A dream

December 13, 2012 • 3:39 am

I dream quite a lot, but usually the only ones I remember are those I have just before I awake.

I just had one of these, and it was quite vivid. I was staying in a house with Christopher Hitchens, and we were sharing a bedroom. On his bedside table were two travel books; one, which I opened, was on the South Pacific. He had highlighted it with blue magic marker (something I do with some of my books), but instead of highlighting entire sentences as wholes, he highlighted each word of a sentence separately. I thought this odd since each highlighted sentence comprised a group of separately-blued words.

Hitchens also told me a story of a lecture by E. O. Wilson he attended.  He said, peevishly, “Oh, the old git was terribly boring: the only virtue of being there was that we were all given delicious, granular green apples to eat.” [Yes, that’s the phrase he used.] “But then the fire marshal came in and told us that we all had to leave on the grounds that there were too many green apples in the room, which was the only reason for being there in the first place!”

What does this mean?

Who wants a friendly cross-eyed cat?

December 12, 2012 • 2:04 pm

There’s an old joke about a kid misinterpreting the Christian hymn “Gladly the Cross I’d Bear” to be about ursid named Gladly with strabismus: “Gladly the Cross-eyed Bear.” Well, today we have, for real, Simon the cross-eyed cat. And he’s up for grabs, i.e., adoption, if you live in the Chicago area.

David Richards, known as “daveau” on this website, sends photos and a video.

I don’t think anyone will accuse Simon of being the handsomest cat in the world, but it turns out he’s a real sweetheart, which more than makes up for it. Simon, so named for his obvious Siamese background, has been an intermittent visitor to our backyard for 8 or 9 years. Recently, however, he has been showing up nearly every day to predate in our feline heaven of a back yard. I’m sure that is partially due to my feeding him along with our cats in order to take the edge off his appetite for birds. He may or may not have a home somewhere nearby, but he is clearly allowed to wander everywhere year-around, and I’ve belatedly come to the conclusion that he needs a real home before winter sets in.

He is a sweetheart:


I will vouch that he is friendly with other cats, at least with mine, and that he is friendly with humans, as I have gotten to know him over the last few months. He will happily sit with me on the back steps and get petted endlessly. He seems to look forward to that just as much as the to food I give him. (He is slightly afraid of the camera for some reason.) He is not neutered, but shows no signs of territorial marking. I will gladly pay reasonable expenses for a checkup, shots and neutering, all of which he will need. So, if you have a home that needs a loving cat, or know someone who does, Simon is your guy.

simon1

He has taken to eating breakfast here nearly every day and I can catch him pretty much anytime, and bring him anywhere in the Chicago area on a weekend.

simon

If anybody’s interested, I will be happy to talk to them and fill them in on all the details. Attached are a couple of photos and a short video.

Could somebody give this moggie a home? He’s clearly not being taken care of, even if he does have an owner.  If you’re interested, email me or, alternatively, “daveau” himself, who will post contact information in the comments in a few hours.

Try this at home folks!

December 12, 2012 • 2:03 pm

by Matthew Cobb

Jerry wants me to post on that story from Nature about Ediacaran fossils having been the fruiting bodies of terrestrial fungi, but that will have to wait until I’ve finished marking a load of essays. In the meantime, have fun with this:

 

Marine mammals should not be entertainment

December 12, 2012 • 11:11 am

There is no reason (unless you want to rake in the greenbacks) in keeping marine mammals in captivity—especially if they’re not endangered—and using them as entertainment. Doing so is, of course, a perennial source of money for places like Sea World or Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium. But these animals are intelligent, have evolved to range widely over the open sea, and are not happy in small tanks where they sometimes have to do tricks.

A common rationale is that “we learn more about these animals by studying them in captivity,” and that will help us save them. The problem is that many such species are not endangered, nor do aquaria publish the results of their “studies” (if those studies even exist).  As Mencken wrote in his hilarious essay “The Zoo” (1918):

But zoos, it is argued, are of scientific value. They enable learned men to study this or that. Again the facts blast the theory. No scientific discovery of any value whatsoever, even to the animals themselves, has ever come out of a zoo. The zoo scientist is the old woman of zoology, and his alleged wisdom is usually exhibited, not in the groves of actual learning, but in the yellow journals. He is to biology what the late Camille Flammarion was to astronomy, which is to say, its court jester and reductio ad absurdum. When he leaps into public notice with some new pearl of knowledge, it commonly turns out to be no more than the news that Marie Bashkirtseff, the Russian lady walrus, has had her teeth plugged with zinc and is expecting twins. Or that Pishposh, the man-eating alligator, is down with locomotor ataxia. Or that Damon, the grizzly, has just finished his brother Pythias in the tenth round, chewing off his tail, nose and remaining ear.

. . . Least of all do zoos produce any new knowledge about animal behavior. Such knowledge must be got, not from animals penned up and tortured, but from animals in a state of nature. A college professor studying the habits of the giraffe, for example, and confining his observations to specimens in zoos, would inevitably come to the conclusion that the giraffe is a sedentary and melancholy beast, standing immovable for hours at a time and employing an Italian to feed him hay and cabbages. As well proceed to a study of the psychology of a jurisconsult by first immersing him in Sing Sing, or of a juggler by first cutting off his hands. Knowledge so gained is inaccurate and imbecile knowledge. Not even a college professor, if sober, would give it any faith and credit.

The remark about the giraffe always makes me laugh out loud! But there’s at least as much truth as humor in that.

And here’s one byproduct of this form of animal capitalism: a kid getting bit by a dolphin at feeding time. No doubt the parents paid handsomely for their kids to have this opportunity.

The caption:

November 21, 2012
Our daughter was bitten by a dolphin at SeaWorld Orlando. We wanted to share this video so others can make an informed decision about whether or not the risks to yourself or your child are worth the experience.

I’m sorry the little girl was bitten, but that’s only the human side of the equation. What about the sufferings (yes, I think they suffer) of animals like dolphins, sea otters, and beluga whales forced to endlessly swim in circles in small tanks? (I once was moved almost to tears by watching an otter do this at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. I filed a complaint with a person in charge, but they completely ignored me.) As a biologist, this outrages me.

Let us make no mistake here: this is not about conservation, and only pretends to be about education. In the end, it’s all about money.

h/t: Matt

Uncle Eric on scientism

December 12, 2012 • 7:19 am

Karl Giberson’s affectionate sobriquet has been permanently retired on the grounds of intransigent and senseless accommodationism, and has been transferred permanently to the estimable and avuncular Eric MacDonald, who will henceforth be known as “Uncle Eric.”

I am quite fond of Eric because he is smart, because he knows a lot about theology, because he has kindly served as a sort of theological tutor for me, because he gave up his job as an Anglican priest in the face of insupportable stupidity on the part of his church, and because he turned his sorrow over his wife’s illness (and her choice of euthanasia) into a wonderful website crusading for assisted suicide.

And like me, Eric’s original mission has expanded to cover the evils of religion, as well as philosophy and related topics (he hasn’t yet gotten to cats).  We usually agree on stuff, but, as he points out in a new post at Choice in Dying, we differ on the issue of scientism. His post, “On the strangely beguiling notion of scientism,” takes the stand that there are indeed ways to apprehend objective truth beyond the purview of science, and that those who claim otherwise are guilty of scientism.

We still disagree about this.  I’m sorry to say that Eric’s piece, like nearly all pieces on scientism, fails to make a case for (or even give more than one example of) “truth” apprehended by other than scientific means—and I’m defining “science” as the combination of empirical observation, reason, and (usually) replicated observation and prediction that investigates what exists in the universe.

I’ll be brief here, as I’ve posted a lot on this topic lately, but I want to discuss what Eric sees as “objective knowledge” that goes beyond science.

It’s “moral knowledge”:

And though Jerry Coyne (this is one of the small number of areas where he and I differ significantly in our approach to things) may dismiss ideas concerning value as matters of opinion, it is very doubtful that girls in Afghanistan, who have acid thrown in their faces or see their schools being destroyed, share that view. It is not just a matter of opinion that their right to learn should be recognized and honoured; how we establish what can justly be considered objective moral understanding is something worthwhile considering.

(Eric also mentions “value-laden domains such as ethics, politics, the law, arts, and religion” as possible domains of knowledge, but gives no examples of the “knowledge” that these areas have gleaned from our world.)

Now I agree, of course, that throwing acid in the face of Afghan schoolgirls for trying to learn is wrong. But it is not an “objective” moral wrong—that is, you cannot deduce it from mere observation, not without adding some reasons why you think it’s wrong. And those reasons are based on opinions. In this case, the “opinion” is that it’s wrong to hurt anyone for trying to go to school.  In other words, Eric claims that moral dicta are objective ones, on the par with the “knowledge” of science.

But such dicta are not “truths,” but “guides for living”.  And some people, like the odious Taliban who perpetuate these crimes, do disagree. How do you prove, objectively, that they’re wrong? You need to bring in other subjective criteria.

The problem with “objective” moral truths is much clearer in less clear-cut cases.  Is it objectively true that abortion is wrong, or that a moral society must give everyone health care? You can’t ascertain these “truths” by observation; you deduce them from some general principles of right and wrong that are, at bottom, opinion. (Of course, some opinions are more well-founded than others, and that’s what philosophy is good for.)

In other words, Eric is committing here the very sin he decried (as I recall) in Sam Harris’s book The Moral Landscape: he is saying that there are scientifically establishable truths about ethics. And if that’s true, then let Eric tell us what those truths are—without first defining, based on his taste, what is “moral” and “immoral.” Let him give us a list of all the behaviors he considers objectively immoral.

Now, I maintain that there is no objective morality: that morality is a guide for how people should get along in society, and that what is “moral” comports in general with the rules we need to live by in a harmonious society—one with greater “well being,” as Harris puts it.  A society in which half the inhabitants are dispossessed because they lack a Y chromosome is not a society brimming with well being, and I wouldn’t want to live in it.  And yes, what promotes “well being” can in principle be established empirically. But that still presumes that the best society is one that promotes the greatest “well being,” and that is an opinion, not a fact. To be sure, in some cases better societies may require decreases in overall well being, as utilitarians have noted.  As Dostoevsky asked, would it be all right to kill a single innocent child if it would save millions of lives? That would promote general well being, but is it right?

I don’t know the answer,, nor how to weigh the various forms of “well being” against each other, but I do know that the criteria of maximizing “well being,” while being generally good guides to morality, are still  judgment calls and not objective facts. And of course people disagree violently about “objective” morality. Just look at how the various religions (or even the various sects of Christianity) differ on issues like stem-cell research, abortion, gay marriage, divorce, war, or even masturbation.

Eric tries to finesse this difficulty by some logic-chopping:

To take but one example, it is widely thought, without any reference to moral philosophy, that morality is just a matter of opinion, or that it is entirely relative. Given disagreements in morality this is surprising, for genuine disagreement is only possible where we think we are saying something substantive, and subject to standards of truth.

Note the elision here between “saying something substantive” and “truth”! This is an unwarranted extrapolation often committed by critics of scientism; I believe Phil Kitcher makes a similar argument.  And yes, of course moral judgments can hinge on matters of real scientific truth! If you think that abortion is wrong because fetuses feel pain, that’s something that science can, in principle, find out. But in the end that still depends on an opinion: causing a fetus pain, even though doing so comports with the mother’s wishes, is immoral.  Just because a disagreement is “substantive” (whatever that means) does not mean that it can be resolved by determining objective truths.

So Eric, in claiming that there are objective moral truths, seems to have violated his own reason for criticizing Sam Harris.  As for the “truths” of law, art, religion, and politics, I’ll leave it to Eric to tell us what they are.

I want to differ with Eric on one other point: his claim that there’s no way to show a priori that science provides truth about reality. (Well, I agree with him in principle, but think it’s completely irrelevant as a criticism of science.):

Certainly, science works, as Hawking said. There is no question that science has discovered hitherto unknown facts about the natural world, and that scientific knowledge seems, at least, to be growing exponentially, or very nearly so. There are two things wrong with this. First of all, it does not tell us how we know that science provides the ”truth” about “reality.” [Note the admission that science “works”.]. . .

And he then quotes Susan Haack:

“No scientific investigation can tell us whether science is epistemologically special, and if so, how, or whether a theory’s yielding true predictions is an indication of its truth, and if so, why, and so on …”

and criticizes Peter Atkins:

So it turns out that Peter Atkins [sic] famous paper, “Science as Truth,” is, in fact, though Atkins seems not to have noticed, philosophy and not science, and, if true, an example of non-scientific truth. Moreover, it is self-defeating, for, if he is claiming that science alone can provide truth, he is making a claim to truth which is not scientific.

Eric should be careful here, because he’s beginning to tread the road paved by people like Alvin Plantinga—theologians who try to drag science down to the level of faith because science can’t justify logically that it can finds truth.

My answer to this claim is this: “so fricking what?”  While philosophers draw their pay by arguing interminably about such stuff (and achieving nothing by so doing), science goes ahead and accomplishes things: we find out what causes disease and then find cures; we put people on the Moon; we build computers and lasers. In other words, by assuming that there are external truths that are apprehended by science, we accomplish what we want to do, including alleviating suffering that no faith-healing could ever relieve. The tuberculosis bacterium is not an illusion. I don’t give a rat’s patootie for the philosophers who tell us that we can’t justify science’s ability to find truth by a priori lucubration. Let them squabble while science moves on. The success of science justifies its assumption of objective truths and its program for apprehending them.

And note that, at the outset of his essay (see above), Eric does admit that science “works.” Later on, however, he’s not so sure:

And the frequent remark that science will win because it works, is, from the standpoint of truth, neither fish nor fowl, for a great deal in need of explanation is hidden in that simple phrase ‘it works,’ and how that relates to the concept of truth.

I’ll tell Eric what we mean by “science works” (even though he seems to have understood why in his remarks above): our understanding of what is in the universe advances.

Does religion “work” that way?  Well, if by “work” you mean only, “makes people feel better,” “gives them a sense of purpose,” “consoles them when they’re low,” or “inspires them to do good works”—maybe.  But in many cases this is the consolation of alcohol to the alcoholic, and in no case does it show that the claims of faith are “true.” In fact, they can’t be, for while Muslims are consoled by one set of tenets, Christians are by another. Christians are consoled by the possibility of an afterlife, but Jews aren’t, because most Jews don’t believe in one. Even within Christianity, some are inspired to do good works for the sake of helping others alone, while others do so only because they think they’ll gain heavenly grace.

If religion really worked, then our understanding of whether there is a God, whether there is more than one God, what kind of God he is, whether he’s a personal god, a theistic, one or a deistic one—all of this would have advanced over the years. And we’d know more about what God “wants” for us, and which religion, if any, is the true one. Needless to say, we know no more about this than did medieval theologians.  Sure, what theologians say about God has changed (not, of course, in a universal way), but that’s not because of theology, but because of currents of modern secular thought. Few people now think that the idea of hell is supportable, but that’s not because evidence has established that there’s no hell. There never was any evidence for it! No, it’s because we now think the idea of hell is immoral on secular grounds: it would be a horrible deity that would torture people forever for not believing in him, or for having sex with someone of the same gender.  Our theological understanding of God is exactly where it was in 1300.

So no, religion doesn’t work—not in the sense of finding truth.  And I’ll challenge Eric, as I’ve challenged Philip Kitcher, to give us a list of the “objective truths” that come from morality, from politics, from law, and from the arts. If these disciplines do produce truth, it should be easy for Eric to enumerate some examples.

I’m waiting.