The talking tui

October 17, 2012 • 5:59 am

I didn’t even know this bird existed until an alert reader, Gayle Ferguson, called it to my attention. It’s the tui, endemic to the islands of New Zealand:

I can’t embed the relevant video here (YouTube forbids it), but it’s worth having a look at one of the capabilities of a tui (Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae): its remarkable ability to imitate other sounds, including the human voice. First, a video of the talent, which you can see here.  It’s pretty amazing: the bird whistles popular songs, speaks in an eerily human voice, and even mentions someone’s cold and imitates a sneeze! The YouTube description:

Woof Woof is a Tui bird with a permanent wing injury, he lives at the Whangarei Native Bird Recovery Centre in New Zealand. He started talking at about 18 months old and now he talks to everyone. Some of his phrases are: Come up here, quick. How’s your cold? Give us a kiss, mmm. Where’s the Karkariki? (parakeet in the aviary next door. Whistles Pop Goes the Weasel. Visit http://www.whangareinativebirdrecovery.org.nz to view more photos & video.

The story of Woof Woof, and another display of his talents, is shown on a video at The Whangarei Native Bird recovery site (be sure to click on the videos to the right of the main one to hear Woof Woof’s repertoire).  The interesting thing is that many talking tuis are never taught to talk; they pick it up on their own. As reader Gayle Ferguson reports, who brought this to my attention:

The bird speaks with the accent and intonation of a NZ male of advancing years.  It’s incredible!  That’s why I thought it was a hoax.

Here’s another talking tui:

That video claims that the mimicry of tuis is adaptive in that it helps them protect their territories from other birds, presumably by imitating the other birds’ calls and fooling them into thinking that a conspecific male is in their territory, hence giving the tui more foraging space. I had never thought of that explanation for bird mimicry. I wonder if my birder readers know of this theory, or whether it would apply to the other great mimics: parrots and mynahs. The other explanation, of course, is that the imitation is a byproduct of the tui’s ability to produce a variety of sounds to lure females.

About tuis: they’re passerine birds endemic to New Zealand, eat nectar, fruits, and insects, and are in the honeyeater family (Meliphagidae).  Wikipedia talks about their smarts:

Tuis are considered to be very intelligent, much like parrots. They also resemble parrots in their ability to clearly imitate human speech, and were trained by Māori to replicate complex speech.Tui are also known for their noisy, unusual call, different for each individual, that combine bellbird-like notes with clicks, cackles, timber-like creaks and groans, and wheezing sounds. Song birds have two voiceboxesand this is what enables them to perform such a myriad of vocalisations.

Some of the huge range of tui sounds are beyond the human register. Watching a tui sing, one can observe gaps in the sound when the beak is agape and throat tufts throbbing. However, ongoing research has so far failed to detect ultrasound within tui vocalisations. Tui will also sing at night, especially around the full moon period.

Their songs in the wild are quite complicated; here’s a wild male singing:

h/t: Gayle

Librarians classify creationist books as “religion,” not “science” (except at my school)

October 17, 2012 • 5:18 am

Have you ever wondered where librarians put books on creationism? The answer is (usually) under “religion,” not science. That’s not only appropriate, but raises the hackles of creationists.

This information comes from one of our readers, who wrote a post on this issue on his/her website, The Sensuous Curmudgeon, a site that you should look at, for it is dedicated to enlightenment values, especially the promotion of science and criticism of creationism.  The post in question is “How libraries classify creationism,” and it’s worth a read.

Also worth a read is a linked essay in the prestigious Library Journal, “Librarians decide what is reality.” (I love that title.) A quote from that essay, written by “Annoyed Librarian” (unsurprisingly, librarians cherish their privacy on such issues):

The problem isn’t that young earth creationism might be wrong. The problem is that it isn’t scientific. Our scientific congressman may have found some evidence as a scientist, but if you already have a belief, only look for evidence to confirm it, and ignore any evidence that refutes it, you can find evidence to support any belief.

That’s what most of us do for beliefs all the time. We start with something we believe and then select the evidence that supports the belief. It’s very human, but it’s not very scientific.

Nobody looking at the evidence who didn’t start with that particular religious belief would think the earth was 6,000 years old. Have Hindus or Buddhists evaluate the evidence and see how persuaded they are. Even the young earth creationists themselves admit they start from the creation account in Genesis and then go from there.

Apparently one of the most influential books on young earth creationism is The Genesis Flood: the Biblical Record and Its Scientific Implications. This book has sold 200,000 copies and a lot of people believe it has something to do with science. Where do libraries stand? According to the WorldCat record, libraries that have this book shelve it either in the BS or the 220, which are both call numbers for religion in LC and Dewey.

Another book I saw listed in the Conservapedia entry on Young Earth Creationism is Evolution: the Fossils Still Say No!, which you can tell from the exclamation point in the title is a really scientific book. Where do libraries keep the book? Either in the BL or 213, both still religion rather than science. By the way, the entry partly plagiarizes the Wikipedia entry. How desperate do you have to be to plagiarize from Wikipedia?

The partly plagiarized Conservapedia entry also lists two “peer-reviewed journals” that the Wikipedia somehow failed to find: the Creation Research Society Quarterly and the Journal of Creation, both classified in both LC and Dewey as religion journals.

The author also raises the possibility that creationists will object to this classification, causing a mini-kerfuffle in the library world.

What isn’t answered by the Library Journal article is whether books on Intelligent Design, like Darwin’s Black Box or Signature in the Cell, are also classified under religion. They should be, for they just use the gussied-up arguments of older creationists, like Yahweh-of-the-Gaps arguments.  I checked in the University of Chicago catalog, and, sure enough, both Behe’s and Meyer’s works are classified as science.  Meyer’s latest book isn’t in the catalog (something I’m sure will soon be rectified), but his older works, like Behe’s, reside in the science library and sit alongside real science books.

Going further,  I find that while Duane Gish’s infamous Evolution: the Fossils say No! is classified as science here (“QH”), Henry Morris’s similar books, like Scientific Creationism, are classified in the “B”s as religion. To wit:

but

There is no substantive difference in the tone or nature of these books; they’re both pure creationism masquerading as science. In fact, Morris’s book comes in two versions, one with reference to scripture and explicitly Christian in tone; the other purged of Biblical references and intended to be snuck into schools like a Trojan Horse.

I may have a word with our librarians about this.  Do we really want Duane Gish’s books in the science section given that Judge Jones labeled even Intelligent Design as “not science”? (My own view is that ID is bad science, motivated by religion, and should therfore not be in the science section.) Of course it’s the librarians and not judges who these decisions, but our science librarians are smart and savvy. I’ll give them a call.

Romney and Ryan want to kill more Americans

October 16, 2012 • 9:12 am

Sunday’s New York Times contained a hard-hitting essay by Paul Krugman, “Death by ideology”, blasting Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan’s plan to deep-six Obamacare and replace Medicare with an ineffectual system of vouchers. It will, in effect, not give health insurance to poor Americans, but ensure that they’ll die for lack of proper preventive care. Krugman pulls no punches:

Mitt Romney doesn’t see dead people. But that’s only because he doesn’t want to see them; if he did, he’d have to acknowledge the ugly reality of what will happen if he and Paul Ryan get their way on health care.

Last week, speaking to The Columbus Dispatch, Mr. Romney declared that nobody in America dies because he or she is uninsured: “We don’t have people that become ill, who die in their apartment because they don’t have insurance.” This followed on an earlier remark by Mr. Romney — echoing an infamous statement by none other than George W. Bush — in which he insisted that emergency rooms provide essential health care to the uninsured.

These are remarkable statements. They clearly demonstrate that Mr. Romney has no idea what life (and death) are like for those less fortunate than himself.

Krugman’s conclusion?

So let’s be brutally honest here. The Romney-Ryan position on health care is that many millions of Americans must be denied health insurance, and millions more deprived of the security Medicare now provides, in order to save money. At the same time, of course, Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan are proposing trillions of dollars in tax cuts for the wealthy. So a literal description of their plan is that they want to expose many Americans to financial insecurity, and let some of them die, so that a handful of already wealthy people can have a higher after-tax income.

Let us just admit it: the Republic platform rests on the backs of the poor, and places the well-being of the wealthy above that of “regular” Americans.  That’s the kind of stance that ensures the continuing dysfunctionality of American society, and hence the continuing and embarrassing hegemony of religion in our country.

I’d be more exercised if Romney stood a chance of winning, but I’d bet big money that he won’t. I’ve found, however, that here in Europe people think that Romney is actually in a dead heat with Obama. He isn’t. And if Romney wins, I’ll go to a Catholic mass (but only once).

I admire Krugman for speaking the truth.

Peregrinations: back home

October 16, 2012 • 5:58 am

I’m flying to Chicago via Munich today, and it will be good to be home, though this trip was fantastic. I still have many pictures to share, especially from Portugal, and hope to post some before I take off again within the week—this time to Stockbridge, Massachusetts and Mexico City.  There will be peregrinations to Oxford, Edinburgh, and Glasgow soon thereafter, and then Ceiling Cat gets to rest.

Bis bald, and I leave you with this:

Oh, and don’t forget to look in at the Live KittenCam, featuring the five four very young “spice kittens” (Basil, Mace, Sage, and Pepper) and their calico mom.

h/t: Hayden

Sarah Silverman goes after new “voter fraud” regulations; is criticized by rabbi for being unmarried and childless

October 16, 2012 • 2:16 am

A lot of people dislike Sarah Silverman for her potty mouth or Lenny Bruce-ian form of throwing light on prejudice. I happen to like her a lot, find her comedy whip-smart; and of course she’s many Jewish boys’ dream girl. Like all good cultural Jews, she’s also a liberal. In the following video she pulls no punches going after the stupid new “voter registration” laws being promulgated in the U.S. to politically dispossess those already socially dispossessed. WARNING: there’s some pretty foul language in the video, certainly NSFW and  unsuitable for kids, but it’s damn funny.

The website she’s referring to at the end is this one.

But I’ve filed this post under “Jews behaving badly” because at The Jewish Press.com, Yaakov Rosenblatt, a self-righteous rabbi and purveyor of kosher meats, goes after her video in “An open letter to Sarah Silverman.” (The piece describes Rosenblatt as an Orthodox “youth rabbi in Dallas” who “‘tends the flock,’ literally and figuratively, as CEO of A.D. Rosenblatt Kosher Meats, LLC.”)

It’s an egregious and embarrassing piece, with Rosenblatt patting Silverman’s head with one hand while smacking her mouth with the other:

If I were to be gratuitous, I would say you mock what is imperfect because you know what perfect should look like and you seek the ultimate perfection.

But I won’t be so gratuitous. You are in show biz. I am in the rabbi biz. You entertain people. I serve people. I believe I have your number. You will soon turn 42 and your destiny, as you stated, will not include children. You blame it on your depression, saying you don’t want to pass it on to another generation.

I find that confusing, coming from someone as perceptive as you are in dissecting flawed arguments. Surely you appreciate being alive and surely, if the wonder of your womb were afflicted with your weaknesses and blessed with your strengths, it would be happy to be alive, too.

You said you wouldn’t get married until gay people can. Now they can. And you still haven’t married. I think, Sarah, that marriage and childrearing are not in the cards for you because you can’t focus on building life when you spend your days and nights tearing it down.

You have made a career making public that which is private, making crude that which is intimate, making sensual that which is spiritual. You have experienced what traditional Judaism taught long ago: when you make sex a public thing it loses its potency. When the whisper is replaced with a shout there is no magic to speak about. And, in my opinion, Sarah, that is why you have had trouble forging a permanent relationship – the most basic desire of the feminine soul.

And he ends with this bit of God-inspired advice:

You are driven. You are passionate. I pray that you channel your drive and direct your passion to something positive, something that will make you a better and more positive person, something that will allow you to touch eternity and truly impact the world forever. I pray that you pursue marriage and, if you are so blessed, raise children.

Great God!  Did somebody say this in 2012? “The most basic desire of the feminine soul”?  Well, I suspect that women do have genes that give them a desire to reproduce, just as do men—after all, the end of all natural selection is to pass on your DNA. But to criticize a woman for not fulfilling their genetic “destiny”—in Rosenblatt’s case the same as their “God-given destiny”—is insane. One of the great achievements of feminism was to dispel the notion that a woman must have children to be of any value.

Sarah’s father, Donald Silverman, comes to her defense in the comments, but the real action is from the other Jews, especially females, who rip Rosenblatt a new sphincter for his sexism.

h/t: Michael

Scientists debate philosophers and theologians at CERN—but why?

October 15, 2012 • 9:55 pm

Unlike some of my readers, I don’t dismiss all academic philosophy as worthless. The discipline imparts the tools of logic and throught that can clarify questions and bring contradictions to light. I think it’s of most value in illuminating (but not necessarily solving) ethical problems and dilemmas, but of less value for working scientists.

But in an ongoing meeting in Geneva described by the BBC, its value would seem to be nil (the CERN-sponsored conference, which ends tomorrow, is called “The Big Bang and the interfaces of knowledge: towards a common language?“)*

Worse: at this conference philosophy is rendered even more ineffectual by diluting it with theology—a form of intellectual homeopathy. As the BBC reports:

Some of Europe’s most prominent scientists have opened a debate with philosophers and theologians over the origins of everything.

The event, in Geneva, Switzerland, is described as a search for “common ground” between religion and science over how the Universe began.

It will focus on the Big Bang theory.

The conference was called by Cern, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, in the wake of its Higgs boson discovery.

And, at the outset, the the theologian-philosophers parade their hauteur, trying to tell physicists that they’re doing it rong (Pinsent, mentioned below, has degrees in physics and philosophy and is on the theology faculty at Oxford):

The first speaker at the conference was Andrew Pinsent, research director of the Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion at Oxford University.

He said that science risked “trying to turn society into a machine” if it did not engage with religion and philosophy.

“Science in isolation is great for producing stuff, but not so good for producing ideas,” he told the BBC.

“Einstein began by asking the kinds of questions that a child would ask, like what would it be like to ride on a beam of light.”

That, Dr Pinsent said, was what science should return to.

Not so good for producing ideas? That claim is what comes out of the south end of a horse facing north.  First of all, many scientists do engage with religion and philosophy, but I suspect the kind of engagement Pinsent wants is not debate (as occurs on this site), but mutual back-patting.

And in the case of this conference, that engagement is useless. What do theologians, or philosophers for that matter, have to say about the origin of the universe that’s of any value to scientists? Any “philosophizing” about things like multiverses can be done perfectly well by scientists on their own.

The stuff about “turning society into a machine” is alarmist hype; nothing like that would happen without the vaunted “dialogue”, even if all scientists buried themselves in their labs like hermit.

Finally, who the hell does Pinsent think he is telling scientists that we’re not coming up with new ideas in the right way? Isn’t string theory a remarkable imaginative achievement, even if we can’t yet test it?  So is the idea of multiverses; and Lee Smolin‘s theory of “cosmological natural selection” is highly original, even if it proves to be wrong.

Sadly, the BBC article doesn’t report any dissent, or pushback, by scientists. It reports only annoying statements by philosopher and theologians, and one rump-osculating statement by the director of CERN:

Prof Rolf Heuer, director of Cern, explained that the Higgs results provided a “deeper insight and understanding of the moments after the Big Bang”.

He added that he hoped, by the end of the conference, that delegates from very different backgrounds would be able to “start to discuss the origin of our Universe”.

Yeah, but only scientists will be able to make progress in understanding the origin of our universe.  The rest of the attendees will stare at their navels and aver that scientists can’t answer the Really Big Questions, like why there was a Big Bang:

Co-organiser Canon Dr Gary Wilton, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s representative in Brussels, said that the Higgs particle “raised lots of questions [about the origins of the Universe] that scientists alone can’t answer”.

“They need to explore them with theologians and philosophers,” he added.

No they don’t. That’s a waste of time, and gives theologians and philosophers unwarranted credibility in what is a purely scientific problem. That looks good on their c.v.s, but not so good on the physicists’. As scientists’ efforts continue to shrink the bailiwicks of both philosophy and, especially, theology, practitioners of these disciplines are desperate to retain a seat at the Big Table and anxious to show that they, too, have something to contribute to the progress of science.

The thing is, they don’t. Philosophy of science is a meta-discipline, which can analyze the sociology of our field, often in enlightening ways, but hasn’t, as far as I can see, contributed to science’s progress. Yes, insofar as scientists themselves ruminate about the meaning of their achievements (philosophers love to count this as philosophy), that leads to progress. But with few exceptions (for me, Dennett and Kitcher, because they know a lot about evolution), formal academic philosophy of science has not advanced science itself. Most honest philosophers of science will admit this. And of course theology is useless for advancing knowledge—it only impedes science by confusing the public and raising “science stoppers” like the fine-tuning argument and the claim that morality implies a God.

This is what you get when a conference is co-organized by a physicist and a representative of the Archbishop of Canterbury: a few shreds of meat floating around in a bowl of porridge:

The organisers are expecting some disagreements during the three-day event.

For example, one of the speakers, Prof John Lennox from Oxford University, has been an outspoken critic of atheist scientists in the past.

Most recently, he took issue with Prof Stephen Hawking’s assertion that God did not create the Universe.

In an article in the Daily Mail, he said that he was certain that Prof Hawking was wrong.

Prof Lennox wrote: “When Hawking argues, in support of his theory of spontaneous creation, that it was only necessary for ‘the blue touch paper’ to be lit to ‘set the universe going’, the question must be: where did this blue touch paper come from? And who lit it, if not God?”

Well, maybe it lit itself, Dr. Lennox? Have you ruled out that possibility?

But the theologian-philosphers press on, like kids who beg to sit at the adults’ table at Thanksgiving:

Dr Wilton, though, said he was hopeful that “scientists, theologians and philosophers alike might gain fresh insights from each other’s disciplines”

“This is such an exciting conference,” he told the BBC.

For him, maybe. He gets the cachet of getting to debate real scientists and pretending that he has something meaningful to say to them. But the conference isn’t so exciting for physicists.

And since when did the estimable scientific organization CERN start acting like the Templeton Foundation?

h/t: John, Matthew Cobb

________

*The answer is “no.” You can download a pdf of the conference program here; warning—it’s infuriating.

Google Maps goes underwater

October 15, 2012 • 9:20 am

From ZDNet via alert reader P, we find that Google Maps, in its “street view” mode, has added six underwater panoramas to its repertoire.

Announced on Tuesday, the underwater vistas comprise six sites of marine interest: Wilson Island, Heron Island and Lady Elliot Island in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef; Hawaii’s Hanauma Bay and Molokini crater; and the volcanic reserve of Apo Island in the Philippines.

“With these vibrant and stunning photos you don’t have to be a scuba diver — or even know how to swim — to explore and experience six of the ocean’s most incredible living coral reefs,” Brian McClendon, VP of Google Maps and Earth, said in a blog post.

You can find the “reef views” here, and they’re pretty cool. You can scroll around them and get a 360-degree view of some lovely marine areas, zoom in on the photos, or connect them to Google Maps to see where the sites are. Here’s a screenshot: