CatNews 1: Kittens are sprung!

January 16, 2013 • 5:11 am

At the risk of making this a purely cat-related website (I didn’t know Matthew was going to post The Argument for Ceiling Cat from Hot Beverages this morning), I have three cat posts in a row. But then we’ll get on to marsupials.

First, over at KittenCam, Ripley and her kittens have now been removed from the cage and are running around in a room full of toys. Or, in most cases, sleeping (see below). Maximum cuteness is about to ensue.  Here’s a screenshot:

Picture 2

There’s also a reccording of the first 30 minutes of freedom below the livestream. It’s interesting to see how timorous the kittens are about leaving their cage.

The loudest purr in the world

January 15, 2013 • 1:38 pm

So you think your cat has a good purr? Now THIS is a purr:

The YouTube notes give details:

Most domestic cats purr at around 25 decibels but Merlin has hit a mog-nificent 100 – louder than a hair dryer, a hand drill or a lawnmower. The 12-year-old pet is so noisy owner Tracy Westwood struggles to hold telephone conversations or hear the TV. Mrs Westwood, 47, said: “I often have people asking me what on earth is the noise in the background – it’s just Merlin the cat.” Mrs Westwood, a tarot card reader from Torquay, Devon, took in Merlin when he was just a kitten from an animal rescue centre.

Here’s a decibel scale from the California Department of Transportation. Sitting next to Merlin is between having your Walkman at the highest level and being at the front row at a rock concert!

Picture 1

h/t: Su

Quote of the day: Walter Kaufmann defines theology

January 15, 2013 • 11:41 am

I can’t recommend Walter Kaufmann’s book Critique of Religion and Philosophy (1958) highly enough. It’s erudite, packed with original thought and analysis, and accessible to the general reader. I’m concentrating on the critique of religion rather than philosophy, but the former occupies most of the book.

Kaufmann begins his book with a section on “philosophical psychology,” and on p. 2 notes that “Ordinary language philosophy, like Idealism, is often guilty of rationalization—or, as another Idealist, [Francis H.] Bradley, put it very beautifully, ‘the finding of bad reasons for what we believe on instinct.'”

The quote for today, which appears on p. 152 of the book, hearkens back to the above:

To vary Bradley’s dictum about metaphysics: theology is the finding of dubious reasons for what the theologian has believed all along; and when the chips are down, he consults his conscience and, if necessary, forgets his theology. Sometimes this means a decided improvement.

There you have it: both the definition and methodology of theology in just a few hard-hitting words. Implicit, too, is faith’s incompatibility with science: the a priori commitment to support what you know to be true.

Mohamed Morsi is a vicious anti-Semite

January 15, 2013 • 10:08 am

An article in yesterday’s New York Times highlights Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s fulminating anti-Semitism, and supports my claim that Egypt is on the verge of becoming Yemen.  When I first predicted this based on the success of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt’s elections, I was assured by readers that Morsi was really a moderate and that all would be well in Egypt.  That, of course, ignores the goals of the Muslim Brotherhood, and of radical Muslims in general. They’ll never rest until they take over.

And new data don’t support Morsi’s stance as a moderate:

Nearly three years ago, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood delivered a speech urging Egyptians to “nurse our children and our grandchildren on hatred” for Jews and Zionists. In a television interview around that time, the same leader described Zionists as “these bloodsuckers who attack the Palestinians, these warmongers, the descendants of apes and pigs.

That leader, Mohamed Morsi, is now president of Egypt — and his comments may be coming back to haunt him.

. . . Representatives of Mr. Morsi have declined repeated requests over more than three days for comment on his remarks. One reason may be that the re-emergence of his previous statements has now trapped him in a political bind. While his past comments may be a liability abroad, he faces a political culture at home in which such defamation of Jews is almost standard stump discourse. Any attempt to retract, or even clarify, his slurs would expose him to political attacks by opponents who already accuse him of softness toward the United States and Israel.

Note the part about the defamation of Jews being “standard stump discourse” in Egypt. That’s also true throughout the Middle East, and in Palestine. (I’m still amazed that those who defended Palestine in my recent post refused to even comment on this pervasive and often government-sponsored propaganda against the Jews. Such bigotry is apparently okay when it’s expressed by Arabs.)

Here’s a fuller account of what Morsi said:

In the video footage first broadcast Friday on Mr. Youssef’s television program [Egyptian satirist Bassem Youssef], Mr. Morsi addressed a rally in his hometown in the Nile Delta to denounce the Israeli blockade of Gaza. “We must never forget, brothers, to nurse our children and our grandchildren on hatred for them: for Zionists, for Jews,” Mr. Morsi declared. Egyptian children “must feed on hatred; hatred must continue,” he said. “The hatred must go on for God and as a form of worshiping him.”

“The land of Palestine will not be freed except through resistance,” he said, praising the militant group Hamas as an extension of the Brotherhood.

“Who is our enemy? The Zionists. Who occupies our land? The Zionists. Who hates us? The Zionists. Who destroys our lands? The Zionists,” Mr. Morsi added, lashing out at “America, France and Europe” as “Zionist” supporters.

“And the last of them is that Obama,” Mr. Morsi said. He called the American president a liar who promised the Arab world “empty meaningless words.”

The other video clip was a television interview from the same period unearthed last week by the Middle East Media Research Institute [MEMRI], based in Washington, which tracks anti-Semitic statements in the Arab world.

“These bloodsuckers who attack the Palestinians, these warmongers, the descendants of apes and pigs,” Mr. Morsi declared, using a slur for Jews that is familiar across the Muslim world. Although he referred repeatedly to “Zionists” and never explicitly to Jews, Mr. Morsi echoed historic anti-Semitic themes: “They have been fanning the flames of civil strife wherever they were throughout their history. They are hostile by nature.”

And the video from 2010:

Those readers who dismiss everything that MEMRI puts out, including videos (again, a view I don’t comprehend), should note that the New York Times trusts this video as reliable.

I expect some will defend Morsi, arguing that he has to cater to two constituencies and didn’t really mean what he said. But if you have eyes to see, you’ll realize that not only is Arab hatred of Israel based largely on anti-Semitism, but so is, to some extent, Western intellectuals’ attacks on Israel while giving Palestinian actions a pass. At any rate, I call out Morsi as a genuine anti-Semite, not someone who’s merely dissimulating. He hates not just Judaism, but Jews themselves.

Is it any wonder that Israel is nervous?

h/t: Matt

How’d they get it out, Alphie? or Television poisons everything

January 15, 2013 • 7:49 am

Thank goodness I have loyal readers who call my attention to heartwarming animal stories, like that of a curious English tabby named Alphie who swallowed a television antenna. And thank goodness as well that Alphie is fine. As the Guardian reports:

A kitten has survived after swallowing a 15cm (6in) TV aerial.

Alphie required emergency surgery when the metal antenna became lodged in his oesophagus and stomach.

Vanessa Waite, of , Sheffield, had only owned the young tabby for a few days when he started his love affair with the TV. She said he would sit for a long time, mesmerised by the moving pictures on the screen, but she had no idea he had developed an unhealthy obsession with the aerial.

“One night I heard a loud bang and went upstairs to investigate, but I assumed Alphie had fallen off the window sill. He seemed OK and was just hiding under the bed. However, during the night he was being sick so the next morning I took him to the PDSA. It wasn’t until later that I realised that one of the aerial antennas was missing from my TV.”

The aerial would have proved fatal if it remained inside the kitten, so surgeons removed it through his stomach.

The X-ray evidence:

X-ray of the TV aerial inside Alphie the kittenPhoto by PDSA/PA.

The PDSA, whatever that is, saved Alphie’s life:

Liz Airey, senior veterinary surgeon at the PDSA Sheffield PetAid hospital, said it was one of the most unusual cases she had come across.

“It’s very rare,” she said. “We did have a case a few years ago when a dog ate a tent peg but it’s very unusual for such a solid object to be swallowed in this way. It seems as though the kitten had been playing with the antenna and inadvertently swallowed it which is a very unusual accident.

“It’s fortunate that he didn’t swallow it the other way round as the sharp broken end could have punctured his stomach and caused damage to his intestines, which could have been fatal.”

Lucky Alphie with the removed antenna:

TV-obsessed Alphie eyes the aerial that was removed from his stomach

But this moggie is bad! As his owner said:

“When he came home it was like nothing had happened – it definitely hasn’t taught him any lessons. He’s a real handful and I have to watch him all the time because he’ll try and stick anything in his mouth. He still loves the TV too but I don’t leave him alone with it anymore.”

Maybe they should get a satellite dish.

Bonkers evolutionary psychologist explains why he’s not an atheist

January 15, 2013 • 6:50 am

If you’ve read anything about evolutionary psychology in the popular press, you’ll know about the infamous Satoshi Kanazawa. Although he’s a reader in Management at the London School of Economics, he’s published several books and a bunch of popular articles purporting to explain the evolutionary roots of human behavior.  I say “purporting” because he is probably the one person who’s given evolutionary psychology a bad name through his wild and unfounded speculation.  Among the claims that he has advanced (and which haven’t been supported by subsequent work) are that poor people in sub-Saharan Africa have more illness because they have lower IQs, that black women are rated as less attractive than women of other races because black women have higher levels of testosterone, supposedly reducing their physical attractiveness (see a critique here), and that we’re losing the war on terrorism “because our enemies have a full range of human emotions [including hatred] while we don’t.”

Kanazawa is a loose cannon, speculating freely—and invidiously—in the absence of data, and tarnishing the decent work that exists in evolutionary psychology. He instantiates everything I’ve criticized about the discipline, yet he’s been very successful.  Although he was fired from Psychology Today for the African-women speculations, he continues to get public audiences for his science-woo, and I understand that his books have sold well. The public, after all, does have an appetite for such speculation, for we want to understand our evolutionary roots—even if there’s no real data backing up the evo-psycho explanations.

That’s just a bit of background, for I want to highlight a new piece by Kanazawa at Big Think: “Why I am not an atheist.” After this piece, they should name the venue “Big Fail”, because there’s no thought on tap in Kanazawa’s rant.  It’s all based on the fact that Americans are nicer than other nationalities, that Americans are more religious than other nationalities, and therefore religion makes people nice.  It’s a correlation, of course, and hardly a causation, but even the primary data about “nice Americans” is totally unconvincing. It’s a piece as weakly supported as were Kanazawa’s speculations about human evolution.

But first, of course, he attacks the Antichrist—Richard Dawkins—on completely erroneous grounds:

Thanks to Richard Dawkins and his ilk, “atheist” now means someone who is (and acts as if he is) intellectually superior, and who mocks and derides the deeply held and personal religious beliefs of less intelligent others by pointing out how wrongheaded and stupid they are to believe what they believe.

Virtually all of Dawkins’s contemporary examples of how evil, oppressive and destructive religion is come from Islam.  There is no question that Islam is an evil, oppressive and destructive force, but that does not mean all religions are.  In fact, I would contend that, apart from Islam, most contemporary religions throughout the world today are for the most part forces of good most of the time.

Dawkins’s major problem is that he doesn’t know Americans and how religion works in the United States.

Each of Kanazawa’s assertions about Dawkins is dead wrong, and I hope I don’t have to tell readers why. But why does Dawkins”s supposed ignorance of America lead him to such an ill-founded atheism? Because of a). one study on civility in big cities, and b). Kanazawa’s personal experience with Americans, including The Argument from Television.

Americans are by far the most religious people in all of the western industrial world.  And anyone who has lived in and traveled to as many places as I have will unanimously tell you that Americans are the kindest and most generous people on earth.  Although it would be difficult to demonstrate it scientifically, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Americans are the kindest and most generous people on earth because they are deeply religious.

It is not just the opinions of those who have lived and traveled everywhere.  There are actual data.  In 2006 the Reader’s Digest conducted a worldwide survey of residents of 35 different countries throughout the world and reached the conclusion that New Yorkers were the most civil and courteous people in the world.  Late-night comedians mercilessly lampooned the finding, because everybody knows how nasty and mean New Yorkers are.  What they didn’t realize, however, is that the Reader’s Digest’s study was an international one, comparing residents of major cities throughout the world, and New York was the only American city chosen.  So their study didn’t show that New Yorkers were more civil and courteous than people in Charleston or Des Moines (they almost certainly aren’t); it showed instead that Americans – even the meanest and nastiest ones in New York – were more civil and courteous than Russians and Kiwis.

What the hell?  Does what holds in New York hold everywhere in America? (My own experience, by the way, is that Americans are really nice to foreign travellers, but not as nice to their fellow Americans. And that, as a traveller in foreign lands, I’ve experienced unremitting kindness as well.) Are the differences between cities statistically significant? What about those unsampled countries? Here’s a list of the countries studied, with their “courtesy indices”:

New York USA 80%
Zurich Switzerland 77
Toronto Canada 70
Berlin Germany 68
São Paulo Brazil 68
Zagreb Croatia 68
Auckland New Zealand 67
Warsaw Poland 67
Mexico City Mexico 65
Stockholm Sweden 63
Budapest Hungary 60
Madrid Spain 60
Prague Czech Republic 60
Vienna Austria 60
Buenos Aires Argentina 57
Johannesburg South Africa 57
Lisbon Portugal 57
London United Kingdom 57
Paris France 57
Amsterdam Netherlands 52
Helsinki Finland 48
Manila Philippines 48
Milan Italy 47
Sydney Australia 47
Bangkok Thailand 45
Hong Kong 45
Ljubljana Slovenia 45
Jakarta Indonesia 43
Taipei Taiwan 43
Moscow Russia 42
Singapore 42
Seoul South Korea 40
Kuala Lumpur Malaysia 37
Bucharest Romania 35
Mumbai India 32

Notice any countries missing? Where are the hyper-religious countries of the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa?

Further, here’s the protocol, as reported by The Reader’s Digest (RD):

RD sent reporters to major cities in 35 countries where the magazine is published — from Auckland, New Zealand, to Zagreb, Croatia. In the United States, that meant targeting New York, where looking out for No. 1 — the heck with the other guy — has always been a basic survival skill.

The routine in New York was similar to the one followed elsewhere: Two reporters — one woman and one man — fanned out across the city, homing in on neighborhoods where street life and retail shops thrive. They performed three experiments: “door tests” (would anyone hold one open for them?); “document drops” (who would help them retrieve a pile of “accidentally” dropped papers?); and “service tests” (which salesclerks would thank them for a purchase?). For consistency, the New York tests were conducted at Starbucks coffee shops, by now almost as common in the Big Apple as streetlights. In all, 60 tests (20 of each type) were done.

Well that settles the issue! Nothing about how women are treated, nothing about freedom of speech, nothing about government enforcement of morality, corruption, and so on. The supposed effect of religion can be measured by the frequency of dropped papers and opened doors?

And of course, even if you could trust those pathetic data, and even if they did hold for all the nations of the world, with a statistically significant correlation, what does it say about causality? What if you substituted average income, or income inequality, for religiosity?

Kanazawa goes on to claim that a television program like “On the Road”—an American show that features ordinary people doing nice things for others—could never survive in Germany or the UK because they’d run out of nice people!

Kanazawa adduces other anecdotal evidence:

If you want to know how incredibly good and generous deeply religious people are, I’d recommend the 2007 documentary film For the Bible Tells Me So.  I wish I could be as good and kind a human being as many of the people who appear in For the Bible Tells Me So are, and I am deeply ashamed and saddened that I am not.  I am just as much of an asshole as Dawkins is.

Yes, that’s right: he calls Dawkins (and himself) “assholes” at The Big Think.

Kanazawa ends with a slur and a final unsupported assertion:

Dawkins tells religious people to their faces that their beliefs are delusional because God in fact does not exist.  It is a scientific fact that God does not exist, so it is not rational to believe in God.  I wonder if Dawkins walks up to random people on the streets of Oxford and tells them that he is more intelligent, better looking, and wealthier than they are.  That would also be scientifically true, but I would consider such behavior to be exceedingly gaudy and tasteless, as gaudy and tasteless as telling the same people that they are stupid to believe in God.

What a mischaracterization of Richard’s claims! Again, do I need to refute Kanazawa’s slurs?  And, after all this, Kanazawa claims that he’s more atheistic than Dawkins. Look at this mess:

It is ironic because, according to Dawkins himself, I am actually more atheist than he is in the original meaning of the word.  Fellow Big Think blogger Mark Cheney quotes Dawkins as saying “On a scale of seven, where one means I know he exists, and seven I know he doesn’t, I call myself a six.  That doesn’t mean I’m absolutely confident, that I absolutely know, because I don’t.”  It’s funny, because, unlike Dawkins, I absolutely know for sure that God doesn’t exist, as any scientist would.  For scientists, it’s very simple; absolutely nothing exists in the universe, except for those entities for which there is credible scientific evidence for their existence.  So I know for sure that God doesn’t exist for the same reason that I know Santa Claus or Superman doesn’t exist.

But I am not an atheist.

He’s not an atheist even though he is absolutely sure that God doesn’t exist? What is he, then? He quacks like a duck but calls himself a swan.

And “as any scientist would,” he absolutely knows for sure that God doesn’t exist? Well, I’m a scientist, and I don’t absolutely know anything for sure (except, perhaps, that I think). And what kind of statement is “absolutely nothing exists in the universe, except for those entities for which there is credible scientific evidence for their existence.” Has he contemplated the possibility that things may exist for which we don’t yet have credible scientific evidence? That was the case for the Higgs boson a year ago.

This whole piece is a mess, and it’s an embarrassment to whoever puts together The Big Think. Can anybody spout this kind of garbage at that place?