Da Roolz are finally up

March 10, 2014 • 5:15 am

After a lot of temporizing (well, I was busy), and compiling past rules with the help of the “Roolz Angels,” I have finally compiled the guidelines for readers who wish to post on this site. You will find them as a permanent widget on the left sidebar, comme ça:

Screen shot 2014-03-10 at 7.00.26 AM

Under “Da Roolz!” you will find the guidelines given below, which of course will be modified over time. But at least there is something permanent to which you and I can refer readers. If you click on it, you’ll see the following. Feel free to make suggestions on this post:

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 Here are “Da Roolz,” guidelines and strictures for posting on this website. The site has evolved since it was created in 2009 to provide evidence for evolution, and now covers a variety of topics that strike me as interesting or newsworthy. I like readers to have fun, weigh in with their opinions, learn, educate, but also respect the personal integrity of other readers.

  1. If you’re a first-time poster, I have to approve your initial comment. This won’t necessarily be immediate, as it depends on my checking email.  After that, posting is automatic.
  2. If you have your own website, you may put a link to your anonymous (or pseudonymous) website in your posting name.  I like people to use their real names when possible, as I think this makes them more accountable for their words, but I recognize that there are sometimes good reasons for not doing so.
  3. If you are religious, and profess that strongly in your post, it’s often my habit to ask you to provide evidence for what you believe.  (After all, I wrote a book on the evidence for evolution.)  Do not be offended at this request; simply give a short list of the reasons why you’re so certain there’s a god.  And be prepared for others to dispute the evidence.
  4. Please do not tell me how to run my site.  That is, comments about “too many cats,” “too many boots,” “not enough biology,” “too much religion,” etc., are not welcome.  I provide content free of charge, and if you don’t like the mix of posts, you’re free to go elsewhere.  By all means take issue with what I say, but don’t argue about the balance of topics.
  5. Do not insult your host. Pretend that you’re speaking to me in my living room which is, in a sense, what this website is.
  6. Most important, please try to refrain from insulting other posters, no matter how misguided you think they are.  I don’t like name-calling, for it lessens whatever class this site has and certainly doesn’t foster discussion.  I will often warn people about this behavior either on the site, or in a private email. About 70% of those who are warned respond with truculence, either insulting me or saying that their behavior is fully justified. That’s a good way to get blacklisted—almost as good as telling me to stop posting on cats or cowboy boots. If I ask you to apologize to a commenter whom you insulted, please do so.
  7. Try not to dominate threads, particularly in a one-on-one argument. I’ve found that those are rarely informative, and the participants never reach agreement. A good guideline is that if your comments constitute over 10% of the comments on a thread, you’re posting too much.
  8. If you find something that you think would interest readers, by all means send it to me.  My email is easily available via elementary Googling. I can’t, of course, promise to use everything, but I do look at what people send me.
  9. Sometimes I miss comments, particularly ones that contain links, since those are held by WordPress.  I don’t always read every email that accompanies a post, so posts sometimes slip through the cracks.  Please don’t assume that your post was trashed, as I rarely do that (except from those sent by trolls).
  10. Be judicious about posting videos and very long comments.  I like good discussion, but essays are not on, particularly if you have your own website where you can post it.  Embedded videos are okay, but please think before posting: do they add to the discussion?
  11.  It’s a website, not a “blog.” Humor me on this. Likewise, you will see words like d*g (a play on the Hebrew word for God) and Twi**er, due to my aversion of seeing these words spelled out.
  12. I am glad to receive items from readers, though at times their number is a bit overwhelming! But many of my posts come from those contributions, and I try to remember to h/t readers if I use their contributions. (Sometimes I forget this acknowledgment—in which case my apologies.) If you send me a link and I don’t write about it, please do not feel bad. I get many more tips, photos, and other stuff than I can possibly use, and have to choose. But please do not send me items asking me to post them, or saying, “I think this would make a great post for your site.” That feels a bit presumptuous and coercive, and, as readership grows, I’m starting to get these requests more frequently. Also, please do not ask me to publicize your or your friend’s book, business, or any other endeavor.  If you want to call something interesting to my attention—and of course it must be of potential  interest not just to me, but to readers—that is great, but don’t ask me to post things.
  13. That said, I especially welcome readers’ photographs, particularly of wildlife or nature, but also their cats (in which case you must provide some information!). I can’t, however, promise to use every photo I’m sent.
  14.  Linking to videos.  Don’t embed them directly unless you have something really special to show, for it makes the comments unwieldy.  If you just paste in the http:// address of a YouTube video, for instance, it will put the entire video in your comment. Occasionally I will let this go, but sometimes readers insert multiple videos. To avoid this, and create a link, use the following html formulation: <a href=”URL”>LinkText</a>
  15. Please do not use this site to promote your project, book, website, and so on, or to raise money for your cause. If you think there’s a cause that deserves my attention, by all means email me, and I will make that decision.
  16. Finally, if I post about food, and I often do, realize that those meals are exceptions and I don’t always eat like that! Lectures on food by Leisure Fascists are unwelcome.
  17. This is a cat-friendly site run by a biologist who cares about animals (and plants!). Please don’t diss the moggies, or advocate human violence or cruelty to any animal species.
  18. Finally, do not cry “censorship” if I don’t post your comment. I reserve the right to trash comments that are hyperreligious, hyper-creationist, uncivil, trollish in nature, or otherwise inappropriate.  There is no “right” to have every comment you make published on this site. I try to use as light a hand as I can consistent with keeping an atmosphere of civility and rationality. If you have something to say that I won’t go along with, you are free to start your own site.

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Jerry Coyne healthy, will soon be neutered and (sigh) adopted

March 10, 2014 • 4:50 am

Gayle Ferguson, owner of the abandoned kitten Jerry Coyne (as well as his four sisters) has sent me some more pictures of the rapidly-growing kittens. I am also informed that Jerry will be neutered in about two weeks (ouch!) and then put up for adoption.  Here are the latest photos with Gayle’s captions (indented):

Jerry and his sister Hoover

Jerry and Hoover

Jerry cuddles Hoover

Jerry cuddles Hoover

Jerry and his sister Molly

Jerry and Molly

And this next photo and caption make me want to cry:

Jerry and a potential adoptive parent.

I am of course glad that Jerry will get a loving home, for Gayle wouldn’t let him have otherwise, but I’m also unspeakably sad that he will go away, and we’ll no longer be able to watch him grow into a fine orange tomcat.  And they’ll probably change his name, too.

Adoptive parent

A lovely leaping squirrel

March 9, 2014 • 4:36 pm

From the Torygraph’s latest edition of “Animal Photos of the Week” (there are several more, but this is my favorite):

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The caption: “With a nut safely stored in his mouth a red squirrel bounds around Kielder Forest, Northumberland. Picture: OWEN HUMPHREYS/PA”

There are 30 photos, but I especially like #s 14, 28, and 29.

h/t: Roo

Readers’ comments of the week

March 9, 2014 • 1:43 pm

I’m not sure I’m going to make this into a regular feature, but this week my comments box has been positively overflowing with contributions from creationists, atheist-bashers, and sundry others. They at least give us some idea of what we’re up against, and it ain’t pretty.

Here are three comments that didn’t get approved (original text is unaltered):

From reader “Joe,” commenting on “Good news: belief in God and the supernatural appears to wane“:

It is not surprising since there has been an all out moral degradation and convincing of our youth of how meaningless and unspecial they really are. Kudos on all the conjecture and pictures that are drawn in our science books to explain how we came from rocks. I hear a lot if evolutionist talk but I hear no substntial evidence the same thing that us criticized from creationist. Everyone just excepts it as fact on faith alone. No proof just time and chance. Thus is what I am told by real evolutionist! Given enough time anything can change into anything. this constant dumbing down of our world has made it very easy to convince everyone they came from rocks. Where us the proof people???! Where is it? Honestly this is getting old. There were millions of years of transitions? Where the hell are they? Cambrian explosion ? How in the hell goes that fit with evolution? how has evolution made science better? honestly when intslkbto [sic; probably “I talk to”] an evolutionist I feel like my IQ is dropping.

The proof is, of course, in my book, and in many other books and on many websites. For someone in this day and age to argue that there are no transitional forms bespeaks deep and willful ignorance, for the fossil record is brimming with them. When somebody says that, you are justified in ignoring everything else they say about evolution, for such a claim shows a complete lack of familiarity with the evidence.

From reader Shan, who gives the URL of his website shanlim, “About tracing the ancient root of the Chinese people”. This is a comment on my post “A paleobiologist’s response to Darwin’s Dilemma“:

Quote: “Small steps can be made very quickly indeed – as with virus evolution today.”

Virus evolution? What does that mean? Does it mean some pre-viral thing evolved into a virus over the course of millions of years into current form of virus of today?

Or does it mean the current virus form has evolved into some form of living organism with a head,a trunk and arms and legs or probably with wings too?

By means of small steps that can be made very quickly do you mean it can get every anatomical parts in perfect symmetry and in their proper alignment, position and place, like the head in the proper caudal position and both legs extending towards the inferior position in relation to the trunk at the center and with both arms hanging at each side of the shoulder joint?

If evolution occurred very quickly in a hurry wouldn’t logic dictates that in a random process there is no telling where the arms and legs might form and where the head might pop up?

Wouldn’t it be possible that the head might end up growing out of the anus and the genital extends from the neck skywards with one arm sprout out the side of the neck and the other arm merging with two legs growing inside the body?

Where are all the fossil evidence for these evolutionary failures? Is there even one available?

I thought the virus we have today is still the same basic form of virus we had at the beginning of evolution time before the actual living thins began to exist. If so, the virus must be the exception that somehow defy the Darwinian Law of Evolution.

This isn’t even wrong, for the person hasn’t evinced even the slightest knowledge of natural selection. And of course we have no evidence of fossil “viruses” before life began, but it is highly contested whether viruses are a form of “life” that existed before true cells, or are in fact derived from them. But that doesn’t matter, for the failures of this comment are so pervasive—including the false notion that evolution is a “random process” and the equally misguided idea that the “Darwinian Law of Evolution” means that ancestral morphologies cannot persist along with more recently evolved morphologies—that it serves only to demonstrate that there are none so blind as those who will not see.

And finally, from reader Stan, who added his website Atheism Analyzed, bearing the motto “A former 40 year Atheist analyzes Atheism, without resorting to theism, deism, or fantasy.” I’m not sure whether that means he’s a former atheist or was formerly 40 years old. At any rate, here’s Stan’s comment on my post “Krauss on atheism in Hollywood“:

That’s totally absurd, and is a view into the persecution complex which atheists nurture. Who was the last atheist hanged? Who is suing whom in the USA, trying to establish their own religious viewpoint at the expense of the Other? It is the atheist and only the atheist.

Atheism has been at the root of the most horrendous evil ever during the 20th century genocides and mass killings of other atheists by the USSR and China and Cambodia and Cuba, etc. NOT Christianity.

The hatred oozing from atheists makes them unpalatable and incapable of generating trust. Further their lack of any fixed moral principles makes them suspect at best.

And finally, their Scientism makes it obvious that they do not understand actual science and its lack of ability to generated objective knowledge of the darks: dark mass, dark energy, string theory, abiogenesis, origin of the phenotypes in the Cambrian, actual causality in climate theory, actual observation of subatomic particles in high energy physics, etc. Inferential and Bayesian theories are not facts, but you’d never guess that by listening to atheists.

If he’s neither deist, theist, or atheist, what is this person? Again, we all know how to deal with such a person, but I’m fascinated that Stan think that atheist-scientists such as myself, Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss, Steven Weinberg, ad infinitum, do not “understand the actual science.” That last paragraph is complete gibberish.

Purdue wusses out on God plaque

March 9, 2014 • 9:46 am

I while back I put up a post about how an American donor, Michael McCracken, wanted to give $12,500 to Purdue University’s School of Mechanical Engineering, with the donation to be marked by a plaque that read as follows (my emphasis):

To those who seek to better the world through the understanding of God’s physical laws and innovation of practical solutions. In honor of Dr. William ‘Ed’ and Glenda McCracken.

As I noted, Purdue rejected the plaque.  But it didn’t do so for principled reasons. Purdue is a public university, and such a plaque would violate the U.S.’s First Amendment to the Constitution prohibiting the entanglement of church and state.  But Purdue rejected the plaque not because of that, but because they recognized that they’d get entangled in expensive legal battles with First-Amendment boosters—battles that would cost far more than the original $12,500 donation. McCracken’s lawyer vowed to litigate the issue, saying the following:

“The university is essentially giving voices that would ban even private references to ‘God’ a heckler’s veto here,” Kelner said. “In so many words, the statement suggests that Dr. McCracken’s pledge was not large enough to justify the hassle of defending his speech in court. But, of course, it is precisely the university’s decision to violate Dr. McCracken’s First Amendment rights that would lead to potentially lengthy and expensive litigation.”

Now, according to Thursday’s Exponent, the Purdue student daily newspaper, the issue has been settled. But not settled well: there will be one plaque (my emphasis), and then a disclaimer plaque:

McCracken will be able to honor his parents, as well as mention God, with language that specifies the statement is from the viewpoint of the McCrackens and not the University.

The revised language reads as follows: “Dr. Michael McCracken: ‘To all those who seek to better the world through the understanding of God’s physical laws and innovation of practical solutions.’ Dr. Michael and Mrs. Cindy McCracken present this plaque in honor of Dr. William ‘Ed’ and Glenda McCracken and all those similarly inspired to make the world a better place.”

However, the University will be adding an additional plaque accompanying McCracken’s which will clarify that his words are not the speech of Purdue and that the University is aware of its neutrality obligations by law.

Everyone seems happy with this resolution:

With the support of the legal counsel at the Liberty Institute and Covington & Burling LLP, McCracken was able to avoid this legal crossfire while still upholding his religious convictions.

“Our Founding Fathers understood the importance of freedom of speech and religious freedoms, yet recognized their dependence on God. In a society that now seems to fear even mentioning God, I hope that we can remember what this great nation was founded upon and for which tens of thousands have died,” McCracken wrote.

First of all, the First Amendment prohibits mentioning our dependence on God, although it’s made its way (illegally, I think) into our Pledge of Allegiance and our currency. Further, this “great nation” was founded not on belief in God, but belief in democracy and religious freedom (which also meant freedom not to be religious). The most important founding fathers were either agnostics or deists, and “deists” back then were probably equivalent to what “agnostics” or “atheists” are. It wouldn’t do in 18th-century America to call yourself an atheist. But to claim that this great nation was founded upon religious principles is to grossly distort history.

Second, there’s no substantive difference between the original and the second plaque, except for the clarification that the words are those of McCracken’s. The university hoped to get itself out of hot water by nothing that it didn’t endorse the sentiments.

Finally, I’m not so sure that this settles all the legal issues, as it still allows God to be mentioned (and as a being responsible for physical laws) in a public university, with a lame and obvious plaque that the words are those of the donor.  Just as the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History simply deep-sixed a donor’s plaque referring to animals as “God’s creatures,” so should Purdue deep-six a plaque referring to nature’s regularities as “God’s physical laws.”

To see why this compromise solution is problematic, imagine someone donating money for other public facilities, like courthouses or elementary schools, and then insisting that the facilities post the palpably false statement that morality or science or whatever are “gifts of God.” Then the courthouse or school simply adds a disclaimer plaque saying that those words aren’t theirs and they’re cognizant (as they damn well better be!) of obeying the Constitution. That wouldn’t fly, so why would it fly in a public university? There seems to be some feeling afoot that public universities are somehow Constitutionally different from public secondary schools or other public institutions. They aren’t.

What this could lead to is a proliferation of pro-religious and anti-religious signs, all “neutralized” with one disclaimer. Imagine if there were a Muslim and an atheist donor to Purdue who insisted on the following signs being put up to acknowledge their donation:

“Mr. Sam Nogod: ‘To all those who seek to better the world by accepting materialism and naturalism as the basis of science, and rejecting the notion that God or any supernatural force controls or helps us better understand the laws of physics.'”

“Mr. Theodore Bear Aziz: ‘To all those who seek to better the world by recognizing its laws as those being divinely instituted by Allah and conveyed by the prophet Muhamed, blessed be their names.'”

Then, nearby, there’s a plaque saying that those are the words of the donors and Purdue recognizes its Constitutional duties.

Do you suppose that the University would let that stand for a minute? Or that there wouldn’t be a huge outcry from Christians?

The solution to this issue is to remove all religious sentiments from public institutions—not to allow them to proliferate and then somehow render them “Constitutional” with a disclaimer plaque. That way lies madness—and that tacit endorsement of religion.

Readers’ wildlife photos: Five ways of looking at a kingfisher

March 9, 2014 • 7:20 am

Here are some photographs of a belted kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon) in Idaho  by reader Stephen Barnard, who notes, “These birds are extremely difficult to photograph in flight. They’re small, fast, and very spooky.”

Interpretation by Professor Ceiling Cat, with apologies to WS.

I.

In the shadowed rivers of I-da-ho
Nothing was moving
Save a lazy trout—and the eye of a kingfisher

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II.

A man and a woman are one,
A man and a woman and a kingfisher are two—
Unless they eat it.

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III.

I do not know which to prefer:
The blue freedom of a kingfisher,
Or the opprobrium of Daniel Dennett.

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IV.

They are wary then, and fly like quicksilver;
So let the camera affix its beam:
For the kingfisher is the emperor of the stream.

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V.

Beauty is momentary in the mind—
The fitful tracing of a portal:
But in this bird it is immortal.

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