreen students and staff to turn the unwanted spotlight of opprobrium from themselves onto Weinstein.
Carlson asks Weinstein if he’ll return to Evergreen; Weinstein responds that he has further duties at the school, but adds “I don’t know how I can go back and teach given that I have been portrayed as the reason that Evergreen is in crisis.” I have predicted that his days at Evergreen are numbered; and it’s too bad for that school, where Bret and his wife Heather Heying were highly rated as teachers by the students. Now who, exactly, has been endangered here? Weinstein and Heying may have to leave their jobs, but I doubt that a single Evergreen student will be disciplined by the College. If they were, the rioting would get even worse!
Reader Emma Crawford from Whanganui in New Zealand sent some photos of a very rare bird; her notes are indented. I saw this bird, but briefly, at the Tiritiri wildlife reserve on my last visit to NZ.
Tom and I spend the southern hemisphere’s summer in New Zealand, my home country, and the northern hemisphere’s summer in England, Tom’s home country. We are both freelance ecologists, so we follow the summer because it is also the season when we get most work. Just before Tom and I set off on our journey back to the UK for the northern hemisphere’s summer this year, we decided to visit Zealandia Eco-Sanctuary in Wellington, New Zealand.
Zealandia is the world’s first fully-fenced, urban ecosanctuary, covering 225 hectares. They have reintroduced 18 species of native wildlife back into the area, 6 of which were previously absent from mainland New Zealand for over 100 years. The rarest species to be introduced to the sanctuary is the critically endangered South Island takahē, the feature of our email.
The South Island takahē, also known as simply ‘takahē’ (Porphyrio hochstetteri), was introduced as an analogue species for the extinct North Island takahē , also known as ‘mōho’ (Porphyrio mantelli). Like our extant takahē, the mōho was flightless, but perhaps even larger in size. The one other extant Porphyrio species native to New Zealand is the pūkeko (Porphyrio melanotus), which can fly and is widespread throughout the country. These three species all belong to the family, Rallidae, a group of small to medium-sized ground living birds. Our takahē can claim the distinction of being the largest living species of rail in the world.
It is thought that the flying ancestors (a pūkeko-like bird) of these species were blown over in storms from Australia on three separate occasions. The takahē and mōho possibly arrived during the Miocene-Pliocene 5 to 20 million years ago. Since then, they diverged considerably from their original form, becoming totally flightless due to lack of ground-based predators. The pūkeko, however, arrived more recently during the Holocene a thousand years ago or less, and hasn’t changed much. In fact, it is not distinguishable from Australian forms. You can see the difference between the takahē and pūkeko in the following two photos.
Adult takahē can weigh over 3 kg, stand 50cm tall, and are about the size of a large chicken. Their weight is something that really surprises you if you are used to handling flighted birds. I remember this from the post-mortem lab when one came in for examination. They may be the size of a large hen, but they certainly weigh a lot more than one! As for the pūkeko, they are more comparable to a chicken, being up to 50cm tall, and reaching about 1kg in weight.
The takahē’s story is quite amazing. Between 1849 and 1898, only four individuals were ever sighted. Then, with no more birds having being seen, by the early 1900’s takahē were considered to be extinct. That was until 1948, when they were rediscovered in the tussock grasslands of the remote Murchison Mountains, Fiordland. What a find! They had managed to hold out in this remote location, but only just. Their survival was still being threatened from heavy grazing by introduced deer competing for their tussock grass habitat, and nest and chick predation by stoats.
Since then, the Department of Conservation has done some great work consisting of an intensive captive breeding programme, translocations, stoat control and deer culling taking the takahē population from a low of 118 birds in 1981 to the current population of just over 300. In the annual census completed in September, 2016, the Department of Conservation estimated that there were a minimum of 106 birds remaining in the Murchison Mountains. The rest were found in predator-free locations across New Zealand, including Zealandia, which are home to 200 more takahē – bringing the total population to 306.
Zealandia Eco-sanctuary is home to a “retired” breeding pair of takahē named ‘Puffin’ and ‘T2’. They used to live on Mana Island, but hadn’t produced chicks for some years so were removed from the breeding population to create room for younger birds. Not many people have the opportunity to go to the remote Murchison Mountains, or even some of the predator-free offshore islands where takahē are located, so having this pair so accessible to the public is wonderful for takahē advocacy. It certainly promotes awareness of their plight and their recovery programme.
If you would like to see Puffin and T2, check out the wetlands area at the top of the lower lake, about 20 minutes wander from Zealandia’s entrance. They are quite unafraid of people. Tom realised he might have brought the wrong camera lens for this particular occasion as the birds kept on coming too close! In fact, even the humble camera-phone sufficed…
I asked Emma about Whanganui (it’s on the North Island), as I didn’t know anything about it, and she sent an explanation and more photos:
It’s not often on the tourist-trail, but it it’s a nice place to visit (if I do say so myself!). If you haven’t already, I highly recommend canoeing down the Whanganui River as well (I’ve attached a few pics – not the best quality, but you will be able to get the gist). The forest is lovely – we even saw long-tailed bats flitting about when we stayed the night at one of the DOC huts on the way. That would be another blog post in itself, haha!
If you would like to read more of our wildlife adventures:
Today is Wednesday, June 14, 2017. Let us spare a thought for those killed in the terrible high-rise fire in London last night, which killed at least six and probably many more. The cause has not been determined.
On this day the Continental Army was established in the U.S., which grew into the United States Army (and defeated the British). On June 14, 1822, Charles Babbage described his “difference engine” to the Royal Astronomical Society, often seen as the world’s first computer. The first Henley Regatta was staged in 1839, and in 1900 Hawaii became a U.S. Territory. On June 14, 1907, women got the right to vote in Norway, and 33 years later to the day, a group of Poles became the first occupants of the Auschwitz concentration camp. On this day in 1941, UNIVAC I, the first commercial computer, began operation for the U.S. Census Bureau. In 1966, the Vatical finally deep-sixed the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, the list of books prohibited for Catholics to read: a form of censorship that began in 1557. Finally, on this day in 1882 the Argentinian forces surrendered to Britain, ending the Falklands War.
Notables born on this day include Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811), Burl Ives (1909), Pierre Salinger (1925), Junior Walker (1931), Rowan Williams (1950), and Steffi Graf (1969). Although Junior’s gone, let’s wake up with his greatest hit, “What does it take” (1968), performed here on the Letterman show. That’s some sax work: “I’ve gotta blow for you.”
Notables who died on this day include Edward FitzGeralnd (1883), Mary Cassatt (1926), and Jorge Luis Borges and Alan Jay Lerner (both 1986). Here’s one of Cassatt’s paintings from 1908, “Sara holding a cat”:
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is hankering for cream (yes, she gets some from time to time):
Hili: Do you remember what we had to do after returning home?
A: Remind me.
Hili: We had to give me some cream.
In Polish:
Hili: Pamiętasz co mieliśmy zrobić po powrocie?
Ja: Przypomnij mi.
Hili: Mieliśmy dać mi trochę śmietanki.
Our in Winnipet, Gus got catnip (he gets one leaf several times a day):
And in Wloclawek, Leon, still waiting for his wooden house to be shipped from southern Poland, demands noms in the garden:
Leon: I’m resting. Will you bring me a sausage, please?
Here’s a tweet, but it looks suspicious to me. . .
There are nine questions, and not all of them are easy. Play here; it will take only about 3 minutes.
I did well! My score:
h/t: Jiten (who got 4/9 and the note that his “pussy powers are low” (he’s no Trump!) On the other hand, I’m not sure that Brits know what Americans mean by “pussy”.
I talk a lot about mimicry on this site, and I’ve explained why: it’s good evidence for natural selection, poses testable hypotheses, and, not least, provides some amazing examples of the power of natural selection—especially because in many cases of mimicry we can identify the “target of selection”: the optimum phenotype that provides the greatest fitness. And these cases often show that the target is pretty well hit: see many examples here.
Here’s a pretty amazing one I didn’t know about, but was spotted by Matthew Cobb on Twi**er. It’s a cuttlefish that mimics a hermit crab. Or at least that’s what it seems to be doing.
Here’s a longer video from National Geographic, clearly showing that the cuttlefish mimics the crab’s shell, its antennae, and its claws. The last minute of this 2-minute video offers the hypotheses (camouflage from prey or prdators) and the situations in which the mollusks do this. But is it learned or in the genes? The video doesn’t tell us.
It’s the Pharaoh Cuttlefish, Sepia pharonis. Wikipedia explains how they change color:
Pharaoh cuttlefish often show a solid color when resting on a solid color background, alternating from a pale white to all dark brown. Additionally, they can show a mottled white and brown color, with a center circle of brown. The mechanism for color is the same in the Pharaoh cuttlefish as it is in other cuttlefish. This colour-changing function is produced by groups of red, yellow, brown, and black pigmentedchromatophores above a layer of reflective blue and green tinted iridophores and leucophores, with up to 200 of these specialized pigment cells per square millimeter. These sacs of color are controlled by rings of muscle around the sac. The cuttlefish expands and contracts these muscle rings in order to show different colors.
The enormous financial success of the “Wonder Woman” movie has created another dilemma for regressive leftists. On the one hand, it’s a highly rated action movie that stars a woman and was directed by a woman. Chalk one up for feminism, and I’m glad for that. But on the other hand, it was soon ferreted out that Gadot is not only Israeli, but served (as all non-Orthodox Israelis save Arabs must) in the Israeli Defense Forces, (IDF). Not only that, but Gadot has the temerity to be proud to be an Israeli, and she has criticized the terrorist organization Hamas.
Well, that just won’t do to that part of the Left (most of it, I suppose) that is pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel. What is a Lefty to do when there’s a conflict of this sort? As with the dilemma of supporting Muslims who oppress women, gays, and apostates, many side with religion and ignore its antifeminist bits. Slate explains the problem:
Gadot herself has proudly discussed her experience in the IDF, touting her combat training in interviews as helpful in preparing for the role. (A decade ago, she participated in a Maxim feature on women of the IDF, “the world’s sexiest soldiers.”) She has also been outspoken in her political support for her country. In 2014, as the Gaza conflict escalated, she posted a message of support to her official Facebook page. “I am sending my love and prayers to my fellow Israeli citizens,” she wrote, next to a photo of herself praying with her young daughter. “Especially to all the boys and girls who are risking their lives protecting my country against the horrific acts conducted by Hamas, who are hiding like cowards behind women and children…We shall overcome!!! Shabbat Shalom! #weareright #freegazafromhamas #stopterror #coexistance #loveidf.”
The movie was banned in Tunisia and Lebanon because Gadot is Israeli (Lebanon is still formally at war with Israel); and various social media outlets, like Al-Jazeera, sees the movie as a metaphor for Israeli colonialism. Click on the screenshot:
A quote from that piece (my emphasis):
But Gaza is not just the largest open air prison in which Israelis have incarcerated some 1.8 million human beings. Gaza is also the moral measure of our humanity at large. If you are utterly enjoying this particular Wonder Woman as a role model for your daughters in a theatre near you and could not care less about a young Palestinian girl mourning her family in Gaza whom the woman portraying your superhero helped kill, then all the power to you. You need not bother to know that in this film Gal Gadot does not just personify Wonder Woman, but alas Wonder Woman disappears into Gal Gadot.
The time that Hollywood could shove its superheroes down the world’s throat and perpetuate delusion of truth in purposeful lies is over. Today, the world talks, walks, defies, imagines, and stages back against Hollywood and its dysfunctional mythologies that try to normalise the colonial thieveries of reason and decency. It was a strategic blunder to cast a settler colonial officer as a superhero woman who cares about humanity.
These days, it seems, every actor is vetted for Political Purity when they play a role.
And from Middle East Eye, the home of C. J. W*rl*m*n (my emphasis):
However, in most cases, the actor must be separated from the character they are playing. Nevertheless, even as we distinguish between actor and character, one can criticise the actor for their personal politics. And it is time to let actors know we will hold them accountable for normalising anti-Palestinian violence, regardless of their nationality.
Beyond the criteria for BDS, one is free to boycott products or individuals one disapproves of. Consumers do that every day, by choosing not to shop at certain stores, because of their labour practices, by choosing to be vegetarian because of the inhumane treatment of animals, or by choosing not to drive certain cars that are gas guzzlers, out of concern for the environment.
Explaining the reasons for such choices is critically important. As such, one can explain that one does not wish to view Wonder Woman because the central character, a hero out to save the world, is played by a woman who cheers on genocide.
There are other tw**ts and the like, but I’ll let you find them, and they will eventually cause huge cognitive dissonance: a feminist icon who served in the Israeli army? What’s a Leftist to do? Grania sent me her thoughts:
Yeah, I’ve noticed this story brewing. Part of me has a quiet dark chuckle at the existential angst from those who have been championing this superhero flick as the new feminist icon of the year only to find that *gasp* she is badly tainted in the eyes of the school of Intersectional Purity. What’s a woke fem to do?
Gadot has in the past uttered anti-Hamas sentiments (seriously, when did Hamas become the victim?). See here or here.
Sometimes a movie is just a movie. If this one inspires girls, more power to it. But since there’s an Israel connection, it simply has to be more than a movie. It must be an endorsement of “genocide.” God forbid that Lebanese children might see it; what would they think?
It starts with the dubious assertion that “all Ashkenazi Jews are not white” (they presumably mean, “not all Ashkenazi Jews are white”, but who ever said they could write?). And that latter claim may be true, but I’d bet that 99% of them aren’t People of Color, though Ashkenazis were often treated as an inferior group. But that is irrelevant; what the students accuse Weinstein of doing, and what he’s never done, is to take refuge in his secular Judaism to argue that he’s not a racist. Nor has he ever promulgated “anti-black language and behavior” as the letter claims.
