Religious “nones” increase in America

July 25, 2012 • 7:57 am

According to USA Today, a new survey by the Pew Forum brings the welcome news that the proportion of “nones” in America—that is, those who identify as either agnostics, atheists, or lacking religious belief—has jumped to an all-time high of 19%, a threefold increase in the last 22 years.

Barry Kosmin, co-author of three American Religious Identification Surveys, theorizes why None has become the “default category.” He says, “Young people are resistant to the authority of institutional religion, older people are turned off by the politicization of religion, and people are simply less into theology than ever before.”

Kosmin’s surveys were the first to brand the Nones in 1990 when they were 6% of U.S. adults. By 2008 survey, Nones were up to 15%. By 2010, another survey, the bi-annual General Social Survey, bumped the number to 18%.

Meanwhile, the Roman Catholic Church, the nation’s largest religious denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, Methodists and Lutherans, all show membership flat or inching downward, according to the 2012 Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches.

The 19% count is based on aggregated surveys of 19,377 people conducted by the Pew Research Center throughout 2011.

Where do the “nones” come from?

Two forces could hold Nones’ numbers down. First, they are disproportionately young, often single, and highly educated — all groups with a low birth rate. Second, the number of believers who immigrate to the USA from particularly religious nations, such as Catholics from Mexico, fluctuates with government policies and economic issues, Chaves says.

But the chief way the category grows is by “switchers.” A 2009 Pew Forum look at “switching” found more than 10% of American adults became Nones after growing up within a religious group.

This underscores the fact that a combination of rationality and immersion in religious nonsense is a good path to atheism.  And it convinces me that the public statements and presence of New Atheists, combined with the irrevocable path of secularism in other Western countries, will ultimately lead to the demise of religion in America. Just not in our lifetime.

Caveat: I haven’t found anything on the Pew site verifying these data. Presumably a formal report is in the offing, which I’ll highlight when it appears.

Andrew Sullivan criticizes Sally Ride for being a closeted gay

July 25, 2012 • 4:35 am

The other day I posted about the untimely death of Sally Ride, the first American woman in space.  I didn’t include this bit from the New York Times obituary:

Dr. Ride married a fellow astronaut, Steven Hawley, in 1982. They decorated their master bedroom with a large photograph of astronauts on the moon. They divorced in 1987. Dr. Ride is survived by her partner of 27 years, Tam O’Shaughnessy; her mother, Joyce; and her sister, Ms. Scott, who is known as Bear. (Dr. O’Shaughnessy is chief operating officer of Dr. Ride’s company.)

Well, I didn’t know who Tam O’Shaughnessy is—the name certainly doesn’t give away the gender. It turns out, though, that Tam is a woman (CEO of the Sally Ride Science organization) and Ride, being in a relationship with her for nearly three decades, must have been gay. Even had I known that, I doubt that I would have mentioned it, since Ride was, by all accounts a private person. As the NYT notes:

Dr. Ride was known for guarding her privacy. She rejected most offers for product endorsements, memoirs and movies, and her reticence lasted to the end. At her request, NASA kept her illness secret.

So she apparently didn’t want to be known as The First Lesbian in Space.  And is it all that important these days?

Well, it apparently is to Andrew Sullivan, openly gay writer of The Daily Beast website. Over at the Beast, he criticizes the muted discussion of Ride’s homosexuality in a piece called “America’s first woman in space was a lesbian.”  There Sullivan decries not only the Times‘s failure to make a bigger deal of Ride’s homosexuality, but also goes after Ride herself for remaining in the closet.

First he excoriates the Times for its too-brief mention of Ride’s partner:

Now talk about a buried lede! The only thing preventing the NYT from writing an honest obit is homophobia. They may not realize it; they may not mean it; but it is absolutely clear from the obit that Ride’s sexual orientation was obviously central to her life. And her “partner” (ghastly word) and their relationship is recorded only perfunctorily. The NYT does not routinely only mention someone’s spouse in the survivors section. When you have lived with someone for 27 years, some account of that relationship is surely central to that person’s life. To excise it completely is an act of obliteration.

First, I wouldn’t be so quick to play the homophobia card, since the Times is, after all, run by liberals.  And, to my knowledge, the Times does routinely mention the survivors only in a brief sentence at the end of an obituary.

More important, Ride’s sexual orientation may have been central to her life in the sense that she loved another woman, and love is one epicenter of life. But that doesn’t mean that Ride wanted to it to be a publicly central part of her life. She obviously didn’t.  And if that’s the case, why should a newspaper?  Ride’s gender was obvious to all, so she had no choice but to be The First Woman in Space, but her sexual orientation is not so obvious, and why should she even have brought that up?

Finally, the Times‘s treatment of Ride’s homosexuality is perfectly in keeping with the way it deals with gay partners these days. Sometimes in the Sunday wedding section I find an announcement of a gay marriage, and even a picture of the happy couple, but they don’t dwell on the homosexuality, or even mention it. That, I think, is healthy: it’s time for us (and especially religious homophobes) to recognize that many, many people fall in love with or are drawn to people of the same sex, and it’s no big deal. What, pray tell, would Sullivan have the Times write?

Indeed, one could say that the paper’s failure to make a big deal of homosexuality is not a sign of homophobia, but an attempt to legitimize it, bringing it into the mainstream. That’s precisely the feeling I get when I see a gay wedding announcement in the Sunday paper: I smile and think, “Well, it’s not a big deal any more.”

There’s only one proper moral stand on homosexuality between consenting adults, and that is this: it’s a private matter that should not be seen as immoral and should be given civil legitimacy in the same way as heterosexual unions. We all know where the opposition to that stand comes from!

And remember that even in the Eighties, when Sally rode, being gay was something that could bring society’s opprobrium upon you.  It was Ride’s choice to keep her life private, perhaps because it might have hurt her fledgling company designed to excite children of both sexes about science. An admirable thing to do, but would it have been harder if she was openly gay?  At any rate, it’s someone’s choice to keep their beliefs, their faith, and their sexual orientation private. I don’t demand that gays be “outed” any more than I require closeted atheists be “outed.” It is not our choice, but theirs, regardless of the salutary public effect of open homsexuality or atheism.

But even if you agree with Sullivan that the Times should have highlighted Ride’s sexuality more strongly, he becomes shameless when he goes after Ride for hiding it herself.  He considers a remark by one of his readers:

But assuming that she was not out before her death, I don’t think we can judge this as a failing. We all do what we can, and play the role we are most comfortable with. Now that the information is in the open, the LGBT community has another heroine to claim as our own and celebrate posthumously.

Fair enough. But Sullivan doesn’t like that:

I’m not so understanding. We can judge this decision in the context of Ride’s life. Her achievements as a woman and as a scientist and as an astronaut and as a brilliant, principled investigator of NASA’s screw-ups will always stand, and vastly outshine any flaws. But the truth remains: she had a chance to expand people’s horizons and young lesbians’ hope and self-esteem, and she chose not to.

She was the absent heroine.

That’s not only self-serving, but completely unfair.  There may have been many reasons, not the least her mission as a public advocate of science for kids, to keep her sexuality secret.  Yes, she may have been an “absent heroine” to young lesbians, but she was a heroine to children of both sexes through her rides in space and subsequent academic work and public advocacy of science  And, as a professor in two institutions, she certainly served as a role model to women in academics. Given the homophobic climate of America, especially in the Eighties, she made what I consider a fair choice.

We have no moral right to criticize someone for keeping their beliefs private, so long as hiding those beliefs has no potential negative impact on the public. (It is fair game, for example, to ask a politician if he was ever a member of the Klan, or if he accepts the fact of evolution).

In an ideal society—and in this respect I think it’s one we’re moving toward—nobody would have to apologize for or hide their sexuality, for that would be a matter of no import to anyone else.  But we’re not yet there, just like we’re not yet there for atheism.  And until we are, it’s simply churlish to go after someone for trying to keep their privacy.  And do recall that the public denigration of homosexuality, and the consequent need to keep it private, comes largely from religion—in fact, a major cause of that disapprobation comes Sullivan’s own Catholic Church.

Sullivan himself, then, is a hypocrite, for he has the chance to become a hero to many people by leaving the Catholic Church that bears so much responsibility for that demonization of gays he so abhors. Presumably he has his private reasons to remain Catholic, just as Ride had her private reasons to remain in the closet.  He has a chance to expand people’s horizons about the moral failings of his Church, and he chooses not to. (Yes, I know he criticizes some of their stands, but a man of his beliefs should not be in that Church.)

Sullivan is the absent hero.

Qur’anic double entendre

July 24, 2012 • 11:38 am

Alert reader Natalie spotted this German ad for free Qur’ans in her local falafel joint in Berlin, and found it on the diewahrereligion.tv/hausdesquarns “Haus des Qurans” site (the URL means “the true religion/house of Qur’ans”):

I read German, and the ad really says, “The noble Qur’an in German.  Get it for free.  READ IT! [JAC: “Lies”, pronounced “lease,” is the imperative of “lesen,”: “to read”.] In the name of your God, who has created you.”

You can also purchase an attractive stand for displaying the sacred text:

I think the “Lies!” command may have been ill-advised.  As Natalie wrote:

Of course, the Islamists who came up with this big publicity campaign are situated in Cologne. Berlin is crawling with English speakers, who will laugh their heads off. Well, who are we to argue with them? They really need no more help from us!

I can haz fatwa now?

RIP Sally Ride (1951-2012)

July 24, 2012 • 8:07 am

The first American woman in space, having flown on two space shuttle missions, Dr. Sally Ride died of pancreatic cancer yesterday at age 61.  After a productive career at NASA—which continued after her formal retirement when she sat on two panels investigating the Challenger explosion—she became an academic at Stanford and then the University of California at San Diego.  She ultimately founded an organization, Sally Ride Science, to foster young children’s interest in science.

Although she flew not that long ago—1983 and 1984—she still faced the formidable problems of endemic sexism.  In her obituary today, The New York Times reports this:

By the time she began studying laser physics at Stanford, women had already broken through into the physics department, once a boys’ club. And when she applied to the space program, NASA had already made a commitment to admit women.

But there were still rough spots. Speaking to reporters before the first shuttle flight, Dr. Ride — chosen in part because she was known for keeping her cool under stress — politely endured a barrage of questions focused on her sex: Would spaceflight affect her reproductive organs? Did she plan to have children? Would she wear a bra or makeup in space? Did she cry on the job? How would she deal with menstruation in space?

The CBS News reporter Diane Sawyer asked her to demonstrate a newly installed privacy curtain around the shuttle’s toilet. On “The Tonight Show,” Johnny Carson joked that the shuttle flight would be delayed because Dr. Ride had to find a purse to match her shoes.

Can you imagine a male astronaut being asked whether he planned to have children or whether his flight might affect his genitals? I hope in the last thirty years we’ve gone beyond that.

 

A new study of polar bears underlines the dangers of reconstructing evolution using mitochondrial DNA

July 24, 2012 • 5:28 am

Biology Lesson:  DO NOT MAKE EVOLUTIONARY TREES OF ANIMALS AND PLANTS BASED ENTIRELY ON MITOCHONDRIAL DNA (mtDNA): PLEASE USE NUCLEAR DNA WHENEVER YOU CAN.  THIS IS BECAUSE mtDNA APPEARS TO MOVE MORE READILY BETWEEN SPECIES THAN DOES NUCLEAR DNA (nDNA), CAUSING A DISCORDANCE BETWEEN EVOLUTIONARY TREES BASED ON MITOCHONDRIAL GENES (‘GENE TREES’) AND THOSE BASED ON POPULATION AND SPECIES HISTORY THAT ARE DISCERNED FROM ANALYSES OF MANY NUCLEAR GENES (‘SPECIES TREES’).

I have put that in capslock because I’ve been emphasizing this problem for a long time, and yet many systematists and evolutionary geneticists still persist in using the DNA from mitochondria (the energy-producing organelles in cells that stem from ancient bacteria and have their own DNA) to make evolutionary trees of organisms and estimate their divergence times.  They do this because 1) mtDNA is much easier to purify and sequence than is DNA from the nucleus (“nuclear DNA”, or nDNA), and 2) mtDNA usually evolves much faster than nDNA, supposedly making mtDNA a better indicator of species relationships, since it sorts out into definitive patterns more rapidly.

The problem is that, for reasons we don’t fully understand, mtDNA also moves between species during hybridization much more readily than does nDNA, and that can screw up species relationships. This is true for both animals and plants, and not just for mtDNA either: in plants, DNA from another organelle, the chloroplasts (site of photosynthesis, this DNA is called “cpDNA”) also moves between species more readily than nDNA.

Although the species definition used by most evolutionists, the “biological species concept” (BSC) uses the presence reproductive isolation between groups (mate discrimination, ecological preferences, hybrid sterility) as the criterion for their status as separate species, those reproductive barriers aren’t always complete, and sometimes genes can leak between species via hybridization. (The hybrids have to be partially fertile to transfer genes between species).

In the pair of Drosophila species I’ve worked on for 15 years, for example, the mitochondria from one species have completely replaced those of another species on the island of São Tomé.  If you made a phylogeny of those species based entirely on mtDNA, you’d find that on the island they appear to have diverged only a short time ago, and that they did so on the island (“sympatrically”). But analysis of nuclear DNA shows that this is wrong: the two species are about 400,000 years old, and diverged when one ancestor invaded the island, formed a new species, and then a second wave of invasion from the second ancestral group re-invaded, yielding the two sister species on the same island.

We see this situation over and over again in biology. We don’t really know why mtDNA (and cpDNA) leak so readily between species, but we do know that this leakage makes it dicey to use only organelle’s DNA to make species trees.  But the reason for this leakage compared to nDNA (so common to be almost a “rule of biology”) would make a useful paper topic for some enterprising graduate student.

But enough harangue.  The misleading evolutionary conclusions one can draw from using mtDNA alone are well demonstrated in a new study of the phylogeny of polar bears and brown bears published by Miller et al. in Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. (reference below; free access and download; see also J. D. Gorman’s summary in today’s New York Times).

The phylogenetic position and age of the polar bear (Ursus maritiumus) versus its closest relative, the brown bear (Ursus arctos), has for some reason become a lively topic of research. A while back I posted (here) that a population of brown bears on Alaska’s Alexander Archipelago (called “ABC brown bears”) might be more closely related to polar bears than to other brown bears.  If that were true it would mean that the species “brown bear” was “paraphyletic,” i.e., some populations of brown bears are more closely related to another species than to other brown bears. For some biologists, that menas that brown bears wouldn’t be qualified as a “species” .

In a paper by Lindqvist et al. in 2010 (ref. below), the divergence time between polar and brown bears was estimated at about 150,000 years: a remarkably short time for a speciation event.  A more recent study published this year in Science (reference also below) used nDNA to estimate a divergence time that is more reasonable: 600,000 years.  But they used only a limited sample of nuclear DNA.

In my post on the Lindqvist study, I cautioned people about trying to reconstruct population history from mtDNA alone because its easy movement between species makes it a bad candidate for reconstructing the history of populations and species.  That warning now appears reasonable based on a full-genome analysis of polar and brown bears (as well as black bears) reported in the PNAS paper  noted above.

Now that we can sequence full genomes fairly rapidly and cheaply—this amazing advance has occurred in only the past 30 years—it’s possible to reconstruct evolutionary histories using nearly every gene in an animal or plant, and that’s as close as we can get to an accurate reconstruction without having been around when evolutionary lineages diverged.  And that’s what Miller et al. did: they sequenced genomes of one polar bear, two ABC brown bears, a non-ABC brown bear, and a more distant relative, the American black bear (Ursus americanus). As they state in their paper, the goals were these:

We gathered extensive genome sequence data from modern polar, brown, and American black bear samples, plus a ∼120,000-y-old PB, to address the following questions. (i) What is the more precise association between the PB and its sister species, the brown bear; and do we find any signatures of past genetic interchange between the two species? (ii)Did the PB indeed evolve recently, as suggested by mitochondrial DNA and fossil evidence, or did it have an older origin, as demonstrated by nuclear DNA loci? (iii) Can we deduce any past responses in ancient bear population histories that may be connected with climatic changes?

Here are the results, summarized briefly:

  • Polar bears diverged from brown bears about 4-5 million years ago, shortly after (i.e., within a million years) their common ancestor diverged from the ancestor of the black bear, the next most closely related species.  Polar bears, then, are far older than previous studies suggested.
  • The young age previously estimated from mitochondrial DNA suggests that that DNA was moved between polar and brown bear ancestors by hybridization after the lineages had been diverging.  This is not unreasonable, since polar and brown bears are able to hybridize and produce fertile offspring in zoos, and appear to do so rarely in the wild.  This suggests that the speciation event producing modern polar and brown bears was sporadically interrupted by hybridization and gene flow between them, probably because climate change forced them to encounter each other when their ranges moved.

The figure below shows the discordance between family trees based on mtDNA and nuclear DNA: the tree based on mtDNA is in orange, that based on many nuclear genes is given by the white bars outlined in black. Notice the deceptively recent divergence time between brown and polar bears indicated by mtDNA, and that suggestion that in one instance the polar bear was more closely related to a brown bear than the tw0 brown bears are to each other. This “paraphyly,” too, is an illusory result.

  • As the authors note, “The clear discordance between mitochondrial and nuclear genomes in the phylogenetic placement of the ABC brown bears mirrors that found in the evolutionary histories of archaic and anatomically modern human lineages.” What they mean is that up to several percent of modern human DNA comes from Neanderthals, probably via ancient hybridization. If one looked only at that DNA, one would reach the false conclusion that some modern humans are more closely related to Neanderthals than to other modern humans.  This is the danger of using only a limited amount of DNA to draw conclusions about evolutionary history.  Some ABC brown bears share as much as 11% of their genes with polar bears!
  • The 4-5 million-year-old split between black bears and the polar/brown bear lineage was also followed by hybridization lasting until about 100,000 years ago.  In contrast, the near-simultaneous split between the sister species of brown and polar bears was followed by hybridization that can’t be said to have stopped even today.  Genes are still, to our knowledge, occasionally exchanged between these species.  In that sense we can’t say they are “complete” biological species, but are “nearly complete” biological species. Such is the case when there is sporadic gene exchange between groups whose reproductive isolation is nearly but not fully impeded by biological barriers.
  • Based on genetic reconstructions, the polar bear population has declined drastically during the last half million years; the authors impute this to (nonanthropogenic) warming of the climate.

The overall lessons are these.  First, use nuclear DNA to reconstruct evolution whenever you can, and always be suspicious of evolutionary trees based solely on mitochondial or chloroplast DNA. Second, polar bears and brown bears diverged a long time ago, not, as other studies suggested, quite recently.  Third, the polar/brown bear divergence, as well as their joint divergence from black bears, involved occasional hybridization, so that speciation in these cases did not involve the classic scenario of complete geographic isolation up to the point where genomes diverged to the point of immiscibility. As Gorman says in his NYT piece: “The progress of species formation, at least in this case, is a bit like a long, ambivalent divorce in which the two parties separate but occasionally fall back into bed even after the official decree.”

Finally, polar bears are sensitive to climate, and as we continue to heat up our environment through shortsightedness, those bears are liable to extinction. They will either be unable to support themselves ecologically as the polar ice disappears, or they’ll hybridize themselves out of extinction by mating with brown bears. Either way, the fate of this lovely animal is precarious.

Humans poison everything, and I see no way, given our greed and dependence on fossil fuels, that we’ll be able to stop the trend of global warming.

Whatever, just remember to conserve energy and be wary of mitochondrial DNA.

Don’t extinct me, bro!

_________

Hailer, F. et al. 2012.  Nuclear genomic sequences reveal that polar bears are an old and distinct bear lineage.  Science 336:344-347.

Lindqvist, C. et al. 2010.  Complete mitochondrial genome of a Pleistocene jawbone unveils the origin of polar bear. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA 107:5053-5057,

Miller, W. et al. 2012.  Polar and brown bear genomes reveal ancient admiture and demographic footprints of past climate change. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA, Published online before print July 23, 2012, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1210506109

k. d. lang: “Constant Craving”

July 24, 2012 • 4:13 am

I suppose you have to stretch the rubric of “country” a bit to include k. d. lang, but it’s worth doing that to include this song, which I find absolutely mesmerizing. It was written by lang and Ben Mink. The accordian is a touch of genius, and I love the steely twang of the guitar sounds (perhaps some reader can explain how that’s done).

lang (real name Kathryn Dawn Lang) is another Canadian, born in Edmonton, Alberta in 1961 (the proportion of Canadians becoming country music stars seems to be higher than explainable by their numbers relative to U.S. residents).  She’s a well known crusader for gay rights, HIV prevention, and Tibetan independence.  And she’s won four Grammy awards; one, well deserved, for this song:

More Aurora fallout: preachers blame tragedy on atheism, claim that only Jesus-loving victims will go to heaven

July 23, 2012 • 10:00 am

What saddens me about the murders in Aurora, Colorado, beyond the immeasurable pain it’s caused to the families and friends of the victims, is how readily people continue to embrace—or even intensify—their faith in light of a demonstration of either God’s impotence, his apathy, or his nonexistence. Prayers are being offered, people are turning for consolation to their faith, and so on, not realizing that a loving God would never have allowed this to happen, even if he wanted “free will” for the shooter (which of course that shooter didn’t have). Now I won’t deny that some people find consolation in their faith in this tragedy, or try to deny them that consolation, but it’s sad that the tragedy doesn’t even make them question their faith.

But what’s worse is the unspeakable stupidity of American preachers who have to somehow work God into this tragedy.  Now we’re not sure whether mega-Pastor Rick Warren really blamed the tragedy on evolution (some readers have their doubts, and I’m beginning to wonder if I was not too quick to exculpate him), but the usual group of moronic men of the cloth is standing up with some idiotic statements.  According to PuffHo:

In an article published on OneNewsNow, evangelical Jerry Newcombe wrote:

“I can’t help but feel that to some extent, we’re reaping what we’ve been sowing as a society. We said to God, “Get out of the public arena.” Lawsuit after lawsuit, often by misguided “civil libertarians,” have chased away any fear of God in the land — at least in the hearts of millions.”

Why, then, do the more Godless countries of Europe have so many fewer mass shootings?

Newcombe couldn’t stop himself:

Perhaps more disturbing were Newcombe’s comments on a segment on the American Family Association dedicated to understanding the shooting tragedy in Colorado. In taking about the deaths, Newcombe separated the afterlife fate of those who died as Christians and those who did not:

“If a Christian dies early, if a Christian dies young, it seems tragic, but really it is not tragic because they are going to a wonderful place.. on the other hand, if a person doesn’t know Jesus Christ.. if they knowingly rejected Jesus Christ, then, basically, they are going to a terrible place.”Newcombe then turned the tragedy into an opportunity for people to become Christian and avoid the fate of hell:

“For those who are not ‘in Christ’ and see this incredible tragedy, this would be a good time for soul reflection and consider why have you not accepted Jesus Christ.. I would urge anyone who is not in Christ to repent of your sins.”

Finally, many of you have probably heard U.S. Congressman Louie Gohmert’s unspeakably stupid remarks:

On the day of the shootingRep. Gohmert of Texasalso insisted that the shootings are the result of “ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian Beliefs”:

“People say … where was God in all of this? We’ve threatened high school graduation participations, if they use God’s name, they’re going to be jailed … I mean that kind of stuff. Where was God? What have we done with God? We don’t want him around. I kind of like his protective hand being present.”

Yep, we’re back to a petulant Yahweh who decides to smite everyone because they don’t give Him proper obeisance.

______

UPDATE (h/t to reader James below): On his Fox News show, Arkansas governor and now right-wingnut Mike Huckabee, on his Fox News show, also blamed atheism for the tragedy:

“Ultimately,” Huckabee concluded, “We don’t have a crime problem or a gun problem – or even a violence problem. What we have is a sin problem. And since we ordered God out of our schools and communities, the military and public conversations, you know, we really shouldn’t act so surprised when all hell breaks loose.”

Stay tuned: all hell breaks loose in Sweden and Denmark, those most godless of nations.