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.
The latest Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal by Zach Weiner purports to show a deep flaw in creationism. But creationists already have an answer to this; I’ll leave it to you to give it in the comments (there’s also a wording problem in the first panel):
h/t: jsp
Every international flight I’ve ever taken to India lands between 1 and 5 a.m., and this was no different: 1:05. I’m now ensconced at my friends’ house at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi, and it’s 3:30 a.m. All I can write tonight is something that every inveterate traveler knows: the second you step off the plane in India, you know from the odor alone (even in the airport) where you are. It varies from place to place, but tonight it’s the smoke of a million cooking fires with some coal smoke mixed in. If India were a perfume, what perfumers call its “bottom note”—the dominance fragrance—would be smoke. But the top notes include rosewater and sandalwood, as well as dung and the odor of frying chappatis. Nowhere in the US or Europe smells like it.
When I looked up the weather report in Delhi the day before yesterday, it didn’t say “rainy” or “clear” or “foggy” (which it often is). It said “smoke.”
I’m delighted to be here, as it’s been 12 years since my last visit. And so to bed.
Who would have thought that you could microwave a cut grape for just a few seconds, and produce a glowing plasma in your microwave. Have a look at this instructional video (NOTE: I am not telling you to try this at home, but if you do, report back.)
The explanation, from Now I Know:
The two sides of the grape act as focal points for the microwaves (the waves themselves, not the appliance). The grape haves are connected only by the thin piece of skin left uncut by the knife. As the microwaves move across the grape, from one hemisphere to the other, this tiny remainder of grape skin quickly dries out and burns up, causing a spark.
And one spark is all you need. It ionizes the air around the grape, creating ion-rich gas also known as a plasma – with solids, liquids, and gases, the fourth form of matter. The light show you’re seeing is the plasma, much like that as seen in a plasma lamp, albeit more violent and because it is in your microwave, dangerous.
Why is the plasma in the video above so large? The team at The Naked Scientists explains further: “This plasma conducts electricity and can absorb microwaves. Sometimes the plasma gets big enough to absorb enough microwaves to keep growing[.]” The Naked Scientists also warn that the experiment “can cause minor burns on the top of your microwave.”
The glass contains the air around the grape even more so than the microwave oven, thereby concentrating the plasma, and allowing for the light show seen in the video (as well as protecting the roof of the microwave).
h/t: Diane G.
This is the ghost of Professor Ceiling Cat, summoned forth by his minions to create a forum for discussion. In the thread below you can talk about whatever you want.
One suggestion, which is mine, is this: in my post on Friday, I asked readers to tell me why, in the absence of data, they were so sure that religion was bad for the world. That is, how do they know that if the world had never had religion, it would be better than it is now?
That would seem to be an empirical question, resolvable only with data. Yet as far as I can see (and I haven’t read every comment), most readers feel that the question can be resolved not with data, but with logic or from first principles. Or, they cite anecdotes like religiously-inspired violence (my response would be that it’s easy to measure deaths, but not so easy to measure the consolation and well being that, believers claim, religion brings them). But pointing out that religion does bad stuff doesn’t answer the question if it’s been harmful on the whole.
One person I talked to said that New Atheist books like The End of Faith or God Is Not Great were meant not to show that religion in its net effects was harmful to humanity, but instead to emphasize that there were some bad effects of religion that had been overlooked. I disagree: I claim that those books were very clearly written to show that religion was a bad institution as a whole. What do you think?
But of course you can talk about anything you want, or go off on any tangent you want.
. . . and I use the term loosely. But, as Maru says, I do my best, and this is the best I can do when I’m jet-lagged.
Reader George sends a photo of urban wildlife:
Here’s a photo of my cats watching a squirrel eat a slice of apple.
Greetings from Schiphol Airport, where it’s early morning and Professor Ceiling Cat has a 4 hour layover before the 7-hour flight to New Delhi. And I have just received the latest Hili dialogue, which is below.
As several readers commented, Schiphol is now a generic international airport, complete with Starbucks and McDonald’s. Yes, you can buy stroopwaffels and Gouda cheese in the food shops, and there is one place selling tulip bulbs, but I would not rank this as the best big airport in Europe. (I still say Munich is better, as they have Weisswürst und Bier on offer. And Heathrow is the WORST.)
Herewith is the Furry Princess of Poland, still afflicted with chronic solipsism:
Cyrus: What are you looking for in this computer?Hili: I’m checking whether I am in Wikipedia.
Cyrus: Czego szukasz w tym komputerze?
Hili: Sprawdzam, czy jestem w Wikipedii.
This video is my going-to-India present from Matthew Cobb, who wrote “Maybe you’ll see this in India!”
I doubt it. . .
And I don’t know how the hell they train a horse to do this.
With my post on “The Dog Delusion“, I was ahead of the curve, though I thought of it as a humorous Papal remark that wouldn’t go anywhere. I was wrong: the Pope’s implication that all animals go to Heaven (implying they have souls), as well as the discovery of an earlier and similar statement by Pope Paul VI*, have unleashed a frenzy of theological speculation, as well as musings by meat producers and vegetarians about the implications for eating animals. What all this shows is how intellectually depauperate religion is, and how believers fervently discuss questions that have no hope of ever being resolved. Theologians, and even the New York Times, think that the Pope’s remarks, and the uproar they’ve caused, are both serious and newsworthy.
In fact, Pope Francis’s pronouncements on animals and the afterlife made the front page of yesterday’s New York Times, in a piece called “Dogs in Heaven? Pope Francis leaves pearly gates open.” And the controversy was on the evening news last night as well. The Times article raises many questions (quotes from the piece are indented):
Does this cause a theological ferment? Yes.
Charles Camosy, an author and professor of Christian ethics at Fordham University, said it was difficult to know precisely what Francis meant, since he spoke “in pastoral language that is not really meant to be dissected by academics.” But asked whether the remarks had caused a new debate on whether animals have souls, suffer and go to heaven, Mr. Camosy said, “In a word: absolutely.”
Did the Pope really mean it? No, it was meant “casually” (i.e., metaphorically).
In his remarks, as reported by Vatican Radio, Francis said of paradise: “It’s lovely to think of this, to think we will find ourselves up there. All of us in heaven. It’s good, it gives strength to our soul.
“At the same time, the Holy Scripture teaches us that the fulfillment of this wonderful design also affects everything around us, and that came out of the thought and the heart of God.”
Theologians cautioned that Francis had spoken casually, not made a doctrinal statement.
Did the Pope mean it? Yes.
The Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and editor at large of America, the Catholic magazine, said he believed that Francis was at least asserting that “God loves and Christ redeems all of creation,” even though conservative theologians have said paradise is not for animals.
“He said paradise is open to all creatures,” Father Martin said. “That sounds pretty clear to me.”
NOTE: That last sentence, which was there yesterday, has mysteriously disappeared from the article this morning. It may be because Martin learned that “paradise is open to all creatures” came not from Pope Francis, but from Pope Paul VI (see below). But a Pope is a Pope. And Martin is quoted later in the article saying this:
Father Martin said he did not believe the pope’s remarks could be construed as a comment on vegetarianism. But, he said, “he’s reminding us that all creation is holy and that in his mind, paradise is open to all creatures, and frankly, I agree with him.”
Do all the Popes agree that animals have souls? No.
The question of whether animals go to heaven has been debated for much of the church’s history. Pope Pius IX, who led the church from 1846 to 1878, longer than any other pope, strongly supported the doctrine that dogs and other animals have no consciousness. He even sought to thwart the founding of an Italian chapter of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Pope John Paul II appeared to reverse Pius in 1990 when he proclaimed that animals do have souls and are “as near to God as men are.” But the Vatican did not widely publicize his assertion, perhaps because it so directly contradicted Pius, who was the first to declare the doctrine of papal infallibility in 1854.
John Paul’s successor, Benedict, seemed to emphatically reject his view in a 2008 sermon in which he asserted that when an animal dies, it “just means the end of existence on earth.”
But were these Popes speaking ex cathedra, the only time when they’re infallible (or, as Archie Bunker once said, “inflammable”)?
Is it good news for animal lovers? Yes! Not only will you see your pets in heaven, but there are other beneficial results:
Ms. Gutleben of the Humane Society said Francis’ apparent reversal of Benedict’s view could be enormous. “If the pope did mean that all animals go to heaven, then the implication is that animals have a soul,” she said. “And if that’s true, then we ought to seriously consider how we treat them. We have to admit that these are sentient beings, and they mean something to God.”
Sarah Withrow King, director of Christian outreach and engagement at PETA, one of the most activist anti-slaughterhouse groups, said the pope’s remarks vindicated the biblical portrayal of heaven as peaceful and loving, and could influence eating habits, moving Catholics away from consuming meat — which she asserted had already been happening anyway. “It’s a vegan world, life over death and peace between species,” she said. “I’m not a Catholic historian, but PETA’s motto is that animals aren’t ours, and Christians agree. Animals aren’t ours, they’re God’s.”
It’s interesting that in the last sentence PETA, which I haven’t thought of as a religious organization, suddenly buys into faith. They will in fact say anything that helps their cause. (I have mixed feelings about PETA, but think they’ve done some good things by calling attention to the horrendous mistreatment of animals raised for consumption or their eggs or milk.)
Is it bad news for meat producers? It would seem so, for killing something with a soul is murder. But the purveyors of meat don’t think so, and, as always, can cherry-pick the Bible to support their views:
“As on quite a few other things Pope Francis has said, his recent comments on all animals going to heaven have been misinterpreted,” Dave Warner, a spokesman for the National Pork Producers Council, said in an email. “They certainly do not mean that slaughtering and eating animals is a sin.” Mr. Warner quoted passages from Genesis that say man is given “dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on earth.”
“While that ‘dominion’ means use for human benefit, it also requires stewardship — humane care and feeding — something all farmers who raise animals practice every day of every year,” Mr. Warner said.
It’s news to me that “all farmers” practice humane care and feeding every day of the year. Tell that to those who confine pigs or calves in small stalls, or cut off the beaks of battery chickens.
Is this whole debate insane? Yes!
Laura Hobgood-Oster, professor of religion and environmental studies at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Tex., and an expert on the history of dog-human interaction, said she believed that there would be a backlash from religious conservatives, but that it would take time.
“The Catholic Church has never been clear on this question; it’s all over the place, because it begs so many other questions,” she said. “Where do mosquitoes go, for God’s sake?”
Indeed! I await the Vatican’s pronouncement about which animals get to go to Heaven, and which are Left Behind. Which species have souls, and which don’t? It reminds me of the barminology debate about how many “kinds” of animals there are.
This kerfuffle simply demonstrates what Andrew Bernstein said in an article about the uselessness of religion during the Dark Ages (a quote that I reproduce in The Albatross; reference below):
Here is the tragedy of theology in its distilled essence: The employment of high-powered human intellect, of genius, of profoundly rigorous logical deduction—studying nothing. In the Middle Ages, the great minds capable of transforming the world did not study the world; and so, for most of a millennium, as human beings screamed in agony—decaying from starvation, eaten by leprosy and plague, dying in droves in their twenties—the men of the mind, who could have provided their earthly salvation, abandoned them for otherworldly fantasies.
___________
Bernstein, A. A. 2006. “The Tragedy of Theology: How Religion Caused and Extended the Dark Ages.” Objective Standard 1:11–37.
*Pope Paul VI’s statement, made to a child distraught over the loss of his dog: “One day, we will see our animals again in the eternity of Christ. Paradise is open to all of God’s creatures.’’
As an update, reader Pliny the In Between contributed a cartoon:
