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 haven’t forgotten about Gordon Lightfoot Week—it’s just been spread over a month.
“Rich Man’s Spiritual” is the first song on Lightfoot’s best album (picture of album below, and I’ll brook no dissent): “Lightfoot!”, released in 1965. The song rests loosely on Jesus’s “camel/eye of the needle” saying from Matthew, and here a rich man tries to buy his way into heaven. The song was written by Lightfoot.
Well, we had several inches of snow yesterday: up to six inches in some parts of Chicago. It will all melt on Wednesday, though, as temperatures are predicted to be in the 60s (Fahrenheit). And the price of the Fancy Book remains at $5,110—still five time more than I ever hoped to get for it. Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili has, I’m told, been neglecting her kibbles and wet food, probably because the hunting is good outdoors. But today she apparently is quite ravenous—and, well, a bit “fluffy:
Hili: A terrible hunger within me and only a book above me.
A: You do not look starving.
JAC: Indeed!! She’s not hungering for knowledge. Apparently, though, there’s an allusion to Kant in Hili’s words. Can you spot it?
In Polish:
Hili: Głód straszny we mnie i tylko jakaś książka nade mną.
Ja: Nie wyglądasz na zagłodzoną.
*******
Here’s a bonus Leon Monologue since you’ve been such good readers:
Shall we end today with a display of both interspecies and inter-morph amity? This picture of three squirrels was sent to me by reader Paul (I don’t know where he lives):
I thought you might enjoy a photo of red, gray & black squirrels living together relatively peacefully under our bird feeders in our front “yard” this morning.
Wellcome Images, a famous and extensive source of medical and biological imagery, held a contest for the best biological/medical photos of 2014, and you can see the twenty winning images in a slideshow at the link just above. I’ll show just four, with one of them having an accompanying video. I prefer the non-medical ones, but by all means go to the site and see the pregnant pony uterus and goat stomach chamber. (Greg will like the tuatara skeleton produced by micro-computed tomography.)
The first one, which is the grand prize winner, is of part of a felid!:
Polarised light micrograph of a cross-section through part of a cat’s tongue. The round bumps sticking out from the surface (papillae) feel a bit like sandpaper when a cat licks you. This rough texture helps a cat to pick up and hold food, as well as acting like a comb to remove dirt and loose hair during grooming. Cats groom themselves not only to keep clean, but also to regulate body temperature and to stay calm. This sample is from a vintage slide prepared in the Victorian era. Small blood vessels (capillaries) were injected with black dye (iron or silver preparation) to make them visible. This was a newly developed technique at that time. The width of the image is 3 mm.
There’s also this explanatory note:
Why did the judges choose this image?
Fergus explained: “This striking image looks a bit like bubbling lava, but is in fact the barbed surface of a cat’s tongue. If you’ve ever had a cat lick your hand and wondered why it feels like sandpaper, then this explains it! Sometimes images that show nature in extreme close-up are both beautiful and illuminating.”
Light micrograph of a tiny parasitoid wasp (Wallaceaphytis kikiae) viewed from above. Parasitoid wasps lay their eggs inside other insects. After hatching, the larvae feed on their host, eating it alive from the inside out. This is a new genus of parasitoid wasp recently discovered in the rainforests of Borneo, where a single female wasp was found mixed in with thousands of other insects. It measures only 0.75 mm in length and has unusual antennae, legs and wings. It’s named after Alfred Russel Wallace, who coauthored the first ever publication on evolution by natural selection with Charles Darwin and who himself identified new insects while in Borneo in the mid-19th century. Even today, Borneo is still known to be rich with other undiscovered species.
Note that it has four wings, which makes it a hymenopteran rather than a dipteran (fly), and this thing simply wouldn’t be able to fly. If the wings aren’t vestigial, I’ll eat my hat:
Scanning electron microscope composite image of the head of a boll weevil (Anthonomus grandis) found on the front porch of a suburban house. The boll weevil is a beetle that feeds on and lays its eggs in the cotton plant. These agricultural pests have long curved snouts (often half as long as their bodies) and can destroy entire cotton crops. They develop from egg to adult in approximately 20 days and grow on average to 6–8 mm in length. This is one image in a series of work looking at common household pests found inside homes on the outskirts of town. These images of our often-overlooked housemates are in the style of traditional portraits. The width of the image is 4.1 mm.
Look at that head! You can clearly see the eyes and the antennae.
Finally, I include one medical image because its genesis is interesting: 3-D Printed lungs in a ribcage by Dave Farnham (the image on the site is a rotating gif):
Photograph of 3D-printed human lungs inside their ribcage. The lungs and ribcage are viewed from the back with the bones of the spine (vertebrae) visible in the centre. The human spine typically has between 24 and 33 vertebrae, with the ribs attaching to 12 of these in the upper back. The lungs and ribcage belong to Caroline, who was diagnosed with a cancer of the lymphatic system known as Hodgkin lymphoma. The 2D data contained in her computed tomography (CT) scans were converted into 3D renders by the artist, who was then able to export them to a printable format. The 3D print is made from white SLS nylon and measures 14 x 13.5 x 9.5 cm. Wellcome Trust photography by Ben Gilbert.
This is only part of an image; trying to take a screenshot enlarges it. Go see it; you can rotate it, enlarge it, and see it from different angles:
Here’s a video showing Caroline and the printing. 3D printing fascinates me, and has really great medical applications:
A reader with the pseudonym “Freethinking Jew” sent me the link below, adding this:
“When we think of the deaths caused by religion, we probably usually think of terrorism. But in this case, people who may have otherwise been fine people and good parents, for all we know, may have caused the death of 7 of their children by strictly obeying their religion, even though they weren’t trying to hurt anyone.”
And of course the link he sent was to the New York Times article on the death of 7 children in a single Jewish family last Friday. Because of Sabbath regulations, Orthodox Jews are not allowed to turn their oven on or off from Friday sundown to Saturday evening, for that constitutes work, and you can’t work on the Sabbath. The mother was apparently keeping food warm on a hotplate (turned on before Friday sundown), and the hotplate malfunctioned, causing a fire that killed everyone but the father, who was away, as well as the mother and one daughter, who jumped out their second-floor window. Seven other kids died (see below; Orthodox families are large!), apparently of smoke inhalation. The mother and surviving child are in critical condition. From the Times report:
Just after midnight, flames began to fly off the large hot plate on a first-floor kitchen counter, near the back of the home in the Midwood section of Brooklyn, a neighborhood with many large Orthodox families. On a day of rest, it would have been one of the few electrical appliances in the neighborhood that were flipped on.
In upstairs bedrooms connected to the kitchen by an open stairwell, the Sassoon family slept: their mother, Gayle Sassoon, 45; four girls: Eliane, 16; Siporah, 15; Rivkah, 11; and Sara, 6; and four boys: David, 12; Yeshua, 10; Moshe, 8; and Yaakob, 5. Their father was at a religious conference, and given the Sabbath prohibition on electronic communication, he did not learn what had happened until several hours after the fire, when the Police Department reached him at a synagogue.
. . . Gayle Sassoon was separated from her children by the flames, Mr. Nigro said. After leaping from the second floor, she stumbled through the smoke to the steps of her cousin Gary Jemal’s house across the street. There, a neighbor and friend of Ms. Sassoon, Victor Sedaka, found her “black, charred,” he said. “You couldn’t even tell who she was.”
With a voice so hoarse it was barely audible, Mr. Sedaka heard her try to scream: “Save my children, save my children.”
I doubt that she or her daughter will survive. And think of the father who has lost his entire family because of a hot plate, and a crazy religious stricture. What terrible grief! (Of course, he probably won’t think twice about the ludicrous nature of the rule that killed his family.)
As the “Freethinking Jew” noted, these regulations may seem ridiculous, or even humorous, to non-Jews, but they can also be dangerous. These children almost certainly wouldn’t have died if their parents were nonreligious, or even non-Jewish. How many lives is it worth to keep such a rule in place?
While my plea to get rid of these ridiculous restrictions will of course go unheeded, do take a look at some of the crazy rules. Have a gander, for instance, at the Wikipedia article about to what extent Orthodox Jews can actually ride in a motor vehicle on the Sabbath. Further, Orthodox adherents can’t tear toilet paper on the Sabbath—it must be pre-torn. No flippping of light switches, either: for that you can have automatic lights or hire a “Shabbos goy“—a non-Jew who will turn the lights on at your request. (That’s always seemed like cheating to me.)
It’s not as if fulfilling these rules of behaviors—performing mitzvahs—will help you go to heaven, either. Jews don’t believe in an afterlife; it’s their one nod to reality. The many Sabbath restrictions, as well as others (ritual purification in a special bath for women after menstruation, for instance) are construed as divine rules of conduct that, for some Jews, will hasten the return of the true Messiah.
Curiously, just before this tragedy happened, reader Robin sent me a copy of the instructions she’d received with her new General Electric range. It turned out that her oven has a “Sabbath mode“, which you can program beforehand to turn it on and off on Sabbath. Furthermore— and I didn’t know this—the beeper and oven light are disabled in Sabbath mode, for beeping and lights going on apparently constitute “work.” The same goes for Orthodox refrigerators: you can’t have the light go on when you open them on a Sabbath. How crazy is that?
Here’s a copy of the relevant part of the instructions. In this oven there’s no lights or beeping, though on some models you have to unscrew the bulb before Friday sundown:
These Great Horned Owlets are in Savannah, Georgia. There seems to be rain on the lens and someone is doing some annoying strimming or something in the background, so you might want to turn the sound down. But three cute owlets! [JAC: I see only two!]
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has a great site that includes some clips of the owlets growing up…
I’ve been gently (and, I hope, jocularly) rebuked several times for using the abbreviation “OMG” on this site, with the rebukers apparently thinking that I was invoking the name of God, something apparently forbidden for atheists. (I won’t mention similar rebukes in more salacious situations.) It happened again today with reader Lauren.
But in this case all the readers are wrong, for on this site “OMG” stands for “Oh mi gato!”, which of course is Spanish for “Oh, my cat!”
Let the rebukes cease from now on.
You’re welcome to think of other non-goddy phrases for which “OMG” is an acronym.
Three days ago I reported that an Afghan woman had been stoned to death in Kabul for supposedly burning a Qur’an in a shrine. I saw the videos of her violent execution, and they were horrific: men throwing huge rocks on top of her and stomping on her head, while a huge crowd gathered to cheer them on. It was one of the most horrific displays of human brutality I’ve seen. That video, somewhat bowdlerized, is now on YouTube with a warning, so if you want to see it—and are aware that it’s pretty shocking—go here.
Yesterday the Guardian revealed that the 27-year-old woman, named Farakhunda, didn’t even do what she was killed for. They also noted that the police stood by and did nothing during the horrible murder. Finally, Farakunda wasn’t, as previously reported, mentally ill, which was the only reason I could think of why someone would burn a Qur’an at a Muslim shrine (unless she was committing “suicide by book burning”). The Guardian‘s words:
A woman killed by an angry mob in front of police in the Afghan capital last week for allegedly burning a copy of Islam’s holy book was wrongly accused, Afghanistan’s top criminal investigator has said.
Mobile phone footage circulating on social media shows police at the scene did not save the 27-year-old woman, Farkhunda, who was beaten with sticks and set on fire by a crowd of men in central Kabul on Thursday.
“Last night I went through all documents and evidence once again, but I couldn’t find any evidence to say Farkhunda burnt the holy Qur’an,” Gen Mohammad Zahir told reporters at her funeral on Sunday. “Farkhunda was totally innocent.”
The top criminal investigator promised to punish all those involved and said 13 people, including eight police officers, had already been arrested.
A picture of Farkhunda held up during her funeral ceremony in Kabul on Sunday. Photograph: Mohammad Ismail/Reuters
The killing was condemned by the Afghan president and other officials, but also drew praise from some quarters, including from a prominent cleric who asserted the men had a right to defend their Muslim beliefs at all costs.
Farkhunda was a teacher of Islamic studies, according to her brother, who denied media reports that she had been mentally ill. He said this was a made-up defence by their father, who wanted to protect the family after police told them to leave the city for their own safety.
So there we have it: another young life extinguished by religious lunatics driven mad by a work of fiction.
(Guardian caption): Women’s rights activists carry Farkhunda’s coffin. Photograph: Mohammad Ismail/Reuters
The UK website The Freethinker reports that at least one heartening thing that came from this tragedy. Reza Mohebbii, an Afghan living in Sweden (who posted a video about how he despises how Islam is ruining his natal land), also posted a YouTube video of him burning a Qur’an (the sound is a bit wonky, but the inaudible parts have English subtitles):
This is a brave man.
But, as The Freethinker reports, we have the predictable reactions. One came from Habib Abdolhossein (Google shows someone with that name is a correspondent for Press TV), who said this in the comments:
Transcribed:
I as a Muslim, am really shocked and ashamed of what an ignorant mob did in Kabul. But I think you could have expressed solidarity with Farkhondeh in a much better and decent way, without desecrating a book seen as sacred by over one billion people. She has fallen victim to the ignorance of a group of people who have no understanding of Islam. I’m sorry to say that there is no difference between what you did and the crime those uncivilized people committed. You can burn the ‘ordinary’ book but not the absolute truth of the Quran which has been speaking for more than 1400 years.
No, we should descrate the book by all means: to show that it’s just a book, to show that its words are hateful and inspire others to hatred, and to show that burning a book is an incredibly trivial “offense” compared to killing someone for supposedly doing the same thing.
Read some of the YouTube comments: it’s a mini-education in itself. I hope that YouTube doesn’t remove this video on the grounds that it hurts Muslim sentiments. If it does, I suggest we protest en masse.
