Kitteh contest: Mei Mei

February 14, 2012 • 4:15 am

When I got the first photo below from alert reader J.D., which came with the following information, I thought it had been Photoshopped.

Per your request of October 23, 2010, for photographs of “beloved felid[s]” in “winsome pose[s]”, I present for your delectation the above-attached jpeg.  This photograph may be of particular interest to you and the readers of your blog, “Why Evolution Is True”, because it provides incontrovertible proof for the Common Descent of all life on Earth — to wit, the creature therein so winsomely depicted is clearly a transitional form between cats and bananas.

It was a beautiful cat.  But ever wary of presenting dubious information to my readers, I emailed J.D.  to see if the photo had been manipulated. He replied “no” and sent another photo and more information:

Her name is Mei Mei, which is Cantonese for “little sister” (when you get the tones right).  She is a Singapura, which is a relatively recent breed.  The photo is not doctored — she just has this thing about the bath tub.  For whatever reason, she enjoys lolling about in it (after the water has been entirely evacuated, of course).  I suspect that the tub retains some heat for a while after the bath is emptied, and like most cats in the winter, Mei Mei is a heat-seeking missile.

I can see why you might think the photo has been tampered with.  She does seem ridiculously long and bendy in that photo.  But that’s just how she is — she could give the “Longcat” of internet infamy a run for his money.  As proof that the photo is not doctored I offer the attached additional photo, showing Mei Mei stretched out at full length.  I was sorely tempted to add a red cape to that photo, and replace the carpet with blue sky, but alas my photoshop skills are lacking.

Rosenhouse: Why theistic evolution is implausible

February 13, 2012 • 12:04 pm

I’ve been banging on about why theistic evolution doesn’t count as real evolution, at least not in the way we biologists think of it, when along comes Jason Rosenhouse (as is his wont) with a more thorough analysis of the problem.  Go read “The trouble with theistic evolution” at EvolutionBlog.

Jason’s piece was motivated by some truly shallow statements by Elliott Sober, a philosopher of science whom I’ve respected but lately is treading in the marshy hinterlands of accommodationism.  Interviewed by The Philosopher’s Magazine, Sober says the following:

I ask Sober to outline the opposing positions in the debate about evolution and God, and he does it in a nutshell. “Creationists think, `If God exists then evolutionary theory must be false. Of course God exists. Therefore, evolutionary theory must be false.’ A certain kind of atheist thinks, `If evolutionary theory is true, there can’t be a God. Evolutionary theory is true. Therefore, there is no God.’ I dislike both of these arguments.” He claims that the two main camps in the debate are both wrong. Both presuppose that conclusions about the existence of God tumble straight out of evolutionary theory, but Sober argues that philosophy is needed to from [sic: from] science to atheistic or theistic conclusions.

The creationist statement is not too far off, though it’s not the existence of God per se but scriptural statements about creation that lead to rejection of evolution. What’s dreadful is Sober’s notion that atheists argue “evolution, ergo God can’t exist. ” This characterization is so misleading that I can’t believe Sober said it.  And Jason immediately attacks it:

Even as a nutshell summary this is far too simplistic to be helpful. Maybe you can find a few atheists who argue in the way Sober describes, but most do not. From the other side, few creationists are really as simple-minded as Sober’s version of their argument suggests.

The argument from evolution to atheism, or from theism to no evolution, proceeds by looking at what evolution says about natural history, adding a few premises about God’s nature and goals, and then concluding that it is very unlikely that evolution and theism are both true. For example, evolution claims that natural history is marked by millions of years of cruel and savage bloodsport. This seems odd if we assume that God is all-loving and all-powerful. Likewise, evolution strongly suggests that human beings are just one more animal species among many. How do we explain this, if we assume that God created the world specifically so that humans could live? The parts where we insert premises about God’s nature and goals involve doing philosophy and not science, but so what? Labeling the argument “philosophical” does not negate its force.

I’d add to that the idea that natural selection eliminated one of the most powerful arguments for God that ever existed.  Absent that, the evidence against God becomes stronger.  And I’d throw extinction in here, too.  The vast majority of species that have ever existed have gone extinct without leaving descendants. That implies an apathetic god at best.  If (s)he really does guide evolution, why do so many branches reach dead ends?  And yes, the argument is philosophical (it’s not theological because it actually involves evidence), but it’s relevant because it says, “if this is the kind of God who created evolution, then this is the kind of God you must accept.”  Responding that “we don’t understand God’s ways” is no answer, because in many other respects the faithful do purport to know God’s ways: He’s beneficent, loving, and omnipotent.

Jason explains the problem of theistic evolution:

If you want to avoid the unwanted conclusions of either “No God” or “No evolution,” then you can certainly add other premises. You can argue, as many do, that God had creative goals that absolutely could not have been achieved through any mechanism other than Darwinian evolution. Or you can argue that human-like intelligence was an inevitable end result of the evolutionary process. These are the sorts of premises you have to add to reconcile evolution and theism, but good luck trying to make them seem plausible. The incompatibilist argument takes its premises from the traditional, centuries-old teachings of various religious faiths. The compatibilist argument, by contrast, simply invents premises for which there is no evidence, for no reason other than to avoid unpleasant conclusions.

There’s a lot more, but I leave you to read for yourself. Like the atheist Michael Ruse, Sober, whom I don’t think is religious, helpfully suggests ways to reconcile God and evolution. As if the faithful can’t concoct their own reasons! Sober even goes so far to suggest, à la Michael Behe and Kenneth Miller, that God might have simply brought about the mutations necessary to create certain “special” species.  Sober doesn’t believe this at all, I think, but he’s either trying to help the faithful over the Darwin’s Hump, or pulling some philosophical shenanigans to show that “science can’t rule out that possibility.”  Jason replies, quite properly, that if God wanted to send evolution is certain directions by creating specific mutations, why not just create whole species out of thin air, as the Bible asserts?

It’s a mess, and I’m sad to see Sober engaging in this form of accommodationism, even if it be a philosophical ploy.

Moar proof of Ceiling Cat!

February 13, 2012 • 9:17 am

First in the distant reaches of space, and now on the very shores of Earth’s seas: Ceiling Cat is everywhere.  Here, contributed by alert reader Janice Cornforth, is yet another spotting of The Holy Felid, this time in a pattern of sand balls deposited by Malaysian hermit crabs as they dig their burrows (see “The crabs that build their own galaxy” at The Ark in Space website).

Check it out:

And be sure to have a gander at the other pictures on that page.

Praise Him, from whom all noms flow. Amen.

Ken Miller manages to analyze America’s rejection of evolution without mentioning religion

February 13, 2012 • 6:15 am

There are none so blind as those who will not see—or who are so blinkered by faith that they refuse to see that faith itself is the root cause of American creationism.  It’s called “creationism” for a reason, remember, and there’s plenty of evidence that America’s strong rejection of evolution, unique among First World countries, is due to America’s strong religiosity. There are tons of data showing, for example, that the most religious Americans are the most resistant to evolution, and that religious belief is correlated with lack of science literacy (see here, here and here, for instance).  And, for crying out loud, all you have to do is look around you to see that every drop of evolution-denial comes from religious spigots.

But Kenneth Miller, pious Catholic that he is, refuses to recognize that.  In his new Darwin-Day piece for HuffPo, “America’s Darwin Problem,” he blames the rejection of evolution on the perception by many Americans that science is a special-interest group whose values diverge from theirs.  The word religion isn’t mentioned, or religion alluded to, in the entire piece. It’s a masterpiece of avoiding the real issue.

Refusing to recognize the religious basis of evolution-denial is not new to Miller.  In my review of one of his (and one of Karl Giberson’s) books in The New Republic, “Seeing and believing“, I quoted Miller blaming evolution-denial on America’s ornery character, born of our historical penchant for refusing to accept authority:

Is there something in the American character that bore the seeds of this conflict [evolution versus creationism] and provided fertile ground in which it could flourish? I think there is, and I’m not ashamed of that. In fact, I’m downright proud of it…. America is the greatest scientific nation in the world…. Disrespect–that’s the key. It’s the reason that our country has embraced science so thoroughly, and why America has served as a beacon to scientists from all over the world. A healthy disrespect for authority is part of the American character, and it permeates our institutions, including the institutions of science. Scientists in this country, whether American by birth or choice, have been allowed to dream of revolutionary discoveries, and those dreams have come true more often in this country than in any other.

If rebellion and disrespect are indeed part of the American talent for science, then what should we make of the anti-evolution movement? One part of the analysis is clear. The willingness of Americans to reject established authority has played a major role in the way that local activists have managed to push ideas such as scientific creationism and intelligent design into local schools.

Except, of course, that pushing creationism into schools is a direct result of respecting authority—the authority of religion and the Biblical account of creation.

Miller also pinned creationism on atheists.  As I wrote in “Seeing and believing”:

The facts are these: you may find religion without creationism, but you will never find creationism without religion. Miller and Giberson shy away from this simple observation. Their neglect of the real source of creationism is inexcusable but understandable: a book aiming to reconcile evolution and religion can hardly blame the faithful.

Yet it is acceptable, it seems, to blame the faithless. For Giberson and Miller, the main aggressors in the “science wars” are the atheists. Books by the “new atheists,” they contend, have inflamed religious moderates who might otherwise be sympathetic to evolution, driving them into the creationist corner. In Finding Darwin’s God, Miller explained that “I believe much of the problem lies with atheists in the scientific community who routinely enlist the material findings of evolutionary biology in support [sic] their own philosophical pronouncements.”

Now Miller has a new explanation.  His HuffPo piece blames the public perception of science as a “special interest group”:

Whether conservative or liberal, fundamentalist or agnostic, the more students learn of biology, the more they accept evolution. So, why does public acceptance matter if the students who actually go into science see the evidence for evolution so clearly?

This is the heart of our Darwin problem. Significant numbers of Americans have come to regard the scientific enterprise as a special interest group that rejects mainstream American values and is not worthy of the public trust. Governor Rick Perry of Texas spoke to this view when he claimed that “There are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data” to their own benefit. Why? Perry was clear about this. It’s personal greed. Scientists cheat “so that they will have dollars rolling in to their projects.” Perry is hardly alone in his effort to depict scientists as greedy outsiders, “scamming the American people right and left” in the words of one Fox News commentator.

In American today, anti-evolutionism matters because it has become the vanguard of a genuine anti-science movement. To be sure, opposition to evolution isn’t new. State laws against the teaching of evolution actually go back nearly a century, and the famous Scopes trial took place 87 years ago. However, if you thought such things were behind us, guess again. Laws designed to encourage the teaching of non-scientific “alternative” theories to evolution were introduced in 11 state legislatures last year. This year, Darwin’s 203rd birthday, on February 12th, will see an anti-evolution bill, already passed by the Indiana State House of Representatives, awaiting action in the State Senate. Its fate there is uncertain, but there are plenty of reasons to be concerned.

Our Darwin problem is really a science problem. The easier it becomes to depict the scientific enterprise as a special interest immersed in the culture wars, the easier it becomes to reject scientific findings.

The question, of course, is why evolution, rather than, say, cancer research, developmental biology, or genome sequencing aren’t “in the vanguard of the anti-science movement”?  Why is it cosmology (e.g., divine “fine-tuning”) and evolution that are always in the fore? Why does America have “a Darwin problem” rather than a “genomics problem”? Can there be any explanation other than religion?

Miller goes on to wring his hands about how the denial of evolution and science has dire consequences: America will lose its scientific preeminence in the world (frankly, I don’t care much about this—the enterprise of science is universal, and if China or India erodes our status, it can only mean that good science is being done in other countries), and we’ll lose the wonderful view of life bequeathed by Darwin (I do care more about this).  But he offers no cure for the problem.  The implicit solution would be for scientists to somehow integrate themselves into mainstream American life, so that we’re not seen as some kind of Science PAC.  And implicit within that is that the problem is of our own making.  Now I’m not sure whether Miller believes that, but the message seems to be that the onus is on us to change how we’re perceived by Americans.  In other words, science and evolution denial is our fault.

This sort of analysis ticks me off, for it not only misses the elephant in the room: it denies that there’s one there.  The reason, of course, is that Miller (and his confrère Giberson) are religious, and can’t bring themselves to admit that the root cause of creationism is faith.  Miller knows better—after all, he testified against Michael Behe’s ID creationism in the Dover trial, and he knows where Intelligent Design comes from.  Behe, like Miller, is a Catholic. This venting of frustrations on the wrong target is known in animal behavior as displacement activity, as when a bird, rather than fight with another individual, pecks at a leaf instead.

I give Miller plaudits for his continuing fight against creationism, not only in his Dover trial, but in his book and many public presentations of why evolution is a scientific fact.  But he gets no plaudits for deliberately refusing to identify why Americans dislike evolution.  It’s religion, pure and simple, and many statistics buttress that fact. Miller offers no statistics of his own, only anecdotes about Rick Perry.  He mentions anti-evolution bills, but doesn’t admit that they’re a product of religion.

Why does Miller neglect the obvious here? Because he’s a Catholic, of course, and although opposition to evolution comes largely from Protestant sects, a substantial number of American Catholics (27%, to be exact) adhere to the Biblical account of creation.  We’ve long learned that “mainstream” religions are loath to criticize each other for their doctrine, for they perceive that they must stand together on the crucial issue of God.  Religion poisons everything, and different religions aid each other in the poisoning.

Darwinian comestibles

February 13, 2012 • 5:37 am

I don’t think I’ve yet concatenated two of my favorite interests: Darwin and food. But alert reader Christian did it for me, writing about (and sending photos of) a Darwin Day Dinner:

I thought you might appreciates some Darwin/food related photos, inspired by the many meals you’ve posted on WEIT. We decided to have a Darwin day dinner to celebrate the occasion, and the first photo is my attempt at recreating the fish leaving the sea. The second photo was the highlight – a cake made by my flatmate. There was somedisagreement over which picture to model it on, but I think the beardgives it away pretty well.

And the pièce de résistance:

 

Is your cat making you nuts?

February 12, 2012 • 1:04 pm

If you like cats, have a cat, or are simply interested in a superb popular science piece, do read this article in The Atlantic by Kathleen McAuliffe: “How your cat is making you crazy.” It’s about new research on the disease toxoplasmosis, caused by infection by the protozoan Toxoplasma gondii (here it is):

The primary host is, sadly, kittehs, and the oocysts (tough spores containing the zygote) are passed on in cat feces, which can go on to infect other species, including humans.  (This is why pregnant women aren’t supposed to handle cat litter, though the disease is limited to cats who go outside.)  Here’s the life cycle, complete with an evil-looking cat (for which I apologize):

Anyway, you may know of new research suggesting that the parasite itself can manipulate rodents to make them more susceptible to cat predation. Infected rats or mice not only show less fear of cats, but are even attracted to the scent of cat urine, which normally repels them.  This may be one of those fascinating cases in which a parasite takes over the behavior of its host to further its own transmission. (When a cat eats an infected rodent, it gets infected itself, an essential step in the parasite’s life cycle.)

McAuliffe, however, dwells on new findings that humans infected with toxoplamosis—and there are many of us, about 30% of the world’s population—may show subtle behavioral changes, or even drastic ones.  She notes that the incidence of infected people is more than twice as high among involved in traffic accidents than among people in a non-accident control group, and she cites research showing that infected human males tend to dress more slovenly than those who are non-infected (those males also show a higher attraction to the scent of cat urine). In contrast, infected women dress more meticulously.  Finally, there may be a connection between Toxoplasma infection and schizophrenia, though the data are very preliminary.

I recommend this article highly: it’s really well-written and full of intriguing information.  It’s the paradigm of what a popular science piece should be, and I hope McAuliffe, whose website is here, produces more of these.

The Rally for Free Expression

February 12, 2012 • 9:44 am

The “Rally to defend free expression,” organized by One Law for All, took place in London yesterday, and the 2-hour podcast is now available. 

The speakers included

  • Anne Marie Waters from One Law For All
  • AC Grayling
  • Maryam Namazie reading a statement on behalf of the creator of Jesus & Mo
  • Keith Porteous Wood from the National Secular Society
  • Nick Doody
  • Nick Cohen
  • Rhys Morgan
  • Jennifer Hardy, President of Queen Mary Atheist Society
  • Jim Fitzpatrick MP
  • Susan Zuang, from UCL Atheist Society
  • Baroness Cox
  • Rupert Sutton from Student Rights
  • Richard Dawkins
  • Kate Smurthwaite
  • Faisal Gazi
  • [Someone?] from GALHA, the Gay & Lesbian Humanist Assocation
  • Sue Cox from Survivors’ Voice
  • Pragna Patel from Southall Black Sisters
  • Mark Embleton from Atheism UK
  • Chris Moos reading a message from Andrew Copson, head of the British Humanist Association
  • [Someone?] reading a message from [Someone else?] from the International Humanist and Ethical Union
  • Joan Smith
  • Maryam Namazie

You can find Richard Dawkins’s short account of the rally here, which includes this tale given in the talk by atheist comedian Kate Smurthwaite:

One of the speakers, Kate Smurthwaite, had a very telling story. She had met an apparently devout Muslim girl, who was never seen without a headscarf and who punctiliously prayed five times a day. They were talking about their religious background and when Kate told her she never went to church, the Muslim girl said, “But doesn’t that upset your parents?” “No, my parents don’t go to church either.” “Ah, so you are free!”. I’ll repeat that. FREE. This poor girl, head-scarfed and praying towards Mecca five times per day, recognised that an atheist was FREE. Yet she felt unable to escape herself, presumably because of parental pressure or threats.