Vatican dispenses slaps on the wrist

May 7, 2014 • 10:28 am

I’m appalled at the intransigence of my readers, trying to drive me to a nervous breakdown by demanding an unending stream of posts. All I can say is—YOU try it!

Here’s some meat to quell the beasts. The Washington Post‘s “Religion” section has analyzed the Vatican’s new report on Catholic sex-abuse cases reported to the Holy See and how they were handled. It’s appalling, at least to me. But first note this caveat:

The vast majority of reported cases concern abuse that occurred years or even decades earlier. The sanctions only cover cases directly handled by the Holy See, not those handled by local diocesan tribunals, meaning the total numbers of priests defrocked or otherwise disciplined is likely far higher.

Since the total number of priests either defrocked or sanctioned adds up to the total cases, these must have been cases in which guilt was determined beforehand. The data go back to 2004.

Screen shot 2014-05-07 at 12.12.20 PM Screen shot 2014-05-07 at 12.12.28 PM

 

I’ve calculated the yearly ratio of those defrocked/total punishments, which ranges from 48% to, most recently, 10%.

2004:  0.12
2005:  0.46
2006:  0.48
2007:  0.39
2008:  0.36
2009:  0.35
2010:  0.18
2011:  0.35
2012:  0.17
2013:  0.10

It seems to me that any priest guilty of sexual abuse should be not only defrocked, but reported to the local authorities. And we know how often the latter happens. As we also know, the Vatican actively campaigned to keep accused priests from being reported to the law. Unfortunately, the Post doesn’t give data on how many of these cases actually did go to secular authorities.

h/t: Matt

In which I’m once again embarrassed to be an American

May 7, 2014 • 9:08 am

Yes, I’ve realized that secular websites spend a lot of time kvetching about stuff. I try to leaven that with animals and humor, but since we’re mired in a world of faith, I suppose kvetching is the norm.

Here’s a minor plaint: according to a new CNN poll, 79% of Americans think that there are no survivors among the 239 passengers of the missing Malaysia Air flight 370. Well, okay, but it should be close to 100%.

This is the weird part (my emphasis):

As to the possible causes of the plane’s disappearance, Americans have a open mind, with some sort of action on the part of the plane’s pilots or crew the most likely possibility.

Some two-thirds of respondents say it is very likely (26%) or somewhat likely (40%) that the disappearance was due to actions taken by the pilots or crew members.

Terrorists were likely involved in the disappearance, according to 57% of the respondents. Separately, when asked whether mechanical failure or an accident was behind the disappearance, 52% said that was likely versus 46% who answered not likely.

Fewer Americans — about 42% — think hijackers may have been involved, while 9% believe that space aliens or beings from another dimension were involved.

There are about 242,000,000 people in the U.S. over the age of 18. If these data are truly a random sample, there are about 21.8 million Americans who not only believe in space aliens, but think they did something to that flight.

I’m too dispirited to decry the lunacy of my countrymen. It’s just sad.

h/t: Sarah

Readers’ wildlife photographs

May 7, 2014 • 7:24 am

Reader Pete Moulton came through with some new photographs and their description:

Well, Professor Ceiling Cat, if you got bupkes, maybe a couple of recent photos will help fill the time and space. These two guys are my all-time favorite photo subjects: first a Green Heron, Butorides virescen, who has brought a Green Sunfish, Lepomis cyanellus, to breakfast (yes, the heron swallowed that fish with no perceptible difficulty), and second a Pied-billed Grebe, Podilymbus podiceps, shaking off some excess water.

GRHE_5-4-14_Papago Pk_0882

The pie-billed grebe, an expert diver. This is about the cutest water bird I’ve ever seen. Look at that little beak!

PBGR_4-27-14_Papago Pk_0527

Send in the Clowns

May 7, 2014 • 5:37 am

Oh, and I forgot a little morning music. I’m not a huge fan of Stephen Sondheim (in fact, I’m not a fan at all); perhaps I’m just one of those philistines who likes the musicals of yore: Camelot, Brigadoon, My Fair Lady, Oklahoma, and so on—and not the rarefied musicals for intellectuals. It seems to me that nearly every song in those old musicals was memorable, while in modern musicals there may be one (at most two) songs that become classics. This is one of them.

Sondheim was, however, the lyricist for one of the best musicals ever: West Side Story. And he wrote, I believe, both the lyrics and the music for a single unquestionably great song: this one, from “A Little Night Music” (1973).

In fact, the song is so good that it’s become a cliché, like White Christmas, even though most people don’t really know what it’s about.  It expresses a wistful longing for lost love, and the misery of the present, sung by a woman who meets an old lover after many years, finds him married to another, importunes him to leave his wife for her, and is turned down. It’s about as sad as can be.

Here it’s played by Sondheim on piano and sung by the incomparable Bernadette Peters.  Try listening with fresh ears, even though you’ve heard this a thousand times, probably most often in the famous cover by Judy Collins. It’s an amazingly complex song, but immensely moving.

 

E. O. Wilson goes on Colbert to tout his book

May 7, 2014 • 5:24 am

I got nothing today: bupkes. You people expect me to post all these items every day when I’m doing a book and teaching at the same time, as well as preparing a talk for the Imagine No Religion conference in Canada next week. Oy gewalt! I need either a vacation or the chance to rub the belly of a baby tiger—or both.

But thanks to the readers I have a few contributions. First is the clip of an appearance of famed biologist E. O. Wilson on Colbert two days ago.  (This probably won’t be visible outside the U.S.)

Wilson, as expected if you know him, doesn’t engage in a lot of repartee with Colbert, though there is a funny bit when Colbert instructs Wilson that humans were put on earth to have dominion over the planet and exploit it for our needs). Rather, Wilson’s there to plug his new book, A Window on Eternity: A Biologist’s Walk through Gorongosa National Park. And Wilson’s eloquent and impressive, especially for a guy of 85.  The park, in Mozambique, was once a dense haven for African wildlife, but has been severely damaged by human incursion. Now, though, several organizations are desperately trying to restore it.

If you’re wondering what’s up with Wilson’s right eye, he lost it in a childhood accident while fishing, as described in The Economist:

It all started with a poke in the eye for a seven-year-old boy, out fishing in Alabama. It was 1936, and Ed Wilson’s parents had just divorced, leaving him lonely and introspective. When he pulled up his rod, a pinfish swung into his face and its spine blinded him in one eye. The accident had lasting repercussions. If Wilson had been sighted in both eyes, he might have been drawn to the megafauna, or passed fit for the United States Army and killed in Korea, or otherwise diverted from being an exceptional young biologist. As it was, he came to be reliant on what he could see up close and through a microscope and so was ineluctably drawn to the microfauna.

Here’s part of the Amazon blurb on his new book, which I’m pleased to learn is illustrated by someone whose work has appeared here often: photographer/biologist Piotr Naskrecki:

A Window on Eternity is a stunning book of splendid prose and gorgeous photography about one of the biologically richest places in Africa and perhaps in the world. Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique was nearly destroyed in a brutal civil war, then was reborn and is now evolving back to its original state. Edward O. Wilson’s personal, luminous description of the wonders of Gorongosa is beautifully complemented by Piotr Naskrecki’s extraordinary photographs of the park’s exquisite natural beauty. A bonus DVD of Academy Award–winning director Jessica Yu’s documentary, The Guide, is also included with the book.

Wilson takes readers to the summit of Mount Gorongosa, sacred to the local people and the park’s vital watershed. From the forests of the mountain he brings us to the deep gorges on the edge of the Rift Valley, previously unexplored by biologists, to search for new species and assess their ancient origins. He describes amazing animal encounters from huge colonies of agricultural termites to spe­cialized raider ants that feed on them to giant spi­ders, a battle between an eagle and a black mamba, “conversations” with traumatized elephants that survived the slaughter of the park’s large animals, and more. He pleads for Gorongosa—and other wild places—to be allowed to exist and evolve in its time­less way uninterrupted into the future.

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h/t: Stephen Q. Muth (one of Butter’s staff)

The fearless and adorable meerkat

May 6, 2014 • 12:48 pm

Reader Brian sent me a link to a nice page on wild meerkats that has a great video of the animals climbing all over him a photographer after they got used to his presence. Brian’s comments are below:

A photographer working in Botswana has posted some photos and an intriguing video of meerkats. I think these meerkats might give squirrels a run for their money in the cuteness department.
Here’s the two-minute video. Do watch it unless you don’t like meerkats—and I haven’t met anyone who hasn’t. The babies (what are they called?) are especially adorable. The photographer, Will Burrard-Lucas, has his own page that’s well worth perusing.
In the video, the photographer notes that meerkats have learned that humans are not a threat. As you can see, they climb all over him and his gear. This seems curious to me because the number of meerkat-human interactions must be far lower than the number of squirrel-human interactions. In Toronto (and I am sure in Chicago), people feed squirrels regularly, and yet the squirrels are still very skittish. I once had one walk across my lap as I ate my lunch on the grounds of the University of Toronto, but he still seemed very nervous and I think the squirrel was simply trying to get my attention so that I would give him some food.
The photographer’s explanation that the meerkats are simply using him to gain a better vantage of the landscape is interesting. But, for an animal that seems to nervously retreat to its burrow with little provocation, this behaviour seems odd to me (but, I am librarian, not a biologist). In any case, I thought you might like to see this cute video.
Just in case you didn’t know, meerkats (Suricata suricatta) are carnivores in the family Herpestidae along with mongooses (mongeese?).  They are in fact mongooses for all practical purposes, and here’s their range:
Meerkat_Area.svg
More photos of Burrard-Lucas taking pictures. Now there’s a great job!
meerkats-1
meerkats-5
Meerkat on Camera
Meerkat butt!
Meerkat on Leg

Bryan College bleeding fundamentalists

May 6, 2014 • 8:55 am

I think I’ve posted about this once before, but the fracas at Bryan College in Dayton Tennessee (a fundamentalist college named after William Jennings Bryan, and located in the town where he had his Scopes Trial debacle and then died) is continuing, and is described at Inside Higher Ed in a new piece by Coleen Flaherty, “Too small a box.”

Bryan College has long had a “Statement of Belief,” which begins like this:

“the holy Bible, composed of the Old and New Testaments, is of final and supreme authority in faith and life, and, being inspired by God, is inerrant in the original writings”

and goes downhill from there. Every faculty member and all the staff have to sign this annually (I guess that’s to prevent change of belief).

Last February, the College’s Board of Trustees issued a “clarification,” which it claimed was really inherent in the original statement. The clarification read:

“We believe that all humanity is descended from Adam and Eve. They are historical persons created by God in a special formative act, and not from previously existing life forms.”

This, of course, was meant to counteract the new scientific evidence that modern humans never went through a bottleneck of 2, but remained at a size of about 12,000 (10,000 of those in Africa, the remainder those who left Africa about 60,000 years ago to colonize the rest of the world). The College’s explanation, which came with a threat, was this:

In an email, [President Stephen] Livesay, who formerly was a faculty member at Liberty University, said the clarification was necessary “to maintain the historical and current theological position of the college with respect to the origin of man.” Those faculty members who don’t sign the updated statement for next year will have “rejected” the college’s offer of employment, he said.

In other words, Adam and Eve talks, science walks. This caused at least two faculty members to resign, several others to leave for unspecified reasons, and the university’s faculty to give Livesay a 30-2 vote of “no confidence.” The student government also opposed this “clarification” on various grounds, including the claim that it isn’t really a clarification but a change in a statement that was supposed to be immutable.

Curiously, both Professor Ceiling Cat and Karl Giberson were interviewed for this (I suggested Giberson as an evangelical Christian who would probably oppose this), and we came to some kind of agreement. But he still doesn’t get to be called “Uncle”:

Jerry Coyne, professor of ecology and evolution at the University of Chicago, has written extensively about creationism, including on his blog, Why Evolution Is True. He said he’d been following the Bryan case, and saw it as a larger trend among evangelical Christians to assert the historicity of Adam and Eve in a new kind of “Darwin moment,” facilitated by DNA and other scientific discoveries challenging the concept of humanity descending from just two individuals.

“It’s sort of amazing to see this clash between religion and science all over again, except that this is kind of sad,” he said. “As soon as you say something about the historicity of Genesis, science education is compromised.”

Coyne added that any kind of statement of faith was an affront to science, since it’s rooted in the exploration of new ideas, not swearing “fealty” to any particular belief.

Coyne is a declared atheist, but Bryan’s move has raised concerns even among Christian scholars. In an email from Brazil, where he is lecturing on the creationism debate, writer and physicist Karl W. Giberson called the new language “alarming.”

“[Religious] colleges should become more accepting of science, not less,” he said. “Bryan’s stance is quite extreme, requiring faculty to sign on to young earth creationism, which includes the belief that the earth is 10,000 years old.”

He continued: “In my opinion, schools like Bryan should lose their accreditation. There should be no government approval of any sort for an institution that forces people to affirm that the earth is 10,000 years old, when we know it is 4.5 billion. It is also unconscionable to expect a scientist who knows the earth is 4.5 billion years old to suddenly start believing it is 10,000. How is that supposed to work?”

Good for Karl! But he should have added that there should also be no government approval for an institution that forces people to affirm that humanity descended from only two ancestors described in the Bible.  After all, Giberson’s former home, BioLogos, takes no stand on historicity of Adam and Eve, an act of sheer cowardice (and capitulation to fundamentalists) on their part.

Finally, I told Colleen that it’s not unusual for religious schools to have oaths and belief statements that all faculty must sign, and that these are often in direct conflict with science. Here in Illinois, Wheaton College is also an evangelical Christian school, but one I thought was a bit more liberal than Bryan. But looking at its website, I found a “statement of faith” preceded by this (my emphasis):

The doctrinal statement of Wheaton College, reaffirmed annually by its Board of Trustees, faculty, and staff, provides a summary of biblical doctrine that is consonant with evangelical Christianity. The statement accordingly reaffirms salient features of the historic Christian creeds, thereby identifying the College not only with the Scriptures but also with the reformers and the evangelical movement of recent years. The statement also defines the biblical perspective which informs a Wheaton education. These doctrines of the church cast light on the study of nature and man, as well as on man’s culture.

Again the annual affirmation to weed out those whose faith might waver! The statement itself is like Bryan’s, resembling the Nicene Creed, but also includes this:

WE BELIEVE that God directly created Adam and Eve, the historical parents of the entire human race; and that they were created in His own image, distinct from all other living creatures, and in a state of original righteousness.

WE BELIEVE that our first parents sinned by rebelling against God’s revealed will and thereby incurred both physical and spiritual death, and that as a result all human beings are born with a sinful nature that leads them to sin in thought, word, and deed.

And yet they not only teach biology at Wheaton, but have a course on ecology and evolution. How they can do this and yet affirm such a statement (it doesn’t mention a young earth or ex nihilo creation, though) is beyond me.

What is interesting, and which I mention in the piece above, is that the new genetic data on human population size is taking us back to the days of Darwin, when evolution threatened to bring down the edifice of Christianity. Thanks to the judicious manipulations of theologians, and the will to believe, it didn’t, but the Adam-and-Eve challenge is in some ways more serious than was Darwin’s book. For if they didn’t live, and weren’t humanity’s ancestor’s, whence original sin? And if no original sin, why Jesus? The fact is that if Adam and Eve weren’t real people and the parents of all of us, then the whole edifice of Christianity collapses like a house of cards. At least it does to rational people, but of course theologians are busy reverse-engineering this problem as I write.

Religion and science compatible? Clearly not in places like Bryan or Wheaton!