Saturday: Hili dialogue

May 14, 2016 • 6:30 am

Okay, from now on I’ll give just one event in history, one birth, and one death per day. On May 14, 1796, Edward Jenner gave the first smallpox vaccination, starting a program that has ended with the complete eradication of the disease from humans. On this day in 1897, the great jazz instrumentalist (clarinet and sax) Sidney Bechet was born, and, in 1931, Denys Finch Hatton, the lover of Isak  Blixen, died in an airplane crash. Here is the gorgeous passage from Isak Dinisen’s Out of Africa (which I’ve reproduced before) memorializing Finch Hatton. It always brings me to tears:

After I had left Africa, Gustav Mohr wrote to me of a strange thing that had happened by Denys’ grave, the like of which I have never heard. “The Masai,” he wrote, “have reported to the District Commissioner at Ngong, that many times, at sunrise and sunset, they have seen lions on Finch-Hatton’s grave in the Hills. A lion and a lioness have come there, and stood, or lain, on the grave for a long time. Some of the Indians who have passed the place in their lorries on the way to Kajado have also seen them. After you went away, the ground round the grave was levelled out, into a sort of big terrace, I suppose that the level place makes a good site for the lions, from there they can have a view over the plain, and the cattle and game on it.”

It was fit and decorous that the lions should come to Denys’s grave and make him an African monument. “And renowned be thy grave.” Lord Nelson himself, I have reflected, in Trafalgar Square, has his lions made only out of stone.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili messes up and tries pathetically to recover; after all, she’s a Cat and can never be wrong:

Hili: Can you take my selfie?
A: How can I take YOUR selfie? You’re all mixed up.
Hili: Oh, we are one self.
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In Polish:
Hili: Czy możesz zrobić mi selfie?
Ja: Jak mogę zrobić TOBIE selfie? Coś pomyliłaś.
Hili: Oh, my jesteśmy jednością.
And some bonus photos from Andrzej. The cherries are coming along nicely in the orchard, with timely rains swelling the crop. And the beasts are cavorting with each other:
Pies for me in the offing!:
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And a nice man rescues a kitten from certain death by snake constriction. I don’t care if he’s circumvented natural selection:

Meanwhile, over at PuffHo’s “Religion” page

May 13, 2016 • 2:45 pm

Lord (that’s a metaphor), what a dog’s breakfast of pandering, religious apologetics, and feel-good spirituality that site contains! It’s times like these that I’m really glad I’m an atheist.

If you must read the article, click on its screenshot.

Runner up in the “Who cares?” category:

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How can a reason be beautiful? Anyway, this is one in PuffHo’s continuing series of profiles of women who love to wear the hijab. They never say anything about women who are forced to wear the hijab (or niqab or burqua, etc.)Screen Shot 2016-05-13 at 11.50.09 AMThis one is meant to soothe those atheists who yearn for God—it’s okay to go back!Screen Shot 2016-05-13 at 11.52.04 AM

Seriously, PuffHo? MIRACLES?

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A failed attempt at accommodationism:

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This is my favorite in the “Who cares?” category:

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Hint: they aren’t real mothers, just fictional ones:

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PLOS Biology weighs in on Mukherjee affair: “Writing for Story distorts and cripples explanatory prose”

May 13, 2016 • 1:45 pm

At least one science writer, Tabitha M. Powledge, has called out her journalistic confréres for their abysmal coverage of MukherjeeGate. In her piece at the PLOS Biology blog, “That Mukherjee piece on epigenetics in The New Yorker“, she has little patience for the “let’s leave out the truth in favor of a cute but dubious story” school of journalism. I like her headers, too:

Mukherjee apologizes, sorta

Brian Resnick’s post at Vox is inclined to cut Mukherjee some slack, partly because the author sent Resnick an apologetic email. Mukherjee told Resnick he had erred in not emphasizing gene regulation–but also noted that the piece is an excerpt from his new book that explores the topic more. (However, see this Why Evolution is True post wherein Matthew Cobb, who just reviewed the book for Nature, asserts that the New Yorker piece is not an excerpt.)

Not having read the book, a history of genetics called simply The Gene, I can’t say whether that’s true. But even if it is, so what? A magazine piece is supposed to stand on its own.

Resnick says, “The print New Yorker only has so much space. These choices aren’t always easy, but in journalism, they’re necessary. We can only tell one story at a time.”

Pfui. Epigenetics is one story. One intricate story. No matter our space constraints–and I’d argue, enviously, that 6000 words doesn’t strike me as terribly constrained; I’ve written on epigenetics in 2000 words and in 700–what we can do is alert readers to the fact that the details we’re emphasizing for space reasons are only part of that story. A couple of paragraphs noting that histone modification is but one chunk of the very complex tale of epigenetics discoveries, and offering a bit of description of some of the other parts, wouldn’t have been a big deal in a 6000-word piece.

And the change wouldn’t have required added wordage. To keep within the generous word count, that new explanatory material could easily replace the too-extensive family history in the piece. Mukherjee’s mother and aunt are identical twins but differ in a lot of ways. It’s an irresistible anecdotal lede for a piece explaining how the same genetic material can generate different outcomes. But the trip to New Jersey and other travelogues were just clutter.

PAUSE FOR BRIEF RANT:  Writing for Story distorts and cripples explanatory prose. The fact that narrative science/medical journalism is fashionable–and at some pubs obligatory–doesn’t make it right. Or informative.

There’s also a section called “What the pissed-off scientists said,”  a pleasingly informal (but accurate) appraisal of the reaction of those who work on gene regulation.

It’s interesting, but not that surprising, that the real science journals, like this one and Nature, have covered the story accurately, while places like Vox and Undark (the organ of the Knight Science Journalism program at MIT!) offer up the same pathetic excuse: “We didn’t have enough space to give an accurate portrayal of science. You don’t understand how hard our job is!” And Forbes, rather than evaluating the criticism, simply gave Mukherjee a free platform (and softball questions) to defend himself. Powledge handily dismembers those lame apologetics.

I haven’t yet seen a retraction or a clarification by the New Yorker. We’re all waiting, Mr. Remnick.

When Nobel Prize winners misbehave

May 13, 2016 • 12:45 pm

by Matthew Cobb

This rather arsey letter was sent by the great chemist Linus Pauling to Francis Crick in 1963. Pauling is correct about the substantive issue – there are three hydrogen bonds between guanine and cytosine, something that Crick had apparently got wrong – but is this the best way of sorting the matter out? Crick’s reply is not recorded.


 SCBBCC

Source: National Libraries of Medicine.

Christianity continues its decline in the US, unbelievers and the non-affiliated increase

May 13, 2016 • 11:30 am

I’m busy today, but wanted to call attention to a new Pew survey, “America’s changing religious landscape”, which gives some good news to atheists and anti-theists. (The report’s summary is here, and the full pdf is here.)

The upshot: the proportions of Christians, Catholics, and Protestants in the U.S. are falling, while the proportion of “nones” (those not formally affiliated with a church, which includes unaffiliated God-believers, “spiritual” people, atheists, and agnostics) is rising—and rising rapidly. Have a gander at the data from 2007-2014.

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You can see that, lest we worry that other faiths are filling the lacuna of departed Christians, that’s not the case: non-Christians went up only 1.2%, while the unaffiliated rose by 6.7%. Here’s Pew’s summary, which doesn’t add much but I thought I’d put it in for those who like words more than plots:

But the major new survey of more than 35,000 Americans by the Pew Research Center finds that the percentage of adults (ages 18 and older) who describe themselves as Christians has dropped by nearly eight percentage points in just seven years, from 78.4% in an equally massive Pew Research survey in 2007 to 70.6% in 2014. Over the same period, the percentage of Americans who are religiously unaffiliated – describing themselves as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular” – has jumped more than six points, from 16.1% to 22.8%. And the share of Americans who identify with non-Christian faiths also has inched up, rising 1.2 percentage points, from 4.7% in 2007 to 5.9% in 2014. Growth has been especially great among Muslims and Hindus, albeit from a very low base.

Here’s a breakdown by religion. “Outlier” forms of Christianity, like Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses, seem to be holding steady, but constitute only a very small proportion of the population. Muslims have nearly doubled their proportion, though it’s low, and Hindus have shown a modest increase. This is probably due to either immigration or higher birthrates:

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Now the data are in terms of percentages, but the population is growing, so percentages don’t translate directly into numbers. For example, though Evangelical Protestants have dropped 0.9% in proportion, their numbers have risen from 59.8 million to 62.2 million. But don’t worry, folks, for I think what matters is the proportion. And if you look at the number of “nones”, it has risen drastically.

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Finally, what about those “nones”? The data show that the increase in the unaffiliated is higher in the older age groups, but it’s gone up in all of them.

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And Pew’s analysis of how the proportion of atheists and agnostics among is rising. Atheists are still only 3.1%, but if you add agnostics it’s 7.1%, and I bet a lot of the other nones, especially the “spiritual” ones, have beliefs that aren’t harmful to society. Pew:

As the ranks of the religiously unaffiliated continue to grow, they also describe themselves in increasingly secular terms. In 2007, 25% of the “nones” called themselves atheists or agnostics; 39% identified their religion as “nothing in particular” and also said that religion is “not too” or “not at all” important in their lives; and 36% identified their religion as “nothing in particular” while nevertheless saying that religion is either “very important” or “somewhat important” in their lives. The new survey finds that the atheist and agnostic share of the “nones” has grown to 31%. Those identifying as “nothing in particular” and describing religion as unimportant in their lives continue to account for 39% of all “nones.” But the share identifying as “nothing in particular” while also affirming that religion is either “very” or “somewhat” important to them has fallen to 30% of all “nones.”

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For those who say, “American will always be a religious country”, my response is, “I wouldn’t bet on it.”

h/t: Barry

Harvard to punish students belonging to single-sex non-Harvard organizations

May 13, 2016 • 10:00 am

My Ph.D. alma mater is misbehaving badly these days. Under president Drew Faust, Harvard is starting to turn into an Authoritarian Leftist university. I won’t recount all the ways they’re caving in to student “demands,” but the initiative I’ll describe today, which I learned about from The Washington Post, came solely from the University administration.

According to the Post‘s op-ed, “Harvard’s clueless illiberalism“, the whole issue derived from Harvard’s desire to deal with the problem of sexual harassment and assault, which of course is a good thing to do. But the way they addressed the issue is, in this case, wrong-headed, ham-handed, and probably in violation of the College’s own statues.

President Faust asked Dean Rakesh Khurana to study “single-sex” groups like fraternities and sororities to see if they were contributing to the problem. (Harvard has numerous unofficial single-sex groups, including “final clubs”; you can see a list here, which encompasses both male and female groups.)

Fraternities, of course, are said to be the locus of a lot of sexual malfeasance, though in some cases, like the confected University of Virginia rape incident, reports have been false.  But insofar as fraternities do promote sexual harassment or assault (largely through dispensing enormous quantities of alcohol), they should be reproved and reformed. And if they have a formal affiliation with a university, they can be put on notice or even expelled.

But Harvard’s sororities and fraternities are independent, with no official affiliation with Harvard. They’re just places to live, hang out and party, and they are, as usual, limited to either men or women.

Nevertheless, President Faust considered this a problem that Harvard had to address. Here are excerpts from her statement, which implies that it’s really the fraternities and not sororities that are the problem:

. . . we have rededicated ourselves to achieving a campus where all members fully belong and thrive. For us to make progress on this shared endeavor, we must address deeply rooted gender attitudes, and the related issues of sexual misconduct, points underscored by the work of the Task Force on the Prevention of Sexual Assault.

. . . Although the fraternities, sororities, and final clubs are not formally recognized by the College, they play an unmistakable and growing role in student life, in many cases enacting forms of privilege and exclusion at odds with our deepest values.

. . . [Single-sex groups] encourage a form of self-segregation that undermines the promise offered by Harvard’s diverse student body. And they do not serve our students well when they step outside our gates into a society where gender-based discrimination is understood as unwise, unenlightened, and untenable.

It’s funny to hear Harvard talking about “privilege” and “exclusion” as being at odds with their deepest values. Harvard thrives on privilege and exclusion, and promotes it in many ways. And, of course, these passages refer largely to fraternities, for “gender-based discrimination” must surely mean discrimination against women.

So Harvard had to do something, but, to maintain gender parity, whatever it did it had to be done to men and women equally. You can’t single out fraternities and not sororities.

In fact, Harvard had no brief to punish members of any of these groups, as they’re not affiliated with Harvard at all! Harvard can certainly criticize them, but they have no authority to penalize them.

But Harvard did anyway. Beginning with the class of 2017, any Harvard student found belonging to a gender-exclusive group will experience these sanctions (taken from the Post article):

  • Those students won’t be able to hold any leadership position in Harvard’s undergraduate organizations, including sports teams. That means that if you belong to an off-campus fraternity, you can’t be captain of the all-male football team. Or if you belong to a sorority, you can’t be president of the women’s crew team. Ironic, isn’t it?
  • Those students will not be able to apply for prestigious fellowships, like the Rhodes and Marshall scholarships, that require endorsements from Harvard. Harvard will not support the students by sending the required university recommendation and endorsement.

This is ludicrous. While I’ve never belonged to a single-sex organization (I didn’t try to join a fraternity at William and Mary), they exist, and a student has the right to join one without University action if the group is not part of Harvard. To formally penalize students by withholding leadership positions and those crucial letters of support is a reprehensible and unconscionable act, although one driven by good motives.

Naturally, the students protested. And, as the Christian Science Monitor reports, some of the women are protesting because they want all-women’s groups to help them escape from a male-dominated society as well as to serve as “safe spaces”:

But opponents disagree that the unrecognized final clubs, fraternities, and sororities have an undesirable affect on student life. The #HearHerHarvard movement specifically argues that female-only final clubs and sororities now offer women an important safe place on campus to come together.

“My first semester at Harvard, I lost my voice and sense of self at such a competitive school,” Class of 2016 member Whitney Anderson said at the protest, as reported by The Washington Post. “Joining a women’s organization helped me find my place at Harvard. I finally had a home at school.”

Thus we have even more irony: that one form of Authoritarian Leftism, the attempt to punish students for their non-Harvard activities, is now conflicting with another form: the desire for “safe spaces” free from undesired speech. As the Post also notes, the University’s action is in conflict with Harvard’s Undergraduate Council, which opposes “restriction of any one’s freedom of public speech, assembly, expression, or association.”

It’s unbelievable that Harvard would try to sanction students, and hurt their educational experience, by monitoring their associations with off-campus groups.  My own alma mater is becoming just another Authoritarian Leftist school like Oberlin. President Faust really should rethink her decision.

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The president’s email address is president@harvard.edu, and I’ve written her (a copy of my email is in the comments). If you’re a graduate, your letter will be especially effective, as graduates often donate, and Dosh Trumps All.