I have landed—and an anecdote about Canadian airport security

May 16, 2014 • 7:28 am

I am now in Kamloops, and the Imagine No Religion 4 conference begins today with a buffet dinner at 5 and then a panel at 7 pm on free will, where Professor Ceiling Cat will expound his controversial views on incompatibilism.

I’m told that last year the host of this year’s free will panel, philosopher Chris DiCarlo, gave his own argument about free will (I believe that he’s a hard determinist like me), and Dan Dennett got up during the question session and spent the whole 20 minutes attacking DiCarlo’s views. (Dennett, of course, is a compatibilist who has confected a view of human free will that is, to me, unconvincing.) I believe we’ll have a libertarian free-willer on this year’s panel. Tomorrow I talk on theology and science.

The schedule of talks for the conference looks great and refreshingly drama-less.

The weather is lovely, as is this small town. I flew from Chicago to Calgary (3.5 hours), and the following 1.25-hour hop on a propeller plane from Calgary to Kamloops took us right over the Canadian Rockies and several other mountain ranges. It was lovely and clear; here is one of many pictures I took from my window seat:

P1050797

But I must relate something that happened to me at the Calgary airport.

Our plane was late from Chicago because of storm delays, and when I got to Calgary I found that I had to not only clear Canadian customs, but also go through another security check before getting on the plane to Kamloops. Because of that, and the confusing directions I got to security, I was late. By the time I got to security, there was a line of about fifty people waiting to have their bags x-rayed and bodies checked, and the checking was SLOW. They let in about one person every two minutes, and, at the end of the line, I realized that at that rate I would miss my plane.

For the first time in my life, I decided to try to jump the queue. I went to its head and asked the woman in charge (a member of what I guess is the Canadian equivalent of the TSA) if I could go ahead, as I was due at the gate in five minutes. I also showed her my boarding pass on which, at check-in, they’d written: “Be at gate at 2:00.” It was about 1:56.

She fixed me with a peremptory gaze and said, “Sorry, sir, there’s nothing I can do for you. You’ll have to get back in line.”

I slinked to the rear of the line again, finding my place, and fretted. But, watching the line’s slow progress, I wasn’t happy, and decided to try again. In five minutes I went back to the head of the line and literally begged the woman to let me through.

She gave me the same response, “Sorry, sir, there’s nothing I can do.” In other words, she’d rather make me miss my plane than allow me the courtesy of going ahead.

Determined not to give up, I turned around, addressed the first guy in line and asked him, “Excuse me, sir, but I’m about to miss my plane. Do you mind if I go ahead of you?”  He said, “Sure!”

Happy that I had succeeded, I stood at the head of the line and waited my turn. But the Canadian official told me this: “Not so fast. You have to ask permission from everybody who was in line ahead of you.”

I was stunned. Really? For a second I sort of understood, for if you jump a queue you’re really going ahead of everyone, not just the first person in line, and Canadians are famous for their politeness in queues:

canadian-lemmings

But at this point I wasn’t about to admit defeat. I walked all the way down the line, waving my boarding pass and shouting repeatedly, “I’m going to be late; does anybody mind if I go ahead of them?”  No passenger objected.

At that point the Candian-TSA woman let me through. But screening was still slow, and I barely made my plane.

For a while I was just amused at what I thought was a vivid demonstration of the famous Canadian politeness (see cartoon above). But the more I think about it, the more I’m peeved that an official would rather have me miss my plane than go to the head of the line (something that is regularly allowed in the U.S. for late passengers). And it was a bit humiliating to have to walk that line asking everyone to let me pass.

I’m asking Canadian readers: is this normal behavior? Or was I simply the victim of an officious official who didn’t like what she saw as an obnoxious and pushy American?

Friday, Hili dialogue

May 16, 2014 • 6:34 am

Big trouble in Dobrzyn! My informants tell me that Cyrus the D*g and Hili are not getting along, with the result that they have to be locked in separate rooms. Further, Hili’s human staff must sleep in separate rooms, one with the d*g and the other with Hili. I am also informed that it may take months to get these animals used to each other, and Hili is forced to repair to high places, while the d*g knocks her bowl on the ground and noms her food.

Such is the perfidy of the d*g kind. My suggestion was to replace it with a donkey. Today’s dialogue describes the ongoing troubles:

Hili: We will become friends cautiously. For the moment I prefer to look at him from a safe height.
A: And when will you decide that life has returned to normal?
Hili: When he understands that he is allowed to lie on his bed when I’m not sleeping there.

10300779_10203373142796607_4522113198285022145_n

In Polish:
Hili: Zaprzyjaźniamy się ostrożnie, chwilowo wolę na niego patrzeć z bezpiecznej wysokości.
Ja: A kiedy uznasz, że życie wróciło do normy?
Hili: Jak zrozumie, że może leżeć na swoim materacu, kiedy ja na nim nie śpię.
By the way, people have asked for a photo of Cyrus the D*g. Here, courtesy of Andrzej’s Facebook page, is a photo of Cyrus by the Vistula:
1901275_10203375469974785_1791814998375884899_n

 

Two lynx have a chinwag

May 15, 2014 • 12:36 pm

Reader Barry called my attention to this video, which appeared on Robert Krulwich’s National Public Radio website. The conversation begins 33 seconds in, and I believe these are Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis).

Look at the size of those paws!

Krulwich adds:

I looked up “lynx vocalizations” to find out why they sound like this. Apparently, explaining weird cat sounds is not yet a major scholarly pursuit. Mel and Fiona Sunquist, in their book Wild Cats of the World, say lynxes can “mew, spit, hiss and growl; they also yowl, chatter, wah-wah, gurgle, and purr.” But the Sunquists don’t say why. Another scholar, Gustav Peters, says lynx mating calls (Is that what we heard? Or was that just two lynxes yakking?) are “a series of intense mews.” Intense, for sure. Mews? Those lynxes weren’t mewing.

The lynx seem unperturbed by the light, which I find surprising.

~

Leaping lizards!

May 15, 2014 • 11:53 am

Before someone corrects me, yes, I know that crocodiles aren’t lizards (they’re in different orders of reptiles), but the title of the post will resonate with you if you’re “of a certain age,” as they say.

TheYouTube notes give the location, and I’m not sure how I feel about keeping crocs in captivity and having them do tricks for people. I suspect, though, that, being sedentary, they don’t suffer from this as much as do beluga whales, porpoises, or orcas:

Thanks to http://www.crocosauruscove.com in Darwin, Australia. You can feed crocodiles, swim with crocodiles, and get really up close to them. Feeding them using a fishing rod is a really unique experience, as you can see they can jump completely out of the water.

The behavior is surprising, though. Given that they probably never do this in nature, it must be something of a spandrel (a byproduct of another evolved behavior), supported by the observation that they seem to leap by making swimming motions.

Further notes by Greg Mayer

These are saltwater crocodiles (Crocodylus porosus) at Crocosaurus Cove, a reptile zoo in Darwin, Northern Territory. “Salties” are known for their ability to jump vertically, but this is the only film in which I’ve seen them completely clear the water. (There’s a possibility that the crocodile whose tail left the water may have been hanging on to a “fishing” line, and thus been partially pulled up, but although no segment shows both the head and the tail out of water simultaneously, I think they are actually leaving the water on their own.) The usual context for seeing these vertical leaps by salties are by wild crocodiles which have become habituated to the presence of tour boats and the food proffered from them.

"Brutus", the one-armed saltwater crocodile, jumping for tourists on the Adelaide River, Northern Territory. Photo from Courier Mail, Brisbane.
“Brutus”, the one-armed saltwater crocodile, jumping for tourists on the Adelaide River, Northern Territory. Photo from Courier Mail, Brisbane.

“Brutus”, said to be 5.5 m long,  is much larger than the crocs in the film, and I don’t think he would be able to leave the water completely. (You can judge the size of a saltie by the shape of the head– they start out narrow, and get relatively broader and more massive as they get bigger.)

The way the crocs jump is by using their standard swimming motion: lateral undulation, legs tucked in, with the tail providing most of the propulsion. In jumping, they swim straight up (instead of more horizontally), and develop enough head of steam to partially or entirely break the water surface. Jerry supposes that they never do this in nature, but I’m not so sure. A number of crocodilians are known to skulk around waterbird rookeries, eating the birds that may fall out of the trees into the water, and there’s no reason to think they wouldn’t jump up to grab a bird as well. Here’s a photo of a Nile crocodile going after a grey heron from the National Geographic photo contest. (But note: the water that this Nile croc is in is much shallower, and it may be pushing off with its feet rather than its tail.)

Nile crocodile jumping for grey heron. Photo from Adelaide Advertiser.
Nile crocodile jumping for grey heron. Photo from Adelaide Advertiser.

h/t: Matthew Cobb

Readers’ weekly attacks on evolution and atheism, and Scalia on the devil

May 15, 2014 • 11:03 am

Here are a few of the comments (not approved) that creationist readers have tried to post this week. Again, this is just to keep your finger on the pulse of America. And believe me, there are a lot more comments, similar to these, that I didn’t put up.

Reader “Rasputin” comments on my post “Surprise: Pope Francis believes in Satan and demons“:

We only know the world as far back as our modern science has been able to reach into. What took place aeons before that? Is the current human race the first to appear on this planet? If not, who or what was here before us? Did we just “evolve” or were we “created”? Has science answered all the questions that perplex the mind of man? What really proves that satan does not exist, or God, for that matter? Let’s try to discover the very moment we fall asleep. That is an easier endeavor than proving the non-existence of satan. Cynicism or skepticism is not the answer.

I believe the onus is on those who posit the existence of Satan to provide the evidence! And, of course, “modern science” has reached back to the Big Bang, about 13.8 billion years ago.  Ergo we have a pretty good view, from the fossil record, of what life evolved on Earth over the last 3.5 billion years.  (Remember, though that we probably know of less than 1% of the species that ever lived, for fossilization, and the uncovering of fossils, is rare.) And that evidence shows that yes, Mr. Rasputin, we evolved.  As for science answering every question that perplex the mind of man (what about the mind of woman?), the answer is of course no, but we’ve answered many. Religion, on the other hand, hasn’t answered a single question.  Can you tell me, with the same degree of confidence that we know that evolution occurred, whether there are any gods, and if so one or (as polytheists believe) many?

***

Reader “john st laurent” comments on the same post:

You are entitled to believe anything you want, whether it be the devil, God, or the insane notion that we magically came from monkeys when you haven’t a shred of evidence outside of assumptions to prove it. Point being that evolution is a religious belief based on faith in something you cannot see, just like any other religious belief. Isn’t it time for you evolutionists to be honest and admit it?

Where is the science? (by science I mean proof, not your silly theories)

My “theory” is that john is a 13 year old writing this stuff from his parents’ basement. That’s the only way I can explain such stupendous ignorance.  And as for “something you cannot see,” well, he can go to a lot of museums and see casts of Australopithecus afarensis or Homo erectus.

Besides, if we magically came from monkeys, why are there still monkeys? QED

***

Reader “ozdawn” comments on the same post:

IF “belief in Satan and Hell is as, “about as retrograde a belief you can have in our modern world””, THEN why has there been such a growing number of Devil-worshipers since the Church of Satan was “officially” founded in 1966?

WHY does most of society today especially the entertainment business mirror and embrace the morals of Satan while rejecting those of Jesus and the Holy Bible?

I’ll leave this one to the readers (the sane ones).

***

We have two comments on the post “Ask and ye shall receive: Oklahoma’s stupidity brings a monument to Satan to its capitol grounds“, about the plan to put a statue of Old Nick on the Oklahoma capitol grounds. (All misspellings are from posters.)

From reader “Alex L”:

For anyone who supported this satanic staue shame on you supporting this evil and teaching to children that’s it’s ok to allow such evil into America . Any human alive knows that satan is evil and that staue should not be allowed plus putting the future of our children at stake people should really be ashamed of themselves for not evening thinking of the negative things that should happen this staue should have a petition to ban it forever.

and from reader “Kayla”:

Nobodys wants your satan monumement in Texas! Lmao get out of here with all that nonsene.

Lest you think this is some metaphorical Satan people are believing, remember that a 2007 Gallup Poll showed that 70% of Americans believe in the existence of “the devil”.

I could go on, but among the people who believe in the devil is one of our Supreme Court justices. Guess which one? Of course it’s Antonin Scalia, who had this interchange last October with an interviewer from New York Magazine. Questions are in bold, Scalia’s answers in plain type:

Oh. So you don’t know where I’m going. Thank God.
I don’t know where you’re going. I don’t even know whether Judas Iscariot is in hell. I mean, that’s what the pope meant when he said, “Who am I to judge?” He may have recanted and had severe penance just before he died. Who knows?

Can we talk about your drafting process—
[Leans in, stage-whispers.] I even believe in the Devil.

You do?
Of course! Yeah, he’s a real person. Hey, c’mon, that’s standard Catholic doctrine! Every Catholic believes that.

Every Catholic believes this? There’s a wide variety of Catholics out there …
If you are faithful to Catholic dogma, that is certainly a large part of it.

Have you seen evidence of the Devil lately?
You know, it is curious. In the Gospels, the Devil is doing all sorts of things. He’s making pigs run off cliffs, he’s possessing people and whatnot. And that doesn’t happen very much anymore.

No.
It’s because he’s smart.

So what’s he doing now?
What he’s doing now is getting people not to believe in him or in God. He’s much more successful that way.

That has really painful implications for atheists. Are you sure that’s the ­Devil’s work?
I didn’t say atheists are the Devil’s work.

Well, you’re saying the Devil is ­persuading people to not believe in God. Couldn’t there be other reasons to not believe?
Well, there certainly can be other reasons. But it certainly favors the Devil’s desires. I mean, c’mon, that’s the explanation for why there’s not demonic possession all over the place. That always puzzled me. What happened to the Devil, you know? He used to be all over the place. He used to be all over the New Testament.

Right.
What happened to him?

He just got wilier.

He got wilier.

Isn’t it terribly frightening to believe in the Devil?
You’re looking at me as though I’m weird. My God! Are you so out of touch with most of America, most of which believes in the Devil? I mean, Jesus Christ believed in the Devil! It’s in the Gospels! You travel in circles that are so, so removed from mainstream America that you are appalled that anybody would believe in the Devil! Most of mankind has believed in the Devil, for all of history. Many more intelligent people than you or me have believed in the Devil.

“He got wilier” is one of the funniest statements I’ve read all year, but remember that Scalia isn’t joking here. The saddest part is that his last statement is absolutely true.

And remember, this is one of the nine people responsible for enforcing the Constitutionally-mandated separation of church and state in the U.S. Is it any wonder that wall is crumbling?

~

 

 

Good news! Religion expunged from South Carolina fossil bill

May 15, 2014 • 7:38 am

Reader Barry called my attention to a piece on yesterday’s Raw Story that, for once, gives good news.  You may remember the kerfuffle in South Carolina about making the wooly mammoth the state fossil. That suggestion, which came from an eight-year-old girl, Olivia McConnell, riled up some creationist legislators, and though the legislature voted to adopt the fossil, they insisted on inserting creationist language into the bill, to wit:

Screen shot 2014-05-15 at 7.48.06 AM

The Raw Story reprises Rachel Maddow’s report on the fossil:

It passed the state House, said Maddow, “But then it turned out that this fairly harmless, fairly adorable official state fossil bill just didn’t sit right with some members of the South Carolina state Senate.”

One tried to block the state from naming any further state symbols, another said that the bill should go forward, but should include verses from the book of Genesis from the Christian Bible.

Including the Creationist language, Maddow said, invalidates the whole exercise.

“Behold our official state thing that we don’t believe in!” she quipped.

The rewritten bill stalled out in the state House and now, conservative lawmakers have finally agreed to strike the Biblical and Creationist lines from the bill altogether.

“Good work, Olivia,” concluded Maddow. “You’re almost there.”

Well, the governor still has to sign it, but I’m hopeful.

Here’s Maddow’s  3.25-minute report.  I love that woman—and Olivia too!

~

H. R. Giger died

May 15, 2014 • 6:20 am

I didn’t really know who the guy was, but I find from Wikipedia that H. R. Giger (born 1940, died three days ago) was a Swiss painter and designer who shared the 1979 Academy Award for best visual effects for the movie “Alien”. Here’s Giger:

HR_Giger_2012

That movie, by the way, is one of the very few science-fiction films that I really like, and the Wikipedia entry for it is huge, including this discussion of Giger’s contributions:

H. R. Giger designed and worked on all of the alien aspects of the film, which he designed to appear organic and biomechanical in contrast to the industrial look of the Nostromo and its human elements. For the interior of the derelict spacecraft and egg chamber he used dried bones together with plaster to sculpt much of the scenery and elements. Veronica Cartwright described Giger’s sets as “so erotic…it’s big vaginas and penises…the whole thing is like you’re going inside of some sort of womb or whatever…it’s sort of visceral”. The set with the deceased alien creature, which the production team nicknamed the “space jockey”, proved problematic as 20th Century Fox did not want to spend the money for such an expensive set that would only be used for one scene. Ridley Scott described the set as the cockpit or driving deck of the mysterious ship, and the production team was able to convince the studio that the scene was important to impress the audience and make them aware that this was not a B movie. To save money only one wall of the set was created, and the “space jockey” sat atop a disc that could be rotated to facilitate shots from different angles in relation to the actors. Giger airbrushed the entire set and the “space jockey” by hand.

But I’m really posting this because it’s a good excuse to show this  cool photograph, which reader Steve sent me with the caption “Ray Comfort’s nightmare”:

10352197_947421825287271_6106313706380675408_nNow that’s art!