Free will for cancer cells?

May 10, 2017 • 10:30 am

This tw**t, sent by Grania, called my attention to an article in the Irish Times that criticizes the country’s blasphemy law:

What is the penultimate sentence? I’ll put the last paragraph here and bold the sentence and the one before it:

In any case, Fry’s comments to Gay Byrne, far from being an insult to God, were a profound and eloquent statement, albeit in a robust form, of what philosophers call the “problem of evil”, the challenge in arguments for the existence of God in reconciling an all-seeing , omnipotent, benevolent God with the pain and evil we see manifest in the world around us. “Why,” Fry asked, “should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid god who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?” To which the reply of the Christian, though not altogether convincing, should be “because God created free will”. And not a knock on the door from the boys in blue.

Well, it’s not “not altogether convincing”, but “wholly UNconvincing”! But the editorial is pretty good, and the “inane sentence” is not quoted with approval. Still, it’s worth pointing out that believers in a beneficent and omnipotent God have never come up with a remotely good argument for UNDESERVED evil, like the death of people from tsunamis or, as Hammill notes, bone cancer. Plantinga suggests that Satan is responsible, but given the absence of evidence for Satan (is that a “basic belief”?), that’s a cop-out. So is free will, which can’t be adduced at all for things like cancer, earthquakes, and so on. Free will for who? The Earth? Cancer cells?

Ask yourself this question: if you were God, would you allow children to get bone cancer? Of course not! Conclusion: if there is a God, he’s a nasty piece of work—or not very powerful.

Failure to cause outrage: the Blasphemy investigation of Fry fizzles out

May 10, 2017 • 10:00 am

by Grania Spingies

As many of you may already know, the police investigation into the accusation of blasphemy against Stephen Fry by an anonymous and obsequious finger-wagger has been dropped. As I pointed out, there was never any real chance that Fry would be charged, let alone brought to trial. Ireland’s illiberal and misconceived Blasphemy law was designed to be virtually unenforceable. The 2009 Defamation Act states:

It shall be a defence to proceedings for an offence under this section for the defendant to prove that a reasonable person would find genuine literary, artistic, political, scientific, or academic value in the matter to which the offence relates. (Art. 36.3)

The Gardai (police) in this case said they were “unable to find a substantial number of outraged people” and have dropped the charges; so a legal defence never even entered the equation. Michael Nugent, chair of Atheist Ireland, a group that has challenged this law since its inception, pointed out that this “creates an incentive for people to demonstrate outrage when they see or hear something that they believe is blasphemous“. By so acting, the Irish police may have opened a can of worms for themselves and can doubtless expect to have their time wasted by more vexatious reports from upstanding citizens who feel the need to ask the State to punish those they disagree with.

This tepid storm in a teacup has achieved a few things:

One, there’s been the predictable Streisand Effect of having Fry’s putatively blasphemous, and in my view, eminently sensible, statement viewed around the world millions of times.

Two, the shock effect of having someone as famous as Fry even remotely at risk of being criminally prosecuted for utterances so manifestly benign has caused sufficient international embarrassment for the Irish government to once again promise a referendum on the matter. They’ve been promising one since 2010, but have been studiously ignoring the issue ever since.

Three, New Zealand has committed to repealing its own blasphemy law. (Well done NZ!)

There’s been a certain amount of anger on the Internet (I know, shocker, right?) from various Irish activists that this has prompted at least a half-hearted response from certain government officials; while other pressing issues such as the lack of a referendum on access to abortion in Ireland still are not clearly addressed. I am assuming that most of them are completely unaware that the referendum on repealing the blasphemy articles has been on the cards for years and it actually hasn’t been – and still isn’t – fast-tracked to appease Mr Fry.

https://twitter.com/punchedmonet_/status/861573512594640897

It’s a fair point, but one that misses the main objection to Ireland having a blasphemy law: while it may be no danger to people in Ireland, it is being used to justify and push for more blasphemy laws by groups such as the OIC at the United Nations. As US attorney Ken White has painstaking pointed out on numerous occasions, blasphemy laws are used virtually exclusively to persecute minority religions wherever they exist. Just today, Ahok, the governor of Jakarta, has been found guilty of blasphemy for referencing a Koranic verse, and was jailed. Needless to say, Ahok is a member of the Christian minority in a Muslim-majority country.

This is how blasphemy laws work: the majority religion silences and punishes minority religions. They do not belong in enlightened societies.
_____________________________________________________________

Further reading: Blasphemy in the Christian World

A reader defends the otherization and gender-shaming of squirrels

May 10, 2017 • 9:00 am

A reader who identifies himself as Bradley Levinson sent a comment about my article “More academic madness: Published feminist analysis of squirrel diets and reproduction shows that squirrels, like marginalized human groups, are otherized, gendered, and fat-shamed, ” which analyzed a truly ludicrous piece of feminist “scholarship” published in the journal Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography. Levinson’s comment, like the paper he defends, is unintentionally hilarious, but it also made me realize that this kind of postmodernist nonsense can both accrue and delude followers—just like theology! Indeed, there are many parallels between theology and postmodern humanities work, but I won’t go into them here. (One, of course, is that its adherents claim that you must be an expert in the field to say anything about it.)

The humor starts with the second word, and I’ve reproduced the comment without changing a letter:

This blog entry ridiculing a study of squirrels, place, and gender, and Practically everyone commenting on this blog, have shown their manifest and abject ignorance. You demonstrate that you haven’t the least understanding of peer-reviewed scholarship in legitimate specialized fields of study. Why would you expect to understand or appreciate a sensitive study communicated according to the rhetorical conventions of its own field? You would never make the same demands of a highly technical paper in mathematics or medicine, so why do you insist on lowbrow accessibility in this case? This is a very good journal!

Feminist geography is a field that examines how uses of space and place by human beings intersect with the broader ecological web of our existence. Yes, there is a focus on how power infuses our use of space and place, often to the detriment of the dignity of women and other marginalized beings.

Dr. Lloro-Bidart provides us with a fresh and provocative look at the complex intersection between 2 squirrel species,the humanly modified landscape, and common cultural discourses. This is a highly imaginative piece–urging us to consider new connections that might have escaped our notice before.

You should all be ashamed of yourselves for these ad hominem attacks on a scholar of stellar reputation. Don’t you have something better to do with your time than snipe at those whose ideas challenge you out of your comfortable orthodoxies? Do something positive. Get a life!

Does this need a response? Mine would be brief: although the field of study may be “legitimate” (whatever that means), the paper at issue is a ludicrous specimen of research in any field, and you don’t have to be a specialist to know that. Peer-review means nothing in a field where “scholarship” consists of verifying your preordained conclusions and couching them in impenetrable jargon. Unlike math and medicine, the layperson can perfectly well figure out what the Squirrel Paper was about. As for the journal being “very good,” well, examine it for yourself. I for one was not impressed, and although not all the papers are as dire as Squirrel Paper, there is little in the journal that I see as a lasting contribution to the knowledge of our species. The “rhetorical conventions” consist of bad writing larded with words like “otherize” and “intersectional”.

As for “our comfortable orthodoxies,” I am happy with my orthodoxy, which demands evidence rather than anecdotes, an unwillingness to buttress preconceived ideas and those of one’s peers for the sake of ideological conformity (or to engage in confirmation bias), and abjures ridiculously convoluted writing.

The rest of the comment shows that Mr. Levinson, having already drunk the Kool-Aid, is beyond redemption. There is no piece of postmodern scholarship, no matter how silly, that won’t be defended by an outraged acolyte. (Or, as in the case of Judith Butler, many acolytes.)

As for ad hominem attacks, I simply recounted Dr. Lloro-Bidart’s conclusions and mocked most of them. I did not say, “This paper is bad because the author beat her dog.” Levinson needs to learn the meaning of “ad hominem”! I went after the arguments, not the person—though of course the person constructed the arguments. To that degree, one can say that she is wasting her time with fatuous “research.” If that is ad hominem argumentation, I plead guilty!

Jesus ‘n’ Mo ‘n’ blasphemy

May 10, 2017 • 8:15 am

It looks like today will be Blasphemy Day on this site, as we have four posts about it, including this one showing the latest Jesus and Mo strip titled ‘upset’. The email came with the creator’s note:

What a week for blasphemy laws it’s been! Stephen Fry investigated for breaking the Irish one, Indonesian governor imprisoned under an Islamic one, and New Zealand finding one of their own down the back of the sofa.

More on Fry and New Zealand shortly. Here’s the strip, which needs no comment:

Readers’ wildlife photos

May 10, 2017 • 7:30 am

Reader Mark Jones sent in some African photos taken by his friends; Mark’s notes are indented, and the photos are high-resolution, so click to enlarge.

I enjoyed the Namibia photos you posted last year, and my friends Keith and Alison Thompson have recently returned from there too, with some lovely photos. They gave me permission to send some in.

Burchell’s zebra (Equus quagga burchellii):

South African cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus jubatus):

Angolan Giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis angolensis):

 

Lilac-breasted roller (Coracias caudatus):

Springbok (Antidorcas marsupialis):

And finally, a sand dune panorama; spot the people!

Wednesday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

May 10, 2017 • 6:30 am

It’s Hump Day, as we vulgarians call it in America: Wednesday, May 10, 2017.  I see that there is yet more tumult in the Trump administration, with the “President” having fired FBI director James Comey, whose organization was already investigating the administration’s ties to Russia. See Politico for a take by legal scholars on whether we are having a Constitutional crisis. Appropriately, it’s National Liver and Onions Day—a vile dish that was much beloved by my father. The house reeked when my mother cooked it, but, like Leopold Bloom, my old man ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls.  It’s also Golden Spike Day, celebrating the day in 1869 when the the first transcontinental railroad across the US was completed. The rails of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads met on May 10, 1869, at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory, and the final railroad spike, made of 18-karat gold, was driven to join the rails by Leland Stanford, founder of the eponymous university—who got much of his dough as a railroad tycoon.  Here’s the spike, now in the Cantor Arts Museum of Stanford University:

On this day in 1774, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette became the King and Queen of France. In 1857, the Sepoy Rebellion began in India, and in 1908 Mother’s Day was first observed in the US. (Don’t forget Mom this weekend!) Curiously, it was on this day in 1924 that J. Edgar Hoover became FBI director, remaining in that post until 1972: a tenure of 48 years! He was a nasty piece of work, too. On May 10, 1940, Winston Churchill became Britain’s Prime Minister after Chamberlain resigned, not having brought Peace In Our Time. On this day in 1954, Bill Haley & His Comets released “Rock Around the Clock”,  the first rock and roll record to reach the top of the Billboard charts and often considered the first “real” rock and roll song. I well remember the first time I heard it, when I was a lad of five living in Greece. And on this day in  1981, Miterrand became the first socialist president of France. He died in 1996.

Notables born on this day include John Wilkes Booth (1838), Fred Astaire (1899), Mother Maybelle Carter (1909), Donovan (1946), Mark David Chapman (1955), Sid Vicious (1957), and Bono (1960—what a memorable day for music!). Here’s Donovan playing one of my favorites among his songs, with words heavily infused with psychedelic imagery:

Those who died on this day include Paul Revere (1818), Stonewall Jackson (1863), Carl Nägeli (1891), Joan Crawford (1977), Walker Percy (1990), and–for Stephen Barnard, who drives a Cobra replica–Carroll Shelby (2012). Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili’s dialogue is enigmatic, and when I asked Malgorzata what it meant, she said this:

I didn’t understand either. So I asked Andrzej and he said that he and Hili were discussing microbes earlier. I’m still a bit in the dark but that’s the whole explanation I got.

Perhaps Hili is remarking on the invisibility of microbes; you be the judge.

Hili: Our senses are deceiving us.
A: Why do you think so?
Hili: I have the impression that there is nothing here.
In Polish:
Hili: Nasze zmysły oszukują.
Ja: Czemu tak sądzisz?
Hili: Mam wrażenie, że tu nic nie ma.

In Wloclawek nearby, Leon is truculent:

Leon: We are not going any further.The arctic air is approaching.

Fact of the day: Moby Dick was based on a real whale

May 9, 2017 • 3:30 pm

I just found this out while writing a talk. The whale “Moby Dick” in Melville’s eponymous novel was in fact based on a genuine white whale, one called “Mocha Dick.” (You never know where new talks will lead.) The cetacean has its own Wikipedia entry which includes, among other things, these facts:

Mocha Dick was a male sperm whale that lived in the Pacific Ocean in the early 19th century, usually encountered in the waters near Mocha Island, off the central coast of Chile. American explorer and author Jeremiah N. Reynolds published his account, “Mocha Dick: Or The White Whale of the Pacific: A Leaf from a Manuscript Journal” in 1839 in The Knickerbocker. Mocha Dick was an albino and partially inspired Herman Melville’s 1851 novel Moby-Dick.

Mocha Dick survived many skirmishes (by some accounts at least 100) with whalers before he was eventually killed. He was large and powerful, capable of wrecking small craft with his fluke. Explorer Jeremiah N. Reynolds gathered first-hand observations of Mocha Dick and published his account, “Mocha Dick: Or The White Whale of the Pacific: A Leaf from a Manuscript Journal”, in the May 1839 issue of The Knickerbocker. Reynolds described the whale as “an old bull whale, of prodigious size and strength… white as wool. According to Reynolds, the whale’s head was covered with barnacles, which gave him a rugged appearance. The whale also had a peculiar method of spouting:

Instead of projecting his spout obliquely forward, and puffing with a short, convulsive effort, accompanied by a snorting noise, as usual with his species, he flung the water from his nose in a lofty, perpendicular, expanded volume, at regular and somewhat distant intervals; its expulsion producing a continuous roar, like that of vapor struggling from the safety valve of a powerful steam engine.[2]:379

Mocha Dick was most likely first encountered and attacked sometime before 1810 off Mocha Island. His survival of the first encounters coupled with his unusual appearance quickly made him famous among Nantucket whalers. Many captains attempted to hunt him after rounding Cape Horn. He was quite docile, sometimes swimming alongside the ship, but once attacked he retaliated with ferocity and cunning, and was widely feared by harpooners. When agitated he would sound and then breach so aggressively that his entire body would sometimes come completely out of the water.

In Reynolds’ account, Mocha Dick was killed in 1838, after he appeared to come to the aid of a distraught cow whose calf had just been slain by the whalers. His body was 70 feet long and yielded 100 barrels of oil, along with some ambergris—a substance used in the making of perfumes and at times worth more per ounce than gold. He also had nineteen harpoons in his body.

Another site says this:

Over the course of the next 28 years Mocha Dick earned a reputation as one of the most cunning and feared whales in the ocean.  During that span, he was spotted and attacked by at least 100 whaling ships.  He successfully destroyed around 20 of those ships that attacked him and escaping all but the last.

Poor whale–killed in defense of one of his species. I wonder, though, whether Mocha Dick was a true albino, in which case he’d have had pink eyes, or was merely leucistic, with normally pigmented eyes.  Here, at any rate, is a book about him, still available on Amazon.