Weekly reader beefs

July 19, 2014 • 6:46 am

For some reason, most of the non-published comments this week came from evolution deniers, although, as usual, a few trickled in from outraged citizens of Lebanon, Missouri. Here’s a selection of four that didn’t make it to prime time.

Reader “Jimmy” comments on “Baleen whales: a lovely transitional form“:

What a load of old cods!!! With this kind of logic anything can be advertised as transitional, absolute rubbish! There should be literally millions of transitional forms if Evolution is true, why do we not find them? If you cant get past the basic start of life ie life from non-life why do you carry on with this fantasy? Life cannot start with Oxygen present, Life cannot exist with Oxygen present, sort that out! Dont bother replying I will be out back digging up some extinct creature and passing it off as a transitional form somewhat smarter than the average member of the Evolution Church!!

Cheers

We have gazillions of transitional forms; are they all to be ignored or discounted? But really, what is this talk about “old cods” (I suppose he means “codswallop“): claiming that life cannot exist with oxygen present? How does that discount that life started in an anaerobic (oxygen-free) environment and, after evolved forms produced oxygen, had to subsequently evolve in that new environment. Does this person not know about adaptation to environmental change.

This kind of willful ignorance—and it is willful since the evidence is readily available—is what we’re up against in the U.S. I could show Jimmy hundreds of transitional forms, including the feathered dinosaur I highlighted a few days ago—and he’d still reject them all. Any bets on whether he’s religious?

*****

Reader “tom” comments on “What would disprove evolution?”

The tree of life is a tidy little concept,intuitive, reasonable,rational, it fully satisfies anyone who has no real interest in thinking much less in verification of fact. In reality there is not even a sniff of proof of any component of the evolution hypothesis. On the other hand anyone who tries to comprehend the sheer statistical probability that a strand of RNA can randomly arrange itself in such a manner as to contain information to build a protein soon comes face to face with cold reality. Ribose is a sugar, an organic molecule which can only be produced by photosynthesis. All attempts to artificially induce its formation have met with failure. To assume this can be realized randomly in pond water is the zenith of stupidity. No attempt to synthesize or induce such synthesis have ever succeeded for any complex molecule associated with creation of a living cell or organism. So given the absence of the most basic components of even RNA, how can a reasonable mind mind conclude it could ever appear via abiogenesis?
Our current understanding of the universe is embryonic at this stage and for people to force fraudulent claims on others as proven science, is a dissevrice to science,and humanity.

Again, we see a flat denial here of evolution—by the same people who gladly take antibiotics whose efficacy is supported by the same kind and degree of scientific evidence that evolution occurred. There’s also the willful and pervasive misunderstanding that the primordial replicating molecule (possibly RNA) “randomly arranged itself.” Of course that wasn’t random: even the original molecules, as Addy Pross shows in his nice book What is Life? How Chemistry Becomes Biology, natural selection had to act on those early precursors, which means that they weren’t assembled “randomly.”

One of the most common tropes of creationists is this: “you haven’t yet created life in the lab yet, and have no idea how it happened.” And yes, that’s a puzzle for the time being.

But I’m pretty sure we’ll be able to create replicating molecules in the lab under primitive Earth-like conditions within a century. What will they say then? Probably this: “Well, you don’t know that it happened that way!” And yes, we won’t, but it doesn’t matter. If we can show that life originated under purely naturalistic conditions, that destroys the creationist argument for God based on the fact that life couldn’t have originated naturalistically.

And beyond that, of course, once it did originate, we have tons of evidence for evolution once early organisms were present. I believe I wrote a book on that evidence. How do creationists deal with that? I suppose they’d say, “Well, yes, evolution might have occurred after God created the first living thing, but that first thing had to be created.” But no creationist says that, not even advocates of Intelligent Design. They fall back on our present ignorance of how life began only because we have so much evidence that once it did begin, it evolved. In other words, they’re using the origin of life as a god-of-the-gaps argument.

*****

Reader “Brent Dawes” comments on “OMG: a three-ton wombat!”

Why Evolution is True?

You have presented Diprotodon as being a giant marsupial wombat the biggest marsupial to inhabit our planet. And yet it’s “descendants” appear to have lost information to the point where they are less than 100cm long. This happened right across Australia where the megafauna mammals were giant compared to their contemporaries today. Overall a loss in genetic information and no proof of evolution what so ever. The same goes for the whole evolutionary “theory” which has revealed no examples of any evolution amongst species ever, only wishful thinking and speculation by “scientists” who are looking in the wrong direction, down, when they should be looking up.

Now there’s a new one one me: a reduction in body size represents a loss of information!? Well, what about those creatures that got larger, like nearly all mammals compared to the early ones? But leaving that aside, I’m not sure how a reduction of body size clearly represents a “loss of genetic information.” It represents a loss of mass. But that loss could It could epresent a gain of information, if a reduction in body size came from the acquisition of new genes.

The canard that evolution has given no evidence for “new genetic information” is, of course, dead wrong, for we have examples of both new genetic information originating in real time (see here for some of that), as well as of historical evidence based on gene duplication, whereby duplicated genes diverge in function and assume new functions. Our different kinds of hemoglobin genes (alpha, beta, gamma, and so on) all do different things, yet all descended from one ancestral gene. There are many such gene families, all descended from a common ancestor and all diverging after duplication to do different things. If that’s not “the origination of new genetic information,” I don’t know what is. We also have the work of my colleague Manyuan Long here at Chicago, and of David Begun at the University of California at Davis, showing that in the fruit fly Drosophila new genes doing new things originate very quickly, and those genes are often cobbled together from other genes scattered throughout the genome. Evolution can do strange things!

And finally we hear this cry from Mr Dawes, equivalent to his saying proudly, “I am ignorant!”: “The same goes for the whole evolutionary ‘theory’ which has revealed no examples of any evolution amongst species ever, only wishful thinking and speculation by ‘scientists.’” (Why is “scientists” in scare quotes? Don’t we exist?) This isn’t the nice kind of ignorance which simply reflects lack of acquaintance with the evidence, but the deliberate and dark kind of ignorance: ignoring the mountain of existing evidence for evolution. It’s not stupidity, but intellectual malfeasance.

*****

Finally, reader “Diest” (somehow I think it’s supposed to be “Deist”) comments on “A warning to Lebanon, Missouri: another state high school successfully sued for promoting religion“:

Why do you even care about what was said? I just want to know how you can you hate God/Gods a different religion so much if you dont believe is true.. If you agree disagree or think God exists or doesnt how can you hate it…. If you dont believe its real or anything is true, how can you disagree with something you dont believe even exists to begin with?

1. Why do I care? Because of the Constitution.
2. I don’t hate God, because you can’t hate something that doesn’t exist. I dislike the idea of God because it’s deceived so many people and thereby promoted a lot of bad things on our planet.

That comment shows that people like “Diest” don’t have the slightest notion of what atheism really is.

Caturday felids: Chessie the railroad kitten

July 19, 2014 • 4:37 am

If you live in the U.S. and are of a certain age, you might know about “Chessie” the railroad cat: the symbol of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad. Or you might have simply seen this symbol on the side of a train, without knowing what it was (it’s on the train right below):

It is in fact a kitten sleeping soundly on a pillow. I suppose it’s not a good graphic if you can’t recognize what it is instantly, but once you know you always get an “aww” feeling when you see it.

Chessie was created in 1933, and you can read about the origin of the logo at Wikipedia, or , more comprehensively, at the Chesapeake and Ohio Historical Society. See her on the engine below? (As you’ll see below, Chessie was a female.)

From Wikipedia:

Chessie was a popular cat character used as a symbol of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway. Derived from an etching by Viennese artist Guido Gruenwald, the image first appeared in a black and white advertisement in the September 1933 issue of Fortune magazine with the slogan “Sleep Like a Kitten.” The advertisement makes no mention of the cat’s name.

Here’s that ad (the video below says that the railroad purchased the right to use the drawing for only $5!):

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When the ad generated a positive response, the railroad developed an advertising campaign around the image and chose the name Chessie as a derivation of the railroad’s name. The promotion proved widely popular and, in addition to national print advertising, grew to include calendars, clothing, and even two children’s books about the character. Chessie acquired two kittens named “Nip” and “Tuck” in 1935, as well as a mate named “Peake” in 1937. During World War II, the Chessie character was used to promote War Bonds and support for the war effort, depicted as working on the home front to support Peake, who was off to war. The Chessie image continued to appear in advertising until 1971 when passenger train travel was consolidated under Amtrak.

Here are two pictures of Chessie, Nip, and Tuck. I guess since there’s a proud father in the first one, Chessie’s a female! There’s a remarkable family resemblance.

The video below says that Chessie’s mate was named “Peake” (Chesapeake—get it?), and the accompanying drawing suggests he was a hobo moggie taken off a coal car. You can see his name in the ad right above:

Peake goes to war in a WWII calendar (from Red Slipper Diary). Note that Peake, like Hili, has a white stripe up his nose, which Chessie lacks, so you know this is the male. He’s getting a medal for being a brave cat:

Of course there’s a YouTube video (be sure to see the sleeping kitten at 1:45):

You can buy old Chessie ads or reproductions of classic Chessie calendars here,; and here’s an example of a calendar page:

A prayer for Chessie!

And another reproduction ad, which you can buy on Etsy (I’ve fixed the spelling):

This delightful art print is from a old calendar to advertise the Chesapeake Ohio Railroad… Chessie cat was their advertising cat they used to promote the idea that you would sleep like a kitten when you traveled on their railroad..This is a rare print of Peake Cat…He was Chessie’s old man as they said at that time, and Chessie was his favorite pin-up girl…. and he went off to war and was a war hero…Here he is wearing his military hat and backpack..In this picture he is reading a letter from Chessie saying that “We eagarly await your return from war and here at home we’re doing all we can to hasten that day”…This was the same sentiment that many family members had at that time when a family member was away at war…

After all that, doesn’t this look familiar? It’s Hili!

*******

Today, Chessie no longer appears in timetables or on locomotives and rail cars, but she nevertheless is alive in the hearts of millions who grew up during her life’s work on the C&O and successor lines. Interest in her and her history is perhaps as great now as when she was the foremost advertiser of rail passenger service.

But you can still occasionally see Chessie on old railroad cars or on railroad bridges, and I always smile when I see that.

For the complete and detailed history of Chessie’s long career the COHS recommends the book Chessie, The Railroad Kitten, available online from chessieshop.com.

You can buy Chessie merchandise here, including a swell tee-shirt and a coffee mug. You can buy vintage Chessie ads here.

Saturday: Hili dialogue

July 19, 2014 • 2:31 am

This one came with a title: “The limits of friendship”:

Cyrus: We have to give some thought…
Hili: To what?
Cyrus: Whether we could eat from the same bowl.
Hili: It’s out of the question. It would be indecent: my food is better.

in Polish:

Cyrus: Musimy się zastanowić…
Hili: Nad czym?
Cyrus: Nad tym, czy nie możemy jeść z jednej miski.
Hili: Wykluczone, to byłoby nieprzyzwoite, moje jedzenie jest lepsze.

Another Schrödinger’s cat meme

July 18, 2014 • 2:37 pm

It’s the end of a very long week. I’ll be leaving tomorrow afternoon, so there will be a Caturday felid, a Hili dialogue, and perhaps a few sundry treats before I take off for the Chicago-Warsaw leg. In the meantime, have a cat:

From Super-Fun-Pak Comix by Ruben Bolling:

Or, in Hili’s case, napping and lapping cream.

Schrödinger did indeed devise the famous felid Gedankenexperiment in 1935. I always wonder if it would have become so popular if he’d used a d*g instead.

h/t: Brian

Long-lost section of Bayeux Tapestry found

July 18, 2014 • 1:46 pm

I’ve always wanted to see the Bayeux Tapestry, which now resides in the eponymous town in northwestern France. It’s not really a tapestry, like the Lady with the Unicorn series (do see that if you’re ever in Paris), but is an embroidery on cloth.

Regardless, according to a tw**t by Literary Interest, a new section of this world-famous embroidery has been discovered. And it shows the literary inspiration of a much later British author. Clearly the invading Normans met some residents not depicted in the original tapestry:

An enlargement:

Seeking “objective morality,” an atheist blogger became a Catholic

July 18, 2014 • 12:31 pm

This story is a couple of years old, but I just heard about it, and find it fascinating. Leah Libresco, who writes at the Patheos website Unequally Yoked (on the Catholic Channel), was an atheist blogger but became a Catholic in 2012. The American Conservative names her as one of its employees:

Leah Libresco is an editorial assistant at TAC. She is a graduate of Yale University and lives in Washington D.C.

In this video interview of CNN, Libresco explains her decision (see also her written explanation below):

The reason she came back to Catholicism? “I’m really sure that morality is objective.” Libresco affirms that Christianity, in the Catholic form, offered her explanation that she found compelling. (I guess she doesn’t find evolutionary or secular explanations compelling. The rejection of those alternatives, especially given the evidence for them, baffles me.

So what “objective” morality does Libresco choose? Catholicism! What’s the objective morality there? That gays are “disordered” and doomed to hell if they don’t confess their “immoral” acts. That a fertilized egg is a fully human creature? That birth control is wrong? That sex outside of marriage is a sin, as is having sex with someone if you’re civilly divorced but haven’t had an annulment?

If I were the CNN reporter, I’d immediately ask Libresco exactly what aspects of morality—what moral dicta—she considers objective. I’d ask her if she buys into the espoused “morality” of the Catholic church. And I’d ask her how she knows that Catholic morality is the real objective morality rather than, say, the “objective” morality of Islam, Jainism, or Judaism.

There’s nothing more cringe-making that a naturalist who becomes a supernaturalist, especially if they go over to something like Catholicism. Their reasons always seem wonky.

Libresco explains more at her website:

And, ultimately, I decided the bit of my model of the world that didn’t fit was my atheism. Theism seemed like the most plausible bridge across the is-ought problem. Christianity seemed like the theism that best matched the moral laws I was most sure of. And Catholicism seemed like the most trustworthy form of Christianity. So I bit the bullet, signed up for RCIA (again), and am to be received into the Catholic Church on November 18th.

I got to where I am by thinking about how morality works (working through a lot of thought experiments and case studies) and then trying to figure out what that system implied. So the best way to understand my conversion might be to page through some of the posts in the Morality in Practice category (or, more specifically, the “whence moral law?” “sin-eaters/dirty hands” “radical forgiveness” “pride” and “high mask theory” tags). If you agree with me about what’s right, then we can fight about how that system has to work. If not, then we should probably start arguing at the first point where we diverge.

I wonder if CNN would give equal time to a religious blogger who became an atheist. I doubt it, for that wouldn’t sit well with religious America.

Adam Lee questions her at the Big Think.

h/t: Barry

Louisiana judge rules against creationist teacher

July 18, 2014 • 9:35 am

UPDATE: The ruling was actually published on Marc. 17, and I have no idea why I thought it was this week. At any rate, the story stands, and the update is still an update to what was previously published. Thanks to a reader for pointing this out.

________

Here’s some good news from Louisiana, home of institutionalized creationism in schools (the voucher schools in that state, which are supported by taxpayers, still teach creationism). In January I mentioned a Raw Story piece that Negreet High School in Louisiana had humiliated a Buddhist student who dared question the Christian creationism rampant in the school, including in science classes. The student and the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against the school. The report from January’s Raw Story said this (my emphasis):

The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Louisiana on Wednesday filed a federal lawsuit against Negreet High School in Sabine Parish on behalf of two parents, Scott and Sharon Lane, and their son, “C.C.” The lawsuit claims the school has “a longstanding custom, policy, and practice of promoting and inculcating Christian beliefs,” including the teaching of creationism.

Sixth-grade teacher Rita Roark has told her students that the universe was created by God about 6,000 years ago, and taught that both the Big Bang theory and evolution are false, according to the lawsuit. She told her students that “if evolution was real, it would still be happening: Apes would be turning into humans today.”

One test she gave to students asked: “ISN’T IT AMAZING WHAT THE _____________ HAS MADE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” The correct answer was “Lord,” but C.C. wrote in something else. Roark responded by scolding the boy in front of the entire class.

When informed that C.C. was a Buddhist and therefore didn’t believe in God, Roark allegedly responded, “you’re stupid if you don’t believe in God.”

On another accusation, she allegedly described both Buddhism and Hinduism as “stupid.”

When the outraged parents confronted Sabine Parish Superintendent Sara Ebarb about the incidents, she allegedly told them “this is the Bible belt” and that they “shouldn’t be offended” to “see God here.” Ebarb advised that C.C. should either change his faith or be transferred to another District school where “there are more Asians.”

That steonewalling reminds me of what the Lebanon School District RIII is doing now. And, as in Lebanon, the creationism was endemic, not just a one-off thing by one teacher:

. . . The lawsuit claims that other teachers and faculty members also push Christian beliefs on their students. Prayer is often lead by teachers in classrooms and during school events. Religious literature that denounces evolution and homosexuality has been distributed by faculty members to students. The school’s hallways are filled with Christian iconography and electronic marquee in front of the school scrolls Bible verses.

But according to an article in Monday’s Raw Story, the parents of the student (the complainants) and the ACLU just won their suit against the school.

Judge Elizabeth Foote of the U.S. District Court, Western District of Louisiana sided with C.C. and his parents, citing that Roark’s behavior — and the school’s decision to defend it — clearly violated “the Free Exercise and Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.”

With regard to the specific behavior of Roark, Judge Foot wrote that “[t]he District and School Board are permanently enjoined from permitting School Officials at any school within the School District to promote their personal religious beliefs to students in class or during or in conjunction with a School Event.” Furthermore, “School Officials shall not denigrate any particular faith, or lack thereof, or single out any student for disfavor or criticism because of his or her particular faith or religious belief, or lack thereof.”

She also ordered that all members of the school board, as well as all faculty — both current and incoming — be trained by an attorney approved by the ACLU and the ACLU of Louisiana as to their responsibilities with respect to the First Amendment. The training will emphasize the “the psychological and developmental impact of religious discrimination on students.”

I love that the school board and faculty will have to take lessons from and ACLU attorney about the First Amendment. Can’t you imagine how they’ll be fuming about that?

Now Louisiana is even more conservative than Missouri, home of Lebanon High School and its hyperreligious school board, and yet a Louisiana federal district judge faulted the school for violating the First Amendment. The school district there will, of course, have to foot the bill for substantial court costs.

You can see judge Foote’s decision here. Here’s one part relevant to the case in Missouri:

Are you listening, Lebanon?

h/t: Haggis for Brains

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