EagleCam: banding day tomorrow

April 20, 2011 • 5:13 am

If you’ve been watching the three eaglets and their parents at the Norfolk, Virginia EagleCam, you’ll see that the chicks are at that awkward teenager stage, still a bit downy but starting to look like eagles.  And their feet are huge! Here’s a screenshot I took a few minutes ago:

It’s time to band them, and, as alert reader Diane G reminds me, the whole megillah will take place at 9 a.m. tomorrow Eastern Standard Time (US).  The EagleCam “blog” reports:

At five weeks of age the three nestlings have really grown and are now large enough to have identification bracelets placed on their lower legs called the tarsus. Eagles take size 9 rivet bands issued by the US Geological Survey Bird Banding Lab. The band will have an individual 9 digit number (0679-XXXXX). A second band colored purple will be placed on the other leg and will identify the eagle as having been banded in the Chesapeake Bay region and will have a 2-letter alpha ID. For information about the U.S. bird banding program go to this web site www.pwrc.usgs.gov/bbl. For information about eagle banding in Virginia by The Center for Conservation Biology see www.ccb-wm.org/virginiaeagles. The bands pictured above are those placed on the three NBG eaglets in 2010.

The banding of the three Norfolk Botanical Garden bald eagle chicks is planned to take place on April 21, 2011 beginning about 9:00am. The actual banding should take place about 9:30. Nuckols Tree Care will volunteer their tree climbing services to lower the eaglets safely to the ground where biologists from CCB will examine, weigh and measure them and fit them with bands. The Virginia Dept of Game and Inland Fisheries will provide a photographer and videographer and Stephen Living, Watchable Wildlife Biologist, will be present to assist. WVEC will broadcast the banding event over the live eagle cam at www.wvec.com/eaglecam.

Presumably we’ll be able to see both the temporary purloining of the chicks from the nest and their banding on the ground. I’ll put up a real-time post if I see it begin.

Here are the bands:

Sin of the day: homosexuality

April 19, 2011 • 9:31 am

Here’s more God-given morality from our friends at the Vatican.  They see homosexual desires as “disordered” and homosexual acts as sinful. You could go to hell if you persist in having unconfessed sex with someone of your own gender. From the Catholic Catechism, which lays out the official policy of the Catholic Church:

2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.” They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.

Enough said. Can anything be more wrongheaded and destructive than these three paragraphs?

I am neither gay nor Catholic, but I can’t understand how any gay person can remain a member of a church with an official policy like this.  And what is this “natural law”?  It’s one of the legacies of Thomas Aquinas.  The next time you hear him touted as a Great Accommodationist, a prescient and enlightened theologian who showed that science was given to us by God, remember all the harm that the old bugger inflicted on the world with his unscientific “natural law.”

Rational people now recognize that there’s nothing immoral about being in love with, and having sex with, someone of the same gender.  What is immoral is the Catholic Church’s refusal to recognize that, and its continuing persecution of gay people.

Remember that the Catholic Church is the single biggest denomination in America, and is considered by accommodationists as one of the “harmless”—or even helpful—faiths. Happy Holy Week!

Kitteh contest: Kira

April 19, 2011 • 5:14 am

From across the pond comes the hydrophilic tabby Kira, entered by Dutch owner Fré Hoogendoorn.

Kira is a tabby I’ve had since she was a few weeks old. I first saw her when she was just two days old: my upstairs neighbour’s cat had escaped before she was sterilised, with a litter of which she was part as a result. Kira was the only tabby in a litter of otherwise black and white kittens, and she also sat apart from the others, all tucked in and comfortable. When my neighbour asked if I wanted a kitten, I chose her.

She is now eleven years old, and loves drinking water from the tap. It’s the first thing in the morning and the last thing at night that she does; she’ll wait patiently on the sink for me to come and open the tap. She has no difficulty in ordering me and my wife about when she wants a door opened or when she thinks it’s time for her treat, but she’s a complete coward when it comes to strange people and other animals.

Another photo, submitted later:

Does resurrection contradict science?

April 19, 2011 • 5:08 am

You’d think so, right?  After all, in the last several thousand years there’s been a single dubious report of someone coming back to life after having been dead for several days. Other than that, bupkus.

Ah, but you’re neglecting the enormous creativity of accommodationists, especially Matt Rossano, a psychology professor at Southeastern Louisiana University (we’ve we’ve encountered him before).   Over at PuffHo, Rossano tries to show that the resurrection and science are indeed compatible.   The deed of reconciliation is accomplished by making two claims:

1.  It was more than just a “dead person coming back to life.”

Rossano gets a little help here from Pope Ratzi, who in a new book (where does a sitting Pope get time to write a book?) interprets the resurrection of Jesus for his flock. Ratzi says this:

“Anyone approaching the Resurrection accounts in the belief that he knows what rising from the dead means will inevitably misunderstand those accounts and will then dismiss them as meaningless” (p. 243).

Rossano concurs:

In fact, if Jesus’ Resurrection were “merely” coming back to life in any way that we might comprehend, then it would be of little significance. . .

[He quotes Ratzi]: “Jesus had not returned to a normal human life in this world like Lazarus and the others whom Jesus raised from the dead. He has entered upon a different life, a new life — he has entered the vast breadth of God himself…” (p. 244).

. . .Because it is something entirely new, it cannot represent a violation of natural law as understood by science. . .

. . . Thus, in this view, Resurrection (as with all true miracles) is not contrary to science, but an indicator that science does not (yet?) describe the full expanse of reality.

Note the sleight of hand here.  The question has changed from “did it really happen?” to “given that it happened, what did it mean?”

Correct me if I’m wrong here, but what about this isn’t a violation of natural law?  Dead is dead.  And if you expand our idea of biology and physics so that resurrection does become a “natural law,”—just one that we’ve not yet grasped—how come the law was enacted only once?  Of course any miracle can be reinterpreted as natural law, but when you do that it’s no longer a miracle, which I thought was the suspension of natural law by God.

Rossano concludes:

For a moment, let us entertain the possibility that Resurrection is as Benedict interprets it: not a violation of natural law but an indicator of something beyond our scientific understanding of the universe. This has interesting implications for understanding how believers and skeptics approach the issue. If Resurrection does not violate science, then science does not necessarily constitute an impediment to accepting the reality of Resurrection.

2.  There is actually pretty good evidence for the scientifically acceptable Resurrection.

Rossano asks a good question,  “Now, what convinces the believer that Resurrection merits such authority when other imaginative possibilities such as extraterrestrial life or time-travel do not?” Rossano  considers one answer: historical commitment. “There’s no record of people committing themselves to the point of martyrdom to other imaginative possibilities as they have to Resurrection.” But he discards it, as well he should, because that’s not evidence for anything. Lots of people have committed themselves to dubious claims: Scientologists and Mormons are only two recent examples.  Commitment says nothing about reality.

So a key question regarding the interpretation of Resurrection is this: Is the post-crucifixion history of Christianity extraordinary? Does it compel the dispassionate observer to concede that a categorically unique event could plausibly be its best explanation?

He clearly sees the answer as “yes”.  But what’s the difference between the “extraordinary post-crucifixion history of Christianity”, which after all is precisely the “historical commitment” of its followers, martyrdom, and the like.   And if those aren’t convincing to the skeptic, neither is the “historical” argument.  And, after all, the post-Mohamed history of Islam is also extraordinary, as is the post-Xenu history of scientology and the post-Joseph-Smith history of Mormonism.  All this shows is that credulous folks can commit themselves to an incredible idea.  As for the best explanation for this “categorically unique event,” I defer to Hume.

Based on this mush-headed argument, Rossano calls for comity between skeptics and believers:

There’s a message here, one quite in keeping with the Easter season when the notion of something radically new breaking through is uppermost in our minds. It ought to be upon questions such as those above that skeptics and believers respectfully engage one another, rather than the simplistic and often acrimonious sloganeering that has increasingly become the norm.

How can one engage this kind of slippery non-evidence “respectfully?”  The proper response is say “dead is dead” and ask for more evidence.


The 2011 Pulitzer Prizes

April 18, 2011 • 1:52 pm

Via the New York Times, here are the 2011 Pulitzers for Letters, Music, and Drama:

FICTION – “A Visit from the Goon Squad” by Jennifer Egan (Alfred A. Knopf)

DRAMA – “Clybourne Park” by Bruce Norris

HISTORY – “The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery” by Eric Foner (W. W. Norton & Company)

BIOGRAPHY – “Washington: A Life” by Ron Chernow (The Penguin Press)

POETRY – “The Best of It: New and Selected Poems” by Kay Ryan (Grove Press)

GENERAL NONFICTION – “The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer” by Siddhartha Mukherjee (Scribner)

MUSIC – “Madame White Snake’” by Zhou Long, premiered on Feb. 26, 2010, by the Boston Opera at the Cutler Majestic Theatre.

Oh dear, and I haven’t read any of the written stuff.  Have you?

Encomium!

April 18, 2011 • 11:59 am

From The Browser (accompanied by a nice email about their liking the site).  I don’t think they realize, though, that this isn’t a blog . . .

Not a tribute to me, but to biology, atheism, and kittehs!

And, just to ground me again, here are the top ten search terms for this site from the last week.  “Cat penis” and “shaved cat” are perennial favorites; is there some kink out there that I’m not aware of?

Sin of the day: Divorce

April 18, 2011 • 9:58 am

In the Catholic Church, marriage is considered a forever commitment.  This is based on the words of Lord Jebus (see for example Matthew 4:31-32).    It’s srs bzns, as we see from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

Divorce

2382 The Lord Jesus insisted on the original intention of the Creator who willed that marriage be indissoluble.173 He abrogates the accommodations that had slipped into the old Law.174
Between the baptized, “a ratified and consummated marriage cannot be dissolved by any human power or for any reason other than death.”175

2383 The separation of spouses while maintaining the marriage bond can be legitimate in certain cases provided for by canon law.176
If civil divorce remains the only possible way of ensuring certain legal rights, the care of the children, or the protection of inheritance, it can be tolerated and does not constitute a moral offense.

2384 Divorce is a grave offense against the natural law. It claims to break the contract, to which the spouses freely consented, to live with each other till death. Divorce does injury to the covenant of salvation, of which sacramental marriage is the sign. Contracting a new union, even if it is recognized by civil law, adds to the gravity of the rupture: the remarried spouse is then in a situation of public and permanent adultery:

If a husband, separated from his wife, approaches another woman, he is an adulterer because he makes that woman commit adultery, and the woman who lives with him is an adulteress, because she has drawn another’s husband to herself.177

2385 Divorce is immoral also because it introduces disorder into the family and into society. This disorder brings grave harm to the deserted spouse, to children traumatized by the separation of their parents and often torn between them, and because of its contagious effect which makes it truly a plague on society.

2386 It can happen that one of the spouses is the innocent victim of a divorce decreed by civil law; this spouse therefore has not contravened the moral law. There is a considerable difference between a spouse who has sincerely tried to be faithful to the sacrament of marriage and is unjustly abandoned, and one who through his own grave fault destroys a canonically valid marriage.

What do you do, then, when many marriages fail, as nearly half do in America? If you get a divorce, well, that’s immoral, even if the civil authorities allow it.  And although it’s okay for Catholics to get divorced and live apart, it immediately becomes a “grave matter” (which can lead to a mortal sin that sends you to hell) if you get married again or even cohabit with anyone else.

Nobody ever said that Catholics aren’t inventive: they circumvented Jebus’s dictum by creating the device of annulments, in which the failed marriage is considered to have been invalid in the first place.  You have to apply to your diocese for one of these after your civil divorce is final, and it often takes a long time, and can cost a bit of money, too.  But you simply have to wait—and some applications are disapproved, meaning that you can never get married or cohabit again without going to hell.

The grounds for getting an annulment are standard; one site lists these:

  • Most annulments are based on canon 1095, psychological reasons. These include a wide range of factors. Some of them may be misrepresentation or fraud (concealing the truth about capacity or desire to have children for example, or about an preexisting marriage, drug addiction, felony convictions, sexual preference or having reached the age of consent). [JAC note:  Ratzi doesn’t like these grounds, and has urged churches to not use them too hastily.]
  • Refusal or inability to consummate the marriage (inability or refusal to have sex)
  • Bigamy, incest (being married to someone else, or close relatives)
  • Duress (being forced or coerced into marriage against one’s will or serious external pressure, for example a pregnancy)
  • Mental incapacity (considered unable to understand the nature and expectations of marriage)
  • Lack of knowledge or understanding of the full implications of marriage as a life-long commitment in faithfulness and love, with priority to spouse and children.
  • Psychological inability to live the marriage commitment as described above.
  • Illegal “Form of Marriage” (ceremony was not performed according to Catholic canon law)
  • One/both partners was under the influence of drugs, or addicted to a chemical substance.

The upshot: unhappy people stay married for fear of eternal damnation.  Let’s face it, marriage goes against the natural grain of promiscuity, at least for men: the institution could be characterized in Dawkinsian terms as “rebellion against the tyranny of the selfish replicators.”  Throwing together a man and woman who haven’t cohabited (a sin!), and expecting them to live in harmony forever just isn’t a great idea.

The Catholic Church’s view of marriage, and its requirement that it control the path of marital dissolution and remarriage, is simply a way to enforce an outmoded dogma (as if it were ever “moded” in the first place!), and to control its members.  It leads people to stay married when they are unhappy and should be divorced, and creates a doublethink whereby nearly all Jebus-approved marriages can be revisited upon application and considered non-approved.  This “morality” clearly comes not from God but from man, and is actually immoral.