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 Adenium in my office has finally bloomed, after three years (I’m not sure of the species, but I think it’s A. obesum):
And one of my orchids, the Paphiopedilum spicerianum, has four flowers at once. I love this one because the flowers look like the faces of little gnomes (click to enlarge). Given its shape, I suspect it’s an insect mimic and is pollinated by pseudocopulation:
UPDATE: I have heard from John Haught, who says that he’s satified with my posting his response, and he’ll now okay the release of the video.
______
Yesterday was quite a day. I never expected the inundation of emails and support I received for my post about John Haught’s refusal to release the video of our debate on science and religion. That post has now garnered nearly four hundred comments. The students at the University of Kentucky started an online “free-the-video” petition that’s accrued almost 400 signatures, there were nearly forty thousand views of my site, and l’affaire DebateGate made the front page of Slashdot and appeared on reddit christianity. Someone even amended John Haught’s Wikipedia page to describe the kerfuffle.
Readers apparently fired off emails to all and sundry: the President of the University of Kentucky, the National Endowment for the Humanities (who funds the Gaines Center, which hosted the debate), and various other officials at the University of Kentucky—and, of course, to John Haught and Robert Rabel, who was forced to deep-six his email address. Rabel also threatened me with legal action because of the “abusive” emails he received. But I was deeply gratified that two awesome lawyers, readers of this website, offered to defend me pro bono should that transpire. (I’m sure there will be no need for that: Rabel was just blustering and has no legal basis for action).
I also learned what the “Streisand effect” was, and for the first time fully appreciated the power of the internet to effect change, especially change that I desired.
I do regret, though, any abuse or name-calling that came down on Haught and Rabel. I did not ask readers to write anyone—indeed, I had no idea that this would blow up as it did, nor that people would take it upon themselves to rectify the matter. For that I am grateful, and have learned something. But I would ask that until this blows over—and that seems imminent—you remain courteous in all your communications with officials you’re trying to persuade. And that also goes for any comment attached to this post.
Perhaps most gratifying was the support I received from the skeptical blogosphere. P.Z. Myers posted on this, as did Ophelia at Butterflies and Wheels (twice), Miranda Hale, Jason at EvolutionBlog, as well as Eric MacDonald and erv. It’s heartening that, despite our differences, we can all come together when there’s an important issue—free speech and the dissemination of our message—that concerns us all.
The good news is that John Haught has apparently relented, or so I think. He wrote me an email yesterday saying he would okay the release of the video if I posted his three-page “explanation” on this site. He also asked me to apologize publicly for distorting the facts (he claimed that I said he’d given his permission to post the debate, a claim that’s completely false), for bringing down opprobrium on The University of Kentucky and Dr. Robert Rabel, and for the damage that my approach has done to the notion of free and open debate.
Needless to say, I won’t apologize for those things. I stated the facts accurately, and if those facts angered people and made them want to do something about this censorship, then that’s all well and good. Although I don’t consider myself responsible for any vitriol associated with those attacks, I do regret whatever intemperate behavior resulted from my post, and ask readers, for the sake of civility, to stick to the issue at hand: the censorship of a video, the reasons for such censorship, and the issue of science versus faith.
Nor will I give Haught a long post to “explain” himself. That is not my habit, since this website belongs to me. But I do think it’s fair to allow him to explain his actions, which, he claims, were not motivated by cowardice or by having “lost” the debate. Haught has in fact put his explanation in a long comment on the previous thread, which you can find here (it’s comment #122 for those with cellphones). He’s seems to be angered by my comments on Catholicism.
I have responded very briefly to John’s comment immediately after it was posted (the reply to comment #122). My own words are fewer because I think readers themselves need to judge the veracity of Haught’s claims by watching the video. I hope that John will honor his promise to release the video immediately. My hope has always been for readers to watch it and draw their own conclusions. When that becomes possible, I will either put the video on this site or link to it.
If you would like to comment on what John or I said, it might be best to add the comments to this post rather than the previous one: the earlier post has so many comments that it’s prudent to start a new discussion. Again, try to be civil.
Thanks to the readers for all their help and solicitude, and watch this space! I expect to hear from John and Robert Rabel shortly that the video has been released and posted.
From The Dish, Sullivan talks about what he’s reading now (Steve Pinker’s new book on the decline of violence), but then, at about 3 minutes in, he segues into the Adam and Eve story, again arguing that it is both true and untrue at the same time (he’s apparently jettisoned his distinction between “real” and “true”).
The “true” part is apparently the story’ metaphor that we can make our world better, as embodied in Pinker’s thesis, and that that “arc of history” is directed by God.
He argues, as does John Haught, that “God is ahead of us” and pulling us toward His bosom. This, Sullivan claims, is “buttressed by more and more scientific research.” Which research? That our genetics shows us that we’re both good and evil, but that the good must win in the end.
I’ve been a geneticist my entire adult life, and I didn’t know that!
Sullivan should have stuck to the book. When he meanders into theology, he becomes incoherent.
[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.1006745&w=425&h=350&fv=]
It’s 11/02/2011 (the way we Americans write dates)—one of those rare dates that read the same backwards and forwards. This is the third date out of only 36 will occur this millennium (the last was January 2, 2010).
It’s not Palindrome Day in most of the world.
UPDATE: I have received an email from Dr. Rabel, asserting that I have instigated people to write him emails, and claiming that some of those emails have been abusive, calling him a coward and so on. I did not of course ask readers to write any emails, nor did I provide any email addresses. But if you write to Rabel or Haught on your own initiative, please be polite! There is no point in name-calling in such emails; the issue is one of free inquiry, and if you expect to achieve a result (and you won’t anyway, I suspect), you have to be polite. Anyway, Rabel has threatened legal action against me, so don’t make it worse!
_____________
This is the story of the cowardly and intellectually dishonest actions of a theologian—one who is suppressing release of a video that shows the lameness of his religious beliefs. It’s also the story of an academic center supposedly dedicated to fostering open debate, but actually complicit in suppressing that debate.
On October 12 at the University of Kentucky, I debated Catholic theologian John Haught from Georgetown University on the topic of “Are science and religion compatible?” It was a lively debate, and I believe I got the better of the man (see my post-debate report here). Haught didn’t seem to have prepared for the debate, merely rolling out his tired old trope of a “layered” universe, with the layer of God and Jesus underlying the reality of the cosmos, life, and evolution. I prepared pretty thoroughly, reading half a dozen of Haught’s books (you need read only one: they’re all the same), and watching all his previous debates on YouTube. (Note that he’s sanctioned release of those videos.)
Haught seemed to have admitted his loss, at least judging by the audience reaction, but blamed it on the presence of “Jerry’s groupies,” an explanation I found offensive. I’m not aware of any groupies anywhere, much less in Kentucky!
The debate, including half an hour of audience questions, was videotaped. Both John and I had given our permission in advance for the taping. I looked forward to the release of the tape because, of course, I wanted a wider audience for my views than just the people in the audience in Lexington. I put a lot of work into my 25-minute talk, and was eager for others to see why I found science and religion to be at odds.
Well, you’re not going to see that tape—ever. After agreeing to be taped, Haught decided that he didn’t want the video released. Here’s what happened:
I am deeply angry about this stand, and can see only one reason for what Haught has done: cowardice. He lost the debate; his ideas were exposed for the mindless theological fluff that they were; and I used his words against him, showing that even “sophisticated” theology, when examined under the microscope of reason, is just a bunch of made-up stuff, tales told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
The stuff about “reasonable standards of fruitful academic exchange” is laughably dishonest. Presumably Haught thinks that his discourse was fruitful and reasonable, so the fault here could only be mine. But if that’s the case, then the tape would show that his stance was far superior to mine, and would in his view be worth posting.
Haught is acting like a child, not a respectable academic. He can’t be the the pitcher (bowler for you Brits), so he’s taking his ball and going home. His actions are contemptible, and I have no qualms about exposing them. And, by bowing to Haught’s post facto refusal to approve posting of a video whose making he approved, the Gaines Center is censoring a lively and fruitful debate rather than offend one of its participants. This is not academia’s finest moment, and it’s a new low for theology.
I was looking forward to posting or linking to that video, and I’m deeply sorry that I can’t. I’ve tried all avenues of approach, and have failed.
The only good thing to come from this affair is that it exposes not only the follies of “sophisticated” theology, but the cowardice of a famous theologian. (Haught is the most prominent American theologian who writes about evolution and its comity with religion.) If Haught can’t win a debate, then he’ll use all his God-given powers to prevent anyone from seeing his weaknesses. I’ve written to other well-known atheists who have debated theologians, and not one of them is aware of anything like this ever happening.
Censorship like this is not good for academic discourse; it serves only to protect the weak bastion of theology from the cannons of reason. Shame on you, John Haught, and shame on the Gaines Center for being complicit in the censorship.
From The Chronicle of Higher Education via Matthew Cobb, “The face of testicular pain.” It’s from an article in a medical journal, which you can access by clicking on the link in bold text below.
When the image of Jesus appears on a Wal-Mart receipt or the Virgin Mary shows up on a slice of toast, the secular world howls with derision at the faithful who line up to witness these Rorschach “miracles.”
But when the scrotal ultrasound of a 45-year-old patient with severe testicular pain and a possible mass revealed the surprising image of a man in distress, urologists at Queen’s University, in Ontario, followed proper scholarly procedure: They submitted it to Urology, the official journal of the International Society of Urology.
“The residents and staff alike were amazed to see the outline of a man’s face staring up out of the image, his mouth agape as if the face seen on the ultrasound scan itself was also experiencing severe epididymo-orchitis,” wrote the authors, G. Gregory Roberts and Naji J. Touma, in an article that appeared in the journal’s September issue. “A brief debate ensued on whether the image could have been a sign from a deity (perhaps ‘Min,’ the Egyptian god of male virility); however, the consensus deemed it a mere coincidental occurrence rather than a divine proclamation.”
The patient underwent an orchiectomy, or testicular removal, and the mass proved benign, but evidently not divine.
If you’ve been here a while, you’ll know that I’m not a huge fan of academic pop-culture studies, which seem shallow, too infested with postmodern obscurantism, and bad in that they replace more substantive material that can actually make students think deeply about things. Pop-culture courses seem to me to be an easy way for professors to attract students by tapping into their t.v.-watching and music-listening habits.
At any rate, on Friday our university hosted an academic conference on Jersey Shore studies. (I posted about the upcoming conference last May.) In case you’ve been in Ulan Bator for the past two years, Jersey Shore is an MTV series that follows the lives of eight Italian-Americans as they booze, copulate, and fight their way through vacation stints in various localities (I think they’ve recently taken their shenanigans to Italy).
The New York Times reported on the conference yesterday, and I went to two lectures myself. Here are two pages of the four-page program:
My comments:
