Teach what controversy? More creationist shenanigans in South Carolina

May 1, 2014 • 1:02 pm

South Carolina: the state where the Official State Fossil is the wooly mammoth “that was created on the Sixth Day along with the other beasts of the field.” And now the state continues its abysmal record of opposing evolution in favor of the bogus Biblical accounts of the origin and diversity of life.

According to the Post and Courier paper from Charleston, legislators in South Carolina are now trying to pass a “teach-the-controversy” bill regarding evolution—a tactic that creationists have adopted since their failure to get any kind of creationism (including Intelligent Design) taught directly in the schools. Their last resort is to simply question evolution. I quote from the article:

COLUMBIA – New language for high school biology standards is headed for consideration to the State Board of Education that would have students learn “the controversy.”

The S.C. Education Oversight Committee on Monday sent proposed language to the board that would require biology students to construct scientific arguments that seem to support and seem to discredit Darwinism.

The decision comes more than two months after the subject became a divisive issue for many in the Palmetto State and nationally in February, when Sen. Mike Fair, R-Greenville, voiced opposition during the review and approval of a new set of science standards for 2014.

At the time, Fair argued against teaching natural selection as fact, adding there are other theories students deserve to learn. He said the best way for students to learn was for the schools to teach “the controversy.” On Monday, he reiterated his stance.

“We must teach the controversy,” Fair said. “There’s another side. I’m not afraid of the controversy. … That’s the way most of us learn best.”

The oversight committee’s recommendation will go back to the state Board of Education, which must approve the language before it becomes policy.

If you’d like to contact the South Carolina Department of Education, you can find an easy email form here (go to “contact” under the bar at the top). A few short words could make a difference, especially if you’re a state resident. I’ve dropped them a line, though I’m a Yankee carpetbagger.

But what is the bloody controversy? It’s can’t be about whether evolution happened, or that there was common ancestry and lineage splitting, or about the fact that evolution happened over 3.5+ billion years, or that natural selection was an important component of the process. No, it simply can’t be about those fundamental tenets of neo-Darwinism, because they are uncontroversial. Insofar as we can regard anything in science as “true,” these things about evolution are true.

But in fact these things are precisely what the controversy is about: whether those tenets of evolution are true.  And they’re controversial not because scientists doubt them, but because creationists doubt them. If there’s a controversy about evolution, then, there must be a controversy about medicine because of homeopathy and “alternative” medicine, so they should “teach the controversy” in health class. And perhaps psychology classes should teach the “controversy” about astrology versus conventional non-determination of our fate by the alignment of celestial bodies.

So if we’re talking just about evolution, there is no controversy—at least not one about the major aspects of evolutionary theory. Insofar as there are controversies, there are indeed aspects of evolution that we don’t understand, like the relative importance of selection versus drift, the way sexual selection works, and so on. Richard Dawkins and I once wrote a piece in the Guardian about these real controversies in evolution. But of course that’s not what ignoramuses like Senator Fair mean. When they say “controversy,” you can bet they don’t mean “the relative role of natural selection versus genetic drift in the evolution of DNA sequences.”

To show the polarization on this issue, as well as the fact that there are some voices of sanity in the state (and voices of ignorance as well), here are two successive comments from the posts following the article:

SC commentsMeanwhile, columnist Brian Hicks at the paper, a brave man, has written a scathing editorial about this recommendation, calling its proponents “knuckleheads.” And his piece, while passionate, is quite sensible:

Trying to inject religious teaching into schools is not only unconstitutional but will do nothing except cost this state money in needless lawsuits. And we don’t have enough money to pave roads. Or maintain bridges.

But this is not all Fair’s fault – blame the General Assembly.

You see, allowing insurance salesmen and politicians to determine sound scientific curriculum for the classroom is not an intelligent design.

The Education Oversight Committee was created on the excuse that there was too much politics on the state Board of Education.

So they decided to double the politics.

The oversight committee voted, 7-4, Monday to recommend that the state board “teach the controversy.” Sound familiar? It should.

This “teach the controversy” battle cry is the same old creationism argument that’s been going on for decades. It’s just trying to adapt and survive – you have to love the irony.

Hicks makes only one misstep:

Frankly, the story that the science of natural selection tells is horrifying to fundamentalists. It calls into question their view of the world. But it doesn’t have to be that way – many people of faith have no problem with actual science. Or facts.

Well, yes, it does have to be that way for people who are either literalists or so discomfited by the implications of naturalistic evolution that they simply can’t accept it. This kind of accommodationism is a bit patronizing, I think: telling people that they really don’t have to be so down on evolution even if it contradicts, literally, and emotionally, everything they believe. Let’s just accept the fact that for some people evolution isn’t palatable, and not try to tell them what kind of religious belief they should adopt!

But Hicks redeems himself at the end:

It’s about time people with so little interest in any other world view stop trying to foist theirs on everyone else.

After all, you don’t see science teachers out there raising a stink to teach Sunday school.

This isn’t a new bon mot, but it’s still apposite, and emphasizes the deep need the religious have to get their sticky fingers into the public sphere.

If South Carolina does enact this language, they’re in for a long and expensive series of lawsuits.  Good luck to them! (Not really.)

Help Professor Ceiling Cat defend felids

May 1, 2014 • 10:18 am

I can’t reveal details now, as they’re not public, but in a while I’ll be engaged in a debate with three other people—FAMOUS ONES!—on the relative merits of cats versus dogs*. It will be awesome—a highlight of my career. I have my own ideas, of course, but thought I’d crowdsource the topic to stimulate my thinking. The debate will be both lighthearted and serious, and therefore difficult.

So, I’m asking readers to help out by answering two questions

1. For those who love cats and dogs: what is it about cats that make them especially appealing or endearing to you?

2. For those (like me) who favor cats over dogs? Why do you prefer the moggies over the doggies? Dissing of dogs is permitted here.

This is a serious request, and if you’re a cat owner or simply a cat lover, I’d appreciate your feedback. If you know of any references—I already have some—on research on the appeal of cats (yes, I know that studies show they disdain their owners more than do dogs, but that’s one reason I like them), you’re welcome to add them.

More information as the time grows nearer. . .

_____

Note: I have temporarily abandoned the usage of “d*gs” for purposes of clarity.

Another botched execution reinforces the cruelty of capital punishment

May 1, 2014 • 7:56 am

You’ve surely heard of the botched execution of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma on Tuesday, in which that inmate’s vein “exploded” after he was given the first drug, the sedative midazolam.  After the inmate is rendered unconscious, two more drugs are supposed to be injected in succession: vecuronium bromide, which paralyzes the breathing muscles, and then potassium chloride, which stops the heart. It’s not clear how far they got into the execution procedure, and whether the second drug was actually injected, for Oklahoma officials aren’t talking.

Lockett, whose lawyers had sued Oklahoma for details about the drug’s origins (they’re provided by small “compounding pharmacies” that aren’t regulated very strictly), died of a heart attack shortly thereafter. Another execution scheduled the same day has been put off for at least two weeks.

CNN reports the gruesome scene:

Lockett lived for 43 minutes after being administered the first drug, CNN affiliate KFOR reported. He got out the words “Man,” “I’m not,” and “something’s wrong,” reporter Courtney Francisco of KFOR said. Then the blinds were closed.

Other reporters, including Cary Aspinwall of the Tulsa World newspaper, also said Lockett was still alive and lifted his head while prison officials lowered the blinds so onlookers couldn’t see what was going on.

Dean Sanderford, Lockett’s attorney, said his client’s body “started to twitch,” and then “the convulsing got worse. It looked like his whole upper body was trying to lift off the gurney. For a minute, there was chaos.”

Sanderford said guards ordered him out of the witness area, and he was never told what had happened to Lockett, who was convicted in 2000 of first-degree murder, rape, kidnapping and robbery.

After administering the first drug, “We began pushing the second and third drugs in the protocol,” said Oklahoma Department of Corrections Director Robert Patton. “There was some concern at that time that the drugs were not having the effect. So the doctor observed the line and determined that the line had blown.” He said that Lockett’s vein had “exploded.”

The execution process was halted, but Lockett died of a heart attack, Patton said.

If that’s not “cruel and unusual punishment,” I don’t know what is.  Because regular and foreign pharmacies refuse to furnish the drugs for this form of retributive punishment, there’s not much quality control. And I can’t understand why, if they must execute inmates, they can’t do it in the relatively painless way that vets euthanize animals: with pentobarbital or other derivatives that first put the animal to sleep and then cause death.  I’ve had this done to a cat, and several of you have gone through this traumatic procedure, but at least we know that it’s quick and there’s no sign of the animal suffering.

Nevertheless, like innocent people sentenced to death, botched executions aren’t uncommon; the Death Penalty Information Center described 44 botched executions since 1977, when U.S. states began executing people after a decade’s respite. Warning; the descriptions are graphic and horrific, but if you are in favor of the death penalty, even by lethal injection, read about how many things have gone wrong, some of them undoubtedly due to the incompetence of the executioners.

But we shouldn’t kill people at all, if for no other reason than subsequent evidence could show the inmate was actually innocent.  that has happened, you know, and more than once. And once you’re dead, there’s no bringing you back.  But it’s still cruel and unusual punishment, for it forces someone to know the exact time and method of death, which to me seems horrible. And it’s more expensive than the logical alternative: life without parole, which is still a deterrent and keeps the criminal out of society.

America is the only First World country to retain judicial executions, and it’s barbaric and embarrassing. Here, from Time magazine, is the list of people we (and by “we”, I mean our country) have killed. The hiatus from 1967-1977 was ended when the Supreme Court ruled that executions were constitutional. You can go to the website and, by using your mouse over the chart, see what happened in any given year:

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A mathematical (?) spider from the African deserts

May 1, 2014 • 5:37 am

A reader sent me the link to an old scientific article (from 1995) about a “mathematical spider” living in the Namibian desert.  It turns out that the adjective “mathematical”  is pretty misleading, but since the article was interesting I thought I’d give it a brief shout-out.

The paper, published by G. Costa et al. in the Journal of Arid Environments, (reference below, can join ResearchGate and get free copy, or ask me), is about a new species in the family of tube-dwelling spiders, Segrestriidae; the species is named Ariadna sp. (the “sp.” means “species not identified”, although it may well have been in the last 18 years).

24 specimens of this ground-dwelling spider were studied near Gobabeb, a well-known research station in the desert of Namibia. The spiders dig burrows in the ground from whence they venture to get prey. Here’s a picture of the spider:

Picture 1

Here’s its bleak habitat. Life is nearly everywhere on this planet:

Picture 2

Some gypsum casts of its burrows. There are about 2.5 cm to the inch, so the burrows are about five inches long. The spiders line them with silk.

Picture 1

Now for the “mathematical” part. For reasons yet unknown, the spiders pile stones around the entrance of their burrows. The stones are fairly uniform in size, and there are usually about seven, though the number ranges from five to nine. The centimeter scale is at the top, along with a Namibian five-cent coin for extra scale (useful only to Namibians!)

The interesting thing about the stones is that they are usually placed radially, with the narrowest parts near the burrow, and of fairly uniform size. This makes the burrow look a bit like a flower. Stones are clearly selected for size, as you can see by the surrounding stones. Perhaps the spiders use the biggest stones that they’re able to carry. The photo below shows a typical array of 7 stones.

 
Picture 3
The “mathematical” part, which the authors make a great deal of, is that the mean number of stones (and the mode) is seven, with other numbers distributed fairly symmetrically around that. Here’s the table showing the percentage of stones falling in each category:

Picture 4Well, that’s interesting, but hardly mathematical.  It doesn’t show at all that the spiders can count, and it’s not surprising in any way that the distribution is a bell-shaped curve. What may be going on here is simply that the spiders heft the largest stones they can carry, that their burrows are of a relatively fixed size because spiders are of a relatively fixed size, and the average number of spider-heft-able stones that can surround a burrow happens to be seven.  The spiders do apparently exercise a preference for quartz stones, though again this preference isn’t documented statistically.

What is more interesting to me is that the stones appear to be placed radially (though I’d like to see more photos and measurements), and, especially, that the spiders even bother to highlight their burrow this way. Why? The authors raise three possibilities:

a. Detection or attraction of prey. The authors suggest that “the stone ring could perhaps attract prey or facilitate the detection of prey by the spider waiting inside its burrow.” Well, maybe, though the attraction hypothesis seems more viable than the detection one. At any rate, this could be tested, even in the lab, by removing the stones and seeing fewer prey approach the burrow. But neither of these hypotheses seem really convincing.

b.  Strengthening the burrow and making it impervious to sand or debris. This seems more likely to me. The raised stones could keep dirt or sand blowing along the ground from entering and clogging the burrow. Again, this could be tested fairlly easily.

c. Deterrence of predators.  Here’s what the authors say:

The stone ring might be a way of reducing predatory risk. The evenly lighted circle around the burrow’s entrance could make this appear like, [sic] a black stone or a shaded area. On the other hand, spider holes may simulate the little black stones that are scattered over the gravel plain. The characteristic alternation of light and dark areas on the gravel ground complicates the detection of real burrows by predators.

That’s possible, but again requires testing.  Another possibility, which the authors don’t mention, is that the symmetrical pattern may help the spider find its burrow in a complicated patchwork of stones and ground. In other words, the stones could act as landmarks, much the same way that some ground-dwelling “digger” wasps recognize their burrows by the patterns of debris on the ground nearby. (That work, a classic study of animal behavior by Tingergen and Kruyt, showed that the wasps could be confused by simply moving the landmarks around a burrow.) This “recognition” hypothesis may not be likely, though, if the spiders’ vision is poor.

At any rate, it’s a cute behavior whose significance is not yet determined, but would seem to be tractable to easy experiments.

h/t: Hardy

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Costa, G., A. Petralia, E. Conti, and C. Hanel. 1995. A mathematical spider living on gravel plains of the Namib Desert. Journal of Arid Environments 29:485-494.

A tiny hamster eats tiny burritos

May 1, 2014 • 4:41 am

No matter how insane an idea is, you can find it somewhere on the internet, often on YouTube. Here’s one: somebody wondered what would happen if they made a VERY SMALL burrito and fed it to a hamster.

This video is the result. It was put up two days ago, and already has 1.3 million views. Such is the power of the hamster, and the appetite of the public for bizarre stuff, which will only increase as posters push the limits.

Srsly, though, this is pretty damn cute. I just wonder what kind of a mind could think of something like this.

h/t: Diana MacPherson

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For lagniappe, a squirrel reading the newspaper! Srs bsns!! (From BookRiot):

squirrel-reading-book

 

Thursday: Hili dialogue, with bonus pictures of her orchard

May 1, 2014 • 3:05 am

Hili is laboring hard on this international holiday:

A: What’s the date today?
Hili: It’s the First of May, Labour Day.

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In Polish:
Ja: Jaką mamy dziś datę?
Hili: Pierwszy maja, Święto Pracy.

***

A reader or two has asked about the cherry trees in Hili’s orchard, which are blooming at this moment. Malgorzata has kindly sent three pictures of the orchard, which has several thousand trees. It’s a pity that I’m not in Poland to see this, but perhaps I’ll be there when the cherries are harvested in the fall. (That, of course, means fresh cherry pies!). The captions are Malgorzata’s:

This is the first day, the orchard is not in full bloom yet:

Picture 1

This is the road to our house when the trees are in full bloom:

Picture 2

And here is a closer look at a blooming tree:

picture 3

May 7: Sean Carroll and Steve Novella to debate the woomeisters on life after death

April 30, 2014 • 10:22 am

Make a note on your calendar: on May 7, one week from today, physicist Sean Carroll and doctor/podcaster Steve Novella will be debating Eben Alexander (author of Proof of Heaven) and doctor Raymond Moody (author of Life after Life) on the issue “Death is not final.” It’s an Intelligence-Squared debate that will be live-streamed at this site starting at 6:45 Eastern U.S. time. The moderator is John Donvan from ABC News.

These debates take a poll on the issue before and after the debate, and you can cast your vote here. At this moment, the results are mostly “against the motion,” meaning “against the notion that Death is not final”—the materialist stand:

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Sean seems to be getting more into the debate game these days, and after his sterling performance against William Lane Craig, I have no problems with him doing one.  Certainly he and Novella will be having a look at Esquire’s recent article that largely debunked Alexander’s claims of a near-death experience (and a visit to heaven), making Mr. Proof of Heaven look pretty much like a charlatan.

h/t: Derek

A peeved believer argues that science arose from Christianity

April 30, 2014 • 8:31 am

Yesterday reader “Py” wrote in trying to add a comment to an old post, “Did Christianity (and other religions) promote the rise of science?” Here’s the comment:

I say without Christianity, there’ll be no modern science. An incomplete list of Christian Scientists (i’ve got a link to 80+ more, all YECs) vs. An incomplete list of atheist scientists.

The atheist front is quite lacking.

I wonder if this’ll get posted or strangely moderated away like my other posts. So much for truth huh?

Curiously, checking back through comments using “Py”‘s email address and IP number, I find no comment that he/she has tried to make before. But the sheer ignorance of the comment above mandates that this will be the last one. I’d administer a swift corrective to Py, but I’m way too busy today and thought that the readers might be able to help. Check out those lists.

By the way, the notion that modern science arose in the West beginning in late medieval times (a dubious claim anyway) is made for both empirical and emotional reasons. The empirical claim is that the Church promoted reason (though founding universities, encouraging people to find the hand of God in Nature) in a way that helped give birth to science. The emotional reason is because religious people, seeing how fast science has outstripped religion in understanding the universe, want to claim some credit for science. The emotional reason is clearly true, but I won’t adjudicate the first claim, for I’m not an expert in the history of science. Let me just say that the arguments of people like Rodney Stark (and other theists) that Christianity was pivotal in the rise of modern science have been contested by other scholars.

What is indubitably true is that the proportion of atheist scientists is ten times higher than the proportion of atheist nonscientists, at least in America. And the great majority of accomplished scientists in the U.S. are now atheists: only 7% of the members of the National Academy of Sciences, for instance, accept a personal God–while the proportion of the American public that does so is 80% or higher. I believe the figures are similar for members of Britain’s Royal Society.  So whatever held true in the past, when everyone was religious, holds no longer.

Christianity can claim credit for science if they want, but it’s not much to brag about. Certainly science would have arisen without that faith.