Friday: Dobrzyn

January 10, 2014 • 2:34 pm

It’s been another quiet day in the country, though I had three interviews. The first was by biology student Justyna, who came here from Warsaw to interview me for her science journalism class (and perhaps for her website about primates, which she studies at the Warsaw zoo).

She lives near Dobrzyn and showed up wearing a primate hat, as well as the University of Chicago tee-shirt I gave her when she met me at the airport (Justyna has been very helpful in helping me get around Poland).

She also arrived with a birthday present for me: a plush cat. What should I call it?

In the afternoon I addressed, by Skype, an introductory evolution/genetics class taught by my ex-student (and now chair of biology at Duke) Mohamed Noor. They are reading my book and asked lots of questions. As usual, most of those questions were about the intersection of science and religion—students are really curious about that. Several students had also read ID books and asked me about Haeckel’s “fraud,” as well as more conventional creationist questions about why evolution didn’t violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics (a softball!).

Then it was time for noms. Malgorzata made a stupendous spinach and cheese quiche:

Then another interview, also via Skype, in connection with the Edge Annual Question, which is a good one this year; our answers will be made public in a few days.

After dinner we had a pomelo, which many readers may know, but it’s a fruit I’ve never seen. It’s like a cross between an orange and a grapefruit, and was excellent (and huge). It has the appropriate scientific name Citrus maxima, which sounds like Roman games, and is native to southeast Asia.

The obligatory portrait of the Queen and Editor-in-Chief:

And so to rest. Is there anything more comforting than a good book and a cat?

But before bedtime there is cake and the beverage of your choice. (As I said, Poles are like hobbits, eating at least five times per day.)

Tonight’s cake is Malgorzata’s special Swedish fruitcake, made with dried plums, dried apricots, walnuts, and raisins. I am told that before I leave I will be made a special cake that is called, in Swedish, “Professor’s Cake.”

It is amazing that I have gained no discernible weight on this trip.

Religious humor

January 10, 2014 • 11:30 am

I’ve finally collected enough of these to post. The first is about as succinct a summary of Christianity as I’ve seen:

A reader whose name I forgot (sorry!) sent me this photo, and I’ve added the caption:

And I love this one, also sent by a reader whose name escapes me:

h/t: The readers whose names I’ve lost

Amazing feather-containing Cretaceous amber fossil for sale

January 10, 2014 • 9:47 am

by Matthew Cobb

This popped up on my FB page, shared by a pal, ‘Spider’ Dave Penney. It’s a piece of Lower Cretaceous amber from Burma (Myanmar), which was dated with U-Pb dating of Zircons as 98.79 ± 0.62 Ma. As you can see, it is amazing and contains about 16 small wing feathers, apparently still attached to a piece of wing bone or skin.

****

Note: I have removed this photo because I received information that the photograph was copyrighted and that the specimen, now owned by another museum, is under study and doesn’t wish to have the photograph shown until publication. I will respect those wishes and have removed the photograph.

I will restore the photograph when the publication is out.

****

The picture was posted by Günter Bechly of Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde, Stuttgart. Günter says:

Our trader informed me yesterday, that he could potentially acquire the sensational piece shown in the attached photo. (…) This is an absolutely unique fossil and should be secured for science (certainly worth a Nature paper). The trader would offer the piece for 15.000,- Euro + VAT. Since our focus is on fossil arthropods and we have no specialist for fossil birds/dinosaurs at our museum, I want to bring this unique fossil to your attention. If any scientist can acquire it for his institution or knows somebody at a public institution who could acquire it, please contact me (guenter.bechly@smns-bw.de) as soon as possible, because the trader will buy the piece in Burma only if he knows that he can resell it soon. The trader has an excellent reputation in Germany and would of course give a money back guarantee that the piece is not a fake and was legally exported from Burma.

I don’t suppose Professor Ceiling Cat wants to turn WEIT into a kind of fossil E-bay, but this is a remarkable piece that some readers may be interested in acquiring for their institution. It also, of course, raises issues both ethical, about the trade in fossils, and scientific, in terms of the nature of the beast that cast those feathers… Chip in below. Zero marks to the first commenter who mentions Jurassic Park: we’ve already discussed that.

Find the nightjar

January 10, 2014 • 9:34 am

Fooled you! A reader sent me yet another “find the nightjar” photo, but I was unable to open it. And I’m never able to see the damn nightjars, so I’ll try another beast.

Can you find the cat?

UPDATE: I can’t pull ANYTHING over on my readers. In a comment below, reader Stephen P. actually found a nightjar. Here’s his proof (see caption):

Blame Canada: Toronto university sparks fracas by supporting student’s refusal to work with women

January 10, 2014 • 8:36 am

Readers Diana and Lynn, both Canadians, called my attention to a news item from Ontario—and a public debate—taking place about the conflict between state and religion. It’s every bit as portentous as the burqa debate in Europe (France, by the way, just upheld its ban on the burqa by convicting a wearer), but doesn’t seem to have gotten on the international radar screen.

The issue has been reported by the CBC, the Star, and the National Post, but the quotes (indented) are from the Star, whose coverage is most complete. This took place at York University in Toronto, which, like most universities in Canada, is a public school.

In short, a male student of unknown faith (the possibilities include Orthodox Judaism or Islam, but I suspect the latter) asked to opt out of participating in a sociology class’s focus group because it included women—and associating with women violates his religion. The professor refused this request as outrageous, but—and here’s the kicker—the York administration ordered the prof to comply. The professor, Dr. Paul Grayson, blew the whistle on his administration. That is a brave guy!

Here are the details:

The brouhaha began in September when a student in an online sociology class emailed Grayson about the class’s only in-person requirement: a student-run focus group.

“One of the main reasons that I have chosen internet courses to complete my BA is due to my firm religious beliefs,” the student wrote. “It will not be possible for me to meet in public with a group of women (the majority of my group) to complete some of these tasks.”

While Grayson’s gut reaction was to deny the request, he forwarded the email to the faculty’s dean and the director for the centre for human rights.

Their response shocked him; the student’s request was permitted.

The reasoning was apparently that students studying abroad in the same online class were given accommodations, and allowed to complete an alternative assignment.

“I think Mr. X must be accommodated in exactly the same way as the distant student has been,” the vice dean wrote to Grayson.

That, of course, is insane, because the student was not overseas and his refusal was due not to the inability to travel to Canada, but because he just didn’t want to work with women. And Grayson, in his reply to the dean, pulled no punches:

“York is a secular university. It is not a Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, or Moslem university. In our policy documents and (hopefully) in our classes we cling to the secular idea that all should be treated equally, independent of, for example, their religion or sex or race.

“Treating Mr. X equally would mean that, like other students, he is expected to interact with female students in his group.”

In a masterpiece of political correctness, the University stuck to its guns:

A university provost, speaking on behalf of the dean, said the decision to grant the student’s request was made after consulting legal counsel, the Ontario Human Rights Code and the university’s human rights centre.

“Students often select online courses to help them navigate all types of personal circumstances that make it difficult for them to attend classes on campus, and all students in the class would normally have access to whatever alternative grading scheme had been put in place as a result of the online format,” said Rhonda Lenton, provost and vice president academic.

The director of the Centre for Human Rights also weighed in on the decision in an email to Grayson.

“While I fully share your initial impression, the OHRC does require accommodations based on religious observances.”

Well, perhaps it does, but religious accommodations must give way when they conflict with the public good, and this is a public university. Refusing to associate with women is nothing other than an attempt to cast them as second-class citizens, and that human right trumps whatever misogyny is considered a “religious right.” If Mr. X wants to go to a synagogue in which women must sit in the back, or a mosque in which women can’t pray with men, that is his right, but he doesn’t have any right to make a public university accommodate that lunacy, any more than University College London can enforce gender-segregated seating at public lectures.

What’s the logical outcome of this kind of pandering to religion? Grayson again gave the university no quarter:

The professor argued that if a Christian student refused to interact with a black student, as one could argue with a skewed interpretation of the Bible, the university would undoubtedly reject the request.

“I see no difference in this situation,” Grayson wrote.

The interesting thing is that after hearing from the dean, Grayson (not knowing the student’s religion) consulted both Orthodox Jewish and Islamic scholars at York, who both told him that there was no bar to associating with women in their faiths so long as there was no physical contact. On that basis, Grayson and his colleagues in the sociology department refused the student’s request.

In the end, the student gave in. That might be the end of it, but Grayson still may face disciplinary action (like him, though, I doubt it). Who looks bad here is the university, which would even consider granting such a request.

Apparently this kind of clash between religious and secular values is not unique in Canadian education. As the Star reports:

The incident is the latest clash between religious values and Ontario’s secular education system.

Catholic schools resisted a call by Queen’s Park to allow so-called gay-straight student clubs because of the Vatican’s historic stand against homosexuality. But the government insisted such clubs be permitted as a tool against bullying — and a nod to Ontario’s commitment to freedom of sexual orientation.

Similar debate erupted in 2011 when a Toronto school in a largely Muslim neighbourhood allowed a Friday prayer service in the school cafeteria so that students would not leave for the mosque and not return.

However fewer cases have taken place at the post-secondary level.

Well, public schools are public schools, and they’re all supported by taxpayers. Just like a public university cannot teach creationism as science in the U.S. (at least at Ball State University), so a public university in Canada cannot discriminate against women, even in the name of catering to religious faith. How can the government insist that Catholic schools accept “gay-straight” clubs on the grounds of supporting freedom of sexual orientation, yet allow a student, also on religious grounds, to discrimiante against women?

There is no end to crazy religious beliefs, and I see no reason why basic human rights should be abrogated to cater to all those beliefs. The administration of York University now has egg on its face, and Professor Grayson is the hero.

There is now a Care 2 petition that you can sign directed to Martin Singer, Dean of the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, and Noël A. J. Badiou, Director at York University’s Centre for Human Rights, those who supported the student’s right to refuse to associate with women. It reads, in part:

We the undersigned stand up for women’s and men’s equality, as enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the Ontario Human Rights Code.

The statements and decisions made in this matter by Mr. Singer and Mr. Badiou suggest that they believe gender equality is subordinate to religious beliefs. We urge York University to retract this and re-affirm their stand on gender equality and women’s rights.

You don’t have to be Canadian to sign it, and right now there are only 453 signatures. They’re aiming for 1,000, so if you agree, head over to this link and add your name.

Forbes extols the success of BioLogos; I don’t buy it

January 10, 2014 • 5:43 am

Forbes has published a piece on BioLogos—the organization founded by Francis Collins whose aim is to bring evangelical Christians to evolution—that is so one-sided that it could easily have been a press release written by BioLogos itself. The piece is by science writer John Farrell (I can’t find much information about him), and is called “Evolution basics for people who hate it.” Farrell’s aim is to extol Evolution Basics, a series of essays by Dennis Venema at the BioLogos site. Venema is described as:

“Fellow of Biology for The BioLogos Foundation and associate professor of biology at Trinity Western University [TWU] in Langley, British Columbia. His research is focused on the genetics of pattern formation and signalling.”

TWU describes its own mission as

“As an arm of the Church, to develop godly Christian leaders: positive, goal-oriented university graduates with thoroughly Christian minds; growing disciples of Christ who glorify God through fulfilling the Great Commission, serving God and people in the various marketplaces of life.”

Venema’s “research,” as described on his website, is thin: all of his papers after 2004, at least those given on his website c.v., are not research papers but discussions about education and reconciling science and Christianity.

But, to his credit, Venema has taken it upon himself to educate Christians about evolution and appears to have criticized intelligent design several times, including a critique of Stephen Meyer’s ID book Signature in the Cell. I’m sure the Discovery Institute didn’t like that one!

Forbes goes on to praise Venema’s series of lessons about evolution:

BioLogos, the brainchild of National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins, often gets a bad rap. Creationists hate it because it not only accepts evolution, it does a great job of expounding on it and promoting it.

Some outspoken anti-religious scientists, on the other hand, can’t stand it because the organization openly attempts to reconcile an evangelical understanding of the Bible with modern science. And it tends to lean rightward on the political spectrum.

But that still leaves a lot of room for people in the middle. And they make up an ever growing audience.

Reaching that audience is Venema’s job. And he’s been at it since 2010, writing essays and tutorials for the foundation.

But he’s really hit his stride with Evolution Basics, written throughout the course of this year.

Evolution Basics is a multipart series whose posts have been going up for about a year, and it’s not bad. I could carp about a few things (for example, the salamander Ensatina is no longer considered a good example of a ring species), but on the whole it’s a good effort and well intended. I suppose BioLogos wouldn’t refer readers to either my book or Richard Dawkins’s on the same topic because, to evangelical Christians, we may as well have “666” branded on our foreheads.

So I have no problem with Venema’s attempt to education Christians about evolution. My problem lies elsewhere. First, there’s the cognitive dissonance of BioLogos itself, which presents Venema’s science-oriented essays on the same site as a statement of “What We Believe” that includes the following:

We believe the Bible is the inspired and authoritative word of God. By the Holy Spirit it is the “living and active” means through which God speaks to the church today, bearing witness to God’s Son, Jesus, as the divine Logos, or Word of God.
We believe that God also reveals himself in and through the natural world he created, which displays his glory, eternal power, and divine nature. Properly interpreted, Scripture and nature are complementary and faithful witnesses to their common Author.
We believe that all people have sinned against God and are in need of salvation.
We believe in the historical incarnation of Jesus Christ as fully God and fully man. We believe in the historical death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, by which we are saved and reconciled to God.
We believe that God is directly involved in the lives of people today through acts of redemption, personal transformation, and answers to prayer.
We believe that God typically sustains the world using faithful, consistent processes that humans describe as “natural laws.” Yet we also affirm that God works outside of natural law in supernatural events, including the miracles described in Scripture. In both natural and supernatural ways, God continues to be directly involved in creation and in human history.

and

9. We believe that the diversity and interrelation of all life on earth are best explained by the God-ordained process of evolution with common descent. Thus, evolution is not in opposition to God, but a means by which God providentially achieves his purposes. Therefore, we reject ideologies that claim that evolution is a purposeless process or that evolution replaces God.

How can you rely on evidence on one part of your site, and then completely reject that reliance on another, avowing belief in completely unsubstantiated claims? Further, BioLogos’s avowed respect for science is completely abandoned in point 9, which not only accepts theistic evolution, guided by God to a certain end, but completely rejects the notion that evolution is “purposeless.” For it is indeed purposeless in any meaningful sense, since evolution is, if anything, a materialistic process, not pushed in any particular direction (i.e. toward humans). If you abandon materialism in favor of “purpose,” then you’ve left science behind.

Much as I admire Venema’s desire to educate Christians about evolution, he’s on a fool’s errand (nb: I am not calling Venema a fool!), given that other parts of the BioLogos site (and presumably Venema himself) show unwavering belief in the divinity of Jesus, his Resurrection, and the sinfulness of humans, who can be saved only by belief in said Jesus. What I’d like to ask Venema (besides “how do you know that?) is this: “What about the Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and atheists? Are we, the unsaved ones, going to hell?”

Second, both Venema and Forbes claim that the BioLogos mission is having great success, despite petulant people like me who argue that their strategy is misguided:

Is the message reaching a receptive audience? Venema believes it is, in spite of the skepticism of scientist bloggers [sic] like University of Chicago biologist Jerry Coyne, who has made BioLogos a regular target.

“Even in the time since I’ve joined BioLogos,” said Venema, “I’ve seen a shift in my circles with more and more people being open to the idea that God used evolution as a creative mechanism, and that mainstream science is the proper place to find out more about that mechanism. The trend is positive.

“Coyne on the other hand is sure that BioLogos is a flop – he seems to write about it every few months or so – because he hasn’t seen a massive swing in opinion in the short term. You’d think an evolutionary biologist would be better placed to understand gradual change over time in a population. To put it in biological terms, ‘Evolutionary Creationism’ is a relatively new allele in the evangelical population, but it is rapidly increasing in frequency from my perspective. It’s also relatively common for BioLogos to be invited to panel-type presentations where our view is now accepted as one of the live options for an evangelical. That’s light years ahead of the situation when I was a child, when even hearing ‘evolution’ or ‘Darwin’ was like hearing someone swear.

What we have here is simply wish-thinking, like Christianity itself. Where is the evidence of the rapid increase in frequency of the “evolution allele” among evangelical Christians? There simply isn’t any, save Venema’s assertion that BioLogos is invited to panels of evangelical Christians. In point of fact, acceptance of evolution in America has remained fairly flat (with a slight uptick in both young-earth creationism and naturalistic evolution, and a downturn in BioLogos’s preferred process—theistic evolution—over the last five years.

As for the sea change among evangelical Protestants, well, it’s so slow as to be undiscernible. In 2007, a Pew survey showed that 24% of that group agreed that evolution was the best explanation of life on earth. In 2013, six years later, 27% agreed that “humans evolved over time.” Granted, those aren’t the same questions, but the percentages are within the margin of error for both polls. In other words, there’s not much evidence for a rapid increase in frequency of the “evolution allele: among evangelicals. I will accept the possibility of gradual change over time, but I require evidence, not the wish-thinking of BioLogos (after all, could they really say that what they were doing wasn’t working?) or the thin anecdotes of Venema.

But don’t take my word for it; see what Karl Giberson, who used to be the executive vice-president of BioLogos, wrote in a piece at The Daily Beast called “2013 was a terrible year for evolution” (see my post on this):

. . . scientifically informed young evangelicals became so alienated from their home churches that they walked away, taking their enlightenment with them.

An alarming study by the Barna group looked at the mass exodus of 20-somethings from evangelicalism and discovered that one of the major sources of discontent was the perception that “Christianity was antagonistic to science.” Anti-evolution, and general suspicion of science, has become such a significant part of the evangelical identity that many people feel compelled to choose one or the other. Many of my most talented former students no longer attend any church, and some have completely abandoned their faith traditions.

You won’t find any of Venema’s optimism in Giberson, whose piece is permeated with disillusionment about the willingness of evangelical Christians to accept evolution. (I suspect, in fact, that Giberson left BioLogos because he was stymied in his own attempts to promote evolution at the expense of antiscientific evangelical beliefs like the historicity of Adam and Eve.)

And against Giberson’s experience (and the data!) showing that young evangelicals perceive Christianity as antagonistic to science, we have the pure assertions of Venema as filtered through author Farrell:

It’s not surprising, for Venema, that any group that claims robust evangelical faith is perfectly compatible with a deep appreciation for science would receive criticism from both sides.

“One of the things I love about working with BioLogos is seeing individuals freed from this false dichotomy of choosing between science and faith.”

The problem with people like Venema and Farrell is that they see the dichotomy of false, but many, many people don’t, including 23% of Catholics, who remain young-earth creationists in opposition to official church dogma. After all, there is a real dichotomy between believing things based on evidence and believing them because they’re asserted in ancient works of fiction, or because they make you feel good.

Arnold’s boots

January 10, 2014 • 1:58 am

Reader Jesse sent me this photo from Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Facebook page, which the Governator had captioned as follows:

“Ever since I came to this country I collected cowboy boots. It is a hobby that requires a little work.”

But Arnold is doing it rong, I think: I never use a brush on my boots—only a soft cloth. And it’s not work but pleasure: a meditative exercise.

I have to add that if these are all the boots that Arnold owns, well, I’ve got him beat by a factor of least seven.

On the other hand, those are really, really expensive boots, all of them handmade and many of them hand-tooled. (I covet the pair of natural alligator boots fifth from the left in the front row: natural, undyed gator skin is hard to find! Notice, too, the two pair of full-gator boots in the second row. Those are muy caro.)

When I visited the Tres Outlaws boot factory in El Paso about four years ago, they were working on a fancy pair, with solid silver decorations, that Maria Shriver (Arnold’s ex-wife) was going to give him for Christmas, and I got a close look at them. I believe they’re the third pair from the right in the front row. At any rate, Tres Outlaws hand-tooled and painted boots, such as the pair on the extreme left in the front row, run on the order of ten to fifteen thousand dollars (see some examples of Tres Outlaws’ work here). But of course Arnold can afford them—his Wikipedia page estimates his net worth at around $400 million dollars!

Well, I could go on and on about the boots in the picture, but I risk boring the readers, so I’ll cut this off—except to say that while I share Arnold’s love of cowboy boots and fine Cuban cigars, we part ways when it comes to politics.

Friday: Hili dialogue

January 10, 2014 • 1:27 am

Hili and Sarah have a frank dialogue on their faiths:

Hili: Is it true that you are a Quaker?
Sarah: In a way, but I’m also an atheist.
Hili: I, too, am a Meower and an atheist.

In Polish:

Hili: Czy to prawda, że jesteś kwakierką?
Sarah: W pewnym sensie, ale jestem również ateistką.
Hili: Ja też jestem miaukierką i ateistką.

I suspect that Miaukierką is one of the less harmful faiths, as its main rituals involve cuddles and cream.

	Debi on Jesse Singal on the ridiculous…
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	Laingholm on Jesse Singal on the ridiculous…
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