Tuesday: Special Hili dialogue!

August 12, 2014 • 3:26 am

There is a special Hili dialogue today because Listy has translated my 300th post into Polish (I think that’s a record). I am very proud of that.  Remember, too, that Hili is the titular editor of Listy.

Hili: I used to walk here with Jerry.
A. Yes, we have many pictures of those walks.
Hili: But have you written to Jerry to tell him that today we are publishing his 300th article?
10534722_10204015695900033_5937505594880415106_n
In Polish:
Hili: Tutaj chodziłam z Jerrym na spacery.
Ja: Tak, mamy dużo zdjęć z tych spacerów.
Hili: Ale czy napisaliście mu, że dziś publikujemy jego trzechsetny artykuł?
Yes, Princess, Malgorzata wrote me and said that my column was here, and added this bonus:
And, at the bottom of the article, there is a picture of you and Hili with a caption : Reading this book in Dobrzyn Jerry took sometimes a break and pondered, together with Hili, over the question “how the mind works”.
Here are the  photo and Polish caption—at the end of a translation of one of my two pieces on de Waal’s The Bonobo and the Atheist. 

Od Redakcji

Czytając tę książkę w Dobrzyniu, Jerry chwilami przerywał lekturę i zastanawial się wspólnie z Hili nad pytaniem jak działa umysł.

P1010538_sI iz touched.

 

Robin Williams died

August 11, 2014 • 4:46 pm

This one was really a blow: who expected that? And it wasn’t illness, either—at least of the physical type. It appears to be suicide by asphyxiation resulting from severe depression. He was only 63.

ABC News reports:

Actor Robin Williams died this morning in California, according to the Marin County Sheriff’s Office-Coroner Division and his press representative. He was 63.

“Robin Williams passed away this morning,” the actor’s rep Mara Buxbaum said in a statement tonight. “He has been battling severe depression of late. This is a tragic and sudden loss. The family respectfully asks for their privacy as they grieve during this very difficult time.”

According a statement from the Marin County Coroner, they received a 911 call at 11:55 a.m., that Williams had been located unconscious and not breathing inside his residence in Tiburon, California. “The male subject, pronounced deceased at 12:02 pm has been identified as Robin McLaurin Williams.”

“An investigation into the cause, manner, and circumstances of the death is currently underway by the Investigations and Coroner Divisions of the Sheriff’s Office. Preliminary information developed during the investigation indicates Mr. Williams was last seen alive at his residence, where he resides with his wife, at approximately 10:00 pm on August 10, 2014.”

“At this time, the Sheriff’s Office Coroner Division suspects the death to be a suicide due to asphyxia, but a comprehensive investigation must be completed before a final determination is made. A forensic examination is currently scheduled for August 12, 2014 with subsequent toxicology testing to be conducted.”

The actor won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role in “Mrs. Doubtfire” and appeared in dozens of films including “Good Morning Vietnam,” “Good Will Hunting,” “Dead Poets Society,” and “Patch Adams.”

I didn’t even know he suffered from depression, a killer in its chronic form. There’s not much to say except that he was a funny guy and sometimes a very good actor, that he didn’t deserve this, and that I wish there had been some way to help him.

Robin WIlliams

h/t: Merilee

Baby foxes playing

August 11, 2014 • 2:43 pm

I need one more Cute Animal Video to bring myself back to normal. This is a good one.

As you know, this site considers foxes to be Honorary Cats™, and I have no compunction about posting the antics of these adorable fox cubs (pups?). The YouTube notes say this:

A family of gray foxes have decided to move into the backyard, and four frisky baby foxes play under the cover of night. You can find more reviews and details about my amazing camera at http://bit.ly/canon5d3. It was DARK outside with only one porch light, so this montage was shot at f/2.8 @ ISO 12800, which is crazy.

h/t: P

Armadillos need love, too

August 11, 2014 • 2:18 pm

Okay, it’s time for one or two funny or heartening things.

Who would have thought that armadillos (Dasypus novemcinctus) would be so affectionate. This one even seems like it wants a belly rub.

Armadillos are in the order Cingulata, and the only family in that order is Dasypodidae, the armadillos. There are only about 20 species in the order, then, making it one of the smallest mammalian orders. (Chiroptera, the order containing bats, has over 1200 species.)

 

h/t: Jim

Bad idea of the year: Texas contemplates allowing alcohol at gun shows

August 11, 2014 • 12:42 pm

It seems that I’m conveying more distressing news than usual today. I think it’s just a bad news day, but I’m also peevish as I’m still afflicted with viral bronchitis, which, thank Ceiling Cat, is abating.  At least the following news doesn’t involve creationism or people being stoned, but it still shows how far our world (or rather, the U.S.) is from rationality.

When I was a postdoc at The University of California at Davis, I remember that in the nearby town of Winters stood a shop that sold both alcohol and guns. It was called “Guns ‘n’ Grog.” Only in America would you find something like that. BAD idea!

It persists.  According to Fox News, the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission is reviewing a proposal to allow alcohol sales at gun shows:

Texas could start allowing alcohol sales at gun shows provided they don’t allow live ammunition or let buyers take possession of their weapons at the events.

The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission announced the proposal Friday. It will hold a 30-day public comment period before any change is made.

The proposal also would require that firearms being shown for sale be disabled and not readily convertible for use.

Under current rules, if a gun show is held at a venue licensed to sell alcohol, drinks sales and consumption are suspended during the time it takes to set up, conduct and dismantle the gun show.

“We got a request from a gun club in the Dallas-Fort Worth area to amend the rules,” said agency spokeswoman Carolyn Beck.

I don’t think this is going to pass, even in gun-crazy Texas, for two reasons. First, as ABC News reports, there are at least some sane gun owners:

Bill Clouse, one of several hundred people who attended the High Caliber Gun & Knife Show in Houston, described himself as a “huge gun supporter” but said he doesn’t believe guns and alcohol are a good combination.

“I don’t think there will be a possibility for trouble. I just personally do not believe you should have alcohol and firearms in the same vicinity, whether you are hunting or at a gun show,” said Clouse, 34, a high school teacher.

Josh Jensen, another person at Saturday’s gun show, was also against the proposal, saying the idea is “just silly to me.”

But what I suspect will be the deciding factor is this: you wouldn’t be able to carry away your new gun under the new rules. As Fox News adds:

The Texas State Rifle Association is still reviewing the proposal, said Alice Tripp, the group’s legislative director. She called it “confusing” and questioned whether gun advocates would want to attend gun shows with such restrictions.

“Does that make any sense? Who would buy a gun at a gun show where you couldn’t take possession of it?” she asked.

Yeah! Because, in many places gun shows are exempt from the law that background checks are necessary before you can take possession of guns that you but.

Still, as we might expect in the US of A, there are some who simply want a drink with their gun. From ABC News:

Crystal Hartt, 47, a ranch owner from the Port Lavaca area who was at the Houston gun show, supported the idea, adding she considered being able to buy alcohol at a gun show the same as buying a beer at a baseball game or a rock concert.

“It’s another event. Why not sell a margarita to go with it?” she said.

“Another event,” indeed! An event with firearms galore? Why not allow people to get drunk? And although live ammunition is prohibited, I’m not sure if that would ban Texan’s rights to have open carry of long guns and concealed carry of handguns.

Below is a photo of one of these places in Schulenberg, Texas. According to the website, the other side of the sign says, “SHOOT EM UP – SLAM EM DOWN”.

Double_Shot_Liquor_Guns

I apologize on behalf of my country.

h/t: Chris

“That’s my boy”: ISIS militant proud of son holding up a severed head, ISIS stones two women for adultery

August 11, 2014 • 11:23 am

The second episode of the VICE series on ISIS (now called the “Islamic State”) dealt with the brainwashing that terrorist group imposes on children under its control, a true form of child abuse. Now the CBC News has reported a particularly reprehensible episode. A jihadist from ISIS has tweeted a picture of his son holding up the severed head of a soldier—with the approving comment, “That’s my boy!” The kid was apparently raised in Australia and is now being turned into a young thug.

From the CBC report:

An Australian newspaper on Monday published a photograph of a child it said was the son of an Australian convicted terrorist holding aloft the severed head of a Syrian soldier.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio that the photograph was further evidence of “just how barbaric” the Islamic State group is.

The Australian newspaper reported that the photograph of terrorist Khaled Sharrouf’s son, who was raised in Sydney, was posted on Twitter by his proud father.

“That’s my boy!” Sharrouf apparently posted beneath the image that was taken in the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, the capital of what has been declared that an Islamic Caliphate by the Islamic State, the newspaper reported.

The child, who is not named, appears to be younger than 10 years old.

Sharrouf used his brother’s passport to leave Australia last year with his wife and three sons to fight in Syria and Iraq. The Australian government had banned him from leaving the country because of the terrorism threat he posed.

I won’t post the photo here, but the Sydney Morning Herald, in an article that gives more information, has a picture with the kid’s face and the severed head pixillated; if you want to see it, go to this link and look halfway down. The Herald notes this:

The photo shows a boy, wearing a cap, checked pants and a blue shirt, struggling with both arms to hold up the head of the slain soldier.

The caption reads: “That’s my boy!”

It is one of a several photos posted by Sharrouf, who security agencies believe travelled to Syria with his family.

Another photo shows Sharrouf also holding the decapitated head, while in another photograph, Sharrouf is dressed in camouflage fatigues and posing with his three young sons who are holding guns.

And that picture I can show (from the CBC):

khaled-sharrouf
Sharrouf also posted photos of himself and young armed boys believed to be his sons in front of the ISIS flag. (The Australian/Twitter)

Curiously, Catholic Online has a post with very graphic photos of ISIS militants posing with the severed heads of their captives. It’s gruesome, so don’t go there unless you can stand it. (The site is here.) I do look at these things, simply to inculcate myself with the true horror of what is going on. Hearing about it is one thing, seeing it another.

In yet more depressing news from the region, The Associated Press reported  two days ago that two women accused of adultery were stoned to death by ISIS jihadis. This is undoubtedly part of the imposition of Sharia law that is the topic of the third VICE News documentary on The Islamic State. (I’ll put it up tomorrow.)

Am I wrong, or is the world going to hell right now?

h/t: Mark

 

More buzz about Dembski

August 11, 2014 • 9:10 am

Intelligent design creationist William Dembski is speaking here on August 19; his topic is how his own mathematical analysis shows that natural selection can’t produce evolution. What surprises me is that Dembski doesn’t seem to have taken on board the fact that artificial selection can produce huge evolutionary change, which should also be impossible under Dembski’s claims. Further, we now have many examples—ranging from bacteria evolving antibiotic resistance and new biochemical pathways for digesting nylon to finches evolving bigger beaks when forced to eat tougher seeds—of natural selection causing evolution.

The other day I posted a few email exchanges I had with the person who invited Dembski, a professor at my university. I’m still receiving emails, apparently as part of a group interested in Dembski’s visit. Although I don’t want to reveal “backchannel” material, Dembski’s “invitor” emailed one comment to the group that I thought was worth highlighting. Urging people to make appointments to chat with Dembski, the invitor said this, which I reproduce verbatim:

We do not often get a chance to someone who does not share out views about evolution.  That is interesting thing to do. The workings of the discovery institute and of the creationist movement is an interesting subject also.    If we only talk to people who share our basic view of the world, we will understand the world less well.

I was tempted to respond, as I did before, by saying that we learn nothing from talking to people about their theories that have already been discredited (why not invite a Holocaust denier?). But what I really wanted to say was this, “Hey, folks, I can get you dozens of creationists dying to talk to professors about why evolution is wrong!”

I refrained.

But I don’t understand this person’s attitude. Of course we should challenge our views by exposing them to disparate ideas, and by seeking criticism. That’s how science works. But I’d never send one of my scientific papers to a creationist for vetting. When someone has shown themselves blinded by an a priori commitment to Jesus, as Dembski has, all we learn from such interaction is how willing they are to distort the evidence to buttress their views. One of the commenters on the previous thread about Dembski had asked him if any evidence would change his mind about intelligent design. Dembski simply answered, “No.” Such a person is not a scientist—not in my world—and none of their claims about reality can be taken credibly. In science (and Dembski claims he’s doing science), what can never be refuted by evidence can never be accepted as true.

The person who wrote the above is not a biologist, but a smart and accomplished academic. How can someone like that have the attitude that all views are worth airing—or invite (and pay) someone to talk about them at a good university? \

Once again, I’d ask why we don’t have seminars on homeopathy at the University of Chicago Medical School, or seminars on astrology at the University’s Department of Psychology?  I could call my friends at those places and ask them those questions, but I know what I’d hear: “Why would we want to do that? That stuff is bullshit?”

So what does intelligent design have that homeopathy and astrology doesn’t?

We already have plenty of evidence that natural and artificial selection can effect substantial evolutionary change. What does it benefit us to hear from someone to tell us that it can’t? It’s like the old mathematical “proof” that honeybees can’t fly. We don’t need the math; we can just watch the bees.

 

A truly WTF article in The New York Times

August 11, 2014 • 6:07 am

We all know that The New York Times shows an unconscionable love of religion (viz., its giving Tanya Luhrmann a regular column), but Greg Mayer steered me to a piece that is not only soft on religion, but for reasons that are completely opaque. In fact, unless I’ve lost my mind, the article is unreadable. I’m not sure why it’s in the Times.

The piece is called “Swimming against the rising tide: secular climate-change activists can learn from evangelical Christians,” and it’s by Kristen Dombek, described as “a columnist for n+1.”

I’ve read it twice and still don’t get the point. It decries global warming, mentions some of the advantages of religion (Dombek says she’s an unbeliever), but I’ll be damned if I can see what lessons we’re supposed to learn from evangelical Christians that will help us deal with or reverse climate change. It’s full of faitheist purple prose like the following, but where is the lesson?

In Indiana, where I’m from, ocean beaches are a faraway thing, so as a child I learned to swim in a Y.M.C.A. pool. Later in life, it is easy to forget just how hard it is to figure out that you can trust the water. You must be calm and attentive exactly when you are most scared. This is why, when adults teach you to swim, they trick you. They say, “Swim to me, I’m right here” and then back up, so you learn with your body what is possible, despite what your mind is telling you. You have to trust things outside of yourself more than you trust your instincts: your parents, the floor, chairs, bicycles, water. God, and science.

Which one of those last things is not like the others? All but the penultimate item EARN your trust by behaving in ways that give you confidence in their existence.

I think the following is supposed to be the meat of the article: our “lesson” from Christianity:

It took many more years to start believing in evolution. I had to make a study of it, look at the finches myself, learn with my mind what I had felt in the water. Even when I knew the facts, it took a leap of faith to glimpse — only ever in moments — the interconnectedness of all life on an unfathomable scale.

It is hard to understand that the ways of the universe are not human ways. But it is hard, too, to face this ocean, so changed by us, without hiding in either fear or denial. To stay awake, active, useful, is a matter of feeling as much as knowing. You have to trust that your individual life is linked to something bigger: that you belong, body and soul, to a larger story for which you are responsible. In this, those of us who believe the science might take a lesson from the faithful. And the rhetoric that would pit faith against reason ignores the millions — all of us, perhaps — who live on both.

It is summer, whether or not I go to the beach. But soon I’ll take a train to stand on the edge of the Atlantic, walk into the ocean I fear, and trust it to hold me up. I hope it will be a small kind of prayer for the future, less mystical than pragmatic, to feel in my body what is so hard to fathom: This vast and humbling contingency that’s made the waters rise is also what makes my life matter, because other creatures — human and otherwise — will live in my wake. What threatens us is also our only comfort: It matters what we do. To swim in the ocean now is to swim into the future and know that we have made it.

Sounds pretty, no? But where is the substance? Now I’m just a scientist, not an English major, so perhaps some kind reader can look at the short article and tell me what the point is. I’d appreciate it.  As far as I can see, what the religious lesson is is this:

1. Religion teaches us that our lives are part of a bigger scheme.

2. To work against global warming, you have to feel that you are part of a larger scheme.

What I don’t get about this is the repeated documentation (e.g., here) that religious people are the biggest denialists of global warming, and that the religiously unaffiliated are most likely to accept anthropogenic climate change.  This is not to mention that, of course, #2 doesn’t follow from #1.

Has The New York Times really fallen this low?