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 thought this photo was appropriate for Valentine’s day because it has flowers, it’s about reproduction, and it’s red. It comes from reader Don, who notes, “Our dawdling amaryllis has finally bloomed.”
Here’s another take on the Chapel Hill murders, from one of the atheists who has been deemed complicit.
Physicist Lawrence Krauss, who has himself been accused by atheists as bearing responsibility for the murder of three young Muslims in North Carolina, has written a piece for PuffHo giving his take on the murders. Here’s an excerpt from his piece, “UNC isn’t Charlie Hebdo, and Thomas Paine isn’t Osama bin Laden”
What is more surprising is the connection being suggested, even in various relatively liberal papers and magazines including the Washington Post and the New Republic, between atheism’s most vocal advocates and this violence. It may be impossible to ever know what was going through the mind of Mr. Hicks when he committed his crime, although he never appeared in advance to advocate violence against any religious group. But either way, to compare the crime in North Carolina with the crimes against Charlie Hebdo’s cartoonists and others in Paris under the general rubric of “hate crime” is to seriously misrepresent both heinous events.
Let’s be clear about one thing. Hate speech is directed at people, not ideas. To argue that individuals like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, or any of the other outspoken atheists, including myself, who criticize the doctrines of Islam, or Christianity, are inciting violence against individuals on the scale of the terrorists who espouse Islamic fundamentalism is akin to suggesting that the Enlightenment was fundamentally no different than the theocracies it eventually undermined.
Consider the words of one writer in the New Republic when labeling Hicks as a potential hate criminal, saying he “expressed his admiration for Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion and Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason, and condemned “radical” Christianity and Islam alike for their alleged ideological similarities,” as if somehow praising reason over ideology is the first step toward violent action.
As Dawkins himself said when he appeared with at the Rally for Reason, held in the Mall in Washington DC several years ago: “I don’t despise religious people, I despise what they stand for.” Or as another vocal atheist Ricky Gervais said, perhaps more gently, in our film The Unbelievers, which captured Dawkins’ remarks as well: “Everyone has a right to believe anything. But I have the right to find that belief ridiculous.”
There’s more, but I’ll let you read it at PuffHo. Feel free to discuss this or the whole thing below, but I’d appreciate it if people, at least at this time, would refrain from flat declarations of what caused these murders. Nobody knows, and if you’re honest you’ll admit that.
Many of you probably know that the capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris) is the world’s largest rodent. They can be huge: as Wikipedia notes, “The top recorded weights are 91 kg (201 lb) for a wild female from Brazil and 73.5 kg (162 lb) for a wild male from Uruguay.” That’s a lot of rodent!
Capybaras are native to South America, but some of them seem to have found their way to Japan, as evidenced by this onsen constructed in what apparently is a Japanese zoo or wildlife park. Ceiling Cat bless the Japanese for going to all this trouble to give pleasure to a rodent.
Now tell me, on this Valentine’s day is there anything more lovable than these capybaras frolicking in the hot tub? If you show these videos to your sweetheart, you’ll be sure to get lucky!
And another one:
h/t: from BoingBoing via Barry
UPDATE: Several people, including a reader in the comments below, called my attention to Michael Nugent’s characteristically thorough analysis of Hicks’s “motives” after looking at his (Hicks’s) Facebook page. It’s definitely worth a read.
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I’ve said my piece on the murders of three young Muslims in Chapel Hill, and I doubt I’ll have anything to add. But I still want to note people’s reactions to the murders—and how they apportion blame—as a sort of sociological observation. It shows how readily people can co-opt a tragedy to support their own agenda
Over at his site “Danthropology” at Patheos, Dan Arel wrote about how “The New Atheist blame game has begun,” and, from looking around the Internet, that’s right. People (not Dan) are furiously parsing killer Craig Hicks’s Facebook page for clues about his motivations. To me that’s almost as useless as liberal theologians parsing the Bible to find out God’s “true” message.
Dan has posted several pieces and tw**ts emitted by C. J. Werleman, an atheist who hates New Atheists, especially because he was caught plagiarizing at Salon and Alternet (both of which have not published his pieces since his admission of guilt), and then wrongly accused Sam Harris of also plagiarizing.
Here’s one tw**t, which, according to Arel, Werleman later deleted, telling Arel that “he [Werleman] was wrong for posting it.”
Here’s another, which I can’t find on Wereleman’s Tw**ter feed (he may have also deleted that: I didn’t look closely), but I note that he’s still whipping up this same kind of anti-atheist sentiment using the Chapel Hill murders:
When I first heard news of the attack on Wednesday morning, I immediately presumed the shooter, Craig Stephen Hicks, to be a right-wing extremist; someone of the Anders Brievik ilk but with probable Ku Klux Klan (KKK) leanings. I was shocked when CNN identified the killer to be “an atheist”.
An atheist? I’m an atheist. The mere idea of an atheist motivated hate crime is nonsensical to me. Atheism is a non-positive assertion. Wholly and solely atheism means non-belief. It’s not anti-anything or anyone. So I knew there had to be more to the killer’s motives than atheism or a “parking dispute”.
A visit to Hicks’ Facebook page hints at something a little more sinister. Hicks is an anti-theist (New Atheist), and it’s important to make its distinction from atheism, because anti-theism is to atheism what ISIS is to Islam. If that analogy sounds far fetched, then you really need to read more about the anti-religious genocides of the 20th century.
Wereleman apparently knows without a doubt that Hicks killed because he was an anti-theist driven to kill by reading the New Atheists:
Hicks is not the first to be inspired to murder by similar anti-theistic beliefs, if it is indeed proven to be a hate crime, nor will he be the last to be inspired to violence by overt anti-Muslim bigotry.
New Atheists love to assert beliefs lead to actions. Well, the shoe is on the other foot now that it appears Hicks has murdered in the name of his anti-theistic beliefs. Hate speech leads to dangerous beliefs, which ultimately lead to violent actions.
“Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them,” writes Harris. While Harris specifically refers to beliefs such as martyrdom and jihad, he also contends “suicide bombers and terrorists are not aberrations” in Islam; “They are the norm. They have not distorted their faith by interpreting it wrongly. They have lived out their faith by understanding it rightly.”
Werleman has been corrected before for quoting Harris’s statement out of context, and he does qualify the statement a bit, but he just cannot resist blaming Harris anyway: Harris should have known that his statement would be misused and even be taken as an excuse to kill. Ergo Harris bears some responsibility for the murders.
Harris has a PhD in neuroscience. Hicks and a majority of anti-theists do not! While the former may understand the nuance of his “thought experiments,” it is likely Hicks does not. It’s therefore not unreasonable to suggest that anti-theists, like Hicks, might take Harris’ “it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them” out of context in the same way jihadis take the Quranic verse “Kill the infidels” out of its historical interpretation and context.
This is deplorable. While atheism may not have an ineluctable connection with a given moral code, it does have such a connection with skepticism, for skepticism—seeing lack of evidence for God—is usually the precursor of nonbelief.
Werleman should exercise a little more skepticism about what really caused these murders. Indeed, we may never know unless the killer explains his motivations (that, too, may be misleading, but it would be the best explanation we get). But it’s unseemly to start saying that people like Dawkins and Harris bear any responsibility for these murders. Indeed, even if the killer says that he was motivated to kill by reading them (and he read a lot of stuff, apparently, beyond just their works), that does not make them directly responsible for his acts. For you could pin also pin the murders on all of the many Facebook “likes” and books that Hicks read that are apparently shown on his Facebook page, including, I’m told, his promotion of gay rights. After all, many Muslims don’t favor gay rights. . . .
Here’s a tw**t from Bibliophila showing the King of the Cats:
But of course all cats are kings!
Here’s a tw**t from April (a person) via Matthew Cobb, showing an onsen (Japanese hot spring resort) for kitties, just like the one you’ll soon see for capybaras:
The full image is here. Be sure to notice all the details. One cat is washing its butt!
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We’ll have a truncated version of RWP today, as my collection is on my main computer in Chicago. Fortunately, reader Stephen Barnard from Idaho sent me four photos yesterday, so I have something to post this morning.
First, yet another Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis):
Next, a Canada Goose (Branta canadensis). Canada Geese are widely despised when they infest urban and suburban areas because they shit like, well, like geese, all over parks, golf courses, lawns, cemeteries, etc. Here they are in their natural breeding habitat and I like them. Unlike the ones in cities, they’re hunted intensively and as a result are very spooky.
Next, a Eurasian Collared Dove (Streptopelia decaocto). These doves are reviled among North American birders. They were introduced to North America by way of the Bahamas and have spread widely and rapidly, displacing native Mourning Doves. Nevertheless, it’s a handsome bird and quite difficult to capture in flight.
Finally, the familiar Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos). Everyone seems to like Mallards.
Regarding harmful introduced species, I once said about the European Starling, another introduced bird that can be beautiful while being harmful, that if I could push a button to extinguish them from North America I would, but if I found a nestling in trouble I’d try to nurse it back to health. Joseph Stalin once said, in a very different context, that one death is a tragedy, but a million deaths is a statistic. He had a point. The most harmful introduced species in North America, without a doubt, is Homo sapiens.
Reader Diane G. is really good at finding AnimalCams, and this one, a squirrelcam from Budapest, is good. I’m not sure whether these long-eared cuties are European red squirrels (which bear the inappropriate Latin name of Sciurus vulgaris) or what—as I don’t know from squirrels—but they’re cute as hell and you can watch them nom at the feeder. As Diane notes, “Usually shows more birds than squirrels, but the squirrels that appear are adorable.” Click on the screenshot below to see the action at the Mókus Kamera:
It’s 6:30 a.m. in Mississippi, and my flight doesn’ t leave for Chicago until after 5 pm., bringing me to Midway Airport at the ungodly hour of 10 pm. Do not expect to see Hili at 5 a.m. Chicago time tomorrow!
The talk here went well, with about 200 attendees filling the hall, and people bought about 60 books total, I think. (Surprisingly, there were no hostile questions, but then again I didn’t say much about religion.) Only three purchasers said the magic words to have cats drawn in their copies of WEIT, and one person, pronouncing “Felis sylvestris lybica” as if it were a Latin chant, got a cat wearing a crucifix and a priest’s collar.
Here’s one incident that I heard at dinner last night from a faculty member. The local radio station had called him to talk about Darwin Day, and he mentioned all the activities, including my talk. The radio station guy, referring to my talk, then said, “But what is going to happen?” Puzzled, the faculty member said that Dr. Coyne was going to talk about the evidence for evolution. But then the radio guy repeated, “But what is going to happen?” It then dawned on the professor that the radio station was anticipating some big kerfuffle or protest, and they were looking for a story. Fortunately, everything was peaceful!
The visit here, though short, was fun, the campus is beautiful—with many ancient and stately live oak trees—the faculty and students are friendly, and they’ve fed me very well (more on the noms tomorrow). Oh, and it’s Valentine’s Day! While you’re treating your sweetie to chocolates and dinner, don’t forget the cats! (or d*gs. . .) In Dobrzyn, Hili has remembered:
A: What are you doing there?Hili: I’m waiting for a Valentine card from Jerry.(Photo: Sarah Lawson)
Ja: Co tam robisz?
Hili: Czekam na walentynkową kartkę od Jerrego.
(Zdjęcie: Sarah Lawson)
