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.
Here’s a video of the progress of evolution beginning with microbes and leading to humans, and then in reverse (note that it sees evolution as a progression towards H. sapiens, which is an anthropocentric way to see it; you could, for example, show the same animation culminating in a squirrel, or better yet a cat). Nevertheless, it’s clever, and you can also get it as a book that unfolds to be 30 meters long.
My Big Road Trip is actually beginning with a professional gig at the Aspen Ideas Festival. This appearance involves an hourlong discussion with Eliot Gerson, executive VP of the Institute, about my book Faith versus Fact. It will take place on Friday, July 3, in the Lauder Room of the Koch Building in Aspen, Colorado. That will be followed by a book signing at the venue. I believe there’s another signing at 4 p.m. the same day at the Festival bookstore.
I’ll be participating in Festival 2, one of whose themes is “Faith, Conflict, and the Future of Religion”. I’m not sure who else will be speaking in that track, but I see from the list of speakers three possible candidates: Karen Armstrong, Reza Aslan, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and I also suspect that all three of these, and perhaps one more person, will be on a panel about the effects of faith. I just noticed that Richard Dawkins will also be there, so perhaps he’ll be the fourth. Now that would be a panel!
I don’t care about meeting the unctuous Armstrong or the mendacious Aslan, but I’d love to meet Hirsi Ali, as she’s a hero of mine. Reports will follow.
A post from Business Insider brings up the recurrent questions of why the U.S. prison system is so dreadful, with its recidivism and large proportion of the population incarcerated; why European prion systems are so much better; and whether the difference has to do with the nature of the population with the nature of the “punishments,” or both.
First, the data:
In Norway, fewer than 4,000 of the country’s 5 million people were behind bars as of August 2014.
That makes Norway’s incarceration rate just 75 per 100,000 people, compared to 707 people for every 100,000 people in the US.
On top of that, when criminals in Norway leave prison, they stay out. It has one of the lowest recidivism rates in the world at 20%. The US has one of the highest: 76.6% of prisoners are re-arrested within five years.
The higher rate of recidivism in the U.S. of course means a higher level of crime. For example, for assaults in 2013, the UNDOC gives a rate of 226 per 100,000 people in the U.S., while the numbers in Norway are roughly one-fifth of that: 51 per 100,000. Another UNDOC report on homicide rates shows the U.S. at 53 per 100,000, about 24 times Norway’s rate of 2.2 per 100,000.
Why the difference? Well, of course, the countries harbor different populations—the U.S.’s is more diverse and has greater income inequality, which may breed crime. The U.S. also has much looser gun laws, though groups like the National Rifle Association claim that gun ownership doesn’t breed violence (I disagree).
Business Insider, however, floats the theory that at least one reason for the difference is Norway’s more humane prison and punishment system. Those systems aren’t based on the notion that solving the crime problem requires stringent punishment in horrible jails and long sentences, but instead on rehabilitation of the prisoner. (That, of course, will also weaken another motivation for punishment: sequestration from society, for if prisoners can be rehabilitated more readily, there’s less reason to keep them locked up. But it may strengthen another motivation for punishment—deterrence.)
Based on [the statistics given above], it’s safe to assume Norway’s criminal justice system is doing something right. Few citizens there go to prison, and those who do usually go only once. So how does Norway accomplish this feat? The country relies on a concept called “restorative justice,” which aims to repair the harm caused by crime rather than punish people. This system focuses on rehabilitating prisoners.
Take a look at Halden Prison, and you’ll see what we mean. [JAC: Take a virtual tour of the prison here.] The 75-acre facility maintains as much “normalcy” as possible. That means no bars on the windows, kitchens fully equipped with sharp objects, and friendships between guards and inmates. For Norway, removing people’s freedom is enough of a punishment.
Like many prisons, Halden seeks to prepare inmates for life on the outside with vocational programs: woodworking, assembly workshops, and even a recording studio.
Halden isn’t an anomaly either. Bastoy prison is also quite nice.
Here are two pictures of Halden prison, showing a “cell” and a common room. Such facilities are unimaginable in the U.S. except, perhaps, in the most comfortable federal prisons for white-collar criminals:
Clearly, the philosophy of punishment differs between the two countries:
All of these characteristics are starkly different from America’s system. When a retired warden from New York visited Halden, he could barely believe the accommodations. “This is prison utopia,” he said in a documentary about his trip. “I don’t think you can go any more liberal — other than giving the inmates the keys.”
In general, prison should have five goals, as described by criminologist Bob Cameron: retribution, incapacitation, deterrence, restoration, and rehabilitation. In his words though, “Americans want their prisoners punished first and rehabilitated second.”
Indeed, and “punishment” in the U.S. often involves retributive punishment based on the notion that the criminal simply made the wrong choice. Retribution, in turn, rests on some notion that criminals have free will. We know that this philosophy is strong in the U.S. system, for when criminals are thought to have offended in circumstances when they couldn’t choose right from wrong (mental disability, for instance) or weren’t able to choose right from wrong (a brain tumor that makes one aggressive), they get lighter sentences, often involving more rehabilitation and hospitalization.
But to a determinist like me, no criminal has a choice about what to do, so all should be treated as victims of their circumstances. This would eliminate retributive punishment, and perhaps make our system more like Norway’s. Business Insider also notes the lighter sentences in Norway, sentences that still allow unrehabilitated offender a long stretch in prison:
The maximum life sentence in Norway shows just how serious the country is about its unique approach. With few exceptions (for genocide and war crimes mostly), judges can only sentence criminals to a maximum of 21 years. At the end of the initial term, however, five-year increments can be added onto to the prisoner’s sentence every five years, indefinitely, if the system determines he or she isn’t rehabilitated.That’s why Norwegian extremist Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in a bombing and mass shooting, was only sentenced to 21 years. Most of the outrage and incredulity over that sentence, however, came from the US.
Overall, Norwegians, even some parents who lost children in the attack, seemed satisfied with the sentence, The New York Times reported. Still, Breivik’s sentence, as is, put him behind bars for less than 100 days for every life he took, as The Atlantic noted. On the other hand, if the system doesn’t determine Breivik “rehabilitated,” he could stay in prison forever.
I emphasize again the difference between the U.S. and Norway involves not only their philosophy of incarceration, but also social arrangements, population diversity, and income inequality. But we also have a brutal prison system that breeds recidivism. As most people know, being put among hardened criminals in a soul-sapping prison simply makes people more likely to commit crimes after release, while rehabilitation, aimed at getting inmates jobs and adjusting their attitudes, will reduce both recidivism and the crime rate.
This, I think, is one way that fully grasping behavioral determinism can improve society. Retribution is based on the notion of dualistic free will, and though there are other reasons for punishment, eliminating that could produce a sea change in our attitude toward criminals. When we finally accept the truth (no thanks to wheel-spinning free-will compatibilists!): that no criminal had a choice in what he did, we’ll begin to really tackle how to deal with offenders in a way that that produces the most “well being.” I suspect that this would involve creating, in the U.S., a prison system substantially closer to Norway’s.
It’s time for philosophers—at least those who care whether their work actually makes a difference in society—to stop yammering about ways that free will is compatible with determinism, which accomplishes NOTHING, and instead start emphasizing the social consequences of determinism. We have nothing to lose but our chains.
h/t: Yonatan
On Friday I reported on the reactions of Lawrence Krauss and Steve Pinker to the Pope’s new global-warming encyclical. Their reactions were mixed, but mostly negative, largely because the Pope, while calling attention to the problem, neglected one of its main causes: overpopulation and the ensuing generation of greenhouse gases. The Pope in fact dismissed the “population problem,” and we know why: the Vatican isn’t down with birth control. Francis’s encyclical says this, for instance:
Instead of resolving the problems of the poor and thinking of how the world can be different, some can only propose a reduction in the birth rate. At times, developing countries face forms of international pressure which make economic assistance contingent on certain policies of “reproductive health”. Yet “while it is true that an unequal distribution of the population and of available resources creates obstacles to development and a sustainable use of the environment, it must nonetheless be recognized that demographic growth is fully compatible with an integral and shared development”. To blame population growth instead of extreme and selective consumerism on the part of some, is one way of refusing to face the issues.
Those are weasel words blaming those who even bring up overpopulation. This is the mealy-mouthed real Francis that the liberals love while overlooking what that mouth emits.
The Pope instead pinned the problem on consumerism, which of course is one cause. But seriously, as the world population grows exponentially, it will be impossible to stem the tide of carbon use by other methods alone. Everybody knows this, but nobody wants to talk about it. Instead, based on the Pope’s concern for the poor (something that’s hardly laudable these days, except among Republicans) and on his admission that global warming is real (does the Pope’s admission of this really change anything?), everyone is falling over themselves trying to praise the “new liberal Pope”.
Except, that is, for Krauss, Pinker, and now Nick Cohen. In a piece in the Guardian, “Pope Francis a liberal free thinker? Don’t kid yourself“, Cohen again praises the Pope’s more obvious sentiments and conclusions—but excoriates the Church.
When [Pope Francis] is forced to choose between intellectual honesty and dogma, the pope chooses dogma without hesitation. Like Aquinas, he descends into special pleading, without admitting to the reader or perhaps to himself that he is rigging the debate.
And, as it was for Krauss and Pinker, the problem is the church’s refusal to sanction population control, preferring to keep women as breeding stock, a philosophy that also squelches their economic empowerment and equality. Cohen points out that if you bring up the overpopulation problem, then those who support the Pope will argue that poor people, after all, don’t leave much of a carbon footprint. That is an Mother Teresa-ish argument for keeping the poor in poverty, as well as prohibiting their migration to countries where they could become better off—and generate more greenhouse gases. And, as Cohen argues, the double argument against both birth control and alleviating poverty is not a humane solution:
The pope does not say that the poor must stay poor to show their gratitude to the almighty or for the sake of the environment. Rather, he ducks the question of what will happen as the ever-expanding populations of poor countries grow richer. Demand the promotion of birth control – not abortion or eugenics, just contraception – and you are “refusing to face” the world’s unequal distribution of wealth, he writes. End “the extreme and selective consumerism” of the rich world and – eureka! –“demographic growth is fully compatible with an integral and shared development”.
Everything about his argument is slippery. Even if rich countries are prepared to redistribute wealth to poor countries, I have never met a secular campaigner against poverty who does not believe that educating women and giving them control of their fertility is the best way to reduce poverty. More pertinently, the pope is not against birth control because he believes in the redistribution of wealth but because Catholic teaching says he must damn it. For the little it is worth, which is next to nothing in my view, Francis has scriptural authority on his side. When Onan refused to impregnate his dead brother’s wife and “spilled his seed on the ground”, the Lord made him pay the ultimate price for pleasuring himself and slew him. The fathers of the church were only slightly less harsh. Clement of Alexandria said: “Seed is not to be vainly ejaculated, nor is it to be damaged, nor is it to be wasted”, and Augustine thought that sex “for the sake of lust” rather than procreation led to sterility.
Given his bad faith, given, too, that he had the power to reduce poverty by changing the church’s theology and refused to do it, the mystery is why so many liberals believe the pope is not a Catholic
. . . The credulity of believers can be bad enough but the credulity of liberals can be worse. If you don’t wish to join the gormless herd, by all means welcome the pope’s commitment to the poor and to preserving the environment. But you must accept that if you believe in giving women the opportunity to expand their minds and control their bodies, the Vatican is against you – as it always was.
And until this happens, the Catholic church will continue to lose adherents everywhere but South America.
Reader Jacques Hausser from Switzerland sent some lovely photos of lepidopterans:
Pieris brassicae, the large white or European cabbage white. Family Pieridae. One of the most common species in Europe, but it was also observed recently in Michigan. USA, watch out for your cabbages !
Polyommatus icarus, the common blue. Family Lycaenidae. Their are zillions of species in this group, all rather similar to each other. [JAC: The underwing pattern differs considerably from that on the tops of the wings, which is what gives the insect its name. I’ve put another view of this species below.]
The small tortoiseshell, Aglais urticae. Family Nymphalidae. This beautiful butterfly is becoming rarer and, according to Wikipedia, that is apparently due to global warming: the caterpillar lives on nettles (which are not disappearing!), but during severe summer droughts, nettle leaves don’t have a sufficient nitrogen and water content for the caterpillar’s needs.
Argynnis paphia (Nymphalidae), the silver-washed fritillary. Four males very interested in a female (the second from right). Males can be recognized by the four longitudinal blackish marks above the veins on the forewing. These are actually regions of modified scales called androconia, which emit male pheromones. I was surprised to learn that the caterpillar feeds on violets.
Zygaena transalpina (Zygenidae). In english it could be called the transalpine burnet (Actually I didn’t find an english name for this species – which is NOT the six-spotted burnet). Moth or Butterfly ? I don’t care, that’s old taxonomy… and they are just beautiful!
JAC: Important biology lesson! Note that moths and butterflies are not “natural” groupings in that butterflies appear to be derived from one group of ancestral moths that is nested within other ancestral moths. Ergo, some moths are more closely related to the group known as “butterflies” than they are to other moths. In other words, the group “moths” is a paraphyletic one with respect to butterflies. While moths tend to have morphological features that group them together (e.g., clubbed antennae, like the one below), that doesn’t mean that all moths are more closely related to each other than to any butterfly.
Regular Stephen Barnard contributed three photos of a Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) with a note:
These are super spooky. As soon as they see you, they take off. They’re nearly tame in some urban settings, but not here. I think it’s because some landowners shoot them because they eat fish. Highly illegal, of course — Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. I’ve noticed that they spook when I point the big camera lens at them like a firearm. I know with certainty that they’re discouraged from building rookeries by shotgunning the nests. I like seeing them because it means the creek has a healthy fish population.
Here are two tw**ts that Matthew Cobb (who had insomnia last night after nightmares about his young cat Harry dying [Harry is fine]):
This one has a cute gif, but I don’t understand the title at all. Can any reader furnish a good explanation?
https://twitter.com/Alex_Parker/status/612496391491862528/photo/1
and
https://twitter.com/Strange_Animals/status/611447053655277569/photo/1
That species, known from Sri Lanka and southern India, is also known as the “wandering violin mantis.” Its camouflage makes it resemble sticks and leaves, and the link gives the source of its name:
The Wandering Violin Mantis got its name because the adults look a bit like a violin. Their body would resemble the soundboard of a violin, the head would be the top of the violin and the long and thin midsection of the mantis would be the neck of the violin.
Here are two pictures showing its crypsis as well as a video (they can be kept in captivity, though it’s difficult):
Trigger warning for video: Music (Greensleeves):
Today’s incredibly cute animated Google Doodle (click on screenshot) features various animal fathers, including penguins, wolves, felids, and H. sapiens. (It’s also the winter solstice in the southern hemisphere, so if you live there you might get another Doodle.)
Artist Olivia Huynh describes the making of the doodle here.
It’s the Lord’s Day, and to celebrate my visitor (an old friend’s son) and I are taking in a White Sox game: my annual baseball exposure. The weather looks good, too: a high of 88 degrees F and no rain. It’s also dry in Dobrzyn, endangering the cherries (and my chance for daily cherry pies in October!). Hili is prescient about the weather:
Hili: They need more rain.
A: They say it will rain tomorrow.
Hili: Humans are often mistaken.
Hili: Potrzebują więcej deszczu.
Ja: Mówią, że jutro będzie padać.
Hili: Ludzie często się mylą.
