Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
The Miami book fair is having a live panel today on Mortality, Christopher Hitchens’s last book—a collection of Vanity Fair pieces on his esophageal cancer. It’ll be webcast at the following time (Eastern Time U.S), at this link, and is followed by an interview with Carol Blue.
And, fortuitiously, CNN has just posted a three-minute interview with Blue about Hitchens. She’s asked what he would have thought of the Petraeus scandal, and how he would like to be remembered.
h/t: Ross
Okay, this video has gone viral, and elebenty gazillion readers have sent it to me. So how could I not post it?
The story comes from Gawker:
To promote the fact that they’re entirely customer-owned, Swedish insurance company Folksam has apparently started taking requests for ads from customers.
And, as anyone who has been around customers for a minute will tell you, customers are crazy.
Case in point: Eva. For her commercial, Eva, a cat lover, asked to see skydiving cats spelling out her name in the sky while R. Kelly’s “I Believe I Can Fly” played in the background.
Being customer-owned, Folksam was forced to capitulate, and the commercial above is the end result.
What hath customer ownership wrought?
THIS!!!!:
Update note to readers: THIS VIDEO DOES NOT SHOW REAL CATS SKYDIVING. Apparently many ailurophiles have been upset by the video, charging animal cruelty. But it’s all special effects. See this explanation by CNN, and note that it does show video of one real skydiving cat:
h/t: Tina
This falls under the category of LOLz, because I don’t know if this book will ever be used. Nevertheless, according to the BBC News, a new textbook has been published in India with some, well, peculiar viewpoints. The book, New Healthway by David S. Poddar, is, as the BBC notes, aimed at 11 and 12 year-olds and printed by one of India’s leading publishers.
It’s not know whether any schools have bought the book, but those that do will have some ‘splaining to do.
“The strongest argument that meat is not essential food is the fact that the Creator of this Universe did not include meat in the original diet for Adam and Eve. He gave them fruits, nuts and vegetables,” reads a chapter entitled Do We Need Flesh Food?
The chapter details the “benefits” of a vegetarian diet and goes on to list “some of the characteristics” found among non-vegetarians.
“They easily cheat, tell lies, forget promises, they are dishonest and tell bad words, steal, fight and turn to violence and commit sex crimes,” it says.
The chapter, full of factual inaccuracies, refers to Eskimos (Inuit) as “lazy, sluggish and short-lived”, because they live on “a diet largely of meat”.
It adds: “The Arabs who helped in constructing the Suez Canal lived on wheat and dates and were superior to the beef-fed Englishmen engaged in the same work.”
The publishers, S Chand, did not respond to the BBC’s requests for a comment.
I wouldn’t respond, either! I tried to track down David S. Poddar, and there’s a likely candidate on Facebook, but I haven’t “friended” him. Poddar’s “about” section, open to the public, says this:
And since when did Hindus (the target audience) accept the story of Genesis?
h/t: James
I have it on reliable authority that Steve Pinker’s next book will be on modern grammar and usage: a Pinkerian update of Strunk and White’s famous The Elements of Style (a book I wore out with frequent use, but learn from the lecture below is flawed). And Steve’s already giving talks about this book to come.
I would have thought that after finishing his 832-page monster, the superb book The Better Angels of our Nature, Steve would have taken a breather, but if you know him you’ll realize that’s not on—and it makes me envious! He’s a book-writing machine, but all his books are engaging and well written.
At any rate, Steve has previewed his book in a new talk, delivered at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), called “A sense of style.” You can see the 77 minute video here.
As the MIT site describes, this is “The first annual Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering lecture about communicating complex scientific and technological subjects clearly and engagingly in the series: ‘Communicating Science and Technology in the 21st Century’.”
And it’s a very good talk. If you have students, show it to them; if you write yourself, watch it. It’s not just about communicating science—to both the public and our colleagues—but about how to write clearly on any nonfiction topic.
His emphasis is on the “classic style,” a style I’ve tried to achieve (without copying its adherents), and of which I first became aware (do not end sentences with prepositions!) by reading Richard Dawkins. Note how Steve compares Dawkins favorably with the world’s most opaque and infuriating academic writer, the postmodernist Judith Butler (see Martha Nussbaum’s magnificant takedown of Butler in The New Republic).
In that style, one paints tangible pictures for the reader but never condescends, and writes as if the text should be read aloud (the “conversational style”); those are valuable tips. Steve’s examples of good and bad prose are enlightening, and his delivery instantiates his own clear but personal style. But watch the video yourself; you won’t regret it.
A screenshot of one of his slides:
h/t: Chris
The more I read about the Catholic Church, the more I see them as a pervasive source of evil in the world: almost as bad as Islam.
Their latest peccadillo? Denying confirmation to a Minnesota teenager who posted a picture on his Facebook page supporting a gay marriage amendment:
PuffHo reports:
Rev. Gary LaMoine of the Assumption Church in Barnesville, Minn., allegedly denied Lennon Cihak the religious rite of passage after seeing him online holding a sign altered to criticize the Minnesota Marriage Amendment, the Forum of Fargo-Moorhead reports. The amendment would have changed the state’s constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman.
Of course they deny it:
However, the priest has since told the Associated Press that the teen was not in fact denied confirmation, but declined to explain, calling it an “internal and pastoral” matter.
“Some people chose to run out into the public and put it out in the media,” LaMoine said. He also said he was consulting with the Catholic Diocese of Crookston about the issue.
Somebody in the Vatican is going to realize that unless the Pope has a revelation from God allowing abortion, contraception, and gay rights, the Catholics are going out of business—except, perhaps, in South America.
My only question is whether Lennon Cihak still wants to be confirmed, and if so, why?
And of course there’s Savita Halappanavar’s, who gave her life because of Catholic stupidity. Her parents weighed in yesterday from India. The Guardian:
In an attempt to save a 4-month-old foetus they killed my … daughter. How is that fair you tell me?” A Mahadevi told several Indian television stations.
“How many more cases will there be? The rules should be changed as per the requirement of Hindus. We are Hindus, not Christians.”
Halapanavar’s husband, Paveen, has claimed that when the couple asked for a termination, fearing for Savita’s life, the pair were told: “This is a Catholic country.” He said doctors knew his wife was miscarrying within hours of her being taken to hospital.
As PuffHo notes:
Ireland’s constitution officially bans abortion, but a 1992 Supreme Court ruling said the procedure should be legalized for situations when the woman’s life is at risk from continuing the pregnancy. Five governments since have refused to pass a law resolving the confusion, leaving Irish hospitals reluctant to terminate pregnancies except in the most obviously life-threatening circumstances.
The Guardian adds:
Irish anti-abortion groups continue to insist that the Republic’s laws were not responsible for Halappanavar’s death.
Niamh Uí Bhriain, of the Life Institute, said: “It is very sad to see abortion campaigners rush to exploit this case to further their own agenda. The tragic loss of Savita Halappanavar’s life was not caused by Ireland’s ban on abortion. We need to ensure that mothers and babies are best protected; and abortion is not part of best medical practise. It is medieval medicine.”
How, exactly, does she know what killed Halappanavar? If he says “infection,” he’s dissimulating.
Come on, citizens of Ireland! 60% of you favor legalized abortion, so make your government reflect your consensus.
The conclusion above came to my attention from Scientific American‘s “Budding Scientist” website, which has a report by Anna Kuchment with the frank title, “U.S. state science standards are ‘mediocre to awful.'”
Kuchment’s piece is based on a report by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, “The State of State Science Standards, 2012,” released on January 31. The authors of that are a distinguished lot: Lawrence S. Lerner, Ursula Goodenough, John Lynch, Martha Schwartz, and Richard Schwartz, with an NAEP (National Association of Education Progress) review by Paul R. Gross.)
You can download the pdf of the report here, or just skip that and just see where your state stands if you live in the U.S. (Although the report is 217 pages long, all but eleven pages of that is either description of methodology or assessments of each of the 50 states.)
The conclusions (those in quotations are taken directly from the report):
- The undermining of evolution through a variety of methods, both involving the legislature (as in Louisiana’s “academic freedom” act that allows the teaching of intelligent design creationism) and more subtle incursions, like Colorado and West Virginia’s mandate that the “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution be discussed, while of course other “theories” don’t come in for such treatment.
- Vague standards that give teachers little guidance. The report mentions, as two examples, “A middle school teacher in New Hampshire, for example, will come face to face with the following: ‘Identify energy as a property of many substances.’ Pennsylvania offers the equally baffling ‘Explain the chemistry of metabolism.’ Such empty statements can do little to inform curriculum development or instruction, and give no guidance to assessment developers.”
- The promotion of “inquiry based learning” without any guidance to teachers how to implement it. The report notes, “Iowa schoolchildren are directed to: ‘Make appropriate personal/lifestyle/technology choices, evaluate, observe, discuss/debate, recognize interactions and interdependencies at all levels, explain, describe environmental effects of public policy, choose appropriate course(s) of action.‘ Such statements are devoid of any teachable content and leave teachers with no guidance as to how they can incorporate genuine scientific inquiry skills into their instruction.” Further, many states say nothing about the history of science, which is essential for teaching students how science works and how to be critical.
- There’s not enough math. As the report notes, things are far too qualitative, perhaps catering to students’ “mathophobia”: “Mathematics is integral to science. Yet few states make the link between math and science clear—and many seem to go to great lengths to avoid mathematical formulae and equations altogether. The result is usually a clumsy mishmash of poor writing that could much more easily and clearly be expressed in numbers.”
It’s no surprise, then, that among 15 year olds tested in 65 countries, U.S. students ranked 23rd in science proficiency, while only 21% of U.S. twelfth-graders (17 and 18 year olds) are at or above the “proficient” standard in science.
This is a very thorough report: the most thorough I’ve seen from any organization. There are an average of 3.5 pages of evaluation for each of the U.S.’s 50 states. If you’re a parent, or simply a citizen concerned about the condition of American science education, look at your state’s standards and, if so moved, complain!
Here’s the U.S. map with each state’s grade. Note that although the South is low as expected, the midwest, along with Oregon and Idaho, rank even lower. And an F for Wisconsin? This was a surprise to me. Read the state-by-state evaluations to see why.
Don’t enable religion by using an inaccurate phrase! To avoid that embarrassing situation, either print this out and put it on your office door, or, barring that, memorize it.
(From The Skeptical Avenger).
And if you don’t understand Why Evolution is True, there’s an eponymous book that can help . .
(Full disclosure: I sometimes catch myself saying “I believe in evolution.”)
h/t: Rixaeton
Two days ago I wrote about how the U.S. government has been ignoring political activities by churches and pastors, activities that are illegal under our laws and punishable by revoking the tax benefits of churches. (Churches pay no property taxes and get other benefits as well, such as tax-free housing allowances for pastors.) Apparently it has been the government’s unofficial policy to overlook blatant electioneering by churches. This autumn that electioneering largely took the form of conservative and anti-abortion pastors denouncing Obama from their pulpits and urging parishioners to vote for Republicans.
I’m thus immensely pleased to see that, as reported by Isthmus, the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) has just filed suit against the tax people (Internal Revenue Service, or IRS) for their indolence on this issue:
Filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, the lawsuit charges that Douglas Shulman, the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, “has violated, continues to violate and will continue to violate in the future, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States by failing to enforce the electioneering restrictions of 501(c)(3) of the Tax Code against churches and religious organizations.”
This section of the tax code prohibits nonprofit organizations and organizations that are exempt from federal income taxes from being involved in political campaigns.
The lawsuit cites “open and notorious violations” of these electioneering restrictions by churches since 2008, including “blatantly partisan full-page ads” from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association that ran in papers throughout the country leading up to the Nov. 6 election.
In the ad, Graham urges people to vote “for those who protect the sanctity of life and support the biblical definition of marriage between a man and a woman.”
Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, says, “Everybody knows what he was talking about: Obama endorsing same-sex marriage.”. . .
The lawsuit also charges that the IRS’s failure to enforce these electioneering laws violates the equal protection rights of other nonprofits barred from engaging in political activity.
“The non-enforcement of the electioneering restrictions … against churches and other religious organizations constitutes preferential treatment to churches and religious organizations that is not provided to other tax-exempt organizations, including the FFRF, which are required to comply with the electioneering restrictions…”
The FFRF’s own announcement of the suit is here, and I’ve embedded below the whole lawsuit that they filed.
I’ve been really impressed with the FFRF, headed by Annie Laurie Gaylor and Dan Barker, and now consider it the most effective secular organization in the U.S. That’s largely because instead of hosting endless ineffectual meetings with the same speakers, or navel-gazing about internal divisiveness, the FFRF actually does something: through scrupulous monitoring of the government and judiciously filing lawsuits, the FFRF fights an endless battle against the brushfires of religious enthusiasm that threaten to incinerate our Constitution.
That’s not to say that other secular organizations are completely ineffectual, though some of them approach that, but simply that the FFRF stands out as the one that best keeps religion at bay. (Remember their anti-Catholic ads in the New York Times?).
We need more lawsuits, not more atheist conventions!
Do consider becoming a member of the FFRF. Membership comes with a great and meaty monthly newspaper, Freethought Today, detailing their legal activities and other fun stuff (e.g., crazy things that the faith-ridden say), and at the same time supports lawsuits like this one. (As Annie Laurie told me, not all of the legal activity is pro bono.)
To join, simply go here and fill in the form along with a contribution of $40. And, to sweeten the deal, put your name below, saying you’ve just joined. I’ll pick one name at random from those who do (and provide proof when asked), and send them an autographed copy of WEIT including a hand-drawn First Amendment Cat. This offer expires Nov. 28 at 5 p.m.; please leave any notice of donations in the thread below rather than by emailing me.
(p.s., for those of you still expecting books from donating to Doctors without Borders, I haven’t forgotten. I have a list of everyone along with their requests [e.g., “draw my turtle!”], and books will be sent out after I return from Scotland Nov. 28.)
h/t: Mark